Bramah and the Beggar Boy
Page 7
Gate, lock, door threshold, alleyway, street corner
Imagine, being, so entranced, she shook
to think of trouble, the way his smile came at her.
Inside the tavern where they met, carved words
over the lintel where the liquor sat:
On that day, a hundred years ago, the people.
The Work of Dr. Anderson as Recounted by the Village Spy
Outside that place, they lined up for hours.
All those children, what she doing with them?
Well, I won’t lie, them Guards did pay me some.
My little one come home talking chalice
I checked her arm though, and made her promise—
I overheard them mothers, best I could:
It be our children, now what she doing—
Got them all going on about soap so—
What? Look at these masks we’re sewing, all ripped—
Anyways, I said to this Guard of the Fifth Gate
him with those cold blue eyes, I know his type
What? Never you mind about my eldest!
When he asked me to point out the doctor
I laughed and told him to watch the colour
The colour of what? he said, voice real hard.
Oh, I says to him, strawberry-blonde locks.
Thought of that later when they shorn her skull.
Said the Village Spy to the Investigator after:
I warned Betty about those Guards of the Fifth.
You didn’t have to get her in with them.
Course I did what you asked, didn’t I, then?
Turned in that doctor to help out my girl.
Betty, the Daughter of the Village Spy
We followed that doctor in cafés, plazas,
Those trips by ferry boat,
small vessels not yet banned, to Island meetings.
We got letters, paper stored, sewn inside
coats, hemlines unravelling messages:
We’ll come back—in twenty-five-nine-two-oh
Draco in three thousand, Vega in twelve
We took away her chalice and she cried:
For God’s sake, don’t touch those glass slides, they’ll break—
At night we brought her water, crusts of bread.
Chained, that Gate, closing—we knew those portals.
We wanted to get a fair price for her.
We went up to the Investigator.
He really liked hurting people.
He told us to vacate at first light, even if acid:
He told us to sleep on stone, touch texture
He told us to scavenge for wood, and name each branch
He told us to speak quiet, not wanting to name the sixth material,
broken, restored, broken again, and found.
Betty’s Statement
In the box, Detention Centre C,
handwritten with curlicues on yellow lined paper.
OMG. His face.
OMG. His jawline, chiselled.
OMG. His hands so large, broad shoulders
narrow waist.
OMG. His height, well above the others—
OMG. The colour of his hair.
OMG. His slant eyes, the coldest blue.
OMG. His long brows, lashes.
OMG. All I did not see, then, and now—
OMG. The way I’ll never be
OMG. No matter how hard I try
OMG. His face—
Well, what more do you want from me, anyways?
You got my son. I got you those documents.
I told them guards who brought me here,
it were first time in that pub.
I tell you; I tell you, I did it for love.
Fuck you for laughing.
I don’t care what any of them say now.
I love it that he was a Guard of the Fifth.
He sat with his back against the window
and did not flinch when—
Well, yes, I went up to him, just like you said I was to
Well, yes, him with his back to the window,
OMG his hair, the angle of his jaw.
What? No. I didn’t. Okay. Well. Maybe a little.
He didn’t! Well later when I bent closer,
breath against his neck, fingers on his shoulder,
words warm and he did not draw away.
Wasn’t that what I was supposed to do?
We got her to you, didn’t we?
No one said anything to me about any chalice.
Anyways. He set it all up for us. Just like you said.
Documents Obtained By Guards of the Fifth
The Anderson Family, Paternal Side
There is an understanding between the estate
of Dr. A.E. Anderson, confiscated and—
Her father’s family hostile to the farm
Consortium Executive and proud.
The Anderson Family, Maternal Side
Her aunties never wishing to reveal
Said Aunty Agatha to the women
gathered outside Detention Centre C:
Her mother was my niece and told me true
Here, take my baby, never ask me whose—
Partial Record: The Whereabouts of Dr. A.E. Anderson
Outside,
where once leaves would fall
in the year of the reign 2055
beggar children shuttle
city to city
a kind of English.
From their small hands a clutch of messages.
Smiling they barter, they dash in and out.
Outside,
hot sun baking hills
in the year of the reign 2055
in drought, wind scouring a coast
helicopters overhead, rotors search:
Dr. A.E. Anderson, bent at the waist, in a dry gully
strawberry-blonde hair blowing, grit laden,
hands shaking, she pushes back strands to see
the Investigator, striding toward——
eyes shaded, his mask, black, stitched with red thread.
Dr. Anderson, Rendered to the Investigator
Locator: Pacifica, in the year of the reign 2055
On the Desk of the Investigator:
Authorization: Guards of the Fifth Gate
Number of Survivors: undetermined
Successful Rendering: 1
Q-Camp monitors: active
Name: Dr. A.E. Anderson
Dossier:
Video testimony: Betty, daughter of the Village Spy:
Anything, I said. For him, I’d do any—
Found by Guards of the Fifth Gate in an abandoned farmhouse:
One black leather notebook: cream-coloured paper, spidery handwriting:
Sixth dose extraction successful and I—
One scrawled note, inside seam, black wool coat:
Those Soap Makers Knew
This, outside the City gate:
Dr. Anderson Refuses to Answer
This set down, this:
I never intended disobedience,
avoided state television,
still Incoming came on in,
pressed itself and made known,
unavoidable.
At the end of a regime, in the year of the reign
in between spaces, forward, back,
about to, almost gone, not yet begun
in the shadow of, barely discerned
incomplete, faint, emanations
messages from rocks, stars, birds, trees
discarded tarot card stepped on, too fast a gait
not slow enough.
Borders, gates, security, entr
ance, visa.
Denial, locks, interrogation room.
Guns, inspection, the necessary passes.
Waiting, in line to stand, and stand again.
A set of questions, incomplete answers.
Exhaustion, not able to explain why.
In the fact of hostility, unknowing
those assumptions of, and conspiracy.
A glance, guards pointing, their masks, N-95.
Perimeter built, once was to ensure.
Then broken, reconstituted, walled off.
To be outpost—to be outsider, hated:
to be occupier—to be dominant, to rule:
to be unwanted and afraid.
To be present at the end of an era, epoch,
to continue into calamity, into twilight, heyday long gone
to line up past splendour, eyes downcast,
to become ghost, traces of—
Dr. A.E. Anderson, at Detention Centre C
As Video Recorded:
Dear—
This letter written inside this letter
last night I gazed at the photo you took—
on a tablecloth, red and white, fabric
outside the frame, a border of domestic.
Sweet kitchen tableaux: newspaper edge, folded,
my name revealed, face imprinted
brings pleasure, even though you told me
straight enough, you’d rather your own!
To bite the hand that feeds. I excel:
these terrifying imperfections.
They call me and at my age and—
No worries. I’ve ripped out the notes where—
and in time, will remove more.
What they want are names.
And I refuse.
Daughter of a Consortium Executive.
They hate that.
From a Transcript Assembled by the Guards of Detention Centre C
I, Dr. A.E. Anderson
daughter of the Farm,
born in the year 2020,
brought up by Women of the Wishing Well
neither confirm nor deny
mention of the child
known only as a beggar girl.
Her small hands held by another boy, indigent.
Well, there are so many street urchins now.
Inoculation efforts suspended.
No reasons offered by Consortium.
I did not want them
to see me writing,
the number of unused doses obtained
the number of beggar children obtained
the number of hidden vials obtained
In fact, infected. They lived in Tower Juniper. Although banned outright,
several women pleased with me
passed their words without books,
lips to mouth, eyes downcast.
And spoke of rain, burning.
Forbidden medicine, I have taken this habit of climate observation.
The Interrogation of Dr. A.E. Anderson
Investigator: Who are you working with?
Yes, it is true and I’m not sure how it happened.
So deep and three months in, based on nothing
Investigator: What brand of serum?
Really, and you, on the other hand, always ahead
Science is a series of questions, unanswered.
Investigator: We will conduct the necessary amputations.
Time, a perception, and changing—
I mean, the distance, between,
Investigator: Make a note to pay that guard extra.
and what I really want to know is—
You will see, these codes for what they are. Until
Investigator: And get me that woman, Betty. Useful.
Perimeter, walked, and dug, the earth.
Every star a sun, she said.
Dr. Anderson After Her First Beating
The Tale of the Silver Sandals
I will bury all my childhood memories at the Farm, where once I ran
happy and free–—or, rainy days, inside the aunties’ house:
a pair of heeled silver sandals,
mesh straps
It were behind the overstuffed chair, chintz-covered cabbage roses
In the stillness of afternoon
He’d come up with us from Perimeter, my red-headed boy,
We’d lie down behind the chair
and—
My flowered dress, his white fingers on my thigh
silver sandals kicked off—
They were far too big for my small feet.
The Tale of Barnston Island, as Then Was Called
Journey is a time for observation,
Aunty Agatha would intone.
She’d try and get us to wear our masks.
Then we’d all start giggling.
Pluck, Pluck, sang her nieces and nephews.
A great congregation in the kitchen.
Buttery roast, the butchering early:
platters of plenty: carrots, chivvied greens,
crisp, sweet, salty, succulent memories just
beyond reach, the more held, slipping over
that oak-beamed doorstep—threshold to the past:
inside abundance, outside, east winds blew—
troops conscripted from children: they coughed, too
tired to rise up, no one ever knew.
Dr. Anderson After Her Second Beating
All My Aunties
All my eggs in one basket
and my hen is named Mathilda.
It were Aunty Agatha’s farm,
where we all lived.
In the Before, with her other nieces and nephews.
And before Aunty Pandy, mind you—
Aunty Agatha’s recipe book.
Lined foolscap pasted into a black book:
Icing sugar melted
into bread
Recipe borrowed from a friend of a friend of Aunty Agatha.
Name unknown,
brown hands trembling, her children’s children taken,
into their bodies, injections
Consortium-approved,
all the long ago.
Those West Coast Trails
We hiked those trails, carrying our equipment.
Young women followed us, writing down notes.
Youth, yes, an itemization:
Sunglasses, gear, stance, voice, stories, blisters, long-limbed and smooth.
Yes, golden on the ferry to—and from—
On the threshold the east wind brought rain only twice
In many weeks, four months, count
Young women hiked kilometres per day
Eager to tell me, they gathered round
We were in a rhythm, they: young and glowing
Me with my strawberry-blonde hair, flowing—
Freshwater lakes they said
You should do it, they said, the stars.
Castaway Beggar Boys and Girls sang soft,
magical island of primrose and mist
bribe the Ferryman to give you his list.
Dr. Anderson Hallucinates
Said Aunty Agatha, You will fashion for yourself a new name.
I laughed then, never dreaming I’d be forced to—
She told me to crane my head toward the moon.
And so, it came, the terrible time
without ceremony
Little did I know, all my training, all my instruments
taken, bartered, sold.
Consortium told me I was no one to assume a title.
Consortium forbade me to heal the sick.
Dr. A.E. And
erson, Broken by a Brand
As Decreed by Consortium
—Order signed by the Investigator,
to gouge, iron tongs used by Guards of the Fifth Gate:
As procured, a statement by Dr. A.E. Anderson:
Singed skin, branded, the smell of my own flesh.
They needed beggar children, all their names.
Consortium decreed, those who would receive
Variant resistant, prototypes grown.
It were purely a business transaction,
or so they told me. And I disobeyed.
Dr. Anderson Learns of the Kept Women
Different hexes, jinxes, bad-luck scorning
Forget black cats and ladders, she said: run—
Torn clovers, that golden knot uncut, spilled salt
Melted Bucephalus, coins of the realm
Mirrors, satchels, that freckled peddler’s ring
Cow’s bells rung past midnight, rowan berries
Clay figurines, blood spatters, pinpricked tips