Child Garden

by Geoff Ryman

  'Am I what?' asked Milena, scarce believing.

  Thrawn rolled her eyes and asked again. 'Are you?' She rolled forward onto her knees, presenting herself.

  Milena felt a kind of slow, hazy panic. My God, is she asking me? My God, have I found another one? 'Yes,' Milena said, experimentally.

  Now it was Thrawn's turn to be coy. 'Yes to what?' she asked, striking another pose.

  Milena's face was hot. She was smiling a lazy, fearful smile. She felt confused. 'Yes to whatever you're asking.' The whole thing was moving too fast, hurtling forward.

  Thrawn laughed, and slid nearer to Milena. 'Saying that could be dangerous. You might not know what I'm asking.'

  There was something between them, as if the gases in the air had solidified. It was a shape, defined by them, but with a life of its own. Sex was only part of it, but it was as impersonal as sex. It and time hauled Milena forward towards Thrawn.

  She crawled towards Milena with her slow smile. 'You don't know what I'm asking at all.'

  But this is so crude, thought Milena. This is so banal. I'm being vamped.

  Thrawn kissed her on the cheek. I've had fantasies like this, Milena thought and made herself continue. Then Thrawn began to lick her face as if it were a lollipop.

  I'm not sure about this, thought Milena, pressing her lips and eyes shut. Thrawn smelt of sweat and boiled onions.

  'Oh, tooch, bubi, tooch.'

  What, thought Milena, is that supposed to mean? Does she really think it will drive me wild with passion? Thrawn leaned back to pull off her leotard, and Milena felt desire retreat. It left her beached and dry and slightly sick in the stomach.

  The flesh around Thrawn's eyes was coiled like a rope; her face was a knot. As she descended again, Thrawn's face was turned away from Milena, denying what was happening. Is she enjoying this? Milena wondered.

  She tried to make the best of a bad job. She tried to shift to a more comfortable position but the rug kept rucking up and sliding away underneath her. She lay still for a few moments under the oblivious Thrawn. Finally, Milena tapped her on the shoulder.

  'Thrawn,' said Milena, as if reminding her of something she already knew. 'Thrawn. Stop.'

  Thrawn went still. Then very quickly, she rolled away.

  Milena sat up. Her elbow had been badly knocked in the struggle. She looked at Thrawn. Thrawn lay on her side, back to Milena, picking at the rucked-up rug. Milena's trousers swaddled her thighs and made it difficult to stand. She managed it by pushing her knees together at an awkward angle.

  'It's because I'm old and fat, isn't it?' said Thrawn, from the floor. She was staring at the strands of the rug.

  'You aren't fat,' said Milena, out of kindness, and because it was so far from the truth.

  Thrawn sat up and her eyes were poison. 'I am. Don't tell me I'm not fat.' She shook a dried pouch of loose skin on her belly. She stood up, and began to pull on her leotard, carefully running the elastic back into place along the same lines of indentation in the skin.

  'Our relationship should be strictly professional,' said Thrawn, with a kind of snarl.

  'It's a bit late for that, isn't it?' said Milena, beginning to smile.

  'Not,' said Thrawn, and pulled back her hair. 'Where I am concerned.'

  'Good. Fine. Glad to hear it,' said Milena, rubbing her elbow.

  'I'm quite ruthless in my standards,' said Thrawn coolly. She pulled on a pair of trousers over her leotard. 'I am a perfectionist. It is something of a curse always to want the very best.'

  'I'm sure it is,' said Milena and thought: there's something wrong with this woman. Her elbow was black from bruising.

  'You'll hate me,' said Thrawn with a sigh, looking up. It was a statement of fact. It had the ring of truth. It also sounded like a promise. Milena looked up at the sad, devouring face.

  'No I won't,' said Milena, lightly. A process of mollification had begun.

  Later that same day, walking back from the Strand, Milena suddenly thought: it's my birthday soon.

  It was one year since Rolfa had gone. The thought rooted Milena to the pavement where she stood. She was standing on Waterloo Bridge, where she and Rolfa had walked back together from the Spread-Eagle. This year, September had been hot, wet, monsoonish. But on this one evening, the sky had cleared. It was the same plum colour it had been on the evening when Rolfa had led her back from meeting Lucy.

  St Paul's Cathedral looked the same, with its dome of white stone and sheets of lead. But electric lights hung in chains now all along both banks of the river. There were puddles of light, pools of it on the pavements. It will be like this, Rolfa, thought Milena. I will get further and further away from you. And you'll get dimmer and dimmer, like one of those little lights on the end of the chain.

  Milena couldn't dawdle. It was her turn tonight to take care of little Berry. She walked on slowly, her head down.

  A year since Rolfa; a month since Berowne had died giving birth. It was so unfair. He had made it all the way through. The child was born. It was wailing. He had time to shout at it, 'Hello! Oh hello!'. Then the afterbirth came free. The blood had hit the ceiling. And there was another orphan. Of sorts. The baby's mother, the Princess, could not face him.

  Milena walked down the steps of the Zoo, and into the Child Garden.

  She walked down into a room full of wood panels with colourful paintings. The place smelled of infants: milk and nappies and sodden padding. It was too warm. It made Milena giddy. A Nurse took her to Berry's cot. He was three weeks old. He looked up at Milena with solemn blue eyes. Who are you this time? he seemed to ask. Milena lifted him up onto her shoulders and he started to wail.

  'I know. I know,' she said, and patted him.

  Out of the corners of the room, on the mattress-covered floor, the other infants came. They came crawling and whispering to each other.

  'All these people coming to see him.'

  'Yes, but they're not his parents are they?'

  The voices were high and wispy and wheedling with jealousy.

  'His father is dead.'

  'His mother never comes to see him.'

  Their minds were full of virus. They could speak, they could read, they could add and subtract. They ringed Milena round like a hostile tribe. The sound of someone else crying made them angry. They wanted to cry themselves. They wanted to howl their lungs raw. The viruses made them speak.

  'Why can't he talk?' one of the infants demanded. He supported himself on all fours. His flesh was plump and creased.

  'Why haven't you given him the viruses?'

  'It's time he was given the virus.'

  Milena didn't answer them. She stepped over them. The room was hot and she was feeling ill. She simply wanted to escape.

  'He hasn't had the virus!' the infants called after her, in rage, as she fled.

  She couldn't think why it had so upset her. She felt she was protecting Berry from them. She had to stop to gather breath, cool breath, and found she was trembling. Her hands shook as she wrapped Little Berry up in his blankets. She held him to her, and walked under one of the brick bridges along the elevated walkways, and then looked up, and saw the Shell.

  The windows were full of fire, reflected sunlight. Here it was again, September fire. Milena remembered Jacob. She remembered him walking back, into the Shell, to run his messages.

  But now, because of you and Rolfa, when I dream, I also hear the music.

  Rolfa was gone, and Berowne was gone. Jacob was gone too. All in one year? Milena had found Jacob one day in spring, crumpled on the staircase like an old suit of clothes, a costume in the Graveyard. The fire in the windows had once seemed like the fire of people's lives. Now it was the fire of ghosts.

  Milena stood where she had once stood before, unable to move. How did I get here? she wondered. How did I get here, holding someone else's baby, with the smell of Thrawn McCartney still on me? In a world with holograms and electric lights. Milena felt the giddiness of time. It was a kind of vertigo. It was
as if time had hauled her up at high speed a dizzying distance away from herself, away from her life. It was as if she were on a train, and the train was going faster and faster, and it never stopped. The stations of her life were rattling past. Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen. She was never given the chance to get off.

  It was dark by the time Milena had climbed the stairs to her room. It looked much the same as it had when Rolfa lived there; a little tidier perhaps; a little emptier. The baby needed changing. Milena was surprised by how brave she had become about nappies and feeding times. When the baby was clean, she put him into his hammock and began to rock him.

  Berry started to sing. His voice was high and pure and piping and he sang particular songs. Was it normal for a child to sing before it could talk? She thought. Berry seemed to hear her. He smiled at her. Is he Snide? Milena wondered. The songs he sang were the songs he had heard Milena humming. He sang the songs of the Comedy.

  Milena lit a candle on her windowsill and opened the great, grey book. Here she could find herself. She took a piece of staved paper from a tidy pile of paper. And she began to work.

  Milena was orchestrating the Comedy. A year after Rolfa had left, she had worked her way to the beginning of Canto Eight. There were one hundred cantos in all. Dante and Virgil had come to the river Styx. Milena looked at the tiny notes of music, one for each syllable. Why were some of them in red? In the corner, in pencil, words said:

  trumpets glint like light on water. Sombre and joyful at once (a Comedy after all)

  How, she wondered, how can you make horns sound sombre and joyful?

  She could only do what she was able to do. Pretend the Comedy is a transcription, she told herself. Pretend that it's a vocal version of an orchestrated original. Pretend you are reversing cause and effect and remember that horns in G will be written in C. No sharps or flats. The viruses will help.

  Milena started to write, lost in work. She did not realise that she and Little Berry were humming in unison.

  dear fish

  Milena remembered a letter. She saw all of it, in memory, the light on the page, the clots in the ink. It read:

  sorry about the name, but i think of you as fish — i dont mean any harm by it but tell me if you really hate it and ill try to mend my ways — to answer your question — i actually think of myself as Canadian — the arctic is different from the antarctic — more grass, more trees — the antarctic is a desert — but i still love it — now rolfa's father he is definitely english tough which is how we ended up trying to live in south ken from which god preserve me

  well im back now in the antarctic — place doesnt look any different — all blue ice and blue sky — my dogs still knew me — good lord — the love in dogs — you wouldnt believe — yipped and yelped whined and widdled — you sure knew you were wanted — dogs simply feel more than we do — im sure of it — never saw people get so happy to see anyone — never mind me I am just trying to get you to think of dogs a bit more kindly after what happened last year

  anyway here i am sitting under my old alcohol lamp and im going out digging tomorrow with my dogs and im eating a greasy stew thats still frozen in the middle and i couldnt be any happier — rolfa didnt come with me — said she didnt want to and she should know except that right now i think she doesnt know what she wants — never saw anyone so confused as that poor girl — she went for the weediest little fella, a squidge, real tiny with a pudding basin haircut, blouse, shorts — papa's hair turned spiky over it — then that all passed just as quickly as she took it up — she said she ate the little guy for breakfast and I can believe it — believe it or not my great soft lump of a girl is getting real aggressive these days — just before i left she THRASHED her first cousin — now he is one huge devil — size of a house — he said something and suddenly he was swallowing all of his teeth — last i heard she was reading up on ACCOUNTANCY — you keep writing — i really like your letters — they make me laugh — though i know the real reason you take such an interest in an old antarctic lady is that you want to know whats happening with rolfa — thats OK — ill let you know when i hear things

  your friend

  hortensia patel

  Milena stopped spinning.

  Someone was holding her down. He was very tall and very thin and his smile seemed to have been cut out of the tension of his face with a knife.

  'You shuffle forward, one step at a time, knees bent,' he was telling her. His accent was American. 'You try to keep your balance. That is the posture of weightlessness.' He took his hands away. Success. Milena stayed where she was. 'Well,' he said. 'That sure was some introduction.'

  'Yep,' said Milena. 'I threw up all over you and dislocated your shoulder.'

  'My name's Mike Stone,' he said. 'Astronaut'

  Milena dared to reach forward and shake his hand. She had finally found her feet.

  Outside, the heavens were full of stars, the stars of memory. Rolfa, they seemed to whisper. Where is Rolfa?

  The Reading was over.

  Milena woke up. That was what it felt like. She found herself lying on a floor. At first she thought it was the Bulge. The floor was warm and soft and alive. Milena was covered in sweat. Across the room, which was dimly lit, a huge woman in white was talking, hand on her chin, shaking her head. It was Root, the nurse. And there was Mike Stone, astronaut, sitting in some strange sling chair.

  When was this? thought Milena. When did this happen? I don't remember this. Where is my Now?

  Root glanced over her shoulder and saw that Milena was awake. Her eyes widened, and she cut off her conversation with a nod. She half-ran towards Milena, her round arms held aloft and swaying from side to side with her hips. Root leaned over Milena, and her hands were pressed between her knees.

  'I'm sorry, love,' said Root. 'But we're going to have to Read you again.'

  'Again?' croaked Milena. She felt horribly ill.

  'They don't have everything. I guess there's just so much of you to have.' Lightly, Root stroked Milena's thin hair. 'You're fighting it, aren't you, love?'

  'What else does it want?' Milena asked. The Consensus had everything else.

  'Well. It got nothing from your childhood, nothing at all. And there's Rolfa. You kept back all your memories of Rolfa. She's very important to you. They need Rolfa too.'

  Oh, do they? thought Milena. Do they indeed.

  'You mustn't fight, you know,' said Root. Her eyes were full of sadness, but her face was deadly serious. 'You fight, you could hurt yourself She gave Milena a steady, examining stare. 'Ready?'

  'Why do they want the Past?' Milena asked. 'If they keep telling us the world is only Now?'

  'Because the Past is you,' said Root, and stood up. Milena heard her rustle away.

  My whole life, thought Milena, my whole life has not been mine.

  Then space was twisted. Space shivered as when heat rises up from roadway. The shivering space rose up, and began to roll, quivering towards her. It was a wave, a wave in both space and time, a wave in the fifth dimension where light and thought and gravity are one. It confronted her, trembling as if with desire. It wanted Milena to be a story, that it could Read.

  Rolfa, where is Rolfa? Where she always is, Milena thought. Here with me.

  Now, where is my Now? My now is here, where I fight the Consensus.

  The wave slammed into her, washing over her, through her, racing up the channels of her nerves, as if to wash them clean, as if to wash all of Milena away.

  It was as if her memories of Rolfa were a rock to which Milena could cling. Milena held them and preserved them.

  Everything else was surrendered to the roar.

  chapter ten

  AN AUDIENCE OF CHILDREN

  (THE TREE OF HEAVEN)

  Milena remembered being in the womb.

  All sensation was nameless, wordless, unshaped by any kind of grammar. There was light, orange light, passing over her, through her. There was a pulsing, a rush that seethed through her, warm, thrilling, d
elicious.

  There was music.

  Dimly heard amid the throb, the sound of a violin was filtered and soft, faraway as dream. It was more like light than sound, a settling of nameless comfort. The music swayed, and the warmth that surrounded Milena swayed with it. Her world moved with the music. There was a dance in the pulsing of her blood, a dance of love, of chemical release. A delectable tingle invaded her. Milena felt the music because her mother felt it.

  Her mother was making it. Her mother was playing the violin. To the adult who was remembering, the music was the only familiar thing. The adult knew it was a piece by Bartok. To the unborn infant, it was a physical sensation. The unborn Milena hummed with the music, as if she were a string of the instrument, as if her mother were playing her as well. The music lifted up and swung the unborn child, she rose and fell with it. I've never felt that! thought the adult who remembered. I've never felt music like that since. It was a different state of being: gentle, surging, warm, ultimately intimate. Milena was part of someone else. Blood and fluids caressed her; everything was touched by light filtered through flesh; everything was heard through the singing in the blood, the stroking fluid. It was like being bathed in something delicious, lemon chocolate perhaps, and being able to taste it with the skin. It was like that brief joyful moment, not necessarily of orgasm, when sex is pure delight. No wonder, thought the one who remembered. No wonder sex keeps pulling. It is trying to pull us back to this.

  The infant tried to dance. It moved its legs. The very sensation of movement was new. It was power, to be able to move.

  The music stopped.

  There was a muffled voice, from outside, from above, a message from beyond. It was a message of celebration. The Milena who remembered could almost make sense of the words. They were like words spoken by a ghost. Milena remembered the tone and timbre, the rise and fall. It was the ghost of her mother.