In the Twelfth Month of last year the Other suspended his work on the Great and Secret Knowledge and cancelled our meetings because he said it was too cold to stand about talking. My fingers were numb with cold – which caused my handwriting to deteriorate. Eventually I stopped writing in my Journal altogether.
About the middle of the First Month a Wind came up from the South. It blew for days without ceasing and though I tried hard not to complain about it, I found it something of a trial. It blew stinging Snow into the Halls. It blew on me at night in my bed in the Third Northern Hall. It howled in the Vestibules, catching up handfuls of loose snow and making them into little ghosts.
Not everything about the Wind was bad. Sometimes it blew through the little voids and crevices of the Statues and caused them to sing and whistle in surprising ways; I had never known the Statues to have voices before and it made me laugh for sheer delight.
One day I rose early and went to the Forty-Third Vestibule. The Halls that I passed through were grey and dim, with just a suggestion of Light in the Windows – the idea of Light, more than Light itself.
My intention was to gather seaweed, both for food and fuel. Normally I must wait until Spring, Summer and Autumn to dry seaweed. Winter is too cold and wet. But it had occurred to me that if I could hang the seaweed up (perhaps across a Doorway) then the Wind would dry it quickly. The only difficulty would be in securing the seaweed so that it did not blow away. I had thought of three different ways to do this and was eager to try all of them to see which would prove the most efficient.
As I crossed the Eleventh Western Hall, the Wind knocked me from one Paving Stone to another as if I were a chess piece on a board. (I made some highly original moves!)
I descended the Staircase in the Forty-Third Vestibule and entered the Lower Hall, the one that lies directly beneath the Thirty-Seventh South-Western Hall. One effect of the Wind was that the High Tides were much higher and more violent than usual; the Low Tides were conversely lower. It was Low Tide just then and the Sea had drawn back so far that the Hall was entirely empty of Water (which hardly ever happens). It was strewn with remnants of the Tide: seaweed, which streamed in the Wind like little banners, and pebbles, starfish and shells, which rattled across the Stone Pavement as the Wind chased them.
It was early, a handful of moments after Dawn. I could see the pale golden Sky reflected in some of the Windows in the Courtyard. Ahead of me the grey, restless Waters were framed in the Doorway that led to the next Hall. The wildness of the Water contrasted with the severity of the lines of the Doorway.
I bent down and began to gather the cold, wet seaweed. Even this simple task was made more difficult by the Wind, since so much of my energy had to be expended on staying in the same place. The Wind also caught the strands of seaweed; they lashed my hands and made them cold and sore.
After a while I straightened Myself to ease my back. Once again, I raised my eyes to the Doorway that led to the next Hall.
I saw a vision! In the dim Air above the grey Waves hung a white, shining cross. Its whiteness was a blazing whiteness; it far outshone the Wall of Statues behind it. It was beautiful but I did not understand it. The next moment brought enlightenment of a sort: it was not a cross at all but something vast and white, which glided rapidly towards me on the Wind.
What could it be? It must be a bird, but if I could see it at such a great distance, then it must be a bird of much greater size than the birds I was accustomed to. It swept on, coming directly towards me. I spread my arms in answer to its spread wings, as if I was going to embrace it. I spoke out loud. Welcome! Welcome! Welcome! was what I think I meant to say, but the Wind took my breath from me and all I could manage was: ‘Come! Come! Come!’
The bird sailed across the heaving Waves, never once beating its wings. With great skill and ease it tipped itself slightly sideways to pass through the Doorway that separated us. Its wingspan surpassed even the width of the Door. I knew what it was! An albatross!
Still it continued, straight towards me, and the strangest thought came to me: perhaps the albatross and I were destined to merge and the two of us would become another order of being entirely: an Angel! This thought both excited and frightened me, but still I remained, arms outstretched, mirroring the albatross’s flight. (I thought how surprised the Other would be when I flew into the Second South-Western Hall on my Angel Wings, bringing him messages of Peace and Joy!) My heart beat rapidly.
The moment that he reached me – the moment that I thought we would collide like Planets and become one! – I gave out a sort of gasping cry – Aahhhh! In the same instant, I felt some sort of pent-up tension go out of me, a tension I did not know I had until that moment. Vast, white wings passed over me. I felt and smelt the Air those wings brought with them, the sharp, salty, wild tang of Faraway Tides and Winds that had roamed vast distances, through Halls I would never see.
At the last moment the albatross swung over my left shoulder. I fell to the Pavement. He flapped his wings in a frantic, panicked sort of way, stuck out his wiry pink legs and tumbled out of the Air into a sort of heap on the Pavement. In the Air he was a miraculous being – a Heavenly Being – but on the Stones of the Pavement he was mortal and subject to the same embarrassments and clumsiness as other mortals.
We picked ourselves up. Now that he was on the dry Pavement he seemed bigger than ever: his head reached almost to my breastbone.
‘I am very glad to see you,’ I said. ‘Welcome. I am the Inhabitant of these Halls. One of the Inhabitants. There is another, but he is not fond of birds and so you will probably not see him.’
The albatross spread his wings wide and stretched out his throat towards the Ceiling. He made a sort of clacking, whirring sound in his throat, which I took to be his way of greeting me. The backs of his wings were dark, almost black, with a white shape like a star on each one.
I returned to my work of gathering seaweed. The albatross walked about the Hall. His greyish-pinkish feet made loud slapping sounds on the Pavement. From time to time he came and looked at what I was doing as if it interested him.
The next day I returned. The albatross had come up the Staircase and was examining the Forty-Third Vestibule. But more than that: imagine my joy when I found that the Vestibule now sheltered two albatrosses! His wife had joined him! (Or perhaps the original albatross was female and this was her husband. I did not have enough information to be certain on this point.) The new albatross had a different patterning on the back of her (or possibly his) wings: a patterning of white flecks, like a silver rain falling. The two albatrosses spread their wings; they danced around each other; they pointed their beaks at the Ceiling and made a joyful shrieking, screeching sound; they tapped their long pink beaks together to express their happiness.
A few days later I visited them again. This time they seemed quieter and there was an air of despondency and discouragement in the Vestibule. The albatross that I thought of as male (the one with stars on his wings) had fetched up a quantity of seaweed from the Lower Hall. He picked up lumps of it in his beak and made a heap of them. A few minutes later he became dissatisfied with this arrangement and collected the lumps of seaweed again and tried them in a different spot. He performed this action perhaps a dozen times.
‘I think I see your problem,’ I said. ‘You have come here to build a nest. But you cannot find the materials you need. There is only cold, wet seaweed and you need something drier to make a cosy nest for your egg. Do not worry. I will help you. I have a supply of dry seaweed. Speaking as a non-avian, I feel sure that this would be a highly suitable building material. I will go and fetch it immediately.’