The Godling: A Novel of Masalay

by CK Collins

  February, March, April. Warm weather, drizzle on the windowsill. I was asleep, or near asleep, and he got into bed with me. We nuzzled. And it felt right. His breath on my neck, the little hairs on my neck, and moisture, smelling really right. Everything quiet inside me, the way it should be. It was the first time in forever that I woke up out of something that felt like sleep, not death, and it was because he was with me. It was the first time in forever that I felt peaceful. Then the door opens. And in comes Marcus from his graveyard shift. Trying to understand the expression on my face.

  I knew he wasn’t real, that man who’d been with me. But I wanted him back.

  And back he came. He fit into the little spaces. Tiny echoes of his voice between passing buses, his skin against mine when leaves fell dry from trees. The smell was the smell of him. He fed the birds.

  One day when I was at work — I still managed to work, don’t ask me how — Marcus moved out all his stuff. Which I didn’t blame him for. It was a relief. It meant I could stop faking it. Except for going to work, I never went out. Needing to look sane for Dad was the only reason I didn’t go completely over the cliff. But I was heading that way.

  I got it together enough to try another shrink. Which was stupid if I wasn’t willing to tell her the honest truth. Which I wasn’t. I didn’t want her telling me I was schizophrenic, so I told her everything half-way.

  She was sympathetic. What she said I needed was a change of scenery — something to get me out of my rut. But getting out of a rut takes energy, and I didn’t have any of that.

  The most ambitious thing I could do was get red hair dye from Walgreens, which I did in the kitchen sink and it looked like crap. My nurse manager put in a corrective action paper on me for looking unprofessional. I told her I didn’t give a crap, and it was true. I forgot I’d ever even signed up for the international flight nurse thing until my phone rang. Of course Suapartni thought my hair was mad brilliant. And I got my change of scenery after all.

  * * *

  Pashi has a bag of new duds for me. It’s discharge time and she wants me looking respectable. Much snazzier than any clothes I’d ever buy for myself. Nice Masalayan sandals too. I fold up the gown and lay it on the bed. It’s stained and threadbare, but I feel sentimental and I’d take it with me if I could.

  Seems a bit premature to be discharging me now, but Pashi and Essio are dying to get the hell out of North Masalay. Pashi says as soon as we get to Jaya she’s taking me clothes shopping and getting me to the doctor. A real doctor in a real hospital.

  In comes a guy who I guess is a priest.

  I look over to Pashi for a hint about what I should do, but she’s no help. He sets a little porcelain bowl on the table and uses it to wash his hands, then looks at me like I’m supposed to do the same thing. Which I do, trying to copy the way he did it. Then we pat our hands on a blue-and-green towel with long frills that he lays over the back of his neck. He touches my forehead with his palm and says a little blessing. He bows then, and I bow back to him, and when he leaves the room Pashi bows too.

  “Right then, Callie,” she says with snap of her purse. “We’re off.”

  The stairs are an adventure — three flights — but we make it. I never realized how huge this hospital is. The lobby is enormous, patients sprawled all over on benches and mats and propped against walls, waiting for the not-enough nurses to get to them through the crowd. My legs are hot and filled with sand. And my hearing is out of whack, unless it really is this crazy-loud.

  This guy in a white uniform talks to Pashi in Masalayan. She gets testy and he gets testy right back. “Come on, Callie,” she says, impatient. It’s like being back in high school: I don’t know where I’m going, the customs are weird, and I can’t tell if my only friend likes me.

  We find a bench on the edge of all the hubbub and sit. She rolls her eyes, muttering, and hands me a bottle of water. Essio’s in an office somewhere disputing the bill. When these people see a Runai, Pashi tells me, they start padding the bill seven ways to Sunday.

  I feel bad. It’s not the Mayo Clinic, this is true, but they did take care of me. They did keep me alive. They turned my body so the bedsores wouldn’t get too bad, they got water down my throat and cleaned me when I soiled myself. If it was me, I’d say thank you and write the check. But it’s not me. It’s Essio and Pashi and me in clothes they bought.

  “Typical,” she goes, looking at this mural across from us. I feel like I have to answer, so I ask, “What’s that?”

  “The colors they’ve used, the names — it’s all a message.”

  “Huh. So, like what . . .?”

  She flicks her long fingers in the direction of the top. “Labeling it ‘Anartha.’ Instead of ‘North Masalay,’ which is what it’s called. And it’s in black, see. The Karsk in orange.”

  “Okay.”

  “The colors of Hilm Hivaa, black and orange. It’s all going to belong to them someday — that’s the message. And you see South Masalay, right?”

  I hadn’t noticed before, but it’s got stripes like the British flag. “Huh, yeah.”

  “Their way of saying Runais are aliens, colonial whores, all that rubbish.”

  “Huh.” I take a long swig. She looks around for Essio, irritated he’s taking so long. I hate silences. “So, which way are we heading? Today, I mean, the route.”

  She stands up very abrupt — maybe annoyed at me, I don’t know — and goes over to the mural. Jabs her finger at the lower part of the black Anartha patch, a star for Patchil-Kinaat. “Here we are in North Masalay then. Up there, the far northwest, that’s where you were, that’s Ghaatasira. All belonging to Hilm Hivaa now, as of last month, which you saw right close.”

  I admit to her that I couldn’t make heads or tails of what was going on. She shakes her head, so disgusted. “Peace in our time, right yeah? The PM finally realizes she can’t count on the MDF to do their job, so she cuts a deal with Sidaarik. She lets him Northwest Masalay, and he promises to call a truce and also box up the Brigades for her.”

  I know what the MDF is, it’s the Masalayan army, and everybody seems to think they’re an ugly joke. The Brigades — I’ve heard the name, but what it means I’ve got no idea. And it’s not like I’m really dying to know, but talking about this beats talking about me. “So, can I ask you a question?”

  “Callie, my honor.”

  “What’s the difference exactly between Hilm Hivaa and the Brigades?”

  “Funny question, that,” she snorts, “what difference have you between a rat and a cockroach?” It’s not a question she expects an answer to. She leans forward to scan for Essio. “Both are vermin, but you’ve a little more intelligence in one. That’s Hilm Hivaa. They killed her husband, by the by, Askita Daar. Sodden biscuit, him, and on the clatter-track to lose re-election until they’ve got him with car bomb in Sutcliffe. Caida takes over and turns out to be ten-fold the politician he ever was. Fifteen, sixteen years on now. Queen before she’s through.”

  “Huh, that’s interesting.”

  “What she’s wagered is that if she gives the rats a home of their own, she can keep them from eating away at hers. And get them to kill the cockroaches for her. MDF have shown they can’t beat the Brigades on their own. Maybe Hilm Hivaa can.”

  She scans for Essio again and then says, confidential, “You’ll not ever hear Essio admit it, but it’s the MDF that fed the cockroaches in the first place — made the Brigades possible.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Essio’s father, the Colonel — he ran S-51. Our KGB. But you’ve not heard that comparison from me. Law to themselves, and both hands in the till. Kept Askita and the cabinet on a leash with incriminating pictures and the like. Thought they’d make a puppet of Caida. Rude awakening, that.”

  “So, what is it with them and whatever, the Brigades?”

  “Late 70s, early 80s, you had Hilm Hivaa shooting up police barracks, necklaces for election workers, assassinations, etcetera, etcetera. MDF fec
kless and undisciplined — and exposed for it. Comes S-51 has a bright idea: use the Brigades against them, have one vermin fight the other.

  “Been around since the 20s, the Brigades. Always talked a game of Talid Nationalism — but not zealots like Hilm Hivaa. Criminals really, pie to buy off. So that’s what they did, the Colonel and that lot — gave them wide berth to run their prostitution and drugs, extortion, and so on. Funneled them money. In trade for them opposing Hilm Hivaa.

  “Natural enemies already. Hilm Hivaa as the antidote to corruption and moral decay — that’s been Sidaarik’s banner from the first days after he quit the Church. Likes to bury criminals alive as public spectacle of virtue. The Colonel reckoned he could build up the Brigades just enough — divide and conquer — wait for them to kill each other off. Clever clever.”

  “Not so good, though?”

  “Callie then, does feeding cockroaches make them your pet? Ridiculous. Infestation is what it makes, and that’s what we’ve got: the Brigades run amuck. So much money to be made. Came they couldn’t expand fast enough, so they started taking children. These kids with guns where souls should be. And of course they like nothing more than to target Runai. Rape being a specialty. So now Caida’s had to reverse it all — pay the rats to fight the cockroaches.”

  “Do you think it’ll work?”

  “Well, to hear Sidaarik talk now, he’s Gandhi. Nothing but love and best wishes for the Church and the Runai people. Liar. That man will not rest till the last blessed Runai has drowned in the sea.” She grabs her bag. “I’m not waiting longer in here. It stinks.”

  Morning

  Rith Idiiye, Masalay

  Bright sun. The road has drawn level. Steam rising wispy from damp grass. A narrow slat bridge takes them over a stream that is turbid and risen with rain. Around a bend and they halt, confronting a dog in the road. The wind shifts, bringing traces of smoke that sting Tchori’s eyes. The dog is lean, burs in its brown fur, tail at attention. Carodai takes a step and it barks short and sharp.

  A man comes round the far side of a ramshackle shed. Carodai raises a hand, entirely at ease, and announces himself as a Brother of Liashe. The man takes a moment to be sure he’s heard correctly, then whistles the dog to his side.

  He’s joined as well by a teenaged boy, muddy to his knees and toting a shovel until a sharp word from his father has him set it down. They remove their cauwals and bow.

  Brother proceeds, Tchori following the customary two paces behind. “Bisidro idima Ashma daish,” he says, Karskan inflection perfect to Tchori’s ears, and touches their heads to complete the blessing.

  “Ayin milai.” The man rises and taps the boy to do the same. “Daish rudaiko tu vaasik.” Brother nods to Tchori. Her throat catches as she delivers the second blessing, forgetting to adopt the Karskan tones. The two bow all the same.

  With the dog as escort, Carodai and Tchori continue on the lane. They’re several minutes walking past modest dwellings. Short-horned goats in pastures fenced with long, shambling lines of piled stone. Pens of squealing kainra, from which Tchori tries to avert her eyes. Compact, orderly rows of a crop whose tall stalks smell something like hops. At every place men and women halt their work and children halt their games, and the people all set down their weaving and ropes and water pails and train their eyes on the drying ground until the visitors from Liashe have passed.

  Trying not to take satisfaction from their piety, which she hasn’t earned, Tchori asks Carodai if he knows where they’re going. “No, but I expect someone will greet us.”

  They’ve accumulated an escort of children on the other side of a shallow ditch that parallels the lane. At last they reach a central well and prayer circle. A boy of about ten breaks off from the others and dashes into a house.

  “He’ll have gone to fetch someone, I expect.”

  A new, less threatening dog ambles to them on unsteady hips. The wind shifts. “Quite the odours.”

  “Best to breathe through the mouth.”

  “Will try.”

  Brother kneels to pet the dog and indicates that Tchori should do the same. She doesn’t much care for canines, particularly when their backs are mottled with sores. Positioning herself to avoid its mad tail, she touches the mutt’s head with the ends of her fingers and looks about. They are observed from doorways and fences. A child’s high-pitched wail sets her hairs on end, and they both try without success to identify the source.

  “You’ve brought writing material?”

  “I have done.”

  “If you’d be so kind?”

  Glad for an excuse to stand and be done with the dog, she roots through her robe and retrieves the bound pad and pencil.

  Still kneeling, Brother Carodai writes a few letters then folds the slip and returns it, along with the pad. “You’ll hold onto this for me, won’t you? And leave it unread.”

  “Truly.”

  “Something I should have thought to do earlier. One must take precautions about the power of suggestion. I’ve written a word that none in this place should know. If we should hear it . . . well, then I shall have some thinking to do.”

  A stooped, stout woman of perhaps fifty is approaching from the house into which the lad darted. Giving the dog a final pat, Carodai stands to await her. Like most of the dear ladies here, she wears a bright batik wrap, grey hair bound in ochre sideal, hands green-stained from pressing trays of saadim seed. She reaches them, the painted bangles on her wrists clicking gently. Bows are exchanged. And greetings that make the courtesies of yesterday seem as brusque as SMS: One fulsome compliment cantilevered against another, a marvel of social engineering that would be fascinating were Tchori not so weary and hot.

  Catching only the odd sentence, Tchori gathers that the woman is called Tenthip. And it seems that her husband is the one who’s sent the letter.

  Whatever might be afflicting the woman’s back, her hands are unaffected and she punctuates every word with a semaphoric gesture. She observes the habit one rarely sees anymore of touching fingers to lips as a substitute for pronouncing the name of Ashma.

  Again that piercing wail. She took it at first for a crying child, but it’s an animal, isn’t it, being slaughtered? Awful. She looks away, trying not to feel sick, and can’t avoid the sight of those awful hills. How anyone could bear to live with that sight day after day.

  She tries to focus back on the conversation, which appears, all grace in Ashma, to be wrapping up. Just in time for mid-day prayers, the call coming from a place Tchori can’t see. At least they haven’t far to go.

  * * *

  A boy of about ten emerges with the saadit, walking slowly because it’s heavy and the water mustn’t spill. He presents it to an elderly man, presumably the masirkiyn, who’s come to the front of the well. Tchori sees an inlay: the complete fourth verse of the Liashean Creed. A muscular selection that you’ll not see on saadits in the west or South Masalay, where the gentler verses like two and seven prevail.

  The masirkiyn kisses the lad’s head, lays the saadit down, then bows to Carodai. No words — it’s understood that the Brother of Liashe will lead them. The square is crowded, everyone in Rith Idiiye from the look of it. Hard to know how typical this is or whether it’s due only to the special occasion.

  The bri is brought by an elderly woman and laid over Brother’s shoulders. He leads them in a recitation of the devotion to Jesus. The masirkiyn pours water from the saadit into the basin. He’s careful to leave a little water, following the Talid-preferred custom — no proper place in the Liashist rite, but lovely nonetheless — of representing Lake Ghaatasira by keeping the saadit always wet.

  They form a line, Tchori toward the back with the other unmarried women. All wash their hands. She pats the bri — palms, then backs, then palms again — and thanks Brother. Remembering this time to use the Karskan.

  When Tchori left for Middle Academy, her da said that when he was a lad in religious school, he’d occupied his mind during prayers by reciting the n
ames and dates of the English monarchs. Acknowledging (unhappily, ever the anglophile) the decreased currency of that knowledge, he suggested the works of Shakespeare. Or perhaps Beatles songs. Those worked indeed, but all in all, Greek and Talidic declensions served best during her mid-day hour on the prayer mat. And the environment was not as isolating as she’d feared — there were several other secular students (including that funny lad Kistulo), and she told her father on first holiday that the religious instruction was dull but easy to get by on.

  She didn’t change. People like to say that she did, but that’s rubbish. The rituals and superstitions that she always found silly — she still finds them so. (Every religion is the same, isn’t it, full of predictable routines designed to satisfy the common man’s craving for structure.) What changed was not her — it was that she discovered the higher tier, the one beyond ritual, the tier of theology and poetry and real rigour. A system of moral reasoning that’s been evolving for three thousand years. A university that was founded whilst Jerusalem remained a pasture for goats. Everyone believed she should read law, but the civil code has the sophistication of a colouring book compared to the Av Udaan.