by Nisi Shawl
On display again.
She shook her head at the whisper and tried to focus. Who had said those words? Vicious anger rose up inside her. If this were the Once-country, if this were the Once-tribe, she would demand satisfaction.
Artifact. Relic of a dead tribe.
Her head was pounding again, and images superimposed themselves on the present. She could hear the gongs; she could smell the wood smoke. Was this what happened when one passed through the veils and communed with the spirits?
She lifted her eyes and looked at the expectant faces. Of course, she thought. To see the Artifact, to hear her speak, it was a thing to be spoken of among friends, wasn’t it?
Those patterns are so unique. And her voice, and the chants—of course they all have their own charm. What a unique experience.
She closed her eyes and thought of the warm, dear faces of her clansisters and her clanbrothers. The gongs were beating, and the warriors were dancing down the path of the mountainside. They had come in from the kill, and they bore the heads of the invaders.
Look, sister, they said. We have hunted well, this eve. See this head? How fragrant the locks of his hair are, and how shining and long. But he will look glorious standing guard at the doorposts of my home. Don’t you think so, sister?
The warrior grinned and passed before her, and the others passed as well, like waves washing over her, dancing down the mountainside bearing sheaves of rice from the harvest. Their feet sure on the steep slopes, the gongs beat a wild rhythm that made her want to dance and chant out loud of victory and challenge and the hunger to be free.
“Enough!” The roar tore apart her vision.
Around her, the veils shimmered and fell apart. The Compassionate attaché stood before her, his blue eyes blazing with fury, his body quivering.
“You show us an outrage,” he said.
As if from a very great distance, she heard her reply.
“I show what the spirits say I must show. I speak in remembrance of what has gone before.”
Her vision blurred. The room whirled around her, and before the darkness took her she heard Bayninan’s voice calling her name and thought she saw a valiant warrior leaping over the heads of the entourage to gather her into his arms.
ζ
“Hala.”
When she was a child, her mother took her to the caves at Sagada. Time had wreaked its havoc on the caves, and the Compassionate had taken what was left of the mummies and the coffins and the bones and sealed them in huge airless capsules that were put on display in various realms where the Empire held sway.
There was very little left to see of what had once been, except for holos and vids that played across the cave walls at intermittent intervals. Her mother had taken her deeper into the caves and, shining her light on the wall, she’d shown to Hala where generations of the Once-tribe had placed their marks in protest of the taking of what was theirs by right. There, alongside her mother, she’d placed her own mark too. She’d dipped her hands in the pale white matter, a gift of the spirits her mother told her, and laid the imprint of her palms on the walls right under her mother’s own.
“By this the spirits will know you,” her mother said.
She came awake with a gasp.
She was in a room with walls the shade of lemons.
“You’re awake,” a voice said.
She turned.
Bayninan sat beside her bed, worry etched on her face.
She blinked and memory came back to her.
“Oh no,” she groaned. “I messed up. The attaché must be furious.”
“It was rather chaotic for a while,” Bayninan said. “And he was very angry, but I said you hadn’t been feeling well and the implants were not doing their job—I told him it might be a virus.”
“And he accepted that,” Hala said.
Bayninan tilted her head to one side and smiled.
“I can be very good at persuading people when I want to,” she said. “In the end, they were all very solicitous. The Consul from Siargao insisted that you be accommodated here.”
Hala stared at Bayninan, wondering if her friend had always been this smooth-talking person with a twinkle in her eye.
“We’re in the newest wing of the Suguran Foundation Center,” Bayninan said with a smile.
“Oh no,” Hala cried. “What have you done? We have to get out of here.”
She sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed.
“No,” Bayninan said. “You need to rest. Lie down. All will be well, Hala. You’ll see.”
She stared up at this strange Bayninan who exuded more authority than she’d ever had before.
“What do you mean, all will be well?” she asked. “Do you know what the Suguran Foundation does, Bayninan? Do you understand what they are?”
Of course, Bayninan couldn’t know or understand, Hala realized. How could Bayninan know that it was the Foundation that was at the heart of the implants and the boosters? If the Foundation realized that her augmentations were failing, they would take them away without asking. She would lose everything—the archive of memory, the names of the clans, the faces, the songs, the dances, even the memory of warm earth, the taste of steamed rice, and the scent of betelnut.
“Your augmentations are failing, Hala,” Bayninan said. “I know the signs. They’re like poison to you now, and if you don’t get rid of them, you’ll be dead before year’s end.”
“I can’t,” Hala said.
“It’s no longer impossible,” Bayninan replied. “There have been advancements, and the other augmented have been restored to their own selves without harm.”
“I can’t,” Hala insisted. “Without these, I’m nothing, Bayninan. I won’t be able to access the veils, I won’t be able to perform. I’ll be nothing.”
“You’ll never be nothing,” Bayninan said. “You’ll always be Hala to me—always as you were meant to be.”
“You don’t understand,” Hala cried out.
“I do,” Bayninan replied. “But you don’t need to be afraid. There’s no risk to your life.”
“But there is,” Hala shouted. “You’re not an Artifact. You don’t get to say what it is that I will lose or that I will gain. You’re not the one people turn to when they need to remember the long line of history. You’re not the one people come to when they want access to the wealth of our culture, our chants and our songs and our dances. You don’t understand at all.”
“And for whom do you keep those histories, Hala?” Bayninan asked. “For whom do you recite the poems and chants? For whom do you dance and for whom do you speak? You say you do these things in memory of the Munhawe and the mama-oh. But the Munhawe and the mama-oh served the Once-tribe, Hala. I do not see any of the Once-tribe among your audience. For what purpose do you risk your life, Hala? Is it for the Once-tribe or is it for yourself?”
Bayninan’s words fell like a scourge on Hala’s shoulders. She stiffened in indignation—was this how her friend saw her? Was it how people looked at her? Was she nothing more than an old woman who put her heritage on display?
“Get out,” she said. “Get out of my sight, Bayninan. Get out before I forget that I love you and that you are my friend.”
ζ
Let us be clear on this. There was no invasion. With the signing of the treaty, the Once-country was brought into the folds of the Empire. It was an acknowledgment of the Compassionate’s sovereignty and the god-given right to lead those who were left behind into the light of the Compassionate’s greater wisdom.
—From History of the Empire and the Once-Country
Bayninan’s departure left Hala with the luxury of solitude and time to think. It was very late in the evening—that much she knew. Silhouette’s moon hovered in the night sky, and the chimes sang out the eleventh hour. Not so long ago, she had been standing before delegates from the allies of the Compassionate Empire. They had admired her, of that she was certain, they had listened to her. Perhaps her words had confused so
me of them, perhaps some of them had been titillated, perhaps some of them had been amused, and the Compassionate attaché had most certainly been moved to anger.
She recalled fragments of what she had spoken, and she wondered how she could have found the voice to sing the warrior’s chant and the temerity to speak of the first invasion and the defeat of the Compassionate at the hands of the Once-tribe.
There was silence in her head now. None of the humming that accompanied her even when she was alone, none of the buzzing awareness that prickled at her skin even when in solitude. It was a strange feeling because no matter what, she’d always had the awareness of data streaming through her from the implants in her head.
Bayninan had spoken of some drug being applied to her system, and she supposed it was that which quieted the data and made her feel suddenly so alone.
As she contemplated the darkness, she wondered if this was what it would be like if she consented to have her augmentations removed. She would no longer be the Artifact, as Bayninan had said. But was it really that important to be the Artifact? To recite auguries and poetry, to dance the dances and to explain symbols that held no significance for those who viewed her only as a novel thing, to be whispered of by people who had no understanding of the rhythm of harvest and planting or the variations of the gong?
She closed her eyes in weariness. Tears seeped from beneath her eyelids and spilled down her cheeks as she acknowledged Bayninan’s words.
Alone with her thoughts, Hala acknowledged those words’ truth. She’d clung to her role, refusing to question it, but if she allowed herself to continue on as the Artifact, she would be betraying the blood that flowed in her veins.
ζ
“It’s not deadly,” Ay-wan said. “But it is still a procedure that carries risk.”
Ay-wan had come to her on the second day of her confinement and she had given him permission to relay her corrupted state to the representative.
Now, he was talking her through the procedure that would change her life forever.
“You mentioned no risk when we spoke of this in my home,” Hala said. “And Bayninan said that removals had been successfully carried out on others who had been augmented.”
A sliver of pain went through her. Bayninan had not been to see her since she’d sent her friend away. Instead, an emissary had come with the message that Bayninan was preparing for a return to the Once-country.
I will wait for word from you, Bayninan had written. My promise still stands. If you send for me, I will come.
What was Bayninan thinking? The Once-country was still in the grip of Chaos. Who would be there to greet them if they chose to return to the place of the Once-tribe? And why send a message when she could easily have come herself?
“You have lived with the augmentations for so long, lady,” Ay-wan said. “Did you stop to consider that you were born of the blood? With the augmentations, you did not have to think of the consequences of your heritage. The machines suppressed what came naturally, and the visions you brought forth for the public were what the Compassionate desired of the program.”
Hala frowned.
“What do you mean by that?”
Ay-wan shrugged. Something flickered in his eyes. It was lonely and sad, and for a moment Hala wished she had made the effort to know more about him instead of sealing herself away from any intimate connections.
“There is this possibility that you could come into the role you were meant to fill,” Ay-wan said after a pause. “It is also possible that you will never be anything more now than what you were before the augmentations.”
Hala bowed her head and stared at her hands. She thought of the exhilaration brought on by the dance. The moments of joy and the way she had lived towards those moments. Outside of the performances, she had simply been going through the motions—moving from one performance to the next like a doll or a machine waiting for its master to utter the word of command.
She raised her eyes and stared out the window. Fliers drifted above the dome outside; she’d seen them before and yet never really seen them. What else had she not seen while she was caught in the haze of her half-life as an Artifact, a person and yet not?
She thought of Bayninan looking at her with so much emotion and so much passion and wondered if her friend had also gone through the same process. She felt a pang at her own thoughtlessness. She’d never even bothered to wonder or to ask about Bayninan’s life after their parting. What pain had Bayninan gone through, what suffering had she endured?
She bit her lip as she thought of their conversations. How spoiled she must have seemed. Now, as she contemplated the possibilities before her, she felt very small and unsure. Could she be brave enough to make her own way in the world as Bayninan had? Could she be strong enough to stand up and simply be Hala?
Beside her, Ay-wan cleared his throat.
She took a deep breath and turned to meet his gaze.
“I am ready,” she said. “Whatever happens, I will embrace it.”
ζ
The Once-Artifact named Hala has been released from her duties. The Empire in its benevolence has bestowed on her the gift of life and the choice to remain on Silhouette as a citizen or to go wherever it is that she wishes.
In her farewell speech, the former Artifact graciously acknowledged the good work of the Compassionate and regretted that she could no longer continue in her capacity. In the attached visual clip it is clear that she has not yet fully recovered from the extraction of her augmentations. Silhouette will miss her spectacular performances. Most memorable are her final presentations before she opted for the operation that saved her life.
At the farewell ceremony, the Compassionate attaché announced the arrival of a new Artifact from the Once-place called Siargao. The new Artifact will be arriving on the jump ship named Carollus. Siargao representative Pero Nimata says that the Once-place has prepared a spectacle to greet the new Artifact’s arrival. It will be something to look forward to.
ζ ζ ζ
Note: This story has been two years in the making. JT Stewart planted the seed for it on the afternoon she came to visit while I was at Clarion West. I cried, she talked. Her words continue to inspire me.
“Légendaire.”
Kai Ashante Wilson
Having seen the reggaezzi perform, the righteous of Sea-john shake their heads in wonder. They will then murmur severally or as one, “Légendaire.”
φ
[Tonight]
The cavalcade forms up. In beats, without words, the drummers argue a bass line. While higher registers wait in silence, contraltos and bassos scat and moan, improvising the tune (the lyrics never change). The soulful melodies these deeper voices come up with are much too cool, and none capture the hot quiddity of their subject. “Make dat shit bump, y’all,” a counter-tenor exhorts. “Put some stank on it!” So the music picks up funk and swing. A girl bounces and stretches with the other dancers. They have black skin, or brown, or golden; hers is gray, waxen, and flyblown. What ails this girl, her bones slipping so weirdly in raddled tissues? It’s death: she died three days ago. But so long as weary flesh lasts she has the right to choose it over imperishable spirit. Thus her body can rise again, and dance tonight with living brethren. The boy she loved, dead years not days, reappears as another name among the beautiful lights, and plays guitarra with the same prodigy as before, when he lived. Dancers up front, players and singers trailing, they’ll process down Mevilla, the witches’ hill, and up and over the great breasts of the Mother, middle hill crowded with shanties of the poor, and onward to the furthest hill of Sea-john, Dolorosa, where rich families live in gardened houses and foreign powers keep grand embassies. A boy nicknamed El Supremo is about to join their host—he lies tossing in his bed, way over on that easternmost hill. No one will see this parade pass, few hear it. The performance is for that one boy alone, whom the reggaezzi will gather to their number at last, tonight.
φ
From the roof you can see t
he world. Downhill, north: the Kingdom is dark, except where yellow licks the darkness. Some torch or lamp burns here and there as far as the horizon. The southern view is the ocean, entirely dark save for two moons out at sea: one true, clear, and still in heaven’s vault; another false, dappled, and shuddering on the vast black waters. The swelter lifts—a gust of seabreeze gives her goosebumps. But the filthy heat settles right back down. Some man is kissing her son under the archway of the house gate.
Is this how matters stand now, with tongue and teeth? In aid of asphyxiation, of cannibalism, more than love? All that biting! The moon’s so bright, she feels implicated in the sloppy grapple below. Why does the boy let that man grab and handle him so? When she lies down with her husband or with her wife, the love’s never harsh or ugly. Back when she and Jahs were as young and foolish as their son is today, even then, in the raw passion of first kisses, softness and respect were foremost. But now a caress and tenderness must be relics, not what youth want.
Night-bees flicker throughout the house garden. Below, the lime trees are all in flower, and green lights dim and kindle among the blossoms.
The boy utters little cries in his attacker’s arms, though hardly in distress. Dance usually does so much better by professional bodies: thickening the thighs, making the back and arms formidable. It’s just too bad la dança will whittle that rare body down, to all fine bones and no spare flesh. Her son—
“Ma’am?” Cook whispers from the stairwell to the roof. “Miss Savary? Duh baby just got in, safe. I wanted you to know. Dey out by the gate, him and his gentleman.”
“Yes, Cook. Thank you.” Savary sighs, and rolls the hulled berries from her skirts into the bowl. “Why don’t you go on to your room now, dear, and rest? We can finish up in the morning.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Cook says. “Tank you, Miss.” And the stairs groan back downwards.
The lover has remounted his horse. He wears the fine black robe of a nobleman from the Kingdom; but also the cornrowed hair of a soldier, and one who’s seen action too, by those many bead-necklaces. He pats the hair of the boy clinging to his leg. (At last, a little tenderness!) They murmur intimacies Savary cannot make out from the roof, in accents of the language she forsook for this one spoken in the hills.
