by Joy Dettman
‘I . . . I walked and became ill. I waited for Lenny to help me home.’
‘Lord helps them that help themselves in this frekin world,’ he says, limping to me, limping slow.
I look behind me, thinking to run. He will not catch me if I run, but the dogs will catch me. I think they read my intention. The male stands behind me, the female before me. They will obey Pa; this I know.
‘The boy looked in the cave for you when the little bastards was gone. You wasn’t there.’
‘How could I cross the fence?’
‘You ain’t been without water two days. You ain’t been without water one day.’ He clears his throat, spits. ‘Where have you been, girl?’
‘I . . . I carried . . . stores with me. I have been very ill and am weak from it and my walk.’ I sit then in the dust. ‘I will wait here until Lenny comes.’
‘You come this far, you can come more. Get up.’ He stands before me, waiting, and I know he will not leave me here while he walks to fetch Lenny. He waits, spits.
I do not rise and the dogs sit with me, eager for some petting. Perhaps they will obey me, run with me. I look toward the hills while patting the dogs’ great heads, then I stand. ‘Heel,’ I say. The dogs stand too. I make a step back. ‘Heel.’
Pa prods the male with his stick. ‘Go behind me.’ The dogs obey him.
I can not run.
‘Little bastards was in a killing mood when they found you gone. Told ’em we took you to the spring, left you soaking out the ills in the sacred waters.’
‘Only the grey men can wash this ill from me,’ I say, and think a lie may gain me advantage. I speak it while the night is there to hide my face. ‘I am breeding, and it is Lenny’s doing.’
It does not gain me advantage, or even surprise him. ‘Reckon I’m deaf to the creeping and the creaking what’s been going on, girl? Male and female was meant for together. Sometimes they got no choice who they together with.’ He turns for home and I follow him. It is the place where I want to be. But he does not leave me in the kitchen. When I have made a cordial and emptied my mug, he says: ‘Get in your room now, girl.’
‘I will not be locked in my room.’
‘Reckon you will.’ He takes my wrist. He has been a strong man, and by my wrist he leads me up the stairs. I could kick out at his bad leg, send him stumbling, but I can not do this thing to him, though I curse him as he closes my door, turns the key.
‘I am not a frekin thing to be caged!’
‘The boy’s out there looking for you. He ain’t slept since you took off, and when he gets back, he’s gunna find you. Do you want a tea?’
‘I want my freedom,’ I scream. His only reply is his footsteps limping away.
So tonight Jonjan will wait in vain for me on Morgan Hill.
I walk my room, kick the door, pick up my paintings, throw them at the door. Then I look at my painting of the foetus and I do not wish to throw it, to damage it.
But it is so flat and grey.
I sit on my bed where I study the poor painting, and I think that if I were to paint the story of my life in this house, then it should be grey. Ah, but if I were to paint the story of my yesterday, it would be with the blues and the greens and the golds of freedom.
I stare at the limbs of the tree that still grows strong beside my window, and I envy its freedom, its memory of the time before when all the world was free. It was here when Granny was a child, and when her father was a child, and when old Aaron Morgan was a child, and as a child I had many times used its branches to escape this room. Then Granny had died and the grey men come and Lenny sealed my window with their adhesive gun.
‘Abominations. Jailers. Sons of sow,’ I scream and again kick the door and wish now I had kicked so hard at Pa’s leg.
Exhaustion claims me. It carries me to my bed where I fall and will the shadow land of sleep to come for me and claim me, to carry me to the freedom I find only in dreams.
And I dream, but there is no freedom there. Only an infant, wearing a coronet of golden dandelions, a crying infant, nailed to a wooden cross in the graveyard. Only its blood pooling on the earth, and the dogs snarling, circling. And each dog wears the face of the grey men.
(Excerpt from the New World Bible)
Then came a time of much progress in the city. There was built a recreation hall. And many came to the hall where the youthful searchers made report on their flights. For they were the new heroes of the city. And they were much applauded and rewarded with coin and gem, for there had been sightings of a feral female one hour’s flight north of the city.
And the High Priest came to the hall to speak dull words from the ancients’ Bible. And his power was challenged by the new heroes, thus he wished to make less of the searchers’ discovery.
And he spoke thus: ‘It is written in the book of the old world that God created Eden, and in his great wisdom he gave it into the care of man. And man obeyed the laws of God.’
And the Chosen said: ‘This is a new world, priest. We make new laws.’
And the priest’s voice was loud: ‘Then God sent into Eden a feral female and she made her own laws. And she stole the forbidden fruit and tempted man to eat of it, and thus man was banished from Eden.’
And the Chosen replied: ‘Does your book not tell that you were born of the female? Does your book not tell that the female was given to man solely for the purpose of breeding? The feral female will be taken for the purpose of breeding.’
And the priest said: ‘She is as the forbidden fruit that tempts us, leads us into temptation.’
There was much noise and argument. Then one amongst the Chosen asked: ‘The female from your book was given access to the tree, priest. Why was she not controlled?’
And a second amongst the Chosen stated: ‘She stole the fruit and offered it to man. She did not put it in his mouth, priest.’
And the priest said: ‘Must man question every bite he puts in his mouth?’
And the Chosen replied: ‘Do you eat blindly of all that grows in the fields, priest? Or do you not test it first on the sowmen? Look to your preaching. We will look to the survival of man.’
UNFEATHERED WINGS
My consciousness fights its way back to the here, to the now, to my room, where grey light has found my window. I sit first, then try to stand. My feet hurt. In many places the skin is broken, and how my back and every muscle aches with my lifting and climbing of these last days.
I sip from my bottle of cordial and rest again on my pillow, allowing my limbs to sink slowly into peace, but not again into dream.
Get up, girl. Dream or ghost, she speaks at me.
‘Leave me alone, Granny.’ I lift the cordial bottle, sip from it, then my hand and the bottle move before my eyes. I stare at the fingers. My second hand rises to join the first. I stare at these two large hands.
They are strong. They worked well for me on the hill.
I sip, feeling the release of care. I am sinking, shrinking into a small ball of weariness where there is no more pain, but my eyes will not close. They wish to study my scratched, my capable hands, my ten fingers with ripped and broken nails.
I think this same hand belonged to my mother; I think it held a brush that brushed my hair; I think it once offered me a taste of nectar, and for a moment my mouth remembers the taste. Remembers the colour. Apricot. Remembers the sweetness escaping to flood my throat.
‘Mummy,’ I weep. ‘Mummy, Mummy, Mummy.’
She does not reply, or give comfort. Again I lift the cordial bottle to my lips. It is my only comfort.
But I do not sip more of it.
Poison. Tomorrow juice. Shit of the black demon. Cage without bars, Jonjan had named it.
He waits for me on the hill. All night he has waited for me to come. He has little water, little food.
So my limbs ache and I have cuts and blisters on my feet. So what? He is waiting. ‘So I will climb down the ladder of my freedom tree.’
The window will not ope
n. I have struggled long with it many times before; so today I will break the frekin thing, as my Jonjan would. Something of his strength is growing within me and it is not grey but golden. He used his mind to fight for his freedom. He evaded Lenny and the dogs. For months he has lived alone on the hill, and found a freedom there. And he will live. And I will live with him, and we will eat the wild pig and the rabbit and the rats too, only let us be free together.
I throw the cordial bottle at the window. It does not break it, but falls to the floor, spilling its contents there. I kick the cordial bottle, watch it roll beneath my bed, spilling its red, and I think it is not such a fragile thing at all.
My window is of many panes. Two will be enough to allow me through, and breaking them is a simpler task than I had thought. A heavy book smashes through. The wood between the panes presents a greater difficulty, but I work it free, then I am out, and clinging to the branch of my freedom tree. Down I climb, finding the branches of long ago, stepping onto the trunk while gripping the branch above. Sliding, jumping, scratched but free, my feet are on the earth, and just as the rooster crows out his call to the hens to rise from their nests and produce the eggs.
No time to search for supplies, to take the hide from the barn. Time only for freedom. I run then, barefoot through the grey mist of morning. So swiftly, so gladly I run to him, and if the rocks cut my feet when I begin the final climb down to the ledge, then I do not feel the cutting for the early sun shines on my face. It is cleansing, as are my actions.
And I am at the small shelter, at the rock overhang. And his shoes are there, the blanket is there.
But he is gone.
He is gone.
My dear Jonjan is gone, and my cry is the howl of a wounded beast.
For hours I search for him, call for him. He could not walk away, nor could he crawl; there is nowhere for him to crawl, except into the ravine. And he could not climb up. I lie on my stomach, looking down. No colour there of blue overall. No glint of his golden hair.
Wild pigs breed up here. Their young had become his food while he lived on the hill. Had the pigs now come to feed on him?
There is no sign of animal, no blood on the earth. My basket is where I left it. The bathing cloth is in the fruitjell container.
But he is gone.
I think Lenny’s dogs have tracked my scent to this place. I think that while I slept in my soft bed, Lenny has been here to finish what he began with his dart gun.
‘Abomination. Bastard. Frekin son of a sow!’ I scream, and care not who hears me. ‘Frekin curse your frekin filthy sow hide!’
I try to climb down, search for a safe path into the ravine. There is none, and at midday I give up my screaming and my futile search, and all of my hope. All of my hope. I fold my blanket, toss it in my basket. I pick up my knife. And his dear shoes. I hold them to my breast, then take them with me to the spring cave where I sit and use every curse word Pa knows.
It is later when I bathe, washing myself clean, clean externally. My mind I can not wash clean so I wash it with cordial then sit wet at the entrance to the cave while staring down at the house, at Monique Morgan’s great fantasy of freedom.
She had slaughtered the city men so she might return to her land and to her house. So too I must return to it. He is gone. Granny’s house is all that I have.
And I do not want it.
I stare at that roof, at those chimneys, as the sunlight moves over brick walls, washing them clean, camouflaging the rot of too many years. I sip as the sun moves on and the sky grows red, like blood splattered carelessly across God’s paint board, and I watch the picture alter until all of the earth is touched with blood and the colours of the house fade before it. So swift, and yet so slow, night sends forth its grasping hand across the land, stealing the colour, leaving the purples and the greys of this land. Only up here, high above the night, do the rocks glow red.
It is late when I leave my blanket and basket on a rock shelf in the rear of the cave, leave my dear Jonjan’s shoes buried deep in the sand of a smaller cave, then, as a sleepwalker, wander down the water barrel track. When I reach the singing fence, I think I will throw myself upon it like the wandering beasts, and I will scream as they, and the dogs can come and rip me to shreds – if that be their will.
‘Bastard dogs.’ I have fed them, petted them, still they obey the men.
Tonight the fence does not sing, and the gate is open for me. I walk through, but I do not go to the house, nor do I climb my tree. The screaming city blade has been at work while I was gone; the limb that this morning reached out to brush my window now lies on the earth.
‘Bastards,’ I yell, my voice harsh; my words belong to Granny. I walk on to the barn and stand a moment between the tied dogs. ‘Curse your filthy brindle hide! Curse you, you white bitch!’ They cower from me, step back to their own sides of the great doorway, and I wish I had cursed them so well last night.
To the loft I climb then and I find a bundle of new kittens also hiding there. I do not curse more. I weep for the kittens and for Jonjan and for me. Yes, I weep for me.
There are six kittens. The last time the grey men sucked the foetus from me there were six. I think I do not much like six, but I touch these tiny mewing mites with their unfinished eyes and sweet open mouths, all curled together in the corner, and I weep for the six small foetus that do not still curl safe together within me, and I wonder where they curl as I wrap myself around the sweet scent of new life, breathing in that scent until the scrawny black mother cat jumps from the rafter to join us.
She licks her babies first, then licks my salty cheek, and I sleep the twilight sleep of that cordial place while listening to the silly suck-sucking of small pink mouths. Such accidental perfection of nature. Freeborn, I think, as my hand rests unconsciously on my womb.
I swear it moves.
And there. There, it moves again!
Soft fluttering thing. Like the unfeathered wings of a fledgling, fallen from its nest.
I roll onto my back, and wait.
And there it is again, flap-flapping tiny wings.
Though my stomach has many times swollen with the Implanted foetus, I have never felt this movement of life. For minutes I wait, afraid lest the fluttering never stills, afraid lest it still forever.
How long I lie there I do not know. Perhaps I sleep.
It is still dark when Lenny comes with his battery light, comes up the ladder to stand over me, shine his light upon me.
‘You came home, then?’
‘I came back,’ I say.
‘I been searching for you, girl.’ He stands there, eyeing me and the kittens I protect from his light with my arms. ‘You told Pa you was breeding.’
‘Is this something that is new to talk of?’
‘You told Pa it come from what we been doing.’
Jonjan’s death has given me access to cruel words, and I use every one of them against him. I spit them as the blacrap spits. ‘So I have been Implanted by the son of a sow,’ I say. ‘Shall it grunt at birth or squeal? Do you think the grey men will be pleased with it if it grunts?’
‘It won’t grunt, girl.’ His light finds my face, and I hide my face, but he takes my arm and forces it away. ‘I’m freeborn.’ I snatch my arm from his grasp and roll onto my stomach but make no reply. ‘You hear what I say, girl?’
I have no interest in his lies. He is a cell of old Pa, wed to the ovum of a sow. He is Pa, only of fewer years and more flesh. For a moment I am tempted to turn, spit the word liar in his face, spit the word murderer in his face.
‘I got birthed right here, girl. On Morgan land,’ he says.
‘And who did you call mother? His pig or his dog?’ I spit.
‘Dog gave me better care than the one who birthed me.’ I believe words exhaust him. He pants a while, places the battery light on the floor, then sits beside me, seeking more words. ‘Maybe I don’t blame the old bitch neither, and maybe I do. If I’d been female she woulda wanted me. She took yo
u in fast enough.’ I do not look at him. The foetus within me was not placed there by him, and I care not who he claims as mother. Until he says: ‘Old Lady Morgan birthed me, girl.’
Then I laugh, and he does not like my laugh. He lifts his head, and his voice rises. ‘Pa is no liar, and he don’t make out that he was in the right about it neither. Reckoned he weren’t much more than his dogs till she come back.’
I am staring now at his half-face, lit by the battery light. He licks half-lips, swallows. ‘You still laughing, girl? You hear what I’m telling you? You’re breeding Morgan blood. That’s what you’re breeding.’
‘You make stories for an infant. I am not an infant.’
‘You’re no infant, right enough,’ he says, staring a moment at my naked breasts; my much flowered half-dress gone to make bandages and ties for Jonjan’s shoes. His hand reaches out to touch, his breathing is fast, and for a moment I believe he thinks to play his mating game again, but tonight I will kill him if he starts. I will kick him from this loft and make him fall on his head and hope it smashes like a fallen pumpkin.
He does not touch. The hand is withdrawn to scratch beneath his cap.
‘Pa reckons he seen the old girl in the hills one day, weak and white and hungry. Didn’t know who she was. Thought she was something of the city’s making with that face, but he took her food, and one day he asks a trade for it like. Reckons she didn’t mind trading. He’d been alone here, girl, since he was a boy. All on his own. Never seen a female until she come back. Seen a male bastard or two.’
I am listening, though I do not show it.
‘Older than Pa, she was, and he reckons he was half-grey. Christ knows how he got me started in her, but he did. Lived up there in that cave like a frekin, fighting rat, she did, until she got big with me and damn near crippled by it. Couldn’t move from the cave. Searchers was flying, looking for her, day in, day out, Pa says. One night he takes up food and she tells him who she is, speaks the names of his people, tells him to take her home. Reckons she wants to die where her father and brothers died.
