The Godling: A Novel of Masalay

by CK Collins

  I got to the top of the stairs that led down to the beach, and it was such a wild scene. All these posh-looking houses going along the beach and up the hills — like how I imagine Martha’s Vineyard or one of those places — and there was this crazy bash going on. I didn’t know what else to do, so I went down.

  A good half the people knew English, and it seemed like every one of them was in love with America. All anybody wanted to do was give me a drink and a skewer of whatever they were grilling and explain how the Talids were wrecking their beautiful country. I tried to be sympathetic and pretend like I understood Masalayan politics.

  I kept hearing harsh things about this woman named Caida (didn’t know who she was then), but the person they all really despised was the Hilm Hivaa guy, Sidaarik. There were these cardboard figures of him and anybody who wanted to could blast at his head with any choice of gun. I had lots of offers to take a shot myself, but I’ve worked in enough EDs to know that drunk + angry + handgun does not always lead to laughs, so I tried making myself scarce from those good times.

  Who knows what time it finally got to be.

  I wandered around, eating and drinking and letting people admire my Americanness. At some point, I found a place to lie down.

  When I woke up it was way into the day. I didn’t feel as lousy as you’d think. Found some coffee somewhere and had a good time the rest of the day, just enjoyed the experience of being everybody’s best friend. A lot of them didn’t bother learning my name, they just called me America. The deadline for being out of Ghaatasira was 5:00 the next day, and there were tons of people who wanted to give their friend America a ride.

  I started getting whiffs of gasoline. I’d been hearing people talk about a bonfire but I didn’t get it till this one guy — very Brad Pitt-ish in a Masalayan way, which, you know, is a really good way — he explained it all. They were obligated to give up their houses, and they’d all gotten settlement checks, but there was nothing saying what condition the property had to be in. And my friend with the sexy grin would be damned if he’d let some daagas put up their feet in the house his grandfather built. It was a common sentiment. Hence the gas cans.

  Once they were starting to get to it, some soldiers came. They seemed to be sharing the point of view that arson is dangerous, and the head guy made like he wanted to confiscate the gas cans. But they were so outnumbered and you could tell their hearts weren’t in it. They wandered off after a while and then the first house got lit.

  I kept backing away, getting farther down the beach. There was this guy who didn’t seem too enthusiastic either, standing apart from it all. We caught each other’s eyes. He was familiar. Smoke. Dizzy. The smell — I hadn’t smelled it in weeks — how long we stared I don’t know — a house half-exploded and people ran hooting and shouting — I got jostled and spun around. I tried finding him. It was frantic, more houses flaming. Somebody pressed a beer into my hand, and I drank it. A guy kissed me and I kissed him back. But him I didn’t want. I pushed through the crowd. I drank something and it made my whole body feel on fire.

  Fire I do like.

  * * *

  Me and Dad, when we got the little rowhouse in West Chester, the last of our million moves, he bartered for this huge wood stove. Paid some lacrosse players a case of Pabst to lug it into our cellar. Our neighbor offered to hook him up with firewood cheap. But what fool pays for wood? The world is filled with wood.

  What we burned that first winter had so many chemicals I won’t need to be embalmed when I die. But then he found places to cut good wood, the illicit lumberjack, and weekends in fall were always filled with the thwack of an axe.

  My job in cold weather was to get up early and tend the fire. If there were coals, and there usually were, I’d stoke them and load in new logs. In the beginning, I didn’t like being down there — creepy shadows, crumbling mortar, this odor of damp dirt and mildew — but after a while I got to enjoy the privacy of it and the routine. And the flames. Eating toast, finishing my homework, avoiding the bus stop as long as I could. Sometimes I’d forget to check myself in the mirror and go to school with wood chips in my hair or soot on my face. The new girl who smelled like a chimney and looked like one too — they welcomed me into the bosom of their teenage hearts.

  The people who lived there before us left behind this cheesy collage painting of Joan of Arc. We put it in my room because we needed something for the walls. What I knew about Joan of Arc was next to nothing: She heard God talk to her, she led an army, she got burned at the stake and didn’t cry about it. I spent so much time looking at that woman — holy but wild, swinging her big sword, accepting those tongues of flame. I liked the idea of being that strong and confident, that ready to die rather than be false. And honestly I liked to think of burning. I liked it when I stared into that furnace and I liked it when I stared into that arson on the beach. I liked the heat and thinking how I could walk into it. But there was that cool water at my heels, the gentle lapping, and I backed up. Until the water was around my thighs. Until it was around my hips. Until it wet my hair.

  I swam.

  Afternoon

  Far Karsk, Masalay

  Lidayim doesn’t relish talking about the flowers, even less a discussion of the woman who discovered them. “She is called,” he says at last, “Thaadi.”

  “A lovely name. Tell me about dear Thaadi. She is of here?”

  “Yes. Her family is eastlaid, forty birodik. They have entered into Ashma, her parents.”

  “Illness or . . .?”

  “Illness.” Lidayim consults with his uncle and they decide that the death of Thaadi’s parents came seven years ago. “She has brothers, three. Always Thaadi is loved by everyone. Very pretty, she . . .” His throat catches and he rubs his face before starting over. “There is a man, Naalis, my cousin, and they always are in love. Both of them very faithful, Brother, to Liashe and Jesus.”

  “I haven’t any doubt. They married, Naalis and Thaadi?”

  “Yes, and were graced with a son. Then Naalis, he has an accident at slaughter.” Lidayim makes a slicing motion across his calf. “There is an infection, a fever, it takes him.”

  “A tragedy. He has added to Ashma.” They each touch their foreheads, Tchori a half-step behind. “And the boy?”

  “Our sha iduur has delayed his naming ceremony of a year. To the second birthday.”

  “As it should be, quite right. And dear Thaadi, one can scarce imagine her grief.”

  “She becomes not good in doing her work. She takes walks and walks with her boy. Wanting no one with them. Sometimes she goes where she should not go.”

  “Where has she gone?”

  Lidayim rubs his palms together, frustrated at having to say what Brother must already know. “There is a woods on the other side of the stream. It is hidutha. She knows this, she knows it exists to separate us from the red hills and the dead field. But still she goes into the woods. Her grief, it has made her mind unwell. She did not intend to go farther, Brother, I know it. But her boy, they came to the far edge of the woods and saw the thicket. It surrounds the dead field. He saw the thicket and said that . . . it smelled good.”

  He is squeezing his hands now and looking at the floor, too uncomfortable to continue. Carodai seems about to press but takes a different tack. Conversationally: “How has this come to be known?”

  “I have seen her out by the well. Ago not yet a fortnight. It is nearing the naming ceremony, and I have seen her by the prayer well, looking so happy. ‘Thaadi,’ I say to her, ‘it is good to see you so happy. This is a joy.’ Her boy, in his hands he has flowers. Always, Brother, this boy is sunshine — from the first he is born. I say to him, other people say to him, what is this beautiful flower? But he does not answer, his face is dark clouds, and when I try to touch the flowers, he growls.”

  “Growls?”

  “Yes.” Fleeting eye contact. “And these flowers, no one has ever seen such flowers, Brother. The same night, the masirkyn asks me to talk wi
th Thaadi. To get explanation.”

  “And what has dear Thaadi said?”

  “She has gone a long time not wanting to tell me. She was not the person I have always known, Brother. And in the corner is her son, staring at me like we are not people. Thaadi finally she tells me, like boasting — this is not her — that she has crossed the hidutha. ‘Thaadi, why have you done this?’ Because it is pretty and her boy, who has lost his father, he should go pretty places. They’ve come to the thicket and her son has asked her about the smell. The pretty smell. I ask her what she means, and she laughs at me. Then I am told come closer. Into my ear, she whispers: ‘It is come back.’”

  “Her exact wording? ‘It is come back’?”

  “Yes.”

  “Has someone gone to the field then?”

  “The masirkiyn, my uncle, and another of the sha iduur. Everyone waits, afraid. When they come back, they tell us it is true. That the dead field has come alive. We have written you straight away.”

  “And nothing has happened to cause this?” demands Carodai. “Nothing has been done to the field? No one had any inkling of this before Thaadi and her son appeared with the flowers?”

  Lidayim looks to his uncle, who stammers hoarsely, “No, Brother, my promise.”

  “The entire field has bloomed?”

  “From the thicket to the hills.” Lidayim looks to his uncle to see if he wants to add anything, but Pidaatik shakes his head. “Thousands, many thousands of flowers.”

  “Describe them please.”

  He positions one palm thirty centimetres above the other. “This tall. Buds. Bright yellow and streaks, very thin, of red. Under the bud there is a kind of bulge. The size of a tujin nut.”

  The description has struck Carodai and he’s a moment processing it. “Alright then, and the stem?”

  Lidayim and his uncle consult in whispers about the proper words. “Thorns, sharply curved,” and he bends his index finger into a hook as demonstration. “And fur. All along the stem, brown hairs.”

  “Very good,” replies Brother, distracted, turning the facts over in his mind. “Very good, thank you.”

  “When I have gone to see Thaadi,” Lidayim continues after a moment, “they have many flowers. All in their arms, like babies or dolls. I had not seen before but they have all over them cuts.” Lidayim jabs at his own hands and chest and forearms. “From hugging the thorns. Thaadi does not want to talk with me but eventually she tells me what I have said to you. The masirkiyn, that night, has said the flowers must be destroyed. Immediately.”

  “They resisted, I imagine?”

  “Greatly.”

  “And . . .”

  “It was many of us together, restraining them. Immediately, the masirkiyn has burned the flowers. Two women are left with Thaadi and her son. They wail and wail. Sniffing their skin. The smell of the flowers — not blossomed but so strong.”

  “Could you describe it, the smell?”

  He shakes his head.

  Deciding not to press on that: “What’s happened then?”

  Pidaatik, unable to remain still, stands as quickly as his joints will let him. He paces the tiny room as Lidayim continues. “Thaadi won’t cease her wailing. The curses from her — a different person, Brother. The masirkiyn orders the boy taken. The naming ceremony is two days away then, and he says that she is not to name him.”

  “How has she responded to that?”

  “Silence. No more of wailing. No more of communicating to anyone. No eating, no drinking. A stare from her like she is wishing death on the world. The days are hot, and there is not the least breeze. The odour of the flowers, from the field, it penetrates the thicket and the woods. Our women burn thratch and adarist to cover the odour but nothing can be stronger than it.

  “Pisaalik, she is an aunt of Thaadi, and she takes the boy. The masirkiyn says it is hers, now, to name him. Comes the night before and other women go to her house to prepare the boy. The door of her house is ajar, and on the floor they find Pisaalik, and she has died.”

  Appearing sadly unsurprised, Carodai touches his forehead and says a blessing. “Of violence?”

  Lidayim shakes his head. “She is examined, Brother, but no cause is found.”

  “The boy gone?”

  “Yes, and immediately we’ve gone to Thaadi. The masirkiyn gives me to speak and I say to her, ‘Thaadi, Pisaalik is dead. Your boy has gone.’ She looks at me like I have said nothing. The masirkiyn is ready to have her thrashed. I say to her, ‘Please Thaadi, help us.’ She smiles at me then, Brother. She says one thing and does not speak again. She says to me, ‘He’s gone to get her.’”

  “Those words exactly?” Carodai appears shaken, like a physicist confronting evidence refuting the law of gravity, certain than an error has been missed.

  “Yes.”

  “You’re quite sure?”

  Lidayim looks to his uncle and receives a miserable nod. “Yes, Brother.”

  “Continue.”

  “We search the hills and the stream and every house. Through the night, many hours, all the people. The masirkiyn grants us to move through the hidutha woods. Even with permission, it is difficult for many to go there. The sun rises and someone sees wee footprints. To the thicket, and there is a hole in the thicket. My uncle, it is his responsibility to go through.”

  Carodai looks to Pidaatik then back to Lidayim. “Had the flowers blossomed?”

  “All the field, every flower. Seven petals, the stamen very red and jutting. And the odour . . . my uncle wraps a cloth over his face and searches. It comes he finds a path where the boy has gone. He follows it, and the thorns scratch him. His eyes sting and he is dizzy from the smell. All the way to the centre of the field he follows the path to a spot, very small, that is barren. And there are no more footprints.”

  “The boy?”

  “Gone, Brother. The field has taken him.”

  Tchori waits for Carodai to provide an alternative explanation, but he only nods. “Has anything been done with the field?”

  Fearful of a reprimand, Lidayim says shyly, “We have burned it.”

  Noting his apprehension, Carodai reassures him, “You’ve done well. Immediately was it done?”

  “The same day. A decision of the entire sha iduur.”

  “A terribly difficult situation and responsibility. Ago how long?”

  “Nine days.”

  “Have you saved any?”

  “Yes. In a box, 18. The masirkiyn has thought you might want them.”

  “He’s thought very well indeed. Now, about dear Thaadi. These wails we’ve heard, are they hers?”

  “She’s been silent these nine days. But when you’ve arrived she . . .”

  “I must see her now.”

  Afternoon

  Coast Road, Masalay

  We’ve been climbing and climbing, the ocean to our left and jagged mountains on the right. “The Karskan Range,” Pashi explains. The grade gets even steeper, and I swallow to clear my ears. She hands me a stick of gum to help. I’ve still got that nasty fish-chip taste in my mouth and ask for a second stick.

  Around a hairpin turn and Essio points to a faded sign in English and Masalayan: Welcome to the Southern Hemisphere. My throat gets tight. The bottom half of the world, with Rika trapped somewhere in the top.

  It’s amazing views for another half-hour or so and then we start descending. More gum from Pashi. She tells me about the tsunami and how lucky Masalay was compared to Thailand and Sri Lanka and other places. Chalks it up to Ashma’s love, and I can’t tell if she’s being sarcastic.

  After we get down to sea level, the road bends inland. There’s occasional glimpses of the coast — rocky beaches and coconut trees, houses up on stilts and little boats out on the water. “The Nova Coast,” Pashi tells me. There’s a sign for Silva, 10 km, and she gives me a little history lesson. After the Dutch captured the rest of South Masalay in 16-something, the Portuguese held out in Silva for another eighty years. There’s a movie abou
t that too, apparently.

  “And that’s where they had their house, right, Rika and Disiri?”

  I can only see a bit of Essio’s face, a reflection in the side-view mirror, but I can tell he doesn’t like me talking so familiar about his family. “Right, yeah,” Pashi answers, “it’s north of Silva about 40 K. Wretched road, takes all of forever to get there. Rubbish little place, but Disiri fancied it. Essio, we ought to have done Silva for dinner. Let Callie see the fort.”

  “It’s gone to seed,” he says and reminds her how much she hated their last meal there. She admits that’s true but says we’d better stop somewhere soon, as she’s not going to subsist entirely on chips and dates.