Diana Pho - Steampunk World

“How wonderful,” she said. “How simply wonderful.”

After Fermi left, we finished the rest of what still needed to be done. We unfolded the canvas from its hiding place.

Good for flying , Auntie Bertha had said.

Slowly, we stretched the canvas over that bare frame. It was no longer a skeleton now.

My chest thrummed and I pressed the tips of my fingers to it.

“Well now,” I said. “I suppose we must try to get it to fly.”

There were voices upstairs and when I came into the living room, there was a man. A big man with a wild shock of hair. He had a beard the color of sand and a big nose and tears in his eyes.

“Fermi,” he said. “I came all this way. I even took the governor’s zeppelin.”

Ana stood with her back to him.

For the first time, I noticed the copper tone of Ana’s fingers. She did not tremble, but when she moved her head, I heard the creak of her gears and the stutter of her cogs.

“We won’t come with you,” Fermi said.

Her fingers were mottled red and white where they were tightly clasped around Ana's.

“Listen to me,” the big man said. “We can’t just pretend I didn’t see her. She has to go back. You shouldn’t have taken her with you, Fermi. You should have let things be.”

Fermi bared her teeth at the big man.

“What will you do, Jorge? Will you take us back as if we were your captives? I won’t let you, you know.”

Jorge sighed.

“Look,” he said. “She’s a machine and a faulty one at that. The governor wants her back.”

“I know what the governor wants her for,” Fermi said. “She won’t be taken apart, Jorge. Ana is Ana.”

Her voice reminded me of Auntie Bertha.

After a while, Jorge left. He dragged his left leg when he walked and left small scratches on the floor. I made a note of his path and later I sent Misa to polish away the marks of his passing.

I ignored the drone of the zeppelin’s engine. Jorge was not going away, and neither was his ship.

I watched Ana and in the shadow of that ship, it was impossible to miss all the tiny little things that passed me by when they were bathed in the light of their happiness.

Finally, it was time to test Aunt Bertha’s project. Sergio flung the doors of the workshop open. Behind the house there was an incline. The three of us set our hands to Aunt Bertha’s project and pushed.

The machine wasn’t that heavy and a breeze came up from behind and made it easier for us to push it upward.

“Wait.”

Fermi and Ana raced up from behind us.

“Where are you going?” Fermi said. “What are you doing?”

I stared at her and I stared at Ana.

I couldn’t miss it now.

The shadow of that ship stripped her of everything that made her seem slightly human.

“A machine,” I said. “Must do as it was created to do. This is Aunt Bertha’s project.”

“So you keep saying,” Fermi said.

Behind her, Ana made a sound.

“It’s a flying machine,” Fermi said again. “A flying machine. Do you understand what that is and what it can do?”

I stared into Fermi’s face—watched excitement bloom in her eyes.

In the diagrams she'd left behind, Aunt Bertha had explicitly stated how the project would reach its fruition.

I took off my gloves. I took off my boots. I prepared to take off my gown.

I stared at my paintbrush. I suppose I wasn’t really made to be a painter after all.

“Lina,” Fermi said. “What are you doing?”

“It’s the final stage of the project,” I said. “The machine won’t fly without an engine. It won’t rise without the mechanism Aunt Bertha put inside my chest.”

“But you don’t want to,” Fermi said. “You don’t want to leave, do you? You want to stay here in this place. You want to care for the house and for the others.”

I stopped.

Fermi’s voice rose in intensity and she pulled Ana in front of me.

“Listen to me,” Fermi went on. “You want to stay in this place, Lina. But Ana—Ana must fly.”

Ana gave a start and I watched as she turned to face Fermi.

“Look,” Fermi said. “I know you're frightened, Ana. But it’s the only way. We'll go. We'll go together you and I.”

Long after they left, I could still hear the sound of their passing.

Even in the shadow of the zeppelin, light floated all around them.

Naked and with the heart of her revealed, they were still suffused with light. Human and machine. Sun-browned flesh against copper bright metal.

Slowly, the rudder of the flying machine came to life. Ana’s sound, a high counterpoint against the background drone of the big zeppelin.

Sergio and Misa pushed, and for a moment, when they slid off the incline, it seemed like they wouldn’t make it. They wobbled slightly in the air, then a gust of wind pushed them upward, and gave them lift.

I kept on watching until the sound of her faded and they were nothing more than a speck on the horizon.

Aunt Bertha’s final project—it was finished.

I didn’t bother to open the windows or to air out the rooms. There was nothing left to do until we received instructions from the family.

I sat in the darkness of the living room and waited.

When Jorge came, he didn’t bother to knock. He simply came thumping up the stairs, dragging his leg on the floor and leaving scratches behind him.

“Where are they?” He said.

I looked at him and did not answer.

“Well,” he said. “Well. What will I say to them in the capital about this? Tell me that, you thing?”

I took his hand in mine and looked up at him.

Already, I could feel myself slowing down. The project was ended. I had done what I was supposed to do.

“I tried,” I said to him. “But no matter how I tried, I couldn’t capture that light.”

Of course, he didn’t understand.

He’s not like you and I.

But it’s all right. It’s all right. Someday, Fermi and Ana will return and when they do, perhaps it will be my turn to fly.

There is a story told in my village about the man who fell from the sky. The British also tell this tale in their history books, but it is a mere paragraph, and they invert the details.

In October 1884 I was a Yoruba translator for a British trading outpost. This man from the sky, we called him Budo. He was in the custody of the English, who questioned him. They tortured him with heat and with cold and with the blade, but they did not know what answers would satisfy. I know this because I carried their words to him, and his silence back to them. His manner was mild and deferent at all times, but they held him in isolation. For good reason they considered him dangerous. I will explain this later.

One afternoon while most of the English were sleeping a white man arrived at the gate demanding admission. One of the Sikh sentries told me he was a scout, and appeared bruised, half-naked and exhausted. He was too out of breath to speak, although he seemed keen to give his report. Kenton, the NCO of the military contingent, asked one of my brothers to bring water while he soothed the scout. The man took two gulps, splashed some on his face, then looked up at Kenton. He said one word.