Three Moments of an Explosion Read online

  I know they aren’t your hills. But look how the sunlight hits the orchard. You can see the paths where Sirath’s been walking. I think that’s his name. I’m not sure. The man as old as me, with hair as gray as my eyes. There aren’t many people around us here. Sometimes I hear a shout, though, and he looks up. I think it’s Sirath people call.

  Go ahead, eat. I won’t look. But do you see the rocks? By the overhang? Those gouges?

  Priests and priestesses and soldiers and slaves came from the city—I told you, it’s on the other side of the tower. A few months ago. They came with picks and took a whole slice out of the hill. The captain told me a new power was going to be born in the city, out of the mountain.

  I don’t remember his name. The captain’s or the idol’s, or if the idol was a he.

  Those are eagles. And those, there? Buzzards.

  A buzzard and an eagle loved each other. They hated each other but they loved each other too, and the eagle mounted the buzzard, and the buzzard laid an egg. And the buzzard didn’t sit on the egg because she was proud. And a dove came and said, “I’m such a fool, I must have lost this, my child.” She sat on the egg. “How much bigger my children are than I remember!” she said. “I can see the sea from up here.”

  Have you eaten? Will you eat?

  Please. Isn’t the smoke delicious? You mustn’t get sick.

  The sea’s forty miles east. I’ve never seen it. A trader came up the tower once—I don’t know why the soldiers let him—and he told me what the sea was. His daughter was riding on his back. She was a tiny thing, and I stared at her until she cried, and he bent up and down and said to her that he was a boat.

  So. The egg broke under the dove. What was inside was a bird feathered with things like mountains and iron. It beat its wings and snow came down. It called and a rainbow came out of its mouth, I think.

  Maybe you were there. Why won’t you speak? Have I been disrespectful?

  Will you not do anything? Everything’s just sitting there outside. That’s just the wind in the trees, in and out, up and down, that’s nothing. Sirath won’t pick his fruit today.

  It’s a long way down to the courtyard. Do you see the well? That fountain used to run. Water came out of the mouth of that animal. I could hear it, even up here. It was nice. But then one of the soldiers got drunk—oh, some years ago—and he knocked into it and it didn’t look like anything had changed but he must have bent its innards, because it never worked again.

  He wasn’t punished. There was no whipping. Perhaps his comrades covered for him. For a while mosquitoes bred in the last of the water. Now it’s just stones down there.

  I don’t mean “just” stones, I beg your pardon. Stones must be yours, back in your home, I think?

  You have nothing to say? I know those shifts are the light of the sun behind the clouds.

  You’re like a child. I don’t care if you’re finished or not. Look at your bitter face. I’m taking your smoke away. I have things to do. You aren’t the only thing in my day.

  Be alone then. Go on. Watch the day go then.

  Don’t look at me like that, it’s just a cloth. It’s dusty up here when the winds come—are they visiting you? Did you call them?

  Not my business. I just think your face should be clean.

  My hand’s steady even though you’re my enemy. Most people are afraid to do this, you know. They wouldn’t touch you.

  It’s nothing. Look at you: you should shine.

  I’m sorry about this morning. I’m not saying you didn’t provoke me but I shouldn’t have shouted. That’s all, we don’t need to make a whole story of it.

  You’re hardly my first prisoner of your kind. The soldiers of our city—it takes a lot to stop them. Your little place didn’t have a chance, and your people must know that.

  Because—I mean no disrespect, but hear me out—your realm’s small.

  You’re clean water, yes? Freshwater and full trees? Woods full of game? The streets of your city, yes?

  There are five rooms in this old tower. Spiral stairs for the height of a tree, then the mess, then there’s the armory, then three rooms like this, one on top of the other, swaying in the wind as you go up. All with heavy wooden doors that shake the walls when you slam them.

  This is the middle room. Both of the others are empty. The one below I sleep in. The one upstairs only has a bit of rubbish left in it.

  There’ve been times when none of them have had prisoners in them, and times when all three have been full. You can see the niches in the walls. Years ago—before those soldiers down there were even born—the city was rushing in all directions and eating up everything it came to, and taking hostages from everywhere. Our troops would sweep through a city, kill its defenders, take its tributes, lay down new laws, and then to make sure the citizens behaved, they’d take the likes of you.

  So downstairs there might’ve been the she-god or he-god of a city known for its woodwork, or a god of all babies. There was a lizard-headed fury upstairs, once, a god of war. No disrespect but he was better made than you. His wings were lapis and black on the gold. He had a mace in his right hand. He was crushing birds and bones with his left. Very fine, heavy work, lots of inlaid stones.

  I looked after him, too. Without favor or malice. I deserve to have that noted, that I do my job well. Don’t I light your fires every morning and every evening?

  Never mind what happened to him. His people—how could they fight when we had him? When their god of war was gone? So that city’s ours now.

  Can you feel your people? Can you feel them worshipping? Are they sad? Are they frantic? Are they afraid for you? Does the worship reach you?

  Look, down goes the sun again—someone else has that in hand, you see. Don’t tell any priests I said a word about any of this. Though no one should be angry with an old man for speculating. Down goes the sun again and it’s all shadows left, like giant blocks.

  How are you? Are you lonely? Or do you like to be alone?

  You don’t have to tell me anything.

  The thing is—don’t think me cruel, I’m just too old not to tell the truth—I look at you and I know what I see.

  You aren’t embarrassing. Your work isn’t good, though, either.

  Some of those we’ve had here, there’s no way I could even carry alone, and I was strong once. They were as tall as I, and the metal on them was thick, with too many gems to count.

  Now I’m not going to say we’ve had none cruder than you. Our forces took a village—the people who lived there called it a city but I’m sorry—some huts in the marsh by the dead forest. And the soldiers brought back their god here, to keep them quiet.

  I felt sorry for it. It was wood and clay about the size of my arm, and I could barely tell what it was, it was so worn. There may have been bronze on it once but that was gone. It looked at me with two little stub eyes of some green stone. I mean pebbles, polished pebbles. It could break your heart.

  They loved it, their poor swamp god. They loved it and I can tell you, I could tell, I knew, that they didn’t know what to do. Whether they should surrender and beg for their little god back, or whether they should keep on warring for it—because they were still fighting us from the dead trees, even with it gone, they had camps in that forest of useless ghosts.

  I fed it smoke as carefully as I do you. They surrendered, of course.

  Our priests handed it back. They weren’t disrespectful to it. Ugly thing. I hope it’s ruling its soggy patch, bringing its people fish.

  So I’m not going to tell you you’re the weakest I’ve guarded. I’ve tapped you with my nails. There’s thick-enough metal over your wood, a decent mix of gold. Those agates in your face are small but well cut. That ivory’s elegant.

  But you’re little, from a little place. I mean no disrespect. Are your people worshipping you? They can’t free you. It must be you’re supposed to do things like keep the canals clean. They must be very dirty now. I’m sorry. That worship must be snaggi
ng you.

  I’m telling you this so that you can tell the people lamenting in your temple.

  Send them dreams. Are those dreams you’re sending them, over there, going westward, or are they bats? Tell your people to surrender, to behave, to give tribute. It won’t be so bad. They can come and take you back.

  I know you’re kind. I’m grateful and you can’t stop me being so. I’ve been here a long time and I see you. I’m sure you’re austere and jealous too but I see you being kind to me. You don’t have to say a word. You’re a good god.

  The soldiers talk to me sometimes, they aren’t bad. Sometimes we sit up together and they ask me about who was here before, and tell me what’s happening in the city. I cook their food and pour their wine, and sometimes they let me have a bit, diluted with milk or water.

  I think if I left the tower and my feet touched the ground—which they know is forbidden—some of them would be unhappy to have to follow their instructions. I don’t say they’d cry but I think they might say something like “Old slave! Why would you do that? Now look!” or “Old man! I regret this!” And then if they put piles of rocks over me after, or tipped me into a gully, they might say something rueful. Maybe they’d be upset, I don’t know.

  Maybe they’d say, “Was he unhappy?” I talk about old sadnesses sometimes—no matter how often you say to yourself, “No, this is yours, keep this, they needn’t know, no one cares about your miseries,” it’s hard to say nothing. So some of them might say, “He had a child once and the child’s gone.” They might say, “He carried something with him, poor slave.”

  They’ll talk about how a man was taken when he was very young and had a tiny baby and a wife, when everything was starting. Taken from a place that called itself a city so it could have a god, and that its little god was taken with him, it as a hostage, he as a slave.

  They’d have to report to the city that the jailer was dead—I don’t like that word any more than you, but it’s what they call me, when they don’t call me slave. They’d have to wait here and perform my duties until a replacement was sent.

  Oh, you should hope that doesn’t happen! I can’t help thinking of those rough young men polishing you, or burning your incense. Oh, woeful! I can’t help laughing.

  You don’t need to look at me like that. I’ve no intention of walking out into the dirt, no matter that I’m tired.

  You are kind. I see it in the cast of your eye. I see how wistful you are when you watch the sky. Is that a weapon you hold, or a crook to snag animals? Is it a pole to feel the depth of a stream?

  There’s lemon-peel wrapped around the wood. It may spit, but I hope you like it.

  Goodnight, god.

  I could take weapons from the armory, but what would I do? There’s no getting past the soldiers. And they’re my countrymen now, I suppose.

  Officers come sometimes, from the city. And priests and oracles. Not very often, but when they have new hostages to jail, or sometimes to mark a ceremony or anniversary. They all sing, they go, luh lah, cayya luh lah, and so on. I could have learned the tune a long time ago, it’s almost always the same song. I choose not to learn it. I’m not called on to sing. It amuses me to watch the soldiers rumbling away.

  Once a high priestess and priest came and sang a different song. It was hot, for all the clouds and the storms. I was nearly as wet as them, even stuck under this roof, I was gushing with sweat as I followed them. They were old, older then than I am now, and he was bruised and had scabs on his arms and legs and she breathed hard, but they came quickly up the stone stairs to the captain.

  They talked in the armory. I brought them wine and moved slowly so I could listen. The holies were thoughtful and grim. The priestess kept her eyes on the storm.

  “We’ll get them,” she said.

  “They took all of them?” the captain said. She said nothing so the priest hesitated and nodded.

  “They fight well,” he said.

  We were at war again. A small war against a fading port. Our battalions had stormed down the river and along the coast. But our enemies had sent their own men, in disguise, into our city. They killed the guards and godnapped our gods.

  “Is that why all this shit?” the captain said, pointing out of the window at the hot rain. The old priest rubbed his eyes and hit the table with his fist. The priestess bared her teeth.

  Was I alarmed? I don’t think any more than a little. Our gods are well-guarded, though, our soldiers well-trained, our city fortified. I was surprised anyone had been able to take them.

  Mostly I was curious. What would happen? All of them? The Queen of the Gods, the Great Farmer, the Clearer of Filth, the Soldier with the Whip, the Moon? They were all gone? That had to be bad. The Spirit of the City was gone? Without them, how could our soldiers fight? But they must fight, I thought. Would they be able to get our gods free? Would they negotiate? Pay ransom?

  “Bastards,” the priestess said. “Bastards and sons of bastards.” She sang a song I hadn’t heard before and haven’t heard since.

  The rain didn’t stop for twenty days. It ruined the crops. It sent a farmhouse sliding down the slope of the hill, taking the whole family with it but for a baby who was left squalling under a tree where her cot wedged.

  I didn’t see that: it was on the side where there are no windows. I heard the soldiers talking about it before they left for war. They checked their spears and their armor. They were relieved by an untrained group who didn’t know what they were doing and made a terrible mess. The wood they gathered was green and too young to burn.

  Then the captain of the relief after that told me about working in our city’s temple just before coming here, about how proud he’d been to serve in the presence of our gods. So I learned we had them back. I don’t know what our city, where I’ve never been, did to retrieve them.

  The old priest came back once. At the end of that year it was he who came to wish winter away and sing the usual song to the soldiers who stood shivering in the courtyard. I stood at the corner of the window in the lowest of the cells and watched them.

  The priest was nodding as he sang. I remembered his anger. I remembered when his companion said, “Bastards,” and I realized I didn’t know if she meant the godnappers, or the gods who’d let themselves be taken, who’d let everyone down.

  Here: you have a smudge on your chin. There. And let me turn you so the sun isn’t in your eyes.

  I’m sorry I’m not very talkative. I dreamed of my family, of quiet. It was a good dream.

  Was that you?

  If it had been up to me I’d have taken you to the uppermost cell. I could clear the rubbish out from the alcove—it wouldn’t take long, I should have done it years ago—and put you there.

  One of the soldiers here is very young and very boastful. I see him in the courtyard challenging all his comrades to wrestling matches. He’s beaten at least one time in three and whenever he is he blusters and complains and insists that there was cheating and that he won, really. He has no malice and they like him, and I do too. Sometimes I do little things for him. Anyway, he told me the war’s over. This last war.

  “There’ll be people coming soon,” he said. “We beat the other city and that’s just that. Just as I was getting ready to fight, too.”

  I’m telling you because I’ve seen the sadness in your gold eyes and I don’t think you deserve it, though you’re the god of my city’s enemies. So I want you to know that you’ll be going home soon.

  The war’s over, and we won. There’s no shame in it. The city always wins and almost always will. Your people are coming, so they must have paid ransom.

  I hope they did.

  It’s nothing, you shouldn’t worry at all. Don’t pay me attention.

  There was a time we destroyed the hostages.

  Everyone agrees it was a terrible thing, so don’t look like that, I beg you. No one would do it now. That war god I told you about? He was broken apart.

  It was a bad king who ordered that
done, because he was angry with our enemies. Yes, it worked, it crushed them, but it was shameful.

  I see you aren’t afraid. You impress me.

  I’m alright. You don’t need to worry about me, not at all.

  It’s been good to know you. You’ve been an interesting guest. I know: prisoner. But let me consider you my guest? I’ll be sorry when you go.

  If I look a little sad, it’s just that there are so many questions I should’ve asked, and I don’t know how long we have now. I want to know about your family and your city. Your people, who worship you. Who are coming.

  Why do you look sadder?

  You’ll be back with them soon. Don’t you hear me?

  You do. Shall I cover your eyes? Will you send bats to tell your worshippers where we are? Where you are, with me to talk to you?

  This is the best wood I have. I’ve put all the perfume I have on it, and I’ve shaved it into little slivers as best I could with these old fingers. Aren’t you enjoying it?

  You know, it occurred to me—I have to say this quietly, and I shouldn’t say it at all, which is why I have to whisper it into your metal ear—that maybe that soldier heard wrong. Maybe our city lost. Maybe your priests will come and kill the men downstairs and set you free and carry you back to your city on their shoulders in triumph.

  I don’t know if they’d consider me your enemy. Don’t worry. I’m not worried.

  But it doesn’t seem likely. My city’s armies are stronger, the gods are bigger and heavier and made of more gold.

  And even if that is what’s happened, that doesn’t cheer you, does it?

  God why are you so sad? There was a little boy whose spirit ate the bones of his neighbors while he slept. Shall I tell you a story? Will you tell me stories? How do you rush across the valleys? When you fly is it with the slow strokes of a heron? Do you scatter farms with blood? How do the hunters of your city honor you?

  Oh you must remember the Washing of the Mouth! When one minute this was wood and gold, and then it was you. Do you remember, these eyes for you to see with, these hands, this staff you carry. When the people made you?