Where The Stars Rise: Asian Science Fiction and Fantasy

by Law, Lucas K.

  That night, Nira dreamed of the bridge.

  Her uncle left early the next morning, before she could make his breakfast. She liked days like this, free of his demanding presence. She could postpone mundane chores like cooking and cleaning and just potter around the store. The work was little, customers were rare, and there was plenty of time to dream or read. The store was crammed with old furniture, dolls, cuckoo clocks, tea sets, and musical instruments. She could make up stories about the individual pieces and how they had come to be there.

  One piece in particular caught Nira’s fancy that morning: a wooden aviator’s helmet-cum-goggles set, perched on the shelf of a cupboard all the way in the back of the store. She tried it on and looked at herself in the mirror, but she couldn’t see her reflection, just a shadowy outline. Perhaps it worked only in bright sunlight? She climbed up to the roof to test this theory, leaning against the railing to peer at the market. But all she got was a hazy blur of the shops and people below. Disappointed, she raised her head, meaning to take the helmet and goggles off, and froze.

  She could see Sumadru Bridge, right to the very end. The mist that surrounded the other side was gone. And there was no other side—the bridge seemed to hang out over the ocean, doing nothing and going nowhere.

  Nira undid the straps. She turned the helmet over in her hands to see if anything was written on it.

  The inside of the leather strap bore three letters: M.D.R., her great-grandfather’s initials. Blood roared through her ears.

  Did Dhanu Paman know what a treasure he owned? Nira thought not. The helmet had been lying on a dusty shelf behind a heap of junk. Besides, when her great-grandfather vanished, the government seized not only his house but every scrap of paper, every rag of cloth that it contained. No way they would have let something like this slip through their fingers. It was almost as if the helmet had been waiting for her to make itself known.

  She resolved to make a foray into the docks the coming Sunday, armed with the helmet. The store was closed every alternate Sunday, and theoretically Nira was free to do as she wished, but her uncle always made some excuse to keep her in. She would have to find a way to evade him.

  Nira pushed a chair to the cupboard so she could hide the helmet on its topmost shelf. When she reached up, her hand touched something papery. She withdrew it carefully.

  It was a scrap of notepaper, scrawled over with faded blue ink. She strained her eyes to read it: . . . is complete, but not certain how to proceed. Manlus is already gone, and Shekhar too. At times, I am tempted to follow them, for what I have seen is unbelievable. Fear and wonder I feel in equal measure. Are we ready for this? I think not. I think madness . . .Nira read it over and over again. Did her great-grandfather write this? Perhaps it was a note from his journal. And where there was one note, could there not be more?

  She spent the rest of the day hunting for more clues, and could barely control her irritation when a customer wandered in, looking to buy a gift.

  When he was finally gone, unsatisfied, she returned to her hunt with renewed determination. Her persistence paid off when she found another scrap of paper covered with the same handwriting inside an old vase. With trembling hands, she unfolded the paper and read: . . . now or never, tomorrow the wires go up and it will be too late. I took the men aside and told them, and they set up a schedule. As for myself, I am torn. On one hand, Nira with our unborn child, and on the other. . .

  Nira? She re-read the note, bewildered. Surely the note did not mean her. Was she named after her great-grandmother? It was a common name in Jayakarta. Perhaps it was just a coincidence. What she needed was more information. She was about to continue her hunt, when a familiar, heavy tread outside the door alerted her to Dhanu Paman’s presence. Heart thudding, she slipped both scraps of paper into her pocket.

  But her uncle did not enter the shop. He went straight upstairs to his bedroom. All that evening he was surly and would not look at her. This was lucky because otherwise he would surely have noticed how jumpy she was.

  Nira got no opportunity to look for more notes written by her great-grandfather over the next couple of days. On the third night, she woke to the sound of voices down below. One voice was raised; another voice, muted, held a note of appeal.

  She got up, wary. Someone was with her uncle. This had never happened before. She slipped out of her bed and padded to the stairs.

  The voices became louder. Definitely an argument. Nira hesitated only a moment before tiptoeing down the stairs. At worst, if her uncle found her eavesdropping, he would scold her and send her away.

  At the bottom of the stairs was a narrow corridor that led straight to the front door. On the left was another door that led to the store. This door was half-open and Nira heard the voices quite clearly.

  “She’s my sister’s daughter. Please—”

  “You should have thought of that before offering her. Break her in before delivering her or I’ll sell her for parts.”

  Goosebumps ran over Nira’s skin. They were talking about her.

  “I’ll pay you back, I promise,” came her uncle’s reedy voice.

  “With what?” The stranger sounded contemptuous. “That’s a whole shipment of crypto meth you’ve lost. I’m being generous, you know that. I’ll leave you this place and your skin.”

  “Please, just give me a little more time.”

  “I’ll give you until tomorrow night to produce a miracle, and then I’ll set my hounds on you. You know where to find me.”

  Boots clumped toward the door. Nira backed away and scrabbled up the staircase. The door flew open and a man strode out, followed by her uncle, still pleading for more time.

  Nira ran to her pallet and slipped inside the sheet, teeth chattering. She could hardly believe what she’d just heard. Perhaps she was mistaken in some way. Surely her uncle wasn’t actually about to sell her “for parts”? And what did that man mean, “break her in”? Well, she certainly wasn’t going to hang around, waiting to find out. As soon as her uncle was asleep, she would run for it. She would take the dawn bus back to Koti. She’d take the helmet with her; Dhanu Paman would never know it was gone.

  When her uncle’s footsteps creaked up the staircase, she stiffened and squeezed her eyes shut. But instead of going to the bedroom, the footsteps came toward her. She prayed that he would leave, that he would fall asleep, snoring loudly like he always did.

  Instead, Dhanu Paman bent over her, breathing hard, reeking of vinegar and sweat. “You’re not asleep, are you?” he whispered. “I saw you on the stairs.”

  Oh no.

  She got up. But her uncle gripped her arm and held her down.

  “I’m really, really sorry,” he said, his voice breaking. “Please try to forgive me.” A piercing pain jabbed the underside of her arm, and she yelped.

  “You won’t feel a thing,” said Dhanu Paman. “I promise you that. No pain, my pretty girl.”

  Her arm became numb. Her mind began to fog. To her horror, Dhanu Paman lowered his bulk on her. Nira tried to scream, to struggle, but she could not move a muscle. He pushed a hand under her skirt, and tears of rage and humiliation leaked out of her eyes.

  What followed was too painful for her to remember afterward. She passed out at some point, whether from the drug or from what he was doing, she didn’t know.

  She woke alone, in dark stillness. The moon had gone and the sky outside the kitchen window was pricked with stars. She found that she could move; she raised herself up on one arm. Dhanu Paman had lied. She could feel pain, razor-sharp, and blood trickling down her legs.

  Gingerly, she got to her feet. She limped to the bathroom and vomited in the toilet bowl. Then she got up, rinsed her mouth, and washed herself. She donned fresh underwear and a clean red cotton dress. She combed her hair and tied it up in a ponytail.

  There, she was ready now. Her mother would never know the difference. Nira stared at herself in the mirror and willed herself not to cry. The time for tears had passed. Whatever drug
he had given her, it hadn’t been enough, and that mistake was going to cost him. Her mind didn’t feel the least bit foggy now. In fact, it was clearer than it had ever been. She felt she could understand everything: the tragedy of her mother’s life, the purpose of her own, the end of her uncle’s.

  Nira walked to the kitchen and armed herself with a knife—the big butcher’s knife she used to hack the pig’s foot that her uncle was so fond of. Then she tiptoed to her uncle’s bedroom. The door was ajar; she slipped inside.

  He lay in the middle of the king-size bed, his vast stomach rising and falling. Like the ugly sea cow they had found on the beach once. They had feasted on it for days afterward.

  Nira padded to the bed and, still gripped by that same, terrible lucidity, plunged the knife into her uncle’s stomach. He woke with a grunt and tried to grab her. She backed away, heart thudding.

  “You bitch!” His face contorted and he flopped back. Then his palms closed around the hilt, drawing it out. Blood made a dark patch on his shirt. A thin, whining noise came from his mouth.

  Nira turned and ran, her moment of lucidity gone. What had she done? It was the cold-sleep for her unless she could somehow escape.

  There was only one place to go; hadn’t she known it from the start, when she caught that first glimpse of it silhouetted against the twilit sky?

  The sky had lightened to rose and people were already at work, setting up their stalls in the marketplace. Nira wove her way between them to the docks below, coldness in the pit of her stomach. Perhaps she was going to die, but it would be a quick death. She tried not to think of her mother. She clutched the old aviator’s helmet, reassured by its smooth bulk. It was the only thing she had stopped to take before fleeing.

  Sumadru, I’m coming to you.

  It was a criminal offence for anyone to venture on the bridge. Those who slipped through and survived the first few steps across were always caught and sent to cold-sleep. The watchers were armed; she would have to get past them.

  She remembered the young man who had sat next to her on the bus to Jayakarta. What was his name? Adi.

  She smelled the docks before she saw them. The air was thick with the salty, fishy odour of the sea. The harbour bustled with activity; men loaded and unloaded crates, and long, snaking lines of passengers waited to board the commuter ferries. Sumadru Bridge loomed ahead of her, dominating the scene.

  Access to the bridge was at the furthest end, in a deserted area of the docks. Nira made her way to its massive ebony towers, only to be brought up short by a barbed wire fence and a warning sign: “Authorized personnel only.” She circled the fence until she reached a security booth next to a gate.

  An unshaven face poked out of the window and surveyed her. “What do you want?” the guard demanded.

  “I’m Adi’s sister from Mariapelly,” said Nira. “Can you please take me to him?”

  “His sister, are you? Come on, then.”

  The guard unlocked the gate and she walked in, heart hammering inside her chest. Up close, the bridge was beautiful and she understood the longing of the bridge-worshippers. The cables hummed in the wind, and the towers gleamed in the sunlight. It looked like something from another world. Who was to say it wasn’t alive, that it couldn’t sense the thoughts and desires of the puny humans who walked into its shadow?

  She wondered if her uncle had reported her, if the police were already looking for her.

  They reached the barracks at the base of the stairs that led to the bridge. The guard told her to wait there while he fetched Adi from inside.

  Adi emerged a moment later, his face a picture of confusion. When he saw her, he frowned. “What the—?” he began, but Nira interrupted, afraid that the others inside would overhear him.

  “I sat next to you on the bus to Jayakarta,” she whispered. “You told me to come to the bridge and ask for you if I needed help.”

  His face cleared. “That’s right, I remember. What’s the matter?”

  “My uncle—attacked me,” said Nira.

  “Oh no, I’m sorry,” he said, looking concerned. “Are you hurt?”

  “I stabbed him,” she said and felt a rush of relief at the words, as if they had unlocked something hard and tight inside of her.

  He stared at her, mouth open.

  “Please, can you take me up to the bridge?” said Nira. “It’s the last thing I want to do.”

  Adi caught hold of her arm. “Don’t be a fool. Turn yourself in, say it was self-defence. You’ll be all right.”

  She shook his hand off. “No. They’ll put me in cold-sleep and I can’t stand that. All those years of bad dreams you can’t ever wake from. I’d rather die. Please? You could say I just want to see it and it won’t be your fault if I run.” She hated to beg, but he was the only one who could help her.

  “No,” said Adi. “If you die on the bridge, it’ll be my fault and I’m not carrying that on my shoulders.”

  “I thought I reminded you of your sisters. I’ve heard they do things to women in cold-sleep—bad things.”

  It was a shot in the dark but it struck home. A conflicting array of expressions flitted across Adi’s face as he gazed at her. At last, he nodded. “Come,” he said in a leaden voice. “Follow me.”

  As they climbed the stairs, he asked her what had happened but she found herself unable to talk about it, to give voice to the violation she had suffered. He seemed to understand, for he did not press her.

  But near the top of the stairs, he paused. “You could go to my family in Mariapelly,” he said. “I could do with a fourth sister. Three is way too few.”

  She tried to smile; instead her eyes filled with tears.

  Then they were on the deck and the bridge rose before her, the colossal towers strung with cables on either side, the road ahead black and impenetrable. Some trick of the sunlight and the mist perhaps, but the bridge looked as if it had neither beginning nor end, but just was, absolute and indestructible. How small she was, how insignificant.

  Adi hailed the two guards on the safety platform and sauntered over to them. They did not pay any attention to her. Perhaps they were used to gawking family members being brought up for a closer look at the bridge.

  A movement further down caught her eye and she gasped. A skinny man in a wetsuit clambered over the parapet and set off at a dead run down the middle of the bridge. The guards shouted and whipped dart guns off their shoulders. Before they could fire, the man exploded. Bits of flesh and blood flew everywhere.

  Nira swallowed and tried not to vomit. This might happen to her too. Probably would happen. The guards started their hoses, vacuuming the deck. Adi looked at her, expecting her to back away, perhaps.

  One of the guards leaned over the parapet and retched. The other laughed and thumped him on the back.

  She took her chance. She slipped past them. Adi reached for her with an inarticulate sound, but she was too quick for him; his fingers merely brushed her arm.

  When she reached the edge of the safety platform, she put on the aviator’s helmet and goggles. I’m sorry, Ma. She stepped off the platform.

  The world disappeared. The sound of crashing waves filled her ears—or perhaps that was the blood rushing through her brain. The mist was gone. She could see an infinite distance, beyond the blue-grey horizon of sea and sky to something further, something stranger.

  She took another step and almost forgot to breathe. A network of silver wires stretched from one side of the bridge to another, like a gigantic web. How had she not seen it before?

  The silver web looked both beautiful and deadly. Although Nira wanted very much to touch it, she made herself walk around the wires or duck under them.

  Behind her, she heard shouts and a scuffle. She hoped that Adi was not in trouble, but she didn’t dare turn around or take off the helmet. She concentrated on avoiding the wires and making her way down the bridge.

  It was tricky and all the time she kept thinking of the notes she’d found, repeating the wor
ds in her head. Her great-grandfather had built this bridge, and then he had crossed over to the other side, leaving a pregnant wife behind. What had he seen?

  After what seemed like hours, the wires thinned and the web vanished. Nira had reached the end of the bridge. She took off the helmet and goggles, shading her eyes against the westering sun. Her heart gave a little swoop as she took in the scene in front of her.

  A familiar, sandy white beach stretched out before her. Steps led down from the bridge to the sands below. Nira climbed down, thinking, it has to be a trick. Perhaps I’m in cold-sleep and dreaming. In the distance, fishermen’s boats bobbed on the sea. She turned around, wondering why she could no longer hear the hum of cables.

  The bridge was gone.

  She twisted back, but the vision did not change. Same, familiar white beach with the signature black rocks jutting out of the sands. Same curve of headland with the belt of coconut trees she had always loved to climb.

  Nira stared at the helmet in her hand. If she put it on, would the bridge reappear? She didn’t want to know, not really. It had brought her here. Perhaps it took everyone to wherever they needed to be. If it was an illusion, it was a fine one. She placed the helmet in the hollow beneath a black rock and piled sand on top of it before rolling the rock back into place.

  She kicked her shoes off and ran down the beach, reveling in the feel of wet sand between her toes. She didn’t stop until she reached the place by the water’s edge where the village women milled around, waiting for the boats. She slipped through the crowd, scanning the faces, her anxiety mounting until, at last, she heard a voice behind her.

  “Nira, I’ve been looking for you. Your father will need us to haul the catch in.”

  Nira flung herself into her mother’s arms and cried. She wept for the girl she’d left behind, the man she’d stabbed, and the boy she’d never know. At last, she wiped her eyes and stood with her bemused mother, waiting for the sea to deliver her father safely home.