Chapter 8
The Harbinger of Death’s phone lit up in the night, and he was immediately awake. It buzzed, vibrating without ringing across the bedside table. Next to him, the woman whose name had genuinely turned out to be Emmi—“It’s like Emma, but better!” said her online profile—rolled over, pulling the pillow tighter against her head, a sure sign that she was awake, feigning sleep, chiding him with her body for having his phone on at three in the morning. He hesitated, caught between her skin, ebony against the pale sheets that covered her slumbering form, and the light of the still buzzing phone. Her breathing was so slight, for a moment he wondered if she was dead, then reproached himself for something so silly. He pulled his fingers away from the curve of her back, and picked up the phone.
A calendar update, and an email.
He ignored one, opened the other, and read, quiet and alert, his face lit up moon-white in the darkness.
In the morning, Emmi said, “Dulwich is all very posh and that, but there’s no decent buses to anywhere.”
“There’s a train to London Bridge,” he replied, scraping the last of the eggs off the bottom of the pan, laying them on top of a slice of toast. “Or a bus to Canada Water.”
She wrinkled her nose at this, a tiny flat protrusion on a round, warm face. Through the gentle alcoholic haze in which the two of them had staggered home last night, falling into bed in a fumbling cacophony of “you’re sitting on my arm” and “hold on, I just need to put my contacts in the …”—even then he had felt she was stunningly, besottingly amazing. Daylight moderated that perception, making it at once less profound—she was of an average height, blunt as a mallet when she needed to be and unfashionably soft around the belly and bum—and also more thrilling than anything he could have imagined, for, sober at last, he saw a face looking back at him bursting with intelligence and life, sexier than any pouting fashion icon.
He blurted, and didn’t understand why he said it, save perhaps for a desire to speak before her presence muted him for ever, “I’ve got to catch a plane this evening.”
Her fork froze, a mouthful of egg dripping off the end. “You didn’t say …”
“I got the message last night.”
“I suppose … Is there a disaster happening?”
“I don’t think so. I don’t know. Probably not.”
“Where are you going?”
“Nuuk.”
“Where’s Nuuk?”
“Greenland.”
“Why?”
“I … It’s my job.”
She laid the fork back down on the plate, sat up a little straighter, folded her fingers in front of her face, rested the tips against the delicate end of her nose and said, “It’s okay for this to be a one-night stand. You’re nice. It’s been fun. That’s cool. I’m not about to go investing in things where there aren’t things. It’s fine. We good?”
The Harbinger of Death nodded, slow, eyes fixed on some other place.
“It is what it is. You’ve got to fly this evening, you said?”
“Yes.”
“You got cold-weather clothes?”
“Yes. Some. And I’m sure I can get more.”
“You quick at packing?”
“Yes.”
“Good. We’ll have breakfast, you can walk me to the station, and after that … whatever. Also, Charlie?”
“Yes?”
“The gas is still on.”
Charlie looked down at the pan on the hob, the last crispy remnants of the morning’s meal turning charred black above the hissing blue flame.
Chapter 9
There are four horsemen of the Apocalypse. The world disagrees on what they look like, for everyone sees the end in their own way, but as they are perceived by people, so they like to move with the times. And thus …
The Harbinger of Famine stood in the departures lounge of Frankfurt international airport, pressed her phone to her ear and barked, “So how long will the lorries be delayed …?”
The Harbinger of War slammed her fist into the horn of her little white Ford and screamed, as the one-way system into Washington, DC, caught her in its net and pulled her back across the Potomac, “Fucking Beltway! If I want to fucking turn right then don’t put the fucking sign five yards before the fucking …”
The Harbinger of Pestilence walked down the aisles of the battery chicken farm, smelt the shit and the dust, saw the mangled limbs of the compressed birds in their grey cages and said, a smile fixed on his patient old face and a clipboard in his hand, “And how many exactly went down last weekend?”
And in a leafy suburb of London, the Harbinger of Death walked Emmi to the railway station. She kissed him on the cheek, and he waited by the gate until her train came, and then went home alone to his one-bedroom flat with magnolia walls, in a red-brick house in a part of the world where the schools were good, where people raised families and played football in the park, and got out his travel bag, only three days since it was put away, and pulled down his box of sub-Arctic gear, and began to pack, and felt the excitement of something new.
Chapter 10
The man said, why are you here?
The Harbinger of Death replied, I have a calendar, the calendar fills with appointments, my boss puts the appointments in my calendar and then I go to where it says.
The man said, how did you get here?
I flew to Reykjavik. Once there was a pilot who flew over the dormant volcanoes—I gave him a new pair of sunglasses. He wore them proudly, and his wife cried. You get reactions like that sometimes. Sometimes, you see, these things are a warning, and sometimes they are a compliment.
A warning?
That you may yet amend your ways. That you may not fly over that volcano, or you may stay at home when you should have flown or … Well, it depends. And Death may pass you by. I saw him again, the pilot, when I changed planes in Iceland. He smiled at me, and didn’t say anything new. That’s the first time that’s ever happened to me, meeting someone I’ve met before. It’s not usually … It was nice. It was really good. I hadn’t fully understood the possibilities.
So you are here so that Death doesn’t come?
Perhaps I am.
But you doubt it.
I really couldn’t say.
And you flew from Reykjavik?
On a very small plane.
Only small planes fly out here.
I was beginning to get that feeling. I’m looking for this man.
Ah—Professor Absalonoftsen.
You know him, then?
This is Nuuk, biggest city in all Greenland. Everyone knows everyone around here.
Do you know where I might find Professor Absalo … Where I might find him?
Ule.
Ule? Where’s that?
It’s his name. His name is Ule.
Ah. Thank you, that’s certainly easier. Do you know where Professor Ule has gone?
North.
Do you know where?
No. Just north. He took the boat up the coast.
Which boat?
A fishing boat.
Not a ferry?
No—that runs every other Thursday, but the fishermen will take passengers north for not very much. Or you can take the helicopter, but it mostly carries cargo.
Do you know which boat?
Ask down at the port, they’ll tell you.
Thank you.
Is he going to die? Professor Ule? Is that why you’re looking for him?
I really don’t know. I have to give him something.
What?
Tea.
You’re the Harbinger of Death, and you’re tracking a man across the Greenland Sea to give him … tea?
Yes.
What kind of tea?
Indian chai mixed with dates and pepper.
Sounds disgusting.
Apparently he likes it.
And this is what you do?
Yes.
Not for me to tell another man …
You
’ve been very helpful, thank you.
Any time! Any time. It’s always nice to have visitors.
Chapter 11
In the treeless land
in the land where no trees grow
once the mayor of Nuuk tried to plant some trees, lining the little streets of his city with child-high greenery. But the summer was too cold and grey for the leaves to open, and in winter the sap inside the branches turned to ice, and they dropped off in the spring thaw, splat, at the barest touch of the breeze off the sea.
There’s a patch of ice behind the house of old Mrs. Arnadottir that she swears has never melted. It’s ridiculous, of course—in summer, temperatures have been known to get to fourteen degrees above freezing on warm days, and the youngsters go out in T-shirts and tiny skirts to soak up its gentle rays—but she claims that the shadows are thick behind her house, and the stones hold the cold well, and that once, in the years after Krakatoa blew, there was a summer when the snow never melted, and in that time this tiny blob of ice grew thicker and thicker, and now will never pass away, and what’s more, the patch of ice resembles the face of Jesus.
People stop arguing with Mrs. Arnadottir at that point, reasoning that it’s rude to question another person’s deeply held spiritual beliefs.
When you have seen the whole world, the old words said, there is always Greenland left.
The hotel on the edge of the sea had a flat-screen TV on one wall, excellent Wi-Fi, a hot tub on the roof, exposed to the elements, and a Gideon Bible in the bedside table. Charlie tried using the hot tub. Beneath a slate-grey sky he wobbled across frozen, sleet-stained timbers and lowered himself, gasping at the shock, into the shimmering blue water. Once in, getting out seemed impossible.
Charlie believed in trying everything at least once. In the ten months since he’d started this job he’d eaten sheep’s brains (not his thing), been ostrich riding (many bruises), scuba diving (one of the best experiences of his life) and climbed down the inside of a volcano. He’d been in the volcano to give an icon of a strange, deformed deity, carved from bone, to one of the men who mined sulphur there. He had a feeling the bone was human, but had been okay with that. It was just calcium, and not like anyone needed it any more; the idea of death as a sanctified thing seemed increasingly ridiculous. If the man in the volcano had said anything when Charlie came, he couldn’t hear it over the growling of the earth, and in truth, his eyes streaming and skin burning from the yellow-black fumes, he hadn’t wanted to stick around long to find out.
He still felt a bit guilty about that.
His job was all about sticking around and finding out. It was something he was learning to pride himself on. He felt, without being able to express why, that it was very, very important to his work.
Charlie looked up at a sky the colour of ash, and felt his constitution waver.
On the grey ocean, tall-sailed boats bobbed behind the concrete wharves where the fat orange commercial vessels offloaded their cargo of fresh vegetables, mobile phones and timber. A line of apartment blocks looked down to a beach of stone, and beneath the setting sun the brightly painted houses shimmered against the grey like threads of bright wool woven through a dirty jumper. The Harbinger of Death tried to find a grocery shop, but the only one open had sold out of all its fresh fruit except for a single, questionable-looking bag of apples. He ate alone in the hotel restaurant, ox burger with a side of chips. He ordered coffee, and the waiter brought him a cup that he proceeded to set on fire in an alcoholic explosion of blue-yellow light and curling acrid smoke. It didn’t taste bad, all things considered.
In the evening, he watched football, two locals teams playing on a floodlit pitch. It wasn’t the greatest game he’d ever seen, slow and quiet, and he bought the T-shirt from the losing side.
Afterwards, in his room, Charlie checked his online calendar.
Every day, appointments arrived and new journeys were arranged. Some appointments were years in the coming—the furthest ahead he had seen was for twenty-two years’ time, when the Harbinger of Death (and there was no guarantee by this time that it would be him) would deliver a nickel button to a laboratory in southern France.
Other appointments were a few months in the future, but he didn’t book the tickets, not yet. He never knew where he might be flying from, or how the situation might have changed. Initially he’d tried to be ahead of the curve, an economic, thrifty traveller with schemes laid well in advance. But his hotel had been bombed in Damascus three months before he was meant to stay in it, and the insurance company had dodged covering the cost; and the line down from Addis Ababa didn’t run on time and he’d nearly missed the appointment, rushing shamefaced and terrified into the room, not sure what he could possibly say to make up for this rudeness, or how he would explain it to his employer if he didn’t make it at all.
Charlie hadn’t met Death yet. At least, not in his official capacity.
Milton Keynes never told him off, but were always quietly disappointed by every flight cancelled and hotel moved without the possibility of refund, and so quickly Charlie changed his travel habits. Reluctantly at first, and then with a growing sense of self-confidence, he had become an edge-of-the-seat traveller, a barterer for last-minute trains, a man who raced across town to find the last room in the last hotel before the chaos came, and only twice—once in Montreal during racing season, once in Bruges for reasons he had never understood—had he been caught short, and been forced to spend the night on a bench, barely sleeping, feeling maddeningly alive.
The Greenland appointment had come in with hardly any warning at all, which was unusual. More unusual—a first, in fact—was that his target, Professor Absalonoftsen, was not at the address he had been given. He had gone wandering, said his neighbour with a shrug. Sometimes he did that.
The Harbinger of Death had checked at the University of Greenland, which had only eleven full-time teaching staff and was bound to notice the sudden absence of 9.1 per cent of its educational faculty, but no, it was the summer holiday, the students were out and sometimes the Professor’s work took him onto the ice.
“Don’t worry about it!” said the cheerful secretary down the phone. “Professor Ule has been dodging polar bears since before you left nappies!”
These words, kindly meant, did not reassure.
The day before he hired passage on a cargo boat carrying preserved meats and replacement parts to the villages on Baffin Bay, Charlie phoned Emmi, and couldn’t get through.
Had a lovely time with you, he texted, wondering what time it was back in London, whether she’d be awake to receive this. Hope to see you when I get back. Might not have reception for a while. Will text again when I do, if that’s okay.
He worried over how he should sign it—was a kiss inappropriate?—and having no answer, left it as it was, hit send, and immediately wondered if he sounded like a stalker.
He boarded the little boat as the sun rose across the eastern sky, barely more than a bathtub with a keel, and had lost signal on his mobile phone within a few miles of the shore and before receiving Emmi’s reply, if she even got his message.
Chapter 12
In a treeless land …
… in a land where no trees grow …
Death sat cross-legged upon the ice and watched the polar bear hunting. She was old, wise to the ways of the land where the sun never set, never rose, balancing precariously upon a detached carpet of ice that was drifting ever further out to sea. She didn’t mind hunting in such conditions, of course—not yet, she was a good swimmer—but her prey minded, and were being seen less and less upon these shores.
Death enjoyed watching the polar bear, if Death enjoyed anything much of anything in particular. She was a creature beautifully acclimatised to this place, where surely evolution should have given up long ago. Death also enjoyed watching sea lions trying to pull themselves along over the ice, before falling, relieved, into the frozen waters; he enjoyed swimming with the translucent, sometimes entirely transparent c
ritters, snails and bugs that writhed along the bottom of the sea. He liked watching killer whales as they stalked a seal, tasted the hot blood of an animal caught napping, and clapped with delight whenever a diving bird nailed its prey, bang, a perfect drop from the sky, a perfect catch, another winter survived, another winter ended.
Now he watched the bear as it swam back to shore, and the bear after a while saw him, and recognised him for what he was, as all things do, and walked over slowly, bowing her head to press her great, puffing nose against his hair, and Death held her close, and felt her breathe, and waited.
Look! said the captain of the boat, and Charlie looked. Did you see its tail?
He looked and looked and saw nothing, and
the tail burst from the sea, wider than a double bed, smacking the surface of the turning ocean, slamming its own weight of water into the sky, which rained back down long after the creature had sunk into the depths, its skin peppered with barnacles, its eyes huge and ancient and tired of running, its flanks scored with the teeth of a hundred predators, its belly circled by shoals of tiny fish that fed off the krill that fed off the flaking skin of the beast.
Did you see? asked the captain. Did you see?
Yes, Charlie replied. I saw.
Beneath the ship, the whale turned, and for a moment Charlie thought that it was looking back at him, and that in its eye was written a prophecy he could not know.
Chapter 13
On the boat, sailing up the coast of Greenland, the Harbinger of Death concluded that he didn’t understand cold.
“Look at you!” chuckled the captain, as the ship lurched and lunged and bounced and fell across the white-foamed water. “You are a pumpkin!”
Wrapped in shirt wrapped in jumper wrapped in coat; wrapped in trouser wrapped in trouser wrapped in sock wrapped in boot; wrapped in hat wrapped in scarf, Charlie said, clinging to the console of the little pilot’s cabin lest his feet go out beneath him again, “What I don’t understand is how you’re only in boots and waterproofs.”