by Paul Park
He was steering with one hand, while with the other he shined his flashlight at the pictures on the wall and into the doors of abandoned galleries. He told them the history of the place, and took detours into other, smaller corridors to show them special things: a crystal chandelier still hanging from the dome of one small chamber; the portals of the summer house of Lord Berylliam Starbridge; the winged, porcelain statue of the Snake of Relativity; and one enormous cavern where the vault was set with moving lanterns, long extinct, to duplicate the constellations of the winter sky.
As he explained these wonders, Freedom Love seemed calm and at his ease. But Charity noticed that the Dogon were paddling as fast and as hard as they could. They had turned down the lantern on the prow until it was scarcely bright enough to guide them, and they looked back anxiously at their leader’s powerful flashlight. Yet they had no way of expressing their disapproval except by the energy of their work, their bent backs and the sweat along their arms, the flash of their paddles and the power of their stroke.
“They are afraid of something,” remarked Charity.
Freedom Love made a careless gesture with his hand. “The woman,” he replied. “The White-Faced Woman. It is true, she has been seen near here.”
* * *
How to measure time in that black hole? Charity was hungry and exhausted by the time they reached their destination, an island in the middle of a lake. The stranger was asleep in the boat, but Charity was awake. She had seen the island from far away, lighting up the vault, shining over the surface of the lake. On its beaches, acetylene torches hung from poles stuck in the sand.
The Dogon had paddled without ceasing until they came into the reach of a long spit of sand. Then they put their paddles on their knees and let the boat drift up onto the beach. Gudrun Sarkis stepped out into the shallow water and dragged the boat the last few yards, until its bottom groaned ashore.
Men and women came to greet them down the beach. They all greeted Charity in the same way, a little bow with their palms joined together. But when Freedom Love descended from the boat, they got down on their knees in the dark sand. They made a line on either side of him, and as he walked up the beach between them, they put out their hands for him to touch.
When he had passed, one got up and came forward and took Charity by the hands. She was a dark, handsome woman, younger than Charity and still dressed in the remnants of a rich, embroidered gown. She too had pressed her palms together, but not so carefully that Charity had failed to glimpse the flash of gold and silver in the lamplight.
She was a Starbridge of the soldier’s blood, a member of Charity’s own clan. But still she did not introduce herself that way. “My name is Varana,” she said, and then she laughed when Charity looked puzzled. “It is the name my master gave me,” she explained. “It means ‘the bell that God rings,’ in I don’t know what language. Don’t you think it suits me?”
She was a constant talker, but kind, too. She took Charity to her own house, a wooden hut down by the water’s edge. She made Charity lie down in her own bed, and brought her soup and basins of hot water. And all the time she chattered constantly, a blithe, comforting sound, until Charity fell asleep.
* * *
“I’ve been here a long time,” said Varana, hours later. Charity was sitting up in bed. Again the girl was feeding her with mushroom soup and talking all the time. “I came here the same way you did, just the same. It’s hard to tell how long ago—thirty days, a month, oh, I don’t know. My trial was October eighty-third. I was buried in that pit, just the same as you. Only worse, of course, because my mother and I, we were among the first the master saved.” Suddenly there were tears in her eyes. She swallowed and went on more slowly: “There were people in the pit, many people who are gone. I was there six days, my master told me. I was with my mother, holding her hand, touching her as I am touching you, but we were dying. My mother died that morning, and I didn’t know. I couldn’t tell. There were people crying out. And I heard someone banging on the stones. It was my master, breaking down the wall with hammers. He broke down the wall.”
“You don’t have to tell me if the memory is painful,” said Charity after a pause.
“No. Let me finish. I want to tell you why I love him, so that you will love him too. It is because he gave me life. He took me from my grave; if there is pain, it belongs to my past life. Before me there is nothing but joy,” she said, the tears still on her cheeks.
Charity put down her bowl and spoon and held her hand out tentatively. The girl seized it in both of hers. She turned it palm up on the coverlet and started squeezing it, kneading the muscles in between the bones. “My master says that this is good for stress,” she continued. “He is full of knowledge. Relax your hand—let me show you. The reason I’m telling you this is because I want you to stay. The people that he rescues, he gives them their choice. I want you to know this is the best house in the village if you want to stay. I’ve been so lonely. Some of the people are kind but they are not my kin. My father was Baroda Starbridge. I cannot talk to them as I can talk to you.”
The hut was ten feet square, lit with oil lamps. Charity sat on a low bed, a metal frame strung with strips of cloth and covered with a woven mat. There were some quilts and blankets. On a block of stone next to the door, Charity could see, neatly arranged, a broken piece of mirror and a comb.
“Who lives here?” asked Charity. “Who lives here on this island?”
“Refugees,” Varana replied. “Every Monday the tribunal condemns another batch of prisoners. Every Tuesday they are buried. On Wednesday my master brings them back. Then on Fridays, he goes up to Bishop’s Keys. People come to hear him preach, and always one or two come back with him. They bring food from above.”
“And the Dogon?”
Varana wrinkled her nose. “They live here too. But they are primitives. Not worth the time he spends—did you know, until he came, they ate the flesh of animals? They hunted fish with spears. Their kin still do, across the lake.”
Charity shrugged. “And now they live on gifts from other people. What do they do all day, the ones that used to hunt?”
Varana frowned. “You don’t understand. They had strange rites and strange beliefs. They had no knowledge of the truth. How could you know? You’ve only just arrived.”
She let go of Charity’s left hand, picked up her right hand, and started rubbing it. But soon there was the faint sound of a bell, and she got to her feet. “My master sends for me,” she said.
* * *
When she was gone, Charity got up and dressed herself. She washed her face in a basin of cool water. She combed the dirt out of her hair. She washed her hands and feet, and then she left the house.
The stranger was walking on the beach below the town. Charity called out to him, and he turned his head. He was carrying a lantern, and looked as if he were searching for something in the sand.
Near him a line of wooden pilings stretched out into the lake, and the sand gave out onto a stone pier. The stranger stepped onto the pier and squatted down next to the water’s edge. As Charity came close, he was throwing sand into the water, scattering it a few grains at a time. Wherever the sand hit, the lake glimmered briefly, a silver gleam deep beneath the surface. “I’ve been trying to understand why it is not colder here,” he said without turning around. “You’d think it would be freezing so far from the sun.”
“The lakewater is warm,” said Charity.
“Yes. I noticed it when we arrived. Perhaps it flows over some deep thermal activity. Look at this.” He dipped his lantern down over the edge of the stone pier, illuminating a green scum of algae on the surface of the lake. “It’s what they eat,” he said. “I had a bowl of it.”
“How was it?”
“Not good. Look at this.” With a flick of his fingers he scattered some sand into the water, and immediately a fish rose to the surface, a small, slow beast with a back of luminescent scales. The stranger frowned. “Hah,” he said. “What c
ould that creature be expecting?”
Bats played over the lake, dipping low onto the shore, calling to each other in susurrant voices. Occasionally they came to rest, their long legs clumsy in the sand. One fell over onto its back, and Charity watched its struggles to get up.
“We can leave here if we want to,” she said. “Freedom Love gives us the choice.”
“Hah. Some choice. We’d never find our way.”
“But we could try. I don’t want to eat algae till I die.”
The stranger looked up at her. “It’s not so bad for you. But I’m in a stone barracks, with fifteen other men. Our host has an eye for a pretty face, I’ve noticed.”
“Perhaps he’ll give us a guide.”
“Who’d go? They’re terrified. They’re afraid of the White-Faced Woman. I don’t blame them.”
“Who?” asked Charity. She was watching the bat as it struggled on the sand. By pushing with one wing, it had managed to right itself. Now it stood on one leg, cleaning the skin of its small body with the other.
Again the stranger flicked some sand into the water, and the luminescent fish came to the surface. “It’s a superstition,” he replied. “A superstition come to life. My guards were telling me about it when I was in prison. They’re not stupid. Every week they’d put a new consignment of prisoners into that pit, and every week it would be empty. They thought the White-Faced Woman was stealing them away.”
Charity was watching the bat. “You are afraid,” she said.
Furious, the stranger turned on her. “Of course I am,” he cried. “What’s wrong with you? Don’t you have any feelings?”
For an answer, Charity touched her lion’s-head tattoo, and wondered what it would be like to be without it. “Freedom Love,” she said. “You heard what he told us. He said there are tunnels here that take you all the way to Caladon. They take you all the way across the border.”
“If you can find them,” grumbled the stranger. But Charity wasn’t listening. She was watching the bat, how it gathered itself into a jump and leaped away into the dark.
* * *
“He wants to see you,” said Varana. “You and the other one.”
The princess had wandered down to the end of the island, and Varana came up behind her as she stood watching the Dogon women working in their garden. The rows of pallid plants were marked by tiny oil lamps set in the ground, six to a row, and the women moved up and down between them, shoveling out fertilizer from baskets on their backs. Unlike the men they wore a lot of clothing, shawls and shapeless robes, and their heads were veiled. They made somber, shrouded figures, for they chose always the darkest colors. Sometimes Charity would lose sight of them entirely in the gaps between the lamps, and sometimes she could only guess at where they were, as the lamplight snatched quickly at the opalescent thread and the bits of mirror that they used to decorate their clothes.
The circle of Dogon houses stood out on a peninsula into the lake, poor huts of clay and broken stone, away from the rest of the village. Charity stood on a small embankment with Varana at her side, looking out over an open space of trampled dirt. There, while the Dogon women worked, the men sat idle in small groups, laughing and conversing. Some played a game with spears and a small wicker ring. The ring was soaked in oil and set on fire; it flickered with a bluish flame. One man would set it rolling in an area of darkness, while another tried to throw his fishing spear so that its double barbs would catch the rim.
That whole section of the town was darker than the rest. The women grew their plants almost in darkness. As for the men, Charity could barely see them, though she could hear their laughter and their shouts as someone missed his cast.
“He wants to see you,” Varana repeated, for Charity had not turned around.
At the sound of her voice, one of the women stopped working below them and looked up. Varana muttered part of a prayer and made the sign of the unclean. “Let’s get away from here,” she said, putting her hand on Charity’s arm. “I hate them,” she confided. “They make me feel dirty when they look at me, especially the men. One man exposed his penis to me—there, that one. Come, let’s go. I want today to be a happy day. My master put his hand on me today.”
Charity turned to face her, mildly surprised.
“Oh, not like that,” continued Varana, leading her away. “I mean he touched my head.” She gestured towards her forehead. “Here. The place is still on fire. He can touch the energy resources of the brain. Ask him when you see him. Perhaps he’ll do the same for you.”
Charity smiled and shook her head.
“Why not?” asked Varana. “It’s perfectly safe. His hands are clean.”
“How do you know? What caste is he?”
“I’m not sure. Some kind of scholar. He has a candle marked under his thumb.”
“A teacher!” exclaimed Charity, still smiling. “And you let him touch your head?”
Varana frowned. “There are some distinctions that we should transcend,” she replied with dignity.
They had reached the main street of the village. Here the dark was chased away by lanterns hung from poles. Walking with her arm through Charity’s, Varana nodded to everyone they passed.
At length they stopped in front of a long building, the grandest in the town. This was the meetinghouse, and inside a meeting was in progress. They passed under the portals of the central chamber and found themselves among a small crowd of respectful listeners. Freedom Love was standing on a wooden dais, talking to his people.
“When I was young,” he said, “I lived with my family on the northwest frontier, south of the River Rang. We were a community of shepherds, very poor, for it was wintertime. I would take the sheep up into the meadows to feed on insects incubating in the snow.
“My family’s land overlooked the river. It was at the bottom of a steep crevasse, and there were cliffs upon the other side. Occasionally you could see people there, wild tribesmen, antinomials, riding their horses close to the cliff’s edge.
“Our priest told us that they were devils out of hell, atheists and heretics. When the river froze, we were always afraid that they would ride across and murder our livestock. We would build huge bonfires in the fields, and our priest would ring the bells all night, but they never came. They never came.
“Stupidity that tries to justify itself, we call it fear. Ignorance that justifies itself, we call it hate. This sounds like foolish insight, but you must understand, in those days it was part of our catechism that every morning upon rising we would recite aloud, at six-fifteen precisely, the forty-second verse of the Song of the Beloved Angkhdt. You know it: ‘Listen to me, my love, and to no other. I am the only one. These others tell you lies. They want to use you for your beauty, that is all.’
“Nowadays these lines admit a myriad interpretations, as you know. Then we believed what the priests told us. Later when I came to Charn, I saw the remnants of these tribes. Defeated and starving, they had migrated down into the city, and they were selling their own bodies and begging in the streets. It was a sad sight, for once they had been proud.
“Perhaps you don’t remember the antinomials, how they spoke with music, and danced and played music all night long. They are few and scattered now. Then, they were creatures of denial, savage in so many ways. They had no families, no names. They had no interest in such things. As I say, they were primitive in many ways. But it was a willful kind of savagery, as if they had passed through civilization and stepped back. Or stepped forward, who can tell?
“A man can learn something from people who are not like him. In Charn I took them into my house. I fed them, and in return they taught me to love freedom and freethinking. They taught me a man is what he does. They taught me to judge men by their uses, for we must live forever in the present tense, and there is no point in pretending otherwise.
“When people ask me to define God, I say to them, ‘God is a creature who lives in the past and in the future, as we live in the present.’ That is why we n
ever see Him face to face. That is why He always seems to be receding from in front of us or traveling close behind. That is why sometimes it is as if we are entering a room where He just left, and the scent of Him still lingers.”
“Isn’t he incredible?” asked Varana, giggling and poking Charity in the ribs. But she quieted down when Freedom Love looked down at her and frowned.
“Now, here in our community,” he said, “I have heard something that reminds me of the way we used to be when I was young and we had corralled our sheep into their pens and were waiting for the antinomials to attack across the river. There is a superstition in our town. People are talking about the White-Faced Woman, as if she were a devil or a witch. Once more, it is foolishness and ignorance. It is hate and fear. . . .”
As he talked, Charity found her attention wandering. She looked around the room. Some of the Dogon were sitting on the floor, scuffling their feet in the dirt, smiling at each other, looking bored. The others listened more attentively. Like Charity, they were refugees from Charn; they had been rescued from the burial pit, or else had followed Freedom Love of their own will, down into the dark. They were a dirty, ragged lot, thirty-seven men and women, most past their first youth. Charity looked them over with faint stirrings of distaste.
The stranger was standing by the door. As Charity looked at him, he raised his eyebrows, as if to signal his desire to speak with her. But Varana had pushed her in the ribs again, and Freedom Love was asking her a question.
“Well,” he said, “now that you have seen us, what do you think? Charity Starbridge, tell me, have you decided? Will you join our poor community? Believe me, we are nothing now, but we will be important in the days to come.”
Before replying, Charity detached herself from her companion’s arm and moved a few steps forward, so that she stood in a more open space. “You saved my life,” she said.
