The Glass Mountains

by Cynthia Kadohata

  “Lock! We have no locks. There is no danger. We’re not like some other establishments which I won’t name but which are located just down the street from here. You’ve chosen your accommodations well.” Someone else walked in behind us. “Welcome! Please. Tell me how I can help you. The best room for you?” With one of her hands she shooed us away, never taking her eyes off the new customer.

  Moor brought the dogs into the blue-doored room. Something scurried across the floor, and so many bugs climbed up one wall it seemed the wall was alive. The bed slanted precariously to one side and also down at the head.

  “Wouldn’t it be better for us to sleep outside?”

  “It isn’t allowed except in certain areas.”

  “How can it not be allowed to sleep outside?”

  “Because those who make the laws prefer that you sleep inside.”

  “Such absurdity!”

  We sat on the bed, each feeling great annoyance with the other. Now and then a bug would lose its footing and fall from above. A bug fell beside me, and then crawled over my leg before falling off the bed and to the floor.

  “What did we pay for this room?” I said.

  “Next to nothing.”

  “It’s worth less.”

  “Anything less would be free.”

  “It’s worth less even than that. Why don’t they pay us?”

  “Good idea, perhaps you should negotiate for us next time.”

  There was a silence, and then he rubbed and pushed at his eyes and temples and took big breaths of air. I thought he might cry if he could—but he could not. I put my small hand on his large one.

  And there in that infested room, with the blood rushing to our heads and the bugs dropping to the ground with soft pings, Moor and I copulated repeatedly in the same avid way I’d witnessed among animals. For me this uproar between my thighs was something new, something I had not known existed despite all my mother’s teachings about breeding. At first Moor conducted himself with the same mix of responsiveness and harshness with which he lived, and it seemed to me that this was all something he’d done as often as he’d thrown a knife. But after a while, with my legs wet and sticky and my lips raw from the harshness of our kisses, I knew there was much about this—about me—that was unlike anything even Moor had ever known. In our lovemaking he became not more experienced, but more innocent. At one point pain rose from inside of me alongside desire, but the pain was a part of the ritual of first copulation, the way, when the first of their parents died, some Bakshami would play the rhythms all night, until their fingers blistered from holding the sticks and the noise reverberated in their heads and their fatigue made them clumsy. The next day, exhausted, they nevertheless would feel deeply satisfied that their parent was really and truly dead, and that after this tragic yet inevitable departure from their daily lives the world had somehow righted itself again. Without the ritual there would be no feeling of rightness. So toward the end of our lovemaking, with every time Moor moved within me, the pain increased, and at the same time I emerged from this pain with a feeling of profound satisfaction and a sense that my insensible world had started to right itself.

  When Moor fell asleep I rubbed against his skin as I had the other night, with a new sense of discovery based on my new experiences. I also felt the way I did when I petted my dogs most evenings and marveled at what wonderful dogs they were and at how lucky I was to have them. Though they were supposedly my slaves, each night when I combed them free of fleas I vowed that I would be their slave for as long as they lived. Being their slave had made each of them mine. We had opened a passage between us through which our desires, our dignity, and our trust might flow. Tonight Moor and I had opened the same passage between ourselves. This made the dogs seem less important, and made it easy for me to see the wonder rather than the hopelessness of this room of moving walls.

  Moor had barely slept in the short time we’d traveled together. Holding his body I could tell he slept deeply now and that he could hear no sounds from the waking world except those heard through the filter of dreams. Perhaps the soft rustle of thousands of crawling insects sounded like the tinkle of tree leaves in the distance, and perhaps the occasional angry shouts from outside were the calls of desire he’d heard such a short time ago.

  Within my sleepiness I felt an excitement that wouldn’t let me sleep. To be here, in this place, was not to achieve bliss but to achieve an enchantment of my soul that paradoxically felt still and clamorous at the same time. In this gloomy room that should have been a place of sadness, I clung to Moor and wished we could stay in this village for a long while, exploring Artroro by day and each other by night.

  Finally I fell into a deep dreamless sleep. I began to rise out of it with an awful feeling similar to one that used to come over me as I was growing up and going through a period of intense dreaming. I would think, If I don’t get up now, my brother (or my sister, or my parents, or Artie) will die. Now I felt I had to get up or Moor would die. I felt as if I were suffocating. My sleep felt like chains I was trying to break free from. I awoke with a jerk and sat up immediately. Night had fallen, but electric lights leaked into the room with a sort of dead quality, an unnatural quality. This light was trying to mimic daylight but couldn’t.

  The shouts from outside had died down, and the inn had grown so quiet I could scarcely believe that throngs had crowded the village paths earlier. I went to the window and pulled aside the drapes. The view was obscured somewhat by a smoky quality to the window. I tapped the window, but it didn’t ring as glass did. The electric lights cast a queer and exotic luster on anything reflective outside. Shadows fell unnaturally, colors lost their vibrancy, and the unliving and the living seemed hardly different at all. The lights that were situated low enough threw shadows up rather than to the ground, which was the natural place of shadows. And the trees seemed more lifeless than during the day; on the other hand, the buildings seemed to possess a mystery I associated with life. These awful lights! They lit up not just the walls but the corners, not just Artroro but, seemingly, the sky above the sector, as well.

  “What do you see?” Moor had gotten up and spoke from the bed.

  “I see silence.”

  Moor stretched his back and rolled his neck. “Stuffy in here. We should get out, take the dogs for a walk, and maybe get something to eat.”

  “Let’s go hunting.”

  “It is no hunting culture. We can buy food somewhere.”

  “Who would be up at this hour?”

  “The innkeepers. They lie down but never sleep deeply in case a new customer comes.”

  He got up and pulled on his clothes.

  “My clothes are conspicuous because they’re so worn,” I said.

  “Not just your clothes but your expression of innocence and curiosity.”

  “Someone once called me a hayseed.”

  “All right, we’ll buy you new things tomorrow.”

  I got dressed while he took my place at the window. Neither of us spoke while he gazed outside.

  “In my country we honor the quiet as the source of life,” said Moor.

  “I would have thought your people would honor war as the source of life.”

  “It’s because of our many wars that we honor the quiet. The lack of noise, the stillness that accompanies it. The lulls between battles.”

  He let go of the drapes and opened the front door. “Bring your valuables with you. The lights burn all night in this sector for a reason.”

  I called the dogs and we went out into the cool humid air still thick with the scent of flowers. The dogs sniffed excitedly and rolled in some grass. The queer, exotic luster from the electric lights touched Moor’s hair and eyes and made him seem like a magical thing, and also made me feel shy when he looked at me. We walked quietly to search for food. At the innkeeper’s room we found perhaps a dozen people sleeping on chairs, on blankets on the floor and on the sofa.

  The smiling woman lay in a semi-enclosed area with her eyes
shut and mouth twitching, as if from the daily strain of smiling. Her enclosure, I supposed, provided better accommodations than that of the people sprawled around the room, and yet seeing her in her enclosure, on a small bed behind the bureaus and tables where she worked, made me feel sorry for her in a way that I didn’t feel sorry for the others. For added to the indignity of her accommodations was her loneliness, and added to her loneliness was the strain of hiding it. People did not suffer in this way in Bakshami.

  “Perhaps we should let her sleep,” I said.

  “She would welcome the extra money of selling us food.”

  “She thinks she would welcome us, but that sort of welcoming has more to do with habit than with joy.”

  Moor touched my face, the first time he’d touched me since our lovemaking. The touch made me wait avidly for anything he might say. He could persuade me of anything.

  “Let me wake her up,” he said gently. “I’ll make it worth her while.”

  “May I wake her then?”

  “Of course.”

  I studied him for a moment, at the unlikely mix of gentleman and warrior in his face and demeanor. I knew the same mix existed in his heart. It was his responsive quality, the quality that made him wait patiently for anything I might desire, that ruled at this moment. I entered the area behind the tables and bureaus where the woman lay and touched her shoulder softly. She laughed and mumbled to herself.

  “Please forgive me,” I said, shaking her this time.

  She sat upright, her smile erased, and in its place a look of suspicion and, improbably, faint terror. But then the smile seemed almost to leap upon her face again. “Forgive you, darling, but what have you done?”

  “I’ve woken you from your dreams. My friend and I were hoping for something to eat.”

  The fervent greed lit up her face again. I liked seeing that better than her improbable terror. Maybe she felt sheltered within her greed, just as I’d once felt sheltered within the naiveté that was fast dissolving. The woman stood up. “Whatever it is you wish I can give you. If you prefer meats I offer those, and if you prefer fruits I offer those as well.”

  The saliva under my tongue increased and felt warm in my mouth as she spoke. “Fruit for me,” I said. “But my friend likes meat, too.”

  “Fruit and meat for both of us,” Moor said. “And some meat and bones for the dogs.”

  “The price is high for a good meal at this hour,” said the woman. “But I can throw in some bread for free.”

  “We must see the food first before we pay,” Moor said. “But if the meal is good, we’ll make it worth your while.”

  “I was reluctant to wake you,” I said.

  I regretted my words immediately. I could see through her smile that my words had made her think of a way she could take advantage of us for more money. My way of being considerate no longer worked.

  Moor, seeing the same, spoke up. “But I myself was not reluctant,” he said.

  We waited in the small crowded outer area while she left for our meal. While Moor stood at the curtainless window, I sat on the floor and listened to the variety of snores in the room. All the sleepers lay on top of packs, probably the packs that contained their funds. And I noticed, too, that several had awoken and watched us warily. Moor, the woman, and I had talked in low voices, so I was surprised we’d woken up so many. I returned the stare of one man, thinking to make him turn away, but he continued to glare until I myself looked off. Artie placed a huge paw in my lap and moaned softly.

  “Are you hungry?” I whispered. “Food is coming.” Shami sat to my other side, smiling mischievously but sweetly in the way she often did.

  The food the woman brought was passable at best, and my sympathy for her had started to wear thin. But I let Moor pay her the generous fee he’d promised me, and we went outside to eat. We sat on the ground outside our room. The dogs chewed happily on their bones, sucking out the marrow with loud slurping noises, and when they finished they sat at attention to our sides, begging us with their eyes for food. I gave them each a piece of bread and two pieces of meat. Despite its mediocrity, Moor and I ate the food hungrily. I found I enjoyed eating mediocre food in the cool air under the supernatural light.

  “What should we do tomorrow?” I said.

  “I have a friend in Artroro who is indebted to me. We’ll look for him. We must find passage to Forma.”

  “Is your friend Soom Kali?”

  He nodded. “He encounters much prejudice but has managed to make a life for himself.”

  “Why live here among some of Soom Kali’s greatest enemies?”

  “Who understands you better than your worst enemies?”

  We finished eating in silence and returned to our room, leaving the door open to alleviate the stuffiness. Moor found a couple of flat rocks outside and slipped them under the head of the bed to balance out the slant. We’d started to get ready to go back to bed when Moor urgently motioned me to be still. “Quiet!” I told the dogs. We all three looked at Moor. I could hear the grating voice of the woman who’d checked us in.

  “Of course the man was rather rude. He seemed to think I might cheat them! The young lady seemed decent enough despite her dishevelment. We have a high class of residents here. We’re not like some other places I won’t name. I had no idea they’d murdered a soldier. I only let them have the room because—”

  Moor quietly closed the door and gathered up our pack with the currency. There was a flimsy-looking door in one wall, and he leaned hard against it until it fell open. We rushed through and found ourselves in another room with a woman pointing something at us. Moor smiled charmingly.

  “You don’t want to hurt us, just as we don’t want to hurt you. We’re only passing through.” He threw her a jewel and we rushed through, the woman pointing her weapon and cursing us.

  On the other side of the inn there was another inn, and we ran around that, and kept running through the mazelike paths of the village until I had no idea in what direction the original inn lay.

  3

  “Do you know where you’re going?” I finally asked Moor.

  “Yes, I’m going away from the inn. I don’t know what I’m going toward.”

  We walked all night through the village, and well before morning we passed through town and into some flower-covered hills. We slept in bushes, and when we awoke I felt ravenous, and ridiculously optimistic despite what had happened the night before.

  The sky shone less blue than in Bakshami, where there were no motorsleds and few machines, but I’d never seen such clouds, huge white swollen masses that threw shadows on the hills encircling us. The flowers were every shade of pink and red, so profuse they often blocked out sections of the green hills entirely.

  “How can they catch us in a country so crowded?”

  “There are many who’ll see us and report for a price. To kill a soldier is a severe crime in both sectors. Luckily even severe crimes are soon forgiven if you’re fortunate enough not to get killed for them.”

  “Then we can trust no one.”

  “There are people who check the listings for criminals every day, in case they’re fortunate enough to spot one and claim a reward.” Moor spoke patiently.

  We walked past the next town and into the next. At the contactor machine Moor stuck in the card that the taxi driver Penn had given us. It was getting late, and the streets had already begun emptying out. The night lights had resumed their queer luster.

  “This is Moor. The Soom Kali man? You gave my Bakshami friend and me a ride yesterday with our dogs.” He rubbed his forehead. He looked drawn and exhausted, not just by the tension of the last few days but by the weight of responsibility for me. I had sometimes felt that same weight with my dogs. “Yes,” he continued into the speaker. “But we need your help. We need a ride to a town quite a ways into the sector, and we need the ride now ... The price is fifty thousand peroxes in jewels ... No, it’s not negotiable. As you well know, that’s probably about what you’ll mak
e in the next fifty days, and that’s if you’re lucky.” He rubbed his head again, kneading his fingers into his temples. “Penn, Penn, you talk too much for me right now. Please say yes or no. My head is throbbing.”

  Penn agreed to come pick us up and bring a good meal with him. In general, we thought, we should keep to ourselves, so we wanted to avoid the food vendors. We looked around the town we found ourselves in. It was even seedier and more crowded than the town we’d first stayed in, and without the sense of bustle. Instead many of the inhabitants moved disinterestedly through the paths, only glancing at us occasionally. An exception to this was a woman who maniacally ran up and tried to put a sort of half-robe around me. Her arms enveloped my waist.

  “Does the lady need a gown?” she asked. “I have a blouse, too. Oh, how flattering the gown looks. And I have another just like it for the gentleman. Sir, it will flatter you every bit as much as it flatters the lady. Oh, what a handsome couple you’ll make.”

  “I want to fit in,” I said to her.

  “Oh, dear lady, how you will fit in when you buy some of my clothes. People have often said to me, When I wear your clothes I feel I fit in as I never have before!”

  The woman was about my size, with a quickness in her hands that was startling to watch as she whisked out her shining fabrics and enwrapped me.

  “Nothing too bright,” said Moor. “And something she can move fast in. Her knees and legs should be protected. Perhaps trousers would be best.”

  The woman threw up her quick hands in delight. “How lucky for you. Look what I have.” She drew out a pair of dark trousers that she held against my legs. The woman swooned with delight. “Oh, how lucky, how lucky. These will fit perfectly. And many have said to me that these trousers excel at protecting the knees.”

  “Will I fit in?” I asked Moor.

  “Will you fit in!” the woman exclaimed. “My dear, you will fit in so well no one will be able to tell you from anyone else. You will fit in so well you will all but vanish. Even now, just holding these up to you, I say to myself, Oh, how she fits in.”