by Joy Dettman
One cube face shows me a likeness of the three grey men. I am ready to dismiss them when the image alters and shows a scene of the cutting into of flesh and the so fine stitching of it together. I do not much like it, but the three small men take me on a wander through many white rooms to a larger room filled with naked males, strapped into strange tall chairs with wheels. Each male is attached by red ropes to an opaque ball that hangs from the tall side of the chair.
Curse this cube that is too small for detail. My eyes squint and strain to see that which is in the opaque balls but I can not distinguish anything other than a grey inner shape, and before I identify the shape, the face of Sidley fills the space. He speaks to me, telling proudly that each of these balls is a plasti-womb and inside each, an embryo is growing. And he says that these are attached to the old or physically impaired labourers who give their blood freely to feed the new life. Then there is a very close face of one of those held prisoner by the long tubes of blood, and he says in a voice of death: ‘I am proud to assist in the birth of a brave new world.’
He does not appear proud, or so happy at his work, for his eyes are like those of Granny on the day before she left life. His mouth may lie, but his eyes can not. There is only emptiness there, only a mute pleading for the swift release of death.
My hand moves to my womb. I also give my blood through an internal tube to feed the one in my belly, but I walk free while its small feet kick at the walls of my womb. This V cube face makes my hair crawl, and quickly I find another picture, a colourful one.
This speaker tells of old fruit made new again. I watch him cut into a green spine-covered ball, and I see that the flesh inside is green. It is named a pineapple. There are other vegetables and fruit. One hand to my mouth I watch, certain I will see Nate of the city garden, that I will see the apricot I have tasted. I know it came from his hand. I see a large round fruit which is black and the size and shape of a honeydew. Its flesh is pink and the speaker calls it the Godsent fruit.
Again I turn the face and find a swiftly changing flash of likenesses of the many who have been newly lost to life. And there is the grey Stanley face. Fever is written across it, while the speaker tells of his life and the date that he left the living.
It seems that many have died of Fever, but across one ancient face there is written Natural causes. Because of his great age, his history is long. I yawn, my fingers ready to erase him, until the speaker says that this man had been one of the searchers in the time of the great escape, that this man had been personally responsible for the capture and death of Monique Morgan!
This V cube speaks a lie! That ugly old man spoke a lie for, like him, Monique Morgan lived to a great age and died of . . . of natural causes! I do not like this lying thing.
There is the face of an old female, the face of the Seelong infant. Post operative complications is written across both.
And there is another important face, and it is the face of my dear Jonjan, with Misadventure written across his features. He is greatly missed, the speaker says, and here is one city man who speaks the truth.
I listen to this speaker who says that Jonjan was the son of Jacob, of the High Chosen, that Jonjan was born of embryo stored in the time prior to the great escape. He was also one of the first successful births from the Seelong plasti-wombs, and was of only eighteen years.
I am weeping for the beauty of his face, and because I was not strong enough to do what should have been done that first night, and weeping because when I strived to undo the harm I had done him, I failed, left him helpless on the hill at the mercy of animals that had come for him, on four legs or on two.
My eyes are not seeing well when his dear face is wiped away and a group of three takes its place. And I see . . . I see, but unclearly, for my eyes are brimming, swimming.
I wipe them with my half-dress, and better, far better that I had left the tears alone, for once having seen what none would wish to see, I close my eyes against that devil cube and I rock there, remembering Jonjan and his obsession with finding Moni’s land.
And I know why.
He had been searching for the land of the one who had given him life, for the speaker now tells that the ovum from which my Jonjan came was that of Monique Morgan.
Jonjan was the son of Granny. He was half-brother to Lenny.
Lord!
There is more talk of him, but his face is gone, and I think to throw the cube from me for it shows a likeness of a tormented wraith and two smiling males who hold her arms, hold her hair back from her tortured face – hair that falls long, hair the gold of my Jonjan.
It is a portrait of her hell.
It is a portrait of the young Granny.
I close my eyes against it, and see her as I first saw her, see the house as it was then, the old rocking chair, the ribbons of a canvas blind swinging between the verandah posts, the rattle of loose iron flapping on the roof, and the light.
She had swung the kitchen door wide and approached me across the rear verandah. Tall she was, her cloak a blanket, her hair, drawn back from her face that night, accentuated the round lashless eyes, sunk like sparkling gems into shadowy pits of yellow clay. Her face was a patchwork of scars, a cruel hole where her nose had once been, a lipless opening they had made for her mouth. Shiny, gathered and ridged, her skin was a nightmare of yellow-whites, of purple-reds, paper thin, and stretched to fit, thus making a feature of her jutting cheekbones, and dragging her twisted chin down, down, down, to become lost beneath the blanket.
But her legs, her small neat feet had been untouched by the fire. They were all it had spared of the child Moni Morgan.
I shrank from her blue bird-claw hands that first night, yet they were gentle, tentative things as they drew me inside; more afraid than frightening were Granny’s hands. They bathed my scratches and soothed a salve on them, gave me water to drink and broth, which she had fed to me from a spoon.
I do not recall when I slept, or where I slept, only that I awoke to her frightening face, shrank from her frightening hands, feared the mornings and wanted the dark nights to return. For how long, I do not know. For how long I cried, I do not know.
I remember the garment she gave me was rough, and the food she offered unfamiliar. I learned to eat it, and learned not to look at her.
But I did not laugh at her poor face. I did not laugh. Those city bastards who hold her arms for the one who trapped this likeness laugh at her.
She told me once that the city men had named her the roasted rat. I think it was these men, and I think if I had a sword, I would cut their heads from their necks and kick their bloody heads into hell.
How I hate the cruelty of that city. How I hate its great talent that can make such things as machines that fly and beasts who are neither man nor swine. And how I hate this cube that can trap a tortured face and hold it prisoner for countless years. I want to take up a hammer and smash it, set poor little Moni free, and I think to do it, but it is the cube that holds the face of Jonjan. I can not smash it.
Lenny’s cough comes from close by; I toss the cube to the floor, then I walk from the room with his bedding, my heart as heavy as my swollen belly.
I had allowed memory of Granny’s face to fade into grey. I was younger then, true, and certainly, in time, I had grown accustomed to her features, though I admit that when we walked the property on those stormy afternoons, I walked behind her, choosing to look at her boots. Never her face. And never had I touched her, not then.
I recall the day we climbed Morgan Hill. She had reached out a hand for me to hold. I chose not to take it. She was old. Had she wished to borrow the strength of my youth? I did not lend it. Not until the last months, when her weakness forced me to lend my hands, had I touched her, bathed her – fed her from a spoon in those final days, but never with the hand of compassion, only duty.
I am a thing of the city, born of a plasti-womb, and the male who lent me his blood to grow had within it no warmth to offer the rock-hard frozen embryo of m
e, no compassion to offer. I think this is so.
But I am learning from the one which I carry. Today, for the first time, I am understanding Granny’s anger, her loneliness, her fear of a child’s rejection – even her intolerant stick when my hands could not quickly learn new tasks. She was old, had known she had little time left in this world to teach me all I needed to know.
It is a pity we do not learn until it is too late. Still, so distant now are those childhood days; they passed so swiftly.
Then she was gone, and the grey men came. They swept my childhood away.
(Excerpt from the New World Bible)
As each generation of labourer was driven fast to his Godsent grave, a new generation from the laboratories was hurried to maturity. And there was much change and improvement made to the labouring class, for only the cells of the strong and the docile were used by the laboratories.
Thus it came to pass that there were many, both youth and adult, who wore the same features. These infants wore no name, though the number and mark of their trade was burned onto the shaven scalp when the infant passed his third year. And by this mark he was known and by this number he was counted amongst the population.
So too came the new searchers from the cells of the old. And they were born with their own mark of trade, for they were of diminutive stature.
Conditioned early by the Master Searchers, the searcher had become a race apart who did not walk well upon the earth but knew only the freedom of the skies and the small confines of their craft.
LENNY MARTIN
Stormborne, the cold has come quickly over the land, and for twenty days the sun has gone away. It is as if the world has frozen. Ice, as from Lenny’s freezer, seeps up from the earth before nightfall, and crystals, glistening like a sprinkling of diamond dust, cover fence and earth and tree. I like this chilled white world; it keeps the searchers from the sky, but not the wanderers from our fence.
This morning another sowman tries to climb the singing wire. It is not the same one I had taken water to, for though the land is white with ice, he is not. His hair is orange and he has much less of it than the other; his head is not so large, his swine snout more pronounced, and his eyes, I do not like his eyes – they are dark and small. His hands, poor things, are near human.
I believe him to be hungry and, as before, take him cornbread and pumpkin, a bottle of V-cola. Lenny will not allow me to still the fence’s singing, so I throw the supplies over it, as I had done before with the pumpkin.
This sowman throws them back at me, hard and fast, and its aim is good. I run, for it thinks to touch the singing fence, and when it can not, it stands there screaming, throwing rocks at me and at the fence.
Lenny uses his dart gun, fearing the purple light made by the searcher’s gun may kill the fence’s song before it fells this beast. The sharp arrow flies true, cutting deep into the place above the heart; Lenny has a fine aim with that gun. Still the crazed thing will not run. It grows more angry as it rips the dart from its flesh then, bleeding, it gathers rocks, aiming them at Lenny until one fells him. Screaming then, it desires to finish what it began, and it takes up a length of fallen timber to use again and again against the fence.
We must cut power to the fence in order to open the gate and set the dogs free, but if we cut power, the beast will be across it. There is nothing I can do for Lenny, so I take up the light-gun and call to Pa.
We work together then. I am at the gate with the dogs, and he in the shed. He cuts the power, I free the dogs, then again the fence sings.
The dogs too work as a team, and the sowman turns his ire and his stick on them, until Lenny gains his feet and takes the gun I still hold. The beast now has been forced to the downside of Morgan Road. Lenny follows the dogs and pursues the beast until he puts a fiery end to its anger.
I have not before been so afraid, and I think of the ‘bloke’ Aaron wrote of in his journal. As they had learned, not all men are trustworthy. Today I learn a worthy lesson: not all sowmen are docile.
‘You feed another one of those frekin things, girl, and you’ll end up being his frekin dinner.’ Lenny still bleeds from the deep cut on his brow, and breathlessly he berates me. I do not defend my actions, and I can not make the sides of his wound join either. It is as if he has a second mouth over his eyes. I press my fingers to it, hold them fast, but when I release the pressure, the red lips open.
‘Lord.’ I go in search of Granny’s pouch of needles, and I find them. If the city men can stitch flesh, so too can I.
It is a slow and sticky process, but I gather the sides of the wound together and with the half circle needle and the black reel thread, sew the edges, then bind Lenny’s head. He makes few complaints about the pain, which must be considerable, but he makes many complaints about my indiscretion. I say not one word. But I think. And I think I will not feed another of the beasts. I will not. And I think today I was for once pleased with the fence’s singing, and I think I understand why the city men built that fence. If I have seen two escaped sowmen, then there are more.
The power generator, during this sunless season, sucks strength from many batteries. Our store is low. The grey men did not come on the day the light flashed red, though for all of one day and for two nights we hid in woods and cave. I tell myself it was because there was much storming rain on the day Lenny’s calculator light flashed red, but I have counted eighteen dry days since that storm and still the city men do not come.
This season is too cold to seek occupation outside; I find enough before the stove. Having found Granny’s supply of needles and reel thread I am using them to fashion garments for the foetus, from worn overalls. When it comes out of me and into the chill of this season it will require warm coverings.
If –
I do not like to think beyond the if. I do not like to think much beyond the now, and I do not like this unknowing. If they will come, when will they come? Why do they not come?
Perhaps they are all dead of the plague.
The season of the last newsprint was April, which is a word I understand. Granny had that word on her calendar. I think the naming of months is of as little value as the naming of kittens – they die and are gone – but I seek out Lenny’s day calculator, which flashes neither red nor yellow, though it tells me the day is Wednesday. I play with the buttons until I find a complete set of seasons. There are twelve, as with Granny’s calendar. Each one has a name and 30 or 31 small squares, which enclose name days and numbers, as had the calendar Granny painted on a square of timber. Each day we had crossed off with black coal from the stove. I last saw it in her room during the final days of her living.
Since she died, I have not been to her room and have not wished to go there, though I am aware that the room should be checked for rain damage. As a child I had loved the beauty and colour of the great tapestry that hung behind her bed, and I do not wish to see it grow grey with mould.
The chill upstairs is greater than out of doors, and I shiver with cold, or apprehension, as I open her door and enter a large room. There is space for a bed, for a small table and the cedar-wood drawers and, as in my room, hers has a wardrobe. On the western wall beside the wardrobe there are likenesses in their frames, and many of them – both faces and views.
Her bed is as mine, of the larger variety, but unlike my own it is covered by the blankets of the old ones, some of which are still strong.
I had not thought much of the old ones who lie in the graveyard, not until Aaron’s writings did I give one moment of thought to their daily survival here, nor had I considered how they had clothed themselves in the cold season.
I take up a blanket, a faded thing, like Pa, grown so grey it is almost white in the places where the sun reaches in to it. At its edge there is a little colour. Many of the old blankets have good colour for they were stored in the deep drawers of the cedar-wood chest. Its scent is still strong, and of Granny; all the items she wore were stored in this unit.
Some segments of her ap
parel remain in the first drawer; much of it was blankets or rough garments made of blankets. I find two large pins, and play with them a while, remembering them. Such things fastened my clothing before the grey men came. My feet knew no sandals, though in the cold season, when outdoors, I had worn boots like Granny and the men, which were fashioned from the hide of the cows. Lenny and Pa had worn britches made from hides, odd upper garments of many colours and always their bullock hide capes. Granny had such a cape. I had such a cape.
Had the old ones worn such clothing, or woven cloaks like the one I found in the trunk and wear today? Such warmth it has, I wonder why Granny had not worn it. I look at the weave and the colour, I study the stitching of it, which has been done with a matching brown thread, and I think the thread was made with the old spinning wheel and the fabric woven on the old loom.
Lord, how I wish I could find the writings of one who came in the generations between Aaron and Granny. There is so much I do not know. And can not know. I have searched Aaron’s room, searched the books of Granny’s library. Only in the Bible have I found names, written by the old ones’ hands – many names, but what use are names alone? They die with their wearer.
I know Aaron was alive during the Great Ending, and I know he lived for one hundred and five years and was a very old man when Granny was born and that Granny lived on earth for one hundred and two years. I know Aaron was the grandfather of Granny’s grandfather, thus there were three generations that came between them. I know where Aaron is buried but where the others sleep I do not know.
I place the blanket neatly across Granny’s bed and turn to the tapestry, which is at most times protected from the sun, though it has reached in to steal the colour from one corner.