The Broken House

by Tom La Farge

  The market building rose without a cornice to divide it from the sky; its whitewashed stucco now had the twilight’s same hue and mottled glow. In the stillness, guarded from the wind, Root breathed beneath a dome of milky indifference, arrested at the foot of a wave that would never break. Somewhere not far off ’Nna was singing, wordlessly; a small voice, keen, constricted. The breeze stirred a line of washing hung out by the shrine, the linens of strangers who slept at the tomb and prayed to the nameless man for the dream that would clear their life’s way.

  The woman from the café set down a basket of flat breads and a five-lobed dish before Drytung. The dish held seasonings: salt in gray rhombs, a black gravel of crushed pepper, mossy cumin, canary turmeric, paprika like powdered rust. At once Drytung plunged his fingers into the lobes and with pinches of each and pellets of bread set about sculpting a landscape on the table. Parallel chains of doughy hills left a twisting valley between them. He put more cumin in the taller hills that caught rain off the bay. Those on the inland side, cracked and beaten down by gales, he tinted with a rusty mix of turmeric and paprika with some black boulders. Next he laid a road between them, pepper crumbs and paprika mixed and tamped down in a wavering line. He licked his fingertip and began to move salt crystals, placing them in a file for trucks, supply wagons, steam rollers, graders, tar spreaders, field kitchens, ambulances; everything on wheels that Shandimus had sent out through the Ghazawa Pass.

  A trap. He’d seen it all from above, had Drytung. Not Root, he’d been jolting along in the hospital truck. Drytung had gone up in a balloon, heliographing with frantic flashes that black-veiled men were creeping through the hills from the bay. He spread fans of turmeric for the beaches where they landed, and there they came, peppercorn files crossing the range and spreading out along it, above the road. Then opened fire; the convoy’s disruption was artfully represented by flicks of a toothpick, and Annag laughed. The enemy charged down the slope with bayonets fixed, one of which had sliced into the tender throat of Ahalim, the nurse assigned to Root’s truck. While Ahalim shivered, the blade entered, twisted, released a scarlet napkin down her chest. The man’s face had been covered by a veil of black.

  But from the other side of the valley the troops that Shandimus had posted, crumbs rubbed to khaki with cumin and turmeric, which till then had held their fire and lain low in the khaki bracken, unleashed their volleys, and the peppercorns were thrust into the dough by Drytung’s thumb.

  Annag raised her hand. The woman brought more wine and refilled the spicedish. There they all were, then, waiting for their dinner in the market’s windless well, without a sun, without a moon or stars. The stalls were being chained and padlocked and their lights put out. The woman of the café went around setting out lamps like black bombs, oily flame escaping from the fuse-case. At the tables the men and women of the stalls were sitting to drink. Everyone was waiting, stirring a glass, raising a palm to greet an acquaintance, but saying nothing. Alongside the forgotten saint’s tomb dark shapes were swerving, diving through the air above their heads, silent, erratic—bats, uttered from the shrine to sweep the air. ’Nna’s song went twisting around the market, riding the charged vapor from the caldron. The vapor reached them all at once, at the same moment they all inhaled deeply.

  And then things started in a different key.

  10.

  The Shadow Line

  In the sight of them all ’Nna walked around the truck, singing. She approached the cauldron, holding out fists, then opened one, let fall a shower of herbs. The water came to a foaming boil, shooting plumes of vapor till a stench seized everyone by the throat. From her other hand ’Nna dropped sparkling powders on the fire itself. The flames glared white and did not fade.

  Then the Judwal market was suspended on the shadow line. The sky blended night and pearl. In their seeing ’Nna became naked, still holding out spread palms. Foul waftings married fearful reveries and circulated in the well of the market, and the dead sat among the living. Bloody Ahalim was at a table, watching, and other corpses sat with her or stood behind her. One-armed Jbeeba gripped a tub between her knees and rapped out a two-handed rhythm. The corpses clapped a counterbeat.

  Lit by the fire ’Nna moved. Shadows shifted above her brows and cheekbones, in the hollow of her collarbones, on the slope of her breasts, between her ribs, in the pit of her navel and the slot of her sex. Shadow figures crossed her firelit skin and joined in one long coil, a shadow serpent. Wrapping ’Nna, the shadow serpent raised its head and said You-you-you, blackened with my knowledge, I am Lhool’s Word. I own you, slave, you’ll never utter any word but me.

  ’Nna’s lips parted and from her vulva a dead bat’s skin struggled out through the serpent shadow. Its clawing wings lifted it among the vapors, and it squeaked, Who-who-who will speak? It was answered by an owlet, stepping forthright out ’Nna’s eyebeam. I am Mooka. I am speaking. Burn me, mix my ashes with honey. I will awaken the foetus from her dream. And flew into the flames that bent white around the cauldron.

  But Lhool’s Word was out among them, coiling, hiding, appearing only where the eye stopped looking, hissing where the ear stopped listening. All your words are mine, owl-words, bat-words. Rock is air and blows away, its shadow stays solid forever.

  ’Nna’s lips parted, her vulva opened, and her chameleon crawled out and up her belly, gripping bellyskin with pincerfeet. Cocked its eyes to spy its way. At last it wrapped its tail about her wrist and gaped to pant: I am Booyaa. Eat me to warm your womb. My flesh can expel you-you-you know who. Then ’Nna opened her mouth, and Booyaa, tail stiff as a pike, marched in.

  Not so fast, hissed Lhool’s Word, echo from everywhere. You stole me to use me. Now I’m in your mouth to kill you. I am a poison word. ’Nna’s lips parted and a scorpion squeezed from her vulva. It waved its tail and said, I am Oom Sraser. I must bury my sting in your parts. Forgive me, I am commanded.

  Then Jbeeba hit out a new beat with her five fingers. The dead clapped faster, and one stood up, a man with a naked face. But Annag grunted, swung her feet off the chair, grabbed one of the ridges from the spice map, and ran to ’Nna. Kneeling, she molded the crude likeness of a woman’s parts over the real ones. Oom Sraser leapt and landed, buried her sting in bread and vanished. The standing corpse cried out, fell, and burned in a flash of black flame.

  ’Nna’s lips parted again, and a mussel pushed out of her vulva. With glutinous foot it thrust itself clumsily upwards, while more mussels followed. Soon a colony of wet black shells clustered on ’Nna’s mons. They gaped to say, We are Boozroog, scoop us out like eyes. Eat us, grind our shells, make a paste, put it on your eyes. Though clamped shut, they will open.

  But Lhool’s Word answered them. You-you-you still lie in the field of my speech, and I claim Boozroog as a word of mine.

  ’Nna’s lips parted, her eyes glowed, she reached out her arms longer than arms reach. She spread her fingers till they made wheelspokes. From her vulva sprouted a donkey’s huge member with ram’s balls swinging. The teeth tumbled from her mouth and turned to cowries as ’Nna coughed and spat. The cowries landed on her chest and ribs and spread a ghost’s dead plasterwhite across her mottled skin. Rank yellow hyena hair sprouted from her armpits and between her fingers. Her gums filled with hyena teeth and her face snarled. The white flames colored and sank.

  Drytung rose and seized the spice merchant, made him unlock his stall, then came out into the light with the stuffed hoopoe. Then the hoopoe, calm, intelligent, stood out on one leg and said: I am Lhoodhood whom Lhool never spoke in her life. Take my eyes to see. Then ’Nna took the hoopoe in her hands and pulled the bird’s spread body down over her face as a mask, till its talons tore yellow fur from ’Nna’s armpits and scattered the tufts. Its long slender bill probed from between ’Nna’s eyes, and the hoopoe’s round gaze showed ’Nna the way of things.

  ’Nna’s lips parted wider than ever. She threw her legs open and fell back, corpses sprang to catch her and hold her w
hile a ball of fire erupted from her vulva, smoke, shock, and roar.

  It lit the square, but still its black shadow said, I am still with you and you-you—you do well, my inky girl. You do Lhoodhood and now I too wear the mask I never could wear, see what I never could see, own a word of change that Lhool’s lips could never part to utter, a word of death, a binding word.

  Wearing Lhoodhood, still braced by corpses, ’Nna thrust her pelvis high. She screamed “Lhool!” Her vulva opened around a hairy sphere, black and shining. ’Nna screamed again, and there was a face, a woman’s with open eyes. ’Nna screamed, and arms shot out of her, planted hands on her thighs, and then Lhool pulled her full body out.

  She was naked. Looking around the Judwal Square, she drew her hair behind her shoulders, then turned to stare at ’Nna, now risen, still wearing the hoopoe mask. Lhoodhood met Lhool’s gaze. Lhool opened her mouth — no sound came out of it. She closed it in a smile, shrugged, and walked away. Root saw no more of her than a flowing shroud of hair till she blended with the shadows.

  Now Jbeeba drummed the tub with thoughtful fingers, and from table to table the café woman moved, pouring out fresh tea. She served the corpses, thirstier than anyone. The standing dead held out glasses to receive their share.

  ’Nna, in a white hooded gown, knelt beside the fire, sitting on her calves. The white robe in the flames’ glare made ’Nna’s face an iron mask within her hood. She took a branch to mend the fire, a seapolished twist of driftwood. It must have been charged with salts, for the fire flared green and orange as she fed it. The colors wavering on her white front made her sway. But her shadow stretched behind her long and hard, till it entered among the corpses.

  The crescent moon rose behind the eastern hills. The dome of the forgotten saint’s shrine loomed white above them and Jbeeba’s drumming stopped. The people in the market laughed, long and loud, and ’Nna too laughed and stood up, stretched, and laughed again. One by one, the café woman lifted the covers from the platters on the grill, releasing steam and the fragrance of cumin and garlic through the market. Chunks of fish, carrot spears, cardoons and quartered potatoes yellow with turmeric, festooned with onion rings, maculate with red tomato skin, were served out around the tables. The stews would not feed everyone, but there was also a thick bean soup ladling out, and women from the village brought planks piled with flat round loaves. Everyone ate and talked while eating. Soldiers lined up outside the barber’s. He finished his dinner quickly and, wiping his mouth, reopened his stall, relit his hissing lamp. Quickly he enlisted the carpenter’s assistants, adept at planing and beveling, and opened a case of razors. Soon six soldiers were seated on café chairs with napkins around their necks. The barber made his way across to ’Nna and asked her did she have further use for that heated water. ’Nna shook her head, and while two boys slipped a pole beneath the kettle’s handle and carefully carried it off, she pulled the hood back off her head. The fire’s embers lent a warm tint to the white wool. Several men and women looked up from their plates. What had they seen, Root wondered, did they hear or speak, did they witness or enact, follow or drive, build or climb, did they dream? On the faces of some pilgrims Root could read release.

  The air was calm, but everyone was moving, had they got up to dance? No, but, even sitting, raising food to their mouths, these people’s bodies displaced lightly in every direction, not orbiting an axis, no, but drew toward each other, brushed an elbow, a shoulder, a haunch, the back of a hand. And then moved toward someone else, not restless, no, but as if the space of the courtyard were common now, and limits erased, no edgy guard against anyone’s coming too near.

  ’Nna and Jbeeba gathered the dry bandages of the line, rolled them up and withdrew into the truck to change dressings. Root felt them move by him in the narrow aisle, felt the truck sway on its springs as they pushed or pulled the healing bodies, but he kept his gaze turned outward, looking till the crowd seemed to swim, particles in suspension in the film on his eyes which at last he allowed to close.

  The next morning Root looked out at Annag on her motorbike. She was revving the motor and crying because she was losing her little ’Nna. It was all settled, ’Nna stayed with him and Drytung in the truck, if it could be got moving, to return with the wounded to the City. Their job was over. Word had come from the Sacellary. This campaign did not look much like reflecting glory on the Despotate, so no more need for historiographers, thanks. Annag was still with the Expeditionary Force, Shandimus had ordered her back with the deserters and stragglers. He had a new base and was rallying the troops that made it through the pass, though most of them had melted away as soon as they were clear. He was raising the Parishioners, the local troops, plot of land in exchange for service, keep a gun behind the door. Annag was ordered to round them up, motorized sheepdog that she was.

  He raised a spoon to his mouth, feeding himself for the first time in weeks, and thought about ’Nna, remembering her in her white robe as he tasted the sweet, peppery breakfast soup. Or porridge. If porridge could have garlic in it, and lentils. There was a shred of date. A dried apricot. It was sweetened with honey. The warmth and sweetness traveled down to his knitting guts. Spoon in another mouthful.

  The truck gave a shake, and porridge slopped. Smoke blew out the tailpipe. The engine fired in a series of bangs till it caught. The blacksmith was jigging with joy. Suddenly Annag tugged a whistle from her tunic. Time to move along. Deserters and stragglers this way, back to the Hook. Walking wounded and the hospital truck that way, to the road, four days to the City if they could find gasoline. Jbeeba lowered the canvas and laced it to the hoops, Root heard the motorcycle roar and kick gravel, sergeants were shouting, the truck lurched forward and rocked up toward the hills. Through the opening at its back, where the canvas bunched in an arch, Root saw the market dwindle to the rudimentary structure it was, people milling agitated in its court; he saw the looming whitewashed dome of the tomb, whose size he’d never noticed, quite big, wonder who’s been forgotten inside it; then he forgot it himself when the truck turned and the scene changed.

  PART TWO

  ELECTRIFYING THE CITY

  11.

  A Sudden Need for Copper

  “Pay off those two men,” said the Despot. “What d’ye call ‘em? The historiographers.” His fingers were twisting and crimping strands of fine copper wire. “Give them their pensions. Nothing extravagant but enough to keep their mouths shut. Impound their papers.”

  The Sacellary bowed.

  “Yes, Sir, I have already placed all records with the Protoasecretis. He will keep them in the Chained Archives. Sir, do I take it that this Hook business is no longer an Imperial action?”

  “Certainly not. Certainly not.” The Despot braided the gleaming twists. “A police action merely. No, then we ought to have sent Mules. An engineering project—that’s what it was. Maintenance, repair. I hear the new road’s very good. And then we were treacherously attacked.”

  “Yes, Sir. That is the color that I would put upon the business. Loyal Rhemot subjects coerced by exiled heretics and the foreign adventurers who financed them. That’ll be our enemy, Sir.”

  “You think the Rhemots are loyal?”

  “No, Sir. But Rhem is an Imperial foundation, and at some future moment, in the prosecution of our just claims, we shall reassimilate it. Iftooby.”

  “Iftooby.” This phrase, a degradation of the archaic religious formula “If it is to be,” had lately come back into currency to express men’s subjection to destiny. The court, learning of the débâcle on the Hook, had taken to it.

  “When Rhem is once again ours, we will embrace the Rhemots as our own misguided children.”

  “Yes, all right,” said the Despot. “But first we tear down that pharos.”

  “Of course, Sir.”

  “It doesn’t look as though we’ll get there soon.”

  “No, Sir, not very soon.”

  “The force we have in the field is not advancing
rapidly?”

  “No, Sir, not rapidly. It is falling back.”

  “Rapidly?”

  “No, Sir, quite gradually. The Domestic Shandimus has raised the Parishioners and Economics and seems to be getting some fight out of them. He is showing an unexpected genius for retreating.”

  “The Hook families aren’t happy about this, Sacellary. They’re pestering me to mobilize Schools, send some real soldiers to the front.”

  The Sacellary shuddered. The current Domestic of Schools was a Megaduke, the Megas Kyr in fact, eldest of the Despot’s bastard uncles. The City knew him as “the Old Bastard” and feared his wanton cruelties. The Company of Schools was the peerless corps, twelve hundred veterans fitted out with the very best of what remained in the way of precision weapons and motor transport. Schools’ maneuvers were always a statement, elegant as to syntax, menacing in its import. Schools remained what it had always been, a crack unit entrenched in its loyalty to its Domestic and its sense of its own superiority. Not to be trusted in the Rhem business. They might prevail.

  “Yes, Sir,” the Sacellary agreed, “the Domestic of Schools with the means at his disposal would doubtless achieve a swift and resounding victory that would earn him the lasting gratitude of the Hook families and the support of the urban populace.”

  “Very well, we’ll leave things as they are. As long as the front isn’t about to fall apart?”

  “No, Sir.”

  “Good! Then we have some time. Now tell me, Sacellary, what are our supplies of copper?”

  The Sacellary was accustomed to swift changes of direction; moreover, he had noticed his master fiddling with wire for several days. He named the figure.

  “Not bad. That should be enough to see us through the first phase, anyway. Who is holding what we’ve got?”

  “Walls, Sir, have most of it.”

  “Then ask the Domestic to round up the rest and store it in a central, safe location. Tell him to make ready his machines for wire-drawing. Order new ones if he needs them. I will be needing large quantities of copper wire very soon.”