Monterra's Deliciosa & Other Tales & (20 page)

Now, only the bitterness of God's disappointment in us lives in that highest place. Only a trickle of the brave and foolhardy visit. Never to taste the delights of the musical garden and the most delicious fruit ever made, but to say that they actually lived through a few-minute visit to the most forbidding site on earth, where even the air is begrudged to man.

And down in the concrete castles of the peopled world, how do we fare? First, one doesn't mourn what one doesn't know is lost. Second, we have progressed wonderfully over the centuries. Science has taken us places that mere art never could, and all who can afford more than pulses delight ever more in what we are now able to do to our foods.

So now you know the story, and I for one am glad that God kept His Best Fruit for himself.

I mean, how do you think He would feel watching a consumer taste test, given a choice of a fruit—any fruit including That Fruit—vs. a bowl of crispy snackfood slathered with a canful of cheese-flavoured spread; or a "strawberry" thick shake; or when you bite into a choc cupcake, that white stuff that oozes from its heart ...

Öm

- 1 -

The Queen regarded the King's Carver, and her juices ran. His arm wavered not a wiggle as it held the calf, hoisted on the tines of his mighty fork. With his left hand he wielded the slimmest of knives against the rump of the creature, taking, in the smallest of taxes each time, a tithe of flesh fit for the King.

At the moment, the King sipped from a golden goblet filled with hypocras, a fragrant brew of wine and spices made to historical perfection, because the King had mulled it himself.

The King's wont was to partake slowly, savouring.

The Carver, however, was in a perfect torment. You would think that the fly drinking the trickle of sweat at the tip of his nose had found the King's own wine. The drunken dance of the fly's too-many feet and the lap of his quick tongue turned the tap on the carver's sweat to a gushing waterfall, and the fly dropped off, probably insensate.

Still the Carver carved, presenting each morsel-sized sliver to His Majesty, with the blood running neatly upon the plate, not a drop spilt.

Soft music played for the King's ears. "Baby want, ooh, baby want ..."

The Queen sat, in her finery. "You are too fat," the King had said last night. Although her inner lips bathed in their own juices, she sucked in her stomach and gazed sweetly at her Lord. Tomorrow he might want her in handfuls, as he had such a short while ago.

She sighed, but only inwardly. After all, she was a fortunate queen. The King was up to 87 queens now, and still rising.

Outside, there was a riot again.

A village of mud a day's travel away had vanished into a cloud of dust, and countless peasants killed when someone lit a cigarette while the villagers were queued up with their plastic containers waiting to fill at the pipeline that one of them had hacked open with a machete. None of the villagers could have used the petrol themselves, but they sold it on the road, to those who could.

And now, those who could, were without fuel, and were rioting outside the Palace gates.

The King was disturbed. "Turn up the volume," he yelled. And, almost instantly, the singers sang louder.

But the King's lunch was ruined. "Thörborg!" he commanded, and General Thörborg materialized as if by magic, just as the 'g' in Thörborg fled from the King's mouth.

"Volunteer those rioters!"

And General Thörborg saluted and turned on his heels, a relieved man. There would be at least a hundred new recruits for the war effort several kingdoms away.

Outside, the volume quickly turned up, then off.

As soon as the King, followed by the Queen, departed the dining hall, the Carver let loose the fork to catch the haunchless calf in his arms, his left hand still holding the long steel blade. In the tradition of the food of kings, the remains of the calf did not go to waste. The Carver hastened to the kitchen where he took the biggest cleaver there, and hacked the thing into a large number of pieces. He put them into a red, white, and blue woven-plastic carry bag, took up his long knife, and left the Palace, in order to sell on the street.

But the streets near the Palace were deserted, so he went home, where buyers would come to him.

Money, however, was becoming a problem

Down in the basement of the Palace, there was a constant state of noise, as the presses of the land printed and printed and printed. The King's ability to make riches at will was a thing of wonder the world over, and increasing inconvenience to his subjects. Some peasants had decided that it was better to be poor and to trade, for instance, a bicycle tyre for a sack of meal, than to trade things for Krömers, even though each piece of paper bore the four-colour image of the King, in crown, double-breasted jacket, and ferocious-looking skin.

A time of crisis around the world
, the King lectured, when visiting the palaces of distant lands. He spoke well, and could speak for hours. Mind you, we have never seen him speak, nor been to any palace.
¹

Anyway, his people saw from posters and heard on their radios that their King looked well and lectured magnificently as red carpet after red carpet unrolled for him in distant lands. His people could rest assured that he did not disgrace their land, because furthermore, he was known as an expert in fine manners and sartory, and could lecture about gourmandism to connoisseurs. He was,
is
, concerning culture, a scholar. And he has an economics degree.

And so, when Emissaries from those other lands were scheduled to meet with him in a meticulously organized audience which had taken much prearrangement, but was after his foul lunch, he was prepared not to cancel the meeting, and to be of calm humour. And they, guests in this culture, all arrived early, in a manner of utmost respect and not a little awe.

The meeting began promptly. "The people of your land are starving," they said.

"No, they are not," he bristled.

"We would like to help," they said.
²

Nevertheless, the King sat up straighter in his carved chair. "We do not need your help," he chided. "We are a land ruled by ourselves now, and I am not to be treated as one of your barons,
or less
."

He settled his powerful haunches in his chair. "As long as we have our land and as long as we are simple in our needs, we will survive."

The Emissaries squirmed. They had insulted his land and His Majesty. Perhaps their wordiness was making the King impatient.

"We want to give your land gifts," one said.

"What gifts?" asked the King.

"Food," said several at once.

The King's face swelled. "Those protein supplement biscuits?" And he yanked on a chain by his side, and a naked, bug-eyed Chihuahua
³
slid out from under his chair. "Not good enough for him!"

And his gaze roamed over the assembled. "Have you ever eaten those things?"

The Emissaries hung their heads. None of them had, and each had thought privately, but never said,
those protein supplement things look just like dog biscuits
.

"Try something else," the King invited.

"Corn," said one who had bided his time.

The sucked-in gasps and exhaled
hah
s turbulated the air.

The King, however, smiled. "What kind of corn?"

"Corn. You know. Corn for your people," the Emissary elaborated.

"But
what
kind?" the King repeated, behind his broad, white-toothed smile. "Caaandy corn?"

The red-haired Emissary turned pink. "Yellow corn, I think," he said, "or maybe white. The kind your people eat."

Someone sniggered.

"Don't take his corn, Your Majesty!" a girlish voice rang out.

The King raised his heavy eyelids, looking for the voice.

The Emissary stood, and when she stood she wasn't taller than when she'd sat.

The King was having a wonderful time. He knit his brows and boomed out "Ye—"

"His corn is tainted!" she cried. And for interrupting the King, she earned more gasps than for her condemnation.

"Tainted, eh?" the King said, turning. "What say you?"

"Of course it isn't!" the corn-offerer said, red to the roots of his hair.

"How much is tainted?" demanded the King.

"None!" the Emissary retorted.

"Have you eaten this corn?" the King shot back.

"No."

"Have you seen this corn?" The King loved Wimbledon. He always attended, and this was better than that.

"How could I have? We haven't donated it yet."

"Well, what about other corn like this."

The emissary paused. "Yes. Yes, I have. And it was perfectly fine."

"Have you eaten any?" the King whammed.

"Of course not!" the Emissary whammed back. "I wouldn't take from the Poor."

"Of course not," said the King. "So how do you know how much is tainted?"

"I don't know how much is tainted."

"Ah," said the King, and laughed.

And there was almost clapping in the room, and certainly many smiles.

But the King hadn't finished the game.

"You make amends to us for your barbarity, with this perfidy?" he asked rhetorically, as the redheaded Emissary made plans in his head, never to be an emissary again.

But the King wasn't finished, not quite yet.

"I," he boomed, "am the protector of My People. And you seek to poison them?"

"Of course not!" objected the Emissary who wished he was anywhere else.

"How much of this tainted corn do Your People eat?"

"None!"

"Ha!"

"Because it isn't tainted!" the furious Emissary yelled.

"How do you know it isn't tainted!?" the King yelled back

"Because we eat it, too!" and it must be said, the Emissary of the Questionable Corn looked fat enough to eat.

"Ohh," said the King, now quietly. And he nodded his head. In a tone of scientific enquiry, he asked "And how do you know the tainted from the untainted?"

"It's not like that," the Emissary said, exasperated with this obtusity.

"Then what?" asked the King.

The emissary sighed, and patiently explained. "It's all mixed up."

"Ah," said the King, illuminated.

"See?" said the emissary, smiling at last.

"I do!" said the King. "Your leaders poison you, and now want to do the same to mine!"

"No!!" said the Emissary, but as he had wondered about the same points the King brought up, he could only hang his head. Sweat tickled the hairs between his breasts.

But pity for him was as great as from the hens in a flock, towards a dead hen in their midst.

"Cheese?" another voice sprang up.

"We do not eat cheese," the King answered.
⁴

"Canned beets," ventured another, to no reply.

"Fresh beef. Lots of it!" a bright voice hawked, and all the other Emissaries noted the land that
that
Emissary hailed from.

By now, the King was getting angry. "You insult me and you insult my land. We do not have your riches, it is true. Your lands are old, and ours is newly freed. But would you keep our minds enslaved as you did, our people? Cannot ..." and he drew himself up in his chair to his full majesty, and he was a big man, "Cannot we think for ourselves?"

The air conditioner banged in the background, to silence in the room.

Peevishly the King waggled his hand. "Begone with you," he said, "until you return with respect."

There was a general creaking of plastic chairs as the Emissaries shifted in their seats, unsticking sweaty cloth from their derrieres. The bold Little Emissary's eyes were full of tears, as she thought of the vast sprawl outside the Palace, of streets running with sewage, of children running with sores, of young men with missing hands and scars so terrible that the battles they fought gave this weak-hearted Emissary nightmares, of women who smiled at her in embarrassment and pride; of houses made of red, white, and blue plastic bags, recycled recycled metal drums, cardboard, sacks stamped
gift of
. Houses not even made of pure clean mud, as the peasants in the country built, because here, in this city, there was no pure clean mud. She thought of the Central Market where the ground was once alive with feathered carnivores cleaning up the blood spilt from freshly butchered meat, but where no winged creatures jostled now. She thought of the black nights, a city where no streetlights twinkled, the only glow coming from the stars above and the Palace grounds, emanating, night and day, the ceaseless growls of hungry generators.

She thought of the time a week ago, when the King spoke to his People, to his multitudes, and how hushed they were, even as they squatted in the dust, cushioned by clouds of flies. They squatted and listened and watched, all at the same time. She thought of the smell of the square where he spoke: of sweat and excrement and rotting offerings.

The weak-hearted little Emissary thought of the people in this land and wondered why she saw them shed tears so seldom, how little boys
could
make little carts and aeroplanes out of wire and bones, and run them through the muck. How men could sit in the dust, gambling with stones, with nothing to gamble away.

In her land, the people here were pictured in the deepest of hardship, tears glowing in their huge and melting eyes, always squatting holding empty bowls, though the women squatted in beautiful clothes, and held their heads high despite the weight of amazingly elaborate necklaces. From far away she had cried for these people, and so came to Öm to help. She loved this people, and so did her people, so very far away.

The Little Emissary stopped her tears before they overflowed and angered this proud King belittled by the Emissaries' insulting and poisonous gifts. She counted herself as amongst the insulters. Those protein supplement biscuits were part of her mission of giving and teaching nutrition. She had never thought of the biscuits' unattractiveness, only having considered their goodness. Now they reminded her of vegetables. There is nothing less palatable, it occurred to her, than what's good for you. The King had made clear that her mission here was ruined. Now she vowed to find those biscuits, and live on them, and while living on them, find another way to do good. She was determined to help. She wondered if she could get her home office to send her biscuits, or her mother to find some somewhere and ship them the next time she shipped ... but that was a distraction, and she pulled her thinking back to the crisis at hand.

She looked around at the rest of the Emissaries, wondering how they could be so wrong. After all, she was proud to be an Emissary and had studied for many years, though this was her first mission and her first audience with the King. It was expensive for her people to have sent her, and took much effort to be afforded the privilege. And it would be the same for any other Emissary.
For all the cost to be here
, she thought,
is this all we can offer?

"We have failed," she decided. "I shall write to my people. Perhaps our Queen should ask His Majesty to our Palace." And she made ready to take her leave with all the rest, in shame.

~

And then from a lone seat in the back corner of the room, a grim, grey weed of a man spoke.