The Burning Man

4

On the side of a deserted road on the Albanian-Greek border, Church was stung by a lone tear and a devastating sense of loss that he couldn’t begin to explain. Tom leaned against a tree next to him, smoking and watching the flames dance in the campfire. Hunter slept — he had an ability to doze off anywhere — and Shavi meditated on the edge of the gloom. Laura had wandered away into the trees, complaining of boredom.

‘If I decided to walk away tonight, what would you do?’ Church asked.

‘I’m not your keeper.’

‘You act like it.’

‘And you act like a hopeless, besotted, soft-headed fool, as you have from the moment I first met you.’

‘I can’t carry on doing this without Ruth. I spent so long looking for some kind of meaning in my life and she’s it. I always thought that was a stupid, romantic idea — that in the end it all came down to one person. But it’s true.’

There was a long silence during which Tom exhaled blue smoke, his eyes closed. Eventually he said, ‘The Fool finds wisdom on the road of life, and in your thick way you seem to have stumbled across it. Everything comes down to love. When we’re young, it’s all we want. When we’re comfortably married and the routine has set in, we yearn for its exhilarating rush. When we’re not getting it, we seek out money, sex or power to try to fill the gap.’ He eyed Church askance. ‘Love drives everyone insane. It makes the best of us do wonderful things and terrible things. Yes, you’re right — it’s the root of everything. It’s the magic and the curse of Existence.’

‘You seem to have survived pretty well without it.’

‘That shows how much you know.’ His spectacles caught the light of the campfire so his eyes could not be seen. ‘I left my love behind near eight hundred years ago. There won’t be another. Now don’t go asking me any more stupid questions about that.’

Church looked towards the south. Would it really be so bad if he left the world to the Void? People would continue to live their lives, find love, have children, the sop that made the rest of it bearable. He could reach Ruth faster on his own. They had been forced to take detour after detour to avoid the net of the security services, hiding out for days in damp, stinking warehouses, going nights without sleep, constantly changing vehicles.

As he weighed his decision, Shavi staggered up to the campfire, ashen-faced. ‘I fear …’ he began, choking back the words. ‘I fear something has happened to Ruth.’