by Joy Dettman
‘So he picks her up, brings the old bitch down to the house. Hand-fed her for weeks, he did. Them of the old blood had a bond, girl. Stuck together. Always had a bond, Pa says. Reckons the searchers picked up a boy who must have brung her back. Come with him one day, they did, three of the little searcher bastards come across the flat lands, with them flying packs they got. Pa seen ’em coming and he buries the old bitch under a pile of rubble in the burned-out garage. Searchers hung around for two days, tied Pa up, hammered on him, but he didn’t give her up.
‘They left him for dead, arm broke, chest bones broke, the rest of him bleeding, but he got his self free then dug her out. She set his breaks and bound his bleeding, and he never thanked her and she never thanked him. Dogs found the boy, not much bigger than a searcher. Dead he was – dead in the yard. Pa wanted to leave the bastard to his dogs, but the old girl dug a hole for him in the graveyard. Marked a pole for him.’
Lenny is sitting on the edge of the loft, his feet swinging; I am watching him, listening to his every word, and not thinking now to kick him to the floor. I have heard the story of Granny’s flight from the city and of the flier, a knife at his throat. Perhaps he thought to have revenge but died instead.
‘Pa reckons it was a few weeks later that I come out of her, and the old bitch didn’t make a murmur though I took three days in coming. Flat-out on her back on the bed she stayed, panting through the hole they’d gived her for a mouth. Pa reckoned she was gunna die of it, but he got me out, and when he goes to hand me to her, she takes one look at me sex and throws me back at him. “You couldn’t even give me a female, you useless raping bastard,” she says to Pa.’
Minutes pass. I will not speak to him, ask for more of his-story, though I wish to hear more. I wait. Wait unmoving until he begins again.
‘Pa raised me. Spoon-fed me with cow’s milk and frekin mashed pumpkin. Left me with his old dog and her pups when he had to do what he had to do. Them dogs were near wild, but they was tame beside Lady frekin Morgan.’ He turns to me and I roll away, curl into a ball, my back to him. He kneels over me, and when he speaks again, his words hold a different tone.
‘I owe Pa my life, girl. I owe him all I got. That hard old bitch never once spoke my name. Treated me and Pa like we was heaps of sow shit she had to put her foot in, spoke to us like we was dogs until the day she died. If not for Pa she wouldn’ta had no house to come home to. If not for him we wouldn’ta had the stock we got today. From boyhood, he cut feed for ’em, carried water for ’em, grew his pumpkins for ’em. As far as I see it, girl, he took what he took from her, but he paid her back. She woulda died, and when you come wandering in here that night, you woulda died too, but for him, but for me.’
‘Better that we had died.’
‘Death ain’t pretty, girl.’
‘You kill. Is it pretty when you kill?’
‘I kill beasts so we live.’
‘You killed him . . . a male, and you threw him into the ravine.’ I accuse him now, my mouth wishing to hurt and so ease the hurt in my heart.
‘I never killed nobody – except a couple of sowmen, and they ain’t human. I buried what was left of the crazy bastard that came here wanting books. That’s all I done. I buried him in the woods and marked a frekin tree for him too. They killed him.’
‘And you sell me to them for supplies.’
‘I got no pride in what I done that night, girl, but true enough, I done it. Had to go along with those little bastards or me and Pa woulda been dead, and you took – like every other female ever lived here got took. Like every other male ever lived here got murdered. And you woulda been dead now of their frekin plague. I done what I had to do, girl. Pa was lying there, a hole burned through his leg and a frekin gun at his head. I had to give you up. They might take what they take from you, but you’re alive, you’re looked after here as good as I can look after you, and you got your freedom – as much as I got.’
‘As much freedom as rats in the cellar.’
‘Better rats in this cellar than diseased dogs in that frekin city. We got pure water. We got the stock. We got supplies. And we’re living, girl, and out there they’re dying. I seen it on the V cube. They’re breeding their frekin sowmen for their innards, trying to keep the old Chosen bastards alive with the innards of sowmen. They’re living off blacrap. Eating the shit, firing their machines with it, making their roads and food cans out of it. It’s all they got.’
Now I turn to him, my anger forgotten. ‘The grey men tell you these things?’
‘Seen ’em on the V cubes. Got me a new one. Little bastards come while you was gone. Only two of ’em and a big bastard with a gun. Told ’em we left you up at the pool, washing the fever out of you. Reckon they believed me. Reckon they don’t like the fever. Maybe the Stanley bastard is dead of it. Pa reckons all we got to do is out-wait ’em and outwit ’em, and their frekin Godsent blacrap and plagues will do the rest.’
The dawn is coming. There is grey light outside. He clears his throat, spits to the floor below as he turns off the battery light. Then he stands. Perhaps he is the son of Granny, and that is the reason why he looks to be a clone of Pa. Granny had no feature left to offer him.
He glances at me, then at the roof, the floor. He clears his throat and spits again. ‘You said you was breeding –’ The silence grows long, heavy. I hear my breathing and his own. I hear the black cat licking her young. He thinks to leave, but returns, clears his throat again, swallows what he has cleared. ‘You told Pa it come from what we done.’
‘Did the heifer not get with calf when the bull mounted her?’
‘It’s of this land, girl. It’s my young ’un, and Pa’s. And the old girl’s too, and it’s all of theirs that went before us. Are you hearing me?’
‘I think you must tell this to the grey men when they return. I am certain they will hear you.’
‘They won’t be taking it – or taking you. Some way, some frekin way, it’s gunna get birthed here, on Morgan land. And there’ll be more too, and they’ll get raised on Morgan land. It’s like Pa reckons when he tells me what you told him. He says, “It’s of the old blood. Now we got some frekin thing worth fighting for, boy.”’ Lenny’s voice breaks, and in the grey light I see him wipe a hand across his mouth.
This is a cruel lie I have told. I did not think the foetus would have such meaning for these men. I did not think. For an instant I believe I must undo my lie, tell Lenny the foetus within me is not sprung from his seed, but I turn my face away, bury my lie in the soft fur of the kittens. The truth will serve me no useful purpose. What I did that night with Lenny, I did with purpose.
‘Reckon they’ll know you’re breeding when they come?’
‘Do they not always know when I am breeding?’
‘They’ll know I done it.’ He scratches at his head. ‘I’m dead, girl, or they’re dead. Simple as that.’ Then his hand is reaching. It hovers over what he believes is his doing, and the hand is afraid. But as I watch, it is caught in a blinding shaft of newborn sunlight that slants low through the window, and the rough hand becomes a thing separate from the one who wears it. I see its fingers, its palm.
Have I seen it before? Often I have felt that hand upon me, but have I looked at it? I look at it now, see the blood in the veins. Morgan blood? Granny’s blood? He kneels, places the hand on my belly and the shaft of light is behind him and my eyes are blinded to the wearer of the hand.
‘It’s in there,’ he says. ‘Reckon I can feel the old blood flowing strong in you, girl, growing strong.’
I can not feel the fluttering, but I lie unmoving beneath that hand while the sun grows brighter behind him.
‘I been wanting to do what we been doing for a while. Wouldn’ta done it. Never. Then you go and turn to me that night. Don’t know what was your reasoning and don’t care, but I felt like Christ himself. And the knowing that I planted a young ’un in you. You gave me the gift and I feel like Christ himself, girl. And I thank you for it. Reckoned
I was wrong in doing what I did. Hoped it wasn’t doing you no harm, like, but I thank you for the gift of it now. And I’ll care for you, and for the young ’un.’
He stands, picks up his battery light, uses it to scratch at his head. ‘Reckon that’s all I’ll say. Maybe one more thing. You run from them little city bastards as far and as fast as you can. We see them coming and I’ll turn off the frekin fence. I’ll show you yourself how to turn off the frekin thing. And you take off and run. But don’t run from me and Pa, girl. Don’t run from us no more, because you’ll get tired of running before I get tired of bringing you and the young ’un back.’
He climbs down the ladder and walks away.
*
The sun is high before I walk to the house to cleanse my cuts and bleeding feet in the chem-tub. It is a tall cylinder, with a half-circular door that holds a container into which I pour a measure of chem-wash powder and a mug of water. Air and the chem-wash mix spray out from many angles when the switch is set. It blows hard, and I turn in slow circles, lifting my feet to the spray as I turn, shaking my hair before it until the mix is done and air blows clean.
Wrapped only in a paper towel, I walk to the kitchen and one by one I open the new bottles of cordial, placing each sheet of newsprint on the table before upending the bottles to the earth beneath the window. One by one. And I watch the dark patch grow wide on the earth, and I watch the red ants come to feed on its sweetness as I drown them with the next of it.
There is a fine pile of crumpled pages on the table when I am done. I smooth them, then take them to my room where I stand at my window, not reading, but looking at the hills.
‘For you, and for your memory, I will drink no more of their tomorrow juice, Jonjan. And this I pledge,’ I whisper, for I know now that the fence that holds me has been the fence of my mind. If I can not escape the grey men’s fence, at least I can free my mind.
(Excerpt from the New World Bible)
In the fifth decade of the New Beginning forty-two females of the new world and five ferals of the old were moved into the newly assembled breeding station.
And there were windows in it. And there were beds for all females. And there was a walled yard built for them where they might walk beneath the sun. The birth rate increased twofold.
Twenty-one female infants were born in that year. They were removed at birth to the new creche where male attendants nurtured them, for the nursing female did not ovulate and thus could not be bred.
Of these twenty-one female infants, sixteen survived their birth year and eleven reached their third, which was considered the viable year. And they were numbered and taken to the new building of the training station.
Of the twenty-seven male infants, twenty-two attained their third year.
And by necessity two buildings were constructed so there might be comfortable sleeping halls for all males and their sons. And water was piped to these buildings. And for one hour each day it filled the pipes and poured forth from shining tap. It was pure and there were those who drank of it from the tap and suffered no harm.
And food was issued to all in the eating halls, both in the a.m. and the p.m. And there was time for leisure and learning, for in the fields teams of sowmen now toiled beneath their drivers’ whips, and the crops harvested had never before been seen by man.
In time the old administration made way for the new. And it was formed of the sons of the Chosen. In time the priest made way for those who had been bred to this order.
Thus it came to pass that the New Chosen had no memory of the time before the Great Ending. Nor did they recall the stench of death, nor the destruction of the city. Nor did they recall the time of hunger.
Nor did they recall the days when the female, too, had walked freely and suckled their sons at their breasts.
HELP ME
The days stand still but my limbs will not. Sunrise, sunset and one thousand slow hours in between, I walk my room, walk, and read and see not what I read. My fingers seek my paintbrush, but my hand trembles and the straight lines I strive to make become as feathers. And my eyes weep and my nose weeps for the pain of this foolish thing that I have done. The grey men will not return with their supplies of cordial for many days, and I cry for it and I steal Lenny’s day calculator. It glows only with the palest of yellow.
Lord help me. What have I done?
I walk. I weep. I lie on my bed and the ghosts begin to speak to me and I know not my waking from my dreaming.
Were you not warned?
‘Help meeeeee!’
Silence is golden.
‘Help meeeeee!’
Were you not warned, baby?’
‘Help meeeeeeeeeeeeeee.’
I don’t want the door locked, Granny.
Little Moni learned early, girl, that what she wanted and what she got in this world were two different things. Get back in your room. They’re flying today.
But I like to watch them fly, Granny.
Silver wings against the blue of the sky.
Sun on twinkling water.
Footprints on wrinkled sand.
I am on my knees before the broken window, staring at my freedom tree, and at that friendly reaching limb fallen to the earth, which Lenny now cuts into firewood with his screaming city tool. Peach-cream bark, mottled with the softest green, the golden brown, so smooth, cool to my hand, bleeds red into the dust.
My limbs have too been cut from me. Today I can not stand. Pain is making a feast of me, eating me. I am dying of this pain but the one within me will not die. It flutters, flutters, striving to escape its dying host for there is no water in me in which it might swim. Water will not stay inside me. It spills from my eyes and my nose and from my mouth, and the heat inside my head hammers at my brain.
And the noise of Lenny’s cutting tool, screaming, screaming.
Or am I screaming?
Help meeeee!
Help meeeeee!
*
It is late. Darkness at my window. Darkness of death. Lenny comes. He stands at my door and there is fear on his face. I curse him, scream at him, reach out to kill him. I can not stand, so I fall.
Fall on my face.
He lifts me onto my bed, and he sits with me, and I see his hand is stained by the blood of my freedom tree. I hate his hand.
But it is cool on my brow.
I take it, hold onto the cool of his hand, and his arms wrap me, hold me to his breast.
I am as the loaf of cornbread. I cling to him and cry of my pain and the crumbs of me cover his overall.
All that is left of me are crumbling crumbs.
‘I’m dying!’ I scream.
‘You ain’t dying, girl. I ain’t letting you die,’ he replies, and he pets me, pets me, and his small eyes are kind.
I close my eyes, drift into sleep. And he sheds my clinging crumbs and he walks away and I scream for him. I am dead without him. I am dead.
He returns, bringing with him two of Pa’s pills and a glass of water, and my hands shake so that he places the pills in my mouth, feeds me the water. I can not swallow them, but vomit on him and the floor.
He brings more pills, crushes them, mixes them in V-cola which he feeds to me slowly, from a spoon.
Like an infant, my mouth opens for the spoon and for what it contains.
It settles in my belly. It remains.
‘You’ll be all right,’ he says. ‘Keep the thought in you. You’re gunna be all right, girl. We’re gunna be all right,’ he says.
I sleep in his arms, a clinging thing. I will not let him leave me, for I know better than he that if he goes, then my life goes with him.
And I wake again, alone again, and there is pain again. And I scream with new pain, and he does not come with his spoon and his cool hands.
I look at my hands and think of the hands on the hill, think of Jonjan.
So I have tried, Jonjan. And I have failed.
There is within me a raw raging need. I crawl from my bed and, like Granny in he
r last days of walking, I stumble to the door, cling to the rotting banister, drag myself hand over hand downstairs to the kitchen where my search begins.
The bottles I seek are brown. I know them well and I love what they contain. And I want what they contain. And I will have it.
I search the shelves, and the shelf above the stove, but find no small brown bottle. My face, my breasts, my limbs are wet with perspiration. I taste the salt of it as I search and my search leads me down the swaying steps, and I fall to the cellar floor where the freezers hum at me like a swarm of maddened bees.
I crawl to them, pull myself up and look at the stores. So much is here. I will find a bottle here. There will be one bottle hidden here and I will have it. There is no fault in failure, Jonjan, only in failure to try. On the hill I tried and failed. Today I will not fail.
On my knees, a crawling, demented thing, I search the stores, my hands uncertain. They snatch at a small bottle, drop it, and it smashes into a thousand pieces. I crawl forward and a shard of glass cuts my flesh as my fingers search the floor for cordial.
I lick my fingers and it is not what I seek, only the spice sauce which burns my tongue.
Just one bottle will be here, wrapped in its cocoon of newsprint. If I search long enough, well enough, I will find one. One is all I seek, for in my dementia, there is no tomorrow. Immediate gratification of my now is my quest. If I search long enough, if I empty each carton to the floor, I will find what I seek.
But my throwing of things has brought Pa to the top of the steps. ‘What you doing down there, girl?’
Anger burns in my chest as my eyes sweep over him. If he had not locked my door, I would have returned to Jonjan. He steps down, and down, stands at the wider place of the halfway, and I scream at him, a wild animal scream I do not recognise as my own. It howls up from my belly.