The Seventh Day (7 page)

Then I see it above me, the glint of the fence, and my seeking hand is required again for more climbing.

The narrow track leads me up, and up to the fence's end at the edge of a ravine. And that is why it ends, because there is nowhere for it to go. But small feet have found a way around, for the track continues on the other side.

‘Foolish city fence,' I say and, like the animals, I crawl down to a ledge where a slim wire-wrapped metal support stands tall. The ledge is not so narrow. On hands and knees, my basket placed before me, I make careful and slow progress around the support, and when I stand again I am on the other side of the singing wire with only a gentle climb before me. I laugh, follow it as it twists, turns up, and up, and up.

At one such turning I see to the side of me a patch of blue. It is something blown here on the wind or dropped from a searcher's craft. For minutes I sit on a boulder, my eyes scanning the area for a fallen searcher. I see no crushed silver wings so my interest returns to the blue and, beside it, the glint of gold.

Granny once said that in the time long before old Aaron Morgan, there was much gold found in these hills, and even in Morgan creek. It was a malleable metal, similar to that which Lenny uses to make the dart heads for his gun, and it is of as much interest to me, for though in recent weeks he has allowed me to handle his day calculating machine, he will not allow me to handle his dart gun – too often Granny threatened him with such a gun.

The weeping green at the cave mouth is closer now, though the climbing up to it again grows steep. I don't much like this path, but when I next stop to rest and look down to the ravine, I have a clear view of the blue and the gold.

And I know that it can not be what it appears to be.

My basket left on the rocks, I climb higher, until I can see what is below me, and I see what does not now appear to be such a random arrangement of colour. There are two arms outstretched, the thickness of trunk. Two legs.

‘Lord help me,' I whisper as cold fingers creep to my neck, and to the hair on my scalp. Then, with little thought given to the inescapable return climb, I scramble down.

Once amid the stunted trees and rocks I lose sight of the blue, and wonder at my stupidity. Have I not fought hard enough to get this close to water? Was the climb so easy that I go back to do it again? But I step around a clump of the grey scrubby growth and I see him.

And I see him!

He is less than half a man's length from the edge of the ravine, and it is my dear Jonjan and insects swarm around him and on him and he has about him the smell of death.

So young he was, and strong, on the day of our entwining; he walked so free, his arms swinging, his long yellow hair shining clean. Now it is a matted nest of dust and blood. I weep for him as I cradle his head in my arms and comb his hair with my fingers, and I know I have done this before to another and I know that his limbs will grow stiff and cold.

A torrent of tears bursts from me, and I cry, but not for him. ‘Mummy. Mummy. Mummy,' I cry.

He sighs. Twice.

I thought him dead!

I lift my head and breathe in hope as I turn his poor face to mine, and so blistered by the sun it is, it makes my blisters nothing. I wipe my tears and suck in hope as I look further. His head is cut, his leg is a twisted, mutilated thing where the bone protrudes and insects have been busy. My belly, weak, unreliable, forces me to crawl away from him, expel its contents into the ravine.

So he lives, but barely. He will not live long. The ravine is deep. I stare down to it, knowing that with his last strength he had tried to drag himself to its edge so he might fall and end his pain. I believe I will end the pain for him, and for me. We will fall together, die together.

But a crow flies by me and perches on an overhang of rock. It watches me, its round bright eyes derision filled. I look at its feet and they are Granny's clawed hands. It is she who led me to the animal track, and to this ravine, and to him. Now she taunts me. She did not accept my tears gladly.

‘Leave me alone!' I look for rocks to throw at her. She caw-caws and flies higher, stands on my basket where she peck-peck-pecks at its contents.

And I remembered the cordial and the soothing mist it brings.

Fast I climb for it. My sandal strap breaks. I pull it from my foot, throw it at the crow. It flies off, but not far. I remove my other sandal, and my aim is good. The crow flies.

Seated on a rock I take the bottle in my hand and open it, remove that foolish dispensing top and throw it far. One sip only. It is sickly sweet and warm, but it wets my tongue, and tears wet my eyes as I look at Jonjan, remembering his strength, the sweetness of his mouth. I sip again, then, though I do not wish to, I replace the screwing top and seal my cordial's misty comfort away. Slowly I climb down to Jonjan with my basket.

How long has he been lying here? Did he escape, only to return, and why did he return? So many questions. Always, so many questions and no answers.

Evening is close by the time I drag him back from the edge and beneath the overhanging rock. Its shelter is not much, but its floor is flat and a twisted tree will offer some protection from the morning sun, if he lives until morning. The pain of my rough handling must have been great; he did not move nor murmur. I think he is already waiting for the great door of death to open so he may walk through. I will stay with him. I will hold his hand until it grows cold and will not hold mine.

Lord, how I thirst; the nearness of the spring cave makes my thirst more, but I can not climb more, my back aches, my bleeding feet throb. I look again at the cordial. It will ease my aches and my thirst; it will make me forget both sorrow and throbbing feet. Yet I do not sip it. Instead I look at his twisted leg, then down to his feet.

He wears strong shoes with giving soles and cords to tie them tight. And I think . . . I think he will not know if I steal them. I think when he is dead he will not know that I have been here.

With care I remove them. They fit me well and are so soft within. I am already climbing when I think to carry water for him. I look down at my basket and the bottle. I look at the can of cornbeans. It is near as large as the bottle, so I return, open and eat beans with my fingers then lift his head and trickle the juice onto his sun-dried lips. I believe he is as Granny on her final day; I believe there is a reflex swallowing. Then, with the empty can in the pocket of my half-dress, I leave him.

Oh, shady place of silence, my cave. And water. A deep pool, it is never quite hot and never quite cool. I drink of it, and when I think to leave it, I drink more. How foolishly small my container seems, and how much of it I spill on my journey back to him, but certainly he swallows some of what I have brought and I think he would swallow much more. Water is life. Why did I not bring him water before?

My second climb is harder in the last of the daylight, and my container much larger. I fill the plasti-wrap that protected my cordial bottle and this too I wish I had thought of sooner rather than later, and I wish I could place it down when I return to him, but the thing is as a bubble that will burst. I transfer a little of the precious stuff to the bean can, add more to my cordial bottle, then I set what remains in a smooth depression between the rocks. This lends the bubble support. Perhaps it will last until morning.

Such a lonely, barren place I have come to. I do not like to see the sun fall into the earth and night shadows creeping towards us. I watch them as I eat a can of fruitjell and force a little into his mouth with my finger. I can not see now if he swallows or not, and when the can is empty, I lick it clean. I will use it. I will bathe his face, cool him, as I had cooled Granny's poor face near the end.

With a strip of fabric ripped from my much flowered half-dress, and water from my reservoir, I bathe his face. Then the moons creep up to light our shelter with brightness enough for me to see the leg fastening of his overall. Lenny's knife is sharp; it cuts away the putrid fabric, exposing fully the mutilated leg, a cruel and filthy thing alive with the crawling white grubs. My cleansing of it must cause great agony, though he does not move nor cry out.

Such a deep feeling of sadness there is in the handling of him. I think I can not bear it. I think it is to be as the death watch of Granny, and I do not want to watch his dying as I watched hers. I do not.

I make a long drink of cordial and drink it fast, my back against the rock wall, his head pillowed on my lap so my hand may smooth his brow. The night is warm, I have no need of blanket but I cover me and him, feeling less alone and safer from the ghosts when wrapped with him beneath it.

It is a strange memory time to hold him thus, to feel the weight of his head and the movement of his breathing. I did not place my arms around Granny, feel her final breath; it is my mother I am remembering, my mother who I had held close, soothed with my baby hand when her own would sooth me no more. Tonight I soothe him, touch his face, comb his hair with my fingers, but so weary am I, I close my eyes and forget to watch for ghosts. Sleep soon carries me away.

A sweet sleep it is, and free.

(Excerpt from the New World Bible)

Of the one hundred and sixty-two breeding females, many ran willingly from their shelters to kneel at the feet of the Chosen. But there were many taken unwillingly from their males.

 

And these were driven through the street like cattle of the fields. And they were herded into the safe building of the Chosen which had great doors and locks on every door.

 

And each female was fed and cleansed, then put to breed with one of the Chosen, for in this new world there would be no place for those of the lower order.

 

In the year 13 of the New Beginning, twenty-two female infants and seventeen males were born. Those which survived their third month were taken from the birthing female's breasts, for many of these females had come from the lowest level of society. Their contamination of the young could not be allowed.

 

Of these young, the male infants were placed with those who had sired them, and given the name of the father. They were to become the young lords of the New Beginning.

 

Of these young, the female infants were taken to the creche which had been prepared for this purpose. It had been decreed that the Chosen might not claim, nor name, the females, for from their wombs would come a new and better world.

 

Of this first breeding season, seven female infants survived their third year, for reasons which were many.

 

Of the one hundred and sixty-two female breeders, ninety-seven survived the first three years of the lock-down, for reasons which were many.

How different my world is in the dawn. I wake not to walls and the scent of chem-wash, but to the perfume of the earth. It has the odour of old freedom. I breathe it in, opening my mouth to it, and my heart to it, tasting it on my tongue as I move Jonjan's head from my lap. On my knees, then, I look out at the pink glow of misty morn, thinking of all the days he will never know.

But he stirs, turns his face to me. ‘Who?' he whispers.

‘I am here, Jonjan.'

‘You?'

‘I am here.'

‘Leg.'

‘It is bad. Sleep, and dream of a better place. I will stay with you.' Expecting his death, I am surprised by his tenacity for life.

‘Cut it.'

Lenny's knife is sharp. Had not the idea to free him from his rotting leg occurred to me more than once? Last night the smell of it was as meat left in the freezer when we had no batteries to make the generator run. It is cleaner now and the smell less, but the bone is visible. It will not mend itself – and I can not cut him now as I could not last night.

I think to lie, to tell him I have no knife. Surely he was unaware when I cut the leg of his overall. I look at the slim-bladed thing glinting beneath a newborn sun. It is the one both Lenny and Pa used in the past to scrape the hair from their faces, when they bothered to scrape the hair from their faces. It is the one they used to cut the meat when they butchered a pig or bullock; each day since I stole it, Lenny has looked for it and cursed his misfortune at its loss.

‘Sleep, Jonjan.'

‘Sleep . . . is death. Help me.'

‘I can not help myself.' My voice is a cry for understanding, and my eyes, as I look down at his, mimic my voice.

‘Cut it.'

The plasti-wrap still holds water. I pour a measure carefully into my can, add sweetened milk and a little cordial, then hold the mixture to his lips. He empties it, his hand raised to grasp my own. He has strength in that hand and the death I saw for him last evening does not now seem so near.

‘Cut it off,' he says.

‘You ask of me that which I can not do!'

He does not speak again, but sleeps. I mix a small cordial then fill the space in my bottle with water, and I watch him while I drink, watch him until full light comes to the rocks and I may climb for more water.

From the cave mouth I look down at the house. The grey men will have been and gone. I will return, tell Lenny and Pa of the stranger. It is all I can do for him. Lenny would have the strength to cut that leg. I can not. But I shake my head, for I think Lenny's only assistance would be in assisting Jonjan to die.

He is not near dying when I return and again mix cordial. His hand reaches for it.

‘Their tomorrow juice,' he says. ‘I will drink it gladly if you will give me a tomorrow.' I do not understand his words, but give him the cordial. He drinks. ‘Cut it off, or give me the knife so I might cut it myself.'

I shake my head; my mouth will not make words. I turn my face to the basket and find a can of fruitjell. My knife for a spoon I feed him. He eats all I offer. How he wants life, and how can I deny him even a slim chance of life? The second time I give him stronger cordial. He understands my intention, drinks it, and so soon sleeps.

Golden eyebrows and lashes, sweet mouth, sun-ravaged face; it still holds such beauty. I watch him as I eat a crispbite and think of the nausea of yesterday, and think it was an illness of yesterday, when the foetus inside me was grey. Today it is a golden thing, for it is a part of him, and beautiful. And it is strong as he is strong, as Granny was strong. And I think it will lend me strength enough to do what must be done. Did it not lend me strength enough to do that thing with Lenny? Did I not do that thing with Lenny for my foetus?

‘You are a freeborn, and for you I will live free, and he will live,' I whisper. My face to the morning sun I kneel, and a great calm steals over me, cancelling indecision and doubt. This thing I will do. This thing I can do.

It is odd, but as when I make my better paintings, my consciousness, once centred on its chosen path, allows no sideways glances. I see no sun, no shadow; the earth stands still for me, the hollow of its silence filling my senses as the painting finds it way out of the ancient core of me. So this will be my finest painting yet. I will paint our freedom on the earth with his blood.

The fire from the city men's guns spills no blood. I will need fire. All I need is given. In his overall, he has many pockets and in one I find a flick-flame. I have the paper that wrapped my cordial, and there is much dead wood and bark above me. I collect enough and build a small fire in the rear of the shelter. There is smoke and the scent of it will be on the wind, but I can not think of this now.

Soon I have red coals and the silver gleam of my knife blade becomes red then blue. This is my only reality, but the black crow has come to watch. I stare at its leg, stare until it becomes a clawed hand, an arm of bone and scar and sinew, stare at it until I am in the kitchen, and Granny is there, preparing herself for pain.

If I pass out, girl, do it any way you can. You'll know when the ends click. You'll feel it in your hand. Do it right, or you'll be cutting the arm off the next time.

She had fallen on the stairs and her bone had snapped. I had wanted Lenny to straighten the arm. I had wanted to get Pa, but she would not allow them to witness her weakness.

You're a female, girl. Where is your guts?

With both hands, then, I had held tightly to her hand, my feet braced against the table leg, as she had instructed. On the count of three, she had jerked her shoulder back, hard, and made not a murmur. The arm was straight. With my own hands I had felt the joining of that bone.

Not a word had she spoken as she sat on her chair, waiting there unmoving for me to do my work.

No fat on that arm, and little muscle. At her instruction, I had previously wetted a book cover, curved it, shaped it to fit between elbow and wrist. This I placed around the arm, then bound it tight with fabric, glancing often from her arm to her lashless eyes which were near closed. Only when it was done had she opened them. I had seen gratitude, even praise in those eyes, though it was short-lived. Her arm healed, but poorly; she had little use of it. Still she had been of a very great age. Jonjan is a young man, and strong.

I am staring at the rock and at the crow, staring, thinking, the knife and the cutting forgotten. I take up his ankle and pull. He screams.

So I will distance myself from his scream. I remove the long cords that tie his shoes and I join them, fasten one end around his ankle. I brace my feet against the rock wall and I pull. He screams and I drop the cord. No good is done. I am not strong enough except to give him more pain.

The sun beats into our cave now. Soon this place will be too hot to bear. I rest a moment, studying the open wound in the too bright light. It appears clean. Certainly last night it had the smell of rotting meat – or had the odour come from the squirming mass which had feasted there? I flick a last white grub from the wound with the tip of my knife. One puff of smoke and it is gone. In the old world, all creatures served a purpose, Granny had once said. In the new world, man has shaped nature to his liking, and all natural purpose has been lost.

The knife again in the coals I begin to release the cord, preparing my mind again to cut, but what purpose can one leg serve in these hills? How does a man with one leg climb? So I will make one last attempt. I will lift and jerk the leg hard, as Granny had jerked her arm. I will tug on that cord, twist it until I feel the click of bone joining, and let him bring the ghosts from out of these hills with his screams, for I have no stomach to spill his blood.

I turn him until his feet are close to the twisted tree. I will loop the cord around a lower branch so it might lift the leg. The cord is not long enough. I cut the ties from my half-dress and join them to the cord, test its strength as I look at the slim branch, hoping it too has strength enough. The ties looped around it, I force more cordial into his mouth, hoping it may silence his screams, then I stand, my face to the sun, waiting for my consciousness to centre, and for the great silence to return.

And it comes. Slowly, then, I wind the half-dress tie around and around my hand.

‘One.

‘Two.'

There is no count of three. Instead I lift the leg high, pull, twist it, and the small branch complains, but if Jonjan complains I do not hear him. Then I see the jerk of bone finding bone and I feel it in my hand. I feel it in my hand.

Fast now. Lord, let him not move now. No moulded book cover to support this break, but strong bark I did not burn for it had been ready curved by nature to the shape of his leg. I cut it to length, snap two small branches from the tree and say that this will do. It is all I have, so I will make it do.

I use the cord from his shoes and my half-dress ties to bind the splint, then rip more bandage from my half-dress. He does not move. Perhaps I have killed him with the pain of it, or with the cordial, but I will not think of that now.

I choose to bind his leg above the ankle and below the knee, leaving the raw flesh free. It takes too long to brace the leg with my meagre equipment, and twice when I feel myself weakening, I sip too well from the bottle. But, oh, the grand sense of achievement when it is done. Such a fine thing I have accomplished with my hands.

The wound, having been disturbed, bleeds profusely. Surely this is good. Is it not nature's way of cleansing? I watch it, wait for it to slow; he appears to have little enough of the stuff, his colour is ashen. But he is breathing, and while I watch, the bleeding slows, and surely the wound does not gape as previously. I think it is as if his cells, in celebration, already begin to weave.

I try to stand then, to stretch cramped limbs, and for a moment I can not gain my feet. My head is light, and I near fall. For too long I have crouched over my labour. Still on my knees, I look for the sun and see that morning is well gone and we are in shade. Is it any wonder that my legs are numb? Holding firmly to a rock I wait until blood circulates and the noise of the land returns to cancel the pounding in my ears, all the while staring at my hands. So familiar, but so strange they are, like some fantasy, like the last remnants of a dream I have dreamed. Unreal.

‘But you
are
real,' I tell my hands as I lift them from the rock, stare at their palms, at their fingers. ‘Up here, you have become real and I have found a lost part of me, and that lost part of me has done very well. These hands, my hands, have given him a chance at life.'

The fingers, long fine things, are red with his blood. They do not look at all like my useless hands.

(Excerpt from the New World Bible)

Year 21 of the New Beginning saw the first Harvesting of female ovum, for in that year, in all of the known world there were fifty-five female breeders and seventeen not yet of breeding age. And the mortality rate of the newborn was high. In this year there was much experimentation in the laboratories, and much engineering and development.

 

The year 22 saw the Implanting of Harvested ovum onto the bowels of those males who volunteered to carry it. And they did not carry it long, and it was wasted.

 

There was much waste in that year, for the corn crop failed, and the potato rotted within the earth and there was much hunger. With hunger came disunity.

 

The Chosen despaired. Time would defeat the birth of a new world. Thus the Chosen looked again to the old world. And the engineers studied the flying machines of the last age, while the scientists made modifications to seed and to the embryo of a sow, and they Implanted it into carrier sows. Some infants were born of this method but did not survive.

 

In the next decade of the New Beginning came the modified sow which wore the eyes of man and the snout of the beast. And its ovum was Harvested, and from it and the cells of a volunteer came a litter of twelve.

 

And they were neither swine nor man, and they had no minds but to suckle at multiple nipples.

 

There was much interest and much debate on ethics. And there was much disunity between the scientists and priests, and those who held great power and position. In the interval of arguments and reports done, it was seen that the litter would grow strong.

 

And they grew fast. And they were docile. These creations were named Sowmen, and in time the sowmen freed man of all labour in the fields.

 

And there was time for progress.