Children of God s-2

by Mary Doria Russel

  There was a silence one was tempted to call pregnant. "You, signora, are ruthless," Sandoz said at last, eyes narrow. "I am fortunate to escape having you as my mother-in-law."

  Laughing and victorious, Gina led Sandoz to her car, Celestina skipping beside them. Opening the back door, Gina reached in and passed the priest a bag of kibble, heedless of his hands, which she had decided to ignore. He juggled the bag ineptly for a moment, but managed to get a secure grip on it as Celestina chattered about how to hold and feed and water the animal, and told him that its mother was Cleopatra.

  "Named in a salute to the Egyptian custom of royal incest," Gina remarked very quietly, so Celestina wouldn’t hear and demand an explanation. She lifted the cage out of the back seat.

  "Ah," Sandoz said, equally quiet for the same reason, as they began the short walk back to his apartment. "Then this one shall be named Elizabeth, in the hope that she has followed in the footsteps of the Virgin Queen." Gina laughed, but he warned her, "If she is with child, signora, I shall not hesitate to have the entire dynasty returned to your doorstep."

  They went upstairs and settled Elizabeth into her new home. The pig enclosure was a simple affair of lath and chicken wire, made to fit around a plastic orange crate. There was an overturned vegetable bin for the little animal to hide in. The cage was open at the top.

  "Won’t she climb out?" Sandoz asked, sitting down and peering at the pig: an oblong lump of golden hair, with a white saddle and blaze, the size and approximate shape of a cobblestone. Its front end, he observed, was distinguished from the back mainly by two wary eyes, bright as jet beads.

  "You will find that guinea pigs are not a mountaineering race," Gina said as she knelt to attach a filled water bottle to the cage. She lifted the animal momentarily so he could inspect the absurd little legs that supported the pig’s solid bulk and then she went to his kitchen for a dishcloth. "You will also find that a towel over your lap is a sensible precaution," she said, handing him the cloth.

  "She’ll make peepee on you," Celestina told him as he accepted the animal from her mother. "And she’ll—"

  "Thank you, cara. I’m sure Don Emilio can deduce the rest," Gina said smoothly, sitting in the other chair.

  "It looks like little raisins," Celestina told him, relentless.

  "And is quite inoffensive, unlike my daughter," Gina said. "Guinea pigs do enjoy being petted, but this one is still a little shy about being handled. Take her out for five or ten minutes now and then. Celestina is correct, if indelicate. Don’t rely upon a guinea pig’s continence. If you keep Elizabeth Regina in your lap for much longer than that, she is likely to take you for a Anglican convert and baptize you."

  He looked down at the animal, which was instinctively trying to appear rocklike and decidedly inedible, in case an eagle flew overhead. There was a little V of black marking her forehead between silly folded-over ears the shape of scallop shells. "I’ve never had a pet," he said quietly. He retained feeling in the outer edges of his hands, where the nerves had not been severed, and now used an exposed section of his smallest finger to stroke the pig’s back from blunt head to tailless behind, a short but silken distance. "All right. I will accept your gift, Celestina, on one condition," he said severely, looking at the mother. "I find, signora, that I require a purchasing agent."

  "I understand," Gina said hurriedly. "I’ll bring food and fresh bedding every week. At my own expense, naturally. I am very grateful that you’ll take her, Don Emilio."

  "Well, yes, that too. But also some other things. If it will not inconvenience you too much, I need some clothes. I have no established credit and there are certain… practicalities I cannot manage yet." He carefully lifted the pig from his lap and put her back into the enclosure on the floor. The animal shot under the vegetable bin and remained there, motionless. "I don’t need you to pay for anything, signora," he said, straightening. "I have a small pension."

  She looked surprised. "A disability pension? But you’re still working," she said, gesturing at the sound equipment.

  "A retirement pension, signora. I myself find the legalities of this situation mystifying," he admitted, "but I was informed last week that Loyola’s Company is, in fact, operating in some regions as a multinational corporation these days, complete with health benefits and pension plans."

  "And branch offices, instead of provinces!" Gina rolled her eyes, still amazed herself that the dispute had come to this. "The fault line was there for nearly a hundred years, of course, but it is remarkable how much damage can be done by two stubborn, uncompromising old men—both dead now, and not a moment too soon, in my opinion."

  Sandoz grimaced. "Well, it’s not the first time the Jesuits have gotten too far out in front of the Vatican. It’s not even the first time the Society has been disbanded."

  "But it was even messier this time," Gina told him. "About a third of the bishops declined to read the Bull of Suppression, and there are hundreds of civil suits over property still being litigated. I don’t think anyone really understands the legal status of the Society of Jesus right now!"

  He shook his head and shrugged. "Well, John Candotti tells me that negotiations have reopened. He thinks there is room for movement on both sides, and there may be some sort of settlement soon —»

  Gina smiled, her eyes amused. "Don Emilio, anyone in Naples will tell you that there are very few political puzzles a Giuliani cannot either finesse or bludgeon into resolution. The new Pope is wonderful, and just as wily as Don Vincenzo. Be assured: those two will work it out."

  "I hope so. In any case," Emilio said, coming back to the more immediate problem, "there is no provision in the articles of incorporation allowing for the contraction of time that occurs when someone travels near light speed. As I am nearly eighty by the calendar, I find that I am legally due a pension from what used to be the Antilles province." Johannes Voelker, the Father General’s private secretary, had brought this to everyone’s attention. The Father General was intensely annoyed by the reasoning but Voelker, a man of rigid principle, had insisted on Sandoz’s right to the income. "So. Do they still make Levi’s?"

  "Of course," she said, a little distracted as Celestina left the guinea-pig cage and moved off toward the photonics. "Don’t touch, cara! Scuzi, Don Emilio. You were saying? Levi’s?"

  "Yes. Two pair, if you please. Perhaps three shirts? It is a very small pension." He cleared his throat. "I have no idea what the fashions or prices are now and I will rely on your judgment, but I’d prefer you didn’t select anything terribly—"

  "I understand. Nothing extravagant." She was touched that he would ask her to do this for him, but kept her face businesslike, running her eyes over him with a tailorly efficiency, as though she did this kind of thing for priests all the time.

  "One pullover sweater, I think—"

  "No good," she said, shaking her head. "The braces will snag the knitting. But I know a man who makes wonderful suede jackets—" It was his turn to look doubtful, and she guessed at his objection. "Classic design in a durable material is never an extravagance," she told him firmly. "Besides, I can get you a good price. Anything else?" she asked. "I am a married woman, Don Emilio. I have purchased men’s underwear before."

  He coughed and flushed, eyes sliding away. "Not at the present time, thank you."

  "I am a little confused," she said then. "Even retired, don’t the Jesuits provide you with—"

  "I am not just retiring from a corporation, signora. I am leaving the priesthood." There was an awkward pause. "The details have not been worked out. I will stay on here, as a contractor perhaps. I am a linguist by trade and there is work for me to do."

  She knew a little of what he had been through; the Father General had prepared the family before bringing Sandoz to the christening. Still, she was surprised and saddened by the laying aside of vows, whatever the cause. "I sorry," she said. "I know how difficult a decision like that can be. Celestina!" she called, rising and gathering her daughter to her side. "We
ll," she said, smiling again, "we won’t trouble you any longer, Don Emilio. We’ve interrupted your work long enough."

  Celestina stood looking up at the two adults, dark and light, and thought of the paintings in the church, ignorant of the iconography that made them such a mismatch, thinking only that they looked pretty together. "Don Emilio isn’t too old for you, Mammina," she observed with a child’s rash acuity. "Why don’t you marry him?"

  "Hush, cara! What an idea. I am sorry, Don Emilio. Children!" Gina Giuliani cried, mortified. "Carlo—my husband-doesn’t live with us any longer. Celestina, as you may have noticed, is a woman of action and—"

  He held up a braced hand. "No explanations are necessary, signora," he assured her and, face unreadable, helped shepherd the child down the stairs and out the door.

  They walked down the driveway together, the adults’ silence decently covered by the little girl’s prattle, until they reached the car. There, ciaos and grazies were exchanged as he opened doors for the ladies with the deliberate and stately dexterity the braces permitted and enforced. As they drove away, he yelled, "No black! Don’t buy anything black, okay?" Gina laughed and waved an arm out the window, without looking back.

  "You, madam, are married to a fool," he said softly, and turned toward the garage, where his work was waiting.

  HE SETTLED INTO A ROUTINE AS THE MILD NEAPOLITAN AUTUMN SET IN and the rains became more frequent. As promised, Elizabeth was an un-demanding companion who quickly took on the size and proportions of a hairy brick and greeted his morning stirring with cheerful whistling. Never good company at dawn, he would call from his bed, "You’re vermin. Your parents were vermin. If you have babies, they’ll be vermin, too." But he took her out to eat a carrot on his lap while he drank his coffee and, after a while, hardly felt foolish at all when he talked to her.

  Guinea pigs were, he discovered, crepuscular: quiet at night and during the day, active at dawn and dusk. The pattern suited him. He often worked nonstop from eight until past five, unwilling to pause until the pig whistled quitting time as the light diminished. He was aware, always, that his progress could be interrupted by the debilities he’d accumulated on Rakhat and in the months of malnutrition during the solitary voyage home. So he concentrated as long as he could and then made himself a supper of red beans and rice, which he ate with Elizabeth’s beady eyes on him. Afterward, he would take her out and sit with her, numbed fingertips idly stroking her back as the little animal nestled down and slept the brief, uneasy sleep of prey.

  And then he went back to work, often until past midnight, the overarching structure of K’San—the language of the Jana’ata — becoming plain to him now, and increasingly beautiful: no longer solely the instrument of terror and degradation. Hour after hour, the rhythm of search and comparison, the patient accretion of pattern pulled him along, its inherent fascination sufficient to defend against both memory and anticipation.

  In late October, John tactfully informed him of the impending arrival of the other priests who were to be trained for the second Jesuit mission to Rakhat. They had all read the first mission’s written reports and scientific papers, John said, and they’d already worked through Sofia Mendes’s introductory AI language-instruction system and had begun studying Ruanja on their own. And each had been thoroughly briefed about Sandoz’s experiences by the Father General, and by John himself. John didn’t say it in so many words, but Emilio understood that the new men had been warned: Don’t touch him, don’t mother him, don’t play therapist. Just follow his lead and get on with the work.

  Emilio made little effort to get to know the new men, preferring to confer in cyberspace, buffered by machinery, or in the library, which he could leave when he needed to. But he broke his self-imposed solitude with trips to the kitchen to collect vegetable parings from Brother Cosimo for Elizabeth. And Gina Giuliani stopped by on Fridays, always with Celestina, to drop off pig supplies and sometimes other small items he could bring himself to ask for. She and John Candotti had a knack for helping him without making him feel helpless, and for this he was grateful beyond words. Heads together over lunch one Friday afternoon, the three of them had analyzed the apartment and Emilio’s daily tasks. When Gina couldn’t find ready-made items that suited his disabilities, John would make them: counterweights for things he needed to lift, utensils with broad handles, plumbing and door hardware that was simpler to operate, clothing that was easier to manage.

  On November 5, 2060, which was—as far as he knew—more or less the occasion of his forty-seventh birthday, Emilio Sandoz poured himself a glass of Ronrico after his usual dinner of beans and rice. "Elizabeth," he announced, glass held high, "I am the absolute monarch of my domain, which stretches from that staircase to this desk."

  He went back to work, his mind occupied with a K’San semantic field having to do with river systems that the Basque ecologist had suggested might be related to words used in reference to ranked political alliances. Like a series of tributaries! Emilio thought, and felt once more the strangely visceral thrill of trying to disprove a hypothesis he suspected was robust.

  10

  Pon River, Central Province, Inbrokar

  2046, Earth-Relative

  THE HEAT BROKE ON THE THIRD DAY SOUTH WITH A STORM THAT drenched the passengers on the river barge and sent sheetfloods a handsbreadth deep across the flats. Accustomed to the ways of the village Runa, Supaari VaGayjur stripped off his sodden city robes and, for the balance of the trip, went nearly as naked as his practical companions did. With his clothes, he stripped away the stink of Inbrokar, and felt real again.

  It’s over, Supaari thought, and there was no regret in him.

  He had been close enough to his life’s ambition to see what he was buying and to reckon the cost of living it out, snared in the twisted skein of aristocratic alliances, hatreds and resentments. With a merchant’s certainty, he cut his losses, slicing through the tangle with a single word: "leave." So Supaari VaGayjur had walked away from the Kitheri compound without bothering to tell anyone he was going. He took only what was of value to him and to no one else—the child, who was at that moment being dangled over the edge of the barge, piss flying into the wake.

  Paquarin had agreed to make the trip south with him as far as Kirabai, and she laughed now, swooping the baby through the water to clean her. She’ll sleep now, he thought, smiling as the look of outraged startlement on the howling infant’s face was replaced with drowsy contentment in Paquarin’s lap, the Runao’s fine hands stroking and soothing her.

  Leaning against a transport basket of sweetleaf, drowsy himself, he watched the riverbanks slide by and wondered idly why the Jana’ata insisted on clothing bodies protected by dense coats of hair. Anne Edwards had asked him that once and he hadn’t had a good answer for her, except to observe that the Jana’ata generally preferred elaborate to plain. Almost dozing as he dried in the breeze, it came to him that the purpose of clothing was neither protection nor decoration but distinction—to mark off military first from bureaucratic second and both of those from academic or commercial third, to keep everyone in his proper position so that greetings were correctly measured and deference appropriately apportioned.

  And to put distance between the rulers and the ruled, he realized, so that no Jana’ata would be mistaken for a Runa domestic! Eyes closed, he smiled to himself, pleased to answer Ha’an at last.

  Until the extraordinarily polymorphic foreigners pointed it out to him, Supaari himself had never wondered about the uncanny similarity between Jana’ata and Runa. Hadn’t even noticed it, really—one might as well ask why rain is the same color as water—but it intrigued the foreigners. Once, while in residence with Supaari in Gayjur, Sandoz had suggested that in ancient times, the resemblance between the two species had been less, but the Runa had somehow caused the Jana’ata to become more like themselves. Predator mimicry, Sandoz called it. Supaari had been greatly offended by the notion that the most successful Jana’ata hunters preying on Runa herds might h
ave been those who looked and smelled most like Runa — who could approach the herds without alarming them.

  "Such hunters would be healthier and more likely to find a mate," Sandoz said. "Their children would be better fed and have more children. Over time, the resemblance to Runa would be more noticeable, more frequent among Jana’ata."

  "Sandoz, that is foolishness," Supaari had told him. "We breed them, they don’t breed us! More likely our ancestors ate the ugly ones, which left only the beautiful Runa—who looked like Jana’ata!"

  Now Supaari admitted to himself that there might be some truth in what Sandoz had suggested. "We tamed the Jana’ata," his Runa secretary Awijan had told him once. At the time, Supaari had dismissed the remark as irony, but Jana’ata babies were raised by Runa nurses, and it was a sort of taming…

  He slept then and, in his dream, stood at the entrance to a cave. In the way of dreams, he knew somehow that the passage before him led to caverns. He took a single step forward but lost his way immediately, and became more and more lost—and woke to the nuptial bellows of white-necked cranil lumbering in the shallows. Disturbed and anxious, he scrambled to his feet, and tried to shake off the unease by walking around the pilothouse to watch the animals roll together in titanic earnest, and to wish them good fortune, whatever that might be for cranil. When he looked back toward his daughter, sleeping curled next to Paquarin, he thought, I have taken a step into the cave, and I am carrying the child with me.

  Not "the child." My child. My daughter, he thought.

  There was no one to discuss her naming with. By custom, a first daughter would take an unused name from among the dead of the dam’s lineage. Supaari had no wish to commemorate anyone from Jholaa’s family, so he tried to remember names of his own mother’s ancestors, and realized with dismay that he didn’t know any. A third who, it was presumed, would never breed, Supaari had not been told the names of the old ones; or, if he had been told, he did not remember any. Having no fixed notion of what he would do next, beyond leaving Inbrokar with his child alive and intact, Supaari had decided to go home to Kirabai. He would ask his mother to choose a name, and hoped that his request would please her.