The Seventh Day

by Joy Dettman

  ‘Rain,’ he says, as if I do not yet understand this water from the sky.

  ‘Pa must teach us to read the clouds,’ I say.

  ‘Knew you couldn’t have gone far.’ His face is pleased that the foetus and I are again by his side.

  ‘I did not believe enough in Pa’s rain.’ Then I tell him of the wanderers and the laughter.

  ‘Sowmen. I saw another one on the road last week. It looked near human.’

  ‘Do they wear garments?’

  ‘City bastards don’t waste overalls on them, girl. They got their own coats, most of them, like dogs.’

  ‘Do they have hands?’

  ‘Wouldn’t get much work out of them without hands. Them that worked on the fence had hands of sorts. Couldn’t talk. Grunted. Screamed when they got flogged. One took off across the blacrap one day.’

  ‘There is some of the weed inside the fence. It spat at me.’

  ‘Stay away from it.’

  ‘They were only baby things.’

  ‘They’ll take the skin off fast as the big frekin bastards.’

  ‘I have seen in the newsprint that they have fruit.’

  ‘I seen the fruit on the V cubes. Harvest ’em by the millions. They got themselves a machine. Harvest the leaves, too, and squeeze juice out of ’em.’

  ‘I would like to view these cubes.’

  He does not reply, and I do not understand why he will not share these cubes with me. I shrug, look at the rear of my hand. It has been stained by the blacrap spit. I wash it with rain as I walk, rub the stain away, but beneath it there is a circle of red, as if the spit has brought my blood close to my skin. He takes my hand and looks at the red spot.

  ‘Be gone tomorrow. Got to get it off fast or it takes a day to stop the bleeding. Get enough on you and your blood runs. That’s how the bastard thing eats. Soaks you with spits then sucks on you for the salt. Likes salt – so the V cube tells it. They give it their dead. Reckon it’s faster ’an burning and gets rid of plague.’

  I do not like this idea. It makes the ice run in my spine and when he releases my hand, I take his arm and we share warmth with each other. We do not laugh as the wanderers laughed but we walk and talk more of the city.

  ‘They got two new females, so V cube tells.’

  ‘Are their numbers many?’

  ‘Don’t rightly know. Don’t talk in numbers, ’cepting they now got five new young ’uns. Female. Don’t show ’em on the cube. Show the faces of the little grey bastards on it.’

  ‘We have seven days before they come.’

  ‘Reckon they’ll try to take you when they come.’

  I do not reply. I am thinking of Granny. Forty years she had spent in the city, but she had spoken little of it. I wish she had told me more.

  ‘Are you hearing me, girl?’

  ‘The rain has washed my ears cleaner than the chem-tub, and you raise a thought I do not wish to think of. I like talk of the blacrap better than talk of the grey men – and like it better also.’

  ‘It don’t like fresh water. They hit it with fresh water before the harvesting.’

  It is good to walk thus, and to talk. He says the words of some subject and I reply. It is unlike the lecture conversations I once had with Granny, and from Lenny’s V cube knowledge of the city, I learn a little as we plod on through the mud.

  ‘How long does it take a young ’un to come – with a female?’

  I know this answer from Granny’s doctoring book, but I do not reply with what I know. My eyes looking back towards the now black hill, I say, ‘Longer than a sow, perhaps less than a cow. It will come when it comes.’ Then I look forward again and we walk on while the land throbs, sobs, with rain.

  He wishes to talk more of the coming, but I do not. ‘Hush,’ I say. ‘It is the sound of the earth in its labour of rebirth.’

  ‘It’s the blacrap. Reckon the rain is hurting it, girl.’

  ‘One day dandelions will grow again and they will scatter their gold over all of the land. Granny once said that when she was a child, the western field one spring was a carpet of gold.’

  ‘Hard old bitch,’ he says. ‘Waiting for her to speak my name that last week. Waiting close, downstairs like. Just waiting. Old bitch died instead. Never said my name. Reckon I thought me name was “Bastard” ’till I was half grown.’

  (Excerpt from the New World Bible)

  Then to the city came the black weed. Born of the ocean, wed to holocaust, it was nurtured by man, for from its broad leaves a heavy wax might be taken.

  And from man’s interference with it came a great change, and it grew tall and rank and its spore was windblown.

  And the black weed infiltrated the fine fields and turned them black, and those who fought against it were felled by its stinging ire, and those who fell upon it had the blood sucked from their veins.

  And in the city, many of the Labour Masters, who were counted amongst the lesser Chosen, now walked willingly into the black fields and to its swift and painful death. And they named it saviour, for death had become preferable to life for many of the Masters.

  For with the black weed had come a hopelessness to this place of great hope where improvement on that which required no improvement was accomplished, but for that which required great improvement, none was sought and no debates were held or reports written.

  The gun was much improved, but the whip was of the old style and each lash metal-tipped. And there were other of the methods of the ancient ruling class which had been long discarded, which now had been resurrected and given into the hands of the Labour Masters.

  And there was no harmony in the preserving stations and other plants, for there was great inequality. And much flogging was required, for the youthful labourers had grown tall and strong as sowmen. But not as docile.

  And it came to pass that there were many labourers plotting against their Masters, and thus, to the mills and plants came a time of little labour.

  And it came to pass that the city was by need divided and a tall fence with locked gates separated east from west. And the processing stations and the plants and the paper mills were on the east of it.

  And the Chosen and their sons kept safe on the west of it.

  NEWSPRINT

  The face of Lenny’s day calculator flashes red today and we are quiet for all of that day, and the house is quiet and the world is quiet. We fear that many city men will come tonight with their guns and they will take me. The dogs are free, but they do not bound and play. They watch us, and watch the place between barn and shed where the copter always sets its wheels down.

  Slowly the day wears its way into night. We think to go to the cave. We make many plans, then discard them. We wait. Only wait.

  The copter comes and only the two grey men step down from it.

  We make much light, but Lenny and Pa stand in the kitchen, their dart guns aimed, while the dogs and I meet the little men on the verandah.

  ‘Good health,’ the city men say.

  ‘And to you,’ I lie, then they give into my hand a green book which is the Book of Moni and they give into my hand four slim plasti-sealed newsprints. How my heart races with fear of these men, though I do not allow them to see my fear. I thank them for their gifts, then say: ‘We are pleased to see your supplies, men of the city.’

  They stare at me and at each other as they stand back speaking together, then Sidley asks if they may view the new life.

  I look to the moons, golden and round tonight, for I do not wish to look at the men, and I do not wish them to place their grey hands on me again. They wait, also looking at the moons. Yet, they have come without guns. They have brought me the gifts I asked for. So I think it well to give them a very small gift. ‘I have been told by the messenger that this viewing will be allowed only if I remain in my wakeful state.’

  ‘It will be so.’

  I do not go to my room, but on the verandah allow them to place their listening devices to my belly while the dogs remain at my
side. Lenny and Pa remain inside where they have the old and the new dart guns and many darts waiting in a row on the table.

  I do not think they will need to use them tonight for the grey men listen in wonder to the movement within me, and in truth I believe Sidley likes this single one better than the many they have Implanted. In his grey marble eyes I see great excitement, and in his voice I hear excitement when he speaks of the coming.

  Salter says little, and little to me, though he offers pills.

  I accept them, but will feed them to the rats. He offers me three new garments, which are white and made to fall freely from my shoulders to the floor, as does my brown cloak. I like the overalls better for they are warm and give my legs freedom. And I like my half-dresses made by the old ones’ hands; still, I accept the white garments.

  Then he asks for the day calculator.

  ‘You will return again in forty days and forty nights,’ I say, giving the tool into his hands.

  ‘It will be so,’ he replies as his small grey fingers crawl like awful spiders over the face of the calculator. I think I do not much want it back, but I take it, then they leave.

  ‘Good health to you,’ they say.

  ‘And to you,’ I lie again. Ah, but such relief I feel at that lie. I believe my legs are weak with relief, and from the door Lenny comes, smiling with relief. Pa wishes to eat with relief.

  We all eat for he has made the egg and milk and cheese meal, which we like best, and there is much talking and celebration of another forty days of freedom, and much drinking of chem-tea and eating of cornbread. We did not eat before the grey men came.

  Pa goes to his bed with his pills but I do not go to mine. I open the Book of Moni, seeking the name of Monique Morgan there. I do not find it, nor any printed words upon its first pages. Such a wasting of good paper! Do they have so much of it in the city that they can waste it? Three empty pages I turn before I find the print: HOW LONG WAS GOD’S DAY?

  A shiver travels from my head to my feet and the large meal I have eaten rises to my chest. I know those words. They are from Granny’s own tongue, and as I turn the page and read on, it is as if her voice speaks the written words to me and the book suddenly feels heavy in my hands.

  I close it, remembering Granny, remembering the day of the wooden wheel she had made to spin while talking long at me of God’s day.

  ‘It is written in the old Bible that in the beginning, God created the earth and all of the oceans of the earth. He made the day and night and all seeds to grow upon the earth, and he made all living things to walk upon the earth, from the ant to the dinosaur. So how long was his day, girl?’

  ‘I think if he did so much work it was a very, very long day, Granny.’

  ‘Was it a week, a year, or a million years, girl?’

  ‘You said time is a gift, Granny. Perhaps God also did not measure time.’

  ‘Spent too much of it in making the flowers, girl, and in painting the wings of the butterfly – that’s what he did. He was an artist. But by the time he got around to making man he was worn out by his labour, half-blind in one eye and couldn’t see too well out of the other. He made a muck of mankind. Gave them a few rules to live by, then left the crazy bastards to it.

  ‘They gave him many names, girl. They built great stone prayer houses, hoping he’d come to live inside one of them, but it was like asking a blade of grass to live and grow strong between stone walls. Only a matter of time, girl. And there came a time when each group of mankind thought they’d got him trapped in their own prayer house. They forgot there was but one of him. Only a small matter of greed and lust for power and each group, now they had him trapped, were all out there warring and killing, and in his name, girl. God was a damn fool. He’d have used his last day of labour better if he’d sat painting rainbows on the giant blue whales’ backs and forgot about making man.’

  Godsent Crop Doomed.

  Report Page Three

  Recent rains spell disaster for Col Gardener’s crop, which, at this time, lies rotting beneath an ocean of water.

  Col and his teams have worked around the clock, pumping water from the fields in an attempt to save the mature plants.

  But at midnight last night all hope was lost when six of his sowman team were lost to the flood.

  More rain is expected.

  At times, she is still so close to me. At times I feel her clawed hand on my shoulder. I do not need this book to remember her, or to remember her words. I cover it with the newsprints, hide it away as Lenny enters the room.

  I have lied to him. Granny’s Bible says we must not bear false witness. Also, I think even in death Granny would not much like my acceptance of Lenny. The strong green of the book’s cover is still visible. I stare at it and believe it stares at me. I do not want the eyes of that book to see my companionship with Lenny, which is daily growing.

  I sigh, so deeply. Certainly Jonjan spoke in truth when he said this book was from the secret writings of the one he knew as Moni, and certainly she had much paper and many long pencils when she lived in the city; it is not a small book, but half as fat as Granny’s Bible, and of a greater length and width. And certainly Granny has come out of its pages tonight, for I feel her breath in my hair.

  I shake my head, scratch at my scalp, which crawls with her presence. Then she speaks to me and I wonder that Lenny does not hear her!

  Trust yourself, girl, she says. Trust your instincts.

  I scratch my neck as my eyes search the room, seeking her.

  Sowmen Produce Litter

  It was learned last night that one of the C12s, all thought to be male, has produced a litter of seven, two of which are female.

  Vern Legrande, controller of the corn acres outside of the southwestern fence, was amazed yesterday to find his field beasts huddled over one of their number when he went to their hut this morning.

  As Vern took charge of the litter the beast, obviously traumatised by the birth, attacked him.

  Vern was unharmed. The beast was later put down.

  The males of the litter have been sent to the training huts, but of the two females, one is creating great excitement amongst scientists. It has been classified as human.

  Although the legs are short and not well formed, the hands have five perfectly formed fingers. The facial features, though crude, are predominantly human, scientists said, and early tests suggest it may well be suitable for ovum Harvest.

  The ovaries and uterus of the second female have been transplanted into one of the infant Seelong males, whose progress is being watched with great excitement.

  The sowman, on dissection, proved to be an hermaphrodite. It is not known at this time if the litter was sired by an escaped labourer, or if the beast was capable of self-fertilisation.

  C12 males have shown no inclination or ability to breed.

  Feel the chill of ice in your spine, girl?

  I shiver, and Lenny looks at me.

  ‘Colder then I remember it getting, girl. A real bone-chilling cold.’

  ‘It is the rain,’ I say. ‘The long fear of the waiting.’

  ‘They’ve gone now. We’ll do something before they come again.’

  We do what we must to survive, girl. An eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth. Remember that, girl, and remember me, and remember the rabbits who live in the hills. Only they will survive this new world. Find their hole. Look for their hole.

  I shiver, shake my head as I walk the room, watching Lenny stack more wood into the stove – which is falling apart as the house is falling apart. So many times he has repaired the firebox with wet clay. He will need to repair it again, for the metal between firebox and oven has long burned away.

  I move nearer to him and to the fire, trying to shake the chill and Granny’s words from my mind. I wish I had not seen her book – or the ones who brought it. They have disturbed me, and their tools have disturbed the foetus. How it rolls and pushes at the walls of my belly. So many days we lived here in fear, waiting, waiting f
or them to come.

  ‘We got forty days, girl. They’ve gone.’

  ‘But they will return. Forty days fly fast.’

  I drink a mug of water, stare at the stacked newsprints. Untouched. So many pages in them. What news of the city is in them? I take one up, then with my fingernail rip at the plasti, needing to get at that which is inside, to fill my mind with that which is inside.

  All four newsprints I free, and when they are free I do not know which one to open first. On the outer pages there are large and colourful pictures. One is of a brown ocean.

  There is more of it, but also more that draws my eye. So many faces, and such fine clothing. And there are two pages in the centre of a domed building, and it is an indoor garden of green, where many males work in white overalls, and . . . and for a moment I can not look at these pages, for the green holds memory, and the flowers, and the workers.

  ‘Nature,’ I whisper. ‘Nate –’ My finger reaches out to touch a blood-red flower, dew-wet, and I think to taste the dew from a petal. But there is no dew. Only –

  ‘What’s that, girl?’

  ‘A garden. There is much beauty in that city.’

  Lenny comes to stand behind me and together we stare at the green which grows in long troughs that are shelves, and in containers standing beside opaque walls that run with water.

  ‘A waste of frekin water,’ he says; the thought of wasted water has him reaching to move the kettle to the side so that it might not boil away.

  On the next page there is a likeness of a small female who wears a golden overall, her hair a cloud of fire red, her wide eyes fear-filled. Beneath her likeness are the words: ‘Is this the golden child or the red demon?’

  And there is a likeness of another, a newborn. And how odd it looks! It is beneath this likeness I find a place to begin my reading.