She climbed down and cast around for a moment. Presently she came up with a blanket, pulling it out from where it had gotten caught on a cage for birds or an animal. She threw the foul-smelling item toward Pascale. “Need this.” Again she returned to floor and after more searching she came up with a denim dress, similarly filthy. “Need this.”
Then she was gone, leaving the oil lamp still lit on the table. Pascale placed the blanket on her bunk, dumped the dress on the floor at the bottom, and went back to the table. She picked up the lamp and shone it around the room, counting sixteen beds. She took a mental snapshot of the route back to the door, set the lamp back on the table and blew it out. She traced her route to the door, found the handle and went out.
She sat on the veranda wholly ignored by the other three. This then was it, the sudden catastrophic end to her existence in Heaven. After the events of the philosophers' banquet it had all played out very quickly. There had been no time for Jonas and her to think of a plan, to try to put things right. If they had known of a place to escape they would have, but they were entirely at the mercy of public opinion which had swung so fully against them. Or, against her.
Blair had visited the next day, speaking with Jonas alone. He informed her lover that there was no intention to penalize him for Pascale's behavior. His record was far too good and his services too valuable to be categorized as an anti-social. Everything in his relationship with Pascale could be put down to the unusual responsibility he’d been forced to take organizing the Initiation, and the bewitching power she had established over him. All that was necessary, therefore, was that he agree not to make any difficulty when they rendered Pascale to the care of Magus. Jonas was horrified and had pleaded with Blair this was unnecessary, that Pascale would definitely learn to adjust. But Blair was unmoved. No one could remember anyone leading such a militant assault on the very meaning of Heaven. He bluntly warned Jonas that if he continued to stand in the way then suspicion would fall on him too.
Jonas reported all this to Pascale and they came to the unavoidable conclusion that he had to fake compliance. The memory of Palmiro's imprisonment was still very recent, as was the way she had been able to rescue him against all odds. In the same way Jonas would find a way to set her free, or get a pardon. In the meantime the mood was so hostile they just had to submit. Thus it was that when Marius arrived the following day she surrendered without protest, while Jonas absented himself, watching the scene from the hillside. She had gotten on the horse and experienced her first horse-back ride, clinging to the neck of her mount for thirty excruciating miles. During the journey Marius had not exchanged more than two sentences with her, explaining that from now on she would live at the Ranch where she would be free within the canyons but could never return to the city.
Inside herself she braced against the fear, the pain and the total strangeness of everything, preparing to face whatever she must just as Palmiro had done. Now, sitting on the wall of the veranda, she suddenly became conscious of the fierce ache of her limbs and the horrible wrenching sensation in her throat. She was desperately thirsty. She got up and went over to the man and woman on the bench, asking where she could get some water. Neither replied. She turned to the young woman in the rocking chair, her voice cracking with dryness.
“Excuse me, I do not know your name, but could you please tell me where I can get a drink of water?”
The woman looked at her. “New here? Don't worry about water!” She laughed shrilly at her own crass joke.
She was an Immortal who had obviously been selected as little more than a teenager, having the unmistakable quality of youth in her face and body. However, she was much plumper than the usual goddess, and she had her knees up under her chin and was rocking herself back and forth on the chair.
“Please, I'm begging you, I just recently came to Heaven from the North, and now I've been sent here. I'm dying for a drink of water.”
The girl looked at her, then stopped her rocking. She got up and went to the porch entrance, pointing back in the direction of Magus' cabin. Across from it, on the far wall, still in blinding sunlight, it was possible to make out a water-trough with a line and faucet above it. “There!” she said.
Pascale went up to her and hugged her, smiling. “Thank you, thank you! What's your name?”
The girl did not respond, standing immobile without expression, but then as Pascale ran down the steps and out toward the faucet she suddenly shouted after her.
“Name's Zena.”
Pascale stopped, turned around and shouted back hoarsely. “Hello, Zena. I'm Pascale, and we're going to be friends!”
When she got to the faucet and turned it on a rope of hot brackish water fell into the trough. She waited for a few moments then cupped her hands and drank greedily. As she did she felt there were eyes on her back and she turned around. There was no one there, but she could see Magus' cabin sunk in the shadows behind her. She turned off the faucet and walked away, heading along the first canyon that ran in a north-westerly direction. The shadow here was almost up to the far wall and dusk already shrouded the buildings. The first one was long and low and had two or three stove pipes coming through its roof. To the side of the near end there was a big chicken coop encased in very heavy wire netting. At the far end, joined to it, was a foursquare structure which seemed to be the largest of all the Ranch buildings. She took it as the cantina, with the long building before it probably the kitchen and store. There were glimmering lights in the cracks between the shutters in both buildings and she thought an evening meal was probably being made ready.
Next in line she passed a cattle stockade, but there were no animals in it. Last of all, there was an adobe cabin that looked a lot like the cabin for women back around the corner. Her eyes were now getting used to the evening shadow and she could make out two men seated on the veranda. She walked over and went through the archway onto the porch. The men were dressed in the same regulation denim shirts and pants, and again they had no interest at all in meeting her. One of them was dark skinned, a very strong-looking man with a thick wooly beard which he fingered incessantly with one hand while tapping himself on the forearm with the other. The other man had crippled legs dangling uselessly beneath him and a hopeless empty glance.
Pascale was about to introduce herself when there was a loud halloo from farther up the canyon. She looked out and saw a rider emerging in the wedge of shadow. It was a woman leading a string of about twenty scrawny cattle returning from the day's pasture in the branch canyons. At the rear were two men, also on horseback. She watched as the line of animals passed her, coming to a halt at the stockade to the right. The woman leaned down and opened its gate and the cattle filed in quietly. The woman swung herself out of the saddle, and so did one of the men. The second man took the horses and trotted off with them. At once a triangle bell sounded from the big square cabin—as if it had been waiting for this moment—and the dismounted riders made their way directly toward it. The dark-skinned man got to his feet and scooped the crippled man up in his arms, like an armful of laundry. He marched off with him to the mess hall, the man's withered feet flopping under him.
A line formed at the entrance to the cantina, including the threesome from the women's cabin. Pascale followed along and found herself behind Zena, who went through the spring-hinged door but did not hold it open. Pascale caught it as it snapped back and kept it open until the person after her put out a hand. As she turned into the room she was greeted by the same odor of ageless squalor she had smelled before, but this time overlaid with a stench of decomposing food. There were flies everywhere, on the tables, in the air. Her stomach turned and she gagged uncontrollably. Zena saw her and smirked.
Pascale covered her mouth instinctively and struggled to calm her gut. Continuing to breathe through hand and mouth she saw there were already half-a-dozen people in the room seated at the tables, leaning on their elbows, or fast asleep, their torsos flat out on the table tops. It was clear that the cantina double
d as a lounging place for people who were not working: they simply waited there from one meal to the next. Many were enormously overweight, and it seemed obvious they hardly ever moved except to eat whatever was placed in front of them.
Pascale did as the others did, seating herself at one of the tables, while still fighting the impulse to retch. After a moment a door in the back of the room was flung open and three people came in carrying pots and a dish. They set them down on a table at the end and then one of them, an obese but energetic man, banged a ladle against one of the pots and shouted, “Eeeaatt!”
Most of the people got up from the tables and shuffled over to the serving counter. Pascale followed them, breathing hard through her teeth. The group picked up dishes and the servers ladled out corn soup and beef carnita as they swatted away the flies. One or two carried servings for others to the tables, including the dark-skinned man for the man with crippled legs. Pascale took up a tortilla and had a little of the meat and corn scooped onto it, then she went back to sit down, close to Zena. No one was speaking, except for an occasional grunt or incoherent remark. Pascale folded the tortilla over and tried to take a bite, but immediately she did she knew she was going to throw up. She stood up abruptly with both hands on her mouth, staggered to the door and crashed it open. She fell against the railing outside the door, vomiting over its edge.
No one followed her. After she had finished purging the little she had in her stomach, the silence of the canyon was complete. She straightened and looked around. A beaten strip of gold lined the top of the canyon wall opposite and there was the strangest feeling, one of total peace. She felt a little unsteady but she made her way in the near darkness over to the angle of the canyons and found the water line and trough. She turned the faucet on full and the water was cooler than before. She rinsed her mouth, splashed her face and drank a little until her throat felt normal. Then she traced her path back to the women's cabin. She came to the veranda wall and, pushing herself up on it, sat there in the silence.
The canyon now was in full darkness and looking above her she could see the glittering ranks of stars marching across the eastern cliff. They hung there, more intense and vital than she'd ever seen. She thought at once about her friendship with the stars and how that night back in the Northern Homeland they all seemed to abandon her. Now they were back again, more alive than ever, even though it was just a narrow crack in the sky where they were visible. How could that happen? Why should they feel so different? Maybe it was the canopy at the fateful philosophers' banquet, and the way Jonas had explained the ancient figures and how they shaped human lives. Maybe that had changed things, so now the stars were alive and good again, shaping her life for her. And yet here in this canyon she was among people for whom all shape and meaning were gone, and her world was locked in with theirs. How could the stars seem good in this place and, more to the point, how would she ever survive in it? She was relying on Jonas to rescue her, but was that possible? Or would she be stuck here forever, with the flies and the stench and the men and women without souls?
She remembered how she had prayed to God that night on the frozen tundra, that she had made some kind of a deal. Had God held up God's side? Well, yes, you'd have to say so. She had not lost her mind and she and Palmiro had been able to discover the whole truth about their world, and had actually come here to Heaven and got to enjoy the boundless pleasures of immortal life. So, definitely, yes, in a certain way you'd have to say everything had worked out.
On the other hand, she was now here, down in this canyon with people who were dead, though their bodies were breathing. Was this what being helped by God meant? Suddenly something made her shiver. Perhaps it was the thought of the Northern Homeland, or death, or perhaps just the canyon which was rapidly losing all its daytime warmth. She got down and went into the cabin, pausing at the door to orient herself. Somehow the stench did not hit her quite as badly. She found her way to the table in the middle, stepping carefully across the floor. Feeling around she found the gas lighter and after a moment split a flame. She lit the oil lamp and identified which was her bunk. She went over, retrieved her blanket, wrapping it around her shoulders despite its bitter smell. Then she went out and sat back up on the wall. She needed to think things through.
But she couldn't think. All she could do was look up at the stars. In the dry air they seemed somehow to counter the smell of the blanket, their glow giving off a scent, like incense. She found herself trying to discover a pattern but there was just a vast meandering river flowing above her. She was floating with them, lost in their glittering stream. Abruptly Zena was next to her, handing her something.
“Here. Missed juice.” She held out a metal mug. Pascale was startled but she put out her hand and took the offered drink. Zena had already turned and was heading into the cabin before she could reply.
“Hey, thanks, Zena. What are you doing tomorrow?”
Zena paused and looked around. She replied in her standard monotone “Tomorrow never comes.” There was the slightest catch before she did, a barely detectable break in the awful sameness of reaction that seemed to characterize all those doomed to the canyons. Pascale put down the drink and jumped down. She ran up to Zena, flinging her arms around her. Zena did not resist, but neither did she return the hug. She just stood there while Pascale pressed her close. After a moment Pascale let go but continued to hold one of her hands.
“You know, we could go for a walk in the morning. You could show me around.”
“Nothing to see, but walk if you want.”
“Yes, I do, I do want.” And Pascale hugged her again. Once again Zena did not respond, but this time when Pascale let her go her body seemed involuntarily to rock back toward Pascale. Then she caught herself and turned away, opening the cabin door and disappearing inside.
Pascale retrieved the cup and walked out to the middle of the canyon where she could see the stars best. She drank the guava juice and felt she was tasting the same fragrance as the stars. She lay down on the ground wrapping the blanket close around her, gazing upward into space and its infinite canopy. As she looked she tried to remember some of the shapes she'd seen at the philosophers' banquet; perhaps she would pick out a couple from all the points of light. A fish, a bull, a crab? She could see nothing, but then in a moment right above her among the stars was the figure of a man stretched at an angle along the sky, his waist, his legs, even perhaps his face.
Yes, there was no doubt: how was it Jonas had not mentioned the man? She fixed her eyes on the figure and the more she looked the more she thought how wonderful he was. She felt she could hold onto him and love him there in the canyon. She reached her hands up and held his shoulders, his waist, and she brought him down to her. A feeling of enormous joy and love pulsed through her, a love that had no bounds nor end. She lay there united with the stars, with the shape of a man who had been there for all of time waiting for her. Or, at least, that is how it seemed, for time was all rolled up in a moment and the great universe of things bent down toward her and gave itself to her soul. In the form of a loving being, a being of love, it gave itself.
She lay there in absolute peace and silence. She did not know for how long. Eventually the ground grew cold and penetrated through her blanket, bringing her back to herself. And yet she lay there longer, filled with confidence and incredible strength. She did not need to fear Magus or the canyon, or any of the deadness in it. She had found a way, a friend and a feeling which could truly make heaven happen. Not the fake Heaven of the colonies and their festivals which were unable to prevent the sadness of Zena or the misery of the man with the crippled feet, and rather in fact caused their suffering. Instead, a real heaven filled with life, or, more exactly, an earth like that… She stopped. She did not need to think any more. She knew what it was she had to do.
8. STAR STUDENT
Palmiro adjusted the scanning electron microscope to a finer resolution, zooming in as close as he could on the strange structure in his view finder. He wa
s looking at a tube with rounded ends like a pod. There was an inner membrane which was folded over and back, like a maze, and there was a nucleus at its core. It was something called a mitochondria and the material inside its inner membrane was a kind of factory in which essential reactions took place in the production of cell energy. Adorno had set him to study these reactions in painstaking detail, scanning all the way down to the molecular structure of the chemicals. One by one, stage by stage, he was to document them until he understood everything implicitly.
On the way home from the philosophers' banquet he had been in a state of shock. Pascale's stupid words and Adorno's attack on immortality had produced a scene of chaos, something that up to then seemed impossible in Heaven. The moment Marius opened his mouth Palmiro knew Pascale was in trouble, that she had awoken something powerful and dangerous. At the same time he could not understand what his mentor, Adorno, was doing. He had shown utter contempt for Sarobindo, in a way that was sure to upset everybody, but his argument did not seem to go anywhere. All it had done was stir everything up until there was bound to be a reaction and it was easy to see that it would not focus on him, but on Pascale. He wondered if the inventor of immortality had for some reason done it deliberately.
“I know what you're thinking.” The scientist finally broke the silence after they'd traveled for almost ten minutes. “You're thinking I just made things very bad, possibly for yourself, but definitely for your fellow conspirator, the passionate Pascale. Well, don't be too quick to think that way, my friend. You still have a great deal to learn, and you will most certainly continue your studies with me. No one is going to interfere. And I wouldn't worry at all about your erstwhile companion. She has friends of her own. If anyone should appreciate her ability to find a way you should. Just concentrate on your studies, and remember the real loser here is Sarobindo.”
Pascale's Wager: Homelands of Heaven Page 30