Child Garden

by Geoff Ryman

There was a garland of lime blossom in summer, each flower spinning like a star. There were blowzy hollyhocks, liberated from their tall stems, showering their loose, purple petals. Arum lilies lifted up their heads in a chorus, their white hands holding out yellow stamen. They were mixed with tobacco flowers, and crowned with thorny, white ailanthus.

  The kaleidoscope turned. There was a tumult of branches overhead in the wind, seem from many perspectives at once all jumbled, fragmented like Picasso, reaching dizzyingly up into a sky, blue behind them, that fell away to heaven. Confusingly, the branches went down below as well as if the sky were the earth. The branches plunged through grass, down into clouds. Somehow the water of the clouds fed them. The grass was blown in waves. The grass came closer with attention. Each cell was revealed in the light. There was a stirring of life within each of the cells, a green movement of protein in and out of their inner structures. There were beetles as polished as jewels, frozen in the attention of the light, waiting for it to swerve away from them. There was a thin crust of earth giving birth to small, wriggling creatures. They were mild magenta. And the green stems of the rose bush rose, like ladders towards the sun.

  And suddenly Milena was inside the dew drop, the focus of light. Light burned blearily in it, catching on motes of life, swimming in it. The lens of the surface of the dew drop turned the world upside down. A face was refracted in it. It was a human face with nut brown skin and black, liquid eyes, and there was a smile, and the face was about to speak...

  Milena was pushed. With a lurch, it was all snatched away.

  Milena looked about her, dazed. She was in a rather small, messy room, with the flowing walls of a Coral Reef shelter.

  Thrawn was staring at her, outraged.

  'I had no idea you were a horticulturalist.' she said. Her voice was acid, her face sour and straggly with panic. Her chest rose and fell with deep, angry breathing. 'This is my equipment,' she said, very quietly. 'You do not hog my equipment.'

  Milena was still confused, snatched from her flowers. 'How long was I on it?' she asked.

  'How long does not matter. I let you use delicate, new equipment and you treat it it... like... like.' Thrawn shook her head, at a loss for words.

  I was better than she was, thought Milena. Oh God. She's angry because I was better than she was.

  The impulse was to make it up to her. 'Look, if I damaged it in any way, I'm sorry.'

  'I don't know whether you've damaged...' Thrawn broke off. She began to cry. 'My beautiful, new machine!'

  Why did I say that? wondered Milena. Why did I just give her an opening? What am I apologising for?

  'Look, let's just find out if it's damaged, first. Is it damaged? What could I have done to it?'

  'I don't know,' admitted Thrawn, wiping her face, angrily. 'But you just ripped through it, as if you were angry with it or something.'

  'I sincerely doubt I damaged it. Isn't that what it's meant to be used for?'

  'You don't know anything about it!' exclaimed Thrawn, she leant over the machine, patted it. It had a mirrored surface. Her own, straggly face was reflected back at her. 'Look,' she said standing up, taking a deep breath as if she were being amazingly tolerant, controlling rage. 'There is a lot more to this than just ramming yourself through the machine. Focus? Do you know anything about focus at all? I don't know what it was you were supposed to be showing me there, but it was a jumbled mess! The trees were upside down, the flowers were all over the place. That was supposed to be a garden? You've got to have a bit of discipline, Milena.'

  The woman who prided herself on being wild looked anxiously over her machine, holding her hair back. She shook her head, and stepped into the focal point. She tried to imagine. All that happened was the room about them, the light, heaved and shifted. It was as if the walls and furniture, the bleak emptiness of the place melted.

  'I think you have, you know. I think you've fried the focus!' Thrawn's voice became a screech.

  'Just look at something in the room. Something real, and see if that comes out,' advised Milena.

  Thrawn turned to her. The eyes were burning.

  And Milena was in the room twice. She stood on the floor, as if she were there perfectly placed, feet on the floor. There was even a shadow on the shabby throw-rug.

  'OK,' said Milena, soothing. 'OK, so there's nothing wrong with the equipment.'

  'Just with the people in it,' said Thrawn. Suddenly the image of Milena was standing on its head. This imaged Milena was dumpy. The fat on her hips sagged downwards towards her face. Her tongue lolled out of her head, the size of a cow's and the eyes rolled. She started to bounce about the room on her head.

  'You see, Milena. The whole point is to place the image exactly where you want it. It's a specialised skill, Milena, and you just do not have it. It's really very sad, the way you keep trying to push yourself into this specialist area with no skills at all. It's as if you can't admit for a moment that anyone could be better than you at something.'

  'You're talking about yourself, Thrawn,' said Milena, quietly.

  The eyes were turned on her again.

  And suddenly Milena was blind.

  'I can take light out of anywhere in this room.' said Thrawn, out of the absolute blackness. 'I can Reform it, or place it somewhere else. Right now, all the light in your eyes is being focused outside your head. The area I am taking it from is very precisely that of your retina.'

  Milena moved her head. There was a flickering of light. Then darkness again.

  'That is what I mean by focus, Milena.'

  Milena moved again, and this time the darkness followed her. 'Of course, I could take all the light in this room and focus it on your retina, instead.'

  The room was restored. Thrawn stood arms folded, jaw thrust out. 'That might burn your retinas out,' Thrawn said, succinctly. 'Now get out of here, and don't let me catch you messing around with my equipment again.'

  'It's not your equipment. It belongs to the Zoo.'

  'It belongs to the Zoo,' repeated Thrawn, in a mocking imitation. 'It belongs to the person who uses it and who has responsibility for it and that is me. Clear enough for you?'

  'There's no talking to you when you're like this.' said Milena and turned, and fled. She closed the purple door behind her, her heart pumping. Only when she was away from Thrawn, could Milena realise her own anger. That's it, Thrawn, she told the purple door. That's it, you've done it. We finish this show, and then I get someone else. There is no reason why I should put up with this when no one else will.

  Milena turned and trooped down the Coral steps, making as much noise with her feet as she could. That machine belongs to everybody, there will be other people who will learn to use it, and the very next show, you're dumped, you're ditched.

  The thought calmed Milena, until she reached the street.

  'Ahi,' said a Tyke, standing up, holding out red scarves for sale.

  'No,' said Milena.

  The Tyke pursued her. It was fat and dirty and bundled in woollens, and its voice was piercing and high. Milena could not even tell what sex it was. 'Look, lovely scarf, beautiful scarf, for the lady, very cheap, and very warm in winter.'

  'Go away!' shouted Milena, and threw off the Tyke's light touch. Marx and Lenin! Do they see me coming? Milena glared at the child, still feeling a throbbing in her heart.

  The child shrugged. 'Go freeze, then,' said the child. 'And take it out on someone else.' The Tyke spun around and walked away, feeling in a pocket for a pipe. Horses trotted past, making a clatter. Milena felt even smaller, weaker.

  Someone has just threatened to burn out my eyes. Milena was shivery, feverish, tears beginning. She stood still in the street, a hand clamped across her forehead. How could I let her? How could I let her do that to me? How could I stand there and do nothing?

  She needs a Reading, thought Milena. She began to walk again, still driving her feet down against the pavement. I never thought I'd say it, but she needs to be Read, and wiped, and to start all o
ver again, as a decent human being. And I need to be wiped too, for putting up with it. Why? Why do I do it?

  They both were a tangle, tangled in each other.

  It was a long walk back to the Shell. The sun was shining, crisp, bright and cold.

  Well, thought Milena, consoling herself. At least I learned one good thing. I have a talent. I never thought I had a talent. Just a small one.

  I can imagine flowers.

  The sister Bulge smelled of rosemary and sage. A bay tree grew out of its walls, and a current of air made its leaves rustle. The Bulge could commandeer its own genes and grow other forms of life, out of itself, out of memory. It grew garden herbs; it grew the flesh of chickens. It lactated orange juice.

  'May I offer you a drink, Ms Shibush?' offered Mike Stone, Astronaut.

  'Oh, don't bother, please,' said Milena. She was mortified. She had thrown up all over him and dislocated his shoulder and he was still being so nice. If only he wasn't so polite, she thought. If only he would get angry, I wouldn't have to feel so awful.

  Mike Stone kept smiling. Even his teeth looked tense. 'The circulatory system behaves differently under conditions of weightlessness.' He informed her. 'Dehydration may sometimes result. It is advisable to drink plenty of fluids.'

  Milena relented. 'Then thank you very much, I'd love a whisky.'

  Mike Stone's smile did not slip. 'I'm afraid I have no alcoholic beverages. Would you care for an orange juice?'

  'Yes, yes, that will be fine,' said Milena. 'Thank you.'

  'Right-o-rooty,' said Mike Stone.

  Right-o-rooty? Milena began to see the humour of the situation. It had indeed been quite an introduction. Oh God, she thought, I'm going to laugh. I'm going to go into one of those silly giggling fits where you can't stop laughing.

  The prophecy was self-fulfilling. She looked at Mike Stone, at the way he moved. He was very tall, and very slim, with coathanger hips, and his muscles seemed to have been pulled too tight, like piano wire. I had heard Americans were starched, she thought. This one looks like he's ironed every morning. He's being so proper and pukka and nice. Milena felt her cheeks clench.

  He held up her orange juice in benediction. 'For what we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly thankful.' he said. Then he looked at Milena with the complete seriousness of a child. 'Wine is the blood of our Saviour,' he said. 'We should not drink it or any alcohol except in a spirit of communion.'

  'Ah,' was all Milena managed to say. She took the drink from him, her arms bobbing in weightlessness like waterwings under water. Poor man, he'll think I'm laughing at him. He'll think I'm laughing at his religion. Milena was giddy with a desire to laugh. She turned away, to hide from him. She looked out of a living window, down onto the Earth below.

  It was beige and blasted, white plains with blue mountains, discolorations like age spots, dry canyons like crows feet. The Bulge was in orbit over a desert. It moved beneath them, slowly drifting.

  Milena thought of production schedules and holograms; she thought of Thrawn McCartney. Even that didn't make her feel serious. Everything made her want to laugh; everything seemed funny. The weight of her life had been left below.

  'Beautiful, isn't it?' said Mike Stone. Milena had a quick glimpse of him waddling closer to her, as if on slippery ice. He looked like an elongated penquin. 'I look through this window and I say "Hallelujah!"'.

  'Hmmm?' said Milena, not trusting herself to speak.

  'In five minutes, we'll be over Mount Ararat. From up here, the outlines of Noah's Ark are clearly visible.'

  'Mmmmmm!' said Milena, trying to sound impressed.

  'Of course, Ararat would have been underwater for most of the Flood. We know how deep the Flood was: two-thirds of the highest mountain. Now. Mount Everest is 8,840 metres high, which means the Flood was 5,893.32 metres deep. Which is very nearly the height of Mount Ararat. Do you believe in reincarnation, Ms Shibush?'

  'Mmmm mmm,' said Milena, shaking her head.

  'Neither do I,' he said, and sipped milk through a straw. 'Post-millenarian Baptists such as myself do not. But I have a thought I'd like to share with you. If only Noah survived, then he is the ancestor of us all. And we would have his memories stored in our racial subconscious. Many is the time that I've sat in this spacecraft, Ms Shibush, and felt that I was Noah. If there was another Flood, I could repopulate the Earth, grown by Chris from memory.'

  'Mmmmm,' said Milena, as if giving the thought serious consideration.

  'I should explain. Chris is my Bulge. The name is short for Christian Soldier Two. The first one died. Would you like to see my snapping turtle?'

  Mike Stone reached into the pocket of his jumpsuit and produced a live, suede-coloured snapping turtle. 'Chris grew him for me. Had one since I was knee-high to a grasshopper.' He held it out for Milena to examine. 'He also tried to grow me back my old Army knife, but the blade was soft.'

  Milena had to turn around to face him. He loomed over her with round and innocent eyes. A child, she thought, am I talking to a child. She was in extremis. Her cheeks were compressed, her stomach muscles were clenched, her back was held rigid. She did not laugh. But her eyes brimmed full. Tears of mirth slid down her cheeks.

  Mike Stone fell silent. He looked at the tears on her face, and then down at the floor. Moved beyond words, he pressed the turtle into her hands. 'It's nice to know,' he said, 'that someone understands.'

  The turtle bit her. It snapped, as it had done in childhood.

  And Milena awoke, a child in England.

  She woke up in her room in the Child Garden. On the windowsill, there was her candle, gutted and blackened, with a spread of wax on her breakfast plate. She had been reading in the night. The book, old and heavy, had slipped out of grasp, and worked its way down between the bedding and the wall.

  It was summer, and there, beyond the old sashcord windows, was her tree.

  The tree seemed to greet her every morning. It was very tall, but its long branches were delicate and hung airily down, almost like curtains, its leaves dappled into many colours by the sun. Its trunk was mottled; sections of its bark fell off like pieces of a puzzle. Milena knew its Latin name because she loved the tree: ailanthus altissima. The Chinese called it the Tree of Heaven.

  Already it was hot. Sunlight streamed through the window. Behind her there was a sound of someone stirring. Milena turned. The two girls Milena shared the room with, Suze and Hanna, were still asleep. Their faces were as drained of personality as rice pudding. One of them had turned in her bed. They would be up soon. Milena wanted to avoid them.

  She pulled back her quilt as quietly as possible and sat up. There was her old room. There were the orange walls; there were the old chipped skirting boards, lumpy with layers of paint. There was the fireplace that no longer fed into a chimney; there were the black urns of the charcoal heaters.

  Milena the child did not want to move. Her eyes felt swollen and dusty. She had been reading most of the night. She wanted to fall back into the bed and sleep; but if she did that she would be trapped, with the others. As a kind of compromise, she reached for her book. If the others started to move, she would still be awake and could escape.

  The book was a biography of Einstein. A few days before, Milena had heard other children talking about him. The ache had come over her: something else she didn't know. So she had gone to the Museum and found this book. She opened it up and looked at the photographs. She saw a photograph of Einstein as a child. He already had a slight, amused smile. Beidermeir, the other children had called him — honest, clumsy furniture — because he always said exactly what he thought to his teachers. At sixteen, he pretended to have a nervous breakdown, to get out of Germany.

  Suze groaned in her bed and turned away from the sunlight. Milena stood up, and pulled on her jumpsuit that had been laid out flat on the floor. Everything was arranged for a quick escape in the mornings. She pulled on her black slippers, and slipped out of the apartment. The apartment had three large room
s and slept nine girls. There was a blackboard in the front hall. A work rota was written on it: names in English, tasks in Chinese. Milena's name was not on it. Milena was regarded as disabled, and exempt from tasks.

  Milena went down to breakfast without washing first. She was famous for not washing, and was commonly supposed to smell. From the adenoidal way the other children sometimes talked to her, she knew they held their breath when she was near. But there was only one bath in the apartment for nine children. If Milena washed when they did, she would have to stand in line with them and try to think of things to say. Anything she said seemed to reveal the blankness of her memory, how little she knew.

  Milena trudged down the steps, all the way to the basement. The other children used the front door of their stairway and walked to breakfast in sunlight. Milena walked the length of the building at its lowest level. Milena liked it there. The old mansion block had been built two hundred and fifty years before around a series of light wells. The light wells were tiled and streaked and looked somewhat lavatorial, but there was blue sky at their summit. Light was shed seven storeys down through the honeycomb of pipes and lift shafts. It was like a hidden city. The Senior kept his bee hives on the roof. Milena could see the bees overhead, plump black dots humming in the air, rising and falling. They were working. Milena liked their faithfulness.

  The light wells and the roof were supposed to be out of bounds. The children raided the hives for honey, and ran screaming through the basement at night, playing hide and seek. They burst into the Nurses' rooms, which lined the lower floor, and ran laughing as the Nurses chased them. The Nurses would be thirteen or fourteen years old. They laughed too. It was then, at night, when the other children played, that Milena could read, alone in the room.

  Milena walked on and tried to remember what she had read the night before. She had been charmed to find that Einstein's first wife had been called Mileva. They had lived together in Berne when he was a civil servant. He had forgotten the key to their apartment on the day of their wedding. Mileva was from Czechoslovakia, like Milena.