Marek Huberath: Nest of Worlds

“This will do.”

“Call me Edda. Dinner is in an hour. You’ll meet my husband and the other boarders. We all eat together.”

In light sport shoes, he fell on the sheet of ice that covered the porch and almost broke a tooth. He got up and knocked on the door. A formality, it wasn’t locked, and they could see him through the window. The others were waiting for him at the table; apparently he was the main attraction that evening.

Leo Eisler, R, was smaller and trimmer than Edda, but his hair was as red. When he lowered his head over his plate, his bald spot gleamed under the lightbulb, showing freckles.

Haifan Tonescu, B, and his wife, Gwenda, also B, were both sure of themselves and loud; they were obviously the important people here. They had the best apartment, on the first floor, with air-conditioning and their own little garden. Between them sat their two repulsive boys—both, ironically, flaming red. With the regularity of a clock, the older boy jabbed the younger with a finger, then made a face at him. When the parents were looking the other way, the younger, in revenge, would take some cottage cheese with his dirty hand and wipe it on the pants of the older. Then began the pinching and screaming.

There was also Hilgret, G, undistinguished, as gray as a mouse and as quiet. She rented one room.

A family of whites ate in the kitchen. In return for their food, they helped Edda with the household chores. They lived in the basement, under Haifan and Gwenda. Gavein saw them when he took his plate to the kitchen. The parents had hair that was practically gray, so they could have been assigned a higher social category. The arbitrary decision of some official had determined their fate for the next thirty-five years.

Both daughters, however, were fair-haired, with white eyelashes and pink complexions.

In Lavath this house would have belonged to them, he thought, looking at the woman, who was prematurely aged, stooped over, and at her toothless husband and emaciated girls.

Seeing him, they stood and presented themselves.

“Their future will be good,” he said quietly to the parents, indicating the daughters with a jut of his chin. Blacks didn’t converse with whites. That he spoke to them was a great courtesy.

“May they live to see it,” said the man. “It’s not that bad here. The family is kind to us,” he added quickly.

At the table, Edda was giving an account of the latest news:

“Even here, a lamp shook, the glasses rattled…”

“You exaggerate,” said her dour husband. “The lamps shake whenever a truck passes outside. And the glasses always rattle when the refrigerator motor goes on. The vibration travels along the kitchen counter.”

“We noticed nothing. It happened too far away for the concussion to reach us. No, impossible,” said Haifan, settling the debate. He was a physics teacher and black, so unquestionably a more reliable observer than the excitable, red Edda.

They were talking about an earthquake reported in the papers. The epicenter was in the southeast region of Davabel, beneath the shoreline or perhaps the ocean bed. Davabel sat on a continental plate, and even in the historical record no quake like this had ever been recorded. Seismic activity was possible only out in the ocean, but no one had conducted a study there.

Near the epicenter was the Division of Science, Davabel’s research facility. Some joked that the earth was sinking there and that soon the level of the facility’s buildings would equal the level of the work being carried out in them.

The mystery of the quake remained a mystery, and the conversation turned to other topics. Edda told of a fatal accident that befell a baker.

“He was on a bicycle, and a truck hit him.”

In Davabel, bicycles rode on the sidewalks. The baker had tried to cross the street at a pedestrian walkway.

“No one knows if the light was green or not, or whose fault it was.”

“And what was his name?” asked Leo.

“Bryce.”

“No, I mean his Name.”

“ Plosib . He told me once,” Gwenda spoke up. “You could check in the papers.”

Edda looked in the newspaper. Unfortunately, Gwenda was right, so Edda was unable to take her boarder down a notch.

“ Plosib … That tells the police nothing,” mused the all-knowing Haifan. “If the baker had been Murhred , then the driver of the truck would have been in trouble.”

“But if the baker had been a Sulled or a Myzzt , then the driver could rest easy,” Gwenda added. Stating the obvious reinforced her belief that she was intelligent.

Gavein noticed that at the mention of the Name Murhred , Edda flinched. Could that be Leo’s Name? Or even her own, Murhredda ? From Murhredda you might have the abbreviation Edda. He had never heard of a Significant Name being abbreviated, but the customs here were different.

Plosib meant “By man, but accidentally.” Murhred , on the other hand, meant “By man, intentionally.” Gavein was certain now that in Davabel the Significant Names were the same as in Lavath. Sulled was “By your own hand.” Myzzt was “By your brain,” and it was a Name of Man. The others belonged to the group of Names of Conflict.

Gavein’s Name was Aeriel , which meant “By air,” and it was a Name of Element. Ra Mahleiné’s was the same: Aeriella . She would sometimes joke that their being together lowered their life expectancy. They had ignored the coincidence, trusting to the capriciousness of fate.

In Lavath, not as in the other Lands, common names were based on animals, plants, objects. Many people were called Bharr—which was Bear—and Wildcat and Wolf were also popular.

“Gavein” was the snow tiger, the only predator that dared face the mighty white bear. Apparently, the two beasts never met: the tiger kept to the forest, the bear to the tundra. But these ancient rulers of northern Lavath were conquered: their territory was now covered with residential bunkers, and the few remaining specimens were kept in captivity. Gavein had never seen his shaggy namesake.

“Mahlein” was an old name, for manul. The prefix “Ra” meant the female of the species. Once, in a zoo, both saw a real manul. It was grave and dignified, with an owl’s round face and large, mournful eyes. It didn’t look at all like the merciless killer of tiny creatures in the taiga. Ra Mahleiné liked to go to the zoo and look at the curious animals there. She found it amazing that once they had lived in freedom.

“Is there a zoo nearby?” Gavein asked the people at the table, breaking the silence.

“In the Park of Culture, at the corner of 5400 Street and 5600 Avenue,” replied Leo. “But there’s not much to see there. An excellent zoo is at the center, on the corner of 5000 Street and 6000 Avenue.”

The conversation was interrupted by a noise at the door; the postman was fitting a magazine into the letter slot.

Edda opened the door and invited him to the table. He brought chill air with him, as if coming in out of a snowstorm. He was short, stocky, with a large circular head. He put his mailbag, stuffed with newspapers and letters, on the floor. He brushed all the snow from his tunic, getting some of it on the people at the table, and handed the tunic to the young Eisler.

In a crimson uniform that had red stripes and shoulder braids, and a badge that said Davabel Post Office, Division 5445660, Officer Maximé Hoffard, Max looked important.

He took a seat at the table, panting and groaning from the effort. He put his postman’s cap beside his plate. A thin wreath of white hair surrounded his shiny bald spot. He took out a handkerchief and with it wiped, ceremoniously, his wet bottle-thick glasses.