Geoff Ryman - Child Garden

yours

hortensia patel

hey — i dont know your name — ill just give this to my little gal behind the door and see if she can get it to you

Smile, thought Milena. She makes me smile. Just like Rolfa did. ‘Jake, can you stay a moment?’ Milena asked. ‘I’m going to write an answer now.’ Jacob nodded yes. He sat in comfortable silence. The unvarying formulae were no longer necessary.

Milena wrote on the back of the card.

I don’t know how I stand being a Squidge, either. My name is Milena but for some reason, people have started to call me Ma. Thanks for letting me know. Tell Zoe I’m sorry.

Milena signed it, love. Jacob smiled with beatific approval and then left.

On the windowsill there was the great grey book. Milena reached forward for it and it seemed to dump itself in her lap. FOR AN AUDIENCE OF VIRUSES it said. Oh, Rolfa. What does that mean? Milena looked at the tiny, tiny notes cowering between the lines as if they were trying to hide. Most of them were in red, but whenever anyone was quoted, the notes were in black. What does that mean, Rolfa?

The Comedy and its mysteries were all that was left, all she had. Milena picked up the great grey book, put it under her arm, and went to visit the Zookeeper.

‘Well Ms Shibush,’ the Zookeeper said, his smile grim. He had a terrible cold. He spoke like a rusty hinge and his joints had swollen. ‘That was a day to remember.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered.

‘There has been a letter of protest from the Family. And we have responded with a letter of apology.’

‘She’s back home now,’ said Milena.

‘Ah,’ said the Zookeeper. He couldn’t turn his neck. It was as if everything about him were grinding to a halt. ‘Have we lost her music, then?’

‘They will stop her coming back to us. They blame us for making her so ill,’ said Milena.

‘Perhaps,’ said the Zookeeper, with a uncomfortable shift. ‘If so much virus was necessary, it is no bad tiling that she stays at home.’

‘We have destroyed her.’ Milena stated the worst possible case, as if saying it would make it untrue.

‘Then this has been a tragedy,’ said the Zookeeper.

No, it wasn’t.

‘We still have this,’ said Milena, and held up the Comedy.

‘It is not orchestrated,’ said the Zookeeper.

‘It can be orchestrated,’ said Milena.

His eyes narrowed. ‘You are not exactly in favour, Ms Shibush,’ he warned her.

‘I don’t matter,’ replied Milena.

The Minister’s gaze was watery, and he kept blinking. ‘How many hours of music is it?’

There were one hundred cantos lasting a half hour each. Milena had hummed them to herself. ‘Fifty hours,’ she replied.

‘Mozart’s entire oeuvre is longer,’ he said. ‘So is all of Wagner’s work, but not by much. Who could orchestrate 50 hours of someone else’s music?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Who could? Who would want to? How would they be paid? It’s impossible.’

‘No, it’s not,’ said Milena.

The gaze of the Minister, heavy as lead, was also weighted with warning. ‘It is impossible,’ he said again.

Milena had been holding back, holding in. It now seemed to her to be angry at what had happened, or to grieve too deeply, would somehow be ungrateful to life. She had learned newer, even higher standards of behaviour. Self-love would not let her slip.

‘I don’t remember much about being a child,’ said Milena the director. She spoke very calmly. ‘But I do remember that I could not catch any virus at all. That meant I knew nothing. I had to read to catch up. People tried to tell me there were no books. I found some. I read them, just to keep up with the other children. I read Plato when I was six years old. I read Chao Li Song when I was eight. I am telling you, sir, that it is never wise to say that anything is impossible.’

The Minister sat still for a moment, and then said, ‘We know about you, you know. We were wondering when you would show up.’

Milena the director’s mind went blank for a moment.

‘Doesn’t it strike you as strange that you were never Read? We knew you were resistant to the virus. That interested us. We wanted to see how you would turn out.’ The Minister sighed, and hid his eyes. ‘Go on then, Ms Shibush. Go on, and try.’ His hand came away from his eyes. Through the swollen flesh and teary film his eyes were full of wariness and sympathy and an assurance that she would fail. ‘Do what you can. I have no doubt that you have further surprises in store for us.’

Right.

‘Who?’ Milena asked. ‘Who at the Zoo can orchestrate music?’

Nothing is impossible.

Milena remembered looking out of the window of the Bulge at the Earth below. The sky was black, like velvet, and the Earth was like polished brass. It was sunset and the Earth reflected the fire. The sea was smooth and burnished, and the clouds were pink and orange, skimming the surface of the ocean. The cloud shadowed the sea, and the sea reflected the light that came from underneath the clouds. It was a network of light, a system of exchange.

The Bulge had docked, meeting its larger sister in space. Kissing, the procedure was called — two mouths were sealed together. There was a hiss of air.

‘Hello,’ said a voice just behind Milena.

Milena reared back from the window in surprise. She launched herself from the floor, and suddenly saw her feet rear up over her head. Why are they doing that? she wondered mildly. She somersaulted into flesh and bone. Someone’s elbows were rammed into her ribs. Milena reared up and over him. That’s the ceiling, she thought as she plunged into it. The ceiling was soft and warm, and gave with her weight, enveloping her in its chamois embrace. Then it flung her out, back down towards the floor.

This isn’t supposed to happen, she thought. I’m supposed to be trained for weightlessness. Then she remembered. The training was a virus. She had been resistant to that as well.

‘What do I do?’ she wailed.

‘There are holds. Grab them.’ said a man’s voice.

Milena whirled like a propellor. Her stomach seemed to be somewhere down around her ankles. ‘I’m terribly sorry!’ she cried. She was giddy and confused, the balance of her inner ear disrupted by weightlessness.

‘Oh,’ said the voice, calmly. ‘That’s OK.’

He didn’t understand. Milena had been apologising in advance.

‘I think I’m going to be sick!’ she wailed.

And the Milena who was remembering spun as well, through memory.

Milena remembered work.

She remembered going to an Estate in Deptford, the Samuel Pepys Estate, to try to sell a production of Love’s Labour’s Lost. The cast had set up their own small Estate, to do new plays. Milena remembered the ride in the water taxi. The day was grey and cold, without comfort. Milena remembered the tink-tink-tinkling of the tiny engine, and the tillerman who sang a song about lovers being parted. Why thought Milena, hunched against the river wind, why do songs always have to be about love?

She was met at Deptford docks by a very lean and smiling woman. The Pepys Estate grew Coral. ‘We call ourselves Reefers,’ said the woman.

She smiled sweetly and explained that the Estate did not want a production of Shakespeare, no matter how original. ‘We like to put on shows for ourselves, you know. A bit of singing, a bit of a laugh. We have got our centenary coming up though. If you could do us a new show about the history of growing Coral, that would be good.’

Milena paused for just a moment. It was as if she were trying to catch a handkerchief in the wind. If she didn’t snatch it right away, it would be lost. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘We’ll do it’