by Paul Park
The Cult of Loving Kindness
by Paul Park
ElectricStory.com, Inc.®
The Cult of Loving Kindness
by Paul Park
In the third and final book of the Starbridge Chronicles, more than two generations have passed since the events of Sugar Rain, and barren tundra has given way to fecund, steamy jungle at the height of summer. Deep in the forest, a twin boy and girl grow up among a strange race of philosophers, oblivious to the outside world, where the secular regime is now as fanatical and orthodox as the old religious one. When their home is invaded, the pair take flight. Among the new faith called The Cult of Loving Kindness, they awaken to their mythic heritage, becoming the catalyst of another revolution and the re-ascendance of the Starbridges. The Cult of Loving Kindness was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. View all titles in the Starbridge Chronicles.
THE CULT OF LOVING KINDNESS
Copyright © 1991 by Paul Park. All rights reserved.
Original Publication: William Morrow, 1991.
Ebook edition of The Cult of Loving Kindness copyright © 2001 by ElectricStory.com, Inc.
ePub ISBN: 978-1-59729-095-1
Kindle ISBN: 978-1-59729-003-6
ElectricStory.com and the ES design are registered trademarks of ElectricStory.com, Inc.
This novel is a work of fiction. All characters, events, organizations, and locales are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously to convey a sense of realism.
Cover art by and copyright © 2000 Cory and Catska Ench.
Original Ebook conversion by ElectricStory.com, Inc.
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For JMC
Part One:
Mr. Sarnath
A MAN HAD BEEN ARRESTED at the port of Caladon. His disembarkation papers had been smudged with sweat. Further investigation had revealed a false bottom to his suitcase.
Sulky, unimpassioned, he stood on the veranda of the customs shed, where the deputy administrator sat behind his desk. Around them the dark night was full of noises. Insects buzzed around the lamppost in the yard.
The deputy administrator leaned forward in his chair. He balanced one pointed elbow on the blotter of his desk, and with the fingers of one hand he combed delicately through a pile of small copper medallions. Each one was stamped with the image of the shining sun.
Under the desktop light they seemed to glow. The deputy administrator rubbed his eyes. It was the fourth hour after sunset; behind him in the shed, the senior deputy director was already drunk, asleep and snoring. At intervals his liquid grunts would seep out past the curtained doorway, mixing with more subtle forest sounds.
“Please sit down,” said the deputy administrator. He indicated a wooden stool and the smuggler sank onto it, his knees spread apart. His fat face held no expression. His hair, plentiful upon his neck and hands, was thin on top. His scalp was slick with perspiration.
Next to the pile of medallions a small statue was lying on its side. It was the second part of the smuggler’s consignment; the deputy administrator lifted it in both hands and set it upright underneath the lamp. Though only nine inches tall it weighed several pounds, a copper statue of St. Abu Starbridge standing erect, his hand held out in front of him. The tattoo on his palm was inlaid with a plug of solid gold.
The deputy administrator was a judge of craftsmanship. He ran his fingers over the folds of the saint’s copper cloak, admiring the work. “Jon Blox,” he said. With his left hand he turned over the pages of the smuggler’s passport.
The man nodded. A mosquito had landed on the crown of his head. The deputy administrator watched it drink, and swell with blood, and drift away.
“Do you have anything to tell me?” he asked. “You must admit you’re in an intricate position.”
The smuggler stared at him briefly and then turned his head. He looked out over the wooden balustrade. Something was scrabbling in the bush on the other side of the yard. After a moment a badger waddled onto the perimeter and pressed its naked face against the fence.
The deputy administrator rubbed his eyes. These devotees were hard to break, for they were buttressed in their faith by the example of their saint, who never spoke to his tormentors even when the fire was around his feet. “You could make this simpler for yourself,” he said. “Simpler and more complex. But as it is, you have neglected to fill out any of the proper forms. These items, though proscribed for the general public, nevertheless may have legitimate artistic and educational uses. I have seen a statuette just like this in the cultural museum in Charn.”
A tremor of interest passed over the smuggler’s face. He turned back toward the light. His voice was low—“What do you mean?”
“I mean that there’s no reason for despair. This case may be more complicated than you understand.”
He had the man’s attention now. The soft pucker of a frown appeared between the smuggler’s brows. “What do you mean?” he asked again.
The deputy administrator took a paper from his desk. He read a few lines from the back of it and then looked up. “You are accused of smuggling these items of religious contraband,” he said, indicating the pile of medallions and the statue of the saint. “But perhaps we might consider entering a lesser charge, under the right circumstances. For example,” he continued, “Customs Regulation 412ao forbids the export of all artifacts without a license from the Bureau of Antiquities. If you prefer, Regulation 6161j forbids the use of precious metals in the decorative arts. It is a question of a modest fine.”
The smuggler shook his head. “I know the penalty for what I’ve done.”
“I’m suggesting you may not. Your offense may be more trivial than you suppose.”
Five wooden steps descended to the yard from the veranda of the customs shed. Two soldiers slouched on these, their backs to the administrator. Occasionally as they turned their heads, he could see the glow of their marijuana cigarettes and catch flickers of their conversation. Now one got up. He ambled over to the perimeter and knelt down by the fence.
“What do you want from me?” demanded the smuggler, his face suddenly alive, contorted with disgust. “Aach, I know your kind. Bureaucratic parasites!” He brought some saliva into his mouth as if to spit, then paused, then swallowed it again. He leaned forward on his stool, placing his fat fist upon the desk. “Let me tell you now, I have no information. No addresses. Not even a name.”
At the fence, the soldier reached into his pocket and brought out part of a candy bar. The badger stood opposite him on its hind legs.
The deputy administrator shrugged. “You misunderstand me. But I appreciate your fears. Perhaps you are familiar with certain worst-case scenarios. Perhaps involving relatives or personal friends.” He smiled—a wasted gesture, for the lower part of his emaciated face was covered by a veil.
“Let me explain,” he said. “Some members of my department do what they can to discourage certain activities, which they interpret to be linked to superstition and
idolatry. They feel the truth of man’s condition can be better understood through reason than through faith.”
Again the smuggler’s face seemed to have shut down, and settled into stolid impassivity. The deputy administrator tried again: “Let me explain. Our function here is not only to prosecute. It is to inform. These objects”—here he waved his hand dismissively at the pile of medallions—“these objects have no meaning. They are the relics of a bankrupt church.”
On the steps, the remaining soldier slapped his neck and swore. And at the fence across the yard, his comrade got up from his knees. He was looking up into the sky.
The lights from the compound overwhelmed all but the brightest stars. But now the moon was rising, its pale edge gleaming among the tallest trees. The smuggler studied it in silence until the arc of its great rim rose unimpeded over the forest canopy. Then he bowed his head and stared down at the floor between his knees. “I guess I’ll never leave this place alive,” he said. The new light gave his face a new composure.
The deputy administrator rubbed his eyes. “Your position is more favorable than you suspect. You have not begun to think about your options.”
The smuggler made no reply, only stared at the floorboards underneath his boots. No man is so stupid that he cannot learn, reflected the administrator. But it takes time; he clapped his hands. “We are both tired,” he said. “And I am explaining myself badly. Even so, please think about what I have said. And I will speak to my superiors.” He looked down at the appointment book upon his desk. “In the meantime,” he said, “I have you scheduled tentatively for next Friday. That’s the thirty-fourth.”
* * *
The soldiers took the man away. In a few minutes one of them returned to the porch bearing refreshments—crusts of bread and cheese, and a tin basin full of water. He deposited them on the desk and then withdrew.
After he had gone, the deputy administrator sat by himself for a long time. He switched off the small light upon his desk. Now the moon was rising, showing its silver belly in a sea of darkness.
He left the food untouched. He sat listening to the mosquitoes and the cautious stir of animals beyond the fence. In the distance, at the limit of his senses, he could hear occasional noises from the port—steam whistles from the packet boats and once, the clang of a buoy on the gentle sea. Occasionally the air was stiffened by the smell of salt. Behind him in the customs shed, his director had turned over and was still.
A gekko lay watching a spider on the balustrade near his right hand. Tendrils of flypaper, twisting gently in the humid air, hung from the ceiling of the porch. On one of them a moth had lighted and was stuck.
It was a luna moth, with iridescent wings as big as a man’s hand. The deputy administrator sat back in his chair. He admired the composure of the creature, how it declined to hurt itself in futile struggles against fate. Its great wings scarcely moved. In a little while he took a pair of scissors from his desk and stood up behind his chair.
For several minutes he did nothing. From his changed position he could no longer see the moon directly. It was cut off by the overhanging roof. But instead, he could observe its entire shape reflected in the basin on his desk. The light spread over the plane of his desk, and fell especially on the image of the saint, and touched the star-shaped plug of gold upon his palm.
The statue depicted an episode from the saint’s later life: how he calmed the mob below the Harbor Bridge when Chrism Demiurge was lord of Charn. His sad copper smile was full of wisdom and compassion.
The insect rustled its bright wings next to the administrator’s head—the faintest susurration on the midnight air. How long did it have to live? Not long, not long, even in the best of times. He raised the scissors. Holding the cartridge of the flypaper in his other hand, he stretched it tight, and with single-minded care he cut the insect loose, amputating its five feet next to the glue.
Suddenly free, the moth folded its wings and dropped tumbling to the desk. It dropped onto its side in the middle of the basin, troubling the water, scattering the light.
* * *
Now the moon was rising. The deputy administrator stood looking out over the deserted yard. At midnight precisely, the light from the lamppost was extinguished, and the silver moon washed unimpeded over the black grass.
After half an hour the deputy administrator untied his tolliban. He stripped the long gauze veil from around his mouth and head, revealing features that were almost human. That night he felt supremely sensitive to every sound; leaning out over the porch’s wooden balustrade, he stood listening to the air in the tall grass. He heard the bell buoy on the sea ring once, twice. He heard the prisoners breathing in their cells, the sentries sleeping at their watch, the sodden dreams of his superior in the shed.
He wadded his veil into a ball. Turning, he dropped it onto the center of the blotter on his desk. Next to it, next to the basin and the drowned moth, lay his appointment book. It was a record of interrogation stretching far into the past, far into the future: thousands of names penciled in at half-hour intervals, the faded marks glowing silver in the moonlight.
A ledger of unhappiness and waste—the deputy administrator stood with his hand over the open book, his finger on the page for the next day. Only a few hours away—he had planned to spend the night in meditation, perhaps dozing for twenty minutes at the end. But now the page felt harsh and rough under his hand; he closed the book. He lined it up along the edges of the blotter, and then weighted down its cover with the statue of the saint.
From a cardboard crate on the floor beneath his desk he pulled a change of underwear and two pairs of socks. These, together with his veil and the untouched bread and cheese, he tied into a bundle, which he could carry over his shoulder. He picked up one of the saint’s copper medallions from the pile on his desk.
Due to the success of his department, the market in religious contraband—and especially these emblems of the Cult of Loving Kindness—was lucrative on both sides of the border. In Caladon the smallest trinket, for a sweeper or a guard, was worth more than a month’s pay. The deputy administrator, with this coin, hoped to bribe the sentry at the gate to let him go. Holding it in the center of his palm, he stalked across the floor and down the steps, leaving his post for the first time in seven months.
The customs compound—six rectangular buildings surrounded by barbed wire—occupied a wooded ridge above the port, and was connected to it by a metal tram. The deputy administrator stalked across the yard. The grass was thick under his shoes. Expecting to be challenged, he slunk between two buildings, keeping to the shadows. But he saw no one. And when he reached the outer gate, the sentry in the box was fast asleep. So he slid the coin into the pocket of his trousers, and ducked under the crossbar.
A paved road led southeast from the gate. He followed it for half a mile until he found a bare place in the trees. Here the road descended sharply toward the port two hundred feet below; from the crest of the ridge the deputy administrator could see the hands of the breakwater stretching out into the bay, pallid in the moonlight, each decorated with a single jewel. And there were lights, also, on the packet steamer by the dock, and a single shining ruby on the bell buoy out to sea. The deputy administrator listened for the sound—a muffled clanging on the small east wind. He heard it, and heard something else, louder, more insistent, closer, and he stepped aside into the grass. Below him at the bottom of the hill, the shuttle started on its hourly circuit from the port to the compound and then back.
He squatted down in the long grass. Soon he could hear the rattle of the car as it labored toward him up the slope. Soon he could see it—empty, brainless, fully lit, its wheels sparking on the steel rail that ran beside the road. He crouched down lower as it gained the slope, and he could read the advertisements in the empty compartment, and smell the singed metal as it hurried past.
Then it was gone. The deputy administrator stood up. For a minute he stood looking back the way he had come. Then he stepped out onto the r
oad, continuing downhill for another hundred yards before he turned aside under the trees. A narrow track led away south along the ridge. It was the footpath over land, due south to the border and beyond, scarcely used now that the packets made the journey twice a week from Charn.
The forest closed around him after a dozen paces, and the dark was monstrous and loud. To the right and to the left, beetles quarreled in the underbrush, while high above among the jackfruit trees, tarsiers grabbed bats out of the air. Furry creatures, stupefied by moonlight, stumbled up against his ankles.
He walked almost for half an hour before the border came in sight: a small white cabin set adjacent to the track. East and west, a strand of luminescent wire sagged off into the trees, interrupted by the cabin and a wooden barricade. Placards in five languages were posted to this barricade, though only the boldest headings—PAPERS PLEASE, FORM SINGLE LINE, EXTINGUISH PIPES—were visible by moonlight.
Officially, the gate was open. But tongueweed licked at the administrator’s shoes as he came up the track. He stood studying the placards; to his left, a single lantern glimmered on the cabin’s porch.
By its light he could distinguish the gatekeeper sitting cross-legged on a table, his shoulders hunched, his head bent low, his hands clasped in his lap. It was an attitude of meditation; a kerosene lantern on the desk in front of him flickered in the humid wind, and it shone upon his narrow face, his naked scalp, his veil. He was staring deep into the flame.
Standing on the porch’s lowest step, the deputy administrator watched him carefully. He took pleasure in watching him, in examining his meager arms and legs, for the old man was a member of his own race, living, like him, in a world of strangers. Old and thin, the man was still quite supple, and his spine still made a graceful curve. Clearly he had crossed the seventh boundary of concentration, and was beginning to perceive the essences of small inanimate objects. An inkwell, a pebble, and a leaf lay before him on the tabletop, grouped around the base of the lantern.