The Birth of Love (12 page)

Once more on behalf of the Protectors we must emphasise that such digressions are not relevant to your case or suitable in your circumstances.

I am sorry.

Please continue with your account, taking care to adhere to the facts.

I will try. Let me think. The facts of our arrival. I am not sure. I think that we were all afraid. And uncertain. Perhaps this is not a fact. We were unsure about what we had done. Birgitta’s brother dragged us out. I think he was also afraid. Again I am not entirely sure of this. I was disoriented by fatigue and nerves. I do not remember who was there, beyond the members of our group and Birgitta’s brother. Others were there, though: I felt hands on my shoulder, on my arm, guiding me along what I think was a dark passageway but could equally have been a tunnel. Perhaps someone wept. Perhaps we all did. But this is not a fact, or not one I believe would be useful. Birgitta’s brother disappeared before we could thank him – I never saw him again and now I strongly believe he is dead. Though I do not know this for a fact I am almost certain it is the case.

Correct all instances of ‘brother’ for the record. Prisoner 730004, why do you believe that Birgitta’s DNA relative is
dead?

We were told later that they discovered our urine and vomit in the crate. Only traces but it was enough to condemn him. I believe, though I am not sure, that it is considered a grave threat to the species to assist fugitives, so he was sent to the mass-scale farms. There the average survival span is six months, I have heard, though I am aware this would not qualify as a fact.

It is a myth, a foolish unscientific myth.

Of course. I am sorry. I have no clear understanding of our world. Just impressions, emotions. I believe, intuitively, that he is dead. And if not dead, then his condition cannot be worsened and I imagine death might even be a blessing to him. I have heard – again you will not regard this as a fact – that life on the mass-scale farms is so dreadful that some there stop eating even their scanty portions of food, to die more swiftly.

This is another irrelevant digression and a blatant untruth.

Of course, I understand.

Please continue with your account, Prisoner 730004.

We went along the tunnel which may not have been a tunnel for what seemed like hours. I had no clear notion of time as it was dark and I was also unsure if we were outside or inside. There was a heated wind gusting at my body. My arms and back were doused in sweat. I think I felt very hopeless then, as if I had made a mistake. We didn’t speak, I am sure of that. Our unknown guides led us at a relentless pace, and we needed all our energy to control our stiffened limbs. Birgitta was very hungry, though we had given her
most of our food. In thrall as we are to the demands of the body, it is a fact that we were ravenously hungry. We walked and walked and I thought I was too weak and weary to continue, but always the guides encouraged us along, and finally when my mood had sunk close to despair, we came to a boat. To the water. The sea. I had never seen the sea before and it was such a beautiful sight, such a vision of infinite vastness and natural power – though I knew the waters were polluted beyond redemption – that for a moment I was mesmerised and forgot everything else. It was dawn. The sea reflected the orange morning sun. The waves surged and rose, became full and white at their crests, foamed brilliantly and then crashed against the rocks. The water bubbled and churned. There was a deep roar, a sound I never thought I would hear on this planet. The air was full of the smell of salt and the wind made me breathless, as if my lungs could not hold much of this unprocessed air. And under the sound of the waves I could hear Birgitta’s mother weeping. Our guides were moving quickly, leading us onto a boat which rocked on the swell. I had naturally never been in a boat before and I remember feeling an acute sense – as we moved away from the shore – of the fragility of our vessel and the relentless force of the waves surging around us. The boat was just a small wooden fishing boat and one of our guides told us the summer was stormy and the seas unpredictable. ‘Ill-tempered,’ he called the ocean, I remember. Birgitta was very sick. A few of us were also leaning over the side to spill bile into the water. I do not know how long the journey took. I remember Birgitta’s mother holding her daughter, cradling Birgitta’s head and saying, ‘Peace my beautiful girl, peace my love,’ and I felt a great tearing pain and grief for the parents I had lost and the child I would never comfort in this way and I felt …

Prisoner 730004 on behalf of the Protectors I must remind you that such remarks are not required and you must confine your account to the basic details. Correct ‘parents’, ‘mother’, ‘daughter’ and ‘child’ as usual for the record. Continue, Prisoner 730004.

After a stormy crossing we arrived. The boat was dragged onto a sandy stony beach with mountains rising all above. There was grass on the lower slopes, and trees. Then the upper slopes were purplish, ancient rock, like something I had seen only in dreams. Our guides turned back as soon as they had unloaded our supplies. We had some basic food resources and some guns and ammunition. We had some fishing rods and some seed. It looked to me as if we would die quite quickly. I had no sense of how we could possibly survive.

How long ago was it that you came to this place?

I think it was some years ago. I measure it only by the passing of the seasons. And as you know the seasons are less clear now than in former days.

Prisoner 730004, the Protectors are curious about how precisely you built your community?

Through grave hardship and loss. The island was much changed. We had hoped we might live by fishing as our predecessors had done but the few fish remaining in the sea were gravely polluted and made us ill. Birgitta we thought must not eat them.

The myth of her pregnancy had continued among you?

Birgitta was burgeoning by the day. Her belly was an object
of wonder for us, even devotion. She was always tired, because there was so little food at first. We were about to starve when we learned how to take eggs from nests. That was a great advance. At least then Birgitta could get nourishment. That was how we thought during the summer. We thought if Birgitta and a couple of others survived then that would be an achievement. We ate the poisoned fish simply to quell hunger pains, but then we were sick – it was like fighting an addiction, ignoring the desperate promptings of our stomachs. We found abandoned houses and tried to repair them. We were fortunate in that respect – the houses had been fashioned to withstand the old Arctic winters, and though these severe temperatures have become a thing of the past, perhaps never to return, the houses were sturdy and we were comfortable in them. It was just the food. We were not short of water – the summers had become very warm and wet and we gathered rainwater and drank our fill. We were not thirsty. But hunger sapped our strength and nearly broke our morale. It ate our flesh until we were gaunt and ill. A diet of eggs and grasses, poisoned fish and rainwater is not enough to sustain the body. Gradually we learned to shoot and then sometimes we killed birds. On a few glorious occasions we shot a fox or two. But our fortunes only really changed once we had developed our farm.

And how did this happen?

As I mentioned before, our guides had left us with some sacks of seeds. At first we did not understand. Then we realised what we must do. The process was arduous and full of errors. A storm washed half our crops away. The birds took some of our seed. But gradually our vegetables grew.

That was a wonderful thing, to see how the earth could grow food. How it nourished us in the end, once we understood its workings a little better. In the season before the army came …

Correction, Protection Agents.

… we had grown enough food to be comfortable. We knew then that we would be able to stay there for the natural course of our lives. We knew these lives would be shorter than the span we might have expected in Darwin C. We would have no cell therapy, no gene readjustment. Our bodies would age naturally and sicken and die. But we were content with this. If I die tomorrow, then I am content. I would trade decades of life in Darwin C for a year of this life among the rocks. I think, though I cannot speak with any certainty, that the others would have agreed. Before Birgitta’s mother died she said as much.

Correct ‘mother’ for the record. How did this egg donor die?

She had been ill in Darwin C. She had been on cell therapy and so in deciding to go with Birgitta she had effectively sacrificed her life. We did not know this until the last days of her life. Finally she told us, and she said that she was so glad she had come. She wept, with Birgitta holding her and kissing her and crying onto her face. She died slowly and in pain. In Darwin C she would of course have had every medicine available and the Corporeal Scientists would have judiciously shortened her life at the point at which they deemed her no longer functional or worthy of resource use. We were more profligate and we fed her to the last and kept a fire burning in her house. By then it was winter and though the climate shift meant that this winter was not cold at all,

Birgitta’s poor dying mother …

Correction, egg donor.

… was convinced that she had returned to the winter fastness of her childhood and kept saying, ‘Keep the fires burning, don’t let the fires go out.’ Everyone who sat with her sweated and grew parched, but she believed the snows were driving against the windows, that the sea was frozen solid and that the roof was being rattled by icy blasts. She told us stories of trolls and berserks, the old mythical characters of her …

Prisoner 730004, do not insult the Protectors with these nonsensical digressions.

I am sorry. There is so much I remember. I remember Birgitta’s mother saying goodbye to her daughter, knowing that they would never meet again, and I felt such a sense of the depths of love passing between them and the beauty and sadness of this bond between parent and child, and how we have betrayed ourselves.

It is tedious to have to remind you again, on behalf of the Protectors, that such digressions are inappropriate. Correct ‘mother’, ‘daughter’, ‘parent’ and ‘child’ as usual for the record. How many of you deserted Darwin C?

I am afraid I cannot tell you.

You cannot or you will not?

I cannot because of the promise I made.

We are obliged to remind you for your own protection how very important it is that you co-operate with us.

I understand. But I am afraid I cannot tell you.

We hope you will see reason before it is too late. When did Birgitta’s egg donor die?

She died in the winter after we arrived. She never saw the birth of her grandchild.

Correction, progeny of the species. And, Prisoner, do not digress into these absurd fantasies.

I am sorry but I do not regard them as …

How many of your camp died?

Several in the early months. From starvation. We all denied ourselves food in order to feed Birgitta. We all went without. So some of us could not survive. The sacrifice was necessary.

Please do not call your species-threatening actions a sacrifice. That is a very grave offence and trivialises the efforts of all those working for species survival. Will you explain who the guides were?

I am afraid I do not know.

How can you not know?

We never knew their identities. We never saw their faces. I do not know where they came from and where they have gone.

Yet they supplied you with seed and guns?

Yes, they did.

How did they procure these things?

I do not know.

You did not ask?

No, I did not.

But did you not think it strange, that in a civilisation in which access to all resources is necessarily restricted, for the protection of the species, these guides of yours had acquired guns? And bullets? And seeds?

Everything was strange. It all seemed like a dream. The crate, sweaty and vile. The passageway or tunnel and my confusion about whether it was day or night. The incessant beating of the waves and the vision of a landscape I had never seen before but somehow recognised, and all the suspense of our crossing and the shock of our arrival. And so when our guides, who we knew only as our guides, unloaded the boxes I barely noticed what they contained and definitely didn’t consider the meaning of the objects. I was transfixed by the mountains and the vastness of the sky. I didn’t ask any questions.

Did anyone in your camp know anything about the guides?

I don’t think so.

But someone made contact with them?

Yes, perhaps someone did.

Is there anything else you can share with the Protectors about the identity of these guides?

I am afraid not. I know nothing else about them.

What did you do in this camp?

After the initial months when we were merely trying to survive, we settled into a rhythm, a very ancient rhythm I believe, of rising with the sun and going to sleep with the dusk, of passing the days collecting food and tending our crops and the evenings singing songs and telling stories. And in general we were preparing for the birth.

How were you preparing for this imaginary event?

We were trying to make Birgitta as strong as we could, so her body would withstand the trials of childbirth. Only one among us knew the true nature of these trials – Birgitta’s mother.

Correction, egg donor.

But she told us the body was grievously tested and Birgitta must be as strong and nourished as possible. So in the evenings we brought Birgitta presents – things we had found or made for her, extra foodstuffs, treats, and in turn she would show us the great roundness of her belly, the skin taut across the mound, the navel stretched and almost inverted, and we would take it in turns to place our hands upon it, and to feel the movements within. The sudden thrust of a foot. The probing exploration of a hand. Sometimes, a great ripple of the flesh as the miraculous cargo turned. Of course once these things had been commonplace but now they were to us a matter for great awe.

And you thought she was the ‘Magna Mater’, as you called it?