Page 68 of Atlas: The Story of Pa Salt

I pulled up a chair, and placed a pillow behind my head. At least the next few hours would give me an opportunity to come up with a plan to escape Kreeg, if indeed it was him. I sat vigilantly watching the empty street below. Time passed, and there was no sign of the figure that I was sure had been following me. Or... was I so sure? Perhaps my mind had been playing tricks. I had been under a great deal of stress lately, and it was possible my imagination was running away with me.

The room, by virtue of being at the top of the lodgings, was warm, and the hiss and click of the iron radiators was soothing. I felt my eyes becoming heavy. In an attempt to revive myself, I opened the bedroom window a crack, and the cold night air rushed in. My plan worked for a brief period, but eventually my body conceded to the inevitability of slumber.

I woke up choking. My eyes opened, but I couldn’t see anything in front of me. Instinctively I stood up and blindly took several steps forwards. My foot made contact with a table leg, and I was sent tumbling to the floor. Despite the pain of the fall, my vision was instantly clearer. As I rolled onto my back, I realised with horror that my room was filled with black, acrid smoke.

Panic surged through me. I scrambled to my feet, but took a lungful of the smoke and began to choke again. I dropped back to the floor, my heart thumping. I crawled along the floor, using the corners of the room to guide me to the bedroom door. When I reached it, to my horror, I realised that the smoke was pouring in from the corridor. Clearly I would have a battle on my hands to get downstairs. But what choice did I have? Grabbing the door’s handle, I pulled myself up, holding my breath as I did so. My hand searched for the bolt lock, and when I found it, it was scorching to the touch. I gritted my teeth and ripped the bolt with as much force as I could muster, and to my relief, it came free.

I positioned myself behind the door to shield myself and wrenched it open. Large orange flames flicked into the room like the giant tongue of an angry serpent. With a sinking heart, I realised that escape was an impossibility.

I closed the door again. It was only a matter of time before the fire incinerated it, and I wondered whether I would be a victim of the flames or the smoke. I slumped back down to the floor, and placed myself on my belly.

‘I’m sorry,’ I cried, although I wasn’t entirely sure who I was speaking to. Perhaps Elle, for leaving her alone in Leipzig in the face of enormous danger. Perhaps my father, whom I had failed to find, despite promising myself that I would.Perhaps to the Landowskis, Evelyn, Monsieur Ivan, and all those who had believed in me when I had nothing. Maybe even to Kreeg Eszu, for the simple misunderstanding that had led to so much suffering and heartbreak.

He was making me pay for it now.

I had crossed continents, surviving cold and starvation. Despite everything, I had found someone who had made my life worth living... and this was how it was all going to end. Unceremoniously, in a plume of smoke.

I turned onto my back, and closed my eyes. When I was a young boy, my father used to use a relaxation technique invented by the theatre practitioner, Konstantin Stanislavski, to send me to sleep. I recalled his voice:The muscle controller is in your little toe at the moment. He has to start at the smallest point in the body, you see... and he switches it off. Then he travels to the next toe, and the next... and now he is in the sole of your foot. Gosh, how tense it is there, carrying the weight of your body all day long. But it is not a problem for the muscle controller. He switches it off as easily as turning out a light. Now he moves up to your ankle...

My father, imaginary or not in that moment, talked me to sleep. More likely, it was the smoke I had inhaled. As for what happened next, my assumption is that I dreamt it.

I saw the stars above me.

I remember being happy that they were here for me at the end. The constellation of the Seven Sisters glistened and twinkled before my eyes – my guiding lights, my constants. Then, the stars began to rearrange themselves into seven female faces that I did not recognise. Each seemed to radiate so much warmth and love. In that moment, I felt peaceful... I was ready.

Then, I heard a voice.

‘Not now, Atlas. There is more to do.’

The seven faces disappeared from view, and the stars once more rearranged themselves into a single figure. She had long hair, and a flowing dress which seemed to spread out behind her into eternity. Then the stars themselves faded, and the figure was revealed to me in technicolour. Her dress was a rich red, and she was adorned in garlands of white and blue flowers. Her hair – a shimmering blonde mane – was arranged elegantly around her heart-shaped face. Her huge, blue opalescent eyes appeared to glimmer and sparkle, and I found myself transfixed. She spoke to me again.

‘The boy with the world on his shoulders. You must carry it for a little longer. Others depend on you.’ I noted a European accent, though she spoke to me in my own mother tongue.

‘What do you mean?’ I replied breathlessly. ‘Who are you?’

‘Your destiny is not yet fulfilled. You need not pass through this door yet.’

‘What door? What are you talking about?’

The woman smiled. ‘You are looking at me through a window, Atlas. I find that they are much preferable to doors, for one may see the path ahead before leaving.’

I understood her message. ‘The window... But I’m three storeys up, I will never survive the fall!’

‘You will not survive in here either. Take a leap of faith.’

The woman began to disappear from view, consumed by the black smoke that billowed and pulsated above me.

Now fully awake, I rolled over onto my stomach and crawled towards the window. As I made my way across the floor, my hand brushed a long, thin item. I looked down to see my cello bow. I grabbed it. I could just make out the light behind the window through the smoke, which was being drawn out through the open crack. That was what was encouraging the smoke to flow so forcefully.

Using the curtain, I managed to stand, and heaved up theheavy window sash. There was brief respite from the blanket of smoke that surrounded me, before it enveloped me once more, more furiously than ever. I looked down at the ground, where I could just make out Frau Schneider along with the others who had escaped the blaze. They spotted me at the window.

‘He’s alive! My God!’ Frau Schneider wailed. ‘Wait there, young man! The fire service has been contacted, we will save you!’

There was a terrifying bang from behind me. I turned around to see that the door, and along with it the frame, had given way to the flames. My decision to open the window so widely had served to anger the blaze, and the scorching orange flames encroached into the room like an octopus entering a cave. The fire was hungry. It wanted me. Now, there really was no choice. The last thing I grabbed from the room was my diary, which I could just make out on the desk nearby. Then I climbed out onto the windowsill.

‘Don’t you dare! You stay there!’ Frau Schneider screamed up at me.

I estimated the drop was more than fifty feet. I placed my bow, and the diary, in the waistband of my trousers. Then, tentatively, I grabbed the sill and slowly lowered myself down, so that my legs dangled from the window. Each inch that I could reduce my fall by was crucial. I mentally prepared myself for what was to come.