Lanark_ a life in 4 books - Alasdair Gray [43]
Lanark said defensively, “I’m new here. I don’t understand you.”
Noakes bowed his head and murmured, “You like your work?”
“No.”
“Then you will come to like it.”
“No. When I’ve cured this patient I’m going to leave with her, if she wants me.”
Noakes jerked upright and shouted, “What nonsense!” then leaned forward and grabbed Lanark’s hands, speaking in a low quick gabble of words. “No, no, no, no, my child, forgive me, forgive me, it is not nonsense! You must cure your patient, you must leave with her, and if—forgive me, I mean when—you leave, you will do something for me, will you not? You promise to do this one thing?”
Lanark pulled his hands free and asked irritably, “What thing?” “Tell people not to come here. Tell them they must not enter this institute. A little more faith, and hope, and charity, and they can cure their own diseases. Charity alone will save them, if it is possible without the others.”
“Why should I warn folk against coming here when coming here cured me?”
“Then tell them to come willingly, in thousands! Let them enter like an army of men, not wait to be swallowed like a herd of victims. Think of the institute with twenty staff to every patient! We will have no excuse for not curing people then! We will be like”—his voice grew wistful—“a cathedral with a congregation of priests. It would burst the institute open to the heavens.”
Lanark said, “I don’t think telling people things helps them much. And if you are still working here after so many years, you can’t think it much worse than it was.”
“You are wrong. In all the corridors there are sounds of increased urgency and potency, and behind it all a sound like the breathing of a hungry beast. I assure you, the institute is preparing to swallow a world. I am not trying to frighten you.” Lanark was more embarrassed than frightened. He stood up and said, “Is there a lift near here?”
“I see you will not try to save others. Pray God you can save yourself. There is one in the far corner.”
Lanark passed between the chairs and found an open lift in a wall between two arches. He entered and said, “Ignition chamber one.”
“Whose department?”
“Professor Ozenfant’s.”
The door opened on a familiar surface of brown cloth. He thrust it aside and stepped into the high-ceilinged tapestry-hung studio, almost expecting to find it in darkness. It was lit as before, and in the middle Lanark saw from behind a familiar figure in black trousers and waistcoat leaning over the carpenter’s bench. Lanark tiptoed uneasily round the walls looking for the figure of Correctio Conversio and sometimes glancing sideways at Ozenfant. The Professor was fixing the bridge on his guitar with a delicacy and concentration it would have been wrong to disturb. Lanark was relieved to lift the tapestry and, stooping, enter the low tunnel.
He sat in the tiny chamber pressing his back against the warm curve of the wall. The only movement was the silver creature’s clenching and unclenching hand, the only sound the remote and regular thumping. Lanark cleared his throat and said, “I’m sorry I’m late, but I have a book here which someone who knew the author tells me is very good.” There was no answer so he began reading.
“A RELATION OF THE HOLY WAR. In my travels, as I walked through many regions and countries, it was my chance to happen into that famous continent of Universe. A very large and spacious continent it is; it lieth between the heavens. It is a place well watered, and richly adorned with hills and valleys, bravely situate, and for the most part, at least where I was, very fruitful, also well peopled, and a very sweet air.”
“I refuse to listen to lies!” cried the voice, making a ringing echo. “Do you think I don’t live in the universe? Do you think I don’t know what a stinking trap it is?”
“My own experience supports your view rather than the author’s,” said Lanark cautiously, “but remember he says ‘for the most part,