I can tell how fascinated you were . . .
Certainly: the vacant disneyarium was a haunting frame for those lost, rainy landscapes. Giants strode the screen, lit by sunlite captured thru a lens when your grandfather’s grandfather, Archivist, was kicking in his natural womb. Time is the speed at which the past decays, but disneys enable a brief resurrection. Those since fallen buildings, those long-eroded faces: Your present, not we, is the true illusion, they seem to say. For fifty minutes, for the first time since my ascension, I forgot myself, utterly, ineluctably.
Only fifty minutes?
Hae-Joo’s handsony purred at a key scene, when the film’s eponymous book thief suffered some sort of seizure; his face, contorted above a plate of peas, froze. A panicky voice buzzed from Hae-Joo’s handsony; “It’s Xi-Li! I’m right outside! Let me in! A crisis!” Hae-Joo pressed the remo-key; a wedge of light slid over the empty seats as the disneyarium door opened. A student ran over, his face shiny with sweat, and saluted Hae-Joo. He delivered news that would unravel my life, again. Specifically, forty or fifty enforcers had stormed the Unanimity Faculty, arrested Professor Mephi, and were searching for us. Their orders were to capture Hae-Joo for interrogation and kill me on sight. Campus xits were manned by armed enforcers.
Do you remember your thoughts on hearing that?
No. I think, I did not think. My companion now xuded a grim authority that I realized had always been there. He glanced at his rolex and asked if Mr. Chang had been captured. Xi-Li, the messenger, reported that Mr. Chang was waiting in the basement ford park. The man I had known as Postgrad Hae-Joo Im, backdropped by a dead actor, playing a character scripted over a century ago, turned to me. “Sonmi~451, I am not xactly who I said I am.”
Sloosha’s Crossin’ an’ Ev’rythin’ After
Old Georgie’s path an’ mine crossed more times ’n I’m comfy mem’ryin’, an’ after I’m died, no sayin’ what that fangy devil won’t try an’ do to me . . . so gimme some mutton an’ I’ll tell you ’bout our first meetin’. A fat joocesome slice, nay, none o’ your burnt wafery off’rin’s . . .
Adam, my bro, an’ Pa ’n’ me was trekkin’ back from Honokaa Market on miry roads with a busted cart axle in draggly clothesies. Evenin’ catched us up early, so we tented on the southly bank o’ Sloosha’s Crossin’, ’cos Waipio River was furyin’ with days o’ hard rain an’ swollen by a spring tide. Sloosha’s was friendsome ground tho’ marshy, no un lived in the Waipio Valley ’cept for a mil’yun birds, that’s why we din’t camo our tent or pull cart or nothin’. Pa sent me huntin’ for tinder ’n’ firewood while he ’n’ Adam tented up.
Now, I’d got diresome hole-spew that day ’cos I’d ate a gammy dog leg in Honokaa, an’ I was squattin’ in a thicket o’ ironwood trees upgulch when sudd’nwise eyes on me, I felt ’em. “Who’s there?” I called, an’ the mufflin’ ferny swallowed my voice.
Oh, a darky spot you’re in, boy, murmed the mufflin’ ferny.
“Name y’self!” shouted I, tho’ not so loud. “I got my blade, I have!”
Right ’bove my head someun whisped, Name y’self, boy, is it Zachry the Brave or Zachry the Cowardy? Up I looked an’ sure ’nuff there was Old Georgie cross-leggin’ on a rottin’ ironwood tree, a slywise grinnin’ in his hungry eyes.
“I ain’t ’fraid o’ you!” I telled him, tho’ tell-it-true my voice was jus’ a duck fart in a hurrycane. Quakin’ inside I was when Old Georgie jumped off his branch an’ then what happened? He dis’peared in a blurry flurryin’, yay, b’hind me. Nothin’ there . . . ’cept for a plump lardbird snufflyin’ for grubs, jus’ askin’ for a pluckin ’n’ a spit! Well, I reck’ned Zachry the Brave’d faced down Old Georgie, yay, he’d gone off huntin’ cowardier vic’tries ’n me. I wanted to tell Pa ’n’ Adam ’bout my eerie adventurin’, but a yarnin’ is more delish with broke-de-mouth grinds, so hushly-hushly up I hoicked my leggin’s an’ I crept up on that meatsome feathery buggah . . . an’ I dived.
Mister Lardbird he slipped thru my fingers an’ skipped off, but I wasn’t givin’ up, nay, I chased him upstream thru bumpy ’n’ thorny thickets, spring-heelin’ dead branches ’n’ all, thorns scratched my face diresome, but see I’d got the chasin’ fever so I din’t notice the trees thinnin’ nor the Hiilawe Falls roarin’ nearer, not till I ran schnock into the pool clearin’ an’ giddied up a bunch o’ horses. Nay, not wild horses, these was horses decked in studded leather armor an’ on the Big Isle that means one thing only, yay, the Kona.
Ten–twelve of them painted savages was ’ready risin ’n’ reachin’ for their whips ’n’ blades, yellin’ war cries at me! Oh, now I legged it back downgulch the way I’d come, yay, the hunter was the hunted. The nearest Kona was runnin’ after me, others was leapin’ on their horses an’ laughin’ with the sport. Now panickin’ wings your foot but it muddies your thinkin’ too, so I rabbited back to Pa. I was only a niner so I jus’ followed my instinct without thinkin’ thru what’d happen.
I never got back to our tentin’ tho’, or I’d not be sittin’ here yarnin’ to you. Over a ropy root—Georgie’s foot maybe—I tripped ’n’ tumblied into a pit o’ dead leaves what hid me from the Kona hoofs thunderin’ over me. I stayed there, hearin’ them jagged shouts goin’ by, jus’ yards away runnin’ thru them trees . . . straight t’ward Sloosha’s. To Pa ’n’ Adam.
I creeped slywise ’n’ speedy, but late I was, yay, way too late. The Kona was circlin’ our camp, their bullwhips crackin’. Pa he’d got his ax swingin’ an’ my bro’d got his spiker, but the Kona was jus’ toyin’ with ’em. I stayed at the lip o’ the clearin’, see fear was pissin’ in my blood an’ I cudn’t go on. Crack! went a whip, an’ Pa ’n’ Adam was top-sied an’ lay wrigglyin’ like eels on the sand. The Kona chief, one sharky buggah, he got off his horse an’ walked splishin’ thru the shallows to Pa, smilin’ back at his painted bros, got out his blade an’ opened Pa’s throat ear to ear.
Nothin’ so ruby as Pa’s ribbonin’ blood I ever seen. The chief licked Pa’s blood off the steel.
Adam’d got the dead shock, his spunk was drained off. A painted buggah binded his heels ’n’ wrists an’ tossed my oldest bro over his saddle like a sack o’ taro, an’ others sivvied our camp for ironware ’n’ all an’ busted what they din’t take. The chief got back on his horse an’ turned ’n’ looked right at me . . . them eyes was Old Georgie’s eyes. Zachry the Cowardy, they said, you was born to be mine, see, why even fight me?
Did I prove him wrong? Stay put an’ sink my blade into a Kona neck? Follow ’em back to their camp an’ try ’n’ free Adam? Nay, Zachry the Brave Niner he snaky-snuck up a leafy hideynick to snivel ’n’ pray to Sonmi he’d not be catched ’n’ slaved too. Yay, that’s all I did. Oh, if I’d been Sonmi list’nin’, I’d o’ shooked my head digustly an’ crushed me like a straw bug.
Pa was still lyin ’n’ bobbin’ in the salt shallows when I sneaked back after night’d fallen; see, the river was calmin’ down now an’ the weather clearin’. Pa, who’d micked ’n’ biffed ’n’ loved me. Slipp’ry as cave fish, heavy as a cow, cold as stones, ev’ry drop o’ blood sucked off by the river. I cudn’t grief prop’ly yet nor nothin’, ev’rythin’ was jus’ too shock ’n’ horrorsome, see. Now Sloosha’s was six–seven up ’n’ down miles from Bony Shore, so I built a mound for Pa where he was. I cudn’t mem’ry the Abbess’s holy words ’cept Dear Sonmi, Who art amongst us, return this beloved soul to a valley womb, we beseech thee. So I said ’em, forded the Waipio, an’ trogged up the switchblade thru the night forest.