The Fifth Sacred Thing (88 page)

“You promised to be my instrument,” a voice whispered.

How do I become the instrument of compassion when I am so blazing, raging mad?

“Sit. Sit until the energy changes.”

Madrone sat. An hour passed, and another hour. Lily brought her tea, in silence. Once she stood and went to relieve herself in Lily’s bathroom, but she returned to sit again.

Compassion. No, she could not find it in herself, only grief and anger at the waste. What could her mother have done with the years that were taken from her? She could have been there for me, to place the cowrie necklace around my throat when my moon blood first came, to hear about my visions, my first love affairs, to comfort me when Bird went away, to have visions and lovers and sorrows of her own. The waste, the waste! Madrone looked at the soldier’s dull eyes and thought about blood. Coatlicue, you gave me your knife, and from all I know you were not a gentle Goddess. Didn’t you demand
sacrifice, the heart ripped from the chest, or was that just a story the priests told about you? But I could do that. If your knife were more than an energy form, if it were made of steel, I could plunge it into this man’s chest and rip out that cold, cold heart. If we could do that, Mama, rip out all the cold hearts, remove them, remove scum from the earth. Who said that? One of the Angels, wasn’t it? I understand them now. Goddess, keep me out of the bee mind because I would sense this man’s disease and sting him to death to protect the hive.

Rage churned in her, lit a fire in her belly, burst into flame on her breath. Oh, I am tired of being the Healer! I want to be the Destroyer, to rend and tear with my nails, to eat human flesh, to say no! no! no! until it all stops and starts over again, soft and new. I have not killed and I will not kill, not with Lily in the next room, but,
Diosa
, I do want to kill, to cleanse, to exact some payment for all the suffering, some justice, some revenge.

Madrone felt her body come alive. She could hardly stay still, she wanted to dance and let her feet tumble civilizations, wave her hands in the air to cause thunder and hurricanes, drip sweat from her breasts to drown the fields. Don’t talk to me about compassion, talk to me about forest fires, volcanic eruptions, the whirlwind that clears its own path. Goddess, you have not made the world correctly; what you have birthed has sickened and poisoned itself. Knock it down and begin again.

Her hands felt hot. She was the volcano, hot lava poured from her palms. If I touch him now, I’ll scorch him, I’ll change him, it will serve him right. She reached out and took the soldier’s hand. An aura, red as flame, enveloped their clasped hands.

His flesh was cold, but it felt familiar, like touching a part of herself, like remembering something she had always known. We are alike, she thought, in some way, flesh of one flesh. How can that be?

The flame changed. It grew until it surrounded her with still pure color, red at the corona and gold within and in the very center blue, like one drop of water.

Then she fell into the water, and it grew until it became an ocean she floated on.

The waves carried her, supported her, soaked her lungs and her brain. The room seemed to open out, white and gold and filled with a light that rang and quivered. The room, the wall, the man dissolved and there was only the play of color and harmony, beautiful as the ice road but warm now. Yes, everything was warm, her own hands, her own heart; her rage was a fire set adrift on the water, a flaming boat of offerings.

His hand warmed under her touch. She began to heal, which was only to reach and offer, without judgment, to let this power flow.

They sat in silence throughout the night, holding hands. Outwardly, nothing
moved. Inwardly, Madrone poured colors down gray dust roads, kindled rain on mud-cracked fields, cried over corpses, and excavated a long-buried stone that began to pulse and beat like a heart.

Night turned to dawn. The patch of sky framed by Lily’s window changed to indigo, then hazy blue.

Finally the man looked up. His head rose slowly, like the tip of a bulb risking an emergence into light. His eyes unfolded like uncertain petals and slowly focused on Madrone. Quickly he looked away.

“My name’s Madrone,” she said softly. “What’s your name?”

“Don’t got one.” His voice was low and toneless; he spoke reluctantly, as if words were rationed.

“You don’t have a name?”

“Number’s Ohnine fivethirtythree sixteenhundred, Unit Five.”

“Oh. What do people call you?”

“Ohnine.”

Color flamed between them. He seemed pitiful to her suddenly, a man without even a name to call his own. How could she fear him?

“What you gonna do to me?”

He feared her. Madrone pitched her own voice low, to match his, and spoke slowly. “We’re going to keep you here, in isolation, for another week or two, until your immune system has a chance to regenerate from booster withdrawal. And then—it depends.”

She saw terror flicker over his face, and his eyes shut down again.

“We’re not going to hurt you, Ohnine.”

He looked at her suspiciously. “Why not?”

“That’s not how we operate.”

“That’s how everybody operates.”

“Not us.”

“What you gonna do, then?”

“If you can heal yourself, if you can work with us, you could help us.”

“Help you how?”

“Help us understand you, all of you.”

“What for?”

“So we can save ourselves, and you all too, maybe.”

“What you mean?”

“I mean that there is truly a place for you at our table, if you choose to join us. That you could live in this city, the rest of your unit too, with enough to eat and drink and nobody giving you orders to kill people. There’d be work to do, but it’d be worthwhile work, making things, growing things. And you could have a name of your own, not just a number, and respect, if you earn respect.”

“Don’t believe you.”

“You have to believe me, because I am going to give you a name.”

“I come from the pens. We don’t got names. Only the white boys get to earn them.”

“But now you’re part of us. All of us in this city, we’re like a unit too. All of us together. And everybody has a name.”

“What name you gonna give me?”

She thought for a moment, looking at him, his dark eyes round and suddenly almost childlike. This is my week for naming, she thought, first the baby, now him. He should have a strong name, not something Spanish, that he wouldn’t be able to pronounce, a simple name that would mean something. Maybe she should name him after Rio, who had also killed and, according to Maya, often been out of control. And Rio had changed. Maybe this man could, too.

“Rio” was too associated with her grandfather. She couldn’t name him that. But in translation …?

“River. Your name will be River. That means a big stream of water that flows free above the ground.”

“River? That’s my name?”

“It fits you,” Madrone said.

“You gave me a name.”

“It’s yours now. Nobody can take it from you.”

“River,” he said again. His lips curved in a tentative smile, and he looked young for a moment, like a small boy. Then his smile faded. His eyes were open, anguished, vulnerable.

“How do you know who to stand with?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“How do you know who your people are? Bird—you know Bird?”

“He was my lover,” Madrone admitted.

“That Bird, he talk a lot about his people, about this city. Lotta bullshit, maybe.”

“Maybe not.”

“But it sound good. I like to picture what it be like, if what he say was true. Then that day, you know the day I mean?” Madrone nodded, and he went on. “We had our orders to kill—kill any people come at us like that. Didn’t think nothing about it. We in the army, we do what they say to do. I shoot one, shoot another one. They keep on coming. Stupid, man, I think, stupidest fucking thing I ever seen. I shoot again. I can feel Bird behind me—he don’t like it. Well, they his people, I think, and then this thought come to me: Who my people? I never asked that before, and I have to stop to think about it. I see that girl, the little one, and I think, how do I know who she is? I don’t even know who I am. Never even thought before that I might be
somebody, but maybe I am. She look like me, kind of—maybe she my people and I don’t even know? I couldn’t kill her.”

“No,” Madrone said softly. “I’m glad.”

“Maybe I already kill my people—maybe they gonna haunt me for it. How do I know? I never thought about it before, but now I can’t stop thinking about it. Where did I come from? What happened to me?”

“You found your immortal soul,” Madrone said. “The bigsticks said you didn’t have one. But they were wrong.”

“And now you gave me a name,” River said. “You must be my people, now.”

“We will be your people,” Madrone said. “Will you help us?”

“What you want?”

“I want to save Bird.”

“Yeah. He one tough demonfucker, but they gonna break him down.”

“And the others too. There’s a girl, a young girl, a friend of mine and Bird’s.”

“That skinny little girl they bring him to see?”

“Where are they keeping her?”

“I don’t know. They move her all the time. Sometimes they keep her close by, down the hall. Sometimes in another building.”

“Could you find her? I think they’re using her to threaten Bird, to make him do what they want.”

“They using her, all right. Maybe I can find her. Have to make contact with the unit, first. See what they know.”

Madrone sighed. “I guess the first step is to get you well. Then we’ll see.” There was one thing more left to do, to seal his trust. She stood and went into Lily’s kitchen where the old woman sat at the table sound asleep. When Madrone entered, she stirred.

“I’ve got him talking,” Madrone said, as she filled a bowl with honey from a jar on the counter.

“That’s wonderful!”

“You were right, Lily. I can’t hate him anymore. I feel for him.”

Lily smiled. “We may win, you know. This morning I can believe in miracles again.”

Lily followed her into the living room but squatted down by the doorway, leaving the room’s breadth between her and River.

Madrone sat again before River, holding the bowl of honey in her hands. Can I really do this? she wondered. Do I have enough power? She closed her eyes, and suddenly she felt as if a pair of hands covered her own. Power flooded through her, augmenting her own. My mother’s hands. She is no longer severed from me, and now my own power is complete. Breathing deep,
she triggered her bee mind and then let herself sink even deeper into trance, so deep she could read River’s chemistry from his smell. Fear, and pain, and an immune system that was barely functional. She could see the patterns in the
ch’i
worlds, she could taste what he lacked and will her own body to provide it, brewed out of her own hormones and proteins, exuded in the bead of sweat that formed in her bee spot. She let it drop into the honey, placed her hand above the bowl to charge it with
ch’i
, and let it transform. There, it was done. She had brewed him up an elixir of life.

River had watched her, transfixed with fear and fascination. Now she took the breaths that called her back to herself, and looked into his eyes, and smiled.

“Don’t be afraid,” she said. “I’m going to give you another gift.”

“What?”

“Your freedom. Taste this honey. See, it’s harmless, I’ll taste it myself.” She dipped a finger in, let the sweetness coat her tongue and send a rush of energy down her spine. “But it will change you. It’s magic, good magic. Eat this honey, and you will never need the boosters again.”

Cautiously, River dipped a finger in and licked it off.

“Tastes good.”

“It is good. Go ahead, eat more. Eat as much as you can.”

“We have a machine to help with that,” Lily said from the far end of the room. “It’s called a spoon. Also I could provide some bread. Perhaps some toast? Would you like that, soldier?”

“River,” Madrone said. “He has a name now, and it’s River.”

River nodded, and Lily went off to fix a meal.

“If this shit works,” River said to Madrone, “I get you an army.”

“It’s a deal.”

35

“I
cannot stand this,” Maya said to herself. She was wandering the house, unable to settle anywhere, unable to cook or clean or tend to the sick soldiers. Anyway, between Mary Ellen and Sara, they didn’t really need her. She was old and useless. Sam had work, Madrone was off somewhere healing, but all she had was the consciousness that they were losing, and her own vision was at the root of their failure. Maybe compassion could not overcome cruelty. Maybe she had been wrong, to believe in that possibility, but now it was being put to the test and here she sat, doing nothing. Nothing but sitting in stupid Council meetings, listening to her grandson being attacked by idiots. No, she could not—would not—stand for it.

She made her way to her own room, which was free of wounded soldiers. Sam had fallen asleep on the downstairs cot, and Maya hoped he wouldn’t wake or look for her. Madrone had been gone all night, and Nita was working up in the ritual room. Sara and Mary Ellen were in the kitchen; Lou and Aviva had not yet arrived. Yes, she could do it. Now was the time, and today was the day. She closed her door.