The Glass Mountains

by Cynthia Kadohata

  As we walked back to Moor’s house, I practiced manipulating the knife, but a couple of times I dropped it. I didn’t think it was the Bakshami way to hold knives and have wars, whereas the Soom Kali were born with war in their blood.

  It was very late, and only one person walked across town. Moor told me not to stop, and we hurried our steps slightly to reach his house.

  “Don’t you have any easier weapons to protect yourself with?” I asked in the main room of his house.

  “I have a whole room in this house devoted to such weapons.”

  “And yet you use a knife.”

  “The only thing winning a battle with a weapon proves is who has purchased the finest weapon. A knife, unlike those other weapons, is a part of the person and proves who is the best warrior. We use the other weapons in wars, for convenience.”

  With his rangy appeal, and his face full of insolence and pain, he looked like a young warrior who already had fought in many wars. And he said he’d already fought in a few battles with the Artrorans.

  Like the Soom Kali I’d seen at the border he possessed a power that I couldn’t help but admire. I decided I should try to breed with him before I left. He wasn’t an Artroran strongman, but I doubted those Artrorans could be any more powerful than Moor. Perhaps they could lift more at one time, but they couldn’t possibly boast the same combination of strength and agility that the Soom Kali seemed to possess. I felt quite intoxicated.

  “Maybe we should breed together,” I blurted out.

  He smiled insolently. “In time,” he said. “I’m tired now. I haven’t slept at all for a day and a half.” He turned around and walked toward my room.

  When we arrived at my room he studied me seriously. “But I’ll sleep in your bed with you,” he said. I felt my face grow hot but agreed. So Moor and I undressed and got in the huge stone bed together. After feeling all that heat coming from him, I expected his body to be warm, but it was surprisingly cool. I can’t say that it was unusually cool, however, because I’d never held a naked body next to mine before. I put my arms around him and held him firmly and rubbed my skin on his and rubbed my hands on his skin. My feelings of discovery and need and bliss coalesced into something physical rather than emotional, so that the more I had these feelings, the more I rubbed my skin against his. I felt every part of his body I could from top to bottom, and when my feelings of discovery and need abated I settled into bliss. When he fell asleep and I felt how hard the muscles in his arms stayed even while he dreamed, I experienced the illogical feeling that more than all the things I wanted at that moment I wanted to protect him always. At that moment, I would rather have protected him than go to Artroro or see my brother or even, I’m ashamed to say, than save my parents. The feeling was completely illogical and completely overwhelming. So I slept all night with my arms around him, and when I woke up he had left.

  I luxuriated in the bath and then wandered into the kitchen, where breakfast awaited. Moor had laid out breads and fresh meats and left some sort of note that I couldn’t read—I could speak Artroran fairly well, but could barely read it. With nothing else to do, I wandered through the dozen or so rooms of the house. One large room was for metal and stone work. On a huge slab against the wall someone had carved a beast, and on a table sat several gorgeous metal vases almost as tall as I was. Everything seemed oversized except a series of delicate bracelets with the same lacy quality as objects in the main room.

  Moor and his father had stored their weapons in the next room. What can I say about this room except that there were a hundred ways to kill an enemy in there? As I came out I heard grunting, apparently as Moor’s father got out of bed. He seemed to fall to the ground with a thump and I hurried to him.

  In the light he was even frailer than his shadow; at least a shadow in the dark appears to imply substance and a type of incorporeal potency. But this man seemed to have so little potency and substance that I couldn’t speak for a moment, only stare. He was as tall as his son but weighed perhaps half. He stared back at me acidly.

  “If you’ve come to help, then help. If you’ve come to stare, then leave.”

  I grabbed hold of his arm—he was nothing to lift—and helped him back into bed.

  “I heard you moving around and was going to check on you,” he said weakly. He closed his eyes and rubbed one of them with a clawlike finger. “If you’ve stolen anything I’ll have my son kill you. He likes you, but I’m his father.”

  “I’m sorry. I was curious.”

  He regarded me acidly again. “You don’t seem so brave to me. My son has got it into his head that you’re courageous.”

  “I left Bakshami with just a friend.”

  “Bakshami, don’t tell me about Bakshami. Even without your wretched country, the planet has all the sand it needs. Your country is just overkill.” His mood suddenly changed, and he looked at me with light in his eyes. “Tell me, did my son leave you some meat in the kitchen?”

  “I’ve eaten it. Can I look for more for you?”

  The light in his eyes dulled. “No, damn him, he’s hidden it. The doctors say I can’t digest meat, and he gives me the same revolting roots every day. That’s what’s killing me, I tell you. You must promise to sneak me some meat, young lady, do I have your word?”

  “I don’t think I should. I can ask Moor—”

  “Don’t ask him, curse you. I thought you were brave! You must sneak me some meat! So what if I die? What’s a life without meat anyway?” His eyes grew desperate. “If you lived as I do, you, too, would beg.”

  “I’m sure Moor doesn’t want you to suffer. I’ll speak to him if you think that would help.”

  “I stay alive only because I want to see my son again each day, not because he follows doctors’ orders and denies me meat. I love my son and couldn’t bear him going away, but frankly neither can I bear him staying to take care of me. Every time he’s gone I think of meat. Despite my weakness I search the house for where he might have hidden meat. I told my son to kill you and use the dogs for meat,” he mumbled. He closed his eyes and began to breathe laboriously.

  I sat in the only chair in the room, the chair in which Moor probably sat as he spoke with his father. He told me he stayed up all night with his father occasionally. Hard and straight-backed, the chair was probably disagreeable to sit in for even an hour, let alone a night. Still, as time passed I could see how the chair supported my back without making me sleepy.

  The air passing in and out of the lungs of Moor’s father seemed to hit all manner of phlegm and disease. I got up to open a window and while I struggled with it I saw outside how simple the village was despite the ornamentation of the doors. Even without benefit of the sparkling lamps to entrance me, the houses appeared inviting. The lamps swung in the breeze, knocking with pings against the stone doors. This simple village beneath the striking blue sky possessed a storyteller’s quality. It reminded me of my old town, a place vivid in my memory but long since destroyed.

  3

  The breeze from outside was a delight, touched with a sweet coolness I’d rarely felt in daytime air. Moor’s father groaned in his sleep. I thought of Maruk and Sian going through integration and couldn’t imagine how they could integrate without losing their minds from the tension that must press forever against their temples. To act like someone you were not might be an adventure for a while, but after time when you started really to become who you were not, what then? From then on, your life would be nothing but suffering.

  The cool fresh breeze cleansed the air in the room. It started to make the room seem like someplace one might come to live rather than a place one came only to die. Moor’s father didn’t seem to notice. His face as he lay there was swathed in a bitter sleep, and because his mouth fell open bits of white-flecked drool fell down his cheek to the pillow. Now and then he made a sound like a dog growling, and I would not have been surprised to hear him bark. Here was a man, I believed, who had spent his life hating others, and I wondered why Moor lov
ed him so. But as the afternoon passed and I watched that angry face that knew no peace, I came to see that there was little in the world more heartbreaking than the deathbed of one who has never been happy, or who has become bitter, or who has hated more than he has loved. So perhaps Moor’s heart was breaking for that reason. I also knew that between a parent and a child explanations existed for things that outsiders found inexplicable. There were no murders in Bakshami, but I knew that within families even in my sector there were reasons for love, and sometimes reasons for murder. Not excuses, just reasons. So Moor’s heart was breaking for some of those unfathomable reasons that exist between parent and child.

  For now, the only way I could think to protect a strong young man who scarcely realized he needed protecting was to sit in his place at his sick father’s bedside. My back grew sore and the difficult breathing of Moor’s father started to oppress me. And in this way I learned something of what Moor’s life had been like for the past three years.

  “What are you doing in here?” I hadn’t heard Moor enter. His voice sounded poised between surprise and annoyance.

  “I heard your father fall and came to see him. Then I just sat here.”

  He went to close the window. “It’s freezing in here.”

  “So it is. My arms are full of bumps.”

  His annoyance began to fade. Now he was just confused. “But why did you sit here in the cold like this?”

  “I don’t know. It did occur to me once or twice that it was cold, but for some reason I couldn’t get up. I wanted to sit here as you did.”

  Moor’s eyes softened now. “Let’s talk elsewhere,” he said gently.

  He took my hand and led me to his room, a large, almost majestic chamber with walls, floors, a table, and a bureau of sparkling, polished rock. He smiled at me.

  “I know it’s grand, but my parents made it for me when I was born, so I’ve always stayed here,” he said. “But how was my father?”

  “He slept most of the time.”

  “I mean how was he to you?”

  “He told me he’d advised you to kill me and eat my dogs.”

  “I don’t like dog meat.”

  “How lucky for me.”

  “You are lucky. But sit down. I want to talk.”

  I sat on a couch embroidered with shiny metallic thread. The fabric felt as smooth and soft as glass, and the cushion as soft as fur but with a springy quality about it I’d never encountered.

  “The soldiers are moving out now,” he said. “You can’t stay or some stickler for the rules may want to dispose of you. The army pays the guards bonuses for any foreigners caught here without going through integration. Once foreigners are caught, the soldiers are free to dispose of them in whatever way they choose. I myself have witnessed twenty-six such disposals in my lifetime.”

  He seemed so professional now, as if helping me were somehow his job.

  “Can’t I stay for just one more night? It’s so comfortable here.”

  “The integration laws are the strictest laws in the sector.”

  “I haven’t told you something. My brother and his wife came to Soom Kali. He may be trying to integrate. I would like to see him.”

  “If you see him, he will surely fail his integration.”

  “Then he will be forced to accompany me to Forma.”

  “Should not your brother make his own decisions? If you love him, you must let him integrate without your interference. It is a harrowing process.”

  “I don’t mean to interfere.” I fell suddenly to my knees in tears. Moor did not move. “I’m scared,” I said. “I cannot go on alone.”

  Moor lifted me gently to my feet. “You will not be alone.”

  I stared at him. “You?”

  “Yes. Otherwise you travel alone. Your friend Tarkahna is being romanced by Panyor.”

  “The dog-faced man!”

  “He’s a good man.”

  “He has been fair,” I agreed.

  “Tarkahna will start the integration tomorrow.”

  “What? At every step she has abandoned me whenever she could.”

  “You could integrate, too, although I don’t think I would like you as much if you did.”

  “I’ll never integrate.”

  He nodded with approval. “Just as I thought.”

  “I’ve never been alone, but it can’t be worse than everything else I’ve seen.”

  “There is nothing worse than loneliness. I have heard it said many times.”

  “What is your price to accompany me?”

  “I haven’t decided. For now you must leave some of your jewels with my father.”

  “And you will leave your father?”

  “It was his idea. He’ll probably buy meat with the jewels you leave behind. But that must be his decision.”

  “But he said you should kill me.”

  Moor laughed. “Yes, that would be his first choice. But I think you remind him of my mother.”

  “Did he love your mother?”

  “In his way. He became twice as embittered when she died. That was a type of love, I suppose.”

  “But you? Why will you do this for me?”

  His eyes flared. “For the adventure first. And for you second. Maybe someday, you’ll be more important to me than the adventure. But the yearning for adventure has been with me since I was a boy, and the yearning for you has been with me for just over a day.”

  “I see the Soom Kali make love differently from Bakshami. Here you believe in frankness, while in my sector the time of romance is the time of lies. It’s an extension of our tradition of storytelling. You tell your partner ever bigger and bigger lies, like a kind of ritual. But eventually the lies become truth.”

  “Don’t expect me to act like a Bakshami. I offer what I offer.”

  “Of course. I only say that it’s better to start out with lies that become truths than truths that become lies.”

  “That’s nothing but a Bakshami tongue-twister.”

  “And what is it that you offer?”

  “To risk my life for yours. Isn’t that better than a ritual of lies?”

  He seemed hurt, and my hand, moving of its own volition, stroked his cheek, feeling that surprisingly cool skin capable of emitting a type of heat I’d never felt. “I would not want you to risk your life. And I do prefer the truth. The reasons for the romance ritual have always been a mystery to me.” That wasn’t entirely true. In fact, it was the sort of lie that was a part of the romance ritual, a ritual that didn’t have to make sense.

  Moor and I didn’t have much time and went to get his bags, which he had already prepared. When we were ready we went in to talk to Moor’s father together. His father lay awake in bed, propped up against cushions. The opulent cushions made him look even more insubstantial than he was. There was only the one chair, but Moor sat at the foot of the bed. Seeing them together for the first time and observing their ease with each other, I felt like a trespasser in their world. I knew that Moor’s father was probably feeling the same way about his son and me. But I also knew he was wrong. I knew he could control his son’s destiny with one word: Stay.

  But he didn’t speak that word. He asked rambling questions about my life in Bakshami, and about my family, and made rambling remarks about his wife’s uniqueness and courage. When his father got tired, Moor signaled me to leave.

  “Wait,” said Moor’s father. “Son, did you tell her that there was a time when I was the strongest man not just in this tiny village, but in half the land? My military career was the pride of my family, and all the generals begged me to join their personal troops and enticed me with promises of homes and money. A man as strong as I brought prestige to a troop. I wouldn’t want her to think I was always like this.”

  Moor’s father began coughing uncontrollably while Moor held his hand.

  “Can I help?” I said.

  Moor shook his head. “The doctors say there’s nothing to it but to wait until the coughing passes.” Moor
’s face was a mask now. I knew he’d endured many such fits.

  I winced at the worst coughs and hummed to myself to cover the sounds of a man dying.

  In a few minutes, Moor’s father continued as if nothing had interrupted.

  “My wife hated the army. I couldn’t admit that I’d started to hate the army as well. My son will have a different life with you. So Mariska, I give you permission to take my son. I might not see him again.”

  “Father, if I thought I’d never see you again I wouldn’t leave.”

  “You can believe whatever you want. I’ll die when I want to.” He spoke with pride. “I’m sick of doctors telling me when I will or won’t die, and, frankly, I’ll be glad when you leave and I get some meat in my stomach.” He spoke as if he meant what he said, his eyes blazing with the strength of his appetite for meat.

  “Moor, can we not leave him with meat?” But there were things between them I did not understand, and Moor refused. With bowed head he knelt at his father’s bed, just as I had knelt at my grandfather’s tomb. His father seemed barely conscious as we left.

  “Moor, you don’t have to come. I’ll be fine, I can feel it.” Another lie, since I believed as he did that I would probably die without his help.

  “I don’t want to join the army and spend my life currying favor with the generals and killing foreigners.”

  “Maybe you could be a general yourself.”

  He savored the thought, but then he shrugged. “Then others would try to curry favor with me and I would order them to kill the foreigners.” He reached out suddenly and touched my face, and ran his hand down my neck and over my breast where my heart lay. “You’re so small, little doll. But your heart is strong. I can feel its beat.”

  “I’m strong,” I said.

  He laughed but didn’t reply. Then he pointed to his pack. “Can you lift this, little doll?” The pack was as heavy as a hundred big rocks. I couldn’t budge it. “I know women your age who could pick that pack up with one hand,” he said. “I speak seriously. Don’t overestimate yourself, or underestimate yourself either. You’ve been lucky so far, but if I’m going to travel with you, you must see things for what they are. Otherwise it will all become a nuisance to me.”