Salt

by Adam Roberts

  I keyed in the code, and stood friend for Rhoda Titus; the Fabricant poured us two fruit-tint drinks, and I drank mine straight down. It was hot, and I had been standing in the directness of sunlight. Rhoda Titus looked at hers with suspicion, as if perhaps I had poisoned it. She handed it to one of her honour guard, who sniffed it, sipped it, waited, handed it back. This struck me, again, as comical, so I began to laugh, after which I could see this commanding officer and several of the men frown with distaste, even scorn. Understand this about the Senaarians: they lack humour.

  A friend passed, and I chatted for a while. She was called Haefner, and was on a Fabricant technical rota. ‘Who is this?’ she asked. ‘Somebody from Senaar,’ I replied. ‘Rhoda Titus.’ ‘And soldiers!’ said my friend. ‘I know,’ I said. ‘They are jumpy. But this is the manner of things in the hierarchy.’

  ‘What are you saying?’ interrupted Rhoda Titus. ‘I heard my name – you are talking about me. I demand you tell me what you are saying.’

  ‘She is angry,’ said Haefner, still in the home tongue. ‘Perhaps she is angry like this all the time.’

  ‘I understand so,’ I replied, in home tongue also. ‘I think it is a function of the hierarchy they practise down there. Everybody is frustrated at some level, everybody is prevented from doing this and that by law, or by the person above them in the hierarchy.’

  ‘It is interesting,’ said Haefner. She scratched at the space between her eyes, as she did when puzzled. ‘What of the person at the top of the hierarchy?’

  ‘He too is thwarted, I believe,’ I said. ‘Even though there is nobody above him in the hierarchy, he is constrained by his duties and responsibilities. Their last Hierarch was killed, you know, for failing to treat his duties with enough respect.’

  ‘You must speak to me in common tongue,’ Rhoda Titus squalled. Her hands were flailing in front of her, giving pathetic emphasis to her words. ‘As diplomatic representative of the People’s Republic of Senaar I insist you accord me the respect due to my status.’ She turned to her Captain of Guards, but I suppose even he would have found it hard justifying killing a person only for speaking their own home tongue.

  ‘She is angry,’ said Haefner, in home tongue, ‘and yet she does nothing about it. There is something inside her that prevents her from taking any action.’

  ‘It is curious to see,’ I agreed. ‘The hierarchy is internalised.’

  ‘How bizarre,’ said Haefner. She mulled over the idea for some short time. ‘Why would a human being internalise such a thing? It cannot be healthy.’ She started sniggering at the absurdity of it.

  Rhoda Titus puffed out her breath several times, regaining control. ‘Will you force me to return home to report this insult? By ignoring me, you are ignoring the entire people of Senaar! By insulting me, you are insulting the entire people of Senaar!’

  At this Haefner tumbled into laughter. ‘Why?’ she demanded in common tongue (which, actually, she spoke better than I). ‘Are they all in your belly?’ She laughed again, at her own joke.

  ‘Rhoda Titus,’ I said to her. ‘How can I insult the entire people of Senaar? It would take me many months to go amongst them all, insulting each one to their face.’

  Rhoda Titus was silent. After a short space she said: ‘You are mocking me, I think.’ Her expression was dark. Her guards shifted their weapons uneasily from hand to hand.

  Haefner had grown bored. She shouldered past the guards and plugged her applique into the Drinks Fabricant. I ushered Rhoda Titus to follow me, to allow her the space and quiet to do her job. Rhoda Titus came after me, her face dark with the heat of her anger; her guard trotted after her, a great unlikely crocodile of people. We came to the cot I was sharing with Turja, and I pushed off my outside shoes, each foot prised off with the toe of the other. Then I sat, cross-legged, on the wide bed.

  Rhoda Titus stood for a while, glaring at me, and her guard huddled behind her. For a while neither of us spoke, but eventually she broke out with, ‘What is the meaning of this?’

  ‘Rhoda Titus,’ I said. ‘I shall explain the way of things here. There is work to be done, and it is allotted by rota; programmed rota, not a human one. It so happens that I have been prioritised for diplomatic duties. But I take no pleasure in them. I am doing this because my rota requires it. Shortly the work period will be over, and then I shall go off to spend some time with the woman I am seeing.’

  Rhoda Titus did not know what to say to this. ‘You are going to abandon me?’ she said. ‘What are we to do? Where should we go?’

  ‘Do you need me to tell you what to do? You don’t know yourself what you want to do?’ I said, chuckling at the oddity of the conception.

  ‘Have you at least assigned me proper diplomatic quarters?’

  I shrugged. ‘I’ll stand friend again, and you can have a cot in the general dorms. Not all your men though, but they can surely bivouac themselves elsewhere.’

  If it were possible, I would say that she seemed even more outraged. She looked about herself, and stared at the dorm. The cots spaced out, the glowlamps bobbing against the ceiling, marking out splashes of light that disappeared with perspective into the distance. It was day, so many of the cots were occupied; in the silence it was possible to hear some moans from couples having love. Rhoda Titus cocked her head, not recognising the noises, but understanding at some deep level that they were offensive to the Senaarian prudery. ‘You are suggesting,’ she said, as if with tremendous effort, ‘that I stay . . . here?’

  I shrugged. I was greatly bored now, and on the point of giving up my work rota for the day and simply going off.

  ‘In the same building as . . . men?’

  ‘You could go to the women’s dorm and see if somebody would stand friend for you there,’ I suggested. ‘But you’d have to leave your soldiers behind.’

  ‘I expected specifically designated diplomatic quarters,’ she shouted. It was really a shout. ‘I expected quarters that we could have to ourselves!’ Note the possessive! Rhoda Titus’s speech was truly littered with possessives. My mission. My men. My country, even. To think of possessing a country in entirety! But she was blind to the comicality of her expression.

  ‘If you want such a thing,’ I said, very bored indeed at this point, ‘then you can go out into the wasteland east of here and build it for yourself.’

  I left her then, and went over to the dome to see Turja. I am not sure what they did in the end. I suppose they went back to their shuttles and slept there. The following morning I put Rhoda Titus and the whole Senaar mission to the back of my mind and spent an hour or so contacting the other Aradys settlements by voice-mail. But Rhoda Titus came to see me anyway. She must have overcome her shyness and asked directions.

  ‘My dear Szerelem,’ she said, and smiled at me. ‘I have come alone.’

  I shrugged. I could see there was a tiny twitch in her brow every time I did so, so I assumed that my shrugging was irritating to her. But she did nothing with her anger, only squashed it down inside her, so that it pulled at her face with its invisible string. Of course, this was fascinating to me: that somebody would have an anger inside them and make every effort to prevent its emergence. Naturally I took every opportunity to shrug, to see this internalisation in action.

  ‘I have come alone,’ she said, her voice a tiny bit harder, ‘as a sign of trust. I have sent my bodyguard out to train in the wastelands east of the settlement, which leaves me unguarded in your presence.’

  We were in a chamber off the dorm, where the voice-mail equipment was. I stood up and went out, wandered over to the Fabricant and fetched myself a drink. Rhoda Titus came hurrying after me. ‘Perhaps you don’t understand the significance of what I have done,’ she said, high-pitched.

  ‘Tell me,’ I said, settling cross-legged on the floor. She looked down, thought about joining me, thought better of it. Senaarian women are trained to think that their dignity is the most precious thing, so she could not settle herself on the floor next to
me. But at the same time they have codes that force them to be uncomfortable, ill at ease, standing awkwardly and talking down to me, that dissolve that dignity entirely away. A paradoxical people.

  ‘My men,’ she began (possessive!) ‘are more than a practical guard against things happening to me, although heaven knows there’s a real enough danger of that in this anarchist place. ‘She looked about her, anxiously.’ But they are more than that. They are a symbolic representation of the might of Senaar. They are the . . .’

  I stopped her. ‘I cannot say I am interested in your metaphysics.’

  At this she stalled, blushed a little. But she seemed to have come to a resolution not to become hysterical as she had done the previous day. She still stood, but was looking around now for a seat, for something to sit on. And then, giving up even that hope, she settled herself gingerly upon the floor. There was a pause, whilst her face was lowered towards the ground. Then she raised it, and she was smiling bravely.

  ‘Mister Szerelem,’ she said. ‘I have decided that our mission began badly yesterday. It seems to me that our two cultures are so very different that misunderstandings have occurred. You have misunderstood how totally the honour and dignity of Senaar informs everything we do. You did not appreciate the honour guard for what it was, simply as a reflection of the importance with which this mission is regarded in Senaar.’

  I was shaking my head, and Rhoda Titus stopped talking, inclined her head, asking. So I drained my drink, and said, ‘You seem to think I care enough about your mission to misunderstand it. But I do not care, one way or the other.’

  She coloured, and then pressed her palms together. ‘Please! Can you not see how difficult this is for me? I am trying to make concessions to your way of life. Surely you can help me a little in this difficult task?’

  I shrugged.

  ‘Today I am resolved,’ she said, in her carefully paced speech, as if reciting something learned in advance, ‘to try and reach out to the culture of Als. Today I hope to learn something of your way of being, your mode of society. Once I have done this, I hope it will draw our two peoples a little closer together. I hope it will draw you and I, Mister Szerelem, a little closer together.’

  ‘Well, I have stood friend to you already,’ I said. ‘I am willing to do so again today. But I cannot comprehend why you should wish to dance this dance.’

  At this she leaned forward, her eyes intense. ‘For the sake of the children!’

  I was a little startled. ‘You have children?’ I said.

  ‘Me?’ She sat back again. ‘Me? No. No.’ I noticed that her eyes were now glistening, as if she were about to cry.

  ‘What is the matter?’ I asked.

  ‘How could you ask me such a thing! Why do you continue to play these games with me?’

  ‘I am truly baffled,’ I said. ‘What games?’

  ‘You know who the children are!’

  ‘I do not’

  ‘Then why do you think I am here?’

  ‘I have no idea. Really I have not. I have received you only because this is my current work rota.’

  Then it all came out in a rush. ‘Why else would I be here? Why else would somebody from Senaar come all this way, with all the pomp of a diplomatic mission? Only to try and bridge the gap between us, only to try and heal the wound, and have the children put back in touch with their grieving fathers. Only to help make whole again the terrible breach in God’s family.’

  ‘Does this have to do,’ I said, ‘with the children fathered by Senaarians before the beginning of the voyage?’

  There was a pause.

  ‘You are playing a game,’ she said, coldly.

  ‘Certainly not.’

  But the puzzle was assembling itself in her head. ‘All I can say, Mister Szelerem,’ she said, ‘is that the issue of the children has been a continual thorn in the side of the Senaar nation ever since the voyage began. These fathers have mourned their lack of access to their babies. The entire nation has grieved. Whole factions have grown up within our body politic concerned only with the question of retrieving these children – the hostages, as they are called – and bringing them home to the land of their fathers. Some would see the army invade your land to bring this about. Your people are represented on all Visuals as wicked, almost satanic, without law or respect for humanity, with evil designs upon the flesh of the infant, as pigheaded and sunk into group-insanity, as living like beasts with no thought to the welfare of others.’

  ‘I can’t recognise the land you are describing,’ I said.

  ‘Oh I know there are exaggerations in the reports we hear. But do you see how difficult it is for a people such as ours, such as the Senaarians, who value civilisation above all things, to comprehend a land such as this?’

  ‘I once had a conversation with your Captain,’ I said. ‘It concerned these children you speak of.’

  ‘The President,’ she said, respectfully.

  ‘Is that how he styles himself? Your titles and all that bag-and-baggage of the hierarchy is hard for us to follow. Even Mister, which you call me, although I take it that Mister ranks lower in your hierarchy than President?’

  ‘I apologise if you have taken offence,’ she said, quickly. This was clearly a matter of importance to her. ‘I was unsure how to address you. If you find “Mister” unacceptable, perhaps I could call you “Technician”?’

  ‘I take no offence,’ I said, languidly. ‘I see no need for any such title. We have none such here.’

  ‘But I must call you something.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because you are a man of importance.’

  At this I laughed. ‘Only to myself, of course.’

  ‘My mission,’ she said, shaking her head, uncomfortable with this topic, ‘was given to me by the President himself. I am to build bridges between our two people, to try and come to an agreement about the children, to at the very least allow the fathers access.’

  She stopped and looked at me. I shrugged again. ‘What do you mean by “access”?’ I asked.

  ‘Is the word an unusual one? I am not certain how complete your grasp of common tongue is. It means . . .’

  ‘I know the meaning, but not your interpretation.’

  ‘Oh! I apologise! I had not meant to suggest . . .’

  I stood up. ‘Rhoda Titus,’ I said. ‘You are boring with these tics of yours. If I were offended, I would say so. I would not bury my anger or irritation away inside me, as it is the habit of your people to do. If I do not say I am insulted, then I am not insulted.’

  She clambered upwards to follow me. ‘Again I apologise. But this is my point! How little I understand your ways! But the question of access . . .’

  I was walking now, and she was following. ‘Yes?’

  ‘It would simply mean that the fathers could, for instance, travel to Als and see their children. That the children would be allowed to know who their parents are, and to meet and speak with them. From time to time.’

  ‘The fathers may by all means visit here,’ I said. I said this as a simple statement of fact, there being no Alsist border controls, or indeed borders. But Rhoda Titus took this as a concession: in her mind negotiations, such as the one she considered herself engaged in, were like a war, a battle between speakers.

  ‘Why thank you, Mister – eh, Technician Szerelem. Thank you! I knew that if I made a little gesture towards you, approached you person to person, left my guard, then we would be able to communicate.’ I lengthened my stride and she dropped away behind me.

  She fished a handkerchief out of her jacket, and called a farewell. ‘I must go and report this breakthrough in negotiations to my people!’ And away she hurried, with her handkerchief already at her nose, ready for when she went outside.

  I did not see her for the rest of the morning; but in the afternoon she returned. Once again, she came alone. Somebody must have told her that I was in the dome, where I had taken to spending many of my afternoons during this period of fixation o
f Turja. I had spent lunch with my lover; we had taken putty and bread from one of the old ship Fabricants and had eaten together, sitting amongst the long grass of the goose-green. Afterwards Turja went off to talk with some genengineers about adapting certain birds to high chlorine tolerance, with a hope of releasing them wild. The mere thought of birds flying free through the air above us was more exciting than you can imagine! Or perhaps you can. I suppose you have never seen a bird in flight, have never sat amongst them as they twittered about you.

  This was how Rhoda Titus found me, sitting cross-legged in the grass, reading a flimsy upon which Turja had printed out some old tract on the origins of money. She had found the text interesting as metaphysics, as a treatise on the sinister power of signs and imagery to dominate real lives, real people. She thought I might find it useful in my talks with Rhoda Titus.

  But she did not come wishing to talk, this time. She came grinning, with the after-sex grin that Senaarians adopt when they have gratified the person above them in the hierarchy; the slave’s satisfaction at having pleased their master. ‘Mister – Technician Szerelem,’ she said, sitting down opposite me. ‘I have come to thank you! After some difficulties, our negotiations have finally begun well. I will not deny that it has taken me a little time to adapt myself to your ways but I have spoken direct to the President! He is delighted with our agreement.’

  I was feeling pleasant disposed towards women, having lunched with Turja, and so I was minded to be agreeable to Rhoda Titus. ‘There is no agreement,’ I said. ‘But your pleasure gives me pleasure.’ This was an old saw of my mother’s. Simply saying it, feeling the pressure of my lips against one another on the ps and the kick at the back of the throat on the gs brought her memory back to me. I had been drinking vodjaa, and my soul was soft with such thoughts.