Background
Charles continues to investigate the mystery of the envelope from the Paris Stamp Market and, in the process, he begins to learn much more about Helen.
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From Chapter 11:
“As we taxied out across the asphalt on the first stage of our journey, the huge shoulders of the Hindu-Kush towered above us, dwarfing our tiny aircraft.”
I had heard tales of those mountains. The tallest of them, Tirich Mir, stretches its giant claw 25,000 feet up into the sky. It is one of the highest mountains in the world, an austere and jagged peak. Some people call it The Shadow of Darkness. I couldn’t help wondering what ominous shadows it would cast over these two frightened and fleeing sisters in the days that lay ahead.
Chapter 12
"I suppose I must have been numb with shock and in denial, but the horror of the killing was too immense for my brain to handle. As we took off, I remember looking out of the window at the Kalash Valley and at the mountains, and experiencing an overwhelming feeling of loss, not of my parents, but of the land where I had grown up. I wondered if I would ever see it again."
Helen moved towards the French windows, drew back the curtains and stepped out onto the balcony. The moonlight threw a silvery beauty over the sleeping city, giving it an air of mystery. A pearlescent pre-dawn blush softened the horizon, and that, combined with a thin layer of mist, lent a feeling of otherworldliness to the scene.
"I will always remember the effect of moonlight on the mountains," she said. "Sometimes the fairy folk of Tirich Mir would spin silken mists like these to hide themselves from prying eyes as they protected the mountain goats, the majestic Markhors of the upper slopes."
"It sounds as if you still believe in these fairies! Fairy goatherds, indeed!"
"Oh, but I do. They are inherent in my mother's culture. I was brought up on the tales of the Hindu-Kush. When my father was away on his engineering projects, she would sometimes take us back to her village for the dancing and the singing of ghazels. The high-pitched, eerie melody of the flutes imitated the shrill voices of mountain fairies. Songs were plucked from the sitar, and flowed like a sparkling stream. Everyone clapped in time to the mesmeric rhythm of drums, and we danced until we were at one with the spirit of the mountains. Sometimes a fairy spirit would inhabit one of the young men, and for a while he would enter a trance-like, ecstatic state."
"Song, dance and fairies. What an idyllic upbringing!"
"Yes, it was idyllic. The Kalash Valley is one of the most beautiful places on earth. Bees hum among the wild roses, the mountain air is heavy with the scent of flowers, and snow-capped peaks reach up to touch the sky. Apricot trees bend under the weight of their golden fruit and, sometimes, if you are quiet, you can hear the mellow piping of the golden oriole, poised like a streak of fire among the branches.
"In the winter months, when snow creeps further down the mountainside, so do the Markhors and their guardians, the Peris. They bring with them grey shadows of eternity and the stillness of the heavens, as they drape the trees with a lacework of frost. It is indeed a fairyland, and some people even call it the land of the fairies, Peristan."
I looked at Helen in astonishment. She seemed almost to have fallen into a trance as she spoke. We stood together in silence as the sun's first rays spilled over the horizon and watched the morning star grow fainter and fainter until it finally disappeared.
"Isn't that sad?" I said. "Venus can't stand the light of day."
"Yes she can! She may shine more brightly during the night, but she's still up there, even if you can't see her." As if to prove it, Helen turned and kissed me lightly on the cheek.
'You're an enigma. First a belief in fairies and now a belief in the Roman goddess of love. What next?"
"Actually, I'm more in tune with the Greek goddess, Aphrodite. Some of our people still believe they are descended from Alexander the Great's soldiers who settled in Chitral nearly two and a half thousand years ago. So isn't it reasonable that I should also believe in the Greek gods? Anyway, don't you believe in fairies, or the Olympian gods, or anything?"
"No, I don't think I do. I only believe in people and their eternal struggle between good and evil."
"But what if I told you the most beautiful of the Kalash women are half human and half fairy? Would that mean you only half believed in me?"
I could see myself walking into a trap, no matter which way I turned.
"You're certainly very beautiful! Aphrodite was the goddess of beauty and of love, wasn't she?"
"...and of pleasure, and of lust," she added with a wicked smile. "Come on. We still have a couple of hours before breakfast."
I closed the curtains against the prying eyes of the Sun God, and pushed to the back of my mind the creeping suspicion that Aphrodite was also the patron goddess of prostitutes. I was in little doubt there would be a price to pay for my weakness.
Who was this woman and what was the story of her flight to Thailand? Such thoughts soon slipped from my mind as Helen worked her fairy magic on me. It did not take me long to realise that I believed in her entirely, and that was all that mattered.
The hotel had stopped serving breakfast well before we finally emerged, arm-in-arm, from the elevator. Our relationship had moved to a new level, one that put a lightness in the step and drove all logic from the mind.
The sun had almost reached its zenith by the time we began our search for Françoise Gaudin, the lady whom Father Lacroix had described as having a mental illness. It was through her that we hoped to find Alain, the brother who spared no expense in erecting a monument to the memory of their mother, Estelle.
Was Estelle to be the star to light our way forward? That morning, I didn't really care.
Author Notes
The image of a Markhor is by Rufus46 [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], from Wikimedia Commons
Cast of Characters:
Charles Brandon: The narrator, a well-known travel writer
Helen Culverson: A woman of mystery, also purporting to be a travel writer
Kayla Culverson: Her older sister.
Madam Durand: A French magazine editor, who was involved in a serious accident
Dr. Laurent: A veterinary surgeon in Versailles
Madam Lefauvre: An old woman living in Versailles - the town gossip
Francoise Gaudin: An intellectually disabled woman living in Versailles
Alain Gaudin: brother of Francoise
Estelle Gaudin: deceased mother of Francoise
Suzanne Gaudin: recipient of a letter posted in 1903 - deceased
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