The Dead Sleep in the Wilderness

by Yukako Kabeif

  “He’s stupid, but honest. He’ll make her happy. Five years ago, she was obsessed with you, but she’s completely settled down now.”

  “Ha, ha…” he let out a dry laugh, and, as he was already trying to avoid the subject, he lit a new cigarette. So it had already been five years. Of course Augusta would be surprised that he hadn’t changed; he’d better not see her again. Five years was the time period he had sort of decided on as the limit at which point he would cut off relations with people.

  Augusta was barking out orders — the fire-breather would of course pay for damages, and she made the customers who participated in the ruckus help clean up the fallen tables and dishes that lay scattered around the floor.

  “So what’s this about a girl you have with you? What brought that about? If she has no relatives and needs a place to go, then we can take her in.…”

  As the noise in the hall went down a notch, Shiman changed the subject. He probably made the offer because he knew that Harvey preferred not to be involved with other people too much. Grateful for his friend’s consideration, he shook his head lightly. “She has a place to go. I’ll send her back next week. Besides, I’m surprised at how interesting it is to watch her. Actually, I’m kind of enjoying it,” he said, breathing out his honest feelings along with a puff of smoke.

  Something about Kieli seemed to prevent her from getting too close to normal people, and he thought she might be surprisingly like himself. On the other hand, she would react so sensitively to beings that weren’t normal humans — like that girl who called herself her roommate or whatever, and that conductor from this morning — that it was almost disgusting. Then, when he realized that, she would suddenly start acting like a normal girl after all, getting excited at all those old carnival acts.

  He honestly never thought he would encounter anything that would seem so new to him at this point in his life. He had seen every single thing the planet had to offer and was quite sick of it all.

  “Well, it’s about time I got going,” he said, for some reason. He smothered his still-fresh cigarette in the ashtray.

  “Oh.” Shiman smiled sadly, a bit disappointed, and raised his glass in farewell. “Let’s meet again. We’re planning to leave the East when the Colonization Days are over.”

  “Yeah. I’m glad we could talk,” he answered with a smile, getting up from his chair. Apparently Augusta had gotten to a good stopping place; she left the cleanup to the men and ran up to Harvey.

  “Harvey, don’t tell me you’re leaving? Let’s talk all night!”

  “You’re pregnant, Augusta,” Shiman interjected, exasperated. She retorted, “Oh, I can stay up one night!” looking indifferent (she was about the only one who could talk to the troupe leader as an equal), and, turning to Harvey for support, added, “You can stay, right?” Harvey smiled bitterly and shook his head.

  “I’m leaving. My princess must be missing me. I’ll come see you again after you have the baby.” He wasn’t used to refusing so diplomatically, and as he pacified her, he inwardly hoped that she couldn’t tell he was lying — he had just decided that he would try not to run into them again. Part of it was that he knew he wouldn’t get off with just a “You haven’t changed!” if he met Augusta again, but more than anything, it was getting harder and harder to see Shiman’s face. He might be an old man the next time they met. I wish I could get a break already. I just don’t want to watch people grow old anymore.…

  The ghost clown’s slender fingers moved nimbly, twisting the balloons in knots; he created one round balloon animal after another and released them into the blue-gray night sky. A droopy-eared dog, a hook-tailed cat, a flock of yellow pigeons, a sand lion, even the sheep and guinea fowl normally used for food. The ship that came to colonize brought only a few types of animals, so there wasn’t much variety on this planet; it was possible that the clown had learned how to make every animal in the encyclopedia.

  After that, he did some hat tricks and balanced on a ball, performed a funny little silent one-man comedy act, and showed her the knife juggling he had been practicing earlier. This time, he succeeded in catching the knife under his leg, and, from Kieli’s place on the empty lot’s bench, she cried out, “You did it! Amazing, amazing!” She showered him with praise and cheers with all her heart.

  Before she knew it, the balloon animals had gathered on the bench to her right and left, imitating Kieli and clapping their hands. Kieli burst out laughing and kept applauding with the animals.

  Time passed, and when the clown removed his hat and took a bow to signal the end of his final act, tears were running down Kieli’s cheeks.

  “……”

  When she stopped clapping, the animals stopped with her. The lot instantly fell quiet, and the faint din from the main street started to sound louder. In reality, only Kieli’s voice and applause had existed in the empty lot to begin with.

  “Sorry, sorry. I’m okay…” While the clown and balloon animals watched over her, unsure what to do, Kieli wiped her tears with her coat sleeve and laughed it off.

  She remembered when she was little and had sat next to her grandmother, clapping with all her might. She got the feeling that that carefree, happy little girl had disappeared somewhere when her grandmother died, and since then, she naturally stopped opening her heart much to people. Becca was the one friend she ever had; but she, too, had gone where she belonged, and now she, like her grandmother, was in a place Kieli could not reach. She had met Harvey and the ghost in the radio in Becca’s place, but, of course, they weren’t normal living people, either.

  Now that she thought of it, Kieli only felt comfortable when she was with dead people.

  Maybe I just haven’t realized, and I’ve been a ghost all this time, too.…It was impossible to tell if the thought was joking or serious; as soon as it occurred to her, a balloon dog that had been peering at her, worried, perked its ears, burst, and disappeared with a little pop. The other animals followed, bursting one after another like bubbles. Kieli sensed someone’s presence and raised her face.

  Turning around, she saw a tall, redheaded man standing behind the bench.

  “Hey, you. Why weren’t you back in the room? I’ve been looking for you. What are you fooling around here for?” Harvey said in a light tone, leaning over her to look into her face. His jaw dropped, and then, “Huh? What? Why are you crying?”

  “Shut up. Weren’t you gonna come back in the morning?” She was deliberately short with him as she hurried to wipe her face.

  Her reply took Harvey completely by surprise, and he blinked. “Is that what you’re crying about?”

  “No,” Kieli retorted, looking down, suddenly angry, and stood up from the bench. He doesn’t understand people’s concerns.

  “Sorry, sorry. I finished my business,” Harvey said, ruffling Kieli’s hair with one hand. “Stop it!” Kieli cried, and tried to brush him away, but he caught her hand easily.

  “Let’s go back. The Corporal’s gotten bored and is doing nothing but whining. After he’s the one that said he’d stay in the hotel by himself, the old fogey,” he said as if nothing was the matter, keeping her hand in his as he started to walk off.

  Kieli sulked but let him pull her by the hand. After she had gone a few steps, she stopped and turned around to see the clown’s ghost, standing alone in the middle of the empty lot, waving his white hands. The balloon animals had returned and floated around the clown, and they all waved together.

  Kieli smiled, too, and gave a small wave with her free hand. Beside her, Harvey smiled wryly and tugged lightly at her hand.

  “Let’s go.”

  Turning away from the clown and his company, the two headed back.

  The injury from the train accident this morning still inflamed the hand that held hers. His large palm and long, rough fingers wrapped themselves around Kieli’s hand that had nearly frozen over, now that she stopped to notice it. It was completely different from the wrinkly hand of her grandmother that lingered in her m
emory; it was a strange sensation, touching this hand for the first time. But Kieli felt the same comforting warmth from his palm that she had felt then, and she returned the grasp, not wanting to let it go.

  CHAPTER 4

  “I’M HOME.”

  Kieli could feel the cold of the concrete against her back through her coat. She shivered and pulled the collar of her coat closed, looking up at the rusty orange sky through an opening in the alley.

  Tonight would be another cold one. Once the Colonization Days vacation ended, it would already be winter.

  Still, the school-designated coat suited this situation very well, Kieli thought in a bit of self-derision as she considered her black clothes and her current position. Now if only she put on a pair of sunglasses, it would be perfect. She remembered a children’s detective novel that she had borrowed from the library in her boredom during the previous year’s Colonization Days, which only increased her boredom (and real detectives probably didn’t wear such obvious clothing).

  “Corporal, can’t we go back now? It’s bad taste to follow people around,” she suggested for the umpteenth time, looking up at the sky as she plastered herself against the wall, but the small radio hanging from the cord around her neck replied with the villainous line, “Shut up and follow him,” immediately dismissing the idea.

  Kieli sighed in exasperation but nevertheless did as she was told and peered stealthily into the opposite street from the shadows of the alley. Some way off, she could see the back of a tall man walking the rather empty old streets. The twilight sky dyed his copper-colored hair an even rustier dark orange.

  His back looked as if it would turn this way for a second, and, “Wah! He’ll spot us. Hide!” she drew her head back, as if pulled by the radio’s voice.

  She waited a while, her heart pounding, then moved her head to look one more time as Harvey veered onto a side street a little ways ahead.

  “He’s turning. Hurry!” the radio urged, swinging at the end of its cord.

  “…It’s bad taste to follow people around,” Kieli said, justifying herself with a grumble, as she ran out into the alley and went after the vanishing back at a trot.

  How did I end up playing detective in the first place?

  They stayed one night in the town with the carnival, then boarded the train that had started running again that morning, and arrived at their destination a little before dusk. It was a big transfer station on the eastern outskirts of the Easterbury parish, where the railroads met from all four directions. They had come from the central region of western Easterbury. If they kept going east, they would reach the Sand Ocean in the far east; if they went north, they would pass into the North-hairo parish, where the Church Capital and the mechanized capital were.

  The last railroad, to the south, had been abolished and was no longer in use, but the abandoned mines that Kieli and Harvey headed for lay at the end of that deserted track. Harvey said it wasn’t that far, so she figured it was quite far, and sure enough, it would take them from morning to night to walk the distance; Kieli whined, and they scheduled their departure for the next morning.

  And so they found an inn near the station where they could stay the night, at which point Harvey said there was a place he wanted to stop by, and he’d set out on his own.

  “It bothers me, that heartless bastard having a place he’d go to the trouble of visiting,” the radio said, feigning all seriousness, and ordered Kieli to follow him. She grumbled — again — that it was bad taste to follow people, but in the end, Kieli did as she was told. Because it wasn’t as if she wasn’t secretly curious herself.

  She stopped for a moment at the corner of the alley Harvey had gone down and peered across the way to see the narrow path winding its way uphill. Block-concrete walls sandwiched the path on either side so she couldn’t see much, and on top of that, narrow side streets and stairways branched out like a maze. Looking far up the slope, she saw a towering stone wall and zigzagging steps crawling up it. It looked like there were even more villages on top of the wall.

  She had heard that the old town around the transfer station had once been a military base in the Easterbury region. It was a fort city, surrounded by sturdy walls (though now they were old and crumbling in places), and even inside, it was divided by several layers of inner walls, which stood vertically, complicating the structure terribly. If someone who had never been there before entered the city and actually made it to their destination, there would be no doubt that it was pure coincidence.

  Apparently Harvey had been there before. He did stop and look around a few times as if matching the streets with his memory, but he cut through several of the complex hill roads automatically and finally started down a single narrow path.

  Old houses lined the run-down area. It looked as if hardly anyone lived there anymore; most of the houses within the crumbling concrete walls had fallen to ruin, and the yellow sand that had blown in from the wilderness lay thick on the streets.

  Harvey stopped in front of one of the houses deep in the complex, and after gazing at it from the outside for a short while, he disappeared inside its concrete fence.

  “He went inside.”

  At the radio’s prompting, Kieli ran in his direction and, ducking low, stuck half her face out from behind the wall.

  On the other side of the simple but well-maintained front yard, an old, steel-framed house stood under the evening sky. It was somewhat bigger than the other houses around it and had a stone stairway and double doors at its front.

  Kieli was a little surprised to see potted herbs of various sizes lined up on the balcony directly above the front entrance. She had thought that the only people who could devote themselves to hobbies like raising plants these days were rich ladies in mansions who had a lot of free time because their servants did all the housework.

  She saw the top half of a man on the balcony, watering the plants with a tin watering can. He was a white-haired old man who scowled grumpily, and at first glance, he certainly didn’t look like someone who loved plants.

  When he noticed Harvey looking up at him from outside the entrance, for a second he put a warning look on his face, then his eyes, buried in deep wrinkles, opened wide.

  “You’ve come back.…” The minute the words reached his mouth, every trace of his previous stern expression melted away.

  Kieli heard Harvey murmur, “I’m home.” His voice was so faint that she didn’t know if it reached the old man’s ears or not.

  “Don’t just stand there; come in. It’s your house,” the old man called to Harvey and disappeared from the balcony, perhaps going to greet him. Accepting the invitation, Harvey started to climb the entrance steps but suddenly stopped and turned around.

  “Ah,” Kieli cried involuntarily as his copper-colored eyes met hers. Under her chin, the radio made the same sound. Harvey squinted at Kieli, who had frozen with her head still sticking out of the concrete’s shadow, and sighed, an incredulous look on his face.

  “I don’t know what you’re doing, or why you’ve even got the Corporal with you.”

  Kieli made the excuse in her mind — “It was the Corporal’s idea” — but it stayed there.

  “How long did you know?”

  “The way Kieli tails people, I couldn’t help but noticing. Kieli.”

  A little late, Kieli was trying to sneak her head back behind the wall; she cringed when he called her sharply by name. She looked up to check his expression, but Harvey simply said, “How about coming in?” He turned on his heels and pushed the double glass door open. The door creaked, terribly rusted.

  Kieli’s mouth dropped open. After looking down at the radio, she hurried out of the concrete’s shadow and followed the tall man disappearing through the entrance.

  She trotted up the steps but then, feeling as if something was off, she stopped. She looked up at the balcony above her and tilted her head. The terra-cotta pots were still there, but the herbs and their green leaves had all disappeared, as if perhaps so
meone had picked them all in an instant.

  “Hey, this house…” she muttered, moving her gaze from the balcony across the entire house. The radio said only, “I know,” in a deadpan voice, as if he had realized long before.

  The inside of the house was all done in whites, and it was old, but clean. Inside, a hall surrounded by white walls stretched out in either direction. Harvey stuck his head out of one of the doors, said, “This way,” and disappeared inside once again.

  When she stood in front of the room Harvey beckoned her to, Kieli realized that this place was a facility like a clinic. In the center of the plain, undecorated room stood a simple bed and a medical cart, and the glass-doored cabinet that occupied one of the walls contained a variety of medicines.

  There was a clumsy steel desk at the window, and the old man from earlier sat in front of it, looking her way.

  “This is Kieli,” Harvey said, introducing Kieli, who was standing in the doorway, then pulled a round chair from beside the bed, and sat casually in it. The crooked three-legged chair sank with a creak.

  Kieli bowed her head slightly in acknowledgment, and the radio that hung from her neck introduced himself: “I’m here, too.” The old man opened his eyes just a little wider in surprise, but soon looked pleased and smiled.

  “Welcome. You seem to be pleasant companions. Are you happy?”

  He directed the last question at Harvey, and Harvey, stuck for an answer, turned his glance toward Kieli. But it wasn’t as if the answer would be written on her face. Kieli looked back at him silently, and eventually he smiled wryly and responded, “Well, things aren’t so bad right now.”

  “Aren’t so bad.” It seemed to Kieli that when Harvey said it, it could fall into the category of “pretty good,” and that was enough for her.

  “Be careful. It looks like they’ll give out any second.”

  “Yeah, I know.” The radio didn’t need to warn Kieli; she was already taking great care with each step up the staircase. The house seemed to be pretty old, and even her smallest steps made the floor creak.