The Seventh Day (9 page)

‘You were brought here by the Seelongs? As an infant? You are from the city?'

I shrug, shake my head. ‘If this is so, I remember nothing of it. Only a garden. Only my mother's blood. And . . . and fear, and running. I remember the flying machine's silver wings. I remember hunger and a cold hand that would not hold me, though I tried to make it hold me.' I glance at him, shrug. ‘I do not remember the thought which led to my leaving of her. She was there but I was alone and feeling great hunger. I remember it as a dream . . . a dream of a crying infant who saw a light and walked and fell and crawled to the light. And she was there. Granny. She gave me food and water.' I look at his eyes. ‘I know that her name and Lenny and Pa's names I learned as an infant, as I learned dog and cow. I know only that there is, buried deep within the memory archives of me, a time when these names were not known. A time when the name of Honey was known.'

‘And the one you call Granny?'

‘She was very old. She left the earth before the grey men came. If she had not left, they would not have come.'

‘Her name? Do you remember her name?'

‘It is burned on wood over her grave. She was Monique Morgan.'

‘Moni has been dead for fifty years!'

‘Moni was a child who Granny knew of. She played in the fields with Moni, wove garlands of dandelions with her.'

‘Moni was Monique Morgan. In the city she was known as Moni.'

‘Then your city Moni has not been dead to me for fifty years.' He watches me with wide eyes now. ‘Monique Morgan died in the year she named my twelfth. She understood time and recorded each day until her ending. She is buried in the graveyard.'

‘Moni escaped the city in a copter and knew only two years of freedom before she died,' he argues with me. ‘The great escape has been well documented in the history books. Many searchers pursued her, and when they took her, they burned her alive as the ancient ones had burned witches, but her death did not end the movement she had begun.'

‘Then your history book is a lie, Jonjan. I know the truth of her death. She lived for one hundred years and two more, and as I have washed you, fed you, I washed and fed her in her last days. And like you, she talked at me. But before she left the earth she taught me much, from the great kings who cut off heads to the rabbits who hide from the hounds. I know of that time when all were freeborn.' He does not reply. ‘Who wrote this lie that she was burned as a witch?'

‘Jacob, the writer of history. The one I call father. He is of the High Chosen and thus was rewarded with a son of the stored embryo.'

‘Then I do not like Jacob, the one you call father who was rewarded with a son. And I do not like his lying history either. Does the printed word make a lie into a truth? Can the printed word alter that which was into that which was not?'

He shakes his head, and I take the bathing cloth from the fruitjell can and with it moisten his bleeding lip.

‘Your words are harsh, but your touch is gentle,' he says, his hand taking mine, stilling the cloth.

‘Your touch is disturbing, as it was on that day in the barn, as was the happening in the barn.' I return the cloth to the fruitjell container, and count three long breaths before I continue. ‘And . . . and the result of that happening, and the illness it has brought to me, has disturbed my life. And that is truth. And there is no changing of it.'

‘I have remembered that happening well and on many nights I crept down to the house to find you.'

I think of Lenny and shake my head, shake it hard, trying to wash away the image of him in my bed and my dear Jonjan looking for me. I shake my head again, for I do not wish to think of Lenny. And I do not wish to wish what I am wishing.

Lord!

If I had taken my basket and run to the cave I would have found Jonjan, and I would not have done that thing with Lenny.

Lord! Why did I not take my basket and run then? Jonjan would not now be injured. I could have quietened the dogs for him while he took his flying machine from the barn and together we could have flown far away.

‘Lord,' I say, for there is nothing else I can think to say. Then I wash my hands with water, wash them well, but I can not wash away that thing with Lenny, as I had allowed his grunting to near erase the sweet memory of Jonjan.

‘I stole eggs and supplies, and hoped each night when I went there that I might steal you. It was the old loving we shared, and a wondrous thing as no other.' His hand is on my hand. Such warmth. Such fine gentle warmth.

I sigh in a deep, deep breath. ‘It was as no other before, and as you say, of the old world, Jonjan. Granny had many books from the time before. They speak often of that love between the male and female that comes fast and sweet and free.'

‘I would like to read these books. In the city we do not have such things.'

‘And . . . and she had a doctoring book also.' I breath deeply then and, my head bowed low, I take my hand from his and unplait my hair so it may hide my face from his eyes. ‘It tells of many things, of the parts of us inside the flesh. It does not lie, Jonjan.'

‘I have seen these things. There is much doctoring in the city, and great knowledge of that art in many of our books.'

‘Have you seen . . . there are pages in it that tell of that love game we shared, and it is then that the male seed is planted within the female.'

He makes no reply but I feel his eyes watching me, and suddenly I think I am older than he and more knowledgeable. ‘From our love game, which is as with the animals mating, your seed was implanted by nature's way, and it has taken root in my womb and is growing well. And I shall give birth to a living child, Jonjan, and it will be freeborn. Sidley and Salter will not Harvest it before it is ready. They will not.'

His eyes are wide. I read more questions in them, but while his mouth opens, closes, I do not think his tongue will make the words, thus I speak the answers before the questions come.

‘That is the reason I came to the hills, Jonjan, and the reason I found you, and the reason you live – because of the foetus which grows in me.'

I think I have silenced him forever. He stares at me for the longest time, then he says, ‘There is a book which speaks of such a one that shall be born, and She shall be recognised. It is written that the child shall be born on Moni's land where there grow only the pure strains of ancient fruit, where the potato lives beneath the soil and the cobs of corn are sweet and grow no larger than my hand.'

‘Perhaps this was so in the time before. I have seen the tomato, though we grow only pumpkins now. They feed us and the stock.'

His hand moves up to touch my face, to touch my hair.

He has such strength, but much pain. As we speak of his escape from Lenny, and of the spring cave, of the flier food and energy pellets he had carried in the box of his flying machine, of the young pigs he had cooked, of his fall, his pain grows greater and his strength ebbs. I encourage him to sip a little cordial and soon he sleeps.

Freed from his talking and his eyes I am able to see to his wound, which weeps but is clean. Safe from his questions I am able to ask my own.

I had believed him dead. I had believed that Lenny or the city gun had killed him, and that night I drank too well of the cordial; the days beyond it were lost in the mist. But certainly it is as he said. When we had parted, he had mounted his machine but could not spread its wings in the barn, and could not move it from the barn for the dogs were tied in the doorway. He had gone to the generator shed and plunged the night into darkness, but Lenny's dart gun had found its mark; he is very certain with that gun, as was Granny.

The arrival of the grey men's copter had saved Jonjan, and by the time Lenny freed the dogs, Jonjan had found the cellar window and scrambled through. He had removed the dart and ransacked the old trunk for fabric to bind his side.

It was he who had taken the green blanket, which he used as a basket in which to carry supplies, for it was his intention to hide in the woods until he could return for his machine. And he had returned for his food packets and his pellets and to fill his water container from our tank. The following day he found the animal track and the spring cave and water, and he ate of the animals who came to drink at the water. Three times he had crept down to the barn in the dead of night, but each time the dogs were tied there so he had stolen Pa's pumpkins and the stock's corn, which the city men bring in great plasti-sacks. I have chewed on that corn. Tough it is, and without flavour. Is it any wonder his bones try to creep from his skin?

As I attempt to make his position more comfortable, he wakes, smiles at me. ‘I dreamed of you,' he says. ‘Such a strange and moving dream. I did not wish to wake.'

‘Tell me your strange dream.'

‘You were the golden one, the Messiah who will come.'

‘Granny had a Bible. She knew the many names and stories from it, of Messiah and Mary; I have not bothered much with its fine print and fragile pages.'

The rock is hard against his back and the blanket is no pillow. I think to cut the grey growth, wrap it in the blanket and so make a pillow of it for him.

‘My dream was from the Book of Moni,' he says, watching my knife work for me. ‘Its print is large and it has not so many pages.' He smiles, and his lips bleed.

I complete my task and prop him high then give him water and a crispbite. ‘So now you wish to lecture me from Moni's book, as Granny lectured me from the Bible. Does your book tell more of Noah and Mary and Moses?'

‘It tells of Moni and her land of milk and honey. It is written that she dwelled there for many years. And it tells of
She
, the nameless one Moni promised would come.
From her womb a new world will arise.
In my dream, you were the one Moni had promised.'

‘Ha. So this is why they use me to make the many foetus for their laboratories, so a new world will rise from my womb. Did Jacob, the lying one you call father, also write this tale?'

‘No.' His eyes close. He is quiet for a long time; I think him asleep and reach gratefully for my cordial, but his eyes open. ‘The followers of Moni wrote it and it was printed in secret by the labourers in the great printing house.'

‘Granny was a prisoner of the city. You confuse me.'

‘The poison you drink confuses you.' He takes the bottle, places it against the rear wall of our shelter where I must reach across him to retrieve it. ‘Moni had many followers in the city who listened to her words, and remembered them. It is written that She who will come will carry the old blood of Moni.'

‘I carry the learning of Granny, but I am not of her blood.'

‘Much of her ovum was Harvested.' He coughs, and I try to still his words, but he shakes his head and speaks more. ‘The Book of Moni was written many years ago. It is said that there are pages in it taken directly from the words Moni spoke at the meetings; there is also much of it taken from her secret writings, which, after her . . . her reported death, were given into the hands of her followers.'

I am listening, sitting beside him in the shade.

‘Because it is a work of the eastern city, little thought was given to it in the west and little interest shown, until recent years. Much has happened, much has been learned that she could not have known – had she not possessed advance knowledge. There are many on the west side who now look on her as a prophet.'

‘Mockery was the only weapon the city could not take from her. I believe she mocked them with her prophesies.'

‘The High Chosen think as you. There are others of the lesser order who do not.'

‘Who are the others?'

‘Their names are not spoken. Some hold important positions, thus their names are not listed, but there is an old one, from the laboratories, who tells of the frozen embryo of Moni, which yet have not been Implanted, nor yet discarded. I believe they fear –'

‘Embryo of Granny? Frozen? As in a freezer?'

‘As in . . . yes, a form of freezer.'

‘Do they also freeze the unfinished foetus in their form of freezer?'

‘I know nothing of unfinished foetus. If it is done, then it is a secret process of the Seelongs' inner sanctum, and unknown in the city. Little of what the three do is known in the city.' He coughs, and it is a harsh sound. I lift him, hold him until he clears his throat.

‘I do not much like your city, Jonjan, and you weary yourself with this talk. Your throat grows dry, and you cough. You are as Granny in her last days. Talking, talking, as if she must tell me all today for she would have no tomorrow. There will be a tomorrow for you.'

‘In the endless time I lay helpless in the sun I lost faith in tomorrow.'

‘How many days?'

‘That is a question I can not answer. I slept, and waited for the golden chariot to come for me. But you came to return me back to the land of the living, as Moni was returned to the land of the living.'

‘You were breathing. I set your bone, gave you food and water.'

‘It is written in the Book of Moni that her heart was not beating when she was brought as a child to the city. It is written that during her short time of death, she touched the hand of God, and he gave to her great wisdom and advance knowledge.'

‘And this is why the storm guided you to her land? To find more of her advance knowledge, more of her writings?'

‘For that and for another reason.'

‘She had no pencil to write with. We had worn it away until it was smaller than half of my tiny finger, and she hit my hand with a not-so-small stick when I did not hold the pencil well, and she mocked me when I ran to her with my fears and questions. And we had no paper to write upon; each blank page in each book had been used. And we had no clothing to wear but . . . but blankets and the rags of the ancient ones, and I think if she had touched the hand of God, he would have given her paper and a new pencil with which to write his prophesies. And I think you would have been better served to remain in your city with your dreams of Moni, for the one you seek here is not the one I knew.'