The Silent Land

17

I am a long way down. And yet I see it from above. White drifts of six-pointed crystals of tender, tender snow. The crystals interlock and make a wall. If I can get through the wall. If I can get through.

Then the crystals change and start to run past my eyes like complex machine code on a grey computer screen. No, it’s DNA. Strings of DNA running by, swimming by. No, it’s complex mathematical formulae, tiny numerals spinning before my eyes. Now it’s white cotton seed borne by a breeze, but in incredible slo-mo. It’s a tiny current, an eddy in Time. There: it’s snowflakes again.

Just snowflakes.

The snowflakes are in my ears, in my mouth, in my nose, like cocaine. I tried it once. You can keep it for your mother: it’s not a patch on where being in love can get you. The blood in my veins is frozen but it sings of love.

I can hear the sword of an angel scything through the air. Whop, whop, whop. Oh come. I can feel the vibration in the earth, the disturbance of air currents, the icy terror in the blade, the vestigial fire in my blood.

It’s very nice. I can let go.

I can fall into a place thronged with people. Their voices are a pleasing babble, and the air from their many mouths rises and cushions me as I fall gently among them. Many people come and go. I recognise some of them. There are two women standing by the desk. I somehow know them. I know their language. I know what they are talking about. A man walks by me and winks. Trying it on. I smell his cologne. Three uniformed women work behind a broad desk, busy dealing with people. One is young, with her hair scraped back and tied in a pretty ponytail. She presses a phone to her ear. Her older colleague has hair the colour of fire. She wears black-framed spectacles. She is processing a credit card. Another colleague talks to a man in a grey suit, struggling to hear what he has to say because the place is loud with excited chatter. People wait in a line by the desk, checking in, checking out.

I see the concierge, in his smart maroon and grey livery. He sees me and raises his eyebrows at me. He waves. I seem to recognise him. He waves at me again, beckoning me forwards across the busy lobby. But I can’t move. The concierge whispers something to another man before he picks up an envelope from his blond-wood desk. ‘Madam!’ he says to me. ‘Madam!’ He waves the envelope at me.

It’s not for me, I want to say.

I am afraid of the concierge. His bald head is illuminated by the strong lights overhead. There is a bloom of sweat on his shiny brow. He makes his way towards me through the people thronging the lobby. ‘Madam!’ he says again.

I pluck up courage and in a clear voice I say, ‘But it’s not for me.’

‘But madam,’ says the concierge, closing in on me with a smile, placing the envelope in my hand, ‘it is indeed for you, madam.’ He stands there, the sweet smile still upon his lips, as if waiting for me to open the envelope.

I am afraid to open it. But with trembling fingers I tear it open and I reach inside. But there is nothing. Or not exactly nothing, but what there is is nothing more than a card. It is a kind of Tarot card, but not like any Tarot card I know. It depicts a tree. The words at the bottom say ‘L’arbre de Vie’. Tree of life, I know. But it is not like any tree of life I have seen. It is more like a Christmas tree, decorated with curious objects and impossible fruit.

I look up at the concierge because I want to say, ‘What does this mean?’ But the concierge has gone. All of them, everyone, everything. All are gone.