TCOTNK Season 4.5

A team is forming around Yeshe. Thalia has joined Es and her son Kay. And the strange collective is not yet complete. A fifth member gets behind the wheel in this week's episode.

New to TCOTNK? Reading along is free…. discover the slow joys of a weekly serial and enter The Castle Of The Naked Knights. A whole other world is waiting for you. Go to the INDEX for the introduction and links to all episodes

back to chapter 4.4 (last weeks episode)

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Chapter 7

A thunder rolled closer. The sound filled the empty avenue. Es looked in her mirror.

“There's a Harley coming, it's waking up the whole town with its thud."

They sat silently in the growing rumble, waiting for the motorcycle to pass by. However, it slowed down and stopped alongside.

Es rolled down her window.

“Jonnes? What are you doing here?”

He took off his helmet and looked over his shoulder.

“Well...,”

A chuckle and his mustache formed a wide smile as he peeked inside.

“…looking after the girls. You lot going on holiday?”

“Yes, and it's full."

“Calm down, don't want nothing from you. It's just… they're looking for a trailer like the one you have on the hook. I might have accidentally overheard when I happened to be eavesdropping.”

“There's just my underpants in there.”

“Yes… that's none of my business… just wanted to say that you can leave the trailer at my place. Just for now.”

Es looked at Yeshe. With her chin on her shoulder.

Yeshe leaned over Thalia.

"And where is that, that hiding place for the underpants?"

“Hey, Yeshe.”

He raised a shy hand, slightly intimidated by all the female attention.

“Hey, hey, Jonnes. Maybe we should hurry then. Is it nearby?”

“Yes, yes. I'll lead you there.”

“In parade style? Certainly, with that rattle-box of yours in front and a colourful fire engine behind it? Well, no, put your bike away and join us.”

Es and Thalia looked at her in shock.

He parked his motorcycle in a side street. Walking back, he hoisted his pants over his massive stomach. Which didn't work very well. He staggered, opened the driver's side door and climbed inside.

“Slide over Essie. Jonnes will be wheeling.'

He sang that last word in two loud notes. Whee ling. The women could do nothing but move over. He had to adjust the seat back several notches and looked mischievously to the side.

“One day my legs won't be long enough anymore.”

He turned there and drove away calmly in the opposite direction.

"Hah, now I can use up my own fuel in this gem."

He stroked the large steering wheel.

“I don't sit on a proper carriage that often anymore.”

"What, you're a truck driver, right?"

Yeshe was genuinely surprised.

“Yoah, for the coinage now and then. Not much work for an old horse like me.”

“Old? What are you forty?”

“Hah, I stopped counting at seventy and can't even remember when that was. But I feel twenty-five. Because of the music. Forever on tour.”

And to demonstrate, he sang.

“Oh can't you see, you belong to me.”

As he did so, his hands laid the beat on the steering wheel.

“My poor heart aches,”

His voice was loud and in tune, with a hoarse edge. It gave Yeshe a shiver. This was Chris's name song.

“with every step you take,”

He kept singing, driving through the city, traffic lights not yet in function, past mirrored store windows, meandering through an old neighbourhood where there were shops that Yeshe mentally noted. For some later day. And then she deleted them again; that day would never be. Jonnes kept a steady pace and carried the song beginning to end. Stretched his hairy face along with all the inaudible instruments and made the cabin vibrate with his stamping left foot. Kay crawled through the small hatch and climbed onto Thalia's lap. Thumb in mouth. Es looked surprised. Yeshe couldn't help but smile.

They were already well out of town when Jonnes finished improvising on the end rhyme. He had let the whole world pass by with his lines. Every pond and lake, every frog and snake, every star and drake, every o you fake, I'll be watching you. Kay clapped and cheered. And then the rest joined in.

“That's so deep, that song.” 

Then Jonnes was silent for a moment.

Es suddenly sat up wondering.

"How far is that place anyway?"

Jonnes pursed his lips and bobbed his wiggly head a few times.

“Half an hour, at most.”

Yeshe and Es exchanged a glance. Yeshe nodded almost imperceptibly. It all went in a completely different direction than she expected. Of course it did. That was a defining characteristic of listening in.

The drive took more than an hour. Dawn lay behind them when the fire truck turned into a long driveway. The initial excitement had subsided and all but Jonnes and Kay were yawning by then. The center of the track was a thick line of grain-like stalks. They stood tall and undisturbed in the sharp morning light until Daardaar pushed them over. It rustled under the bodywork. Up a low hill. An old wooden house with some barns huddled together. All painted the same shade of rusty red. Clearly related. They drove into the yard that lay snugly between the buildings. Jonnes turned to the grand wooden box. A small turret on top made it more than a barn.

“This is the studio, was the studio, I should actually say. When Georgie died, things fell apart.”

He blew out a long stream of air and stopped the truck next to the tall shed. Wood, painted rust red.

"It's not as far as it felt, but now I'm sure no one accidentally came after us."

They got out. It was very quiet there.

“Do you hear that?”

Jonnes held up a finger and listened to the void.

“Ooooh, that space is priceless.”

He pulled open the wall-high sliding door with a huge squeaking noise, revealing a dark glass facade in which the morning magenta reflected. He fiddled with a pair of keys to open a double door. Inside it was three stories high and as big as a gymnasium. It smelled dusty. The pale light only reached the front open part. Along the walls and throughout the rest of the room were towering shelves filled with books, up to the ceiling. Row after row. On a low stage in the center, a matte grey grand piano sat gathering dust. Next to it a massive couch forming the letter c. Behind that an open kitchen that could easily double as a cocktail bar.

Yeshe was drawn to the books.

Jonnes lit one of candled chandeliers and filled the space with his voice.

“All that waste paper is for the acoustics. Otherwise it would echo like a screeching cellar.”

Yeshe disagreed. Head tilted, scanning titles with a finger.

“This is a collector's treasure, not waste paper.”

“If there's anything to your liking, you can have it as far as I'm concerned. The entire kaboodle has been confiscated for years. I just still happen to have a key.”

"So, this is not where you live?"

“Nah! Not really. Much too far from human civilisation. I would go bonkers here on my own. Forever on tour, like I said. I do think part of my soul resides here…”

Behind them, Thalia played a few notes on the grand piano. It was seriously out of tune. Jonnes made a face as if in real pain.

Es walked round with Kay on her hip. The boy had his mouth wide open. In awe of a loudspeaker twice his size, suspended mid-air with thin cables. Then spurring Es towards the drumset hiding behind the kitchen.

Yeshe reluctantly returned from the book-canyon for a moment.

“Can we fetch a few hours of sleep here? Spend a bit of time catching our breath? Record a new album? And is that what we want?”

Nobody answered. Already too much under the spell of the place to disagree. 

---

Jonnes retreated into the main house to take a nap. Kay and Es tried to catch a few more hours if sleep in their own bed. Yeshe would share hers with Thalia, but half an hour later they were still on the roof of Daardaar. Both in their own world of thoughts. Intensely tired but unable to relax. An early summer morning with birds singing and white clouds silently floating through a liquid blue. The world majestic and whole. But Thalia was looking inward, and Yeshe attention hovered around Thalia.

“I can't go to sleep not knowing what's going on with Michael. He sounded so shattered on the phone. That was Cynth's phone he called from. I don't think he has anything on him now. He has nothing left, you know, not even a phone.”

Yeshe waited a few breaths before she replied.

“No, he left your phone in the racing car. And he forgot to lock your apartment door.”

Thalia laughed a little bitterly. Looked Yeshe in the eye for several seconds before she looked away.

“I asked for adventure. And within a day or so I'm a suspected terrorist, my home is being ransacked, my lover has vanished and I'm in hiding with a singing angel from the motorcycle club in some, some…bookchurch? Who are you anyway? Catherine, Yeshe? Why are you following Michael and me? What the hell do you mean when you say ‘I’m his guardian’?”

Yeshe sat down opposite her, composing her mind before she spoke. Her voice as soft and neutral as she could muster.

“Michael is turning invisible. He is very close to an important insight and that makes him vulnerable. I am his shield.”

“How? You don't even know where he is, do you?”

"Well no, but I have a hunch."

She paused for a moment to let the defensiveness dissolve.

“What if losing all his work, everything he owns and loves, doesn't drag him down, Thalia, but rather throws him forward? Frees him. Because letting go forces him to face what he already knows. Allowing him to really act on it? To actually receive we must be empty handed. The vessel emptied before it can be filled with something new.”

Thalia was looking at Yeshe seriously blank.

“But what do you mean by that? We had only just started working on it together.”

“Well, maybe his conclusion after the fire was that it was time to disappear. Not to sit and cry in your lap and be found almost instantly. Maybe he decided he didn't have time for a well-documented investigation with a beautiful young woman. The fire made clear he has to hurry. That he has to continue invisibly. Without endangering you either. Without you distracting him.”

The corners of Thalia's mouth turned down in insult.

“Yeah so?”

"Well, how does one get off the boat as a wanted man?"

“Um....”

“Without your own clothes...”

It took her a while to piece the information together.

Thalia's face lit up.

“Jesus, of course. He had also shaved. Turning Cynth's leg razor into a bio-hazard of tge first order according to my lovely friend. All I thought was, that kissing him would be less abrasive. Big Cynth does pretty much have his build. And she has plenty of clothes. Dresses, and stockings and fake eyelashes. Would he? You think? Wow.”

Yeshe smiled. Put a finger over her lips.

“and your coffee bomb helped him even more to get off the boat unnoticed. We are the perfect support team for his quest.”

Thalia immediately looked serious again.

“We? I don't understand your role in this. Shield you say? You sound like a knight from one of those books. How do you protect him then? And against what or who?”

Yeshe walked over to the backladder, lowered herself and beckoned Thalia to come with while whispering. 

“Well, by sending those men in black in the wrong direction. By catching you and arranging your transport and by...”

Yeshe gently tapped her flat palm on the trailer. Then loosened the back flap of the hood and held it open. Thalia poked her head in.

“Hey, are those my pink index cards? What is this? Do you...have you...that's his...and those clothes...this is...how......did you…you didn't!?”

Yeshe nodded and shushed in vain. Thalia's face exploded with surprise and relief and confusion. She completely forgot to whisper.

“You lit that damn camper?! And you first took out all his stuff so that they think that... so that me and Michael think...damn…  and it gives him a push in the right direction you think? So he wasn't supposed to find it in the books? Mmm, Michael also thought the answer, or the key, was already in his head or memory or somewhere in him, but that he couldn't reach it yet... gee, my brain is curling, and what else can we do but hobble along behind him, of course, take care of his things...”

Yeshe was nodding admiringly. She was impressed by the young woman who had now fallen silent and was looking very intensely inward for the last step. It wrinkled her face. Would she make it? Could she distill it out herself?

“...he has to do this alone and without any help from you, and you follow him as best you can because...”

She was so close. Thalia paced along the dark red wooden wall, holding herself with one hand as she occasionally squeezed her eyes shut to think better. The thought was in the process of being born.

She stopped and looked at the sky. Then turned to Yeshe.

“Michael has to discover it for himself because you can't show him at all. You follow him because he's the first. You don't know exactly what...or where...or...geez my head hurts.”

Further on, Jonnes came out. He walked towards them with bare feet over the painfully sharp stones.

“I hear you are still awake. Like me. It's too stuffy in that shack for me. I wanna be outside. You?”

His baggy T-shirt looked like a maternity dress. It had a snare drum on it. It said, beat on tight skin. Thalia snorted. Jonnes lifted his eyebrows, tapped his belly with his left and drew a circle above his head with right hand. 

“On the other side is a shaded garden with a fire pit. Shall we do a fire?'

The garden turned out to be overgrown with bamboo. With difficulty they made their way through the high shoots to the back of the studio only to discover that it was completely closed. Overtaken by green jungle grass.

“There was once a terrace here.”

Thalia turned toward Jonnes.

“Yes, back in the seventies.”

“Well, I've had many adventures here with naughty percussionists, haughty drummers and tautly technicians. Eager like a Swedish boarding school on summer-camp.'

“Yes, see, seventies for sure. Before dating apps swiped the field and replaced spontaneous combustion with speed-dating.”

Yeshe stood up for Jonnes as they exited the bamboo forest on the other side.

"Don't mind Thalia, she just has a soft spot for mature men."

Thalia giggled.

“Hmm mmm, especially the kind that frolic around in tight dresses.”

She blew him a kiss.

Jonnes frolicked a bit to illustrate.

They had taken the full tour around the studio. Now Es was up too, waiting for them. Hands on hips.

“I heard voices and rustling. Are we all awake? What shall we do? Have a meeting, park the trailer and move on, soundcheck the microphones, or does anyone care for some daytime nunch?”

Jonnes dribbled to the house, mumbling, “Nunch, nunch…. I will put on some pants."

Yeshe smiled.

“Yes, do that, without pants the record won't sell.”

"You tune the piano meanwhile?"

“Why? She’s beautiful as she is.”

Thalia pulled a face.

“Yeah, in the seventies she was.”

They settled in between the fire truck and the studio, built a fire pit with a few bricks, dragged couch cushions outside and fetched a load of rotten lumber from a rickety shed. Jonnes came back with a filled wooden crate.

"Left in the basement."

He held up a blank bottle without a label. A murky golden fluid.

"Could be beer."

Thalia was lighting the fire. Es sniffed the opened bottle held under her nose.

"Or nitroglycerin, sip carefully."

Thalia looked up and held out her hand. 

"I shan’t ask from which decade this is, huh?"

She pinched her nose taking in a hero dose, swallowed, held the bottle at arms length with her eyes squeezed tight, to await detonation. But her face lit up in surprise.

“Seventy-six, definitely a robust enjoyable seventy-six.”

For a while Es was busy in her onboard kitchen, and then stuck her head outside.

"Anyone object to garlic in their ultra late-night lunch?"

Fried rice in a bun and apple cider on the side. The drink was a bit sour but not half bad. Although it was better to leave the last third and open the next one. To wash away the emerging after taste with a fresh gulp.

Yeshe decided it was a good time to make her proposal.

“We hardly know each other, but something special is going on.”

She looked around the little circle. Everyone was listening. Her gaze rested on Jonnes for a moment. She was almost certain about him. Saw it in the complete lack of resistance in his eyes. In him being completely present. No agenda, no surprise, no misunderstanding. Just presence. She started her story.

“In the 1950s someone created a book containing a secret that may finally be revealed after a ling, long time. That book was printed but never published. Circumstances prevented that. To be precise; only nine copies were shipped before all the others were destroyed. The first of these is on its way to the source. Whoever finds the way to the source will get the key.”

She took a breath. She had gone through this in her mind a hundred times. Now it was time to say it out loud.

"You can only find the source if you follow the way."

It was difficult to control her voice.

“The way is dangerous, the way is lonely, the way is long, the way is restless. And there is a rush. We don't have very long. For several reasons.”

She did not elaborate on that now.

“The interests in keeping this form hidden are great. Very big. Sometimes consciously, but more often unconsciously resisted. But it was created and so it will be. A creation cannot be undone. What is done cannot be undone, what is, is forever.”

Yeshe felt herself move. Slip into the state. Felt her inner voice merge with the sound that came out of her mouth. The next thing she was going to say wasn't true, but it had to be said anyway.

“The wayfinder needs help. I'm on a mission to keep the resistance away from Michael. I set out to help the wayfinder find it. If Michael and the Wayfinder work together, the source will be found.”

She smiled at her own cautious words.

“Glad, that's all cleared up?”

Jonnes roared at his own words.

“My brain transformed to chopped meat with onions with those last lines, maybe the brew is kicking in.” 

He emptied the sludge from his bottle and tossed it over his shoulder. Then popped another in a single move. Showing years of practice.

Thalia looked thoughtful.

"So Michael isn't the wayfinder?"

She poked at the collapsed fire with a stick.

“…but he is looking for the source of the book… for the author, while in fact he has to look for the wayfinder. Have I got that right?”

Yeshe nodded.

"So you are tracking Michael to find the wayfinder through him."

Es exchanged a look with Jonnes.

"You've completely lost us, dear colleagues, for the rest of the century, and I’m not sure if we had too much or you two had too little of this moonshine kombucha."

But Thalia was on a roll.

“We have the book here. Right, Yeshe? And all of Michael's notes. So if we add it all up then maybe we can figure out where he wants to go, and that's what the other guys want too. They are also looking for the wayfinder. Or do they want to prevent the source from being found? Phew, I don't know. Doesn't matter too much either. I want to find Michael. And you do too. And with the four of us it can be even better. Shit, we gotta get to work.”

Yeshe was proud of Thalia. She got up.

“There's nothing wrong with at least making a start. Jonnes? Are you in? The trailer must be emptied. We're going to make a coherent record from all those scraps.”

Jonnes stood up groaning.

“Now there’s something I can handle. Carrying stuff from one place to the next. I know unloading a trailer.”

Es rolled out a cable and hung two bright builders lights. Yeshe improvised a large table. Thalia was getting more and more excited about all the artist's stuff. She admired the handmade costumes and all the sketch work. She leafed through the diaries, sighing and groaning in admiration. She was overwhelmed by the amount of images until she got her hands on the picture book itself. Then Thalia fell silent. Snuggled on the couch she was completely lost while the rest continued sorting. Slowly turning the large studio, the space around the circle couch, into a retrospective exhibition.

Yeshe kept an eye on Jonnes. He was quiet. Worked hard and gave his eyes a good look. He was unable to hide his hunger for the book. She walked towards him. He stood looking at the enlargements pinned to the high shelves. He looked at her. His eyes moist.

"I knew about it, of course."

He said it very softly. His voice was different now. His real voice?

“But to see it in real life is very different. We're really close, aren't we? The title… when I heard it the first time…”

His voice got stuck. He shook his head with a slow no. He cried.

“The castle of the naked knights? I understood immediately. That's us, isn't it? You and I are the knights of this castle.'

He was really very emotional. Big tears rolled down his cheeks. Yeshe wiped one away with her thumb.

“Welcome Jonnes, I'm happy to meet you. You are my guardian, aren't you?”

He nodded, his mouth twisted.

"Almost ten years, by now."

'What? You are kidding me. As long as I...

He nodded proudly.

'Not as intensively as the last few months of course...'

Yeshe saw that the large man, who was actually well above her, felt uncomfortable. Uncertain so close. She opened her arms. He understood immediately and almost squeezed her. It felt like she was coming home after a very long journey. Oh, how she missed the physical contact.

"And then I'm the one supposedly attracted to mature truck drivers?"

Thalia's voice wasn't cynical, rather endeared.

“Give them a dark corner and they will come, isn't that the saying? Or was it, hold it and he will….”

“Yes, hold it!”

It was Es, who suddenly got up from her seat at the table, scraping the legs of her chair. One hand in the air, the other holding a sheet of paper. She joined them.

“I have a confirmation here. An invitation to come volunteer at a festival called Orph. As artist in residence. The event is a few weeks from now. Two hundred kilometers to the north. In the name of Raidu. Is that a clue?”

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