The Birth of Love

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The Birth of Love Page 10

by Joanna Kavenna


  *

  The waiter was putting something down in front of him. A crème brûlée, perfectly glazed on top.

  *

  ‘How delicious,’ said Sally. ‘Dessert wine, anyone?’

  ‘Down the hatch,’ said Peter Kennedy.

  So Michael Stone lifted his glass and received another splash of wine.

  *

  Everything had been soured by that phone call. It was the peculiar tone in his brother’s voice, something almost police, when for years James had treated him as if he was pathetic, unspeakable. Polite and yet cold all the same, as if hostilities were off for the time being, while their mother declined, out of some sort of warped notion of decorum – yet he did not want to have to think about James, or his mother. They always made him feel anxious about things he had previously enjoyed. Even his childhood had been nervous, because of his mother’s godliness and determination, because she always had so much to say about even the smallest things. She ordered the world so convincingly, classified everything as either ‘good’ or ‘bad’. He couldn’t believe she had really changed. Things were better when he ignored them, but then the chilly voice of his brother had intruded, making him uneasy again. It made him think of an ancient patriarch, some ogre of his childhood, standing in judgement, far above him. He saw himself clambering towards this venerable prophet – perhaps he was on a mountain, by a stone temple. Michael saw himself struggling up to the peak, approaching with his head bowed, and there was the old sage, swinging his hoary locks towards him, saying, ‘You have done wrong. You have done everything wrong and for this wrong you must be punished.’

  *

  As he had always done, in childhood and even in adult life, Michael felt uncertain, guilty even, found himself saying, ‘But what is it? Just what is it I have done?’

  The Tower

  Transcripts of interviews with members of the anti-species conspiracy of Lofoten 4a, Arctic Circle sector 111424

  Part 1, 10.00–11.55 a.m. 15 August 2153 Interview with Prisoner 730004

  At time of commencement the prisoner will not disclose her real name.

  I do not understand. Just what is it I have done?

  Prisoner 730004 you are aware that your crimes against the species are very grave and you stand under a charge of conspiring against the Genetix and thereby against the survival of humanity?

  I am aware of the charges but I do not understand what I have done to merit them.

  The Protectors are very disappointed with you. They perceive that you have behaved in a reckless manner, dangerous to all. What do you say to this?

  I am sorry the Protectors are disappointed. Yet I remain confused about the nature of my offence.

  They regret to inform you that while they seek to assess all matters reasonably and dispassionately, your case and that of your co-conspirators must be considered a crime. We are appointed to discuss with you the precise nature of this crime and to relay information to the Protectors on your behalf. Do you understand?

  I do not really understand, no.

  Could you firstly explain how you came to be living in Lofoten 4a, Arctic Circle sector 111424, in the Restricted Area?

  You mean on the island?

  Lofoten 4a, Arctic Circle sector 111424, yes. Can you explain how you came to be living there?

  We were living in the land of our mothers and fathers …

  Correction, for ‘mothers and fathers’ the record will read egg and sperm donors.

  … Generations were born and lived their lives there. We merely wanted to be at home.

  You were not happy with your accommodation in Darwin C?

  Naturally I should have felt fortunate. In our perilous times, Darwin C supplied me with everything I should need. I had my allocated role in the struggle for the survival of the species. I had my own small room which is called a space. A regulated lamp which functioned from nightfall for a regulation hour, during which time I could arrange my clothes for the following day, pull my bed down from the wall. I had a thin window with a view of all the other towers. I took my meals in the collective dining centre, like everyone else. I washed in the collective hygiene centre, and I received my daily allocation of drinking water. On Sunday mornings, I was granted three hours of relaxation time. I liked to read in the collective data hall. Despite all this, I became aware that Darwin C was not my home.

  But you had lived there all your life, is that correct?

  Yes, my parents were taken there before I was born. They were removed forcibly from their home and taken to a space on the twenty-eighth floor, sector 1125, Darwin C. My mother was harvested and then sterilised and I was the product of her Genetix treatment. As you know in those days it was the custom for Genetix children to live with their parents.

  Correction, for ‘mother’ the record will read egg donor. And for ‘children’ the record will read progeny of the species. And for ‘parents’ the record will read sperm and egg donors.

  Now of course this is no longer the case.

  How did it come to pass that you left Darwin C, Prisoner 730004?

  I had a dream. I dreamed of torrents of blood. I was swimming in a sea of blood. In my dream I was encased in blood. Yet I was not drowning. It was astonishing but I could breathe in the blood. I was drinking the blood and I liked the taste of it. In my dream I understood that the blood held all the nourishment I needed. I felt very peaceful and happy. Perhaps I was even smiling as I drank down blood. When I woke from this dream I was sweating and crying. I woke in my space in sector 1125 Darwin C and I thought of all the millions of souls waking in their small spaces too and I cried out in anguish for something I had never known.

  And you attached significance to this random twitching of neurons?

  I was profoundly affected by it. My life changed utterly. I could no longer perform my job – my allocated role, I mean.

  Please explain what your allocated role was.

  I worked at the nurture grounds, in sector 1126.

  Your area of specialisation?

  I cared for babies of six months to a year. I loved what I did though I felt deeply sad that I could not have a child myself.

  Correction, for ‘child’ and ‘babies’ record progeny of the species. Your eggs were classified as deficient, Prisoner 730004?

  No, I believe they passed the test.

  So they have generated many progeny of the species.

  I do not mean children that I will never meet and who were generated in a laboratory using sperm from men I will never know. I mean children of my own womb, grown and nurtured by my own body.

  On behalf of the Protectors we are obliged to advise you that the expression of such statements will not help your case at all, as they constitute a grave threat to the survival of the species and cannot, for the common good, despite the generosity and forbearance of the Protectors, be sanctioned.

  I am sorry. I was trying to answer your question.

  These dangerous anti-species opinions were shared by all of your group?

  It was not something we spoke about. It is a private matter, the yearning of the sterilised body to procreate … I do not know how other women endure it.

  We assume that other egg donors understand that it is necessary for the survival of the species that we regulate procreation. That we select from a crop of harvested eggs and only place the most superior in the Genetix, fertilised only by the most superior sperm. That we filter out genetic deficiencies. Such deficiencies and your egomaniacal fixations are luxuries the species can no longer allow itself, if it is to survive.

  I am aware of the arguments for the Genetix. I am merely explaining my own emotions.

  I am afraid this is where you and your group have been in error. You have glutted yourselves on emotions, without a single thought for the Collective. Did you consider what would happen if everyone behaved as you have?

  I am afraid we did not. We were compelled … I was compelled, I cannot speak for the others, by an overwhelming desire to l
eave Darwin C.

  And if everyone left the Protection Zone and set up farms in the Restricted Area what would happen?

  I do not know. I am no prophet.

  You don’t need to be a prophet to understand the basic laws of supply and demand. I assume you attended Species Survival Courses A, B and C?

  Yes, I did. They were compulsory.

  And you were taught there that given current climatic instability and the grave perils of overpopulation and shortage of resources, we must make various personal sacrifices for the species to survive the current crisis?

  Yes, I was taught this.

  Were the arguments persuasive?

  I lacked the knowledge to disagree with them. I have no idea what is really happening to the planet, even now.

  But you acknowledge that the climate has changed violently.

  Yes, I think it has since I was young. But I do not know what this means.

  What it means, Prisoner 730004, is that the Collective and the Protectorate and the proposals established for species protection must prevail. It means that to defy these proposals is to aim at the annihilation of the species. Under Proposal 113 of the Darwinian Protectorate auto-genocide is forbidden, you realise?

  Yes, I have been told this.

  You were taught it in Species Survival B part 7, were you not?

  I can’t remember exactly when it was that I was taught it but yes I know I have been told it.

  And do you understand that the reason we are all accommodated in cities such as Darwin C is to conserve as much land as possible for mass-scale farming to support our species?

  I have no real knowledge of anything but yes this is something I have heard.

  You were taught it in Species Survival B part 2, were you not?

  I can’t remember the details. I was a poor scholar. But I have a recollection that something like this was explained to me, yes.

  So, when you left the city to set up your own farm you knew you and your group were disobeying the most serious proposals of our Collective? Proposals which have been established to protect the species as a whole?

  As I said, we knew that it was not what we had been told to do, or rather I knew, I cannot speak for the others, but such was our – my – craving … I was guided by desire, by my yearning for the island …

  Correction, Lofoten 4a, Arctic Circle sector 111424.

  … and for the countryside and besides it was becoming too great a torment to work at the nurture grounds any more.

  Because of your egomaniacal fixations?

  Because of my sense of profound grief that I would never birth my own baby …

  Correction, progeny of the species. Had you been taking the advised doses of hormone readjustment, Prisoner 730004?

  I had.

  So you are arguing that you felt this craving despite taking the advised daily dose?

  Yes, my yearning transcended these suppressants. My yearning burst out and made me wretched.

  So this was when your group was formed?

  I had remained in contact with friends from my homeland.

  From Lofoten 4a, Arctic Circle sector 111424. And who was it that devised the plan to abandon your posts and desert to the Restricted Area?

  I don’t think there was a single person. I think gradually we came to understand each other. We had so many ancient ties in common. Our understanding was very profound. I am not sure we ever really spoke about our deepest yearnings, to depart. But we understood each other anyway.

  You are proposing that you never planned to leave? That it just happened spontaneously?

  It was not spontaneous. It happened slowly. But yes, it happened amongst us, without anyone really saying anything. For a long time no one dared to speak. But then there came a time when everything was clear to us, when we knew – we knew everything about each other, without having spoken much at all.

  Prisoner 730004, you are making no sense. Why don’t you tell us – in plain speak – who the woman known as Birgitta is?

  I am not sure I can.

  The Protectors value truth and it pains them to hear lies.

  Please do not insult them by lying in this way. Your lies are wasted anyway as we are searching for this woman known as Birgitta throughout sector 111243. So we ask you to explain exactly who she is, before we take her and ask her ourselves.

  She is many things.

  Such as?

  Well, she is entwined with many forces. There is an old idea we found out … someone knew of this phrase – the Magna Mater. Somehow Birgitta is entwined with this phrase.

  You will explain yourself in plain speak, Prisoner 730004.

  She is an ordinary woman, a terrified girl. But there is something else about her. I am not sure what it is. We have been deprived of tradition and ritual and therefore we are not entirely sure who Birgitta is, and what she might mean.

  Once more we must ask you to explain yourself in plain speak, Prisoner 730004. And turn your face towards the screen.

  When I was working at the nurture grounds, each day I would hold these beautiful little babies – ‘progeny’ you would say – in my arms and feel how monstrous it was that my living body had been rendered barren, that the eggs had been ripped out of my womb when I was merely eighteen and taken to a laboratory somewhere, where I didn’t even know, and fertilised without love or passion. And if not fertilised then thrown away, discarded. When I thought about this I felt a terrible ache, the mourning of my body, and I always consoled myself – or tried to – with the thought that something might go wrong. The Genetix might fail. Society might collapse. And afterwards, from the ruins, women might regain our former power, to create life within our bodies.

  You actively wished for the ruination of our civilisation?

  I thought it might be the only way to escape from this … this … I do not know what it is …

  It has been clearly explained to you. In Species Survival C. That this is the only option for the species. That all available land must be converted to intensive farming. That city population density must be 13,500 persons per square kilometre. That for farming requirements and also for the most efficient implementation of the Procreation Regulation Programme individuals must live in their allocated accommodation in the cities. Prisoner 730004, you were aware of all these proposals, were you not?

  Yes, in truth I was. But somehow I couldn’t accept that this is the only option left to humanity.

  So you admit that you have desired the ruination of the species and that you have favourably contemplated societal collapse?

  Only because I could see no other way that humanity might return to a more natural way of … being. Only because I had come to feel that if this denial of nature was required for species survival then perhaps … I am speaking only for myself … but perhaps it wasn’t worth it.

  Worth what?

  Worth surviving. But I don’t know, naturally.

  Prisoner 730004, we must warn you that such statements constitute a grave threat to the survival of the species and will only harm your case further. Let us return to the question of Birgitta. Explain what you mean by your talk about her.

  I mean that a girl who originally also came from my island … Lofoten 4a, Arctic Circle sector 111424.

  … became pregnant.

  Be very careful what you say, Prisoner 730004. We have already warned you about the harm you are doing to your case.

  It is the plain truth. She was harvested at eighteen and had her womb ‘closed up’ in the so-called ordinary way, and yet twenty years later she had become pregnant.

  Who is Birgitta?

  She worked in the Sexual Release Centre. Once upon a time she might have been called a whore.

  There are no such people in Darwin C.

  No, by the terms of the day she was not a ‘whore’ it is true, she was an ‘expert in the administration of sexual release’ – and she specialised in the loveless sex that is now encouraged. Not merely encouraged, that is not what I mean.
I mean that lifelong coupling is now frowned upon as … you would say it is one of those egomaniacal fixations we can no longer afford. Also children are no longer raised at home but in the nurture grounds by strangers …

  You are digressing and your words are meaningless. Who is Birgitta?

  She had been supplying ‘sexual release’ for many years, and then she became pregnant. At first she had no idea what was happening. No woman of my generation has ever become pregnant. We are of course the first complete generation of ‘egg donors’ – with us the process has been completely successful, you would say.

  We would. You have not yet told us who Birgitta is.

  She wasn’t sure what was happening to her body. She was experiencing awful nausea, nausea so she could barely function as a supplier of sexual release, and her belly appeared to be bloated which some of those she sexually released found unsightly anyway. She thought she must have a problem with her digestive organs, and she took various remedies and hoped that would cure it. She didn’t want to lose her position at the Sexual Release Centre; after all she had never worked anywhere else and didn’t know quite how else she would be able to serve the Collective and the Protectorate. She was even afraid she might be regarded as extraneous and sent to the mass-scale farms and no one ever comes back from there.

  They do not return because they are happy there.

  They do not return because they are worked to death, that’s what I have heard.

  You heard a myth, an irrational fable told by simple people. Please do not digress.

  Birgitta grew still more nauseous and still more bloated. No one she knew had ever experienced these symptoms and she was too afraid to go to a Corporeal Scientist. She was mystified and feared she was dying, until she went to her mother.

  Correction, egg donor.

  Well, actually Birgitta was conceived just before her mother was taken for harvesting and sterilisation. Things were a little more lenient in those days and so the pregnancy was permitted to continue. For many years Birgitta felt that it would have been better had she never been born. Because of her beauty, her long limbs and her flowing blonde curls, she was taken from her family at the age of eighteen and consigned to a life of whoredom.

 

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