The Cleft (6 page)

And she was, for she is still alive.

And the two lovely children, who I can say truthfully have been the best blessings of my life?

The girl, Lydia, is now much with her mother. How could she not have admired the elegant woman, so beautiful, that Julia had evolved into? Lydia goes to parties and – I don't know how much worse – with her mother. She announces she intends to make a great marriage. The boy is energetic, brave, full of manly games and feats and endurances – and everything we would expect of a Roman boy at his best. He wants to go into the army. He thinks perhaps he could be one of the Praetorian Guards. And why not? The Guard is made up of handsome young men like him.

It occurs to me that perhaps it may be said of me, ‘He gave three of his sons to die for the empire, he was a true Roman.' It will probably not be remembered that once I fancied myself as a serious historian.

The others stood around, staring. She saw that as they leaned and stared, restrained by knowing how they had hurt the other girl, their tubes were all
pointing at her, like a question. She wanted to get away; wanted to do what was natural to her, which was to slide into water and lose herself in it. She got up, conscious all the time that what she did was provoking the boys, and went to the banks of the river, where they had made a little bay and the water was shallow. She knelt in it and splashed, though this cold water was not like the balmy sea water she was used to. When she rose from the water and faced them, crowding there after her, she saw one of the great shell containers they had made. She picked one up, and they told her its name. They had made knives of the sharp shells: she learned that word too. They kept at her, saying sentences and words in that childish speech of theirs, while she replied to them, and they copied what she said, not for its sense but its sound.

Meanwhile, the two eagles had finished their meal and lifted off on those great wings, and gone back up to the mountain. The sun was going down. She was afraid, alone in this strange place, with these strangers …
People
was the word the Clefts used for themselves, but these must be people too, for every one had been born to a Cleft. She might herself have given birth to one of these staring Monsters … she knew she had made a Monster, snatched away from her as it appeared, put out to die, taken away by the great birds.

But they didn't die. None of them had died. Here
they all were, and like Clefts, except for those flat chests where nipples appeared, uselessly, and the bundles of tubes and balls there in front.

A shadow was creeping towards them from the mountain. She was becoming afraid, and she had not been until now. They were still crowding around her, and the need and hunger for her was so evident that again she did as some need inside her she knew nothing about was telling her. One after another she held those stiff tubes in her hand until they emptied themselves, and then just as she had been brought here by a need, now she had to leave … had to, and followed by them all, she walked towards the mountain. She did not run. Running was not what Clefts did. But it was a fast walk, propelled by fear. Of what? The Monsters – so close? The night – so near? She reached the foot of the mountain as dark came and it was a heavy dark, without a helping moon. She found what she needed, a cave, and there she sheltered. She did not sleep. Her mind was too full of thoughts, all new to her. Very early, in the dawn light, she left the cave, and saw that down in the valley no people were visible. They were inside those shelters they made of shining river reed.

As fast as she could, up the mountain she went, this girl who had scarcely taken more than a few steps together in her life, and to the top and past the great eagles, motionless and asleep on their tall rocks,
and down the other side, and reached the shore where her people were, lying about as they always were, singing a little, spreading out their long hair. They had scarcely noticed she had been away.

The Old Shes were all together on a big flat rock, their place. She saw as if for the first time those vast loose laps and dewlaps of flesh, enormous loose breasts, the big slack faces with eyes that seemed to see nothing, bodies half in, half out of the warm waves. She saw it all and disliked what she saw.

She had to tell them what had happened, and it was not that they didn't listen, they didn't seem able to take in what she said. Over the mountain were living the Monsters they had put out to die – that was the very first fact, and she might as well not have spoken at all. The younger Clefts were almost as bad, except a girl, one of those who had tried to tell the Old Shes about the Monsters' tubes, did hear her and wanted to know everything. These two girls were always together now, talking, speculating. In due time a babe was born – a Cleft. She knew and her friend knew that this babe was different, and they looked for signs of the difference. Nothing to see, but it was a restless, crying babe and it crawled and swam and then walked early.

This first babe born to the Clefts, with a Monster for a father, was, these two girls knew, different in its deepest nature. But saying this poses a question,
does it not? How did they know? What was so different in them that made it possible for them to know? Something had happened to these two Clefts, but they did not know what it was. All they knew was that when they talked together about the new babe, about the Monsters over the mountain, they were using language and ideas they could not share with anyone else on that shore.

The girl who had gone over the mountain, because she had been forced to by a new inner nature, was one of the Water Carers. She saw to it that the trickles of water that come down the cliffs were kept clean, and directed into a rocky pool made for that purpose. She was known as Water, but one day, summoned by the Old Shes for some task or other, she said, not having thought or planned it, ‘My name is Maire.' Which is what they called the half moon, before it became full moon. Her friend, the other girl, who was one of the Fish Catchers and, therefore, Fish, said, ‘And my name is Astre.' Which is what they called the brightest star at evening.

The Old Shes seemed annoyed, if they had actually heard what the girls said. As long as the young Clefts tended them and gave them food, they could call themselves what they liked – this was what the girls suspected was felt.

This kind of critical thought about the Old Shes
was new: so many new dangerous thoughts in their heads.

Maire thought a good deal about the Squirts over the mountain. She
felt
them as wanting her. It was not how she had handled their squirts that was in her mind: rather the hunger in their faces as they looked at her, a need that was like something pulling at her.

The new people in their valley thought of Maire. They had no memories of the very first Cleft they had killed, but they remembered Maire, and with longing. Sometimes they crept along the rocky hills above the old shore to catch a glimpse of the Clefts, but were afraid of being seen by them. All their thoughts of the Clefts were dark and troubling. The Clefts had the gift of making new people: they, the newest people, did not.

And then they were more and more troubled by their speech. The Clefts' speech was clearer and better. They tried to remember words used by Maire, and how she put them together. But they didn't know enough, they knew so little.

Perhaps she would come again?

Meanwhile, the eagles were not bringing them any new babies. This was because none had been born.

Next, Astre gave birth. It was a baby Monster and she and Maire, without talking about it, or planning, decided to take the babe over the mountain themselves.
The eagles were waiting as always on the Killing Rock but Astre wrapped the new babe in seaweed and Maire left her own new child, a Cleft, to be cared for by the others.

The two girls walked towards the mountain, slowly because Astre had recently given birth. An eagle was with them, flying just above their heads, and with its eyes always on the bundle in Astre's arms. The great wings were balanced there so as to make shadow that kept them shielded from the sun. Was this deliberate? It certainly seemed that the eagle was trying to protect them, or the baby. When they reached the mountain, the two sat down to rest while Astre fed the baby. This was the first and last time this babe was given its mother's milk. The eagle settled near, closing its wings with a slide of feathers on sleek feathers: the air reached them like a puff of cool wind.

Then, rested, Astre was ready to climb, and up they went, the eagle always just above them, to the top. There Maire put her arm round Astre, knowing what a shock it was, seeing the populated valley for the first time.

It was after midday. The tall slanting reed huts sent hard shadows across the grass to where the boys were at their various tasks. One of them saw the girls, shouted, and they all ran to where they could watch them descend. Down, down, they went, through the sharp rocks, the eagle always overhead.

When they had reached the level ground, the boys came crowding forward and as Maire remembered, their hungry need was in their eyes like a plea. Astre held the babe tight to her, and tried to smile as she walked forward, though she was trembling, and held tight to Maire. All around her now were the monstrous boys with their knotty bundles there in front of them. The babe was beginning to cry, inside its wraps of weeds. Astre threw away the weed and held out the baby for them all to see. This was why she and Maire had come, with the babe, but now she was about to say goodbye to it she felt bereft and alone. She did not remember before feeling this, though she had once given birth to a Monster, which had been put out on the Rock. One of these lads there, in front of her, could have been that abandoned babe. A lad came forward to take the baby, and Astre let it go. She was beginning to weep.

[This historian is allowing Astre tears, though none was ever recorded in any document we have.]

Because the baby was crying, milk ran from her breasts and she shielded them with her arms, feeling for the first time a need for concealment.

The lad with the baby went to the edge of the
forest and whistled. Now the baby was crying loudly. Soon a doe appeared, flicking her tail, and stood looking at them out of the trees. The lad went forward with the baby and laid it on the ground. The doe came and lay down near the babe. The doe licked the baby. He, for his part, did not know what to do. Astre, watching, cried even harder, seeing the doe's tenderness. The lad gently knelt by the couple, doe and baby, and pushed the babe's face close to the doe's teats. Still the babe cried – and then stopped. He was suckling while the doe licked and licked. The tiny hands were clutching at the doe's fur, and it was that which made Astre sink on to the great tree trunk and put her head in her hands. Maire sat by her, and held her. The babe suckled and was pleased, waving its little arms about, and the doe seemed pleased too. Then she rose, leaving the babe, and went to eat grass nearby.

The lad who had cared for the babe's need sat by Astre on the trunk and put his arm clumsily round her. It was noticeable that his delicacy with the baby was not repeated when he tried to caress Astre. Maire, seeing that Astre was well-supported, got up, touched one of the youths on his shoulder to turn him to her, and then held his squirt. The two copulated, standing. In the course of that afternoon and evening Maire copulated with them all. What I think we must imagine here is the flickering fast coupling of birds,
which we all may see when we go to our farms and estates as the warm weather comes.