Ian McDonald - Desolation Road

“And do you love me more than life itself, Father?”

“I do, my little cherry pip, and that is why we are running away from these unkind people, because they would take me away from you and I could not bear that.”

“Nor could I, Father, I couldn’t not have you.”

“So we will be together, eh? Always.”

“Yes, Father. But tell me again, what is this place we are going to?”

“It is called Desolation Road, and it is so tiny and far away that it is known only because of the stories that have been told about it.”

“And that is where we are going?”

“Yes, kitten-bone, to the last place in the world. To this Desolation Road.”

Meredith Blue Mountain and his daughter, Ruthie, were quiet people. They were plain people, unremarkable people, unnoticeable people. In the third-class compartment of the slow Meridian-Belladonna cross-desert stopper they were invisible under piles of other people’s luggage, other people’s chickens, other people’s children, and other people. No one talked to them, no one asked if they could sit beside them or pile their luggage chickens children selves on top of them. When they got off at the tiny desert station, no one noticed for well over an hour that they were gone, and even then they could not remember what their travelling companions had looked like.

No one noticed them step off the train, no one saw them arrive in Desolation Road, not even Rajandra Das, the self-appointed station-master who greeted every train that arrived in his ramshackle station, no one noticed them enter the Bethlehem Ares Railroad/Hotel at twenty minutes of twenty. Then something very much like a sustained explosion of light filled the hotel and there, at the epicentre of the glare, was the most beautiful woman anyone had ever seen. Every man in the room had to swallow hard. Every woman fought an inexpressible need to sigh. A dozen hearts cracked down the middle and all the love flew out like larks and circled round the incredible being. It was as if God Himself had walked into the room.

Then the God-light went out and there was a blinking, eye-rubbing darkness. When vision was restored, everyone saw before them a small, very ordinary man and a young girl of about eight who was quite the plainest, drabbest creature anyone had ever seen. For it was the nature of Ruthie Blue Mountain, a girl of stunning ordinariness, to absorb like sunlight the beauty of everything around her and store it until she chose to release it, all at once, like a flashbulb of intense beauty. Then she would return again to dowdy anonymity, leaving behind her an afterimage in the heart of unutterable loss. This was Ruthie Blue Mountain’s first secret. Her second was that this was the way her father had created her in his genesis-bottle.

The remarkable goings-on in the B.A.R. were still talk as Meredith Blue Mountain and his daughter went up to see Dr. Alimantando. The great man was at work in his weather-room, filling the walls with illegible algebraic symbols in black charcoal.

“I am Meredith Blue Mountain and this is Ruthie, my daughter (here Ruthie bobbed and smiled the way her father had patiently rehearsed her in their hotel room). I am a livestock breeder from Marsaryt sadly misunder stood by his community. My daughter, she means more to me than anything but she needs shelter, she needs protection from cruel and hurtful people, for my daughter is alas a poor and simple creature, arrested at the mental age of five. So I am asking for shelter for myself and my poor daughter.” So pleaded Meredith Blue Mountain.

Dr. Alimantando wiped his glasses.

“My dear sir, I understand perfectly what it is to be misunderstood by one’s community and I can assure you that no one is ever turned away from Desolation Road. Poor, needy, persecuted, despairing, hungry, homeless, loveless, guilty, consumed by the past, there is a place for everyone here.” He consulted the master Five Hundred Year Plan on the weather-room wall, threatened by encroaching mathematics. “And your place is Plot 17, Cave 9. See Rael Mandella about tools for farming and Mr. Jericho about building a house. Until it’s built you can stay free of charge at the town hotel.” He handed Meredith Blue Mountain a scroll. “Documents of citizenship. Fill them out in your own time and return them to me or Persis Tatterdemalion. Now, don’t forget the two rules. Rule one is knock before you enter. Rule two is no shouting during the siesta. Keep those rules and you’ll be happy here.”

So Meredith Blue Mountain took his daughter and went to see Mr. Jericho, who promised a house in one week, with water, gas from the community methane plant, and electricity from the community solar plant; and Rael Mandella, who lent them a hoe, a spade, a mattock, an autoplanter and assorted seeds, tubers, rhizomes, cuttings and rootstocks. He also gave them some accelerated-growth cultures for pigs, goats, chickens and llamas from his stock of cells.

“Father, tell me, is this the place where we are going to stay forever?”

“It is, my little kitten-bone, it is.”

“It’s nice, but it’s a bit dry, isn’t it?”

“It is indeed.”

Ruthie did say some dumb and obvious things, but what could Meredith Blue Mountain expect from a girl with the mental age of a five-year-old? Anyway, he loved her dumb questions. He loved her devoted dependence and utter adoration, but sometimes he wished he had designed her with a higher I.Q.

On the first day of spring in the year Two, the Babooshka and Grandfather Haran were married under a cottonwood tree in Dr. Alimantando’s garden. The day was clear and crisp and blue, as befitted the first day of spring. But most days were clear and crisp and blue in Desolation Road. Dr. Alimantando officiated, Rael Mandella was best man, Eva Mandella and little Taasmin were attendants-of-honour, and Mikal Margolis willingly gave the bride away.

“You must give your dear mother away,” twittered the Babooshka on their only meeting since their arrival in Desolation Road.

“Me, Mother? Surely you could have found someone better?”

“I tried, Mishka, I tried, but it would not have been honourable for anyone but a son to give his dear, worn-out mother to be married. So you must give me away.”

Mikal Margolis had never been able to say no to his mother. He consented, despite Persis Tatterdemalion’s scorn at his weakness and his mother’s parting words to him.

“Oh, and don’t forget, Mishka, this is your mother’s special day and I don’t want it spoiled by having that cheap woman of easy virtue around, do you understand?”

So Persis Tatterdemalion was kept well to the back as Dr. Alimantando read the service. He had written it himself. He thought it sounded very well. Dr. Alimantando liked to think he had a good reading voice. After all the reading and the signing, the exchanging of rings and the crowning of the heads, there was the party.

It was the first party in the history of Desolation Road, and because of that, it was to be the best. Whole lambs were roasted over pits of glowing charcoal, trays of luocoum and stuffed dates circulated for the nibblesome, great vats of matoke and couscous steamed, and glasses of cool fruit punch eased the revellers’ throats. Sweets were tied with ribbons to the branches of the cottonwood tree, and the children jumped up and pulled them down. Limaal and Taasmin, little lithe monkeys of children, soon ate themselves sick on milk-candy angels. Blubbery Johnny Stalin, despite an advantage of age, pulled down none and whined disgustingly under a table for the rest of the afternoon.

When the first stars penetrated the dome of night, paper lanterns were lit in the trees and little cages containing live glowbeetles suspended from the branches. The children poked the beetles into activity with long straws, and it was as if a galaxy of soft green stars had fallen out of the moonring and caught in the branches of the trees. Then came the most wonderful event of the evening. Rajandra Das and Ed Gallacelli wheeled in the big wireless they had secretly built for the wedding out of one of Rael Mandella’s packing cases. Rajandra Das bowed lavishly and announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, happy couple, dear friends, let the dancing begin! Let the music play!”