The Child Garden

by Geoff Ryman

  ‘You shuffled forward, one step at a time, knees bent,’ he was telling her. His accent was American. ‘You try to keep your balance. That is the posture of weightlessness.’ He took his hands away. Success. Milena stayed where she was. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘That sure was some introduction.’

  ‘Yep,’ said Milena. ‘I threw up all over you and dislocated your shoulder.’

  ‘My name’s Mike Stone,’ he said. ‘Astronaut.’

  Milena dared to reach forward and shake his hand. She had finally found her feet.

  Outside, the heavens were full of stars, the stars of memory. Rolfa, they seemed to whisper. Where is Rolfa?

  The Reading was over.

  Milena woke up. That was what it felt like. She found herself lying on a floor. At first she thought it was the Bulge. The floor was warm and soft and alive. Milena was covered in sweat. Across the room, which was dimly lit, a huge woman in white was talking, hand on her chin, shaking her head. It was Root, the nurse. And there was Mike Stone, astronaut, sitting in some strange sling chair.

  When was this? thought Milena. When did this happen? I don’t remember this. Where is my Now?

  Root glanced over her shoulder and saw that Milena was awake. Her eyes widened, and she cut off her conversation with a nod. She half-ran towards Milena, her round arms held aloft and swaying from side to side with her hips. Root leaned over Milena, and her hands were pressed between her knees.

  ‘I’m sorry, love,’ said Root. ‘But we’re going to have to Read you again.’

  ‘Again?’ croaked Milena. She felt horribly ill.

  ‘They don’t have everything. I guess there’s just so much of you to have.’ Lightly, Root stroked Milena’s thin hair. ‘You’re fighting it, aren’t you, love?’

  ‘What else does it want?’ Milena asked. The Consensus had everything else.

  ‘Well. It got nothing from your childhood, nothing at all. And there’s Rolfa. You kept back all your memories of Rolfa. She’s very important to you. They need Rolfa too.’

  Oh, do they? thought Milena. Do they indeed.

  ‘You mustn’t fight, you know,’ said Root. Her eyes were full of sadness, but her face was deadly serious. ‘You fight, you could hurt yourself.’ She gave Milena a steady, examining stare. ‘Ready?’

  ‘Why do they want the Past?’ Milena asked. ‘If they keep telling us the world is only Now?’

  ‘Because the Past is you,’ said Root, and stood up. Milena heard her rustle away.

  My whole life, thought Milena, my whole life has not been mine.

  Then space twisted. Space shivered as when heat rises up from roadway. The shivering space rose up, and began to roll, quivering towards her. It was a wave, a wave in both space and time, a wave in the fifth dimension where light and thought and gravity are one. It confronted her, trembling as if with desire. It wanted Milena to be a story, that it could Read.

  Rolfa, where is Rolfa? Where she always is, Milena thought. Here with me.

  Now, where is my Now? My now is here, where I fight the Consensus.

  The wave slammed into her, washing over her, through her, racing up the channels of her nerves, as if to wash them clean, as if to wash all of Milena away.

  It was as if her memories of Rolfa were a rock to which Milena could cling. Milena held them and preserved them.

  Everything else was surrendered to the roar.

  chapter ten

  AN AUDIENCE OF CHILDREN (THE TREE OF HEAVEN)

  Milena remembered being in the womb.

  All sensation was nameless, wordless, unshaped by any kind of grammar. There was light, orange light, passing over her, through her. There was a pulsing, a rush that seethed through her, warm, thrilling, delicious.

  There was music.

  Dimly heard amid the throb, the sound of a violin was filtered and soft, faraway as dream. It was more like light than sound, a settling of nameless comfort. The music swayed, and the warmth that surrounded Milena swayed with it. Her world moved with the music. There was a dance in the pulsing of her blood, a dance of love, of chemical release. A delectable tingle invaded her. Milena felt the music because her mother felt it.

  Her mother was making it. Her mother was playing the violin. To the adult who was remembering, the music was the only familiar thing. The adult knew it was a piece by Bartok. To the unborn infant, it was a physical sensation. The unborn Milena hummed with the music, as if she were a string of the instrument, as if her mother were playing her as well. The music lifted up and swung the unborn child, she rose and fell with it. I’ve never felt like that! thought the adult who remembered. I’ve never felt music like that since. It was a different state of being: gentle, surging, warm, ultimately intimate. Milena was part of someone else. Blood and fluids caressed her; everything was touched by light filtered through flesh; everything was heard through the singing in the blood, the stroking fluid. It was like being bathed in something delicious, lemon chocolate perhaps, and being able to taste it with the skin. It was like that brief joyful moment, not necessarily of orgasm, when sex is pure delight. No wonder, thought the one who remembered. No wonder sex keeps pulling. It is trying to pull us back to this.

  The infant tried to dance. It moved its legs. The very sensation of movement was new. It was power, to be able to move.

  The music stopped.

  There was a muffled voice, from outside, from above, a message from beyond. It was a message of celebration. The Milena who remembered could almost make sense of the words. They were like words spoken by a ghost. Milena remembered the tone and timbre, the rise and fall. It was the ghost of her mother.

  The infant’s ears were plugged and her nose was plugged, but she felt no desire to breathe. She was one with her world, and it was a world of love.

  And Milena remembered that world turning inside out.

  The fluids left her, suddenly. A clinging veil settled over her, still warm but slightly harsh. And then the convulsion began, the expulsion. The world pushed her out. The infant knew one thing: she had started this. She had worked at herself. She had felt like an old tooth coming loose, and so she had tried the power again, the power to move. And it seemed that she had broken the world. She felt horror and fear, but above all regret, as if the world were wounded.

  The world pushing, caressing no longer, and the infant knew death, the death of the world and she grieved as she was being born.

  For the adult who remembered, sensation was as jumbled as a roller coaster, great peaks and sudden fallings. All things were terribly important, the sounds, communicated through flesh, the clackings of separation, the slitherings of movement, the lapping of the walls like giant tongues, the pumping in her ears and veins. The world parted, like lips.

  Giddyingly, inside became outside, as if Milena herself was being born out of herself, swapping places, mother and daughter. Suddenly, all inside had been swallowed up.

  It took a moment—each moment a different universe—for air to envelop her. Air was new. It was dry, searing like fire. It burned her face; it burned her whole body. There was blazing light, and stinging gases. The infant was gripped about her ankles, and where she was held there was a sizzling abrasion as if her skin was being fried.

  Suddenly she was fighting. There was a swelling in her, as if she was trying to start the pumping up again. Something gave. But the pumping was not outside her now, but smaller and contained in her. Air rasped its way like sandpaper over her tongue, down her throat. She felt an ache across her chest as the aerole of her lungs inflated—pop, pop, pop, one after the other. She roared in pain.

  She was lowered onto soft warmth. A ghost of paradise returned. Dinner now was the pumping, louder now was the murmuring voice. She lay on top of her old world. She covered it now. This world was in layers. Panels of warmth descended over her back, rough, but comforting as they lay still on her, weighing her down, pushing her, it seemed. The infant hoped. Was she going to be pushed back inside?

  Then something clattered on a tray
, horribly sharp like something rammed into her ears, and she began to wail again. The infant was wailing for the vastness of things, and an already forming sense of all the things she had to learn. The voice soothed her, the warm fingers stroked her, and the infant remembered what had been lost. It’s still here, the voice seemed to say, it’s different now, but it’s still here. Here, but different.

  Layer on layer of life folded over the infant. Lungs breathing, two hearts pumping, all the organs with their rough surfaces and hidden spaces, all of them turning in and out of each other like patterns in a kaleidoscope.

  The infant was left there, on her mother’s stomach, to sleep. She dreamed of tunnels of light, and sealed places full of fluid, and things dim in the fluid, cushioned, floating, safe.

  Milena remembered crawling.

  She remembered the braided rug, padded sections in a concentric pattern. They swirled under Milena’s fingers and smelled of cat.

  The old world was forgotten now, driven out by the wealth of this new one. The infant looked up, and the world still seemed concentric, fragmented.

  It looks, thought the adult who was remembering, like a Picasso painting.

  There was a room, in this her second and forgotten world. The room itself was not familiar at all. The room was jumbled, cast in layers, like many photographs of the same room. Things had so many sides, it was difficult for them to hold their shapes. The back and sides of the chair were just as present as the front. They drifted in and out of view, overlapping each other. They were now near, now far. Anything she liked seemed to come closer. She reached out for it, thinking it was coming to meet her.

  Milena saw the top of the spout of a watering can. The adult who was remembering recognised it, with a jolt. The watering can had a rough, screw-on cap with holes in it that turned the water into a spray. The infant’s eyes focused on the cap and brought it together as a whole. The world spun around it, fragmented as if seen through a jewel.

  The infant reached up and touched the watering can, felt the recalcitrance of the cap. The hardened resin would be difficult to turn against the resin spout. She tasted it. There was a flavour of pine. It clung to her tongue, clung to her lips. Milena was not sure whether she hated it or not.

  There was a voice, warm behind her. ‘Ne, ne,’ something said, warmly, deeply, ‘Ne, Milena.’

  Ne was a strange word. The infant had not yet exhausted its meaning. Whenever it was said, it was best for her to go still. It was a powerful word, but she herself could say it over and over, shaking her head, and it had no effect.

  There were trouser-legs, beige. There was a man, a tall skinny man with a beard. He had several faces, all turning at once, until they focused. Milena knew him, by his beard, by his black eyes, and by the veins in his hands. When the hands were kind, the world was a delight. The hands picked her up, full of power, and nestled her on her father’s warm lap. Milena was kissed on the head, and there was a warm sound, a chuckling. Then cloth was laid before her, and the man’s hands began to sew. On the table there were needles, slivers of bamboo. Light was reflected on them, a rippling stream of it, like a river. Milena reached for the needles.

  ‘Ne, ne, Milena, ne,’ said the voice. Ne could mean no needles, no light.

  ‘Milena! Amin!’ called a voice from outside the room. The words were signals, full of import but imprecise, like waving the flags.

  Milena flew. The man lifted her up and swung her through the air. The air was warm like fingers, and Milena saw her worlds, the swirling carpet far below her. She squealed and laughed. She was swung through a doorway that seemed to meet itself from several different directions and angles at once. Milena passed through it, and out into the garden.

  There it was in memory, as if a place could die and have a ghost. There was the bench, top and bottom at once, slats of warm wood, dappled with shifting shadows. What made the shadows, what made them move? Great roots went up into a tangle in the sky, all rough, scintillating with wind, showing silver-pale undersides in waves. Vines crawled overhead, on a frame. Beyond them, there were trees. They rose even higher than the vines up into the sky, towards the clouds.

  The infant looked away. The trees were beyond comprehension. She could not pull them near to her, she could not make her eyes focus.

  And there, stepping in and out of dappled shadow, there came Mami.

  Mami was a word that grouped many things about the woman into a bouquet: the smiles and the warmth and the red trouser suit. Mami knelt down and kissed her. Mami with her beautiful face. Then Milena was carried towards the table, held upright by both her parents, each one holding her hand. On the table was her red bowl. Milena was sat down, and a napkin was tied around her. Milena didn’t want the napkin. Ne, she said, but the word had no effect. A cool spoon of sweet pablum was lifted up to her mouth. Milena wanted to feel herself, but was not allowed to. In the sunlight, she accepted that.

  The pablum was delicious and made her laugh. That made Mami laugh too; Mami was glad when Milena was, so Milena laughed again. On the table there were round, red plump things that would be cut open and scooped out, all pulpy, onto Milena’s plate.

  Sunlight brewed on her skin, hatching something. Milena looked down at the kaleidoscope of her arm. She saw the smooth surface of her perfect skin from many angles. She saw a cell of her skin lift like a lid. Something was being born out of her. It was the same colour as Milena, a mild magenta. It was tiny and wriggling. The infant was delighted. Was this how things grew? Out of each other? Did worlds grow out of people in the same way? Or did people grow out of things, out of trees perhaps?

  Words came like flags. Mami spoke, like the wind spoke, and the sounds were soothing. The sounds meant the little wriggling things were good. Mami held out her own long arm next to Milena’s. It was armoured by mites as well.

  Milena had something of her own. She looked at her creature. She knew that she and her creature protected each other. Milena felt love for this tiny thing that was alive and intimate with her. The idea was implanted: I grow things out of myself.

  The trees sighed in the wind. The sun baked the hot white wall, and made the vines overhead glow with light. Birds whistled. People laughed. This world was paradise, too.

  The kaleidoscope turned.

  Milena lay in her blue crib, in the dark, but the dark had gone evil.

  From the bars of her crib, toy painted heads grinned at her discomfort. The sheets were clammy, another damp veil, and a smell oozed out of Milena, a sour tang that ruined her perfections. The infant knew her perfection had been damaged. All along her arms and into her head there was a buzzing. A numb vibration hummed in the tangle of her nerves. The infant had not known she was a tangle until then.

  The Milena who was remembering thought: this is virus. This must be the first time they gave me virus.

  The infant howled, as if to expel it.

  The door opened, and the infant hoped for comfort. Milena swallowed the sounds of crying in anticipation. There was a fluttering of light, and the mouth of a lamp opened, bringing light, but the light looked orange and sick as well. Mami came, cooing, and leaning over the blue crib. She lifted Milena up and patted her, but nothing changed. As Milena was jostled up and down, she sensed in her mother a kind of grim forbearing. Her mother said something cool, with a twist in it, a false sing-song note at the end. It seemed Milena’s mother was determined she should be ill. The infant did not understand the words. But she understood their import. In some ways her mother condoned this; in some way her mother was part of it. Milena knew then that she would not be helped. The whole world was sick and ill and twisted, dim and ill-suited to itself. It had been invaded, not by music or by love, but by something alien.

  The aliens tried to speak. They tried to speak inside Milena. The words were muffled, like voices heard through a womb. Milena could feel the voices stir, like larvae. Words had been deposited in her head like grubs. They began to seethe.

  It was the world that was threatened, and M
ilena wanted to save it.

  Ne! thought the infant. She resisted. Ne, ne!

  The alien words were woven, like blankets, out of thread. Milena could feel the thread, touch it with thought. The threads were tightly stitched. At first Milena could only feel how harsh they were, like blankets on her skin. Then she felt more carefully. The threads were ladders, tiny, granulated. The ladders were spirals. They spun about each other in a double helix.

  Ne! Milena told them, and the grubs went still. She could feel the ladders change. The ladders fell silent, moulded themselves to her thought. She hunted them with thought. She gave chase, through the spider’s web of her nerves. Ne! she told the invaders, and they went still and tame, waiting to be filled.

  The viruses were supposed to fill her, but Milena filled them instead. She made them her own. Ne was the word of rejection. Ne was the word of independence, of freedom. It worked when you had power.

  The infant Milena was touching the DNA of the viruses, and changing it to her own purpose. That young? thought the adult who remembered. It knew that much, so young? How much else did I know, before words?

  The viruses went still. They would not store information. Milena was augmenting her own memory. She was making a bigger, silent self, a larger No.

  She opened her eyes.

  Her little room, with its doilies and dolls still looked ill and evil, the orange lamplight as steady as a headache. Even the face of Milena’s mother looked ill, baggy, tired. You, thought the infant. You did this!

  It was the betrayal that made the infant howl and wail.

  To the Milena who remembered, each shift of memory made the world tamer and more secure. It became more adult, less like leaves scattered in layers, and more like butterflies pinned in rows under glass. With each shift, the adult felt more at home, could find her bearings with more ease. Emotions came with names, already controlled and bearable. Milena the infant now knew words. But these were words that she had learned for herself. The words belonged to her.