Kim Stanley Robinson - Forty Signs of Rain

The others all exclaimed, ‘ Jetsun Gyatso! ’

The old man bowed to them.

And then they all cried ‘ Om! ’ and filed into the little office space, the brassmen angling their long horns to make it in the door.

A young monk came back out. He took a small rectangular card from the loose sleeve of his robe, pulled some protective backing from sticky strips on the back of the card, and affixed it carefully to the window next to the door. Then he retreated inside.

Anna approached the window. The little sign said

EMBASSY OF KHEMBALUNG

An embassy! And a country she had never heard of, not that that was particularly surprising, new countries were popping up all the time, they were one of the UN’s favourite dispute-settlement strategies. Perhaps a deal had been cut in some troubled part of Asia, and this Khembalung created as a result.

But no matter where they were from, this was a strange place for an embassy. It was very far from Massachusetts Avenue’s ambassadorial stretch of unlikely architecture, unfamiliar flags and expensive landscaping; far from Georgetown, Dupont Circle, Adams-Morgan, Foggy Bottom, east Capitol Hill, or any of the other likely haunts for locating a respectable embassy. Not just Arlington, but the NSF building no less!

Maybe it was a scientific country.

Pleased at the thought, pleased to have something new in the building, Anna approached closer still. She tried to read some small print she saw at the bottom of the new sign.

The young man who had put out the sign reappeared. He had a round face, a shaved head, and a quick little mouth, like Betty Boop’s. His expressive black eyes met hers directly.

‘Can I help you?’ he said, in what sounded to her like an Indian accent.

‘Yes,’ Anna said. ‘I saw your arrival ceremony, and I was just curious. I was wondering where you all come from.’

‘Thank you for your interest,’ the youth said politely, ducking his head and smiling. ‘We are from Khembalung.’

‘Yes, I saw that, but …’

‘Ah. Our country is an island nation. We are living in the Bay of Bengal, near the mouth of the Ganges.’

‘I see,’ Anna said, surprised; she had thought they would be from somewhere in the Himalayas. ‘I hadn’t heard of it.’

‘It is not a big island. Nation status has been a recent development, you could say. Only now are we establishing a representation.’

‘Good idea. Although, to tell the truth, I’m surprised to see an embassy in here. I didn’t think of this as being the right kind of space.’

‘We chose it very carefully,’ the young monk said.

They regarded each other.

‘Well,’ Anna said, ‘very interesting. Good luck moving in. I’m glad you’re here.’

‘Thank you.’ Again he nodded.

Anna did the same and took her leave.

But as she turned to go, something caused her to look back. The young monk still stood there in the doorway, looking across at the pizza place, his face marked by a tiny grimace of distress.

Anna recognized the expression at once. When her older son Nick was born she had stayed home with him, and those first several months of his life were a kind of blur to her. She had missed her work, and doing it from home had not been possible. By the time maternity leave was over they had clearly needed her at the office, and so she had started working again, sharing the care of Nick with Charlie and some baby-sitters, and eventually a daycare centre in a building in Bethesda, near the Metro stop. At first Nick had cried furiously whenever she left for any reason, which she found excruciating; but then he had seemed to get used to it. And so did she, adjusting as everyone must to the small pains of the daily departure. It was just the way it was.

Then one day she had taken Nick down to the daycare centre – it was the routine by then – and he didn’t cry when she said good-bye, didn’t even seem to care or to notice. But for some reason she had paused to look back into the window of the place, and there on his face she saw a look of unhappy, stoical determination – determination not to cry, determination to get through another long lonely boring day – a look which on the face of a toddler was simply heartbreaking. It had pierced her like an arrow. She had cried out involuntarily, even started to rush back inside to take him in her arms and comfort him. Then she reconsidered how another goodbye would affect him, and with a horrible wrenching feeling, a sort of despair at all the world, she had left.

Now here was that very same look again, on the face of this young man. Anna stopped in her tracks, feeling again that stab from five years before. Who knew what had caused these people to come halfway around the world? Who knew what they had left behind?

She walked back over to him.

He saw her coming, composed his features. ‘Yes?’

‘If you want,’ she said, ‘later on, when it’s convenient, I could show you some of the good lunch spots in this neighbourhood. I’ve worked here a long time.’

‘Why, thank you,’ he said. ‘That would be most kind.’

‘Is there a particular day that would be good?’

‘Well – we will be getting hungry today,’ he said, and smiled. He had a sweet smile, not unlike Nick’s.

She smiled too, feeling pleased. ‘I’ll come back down at one o’clock and take you to a good one then, if you like.’

‘That would be most welcome. Very kind.’

She nodded. ‘At one, then,’ already recalibrating her work schedule for the day. The boxed sandwich could be stored in her office’s little refrigerator.

Anna completed her journey to the south elevators. Waiting there she was joined by Frank Vanderwal, one of her programme officers. They greeted each other, and she said, ‘Hey I’ve got an interesting jacket for you.’

He mock-rolled his eyes. ‘Is there any such thing for a burnt-out case like me?’

‘Oh I think so.’ She gestured back at the atrium. ‘Did you see our new neighbour? We lost the travel agency but gained an embassy, from a little country in Asia.’

‘An embassy, here?’

‘I’m not sure they know much about Washington.’

‘I see.’ Frank grinned his crooked grin, a completely different thing than the young monk’s sweet smile, sardonic and knowing. ‘Ambassadors from Shangri-La, eh?’ One of the UP arrows lit, and the elevator door next to it opened. ‘Well, we can use them.’

Primates in elevators.People stood in silence looking up at the lit numbers on the display console, as per custom.

Again the experience caused Frank Vanderwal to contemplate the nature of their species, in his usual sociobiologist’s mode. They were mammals, social primates: a kind of hairless chimp. Their bodies, brains, minds and societies had grown to their current state in east Africa over a period of about two million years, while the climate was shifting in such a way that forest cover was giving way to open savannah.

Much was explained by this. Naturally they were distressed to be trapped in a small moving box. No savannah experience could be compared to it. The closest analogue might have been crawling into a cave, no doubt behind a shaman carrying a torch, everyone filled with great awe and very possibly under the influence of psychotropic drugs and religious rituals. An earthquake during such a visit to the underworld would be about all the savannah mind could contrive as an explanation for a modern trip in an elevator. No wonder an uneasy silence reigned; they were in the presence of the sacred. And the last five thousand years of civilization had not been anywhere near enough time for any evolutionary adaptations to alter these mental reactions. They were still only good at the things they had been good at on the savannah.