H(A)PPY

by Nicola Barker

  I should break my eyes away from the screen, but still, still, I am seduced. I am awed – perplexed – by how the deadened mind of Mira A – that toy, that flopping rag-doll – interacts so neatly, so imperfectly, with my own. She breaks rules, violates codes and implicates me in it all. I am undone! How could I not be? By the way the words crash on and on – parping and colliding, one short syllable skidding blithely into the blackening heels of another. Ah . . . Those tiny gaps, those pauses, those pure spaces shouldering their way confidently between consonants and verbs. The solidity of nouns. The hug of prepositions. I stagger into the dark forest of words – no, not a forest, it is so much thicker, so much wetter, so much denser than that; a wild wood, a jungle. I feel the bark of the giant trees with the palms of my hands. I am gnawed at by insects. My feet are caught in tangles – in shackles – of ivy. There is so much life – an abundance, a sheer obscenity – in the lowering branches above me. Song birds. Lizards. Monkeys. Screeching parrots. And there is also the threat of attack. Wild boar. Crocodile. Panther –

  What is this place?

  The tuning fork is in your heart!

  Remember?

  We are Innocent! We are Pure!

  Remember?

  Yes, yes. We are Clean and Unencumbered. Every new day, every new dawn, every new hour, every new minute, we are released once more from the Tight Bonds of History (the Manacles of The Past).

  Remember?

  The Techniques?

  Like Kipp suggested?

  To stay In Balance?

  But how can I stay In Balance when there are two of me? There must be two. One almost a perfect reflection of the other. The double.

  “All beings have doubles. Garments, tools, arms. Plants, animals, men. This double appears to men’s eyes as a shadow, reflection or image . . . We may call it a shadow though it is made of a more subtle material . . . ”

  Oh! What is this? Like a spider, suddenly running across my face! Why is this . . . ?

  “Whoever you are, insolent corrector of my pen, you are beginning to annoy me. You don’t understand what I write. You don’t understand that the law is symbolic. Twisted minds are unable to grasp this. They interpret the symbols literally . . . ”

  Who is speaking? Who is thinking? Because how can there not be two when I am here, telling the story of the other Mira A?

  Or is she . . . ? Might she be . . . ?

  The second star?

  Mira B?

  We are Clean and unencumbered. We are Clean and unencumbered. We are constantly starting over and over from scratch. Right here!

  Remember?

  Right now!

  Remember?

  A new beginning. A New World. Everything is possible. We are reborn.

  We are reborn.

  We are reborn.

  Oh turn away! Turn away, Mira A!

  Turn away from the narrative!

  Turn away from this heady jungle of words!

  And beyond the jungle?

  That steaming mulch of decay hissing underfoot?

  What lies beyond?

  Silence!

  Gaps!

  Whiteness!

  The you-know-what!

  That giant structure with its crashing organ, the timber of its pews rubbed into an exquisite shine by the hopeful weight of a devotional throng. Those haunting figures hunched in prayer. On their knees.

  What are they asking for?

  Turn away, Mira A!

  Turn away!

  Stay In Balance!

  Live in This Moment.

  Oh it is so hot. So hot! Midst this scream of greenery, this silent cacophony.

  It is so close. With the insects gnawing. My skin damp with perspiration.

  Do something, Mira B!

  Wake up!

  ‘They say Meste Engke came from the north,’ – the screen promptly reads – ‘the telephone probably brought him news of our land. He must have flown over us in an airplane and then told them in Asunción that he’d seen us, the Enlhet who lived there.

  “There’s a lot of open grassland there. That’s a good place. There are people there. There are no houses, no roads, nothing,” he probably said. “But I don’t know whether they might be dangerous,” he thought. “I’ll go and see,” Meste Engke decided. And so he came to our land...

  “Who is the leader here?” he asked.

  “He is,” they said, and pointed to my father.

  “Right. Tell me where the fields are. Where is the open grassland I saw, where the Enlhet live, people without clothes, like you?” said Meste Engke...

  There were some Paraguayans with Meste Engke...

  When he left here Meste Engke took some earth with him. He filled a can with soil and took it north with him...

  “What’s he doing? Why is he taking the earth?” people asked. Meste Engke answered, “I’m taking this with me. Some people are going to come called Lengko – Mennonites,” he explained...’

  ‘Enlhet,’ I murmur, ‘Mennon . . . ?’ but before I can fully process it:

  ‘Beloved brother’ – the scroll reads – ‘I have promised Don Luis, before I leave for Paraguay, to give him a pig so his wife, Dona Guillermina, who is very good at preparing pork chorizo sausages, can give me a few to take to my mother. I ask that you procure for me as quickly as possible a pig and send it to me, butchered, of course . . .

  Agustín’

  Another screen appears. A second screen has been summoned by the other Mira A, and if I step in closer – I step in, squinting – I am able to see Tuesday’s room, quite clearly. And there sits Tuesday, at her table, staring into her Sensor – staring deeply into me, as I watch her. I see her dark eyes flit to the top of her screen. Is that the notification? Will she have been notified? If the other Mira A is dreaming, then . . . ? Or if I am watching her dream . . . ? Will she be notified if I am watching the sleeping Mira A watching her?

  Tuesday grimaces. She shakes her head. She seems tense, preoccupied. She scans her room as if looking for something. All surfaces appear clean – emptied. Only her kora and her harp offer any visible signs of habitation.

  Tuesday is so . . .

  Tuesday is so . . . so Pure.

  Tuesday is so Un . . . Un . . . Unattached.

  *TERRIBLE DISCIPLINE*

  The tuning . . .

  The tuning . . .

  . . . in . . .

  . . . in . . .

  Tuesday scans the room again. She rubs her cheek. She seems restless. A small sound outside alarms her. Her head jerks around. She jumps to her feet and waits, tensed. But then whatever it is – what is it? Who is it? – quietens or passes by or is finally identified as no threat. Tuesday exhales her relief. Her face is typically blank, yet oddly expressive.

  Fear.

  The tuning fork . . .

  After a period of intense stillness Tuesday glances towards her harp. She grabs a small stool and carries it over there. She gently places it down. She sits and carefully swings the heavy instrument between her legs, leaning its body against her shoulder. She makes herself comfortable, draws a deep breath, and then starts to play.

  The tuning fork . . .

  The tuning . . .

  The dreaming Mira A tilts her head slightly. Or perhaps her head is tilted for her. Either way, the volume of the harp increases and the word Cascada runs across the screen. It is a cheerful piece, tropical-sounding, full of delicate little runs – simulating the sound of flowing water – deftly interspersed by a series of single, plucked notes that fall from her fingers like perfect, individual, liquid droplets. It shimmies and swirls. Mira A lifts a hand (or was it lifted for her?). This screen is rapidly engulfed by another one:

  ‘The Guaraní found themselves in an atmosphere of insecurity due to the permanent threat from the Guaicuru and the Payaguaes on the River Paraguay’ – it crisply explains. ‘In addition, interethnic relations were strained, with frequent struggles among the Guaraní themselves... The Guaraní witnessed the arrival of fo
ur hundred Spanish men; they saw the horsemen, the arquebuses, and the metal, and to them everything seemed absolutely novel and magical. They accepted it because it was new but also because behind it they saw the power of magic... We should bear in mind that for the Guaraní everything of value held a magical connotation and what was not magic held little value... For the Guaraní, knowledge was relative: anyone could acquire it; what was of greatest value was magic... The Guaraní offered the Spanish their women in order to formalise the pact because in this way they became relatives of the karai. In a Neolithic society such as the Guaraní, only by way of political kinship was it possible to found a true interethnic friendship. Through kinship they could expect reciprocity, since for the Guaraní... to give is to receive... The Guaraní had historically considered all those who did not speak Guaraní and were not racially or ethnically Guaraní as tapi’i, as slaves, and inferior beings...’

  ‘Word’ and ‘soul’, I murmur, remembering, ‘word’ and ‘soul’ are synonymous in the Guaraní language . . .

  ‘I am still in this world . . . ’ – the screen is suddenly divided in half – ‘My broken health still keeps me here. But in spite of illness and everything else, I am going to give in the La Lira two recitals to see if I can begin my planned return to my homeland, before the harsh Uruguayan winter traps me. The intestinal ailment has undermined my organism, leaving me in a bad way. I cannot enjoy my favourite foods. My stomach is ruined and also my liver and kidneys. I am quite thin. Of all that musculature of mine there is nothing left. After all is done, what can one say! Life is full of such things and it is necessary to have a secure footing to continue balancing on the slack tightrope of this devilish world.’

  ‘We, the Ayoreo people, as is the way of our culture’ – the first half of the screen quickly interjects – ‘lived in different groups that each had their own leaders, and that moved within their own areas. Each of the groups knew their territory. Ayoreo territory is the sum of all the territories where the different local groups lived. Our territory, Eami, is a living being that shelters us and which is illumined when we are present. We express ourselves through our territory, and our history is etched in every stream, in every waterhole, on the trees, in the forest clearings, and on the salt flats. Our territory, Eami, also expresses itself through our history, because the Ayoreo people and our territory are a single being... we can locate on a map the territories and areas where we the Ayoreo people used to live, and where the uncontacted Ayoreo continue to live. It is like a map of Paraguay, but it is an Ayoreo map. On the white man’s maps, no one has ever mentioned the Ayoreo territories. It is as if they had erased our history, as if the Ayoreo people had never been there, and as if no Ayoreo people continued to live there... We cannot show a land title, but there in our territory there are still signs of our presence from the past and from today, which prove that it is our territory. For example, there in our territory are our huts, our paths, our crops planted in the forest and the holes carved in the trees from where we harvested the honey. The white man can see them with their own eyes; these are our property documents. And in addition, we have the living memory of our history; as soon as we come near our territory it comes alive...’

  ‘All beings have doubles’ – the second half of the screen swiftly counters – ‘ . . . this double appears to man as a shadow, reflection . . . all beings have doubles. But the double of the human being is one and triple at the same time . . .

  . . . the first soul is called the egg. Then comes the little soul, located in the centre. Completely surrounding the egg is the shell or hide: the vatjeche . . . ’

  Once again a gushing waterfall of notes breaks through the seemingly impenetrable wall of words. The dense jungle of information is side-swiped by Tuesday, playing on her harp. I try to find Mira A, watching. Mira A should be in the foreground, surely? Because I am watching her – me – watching The Information Stream. But I am once-removed. I am not . . . not . . . I don’t understand if . . .

  Tuesday plays with such extraordinary delicacy. These liquid notes! They leave her fingers, her instrument, in shimmering ripples, they radiate outwards, they effuse the atmosphere with a joyful fluidity.

  Mira A flips forward to another text:

  ‘The first written grammar of the Guaraní language – the most widely spoken indigenous language in the Americas, many of whose speakers are non-indigenous – was compiled in 1639 by Antonio Ruiz de Montoya, a Jesuit priest. Montoya helped found the Reductions of Guayra and is said to have baptised over 100,000 Indians . . . ’

  Another trickle of notes slithers out from behind the letters, pitter-pattering across the text like teardrops:

  ‘The baby, a girl, was born by Cesarean and weighed 3 kilograms . . . ’

  Then the notes – the tears – fall on to another text, a letter, all crumpled up, hissing and evaporating the very moment they make contact with the surface of its pages:

  ‘I received an envelope which was sent to Isadora’s house and which she in turn had delivered to me. It contained an old kitchen knife rolled up in a piece of paper on which the following words could be read:

  Margarita Barrios

  The virgins lanced to death by Eliza Lynch out of jealousy, Panchita Garmendia, Prudencia Barrios, Chepita Barrios, Rosario Barrios, Olivia Barrios, Pancha Barrios, Consolacion Barrios – this dagger will pursue you as long as you live and after your death God will punish you

  Encarnacion Valdovinos . . . ’

  ‘It’s obvious they don’t understand our situation. What’s wrong with the Mennonites?’ – the opposing text scowls – ‘They don’t get it. They’ll think I’m attacking them when I say this, but they just don’t understand. They don’t realize our way of life has disappeared. In the old days, with the elders, when a Mennonite asked, “When is it going to rain?” they’d answer, “Tomorrow afternoon,” and it really did rain.

  The old people had powers, wisdom. That’s all gone now. Nowadays the Mission rules everywhere, nowadays everyone’s a Christian, nowadays none of that’s left. And the Mennonites don’t understand that. What’s wrong with the Mennonites? They don’t understand any of it. That’s why when a Mennonite asks me about the rain I say, “We’ve lost that knowledge now.”

  In the old days the Enlhet knew when the rain was coming, and it always turned out the way they said, but now the Enlhet will say, “You need to watch the television to find that out.”

  When a Mennonite asks me, “When’s it going to rain?” I say, “No one can tell.” The Mennonite will say, “It’ll rain in the morning.”

  But it doesn’t always. So I say to the Mennonite, “The television lies. It was different before with the Enlhet. They knew exactly when it was going to rain.”

  The television tells lies. But the Enlhet’s way of life - that has gone.’

  I finish reading and try, once again, to locate the screen where Mira A may still be seen, slumped back in her chair.

  Instead I am greeted with the sight of Kipp, fast asleep, in bed. I start, involuntarily. Embarrassed. Afraid.

  Then Tuesday again. Tuesday continues to strum, to pluck, but a ghostly smile is now playing around her lips. She looks into her Stream. Her Graph is consulted. Her Graph is pinkening, inexplicably.

  ‘Mangoré is the name of a Guaraní chief of the pre-colonial period who, according to legend, died for love and honour. Barrios began performing dressed in “Indian” regalia, including feathers, headband, and bare chest, billing himself variously as Cacique Mangoré, the Prodigious Guaraní Guitarist, the Paganini of the Guitar from the Jungles of Paraguay, and the Aboriginal Soul That Sings on the Guitar, among others.

  This may have been a business decision: Barrios may have felt that he would attract a larger audience by conforming in caricature in stereotypes – including those within Latin America – of Paraguay. On the other hand, an analysis of his identity and of his work may have led him to a re-invention of himself as an artist consciously identified with indigenous
heritage . . . ’

  There is a loud knock at the door. I turn. Mira A turns. But it is not my door. It is Tuesday’s door. She slowly pushes the harp away from her, secures it on its stand and then rises to her feet. The door opens. In the doorway . . . Why won’t Tuesday’s Stream pan around?

  Mira A (obviously thinking the same thing) focuses in closely on the pupils of Tuesday’s eyes – the reflection within those dark orbs. Inside the reflection, slipping and distorted, as if drowning in a slick of black oil:

  Kite.

  He lifts his arms. He stares directly into Tuesday’s Sensor. He smiles. He snaps his fingers.

  Click.

  I am Mira A. I am one. It is me. I am she. And she is . . .

  *TeRRiBlE DIsCIpLINE*

  . . . she is standing on the steps of the main Meeting House in her District (with Tuck, her Neuro-Mechanical canine), watching, impassively, as groups of The Young congregate outside the building in small, excitable clusters. There’s a mood of cheerful anticipation – almost a carnival atmosphere – even though Kipp (who is enviably Non-Attached, who is Pure, who is In Balance) has firmly assured Mira A that his big lecture will not be worth attending.

  Am I – we – missing something?

  Am I – we – being kept at bay for another reason, perhaps?

  Because of the flaw?

  Because of . . . ?

  Because of you-know-who?

  Because of the you-know-what?

  Because of . . . ?

  The echoes and the echoes and the echoes and the echoes?

  Might this be why I – we – she – am finding it hard to maintain eye contact?

  People seem to be staring straight through us. Or they turn away. They just look and then they calmly turn away.

  Am I – we – invisible?

  Because my Graph isn’t pinkening (isn’t alive, a bloody aorta, pumping). Because my Sensor keeps oscillating. When they look at my Stream, what do they see? Do they see what I – we – see? A heaving, steaming, tropical rainforest of incomprehensible words words words words words words? A giant, felled tree of narrative that has obliterated – that obliterates – everything in its wake?