The Sparrow

by Mary Doria Russell

  So there were no more walls to be scaled, no more fortresses to defend by the fifth of Stan’ja, a month that marks the start of summer on Rakhat, when the nights are very short and full of stars and racing clouds and moons. But that first night was long enough for him to lead her in a private wedding dance, seeking the rhythm of her heart. And the moonlight, filtered through flowers and vines and streamers of color and fragrance, was very good for finding the way together to moments worthy of a Rakhati poet’s song.

  Later that summer, as rain fell, such a moment shimmered and paused on the brink, and then began the ancient dance of numbers: two, four, eight, sixteen, thirty-two, and a new life took root and began to grow. And thus the generations past were joined to the unknowable future.

  30

  VILLAGE OF KASHAN AND CITY OF GAYJUR:

  YEAR THREE

  "SO, WHAT DO you think? Rain’s probably done for the day. Feel lively enough for a walk?" Anne asked D.W.

  "Well, now, I cain’t say as I’m inclined to rush into a decision like that." D.W. took a sip of the meat broth Anne had brought him and then laid his head back against the hammock chair. His gaze traveling down the long meandering ridge of his nasal bones, he fixed her with a look of judicious consideration. "I thought maybe I’d save my strength up so’s I can watch some mud dry later on."

  She smiled, and it was gratifying that he could still make people smile.

  He kept the mug in his hands for a while, to warm them, but then began to worry that it would slip out of his fingers, so he set it aside on the little table that Sofia and Emilio had once used as a desk out in this hampiy. The shelter was his now, had become pretty close to a permanent residence for him, barring really bad weather. He liked to be out where he could see the southern mountains or look northeast to find the line where the plains merged into sky. Manuzhai or Jimmy carried him down to the apartment if the weather looked to get ugly and then carried him back up to the hampiy when things settled down; he couldn’t climb the cliff anymore on his own. Emilio stayed with him nights, so he wouldn’t be alone. D.W. had worried about being a pain in the ass for everyone but felt better about it when Sofia told him, "It is your duty to let us help. Even your Jesus knew that: taking care of the sick is a commandment. It’s a mitzvah for us."

  "Finish that soup," said Anne, breaking into his reverie. "Doctor’s orders."

  "’Finish that soup!’ You’re pretty damn brisk," he informed her indignantly, but he picked up the cup with both thin hands and forced himself to continue working on it until he’d drunk it all. He made a face, which was a little redundant given how he looked when he wasn’t making a face. "Everything tastes like metal," he told her.

  "I know, but the protein does you good." Anne reached out and put a hand on his wrist for a brief squeeze.

  She had tried everything she could think of. Half-killed him with parasiticides. Put him on an all-Earth diet from the lander stores. Boiled the rainwater he drank after passing it through all the filters and chemical treatments. Stopped the chemical treatments, thinking maybe they made it worse. Two or three times she thought they’d gotten the damned thing on the run, whatever the hell it was. He’d start to put on some weight, get some color and energy back, and then he’d slip again.

  He was the only one affected. So, of course, they both wondered if he’d brought something with him, was carrying something from home. But all the crew members had been put through a fine-meshed medical sieve before they left, and D. W. Yarbrough had once been abundantly healthy, strong as a lean old racehorse. Maybe something had gone subtly wrong with his physiology: he was sequestering something that was usually excreted or some enzymatic process had gone to hell.

  "It’s not that bad, Annie," he’d told her once. "Most of the time, it’s just bein’ tired."

  "If you really loved me, you’d get well, dammit. I hate patients who refuse to make their doctors appear omnipotent. It’s very rude."

  He knew bluster when he heard it. "People are mortal," he’d told her. "You and I both know there’s lots worse ways to go."

  Anne had turned away, blinking rapidly, but snuffled in a breath vigorously and got ahold of herself. When she spoke again, her voice was firm and irate. "It’s not the fact or the method, it’s the timing that pisses me off."

  D.W. came back to the present with a start, wondering if he’d dozed off. "C’mon," he said, working his way forward in the hammock chair and then resting on its edge before standing. "Let’s walk. I’ll blow off the mud today."

  "Right." Anne slapped her hands on her knees and pushed herself up, shaking off the worry. "Go for broke, I say. Live for the moment."

  They moved slowly, not saying much, walking along the gorge edge toward the southern mountains, D.W. setting the pace. Anne kept a careful eye on him, knowing that they shouldn’t go very far because D.W. would have to walk back. Ordinarily, she could count on having someone to carry him home if he wore himself out, but they were alone in Kashan for the first time since the lander disaster. The Runa were out harvesting a flower called anukar. George, Marc and Jimmy had gone off with Supaari to see the city of Gayjur, at last. So there was no one around to help but Sofia, pregnant and nauseated, and Emilio, who was asleep. He’d been up most of the night with D.W, who’d had another bad time of it.

  To Anne’s surprise, and to his own, D.W. did all right. They got as far as their old place on the ledge, which had a comfortable flat spot and a good view of the ravine and the western sky. "If I set down, you reckon you can haul my raggedy old ass up again?" D.W. asked her.

  "Leverage, my darling. If you can dig your heels in, I can get you on your feet." She let him take hold of her arm and leaned back to steady his descent before sitting down next to him. They were quiet awhile, as he got his breath back.

  "When I am gone—" he started. Anne opened her mouth, but he shut her up with a look. "When I am gone, and I expect that’s three, four days off now, Marc Robichaux will be de facto Father Superior. I can’t make that appointment, but it’ll be almost nine years till we can get a radio order back from Rome." He stopped and, out of habit, scuffed his hand around in the dirt, feeling for pebbles, but he’d long since scoured the spot of rocks, so he gave up and let his hands go loose in his lap. "Now listen up. Marc’s a good man but he’s not a leader, Anne. And Emilio surprises me sometimes but he’s off in his own world a lot. Neither one of ’em is much good in a crisis—"

  "Well, they’ve always had you or some other superior to rely on. Maybe they’d rise to the occasion."

  "Yeah. I’ve thought of that. But I worry about things. George is a good staff man, but I don’t see him as a line officer, beggin’ your pardon. If y’all don’t get back, Anne, if this fuel idea of George’s craps out? If you’re here permanently, then you’re going to need some kind of structure to keep from going nuts." He paused. "I been workin’ it through in my mind. There’s got to be one voice givin’ the orders. I’m all for advice and consent, but you’re too isolated and too vulnerable not to have some clear chain of command. One voice. But it don’t have to be a Jesuit’s voice, okay? Now, my opinion: you and Sofia are going to be the brains of the outfit. Don’t argue with me, I ain’t got the time nor the energy. The Quinn boy is bedrock. I want you to work it so Jimmy becomes recognized as the one who decides."

  She started to protest but, hearing it, she remembered the hours after Alan’s death and the way Jimmy came through when they realized they were marooned. She nodded.

  "Now, I’ve said something along these lines to Marc and Emilio. Not in these terms, but they understand what I’m saying. The real struggle will be gettin’ Jim to accept that he’s the best person for the job. He’ll want you or Sofia to take over." Yarbrough stopped. He lifted his arm and meant to put it around Anne’s shoulders but that was more than he could manage, so he just put his hand over hers. "Annie, you feel too much and Sofia thinks too damn quick for her own good. Jim’s got a fine strong balance to him. Y’all give him the benefit
of your intuition and your intelligence and your knowledge. But let him decide."

  "So Jimmy gets to be Elder after all," she said, trying to lighten the moment a little. But it wasn’t a light moment, so she told him, "It’s a good plan, D.W. I’ll midwife it along as best I can."

  D.W. smiled and she felt his hand tighten a little around hers, but he only looked at the sky, talked out.

  He meant to tell her about his grandmother, who’d lived to be ninety-four and didn’t recommend it. He meant to tell her to watch that Supaari character, there was something about him, and Anne shouldn’t let herself get blinded by sentiment. He meant to tell her how really happy he’d been, even these last months. He thought he had a few days left. But death has its own agenda and its own logic, and it caught them both unaware, with less warning than they expected.

  "MY GOD," GEORGE breathed. "There it is."

  "Jesus, Mary and Joseph," Jimmy whispered. "It was worth the wait."

  Marc Robichaux pulled himself away from the panorama and looked toward Supaari VaGayjur, serenely piloting the little powerboat through the buoyed channels toward the city. "Sipaj, Supaari. We thank you for this," he said quietly.

  The Jana’ata merchant’s chin lifted slightly in acknowledgment. He had planned their arrival thoughtfully, bringing them around the headland and into Radina Bay a little before second sundown. Ringed by three mountains, white stonework and red clay masonry gleaming in the lush pearlescent light, Gayjur embraced the crescent harbor in a long sweep from southeast to northwest; the deepening darkness hid the tangle of ships and derricks and warehouses and shops nearest the docks and their eyes were drawn upward toward Galatna Palace, set like a jewel in the deep aquamarine vegetation of the central mountain. This was the best time of day to see the city—when the sky took on colors that always reminded Supaari of marble from Gardhan. It was also the safest time to bring the foreigners into port.

  Marc smiled at Jimmy and George, transfixed by the sight, and was glad for them. For almost six years of subjective time, these two men had dreamed of seeing the City of the Songs, which they now knew to be Gayjur. Whenever Supaari was in Kashan, they’d hinted, bargained, very nearly demanded and almost begged him to take them there. They wanted to see a real city, they told him. They had trouble explaining why they were so anxious to go. They had no Ruanja words for much of what interested them, which was everything. They wanted to find out what the buildings looked like, see where the food came from, where the sewage went, how the universities and government and hospitals were run, what transportation was like, how electricity was generated and stored and used. They wanted to talk to chemists, physicists, astronomers, mathematicians. See how the principles of the wheel, the lever and the inclined plane played out on this planet. Everything. They wanted to know everything.

  Marc himself was less frantic to get out of Kashan, but he too yearned to see the architecture and the art, to hear the music and see the sights. Were there parks? Museums? Zoos! And Supaari said there were gardens. Formal or unplanned, utilitarian or purely decorative? Were there houses of worship? Who went? Were there religious specialists— priests or priestesses, monks, adepts? Did they believe in magic, in God or gods, in fate, in destiny, in the reward of good, the punishment of evil? How were the milestones of life marked? With cadenced ceremony or brief informal acknowledgments? And the food—was it better in the city? What did people wear? Were they polite or pushy, punctilious or casual? What was crime? What was punishment? What was virtue and what was vice? What was fun? Everything. Marc too wanted to know everything.

  Finally, after stalling them for a full Rakhati year, Supaari VaGayjur had deemed the considerations to have been fully considered, the arrangements adequately arranged and the time, at long last, ripe for their visit to his adopted city. On the three-day trip downriver from Kashan, moving past slow trade barges and small skiffs, he answered as many of their questions as he could. They were interested in the sulfur-aluminum batteries that powered his craft, the material from which the hull was made, the waterproof coatings, the navigation equipment. When he finally convinced them that he simply used the boat, he did not make it, they went on to questions about the city itself, and when at last he could stand no more and told them finally, "Wait! You shall see it all shortly," they talked among themselves in H’inglish, never resting from their curiosity.

  They stopped overnight at two villages along the way, the first one just above the Pon delta and the second on the Masna’a Tafa’i coast about twelve hours out of Gayjur. As in Kashan, the foreigners were accepted by the Runa without fuss. Supaari simply introduced them as traders, from far away. He was counting on this kind of reception by VaGayjuri Runa as well and was heartened to see the reality of it in these outlying villages, after so much worried anticipation. He began to hope things would go well. But once again he made the foreigners promise that they would only go out at redlight, and even then accompanied always by his Runa secretary, Awijan. It was important that they not be seen by other Jana’ata.

  This restriction was in direct opposition to D. W. Yarbrough’s desire to make contact with the Jana’ata government. It was past time, he believed. If the Jesuit party hung around much longer without making itself known, the authorities might think there was something sneaky about them, wonder why they’d kept themselves a secret such a long time. But they owed Supaari a debt of gratitude for all his assistance and in the end, D.W. decided that they should abide by his rule. "Get the lay of the land, this trip," Yarbrough told Marc and George and Jimmy before they left. "When you get back, y’all talk it over and decide what the next move is." He knew he wouldn’t be a part of the discussion. He knew that he was dying. They all did.

  Now, faced with Gayjur itself, the three humans understood that it would be a real job just to get a superficial impression of the city in the six days allotted to this visit. Marc Robichaux began to feel that this was another of the step-by-step increments they were meant to take.

  Coming within line of sight to his compound, Supaari radioed Awijan, announcing their arrival, and steered the little powerboat through the towering mass of shipping. He docked with insouciant skill and a yawn and pointed out his compound’s gateway with casual pride, trusting its impressive size and the obvious signs of prosperity to tell his visitors that they were dealing with a man of consequence. "Shall you rest now or go out to see the city?" he asked them, knowing full well what they would say. When they said it, he handed them over to his secretary and told them to trust Awijan to escort them properly and to answer their questions. He, Supaari, was going to sleep now and would see them the next day, in the morning at second sunrise.

  AND SO, WITH as much preparation as they could have hoped for, Marc Robichaux, Jimmy Quinn and George Edwards plunged into an alien city for the first time. It was all very well to expect to be surprised and confused, but it was sheer bedlam to experience. The scents and noise of Gayjur assaulted them: warehouses filled with the sweet and spicy and grassy fragrances of perfume components; docks and shipyards smelling of wet sail, rotting sea life, sealants and paint, sailors and loaders shouting; cookshops and street stalls and factories turning the air fragrant and stinking by turns with soups and ammonia and frying vegetables and solvents. There was a vast amount of exchange going on, of buying and selling, of business being done in temporary but well-made booths with handsome fittings leaning against beautifully built masonry walls. Vendors hawked unidentifiable objects from pushcarts, simply designed and nicely balanced. Moving through the cramped side streets, they caught glimpses through half-open doors of Runa working with their ears clamped shut amid a deafening clamor of hammers and chisels, drills and electric saws.

  The pace was much faster than in Kashan, and there was far more variety of physical type, Marc noticed. The dockworkers were stockier, sturdy and drop-eared; there were others, robed as Supaari had been when they met him, but smallish and subtly different in the face, alert and fine-boned, with a direct and disturbing gaz
e, and Awijan was one of these. And there were differences in coat: the colors and textures varied, some rough and curling, others silkier and longer than normal in Kashan. Regional variations, Marc thought. Immigrant populations, perhaps, natural in a port city.

  It was a weird feeling, walking along in plain view, undeniably strange, and yet no crowds gathered, no children screamed or pointed or hid. They were noticed and commented upon quietly as they passed through the streets, but when Awijan offered to buy them kebablike sticks of roasted vegetables, the vendor simply handed them their food with ordinary courtesy. They might have been buying pretzels in Philadelphia.

  As night fell, Awijan led them back to Supaari’s compound and took them through an open courtyard, past many small storage buildings, along the edge of an impressive warehouse, and then into the living quarters, spare and plain-walled but hung with brilliant tapestries and cushioned with deep carpets. After years of sleeping in the huddled company of Runa, they were astonished to be given small private rooms and found the circular bedding on raised platforms nestlike and very fine to curl up in. They slept soundly until long past first sunrise.

  It was midday when Supaari met them for their first and his only meal. As they reclined against the pillows and cushions along the walls, a long low table was carried in and then paved with a stream of plates and bowls and platters emerging from the kitchen. There were roasted meats, soups, extraordinary things that appeared to be seafood stuffed with pastes of something savory and then formed somehow into loaves and sliced, and fruits they had not seen before and many kinds of vegetables, plain and with sauces and carved cunningly and left whole. There were strong flavors, and delicate and bland and spiced. The service was soft-footed and discreet, and the meal took hours. Awijan sat nibbling at a little distance and observed; Marc noted the next day that the dishes that had pleased no one were gone from the array and those that the guests had most enjoyed were prominently offered again, surrounded by other choices not seen earlier.