The Seventh Day (2 page)

‘You speak her name in jest!'

‘You . . . you speak it . . . you speak it as a prayer of the ancient ones. Prayers will not make that which is bad go away,' I say as I walk to the side door and look across to the generator shed. Both dogs are barking; surely they will rouse the men from their labour. I wait, listen, but they are very busy with their cursing, so I return to his side. ‘Her name is not a prayer. She was a female child of the old ones who played in the fields and wove garlands for her hair.'

‘You know of her name. Have I found her place?'

‘You have found my place and I think that is not allowed by the grey men.'

‘Tell me that she sent the storm to guide my craft to her land and I will die happy.'

‘To die is not to be happy. Three times I have seen death and I think it did not make the ones who did it happy.'

He sighs in a great breath, then sighs it out so slowly. I stoop, touch his city shoe, which is unlike the boots the grey men bring for Lenny and Pa.

He waits until I stand before he speaks again, but slowly. ‘You know of Moni?' he asks. ‘You know of her name?'

I turn to the hills, struggling to clear my mind of the grey mist that begins to wash over it, and to explain what I know is there behind the mist. ‘I have . . . I have talked with Granny of the Moni child who knew of raindrops on her nose and . . . and oceans that . . . that . . . that in her ancient ancestors' time . . . that they might dip in a finger and the ripples would draw giant wheels upon its surface to end in another land.'

‘There is no other land. There has been much waste of both labour and life in the searching for it.'

‘It is not so in the books.'

‘The books? The writings of Moni?'

‘We had no paper and Granny's pencil was too small for much writing.'

‘Who are you?'

I shrug, reach out and place my hand on his arm, uncovered by the sleeve of the overall, and my fingers play on warm gold dust, feathered with gold dust hairs. ‘Granny once told me of the others, of their great buildings and black roads . . . and . . . and of the many wires strung like a giant spider web across the sky. Have you seen such things?'

‘You speak of the city. I am of the city.'

‘Does it belong to the three grey men and the thick males who hold the guns?'

‘Who are you?'

I shrug again, and my hand moves from his arm to his chest, but the storm has near blown itself away and it is taking the light with it. My eyes feast on his face, and my hand reaches to touch his face, striving to know it until the day of my ending. So smooth it is, so fresh with youth. He does not fear my touch. I fear it, for within my mind a lost place is stirring.

‘Tell me I am dreaming you,' he whispers.

‘I have many dreams. In my dreams I run so fast to where there is laughter, and . . . and I am free. If this were a dream . . . if this were a dream, I would cut your bonds and we would fly to the places of Granny's books, and we would swim together in the old ocean and play beneath a gentle sun and there would be laughter – if this were a dream.'

‘Free me.'

‘In my waking there is no freedom, Jonjan.' I walk away from him then, for within the flesh of me there comes a strange feeling of discomfort I have not known before.

‘You think to arouse me. You are one of their bed-boys!' He spits the words at me.

I turn. ‘I have read of such things in the newsprint that wraps the bottles safe. I have read that these males are cloned for their beauty then cut to suit their masters.'

‘And you are beautiful. And you are of my father's doing. He is testing my loyalty to the laboratories.'

‘I am female and of my mother's doing.'

‘You have been trained well, liar. Go from my sight.'

‘I have been trained only in truth, Jonjan.'

But he has closed his eyes, lifted his face towards the rusting roof. ‘Oh, Moni. I searched for the purity of your land and I find that they have been here before me to defile it.' His face is angry as he looks at me. ‘Go from me, liar. Tell your men to make a fast finish of what they have begun for I will not go back.'

‘I do not name you searcher when you say you are not searcher.' Again his eyes are turned to the roof. For minutes I wait, watching his chest move fast with his breathing, then I slide the front opening of my overall down, just a little. I do not know why I do this thing, except that Granny did not tolerate lies. She spoke only truth to me and I spoke only truth to her. I am not liar.

I slide the fastening more, quickly taking it to its full length, and also the leg fastenings, then I step free of it. When Granny lived I wore many levels of garment, but this now is the only one I wear. It is a city thing, warm or cool, as need be.

I touch his arm, stand before him as his eyes turn to me, and I think he has not before seen a true female. He does not repeat his liar accusation but weeps with wide eyes. Such tears, and he has no hand to dry them. I wipe his tears away, and he says not a word as I opened his fastener and allowed my hands to caress the firm skin of his chest.

For a time, how much, how little, we stand thus, and it is as the warmth of a dream, and gladly I dream as I reach for the sawtooth knife that is kept on the ledge. With it I saw through his bonds.

So close we are, I think our heartbeats have become one. ‘Until they make a light their fence will not begin its singing. You may leave,' I say.

‘And if I do not wish to leave, strange female one?'

‘Then you may stay, I think.'

He offers his hand and I take it. It is soft as my own, and as long. I smooth his swollen wrist, place my lips to it, as another had once soothed my own small hurt. Lord, why is it that he makes me remember such things? Before I have not remembered such things.

But the dogs are barking and Lenny's curse comes from close by. I draw Jonjan deeper into the barn, draw him by the hand towards the ladder that leads to the loft. We climb there and hide together.

It is a fine thing to do, this hiding with another. We kneel so close, as in the praying position of the ancient ones, but we do not touch.

And then –

The mouth is for speaking. We do not speak. The mouth is also for eating; he begins to eat of my mouth, then I eat of his mouth. And his hands begin to praise me, and mine praise him. And the dogs are barking.

We cling then, cling together. And . . . and . . . and our limbs entwine and we become as one.

And if the dogs still bark, I do not hear them. If the men still curse, I do not care, for there is such a bittersweet happening that I may not describe it, for I have not the words to describe such a joy.

Lenny and Pa's light comes fast and bright through the loft window, so much light that we may see the faces of each other and see this thing that we have done.

Jonjan is afraid. Too quickly one becomes two. I climb first to the floor and I cover my secret with golden fabric while in the loft he covers his secret with blue. I take up the mug of cordial and sip it as I watch at the side door until he climbs down and walks to me, and his hand takes the mug and the hand that held it, and his breath is on my face.

‘They come. You must fly,' I say.

‘If you fly with me.' He drinks of the cordial, drinks in a long swallow. Then he looks at me. ‘Curse them to hell,' he says and he throws the mug at the wall. He turns from me, walks quickly to his machine, leans there, as if a weakness has come too suddenly upon him. I believe this thing we have done has damaged him.

‘You must fly,' I say. ‘You must take your machine now, Jonjan.'

‘You are a prisoner of their tomorrow juice and you don't know it,' he says. ‘I should have known it. I should have known.' And he sits, his back against his machine.

‘You must not sit there.' I pull on his arm, try to lift him.

Again he looks to the roof. ‘Forgive her, Moni, for she knows not what she has done.' He sighs, and I think he sleeps!

I run from him.

(Excerpt from the New World Bible)

Came the dogs then to feast upon the dead. And the dogs died. Came the rats to feast upon the dogs and the rats thrived.

 

Came the wailing of the damned and the stench of death upon the air, and it covered all of the land.

 

And fear became man's daily bread, and panic his fresh water.

 

But from the priests and the law-makers, from the builders and the engineers, from those who knew arms and much of armaments, from the scientists, the surgeons and others of great knowledge, great wealth or important position or occupation, one hundred and twenty-five had been chosen.

 

And they had prepared a place for them, and they had taken with them abundant stores from the storesheds and water enough, and that with which to purify both air and water.

 

And they had taken with them medicines and books, tools and arms. And they had locked themselves secure in a building beneath the great southern city where they might remain safe from airborne and manborne disease.

 

And as rats in a hole they waited for the seventh day to end.

There has been a length of many days between the grey men's comings. It has been the time they name the Resting Phase, which comes after the Harvesting. How many days I do not know, only that I must swallow no more yellow pills during the Resting Phase and that there are blue pills after it. Only that their grey hands do not intrude during the Resting Phase.

Granny once said to me: ‘Time is a gift. Never question or measure a gift, girl.' The Resting Phases are gifts. I do not measure them. I know only that the day of Jonjan's coming was the day of the first golden pumpkin flower, and today we have many fat green pumpkins. I know that the spotty calf was not born on the night of that wondrous happening in the barn, and now he has grown and may not suck more milk from the brown cow, for Pa steals all of it to make his cheese.

And that is all I know.

The grey men came again last night and they were not pleased with me. Lenny likes me to please them, for in their giant flying machine, they bring him a great plasti-wrapped gift from the city, and they bring a wheeled machine which they use to lift their gift to the earth and carry it to the generator shed. I have watched the unloading of it by night, and watched Lenny opening the cords and seal by day.

Inside it he finds many things. There is corn for the stock and plasti-cans of cornbeans for us. There is fruitjell and the grey oil spread, packets of crispbites and much, much cornbread. There are potatoes and carrots, paper towels, containers of chem-wash, pills for Pa's aches, V cubes for Lenny, and sometimes overalls, boots and sandals. Always there is the cordial.

Each bottle is wrapped individually and safe in city newsprint, then packed with more newsprint into a carton. The cordial is mine, thus the crumpled newsprint is also mine.

I have handled Lenny's V cubes, just for a moment. They are less than a handspan in both height and width and on five sides there is a prancing dancer. On the sixth side they have made a map of many paths and colours. I do not understand the pleasure of these cubes, though Lenny likes them well. He sits on the verandah rocking in Granny's old chair, squinting and smiling at the figures, then he hides them away.

The pages of my newsprint he does not enjoy, for he cannot make sense of letters. I am smoothing my crumpled pages when he comes to lean close to me and to study the page where there is a large colourful likeness of the 172 February female. I have seen her before, but the words above her say that she has now left the world, for she had passed her twenty-sixth year.

I think Lenny likes to look at her long dark hair and her large dark breasts, but I like her name. Names are important. ‘Feb-ru-ary.' I say. Perhaps she knew my mother. ‘Feb-ru-ary.'

Because of his young limbs and yellow hair, I have found a brief remembering of mother since the day of Jonjan. If I close my eyes tight I can see her golden hair spread in the dust. If I press my fingers hard into my ears, I can hear her words.

Honour her. Honour her.

She had no feature that I recall, only the hair and the cold hand that would not hold me. I press my fingers to my eyes striving to see that hand, to grasp its image, but it blurs and washes away like paint from my brush when I stir it in the grey oil spread.

I remember the leaving of her and the crying, and the dark, and the falling, and the knowing that down was the way I must go. Always down. I remember the wandering through rock and rough scrub and the gouging cuts in my flesh and my hopeless weeping until a small light led me in.

Then Granny. Out of the silence, out of the night she came, and her hard hands held me, bathed my wounds and washed my face while I screamed.

Though memory of my mother is scant, Lord, how well I remember Granny. She was the scent of cedar wood and age. She was wild yellow grey hair and her skin, a patchwork of parchment, stretched taut across rigid bones. She was books and a long stick, and in her ending, five granite teeth and blind sapphire eyes. It is an ugly thing, death, but Granny in life was no beauty.

Her stick burned well in the stove; I did not burn her books for they have been my life and I have lived my life within them. I have swum in pools of ancient words, hidden in forests of ancient words that weave for me tapestries of life more wonderful even than the woven scene on Granny's bedroom wall, where a brown rabbit cowers beneath the green tapestry bushes, hiding from the slavering tapestry hounds.

‘Be a rabbit when they come for you,' she had said to me many times, so I have become as that rabbit; I cower beneath the misty places of my mind when the grey men come.

Heat hangs heavy today. It clings to the air, burning each breath dry while perspiration prickles, trickles, but to the south the sky is alive. Lightning darts and licks at the earth with its many tongues, and if I breath deeply, fill my lungs, I can smell the scent of water blown down from the hill. I love that scent.

Jonjan smelt of cool water. When I think of his death there is a place deep within me that aches, as my back ached when I was a careless child and fell from my freedom tree. I did not climb so high again. And I will not think of him again. He is dead, so it does no good to think of him, yet today I want to climb my freedom tree, climb high, higher, climb so high like Jack of the Beanstalk so the grey men may never find me again.

They are very small, but very important city men, who wear their names on splendid shoulder ornaments of gold. There is Sidley, Stanley and Salter, though I think it would matter not if they each wore the same name. They are as one. Thin, hairless, grey scalp, grey face, grey overall and grey gloved hands that move me to their will, as Lenny moves a fallen tree to his will. Cut by the screaming city machine, trimmed, drilled often and threaded through with silver wire, that tree becomes a fence support, useful, but dead.

The grey men did not waste time with me last night, for the testing of my heat was not as they wished, thus there was no Implanting. They studied the blue pill container, issued on the night of Jonjan. It was empty. They did not know that their pill container had been emptied into the waste food we feed to the sow. Though this was not the doing of Lenny, it was he who was given much tongue and trouble and threat by the grey men. They do not speak to me.

Previously I have swallowed the city pills and thought little of them; still, I have thought little of much since the grey men came. Now I think. I think of Jonjan, and I think of Pa when he swallows his pills. They are for his aches and when he swallows enough his aches go away and he sleeps where he sits. I have had no aches and I did not wish to sleep so I did not swallow the pills. I also did not drink of my cordial for a day, for Jonjan had grown weary when he drank of it; but an illness came fast upon me, and I felt great thirst for the cordial. So I drank it. It did not make me weary.

I have been thinking much these last days, thinking of time and the great clock at the top of the stairs. Perhaps I will try to set its weights, tease its pendulum into life, make its heart begin to tock-tick-tock once more. Also I am thinking of my belly which is all a flip-flip-flop. I am thinking of Granny's doctoring book, its separating pages held together by an ancient cord. I have seen that book – somewhere. Perhaps I will look for it.

I did not wish to eat this morning, and I do not wish to eat now, though my stomach yawns with its emptiness. I make a cordial, then stare at the bottle long. There are measuring lines on it, and a foolish top that dispenses only enough to make the colour of the water pink. I like a stronger colour, and it is not difficult to remove that dispensing top so I may pour what I will to my mug. I have used its strong colour also when I paint my pictures, for when the undiluted cordial is mixed with white clay it makes the delicate pink of a remembered flower. I look at the cordial, but can not yet lift the mug to my mouth, for these past mornings the stuff pours out of me so fast when I put it in, and my need for the cordial is bringing with it fragments of a deeper need. There have been moments these last days when this need rises up inside of me and I hear an inner scream coming from within my head. I must not let that scream begin. I must not.

And I think I must not place that mug to my lips; my nose does not much like the smell of it and my stomach rolls as a plasti-bucket in the wind.

I take up the bottle, thinking to sip a little directly from it, for a little in the belly will also be a little to pour out of it. The cordial is thick and of a darker red than blood. My stomach heaves with the thought of it.

Lord. Lord, what is this illness in me? And this thinking, thinking, thinking. I can not stop it. Before the coming of Jonjan, there was no thinking. Before there was . . . was nothing.

My hair, not yet brushed, hangs in clumps. Though I have a fine city brush, my arms do not wish to labour at it. I take up a strand or two of the long stuff and look at its colour, which Granny called red, though it is not red. If I should mix paint to make this colour I would not use red at all, but deep orange, and powdered rust with perhaps a touch of black. I wish it were yellow, as Jonjan's hair. If it were yellow I would clean it well in the chem-tub and brush it well for him – if he were still amongst the living.

We entwined and were one. He ate of my mouth and the blood in me became fire, and like the fire on the mountain the day I walked with Granny, it exploded and reached so high it set to burning the moons and the stars. Then he drank of the cordial and grew weary. I ran to the chem-tub, washing myself long. I placed my soiled overall in the air-tub then ran to my room where I waited at the window for the grey men's giant flying machine. No storm nor wind can blow it from the sky. It comes when it wishes to come, bringing with it its own thunder.

It was from my window that I saw the lights go out, from there I heard Pa's cursing, from there I saw Lenny with his battery light and dart gun.

Then I heard the flying machine.

For a time there was noise enough to herald the end of the new world. The dogs did not know which way to run so they ran in circles. I waited, waited until there was silence, then waited longer for the grey men to come up the stairs.

Such a feeling of blame and sadness is locked deep within me. It gnaws at my heart day and night, like a rat in the barn gnawing its way into the heart of a pumpkin. There was blood in the barn the following morning when I went to see if the beetle machine had gone. It had not gone, and though I tell myself the blood I saw was only the blood of a pig Lenny had slaughtered, in my heart I know it was the blood of Jonjan. I do not know if he died by Lenny's hands or the city men's. I do not know where Lenny buried him. Perhaps he sleeps in the woods beside the harmless stranger who came to trade for books but gained only death.

I weep now as I look at the cordial. I weep for Jonjan and the stranger, and I weep for this illness of my belly. Before the coming of Jonjan I did not have this flip-flopping in my belly. I swallowed city pills, drank well of city cordial and swam in the printed words of that old world. And it was better, far better than this thinking, thinking, thinking, this weeping for what is lost.

Defiantly I sip a little cordial from the bottle, hold it beneath my tongue, allowing saliva to dilute it, and when I think it pink, I allow the sip to slide down. The bottle in my hand, I walk then to the small room which gives entrance to the cellar. I do not walk down the steps, but around the gaping hole to the books that wait on strong wooden shelves.

It is a room of dust, and many oddities, of an old hide-covered chair, of a glass-faced box, of a wooden wheel that one time turned. It is on the box that I find Granny's Bible and her doctoring book. I take both, take them to the kitchen.

The Bible print is small. I have read a little but its pages are dry as dead leaves, brittle and grey. The handwritten words steal my eye for a moment.

Only names. Too many names, they crush together. Some are written small in black, others in grey pencil. Some have been made by a strong hand, others by the weak. Some have numbers beside them, 2023, and 2096. Some have Nov or Oct. It is a confusion of names and figures. The two non-printed pages are filled with names, and even on the printed pages, where there is space, there are more. Who were these people?

I do not know the answer. I do not know many answers.

The Bible closed, I untie the cord of the doctoring book and carefully turn these worn, but colourful, pages, which as a child I liked well. There are pictures of the body's bones, of a heart with its piping cut off, pictures of the head and the great nest of worms that live inside the head, and then, there, I see a picture of female breasts and a fat belly. And a foetus inside the belly.

And I think that I have such a thing in my belly, and I think it makes the flip-flopping for it wishes to get out of me, for it should not be in me.

I close that book fast, push it from me. I will not look at it again. I will not think of it. This book will not raise Jonjan from the dead, nor will it tell me how to remove the foetus from within me before the grey men find it with their machines.

‘Lord.' They will not be pleased with me. ‘Lord.'

I reach for the cordial and quickly sip on the thick stuff. Once. Twice. Thrice.

(Excerpt from the New World Bible)

And in the city streets above the locked building of the Chosen, the storesheds were emptied. And the few who had survived the splitting of the earth and the aftermath and the fires that came from beneath the earth, and those who had survived the ocean's flood and the plagues, now starved.

 

And the women became the gatherers and they searched amidst the rubble and they fed their gatherings to the men. And the women squeezed the last of their milk from shrunken breasts and they fed it to their sons.