The Seventh Day (8 page)

Jonjan is awake before the sun. He reaches out to me and takes my hand. I spring into wakefulness. Lord, I have raised him from the dead.

It is later when we talk of his leg and the splint I have placed on it.

‘So you have set the bone, mountain girl?'

‘If the leg is better on than off we will soon know,' I say, offering him a soup of mashed cornbeans and water. He wishes to talk more, but I wish him to finish what is in the can.

How free I am in this place, how certain my decisions and actions. I brush the hair from his face, wipe the spilled cornbean soup from his chin.

‘Was it yesterday?'

‘Only yesterday, now drink this.' I offer a weak cordial, but he turns his head away. ‘Are you not in pain, Jonjan?'

‘I am in pain. And pleased to greet it, and to greet this day.' He coughs, coughs hard, and I place my ear to his chest, afraid I will hear the bubbling of fluid in his lungs, as it had been with Granny in the final days of her illness. There is no bubbling. Not yet.

‘Drink a little. I have made it quite weak. It will ease the pain, and your coughing.' I sip first from the container of cordial, then hold it again to his lips. He will have none of it. Perhaps later, I think.

His leg has swollen in the night, which gives me some fear; still, can I expect less after yesterday's mutilation? My hand moves quickly to his brow, rests there a while. Perhaps he does not feel so hot today. Perhaps his brow now feels cold. Again I feel the jolt of fear. I feel my own brow. It is also cold. Lord, why does my heart beat so hard with fear for him? Surely his leg has swollen in order to protect the break in his bone. Nature is at work for him.

I look at our small shelter and know the sun will soon come, and I think of the cave above us. There is little room to move here, perhaps the length of two men to the ravine. To the north, there is only the scrub and the climb up to the animal track; to the south, the shelf we are on grows narrow and soon disappears. Why had he not fallen to the flat area in front of the spring cave? Far better than this place, but an attempt to move him will undo the good work I have done. Weeks must pass before he might be safely moved.

‘This place will be hot enough to roast us before noon,' I say.

‘It is a finer house than the halfway place in which you found me.'

‘If I had thought to bring an old hide or more blankets I could have made –'

‘Who are you? Where have you come from?' he says.

‘From . . . from where you found me.'

‘You are from the laboratories.'

‘I am . . . Granny said I am a freeborn.'

‘There are no more freeborn.' His words hold such certainty.

I shrug, smile. ‘Then you dream me, I think, and when you wake I will be a grunting sowman.'

I work at bathing his face, and his poor cracked lips, which bleed when he speaks, but he will not be silent. When I found him I thought him dead. Now he speaks as if I dreamed his illness. He speaks of the spring cave and of hiding in the rear of it one day when Lenny came to dip water. Then he takes my hand and makes me look at his eyes.

‘Have I found it?' he says. ‘Did she send the storm to blow me to it?'

‘It seems that you have found my cave, Jonjan.'

‘And the land of Moni.'

‘This is the land of Granny. It was her father's, and her father's father's, land. This was her hill, as was the cave.'

‘I followed the animal tracks. They led me to the cave.'

‘The city fence is no barrier to the smartest of animals. Now hush with your talking and let me make you clean. You smell as Lenny after he has slaughtered a bullock.'

He asks many questions which I try to answer, then thankfully he sleeps.

His shoes without cords to tie them are worse than no shoes. I thread them with strips of fabric ripped from the last of my half-dress, which has no strength. Finally I discard his shoes and I climb barefoot for more water.

My feet are not accustomed to such labour. For minutes I sit on the far side of the pool, which is sand, and I bathe my poor feet, then bathe fully, washing my overall and my hair in water. And Lord, it is a fine thing to do. The pool is only as wide as my length, but has great depth to it. There are rocks beneath my feet on the far side, only water on the near.

For too long I play there, pushing from side to side, both east to west and north to south. My hair is long and heavy when wet. Thinking to plait it, I rip narrow ties from the remains of my half-dress. I look at them and the idea comes. I will plait these fabric strips with strands of my hair. This occupation is painful for my scalp, but surely strengthens the fabric threefold. So, I will have the use of Jonjan's shoes again.

He is waiting for me, looking for me when I return – and he has dragged himself to the wall of the shelter, where he now leans.

‘One day of eating has made you strong. Two days and you may climb for the water and bring it to me, Jonjan,' I say as we share a can of cornbeans.

‘You speak my name. What do I call you, girl of the mountain?'

‘I like . . . I like the name . . . as you said it then. Girl of the mountain.' I turn my face to the sky and breath deeply of the scent of earth and morning, then shrug. ‘My mother once gave to me a name, but nobody spoke it. It is forgotten.'

‘Mother? It is a word from the archives.'

‘She is a memory from the . . . the mind's archives.'

‘Tell me of Mother. The word has a softness to it.'

‘There is no softness in the memory. There is blood on dust and yellow hair, and a hand and few words.' I offer a sip of weak cordial. He turns his face away.

‘Talk to me of the hands and the hair. Say the Mother's words.'

Why does each move he makes, each word he speaks, awaken a place that was sleeping? As I look at him I see her for an instant, her hair spread in the dust, and the word.
Honey. Honeybee
.

‘Perhaps her name was Honey,' I say. ‘I believe her hair was as yours, for on the day I saw you, I knew you.' I touch his hair and wish I had brought my fine city brush so I might brush it, cleanse its gold. ‘Her hair is . . . is an image that lives on the brink of memory.'

I remove his arms from his overall, wash his limbs, his chest. There is memory too in this thing I do. I think I am like a mother cleansing her child, so I sing to him my memory song.

‘What is the meaning of the words?' he says.

‘They are . . . they are also from the archives of the memory.' I shrug. ‘If there was once meaning, it is lost.' He is so thin. His bones show through his golden skin, and I discover an old wound in his side, in the flesh above his waist. ‘What is this?'

‘Your men. An arrow. It went through. I pulled it out and thanked them for it. It killed small pigs and rabbits. I lost it to a very small pig, and when I pursued it, I fell.'

‘The wound has healed well.'

‘I am of the class that has the immunisation. It assists the healing.'

I do not understand ‘the class' but I have heard the grey men speak often of immunisation. This is why they stick me with their pins – to assist the healing. Certainly they plan to take me to the city when they have stuck enough of their pins into me. I lift him away from the rock so I might wash his back, and I find the smaller exit wound of the dart above his waist. It has left an arrow-shaped scar.

‘I found blood in the barn and in the cellar,' I say.

‘I hid in your cellar until the copter left.'

‘Copter?'

‘The laboratories' machine. I had crept to the shed of the generator where I plunged the night into darkness so I might escape, but the copter came with its brighter light.'

‘You speak of the grey men's giant flying machine?' He coughs and it jars his injured limb. I lift his shoulders higher, hold him forward until he removes the irritation from his lungs. ‘I must try to bind your leg more firmly and get you up to the cave. It is only this first climb that is hard. The path beyond it is –'

He is not interested in caves, but copters. ‘I know that copter, and those who ride in it. It is the property of the Seelongs. Are you also their property?'

‘You waste air with that question. I do not know many answers.' I shrug, reach for my cordial but he rises on his elbow and his voice has much strength.

‘You drink their poison like an infant drinking V-cola. They control the city with their poison. It is our prison that has no bars.'

‘It brings . . . it brings me comfort.'

‘It brings only acceptance of that which is unacceptable.'

I think I can not deny his words, so I guide his arms back into the sleeves of his overall, fasten it, lift him and fold the blanket for his shoulders to rest against.

‘You should sleep and grow strong.'

‘What age are you? You work as one trained in their medical laboratories. Have they trained you?'

‘They have trained me only in obedience, Jonjan.'

‘You speak like the old ones. I have seen tapes of their speeches at the meetings.'

‘I can make many voices,' I say, mimicking his voice. I make him smile – and his poor lips crack and bleed again.

The buzzing insects are bad. Though it is too hot for blankets, I place it over his leg, wishing to discourage the things, and he reaches for a thigh pocket. I find what he seeks, a plasti-tube.

‘Sectfree,' he says, and with a twisting of the tube, raises an odd-smelling gel.

I wipe a little of it on the splint, and certainly it is a good thing. The insects fly. I steal a little for my face and his. This is a fine salve, and I wonder why the grey men have not thought to bring it with their supplies.

He is looking at the blanket, studying it. ‘I have seen such as this in the Old World Museum.'

‘Granny had many blankets. Before the grey men came we wore them for warmth.'

‘What business do you have with the Seelongs?'

‘I do not know the Seelong. Rest now. Grow strong.'

‘The laboratories. Those who fly that craft. They are the Seelong three. I know them well.'

‘Why did you then not run to them?'

‘There are those of us who run from them.' He does not speak for some time. Then he coughs. I lift him, hold him. How I want to hold him, to be close to his warmth. I sigh, so deeply. I do not wish to speak of my use to the grey men, yet there is within me a weight of words wanting their freedom. I sigh again. ‘You ask my age. I am of the age the three have made me, Jonjan. That is all I know. You ask my use to these Seelongs. I swallow their city pills, and when my heat is just so, they Implant me, and I become their sow. In my belly I make for them fine big litters of immature foetus.'

He looks at me with disbelief. ‘They Harvest from you?'

‘Is that not what I have said to you?'

‘The Seelongs, they Implant you? Here they Implant you and leave you free?'

‘If it is freedom. I think you mock me as Granny mocked me.'

His hand touches my wrist. ‘I do not mock, nor do I blame.' I shake his hand from me, but it returns. ‘The blame is theirs and I know them well. Sidley, Salter and Stanley Seelong. The lower order are powerless against them and their laboratories, and the few females more so than the males.' The touch of his hand sends his warmth rush-rushing in my blood. It weakens me. I can not look at him so I look at his shoes and at the plaited cords of colour that tie them. ‘The three are the sons of Henry Seelong, one of the High Chosen, who accrued both fortune and respect with his cloning of the labouring class. When he no longer struts the earth, the three will take his place amongst the High Chosen. Then we will see the end of humanity.'

‘I think there is no more Stanley,' I say. ‘The last night when they came to Implant me there were only two. I hope the blood plague took Stanley and that he died in a pool of his own grey blood.'

‘And that he now nourishes the Godsent,' he adds. ‘Your wish is my wish, and the wish of many in the city.'

‘God did not send that black weed. Granny named it blacrap.'

‘Would that I had known Granny.'

I allow his hand to draw me close, but I think of the house and those within it. ‘The grey men were to come on the night I found you. I was not waiting for them. Perhaps today Lenny and Pa are dead by their companion's light-guns.'

‘Who are your men?'

‘Have I not said their names before? They are Lenny and Pa.'

‘They are followers of the Chosen?'

‘You confuse me.'

‘They are . . . they belong to the Seelongs?'

‘They belong to this place, but they take care of me and receive good supplies for my care from the . . . the Seelongs. You ate their supplies. I drink their supplies.' I pour a little water into the bottle before drinking directly from it. It is strong, but not so thick now.

‘The old man and his son are of your blood, and they sell you to the laboratories for supplies.'

Are his words an accusation? I sip a little cordial but can not look at his eyes; they will accuse now because I drink the cordial.

He reaches for the bottle. ‘Perhaps your men do not sell you. Perhaps you sell yourself willingly for this . . . this shit of the black demon.'

‘It is a calming cordial –'

‘It is their tomorrow juice, made from the Godsent plant . . . from your Granny's blacrap, which is eating all of the earth and all hope of a better tomorrow.'

‘I do not understand you. I do not know of many city things.'

‘My father also does not understand me.' He sighs, looks at the sky. ‘Which of them . . . which of the two men fathered you?'

‘I do not know “father”. I came not
from
this place but
to
this place in the time when I was already a walking infant.'