by David Bowles
Labor lasted nearly three more hours. The aransa helped Tenshi breathe, massaged her belly to get the child properly positioned. Inyoni chanted in a soft voice, calling a spark to the unborn child, promising a soul would one day form within that new mind.
At last a final contraction of abdominal muscles pushed their beslimed infant into the warm air that circulated through the open windows. Brando, unfazed by the blood and his wife’s labored breathing, knelt beside the midwife, cinched the umbilical cord, and severed it with a surgical laserblade.
“The child’s assigned sex is female,” Kanan Rongoa announced. “Gender will reveal itself as years pass, dear new umma and apa.”
Brando stared at his child, a lovely, pointy-headed girl with expansive blue-gray eyes that peered with hostile disappointment at her new world.
The midwife wiped the infant clean and wrapped her in a linen blanket; she began to cry then, not with a plaintive, confused sound but with an angry, throaty hoot, as if appalled at the insolence of the large creatures around her.
As the baby was placed in Tenshi’s arms, Brando laid his palms on both their heads.
“My loves,” he muttered, eyes welling. “Tenshi and…”
“Tana. Tana D’Angelo di Koroma ma-Sonari.”
“Tenshi and Tana.”
“And Brando.”
He gently kissed both their moist foreheads.
“My world. Both of yall.”
I’d die for yall. The epiphany was overwhelming. The two people before him mattered more than anything. To keep them safe, he was willing to sacrifice it all.
Over time, Brando came to relish services in Kinguyama, which were being held in the auxiliary chapel in the southwestern quadrant until Tenshi built the new teyopan.
Once a week, Meji Pishan offered uplifting readings from Pathwalker scriptures, elucidating them in a friendly, humorous way. The message concluded, zazen began. The Eipande Nyota was projected above the congretation for group meditation through chanting, a low, harmonic humming that soothed and relaxed. Then kleinballs and other meditation devices were passed around, along with moku for those who required it for introspection. Teyopanjin meditated singly for the most part, some moving off to secluded corners, others remaining on the stone benches, still others standing along the walls. Married couples had often developed ways to share zazen, to seek the next stage of their journey as a dyad.
The final hour blossomed with wonderful silence at that point, a stillness and quiet unlike anything Brando had ever experienced while surrounded by other people.
During his first service, Brando had felt lost. He’d sucked down a tube of moku, but without the Urim nearby, he’d just felt stoned. Glancing about at the meditating teyopanjin, he’d been filled with a sense of awkward disconnect.
Tenshi, sitting utterly still beside him, had kept her eyes shut, breathing slowed. With nothing else to do, Brando had stared at her, his eyes tracing her features, memorizing her every curve, the sharpness of her posture, the angle of her cheekbones.
Before he knew it, Meji had chimed the teyopanjin back to normal consciousness.
Brando had spent an hour looking at Tenshi, an hour that subjectively had seemed only minutes.
Over time, the weekly services had become easier to cope with. Rather than explore the improbable surfaces of a kleinball, Brando meditated on the form of his wife. He explored the depths of his love for her, a strange, unexpected warmth that grew with every passing day as if fueled by familiarity. Eventually, the meditation time became, not just a time to revel in Tenshi, but to enjoy for itself alone, for the opportunity to be still and quiet, emptying his mind while his beloved did likewise. He savored this tranquility at Tenshi’s side as if he had needed it for a long time, like a thirsty man relishes a dipperful of water.
Three months after Tana’s birth, as Brando was leaving class one day, a man was waiting for him. Tall, grim, the ebony skin of his face pockmarked with scars, his natural hair a series of jagged, silvered spikes.
Monchu Koroma. Tenshi’s father. Brando had never met him in person before.
“Oh. Aponim,” he muttered, dipping his head in respect. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”
Monchu’s face was impassive. “Let’s eat something together, Shemeji. We should talk. For the first time.”
Uncomfortable, aware of the eyes of students and faculty, Brando gestured at the cafeteria. “The food here is pretty good.”
“Lead the way, then.”
The weather was turning cooler, so Brando ordered two kitoweyo stews while his father-in-law looked for a free table. But when the professor found him, another man had joined them.
Even without his governmental robes, Brando recognized him immediately.
Santo Koroma.
I should just leave. This is a fucking ambush.
But his pride got the better of him. Who were they to come to the university and attempt to tag-team him or whatever this was? Brando wouldn’t be a pushover.
“Arojin,” he said as he approached the table. “An unexpected surprise.”
Santo smiled. “Yes, I imagine it is. You’ve grown used to dealing with our women. Never even reached out to the Koroma men. I wonder why that is, Hyun-nim.”
Monchu shrugged. “Weakness? Fear? The surety that we’ll discover his falseness?”
“My falseness?” Brando said, pulling a chair away from the table and sitting down. “What are you talking about?”
“You may not have read the Revised Bible in its entirety,” Santo said, “but in his second letter, Dresch warns us: ‘Many will falsely claim to walk the Path. Beware the soulless servants of blindness, whose vision is of Samayeru, who walk the false road into the grey smoke that pours from his roaring orange rage and would lead you there as well.’ Are you leading our Tenshi astray, Dr. D’Angelo?”
“I’m on the Path, Arojin-zin. I saw my spark, glimpsed ra-Yindawo. Nothing you say can take that from me. Doesn’t Dresch tell us in his fifth letter that the agents of the Grey Prison will try to make us doubt our nascent souls? I bend my head to your teaching, Santo-shi, but if you continue to call my faith into question, I’ll get up and walk away right now.”
Santo looked at his older brother with a bemused smile. “She has trained him well, no doubt. She and Meji-shi both.”
Monchu laid his gnarled hands palm-down on the table. “Listen, Shemeji. I accept your affirmation of faith. I prefer to believe my daughter hasn’t married some samadan fool. That said, Brando-shi, me and my brother, we’ve come for a specific purpose.”
Santo steepled his fingers. “Indeed. It’s a dangerous time, Brando-shi. We need to stand together. There is just one Path. Dominatu, Shamangatu, Reporumatu—these are silly, divisive labels. We are all Pathwalkers. Our world is under assault. Talk to your wife, Brother. Make her understand.”
Brando narrowed his eyes. “Understand what, exactly? That she should stop backing reform? Stop encouraging immigration? Stop teaching Ona ra-Shamanga?”
“All of the above,” Santo said with a smirk. “It destabilizes our world when horrible forces want to invade. You were in the midst of such a massacre. Are you stupid, then, that you can’t see the danger?”
A server brought the two stews to the table at that moment. Once they walked off, Brando stood.
“Oh, I see the danger. It’s sitting in front of me, I think. Enjoy the kitoweyo, gentlemen. I’ve lost my appetite.”
When he got home, Tenshi stared at him with a strange expression.
“What did you have for lunch?” she asked tautly.
Looking down for foodstains or something else that might prompt such a question, he shrugged. “Kitoweyo stew. It’s the right weather for it.”
“Did you chat with anyone?”
“Not in particular, no. Why?”
Tenshi’s face hardened in anger.
“Why? Good question. Why would you lie to me, Brando? One of your students is in our teyopan. Maruko Kaku? Distributes
the sacrament? Guess whose mother called my mother, who then called me. Yeah. So I know you had lunch with my father and uncle, damn you. Why are you hiding it?”
Brando reached for her, but she batted his hand away.
“I’m sorry, Tenshi. I should’ve told you. But it was nothing. They were just gaslighting me. Trying to get under my skin. Trying to manipulate me into making you back off. Since I have no intention of doing anything those two men ever ask, I walked away from them.”
“Damn it,” she said, pulling on one of her locs in frustration. “You can’t keep things like this from me, Brando. You’re not good at the sort of games Santo plays. You’re straightforward, honest, good. He’s a fucking snake, and he will gobble you up if you’re not careful.”
“Tenshi, I’m not a child. I can take care of myself.”
She grabbed his shirt with a violence Brando wasn’t expecting, pulling him towards her. He could have easily stopped her, but a part of him wanted to see just how far she was willing to go to punish him.
“You’re not a child, no. You’re a man. But he’s a monster. Do you hear me? You cannot go toe to toe with him. I’ve been on my own since I was thirteen. I’ve seen and done things that would break you, Kyosu-chan. And even I am afraid of that motherfucker.”
A cold premonition ripped through Brando’s guts. He reached up, placed his hand on her fist. Their rings touched.
Listen.
The voice was clear though quiet.
Listen. Remember.
“I’m sorry. You’re right, Tenshi. I’ll steer clear of them both. And I won’t hide anything else from you. I promise.”
It took Tenshi a while to forgive him.
Complicating their reconciliation was the return of terrorist activity not only to frontier prefectures but also the orbital platforms and in Station City.
After months without a single attack, businesses were getting bombed at least once a week, and several Civil Security units had been slaughtered.
It wasn’t just Jitsu that was rocked by violence. Many Constabulary forces were getting reassigned from Eta Cassiopeiae to CPCC worlds as demimundo infighting spread like wildfire throughout the Consortium. CPCC citizens living on Jitsu felt unprotected. The ATS received a grant and some resources from the AF, but Reformers felt it wasn’t enough. Dominians complained that CPCC presence was what had caused the attacks in the first place.
Tenshi and Brando, like most inhabitants of Jitsu, were on constant edge. And Tana had gotten very colicky, wakening her young parents four or five times a night so that their nerves frayed even further.
Tensions ratcheted higher. Curfews locked towns down across the Northern Continent. Every café in Station City echoed with the arguments and fears of each political position.
Tenshi had to spend a large chunk of her time meeting and strategizing with other Reformers, shuttling back and forth between Juresh, Station City, and various prefectures to help coordinate a political defense against extremists. Her uncle and his Dominian peers were taking the opportunity to advance laws and policies that restricted citizens’ behavior, and she wore herself out trying to stop them
Brando did everything he could to help his wife with Tana so that she could focus on the unrest. But he had his own problems. University classes often deteriorated into political debate, especially after a bomb damaged the façade of the administrative building. Despite the lack of casualties, the provost suspended in-person classes.
While being at home allowed Brando to watch Tana all the time, freeing Tenshi up to fully engage in the fight, teaching via faux-conference required a level of planning and oversight that stretched Brando thin.
One day, Tenshi came home late to find him giving their daughter a bottle.
“Ugh, let me hold her. She needs some of her umma’s milk, anyway, and my breasts feel like they’re going to explode.”
But when she took Tana from his arms, the infant started howling, pushing away with her little feet, reaching for her father in desperation.
Tears started to roll down Tenshi’s face. “She hates me! My own daughter.”
“She doesn’t hate you, Tenshi, she just—”
“Don’t you know Umma is keeping you safe?” she demanded of Tana, who wailed even harded. “Don’t you know how much I love you? How much I’m risking for you.”
Brando took the inconsolable baby back. “Tenshi, enough.”
“It’s not fair! I carried her in my womb for nine fucking months! Why does she reject me, huh? Why do you get to be the damn hero?”
Though he knew he should be understanding, Brando snapped. “Because you’re never fucking here, that’s why! She doesn’t even know you! Yall sleep together, sure, and she suckles with her eyes closed. But it’s been weeks now since you spent any real time with her. What did you expect?”
Clenching her fists, Tenshi groaned in rage. “I’m trying to stop a civil disaster, Kyosu-zin. While you give your little classes on irrelevant fucking languages, I’m keeping my people alive.”
“As far as I can tell, the attacks have continued,” he said, going cold and distant. “I’m not convinced that sacrificing your family is doing any real good.”
“Sacrificing my—is that what you really think?”
Pressing Tana’s face lightly against his shoulder to muffle her cries a bit, Brando leaned toward his wife. “It’s the way this feels, Tenshi. We spend our days without you. I’m stretched thin now that your father has dragged your mother off to another prefecture.”
“I told you,” she shot back, “to hire somebody. I’ve shunted more than enough credits to your account.”
“Ah, yes, your wealth will solve all the problems, won’t it? I don’t need a team of childcare and cleaning experts under my feet, Tenshi. I need you.”
She gestured broadly, hands trembling. “I’m the foremost anshyano in this movement, damn you. Everybody needs me right now. The whole planet does!”
“No,” Brando retorted. “That’s bullshit. You’re not the only person who can manage this crisis, you know. You’re not even a politician. You’re an architect, mothergod!”
Recoiling at his words, Tenshi spat, “Fuck you. What happened to your promise to support me, eh? Little bit of pressure, and you show your true colors.”
Regret surged in Brando’s heart. He suddenly could see himself from the outside, parroting his mother’s cold, cruel sarcasm.
“Oh, shite, Tenshi. I didn’t mean—"
“You’re still so blind,” she said, gritting her teeth. “This identity of yours that you don’t even appear to think about? It’s getting in the way. It’s hurting you. It’s hampering our plans. It’s making me stumble.”
“It’s who I am!” Brando yelled, despairing. Tana jerked in shock and started crying even louder.
“You,” Tenshi pointed out, shuddering, “made a commitment. You’re on the Path, Brando. You have to shatter the old you, remake yourself. You saw your spark. Would she want this, do you think? Even at services, you—you pull me from my Way! My meditation is going nowhere. I’m stuck. We’re supposed to be a dyad, for the love of Sopiya!”
Then she broke down, weeping openly. Tana went from wailing to screaming. Brando, aghast at himself, felt he might literally shatter to pieces right then and there.
I’m not walking the Path beside her, he understood in horror. I’m walking behind her. Far behind her. She’s utterly alone.
Tenshi shook her head and took Tana again, stomping off to their bedroom and sealing shut the door.
Brando sat in the dark for hours till he was sure mother and daughter had fallen asleep. Then he flew Tenshi’s transport to the Pishan residence and spilled his guts to his giya.
“Help me, Acharya-zin,” he begged Meji. “Show me what to do.”
Meji put their hand on Brando’s shoulders. “My child, the problem is that you’ve been approaching zazen as an intellectual endeavor. You have to let go. Stop holding back. You can reach her. But only in th
e Blue, Brando-shi. Only in the Blue.”
Banging the heel of his hand against his temple, Brand whispered, “I need to short-circuit this, Meji-shi. I need—I need you to prepare mohiyo paste for me. Moku doesn’t let me see what I need to see.”
Pulling Brando’s hand from his head, Pishan sighed. “Yes. I can do that. You’ll take the High Sacrament with Tenshi-shi. The two of you will meditate together in the Well.”
The turning point came two months after Brando’s encounter with Santo.
At that week’s service, Meji Pishan offered uplifting readings from both the Revised Bible and Domina’s diaries, the more Zen of Pathwalker scriptures. The message was about forgiveness, about the danger of loading down the realigned self with resentment, about how grudges stifled the creation of a soul. Brando kept his eyes straight ahead, not daring to look at his wife.
After ringing the bell to begin the hour of zazen, Pishan walked over to the couple and took their hands.
Tenshi opened her eyes, startled. “What, Giya-zin?”
“Come, both of you.”
Their giya led them outside. Across the cobbled street was a wind-pitted gazebo that cast shade on a circle of ruddy stone, capped by a circle of faded wood.
Wait. It’s an actual well? Brando thought.
“The Well? Why—” Tenshi began.
“Brando-shi has asked for the High Sacrament. He begs to be broken. But he cannot make the attempt alone, Anshyano-zin. You are a dyad. Your sparks must find a way to align, or neither of you will survive this test of your union.”
From their robes, Meji drew forth two dark squares. The smell struck Brando hard.
“Pressed mohiyo. Given by the oni to Domina herself so very long ago. She found the Path through this holy herb, native only to this soil till Soltec spread the seeds across human space. Parkake of it, Brother and Sister. Then go down into the well and shut out the world. Find each other in the darkness.”
Brando felt Tenshi’s eyes on him as he eagerly took the High Sacrament and placed it in his mouth. Turning, he saw her do the same.
