by CK Collins
“So . . .”
“I have been to Rith Idiiye.”
“Yes?”
“You were right to be concerned.”
“I see,” says Brother, setting down his deirin. “Let’s have it then.” Sule’s eyes go to Tchori. He folds his hands, and Brother is a moment understanding. “Oh, she’s quite prepared, Sule. We’ve had many a good talk.”
Sule is not reassured. “It’s very sensitive, Brother.”
Avoiding Sule’s gaze: “Brother, perhaps I could wait outside.”
“That’s very considerate, Tchori,” is his crisp reply. “But I find myself quite resolute. You shall stay, and we shall have everything in the open.”
“As you wish,” says Sule. “I’ll start at the beginning?”
“Normally best, although I seldom do.”
“My arrival was on the 26th,” Sule begins crisply. “I left my vehicle some distance north and proceeded by foot. On the road were tracks made by a heavy vehicle. The air was cool and very still. Using a glass, I observed the edge of the burned field, exactly as you described, Brother. In the village proper, there were indications of a more recent fire. Small in area, a single building.
“I proceeded along the main road, and my presence was swiftly noted. Several men: hatchets, shotguns, and so forth. I demonstrated that I was unarmed. Announced myself as your friend. They accepted me at last and took me to a home where I was given account. The sha iduur were all in attendance. Mostly, it was the masirkiyn who spoke.”
“And you learned . . .?”
“That Hilm Hivaa has been there.”
Brother’s eyes shut, and he says bitterly: “I should not have left them.”
“It was fortunate that you’ve done, Brother. They arrived but two days after you and Miss Vidaayit.”
“I told myself they would not go into the Far Karsk. How Aarum found out . . . go on, go on.”
“Arrival by night, silent team, sealing routes of escape. Typical assault structure: One gaan viyka in lead, seven sudin viyka in platoon. Armed with Kalashnikov and daaka.”
“Daakas, truly?”
“The psychology — those blades inspire more fear than guns.”
“Grotesque. He’d have us back to the Bronze Age if he could. Do we know if the gaan understood the underlying reason for his mission? The true context?”
“They gave no indication, and it would be irregular. A gaan’s brief is typically narrow.”
“Yes, Aarum likes to keep things divided, doesn’t he, compartments? What then, let’s have it?”
“All were assembled and there was a recording of events. The same history that was shared with you. And of course the additional history of your visit. He knew of the flowers and had instruction to remove samples. The news of the burning left him quite vexed. He then gave instruction for the mother, Thaadi, to be brought. There was intention to remove her. The lad you described, Lidayim, he intervened. To his neighbours, he asserted the obligation to protect her. He would not desist and a sudin set on him with daaka. I’m told he lived through to evening.”
Tchori’s throat tightens, but she controls her face.
“We must pray,” says Carodai. Fingernails dug secretly into her palm, Tchori scarcely hears the blessing. “And become Ashma,” she repeats absently and then, to do something, pours water for Carodai. He doesn’t take it up.
Sule gently asserts that there was nothing they could have done.
Not wishing to be consoled, Carodai shakes his head, then lets the subject go with a short exhalation. “Shall I presume,” he says, “the mother is now with Hilm Hivaa?”
“Yes. By report, she made imprecation at the corpse of the lad. Imprecation for all, and left singing a song of her invention.”
“About?”
“Bees and butterflies. And flowers.”
Tchori finds her voice. “May I use the lavatory?”
Sule shows her to a dingily industrial CR down the hall. The smell of too much perfumed cleanser. Mops, crates of cleaning supplies and, through the floor, the vibrations of machinery. After the toilet she splashes her face. She would not have stood up to Hilm Hivaa. She would not have taken a daaka.
When she returns, they’re in debate over Sidaarik’s thinking.
“He’s taken a risk, has he not? Operating openly in the Karsk so soon after the Ghaatasira deal?”
“Not a great risk. They’re a private people, as you know, Brother. They’ll not go to the government or MDF. The killing was gratuitous, though, and I expect the gaan will be held to account.”
“And that will make everything right, of course.”
“What do they want with the woman, Brother?”
“It’s smartly played. He’s wagering that the poor woman has maintained a connection to her son. To the Skythk. He’s not mistaken. Tchori will attest to that, won’t you dove?”
“Yes, Brother.”
“Well, we find ourselves in a race.” He rubs his hands together, gaze fixed on the floor. “We’ve evidence that somewhere in Masalay there is a woman walking about with a divine child. She may be unaware. Ikidris, the Skythk — we can use either word — will stalk her. Aarum is seeking her as well, but with more complicated intentions. He wants to preserve the child just as much as we do.
“You asked what his purpose is with poor Thaadi. His plan, and it’s quite clever, is to use her to follow Ikidris. To use the powers of the Skythk to track the woman — with intention of finding and protecting her before the Skythk can do its deed. Our task is to chart a path of our own. Sule, have you the ability to help further? I’m mindful that you’re not without obligations.”
“I’ve made arrangements, Brother. I’m yours to direct.”
“Thank you. I understand the sacrifice involved with that, Sule. If you require any funds, well of course you know what to do.”
“All in hand, Brother.”
“You’ll make arrangements for us to speak with Viv?”
“Yes. Have you the book?”
“Tchori, you’ve brought it, yes?”
She retrieves the Dafoe from her bag and delivers to Sule.
“Brother,” he asks, “what’s been done with the flowers?”
“Yes, Tchori can bring you up to date about that.”
After finding her voice, she describes the mending room and her attempts to discover something about the species. Sule’s affect remains impassive.
“She’s handled it smartly, don’t you agree Sule?”
He nods without enthusiasm. “Yes.”
“She doesn’t know that I duped the Minister of Studies into assigning her to me. I simply had to pretend that Miss Vidaayit was the only one I did not want.”
“She knows it now.”
“Yes,” says Carodai with a wink, “I suppose she does.”
11 November
* * *
Nova Coast, Masalay
Ashma, every day the white woman is walking down here for buying fish and other things.
The language of her and Alimi talking is English. Gaarik says Alimi has gone to a school in Silva for learning math and English. It is a much better language than the Masalayan language.
Of white women, I have seen other ones before. There are ones that came from their countries to help Sister Imurna. The name of their countries was never told to me. Sister Imurna said that people in every country are learning more about You every day and wanting to follow You.
The house of the white woman is owned by a Jaya Runai. Garrik remembers the wife and says that the Runai woman who came is not her. The favourite thing of Gaarik and Fori now is deciding what the white woman is. A whore is probably it. The reason of a Jaya man wanting a whore as ugly as her is that white women are better at dick sucking than Runai women. They are taught it in school.
When of Gaarik and Fori there is that talking, I try not to listen.
About the white woman I try not to think but sometimes I do.
* * *
A q
uestion Sister Imurna asked me was, What do I think is Ashma’s most important law.
The answer I said was arokee. Sister Imurna said for me to tell her what is arokee. I did not want to say about arokee then, but she said I must be truth in all things.
How I explained arokee is that in our hills were calls for many things. Like of a goat lost or the coming of rain. Of all calls, arokee is highest. It is the call of help and hearing arokee you have to go, you cannot wait, it is commandment.
She asked me could I tell her about a time. I asked if I must, and she said I must. So I said about when a man came to violate a widow. She escaped and was pursued and called of arokee. I was not of age for going. My father and brothers took machetes and gun. Too late of sparing her violation they reached the place. Through all the night they tracked him who did it — them and all the men of our aarong except one man who did not answer arokee.
I did not want to tell Sister Imurna the rest, but she said I should tell her because there is no truth unknown to Ashma. So I told about the pits that were the next day dug in the ground. The man who did the violation was lowered into the first pit. The widow who was violated took her right of filling that pit until his pleading died. Then the man who ignored arokee, all people of our aarong, we buried him dead.
Of Sister Imurna I asked was arokee wicked.
She answered me no, because we are all of need to help the weak whenever they call. But such punishment is wicked because when we kill a person we are killing a part of You, Ashma. She asked of that do I understand. How I answered was that I have known men that are absent of God.
Of that, Sister Imurna said I am in wrong. She said to me that no man, or act of man, can banish the God within. With our evils we bury holiness over, but Ashma can never be absent made. Always You are there and able to be heard if we will quiet in us the noise of hatred and sin.
She asked did I think I could use my heart to hear You, Ashma. My answer of that was that I would try.
But my heart is not the thing she thinks. In my time of strong orange, in my time of hunger and guns, I listened to my heart and it told me killing things.
* * *
Alimi said to Yabaren that I am required to have a place for worshipping. How Yabaren answered first was laughing. Second was him saying that Temple would not take me. That is a thing she knew.
But he was fool enough to sign a paper that promised I would worship every week, and she said that a contract is a contract, and to that he said who cares.
So Alimi herself found me worship and he is called Daadik.
The thing of Daadik is that he is weak in eyes and body. Temple he cannot get to and so he is wanting a person to share worship in his house. Of worship mornings, I am allowed to climb the hill to his house.
Ashma, I know that Alimi does not care about my soul. But she has anyway given a rope to my soul, which is drowning in this place.
* * *
Of the Sisters there was a rule against igmaki being said as a word for people. How dumb I am is Sister Imurna had to keep reminding me of that rule. A question she asked me was did I know the word igmaki before the Brigades. I gave her nod. Of that she said that we are humans not animals and we use words when we have something to say.
About igmaki I explained that it is the word for when a goat that has the stain of disease and needs to be culled. A goat that is igmaki you cannot eat. Nor cut nor even touch. For a goat that has become igmaki, there is only burning. How a goat cries when it is being burned — that is a sound that I used to think was the saddest sound of the world.
Sister Imurna wanted me to know that a human being is not a goat. A human soul cannot ever be igmaki. She wanted me to know that there is no stain so dark that it cannot be washed away by love.
The name I took in the Brigades — Sister Imurna said I needed to shed that name forever.
She asked did I want back the name I was called by my mother. But I said that name did not belong to me anymore, and she said she would pray on finding a new name for me. When finally it came she had a name for me, I asked where did it come from and she said the Hebrew Books. About those books I did not know anything, and how she explained it is they were the books that Jesus knew.
Where the name was written in those books she showed me. I asked her was he a good man, and her answer was that he had a hard go of it in life. Came he inherited a wilderness, and it near overwhelmed him. About that I worried. But to me she said, as our secret, that this man toiled hard and never lost his faith in God. She said it came he cleared that wilderness and made it his own.
Evening
West Anartha Autonomous District, Masalay
Ikidris has entered Rika’s room as wind enters a once-still day. He is on the floor, drawing as children will do.
Ikidris, do you want to hear a story? A ghost story?
Have you heard the one about the man whose wife became a ghost whilst living? How she began dreaming about bottomless water? How she sank in the bottomless water and wouldn’t let him join her?
Have you heard that story, Ikidris? And about the woman who came to take her place? First came her smell. There and not-there, taunting him. A wetness he couldn’t dry. Whispers he couldn’t unhear. He shook and shook. He shook and his dreams fell off. His dreams sank into the bottomless water and he was truly alone.
It was into that aloneness that she seeped.
Her wet breath on his ear. Her wet smell in his nose. He woke from his vacant nights and felt the residue of her wet. Her voice was everywhere, in the bark of dogs and the mechanical tick of traffic lights.
He tried telling himself that it was his love come back. But this was not her — this was a wind out of the abyss she’d descended in. The farther he ran from her the closer he came to her. He tried to escape into the abyss, but she was the abyss. His hate of her became his love of her. He rained and rained. She rained him empty and rained him raw.
“You’ve been asleep too long.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You were asleep,” he says, changing colours. “I waited for you.”
“What are you drawing?”
“Do you miss her?”
“Disiri. I miss Disiri.”
“Disiri got taken from you.”
“It was her choice. What are you drawing?”
“Disiri got taken from you.”
Ikidris breathes in, but he does not ever breathe out.
“I can’t remember her face.”
“I thought you loved her.”
“I can only see the other one now.”
“That one — she has it coming to her.”
“What are you drawing?”
The soft scratch of crayons on paper. “What does obliterate mean?”
“Obliterate?”
“What does obliterate mean?”
“It means if you destroy something. Destroy it completely.”
“Destroy it until there’s nothing left?”
“What are you drawing, Ikidris?”
He lays his crayon down and grins as children will do. “All done.”
Evening
Nova Coast, Masalay
Ashma, tonight I have heard a noise. A sobbing noise from where the sea slaps the sand. In the bright moonlight I looked. On the sand I saw footprints. Came the sea’s waves and they were not washed away. Small and naked were the footprints and facing south. To where the white woman lives.
I do not want to know about these things. Into my hanging bed I went and closed tight my eyes. Against my chest, I pressed Your words.
Yabaren has said it is funny me having a Bible I can’t read. I hope with all of my heart, Ashma, one day to look at Your words and know their meaning. But just to hold them is for my soul like food.
Beneath the slapping sound of the sea was another sound. It was a sound calling me onto the sand, for following the footprints.
In my hanging bed I stayed.
In my heart I tried to seal away evil.
Ashma, Sister Imurna has to me explained where violence goes and what it leaves. In the making of violence, screams are into the soul angrily brought. They echo there and louder become until the soul is deaf to gentler sounds.
But Ashma, You have made Jesus a cure of that. Jesus is love. And love is a quieting thing.
In my hanging bed I stay and press Your words against my heart.