Melodrome Read online

  They ask her: You, what’s your desire? Suano butts in: She doesn’t know, nor do you, or I, for that matter; nobody knows what their desire is. Lerena agrees but wants to keep it simple: I need to get to Cordilen, urgently. Djay, but listen, that’s not where you’re headed. You knew that? I could see it coming, mutters Lerena; where are we headed then? The man with the gun buttons up his jacket. You’ll find out tomorrow, funny girl. And the five Clearseers walk out.

  They, our they, are given a room that is next to the oven. Lerena likes the smell of the yeast. Suano calls it a hell-hole. Well, you’re the reason they’re making us stay, the stuff you said, she snaps at him. But he has already begun his pre-sleep exercises.

  The next day, Lerena goes to the lounge early and settles down to wait. The publican mumbles something about how the sincerely grateful are in no hurry to show their gratitude, and serves them breakfast at twenty to eleven. Lerena doesn’t touch hers, apart from two sips of herbal tea. The publican seems to think that this frugality is another display. It’s not until one, when the pub is bursting with workers having lunch and Lerena is practically apoplectic with impatience, that the Clearseers manifest themselves via an emissary: an old man with a long coat and a white beard, like therapists in days of old. The customers greet him as Mr Priest. So, sir? asks Lerena. If you go around the Saluca Ring, the very air will part before you, he declaims. All the way to Cordilen? Cordilen is not a place that people reach, not even you. Let’s go, says Suano firmly. Lerena says thank you.

  And when they get into the car, she scolds Suano for not having asked how far they can actually go. They don’t want you to know. No, guapito, they think I won’t stoop to asking questions, but I can stoop lower than they can imagine. And how do you know what they can…Suano begins to ask, but just then two girls leap to their feet at the side of the road and hold out their thumbs. Suano is all for ignoring them, to avoid any further tricks, but moved by a growing generosity, Lerena hits the brakes. The girls climb in and make themselves comfortable in the back seat. They say they’re going home from school. Suano and Lerena don’t believe them. But if they have been sent as spies to make sure that the travellers keep losing their way, they must have some information. To coax it out of them, Lerena offers chocoladas, then the earrings she is wearing, which the girls have been staring at enviously, and finally some bitcards so they can go and buy another pair. All in vain. The only reaction comes from the younger girl, who, seeing Suano’s arm resting on the back of the seat, reaches out and scratches it, leaving two little snakes of blood. Lerena brakes, turns around and gives the girl’s ear a fierce jerk. The pair get out huffing haughtily: We get sweets from Dona Munava; she doesn’t make us tell.

  Two milokis further on, Lerena comments on this episode: Well, you can’t change your character in the blink of an eye. No, says Suano, but thanks to those girls, here we are, in a blink: it’s the watershed.

  That much is clear, at least. They have reached the top of the range; the road levels out and the mountains are transformed into a narrow, bare tableland; horehound replaces the alders. They park the mincar on a gravel lay by and get out to take in the views: the northern slopes are terraced and scattered with hedge-enclosed villages; a vivifying humidity rises from the tidelands. On the southern side, to the right, showers of rain from hydrating airvans protect what they can from the ravening of an amorphous, deep red sun. There they are, Suano and Lerena, under that smoky sky, confirming that the best remedy for the messiness of life is to dress up an obsession as a project.

  About a hundred rods away is a hut built of stone, wood and glass. Locals are standing in a circle on the porch, making a show of deliberation. As soon as Lerena and Suano approach, the circle opens to admit and instruct them, without any kind of preamble.

  The objective of this particular lesson is to profile the six kinds of perpetrators responsible for wildfires: the Irresponsible Farmer, careless in burning off stubble; the Thoughtless Breeder, who wants to regenerate pastures and prevent the encroachment of weeds; the Pyromaniac, excited by burning and the spectacle of the brigades at work; the Careless Host, who fails to watch over the barbecue; the Interested Party, who speculates on burnt land; and the Civil Servant, who failed to implement preventive measures and ensure the completion of structural works.

  Suano clears his throat. This young lady, he explains, is as mentally organised as you; if you want to test her, you should ask a specific question.

  Identify yourself, they command. Calmly, Suano straightens up a little: I am Suano Botilecue, the young lady’s travelling companion. An older pair with a sectarian look, wearing spectacles and high boots, who seem to be in charge of the group, move their heads simultaneously and lead them, without a word, to a yard behind another hut. There they find a little volcano of loose earth and, protruding from its summit, a man’s head with a swollen nose and vacant eyes. The kayfra joint placed between his lips looks like an offering. There’s a kind of headman, who points to the prisoner and asks Lerena: What category does this one belong to? How should I know? she replies, then asks, Did you light the fire in the forest? The buried man doesn’t move an eyelash. He didn’t do anything, can’t you see? shouts Lerena, and lunges forward to start digging him out. The headman blocks her way with a stick. When he’s learnt his lesson, he’ll tell us himself.

  If you can learn anything like that, says Suano.

  You think people learn better in your prisons?

  Lerena’s not putting up with this; they can try their show on some other dorbiddle. It’s all a lie, of course, says the woman with spectacles. Sizing up the onlookers, Botilecue twists his mouth to one side, nods, and before the stick can block him he’s down on all fours, digging to free the buried man’s head. It’s a futile gesture, as he must know, as everybody knows.

  A blow to the shoulder from the headman’s stick knocks him over. Nobody moves. He half gets up, rubbing himself. Looks like there’s a truth here too, he says, on top of the lie. Why else go to all this trouble to make the young lady give up?

  And the fire, is that true or false? asks the male half of the booted couple. How should I know? says Suano. The headman splutters: What an idiot! Suano continues: The fire can spread along the reedbeds; the larches burst into flame; hares, anancos, pumas and all the quicker animals escape; the birds fly off in terror, and everything else is destroyed; but the fire can’t keep spreading; there are too many arid stretches between here and the river bank. The husband: Is that so? I think you both know it is, replies Suano, but the young lady doesn’t. The headman points at them with his stick: You two don’t know fire because you’re never going to burn. Lerena lowers her penitent face into her open hands and lifts it again to the faltering sun. For a couple of days now, she has worn no make-up. But even though she wrinkles her forehead like an old rag, licks at her gums and generally tries to uglify herself, her beauty continues to work on the organisms around her, producing an effect that is at once purgative and anaesthetic, even here in the Felinezo Hills, where the beautiful are not in short supply. No doubt because he can’t stand this effect, the headman says: Gesture all you like, lady, your hands aren’t touching anything; you keep yourself clean; you primp too much. The buried man’s head is moving in response to what Suano has murmured: It’s beauty, heart of stone, accept it, give in. The headman, who heard him too, replies: What we accept round here, mister, is truth, and we stand firm against the tide.

  Lerena pinches and pulls at a lock of not especially clean hair, as if removing a louse: I’m not a tide; and I have hundred-per-cent reasons for wanting to see Munava.

  The Dona has no notion that it might be worthwhile to receive you.

  And when will she? Nobody can tell, and that includes you, says the headman, looking at Botilecue, who has risen to his feet. I would like to meet the Dona who did me a great favour and thank her personally, whispers Lerena. To put affection into the heart of a fellow creature, there’s no need to meet, replies the headman. Suano rai
ses an accusing finger: True, she’s doing it for her own benefit; it’s often the way: she wants to give thanks to clear her conscience, or save herself. But you want to teach her…I don’t know what…you want to teach her to be like the spirit on the water. We can teach that? says the woman with spectacles. Dona Munava, her husband adds, doesn’t know what it is to give thanks, nor does she need to know. But maybe she wants the young lady to know, says Suano; that’s why you have to let us go on. We’re just wasting time here. Dig this poor quat out, Lerena begs. It’s going to cost fifty panoramics, says the headman.

  With a gesture, Botilecue indicates that she should pay. He has to repeat it before she gives in.

  They pay. The buried man’s head flinches as the headman begins to shovel. Lerena and Suano return to the mincar. Sloping gently downwards, the bitumen strip of the Saluca Ring winds though a rocky landscape among tall blackthorn bushes. Immigrants from other islands, people with broad, oblique features – Suano has seen them in books but Lerena was unaware of their existence – are working up in the branches, perched on rickety ladders. What the hell are they doing? Well, says Suano, blackthorn flowers contain glucosides, vitamin C, tannins and organic acids that are used in certain medicines, mild laxatives for example. There are no flowers on those trees, Suano. No, but they have fruit, little blackberries that can be used for making preserves or liqueurs with revitalising properties.

  Suddenly exasperated, Lerena snorts and hits the brakes without pulling over. A van a hundred and twenty rods behind them brakes in turn.

  Suano, your prodigious memory is zero precking use…Maybe it’s gummed up, he concedes. Look, sorry, I shouldn’t have said that; Suano, it’s amazing what you know, about so many things, but this whole trip, I mean, what’s the point? What use is it to anyone? It’s what gives them pleasure, Suano explains: being inflexible, adhering to their system, though it’s not the sort of pleasure you’re after. Uh huh? So what you’re saying is: to be a good person you have to obey? Since when are you so obsequious, Suano? But then you get lippy all of a sudden: that’s why they don’t know how to deal with you. He replies: If we want to get to this Munava, we have to go via them; I’m guessing she’s constantly on the move. You might be logical, guapito, but you’re naive – hard one moment, soft the next – supernaive, if you don’t mind me saying.

  He asks her for a cigarette. She rummages around in her backpack and tosses the packet onto his lap.

  After two short drags, he says: I think you’ll make better decisions on your own, Lerena; I’m out of here.

  Lerena’s overburdened mind is visibly cracking up. Suano would like to feel pity for her but, halfway to asceticism, he reads her crisis as one more trick, a trick that she is playing on herself. So he opens the door to get out. But she is quicker: reaching over his legs, she pulls the door shut again and slaps him before sitting back in her seat.

  It’s not fury or shame that keeps him from moving, even to rub his cheek, but a different kind of discomposure. Something has come alive in him, something from before the fall and his ascetic reaction to it, before all his pretexts and strategies; it’s as if their hearts had been shuttled away to a universe still in a state of hot and hypermobile flux. It might be passion, this ineffable state, and Suano senses that passion can never be untrue. Planetary magmas tear and twist themselves into sentences: they predicted a happy future for us but we demanded so much of our love we bled it dry – we made our happiness pick a fight with every pebble on the road.

  As these thoughts run through Suano’s mind, the two of them are returning to the reality at hand.

  Her reaction has left them both breathless. Coolly, he returns her slap.

  Before the echo of the impact dies away, somebody taps on the window. It’s a boy, from the van that was following them at a distance. He shows them a recording tablet. It turns out that he has recorded their spat, and he warns them that if Munava ever hears of it, she’ll never agree to meet them. The tablet’s going to cost them twenty panoramics. Suano thinks they should pay, as if they were buying a pass. Lerena leans out of the window. She says she doesn’t give a preck: that’s what she’s like, what’s in the recording; those crastic words represent her; she’s not going to disown what she’s done; if she did, her thanks would be worthless. Visibly affected, the young man breaks the tablet; but he still wants his twenty pans. How do I know you won’t give the Dona the original? The boy shrugs. Lerena looks at Suano, who turns up his palms and, after a moment’s hesitation, pays.

  That confused him, says Lerena as she drives off. Me too.

  What happens next, as the mincar follows its descending route, is not entirely clear to Suano, but nor is it entirely opaque. It begins with a comment from Lerena, offered with a slightly furrowed brow. The world, she thinks, is out of joint, and she is too, along with the world, and the only way to put it right is to make an offering to integrity. Suano can feel her giving off warmth, inexplicably, as if her body had opened up, and for a moment this renews a promise of growth that neither of them had known was there in the space between them. A moment later, back in the arid world, Lerena begins to whistle. Suano is startled by the bright meleme she has chosen, by the sweetness, precision and power of her whistling. But oddly he doesn’t mind being startled, and that lack of annoyance is the first new thing he has felt in several days.

  The mincar glides along in neutral.

  Cute stones, says Lerena. The ruins of a parish house, according to Suano. And what’s that? she asks. Someone has polished the stones, or maybe glazed them…No, I mean what’s a parish house? That’s what I was about to explain before you cut me off. Instead of braking, this time she accelerates; for a moment both bodies are thrown back in the seats.

  In a faint voice, she says: You’re here for me, Suano, not them; I’m asking you to help me.

  Suano feels that it’s best to keep quiet, so he does, and finds himself thinking that Lerena is prosaic – prosaic and inflexible, like a sickle blade.

  But a moment of introspection is enough to reveal that he is equally prosaic. There’s a dawning in that discovery, by the fresh light of which he also discovers that Lerena possesses this quality in a special way of her own. She can’t be compared to time or beauty. Lerena is the heart’s own prosaic instability.

  She hasn’t noticed the commotion in Suano. With each miloki, she’s becoming more languid. But she doesn’t want to settle too comfortably into her newfound faith in the task.

  She clears her throat.

  Suano, she says. Suano, what did you see in me? What use am I?

  Neither of them is expecting him to answer straight away. Yet neither would be surprised if he were to answer later on. He only has to use his memory and choose one of many reasons. But she’s worried there might not be time, which is why she doesn’t wait in silence.

  You weren’t like this before, Suano, so sour.

  True, he says.

  For a fair stretch there is only the tranquil breathing of the motor. The warbling of birds hidden in the foliage reminds them of how they would talk and talk, back then. Suano was once an enthusiast, a man of many interests: the mythology of the Panoramic Delta, the art of air travel, honey-making – he had a gift for admiration. And love has such plasticity. Most love stories allow for unexpected change.

  There’s also that pile of money, waiting to fulfil a function that Lerena couldn’t elucidate and Suano is afraid to examine. The sum, considered from a distance, seems a splendid coliseum, but might turn out to be a death camp.

  They continue their descent, plunging now, perhaps irrevocably, into the region of delicate plants and well-kept buildings known to the locals as Ovehill. The streams flow more slowly under the bridges; birches are losing their leaves on the banks; in quiet pools, waste from small factories nourishes mats of sated algae. Although Lerena and Suano might speculate about the relation between this landscape and its inhabitants, they wouldn’t be able to analyse how it might be disfiguring or reconfiguring
their souls. Yet one of those two things is happening.

  A fat motorcyclist cuts them off, forcing them to pull up in the middle of the road. He gets off his bike and approaches the Diminut. He is holding out his hand, on the palm of which are beetles, the kind that make little balls of dung. He accuses Lerena and Suano of having run over these insects. It turns out that dung beetles are sacred in the region because of the way they enrich the soil by continually collecting and spreading manure. Forgive me, Lerena implores, it’s hard to avoid a little insect on the highway. He who fails to see the beetle’s shine, says the fat man, fails to see the plea in the face of his own brother. All right, all right, says Lerena. What’s Dona Munava’s take on this? When Dona Munava first set foot in the region, only God and she knew why she had come, and she has since forgotten. So can you explain to me how it is that a Clearseer is never mistaken? Suano asks. The fat man pretends not to have understood. But explains that there’s a two-pan fine for each dead beetle, and there are five little corpses in his hand.

  Shit, Lerena blurts convulsively. Is my gratitude really so disgusting? She blows her nose. It’s an act of defiance, and she knows that she will have to pay for it with further delays.

  What are you trying to tell us, boss? says Suano suddenly. That the young lady here who just wants to give thanks is as stubborn as a dung beetle gathering shit?

  Ten pans, the fat man insists.

  They pay. When they’re alone again, Lerena says: You thought the guy wouldn’t understand, but he understood you perfectly. Maybe that’s what I wanted, he replies. Can you slot that in your arkle? A way out of this wrangling is eventually provided by the villagers who pressure them into buying kayfra joints, which they light immediately, guessing that this is another condition imposed by the Clearseers, one more thing that they must do in order to proceed. Similar situations recur over the following days; no need to go into the details. Lerena’s determination to repay the debt remains undented; thankfulness has become a philosophical conviction; but her energy flags from time to time. One morning she explains that she saw her body in a dream and it was full of holes. This worries Suano. Which in turn alarms him, because he hasn’t been worried about Lerena since that first session when she defined herself as a cluster of superstitions. He keeps drumming his fingers wherever he can. It’s possible that in the end these people will agree to see them. Maybe they’re setting up hoops on principle, but they can’t be holding a personal grudge. No one has ever worried much about Lerena.