by Walter Basho
Albert nodded. “Thank you.” And then, as soon as the thought came to his mind: “We’ll go to war soon, won’t we? For this.”
“Yes, of course,” Alice said. “Your family will be avenged. And we’ll bring the boon of civilization to Baixa, so that this won’t happen again.”
Albert looked out across the field. “What will happen to the farm?”
“We’ll station people to watch the forest from here, to watch for Baixans. I expect the Plancks will tend to the farm for a while.”
Albert didn’t say anything; he just listened to his breath. It sat there steadily, beneath all the things falling apart.
“Albert, look at me,” Sister Alice said. “This is a moment to be aware. Your parents came from the wilderness and became a part of us. They were citizens, real citizens. They always had my respect because of that. If you live as a citizen, then civilization will provide for you. I know you know this. Correct?”
Albert knew the drill. “Yes, Sister Alice. I know.”
“It’s going to be all right, Albert. You have my respect, as well.” It was the nicest thing Sister Alice had ever said to him. She climbed into the cart with the Newtons and they drove away.
Albert sat on the stoop in front of the house. Aengus came up, sat beside him, and put his arm around Albert’s shoulder. They sat like that silently for a long while. It didn’t feel strange to Albert at all. He wanted someone there and didn’t care if it felt proper.
When Aengus spoke, he spoke gently and slowly. “You haven’t slept for a while, have you? I think it would be a good idea for you to rest. How about we get you cleaned up and in bed?” Albert looked down and realized he still had blood all over himself. He nodded.
Aengus took him by the hand, and led him to the side of the house, where the rain cistern was. Albert absently took off his clothes, leaving them in a pile, grabbed a bucket, and poured a bucketful over his head. He then grabbed lye soap from the stoop—soap his mother had made—and started scrubbing himself with it.
Before long, Aengus came back. “I found a towel,” he said, and wrapped it around Albert, who was limp and shivering at this point. When Aengus faced Albert, Albert buried his head in his shoulder. He didn’t know what else to do. He couldn’t move.
Aengus stepped back and looked him in the face. “I’d carry you if I could,” he said. He led Albert into the house and into his room. He wrapped Albert in extra blankets and drew a shade over the window. For a while after, he sat and watched over Albert, but Albert had fallen fast asleep.
+ + +
He dreamed of two men in the forest, a smart man and a strong man. The strong man had taken ill, and the smart man tended to him. He brought clean water, and food, and cool cloths to soothe the strong man’s hot brow.
“I should be well, I should be well,” the strong man groaned.
“Just rest. I’ll take care of you,” the smart man said.
The smart man did everything he knew to do. He made poultices and potions; he made the strong man’s bed cool and warm; he fed him broth and water and porridge with herbs. None of it worked, and the strong man grew weaker and weaker.
At the end, the strong man leaned his head against the smart man’s chest. “Thank you. I’m dying, but these last days have been my happiest. Thank you for taking care of me. I love you.”
The smart man wailed, “I love you, I can’t lose you. Why is this happening?”
The strong man kissed the smart man’s cheek. “This is the forest still. This is what happens.”
The strong man slipped away. Albert could feel him die, could feel his breath leave him. Albert watched the smart man bury him, in a clearing surrounded by trees. The smart man sat by the strong man’s grave, for years, forever. And Albert could hear him repeating, over and over, a chant, an oath to destroy the forest.
When he woke, light was still peeking through the shade at his window, and Aengus was at the door.
Albert looked to the window and said, “I guess I didn’t sleep for very long.”
“You slept for an entire day,” Aengus said. “Take your time getting up. There’s food.”
Albert joined him out in the main room. Aengus had fried some lentils and greens. Albert ate three bowls with a bigger hunger than he could remember. Afterward, he and Aengus sat out on the porch.
Aengus let the silence rest for a while and then said, with almost painful gentleness, “So, we want to find a nice place here to rest your parents. We thought this spot over here”—he pointed over their shoulders and behind them, to a point behind the house—“where it looks very pretty and quiet, but isn’t too far away. But we can pick wherever you think is best. You let me know, and we will do the digging. I don’t want you to have to worry about that right now.”
Albert said, “I . . . that would be a good place, sure. Thank you, Aengus.”
“I’ll tell the others,” Aengus said. He headed off.
Albert looked out the front porch. He could see the bodies of the Baixans piled on top of each other, to the side of the footpath. When Aengus came back, he found Albert standing beside the bodies.
“Al? Al, are you all right?”
“For a second, I thought I might cut off their heads and put them on stakes. And put the stakes at the front gate, so the Baixans would know what we would do to them. But that’s too terrible.”
“Let’s tend to your family,” Aengus said, taking his hand. “That’s the important thing right now. When that’s done, we’ll build a fire and burn them.”
Albert turned to Aengus with a dark, sad smile. “I don’t know if we keep extra stakes around, anyway.”
Will and Aengus dug the graves, while Mila helped Albert get the bodies of his parents ready. They cleaned them all, dressed them, and wrapped them in some fabric Lini had woven. When the graves were ready, they lowered them down with rope.
“Do you want to say anything?” Aengus said to Albert.
“I don’t want them to be dead. I want to say that.” All he could think to himself was, I used to be able to hear them, I could hear them all the time. And I can’t hear them anymore. He couldn’t look at them in the graves like this. His stomach started to lurch under him. “I need to walk away for a minute. Is that all right?”
“Of course, Al. Go take a little time.”
“Don’t . . . don’t cover them yet, all right?”
Albert walked into the forest, far enough that the house and farm were just out of sight. He found a small clearing and lay face-up in it, staring into the canopy. He thought to himself, It’s all right to let them go. I’ll still love them. He started to calm down, but he still didn’t want to go back. He lay there and listened to the leaves.
Eventually, he could hear the crunching of footsteps approaching him. Aengus had found him. “Are you all right?”
“I just needed a little time away. I feel better now.”
Aengus kneeled beside Albert and, with a little hesitation, ran a hand through Albert’s hair. “I understand. This is a lot.”
“It’s fine to finish. I’m sorry to hold everyone up.”
“There’s nothing to apologize for. We have plenty else to keep busy. Will is cleaning up the house now. Do you want to stay here? I could bring you a mug of ale, and you could relax,” Aengus said.
“No, I’ll join you. I should help. I want to.”
They finished burying Albert’s parents and cremating the Baixans. They cleaned the house. They took care of the livestock, harvested some greens and beets, and killed and cleaned a chicken for supper. Albert cleaned out his room and Arto’s, so that the others could sleep there, and moved himself into his mothers’ room. He realized there were moments he could create by focusing on the quotidian, moments where he could forget.
As the afternoon went on, they started to slow down. Albert and Aengus tapped a cask of ale to drink. Will and Mila insisted on letting them drink and rest while they made chicken stew with the vegetables from the garden for supper. Afte
r drinking ale on the porch with Aengus, Albert insisted on coming in and showing Mila his father’s way of making biscuits.
They sat down to supper in warmer spirits. Everyone told stories of good memories they had of Lini and Mura and Arto. They each claimed to have a very favorite sweater, or pair of stockings, or pillowcase that Lini had made. Albert didn’t know whether to believe it, but he chose to.
This was a different kind of meal, he thought. It was different from the table of the Newtons, which was laden with manners, and expectations, and unspoken problems, and goals that might never be achieved. It wasn’t the table he had shared with his parents his entire life, either. He had fed here since he was a baby. This had been a table so natural to him that he couldn’t imagine it having contours; he couldn’t perceive its peculiarities or boundaries. Now, he sat in the same place but in a different world. He noticed things here that he had never noticed in this place before: the light, the acoustics of the room, the interplay of the people and food.
After a while and enough ale, Will suddenly brought up the Baixans. “So we’re going to war with them in a week because of why? Because they made a piss-poor attack on our shore? They’re primitives. What’s the point?”
“For fuck’s sake, shut up, Will,” Aengus said. “Have some decency.”
Will froze and stammered, “I . . . Al, I didn’t mean it like . . .”
Albert tried to give a reassuring glance back. “No, don’t worry, Will, it’s fine. We should talk about this. It’s . . . um. Natural.”
Aengus put his hand on Albert’s. “I’d kill a thousand Baixans for what they did here.”
“This isn’t about revenge,” Mila said, glaring at Aengus. “This is about civilization. The Baixans don’t have the world we have here. They resent it. They want to wipe it out.”
“But they’re crap at it,” Will retorted. “If the wolf wants to eat my baby, I don’t go to war with it. I just put the baby in the house.”
“You’re drunk, and whatever point you just tried to make was nonsense,” Mila said.
Will shrugged and took a healthy swig of ale.
“No, no, Mila has a good point, listen,” Aengus said, “Al, you were there during the attack. The Baixans don’t have what we have, and it makes them desperate and vicious. I feel bad for them, I do. But until they learn about civilization and become a part of it, then there’s nothing to stop them from doing terrible things, awful things, like what happened to you. I don’t want what happened here to happen ever again. Aye, I’ll go to war for it.” Aengus sounded a little choked up. He was in his cups as well.
Everyone was quiet.
“I want to go, too,” Albert said, “but not because I think it will fix anything, or because I think the Baixans will wipe us out, or because we have some civilization they don’t. I don’t know. I don’t know anything. Nothing makes sense. I want to go there and see Terra Baixa, and see whether they really are a nation of terrible killers, or if they are savages needing us to take them over, or . . . or if this is just some shit game. If I go to Terra Baixa, at least I can find out for sure.
“I think I’ve had too much to drink,” Albert said to the silence that welcomed the end of his speech. “I’m going to go to bed now. Thank you all so much for supper and for everything today.”
He stood up and went to bed. Will had meticulously cleaned his mothers’ bed and put new bedclothes on it. He put on a warm nightshirt that Lini had made, and he climbed in.
He heard somber murmuring outside the room, and then the sound of supper being cleaned up. After a while, Aengus came in, stumbling a little. In a loud whisper, he said, “Will and Mila are gonna stay in the other rooms. Is it all right if I share with you?”
“Sure, of course.”
“Thank you, Albert. You’re such a good man.” Aengus stripped down to his underclothes and just kept on going, tripping over his underpants and ending up naked. Albert peeked at him in the moonlight streaming through the shutters. Aengus had always been an expressive boy, big and vital and aware of his own body. Albert remembered staring at him across the room when they were in school. Aengus’s chest and arms were as big as they’d always been, maybe a little bigger with the fat of age. He was getting a belly.
He climbed in behind Albert and, without any pretext or ceremony, spooned him and pulled him close. “We upset you, I’m so sorry. Will should’ve just kept quiet.”
“It’s all right, Aengus,” Albert said, and couldn’t help stroking Aengus’s forearm in reassurance. His forearm was broad and covered in blond hair. “Thank you. I couldn’t have made it through today without you.”
“You don’t deserve this, love, you don’t deserve any of this,” Aengus whispered against his ear. “You’re a good boy. I’m so sorry.” With each word, Aengus’s affectionate speech became less speech and more breath against the back of Albert’s neck. Around the point of “I’m so sorry” it had become mostly just rough lips on his skin.
Albert lay there silently for a minute, not sure what to do. He thought about Thomas. Thomas’s love was his childhood table, so natural that he had never noticed its contours, its peculiarities, its boundaries. Now, he was amazed that he had never seen the chasms around it or beneath it. He was in the same place, a familiar place, but in another world.
He flipped over and kissed Aengus. Aengus’s face was soft and stubbly. It felt nice. After that, he just let everything happen.
2
The solid gray sky spat rain as they landed. The wind froze them and tossed the boats as they crossed the channel, and, when they landed, it kicked up muddy sand and blew it on their faces.
Albert looked back from where they had come. They’d spent far less time on the water than he’d expected. He had never been away from the White Island, and, in his mind, Terra Baixa was the other side of the world. Really, though, it was nothing between them; he could look across the water and still see the cliffs of the land they had left.
As they brought the boats ashore, he found himself staring across the water, until the commander shouted, “Make a perimeter!” and slapped him on the back. He gave himself a little grief for not being alert.
They had marched for six weeks, starting in Eden-town and heading down the White Island coast. They had walked through the midlands, and through the North Umbrian lands, where the oldest and biggest trees in all of the White Island stood. They had gone past one of the hot places, where the people before the end had kept infernal machines, where the machines had collapsed and their fires had tainted the very ground. Over time, the hot places had lost their fundamental sickness, but they were still strange, treeless places. The one they visited in North Umbria had been peaceful and uninhabited. They crossed it on a sunny day; the sun shone down on the grasses and heathery crags, and they could see butterflies and bees as they walked.
The forest kept them company through the whole march. It sat always to their right, its trunks and canopy and animals and eternity hiding beyond the tree line. “I wonder if the forest changes as you go south, like the coast does,” Aengus had asked Albert, as they stared into the green.
“Sure it does. I don’t know exactly how, but it has to, like anything else.” Albert said. “I guess that’s what makes Eden-town and Over-town special. That’s the best road from east to west on the White Island, isn’t it? It’s the only place where we can imagine just going right west. Otherwise, it’s all like here. Stuck between the woods and the water.”
Aengus smiled then, and looked a little less weary. When they had started the march, Aengus was full of jokes and vigor, but then he began to complain about the walking, the orders, the monotony, and the blisters on his feet. His complaints had gotten gradually louder and more frequent, until the commander yelled at him to shut up.
He and Albert shared a tent, but the romps of the first few nights had turned into long, worried heart-to-heart talks, and then the quiet, worn nights of the final weeks.
“I’m so tired, but I can’t slee
p,” Aengus would say to Albert, who had been trying. Albert turned over and watched Aengus staring up at the roof of the tent. “This is the right thing, we’re doing the right thing,” Aengus reassured himself. “But I’m so tired. Are we even going to be able to fight like this?”
“Let’s try to sleep,” Albert said. Albert looked at Aengus and tried to picture the boy at the farm who drank ale on the porch and acted confident and cantankerous to make Albert feel better. Aengus was so much better at comfort than he was, Albert thought. They didn’t need to trade.
They found some respite in village stops along the way—King’s-town, and North-town, and Inland-town. They were all like Eden-town: kindly, hardworking people, small, cozy squares, and happy, safe children. Everyone was excited about the effort. Militia from each town joined them as they went, until Albert lost count of the troops. Kids would follow them out of town and cheer. In King’s-town, a little girl gave him a drop biscuit, like his father used to make. It was wrapped in a little cloth napkin, with butter and honey. He squinted through his wet eyes and thanked her.
The terrain turned to marshes. They came to the estuary of the Dark River, where it met the sea. A boat full of Adepts waited there for them. The Adepts had sailed from their home, the White Island’s Old City. The boat was taller than a house, and its wood glowed a burnished deep gold in the setting sun. It stood between Albert and the sun as he and Aengus took their small pinewood dinghy across the river to the south shore. It would follow them the rest of the march.
Finally, they made it to the launch site at the Headland. They could not have set out farther north, as the land rose into the cliffs and no one disembarked from the Abyss. It was very bad luck.
The Abyss was a decaying stone wall, not far upcoast from the Headland and built before the apocalypse. Someone or something had carved great round openings into the wall that led straight to hell. The Adepts disputed the existence of hell, of course, and claimed that you could travel through the caves to Terra Baixa. Albert had heard that the Old People had powers to travel through magic doors, and he wondered if the Adepts were trying to sell a similar idea. But he knew, regardless, that it was madness. Nothing that went into those holes came out, and to even be there was to tempt demons. Everyone knew that.
