by Paul Park
Prince Abu laughed and clapped his hands. Their host, the antinomial musician, had risen to his feet, had stood up straight to his enormous height. Thanakar looked at him in good light for the first time. He had heavy lips and a hard jaw, a cruel face, but the unusual thing was the way it mixed black with white: black hair with a peculiar streak of white along the part; a livid scar running down from outside of one eye along his dark cheek; black eyes, with a milky circle at their center like a cataract.
Unlike the girl’s, his face was full of motion—nervous now, unsure, and perhaps a little angry. The doctor thought that such a struggling mixture did not suit his features. It was as if he were spoiling with thought a face intended to express feelings only—simple pleasure, simple pain. The man reached down for his guitar. It looked too fragile for his massive hands.
“It is enough,” he said. “More than enough. I didn’t want to fall asleep.”
“Please don’t apologize,” said Doctor Thanakar politely. “It was only a few minutes. We were quite comfortable.”
The antinomial looked puzzled. He ran his finger along a steel string, making a little noise. “You don’t understand,” he said. “No apology was intended. I mean that you have stayed here long enough. Too long.”
He would have claimed, thought Thanakar, that there was music in his words. But as usual, it was irritating and presumptuous. Thanakar tried to rise, but the prince had grabbed him by the sleeve. “No offense, Cousin,” he cried in his high, gentle voice. He was still drunk. He stammered something, closed his eyes and partly opened them in a way that was habitual with him, showing only the whites, his lashes trembling as if with the effort of speech. “No . . . No offense taken. He is right. It is late.”
Thanakar shook himself loose and rose painfully to his feet. But already he felt a little foolish. His anger had come quickly and was just as quickly overwhelmed. At his full height, the top of his head was on a level with the antinomial’s armpit. “My cousin is Prince Abu Starbridge,” he said sulkily. “You cannot understand the honor we do you just to come here.”
“No doubt,” replied the antinomial. “But this I do understand. I played my flute, and gave you drink, and told you the story closest to my heart, and it was not for my own happiness, my lords.”
The cats walked back and forth. “I’m not sure what you mean,” stammered the prince.
There was a silence. And then the girl spoke from where she sat, smiling and looking at the cats. “He is asking to be paid,” she said. “It’s a form of begging. Surely it’s a tune you know.”
Thanakar frowned. They had paid already, a price already agreed on, and they had been generous. They had brought down baskets of food, real vegetables and valuable fruits, and loaves of bread, and chocolate, enough for several men for several days. They had carried them with their own hands. He turned angrily away, for the price had been agreed, but from the floor Prince Abu blinked and stammered. “Oh,” he said, “of course. How stupid. I forgot. I brought him a gift. He told me what to bring. It slipped my mind, I’m sorry. Let me see . . .” He fumbled with his overcoat and drew from an inside pocket a bulky package wrapped in linen. “It’s not quite what you wanted.” He undid the strings to reveal a wooden case. Inside lay a pair of silver dueling pistols in a nest of velvet.
“I know you were expecting something more practical,” continued the prince apologetically. “But I don’t have much access to firearms.”
The antinomial made a little noise on his guitar. “Single shot?” he asked.
“Yes, I’m sorry.”
“Ammunition?”
“N-no.”
“Are they . . . valuable?”
“I suppose so. Fairly.”
The antinomial put down his guitar and knelt beside the prince. Reaching for the box, he ran his finger down the long, intricate barrel, the carved stock. “It doesn’t matter,” he said grudgingly. “Perhaps I can exchange them. But next time I want something I can use.”
“Abu, are you crazy?” exclaimed Doctor Thanakar. “You promised this man guns?”
“Yes, and what of it? What’s it to you? I don’t see why not. He could have bought a cannon for all the wine I’ve drunk. You are all extremely rude. I’ve got such a headache.”
Impatient, Thanakar turned back to the antinomial. “What do you mean by this?” he demanded. “What do you mean to do?” But the question was a useless one. The man raised his head and gave him a long stare, and then gave it sudden cruelty by squinting slightly, although the light hadn’t changed. The girl behind them was still humming, playing with the cats.
“For God’s sake, don’t bite him,” warned the prince. “That’s all we need. He needs them to defend himself. You are always telling me how badly they are persecuted.” And to the antinomial he said, “My cousin was at the battle that you spoke of. When he was very young.”
The man squinted as before. “It was no battle,” he said after a pause. “I was not there,” he continued grimly. “I ran away over the snow.”
Embarrassed, the doctor turned his head. Some antinomials had gathered near to listen, and a boy was standing in the shadow of a metal pillar, one of a long row that ran down the center of the warehouse. He was wrapped in a leather cloak, and he held a kitten to his chest. As he stood, the other cats came to him, to rub against his legs. “You were at Rangriver?” he asked Thanakar in a rich, low voice.
“No,” explained the doctor hastily. “I was just a child. I came later, with my father. My father wanted me to see . . . the . . .” He felt acutely nervous, aware of people gathering around him, huge men and women, with cruel empty faces. The boy was not like them. When he spoke, it was as if he were alone with the doctor in the immense hall, and there was nothing to fear. He spoke softly, and the hand that caressed the kitten seemed to soothe the air.
“That’s interesting,” he said. “Is that where you received your wound?” He nodded towards the doctor’s crippled leg.
Thanakar scanned his face for traces of laughter; there were none. “No,” he replied. “I fell when I was small. I was dropped.”
“But still, you were there.”
“Yes.” He had been there, limping shamefaced at his father’s side, standing in the snow. At night they had camped back with the baggage, but in the afternoon, after the fighting, his father had taken him down to see the executions. The soldiers were in a brutal frame of mind, for many had been killed in the fighting. Though starved and defenseless, the antinomials were inhumanly strong, and though unorganized, they had fought with bitter, happy courage, shouting and singing. But by afternoon it was over. Only a few hours, really. The red sun had glowered from the horizon all day, but still the time had seemed intolerably long, and he had stood with his father as the soldiers built a gallows twenty feet high, and he had stood and watched as they had mutilated children his own age and younger, and cut the mark of absolution into their faces, and strung them up. Behind him on the dais, the priests had sat in scarlet robes, old, blind, obese, whispering to each other in their castrate voices. It had been very, very cold, the end of winter, the beginning of spring, and the sun had barely risen. It had snowed all day. They had hung a boy of his own age, and he had started to cry. His father had cuffed him on the ear and knocked him down, to remind him of his duties.
“Yes,” he repeated, “I was there. I am ashamed to say it.”
The boy eyed him curiously. “Don’t be ashamed,” he said. “I want to be there. Have been. That’s not right. What do you say?”
“I would have liked to have been there.”
“I would like . . .” He laughed again. “I was born here in this room. I have no memories of freedom.” He sighed and raised the kitten to his ear. “Enough,” he said. “My brother wants you to go, though he is too polite to say.”
Prince Abu pulled Thanakar by the trouser cuff, and reflexively the doctor reached down to hoist him to his feet. The prince got up. “Can you come with us?” he asked.
The boy laughed. “Dressed like this? The bishop’s purge would shoot me in the street. No, I am going to bed. We are nocturnal, mostly, nowadays. But you will see me again. You will come to watch me dance.”
“When?” asked Abu.
“I’m not sure. Paradise is rising. When?”
“In fifteen days.”
“In fifteen days, then. On the first night of the festival, at midnight. I am dancing here, on the docks. Pier . . . I don’t know. Follow the crowds. It’s a sight not to be missed.”
“We will certainly come,” promised the prince, but the boy was already walking away, the cats following. Abu called after him. “I’ll bring you gifts. What gifts will I bring?”
The boy stopped and turned. “Just yourselves,” he said. “I am not like my brother. I have an audience of my own people. I am not a slave to hate. Not yet. Just come yourselves.”
“No. I want to bring something.”
The boy laughed and walked on, down along the row of pillars, among the mattresses, leaving them standing on the carpet, leaving his brother squatting, and fingering the silver pistols, and squinting after him, white circles in the middle of his black eyes. The girl had disappeared.
* * *
Huddled in their overcoats under the spring sun, the doctor and the prince picked through miserable streets. The antinomials had made their homes in a row of abandoned warehouses by the river, left over from the days before the war, when the city had been a busy port. The one where they had spent the night was built out over the mud on a wooden dock; walking back among the rows of silent antinomials, half a dozen times they paused on the lips of ragged holes in the flooring, the dirty water a few feet away. At the entrance they passed over a barricade of metal beams, barbed wire, concrete blocks, piles of broken plaster, broken glass. There the prince wanted to rest and talk, but Thanakar signaled silence. The streets here were crowded, and he was afraid someone might recognize the accents of their caste. So, in silence, they stepped past heaps of garbage and up through filthy alleyways. It was a useless precaution, he realized. Their faces were well known. “Look, there goes the prince,” cried out a voice, a redhaired prostitute from an upper window. She waved, and Abu waved back. It didn’t matter. Few looked at them, or if they did, their faces were not hostile. Some smiled, not at him, but at the prince, and the prince smiled at everyone. And Thanakar realized that he had nothing to fear, that his friend protected them with an aura of foolishness big enough for both. Coming to this section of the city in search of drunkenness or vice, people had been robbed and even killed. It was the home of runaways, cannibals, flagellants, Dirty Folk, Brothers of Unrest, arsonists, perverts, addicts, adventists, atheists, and heretics of every kind. People had been murdered in bright day. But this morning, women smiled at them out of starving, gap-toothed faces, and men squatting on doorsteps took no notice. Boys were playing marbles in the gutter. One came running, and soon they were surrounded by a pack of dancing, tattered children. Abu stopped and produced from the voluminous pockets of his overcoat five stone coins and a single sourball, which he proffered with apologetic solemnity. Unsatisfied, the children stood in a circle, screaming, but they seemed harmless, and in a little while they ran away. Thanakar noticed that one was imitating his limp, and another was laughing.
“You have a lot of friends,” he remarked.
Abu shrugged. “I’ve come here many times. I told you these coats were stupid.” He flapped his arms. “I should have worn a mask.”
“Never mind. We’re almost to the car.”
“How far? Can we rest now? Please don’t punish me. I can’t walk as fast as you. I realize that you’re angry at me for telling them you were there at the last battle—you know—the antinomial crusade. Rangriver. I thought it was interesting.”
“That’s all right. They could have killed me, that’s all.”
“I don’t think so. I don’t know how to explain it. I feel safe there. I know they’re dangerous, but I can’t feel it.”
“It doesn’t matter. Let’s go.”
They were standing in the gutter of a narrow street, next to a barricade of sawhorses. “No wait,” protested the prince. “I’ve got such a headache. It’s your fault. You said you were going to help me with the wine. I had to drink it all myself.”
“Believe me, I would have liked to,” said Thanakar. “Anything to get me through that awful music. But I couldn’t stand the idea of her touching the cup. It seems stupid now.”
“Why? It was silver. I brought it from home the first time I went.”
“No. I don’t care about that so much.”
“What then? You told me yourself that the pollution laws are nonsense, an idea made up by priests to keep people apart.”
“Yes,” said Thanakar. “I know. But there is a difference between being medically sure and . . . absolutely sure. Besides, her hands were probably filthy.”
“Well anyway, did you enjoy yourself?” asked Abu. “I think it is my favorite place. I could listen to him talk forever. It’s such a beautiful way of talking.”
“I found it irritating.”
Prince Abu laughed. “You should have had something to drink. I can picture you trying to understand each word. What did you think about the boy? Wasn’t he incredible?”
“What boy?”
“The boy this morning. With the cats. I’d love to see him dance.”
“I didn’t like what he was wearing,” said Thanakar.
“What was he wearing?”
“You didn’t notice? It was skin. Leather.”
“I noticed what was on the bed. You could smell it.” Abu shivered. “It’s disgusting, the way they treat animals. He was dressed in leather?”
“Yes.”
“What kind?”
“I’m scarcely a judge.”
“It’s disgusting, the way they treat animals,” repeated Abu after a pause. Then he brightened. “But he was incredibly handsome. Not so big as the others. He was probably a half-caste. The pure-bloods don’t breed much anymore. It’s sad.”
They had started walking again, and had come out of the slums into neighborhoods that were simply poor, rows of wooden houses, put up for common laborers by the episcopal authorities. In an alleyway, they found the doctor’s motorcar. The driver woke when Thanakar rapped on the glass, and staggered out half-dressed to unlock the cramped luxury of the back seat. Inside, the prince unbuttoned his overcoat. And as the car wheeled clumsily out into the road, he picked the conversation up in the same place.
“He was incredible.”
“I didn’t notice.”
“How can you not have noticed? He was incredible.”
“So I understand. Describe him.” This was a game they played at lucklessly during their professional consultations.
“Yes, doctor. He was very, very . . . handsome.”
“That’s a judgment, not a description.”
“It’s both. Handsome people always look alike, just as good people always do the same things.”
“How philosophical.”
“Well, so what if it is?” complained the prince. “You’re like my brother-in-law. Just because I’m fit for nothing doesn’t mean I’m a fool. Necessarily. I try my best. It’s not easy, being a prince. You should be glad that fellow dropped you.”
Bored, the doctor stared out of the window. They had passed into a jam of vehicles leading up to the city gates: old men pulling handcarts of what looked like garbage, a huge wagon pulled by six young men in harness. Occasionally an episcopal truck, honking impatiently, in from the factories and food collectives far beyond the city. A few Starbridge motorcars, like his own. People lined the streets, dressed in yellow clothes, the urine-colored uniforms of poverty and work. When they saw the doctor’s motorcar, they stood still and made the obligatory gestures of respect. The doctor yawned unhappily.
“He had beautiful hair,” said Abu.
“What color?”
“Brown. But very thick.”
“What color eyes?”
“Blue.”
The doctor picked his beard. “You find that beautiful? It’s illegal. He should be in prison.”
“The law can’t touch him where he is.”
“Don’t be too sure.”
“But I am sure,” exclaimed Abu. “Things are changing. Two thousand days ago, the purge cleaned out that area every month. They can’t do it anymore.”
“It’s the manpower they lack, not the will. Who will stop them, when the army comes back? You’d better pray the war lasts forever.”
“I pray for our defeat.”
They had reached the gate. Outside, traffic halted at the checkpoint, and a guard came round among the vehicles, examining papers and consignments. He peered at them through the window with feigned suspicion, while they held up their tattooed palms. Beyond them, through the massive doors, waited the ancient city of Charn, capital of the diocese, holy city, with its seven thousand pagodas and its countless shrines lining the open gutters: shrines to Angkhdt the Preserver, Angkhdt the God of Children, Angkhdt the Charioteer, warlike Angkhdt with seven heads. Now, in the early morning, each shrine was surrounded by worshipers, bending low into the opening to smear the image with blue kaya gum, chewing it into a reverent and narcotic paste, dribbling it out into their palms, bending down to smear the idol, in most cases invisible under years of blobby worship. The squatting attendant beat a drum and struck a match, and the idol would burn for a short time while the devotee stood back, hands to his chest, reciting one of the forty-seven sacred lists of obligations.
The gatekeeper saluted. Behind him waited princely Charn, with its deep, wooden, crooked, narrow streets, and at every crossroads brass statues of Starbridges on horseback—judges, generals, priests—in this season speckled with the dung of countless small green birds. Desolate Charn, with no grass or vegetation anywhere, not a living tree or flower. Summer would see them come in desperate profusion, after the sugar rain. Then the growth would rot the wooden houses with their high galleries and steep snow roofs, and send them crashing to the ground.