The Year's Best SF 08 # 1990

by Gardner Dozois (ed)

  The First Since Ancient Persia

  JOHN BRUNNER

  A letter [in Nature] signed by 134 scientists from Argentina’s Centre for Animal Virology concluded: “… we feel that our country has been illegally used as a test field for a kind of experiment that is not yet accepted in the countries where the basic research on this vaccine had originated.”

  NEW SCIENTIST, 26 MAY 1988

  All day the lurching bus trailed its filthy wake of dust and diesel fumes across the drab and level countryside. Throughout this province the roads were no better than tracks, for there was nothing to metal them with, not even gravel, although, as Elsa Kahn had noticed, some attempt was being made to fill the worst of the potholes. Now and then the bus forded (could one say forded when there was no water? Well, then: traversed) one of the rare riverbeds of the region, dry as they would all remain for perhaps another three months, until the onset of the summer rains. Even then they would run no better than knee-deep. This was a land without bridges.

  There she saw gangs of ragged men loading rocks on to the backs of burros fitted with saddles like double wooden hods. But they were not numerous, for even the timber had to be, so to say, imported. No trees save those planted by human hands grew closer than the foothills of the mountains that loomed on the western skyline.

  There had been other wood along the road, in the shape of phone poles. They, however, had been rendered obsolete, replaced by line-of-sight microwave relays, cheaper and less vulnerable to sabotage. Near the towns that punctuated the bus’s route they had been torn down; the few that survived, too distant to be worth dragging away, served only to support the curious double-chambered nests of ovenbirds. Even so, passing one constituted an event and a distraction, comparable with the sight of a windmill in the distance, pumping water for an isolated farm, though not a match for an encounter with another vehicle. So far they had met four trucks and a bus plying in the opposite direction. Also they had overtaken sundry burros, pedestrians, and farm carts. Slow though their progress was, nothing had overtaken them.

  The sluggish changelessness of the landscape seemed to have infected Elsa’s fellow passengers, of whom there were at present eight, including an armed policeman seated behind the driver. He was the sole person on board who had spoken to her, and then only to demand a sight of her passport. The rest had merely glanced at her and retreated into the privacy of their own thoughts.

  Now and then she felt the same lethargy was debilitating her. The first time they crossed one of the dry riverbeds she had automatically thought of it as a wadi, having encountered its like in North Africa. Although she had realised at once that that was wrong, it had taken her long minutes to recapture the proper term, arroyo seco.

  Not that it was much help. Where she was bound, people might well use an entirely different word, drawn like so much of their vocabulary from the ancient language of the Chichiami.

  That, at any rate, was what she had been told.

  * * *

  At dusk, not more than twenty minutes behind schedule, the bus arrived at her destination—or rather, the place beyond which she had decided not to travel today. Its name, Los Tramos, might, she guessed, commemorate the breakup of one of the old haciendas into peasant smallholdings.

  The first indication she had of it was a glimpse of more of the omnipresent windmills, but clustered, six or seven together. Then there were low one-storey houses, set wide apart, enclosed with fences made of at most two strands of wire strung as taut as possible, for it was expensive. Of course much of it was probably old phone wire, got for free. Behind the fences she saw a few sheep, flocks of hens, a good many pigs, and occasional cattle—these last of the old, unimproved breeds, resistant to the disease-bearing ticks that infested the grassland but thin and slow to reach full growth. Also, at the edge of town, there was a cemetery sown with canted tombstones. Several of the graves, including those apparently most recent, were no more than mounds, with a cross of pebbles outlined on top and perhaps a withered wreath or sad bouquet.

  That, and everything beyond, was eloquent of a decline into poverty. First came a street of houses, all in poor repair but a few boasting two storeys. Some of the ground floors served for poky shops; she saw vegetables on sale, scrawny chickens, swags of gaudy cheap cloth, sandals hung up on strings like misshapen onions. And then, at last, the bus ground to a halt in the main plaza, between a dry fountain on whose base half a dozen idle young men were sitting and a signpost with only two arms. They pointed back to Vilagustin, ahead to Cachonga.

  Seemingly, there was nowhere else to go from here.

  A church fronted on the square. It was as badly kept up as the houses. On one side of it stood a row of somewhat larger shops of which two were abandoned, and, in the middle, a service station—though there were few cars in evidence, all old. She noticed four or five motorcycles, several bicycles, and two tractors, doubtless doubling as personal transport for the relatively wealthy farmers who could afford them. She had seen that before, in Yugoslavia and Greece.

  Next in order around the square came another row of houses. The ground floors of the middle three had been knocked into one to form a cantina, half of whose patrons were sitting outside. Elsa wondered whether that was to escape the jukebox music that resounded from it. Not only was it loud; it was distorted, as though the records and the stylus were alike worn out.

  And, on the fourth side stood the kind of multipurpose public building she had come to expect in areas like this, serving as town hall, police station, tax bureau, post and telegraph office, phone exchange—there was a cluster of dishes on the roof—and very likely school and hospital into the bargain. On poles protruding from its facade the national and provincial flags flapped limply in the cool evening air.

  A harassed-looking young man with glasses emerged from it and hurried toward the bus. Descending, the policeman handed him a bag of mail and a large envelope with red wax seals, for which he exacted a signed receipt. This riveting occurrence took place under the gaze of fifty pairs of eyes: those of the idlers at the fountain, those of the customers outside the cantina, and those of a few old women—there were no young ones in view, nor girls—hurrying to make last-minute purchases for supper. One, dressed in black and with a kerchief tied round her head, crossed herself, as though terrified of what this familiar intrusion from the greater world might portend.

  To Elsa’s surprise, no one else was getting off here, even to stretch their legs or have a pee or buy a drink at the cantina. With a word of thanks to the driver, who disregarded her, she manoeuvred her aluminum-framed backpack through the door and looked around. At once she was the focus of all attention. Los Tramos was obviously not used to visitors like this: a woman of about thirty, travelling alone despite being attractive enough to have found herself a husband, her dark hair cut man-short, wearing boots and jeans and a man’s tartan workshirt open halfway to her waist because on the way to the bus this morning some bastard had made a grab at her and torn off two of the buttons.

  The policeman, his duty discharged, was about to resume his seat. Checking, he said incredulously, “You are stopping here?”

  “Why not?” Elsa countered. “I’ve travelled enough for one day.” Her Spanish was fluent, though she had learned it in Spain and her accent would have marked her out as foreign regardless of how she was dressed.

  “But what business do you have in Los Tramos?” the man persisted.

  “None. I just don’t feel like going any farther.”

  “What will you do here?”

  “If it’s any concern of yours,” Elsa said with a trace of annoyance, “find a place to stay, wander around, catch the next bus to Cachonga. There’s one three days from now, I understand.”

  The policeman glanced heavenward as though in search of divine inspiration. He said, almost whispered, “You don’t understand. This is—well, this is not a good place.”

  “What’s wrong with it?”

  Revving his engine impatiently, the
driver shouted before the policeman could reply. He made to close the door, saying as by afterthought, “Well, maybe it’s only a bunch of silly rumours. I hope so. For your sake.”

  And with a reek and roar the bus was on its way.

  By now the idlers from the fountain had approached for a closer look at the stranger. They were not an impressive bunch: thin, wearing clothes soiled and much mended, in some cases gap-toothed despite their youth. One appeared to be ill and was racked by constant shivers. However, as though resolved to display correctly macho behaviour, and obviously assuming Elsa wouldn’t understand, they were exchanging obscene comments mainly concerned with what despite affecting male attire a woman could not do to other women. If that was all the policeman was concerned about, she could give as good as she got. With conscious theatricality she hoisted her backpack on to her shoulders and strode across the road to the cantina.

  The men sitting outside, on rickety chairs at plastic tables, surveyed her appraisingly. To judge from their expressions, she failed to meet their standards. She could guess why. She had spent long enough in this country to know its people still felt a woman’s only proper role in life was the ancient one: marry in her teens, work hard, bear children, lose her teeth and possibly her husband, and die young looking old. Even the Arabs of North Africa were less contemptuous of their womenfolk.

  So why, she sometimes wondered, was she here? And couldn’t avoid concluding that her motive stemmed from what the British would term bloody-mindedness. Maybe a girl destined to waste her life in the traditional fashion might cross her path, feel envious, and raise the banner of a tiny rebellion.

  She hoped so.

  * * *

  Inside the cantina—mercifully quiet at the moment, as though the next person whose turn it was to feed money into the jukebox had been distracted by her intrusion—she nodded to the people she passed, swung her backpack to the floor beside the bar, and called to a boy of seventeen or eighteen who stood at the far end, eyeing her uncertainly but with unmistakable fascination.

  “Buenas tardes! Una cerveza muy fria, por favor!”

  Though she suspected it would take more than one cold beer to rid her mouth of its burden of dust.

  Realising she spoke Spanish, the boy broke into a grin and bent to a cabinet behind the bar. It occurred to her to wonder where the electricity came from. No doubt it was windmill-generated. The wind, they said, never stopped.

  Delivering a bottle and a glass, making change from the bill she laid on the counter, the boy ventured shyly, “Is the señora from the Estados Unidos?”

  “You can tell by my accent?” Elsa countered with a smile. “You must have many American visitors, then! Oh, by the way: not señora. Señorita.”

  The boy’s eyes rounded in surprise. She didn’t need to be a mind reader to deduce his thoughts:

  But why hasn’t a man already—?

  “Juan!”

  The name was barked in a gruff voice from a doorway at the far end of the room. Judging by the smell that drifted through it, it led to the kitchen. Something basic but savoury was cooking: a stew, perhaps. Food was next on Elsa’s list of priorities, and then a place to stay.

  The man who had called out was of early middle age, with a sour face and two teeth missing from his upper jaw. Cringing, the boy behind the bar whispered, “Yes, father?”

  But the man wasn’t looking at him. He was staring at Elsa, and his expression bespoke—what? Anger? Yes, but mingled with it something fiercer. Maybe hate.

  And what have I done that he should hate me on sight?

  He went on staring as in a voice thickened by liquor he issued a string of orders to his son, telling him this, that, and the other needed doing, and not to argue—get on with it now! Blushing, presumably at being humiliated in front of a stranger, and moreover a woman, Juan complied.

  Suddenly nervous, Elsa scanned the rest of the people in the room, sipping her beer to cover her anxiety. Most of them struck her as ignorable, for they were clearly poor and in bad health, to the point where some of them seemed to be shivering like the youth outside. But over in the far corner, partly concealed by a folding screen, at a table where he was playing cards with three companions, sat a man she had previously not noticed … and she could tell from the reaction when he pushed back his chair that this was the person who counted not merely here in the cantina but most likely in Los Tramos and the whole area.

  He was visibly better nourished than the rest, to start with. Indeed he was almost fat—but not quite. Though he was fifty or fifty-five, there remained a good deal of muscle on his stocky frame. His cream two-piece suit was tailored and his shoes were shoes, rather than the open sandals worn by everybody else, even though he, like the rest, lacked socks.

  Tension grew in the air like thickening fog. Elsa strove to act casually, nodding to him as she drank another generous swig of beer.

  He halted a metre from her and surveyed her, head to foot, before he spoke.

  “You’re norteamericana?”

  “Yes.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  She was tempted to snap back that it was no business of his, but cancelled the impulse on time. Clearly whatever transpired around here was his business, one way or another. She answered with meekness that surprised her—but perhaps it was due to her belated realisation that a bulge under his jacket almost certainly betokened a pistol.

  “I took the bus from Vilagustin this morning. You know how uncomfortable those buses are. By the time I reached your town I was stiff and sore. I couldn’t face another three hours, all the way to Cachonga. So I decided to get off, have a drink and a bite to eat, and find a place to stay until the next bus is due.”

  Was she getting through? His eyes were searching her face. Their whites were bloodshot above cheeks seamed with broken veins—from dry wind and dust, or from liquor?

  Someone called out, “Señor Alcalde! Tell her she’s welcome to half my bed!”

  And someone else riposted, though he looked equally weak and undernourished, “Ah, you’re not man enough to cope with so much woman! Me, on the other hand—”

  “Shut up,” said the man who had been addressed as Señor Alcalde, Mr. Mayor. Compliant silence fell. He went on, “So you’re looking for somewhere to stay. I see.”

  “Yes! Perhaps here at the cantina?” Elsa glanced at Juan’s father, the landlord. “Could you—?”

  “Diego has no love for women like you,” the mayor said. “Nor, come to that, does anybody here. You’re a disgrace to your sex. If we still had a priest, I’d call him to put you under an anathema.” His face abruptly twisted with disgust. “Trousers! Shirt wide open, exposing half your body! If that’s what women do when they’re ‘liberated,’ we don’t want any part of it. If my wife—!”

  He completed the sentence with a gesture that indicated, plain as words, a knife passing across the throat.

  “Of course,” he added after a pause, “Diego’s did.”

  The landlord purpled with rage. He was holding a towel, and instantly twisted it as though to form a garotte. Only his visible fear of the mayor, Elsa thought, prevented him from launching an immediate attack. Whatever his wife had actually done, it wasn’t something he cared to be reminded about, and least of all in front of an outsider.

  Forcing herself to sound calm, she said, “You’re telling me I cannot even buy a meal here.”

  “That’s right,” Diego snapped. “I won’t serve you, or anybody like you.”

  “Does that go for everyone?” Her belly felt as though it had constricted to a small tight ball, colder than an ice cube. But she controlled her terror. Somehow.

  “No one in Los Tramos will give you food or lodging.”

  “I’m not asking for it to be given—”

  “Or sell it! Your once-almighty dollar isn’t what it used to be, you know. Oh, there may be some weak spirit in the town who’d take a bribe, but once I got to hear about it.…” And the knife-throat gesture was repe
ated.

  There was a crudely hand-lettered poster on the wall announcing a forthcoming dance in the plaza, with a visiting band. In the doorway stood the young idlers from the fountain, staring greedily at her in a way that made it clear they would, like the man who had called out, be glad to offer her half a bed, but dared not. Heedless of his father’s orders, Juan was peeking through the bead curtain that separated the bar from a room which, judging by the red and yellow plastic crates stacked high inside, served as a store for beer and gaseosos. Also there remained three centimetres in her glass. Elsa concentrated on all these things lest she break down. Never in ten years of travel had she felt so trapped, not even in Africa.

  But the mayor was saying something more, and she had missed it. She blinked. Pretending poor command of the language, though he had not in fact resorted to dialect:

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t understand—”

  “I said: you can go to the other yanquis and ask them for help! They’re used to unnatural women!”

  What in the world could he mean?

  “No! No, you can’t send her there! You mustn’t!”

  Juan, emerging through the bead curtain, blurted the words before he could stop himself. In the same moment his father rasped at him to hold his tongue, and the alcalde snapped, “Are you afraid she’ll get lost on the way? It’s a bare three kilometres, and there’s only one path. And if she did manage it, she’d be no worse a loss than your mother!”

  Juan’s face worked as though he wanted to break into sobs. Spinning around, he vanished again, followed by a burst of laughter and insults from the idlers, who were of roughly his own age.

  “That,” Diego said tightly, “is enough about my wife.”

  As though surprised to find himself reproved, the mayor blinked. Then, with a slow smile like an alligator’s, he said, “Just so, Diego. Just so. It was only the presence of this unnatural woman that provoked me. What bad luck you didn’t find a wife like mine: loyal, obedient, hardworking.… But enough! You! Come with me, and I’ll point out the way.”