The Holy Machine

61

Some weeks later, I climbed off a dilapidated bus in a mountainside village in Montenegro, reputed to be another island of peace. The bus came this way only once a week and was soon surrounded by villagers, unloading purchases, greeting returning travellers, climbing on board for the return journey. I was hot and weary and seeing a concrete water tank in the middle of an apple orchard, I made my way down to it, kicked off my broken old shoes, and climbed into the cool green water.

After the initial cold shock, the coolness was enchanting, and I lay back and let it spread through me. I could still hear the villagers talking and shouting on the road by the bus, but the peaceful dreamy sound of a single skylark twittering straight above me seemed more significant than all the talking and shouting in the world.

‘Well, look at me!’ I said to myself, as I finally pulled myself out of the tank and settled myself down in the shady grass under a tree. ‘I’ve found my vocation. I’ve become a hobo.’

I chuckled softly, a grubby, unshaven, smelly figure dressed in ragged clothes. I closed my eyes. Images drifted into my mind from Epiros and Corfu, Albania and Macedonia, Illyria and the Peloponnese, melting and merging together as I began to dream.

But then, splash, an apple fell into the water tank.

I started slightly, then rolled onto my side and prepared to settle down again.

Splash! A second apple hit the water. I sat up, realizing that there wasn’t a tree overhanging the water tank, so someone was throwing the apples in.

A young dark-haired village woman was standing watching me a few metres off, holding another apple ready in her hand. I gaped stupidly at her. She smiled.

‘George Simling!’ she said in perfect Illyrian English, with just a trace of an Antipodean twang. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’

It was Marija.

She laughed. ‘Don’t worry George, you haven’t seen a ghost. I live here now, with my Uncle Tomo. Well, he’s my mother’s cousin, but I call him my uncle. I got into some things back in IC which were hard to get out of…’

‘The AHS by any chance? Me too.’

‘Yes. I’m sorry. It was me that got you into that, wasn’t it?’

I shrugged: ‘It’s not your fault that I wanted to impress you.’

‘Did you?’ she seemed quite genuinely surprised. ‘I always thought you rather looked down on me. You never seemed to want to stay in my company.’

I covered my face with my hands. I felt that dull ache pressing behind my eyes. This had been the shameful beginning of Lucy’s betrayal. Marija had offered me her friendship. I chose instead – I deliberately chose – a confused, barely awake robot to play the part of my girlfriend. What would Marija think of me if she knew that?

‘Are you alright?’ Marija asked.

I took my hands away from my face.

‘Yes, just… tired.’

‘Come up to my uncle’s place. You can have a wash and something to eat, a sleep if you want. You look as if you could do with some sleep.’

‘I could.’

‘Come on then, it’s this way. Where were you heading George? Where have you come from?’

I made a gesture of pushing the question away. I had laid down that burden when I climbed into the water tank. I didn’t want to pick it up again so soon.

She laughed. ‘Okay. Tell me later. Now listen, I’d better warn you Uncle Tomo is a priest. Don’t worry, he’s no fanatic. He’s a pragmatist. That’s the way things tend to be in Montenegro. Okay it’s an Orthodox theocracy like Russia or Serbia or the Greek states, but our bishop is no zealot. We keep ourselves out of trouble and get on with life as best we can. I quite like that. I used to be much too keen to change everything, I think, as if I thought no one else had ever tried before.’