The Harmony Silk Factory

The calm of the jungle impressed itself upon me, and I resolved to forget all that had happened before our arrival on this island — the storm, the rescue, everything. The sea did encourage madness amongst men, and women too. We all said things we did not mean; we were not ourselves when we spoke. Now, with solid ground under my feet, I knew better. Where was Snow, and what was she doing at that precise moment? I didn’t know: I hadn’t thought of her for a moment since arriving there. Such was the lucidity with which I was thinking that when I saw the first of the stones emerge from the forest before me, I merely paused to examine them. They were ancient and monumental, that much was clear, but still I did not rush to conclude what they might once have been. I was measured and calm throughout, testing the accuracy of my senses by touching every stone I saw. I followed the broken trail of stones until finally I saw it: a perfect tropical ruin, rising proudly from the jungle as if emerging from the pages of a dusty antiquarian lithograph. I walked around the ravaged, crumbling wall that guarded the perimeter of the tenebrous building. Che veduta: Piranesi could have spent a lifetime sketching this place. The ruinous state of the structure rendered it unidentifiable. A temple or a dwelling place? The creeping vines had long since claimed it as their own; epiphytic plants, some bearing grotesquely shaped flowers, sprouted from every crack in the once-magnificent masonry. Wasn’t it Aldous Huxley who likened tropical botany to late and decadent Gothic architecture? I had never truly believed him until now. Roots and stems and arching leaves so shrouded the stone structure that they ceased to be mere ornamentation; without them the building would surely collapse.

Remembering Johnny, I resisted the urge to venture inside the building and began to make my way back. Retracing my steps proved impossible. Nothing seemed familiar; all landmarks had vanished into the jungle. The blackened stump of a tree felled by lightning was nowhere to be seen; the egg-shaped boulder had camouflaged itself amidst the undergrowth. I sought higher ground, thinking that this would at least afford me a view of how hopelessly lost I was. I pushed my way through the unyielding trees, my arms becoming lacerated by invisible razor-thin whips. My progress was not encouraging: the topography of the land suddenly conspired to be flat and densely forested. Finally, however, a gentle incline offered itself to me, and I began to see the clear glint of sunlight at the top of a hillock. When I reached its summit I found myself surveying a shallow valley. A stream ran through this clearing, its banks lined thickly with gentle spikes of elephant grass and umbrellas of wild banana. And in the water there were two naked figures, Snow and Kunichika. I crouched low and watched them paddle in the water. He cut through it like a straight sharp knife whilst she splashed tentatively, occasionally arching her neck backwards to feel the cool of the water on her hair. She let the stream carry her to where it was deepest and darkest, allowing herself to be borne gently away before splashing back; he never seemed to venture far from the shallows, where the current was at its gentlest. Against the black water their skins glowed with an eerie luminescence. Pure white? No, it was beyond colour. They approached each other and he lifted his hands to her face. I turned away, my face hot, temples pulsing. I ran down the hill, letting instinct guide me through the trees. I had to get back to Johnny.

He was sitting on a tree stump watching me as I ran back up the path. “You took a very long time,” he said. “I was worried. I nearly went out searching for you.”

“Sorry,” I coughed. “I got slightly lost on the way back. I’ll exchange my agility for your sense of direction, I think.”

“Did you see anything?”

“No,” I said. “No water. I searched, though — that was why I was so long, I remembered what you said. But no, I didn’t find water.”

“That’s strange,” he said, as we began to head back to our tiny spartan camp. “I can feel it close by. Just instinct, that’s all.”

“Yes, well, I looked. But I did find a ruin. I think it may be a temple.”

He raised an eyebrow, a trait of mine he had begun to imitate. “A ruin?”

“You shall see for yourself soon enough.”

We wandered slowly through the trees, pointing out birds — little black-and-white hornbills and iridescent flycatchers — and chatting about books he wanted to read. “I wish I could read Dickens,” he said, “as Snow does.”

“Why can’t you?”

“I tried, it’s too difficult.”

“Someday soon I’m sure you’ll learn to appreciate it.”

He smiled and shook his head. He was looking very tired again. “I am resigned to certain things.”

As we approached the camp I reached to touch him on his shoulder. “I meant to thank you. The storm. I mean, I was foolish, I know. So. Thank you for—”