Ahead of him, just past the pump, the road forked; the main road (if one could define a dusty gravel track bereft of markings that way) continued in a straight line, then seemed to dip down out of sight, while to the right a winding path led off into a greener area. Daniel thought he saw a few buildings nestling among the trees, but he could not be sure. He decided he would investigate later.
Directly to his right, looking on to the roundabout with its rusting hand-pump, and of greater immediate interest, there was a small, attractive, one-storey building, recently whitewashed from top to bottom. The building had a flat roof and sported just one open door and a couple of large, shuttered windows. In front of it was a deep, raised patio upon which a number of tables and chairs had been arranged. Each table was covered with a brightly patterned red-and-white checked tablecloth, and set as if for dinner.
An intricate trellis above the patio was covered in vines, which stretched the length of the building. The vines, tangled and matted in places, grew in such profusion that they spread in all directions to overhang the trellis at every edge and corner in whimsical curls and strands, giving the whole building an appealing, organic appearance, as if it had grown out of the earth. Baskets of red and white flowers hung from the front edge of the trellis, and big earthenware pots filled to overflowing with similar blooms stood at regular intervals along the front edge of the patio. A simple picket fence ran along the front of the patio, and this too was interwoven with climbing plants and creepers.
Music, that music, drifted across from behind one of the shuttered windows.
Daniel stood admiring the building for some time, while a dozen or so mosquitoes buzzed around him in an enigmatic aerial ballet. Daniel was really sweltering now. There was something timeless about his surroundings. There was also the merest hint that it was not, somehow, entirely real, and he could not help but continually test the environment for tell-tale signs. And yet everything seemed normal. He could feel the ground - hard, uneven, solid - beneath his feet. He was sweating heavily, the bright midday sun roasting his uncovered head, the salty beads dripping down his forehead making his eyes sting.
Needing shelter from the harsh sun, and mesmerised by the ever-present sound of the bouzouki, Daniel walked past the hand-pump to the gleaming white tavema, climbed the three steps that led up to the patio, looked around at the empty tables, and chose a seat beneath a large, gnarled olive tree, which afforded him a respite from the intense heat.
The bouzouki music played on; a crackly, scratchy sound, the source of which was evidently an old record-player somewhere inside the building. Daniel examined the red-and-white tablecloth, the sprung-steel clips that secured it to the square, wooden table. He toyed with the salt and pepper shakers, turned the oil and vinegar bottles upside down, and cleaned his fingernails with one of the toothpicks that stood in a small box in the centre of the table. It was lovely in the shade, relaxing. The fact that music was playing persuaded him that people could not be far away.
A gentle breeze wafted across the patio; it was a relief to be out of the sun and to rest his feet. He had walked a long way... or had he? His aching calves certainly suggested that he had been on his feet for several hours, but if he had been walking where had he walked from? And where was he headed? Daniel did not know.
He turned in his chair to peer through the doorway of the taverna, but could see very little in the darkened interior except for a few tables and what looked like a bar on the right-hand side. Why was the place empty? Where was everybody?
Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, Daniel registered a slight movement and a tremendous, inexplicable fear overwhelmed him. In panic he turned swiftly to catch sight of whatever it was that had moved. As he tumed he seemed to lose his balance, and before he knew what was happening he had slipped from his chair and was falling rapidly through empty space...
Daniel woke with a start. For several seconds he could not figure out where he was; the world was blurred and appeared to have fallen on its side; it was unrecognisable. It was only as his eyes refocused that he realised that he was looking at the far wall of his living room as seen from between the legs of the coffee table at an angle of ninety degrees to the perpendicular: he had slipped from the sofa and the fall had woken him.
Although surprised and a little shocked to find himself in such an unlikely position, he had not hurt himself, or at least he did not feel pain anywhere, save for a slight headache which might well have been attributable to the sudden rush of adrenalin. Taking care not to hit his head, he levered himself on to his knees, shook his head, then, certain he was not about to fall over in a heap, got to his feet.
He looked around him as if he were in a strange environment rather than the familiar setting of his own living room; he felt decidedly disoriented, still caught in limbo between wide-awake and half-asleep. He glanced at his watch and realised he had been asleep for several hours. Clearly he had dozed off listening to the music, but where exactly had he been? He had been dreaming, certainly, but it was not like his usual dreams at all.
Daniel had had dreams that were both bizarre and surreal. He had experienced meandering, meaningless ones which left him unfazed and disappointed, and he had had the terrifying nightmares with their expanded sense of hyper-reality that induced fear and panic. He had also had dreams in which not a single feature was recognisable from his life: the people he met, the places he visited, even the language he spoke; none of these things was familiar. When he woke from such dreams, Daniel felt sure that he had experienced someone else’s dream.
But never had he had a dream that was so real, so like waking life, where experiences had the same form and feel as they did in reality, and where events unfolded in linear fashion just as when he was awake.
And that music. He could still hear it, playing quietly in the back of his mind, ebbing and flowing like the tides.
In the kitchen Daniel made himself a cup of strong coffee. What was he to make of it all? It was clear now that he had been dreaming of the same place the previous night and had woken with a less distinct - but still potent- memory of it. What was strangest of all was that, real though it had all seemed, it was not a place that Daniel had ever visited. He had been to many Mediterranean countries and enjoyed each for what it had to offer, but the visions from his dream did not correlate with any of the places he had seen.
Just a dream, thought Daniel, suddenly aware that his thoughts were becoming bizarre. It was just a dream, no more relevant or important than any of a thousand dreams he had had before, marked out from the others only because of a difference of structure or sense or...
something
.
With a few of the sights, smells and sounds still lingering in his thoughts, Daniel decided to get on with preparing the meal he had promised for that night. At least it would take his mind off the matter.
He reached for the chopping board, the sharp vegetable knife and a large onion and, without being fully aware of what he was doing, began cutting it into thin slices. In movements that were almost automatic, he lit the gas, put a large frying pan over a low heat, poured in a generous amount of olive oil and began frying the onion with the mince. He crushed a couple of cloves of garlic, added them to the mix and, without thinking, selected the small bottle of dried oregano from Lisanne’s spice rack and poured half the contents into the sizzling mass. The powerful odours of garlic and onion lifted into the air, carrying the more subtle scents of olive oil and oregano as they rose. In an instant Daniel found himself whisked back to the edges of his dream, but it lasted only for a brief moment, and he was soon brought back down to earth by the spluttering of fat and flesh as the minced lamb started to brown seductively. The chopped tomatoes were added to the already mouth-watering mix of ingredients and allowed to simmer slowly, releasing little pockets of scented steam that made Daniel’s stomach rumble in anticipation.
The following half-hour found Daniel going through the processes of making moussaka as if he were a practised chef for whom the dish was a commonplace, rather than a gifted amateur who had never attempted it before. If, as he claimed, Daniel cooked by instinct, then that instinct was particularly finely honed that aftemoon.
He lined a deep baking dish with seasoned slices of parboiled potatoes, then poured the thick, smouldering concoction into the dish where it bubbled and steamed like a volcanic pool for several minutes. Without recourse to recipe book or readily prepared packets, he produced a wonderful, fluffy béchamel sauce that had suspended within it no less than half a pound of the fresh, crumbled feta he had bought. He poured the smooth, creamy, pungent sauce over the meat mixture and, adding a little grated cheddar to the surface, threw the lot into a pre-heated oven. The preparation had taken him less than an hour, and the time had flowm by. Not once had Daniel had to think about what he was doing; it was almost as if some invisible agency guided his hands. The experience was deeply satisfying.
He allowed the dish to bake for an hour or so, then turned off the oven. He could hardly wait for Lisanne to get home. This was the first time he had cooked in six months, and he was anxious to taste the fruits of his labour.
That afternoon, Daniel made a second attempt to read
Greek Idyll
. In the book, the protagonist, a young man called Johnny, bummed around Europe for a few months one summer. and ended up on a small, virtually uninhabited island in the Cyclades. Daniel read as far as the point where Johnny, the anachronistic hippie, finally set foot on the island, about which there was, he commented, ‘something strange, enticing, even magical’, and then gave up. The prose was so leaden, the protagonist so irritating that it was a wonder the book had been published at all.
And so derivative! If he hadn’t known better, Daniel could have sworn he had once read something virtually identical: not
The Magus
, of course, which was an altogether more measured and sophisticated novel, but something lightweight.
The rest of the aftemoon passed slowly. As Daniel sat in the armchair waiting for Lisanne to come home, his mind returned once more to the business of dreams. It struck him that people’s ignorance - his own included - of dreams had its roots in the great emphasis placed on materialism in Western culture. Elsewhere in the world, dreams were regarded in an altogether different way. In some countries, particularly in Asia, they were treated with great reverence, as portents. They were an intrinsic and inseparable part of the daily lives of the people.
Nowhere was this more true than in India. Daniel recalled one occasion, several years previously, when he had been travelling in the south. He had been sent by National Geogruphic to photograph the remarkable Sri Minakshi temple in the pilgrimage city of Madurai. The Sri Minakshi was probably the finest example of Dravidian architecture in all India, and it was one of the most colourful buildings that Daniel had ever encountered.
The temple complex covered an area of fifteen acres and was bounded by high walls and a series of
gopurums
: huge, rectangular-based pyramids, typical of the Dravidian style, which were undoubtedly the most exciting feature. Every evening in the Sri Minakshi the most colourful of ceremonies took place; part of Daniel’s brief was to capture the essence of this event, a task which turned out to be a great deal more problematical than he at first realised.
On his first evening, he arrived early and tried to take some light measurements. The interior of the temple was gloomy, to say the least, and there were so many obstructing pillars that he soon realised taking photographs was going to be a major problem. Knowing that the ceremony took place every evening, Daniel decided to abandon any attempt to take photos this time and just watch the event, so that he would be better prepared the following evening.
A number of pilgrims and tourists gathered in the dark, musty interior, and assembled around a central statue of some deity or other, then waited for something to happen. They did not have to wait long. During the ceremony, an image of the great god Siva was carried in a highly omate palanquin by four stout bearers, from an unseen inner sanctum to the bedroom of Parvati, his wife. The image remained curtained off, invisible to all but the most devout acolytes, one of whom constantly fanned away the smoking incense that poured out of the curtained box, as if Siva himself were on fire, no doubt anticipating the pleasures of the night that lay ahead.
The procession, which lasted no more than twenty minutes, was marked by a sense-shattering amalgam of noise, action and ritual. Every now and then, the parade would halt for a moment while a dozen devotees marched with great fervour around the palanquin. Throughout, musicians playing drums and reedy, trumpet-like instruments kept up a constant and impressive barrage of sound, until the palanquin disappeared from sight into Parvati’s bedroom. It was all over far too fast for Daniel’s liking; he saw nothing but problems in trying to record the event in a series of images suitable for publication in a magazine which, as was well known in the trade, set the highest standards of all.