Читать книгу Original Syn - Beth Kander - Страница 10

Ere loves funerals. He doesn’t love death, of course. Death is an enemy that invades too often, too quickly—or worse yet, arrives early and lingers, killing members of his tribe brutally and slowly. But in Ere’s mind, funerals are to death as spring is to winter: one follows the other, completely usurping it. Where death is cold, funerals are warm. Ere loves the collective energy of so many people, so close to one another, forced to make room for one another. Hands brushing hands as the mourners pressed together to remember the individual now gone.

But the best thing about funerals is the other tribes that show up for them. Because other tribes arriving might mean, maybe just maybe, meeting a girl his own age.

A girl who might have a beautiful smile and soft skin. A girl who might somehow miraculously notice him before she noticed Cal. A girl who might be so weary and dusty from her journey, she might need to take off all her clothes and bathe in the stream before—

A rasping cough interrupts Ere’s fantasy, slicing into the slim slab of hope and filleting it into fine strands of familiar fear. The cough is his mother’s, and the sound makes his own throat tighten.

Ere looks around to see where she is and how she’s holding up It’s still early; after an unrelenting night of rain, a reluctant sunrise was finally yawning its way up, unfurling into a dull but expansive sky, heavy and low, the dull color of a dead tooth.

He can’t see his mother; there are too many people between them. The crowd clusters, speaking in hushed tones, waiting. Going up on his tip-toes, Ere scans the scene and finally spots her. Ruth’s hand covers her mouth, briefly; she drops it before anyone can see her suppress the brutal coughs. Ere notices, though.

Sensing his gaze, Ruth snaps her face toward her son and mouths: Stop worrying.

Ere nods, not completely relieved, but somewhat reassured. His mother is steel. She is Ruth Fell, unbreakable. She’ll be all right.

As he knocks a bit of dirt from his leather-clad foot, Ere’s thoughts drift back to the topic that has preoccupied him for the last several years now.

God, please, let there be girls. Or at least just one. No, two—two, God, if you’re listening! There have to be at least two girls, or Cal will make sure I’m overlooked…

Ere knows this isn’t what he should be worried about. He should be mourning the terrible loss of his great-uncle. But Howard was an old man and Ere is a young one, hungry to experience what the older generation took for granted. And seeing a girl might provide consolation at this difficult time. Was a little solace so wrong to hope for?

“There you are, runt.”

Cal elbows him, a friendly gesture that nearly knocks Ere off his feet. Rather than being irritated, Ere actually appreciates the familiar feeling in this strange setting. When Ere shoves him back, Cal doesn’t even wobble.

“See any girls yet?” Ere asks.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Cal snorts.

“So, no,” Ere says, disappointed and relieved.

Cal does not reply, eying the new arrivals to his tribe’s home with his standard distrust. Ere admires his cousin’s vigilance. Cal has what Ere’s mother proudly calls “a soldier’s mentality.” Ere just… doesn’t.

“You’d tell me if you saw some girls, right?” Ere yanks a few dark wiry hairs from Cal’s arm, a better tactic than his ineffective shove. “If there were two, you’d tell me, right?”

“Ow!” Cal says, swatting at Ere as if at a fly. “Why would I tell you? I could find ways to entertain two girls, all by myself.”

Ere rolls his eyes. “Let’s go over by my mother. The show’s just about to get started.”

“God in Heaven. Don’t call it a show.”

“Fine. The service.”

“And we’re not going to stand with your mother. She’s doing the story-song, remember?”

“Oh. Right.”

And then the funeral is underway. There is no formal call to worship, the service simply begins. A few elders start softly chanting an old prayer, and the sound moves through the crowd, each voice joining in as they hear the familiar words. When the first hymn ends, someone begins reciting a liturgy that all know by heart. Even the spoken prayers have a musicality to them; voices rise and blend, singing sentiments so strong and sincere the sound seems to radiate heat.

“Gone!” A woman moans, grief rising from her and pouring forth, a gush, a geyser.

Rather than interrupting the service, this seems to break it open, make it blossom into what it was always supposed to be. All of the other mourning hearts crack wider in response, as several other voices lift with hers, sobbing and soaring, together.

“Howard Fell is gone! He’s gone!”

Swept up in the emotion surrounding him, all other thoughts leave his head and Ere hears himself join in; the aching loss stops tearing at his edges, and instead cuts right through him.

“Howard Fell!” Ere wails along with the others. “Howard Fell!”

The keening cries rise up like a wave, crests, and gently rolls out like one. The sound slips back into the sea, receding, the crowd fading into a hushed silence. This is a collective confirmation that they are ready for the song of Howard’s life, which will be sung by his niece.

Peering between gaps of shoulders and elbows of the assembled crowd, Ere catches glimpses of his mother making her way to the front of the crowd. Formidable as she is, from far away and with so many people in between them, she seems so small.

Ruth Fell stands alone before the congregation. Closing her eyes, she hums, softly at first, and without lyrics; words will come when the music conjures them. All story-songs are wholly original: Originals sing them for one another, crafting them from memories, setting a life to melody. As is the tradition, before moving into the specifics of Howard’s unique story, Ruth begins with a shared song of the Original resistance, paying homage to the entire community, their collective experience; then the same melody transitions seamlessly into the individual lyrics for the lost loved one:

Standing here, I almost see

The girl I was, the crone I’ll be

Blessing of age, passing of time,

Teaching us all, profane and sublime

We will never relent, we will never rely

Thus we will live. And thus we will die.

Thus Howard Fell lived.

Thus Howard Fell died.

Howard Fell was born in 1962, in a city

Known then as Ann Arbor.

His father was Ernest Fell

His mother, Lila Golden Fell.

He had a brother—

Ere’s ears burn at the mention of Howard’s brother—his mother’s father. His grandfather.

He leans in, craving some scrap, a line of the story-song to shed light on his enigmatic patriarch. Maybe his mother will share something in the song; a name, something? He was Howard’s brother, after all. Surely, his mother will do more than acknowledge his existence; she’ll have to say something about Howard’s brother. But she doesn’t; she sings of Howard, as the day and the crowd demand:

They had a house the family lived in alone,

and a house of worship they shared

and houses of learning that brought together

many different communities of people.

Howard Fell was a student of many teachers,

and a teacher of many students.

He was serious and silly, brilliant and bold

And everyone dreaded the jokes that he told.

At this, a few elders laughed affectionately, wistfully. Howard really had been terrible at telling jokes. And so very fond of telling them anyway.

He loved tame dogs, and the cinema,

The symphony, and meals from other lands

He married his wife Sophie.

And they had six children

Before things took that dreadful turn

Before their world began to burn…

Ere hears it—a catch in his mother’s voice that no one else notices. He closes his eyes and aims his support and strength in her direction. He hears her go on, voice solid, tone pure.

Howard survived Sophie

and all of their six children.

He survived the rebellions.

He survived, he survived,

and he helped others survive.

He stayed and he prayed.

He fought and he taught.

He knew and he grew.

And here the eulogy becomes its own song, departing from the opening melody and abandoning any describable melodic pattern or key, soaring past structure, rising and falling and so musical as to lift the assembled into a higher sort of awareness, coming from someplace or Someone more ancient and omniscient than Ere’s powerful mother—

He fought and he taught.

He knew and he grew.

He stayed! He prayed!

He knew the Original strength.

He chose the Original way.

He kept us intact and he kept us in touch.

His blood stayed warm when the world went cold.

He kept moving forward, unafraid to grow old.

He lived to a hundred! A hundred years! A gift!

His life is a prayer, and he a soothsayer,

and together we say—

And together they said: Amen.

Story-songs, rhythmic remembrances shaped by fresh mourning, leave Ere breathless. They assault everyone with emotion, laying bare all the raw grief and love and fierce grit of their people. This story-song also triggers something else for Ere: a wild jealousy. He longs to know more about the fantastical details included in the lyrics, the world of tame dogs, cinemas and symphonies and exotic meals from other countries.

Before his mind began unraveling, Uncle Howard had described all of these things to him, in great detail. The aroma of curry, the bright colors of cultivated flower gardens, the feeling of silk. He found a way to convey what these things had been like. His memories were so strong, they were practically transmittable. He gave as much from his memory as he could, for as long as he could, to his sons, daughters, nieces, nephews, all of them.

Preserving joy, Howard told Ere and Cal, time and again, as he tantalized them with tales of a world now lost to them, is as important as preserving or destroying anything else.

The story-song concluded, Ere’s mother comes to stand with Cal and Ere. Cal steps aside, and Ruth stands between them. She stands erect, taller than Ere but shorter than Cal. Her eyes are rimmed red, but remain dry as sun-stretched linen. She won’t cry in front of anyone. But she trembles slightly, jaw tightening, and Ere knows she’s suppressing another coughing spell.

The memorial concludes with words from an ancient psalm. Shared at one time by many communities of people, it remains the Original’s prayer for the dead, always intoned in unison:

The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.

He causes me to lie down in green pastures.

He leads me beside still waters.

He restores my Soul…

Ere knows the words so well, he says them without thinking, his mind traveling instead back into his earlier fantasies as he scans his surroundings, searching for girls. He is taking in the small signs of mourning—the bowed heads, the stooped shoulders, the watery faraway eyes—when the thought occurs to him: someday, he would have a funeral.

…through the valley of the Shadow of Death,

I shall fear no evil, for You are with me,

Your rod and your staff…

How has this thought never occurred to him before? In his own short life, Ere has already attended dozens of funerals. But somehow, before this one, funerals always seemed reserved for others. Something from a world that ended before his own life began. Going to a foreign country, or hearing the symphony, or falling in love—these things do not exist for Ere the way they existed for his ancestors. There is no more path leading to the sort of life his great-uncle led.

…and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord…

It strikes Ere that unlike curry or cinemas, death was not something he would miss out on. His death is inevitable. Plain as anything, he suddenly sees that although he won’t get to walk the same paths as his ancestors, he’ll still reach the same damn destination. He’ll die. He’ll die, and his funeral will have the world’s most boring story-song—no; not even that. He won’t have a funeral.

No one will be left to mourn for him, because in all likelihood, he is the youngest not only in his tribe, but also in the entire Original world. Unless Cal outlives him, Ere will be the last of his kind. Ere can see it stretching ominously ahead of him, the whole horrible future, like a story he’s already been told.

…forever.

Beside him, unable to hold it back any longer, his mother begins coughing again.