as she commits to memory each turn of the path. I re-fold the map along its creases, and as I do, I am surprised to see that it forms a paper aeroplane, such as we used to make to play games with when we were little. This makes me smile. Pearl used to like this game.
There is no reason to wait. There is nobody for me to speak to, for what would I say? Only this: I am abandoning you, Mother Oblation, Stone sisters, soldiers and Men, to seek my beloved traitor. I will take nothing with me but the map, this notebook in which, as well as my day-to-day doings, I have recorded so much sage advice carefully copied down in recent lessons, and my little knife that once belonged to my friend. Nothing more, for what am I owed? The worst punishment should be reserved for me. I could never explain the complexities of my rationale to the Properganders. They would see – and rightly too – disobedience and fatal feminine weakness. If not burned for heresy I will likely receive a flaying at least, or a starfish splaying atop the Orchid Nursery with my face exposed to all and my body open to any violation or insult. But better this than excommunication and no chance to Beseech on my next birthday or any of those to follow. Better any of these than enduring a long life without the comfort of True Belief. Yes, I must go, for this way lies redemption. I will kill what I can catch. I will drink from unhallowed streams.
I close the door behind me. There is a careforcer sweeping the corridor, her form hunched as she forces the brush into the corner, scouring for dust. Very thorough. Her lips have been only recently grafted together, so I do not like to look on her. But I feel her concentrated gaze on me, willing me to meet her eyes. Why such impertinence? I see it is Xeniicut227. I dislike that way she has, a kind of discreet knowingness. So superior. Though not uncommon among some of the more recently inducted xeniicuts, it’s true. But what could a careforcer know? And neither she nor anyone else can have any idea of what I intend to do. Nevertheless, before approaching the outer door I wait until she has passed, breathily whistling through the feeding hole in her suture.
9.
The cunnydorms are now behind me. The corp-yard is quiet. I walk across it and do not pause at the gate whose inscription I know so well: submission is freedom. Beyond are the Scholars’ and Seed-Bearers’ Rooms, built of purple-brown brick and white mortar. I move with great stealth, for although they should now be in their dining room on the far side of their complex they are Men, so naturally they are free to go where they please at any time. Yet I manage to pass by without incident. Then I come to the workrooms of the Craftsmen who make lovely objects of utility from glass and bone, metal and wood, or from the strong yellow ivory of the great tusked hammerheads that swim up from the Far Greasy Sea against Big River’s current to feed on the waste from Spare Parts Manufactory where the dudbubs live for a short while.
After a little longer I reach the outer rings of our Perfect State, comprised of gardeners’ and foot-soldiers’ quarters, and make my way through the vegetable gardens that we are slowly extending further and further. In the distance I see the starlit gleam of Big River Harbour, full of container terminals and traffic from the other States, as it loops below on its way from Snow Mountain to the Sea. I follow the river a little further and soon pass beneath the darkened windows of Spare Parts. I hear the hum of the systems that sustain them, the malformed failures of gravidity, and the cripsanretards. I hear an occasional small voice, not quite a cry … Very little sound penetrates, and none ever reaches beyond the nearer curve of Big River where stand the elegant Ecumenical Houses and Properganders’ Mansions within their bastions of stone and their great Pine Circle.
And now Stone Plain stretches out before me, as much granite as grass. It is a rare dry night. I feel an easing of the heart as I walk through this open space along the chalky path with nothing between me and eternity but the wide sky with its masses of cloud and the high-riding moon emerging from time to time like a thin smile. That was Pearl’s fancy – giving the moon moods and humours. It had become a sort of game for us. ‘What is her mood today?’ she – or I – would ask the other. And I – or she – might reply, ‘She feigns shame tonight, see the tip of her cowl between her teeth, playing for time, a dangerous game …’ or ‘She needs you now, and her desire is urgent. See how round and ruddy is her blood-suffused plumpness this red dawn,’ or ‘She is a mean stone-faced witchy-moon tonight, just asking for trouble …’
I walk many miles and all through the night along the pale chalk line that weaves its way among stones and low wiry shrubs, and as the sun stain seeps into the worn hills to the east and the darkness ebbs to grey, I find I am very thirsty. I notice also that my feet hurt me where the shoe-leather has rubbed. There is no cover, no way to protect myself from the Ecumen or foot-soldiers who might already have been dispatched to pursue me, no relief from the elements. Still, I must rest awhile. I draw my cowl over my head and lie down.
But my mind is teeming and I do not sleep for some hours. Still, I use those hours well. I review my actions of the last day, meditating on what I have done, what I have seen, and what it might mean. Now, revisiting my feelings of horror in the Orchid Nursery, I see that I have reacted as if fully possessed by the fleshly fallacy, incapable of seeing beyond the surface of things. Thus limited I could only experience a purely visceral reaction. For without the light of reason guided by faith and prayer, how can one see truly? And the truth of what I saw was this: a set of lovely streamlined propagation machines, living (wo)Men whose whole being is directed towards one pure and precious goal. That of service to the Truth embedded in the ideals of Perfect State.
Time passes and eventually I feel myself drifting, buoyed up on a current of images, most soothing and harmonious, of fields of clean, dry grasses, of silken garments, of unfurling flowers, of Pearl’s face. I will find her and bring her home. I will be forgiven in time, in time, and if the Brother Ministers will still allow it I will Beseech again, next year … and surely they will, when I bring back my prize Pearl who will be recovered from her madness, will be glad that I found her, will walk with me in all willingness relieved and grateful that I have saved her. On our return we will confess and suffer whatever punishment is meted out, for it will be fair, and good, and redemptive … and yes, we will both Beseech. Next year, next year…
I awake in a clammy sweat. My lips are parched. I have slept through the dewfall and now there is not even that moisture to refresh me. The sun is stewing away in the soupy cauldron of the sky, the low clouds promise yet withhold rain. But it is slightly more possible to walk than to rest. I gather some of the coarse grass that grows between the stones and layer them in a crosswise thatch-pattern between the tongue of each shoe and my blistered feet. This remedy lasts about five minutes before I am again limping badly and now hunger, as well as thirst, comes to torment me. I have eaten nothing since yesterday morning. The physical discomfort is hard to endure, but the knowledge of my own stupidity in going off without any preparation at all makes me realise once more what a foolish, dull scrap of a thing I am. Truly, I am a waste of air. Yet since I still breathe I must find a way to sustain myself for such is the animal nature of all living creatures, however undeserving.
By the grace of GodFather,
May the shadow of his
Sceptred Eye forever
Darken the false glister
That is not gold,
But tinsel.
Tinsel tawdries that clutter
The margins of the right path
Drawing us towards the offer
Of guileful glamour
And temporal temptations.
Lead us not
Now or ever
Alive-alive-oh,
