The Harmony Silk Factory

IT WAS THE STORM, I suppose, that first made me believe I had been thrown headlong into a tropical Eden. It appeared in the distance, heavenly and portentous, sweeping majestically towards us. “Christ in Heaven,” I breathed, standing in awe before the advancing storm: lightning, racing in fissures across the sky; the exuberant feu de joie of thunder all around us. A frenzy of activity as we searched for life jackets, but we knew that there would be none. I stood with my face lifted to the sky, waiting for the waters from above to cleanse me. Snow ran across the deck, pushing past me. She paused for a half-second and looked at me with shining eyes. She too knew that our moment was at hand. I did not shy from my destiny but faced it squarely, surrendering myself to it. I opened my lungs to the drowning rain and began to sing.

“Bloody madman!” I heard Honey scream. I remained where I was and did not seek shelter. A moment before the storm hit the boat, I felt myself pulled to the deck, the aria from Don Giovanni stifled in my throat. It was Johnny, holding me powerfully by the waist as he tried to drag us both towards the hatch that led down below deck, down to safety. He was too late.

I once saw a picture by Jacob Epstein, a delicate pen-and-watercolour study called We Two Boys Together Clinging. In it, two slender figures sway reedlike in the wind, their slim sexless bodies melding together to form a single arcing sinew set against the blue wash of the sky. The first time I saw it I stared so long, so intensely, at it that the sky turned to a pool of water. The figures began to swim before me, inviting me to join them; the water seemed so close, so real, that I could smell its cool moisture.

I clung to Johnny and he to me as we fell into the boiling sea. We did not struggle to keep afloat; we merely held tightly to each other. The thunder and crash of the storm dulled to a mere drone as we were engulfed by a wave and dragged into the warm depths of the water. Over and over we spun. The sky and the bottom of the ocean no longer seemed at odds; I could not tell where I was. I clung to Johnny and tried, O God I tried, to hold him close to me, my only friend and anchor in this world, but then he too was lost. I let myself be taken by the sea, but it did not want me. I was rejected, pushed to the surface, gasping as I blinked into the dazzling sky. My chest burned as I coughed brine from my lungs. The storm was passing, but the waves were still tall and angry. I kicked hard and felt the strength in my arms. I searched for Johnny but could not see him. I called and called and called but there was nothing. Over the swell of a wave I glimpsed Kunichika, swimming powerfully with his head above the water. I shouted for him but he did not pause. I struck out to find him and then, in a valley of waves, I saw Snow, her head struggling to break the surface of the water. I screamed her name, my voice ringing more loudly and clearly than I had ever known it. The sea bore me to her, each wave carrying me on its crest until I reached her. I swam easily; my chest expanded in song as I lifted her and eased her onto my back. “Don’t leave me,” she called out weakly. She put her arms around my neck and held tightly as I swam back to the boat; her face was pressed to my neck, and in my ear I heard her gasping whisper: “Why?”

I did not reply. How could I explain the strange workings of fate? I was meant to save her, to bear her over the waves on my own body. All the time I sang to her, my voice carrying over the flattening waves. Vieni, mio bel diletto. There was no reason, my treasure. This was simply the way we were meant to be.

A HEATED LITTLE DEBATE took place over dinner this evening. I unveiled the latest plan of the garden, complete with sketches of the various plants I intend to use. There was the usual bewildered lack of interest at first, but then Brother Rodney happened to walk past my table. “What funny-looking things you have there,” he said en passant, raising his voice and enunciating his words as if speaking to a deaf imbecile. “I don’t recognise any of them.”

I did not dignify this with a reply. After he had gone, Alvaro said, “I agree, Peter. Most of the plants aren’t familiar to us — perhaps you could use more ordinary things?”

Gecko and the others nodded in ignorant acquiescence. I struggled to contain my anger. For some weeks now, this endeavour has consumed every waking moment, and quite possibly every sleeping one too. “I do not believe,” I began calmly, “that you appreciate quite how much effort has gone into this garden. The reconstruction of a paradisical place requires imagination far beyond that which you lot could muster. It requires belief and passion and intellect — none of which you seem to possess.”