More of a Crash than a Landing

Stella and Jo (whose full name was Jocasta, but didn’t feel compelled to point it out every time someone presumed it was Josephine or Joanne) had been going on holiday together for – oh, it must be eight years now.  Ever since when they both came to lecture at the same university where they had “hit it off” more or less at once. They didn’t take every holiday together. Sometimes they went solo, sometimes they went with other people, but at least once a year they set off on one of what Jo called their “Joint Jaunts”. Theoretically they took it in turns to choose, but Stella was generally quite happy to yield to Jo’s suggestions as they worked out well and were varied without being outlandish. Mind you, it was sometimes hard to say where quirky ended and outlandish began.  Stella had had grave doubts about the cookery course as she regarded cookery as something that involved a kettle and a microwave. She hadn’t necessarily changed her mind about that, but it had been fun.

     When Stella proposed an autumn break in the Black Forest she’d had no misgivings at all. Nor did she develop any when they arrived. The Gasthaus Kupfersee was delightful, a model of Gemuetlichkeit without overdoing it, and mercifully without stag’s antlers in the dining area. There were pine forests and clearings and walks that made you feel you’d deserved your coffee and cake when you reached the little cafes that were often dotted at seemingly random, though probably carefully chosen intervals, without being too exhausted to enjoy them. They once asked their friendly and knowledgeable host, Herr Lukas, about the Copper Lake in the name of the Gasthaus and he was laudably frank. “I think there IS some kind of local legend, I remember my Grandmother telling me about it when I was a lad, but I fancy it’s more because of someone waxing lyrical about a sunset in one of our little lakes. Though there certainly have been mineral deposits in this area.”

     It was, of course, Jo, who proposed the helicopter trip, soaring over the forest and seeing it from “on high”. Stella was by no means sure. In fact she felt no especial wish to see it from on high, thinking that seeing it on the ground was absolutely fine. Still, she told herself, Jo had been very accommodating about them visiting the open air museum and she had to admit herself it would have been just as enjoyable had it been half the size. Naturally they weren’t joined at the hip, but when they were on one of their holidays, they did tend to do things together. So she agreed. And she had to admit that at 50 Euros, it was incredibly good value. That was how it transpired that the two of them were on a nearby farmer’s field (he was related to the pilot and had given permission!) when the helicopter landed, and their pilot introduced himself as Rudi. 

     Stella didn’t enjoy the sense of vertical take-off at all, but once it was over with and they were soaring over the tops of the pine trees, she relaxed and began to enjoy it, recognising a little church here, a forest glade there, that was familiar, and delighted by the sight of some deer, mercifully with their antlers well attached. 

     The spell of not worrying and thinking it would be absolutely fine when the helicopter began making a strange noise was very brief. Rudi, who had struck them as mild-mannered, said something very (if understandably) rude in German and struggled valiantly to bring the helicopter down safely. He succeeded. He managed to land it in a clearing and it was best not to think about what might have happened if he hadn’t and they’d crashed into the trees. It was a crash landing, of course, but on balance, still more landing than crash. Stella and Jo (and presumably Rudi, too, though he was very stoic) supposed they had mild whiplash and their muscles would certainly ache the next day, and were decidedly shaken, but they had still got off lightly. “But we cannot even think of trying to take off again in the helicopter,” Rudi said. “It is too badly damaged, though I hope not beyond repair, and anyway, the fault that caused the crash is still there. I’ll get us help.”

     They were all working on the assumption that this would be an easy matter. But his mobile phone wasn’t getting a signal at all. Nor were theirs. “This is an annoyance,” he said, with reassuring understatement. “But perhaps not so surprising. I will take a little walk and try to find somewhere with a better signal. You rest here a while and I will be back soon.”

     “He’s a good person to have around in a crisis,” said Jo. Stella had two thoughts, that if only Jo hadn’t been so insistent about this helicopter trip they wouldn’t be in a crisis, and that it wasn’t really a crisis at all – was it? It had been a nasty (and briefly, though it hadn’t seemed briefly at the time) very scary experience, and now it was a nuisance, but it would certainly be something to tell people about when they got home. 

     They looked in vain for the tree-stumps that always seem to exist in stories for people to sit on, and settled for sitting on the forest floor, leaning on the backs of trees, which wasn’t comfortable at all, and would probably make their aching muscles worse. Jo was being tediously upbeat about it. She was the one who said it made her think about those Argentine rugby players in the film Lost. Stella rather testily pointed out that it wasn’t the same at all, they weren’t in the Andes, they were in a popular holiday area and help would be there within an hour at most. Still, she thought, if Jo carries on like that, the idea of a bit of roasted Jo might not be wholly unappealing. All the same, she didn’t disagree when Jo said that it couldn’t do any harm to stretch their legs just a bit, staying within the clearing, of course, and within sight of the ill-fated helicopter. She wasn’t surprised, though she was certainly relieved, when she realised somebody was approaching them. At first she thought it would be Rudi, and then painted a pleasant mental image of a local man or woman, walking their perky dachshund through the forest. There would be something very reassuring about seeing a dachshund. 

     Not a dachshund was there in sight. Her absurd thought was that she had seen a robot coming towards them, but it – he – whatever – didn’t move like a robot. And despite the metallic sheen, didn’t look like a robot. It was the wrong kind of metal. Robots were always (unless they were disguised as something else) silver in colour. She didn’t really know why, or if it was just force of habit on behalf of their creators. This – well, whatever it was – was a shade of russet gold. That’s what they’d have called it in a car showroom. But there was no point to denying it. The simple and most accurate description of the colour was copper. 

     “It must be some kind of tableau or open air theatre!” Jo exclaimed. But Stella knew her well enough to know she didn’t think that at all.

     At least he (she had decided, on balance, it was a he) didn’t seem hostile. Not even when he said, in a voice that seemed deep and quiet at the same time, “You have landed in our territory.” It was a statement rather than an accusation. “And now I suppose you do not believe me. So let me show you. Stand back, and you will come to no harm.”

     They did as he said. He clapped his hands in a sound that sounded like cymbals and yet nothing like them at all, and within a second, the clearing, and the forest floor, and the wild flowers, had all disappeared, and they looked on a lake of shining, shimmering copper. “The crash has affected me more than I thought,” muttered Jo. “So it’s true after all,” muttered Jo. She was rewarded with an approving, if rather frustrated glance. “Of course it is. You people,” (and Stella knew that by “You People” he definitely didn’t just mean herself and Jo) “are not nearly so wise as your ancestors. You think yourselves so clever, but you are not. A name is there for a reason! You like to give your houses names. Would you call one Sea View if it were not by the sea? Or The Elms if there were not an Elm Tree in sight?” Stella could think of people who would, but she took his point. Suddenly daring, she asked, “Did you make the helicopter crash?”

     “Indeed I did not! What reason would we have for doing such a thing? It is only an inconvenience to us! But if you must stray with your machines into places that folk have known for centuries are dangerous and strange – at least, strange to you! – then you must expect such things to happen!”

     “It’s scarcely our fault,” Jo pointed out, though she had no particular wish to drop Rudi into it, either literally or figuratively. 

     “Even our most foolhardy youngsters know that to pass blame to another is a sign of weakness and stupidity. However, I concede that there is a modicum of truth in what you say.” For the first time Stella realised that he was speaking neither English nor German, and yet somehow he was intelligible to them, and they evidently were to him. She had always amiably teased her younger brother about his fixation on The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy but now wondered if the Babelfish were such a bizarre notion after all. It was hard to imagine any fish in that lake, though. She tried to remember long-gone school chemistry lessons, and wasn’t entirely sure if copper were toxic or not, but was still pretty sure that a lake of liquid copper wouldn’t be conducive to marine life. 

     “Fortunately for you we saw you coming,” the copper man went on, “And managed to cast the canopy over the lake in the nick of time. It has gone well for you. We have not always succeeded.”

     It was probably best not to think about the implications of that. “Throw one of those stones into the lake,” he said. They dared not disobey, and anyway, had a horrible curiosity. Jo picked up a stone that was almost a rock, but not quite, and tossed it into the lake. It plummeted and sent up bubbles, as any stone thrown into a lake would, but then they heard the noise turn to a sucking and slurping sound, and instinct told them that when they could no longer hear it, it was not because it had stopped, but because it was too far away. Stella, who thought of herself as well and truly lapsed, involuntarily crossed herself. “But surely – your – er, people, can’t live down there!” Jo exclaimed. “Unless you have some powers like – well, like those flamingos I saw on a wildlife documentary that can survive in sulphur lakes …..”

     “We certainly have powers that I doubt you could begin to understand unless you opened your minds far more than you have done now. But no, we don’t live in the lake. If you only knew how to see, we are all around you, and especially in the colours of autumn. But you need the eyes and the wisdom to see us, and I don’t expect miracles. I have chosen to make myself visible.”

     “I – suppose we should thank you,” Stella said, rather shakily. “For saving us.” He made a “brushing aside” gesture, and the air pulsated with the copper colours of autumn.

     “What has happened to this world of yours when you think that saving lives, even saving the lives of the foolish, is something exceptional and deserving of especial praise?” For perhaps the first time they realised exactly what the phrase “more in sorrow than in anger” meant. He went on, “You think that all of us, all of the other peoples, are malign and to be feared. That, or to be made into entertainment for children and names to attract the tourists.” He sighed. “Your lives have become so complex that you hanker to make everything simple. But now things are as they are, perhaps it is best to be left alone. I hear help coming for you. Farewell.”

     Another cymbal clash that was not a cymbal clash, and once more the clearing was a clearing, and Rudi was coming back to them, accompanied by another man, one wearing the uniform of the mountain rescue service, but not carrying any ropes or crampons or the like. He introduced himself as Karl-Heinz Weber, and said, “If you are up to it, we can walk to the nearest village. It’s only a couple of kilometres, and I would prefer not to risk landing anything here again, given how it played havoc with the helicopter. It would be difficult to get a vehicle here, too.” Jo and Stella exchanged a glance, and nodded. Despite, or maybe even because of, their aching muscles, a walk was no bad idea. The villagers couldn’t have been kinder, plied them with coffee and brandy, and offered a lift back to the Gasthaus, which was accepted. Rudi said he would stay a while longer, to report on the incident to the local police and forestry commission.

     Of course they had to tell Herr Lukas about the crash – it would be in the local papers anyway. “What an upsetting experience!” he exclaimed, “Still, Gottseidank, you have come back to us safely.”

     For a split second Stella thought about telling him at least some of the truth, though she didn’t know if he’d believe it. As she was about to talk, her tongue suddenly took on a metallic tang and taste, and her throat was dry. She did not try to speak, but doubted if she could. Once back in her room, not liking to think about what she might see, she poked out her tongue and looked in the mirror. It had a coppery sheen! Oh my Lord, she thought, for all his noble words he’s put a curse on me for even thinking of such a thing. But even as she looked the copper sheen faded and her tongue returned to its normal colour, and she could speak again with no trouble. 

     But she still told Jo about it, knowing that perhaps she was the only person she could tell, and for once, Jo was not at all flippant or cynical or breezy. They agreed that they could take a hint!