The Book of Revelation Read Online Free PDF Page A

gone, then he turned on to his side and faced the wall. The room still smelled of candle-smoke from the night before, a smell that reminded him, curiously enough, of Brigitte. Whenever Brigitte found herself inside a church, she always lit candles for members of her family, not just for those who were dead, but for the living too, even her cousin, Esperanza, whom she had never met, one candle after another, and her face as mystical, as solemn, as a three year old’s. What would the candle-makers do without you? he had said to her once, outside the basilica in Assisi, a comment that drew an uncomprehending look from her, and then a smile and a remark about English humour and how she would never understand it, not if she lived to be a hundred.
    Now that he was absent, would she light a candle for him as well?
    He saw her as he had seen her last, no more than eighteen hours ago. . . . She was standing by the canteen window, staring down into the street. He remembered how she had walked towards him, frowning slightly, as if something was troubling her. She had asked him to buy her some cigarettes. He had told her she’d get cancer. She had shrugged and said she didn’t care. It had been a stupid argument. Pointless. Petty. He ran through the scene again from the beginning, seeing it the way it should have been. This time, when she crossed the room, she didn’t have to ask him anything because her cigarettes were lying on the table where she had left them, forming a kind of still life with the ashtray and the coffee cup. She reached down, took a cigarette out of the packet and lit it, then she stood beside him, with her left hip almost touching his right shoulder. He saw how her left hand supported her right elbow, and how she held the cigarette close to her lips, even when she wasn’t actually inhaling, and how the smoke altered from grey to blue as it tumbled upwards through a shaft of sunlight. . . . When she had finished the cigarette, crushing it out in the ashtray, they returned to the studio to rehearse the ballet that was opening in two weeks’ time. The rehearsal ended at seven, after which they showered and changed. Then they drove home, as usual.
    A different version of events.
    A fantasy. . . .
    He wondered what Brigitte would be doing now. Would she be looking for him? How exactly do you go about looking for someone when they disappear without warning, without trace?
    He thought of the time he took her to Crete. They had stayed in a village on the south coast, at the foot of the mountains. Every day they climbed on to their rented Vespa and drove to a deserted beach a few kilometres away.
    One morning, while Brigitte was swimming, he lay down on a flat rock to read a book. When he looked up he saw her in the distance, halfway along the beach. She was washing herself in a fresh-water spring they had found by chance the previous day. She was naked, her olive skin already darkened by the sun, her bikini a small splash of scarlet on the rocks beside her. Smiling, he turned back to his book.
    The next time he looked up, the beach was empty.
    He was calm at first, thinking she must have gone swimming again. He scanned the bay. The mid-morning light had a brilliance that hurt his eyes; the water was a mass of ripped silver foil. She wasn’t there. His calmness began to change shape inside him. He felt a kind of panic take its place. Sitting on his rock, he scoured the beach for minutes on end, but Brigitte did not appear. She simply wasn’t there.
    He stood up, put on his swimming-trunks. He felt as if he was moving too slowly, and yet he couldn’t see what good hurrying would do. He felt stupid. Perhaps he should just sit down again. Read his book.
    He began to walk.
    His walk turned into a kind of run as he realised how long it had taken him to think that something might be wrong. He had already wasted so much time. All of a sudden every second counted.
    He reached the place where he thought he had seen