Child Garden

by Geoff Ryman

  i dont know how bad things are for you — but listen — fifteen years from now you will still be able to tell people the story of the day of the dogs — it will be the funniest thing that ever happened to you — thats what you do with things like that — make them funny — some day i will tell you my stories about rolfas father !!!!!!!

  listen you write me sometime too — i never had a squidge for a friend and it might be nice to know how you can stand it

  yours

  hortensia patel

  hey — i dont know your name — ill just give this to my little gal behind the door and see if she can get it to you

  Smile, thought Milena. She makes me smile. Just like Rolfa did. 'Jake, can you stay a moment?' Milena asked. 'I'm going to write an answer now.' Jacob nodded yes. He sat in comfortable silence. The unvarying formulae were no longer necessary.

  Milena wrote on the back of the card.

  I don't know how I stand being a Squidge, either. My name is Milena but for some reason, people have started to call me Ma. Thanks for letting me know. Tell Zoe I'm sorry.

  Milena signed it, love. Jacob smiled with beatific approval and then left.

  On the windowsill there was the great grey book. Milena reached forward for it and it seemed to dump itself in her lap. FOR AN AUDIENCE OF VIRUSES it said. Oh, Rolfa. What does that mean? Milena looked at the tiny, tiny notes cowering between the lines as if they were trying to hide. Most of them were in red, but whenever anyone was quoted, the notes were in black. What does that mean, Rolfa?

  The Comedy and its mysteries were all that was left, all she had. Milena picked up the great grey book, put it under her arm, and went to visit the Zookeeper.

  'Well Ms Shibush,' the Zookeeper said, his smile grim. He had a terrible cold. He spoke like a rusty hinge and his joints had swollen. 'That was a day to remember.'

  'I'm sorry,' she whispered.

  'There has been a letter of protest from the Family. And we have responded with a letter of apology.'

  'She's back home now,' said Milena.

  'Ah,' said the Zookeeper. He couldn't turn his neck. It was as if everything about him were grinding to a halt. 'Have we lost her music, then?'

  'They will stop her coming back to us. They blame us for making her so ill,' said Milena.

  'Perhaps,' said the Zookeeper, with a uncomfortable shift. 'If so much virus was necessary, it is no bad tiling that she stays at home.'

  'We have destroyed her.' Milena stated the worst possible case, as if saying it would make it untrue.

  'Then this has been a tragedy,' said the Zookeeper.

  No, it wasn't.

  'We still have this,' said Milena, and held up the Comedy.

  'It is not orchestrated,' said the Zookeeper.

  'It can be orchestrated,' said Milena.

  His eyes narrowed. 'You are not exactly in favour, Ms Shibush,' he warned her.

  'I don't matter,' replied Milena.

  The Minister's gaze was watery, and he kept blinking. 'How many hours of music is it?'

  There were one hundred cantos lasting a half hour each. Milena had hummed them to herself. 'Fifty hours,' she replied.

  'Mozart's entire oeuvre is longer,' he said. 'So is all of Wagner's work, but not by much. Who could orchestrate 50 hours of someone else's music?'

  'I don't know.'

  'Who could? Who would want to? How would they be paid? It's impossible.'

  'No, it's not,' said Milena.

  The gaze of the Minister, heavy as lead, was also weighted with warning. 'It is impossible,' he said again.

  Milena had been holding back, holding in. It now seemed to her to be angry at what had happened, or to grieve too deeply, would somehow be ungrateful to life. She had learned newer, even higher standards of behaviour. Self-love would not let her slip.

  'I don't remember much about being a child,' said Milena the director. She spoke very calmly. 'But I do remember that I could not catch any virus at all. That meant I knew nothing. I had to read to catch up. People tried to tell me there were no books. I found some. I read them, just to keep up with the other children. I read Plato when I was six years old. I read Chao Li Song when I was eight. I am telling you, sir, that it is never wise to say that anything is impossible.'

  The Minister sat still for a moment, and then said, 'We know about you, you know. We were wondering when you would show up.'

  Milena the director's mind went blank for a moment.

  'Doesn't it strike you as strange that you were never Read? We knew you were resistant to the virus. That interested us. We wanted to see how you would turn out.' The Minister sighed, and hid his eyes. 'Go on then, Ms Shibush. Go on, and try.' His hand came away from his eyes. Through the swollen flesh and teary film his eyes were full of wariness and sympathy and an assurance that she would fail. 'Do what you can. I have no doubt that you have further surprises in store for us.'

  Right.

  'Who?' Milena asked. 'Who at the Zoo can orchestrate music?'

  chapter nine

  WHERE IS ROLFA?

  (CONDITIONS OF WEIGHTLESSNESS)

  Nothing is impossible.

  Milena remembered looking out of the window of the Bulge at the Earth below. The sky was black, like velvet, and the Earth was like polished brass. It was sunset and the Earth reflected the fire. The sea was smooth and burnished, and the clouds were pink and orange, skimming the surface of the ocean. The cloud shadowed the sea, and the sea reflected the light that came from underneath the clouds. It was a network of light, a system of exchange.

  The Bulge had docked, meeting its larger sister in space. Kissing, the procedure was called — two mouths were sealed together. There was a hiss of air.

  'Hello,' said a voice just behind Milena.

  Milena reared back from the window in surprise. She launched herself from the floor, and suddenly saw her feet rear up over her head. Why are they doing that? she wondered mildly. She somersaulted into flesh and bone. Someone's elbows were rammed into her ribs. Milena reared up and over him. That's the ceiling, she thought as she plunged into it. The ceiling was soft and warm, and gave with her weight, enveloping her in its chamois embrace. Then it flung her out, back down towards the floor.

  This isn't supposed to happen, she thought. I'm supposed to be trained for weightlessness. Then she remembered. The training was a virus. She had been resistant to that as well.

  'What do I do?' she wailed.

  'There are holds. Grab them.' said a man's voice.

  Milena whirled like a propellor. Her stomach seemed to be somewhere down around her ankles. 'I'm terribly sorry!' she cried. She was giddy and confused, the balance of her inner ear disrupted by weightlessness.

  'Oh,' said the voice, calmly. 'That's OK.'

  He didn't understand. Milena had been apologising in advance.

  'I think I'm going to be sick!' she wailed.

  And the Milena who was remembering spun as well, through memory.

  Milena remembered work.

  She remembered going to an Estate in Deptford, the Samuel Pepys Estate, to try to sell a production of Love's Labour's Lost. The cast had set up their own small Estate, to do new plays. Milena remembered the ride in the water taxi. The day was grey and cold, without comfort. Milena remembered the tink-tink-tinkling of the tiny engine, and the tillerman who sang a song about lovers being parted. Why thought Milena, hunched against the river wind, why do songs always have to be about love?

  She was met at Deptford docks by a very lean and smiling woman. The Pepys Estate grew Coral. 'We call ourselves Reefers,' said the woman.

  She smiled sweetly and explained that the Estate did not want a production of Shakespeare, no matter how original. 'We like to put on shows for ourselves, you know. A bit of singing, a bit of a laugh. We have got our centenary coming up though. If you could do us a new show about the history of growing Coral, that would be good.'

  Milena paused for just a moment. It was as if she were trying to catch a handkerchief i
n the wind. If she didn't snatch it right away, it would be lost. 'Right,' she said. 'We'll do it'

  'You will?' The woman looked surprised. 'And you all work at the Zoo, you're all professional singers?'

  'Yes,' said Milena, in a whisper and a catching of breath that meant: I think I've done it.

  'Oh well, then,' said the woman. 'I'll have to put it to the others and see what they think. How will you do it? I thought you only did viral plays.'

  'No, no, that's the whole point.'

  We're whores. We'll do anything.

  And Milena remembered talking with the Reefers about their history, of how Coral was developed, and how it was used to grow the great white wall that kept back the sea, the Great Barrier Reef. She remembered rehearsals, the false starts, and the look on the faces of the actors, the blank horror, when they tried to speak without a virus giving them lines.

  She remembered Mote the actor standing helplessly in place, wondering what to do.

  'Look, Ma, where do I go? Do I keep standing here, or do I walk off? I don't know what to do next!'

  'Of course you don't,' said Milena. 'This is all new, remember? Make it up.'

  Mote still looked perplexed. Milena had an idea. 'I know. This is before the Revolution, right? You smoke cigarettes. Take out a pack, find it's empty, and start asking other people for tobacco. In desperation, that's right, you're an addict.'

  Milena started to direct.

  All that October after Rolfa had gone, into November, Milena spent her time telling actors what to do. She remembered finding Technicians and hiring the ambulances of St Thomas's hospital to deliver lighting. She remembered the fittings for costumes, the bright little Zoo seamstress who restitched them out of cloth from the Graveyard. She visited every Estate that was about to have a centenary, and offered them a production. The boatbuilders, the maids and manservants — they had all started forming Estates in the days just before the Revolution. Each Estate was like a separate country, self-contained, in rivalry with the others.

  'The What Does Estate wants us to do a show!' she announced, expecting enthusiasm.

  'Uhhhhh!' the actors groaned. 'Not another one. We can't do it!'

  'Each one takes us weeks?

  The problem was time.

  It was the actors who found a solution. It was not a solution of which Milena approved.

  She remembered being ushered into a secret meeting in a bare rehearsal hall. The King guarded the door and only let in members of the company. The Princess, Berowne, Cilia who had joined them, they all came in and sat on the floor. Hiya Babe, they said to each other. They had started to called themselves the Babes.

  In a corner of the room, there sat an apothecary.

  Oh no, thought Milena. Apothecaries thrived around the Zoo. They sold illicit viruses that heightened emotion or powers of mimicry.

  The apothecary stood up. She wore black, shiny leotards that showed off her slim legs, and a loose white smock that hid her apple-round belly. Her face was painted with apothecary make-up, a clown-like promise of emotional cornucopia.

  'A play is in the mind!' the apothecary announced. 'And minds can be Read!' She flourished a plate of agar jelly like a tambourine. It was a viral culture.

  'This virus has children,' the apothecary said. 'It plants them in you, and the children read you. Then the mother comes, and harvests them, and merges them. She gives birth to the play for you, out of all of you. And then you catch her, as you would for any other play.' She held up a gloved hand, as if to say, what could be simpler?

  The Babes applauded. They admired her performance.

  'So it's not one disease, but two,' said Milena.

  The woman's face faltered.

  'The first disease collects whole sections of personae. The second is a transfer virus that picks up all that information and merges it. We then become ill with the transfer virus. Is that right?'

  'Yes. That's all it is,' said the apothecary, giving a clown's smile, and holding up her glove again.

  'Both of your viruses have to pick up information. The DNA has to be open to change. So neither of them can be Candy-coated. Obviously your transfer virus reproduces itself. Does it have two sets of chromosomes? One for information and one for reproduction?'

  'Only the transfer virus,' said the woman.

  'Only the transfer virus,' said Milena grimly.

  'So?' asked Cilia.

  'So it's contagious! It's contagious and it can mutate. Ficken hell, woman, what you've got there is the end of the world!'

  'Uh. Ma. We know you don't like the viruses...' the King began.

  'It's not a question of what I like. It's what those can do! It merges minds. It turns merged minds into a contagious disease. Anyone could catch us!'

  'Many Estates use this virus,' said the apothecary. 'Any time people have to share information, and work together, and know in advance what each other are going to do.'

  'How many of those have you sold?' asked Milena in a chill little voice.

  'Many. Many.'

  'If I told the Party they would haul you in for a Reading so fast it would make your head spin.'

  'You would have to find me first,' said the apothecary.

  'So the clown make-up is a disguise.' said Milena.

  The woman kept smiling.

  Berowne slid across the floor to be closer to Milena. He was not yet pregnant. His beard was full and his teeth were white. He was beautiful. 'Ma,' he said. 'Ma, look. Everyone uses the viruses.'

  Milena saw the broader pattern. People were used to getting everything from viruses. These people would have no resistance to the idea. Milena covered her mouth in fear. 'You're all programmed to accept them.' It was like watching a trap close. Everyone was used to the viruses doing the work for them, they had been trained to think of viruses as an unmitigated good.

  'No! Look, Ma. We need to speed up production.'

  'It takes months to rehearse a new show,' said a heart-faced young actress, sullen with ambition. Milena could not remember her name. 'You all knew that when we started,' said Milena.

  'Yes!' said Berowne in frustration. 'But if we're to make a living at this we have got to put on more and more shows. Each one you get us is brand new, for a different Estate.'

  They aren't used to working, thought Milena.

  'If we don't do this,' said the Princess, 'We'll just have to give up on new plays and go back to sleepwalking.' This was before the Princess had started to stammer.

  'Look, Ma,' said Cilia. 'Chao Li would say we were getting it right. We're not taking value from anyone else, we are generating it ourselves. And we're entitled to do that.'

  'This isn't a matter of Tarty principles,' said Milena.

  'All I was saying is that we got to start turning a few francs.'

  The truth was economic. The truth was that viral theatre came whole and finished. It was cheaper than creating and rehearsing new productions. The truth was that the Babes could mount any play they liked. But they had to make it pay.

  The apothecary saw the advantage. 'One or two days,' she said. 'That's all it will take, to collect your ideas, merge them into a whole, polish them a bit. I'm not saying the play will be perfect the first time. But you'll save time.'

  'We're going to do it, Ma,' said Berowne, smiling out of kind regard for Milena.

  'Don't,' said Milena, hand across her forehead in alarm.

  She watched as the apothecary touched each of their tongues in turn with the finger of a resin glove. 'Think of it as a kiss,' the apothecary said.

  'None for me,' said Milena.

  She watched the Babes go pale and sick and ill. She nursed them and took care of them, and sold productions for them, and organised collections and deliveries and fittings. Over the next eighteen months, she and the Babes would stage 142 new productions. For a while, everything seemed all right.

  And Milena remembered meeting Max.

  Max was the conductor of one of the Zoo orchestras. He could orchestrate music. He
could orchestrate the Comedy.

  Milena remembered standing in his chilly office, when was it? Late November, the November after Rolfa had gone. Max sat behind a huge, black desk. The desk was meant to intimidate, Milena was certain of that now.

  Max was looking through the great, grey book. He was unhurried. He was not speaking to or looking at Milena. He was like some swollen little boy: round, fat and smooth. The oils on his forehead reflected the windows of his room. His green-blond moustache masked his purple mouth. His mouth needed masking. It seemed to curl in scorn, but was somehow too pretty at the same time. It made him look petulant. Through the airy linen of his shirt, Milena could see that his breasts were pendulous with fat. Milena stood with her arms folded and looked at the room.

  The floor was bare concrete, and the shelves were empty, except for a green glazed pot with some kind of dried twig protruding artistically from it. The walls were painted white and were hung with framed sheets of music, safe behind glass, like paintings. By Max's elbow, as if he were just about to begin composing, there was a sheaf of perfectly stacked, ruled paper and a very sharp pencil. Though it was November, two charcoal hibachi kept the room stifling hot. It was so airless, that Milena felt giddy. She needed to sit down, but there was no chair for guests.

  'Hmmm,' said Max. He finally looked up at Milena and fixed her with the swimming, glassy look of someone whose corneas have been replaced. 'Yes,' he said in a very flat, precise, but muted voice.