You said you did. Give it another go. I’ll be different. I promise. I can. I promise.’
‘It isn’t a case of your being different. It’s just…it hasn’t worked.’
‘It’s the curlew, isn’t it?’
‘No. I wouldn’t break it off over a present.’
‘I knew you didn’t like it. I just couldn’t accept the fact. I fooled myself.’
‘I do like it. I understand it now. I thought all its old insides were still there, liver and kidneys and things, preserved. I can appreciate it now. It will always be one of my most treasured possessions.’
She took it to the municipal dump yesterday. And this is the young lady who promised God only a few months ago that she would never tell a lie if she lived to be a hundred. But she doesn’t believe in God any more, and besides, she has learned already that it isn’t always bad to tell lies.
‘Is it…religion?’
‘Well…it hasn’t helped.’
‘I’ll never ever try to convert you. I promise.’
‘You mean it, but Christians always do try. They can’t help it. And you will. You won’t be able to help yourself.’
‘I won’t. I promise. Naomi, I’ll do anything. Anything you want.’
‘That’s just silly. Don’t be silly. I don’t want to remember you as silly. Who knows…one day…’ No! She curses herself for saying this. She needs to be totally definite.
She picks the badger up. Now that she understands a bit about taxidermy she feels no fear of it. It isn’t a dead badger. It’s a badger brought to eternal life by art. She turns it round so that it won’t see the last embers of their love, and lowers it onto the windowsill with the respect its life deserves.
‘One last kiss,’ she says.
‘I can’t bear this.’
‘Yes, you can.’
They hold each other, hug each other. She kisses his wet cheek. He moves his mouth towards her, but she turns her mouth away.
‘Thank you for having the courage to come and tell me,’ he mumbles.
‘Thank you for loving me,’ she says.
She breaks away, goes to the door, turns, gives him a painful smile, and leaves. A moment later, he hears the squeak of the front door.
Tears stream down his face, but he doesn’t crumple. He walks over to the badger, picks it up, turns it round, and lays it down again almost as gently as she had. There is no reason for his father ever to know any of the details of what happened.
PART TWO The Other Side of the World 1982
They climb for well over an hour, high into the parched hills. At last they see a crowd of people standing outside a simple house. The best man claps Simon warmly on the shoulder and beams at Naomi. They shake hands with all the guests, even with some tiny toddlers. Everyone smiles. These are real mestizo people, a mixture of Spanish and Indian.
They say – translated by Paul, of course – that they are very grateful to Simon and Naomi for having honoured them with their presence on this great day. Simon and Naomi look instinctively for mockery. There is none. These people’s hard lives leave no room for mockery.
Paul – Padre Pablo to his parishioners – is Simon’s uncle. He has been a parish priest in Peru for thirteen years, and has invited them to visit before he returns to England next month. He found the climb difficult. He likes his rum and is somewhat overweight. Simon and Naomi, however, have no problems with the altitude. They are fit. After all, it was at Simon’s gym that they met.
The little house is no more than a small barn. It’s built of mud reinforced by lines of stones. The roof is tiled. Paul explains that one day it will be a two-storey house, but Naomi wonders if the second floor will ever become more than an intention.
There’s no toilet, no running water, no electric light, and no possibility of their ever having those things.
Normally the only decoration on the walls is a small mat, rather like the mat Naomi bought on a reed island in Lake Titicaca. Hers told the story of the life of the woman who wove it. She will give it to her mother, who will love it. She thinks for a moment of her mother, and is suddenly homesick for L’Ancresse.
Today, the house has been turned into a church, and there are decorations hanging from the beams, pictures of buses, condors, rabbits, pumas, a fish, a dog and some dancers. There is a table covered by a white cloth, and a simple homemade shrine to the Virgin. The simplicity overwhelms Naomi. She’s afraid that she will burst into tears. Hastily, she pretends that she’s an actress in a film, that she’s being directed by John Huston, that he has told her that if she cries she will never work for him again.
Round the walls on two sides of the dirt floor are low benches. A cloth covers one of the benches.
‘The cloth is there for our privileged, first-world arses to park themselves on,’ explains Father Paul with a gleam.
Padre Pablo dons a long, beautiful white robe and stole, and the ceremony begins. Naomi and Simon feel extraordinarily privileged to be able to witness the wedding of Marcelina Mosquiera Teatino and Alberto Cerquin Chuqchukan. Paul has explained that they had a natural wedding many years ago, when they worshipped the Sun God, but now they have converted to Catholicism. They’ve had eight children, three of whom have died. ‘It’s par for the course in these parts, I’m afraid.’
Naomi feels so happy for them in their happiness, and yet so sad, for she is convinced that they are deluded, and she cannot think it good to be deluded. Yet she realises that her reactions are more suited to Coningsfield than to the village of Tartar Chico, high above the Cajamarca Valley in the mighty Andes.
The service is very simple. One woman breastfeeds throughout. A dog drifts in, decides that there’s nothing for him, and wanders out. Paul’s voice is low and warm and kind. The groom repeats his vows strongly. The bride repeats hers shyly, almost inaudibly. Some things are the same the world over. Father Paul puts the stole over them both, and they take communion. Their intense pride is heartbreaking. There is absolute silence in this simple home. Naomi feels the desperate heat of the faith that is warming this cold room. Again, she fears that she may cry. She fights the emotion by becoming a government inspector, directed by Stanley Kubrick, who will bully her if she breaks down.
After the ceremony, everyone goes outside. A vast pot of boiled maize appears, and they offer some to Paul, Simon and Naomi.
‘We must accept,’ says Father Paul. ‘It would be a great insult not to.’
The three of them go back inside, but the other guests don’t follow. Naomi lowers her privileged, much-admired, occasionally kissed, first-world backside onto the cloth that saves it from coming into contact with the hard, rough bench beneath.
Paul explains that nobody will eat until they have eaten.
‘You
