Nest of Worlds (6 page)

His minibus was waiting in the endless, snow-covered parking lot. Pat and Goft both slept; two passengers dozed on their seats. Goft, waking, opened the door.

“So? You’re alone?” he asked. “That doesn’t mean anything,” he added, looking into Gavein’s face. “Sometimes they make a mistake about the port. There’s hope.”

“No, I found her. She’s in quarantine.”

“There you go.” Goft clapped him on the arm.

Pat opened an eye. “We’re here until the evening,” he explained. “We have two others taking care of business.”

The red tape of moving from Land to Land rarely consumed only one day. The drivers had spent the night in the minibus, waiting for the passengers to return.

Gavein nodded off, euphoric. He wasn’t bothered by his uncomfortable seat or by the snoring of the others. Ra Mahleiné was alive; she hadn’t changed, hadn’t become ugly or fat. He liked her even more in glasses—he had always liked women in glasses.

He awoke when they started to move. One of the passengers hadn’t returned, but the agreement had been not to stay longer. The other brought with him a son he hadn’t seen in thirty years—for five years they would be a family, those two, and then they would have to part forever.

Gavein began to whistle, but stopped at the stern glances of the others. In Davabel whistling in a public place was rude. Thinking about Ra Mahleiné, he fell asleep.

It was early morning when he woke up, ill at ease. He had the feeling that something bad was happening. Pat was seated behind the driver, his face to the passengers. His color was more livid than usual; he was clutching his throat and struggling for air.

“What’s wrong, Pat?” Gavein asked. Everyone else was asleep.

Pat wheezed. His eyes were bloodshot.

“Goft, drive to the nearest hospital! Something’s wrong with Pat.”

Goft turned at the nearest intersection and stepped on the gas. In this part of the city he didn’t need to ask for directions. Pat was unconscious now.

After a quarter of an hour they stopped before the bright door of a hospital. Goft jumped out. He came back with two orderlies, a gurney between them. Together they pulled Pat’s limp body onto a stretcher. A doctor ran up and began to examine him.

“Probably a heart attack. And you’re probably too late,” he said but connected Pat to a respirator. They wheeled him into the hospital and toward an elevator, at a run. Goft went with them; Gavein waited at the entrance. The other passengers slept. It was bitter cold.

After an hour, Goft appeared.

“They’re massaging his heart, but I don’t think that will help. He was an Aktid, and I told him a hundred times he should retire . . . He was too old for this work. I called his family.”

Aktid
was one of the Names of Man, and it meant “through activity.”

Goft took the passengers home. At the stops he phoned the hospital. The second time he called, he was told that the resuscitation had been discontinued. The death of his partner placed a question mark over the future of their small business.

When the minibus drove up to the front of his building, Gavein saw movement, though it was three in the morning. People were walking about, and there were several cars parked. Blue and red lights flashed: two police vans and a fire truck.

Gavein got out. “What happened? Was there a fire?” he asked a woman neighbor who was standing nearby.

“A gas explosion,” she said. “One of Edda’s boarders, the woman whose child got burned. She put her head in the oven, turned on the gas. That’s what the fireman said . . . And in the middle of the night another boarder went into the kitchen with a lit cigarette and died on the spot.”

“A good thing the owners weren’t gassed as well. They live on the ground floor,” observed a heavy man in thick glasses.

Gavein recognized Max.

“I know the owners,” Max went on. “If not for that explosion, more people might have died . . . Everyone was asleep.”

“And what about Gwenda?” Gavein asked.

“Who?”

“The first boarder.”

“An ambulance took her. But it’s over with her. I heard one of the doctors say that it was over with her,” replied another neighbor.

The firefighters were folding their hoses and putting them back on the truck. The police were finishing up their paperwork. As the crowd dispersed, Gavein made his way to the door. On the ground floor most of the windows had been broken. The wallpaper was black with soot, and a rug was burnt. A couple of stools were in pieces.

Edda appeared in a doorway, in a state of more undress than usual. She wore a linen nightshirt and had thrown her son’s leather jacket—the one with the skulls, which was too small for her—around her shoulders.

“I’m glad you’re here, Gavein,” she said. “See what a misfortune. I told Haifan to watch Gwenda, after what happened to Aladar. He was devastated but should have kept an eye on his wife, knowing she was a
Sulledda
. . .”

Sulledda
meant “by one’s own hand.” Gavein had not known Gwenda’s Significant Name.

“I told you, didn’t I, that it was lurking, circling. It found Gwenda. And I’ll tell you something else, Gavein. I feel it, I know it’s there. It’s still out there.” In her eyes he thought he saw the fixity of madness. “The thing’s not done with us yet, it’s circling . . . Such a peaceful home we had, and now, all this death.”

“I too was the witness of a tragedy. One of the drivers of our minibus had a heart attack coming back, and he died.”

“The driver?”

“His partner was driving just then.”

The next morning Gavein learned that in the explosion one of the servants’ daughters, Vera, had also perished. She had come down to the kitchen at night. She died instantly but would have had no chance anyway, being a
Flomirra
.

No one but her parents noted her passing. Not long in this life, she had gone on to one that was better. Or so promised the Davabel Rule of Incarnations.

Vera’s sister, Laila, had gone with her but stopped for a moment in the corridor, hurting her foot, so the explosion only wounded her. Since Laila’s Significant Name was
Fluedda
, her parents had every hope that she would recover.

The day after that, everyone sat quietly at the table, the whites included. Gavein was pleased to see this; he had been worrying about what would happen when he brought Ra Mahleiné home from the port. The white servant family went by the name Hougassian; the father was Massmoudieh, the wife Fatima. Edda had begun to call them Mass and Fat. But the disasters of recent days made her seek human support even among whites. Paying the price of equality, Mass had to reveal his Name,
Murhred
, and Fatima also—
Udarvanna
.

At the table, the whites seemed at a loss about what to do. No doubt their minds were on the daughter who had died and on the other daughter who was fighting for her life.

The conversation flagged. The wallpaper still gave off the sharp stink of smoke. Haifan said not a word; his son Tad picked at his food, stared at his plate. Gavein thought constantly of his wife. Zef, surprisingly, behaved himself after the blow that fate had dealt the Hougassians. (Gavein learned that he too was a
Murhred
.) Only Leo was inclined to speak; he told everyone about his latest symptoms: dizziness and yellow sparks before his eyes.

Well, but when you jumped up suddenly, Gavein thought, the blood left your head . . .

Gavein received no job offers in the mail that morning, so he went to the Office of Labor. There they told him that he needed to go looking himself. They suggested that as a black he could obtain a managerial position. At the moment, however, there were no openings, so his choice was between unemployment payments—twenty-five packets a day—and temporary work. He decided on the first alternative, since he was not short of money yet and wanted to have plenty of free time when Ra Mahleiné arrived.

With great care he cleaned the apartment, preparing it for that moment.

They brought her in the middle of the night, in a prison van without windows. A few minutes before it arrived, a laconic telephone call notified him. Gavein went outside.

Two women guards led her from the van. A sack, with the black numbers 077-12-747, had been put over her head. The reek of urine came from inside the dark van, where there were other shapes, lying down or bent over. Gavein, shocked, began to run to her, but one of the guards, a thickset woman with a broad, freckled face, stopped him with a baton.

“Don’t make things difficult,” she said. “We have to follow procedure.”

“What is it, Ross? The guy’s pining for her?” Another guard leaned out from the driver’s seat. He had an enormous round head, a brutal face, and ham hands covered with red hair. “You need help?”

“No,” answered Ross. “He’s quieted down.”

Gavein was speechless: this was beyond imagining.

“The quarters where she’ll be kept?” Ross asked.

Gavein pointed at the entrance.

“That’s the main entrance,” she said. “Whites have to take the back door.”

“We have no other entrance here.”

At the sound of his voice, the form in the sack began to tremble.

“You!” shouted the woman guard, seizing Ra Mahleiné by the shoulder. “Stand still, or I’ll give you something to remember us by! She had to have a black man, didn’t she, the whore . . .”

“Touch her one more time, and I file a written complaint,” Gavein roared. “That is my property, and I won’t have it damaged!” He had managed to clear his head. And he calculated right—his threat calmed the redheaded woman guard, and the big head of the driver withdrew without a word into the van. The wrapped figure shook and made hollow sounds that were more like giggling than crying.

They took her up the stairs, gripping her arms but not twisting them. In Gavein’s apartment it was quite warm, and only now did he realize how bad his new possession smelled. The guards wore rubber gloves; they held her tightly, as if reluctant to release her.

“Please sign here,” Ross said, holding out a blue form and a pen.

“I’ll sign after I see,” he said evenly. “I need to make sure that the contents agree with the writing on the package.”

“How can it not agree? It agrees.” Ross made a gesture of impatience.

“You always transport them in such conditions?”

“The conditions? Better than they deserve.”

“They aren’t allowed to use the toilet at stops?” The room stank.

“No point. They’re always going. If it’s not one, it’s another. No point in making stops. We used to have a bucket, but even then they would shit and piss all over the floor.”

It made no sense to argue.

“And what about the hood?” he asked.

“We’re not supposed to take it off.”

“Very well . . .” He pretended to hesitate. “I’ll call the port, talk to Anabel. She’s your superior, yes? I’ll tell her there was trouble with the delivery, with the guards.” He fully intended to do this.

Ross sighed and turned to the other one. “Linda, do what he says.”

Linda removed the sack from the head of the woman. Gavein froze. Ra Mahleiné had a split and puffy lip. There was a crust of dried blood below her nose. She had a black eye. He hardly recognized her.

“Ah,” he gasped. “What did you do to her?!”

“She gave us trouble,” explained Ross. “We had to put her in line, more than once.”

“I’ll see that you lose your jobs,” he fumed. “I’ll call Anabel.” Though he doubted he would have that much influence.

The guards said nothing, but Ra Mahleiné herself intervened: “There’s no need for that, Gavein. They treated me all right. This was the procedure, nothing more. They didn’t torture me. They didn’t knock out any teeth.”

The faces of the guards relaxed. They knew their power. They still held Ra Mahleiné by the arms, and she was shaking more than ever.

“I can’t stand,” she said. “Please, put me on the ground.”

They let her down on the cold floor.

“So? Do you take her as she is?” Ross was arrogant again.

Again she held out the blue form.

Gavein signed, confirming that he had received one Magdalena Throzz. The guards saluted, and before long he could hear the grumble of the departing van.

Ra Mahleiné didn’t have the strength to sit up. He tried to lift her, wanting to hold her.

“No, not now . . . Not this way,” she said. “First get these foul rags off me, then unwrap . . . I know how I smell. Do that first.”

“I’ll give you a bath. A bath will be good.”

“Get this filth off me. Everything hurts.”

“I can pull it over your head.” She wore a dress without sleeves, made of coarse gray denim.

“No.” She was losing her temper. “It hurts too much, and the dress is worthless anyway smeared with shit.”

Gavein found scissors and delicately, along a seam, cut the reeking fabric. He went slowly, so as not to cut her.

“Quickly, damn it! I can’t take this.” She was peremptory, so unlike the woman he remembered.

He stuffed the dress into a plastic garbage bag. Ra Mahleiné had on gray underwear and a quarantine shirt. Her arms were twisted, tied together behind her back, above the elbows. He put her down and cut the knots. It wasn’t easy; the straps had sunken into swollen flesh. “The swine! What did they do to you? Why?”

“The guards were all right. They only smacked me a few times when I shouted. It was the supervisor, that bitch . . . She was the one who had me braided.”

“What?”

“Tied.”

“Which supervisor?”

“The black one, in glasses, Anabel.”

“I know her.”

“She tortured me, mentally. Several times a day she would call me to the interrogation room and order me to strip, saying that you were sitting there and wanted that. But you were there the first time—only then, yes?—and didn’t want me to strip.” She became anxious. She tried to rub her numb hands. He helped her.

“On the twenty-fifth.”

“That’s right. I knew at once that it was you. Later it was just her, and I kept saying it was against the rules, so she gave up about the stripping. But in revenge for that she put me in the cell. I protested, I screamed. Then they beat me, that Ross and some others. Out of the whole transport, only you came for your white wife. She had me tied as a farewell present and kicked me and kicked me. She had it in for me, that black bitch. The shirt and panties too, tear them off.” She said all this in a toneless monologue as Gavein tried to free her elbows from the disgusting cloth.

In the bathroom, the water roared in the tub. The stink was overpowering.

“It’s a good thing you didn’t make a complaint about the guards beating me. That was a trap. They would have carried me back, for medical treatment, and I wouldn’t have got out of there alive.”

“I never imagined our meeting like this,” he said, massaging her nerveless hands. She twisted and hissed when the circulation returned to them.

“You thought we would jump into bed, you poor idiot?”

“Something like that.”

“I’ve forgotten how. So many years. I’m so old . . .”

“You’re my contemporary now,” he chided. “And I don’t feel old.”

He threw what remained of her blouse and panties into the garbage bag.

“The panties we can save. It’s only piss; it’ll wash out. My own piss, that’s all right.”

“The bra is fairly clean, only full of sweat.” He put it on the kitchen counter.

“My hands hurt so much. As if they’re breaking. I can’t take it.”

“Can you stand up?”

“No. I lay on cold metal for more than a day, and that was after Anabel was finished with me.”

“The eye, she did that too?” he asked, putting his arms around her. She was tall, had always been slim but now was skinny. It felt good to hold her.

“That too. Before she knocked me down.”

Ra Mahleiné was covered with bruises and scrapes. When he set her in the tub, she began to hiss with pain.

“It burns. Aah . . . The water’s good . . . My hands . . . Over there, is that a mirror?” She squinted, like a nearsighted person trying to focus. “No, it’s a good thing I can’t see myself. I must look like a starving nag.”

“I’ll buy you glasses.”

“The black bitch stepped on them. I told her you would buy me glasses better than the ones she had on her nose.”

“That’s when she hit you?”

“That was during. I hope I didn’t get an infection from all the filth in that damned cell,” she said, changing the subject. “On the floor there was a layer of it . . . diarrhea.”

“Those scum.”

“They call this the final stage of resocialization. So the whites will understand they have no social category here. I never saw my passport.”

“How is that?”

“The passports of whites are kept by the police, so they won’t lose them. In Davabel the whites are like children.”

He stopped listening to her chatter. Perhaps she was nervous because of her nakedness. He hadn’t seen her for a month, but she hadn’t seen him—for four years. He ran a careful eye over her skin. Bruises everywhere, but there seemed to be no bones broken.

“I’ve aged, haven’t I?”

“A little . . .” He couldn’t say she hadn’t. Ra Mahleiné looked dreadful, but it was the quarantine that had done that. Women like her aged slowly and kept their looks.

“You’re lying. Tell the truth,” she insisted. “Though . . . you won’t. This was the stupidest idea in my life.”

“Traveling with compensation?”

“Of course. I had no idea. Brainless nanny goat.”

She lay in the water, her head rested on an edge, her legs stuck out at the other end—too long for the tub. He had washed her hair; it was darker when wet. The water was brown, the suds disappearing.

“My smelly little pigsty. I’ll let out the water and fill the tub again, all right?” he said with a smile, pulling the stopper. “As ripe as a zoo animal in its cage. A little furry zoo creature sitting in a hole of a dead tree and looking out at me, while I can hardly breathe the air. That’s you now. And you have the look, too, of a frightened animal.”

“They kept me there like an animal, so I stink like one. They figured you wouldn’t want such a pigsty.”

“Not want my little pigsty? You must be joking. But two tubs of water may not be enough for her.”

The water made an energetic whirlpool as it drained.

“I droop, don’t I?” she said, looking at him with suspicion. “Like spaniel ears. They were always too small.”

“Those?” He looked at her breasts. “No, they look as they did a month ago.”

“You bastard.” She laughed, for the first time, and splashed water at him.

“Four years is not such a long time,” he protested, wiping his face. His eyes burned.

“But I’m a skeleton. They didn’t feed us.”

“You lost weight,” he admitted. “The main thing is not to stoop. Then you’ll be all right. You didn’t stoop before. Fortunately one shoulder is higher. I’ll tie a broomstick to your shoulders if you don’t obey.”

“The stoop is because of my scoliosis.”

“The compensation was an idea of genius. We’ll be together now, forever.”

“We’ll see.”

The water began to fill the tub.

“And have I changed?” he asked.

“A little. You’ve become strange, Gavein. You look too young. I forgot what you were like. But I’ll get accustomed to you again.”

“And that’s good, isn’t it? You should be happy.”

“And you? Your wife got old. Now you’ll start running after young women . . .”

“Me? That’s absurd.”

“Oh, Gavein, Gavein, how I regretted my decision. You have no conception of how hard those years were.”

She stopped, and in Gavein’s mind arose the hated image of the pilot of the seaplane stretching in the warm rays of the setting sun. As the ocean’s lazy waves lapped at the ship, the pilot looked seductively down on Ra Mahleiné, whose resistance was weakening, weakening. Gavein’s imaginary rival was about to give a horrible cry of triumph over chastity undone, when Ra Mahleiné said:

“I need to sleep.”

She was extremely weak. She lay motionless. He had to towel her, massage her. Many of the scabs came off. That was good; it meant her cuts were not infected. He cleaned away the pus.

“As long as I didn’t get an infection on my bottom. That would have been the worst. I had to lie in it. I wet my pants but couldn’t do the other.”

He nodded. “In a week, you’ll be able to move your bowels.”

The second round of bathwater was enough. It didn’t look like muddy slop with suds.

Suddenly Ra Mahleiné dropped her head, closed her eyes. Frightened, he put an ear to her chest: her heart was beating. She had fainted. He let the water out of the tub and spread a shower curtain on the mattress where he slept. He wrapped her hair in a small towel and lifted her from the tub. An unconscious body is heavier. It slips in your arms, is difficult to hold.

He brought her around, rubbing and drying her with the towel. When she opened her eyes, he gave her some drops for her heart. That medicine was Ra Mahleiné’s first meal in freedom. He dried her hair thoroughly.

“After this I won’t comb myself, for the rest of my life,” she said. “I’ll shave my head to the skull. The bastards did that to me once. Gavein, cover me up, please. It shames me to lie like this in front of you.”

“I love looking at you like this,” he said. “Surely you can remember that.” He added, with a twinkle, “But really, you’ve become such a witch. Maybe you always were.” Which was a complete lie. An angel can’t be a witch.

He removed the plastic and tucked her gently in, under the blanket and counterpane. He saw a row of scars on her upper back, mostly small.

“They whipped you?” he asked.

“No. That was something else. At one point they removed . . . you know, I had things on my shoulders and neck. There was too much ultraviolet, they said, a danger of cancer. It doesn’t look too bad. But many of the women were carved up worse. As punishment. They overlooked me somehow. A white woman doctor removed all my moles. She did a good job, cosmetically.”

She looked around.

“There’s no furniture!”

“On the other hand, we have a telephone, and I’ll be buying a car soon.”

“I used to dream of our home in Davabel. There would be a big cupboard in the kitchen, with doors that had little windows, and a spice cabinet. When I still dreamed.”

“For the time being you’ll have to make do with a rug and an inflatable mattress for two. And we’ll have a problem getting clothes for you. I threw out those filthy rags, and there’s nothing else.”

“The underwear is all right, that’s the main thing. Did you wash my bra and panties?”

“They’re soaking in detergent. All the bacteria are crawling out.”

“Good. But don’t forget to scrub them too. Meanwhile I can wear your clothes. Jeans and a flannel shirt.”

“They’ll be too big.”

“The people will think it’s the fashion in Lavath. I’m dozing off, OK?”

He covered her better. He went and scrubbed her underwear. Then he got into bed beside her. In the window was the rising sun.