The Child Garden

by Geoff Ryman

  The next day Milena tried to rejoin Love’s Labour’s Lost.

  She was told at one of the information desks that the director had died. Quite suddenly. Thirty-five. Time-expired. The cast were in mourning. They had asked to have the production discontinued. They didn’t want to work with anyone else. They can’t face going back, thought Milena. They can’t face going back to sleepwalking Shakespeare.

  It was just like the play, at the end. Welcome Mercade, Mr Death. You interrupt our merriment. The King your Father is…

  Dead, for my life.

  It’s a design flaw, thought Milena. We shouldn’t have to die. She thought of the director, called him Harry in her mind. She remembered his feverish eyes. You knew you were going, Harry. This was your last leap. A lifetime of sleepwalking, of making other people sleepwalk, broke you. And then you were free. Harry, if I ever direct a play, she promised him, I will do it as you did.

  And they are not going to break me.

  Milena did not go back to her chilly room. She walked on, up the stairs, to the upper floor of the Zoo.

  Out of the silence, into the silence.

  She was going to talk to the Minister, before time.

  ‘Oh yes, Ms Shibush,’ said the sleek young man, smiling. ‘I’ll go ask.’ He went through a door.

  Milena sat down. A row of Postpersons sat next to her, staring ahead with expressions of perfect peace. Lined up like Buddhas in a temple. Their conscious minds were fully occupied with the records of the Zoo. But what of underneath? thought Milena.

  Her legs jiggled up and down with nerves. Heather had reached the end of Volume One, the only one that Marx had finished himself. She was fighting against the ending, reading notes and appendices, reading quotes in their original language. She was re-reading the prefaces to all the different editions. It was as if she would die when she finished.

  I am ready to welcome scientific criticism.

  I don’t really know you, Heather, thought Milena, I only know a virus. You may have loved, you may have been happy.

  As far as the prejudices of what is termed public opinion, to which I have never made any concession…

  You were dedicated. You were formidable. You gave your life away. Do your motives matter?

  …I shall continue to guide myself by the maxim of the great Florentine:

  Sequi il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti.

  Follow your own bent, no matter what people say.

  Marx quoting Dante. Heather went on to read the next preface.

  As Heather read, Milena thought of Rolfa and the wellspring of music in her, and of the paper from the Vampires, and of what she was going to say to the Minister, and she found that she had no idea.

  ‘I’m tired,’ she said aloud.

  Marx could not enjoy the pleasure of preparing this third edition for the press.

  The sleek young man came out again, asked one of the Postpeople to go in, and said to Milena, ‘A few minutes, Ms Shibush. Are you thirsty? Can I get you something?’

  So I am in favour, Milena thought, but the thought was bleak. The young man tried to engage her in conversation. It was his job to know what was going on. His combed-back chestnut hair and his busy black and orange shirt all annoyed Milena. His spectacles annoyed Milena; spectacles were a Vampire affectation. Behind the flat resin lenses were the goggle-eyes of a cornea regrowth.

  Milena answered his questions with yes or a no, or a yo—a Vampire answer that could mean sometimes or maybe. Yes, she was an actress. Yes, the music was very good. Was she friends with the composer? Yo.

  A door opened and the Minister himself asked Milena to come in. Milena followed him into his room.

  That mighty thinker…

  He slept there. His bed was behind a screen that was painted with green streaks to represent reeds by a river. The walls were covered in cloth that was also decorated with reeds, and a large black sketch of a heron. There was a picture of Marx on the wall. Milena looked at the eyes. They would have been brown and soft. There was a picture of Mao at 25, and of Chao Li Song, the hero of the Second Revolution.

  The Minister wore khaki trousers and a khaki shirt. He was a very handsome man of Chinese extraction, with neat black hair, a neat smile, a neat moustache. Milena liked him. There was something informal and direct about him. He had an air of competence and balanced openness, the product of Party training. Was that a virus too?

  ‘Do you mind if my Postperson stays with us?’ the Minister asked Milena. ‘I like to keep accurate records.’

  The Postperson was a woman. She sat on a tiny chair, with her knees pressed together. Her head was wrapped in a kerchief. ‘That’s fine,’ murmured Milena. The Minister held out a hand for her to sit on a large, upholstered chair.

  …died on March 14, 1883.

  As Milena settled into it, she felt herself enfolded and cushioned by something else, something that supported her and made the room go still.

  Like an ear clearing of air pressure or an infection, her mind was suddenly quiet. Heather was gone. Milena was well. There was a hush all around her like a pond.

  Outside the big window, everything was blue and hazy. The last of summer, the first of autumn, a jumble of old buildings. Milena could hear voices and horses’ hooves below, as life was made and unmade in ignorance of what was going on behind this one high pane of glass on the top floor of the Zoo. The window was shaded, its frame was supported, by bamboo.

  And Milena remembered. The bamboo reminded her of something.

  Ice cream sticks.

  She remembered that ice cream had come on little bamboo sticks. She saw the bamboo sticks very clearly. They were in sunlight, on a table. There were children with her, little girls, and they were laying out their bamboo sticks to make a picture. They were making a picture of a house.

  Milena was making a window.

  She saw it so clearly, it was as if the table, with the sticks, was just around some corner, to be found again.

  Memory.

  Milena heard footsteps in the corridor below. Very slowly, her attention turned to what was around her. She heard a hissing. It was the hissing of molecules of air against her eardrums. Milena was in the silence.

  In the silence, nothing was fragmented. There were no separate strands to gather together, to fumble, to compete for attention. In the silence, all of that fell away, and there was only what was here, and what was to be done.

  It was as if she, Milena, had finally come into the room and sat down beside her.

  ‘I am told that you have been missing performances, Ms Shibush.’

  Milena saw no reason to reply. Zookeeper.

  ‘That cannot help your career,’ the Minister said, gently.

  ‘Nothing could help my career. I am a very bad actress,’ said Milena.

  His eyebrows rose and he shifted in his chair and smiled, amused.

  ‘What do you think of Ms Patel’s music?’ asked Milena.

  ‘Personally,’ he said, ‘I thought it showed promise. But what I think is of little importance. It may surprise you to learn that we consulted the Consensus on this matter.’

  Nothing seemed to surprise Milena. ‘And?’

  ‘The Consensus is an extraordinarily accurate predictor of the success or failure of an artistic endeavour. It had a complicated response to Ms Patel’s music. But then all its reactions are complicated. It has all of us inside it.’

  But not me, thought Milena. It does not have me.

  ‘Essentially, it liked it, but its more musically adept personalities registered concern over the roughness of what was shown.’

  ‘Not surprising,’ said Milena. ‘They were shown what Jacob and I could remember of the pieces. They need work.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said the Minister. ‘There were other problems.’

  Milena waited. There was a silence. The Minister’s smile widened and he chuckled. He was beginning to find the interview disconcerting.

  ‘There does seem to be a balance in life. We
have gained in knowledge and order. But that calm and that wealth of information do not lead us to originality. Out of the disorder of this poor woman’s life, something new has come. So.’ He leaned forward, ‘do we as good immaterialist socialists advise that people should live in disorder and ignorance?’

  Rolfa? Ignorant? You ignorant man, thought Milena. Aloud, she answered: ‘I think we advise a love of beauty from whatever source.’

  ‘Even from the Genetically Engineered?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Milena, engulfed in calmness. ‘We believe that they are human even if they say they do not. We don’t have to tell anyone that she is Genetically Engineered. We can accept her and her work as being human.’

  The Minister chuckled again. ‘We cannot do that, you see, without disrupting our wider and quite delicate relationship with the GEs. They do not wish to be defined as human.’

  ‘So what we are really talking about is mining in the Antarctic.’

  The Minister’s smile did not change.

  ‘I’ve talked to her sister. The Bears are willing…’

  ‘Please,’ interrupted the Minister, giving his head a little shake of distaste. ‘Don’t call them that.’

  Mining and a market for luxury goods, Milena decided. Where, she wondered, am I getting all of this from?

  ‘The hierarchy of the GEs don’t know that Rolfa is with us. Her immediate family have agreed to keep it from them. It is in their interests to keep it from them. If we pretend that the author of this music is a human being, they will. They have given us a year to do something with her music. They love her that much.’

  The Minister corrected her. ‘Well, we have had a representation from her father asking us to return her if she has been found.’ He corrected her, but was still willing to be generous. ‘We did try to return her. We tried to find both of you and no one here would tell us where you were.’ His smile went crooked with amusement. ‘Which told us that if our own people were so intent, perhaps we did not wish to act. Our relationship with the GEs is delicate but not close.’

  He’s amused for now, thought Milena, but I mustn’t get too clever.

  ‘Thank you, thank you very much,’ she said.

  I get this, she decided, from my father. From my political mother and father who dealt this way for years. And I also get it from Heather.

  ‘Did you know she stole from her family?’ the Minister asked.

  ‘No,’ lied Milena, sounding shocked.

  ‘Whatever we do must reflect credit on the immaterialist programme, and on Consensus politics. Your friend has had a capitalist upbringing. She will suffer from grave distortions of personality.’

  Milena began to get angry. The Minister kept on talking.

  ‘It is not only that we will have to keep her shaved, or sitting down so she looks smaller.’ The Minister was smiling, confident that he was talking to Milena on her own level. ‘We have no guarantee that Ms Patel’s behaviour will be acceptable. What we must avoid is making any link in people’s minds between talent and childish behaviour.’

  ‘I agree of course,’ said Milena. ‘But her upbringing has not been capitalist. It is inaccurate to call the GEs capitalists. Capitalists take the surplus value created by other people’s labour. The GEs do all the work themselves. They may amass wealth and live outside the Consensus, but their Family is in fact a classic example of the Estate system as described by Chao Li Song.’

  Oh. The Zookeeper’s face was as blank as a nail hit on the head.

  ‘That is why their economic activity is able to mesh with ours,’ said Milena. ‘Are GEs immune to viruses?’

  ‘Yes…unless.’ The Minister made a vague gesture.

  So, thought Milena. There is an unless. They can cure Polar Bears, they just choose not to. Of course they can cure them, lower their body temperature, suppress the immune system…

  ‘She is so talented. There must be some way,’ said Milena.

  ‘We will give it thought,’ he promised.

  ‘If she joined the Consensus, was considered human, she could use the practice rooms, take instruction…’

  ‘Of course,’ he said.

  Come on, come on, follow it through. Milena kept her hands still.

  He looked wary. ‘Of course, if she joined the Consensus…’ he mused. ‘We could correct for all of that. We could ensure that there would be no bad behaviour. And it would be a shame…it would not be just…if such talent were allowed to wither. All right. We will consider that aspect.’ He leaned back. The interview was over.

  No, thought Milena.

  ‘It has to be done today,’ said Milena. She began to feel fear. She began to be unsteady. It was like waking up. The Minister’s eyes were sombre.

  ‘Please,’ said Milena, suddenly shorn of her bigger self. ‘She’s hungry. She’s not Rhodopsin, she can’t just go out into the sun. We’ve got no money. If she joins the Consensus, she can have a position here, she can eat!’ Milena found that she had gone tremulous. ‘Otherwise she will leave. Please. Can you arrange it for today?’

  The Minister seemed to have a question rise in his mind. He was looking at Milena now, not considering what she said. He was considering her.

  ‘I will see if it can be done,’ he said, no longer smiling. Milena began to quake. It was a rattling in the bottom of her belly. ‘But what you must do is check with your friend and prepare her. We must make sure that this is acceptable to her.’

  I’ve won, thought Milena. I’ve won. She stood up to go. She did not want to speak. She did not trust herself. She nodded yes to whatever he said.

  ‘Can you come back in an hour?’

  Yes, yes. He shook her hand. She walked out of the rooms into the corridors, and began to run. The shaking continued. Her knees wobbled, her hands flapped. There was a sense of fear, of being in a bigger world. She was not who she had thought she was. I may not be a good actress, she thought, but I am good at this. I can arrange things. She had learned in the cushioned silence that every artist is perforce a politician.

  chapter six

  MEETING CHARLIE, CHARLIE SLIDE (SURVIVING IN CONCERT)

  The Public Reading Rooms—the rooms in which the public were Read—were underground in bunkers. The bunkers were under what had once been the Department of the Environment. The Department of the Environment had been torn down to plant a forest.

  The forest was the Consensus. The Consensus was a garden of purple, fleshy trees that reached up and fed on sunlight. The mind of the Consensus was below. A buttressing marble wall ran around the garden. In the wall, there was an old stone plaque that had been preserved. ‘This is Marsham Street,’ the plaque said, ‘1688.’

  Underneath there were corridors of brick. They wound their way through fleshy roots and a gathering of synapses called the Crown. Below, like tubers, there grew mindflesh, on which memories were imprinted, memories and the patterns of response. They were models made of children, Read at ten years of age.

  This was the Consensus for the Pit, the central heart of London. In the corridors of brick, painted white, there were air vents and electric lights. Milena stared in wonder at the glowing bulbs and their golden, dazzling filaments. She had always loved light.

  The rooms were full of classrooms of children, about to be Read. Their Nurses led them in song, playing on guitars or hand pianos. The children wore their best clothes. The little girls wore printed saris translucent with colour. The boys wore jewellery through their nostrils. They danced in a line, waving their hands like the branches of trees. The lucky ones had parents, who sat on benches and watched with quiet pride.

  People in white uniforms danced with them. A huge woman in white saw Rolfa and beamed and worked her way, still dancing, towards them.

  ‘You’re Rolfa. I’m Root,’ she said. ‘You’re our special case. You’re going to have special treatment from us, I promise you that.’ She led Rolfa to one side. ‘Just a few questions to ask first,’ said Root.

  Health. Medical record. Any int
oxicating substances lately?

  There was a cheer from a class of children. They were praising their own Estate school. Root turned and pressed her hands together. ‘Oh, the little darlings, oh the little flowers. I tell you, this is the happiest place. They come here dancing. They leave here dancing too.’ Root’s grin was wide.

  ‘Now, love, you have any experiences with the paranormal?’

  Instantly, Rolfa’s face looked withdrawn.

  ‘Have you ever levitated, or had an out-of-body experience? Any poltergeists in your home? Anything of that sort?’

  Rolfa shook her head and gave a shy smile. Who me?

  ‘It’s very important. You’re sure? OK, then, we go in.’

  This woman is too used to talking to Tykes, thought Milena. Then Root turned to her. The smile was like a beam of light. ‘You, too, love. You’ve never seen this, and we want you to see how happy it is.’

  Milena felt ice in her chest. They know, she thought. They know that they’ve never Read me. It’s been deliberate. They’ve decided not to.

  Quiet, she thought, and followed Root.

  I thought I was free, Milena thought. Instead, I was being tolerated. Or used. They wouldn’t leave me alone, if there was no reason for it.

  Of course they must know they haven’t Read me.

  Another mystery, lost in Milena’s history.

  Root was holding open a door, and waving to her, come in, come in. Milena followed, in anger, and in fear.

  They went down a corridor to a sealed hatch, that hissed when it was opened. Beyond it was a loose and flabby concertina corridor, made of soft resin. It shifted underfoot, floating in flesh. It was wet and smelled of disinfectant and was lit by an ultraviolet light.

  ‘Got to avoid disease,’ explained Root.

  They stepped into a room made of flesh.