The Birth of Love (10 page)
Authors: Joanna Kavenna
*
He wrote his novel, and sent it to his agent, Sally Blanchefleur, who was impatient with him at the time and thought he would never do well. She had been his agent for years and it was clear her patience was wearing thin. The previous novel he sent her, she had not liked at all. She had taken months to respond, and finally she wrote, ‘Michael, I am sorry, but frankly I am not convinced.’ Nothing more than that, a terse note, after all his years of writing and the months she had taken to reply. He wanted never to speak to her again, after that, but she was the only agent who had ever replied to him, and he knew no others. So instead he badgered her on the phone, begged her for answers. ‘You are an intelligent man but you have to decide what you want,’ she told him, a trace of boredom in her voice. ‘Either accept your circumstances, or try to write something more … palatable to the general reader.’
*
Palatable, he had thought, sitting in his little room, in his flat in South London. To become palatable. That was the
challenge she had set him. At fifty-five, to live in a small flat in South London pursuing unwanted projects; it was foolish to resist. But he found he was intractable, he couldn’t do it. He didn’t want to masquerade as someone else, and anyway he lacked the necessary daring. He simply couldn’t do it. ‘It wouldn’t hurt if you became a little more digestible’ – that was another phrase Sally used. The public appetite, the general palate, had no taste for him. Sally had been loyal, but now her loyalty was laced with fatigue and perhaps an element of pity. Poor old Michael Stone, better ring him. ‘Never mind, sometimes you can create your own audience,’ she would say. ‘Perhaps you’ll be the exception.’ But he felt she didn’t really believe it.
*
He had been writing for himself, that was the thing. He had been alone in a silent room and he had forgotten there was any chance of being overheard. Like being schizophrenic. You spoke to yourself and then you answered. You did not need to clarify your words; you were content with suggestions, half-fashioned thoughts. And then someone else invaded your cosy talk, this conversation you were having with yourself. Someone eavesdropped, heard half of what you were saying, or even less perhaps, and then they began to talk over you. They said, ‘So this is what you mean.’ Not even ‘what I think you mean’. Simply ‘this is’. First one, then a group of them, saying loudly and firmly, ‘This is the meaning of your rambling indecisive prose. We will explain.’ They got more loquacious. They talked and then they condemned you.
*
With
The Moon
everything had been different. ‘Well, Michael,’ Sally said. ‘Perhaps we might finally find you a
publisher.’ He wanted to sob with relief. ‘There are many problems,’ she added. He listened, gripping the phone. ‘Men are unlikely to read a book about childbirth. It’s unfortunate, but there’s not much to be done. Women might just, but they’ll get put off by your obscure doctor. And the title too – the title is rather awkward.’ But he didn’t want to change the title. ‘It sounds like a dreary symbolist novel,’ said Sally. ‘And this rambling narrator, who seems mad himself. It’s as if you want to talk about everything, in one book. You can’t talk about everything in one book. It’s boring and it bores the reader.’
*
But he did want to talk about everything, the universe as he found it, not that he was much of an interpreter. He wanted to cry out how beautiful he found it, but how he was mired in darkness and knew nothing at all. Perhaps he wanted to find a way to express his ignorance. Sally explained to him – rather sternly – that he should take her advice, she was trying her best – she had been ringing around everyone she could think of, and finally – she could hardly believe it herself – she had found him a publisher. That sent him into nervous joy for a few days, and then they backed out. The editor was sorry. ‘Terribly sorry. Not my decision,’ he wrote. On second thoughts, they had decided it was not right for their list. They had thought carefully – ‘agonised long and hard’, wrote the editor – and they simply didn’t want the book. ‘They don’t think it’s worth it,’ said Sally, and now she lined up beside him. She phoned him regularly to give him progress reports. Finally she found Peter Kennedy who told him he loved the book and paid him almost nothing, but no one else would consider it at all, and so - Sally explained - he really had no choice.
Sally was brisk and unsentimental. ‘It’s a good novel, I’m not saying it isn’t a good novel, but it will be tough to find it a large readership,’ she said to him on the phone. ‘I’ve been talking to Peter, we were discussing the vogue for historical dramas, perhaps there’s something in that – but still, there’s only so far they can go.’ Michael tried to explain – once again he tried, though of course he was never persuasive – that wasn’t the point, but she was already talking over him. ‘Look, you have to relax a bit,’ she said. ‘I’ll get some friends to throw a launch party for you. And we’ll have a nice lunch on the day. Then you just have to hope the reviews are kind.’ And now she had them, hidden in her bag. She would not show them to him, she did not want to spoil their nice lunch.
*
‘Would you like some more wine, sir?’ the waiter was saying in his ear. He nodded and held out his glass.
‘How is the lamb?’ said Sally.
‘Very good,’ he said.
They were speaking quietly, and the talk continued around them. She put her hand on his arm again. ‘You do look pale, Michael. Is there anything else you would like?’
‘I wish I had done everything much better,’ he said. ‘I wish I had …’
‘It’s important to sustain a sense of humour about all of this,’ said Sally. ‘It’s a sort of game. Not the work, the work is very important. But the launch, this, the business surrounding you. That’s a sort of game. It can be fun, even.’
‘Yes.’
‘If you are too worried about what people think of your work, you will only be disappointed,’ she said.
‘I am not disappointed,’ he said. ‘I am …’
She waited politely, with her fork raised.
‘ … in shock,’ he said.
*
Then the waiters came and began to clear the plates away.
*
‘Michael, what will you do after this?’ said Alice Mortimer.
‘Perhaps … I would like to go on holiday,’ said Michael.
They smiled at him, laughed a little.
‘Are you working on another book?’ said Roger Annais.
‘I don’t have any ideas at present. I have been … well, it has been hard to focus on my work …’
‘Of course it has,’ said Alice Mortimer. ‘I remember that, you feel you have to test the water, before you start again.’
‘We need more wine,’ said Sally, holding up her hand. ‘We really should have another drink.’
*
Michael looked down. They had taken his plate away. He had hardly touched the food, he had merely drunk the wine. So now his head was thick with wine and if anyone wanted to speak to him this afternoon, he would be drunk.
*
He would pass the rest of the day stewed in wine, and tomorrow – perhaps tomorrow – things would be different. It was an irony that after all these years of hoping for an audience, of imagining that was what he needed, he found these people so bemusing. He longed for the privacy of his room, where he sat for years without anyone noticing. Unsullied, immaculate in his obscurity and failure. The river coursed along beneath him, dragging every
one else along. He saw them dragged along each morning, surging towards the Underground, and he thought of them being poured into London, into their offices. And then they flooded home at five and six and seven o’clock, short and fat and tall and broad, conveyed by the current, subject to its force. He surveyed everything from his tower and thought he had escaped it. He surveyed them from the safety of the shore. He had been voluntarily beached for years. And now, somehow, he had been dragged in. Here they all were, these people who swam with the current and he was there too, but they were swimming along, buoyant and accustomed to their state, and he was drowning even as they spoke to him.
*
The waiter was putting something down in front of him. A crème brûlée, perfectly glazed on top.
*
‘How delicious,’ said Sally. ‘Dessert wine, anyone?’
‘Down the hatch,’ said Peter Kennedy.
So Michael Stone lifted his glass and received another splash of wine.
*
Everything had been soured by that phone call. It was the peculiar tone in his brother’s voice, something almost police, when for years James had treated him as if he was pathetic, unspeakable. Polite and yet cold all the same, as if hostilities were off for the time being, while their mother declined, out of some sort of warped notion of decorum – yet he did not want to have to think about James, or his mother. They always made him feel anxious about things he had previously enjoyed. Even his childhood had been nervous, because of his mother’s godliness and determi
nation, because she always had so much to say about even the smallest things. She ordered the world so convincingly, classified everything as either ‘good’ or ‘bad’. He couldn’t believe she had really changed. Things were better when he ignored them, but then the chilly voice of his brother had intruded, making him uneasy again. It made him think of an ancient patriarch, some ogre of his childhood, standing in judgement, far above him. He saw himself clambering towards this venerable prophet – perhaps he was on a mountain, by a stone temple. Michael saw himself struggling up to the peak, approaching with his head bowed, and there was the old sage, swinging his hoary locks towards him, saying, ‘You have done wrong. You have done everything wrong and for this wrong you must be punished.’
*
As he had always done, in childhood and even in adult life, Michael felt uncertain, guilty even, found himself saying, ‘But what is it? Just what is it I have done?’
Transcripts of interviews with members of the anti-species conspiracy of Lofoten 4a, Arctic Circle sector 111424
Part 1, 10.00–11.55 a.m. 15 August 2153 Interview with Prisoner 730004
At time of commencement the prisoner will not disclose her real name.
I do not understand. Just what is it I have done?
Prisoner 730004 you are aware that your crimes against the species are very grave and you stand under a charge of conspiring against the Genetix and thereby against the survival of humanity?
I am aware of the charges but I do not understand what I have done to merit them.
The Protectors are very disappointed with you. They perceive that you have behaved in a reckless manner, dangerous to all. What do you say to this?
I am sorry the Protectors are disappointed. Yet I remain confused about the nature of my offence.
They regret to inform you that while they seek to assess all matters reasonably and dispassionately, your case and that
of your co-conspirators must be considered a crime. We are appointed to discuss with you the precise nature of this crime and to relay information to the Protectors on your behalf. Do you understand?
I do not really understand, no.
Could you firstly explain how you came to be living in Lofoten 4a, Arctic Circle sector 111424, in the Restricted Area?
You mean on the island?
Lofoten 4a, Arctic Circle sector 111424, yes. Can you explain how you came to be living there?
We were living in the land of our mothers and fathers …
Correction, for ‘mothers and fathers’ the record will read egg and sperm donors.
… Generations were born and lived their lives there. We merely wanted to be at home.
You were not happy with your accommodation in Darwin C?
Naturally I should have felt fortunate. In our perilous times, Darwin C supplied me with everything I should need. I had my allocated role in the struggle for the survival of the species. I had my own small room which is called a space. A regulated lamp which functioned from nightfall for a regulation hour, during which time I could arrange my clothes for the following day, pull my bed down from the wall. I had a thin window with a view of all the other towers. I took my meals in the collective dining centre, like everyone else. I washed in the collective hygiene centre, and I received my daily allocation of drinking water. On Sunday mornings, I
was granted three hours of relaxation time. I liked to read in the collective data hall. Despite all this, I became aware that Darwin C was not my home.
But you had lived there all your life, is that correct?
Yes, my parents were taken there before I was born. They were removed forcibly from their home and taken to a space on the twenty-eighth floor, sector 1125, Darwin C. My mother was harvested and then sterilised and I was the product of her Genetix treatment. As you know in those days it was the custom for Genetix children to live with their parents.
Correction, for ‘mother’ the record will read egg donor. And for ‘children’ the record will read progeny of the species. And for ‘parents’ the record will read sperm and egg donors.
Now of course this is no longer the case.
How did it come to pass that you left Darwin C, Prisoner 730004?
I had a dream. I dreamed of torrents of blood. I was swimming in a sea of blood. In my dream I was encased in blood. Yet I was not drowning. It was astonishing but I could breathe in the blood. I was drinking the blood and I liked the taste of it. In my dream I understood that the blood held all the nourishment I needed. I felt very peaceful and happy. Perhaps I was even smiling as I drank down blood. When I woke from this dream I was sweating and crying. I woke in my space in sector 1125 Darwin C and I thought of all the millions of souls waking in their small spaces too and I cried out in anguish for something I had never known.
And you attached significance to this random twitching of neurons?
I was profoundly affected by it. My life changed utterly. I could no longer perform my job – my allocated role, I mean.
Please explain what your allocated role was.
I worked at the nurture grounds, in sector 1126.
Your area of specialisation?
I cared for babies of six months to a year. I loved what I did though I felt deeply sad that I could not have a child myself.
Correction, for ‘child’ and ‘babies’ record progeny of the species. Your eggs were classified as deficient, Prisoner 730004?
No, I believe they passed the test.
So they have generated many progeny of the species.
I do not mean children that I will never meet and who were generated in a laboratory using sperm from men I will never know. I mean children of my own womb, grown and nurtured by my own body.
On behalf of the Protectors we are obliged to advise you that the expression of such statements will not help your case at all, as they constitute a grave threat to the survival of the species and cannot, for the common good, despite the generosity and forbearance of the Protectors, be sanctioned.
I am sorry. I was trying to answer your question.
These dangerous anti-species opinions were shared by all of your group?
It was not something we spoke about. It is a private matter,
the yearning of the sterilised body to procreate … I do not know how other women endure it.
We assume that other egg donors understand that it is necessary for the survival of the species that we regulate procreation. That we select from a crop of harvested eggs and only place the most superior in the Genetix, fertilised only by the most superior sperm. That we filter out genetic deficiencies. Such deficiencies and your egomaniacal fixations are luxuries the species can no longer allow itself, if it is to survive.
I am aware of the arguments for the Genetix. I am merely explaining my own emotions.
I am afraid this is where you and your group have been in error. You have glutted yourselves on emotions, without a single thought for the Collective. Did you consider what would happen if everyone behaved as you have?
I am afraid we did not. We were compelled … I was compelled, I cannot speak for the others, by an overwhelming desire to leave Darwin C.
And if everyone left the Protection Zone and set up farms in the Restricted Area what would happen?
I do not know. I am no prophet.
You don’t need to be a prophet to understand the basic laws of supply and demand. I assume you attended Species Survival Courses A, B and C?
Yes, I did. They were compulsory.
And you were taught there that given current climatic instability and the grave perils of overpopulation and shortage of
resources, we must make various personal sacrifices for the species to survive the current crisis?
Yes, I was taught this.
Were the arguments persuasive?
I lacked the knowledge to disagree with them. I have no idea what is really happening to the planet, even now.
But you acknowledge that the climate has changed violently.
Yes, I think it has since I was young. But I do not know what this means.
What it means, Prisoner 730004, is that the Collective and the Protectorate and the proposals established for species protection must prevail. It means that to defy these proposals is to aim at the annihilation of the species. Under Proposal 113 of the Darwinian Protectorate auto-genocide is forbidden, you realise?
Yes, I have been told this.
You were taught it in Species Survival B part 7, were you not?
I can’t remember exactly when it was that I was taught it but yes I know I have been told it.
And do you understand that the reason we are all accommodated in cities such as Darwin C is to conserve as much land as possible for mass-scale farming to support our species?
I have no real knowledge of anything but yes this is something I have heard.
You were taught it in Species Survival B part 2, were you not?
I can’t remember the details. I was a poor scholar. But I have a recollection that something like this was explained to me, yes.
So, when you left the city to set up your own farm you knew you and your group were disobeying the most serious proposals of our Collective? Proposals which have been established to protect the species as a whole?
As I said, we knew that it was not what we had been told to do, or rather I knew, I cannot speak for the others, but such was our – my – craving … I was guided by desire, by my yearning for the island …
Correction, Lofoten 4a, Arctic Circle sector 111424.
… and for the countryside and besides it was becoming too great a torment to work at the nurture grounds any more.
Because of your egomaniacal fixations?
Because of my sense of profound grief that I would never birth my own baby …
Correction, progeny of the species. Had you been taking the advised doses of hormone readjustment, Prisoner 730004?
I had.
So you are arguing that you felt this craving despite taking the advised daily dose?
Yes, my yearning transcended these suppressants. My yearning burst out and made me wretched.
So this was when your group was formed?
I had remained in contact with friends from my homeland.
From Lofoten 4a, Arctic Circle sector 111424. And who was it that devised the plan to abandon your posts and desert to the Restricted Area?
I don’t think there was a single person. I think gradually we came to understand each other. We had so many ancient ties in common. Our understanding was very profound. I am not sure we ever really spoke about our deepest yearnings, to depart. But we understood each other anyway.
You are proposing that you never planned to leave? That it just happened spontaneously?
It was not spontaneous. It happened slowly. But yes, it happened amongst us, without anyone really saying anything. For a long time no one dared to speak. But then there came a time when everything was clear to us, when we knew – we knew everything about each other, without having spoken much at all.
Prisoner 730004, you are making no sense. Why don’t you tell us – in plain speak – who the woman known as Birgitta is?
I am not sure I can.
The Protectors value truth and it pains them to hear lies.
Please do not insult them by lying in this way. Your lies are wasted anyway as we are searching for this woman known as Birgitta throughout sector 111243. So we ask you to explain exactly who she is, before we take her and ask her ourselves.
She is many things.
Such as?
Well, she is entwined with many forces. There is an old idea we found out … someone knew of this phrase – the Magna Mater. Somehow Birgitta is entwined with this phrase.
You will explain yourself in plain speak, Prisoner 730004.
She is an ordinary woman, a terrified girl. But there is something else about her. I am not sure what it is. We have been deprived of tradition and ritual and therefore we are not entirely sure who Birgitta is, and what she might mean.
Once more we must ask you to explain yourself in plain speak, Prisoner 730004. And turn your face towards the screen.
When I was working at the nurture grounds, each day I would hold these beautiful little babies – ‘progeny’ you would say – in my arms and feel how monstrous it was that my living body had been rendered barren, that the eggs had been ripped out of my womb when I was merely eighteen and taken to a laboratory somewhere, where I didn’t even know, and fertilised without love or passion. And if not fertilised then thrown away, discarded. When I thought about this I felt a terrible ache, the mourning of my body, and I always consoled myself – or tried to – with the thought that something might go wrong. The Genetix might fail. Society might collapse. And afterwards, from the ruins, women might regain our former power, to create life within our bodies.
You actively wished for the ruination of our civilisation?
I thought it might be the only way to escape from this … this … I do not know what it is …
It has been clearly explained to you. In Species Survival C. That this is the only option for the species. That all available land must be converted to intensive farming. That city population density must be 13,500 persons per square kilometre. That for farming requirements and also for the most efficient implementation of the Procreation Regulation Programme individuals must live in their allocated accommodation in the cities. Prisoner 730004, you were aware of all these proposals, were you not?
Yes, in truth I was. But somehow I couldn’t accept that this is the only option left to humanity.
So you admit that you have desired the ruination of the species and that you have favourably contemplated societal collapse?
Only because I could see no other way that humanity might return to a more natural way of … being. Only because I had come to feel that if this denial of nature was required for species survival then perhaps … I am speaking only for myself … but perhaps it wasn’t worth it.
Worth what?
Worth surviving. But I don’t know, naturally.
Prisoner 730004, we must warn you that such statements constitute a grave threat to the survival of the species and will only harm your case further. Let us return to the question of Birgitta. Explain what you mean by your talk about her.
I mean that a girl who originally also came from my island …
Lofoten 4a, Arctic Circle sector 111424.
… became pregnant.
Be very careful what you say, Prisoner 730004. We have already warned you about the harm you are doing to your case.
It is the plain truth. She was harvested at eighteen and had her womb ‘closed up’ in the so-called ordinary way, and yet twenty years later she had become pregnant.
Who is Birgitta?
She worked in the Sexual Release Centre. Once upon a time she might have been called a whore.
There are no such people in Darwin C.
No, by the terms of the day she was not a ‘whore’ it is true, she was an ‘expert in the administration of sexual release’ – and she specialised in the loveless sex that is now encouraged. Not merely encouraged, that is not what I mean. I mean that lifelong coupling is now frowned upon as … you would say it is one of those egomaniacal fixations we can no longer afford. Also children are no longer raised at home but in the nurture grounds by strangers …