The Bookman - Lavie Tidhar [86]
But the sounds built up. At one point he thought he heard a distant explosion, and froze in his tracks. He could not see much of the skies, could not look for a tell-tale sign of smoke. The trees had crowded around him again and the canopy closed over his head like the roof of a prison.
Shortly afterwards he heard another explosion. It seemed to come from the direction he was travelling in. Downwards and – he thought, though he couldn't tell – inland.
I must be heading deeper into the island, he thought. The path had grown narrower and at last, and rather suddenly, disappeared. Again, he ambled his way through thick undergrowth. After a while he began to swear, and stopped, and finally, irritated and tired, wiped the sweat from his face with the edge of his shirt.
Which was when he saw the girl.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Elizabeth
Sweet prince, speak low: the king your father is disposed to sleep.
– William Shakespeare, Henry IV
She stood beneath a tree with a wide, mottled trunk. She was brown-skinned, with a sharp nose and wide, round eyes that even from a distance he could see were a deep blue. She wore overalls, of a kind that might be worn in a factory. Her arms were bare. So were her feet. She was not much older than seven.
Orphan had stopped when he saw her, and for a long moment he stood very still. So did the girl. They stared at each other, neither of them stirring. The girl tilted her head and examined him quizzically. She did not seem alarmed, but rather fascinated by this apparition. Orphan became aware of how he must look like, dishevelled and worn ragged, like something out of an adventure story, and he smiled.
The girl smiled back at him. "Are you an engineer?" she said. She had a high, clear voice. The forest felt very quiet.
An engineer? Of course, he thought. Somewhere on the island there must be engineers, the people who built the probe and worked to launch it. Or even others. If there were engineers there must be others, too: other specialists, no doubt, and cleaners and cooks – there might be a whole colony of humans living on the island.
"What do you think?" he said.
"You don't look like an engineer," the girl said critically.
"What do I look like?"
"A pirate." Orphan winced, and the girl laughed. "A big nasty pirate!" she declared. "Are you a pirate?"
"No," Orphan said. The girl looked disappointed. "I was one," Orphan added, "but only because I didn't have a choice."
"Oh!" the girl said. "You must tell me all about it!" she approached him, cautiously, and stood a few feet away. "When I grow up, you know," she said, as if confiding to him a great secret, "I'm going to be a pirate."
The girl confused Orphan. She walked barefoot in the jungle as if she had grown up in it, yet her clothes appeared factory-made, and were clean and pressed (in great contrast to his own). Her hair was long and black but looked untidy, and her skin was tanned to a darkness that suggested she had spent the entirety of her young life in the climate of the Carib Sea. Yet her accent…
Her accent was clear, precise, formal. It was the accent of the smart set, of Kensington and Knightsbridge, of society novels depicting tea-taking at the Ritz (Orphan, to his shame, had become addicted for a short period to these novels, which he had read behind the counter at Payne's). It was as out of place on the island as himself.
"Where do you live?" he asked. The girl shrugged. Obviously, she didn't think highly of his question. "Here," she said.
Of course.
"Where are your parents?" Orphan said, trying again.
The girl rotated her hand, thumb down, and pointed non-committally at the ground.
"Are they dead?" Orphan said, feeling horrible. Poor kid! he thought.
The girl frowned at him. "No, silly," she said. She kicked leaves with her bare foot and seemed to lose interest. She turned around and began to walk away. Orphan remained where he was, bemused.
The girl looked over