Sofia Samatar - A Stranger in Olondria

At length I blew out the candle and slept, but did not dream of the girl, as I had hoped I would; she had fled with the tiny light of the candle. I dreamed instead of the sea, raging, crushing our fragile boat, drowning the spices, splintering planks and bones with its roaring hands… And then of the monkey, leaping from tree to tree, weighing down the branches. The way it looked over its shoulder, the way its tail hung, teeming with lice. And last of all the courtyard, patches of sunlight, the sound of hurried footsteps, closer now, the sound of breath. Jevick . My mother’s voice.

Bain, the Gilded House, the Incomparable City, splits the southern beaches with the glinting of her domes. On either side the sands stretch out, pale, immaculate, marked with graceful palms whose slender figures give no shade. Those sands, lashed by rain in the winter, sun-glazed in the summer, give the coast the look of a girl in white, the Olondrian color of mourning. Yet as one approaches the harbor this illusion is stripped away: the city asserts itself, Bain the exuberant, the exultant. And the vastness of the harbor mouth with its ancient walls of stone, with its seemingly endless array of ships, blocks out the southern sands.

From this raucous, magnificent port the Olondrian fleet once set out, adorned with scarlet flags, to conquer the land of Evmeni; from this port, ever since the most ancient times, “before the Beginning of Time,” long merchant ships have embarked for the rivers, for apples, for purple, for gold. Still they come, laden with copper and porphyry from Kestenya, with linen and cork from Evmeni, with the fruits of the Balinfeil, ships that have sailed north as far as the herring markets of the Brogyar country and south as far as the jewels of the sea, as far as Tinimavet. Here they gather, so many that the sea itself is a city, with rope bridges thrown between ships so that sailors can visit one another, with the constant blasts of the brass horns worn in the belts of the harbor officials, the sinsavli weaving among the ships in their low yolk-colored boats. “Forward!” they cry. “Back! You, to the left, a curse on your eyes!” And before them, around them, rises that other city: a glittering mosaic of wind towers, terraces, flights of whitewashed steps, cramped balconies and shadows hinting at gardens of oleander.

Bain is, of course, the name of the Olondrian god of wine, whose eyes are “painted like sunflowers,” who plays the sacred bone flute. “Come before him with honey,” exhorts the Book of Mysteries, “with fruits of the vine both white and red, with dates, with succulent figs.” Perhaps it was the presence of this strange god with the ruddy cheeks, who bewilders men with his holy fog, that dazzled my eyes and brain—for though I thrust myself against the rails and gulped the air, though I looked wildly about me, staring as if to devour the harbor, my first few hours in Bain—and indeed, the whole of that first day—I dwelt in a cloud pierced now and then by images like sunbeams. There was the great neighborhood of ships, most of them almond-shaped, blue and white, the Olondrian river boats with their cargoes of melons; there were the shouts, the clankings, the joyous, frenzied activity as we made our way to the bustling quay and the gangplank rattled down; there was the heat, the brilliance of the light, the high white buildings, the shaking of my legs as I stood at last on the quay, on land, the way the stone seemed to roll beneath my feet, the shifting trees, and the sudden, magical presence of what seemed more than a hundred horses. Olondrians love these noble beasts and harness them to carriages, and the city of Bain is full of them—their lively, quivering noses, the ammoniac smell of their hides, their braided manes, their glittering trappings, the clop of their hooves, and the piles of their dung steaming on the cobblestones. My fellow Kideti merchants and I disembarked under jostling umbrellas with our clusters of servants and porters, eyeing the carriages anxiously, and at once a number of slit-eyed, disheveled youths with leather knapsacks descended on us, crying out “ Apkanat ,” the Kideti word for “interpreter.” One of them clutched my arm: “ Apkanat! ” he said eagerly, pointing to himself and breathing garlic into my face. When I shook my head and told him in Olondrian, “There is no need,” he raised his eyebrows and grinned, showing a set of narrow teeth. For a moment there was the vivid sight of his black, greasy curls, his head against the blinding white of the sunlit wall behind him—then he was gone, bounding toward the others of his mercenary trade who crowded around the gangplank, shouting.

The success of our journey lay entirely in the hands of Sten, who seemed immune to the charms of that exotic capital. While I stood gazing stupefied at the towers, the glazed windows, he arranged for one of the large open wagons to carry us and our merchandise. When he plucked at my sleeve I followed him numbly and climbed the wooden steps into the wagon where my fourteen servants crouched among sacks of pepper. The wagon driver leaped into his seat and snapped the reins on the backs of his horses. “Ha!” he cried, and the tall vehicle lurched into life. I came sharply out of my daze for a moment, long enough to gasp, long enough to think, now it is true, we are leaving the harbor, long enough to turn and look back at the elegant Ardonyi , floating against the quay, her gangplank thronged with interpreters. Another ship was unloading fruit; the air reeked of oranges. In the crowd I made out the Tinimaveti woman: she was arguing with the interpreters. And there, being borne away on a sort of litter, the sick girl with the coppery hair…

The wagon turned a corner and the ship disappeared from view. The harbor receded after it, shrinking between the walls of the buildings. Sten, sitting at my side, neat, drab, and unruffled as ever, touched my knee. “Ekawi, you will soon be able to rest. Your father always frequented a particular hotel, not far from the harbor and also conveniently near the spice markets. I hope that it will suit you as well. The price is not overly high, and nearby there are smaller inns, very cheap and, I think, ideal for the men…”

I stared at him and muttered: “Of course, of course.” His face was the same, dark, triangular, with the pale scar over one eye; yet it was framed by the passing white walls, the walls of the city of Bain with their wrought-iron gates, their carved doors crowned with amaranths. We rattled under narrow stone bridges connecting these high, solemn buildings, raised walkways with curved parapets above the echoing street, we passed under balconies trailing languid white and indigo flowers, through sunlight and abrupt shadows cast in that stone-paved passageway. With a shock that came over me as a physical chill, making me feel faint, I recognized the moment in which the imagined becomes visible. For these were the streets, despite their carefully cultivated blossoms, of which Fodra had written: “There it is autumn, and always deserted.” The old iron gates were eaten by rust, the walls streaked with green moisture, the buildings encircled by empty alleys too narrow for carriages; these were the streets which that doomed, exalted, asthmatic youth from the Salt Coast, whose poetry seduced a nation, called “the unbearable quarters.” “ O streets of my city ,” I whispered, “ with your walls like faded tapestries .” Sten glanced at me swiftly with a trace of alarm in his eyes. I clutched the rough material of the sacks on either side of me and breathed the hot, dry, scented air of the passageway. Eternal city of Bain! We turned a corner, the street went on, we burst into a secluded square with walls of rose-colored stone; a flock of swallows, disturbed by the wagon, lifted into the air; and the statue of a young girl watched us go by, her arms stretched out.