H(A)PPY

by Nicola Barker

  Can’t tell . . .

  ‘The Paraguayans love, hate and fight in Guaraní. In this tongue they shout on the football field and whisper their declarations of love in the dark corners of the patios of their old, colonial houses. It is a rich language wherein a single word often combines both a noun and its attendant adjective, the subject and its quality. Pyjhare means not only “night” but also “infinity”; purajhei signifies simultaneously “song” and “the manner of uttering pretty things”; and cuna has the combined meaning of “woman” and “devil’s tongue”.

  Paraguay does not lack poets, and if none of them has yet attained international fame it is, perhaps, as Augusto Roa Bastos (b. 1918), himself one of the most talented of younger Paraguayan writers, has remarked, because the Spanish version of their ideas and sentiments is a translation and therefore a betrayal. When they write poetry in Spanish they feel constrained, and their creative power is weakened. The same is true of prose fiction. Paraguay really has no novelists in Spanish, although Guaraní folklore abounds in long, narrative stories. The explanation is doubtless that the Spanish language is inappropriate for dialogue which is originally conceived in Guaraní.

  It is only by means of MUSIC that the Paraguayans can communicate their emotions to the outside world.’

  Where everything ends . . .

  ‘“BARRIOS WANTED TO DESTROY HIMSELF BUT COULDN’T, BECAUSE HE WAS A GENIUS.” [SERGOVIA] . . . HE DESTROYED HIMSELF BY CHANGING HIS NAME AND HIS MANNER OF DRESS, BY HAVING PLASTIC SURGERY, BY DISREGARDING HIS HEALTH AND BY NOT STRUCTURING HIS CAREER CORRECTLY…’

  And where it begins . . .

  ‘The Iroiangi did jepy too, when a hunter died. But their vengeance took a different form from the Atchei Gatu’s. They put the body in a ditch they have dug in the earth. To persuade his spirit to leave, they offer him one of his children as a sacrifice, as often as possible a very little girl. Or it could be a kujambuku, just about to go through puberty. She is put into the grave on top of her father. The men stand around the hole. One after the other they jump on top of the child, crushing her with their feet until she dies. When the child is kromi, this happens quickly; she dies almost right away. But when she is a “big woman”, her bones are harder and she takes some time to die; she cries out that she does not want to die and tries to get out of the grave. Go nonga ure. This is the way we do it.’

  Oh no more words.

  No more words.

  No more words.

  No more words.

  Please. Please.

  I am sated.

  I am drowned.

  I am . . . I am replete.

  **** came to me in a dream. I was ready for him. We were ready for him. In the dream we were standing outside a hospital waiting for the news of a birth. She was with me – the little girl with the brown eyes. We were standing either side of her – Mira A and Mira B – and I suppose we were shielding her. Mira B was oscillating. Or at least at first I thought so, but then, after a while, I realised that it was simply the light reflecting off her – off us – from the cameras. The flashes of the cameras. The streets were heaving. It was warm. The air smelled of orange blossom and jasmine with an undercurrent of antiseptic from a nearby sewer.

  Somewhere out of eyeshot a guitarist was performing an especially sweet and poignant rendition of ‘Un Sueño en la Floresta’. He was playing (I have no idea how I knew this) with a guitar produced by the famous Brazilian luthier Romeo Di Giorgio. The guitar (its neck suddenly rose before me like a ladder) had the special addition of a twentieth fret. This allowed the guitarist to deliver an exquisite high C on the first string. The piece was sweet and mournful and swathed – sheathed – swooning – with tremolo.

  Oh I wish I could stop talking like this!

  I wish I could just . . .

  Just rein it in a little.

  But the more the words come – the more they flow – the more I am compelled to feel. And then the words resurface again – and then the feelings – and then the words – and then the feelings – in a constantly escalating and self-perpetuating cycle.

  The guitar neck rose before me and I began to climb it like a ladder, placing my feet carefully on to the individual frets.

  D sharp

  D

  C sharp

  C

  B

  A sharp

  I encouraged the little girl to follow on behind me. Mira B held the ladder firm as we ascended. But when we were halfway up I realised that the little girl had misplaced her doll – her baby – her doll. Remember? The baby? Where had it gone? Who had taken it? Mira B waved her hand at me, actively encouraging me to continue my ascent. We are the doll, she called, her voice almost obliterated by the trill of notes – We are the baby – you and me: Mira A and Mira B.

  What could she mean? My hands suddenly began to sweat. I lost concentration. The song began to lose its course. Soon the ladder started wobbling. The little girl froze and clung on tightly. Down below I could see Mira B surrounded by the press. They were snatching at her, nudging her, pulling at her clothing. I reached my hand down to the girl. The strings on the guitar were now vibrating quite violently. I grabbed her hand. I looked up. I began to ascend again more purposefully. The tune was quite deafening. Something at first so poignant, so fleeting, so lovely, had now become angry and threatening and discordant. I thought I might fall, but I held on. The ladder continued to wobble. I dared not look down to discover the fate of Mira B. I just clung on to the girl. I glanced up. I was on the sixteenth fret. What lay above? Just thick smog. I looked straight ahead of me and saw that I had drawn adjacent to a window (in the hospital building). I could see through the window and into a room beyond. There was an operating table, and a surgeon in green scrubs. There were three nurses. And standing close by was an old woman – The Grandmother. Her hands covered her face. Her shoulders rose and fell as she sobbed. I glanced over at the operating table. It was there I saw the small outline of the girl, lying on her back, her arms splayed out, palms raised, her child’s belly terrifyingly distended. I tightened my grip on her fingers, but my hand simply formed into a fist. She was gone. I had lost hold of her.

  I pushed my face in closer to the window. I tried to call her name but I did not know it. The surgeon – with admirable precision – began to apply his blade to the child’s belly. He sliced her open. Then he dug his hand into the hole and withdrew a bag, which he carelessly opened. He tipped the contents down on to the linoleum tiles. One hundred stones. Next he withdrew a special dog harness. After that a kora. Then a Neuro-Mechanical canine. Then he took out a series of words.

  devastated

  rotten

  abducted

  Krishna

  Finally he withdrew a gap. A white space. It floated above his hands like a pale cloud and then turned into a dove and flew around the room. It was frantic. It slammed into the window. On the pane, after impact, was left the exquisite, ghostly imprint of its feathers.

  I felt a strong urge to open the window. I could not. So I smashed at it with my fist. The glass shattered. I slammed my hand into the hole, knocking out chips and shards. I could feel no pain. The dove flew towards the hole (I ducked) and it escaped. I turned to watch its progress. It flew upwards. Into the smog. And it was then, as I watched it, that I saw ****. I was on the sixteenth fret. **** was standing on the twentieth. He held out his hand to me. I hesitated, and then I stretched out my hand to him. My hand was covered in blood. **** grabbed ahold of my wrist and yanked me up.

  We were standing in my room. **** went to my printer and asked for a mesh Wound Healer. Once it had printed he wrapped it, carefully, around my fist.

  I should wake up, I thought. But before I did – before I could – I saw another person – a second person – sitting quietly in the corner of the room. In fact I did not see him. At first I smelled him. The strangest aroma. Something so alien. I could not quite tell if it was attractive or repulsive. I knew that the smell was life. I knew that the smell was
age.

  It was decay.

  Death.

  **** was talking. He was introducing The Stranger to me.

  ‘Mira A, please, please pay attention. I have brought someone to meet you. This is Savannah,’ he said.

  **** had disconnected his Graph and his Sensor. Mine still flashed and oscillated. But it was incoherent. It posed no danger. They talked quietly between themselves – **** and The Stranger – almost as if I was not present.

  ‘She has become obliterated by words,’ Kite told The Stranger. The Stranger was standing up now. He was moving towards me. He was without embellishments (no Sensor, no Stream) and so he was inexplicable to me. He was holding out his hand. His skin was dark. He was dark. His clothes were dark. There were strange marks on his arms and on his neck. Blueish-black scratches. There was a little teardrop (and a little cross, just beneath it), carefully etched on to his left cheek, under his left eye. The smell of him prickled in my nostrils. It made me feel – it made me feel . . .

  It made me feel.

  I did not have the language.

  Alive?

  Lost?

  Terrified?

  All these words, these words. How might I possibly hope to corral them?

  I shrank from his touch. I had expected the intelligent fabrics to protect me but their response was surprisingly sluggish.

  ‘She is faded,’ The Stranger said, still reaching.

  ‘Am I awake?’ I asked. My voice was very quiet.

  ‘Do you hear what she’s saying?’ **** asked.

  ‘She wants to know if she is awake,’ The Stranger told him.

  ‘You are awake.’ **** nodded.

  ‘Can you hear me?’ I asked The Stranger.

  ‘Perfectly.’ The Stranger smiled. His teeth were yellowed. He took my hand and unwound the mesh Wound Repair. His hands were warm. His touch was gentle. He inspected the cuts.

  ‘I love to watch them heal,’ he murmured. His eyes were glowing.

  ‘Don’t touch her,’ **** cautioned sharply. ‘You may infect her with something. She is Pure. All is not yet lost. Her future is still In The Balance.’

  In The Balance?

  I was once In Balance.

  Am I now In The Balance?

  How curious that with the addition of merely one, small word – the definite article – everything is transformed. Everything is changed. Everything is undermined.

  ‘She’s becoming more and more difficult to decipher,’ **** said. ‘She is being consumed by narrative. She is making inappropriate connections. She is at once declaring war on The System and becoming synonymous with it. Overlaid by it. Obliterated. The oscillation is the key, I think. She is becoming dangerous to us. There must have been a flaw – a chink.’

  ‘You put the flaw into me,’ I whispered hoarsely.

  The Stranger tipped his head, frowning.

  ‘What did she just say?’ **** asked.

  ‘She says she feels cold,’ The Stranger lied.

  ‘Who are you?’ I asked, snatching my hand away, then gasping at a curious sensation. A sharp feeling. A vicious heat. Something extreme and quite alien – and yet . . . yet somehow also oddly familiar – comforting . . .

  Pain?

  ‘I am The Intermediary,’ he said.

  ‘Her self has become split between her sense of restraint – of resignation – and her feelings of desire,’ **** observed. ‘She is a musician.’

  ‘Ah. Like the other girl.’ The Stranger nodded. ‘They are especially susceptible it would seem.’

  ‘Yes, Tuesday,’ **** nodded. ‘Although Tuesday was a perfectionist, a fascist. How is she faring?’

  ‘She has established a small niche for herself.’ The Stranger smiled. ‘She is tough. Her mind is like a closed trap. Eventually – in time – it will consume itself.’

  ‘I don’t understand . . . ’ I whispered, registering the throb in my hand and peering over towards the window. There was a hole in it. And there was blood on the floor below. The window was healing itself, but slowly, just as my hand was. The carpet was cleaning itself, but slowly, just as the window was. The fibres repelled and then consumed the organic matter that sat red-blackly upon them.

  ‘She is slow to heal,’ **** said. ‘The narratives are creating conflict in her at a cellular level. She is stressed. She has lost hope.’

  ‘The tuning fork is in my heart,’ I announced.

  ‘Embedded there, perhaps’ – The Stranger chuckled – ‘like a knife.’

  I was unfamiliar with the language he now spoke. I glanced over towards my Sensor but it simply vibrated with a dense green static – as if a strange mould, or a pondweed – had finally overrun it.

  ‘What is this language?’ I asked, intrigued to find myself clumsily speaking it.

  ‘Guaraní,’ he murmured. ‘We generally like to use it because your Sensors find it difficult to interpret. Many of the words have dual meanings. It is incoherent – contradictory. Your System will not allow for variations. It is rigid. If you understand me then you must have visited our Holy Place, because for our people words are souls.’

  ‘What are you saying?’ **** asked impatiently, plainly now feeling the lack of his Sensor.

  ‘She has visited our Holy Place,’ The Stranger said.

  ‘A Cathedral.’ **** nodded, signally unimpressed. ‘There is a musician – 91.51.9.81.81.1.2–14.9.02.91.12.7.1 – who composed a piece of music by that title: The Cathedral. This is what initially led her astray, we feel. Then the idea became embedded. There is a fluctuation in the metal strings he played on. A special vibration. There was a sister star of the same name as hers which oscillated. Something fused. Something random and meaningless. But she has used narrative to construct a story and now the Stream is pounding her with related, yet completely arbitrary information.’

  ‘I am Imperfect,’ I murmured. ‘There was an oscillation in my Oracular Devices. They implanted something into me. The System is not Pure, it is corrupted. I am becoming The System because – like it – I am impure.’

  After I stopped speaking I started.

  What was I saying?

  What was I thinking?

  Could this even be me speaking?

  Truly?

  Wasn’t it . . . wasn’t it perhaps only her?

  ‘Listen,’ The Stranger murmured, ‘if you’ve seen the shapes, the gaps, the whiteness, then you are in serious jeopardy. When **** discovers this you will be cast out. If you want to save yourself then you need to believe in The System again. By an act of will. In simply believing you shall eventually become Pure.’

  ‘What are you saying?’ **** was growing enraged now.

  ‘I am speaking to her in Spanish,’ The Stranger lied. ‘She seems to follow the occasional word.’

  He turned to me again. ‘You do not want to enter The Unknown. It is a world of confusion. Your clamps will be rejected by your body out there. We do not have medicine like The Young. You are better off staying here. Compromise. Adapt. Save yourself. Close everything down while you still can.’

  I gazed at him, in silence.

  ‘I know that piece.’ The Stranger – Savannah – nodded towards ****, but his eyes remained fixed on me. ‘There are three parts to it. The Prelude was written long after the other two movements, but now it sits at the start. It is wistful, melancholy. There are bells ringing throughout. And an organ plays Bach. The composer – Agustín Barrios – was of indigenous blood. A great Romantic. A genius.’

  ‘He died, in poverty, of syphilis,’ **** sneered. ‘What possible romance is there in that?’

  ‘I can’t expect you to understand why this resonates with us so deeply.’ The Stranger laughed. ‘You are Perfected, and we, as you know, are anything but Perfect.’

  ‘Well now you have seen her’ – **** indicated towards me with a dismissive sneer – ‘do you think you will be able to create a livable space for her on your territory?’

  ‘There is plague’ – The Stranger shrugged – �
��and turmoil and hunger. But I am sure it is possible, nonetheless.’

  ‘Can you reason with her?’ **** wondered. ‘I have tried and failed. Another of her friends – a Youth called Kipp – has also attempted, but to no avail. Perhaps you can make her understand how life is death in your world, how faith is war. How words are fluid. How freedom kills certainty. How narrative pervades every tiny chink and crack and orifice and poisons everything.’

  The Stranger returned his eyes to me once again. ‘I think she already knows,’ he murmured.

  ‘Do you love The Young?’ he asked.

  As he said the word ‘love’ I felt it change on his tongue. This was his language. Where nothing was static.

  ‘I can’t answer your question,’ I said. ‘It fluctuates.’

  ‘There is no Certainty in The Unknown.’ He nodded. ‘But you may find Certainty here, if you choose to.’

  ‘What are you saying?’ **** asked, irritated.

  ‘I am explaining to her that in my world there is chaos . . . ’ He paused. ‘Those clamps in her head are very large. What possible purpose are they serving?’

  ‘They have mechanised selective parts of her brain.’ **** shrugged. ‘To try and correct the flaw.’

  ‘This explains why Tuesday was attracted to her.’ The Stranger nodded. ‘But it will make it harder for her to express herself emotionally. That will be challenging, surely, for a musician?’

  ‘Sometimes it is necessary,’ **** sighed. ‘The line between what is human and what is perfect is an intangible one.’