by Joy Dettman
Of these young, the female infants were taken to the creche which had been prepared for this purpose. It had been decreed that the Chosen might not claim, nor name, the females, for from their wombs would come a new and better world.
Of this first breeding season, seven female infants survived their third year, for reasons which were many.
Of the one hundred and sixty-two female breeders, ninety-seven survived the first three years of the lock-down, for reasons which were many.
THE SCENT OF FREEDOM
How different my world is in the dawn. I wake not to walls and the scent of chem-wash, but to the perfume of the earth. It has the odour of old freedom. I breathe it in, opening my mouth to it, and my heart to it, tasting it on my tongue as I move Jonjan’s head from my lap. On my knees, then, I look out at the pink glow of misty morn, thinking of all the days he will never know.
But he stirs, turns his face to me. ‘Who?’ he whispers.
‘I am here, Jonjan.’
‘You?’
‘I am here.’
‘Leg.’
‘It is bad. Sleep, and dream of a better place. I will stay with you.’ Expecting his death, I am surprised by his tenacity for life.
‘Cut it.’
Lenny’s knife is sharp. Had not the idea to free him from his rotting leg occurred to me more than once? Last night the smell of it was as meat left in the freezer when we had no batteries to make the generator run. It is cleaner now and the smell less, but the bone is visible. It will not mend itself – and I can not cut him now as I could not last night.
I think to lie, to tell him I have no knife. Surely he was unaware when I cut the leg of his overall. I look at the slim-bladed thing glinting beneath a newborn sun. It is the one both Lenny and Pa used in the past to scrape the hair from their faces, when they bothered to scrape the hair from their faces. It is the one they used to cut the meat when they butchered a pig or bullock; each day since I stole it, Lenny has looked for it and cursed his misfortune at its loss.
‘Sleep, Jonjan.’
‘Sleep . . . is death. Help me.’
‘I can not help myself.’ My voice is a cry for understanding, and my eyes, as I look down at his, mimic my voice.
‘Cut it.’
The plasti-wrap still holds water. I pour a measure carefully into my can, add sweetened milk and a little cordial, then hold the mixture to his lips. He empties it, his hand raised to grasp my own. He has strength in that hand and the death I saw for him last evening does not now seem so near.
‘Cut it off,’ he says.
‘You ask of me that which I can not do!’
He does not speak again, but sleeps. I mix a small cordial then fill the space in my bottle with water, and I watch him while I drink, watch him until full light comes to the rocks and I may climb for more water.
From the cave mouth I look down at the house. The grey men will have been and gone. I will return, tell Lenny and Pa of the stranger. It is all I can do for him. Lenny would have the strength to cut that leg. I can not. But I shake my head, for I think Lenny’s only assistance would be in assisting Jonjan to die.
He is not near dying when I return and again mix cordial. His hand reaches for it.
‘Their tomorrow juice,’ he says. ‘I will drink it gladly if you will give me a tomorrow.’ I do not understand his words, but give him the cordial. He drinks. ‘Cut it off, or give me the knife so I might cut it myself.’
I shake my head; my mouth will not make words. I turn my face to the basket and find a can of fruitjell. My knife for a spoon I feed him. He eats all I offer. How he wants life, and how can I deny him even a slim chance of life? The second time I give him stronger cordial. He understands my intention, drinks it, and so soon sleeps.
Golden eyebrows and lashes, sweet mouth, sun-ravaged face; it still holds such beauty. I watch him as I eat a crispbite and think of the nausea of yesterday, and think it was an illness of yesterday, when the foetus inside me was grey. Today it is a golden thing, for it is a part of him, and beautiful. And it is strong as he is strong, as Granny was strong. And I think it will lend me strength enough to do what must be done. Did it not lend me strength enough to do that thing with Lenny? Did I not do that thing with Lenny for my foetus?
‘You are a freeborn, and for you I will live free, and he will live,’ I whisper. My face to the morning sun I kneel, and a great calm steals over me, cancelling indecision and doubt. This thing I will do. This thing I can do.
It is odd, but as when I make my better paintings, my consciousness, once centred on its chosen path, allows no sideways glances. I see no sun, no shadow; the earth stands still for me, the hollow of its silence filling my senses as the painting finds it way out of the ancient core of me. So this will be my finest painting yet. I will paint our freedom on the earth with his blood.
The fire from the city men’s guns spills no blood. I will need fire. All I need is given. In his overall, he has many pockets and in one I find a flick-flame. I have the paper that wrapped my cordial, and there is much dead wood and bark above me. I collect enough and build a small fire in the rear of the shelter. There is smoke and the scent of it will be on the wind, but I can not think of this now.
Soon I have red coals and the silver gleam of my knife blade becomes red then blue. This is my only reality, but the black crow has come to watch. I stare at its leg, stare until it becomes a clawed hand, an arm of bone and scar and sinew, stare at it until I am in the kitchen, and Granny is there, preparing herself for pain.
If I pass out, girl, do it any way you can. You’ll know when the ends click. You’ll feel it in your hand. Do it right, or you’ll be cutting the arm off the next time.
She had fallen on the stairs and her bone had snapped. I had wanted Lenny to straighten the arm. I had wanted to get Pa, but she would not allow them to witness her weakness.
You’re a female, girl. Where is your guts?
With both hands, then, I had held tightly to her hand, my feet braced against the table leg, as she had instructed. On the count of three, she had jerked her shoulder back, hard, and made not a murmur. The arm was straight. With my own hands I had felt the joining of that bone.
Not a word had she spoken as she sat on her chair, waiting there unmoving for me to do my work.
No fat on that arm, and little muscle. At her instruction, I had previously wetted a book cover, curved it, shaped it to fit between elbow and wrist. This I placed around the arm, then bound it tight with fabric, glancing often from her arm to her lashless eyes which were near closed. Only when it was done had she opened them. I had seen gratitude, even praise in those eyes, though it was short-lived. Her arm healed, but poorly; she had little use of it. Still she had been of a very great age. Jonjan is a young man, and strong.
I am staring at the rock and at the crow, staring, thinking, the knife and the cutting forgotten. I take up his ankle and pull. He screams.
So I will distance myself from his scream. I remove the long cords that tie his shoes and I join them, fasten one end around his ankle. I brace my feet against the rock wall and I pull. He screams and I drop the cord. No good is done. I am not strong enough except to give him more pain.
The sun beats into our cave now. Soon this place will be too hot to bear. I rest a moment, studying the open wound in the too bright light. It appears clean. Certainly last night it had the smell of rotting meat – or had the odour come from the squirming mass which had feasted there? I flick a last white grub from the wound with the tip of my knife. One puff of smoke and it is gone. In the old world, all creatures served a purpose, Granny had once said. In the new world, man has shaped nature to his liking, and all natural purpose has been lost.
The knife again in the coals I begin to release the cord, preparing my mind again to cut, but what purpose can one leg serve in these hills? How does a man with one leg climb? So I will make one last attempt. I will lift and jerk the leg hard, as Granny had jerked her arm. I will tug on that cord, twist it
until I feel the click of bone joining, and let him bring the ghosts from out of these hills with his screams, for I have no stomach to spill his blood.
I turn him until his feet are close to the twisted tree. I will loop the cord around a lower branch so it might lift the leg. The cord is not long enough. I cut the ties from my half-dress and join them to the cord, test its strength as I look at the slim branch, hoping it too has strength enough. The ties looped around it, I force more cordial into his mouth, hoping it may silence his screams, then I stand, my face to the sun, waiting for my consciousness to centre, and for the great silence to return.
And it comes. Slowly, then, I wind the half-dress tie around and around my hand.
‘One.
‘Two.’
There is no count of three. Instead I lift the leg high, pull, twist it, and the small branch complains, but if Jonjan complains I do not hear him. Then I see the jerk of bone finding bone and I feel it in my hand. I feel it in my hand.
Fast now. Lord, let him not move now. No moulded book cover to support this break, but strong bark I did not burn for it had been ready curved by nature to the shape of his leg. I cut it to length, snap two small branches from the tree and say that this will do. It is all I have, so I will make it do.
I use the cord from his shoes and my half-dress ties to bind the splint, then rip more bandage from my half-dress. He does not move. Perhaps I have killed him with the pain of it, or with the cordial, but I will not think of that now.
I choose to bind his leg above the ankle and below the knee, leaving the raw flesh free. It takes too long to brace the leg with my meagre equipment, and twice when I feel myself weakening, I sip too well from the bottle. But, oh, the grand sense of achievement when it is done. Such a fine thing I have accomplished with my hands.
The wound, having been disturbed, bleeds profusely. Surely this is good. Is it not nature’s way of cleansing? I watch it, wait for it to slow; he appears to have little enough of the stuff, his colour is ashen. But he is breathing, and while I watch, the bleeding slows, and surely the wound does not gape as previously. I think it is as if his cells, in celebration, already begin to weave.
I try to stand then, to stretch cramped limbs, and for a moment I can not gain my feet. My head is light, and I near fall. For too long I have crouched over my labour. Still on my knees, I look for the sun and see that morning is well gone and we are in shade. Is it any wonder that my legs are numb? Holding firmly to a rock I wait until blood circulates and the noise of the land returns to cancel the pounding in my ears, all the while staring at my hands. So familiar, but so strange they are, like some fantasy, like the last remnants of a dream I have dreamed. Unreal.
‘But you are real,’ I tell my hands as I lift them from the rock, stare at their palms, at their fingers. ‘Up here, you have become real and I have found a lost part of me, and that lost part of me has done very well. These hands, my hands, have given him a chance at life.’
The fingers, long fine things, are red with his blood. They do not look at all like my useless hands.
(Excerpt from the New World Bible)
Year 21 of the New Beginning saw the first Harvesting of female ovum, for in that year, in all of the known world there were fifty-five female breeders and seventeen not yet of breeding age. And the mortality rate of the newborn was high. In this year there was much experimentation in the laboratories, and much engineering and development.
The year 22 saw the Implanting of Harvested ovum onto the bowels of those males who volunteered to carry it. And they did not carry it long, and it was wasted.
There was much waste in that year, for the corn crop failed, and the potato rotted within the earth and there was much hunger. With hunger came disunity.
The Chosen despaired. Time would defeat the birth of a new world. Thus the Chosen looked again to the old world. And the engineers studied the flying machines of the last age, while the scientists made modifications to seed and to the embryo of a sow, and they Implanted it into carrier sows. Some infants were born of this method but did not survive.
In the next decade of the New Beginning came the modified sow which wore the eyes of man and the snout of the beast. And its ovum was Harvested, and from it and the cells of a volunteer came a litter of twelve.
And they were neither swine nor man, and they had no minds but to suckle at multiple nipples.
There was much interest and much debate on ethics. And there was much disunity between the scientists and priests, and those who held great power and position. In the interval of arguments and reports done, it was seen that the litter would grow strong.
And they grew fast. And they were docile. These creations were named Sowmen, and in time the sowmen freed man of all labour in the fields.
And there was time for progress.
JONJAN
Jonjan is awake before the sun. He reaches out to me and takes my hand. I spring into wakefulness. Lord, I have raised him from the dead.
It is later when we talk of his leg and the splint I have placed on it.
‘So you have set the bone, mountain girl?’
‘If the leg is better on than off we will soon know,’ I say, offering him a soup of mashed cornbeans and water. He wishes to talk more, but I wish him to finish what is in the can.
How free I am in this place, how certain my decisions and actions. I brush the hair from his face, wipe the spilled cornbean soup from his chin.
‘Was it yesterday?’
‘Only yesterday, now drink this.’ I offer a weak cordial, but he turns his head away. ‘Are you not in pain, Jonjan?’
‘I am in pain. And pleased to greet it, and to greet this day.’ He coughs, coughs hard, and I place my ear to his chest, afraid I will hear the bubbling of fluid in his lungs, as it had been with Granny in the final days of her illness. There is no bubbling. Not yet.
‘Drink a little. I have made it quite weak. It will ease the pain, and your coughing.’ I sip first from the container of cordial, then hold it again to his lips. He will have none of it. Perhaps later, I think.
His leg has swollen in the night, which gives me some fear; still, can I expect less after yesterday’s mutilation? My hand moves quickly to his brow, rests there a while. Perhaps he does not feel so hot today. Perhaps his brow now feels cold. Again I feel the jolt of fear. I feel my own brow. It is also cold. Lord, why does my heart beat so hard with fear for him? Surely his leg has swollen in order to protect the break in his bone. Nature is at work for him.
I look at our small shelter and know the sun will soon come, and I think of the cave above us. There is little room to move here, perhaps the length of two men to the ravine. To the north, there is only the scrub and the climb up to the animal track; to the south, the shelf we are on grows narrow and soon disappears. Why had he not fallen to the flat area in front of the spring cave? Far better than this place, but an attempt to move him will undo the good work I have done. Weeks must pass before he might be safely moved.
‘This place will be hot enough to roast us before noon,’ I say.
‘It is a finer house than the halfway place in which you found me.’
‘If I had thought to bring an old hide or more blankets I could have made –’
‘Who are you? Where have you come from?’ he says.
‘From . . . from where you found me.’
‘You are from the laboratories.’
‘I am . . . Granny said I am a freeborn.’
‘There are no more freeborn.’ His words hold such certainty.
I shrug, smile. ‘Then you dream me, I think, and when you wake I will be a grunting sowman.’
I work at bathing his face, and his poor cracked lips, which bleed when he speaks, but he will not be silent. When I found him I thought him dead. Now he speaks as if I dreamed his illness. He speaks of the spring cave and of hiding in the rear of it one day when Lenny came to dip water. Then he takes my hand and makes me look at his eyes.
‘Have I found it
?’ he says. ‘Did she send the storm to blow me to it?’
‘It seems that you have found my cave, Jonjan.’
‘And the land of Moni.’
‘This is the land of Granny. It was her father’s, and her father’s father’s, land. This was her hill, as was the cave.’
‘I followed the animal tracks. They led me to the cave.’
‘The city fence is no barrier to the smartest of animals. Now hush with your talking and let me make you clean. You smell as Lenny after he has slaughtered a bullock.’
He asks many questions which I try to answer, then thankfully he sleeps.
His shoes without cords to tie them are worse than no shoes. I thread them with strips of fabric ripped from the last of my half-dress, which has no strength. Finally I discard his shoes and I climb barefoot for more water.
My feet are not accustomed to such labour. For minutes I sit on the far side of the pool, which is sand, and I bathe my poor feet, then bathe fully, washing my overall and my hair in water. And Lord, it is a fine thing to do. The pool is only as wide as my length, but has great depth to it. There are rocks beneath my feet on the far side, only water on the near.
For too long I play there, pushing from side to side, both east to west and north to south. My hair is long and heavy when wet. Thinking to plait it, I rip narrow ties from the remains of my half-dress. I look at them and the idea comes. I will plait these fabric strips with strands of my hair. This occupation is painful for my scalp, but surely strengthens the fabric threefold. So, I will have the use of Jonjan’s shoes again.
He is waiting for me, looking for me when I return – and he has dragged himself to the wall of the shelter, where he now leans.
‘One day of eating has made you strong. Two days and you may climb for the water and bring it to me, Jonjan,’ I say as we share a can of cornbeans.
