by Ely, Jo;
The clamour of the feast table rises.
Small puffs of raspberry coloured smoke is regularly emitted from the flower table decorations, colouring the OneFolks’ faces a deeper and deeper pink, one cheek at a time.
The general’s wife, a little drunk and over-pollinated, seated closest of all to the grotesque table flowers, sways uneasily to her feet and gets a little off-message, “The edge farms …” She begins. “The edge farmers have become paralysed by fear since their rains were taken.” She slurs the last three words, so that they run into one and seem to lilt up at the end like the rain dance drumbeat. Long pause as if she’s listening then to the low rumble of drones and the silent feasters listen with her. Now she raises her huge violet eyes toward the chandelier above the feast table. It gently shudders.
Now the general’s wife teeters a little on her stilt heels. Dips suddenly to one side. She falls off one stilt and it clatters on to the tiles and slides out from underneath the feast table. The man beside the general’s wife catches her, only just, supporting her by her left elbow. Now he gently entreats her to sit down, which she does, a little bemused and rubbing at her left ankle. Someone fetches her fallen left stilt.
Gaddys sniffs. She pats her coiled hair.
“The general’s wife was once the most famous beauty in Bavarnica,” Mamma Zeina tells Zorry now. She seems to Zorry to be describing someone other than the feeble looking woman in front of them. “She was strong.” Mamma Zeina says, inclining her head slightly toward Zorry, “And you must understand that I am only talking about physical strength now, Zorry. Which must not be mistaken for real strength, for resilience Zorry. She had athleticism. Swagger.” Mamma Zeina sniffs dismissively. “It’s a surface element, not the real thing … The Sinta who remain finally know better what true strength is. What real resistance is.” Turning gently toward Zorry. “Strength is endurance. We bend first and break last. Above all, we go on Zorry.” Searching gaze. “We talk. We share what we know. What we’ve learned. Do you understand me?”
Zorry turns away. “Tell me more about her.” Flicks her eyes discreetly toward the general’s wife.
“Some Sinta claim to have witnessed the general’s wife hurdle a five bar gate, fall to the other side of it, laughing and flushed. But she barely broke a sweat doing it. That was in the last era of course. Before the Diggers’ revolution and the general’s Reckoning which came after it. There were high hopes in the early days of Bavarnica. Hope was the spirit of the times then, and joyful. Not the thing it has become for us now. It was a time when all manner of things seemed possible.” She stops talking for a moment. “The wind of that early hope has changed direction. Leaves gather, rise gently before the storm, Zorry. And we are the coming storm.” Zorry feels a shiver.
Gentle rain is spitting through the vents in the windows. Warm air. Mamma Zeina turns toward Zorry, “The general’s wife … She had these wide, amazing dark violet eyes. Don’t you see? It’s a mixture of all Bavarnica’s colours, Zorry.”
She opens her own eyes wide as though to demonstrate. “A luminous complexion. Which looked like she could be any tribe, all or none, and changed depending on who was looking at her and on the quality of the light. A great … Public speaker. Although of course all in mime.” Mamma Zeina thinks for a moment. Eyes swivel left and up, she seems to be seeing the past open up in her mind’s eye.
“She had long hair which she kept curled and dark rust coloured, hennaed like a Sinta some weeks.” She sighs. “Most Sinta no longer believe she was ever one of us,” Mamma Zeina blinks and stares wide eyed at Zorry. As if she’s looking for an answer in the girl’s face. Her voice becomes hard. “A true Sinta woman never caves, the way the general’s wife has. A true Sinta woman would never give up, the way she has … Take the pollen.” She sighs.
“At other times she wore bright knotted head scarves like the edge farm women and once even a helmet-like hat, which the Sinta called her Egg Boy hat. We thought, by these small changes in costume, she was still doing her mime act. Doing it from the heart of government. In our naïveté we believed …” Sighs again, heavily.
“You believed the general’s wife was for you all. All the tribes.” Zorry peers at Mamma Zeina. Takes and folds a napkin neatly. Adds it to the pile. Mamma Zeina is gazing softly at her, “Zorry …”
She can’t finish. In a moment Zorry seems to see this. “What happened?”
Mamma Zeina seems to need to steel herself just to answer the girl’s question. Holds on to the serving counter with both hands. Zorry notices her knuckles softly darken. “And then the Sinta mountain excavations on The Reach were ended, all the Sinta’s … Improving projects. Our dreams. The Sinta were rounded up.” She coughs, takes a moment to clear her throat. “The Diggers rose up when they realised what was happening, being an ancient warrior tribe, but the Diggers led with courage not planning, and then … The tanks came, Zorry. It happened fast.” Mamma Zeina stops talking for a long time. “They were the best of us. In the aftermath, while we licked our wounds and tried to gather, Zorry, the killing forests were replanted, changed.”
“So the revolution failed and the tribes were divided then.”
“That’s when she changed.” They both look back at the general’s wife, head drooping over her empty plate. Flower girls fill up her plate but she won’t eat. “She sickened with the times.”
And then Mamma Zeina turning sadly toward Zorry, “We had high hopes of her, like I said Zorry.” Breathes out heavily. “But that was a long time ago. Another time. We were all of us different then.” Mamma Zeina examines a small nail in the wall.
“You think she tricked you?”
“Maybe.” She appears to think about this. “No, I don’t think so. One thing is certain … she was used, Zorry. The general …” She sighs. “Oh, I just stopped knowing at a certain point, Child. Your questions are undoing me.”
Zorry appears to ignore this. “So if she’s not a Sinta and not a OneFolk then what tribe is she?”
“No one knows, Zorry. There were rumours among us at one time that the general’s wife wasn’t from Bavarnica at all, but dropped like a bomb or a food parcel from clean out of the sky. That was thirty years ago. More.”
“You think she’s a foreign agent? You think she was a foreign weapon of some kind?”
“Maybe.”
Mamma Zeina looks over toward the general’s wife, notes her curled head drooping over her plate. Her bleak opaque gaze. “Maybe she was something like that once,” she says. “Who knows what she is now. What or who.” Turns sharply toward Zorry. “It don’t do to underestimate the general. Any living thing can be turned, like I said. Any. Living. Thing.” She looks up. Stares into the space just over Zorry’s head. “But that’s a thing that can work both ways, Zorry.” Mamma Zeina eases herself up with a grim expression. Once on her feet she mops her forehead. And then leaves Zorry to her own thoughts.
Beauty has not quite done with the general’s wife yet, but she seems to Zorry to have done with it. There’s a carelessness about her dress, dark circles from un-sleep in rings under her eyes. Her teeth have been browned by flower pollen. As if she senses she’s being examined the general’s wife looks up, one brief shrewd gaze at Zorry, causing Zorry to catch her breath and hold it. Ghost of a smile and then the general’s wife lets her head fall over her empty plate again. Zorry breathes out.
“We must send out our flowers,” Gaddys repeats. In a warning tone. And then a cool steady eye on the general’s wife, who flinches lightly, trembles. Wilts a little more under her gaze. The room of feasters raise their glasses, tinkle, clink, to cover the sound of the sirens outside. The general’s wife rises, wobbling, to her feet. A small gasp at this clear breach of feast protocol. It isn’t the general’s wife’s turn to speak.
And then it happens …
The general’s wife’s glass tumbles out of her left hand, rolls and hits the wall. Splits neatly in two large parts, like a new hatched egg.
There is a lo
ng, strange moment. Silence.
Gaddys and the general’s wife are locked gaze to slow, knowing gaze.
Neither stands down.
Later in the kitchen, Mamma Zeina and Zorry stand at the serving hatch, preparing the second course.
“I don’t get it,” Zorry says. “Why won’t Gaddys let the OneFolks’ talk to each other?”
“Fear.” Mamma Zeina says, and a feeling in her stomach like intestines tighten and then unravel. She can’t speak for one long moment on account of the pain. And then rubbing at her upper stomach. “She won’t put the general’s wife’s old allies together.”
“What?” Zorry is confused.
“She’s separated the old friends of the general’s wife.” She rubs her nose and continues, “Friendship is deemed radical in the OneFolks’ village. Power blocks can appear amongst the OneFolk overnight, the general and Gaddys know better than to allow that.” Wincing again.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, Child.”
“The two at the end on the right …” Zorry says. Opening her eyes wide.
“What about them?”
“They’re protecting each other. It’s subtle but … Watch them Mamma Zeina.”
“I will, Zorry. Well observed Child. And Gaddys hasn’t seen it?”
Zorry shakes her head. “Not as far as I can tell.”
“Good. What else have we got?”
“Purple wig and the one with the silver studded collar, they hold their breaths when the flowers puffed pollen just now. Old man with the green embroidered corset only pretended to pass out with the pollen fumes. But he’s been turning his head away from it and his cheeks ain’t pinked much. Seems like trouble amongst the OneFolk, Mamma Zeina. And it’d explain why Gaddys has been acting paranoid lately. Why she’s been getting … worse.” Zorry looks thoughtful. “This could help us?” Rolls and puts away a napkin.
“Yes it could, Zorry. Good work.”
“And the other thing …”
“There’s another thing?” Mamma Zeina says, rubbing at her stomach, eyeing Zorry.
“Gaddys’ Beloved Flowers. I mean to say … The women. The flower girls.”
“Aye, Zorry. Continue.”
“Employing pretty young OneFolk women as assistants to the feast?”
Mamma Zeina raises her eyebrows. “Yes?”
Zorry speaks slowly, thoughtfully, “Can’t be much fun. I mean … for them. Might they …?”
“The flowers won’t help us, Zorry. That’s been tried. They are in Gaddys’ employ, Child. They won’t give up their treats. At least … Not yet.”
Through the serving hatch Zorry eyes one of Gaddys’ most Beloved Flowers sway gracefully over, plop herself down in a OneFolk farmer’s lap, the petals around her face unfurling. Soft roll back of the leaves arranged in her hair. Gaddys smiles approvingly and then the younger woman turns her sweet head gently toward the old farmer … Breaks into a smile of such deliciousness that the farmer is unnerved for a moment. And then quite in her palm.
Gaddys turns away, smirking.
Only Zorry catches the beloved flower girl’s grimace at a second beloved flower over the old man’s shoulder. The second girl’s petals droop discreetly by way of response.
“Holy baobab.” Zorry grins and ducks under the side serving table. “Sign language? Poor Gaddys is in more trouble than she knows.”
“I’m telling you … Gaddys’ flower girls won’t help us Zorry. They will be on the side that wins, when it’s over. When we are counting our dead and spitting out teeth. Then they’ll sashay over and tell us they were on our side all along.”
“Maybe …”
“Forget them. The last Sinta to hold your position found out Gaddys’ true weakness, Child.”
“And what is that?”
“It’s hard for the OneFolk tribe to be her enemy but in truth Gaddys has lately made it just as dangerous to be her friend.”
“And that’s a weakness?”
Zeina turns to her with surprise, “Of course it is Zorry! It means that Gaddys, unlike us, has no real alliances. No one who would die to get her out of a hole or for whom she herself would jump into one.” Turning to Zorry then to check her understanding. “That’s the Sinta advantage Zorry. We won’t desert folks. We don’t sacrifice each other. Its the only leg up that we have, Zorry. Friendship. We must never lose that.” She looks softly at Zorry. “Trust, Zorry. The Sinta can count on each other. We gather.”
Zorry eyes her.
“We gather.” She repeats. And then turning warmly toward her favourite. “Gaddys and the general can play every card there is but that one, Zorry. Remember it.” Zorry looks away.
Mamma is now clutching on to her stomach with both hands, panting a little. If Zorry turned toward Mamma Zeina now she’d see that the side of her neck ripples strangely. That she sweats.
Zorry blinks. She’s been awake more than forty-eight hours now. Most of it in a cold copse, under damp leaves, her body is starting to really protest. Her eyelids feel brittle and prized open only by a supreme effort of will. Zorry’s vision gently swims. She leans her head on the cold wall, feels herself tuning out, the room blurs. Mamma Zeina’s elbow, sharp, in her ribs. Blink and blink.
The OneFolks at the table seem to glitter, Zorry looks closer. Refocuses. Must be a Bavarnican mine’s worth of gems just in the dining hall alone.
“That boy last night. Tomax.” She thinks aloud. “Doesn’t he work the gem mines by day?”
“Aye Zorry. Yes, yes. But don’t make connections that do not exist. You’ve to look for the thread that binds it all together. The whole picture. Those gem mines? It’s all for this Zorry. For this competition at the feast table.”
“What do you mean?”
“The only chance the OneFolks’ get to show off the jewellery,” Mamma Zeina says, “is at the feasts of the flower fund of Bavarnica. And so must buy up the best pieces in the weeks beforehand. It’s a signifier of power. The competition in this room is important to the future alliances and bloodlines of the OneFolks, Zorry. The gemstones are money and Gaddys is in charge of its distribution. It’s as simple and as complicated as that.” Mamma Zeina strokes her small chin.
Zorry tears her eyes away from the pendant.
“It’s another crack in the system, Zorry. Don’t you see? The gem mines nearly done. And when it is … these folks’ whole world will be built on sand, Zorry. They won’t know what they are. What or who.”
“Yes.” Zorry lies. “Yes, I see what you mean.” She has no idea what this means but she doesn’t want to disappoint Zeina so early on in her work rota.
Mamma Zeina sighs, “Then you see more’n most Child. But what you don’t see is I’m in pain now. Enough talk. Help me, Girl. Help me to serve these damned platters.” She thrusts a large silver plate at Zorry’s chest. Zorry strains to catch and hold it. Looks down, shudders. “Holy baobab,” she mutters quietly to the food. “I am so sorry.” She takes a deep breath and gets on with her work.
Zorry deposits her platter as skilfully as she can and whips her hand away as an elderly OneFolk farmer snaps at her gummily, semi-humorously tries to bite her arm. Then grinning with his one tooth, chuckling at his own sour joke.
Zorry smiles and bows, discretely wipes the old man’s slobber off her skin, she walks away. There is a red indent from his one lower tooth left in her arm. She feels the throb of it only later.
Zorry returns to Mamma Zeina’s side. She thinks of something. “I heard some childur got pizened.” She says. “Last time they took flowers like these out to the edge farms.”
“Aye. They were so hungry that they nibbled the leaves of the flowers.”
“And the year before that the truck delivery man hit an old woman with his truck?”
“He drove too fast to get away from the hungry edge farms. Now hush, Zorry.” Mamma Zeina says, giving Zorry another plate to serve. “Your tune was off just now. You’ve been made.” Glares, wide frightened eyes. �
��No room for mistakes Zorry. Not here.”
Zorry looks up, follows Mamma Zeina’s eye and Gaddys’ Most Beloved flower girl on the end of the table is watching Zorry. She looks away quickly. The flower girl makes no sign to Gaddys. Who knows why she chooses to spare Zorry. Mamma zeina looks at her, shrugs. “She might want something later or maybe she’s even one of us. It’s hard to tell. Only Jengi knows how many we are, how far we reach out. How many Thought Seeds that he’s planted into the divided tribes. Mostly we don’t know about each other. It’s for our own safety, Zorry. And for theirs too. At least for now.”
“For now?”
“Aye. Zorry … Even out the notes in your voice. You need to work on your voice.”
Zorry clears her throat, “Sorry.”
Mamma Zeina looks shrewdly at Zorry. “And it will rain so hard that night that morning will come.” Mamma Zeina stops talking. Clutches her platter and makes her way slowly back toward the feast table.
Zorry saves the question which has been nagging her most until Mamma Zeina comes back, “Why are there Egg Men guarding entrances and exits every which way you look Mamma Zeina?”
“You mean him? That’s Antek’s father.”
Zorry looks in the direction Mamma Zeina just looked. The old Egg Man’s head appears to be too large for his body, and his skull is rounded strangely at the back, giving the appearance of a skull-helmet.
“No one knows if batch 46 of the Egg Boys, Antek’s father’s squadron, if those big heads contained bigger brains, or just heavy skulls in case of falling. I suspect the latter. They were made for the mountain.”