Sugar Rain

by Paul Park

  The unraveler reached for the jar of whiskey on his desk. He tilted it in his left hand, staring at the level of the fluid. He laid down the pistol next to his right hand and once more turned his attention to Thanakar’s papers. “It says here that you are traveling with your two children, both suffering from mental handicaps. Where are they?”

  “I left them with my housekeeper,” said Thanakar, naming the town and the hotel where he had spent the night.

  “Let me see. You left Charn on October forty-seventh. I don’t think so much travel can be salutary for children of that kind. Such children need a stable home. Is that what you hope to provide for them, in K——?”

  Thanakar said nothing, only stared at the unraveler and rubbed his knee. Angkhdt save us, a philosopher! he thought.

  The unraveler looked at him steadily over the top of his papers, and then he laid them down. In his left hand he held the jar of whiskey, and he tilted it so that the amber fluid hesitated just inside the brim. “Answer my questions, please,” he said. “It says here that one of your children suffers from neurophrenia, and the other has adulterated blood. Is that correct?”

  “No. Neurophrenia—it is the language of documents. How could it be correct?”

  “Ah,” said the unraveler, staring at his whiskey. His voice was melancholic: “Perhaps you can explain for me this difference.”

  Outside it had started raining, and the rain was beating on the window beside Thanakar’s chair. He felt a disadvantage that he couldn’t name. He shook his head. “My daughter,” he said, “is suffering from an overdose of a hallucinogenic drug. But I feel that’s not the source of her condition. I don’t know. Sometimes I feel she is not sick at all. Is it sickness when her visions are the truth?”

  “Interesting,” said the unraveler. “But what difference does it make?”

  “What do you mean? The difference is obvious. In one case the drug is everything, and all my effort must be aimed towards understanding it. In the other case the drug has simply aggravated something else, some other sorrow.”

  “You don’t understand,” said the unraveler. “I mean, what is the difference in her treatment? Perhaps that is the only thing that matters. For example, I have no idea whether your knee is congenitally crippled, or whether you have injured it. You are a doctor, no doubt you have a theory. But there is something you don’t seem to know: In either case, the worst thing that you could do to it is to ride a bicycle twenty miles over these roads.”

  Once again Thanakar felt a rush of anger and frustration. Once again he felt he was losing a game whose rules he didn’t know. “What do you mean?” he said. “This drug is compounded of an insect, which, in mutated form, seems to be connected to the outbreak of a terrible illness in this region. Surely you’d agree it is a link that we must trace.”

  The unraveler looked at him steadily, and then he shrugged. “Mutations,” he said, shifting his attention to the window, where the rain was beating on the glass. “Sugar births, mutations. Life changes as the weather changes—is that not the center of all science? No doubt last spring also there was some illness like the one you mention. Yet here we are. And the only thing we’ve learned is that men and women can’t try to bear these burdens by themselves. They need a context. They need a shield against the world.”

  Thanakar cast his eyes around the bare, disheveled room. “Yes,” said the unraveler. “I live here by myself. That’s how I know.” He picked up Thanakar’s passport again, stared at it, and laid it down. “Do you understand what I mean?” he asked. “Children need parents more than doctors. And they need a home.”

  With a sigh, the unraveler replaced his jar of whiskey on his desk. He picked up a pencil, and made a small notation in the margin of the doctor’s passport; then he erased it. “Now, I know it has been difficult,” he said. “But it looks to me as if you’ve spent a month and a half in hotels and refugee camps. We are in a war zone here. It is not a place to leave two handicapped children in a hotel by themselves.”

  “I don’t understand the purpose of these questions,” said Thanakar after a pause.

  “Don’t you? I am contemplating releasing into your custody a female refugee from Charn with no means of support. It is my job to determine what is best for her.”

  Thanakar held his breath and then released it slowly. “Can I see her?” he asked.

  “No. The decision rests with me. Her wishes are of no importance. Neither are yours. Once again, I stress she is in Caladon unlawfully, with no documents of any kind. Though I admit, your name is one that she has mentioned once or twice.”

  Thanakar said nothing. He leaned backwards in his seat.

  “That being the case,” continued the unraveler, “for the sake of your children, and in lieu of any good alternative, I am inclined to grant you this request. Only I must reassure myself about the kind of life you plan to lead. It says here, in your own country, you were once an army officer. That is not auspicious. Nothing in these papers is auspicious. In your favor, only this: You have been granted an employment, and a house in K——. I have been there. It is beautiful. There is a lake.”

  The unraveler shook his head and then went on. “In your favor, only this: What does this woman mean to you? You have stated an intention to be married. It is a question of paperwork. As your wife, she would be free to go. I would not be able to prevent her.”

  Thanakar sat without speaking, conscious for the first time of a relaxation spreading through his body. His knee hurt less; his fingers felt less tight. “You are probably not aware,” said the unraveler, “that as customs officer for the Whisper District, I have the power to perform marriages. It is a power I have never used. The region is depopulated.”

  Again Thanakar said nothing. With a sigh the unraveler took a single sheet of paper from an open drawer by his left hand and placed it on the desk. It was a printed form.

  He pushed it across the desk towards Thanakar. “Fill it out,” he said, “and I will witness it. There is a space for your signature and for hers, without which it is invalid. A problem,” he continued, as Thanakar drew out his fountain pen. “Lack of proper identification. Does this worry you?”

  Thanakar did not reply for a few moments. He smiled. “Perhaps you’d better fetch her down,” he said. “This might come as a surprise to her.”

  “No,” said the unraveler. With his forefinger he stroked the lip of the jar of whiskey on his desk, producing a small sound. “This may help,” he said. “She has a silver rose tattooed on her right palm. Also a mole under her right ear. She is a lovely woman. I have no wish to look at her again.”

  At his words Thanakar felt hope inside his heart, expanding like a shining gas, making him lightheaded, making his fingers tremble as he uncapped his pen. The words of the certificate seemed to blur before his eyes. His normally precise signature was sloppy and unkempt.

  “Please understand,” continued the unraveler. “I’m giving you a chance to make things right. I spent last night down here. Sleeping in this chair. At least—I did not sleep. But once I went upstairs to check on her. To look at her—you understand. All I have done is contrary to regulations. I do not want to look at her again.”

  The marriage form was very short. Thanakar signed it and pushed it across the desk, his trepidation changing to astonishment as the man witnessed the paper without reading it, and stamped it with the endless knot. He dated the paper and pushed it back. His head sank low upon his chest. “Second door on the left side,” he murmured. “You can go up now. In five minutes I will go out to make my rounds. There is a break in the fence I must repair. It will take about an hour. When I come back, you will have gone.”

  Following the direction of the creature’s eyes, Thanakar noticed a small key among the papers on the desk. He rose and came forward. “Thank you . . .” he began, but then he stopped. The unraveler had winced as if he had been slapped.

  Thanakar picked up the key, along with his passport and safe-conduct. Through an open door
behind the office, he found a small, steep flight of stairs. At the top a narrow corridor spanned the width of the house. Through an open door he caught a glimpse of an empty room, low-ceilinged, with checked linoleum on the floor. Blue-flowered wallpaper was peeling from the walls. Thanakar put his hand out and leaned against the jamb. He could not bend his knee, it was so stiff.

  Farther down the hall, he unlocked a door and stepped inside. It led to a dark room with a strange, hot, pungent odor, like a place where an animal has slept. The blinds were drawn over the window. He stood inside the door, listening to the rhythmic sound of breathing from the bed. Tears started to his eyes, from what cause he couldn’t tell.

  After a moment he limped over to the bed and sat down by Charity’s side. He put out his hand to wake her and then hesitated. She was lying on her back with her mouth open, her face streaked with sugar and with dirt. How she had changed! He frowned. Perhaps his memory was wrong. But no, when he last saw her, she had been a prisoner, a princess of proud Charn. And now? World traveler, survivor, her cheeks worn rough and raw, her hair cut short.

  Her eyes were open. “Who are you?” she asked, her voice still full of sleep.

  “Don’t you recognize me?”

  She frowned. “I recognize your voice.” She pulled herself awake, and up onto one elbow. “Cousin,” she said. She, too, put her hand out and then pulled it back. Then she laughed. “I felt sure that you were dead.”

  He could not meet her eyes. “I also,” he said. “I heard that you had taken poison.”

  That was all. He couldn’t think of anything else to say. She was staring at his face, smiling, her eyes bright. He fiddled with the papers on his lap. He looked into her eyes for a moment, smiled nervously, and looked away.

  Her shoulder and her arm were naked, though she had pulled the sheet up tight around her throat. “Abu is dead,” she said.

  “I’d heard.”

  Thanakar chafed their marriage certificate between his fingers and stared down at his knee. Then he said, “The customs officer has released you. There’s no question of your going back. Here,” he said. “Here is the form.”

  In the dim light she had to squint to read it. She held it up close to the blind. First she smiled, and then she laughed aloud.

  “It’s a formality,” said Thanakar. “Otherwise he wouldn’t let you go. Just until you get a visa.”

  But she was smiling, still, and he was smiling too. “Not at all.” She sat up in bed and wrapped the sheet around her. “I’m happy just to see someone I know.”

  Part Nine:

  Thanakar in K——

  AT DAWN ON JANUARY 1ST OF THE NINTH PHASE of spring, Colonel Aspe crossed the Moldau River into Caladon with an army of eleven thousand men. He waded his horse into the shallows of the ford and raised his metal fist. On the Caladonian side a company of rangers watched him from the hill.

  The lieutenant lowered his binoculars. He ripped a page out of his notebook. Turning away, he scrawled a message on the page—a single line. Then he took from his belt a silver cannister and unscrewed the lid. Spindling the paper in his fingers, he thrust it into the cannister and sealed it with a strip of orange wax, which he took from a container at his wrist. Orange was the color of his regiment.

  He screwed the silver cap back on the cannister and pressed the wax down over it. He marked it with the signet of his ring, leaving a clear impression on the wax: his initial and, underneath, a tiger’s eye. Then he turned back without looking and held out his hand.

  The courier was there, a short, squat man. He wore a black plastic helmet and a suit of plastic steel, surmounted by a black cloth vest. He raised the message to his forehead, then slipped it underneath his glove. A hole had been gouged out of the flesh of his forearm, especially to contain it.

  The courier strode down the hill, his high boots awkward on the rock. His horse was waiting in a copse of broken trees, out of sight of the river, a huge, fierce creature, with a coat of rufous gray. As he approached, his grooms were busy with the horse, stripping off its mask, tightening its girths, giving it a last injection. The courier did not break his stride. When he reached them, they were finished, scattering away as he seized hold of the great curled gilded horn and swung himself into the saddle. The beast gave a cry, an airless whistle through the slits of its beak. It seemed to be resisting every step, as the rider kicked it down the hill and out into the road. Its pointed ears lay flat against its skull.

  A fresh wind rose up from the valley. The rider paused for an instant and lowered his visor. He chafed his whip against his boot as the wind moved over him, stirring the rows of pennants on his back. From rings in his armor two bamboo rods protruded past his head. One was sewn with orange flags, and one with pennants of the arms of Caladon, a red pig on a field of white. They rustled softly in the wind. When he was at full speed they made an urgent, beating sound, audible for half a mile.

  He cried out once and the horse was gone, pounding down the road. They did not stop that day. In way stations and villages, townspeople pulled their children from the mud, out of range of the pounding hooves and slashing claws of the great beast. Refugees stood aside upon the road, open-mouthed and fearful.

  Near nightfall on the Kodasch Road, the courier finally drew rein. In the courtyard of the king’s posthouse, when he came limping in the gate, another messenger waited in silence, his horse restive and kicking at the mud. He saluted as the first rider came up, and held his hand out for the silver cannister. Then he was off, not stopping till he crossed the Argon Bridge and stood before the gates of Caladon. In the early morning under a small rain, he stripped off his helmet in the mazelike streets near the cathedral. His horse slipped on the cobblestones; he leaped from the saddle and continued on foot through dirty alleyways, until the building stood before him. He hurried up the steps, up through the unguarded portals of the cathedral. Snatching a lighted taper from the wall, he ran down the first of countless corridors. Sometimes he caught glimpses of pilgrims along the way, lost among the chapels and the shrines, their faces pale and bewildered. He was a courier of the king. He knew the way, and when they saw him they cried out and tried to follow him, but he was faster than they were. He pushed through crowds of frightened people, turning always to the left, following a streak of turquoise in the gold mozaic of the floor. He followed traces of turquoise in the eyes and jewelry of the saints who lined the frescos on the walls, traces of indigo, traces of blue, which led him on through galleries of tapestries. He was searching for a single blue thread, and then a door with opal in its knob, which led him into rooms of icons, libraries of books. Exhausted, still he muscled forward, turning to the left and to the left. In the libraries he searched for clues among the titles of the books: Black Bread and Lapis Lazuli. Another, farther on: The Man with the Sapphire Hand. A third: Hills Like a Row of Plums. He smiled and reached up to touch its spine.

  He paused between a double row of pillars, each carved into a likeness of Beloved Angkhdt, one of the thirty-four true incarnations. Beyond and to the left, the hall was crowded with false incarnations, carved in bloodstone, marble, and obsidian. Some held in their hands stone globes of alternate, false worlds. One beckoned with a jeweled finger, and pointed farther on into the labyrinth.

  Finally, as the bells struck evensong, the courier made his way through the last portal, and staggered out into the sanctuary. There he was approached by black-robed ushers, who searched him for weapons and assigned him a place among the supplicants. Wearily he took a seat in the rotunda, along the outer tier. He sat back and closed his eyes, lulled by the chanting on the floor.

  Craton Starbridge saw him enter. He leaned forward in the darkness and touched Prince Mantikor upon the arm. He whispered in the prince’s ear, then rose and walked back up the southern aisle, signaling to certain spectators along the way. General Lakshman Starbridge stood up in his seat, watching the heavy shoulders of his cousin disappear into the dark. Then he turned back to the service.

  T
he round floor of the sanctuary was ablaze with light, from candles and from candelabra, and from a line of votive lamps around the wheel of the altar. In the center of everything a great four-headed statue of Immortal Angkhdt scowled up into the house, along the four directions of the compass. In a circle around him, acolytes greased the sacred reliquaries on the altar while the choir sang the antiphon. It was the hour of the second evening offertory. On his golden throne, surrounded by courtiers, Argon Starbridge changed his clothes, doffing orange robes for gray ones. Lord Bartek Multiflex was proffering a candy, his painted face shining with sweat.

  In the house among the outer seats, Craton Starbridge knelt beside the messenger. He took the silver cannister into his hand and broke the seal.

  “Light,” he said. One of the ushers behind him held a torch. The seventh minister for agriculture seized it, and by its light he read the message. Then he was up, moving through the ranks of worshipers, stopping from time to time to touch one on the shoulder.

  General Lakshman Starbridge was the first to leave, muttering and pulling on his gloves. Others followed him. In five minutes half the hall was empty, and a strange wavering had come into the voices of the choristers as they watched their audience depart.

  “How long is Your penis?” chanted the choir. “Surely it has pleased men and women without number. . . .”

  It was too much. Samson Mantikor jumped to his feet, his face dark with frustration. “Father,” he cried. “There is a messenger from Moldau Ford.”

  The chanting dwindled into silence. Stunned courtiers held their breaths. Then, almost imperceptibly, King Argon Starbridge nodded his masked head. The choir started up again, raggedly, unsurely, but then stopped abruptly as the prince came forward out of the first pews of worshipers, into the sanctuary light. “Father,” he cried again. “There is a messenger.”