The Crane Wife(46)
Author: Patrick Ness

‘You do not seek war,’ she says, behind him now.

‘No, my lady.’

‘You seek forgiveness.’

He answers nothing for a moment, but when she comes round again to his face, he pulls himself up to full height and looks proud. ‘As you say, my lady.’

‘Shall I forgive you?’ she asks, slightly puzzled, a hesitancy forming around her.

The small general unbuttons his uniform and exposes the skin over his heart. ‘As my lady wishes.’

She goes to him. His eyes give nothing away. She is unsure still, and hesitates.

‘This cannot be done in anger,’ she says. ‘It can only be done out of love.’

‘Would it help my lady if I wept?’

‘Very much.’

The small general weeps.

‘Thank you,’ she says, and plunges two fingers into his exposed breast, piercing his heart, stopping it.

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He does not die. He does not even thank her.

‘I shall bite out your eyes now,’ she says, the uncertainty lingering.

‘Please, my lady, as quickly as you can, to end my suffering,’ he says, and his words sound true.

But they suggest a different kind of suffering than the mere pain of death.

Confused, she moves to bite out his eyes, but at the last moment, she sees.

Deep within them, deep down past who this general is, deep beyond his youth and birth, behind the history of the-world-their-child who brought the general to this place, in this city/abattoir, on this battlefield, deep behind that–

There is a flash of green.

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‘We are the same, my lady,’ says the volcano, looking out of the general’s eyes.

‘We are different,’ she says.

‘We are the same and we are different.’

She opens her mouth to contradict him, but finds she cannot.

‘You have betrayed me with this small general,’ she says instead.

‘And you have betrayed me with him as well.’ He steps from behind the general’s eyes, blasting away the flesh to spatter the concrete walls. Nothing splashes on her. ‘And you see, my lady, I still cannot hurt you.’

‘Nor I you.’

‘We must end this,’ he says. ‘We cannot be. We do not fit. Our end is only one of destruction. That is how it must be, that is how it always must have been.’

‘I cannot.’

‘You can, my lady.’

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He kneels in front of her, his green eyes burning with sulphur and potassium, hotter than the centre of the earth, the centre of the sun.

And his eyes weep. They weep lava enough to fill an ocean. The city around them is reduced to ashes and boiling rock.

‘I have betrayed you, my lady,’ he says. ‘From the day we met until the seconds that pass as I speak this sentence, I betray you. It is what a volcano does, my lady, and I cannot change as certainly as I cannot harm you.’

The sky blackens. The world shudders beneath them.

‘And so, my lady,’ he says, ‘the day has arrived. Our last day. Ordained from when we first set eyes on one another.’

He pulls the flesh away from his left breast, landslides and lava spilling to earth. He exposes his beating heart to her, pumping with rage, bleeding with fire.

‘You must forgive me, my lady,’ he says.

‘I . . .’

But she cannot speak further.

‘You must, my lady, or I will find a way to destroy you. You know this to be true. We are not meant for each other.’

‘We are only meant for each other.’

‘That is also true. We are the same and we are different and every moment that passes where I cannot burn you and melt you and destroy you utterly with my love for you is a torment unsurpassing. And because it is a torment unsurpassing, I will continue to take it out on our child, this world.’ He leans forward, his exposed heart beating faster now. ‘Unless you forgive me, once and for all, my lady.’

‘I cannot.’

‘You know what I speak is true, my lady.’

‘I do.’

‘You must act. Pierce my heart. Bite out my eyes.’

‘I cannot.’

His eyes burn. ‘Then you do not love me.’

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She gasps. She raises her hand to plunge it into his heart.

‘Do it, my lady,’ he says, closing his eyes. ‘Forgive me. I beg of you.’

Her hand is raised, ready to fall, ready to end this torment, which she will admit, if only to herself, is as bad for her as it has ever been for him. She loves him and it is impossible. She hates him and that is impossible, too. She cannot be with him. She cannot be without him. And both are burningly, simultaneously true in a way that grinds the cliché into dust.

But what she cannot do, what she cannot do that has no opposite which is also true, what she cannot ever, ever do–

Is forgive him.

For loving her. For burning her. For desiring her. For making her do all these things in return by his very existence.

She cannot ever forgive him.

She will not end his torment. She will not end hers.

She lowers her hand and lets him live.

‘You should go.’

‘. . .’

‘. . .’

‘You mean it?’

‘I mean it.’

‘It’s three– No, it’s nearly four o’clock in the morning– ’

‘I want you to go.’

‘. . .’

‘. . .’

‘You’re breathing very heavy, George. Are you feeling all right?’

‘Please, I’m asking you to–’

‘What would be the point? What could possibly be the point in me leaving right now instead of in two hours?’

‘Rachel–’

‘You said she wasn’t coming over tonight, that she was working at her flat. Which, amazingly, you still claim to have never properly seen.’

‘I haven’t.’

‘What a weird combination of strength and complete weakness you are, George.’

‘You’re talking differently. Have you noticed?’

‘People change. People become.’

‘People . . . what?’

‘Do you know why I’m here? Do you know why you let me come here tonight?’

‘So I could possess you.’

‘So that you could– Well, yes, okay, you beat me to it. That was weird. But, so, no, actually, it was so that I could let you possess me. Big difference. And in doing so, don’t you see, I also possessed you. And that’s what you’re afraid of, isn’t it? That you don’t possess her.’