Soldiers of Paradise

by Paul Park

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” continued the secretary’s voice. “The most precious of all jewels. Who could believe so much pain, so much suffering, so much violence, when surely there’s enough to make men happy, there, right there, within the grasp of your fist? Are you happy, Colonel? No? No, the sins that gave you flesh, transformed your spirit into earth, expelled you from a world of wonder, they are here with you. They have formed your body and your destiny. You have grown strong; yes, you feel the life in you, but you will die. Even you. Once dead, where then? Here?” And Aspe could see the secretary’s hands conjuring in the dark, describing circles around one of the small spheres. “No. For flesh as massive as yours, as arrogant, as rebellious, this one, I think. This one.” He gestured towards a smaller planet, one that burned bright red as it brushed the sun, and then cooled to onyx at the extremity of its orbit. “How many lifetimes here will it take to burn that flesh away? How many lifetimes before your spirit rises back to Paradise like a gassy cloud?”

  The secretary was silent. Colonel Aspe sat as if in a daze, the planets revolving around him. He was only vaguely aware of the atmosphere changing, of a door opening and closing, of a sweet voice saying, “Please don’t scold me. I came as fast as I could. Is this the man?”

  Nobody answered. Aspe half turned in his chair, and he saw a beautiful young woman, almost a girl, perhaps a thousand days past puberty. She was dressed in loose white clothes, and was surrounded by a cloud of light. He watched her with an unfocused mind, absorbed by little things, the play of light around her head, the sound of her breathing. She stood quite close to him. “Is this the new commander?”

  “No,” answered the secretary. “This is the last joke of a decadent emperor, a man who has forgotten God. He has sent an atheist to laugh at us.”

  “Are you sure? He looks like a real soldier. How strong he is!”

  “No, ma’am. He’s a savage. You are too young to remember. Before you were born, he led a band of atheists down through the snow almost to our borders. They were murdering your animals and eating human flesh. We captured him and sent him to the emperor for a cage in his garden, though if I had had my way he would have died in the topmost cell of the Tower of Silence. He may yet. I was not consulted, ma’am. Watch when he speaks. He has bewitched the emperor into freeing him, and now he has come here. It must not be. He is a dangerous man. Very . . . dangerous.”

  “I can see that for myself,” came the bishop’s soft, sweet voice. “He has rejected love. It’s evil, isn’t it, for a man to be so hard?”

  Colonel Aspe listened almost without understanding. He was staring at the bishop, because one look at the bishop’s face had awakened memories he didn’t know he had. Her face reminded him of a life immeasurably far away, up above Rangriver, where he had sung his music, before he lost his hand. How had he come so far? He didn’t know. Stung by memory, he sprang up from his chair as she bent over him, a look of terrible compassion on her face. He seized her underneath the jaw and forced her down, until he could see her expression change. And then he let her go; she stumbled to the ground, looking up at him with such sweet and fearless eyes, he found himself stripping off his glove, and with his bare fingers he reached down to touch her face so lightly, and push her hair back so tentatively, as if asking her a question when he was afraid to hear the answer. The priests raged feebly around him. The candles had come up, and the fire burned up brightly. He turned to it, suddenly sickened by the perfumed flame, and he stamped it underfoot and kicked the cinders with his boot. “I can’t wait for your reply,” he said loudly. “You have no choice.” He bent down and grabbed the bishop by the jaw. “You are very beautiful,” he snarled, as she stared up at him from the floor.

  Over the next few days, the colonel’s soldiers started to straggle in along the river road. They were small and ferocious men. They looked as if they had spent their whole lives on horseback, on high arid plateaus under the relentless sun; they were bowlegged and hunchbacked, their skin burned dark and crisp, their hair shaved, their eyebrows plucked, their jaws powerful and always moving, because they chewed some southern narcotic and spat it everywhere. In a few days the city was full of them, and they stabled their horses in the temples and put their tents up in the marketplaces and along the streets, and took what food they wanted from the roadside stalls. Yet they were disciplined too, and didn’t touch the women or break down any doors, just took what they wanted and sat in the rain inside their tents, chewing their drug with rotten teeth and whispering to each other in voiceless southern languages.

  The bishop’s council withdrew into the Temple of the Inner Ear, and sent impossible commands out to the captains of the garrison. But when the colonel raised the imperial standard from the top of the post office—a golden dog’s head on a midnight flag so big it seemed to float in slow motion—even the young captains of the purge came down to see him and to hear him speak. The war had continued all their lives, and even though they had all lost fathers, grandfathers, brothers, friends, still the war had seemed mythical and far away. There was never any news. Yet suddenly it had lumbered out of the mists of ignorance like a huge white ship out of a cloud—almost upon them, running them down—because now for the past week they had heard the enemy’s artillery smashing the outlying fortifications as the Starbridge army came reeling back, and the town was full of scoundrels and deserters. So the captains came to listen. And there were rumors of some vast necromancy coming from the temple, and in fact the tower of the Inner Ear had farted out some smelly smoke, but it had dissipated in the rain, it rained so hard.

  The colonel was everywhere, talking and yelling, but all day he would squeeze the town for food, and at night he had it taken in wheelbarrows down to the docks, where he was sleeping on a mat in some antinomial cave. There he prepared feasts, and people said they were eating meat down there too. He built soggy bonfires and stood out in the rain, and sang in the language of his own people, his harsh voice drawing pictures in the air, so that in the days that followed, the townspeople saw a sight that filled them with rage and fear—antinomials riding through the city on horseback, laughing and making music, and some were armed. Dogs slunk from the temples to follow them. Younger clergy—shopkeepers and bankers—hid their faces in dark doorways, making impotent gestures of purification.

  It rained for seven days, and on the seventh day, Abu and Thanakar and Charity Starbridge sat on the carpet in the prince’s room, smoking hashish. The prince had said something, and Thanakar was looking at his friend with a peculiar mix of tenderness and envy, because it seemed to him the prince had changed during the weeks he had spent cooped up, and not just gotten thinner. It was as if he had discovered a secret that had given him an answer, so that he didn’t have to fumble quite so much. He seemed less apologetic, surer of himself. “It’s a question of truth,” he said. “I’m sorry to disagree. You’re so clever, both of you. You can say what you want with words. But you missed the point. It’s not just that we should leave them alone—tolerance. It’s that we should learn to think as they do. Not like that, of course. We’re civilized men. Women.” He nodded to his sister. “We can’t turn back the clock. But we can learn something. Not to depend so much on other people.”

  “But depending on other people, that’s what civilization is,” said Thanakar.

  “Yes. I’ve heard you say that before. You’re right. So maybe I don’t mean that. Maybe I mean we should learn not to settle for things. You know how antinomials are. They act as if they want something desperately that doesn’t even exist, and they’re not going to rest until they get it. I mean if we could learn not to settle for happiness, or goodness, or usefulness. There must be something more.”

  “There is,” answered Thanakar. “There’s misery, and badness, and futility. We know all about that. Saying that you’re not going to settle for happiness is like standing on Earth and saying you’re not going to settle for eternity in Paradise. Why look beyond a goal you can’t reach?”

  “
But you can. We’ve made it so difficult. But it’s because we’ve kept happiness as a goal, far in the future, not even on this planet. But the antinomials are happy here and now. Or at least they were. Why do you think we hate them so much? If you look for happiness, it’s always out of reach. But they never worried about the future. They were always wanting something else.”

  “What?”

  “Freedom,” said the prince.

  “But freedom doesn’t mean anything. It’s just talk,” protested Thanakar. “Do they seem free to you? Even in their own minds?”

  “No. But that’s not the point. Maybe that’s why they tried to cut loose from meaning, along with everything else. Why they tried to clear all that away. So that all that would be left would be that eternal hunger. That empty feeling in your heart. That’s what makes you happy.”

  “An empty feeling in your heart? You’re on drugs. You don’t have to be a rich man for that. That’s within reach of the poorest.”

  Abu laughed, foolish and embarrassed. “I can’t explain,” he said, passing the pipe. “But I’m not the only one. There are a lot of people who worship them, almost. The adventists. You told me that’s the only reason the bishop let them live. Because she didn’t want to make them into martyrs for the adventists.”

  “Yes. But that’s because of what they represent, not what they are. They represent freedom, I’ll grant you that. They represent a fantasy of Paradise. Freedom, equality, no property—lives of pure spirit. The adventists thought their savior would come from there. Their king. A lot still think so.”

  Charity Starbridge said nothing, just taking the pipe as it was passed to her. For months she had barely spoken. But, she thought, I too am happy, like an antinomial. She had gotten very thin. Her thinness had given her face an appealing, famished quality, different from beauty, but not too different. Her eyes seemed very large. “I’m happy,” she said. “I’m happy just to be with you, and not in my room. Both of you.”

  Abu smiled and reached to touch her hair, but Thanakar looked at her pityingly. What a prison that is, he thought, only to be able to say pleasant things. No wonder she hardly speaks. As a girl, he remembered, she had had a gleeful and sarcastic tongue.

  Commissar Micum knocked and entered. He carried two envelopes in his hand. “News,” he said. He smiled at his wife, and she smiled back and tried to stand, to make the compulsory gestures of delight, but she had smoked too much. So she did them from the floor and banged her head into the carpet, and then sat up, rubbing her head and laughing. She was glad to see him, for the commissar was always kind to her, and she no longer expected more than kindness. Her sincerity showed in the way she moved her hands—not as skillfully as some wives, but happily. She clapped her hands and offered him the pipe. He shook his head. “Business before pleasure, love,” he said.

  “What’s new?” asked Thanakar.

  “The bishop has a new commander,” said the commissar. He was excited. He held one fist in the small of his back and walked crisply towards them, bending slightly forward at the waist. In the middle of the floor he stopped to brandish his envelopes. “There’s a new mobilization order for tomorrow. Even for old carrion like me.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t go,” said Charity, smiling.

  “But I want to go, love.”

  “Then I hope you will.”

  Thanakar got to his feet. “Congratulations, sir,” he said.

  “Thank you, my boy. I’m sure it’s just a baggage train. Grave-digging detail. But there’s good news all round. These are your commissions.” He gestured with the envelopes.

  Thanakar reached to grab them, and the commissar kept talking. “It’s something new. He wants a field hospital. The bishop must be livid. Quite illegal, of course, but it had to come. I always said it had to come, and if it takes an atheist to push it through, then God bless him for it. You’re commissioned surgeon, with a provisional rank of captain. Captain Thanakar Starbridge!” He saluted gleefully, and then he stopped. “There’s one for you too,” he said to Abu.

  “They’ve sunk as low as that? They must be desperate. They must be going to lose,” said the prince calmly. He sat on the carpet as before, without moving, staring straight in front of him.

  It crossed Thanakar’s mind again that his friend had changed somehow, acquiring a sense of purpose somewhere. There was an uncomfortable silence. Then Abu’s old, foolish look came back, and he smiled uncertainly, because the commissar was looking very stern. “I’m sorry,” he stammered. “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. We have you to thank for this, don’t we?”

  “No,” said the commissar. “It’s not a question of privilege. It’s a question of duty,” and Thanakar thought he had never seen him angry before. “I admit it’s not much. Provisional only, and only if you behave yourself. Second-lieutenant, supply corps.”

  “Thank you. I’m not going.”

  “Good God, what do you expect? Lieutenant-colonel?”

  “Thank you. It’s better than I deserve, I know. I’m grateful to you. But I’m not going.”

  “Not going?” The commissar was furious. “You have to go.”

  “I don’t have to do anything. I refuse to fight for such a cause.”

  “Cause? What cause? There is no cause. You’ll go because you’re what God made you. A damn poor excuse for a soldier. You talk as if you had a choice.”

  “But I do have a choice. I hate the bishop, and I won’t fight for her. Not for any of them. What I don’t understand is, you hate them too.”

  “The bishop is one thing; God is something else. Aspe is an atheist. The bishop had him carried through the streets in a cage. He’s not complaining, is he?”

  There was a pause. Thanakar hadn’t spoken. Then he squatted down in front of the prince. “Come on,” he said gently. “It’s all nonsense. You have to go. Don’t be afraid. I’ll take care of you. We’ll go together.”

  Abu looked at him with loathing. “You,” he said. “You hypocrite! I thought you were like me. I thought you hated the world because it was unfair. Because it’s cruel and corrupt and runs on lies. I thought you wanted to change it. No—you only hate it for what you think it did to you. If you had been born with a straight leg, you would have been as proud and stupid and careless as any of them.”

  “I was born with a straight leg,” said Thanakar between clenched teeth. “He dropped me.”

  “Shut up!” shouted Abu. “I don’t care. If you’re not brave enough to throw it back at them now, then I never want to see you again.” The prince was crying. Tears ran down his face. He got to his feet and turned away from them, and walked over to a table across the room, where there was a bottle and some glasses. He poured himself a drink.

  “I’ll tell you why you have to go,” said the commissar quietly. “It’s the bargain you made. A rich, pampered man; look at you. It’s the bargain you make every month when you cash the bishop’s check. You made it. You can’t turn back on it now.”

  Outside the window, it had gotten dark. The rain had stopped. Prince Abu swallowed some liquor, but his nose and throat were clogged with tears so that he coughed, and some of it slopped down his uniform. “Thank you,” he said when he had recovered breath. “That makes things very clear. It resolves something I’ve been thinking about. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to be alone. You too, Charity.”

  “By God, no. Listen to me . . .” said the commissar, but Abu interrupted. “Please,” he said, and raised his hand, and even in the half-light, through the cuts and scabs, they could see the tattoo of the golden sun. “Do as I say.”

  The commissar cursed, pale with anger, and he turned on the heel of his boot and marched out. Thanakar and Charity followed him, not without backward glances, but Abu had turned back towards the window and was looking out over the city, a glass of liquor in his hand.

  Part Four:

  God’s Soldiers

  THE ARMY OF ARGON STARBRIDGE, King of Caladon, was camped that night around the monaste
ry of St. Serpentine Boylove, sixty miles north of Charn. But the king had sent out skirmishers almost to the city walls. In the morning, Colonel Aspe rode out to meet them at the head of his regiment, and accompanied by a ragged corps of antinomials: over a thousand men and women, some with babies at their breasts. He had recruited them from the docksides, where the rising water had driven them from their holes. Or rather, they had chosen to come, and he had armed them and given them horses, huge carnivorous beasts from the emperor’s own stables. Once on horseback, some had simply ridden away over the hills, but most had stayed, because food was very scarce.

  They rode all day through haggard countryside—not a house, or a stick, or a flower, or a blade of grass. In that season, the hills were stripped to their foundations: petrified mud and sand dunes, black, red, and a hundred shades of gray, mile after mile. The valleys were wide and desolate, and there was no water anywhere, despite the recent rain, nothing underfoot but sand, and rocks the size of eggs.

  They reached a town about seven miles out, tall stone abandoned houses with the roofs gone and the doors groaning open. In the square was a dry fountain choked with rocks, and a huge statue of Immortal Angkhdt, squatting down on dog’s haunches. His whole face had been worn away by the wind, and towards afternoon the wind began to blow, and it filled their eyes and noses with blown sand. Yet still the antinomials laughed and sang, and when they saw the flags of the enemy on a ridge over the town, they spurred their horses forward without thinking, disorganized and wasting powder. Aspe let them go. At that time he had no control over them. In a few hours they were back, in a swirl of dust, and some carried severed heads on the tops of spears. During their long captivity they had learned much, and if they hadn’t yet discovered love, most had learned to hate, and hate bitterly enough to overcome their solitary pride and make it possible for them to ride together. Many deserted every day, but most of these came back after a while, hungry.