by Joy Dettman
‘Read it to me, girl,’ Lenny says.
And I do. It is not as I expected.
Lord, who are these city men? What are these city men? What right have they to do the things they do?
I think the men who do such things do not understand the word ‘compassion’. Perhaps it is not in their city books; still, this is a word I have had little use for in the past. Tonight I feel compassion for that tiny infant thing with its odd face and perfect hands, and I feel compassion for the sowman who carried it in her belly, and gave it life. And I feel also for the other female of the litter, not so perfect, so now dead, and for the Seelong male, who they wish to make into a female.
And they were seduced into doing more evil than did the nation whom the Lord destroyed before the children of Israel.
‘I hear you, Granny,’ I whisper. ‘I hear you, and I know you have come to guide me, but I must do what I must do to survive, and I am going to my bed now, and you may not follow me there, for you may not like to see what I do to survive, so please return to your green book,’ I say.
(Excerpt from the New World Bible)
In the city the High Priest made good value of disaster, which he had long foretold. And he said unto the Chosen: ‘Long I have asked for a house in which to worship while you make a mockery of God’s word in your recreation halls. Now he sends this black weed plague upon your crops so you may remember Retribution.’
And for two years the black weed ruled. And there was no grain to mill, and no refuse for the fabric weavers. And the labourers, without labour, were as rabble. Thus labour must be found for them.
Thus many were taken to the west side to build a great cathedral for the priest’s preaching. And the garments of the old world were woven with much gold embellishment. And in time the Bible of the ancients was again opened in God’s own house.
It is written, the High Priest said, that within a city of the old world, from the womb of a virgin female, would come an infant who would save mankind.
And the Chosen laughed: ‘Your preaching has not been improved by your pulpit. Shall we bring a virgin female from the training station and watch the sport, priest? Can you get her with child?’
And the priest’s voice was loud: ‘And it came to pass that the virgin Mary, contracted to be bred with Joseph of the building trade, was found to be breeding. And the female said: “I have been Implanted by God, who came to me in the garden and placed his hand upon me.” Joseph did not accept her word and thought to send her to the recreation hall as sport for the labourers.’
And the Chosen stood, for the seating was hard, and they derided the priest: ‘Were those ancients of the building trade so high born they would have the virgins, priest?’
‘It is so written,’ the High Priest cried. ‘On the night the female was to be removed, an apparition came to the sleeping hall to stand beside Joseph’s bed. And it spoke to him. Mary shall bring forth a Golden Child who will save the world. And there was a census. And at the time of the counting, the females were herded with the swine into the barn. It was there the Golden Child was born. And at the moment of its birth, a great star of Bethlehem was seen to move across the heavens and to spread its golden light over the barn.’
And the Chosen said unto the priest: ‘Preach not to us of great stars. The rogue comet has come and gone. And it is time that we were gone. Preach of Retribution to your wooden pews, priest.’
But there were those amongst the listeners in the great cathedral who were of a mind to believe.
THE SEARCHER AND THE SOWMAN
Lord! I have read so much and seen so much in the past week. I have seen a searcher fall from the sky, and it was as if he tried to place his craft down on a flat surface, for it came to rest on Morgan Road. From the loft Lenny and I watched the small male crawl from his broken craft, crawl to our fence, his light-gun in hand. We did not approach him, but watched him all day until he moved no more.
Lenny feared he may have brought with him the city plague, so it was not until the next morning that he covered his face with a paper towel mask, covered his hands with plasti-wraps and stole the searcher’s gun.
It is a cruel thing, for when pointed at the dead searcher, it made a fine line of purple across him, and soon there was little left of him or his plague. Then Lenny turned the gun on the craft, and such a light show I have never seen. The purple light turned the craft to green, then red; it bubbled and spat and lost all shape, as with the lumps of fat from the pigs when boiled over fire, but when it had cooled, it became an oddly shaped pool of silver which Lenny carried to the barn. He thinks to use it in his melting pot and make from it many darts.
And . . . and I saw a sowman, and I felt more compassion for it than I had the searcher.
Poor thing, it stood with humility at our boundary fence, but did not touch the wires. I believe it had the intelligence to understand that singing, and if not its song, then at least its gripping wire.
The dogs were tied and barking, and still the sowman remained there as the sun crept overhead. It was in the late afternoon when I filled a bucket with water, stole a new loaf of cornbread and what was left of the last pumpkin, then crept to the generator shed and pushed the plunger that kills the fence’s singing. And I killed it.
Lenny saw me, and understood my intention. He screamed at me and went for the searcher’s gun. I can still move more quickly than he. I ran with my load to the fence.
The thing backed away, afraid, though it was twice my weight and taller than I when it lifted its head.
I tossed the pumpkin to it. It backed off further, then looked at the pumpkin as I lifted the heavy bucket to the fence post, balancing it there while offering the cornbread loaf from my hand.
Its head low, its eyes looked up at me, and it made an odd sound, half-whimper, half-grunt.
‘Water,’ I said. ‘You thirst. This is water.’
It stepped forward, hands raised to shoulders. Poor hands, they were thick, with a thumb and two short fingers, but such a control it had with these I found difficult to comprehend, and such strength in its arms; it is plain to see why the city men use these beasts in the fields. It took the heavy bucket, lifting it to drink as a man might lift a mug to his mouth, not as an animal, his snout down in the water.
I wept for him then, for certainly it was a male; fine white hair covered his limbs but much hair grew thick in his private places and on his chest and head, where hair and eyebrows became one. It near covered his back, following a protruding ridge down to where a tail might grow, though I could not see one. His legs were short and not as a man’s, but he ate as a man, breaking the loaf, lifting the cornbread to a mouth which was more swine than human, as were his teeth.
I stared. I could not take my eyes from him, and his own eyes did not fear mine. They were human, and I believe expressed more feeling than I have ever seen in Lenny’s. So wide they were, and soft as the brown cow’s when I offer her fresh grass picked from the graveyard.
The sowman emptied the plasti-bucket while I stood staring; Lord, how he had thirsted, and hungered, for the loaf of bread was devoured between his great swallowing of water.
Lenny stood back, only metres behind me, his gun aimed.
And this is the strangest thing, for the sowman did not appear to see him, nor fear the gun. When the water was gone, he lifted the bucket to the fence post where I had placed it for him, then he stepped back and raised his two hands high, as the blacrap had raised its hands high, as Jonjan had raised his hands. I am no threat, this action speaks clearly, and I think he was not as the lying blacrap, but as my dear Jonjan. I did not feel threatened. In truth, I felt only sadness for what man’s tampering with nature had achieved.
‘Water,’ I said to him. ‘Go to the hill.’ I pointed to Morgan Hill. ‘Much water. Many rabbits,’ my hand signalling to the distant fence that might lead this poor thing to the animal track I had followed. ‘Water. Drink. Much water.’
‘Awaah,’ he said, or some such exhalat
ion of air and voice resembling this. He then picked up the pumpkin, bowed his head, and ran in the direction I had pointed.
Lenny was not pleased with me, but I was pleased with me.
Compassion. Sympathy, the dictionary says. Sympathy with the distress or suffering of another; pity.
I know pity. I think of that sowman often, and each time I place food in my mouth, or water, I hope that he is drinking long at my spring cave and eating rabbit.
Each day, too, I feel more compassion for Pa. There are times when he can barely walk and leans heavily on a stick, or on Lenny, but he watches me with old man’s eyes that drip tears, and yesterday, he placed his hand on my shoulder. It is the first time he has touched me in this way.
‘Never thought I’d see the day, girl,’ he said. ‘But I will. I’ll see this land seeded with new life before I go down to that graveyard.’
This tumbling foetus is building for itself a deep pool of compassion within me, but in doing so has set free a veritable flood of compassion for all things. I believe that soon I will be inviting the dogs to my table and asking Lenny if he should wish to share my bed.
On the night of the rain storm he had followed me to my room. The night was cold. In truth, I welcomed his warmth.
He and Pa are so certain that the infant is of their blood. At times, I almost find myself convinced that it is so. And if Lenny is the son of Granny, then certainly it is not odd that I feel compassion for him, for his own mother had named him bastard, near with her dying breath, while he had waited in the kitchen for her to only speak his name.
He is not a bastard. Certainly he does not have the beauty and the youth of Jonjan, but his deep caring for me and the one I carry disturbs me. And his hands disturb me. They are well-shaped things. It is a pity he is not as well shaped as his hands.
Perhaps the sights I have seen of late, and this constant reading, is carrying me into places where I have never been. My mind has become a morass of questions for which I can find no answers.
(Excerpt from the New World Bible)
To the western city there now came a decade of much building and invention, for it was found in this decade that the black weed had given to the Chosen its black gold, which, with distillation, was found to power great machines. And colourful vehicles again travelled the western streets which were paved of the black residue from the oil distilleries and the crushed stone of the old city.
And it was found that the copter flying crafts of the old world required little improvement to bring them into new world usefulness. And man looked to the oceans, and he built a floating craft to go upon the dark waters that he might find again the lost lands across the ocean. And much was made of it when it left the land. But it did not return.
And many machines were built that they might send power to the fences, which both contained the sowmen and protected the crops from escaped labourers.
And methods were developed for the safe cropping and harvesting of the black weed when it was found that within the great melon head of the weed there was hidden a sweet fruit, and from its pink flesh much sugar and thus much nourishment could be gained.
In this decade no rain fell to the earth and the corn crops failed, but the weed crop was prolific. And in the city the law against waste was again enforced, thus the laboratories must find use for that which remained after the sugar extraction.
In time a potion was brewed of this waste, and it was found to turn off all care.
And many trials were made of it and many reports written before the potion was flavoured and named cordial, then issued free to the labourers in the western city, and also to the females.
But to the sons of the Chosen, it was denied.
ANSWERS
The house is daily falling apart; what the wind could not blow away, the rain is washing away. A large section of the front verandah fell this morning. Lenny can not fix it. Two upstairs rooms are wet with rain and there is little we can do, except to move what may be useful downstairs.
The rooms in the burned-out western wing I have never thought to enter. An old cow hide is attached to an arched doorway that once gave entrance to it. The size of the hide grasps my interest this morning, and I stand before it, wondering at the huge beast it had been cut from, for it is larger by far than the last hide Pa preserved. It is a habit he has, this preserving of them; we have no use for leather since the grey men came with their city boots and garments. But what remarkable strength it has. For all of my years this leather hide has served as a door and kept me locked away from those burned rooms as completely as the wooden door of my childhood locked me in my room.
Granny’s room, at the southeastern corner of the house, is across the passage from my own, which faces north, to the hills. The men have always slept downstairs, so their rooms remain dry. In the future I think I will also, by need, sleep downstairs. I do not know if Granny’s room is dry; I can not force myself to open her door, nor does Lenny want to go there.
If it is wet, then it is wet, he says.
Downstairs in the room of Granny’s books there is much jumble of unused things. In preparation for my move, I empty it of all but the books, then on walls and floor I use the chem-spray and the suction tool. It is a noisy thing but filters the air and cleanses the floor, leaving behind it a strong and pleasant odour.
I wipe dust from the old wheel, the loom. I had forgotten that loom tool, and in the afternoon I play with it and the spinning wheel. Granny had made it spin, though I do not remember how she spun it or what she made on it, for it was used only in my earliest years here. I believed she had possessed soft pillows and quilts, filled with fluff which she somehow turned to thread. The memory is small. I find I also have a small memory of the clack-clacking loom, and my infant hands stealing thread from old garments, that we might add colour to dull fabric.
I look at the brown cloak I wear for warmth, and think perhaps Granny had made it on the loom machine. But why then did she not wear it? It is certainly more comfortable than the blanket garments she had worn, though it is a little long, and not easy to walk in when the rains fall. That loom would be a fine machine to own – if I had such fluff to make such thread – if I knew how to make the thread that threaded the loom. I do not.
It is in the ending of the day that I again wander to the cow hide door that locks away the fire-ravaged western rooms. There is no sign of burning on this side, though the walls are stained and the ceiling sags low.
My world was small in Granny’s lifetime, as was her patience with me, thus her word was law. She did not enter the burned rooms, so I had no thought to go there. But what secrets lie hidden behind this worn barrier that breathes as I watch it, that sighs its breath into my face?
‘Come,’ it whispers. ‘Come in and find me.’
I find a gap at the side and I place my eye to it. Only a deeper darkness lies behind it – and a strange dank odour. I place my fingers in the gap, grip the hide and tug. The stuff splits fast from the nails that hold it and I am able to lift one side away from the wall and step through to a dust-covered but solid floor.
It is not solid long. My weight is minimal, even with my tumbling burden, but it is enough to make the floor shudder and protest as I pass. Beneath my feet lies the great space of the room Pa calls the garage. Its ceiling fell long years ago, but its brick walls still stand and lend support to these burned rooms. Carefully I make progress, testing each footfall before trusting my weight to it; I have no desire to fall through to the rubble below.
Towards the end of the passage, the ceiling and wall have come down and by necessity I divert through a room, charred and skeletal. Strange echoes here! Are the old ghosts protesting? They have certainly stopped their laughing.
I recognise a bathroom. The bath is as the one in the room near my own, but this one leans sadly against a brick wall. The pipe that once drained its water still stands; it whispers a hollow melody as if striving to draw me deeper inside. I sidle through and see a door, which is blistere
d, blackened and closed.
I push against it, wanting to see what it hides. It does not wish to satisfy my curiosity. I turn the handle and it falls off in my hand. I hit the door with my shoulder, once, twice. Overhead the ceiling shakes. I think it will fall on me, but as I begin to retrace my footsteps, a gap opens. Gently now I push against the door, and like an elderly, aching limb, wood grinds on wood, moans, and the charred door opens. Aged air rushes out to meet me while the ghosts titter and back away into their dens of draped cobweb. I do not follow the ghosts inside, but view this room from the door.
A corner room, it is, one window facing Morgan Hill. The walls it shares with passage and bathroom are stained, charred, but the two external walls are brick and undamaged, their long windows still draped with disintegrating lace, darned with dust and cobweb. I have come upon the western corner of the old Morgan mansion. I have come upon a dry room, and a ceiling near intact.
Lord. There is much to see in here, chair, table and beds, and better chair and table than we have in the kitchen. A dignified cabinet waits here too, with many unknown items upon it, all wove together by dust and web.
How long I stand at the door I do not know, but it is to me as if I have stumbled upon a patch of trapped yesterday, and upon a better time – if I dared to lift the veil.
Perhaps in this room I will find many answers; but not today. I dare not disturb the dust and the ghosts, for the sun has gone, taking much of the light with it, and I think I do not want to be in this place after dark. Though I have never seen a ghost, Granny’s talk of them, her threats to give me to the ghosts in the hills, instilled in me a belief I can not yet quite dismiss after sundown.