Nest of Worlds (3 page)

In light sport shoes, he fell on the sheet of ice that covered the porch and almost broke a tooth. He got up and knocked on the door. A formality, it wasn’t locked, and they could see him through the window. The others were waiting for him at the table; apparently he was the main attraction that evening.

Leo Eisler, R, was smaller and trimmer than Edda, but his hair was as red. When he lowered his head over his plate, his bald spot gleamed under the lightbulb, showing freckles.

Haifan Tonescu, B, and his wife, Gwenda, also B, were both sure of themselves and loud; they were obviously the important people here. They had the best apartment, on the first floor, with air-conditioning and their own little garden. Between them sat their two repulsive boys—both, ironically, flaming red. With the regularity of a clock, the older boy jabbed the younger with a finger, then made a face at him. When the parents were looking the other way, the younger, in revenge, would take some cottage cheese with his dirty hand and wipe it on the pants of the older. Then began the pinching and screaming.

There was also Hilgret, G, undistinguished, as gray as a mouse and as quiet. She rented one room.

A family of whites ate in the kitchen. In return for their food, they helped Edda with the household chores. They lived in the basement, under Haifan and Gwenda. Gavein saw them when he took his plate to the kitchen. The parents had hair that was practically gray, so they could have been assigned a higher social category. The arbitrary decision of some official had determined their fate for the next thirty-five years.

Both daughters, however, were fair-haired, with white eyelashes and pink complexions.

In Lavath this house would have belonged to them, he thought, looking at the woman, who was prematurely aged, stooped over, and at her toothless husband and emaciated girls.

Seeing him, they stood and presented themselves.

“Their future will be good,” he said quietly to the parents, indicating the daughters with a jut of his chin. Blacks didn’t converse with whites. That he spoke to them was a great courtesy.

“May they live to see it,” said the man. “It’s not that bad here. The family is kind to us,” he added quickly.

At the table, Edda was giving an account of the latest news:

“Even here, a lamp shook, the glasses rattled . . .”

“You exaggerate,” said her dour husband. “The lamps shake whenever a truck passes outside. And the glasses always rattle when the refrigerator motor goes on. The vibration travels along the kitchen counter.”

“We noticed nothing. It happened too far away for the concussion to reach us. No, impossible,” said Haifan, settling the debate. He was a physics teacher and black, so unquestionably a more reliable observer than the excitable, red Edda.

They were talking about an earthquake reported in the papers. The epicenter was in the southeast region of Davabel, beneath the shoreline or perhaps the ocean bed. Davabel sat on a continental plate, and even in the historical record no quake like this had ever been recorded. Seismic activity was possible only out in the ocean, but no one had conducted a study there.

Near the epicenter was the Division of Science, Davabel’s research facility. Some joked that the earth was sinking there and that soon the level of the facility’s buildings would equal the level of the work being carried out in them.

The mystery of the quake remained a mystery, and the conversation turned to other topics. Edda told of a fatal accident that befell a baker.

“He was on a bicycle, and a truck hit him.”

In Davabel, bicycles rode on the sidewalks. The baker had tried to cross the street at a pedestrian walkway.

“No one knows if the light was green or not, or whose fault it was.”

“And what was his name?” asked Leo.

“Bryce.”

“No, I mean his Name.”

“
Plosib
. He told me once,” Gwenda spoke up. “You could check in the papers.”

Edda looked in the newspaper. Unfortunately, Gwenda was right, so Edda was unable to take her boarder down a notch.

“
Plosib
. . . That tells the police nothing,” mused the all-knowing Haifan. “If the baker had been
Murhred
, then the driver of the truck would have been in trouble.”

“But if the baker had been a
Sulled
or a
Myzzt
, then the driver could rest easy,” Gwenda added. Stating the obvious reinforced her belief that she was intelligent.

Gavein noticed that at the mention of the Name
Murhred
, Edda flinched. Could that be Leo’s Name? Or even her own,
Murhredda
? From
Murhredda
you might have the abbreviation Edda. He had never heard of a Significant Name being abbreviated, but the customs here were different.

Plosib
meant “By man, but accidentally.”
Murhred
, on the other hand, meant “By man, intentionally.” Gavein was certain now that in Davabel the Significant Names were the same as in Lavath.
Sulled
was “By your own hand.”
Myzzt
was “By your brain,” and it was a Name of Man. The others belonged to the group of Names of Conflict.

Gavein’s Name was
Aeriel
, which meant “By air,” and it was a Name of Element. Ra Mahleiné’s was the same:
Aeriella
. She would sometimes joke that their being together lowered their life expectancy. They had ignored the coincidence, trusting to the capriciousness of fate.

In Lavath, not as in the other Lands, common names were based on animals, plants, objects. Many people were called Bharr—which was Bear—and Wildcat and Wolf were also popular.

“Gavein” was the snow tiger, the only predator that dared face the mighty white bear. Apparently, the two beasts never met: the tiger kept to the forest, the bear to the tundra. But these ancient rulers of northern Lavath were conquered: their territory was now covered with residential bunkers, and the few remaining specimens were kept in captivity. Gavein had never seen his shaggy namesake.

“Mahlein” was an old name, for manul. The prefix “Ra” meant the female of the species. Once, in a zoo, both saw a real manul. It was grave and dignified, with an owl’s round face and large, mournful eyes. It didn’t look at all like the merciless killer of tiny creatures in the taiga. Ra Mahleiné liked to go to the zoo and look at the curious animals there. She found it amazing that once they had lived in freedom.

“Is there a zoo nearby?” Gavein asked the people at the table, breaking the silence.

“In the Park of Culture, at the corner of 5400 Street and 5600 Avenue,” replied Leo. “But there’s not much to see there. An excellent zoo is at the center, on the corner of 5000 Street and 6000 Avenue.”

The conversation was interrupted by a noise at the door; the postman was fitting a magazine into the letter slot.

Edda opened the door and invited him to the table. He brought chill air with him, as if coming in out of a snowstorm. He was short, stocky, with a large circular head. He put his mailbag, stuffed with newspapers and letters, on the floor. He brushed all the snow from his tunic, getting some of it on the people at the table, and handed the tunic to the young Eisler.

In a crimson uniform that had red stripes and shoulder braids, and a badge that said
Davabel Post Office, Division
5445660,
Officer Maximé Hoffard
, Max looked important.

He took a seat at the table, panting and groaning from the effort. He put his postman’s cap beside his plate. A thin wreath of white hair surrounded his shiny bald spot. He took out a handkerchief and with it wiped, ceremoniously, his wet bottle-thick glasses.

“You missed the pasta, Max, but are in time for the pizza.” Edda gave him a friendly pat on the shoulder.

He muttered something, put his glasses on, then comically stared at his neighbors to the left and to the right. He was wall-eyed. The lenses enlarged his eyes to the point of caricature.

“I can finally see,” he said.

“This is Dave,” said Edda. “He’ll be living with us, upstairs.”

Max extended a muscular hand across the table and had a grip like a vise. The tablecloth jerked as he leaned, and everyone jumped to keep things from falling. Taking advantage of the situation, Gwenda’s older son overturned the ketchup. Only Gavein saw that it was done on purpose.

“When Max comes, we need a rubber tablecloth and metal plates,” laughed Haifan.

Edda wiped up the excess ketchup with a rag, saying nothing, and she put a napkin under the tablecloth. When everything was restored to order, a large, steaming piece of meat au gratin was put in front of Max. Gavein would have preferred that to what was on his plate. He hated the vomit smell of pasta: that was the association he invariably had with melted cheese and cooked tomatoes. He wasn’t crazy about macaroni either.

Max dug in. All else ceased to interest him. He chewed steadily, quickly, like a machine.

He’s not eating, he’s feeding, thought Gavein. Like a bee: you could sever the head from the abdomen, and it wouldn’t stop chewing.

The lowered face, the hairless skull, and the eyes looking to the side made Max resemble an embryo or grub. He ate noisily, panting and slurping. Occasionally he would become aware of this fault and try to eat more quietly. The trouble this cost him resulted in nervousness and even louder breathing.

Gavein concluded that Max shouldn’t try to control the noise that was natural to him, because in either case no one else could eat while he did, and there was no point in his suffering too.

The conversation resumed, with the purpose of drowning out the noise of Max eating.

“Have you given a Name yet to the little one?” Max unexpectedly asked, wiping his full mouth with a napkin.

Gavein froze. In Lavath such a question was a terrible breach of etiquette. Here, evidently, it was not.

“Only yesterday I went and registered at Administration. He’ll be a
Myzzt
, and his everyday name will be Duarte,” answered Edda, though Max was no longer listening.

“Did you choose it, or did he bring it with him?” asked Haifan, joining in.

“He brought it with him, but we like it. He’ll be the master of his fate,” she said.

“But fate can’t be mastered, can it?” Haifan countered.

“That will be for him, not others, to decide.”

Max fed, snorting.

The Immigration Office was located on 5665 Avenue, an hour’s walk, but it took Gavein twice as long, because the thaw had turned the snow into a thick slush that was even slipperier underfoot than the usual ice. The passing cars kept throwing salty gray slop up onto the sidewalk.

The modest one-floor building had been finished off with a decorative greenish brick. Leo said that buildings here were wood and Styrofoam inside, or particleboard. In the best case, they used plasterboard. The brick was just for show. In Lavath, gray concrete was the building material of choice, with marks left by the wooden frames.

Gavein had to take care of the rest of the immigration paperwork. He also wanted to soften, as much as he could, Ra Mahleiné’s fall to the bottom of the social ladder: the ladder that had four rungs.

He went to the window under the sign
Registration
Of New Arrivals
. After a few minutes, an official appeared, not happy that his lunch had been interrupted.

“You made a mistake, picking a wife too early,” the official said. “That’s better done in the second stage of your life. Then there’s no farewell when you move.” He took a sip of watery decaf from a cardboard cup.

Gavein detested the coffee here.

“A premature marriage is a complication but not a major one. This is Davabel. With a three on your passport you should have no problem getting an annulment. Or authorization, even, to keep your woman. Is she pretty at least?” The official’s talk seemed a flow of unconnected phrases. “Black like you?”

“White.”

“That makes no sense. Whites are not considered.” This was a man who didn’t blink, who knew his business. “Here, as the possessor of a three, you can have a black wife or even two reds. Your previous union doesn’t need to be annulled, because it doesn’t exist in the eyes of the law.” The official clipped a large form to Gavein’s passport. “Personally I would advise you not to have one wife with a two and another with a three, though that can be done as well. Such marriages aren’t stable. I’m sure the rules on that will be changed soon.”

“My wife’s name is Ra Mahleiné. I’d like you to put that on my passport. I haven’t been able yet to pick her up at the port, but I believe she has arrived.”

“Whites aren’t put in passports. You can have as many of them as you like, as mistresses. Unfortunately they age quickly, grow ugly. A problem you don’t need.”

“All the same I’d like her entered as my wife.”

“She was younger than you?”

“Yes.”

“She traveled in real time, while you went by dilation, right?”

“That’s right.”

“Consider how much she’s aged . . . She’s thirty-five now, biologically and chronologically.”

“She sacrificed four years of her life so that she could be in synchrony with me.”

The official waved a hand. “Where am I to put her? There’s no place on the form for whites.”

Gavein stared at him stubbornly. He knew this was possible.

“Very well,” said the official. “Under ‘Marital Status’ I’ll put an asterisk, and here . . . at the bottom there’s a box ‘Comments.’ I’ll write her in here.”

The son of a bitch, Gavein thought. He wields his power. He could have written her in normally.

“Her name is Ra Mahleiné,” Gavein said.

“Don’t be absurd. She has no name in Davabel. I’ll put down ‘Mrs. Dave Throzz, no category.’“

“Please write her name, Ra Mahleiné.” Gavein knew his rights.

“I’ll write Magdalena. That sounds more natural. And her Significant Name?”

“
Aeriella
.”

The official put the form into a slot in the computer, to stamp on it the code of the Name.

“I need more information. She’s very fair?”

“Yes, fair. Eyes blue, dark blue. She’s tall.”

“Tall as you?” the official joked. He was short and roly-poly.

“No, but taller than you. Thin, without any special marks. I don’t know what else . . .”

“Fair, so she’s reddish?” The official’s manner changed, now that their duel was over about writing Ra Mahleiné into the passport. He was just doing his job now, and his tone became more sympathetic. In Lavath such informality would not have been possible: an official was always the personification of his office.

“No. Her eyebrows, her lashes are darker.”

“Yes, I remember women like that,” the official said with a sigh. “Goddesses of the north. I couldn’t get my fill of looking at them. I sat at a cash register in a store. I wasn’t allowed to lift my eyes to one, ever. It was torment.”

“You remember Lavath?”

“Northern women, they’re like snowflakes: beautiful but short-lived.” The official shook his head. “In Davabel they melt quickly. Even when it’s freezing . . .”

“When will I be able to pick up my wife at the port?”

“I remember,” he went on, answering the first question. “The miserable youth of being a red in Lavath. I have no reason to stick my neck out for whites. You get my meaning?”

His hair was dyed black, but on his crown, under his cap, was the requisite strip of red.

“You’ll be notified by phone. I’ll see to this personally. Here’s my card. Both of you should drop in sometime. My wife makes great pizza, and her pasta isn’t bad. We’ll talk about old times.”

On the card was written
Ian Hanning
, R, followed by several abbreviations that indicated his position and address.