by Jeff Kamen
She trod away from the raw noise of the generators. A day of good news, a day in which she’d felt sharp joy and relief erupting, was turning to one of deep and searching unease. Like all the days before.
It didn’t seem fair. From what she’d been told, the only other hope they’d had since the flood was on making contact with a colony called Gabelstad, which, it had turned out upon exploration, had also been destroyed, swallowed into the deluge. Now it seemed they had nothing.
She thought of them standing at the bubble’s edge, the masked crowds staring helplessly through the plastic as they gasped themselves blue. Clutching each other, toppling to the ground. Gazing out at the fading world so full of beauty and poison ...
The air was cold in spite of the seal, and she rewound her scarf as she went on, filling the spattered footprints of others with her own caked feet; footprints so much larger than hers that she was reminded of her first hours of arrival, and almost smiled at the recollection. While the City dwellers were not as huge as the Ostgrenzers, most were far taller than her own people, and for once it had been she looking up when talking — something which had greatly unnerved her, unsure of their minds, of how matters would turn out between them. Surrounded upon her entry by such towering physiques, she’d given way to aggression, pushing back those who came too near. Straight away many had urged their leaders to get rid of her, and it had taken all her remaining self-control not to lash out and fight. Now, so used to dwelling with them, she barely noticed their size, and in spite of the drabness of their uniforms, was able to make out one or two familiar body shapes even at a distance.
Heading away from the med compound, she went among the plastic tents and rusty grey containers where most of the families lived. Some units lit, some not. The metal shells peeling with rust. Printed letters and numbers showing through the stains. Most of them mere receptacles for sleeping in.
The area was crowded, and she altered her pace accordingly. Passing among that wheezing population, a dutiful army trudging up and down the metal rows, she reflected on how it would be to return to her own kind again, having experienced so much strangeness, so much difference. Knowing that those who’d helped her to live were themselves destined to die ... a people who would fade from the world like the rarest of flowers, unknown and unthought of by any but herself ...
A man muttered a greeting; she returned it as he went by. She’d learned not to stop and talk unless they did so first, something which seldom happened. Strange, she thought, how quickly she’d adapted to things. Like their masks. Even now, protected by the giant lens of rippling sheets, a large minority still chose to wear them, albeit not connected to their precious tanks. Some doing it from habit, she knew through Nina; while others wore them from fear of the bubble being ripped open, whether by storms or accident or even sabotage.
On she went. Trudging. Thinking. Looking up as a group of youths approached. They moved around her politely and continued by, vaguely elephantine in appearance with their tubes and covered faces, coughing, most with their eyes to the ground. Glancing back at them, she wondered how many others knew what Lütt-Ebbins had spoken of. How soon, she thought, would they see in loved ones the spectre of death showing through; how soon would an already precarious location turn to a rippling hell, a shattered black dream of a place ...
Coming to an open part of the camp, she realised she could not bear to see it worsen. Perhaps Nina was right — perhaps she should get out while she could. Before it all happened. The panic. The tortured stages of decay. She looked over at the piles of the wreckage they’d collected and not yet dumped outside. Much of it broken containers and machine parts, rubbish they could not burn nor make use of. Salvaged items congealed in a wrinkled black tar, fleeced in ash. The bypassers seeming not even to notice them, trudging past quietly in their overalls.
For the first time she felt their vulnerability, felt afraid for them, these filthy figures she’d forced herself to go among in order to save herself. If she could only help them, she thought; but how?
A jeep whirred by, its crew talking earnestly as it skipped along on its tough little wheels and headed towards the salvage works. She watched until it had turned off and disappeared among the container rows, her gaze shifting to the black stain of the entrance buried in the hillside. To where the tomblike mouth vomited slowly and ceaselessly the cold black contents of its subterranean bowels. Source of the broad black river that ran past the settlement’s outer seal and over which stood an avenue of tall cranes and lifting gear, upon which their survival depended.
Overhanging it all, foul and portentous above the rippling roof, the thick smog generated by the extraction pipes; a cloud that boiled and bubbled upwards and spat into the sky. She wondered what on earth she could do. She of all of them, a lone outsider.
The idea of returning to her quarters to fret alone sent her walking in the direction of the enclosure they referred to as a garage. As far as she was concerned, it was a large paddock for vehicles in which her mule was stabled. Within it, the mule had a quiet corner to itself, screened away so it wouldn’t be spooked by the comings and goings of noisy engines. Entering from the front, she headed for the muddy walkway behind the safety barricade and went alongside the great squares of welded metal sheeting that formed its walls. She was hoping to spend some time alone with the animal, something she considered to be her touchstone, linking her to all that was familiar and good in the world, but when she left the walkway there was a small crowd gathered around it.
As was usually the case when the mule had visitors, there were adults and children alike; almost clownish-looking with their patch-pocket clothes and ratty hair. Some were offering it food and others holding a water bucket to its muzzle. The rest were petting it in fascination, still unable to come to terms with this warm-blooded machine of fur she’d come journeying with. As if they did not know what to do with it, reminding them as it did of the vast difference between themselves and the Creation they’d blundered into. She hung back in the draughty walkway, not wanting to disturb them.
They continued to shuffle about in the metal gloom, clumsily offering handfuls of grass that the mule had no interest in, rubbing its back and forelegs in an effort to befriend it. Eventually one of the children spotted her. The child tugged the sleeve of an adult and shortly all were looking in her direction, some nodding in greeting.
‘Don’t stop on my account,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t planning to stay.’
‘It’s not eating,’ a girl said sulkily, and on observing a few nervous reactions to this statement, she approached the girl with a reassuring smile and said, ‘Well, maybe it’s had enough for the moment. It’ll eat later, you’re welcome to try then.’
As if taking their cue from this, the adults, continuing with their nods, began to bustle the children away from the compartment, some taking the youngsters by the hand as they started complaining. ‘You’re welcome to stay,’ she offered, but they would not hear of it, and with mentions of shifts starting and jobs to be done, the group was soon on its way out the entrance.
Alone, she went to the mule and ran a hand over its warm rough head. ‘I know,’ she said as it snorted. ‘I know. You’re not the only one.’
Chapter 58 — As One
For a few days they did little but talk and eat and sleep. The outer world became eclipsed. They were like nocturnal creatures emerging into each other’s daylight, leaving the house only to tend to the pigs and bring in firewood.
After another dose of the gljiva, his lungs seemed to be fully repaired, leaving him able to breathe without exertion, and with no side effects discernible other than the alteration of his voice: oaken and husky, it came out in a low growl at times, and at others in a whisper.
Using this new voice to the full, he tried to explain himself to her, his beliefs and thoughts, and listened attentively as she did the same. When silence felt better, they traded looks across the table, sharing food, stroking hands. Occasionally they kissed, but no more th
an that, until finally, after long delirious nights of listening to her creak about upstairs, he heard her call to him:
‘Motte?’
He sat upright, trembling.
‘Motte?’ she called faintly. ‘I … I want you here.’
Slatted moonlight lay across his bed in swords.
‘I want you with me.’
He threw back the covers in a stupor. The hallway floor felt like ice. At the top of the stairs, the smouldering forbidden stairs, he heard her say that she was ready. He went on slowly, like a man drawn along in torment, and then he opened the furnace of her door and she was waiting for him, lying naked by candlelight. He undressed determinedly, his eyes never moving from the bare strong body reclining on the sheets, the gentle face, the dark hair spread thickly across the pillows. Then he sat at her side, and she reached for him, whispering, and as they kissed and touched she made room for him on the bed and he filled the warm space she’d left behind. She clutched him tightly, pulling him near. Their lips met again and he wrapped himself around her and then she wrapped herself over him and they rolled around like the walls of a softly rotating tunnel that turned throughout the night.
In the following days he learned a little of her language; he made her laugh with his observations, and she taught him the arts of amorous love. Permanently kindled, they chased each other through the house and around the orchard and the gardens back and front, undressing as they went, clawing at each other, their clothes strewn in the doorways and on the stairs and landing and around the bed. As he made love to her she lay panting, pulling him closer, and he knew then as they kissed that he had found her, found the one.
One morning he awoke to find himself on the kitchen table, chill without his clothes. He sat up and looked around, dazed and bleary. The room looked as it had after the guard had been killed. Pans and dishes lay scattered everywhere. The front door was ajar and Cora lay sprawled beneath a sheet. He watched her. She was breathing softly, her feet crossed where they poked out, a few bushy wisps of hair trailing across her face. The attitude of her outstretched hands that of a dancer. He watched her until he’d registered the scene fully, completely; a warm image forever frozen in his consciousness.
As he dressed, he looked down at his body and blushed to think that he had never touched a woman before. For many reasons, none of which now made sense to him. He shook his head, thinking back to the grey years of hiding and mistrust, a time that seemed so foreign to him now, increasingly unreal. The City, and the base to the north where he’d lived as though in a dungeon, seemed so far away and drear, almost unimaginable, given his new freedoms. He looked lovingly around the kitchen, then returned his attention to the outstretched form on the floor. Names strayed his way distantly. Lütt-Ebbins, Stoeckl. He chuckled to himself, wondering what his old friends would make of him now.
~O~
The tenth moon came and they were rarely separated. They had eyes for each other the entire time, and he threw himself into his new life wholly and with good heart, undaunted by the discovery that this newfound happiness would always need to be earned.
They worked six days a week, from when the sun rose until after it fell, and although they collapsed exhausted into bed at times, they agreed across the pillows that life was growing richer every day. They worked hard for each other, stripping the orchard of fruit and pulping most of it in a small press to make preserves and a pale wine which Cora couldn’t stand, but which she knew would trade well at market.
Good days, these, and he knew it. Strong days; memories in the making. The two of them returning from the foothills, planning and talking, taking in the views. Berries in a basket and the worn way home. Chestnuts steaming on the griddle.
They built up a good supply of fuel and winter foodstuffs, and in rising winds they shielded the fragile crops with tarps and made running repairs among the canes and trellises. Some days while she tended to the pigs, he’d be up on the roof securing tiles with mortar, always with an eye on the deteriorating weather. They brought in the squashes and planted winter vegetables and went about the late pruning, gathering and storing seeds.
As they worked together, she answered more of his questions. She told him of the steep pasturelands to be found in the nearest mountain slopes, down from which a few carts would come every now and then, providing her and her neighbours with the straw and fodder they needed — in her own case in return for vegetables and sometimes pigmeat.
She answered him patiently, happy to go into detail when required, and he found himself hanging on her words in the same way he’d listened to his parents as a child, smiling as she described with a giggle how one of the locals kept a vicious boar, a creature which had to be kept muzzled and chained when it was brought along to service the sows. He gasped as he listened to the brutal details of the operation, hearing how they sat upon the wall to watch, keeping well away from the animals until it was over. Shaking his head, it occurred to him that not only were his previous skills useless to him now, but that he’d grown up knowing almost nothing about the life of the planet he lived on, nothing apart from a few rudimentary flakes of science and odds and ends he’d learned from school and the museum. He found himself being humbled every day, by what he learnt from her, and from his environment.
Above all, he learned that his new existence was something he should not take for granted. Cleaning his teeth before the mirror one day, he eyed his reflection with the look of someone deeply appreciative of another’s work; of the efforts another had made on his behalf.
‘We should do more soil, no?’ she said, finishing at the table, and he spat in the sink and murmured in agreement, hesitating as he noticed something. Peering forward, he narrowed his eyes, then widened them. Then narrowed them again. ‘Do they ... do they look different to you?’ he said, to which Cora answered, ‘Your eye? How? You hurt them?’
‘No, it’s ... I don’t know. The colour. They look ... greener somehow.’
‘I like them.’
‘Yes, but they ... I don’t know. Odd.’
‘You worry?’ she said, rising from her chair.
‘Well, I, they just look ... different,’ he said, turning to catch the light at different angles. ‘Don’t you think?’ he said, and she came up behind him with a kiss and peered into the mirror.
‘I think,’ she said, studying his reflection, ‘I think the same as before. You see well, no?’
‘Yes, but ... you don’t think the gljiva could have ...?’
‘Shh.’ She placed a finger on his lips. ‘Gljiva is strong, so maybe, yes. But you worry for nothing. These eye are beautiful.’ As she kissed him again, then turned away, he could not help but smile more broadly, his teeth glinting within his stubble beard. ‘If you say so,’ he said, and then wiping his mouth, added, ‘Could even be the food here, I suppose. Perhaps that’s it.’
‘Yes. Or what else? This air?’
‘Exactly. Could be anything.’
He checked his eyes again, catching the faint trace of a fire glowing in the sockets, traces of a clutching hand; and with a shiver he shut the images away.
What she did not teach him in his daily tasks he taught himself, surprised to find how naturally it came to him to use his hands, his own instinctive judgement. He completed the ladder using palings from a ruined hovel down by the stream, and using wood from the same source, he left the latrine repaired as well as it could be, without draughts or splinters. He built a large square bin for their compost, and when he’d finished, Cora hugged him tight and spoke more about her dream of one day creating a field.
It was her favourite subject, her passion, and when they had some spare time, she took him on a walk up the valley to a rambling waste of rock and bladed thorns. A few thin trees stood about. In the distance they could see the folds of barren hills, and beyond them high ledges and peaks wrapped in vapour. They stood arm in arm assessing the location, debating where best to start clearing rocks and where to mark out the borders. ‘We’ll need more sed
iment,’ he said, ‘maybe a few tons of it.’
‘It is hard, no?’ she said, and with a smile he answered, ‘Not really. Nothing’s hard, here. It just needs time to do.’
Walking round the site, they discussed the merits of using irrigation if they found that the land was too dry. They talked about the future, the idea of making a number of such fields, a long swathe up the valley which their neighbours and friends could help to cultivate and ultimately benefit from, with each household owning a plot of their own and all assisting each other in the development. They talked of many such schemes, some practical, some less so, and then on an apparent impulse she took his hands and squeezed them. The look on her face was coy, almost secretive. ‘So,’ she said. ‘My worm, you little friends. Are you still tempting?’
He looked puzzled.
‘To eat them,’ she said.
‘Oh, don’t worry about that,’ he said, laughing. ‘I’ve given them up. Even the nice pink ones.’
She kissed him, smiling as she looked across the thorny land. ‘I always dream for this,’ she said. ‘Always. And now ... it is real for me. Now ...’ She lifted her face to him, the tip of her tongue resting slyly against her teeth. ‘Maybe we like these worm, no?’
‘Like worms? How?’
‘You see, before, I was like a body here. Alone. Now, this body is like a dance. We together. We make thing live here.’
‘Yes,’ he said, sighing happily, holding her. ‘Yes. That’s all I want.’