by Lavie Tidhar
Someone tugged at her arm. She looked around and saw a little Eurasian girl, about four to five. She had Si’s eyes and tanned skin. “Mother,” the little girl lisped but her words were clear and her eyes bright. “Share.”
She woke up then and stared at the roof of the lower deck. Si was snoring softly next to her. She placed a hand on her flat abdomen, realization dawning.
* * *
They managed to harvest more of the lotus roots and bottled the water for further consumption. Their upper deck was laden with food and water. Enough to last a month or even more. Si rigged up the distiller to clean the water and Cecily washed the mud off the roots.
The mobile jangled, breaking the comfortable silence. It was a sharp rude sound shattering a peaceful morning. Si got to his feet and ran to confront the intruder.
A tenant—an old man, hobbled with age, dressed in plain yellow shirt and tattered brown pants—looked up shocked, with eyes wide as if he was caught in the middle of searchlights. His arms held a bundle of lotus flowers and one large fish dangled from his right arm.
“Thief!” Si snarled and leapt over, knocking the man down with a solid punch to the jaw. The lotus flowers fell, scattered. The fish flopped on the unsteady floor, still living, mouth gaping away. It was that fresh. There was a feral look in Si’s face, an unwholesome gleam in his eyes. Hunter’s eyes. Predator’s eyes. “Thief!” And he kicked the old man.
The old man cowered, trembling and terrified. His face was bruised. His limbs shook.
“Sorry, sir, I was just taking some of the ’looms and ’ish,” the old man quavered. He must have been in his late seventies. “It is all out there, free, sir…”
“We found it, old man,” Si snapped. Cecily realized how ugly he looked like that. What had happened to her quiet and placid companion? “Now, go.”
“But sir, I have ’randchildren to feed and my youngest daughter is ’regnant,” the old man choked and wept. Cecily’s heart clenched.
“It’s ours,” Si bit out, his eyes dark with rage.
Cecily knelt down, picked the fish up and gave it to the old man. “Here, take it. You need it.” The fish was slick and warm, still twitching, in her hands.
The old man looked at her half-fearfully, half-thankfully. Grabbed the fish and scrambled back onto a little run-down kayak. He pedaled away as if he was being chased by a ferocious demon.
“Why did you hit him?” Cecily shot accusing eyes at Si. “He was just an old man.”
“He was taking our food,” Si answered grimly, color still high in his face.
Mine. Ours. Theirs.
There was a horrible taste in her mouth. It was bile.
It was disgust.
* * *
She refused to talk to her companion for the rest of the day, spending more time below deck. She was unable to knit; her thoughts were heavy and sobering. She kept on rewinding the incident in her head: the old man, the old man hit in the face, Si punching him, the lotuses and fish flung onto the floor.
She placed a palm on her belly. She knew that she was pregnant, so they needed the pool of lotus flowers and fish even more. For the nutrients and the protein. For…
The old man quivering with fear, balled up in a fetal position, as Si punched him.
Mine. Ours. Theirs.
There was the taste of bitter bile again in her mouth and she washed it down with clean water.
It was theirs. She wanted to believe that. They found it. However, there were people who needed the water, the lotuses and the fish as well. The pool was theirs too.
Were they indeed living free? Or were they still tied up in old feuds and conflicts driven by need? Should they stake a claim on the lotus pond? Was she turning into a lander?
Her head throbbed. She felt sick to the core.
* * *
She spent a sleepless dreamless night and woke up, feeling exhausted. Si was up early and making breakfast. She could smell a sweet fragrance: they had ground the lotus seeds into flour and he was making pancakes from it.
She ate in silence just as Si ate in silence. They were both mulling over the same incident.
“I don’t like the way you hit the old man,” she began by saying and Si looked at her closely. “He needed the food for his family.”
Si swallowed his pancake hard and stared at her. “I just don’t like the idea of him taking from the pool.”
“The pool is wild. The lotuses and fish are wild. It is a free place, Si.” Cecily started to feel angry and knew that her voice was becoming louder. “The water flows free.”
“Now you are talking,” Si whined, his face sullen. “Just a couple of days ago, you wanted the pool to yourself.”
Cecily shut her mouth. The words struck home. It hurt. She did want the pool. It felt like hers. It was hers. Or was it?
“I think we should go,” she managed to say again, her voice soft. “Take what we need and go. The Waterways will provide for us, I am sure.” And I am pregnant—
Si’s eyes. They were angry, sad and disappointed. “Why? Why should we go? I am tired of being a boater and this place is just perfect.”
“If we stay,” Cecily said firmly, “there will be disagreements. Quarrels. Fights.” She sipped the water. “If we stay, the pool will not be free anyway. It will come with a price. Our price. Their price. We will end up paying.”
“Feh,” Si spat and stalked out from the upper deck, throwing the half-eaten pancake petulantly onto the floor. It crumbled instantly. Cecily could only stare and feel a dull ache in her heart. Conflict, unpleasant and dangerous, was already starting to creep in like winter chill.
* * *
She went to the pool and sat down next to it, beside the musty beams and steel rafters. Sunlight still glowed in the middle. Fish swam peacefully. The lotus flowers tilted their faces towards the sun. It was such an idyllic place. And it could so easily become a place of tension, anger and—
Boaters lived free. It was a code all of them knew, understood and took to heart. With the Washing, the concept of home was removed and the Waterways were created, because Earth was now covered with water. They had taken away the concept of money; barter trade was the lingua franca now. Boaters moved freely. Fluidly. Nobody made rules for them.
Staying next to the hotel, guarding the pool, had begun to engender unspoken rules. If they stayed longer, she was sure that they would start making laws. When to harvest the lotus plants. How many to harvest? How many fishes to be netted? How many liters of water to be collected? And penalties would be implemented, if such laws were being transgressed, breached. They would end up behaving no better than the landers. Perhaps we are no better than the landers, because we are all humans, Cecily pondered, concluding her internal argument with this sad realization.
She buried her face in her hands. She had begun to love this pool and its riches. Yet deep down inside her, she knew that the pool was free. The lotus plants were wild and so were the fish. The water was free to everyone who used it. If she stayed, she would put a price on all of them.
The pool was to be shared.
She clambered back up to the boat, only to find Si sitting contemplatively on the upper deck of Flotsam. He had somehow cleared the pancake off the floor.
“Cecily,” Si said and his voice was gentle. He came over and held her hands. “I am sorry. I was behaving like a royal jerk.”
They hugged each other tightly. When they let go, Si gazed at her. “I have thought it over. We should go. I mean, there are paths in the Waterways less traveled. And I am getting tired of New York anyway.” He smiled, trying to lighten the mood. “Never liked the city… Makes me mad all the time.”
“Si!” She said. “Oh, Si.”
They both made their last trip to the pool and harvested what they needed. They bottled enough water to last until the next Trading Post, netted enough fish to be salted and frozen; and bundled enough lotus plants—flowers, roots and leaves—for a month. Enough for personal consumption and for b
arter. When they looked back, there were still many lotus plants left, swaying slightly in the breeze. The fish were still plentiful. The water was still sweet to the taste. The pool was wild and free.
Cecily packed everything in the supply box while Si lifted anchor and started the engines. Flotsam sputtered into life once more, sounding as if he was grumbling about the previous inertia.
With not a backward glance, they sailed away and journeyed down the Waterways once more.
* * *
Glossary
Ikan selar—Horse mackerel, a fish popular in Malaysia and Singapore.
Kebaya—A traditional blouse worn by women in Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore.
Kueh—Bite-sized sweetmeats, including cakes, pastries and cookies. They are often made with coconut cream. Some of them are savory.
Maju—Also known as Mazu or Matsu, a benevolent Goddess revered in Taiwan, Fujian, Guangdong and Vietnam. Protectress of the sea and sea-farers.
Paper money—Incense or ceremonial paper made for burning rituals. The ingots are made from them, symbolizing wealth, in the afterworld.
Sarong—A tube or wrap of cloth worn by both men and women. It is often covered with intricate designs and vivid colors.
15th lunar day—Full moon.
Dark Continents
Lavie Tidhar
1.
“I contend that we are the first race in the world and that the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race.”—Cecil Rhodes
2.
We began to edit, but we were sloppy at first.
3.
Cecil Rhodes marches into the Ndebele stronghold in the Matobo Hills, unarmed, of which it was written:
Low-lying clouds rest on the Matobo Hills
precariously balanced
in the stillborn morning air
like the snores of sleeping elephants
It is 1897 by your count, and the Ndebele people are at war with the British. “Lay down your weapons,” he says. He is an imposing figure, a fatherly white man. Standing against him the chiefs are black against night. In the distance the elephants call to each other. A bird cries overhead.
The Ndebele are persuaded to lay down their arms, ending the Second Matabele War.
We began to edit, but we were sloppy at first.
4.
Cecil Rhodes marches into the Ndebele stronghold, unarmed.
His whiteness is startling against the night. His moustache is a bold stroke of black on a white canvas. “Lay down your weapons,” he says.
There is a disconcerting silence.
“Hello?” Cecil Rhodes says, into the night. “Hello?”
There are no Ndebele here. What is that moving in the darkness? Rhodes squints into the night. “What—?” he begins to say.
The giant bugs rise out of the ground. The product of a parallel evolution, from a world which never knew a human. A world so close you could touch the membrane of its wall, a world so far you would never see it. The bugs are eight feet in length, armoured and intelligent. They carry spears which fire a gooey green poison. They swarm over Rhodes. They grab him and hold him captive. He screams. The leader of the bugs approaches the captive. “Go back to your people,” he says, in a clear, unaccented English. “And tell them to surrender.”
5.
The first Human-Bug War lasted between 1897 until the death of Queen Victoria in 1901.
6.
The bugs evolved in a parallel space. There are many spaces. Only we see them. We are artists, not barbarians. We mix. We remix. We edit.
The bugs invaded southwards, at first. Down through Rhodesia, down to South Africa, crashing the Boers in the Orange Free State and making it all the way to Cape Town without being seriously challenged. They were hungry for resources—we made sure of that. They took hold of the ships in the harbour and turned their compound eyes to Europe.
Their fleet sailed towards England in the winter of 1898.
7.
They had crossed the ocean and sailed all the way up the Thames before they were stopped, and the Thames from Greenwich to London Bridge was filled with the floating corpses of giant bugs.
8.
I remember the fires. The spring of 1899. We had fished them out of the river and piled them in huge heaps by the wharf-side and set them aflame. Their carapace burned drily, they crisped as they burned, translucent wings flew in the air like burning kites. The smell was not unpleasant: they smelled of aniseed.
9.
We were the invaders but also the invaded; we saw through multiple eyes.
We began to remix but we were sloppy at first.
10.
A second wave of bugs emerged from the trans-dimensional gate at the Matobo Hills. The Ndebele, wisely, stayed out of their way. The bugs swarmed South and East, to Mozambique. They overwhelmed the colonial Portuguese forces and gained their ships. They set sail for Europe again.
11.
I once followed the contours of the Thames at low tide. This was in 2011. I had a metal detector. We were looking for coins. We were under Waterloo Bridge when it began to beep. I knelt in the wet sand and dug my fingers into the ground. The river smelled of sewage. My fingers found something cold and hard and I plucked it out and cleaned the sand off it and turned it in my hand, over and over.
“What is it?” she said. I showed her. She took it from me and examined it thoughtfully.
It was a coin. On one side of the coin was the year. 1901. On the other was the profile of the Queen.
But it wasn’t human.
It was the face of a bug, an alien thing. What expression it had I could not tell. “What is it?’—it was my turn to ask.
“It’s an anomaly,” she said.
“A what?”
“It’s a Fortean object,” she said. “Something that should not exist.”
I looked at her. She was very beautiful with the dying sun in her hair. Overhead seagulls cried. “It fell,” she said. “Through a time-slip. It’s from another when.”
“Throw it back in the river,” I said, and when she did nothing I shouted, “Throw it back!” and I was afraid, even if I didn’t know why. She slipped it into her jeans pocket. “Let’s go back,” she said. Later, I looked for it in her pocket, but I never saw the coin again.
12.
We were careful but slippages happen. Rather than go forward we went back, instead.
Lake Nyasa, 1859. David Livingstone was resting in the sands of Chembe Village, on the southern shore of the lake, when pain shot up his left arm. I was a boy, then. I had come to stare at the white man when he began to breathe heavily. His face was twisted with pain. He spoke, though I did not understand his words. I had seen such an illness before. I knew that he was dying.
I pointed at the stars, then pointed at the near distance, to Thumbi Island. An unearthly glow rose behind the trees on the island. I saw the white man’s eyes follow the direction of my finger but whether he saw or understood the nature of the glow I did not know. There was no time to waste. I helped him up and into the canoe. The moon was up, lighting the bay. It was why we were not fishing that night. I rowed us to the island, worrying all the while that the white man would die, and that I would be blamed. But he did not die and I brought him to the island and there they took him and gave him a new heart, as I knew they would.
13.
It had been a trivial thing to arrange.
14.
In 1861 Livingstone released the boy Chuma from slavers.
“We must fight slavery in all its forms,” Livingstone said.
“I understand,” Chuma said.
15.
Chuma’s army resembled that of Hong Xiuquan, the Heavenly King, who had raised a million men to fight an empire in the Taiping Rebellion. They followed him and his white man across the continent: Yao at first, then Chewas and Ndebele and Shona and Zulus, a rising tide of dark loam becoming the sea. The doctor had been touched by the divine, it was said. His
heart glowed in his chest at night, a dull red that penetrated through his pale skin. He was always behind Chuma, Chuma the Brave, Chuma the Fearless. Chuma the divine.
In another timeline he was Livingstone’s faithful servant. In this one he was a messiah reborn, a new Hong Xiuquan for another, older continent. He called and they followed, slaves and freedmen, from all across the continent. They had stormed the Swahili nations of the coast and subdued them, and took Zanzibar almost without a fight. From Zanzibar they could go anywhere. Chuma sent diplomats across the old trade networks the Europeans had damaged like the silk of a spider’s web. Damaged but not destroyed. He reached out to India. And he set sail, at last, with his captured ships, to the New World, his faithful doctor by his side.
16.
Richmond, Virginia, burned to the ground.
17.
As the Civil War erupted the Southern states were hemmed in by the North on one side and Chuma’s forces coming in from the sea. Southern refugees escaped to the North as Chuma’s forces landed and former slaves joined the revolt. By 1865 the North and South signed a ceasefire, and Chuma’s Confederacy came officially into being.
18.
Or remix, re-edit, fast forward, backtrack.
The way it almost was:
May First, 1873.
In one time-line a retired President Chuma visits David Livingstone’s hospital room in New Nyasa, in what used to be called Richmond, Virginia. He sits by his old friend’s bed, waiting for the end.
Not in this one:
Ilala. Southeast of Lake Bangweulu. May 1st, 1873. The doctor is lying on the bed, dying. They can both sense it, Susi and Chuma, who had been with the doctor for years. Malaria and internal bleeding is leeching the life out of him. With the last of his power he kneels in prayer by the bed, and it is in that position that they find him.
They take him outside and lay him down gently on the ground. They strip him of his clothes. His body is old and scarred from travel. Susi holds the knife. He cuts the doctor’s corpse open as Chuma reaches inside, fingers stained with blood, and carefully removes the doctor’s heart that we gave him.
