And they are not going to break me.
Milena did not go back to her chilly room. She walked on, up the stairs, to the upper floor of the Zoo.
Out of the silence, into the silence.
She was going to talk to the Minister, before time.
‘Oh yes, Ms Shibush,’ said the sleek young man, smiling. ‘I’ll go ask.’ He went through a door.
Milena sat down. A row of Postpersons sat next to her, staring ahead with expressions of perfect peace. Lined up like Buddhas in a temple. Their conscious minds were fully occupied with the records of the Zoo. But what of underneath? thought Milena.
Her legs jiggled up and down with nerves. Heather had reached the end of Volume One, the only one that Marx had finished himself. She was fighting against the ending, reading notes and appendices, reading quotes in their original language. She was re-reading the prefaces to all the different editions. It was as if she would the when she finished.
I am ready to welcome scientific criticism.
I don’t really know you, Heather, thought Milena, I only know a virus. You may have loved, you may have been happy.
As far as the prejudices of what is termed public opinion, to which I have never made any concession…
You were dedicated. You were formidable. You gave your life away. Do your motives matter?
…I shall continue to guide myself by the maxim of the great Florentine:
Sequi il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti.
Follow your own bent, no matter what people say.
Marx quoting Dante. Heather went on to read the next preface.
As Heather read, Milena thought of Rolfa and the wellspring of music in her, and of the paper from the Vampires, and of what she was going to say to the Minister, and she found that she had no idea.
‘I’m tired,’ she said aloud.
Marx could not enjoy the pleasure of preparing this third edition for the press.
The sleek young man came out again, asked one of the Postpeople to go in, and said to Milena, ‘A few minutes, Ms Shibush. Are you thirsty? Can I get you something?’
So I am in favour, Milena thought, but the thought was bleak. The young man tried to engage her in conversation. It was his job to know what was going on. His combed-back chestnut hair and his busy black and orange shirt all annoyed Milena. His spectacles annoyed Milena; spectacles were a Vampire affectation. Behind the flat resin lenses were the goggle-eyes of a cornea regrowth.
Milena answered his questions with yes or a no, or a yo — a Vampire answer that could mean sometimes or maybe. Yes, she was an actress. Yes, the music was very good. Was she friends with the composer? Yo.
A door opened and the Minister himself asked Milena to come in. Milena followed him into his room.
That mighty thinker…
He slept there. His bed was behind a screen that was painted with green streaks to represent reeds by a river. The walls were covered in cloth that was also decorated with reeds, and a large black sketch of a heron. There was a picture of Marx on the wall. Milena looked at the eyes. They would have been brown and soft. There was a picture of Mao at 25, and of Chao Li Song, the hero of the Second Revolution.
The Minister wore khaki trousers and a khaki shirt. He was a very handsome man of Chinese extraction, with neat black hair, a neat smile, a neat moustache. Milena liked him. There was something informal and direct about him. He had an air of competence and balanced openness, the product of Party training. Was that a virus too?
‘Do you mind if my Postperson stays with us?’ the Minister asked Milena. ‘I like to keep accurate records.’
The Postperson was a woman. She sat on a tiny chair, with her knees pressed together. Her head was wrapped in a kerchief. ‘That’s fine,’ murmured Milena. The Minister held out a hand for her to sit on a large, upholstered chair.
… died on March 14, 1883.
As Milena settled into it, she felt herself enfolded and cushioned by something else, something that supported her and made the room go still.
Like an ear clearing of air pressure or an infection, her mind was suddenly quiet. Heather was gone. Milena was well. There was a hush all around her like a pond.
Outside the big window, everything was blue and hazy. The last of summer, the first of autumn, a jumble of old buildings. Milena could hear voices and horses’ hooves below, as life was made and unmade in ignorance of what was going on behind this one high pane of glass on the top floor of the Zoo. The window was shaded, its frame was supported, by bamboo.
And Milena remembered. The bamboo reminded her of something.
Ice cream sticks.
She remembered that ice cream had come on little bamboo sticks. She saw the bamboo sticks very clearly. They were in sunlight, on a table. There were children with her, little girls, and they were laying out their bamboo sticks to make a picture. They were making a picture of a house.
Milena was making a window.
She saw it so clearly, it was as if the table, with the sticks, was just around some corner, to be found again.
Memory.
Milena heard footsteps in the corridor below. Very slowly, her attention turned to what was around her. She heard a hissing. It was the hissing of molecules of air against her eardrums. Milena was in the silence.
In the silence, nothing was fragmented. There were no separate strands to gather together, to fumble, to compete for attention. In the silence, all of that fell away, and there was only what was here, and what was to be done.
It was as if she, Milena, had finally come into the room and sat down beside her.
‘I am told that you have been missing performances, Ms Shibush.’
Milena saw no reason to reply. Zookeeper.
‘That cannot help your career,’ the Minister said, gently.
‘Nothing could help my career. I am a very bad actress,’ said Milena.
His eyebrows rose and he shifted in his chair and smiled, amused.
‘What do you think of Ms Patel’s music?’ asked Milena.
‘Personally,’ he said, ‘I thought it showed promise. But what I think is of little importance. It may surprise you to learn that we consulted the Consensus on this matter.’
Nothing seemed to surprise Milena. ‘And?’
‘The Consensus is an extraordinarily accurate predictor of the success or failure of an artistic endeavour. It had a complicated response to Ms Patel’s music. But then all its reactions are complicated. It has all of us inside it.’
But not me, thought Milena. It does not have me.
‘Essentially, it liked it, but its more musically adept personalities registered concern over the roughness of what was shown.’
‘Not surprising,’ said Milena. ‘They were shown what Jacob and I could remember of the pieces. They need work.’
‘Exactly,’ said the Minister. ‘There were other problems.’
Milena waited. There was a silence. The Minister’s smile widened and he chuckled. He was beginning to find the interview disconcerting.
‘There does seem to be a balance in life. We have gained in knowledge and order. But that calm and that wealth of information do not lead us to originality. Out of the disorder of this poor woman’s life, something new has come. So.’ He leaned forward, ‘do we as good immaterialist socialists advise that people should live in disorder and ignorance?’
Rolfa? Ignorant? You ignorant man, thought Milena. Aloud, she answered: ‘I think we advise a love of beauty from whatever source.’
‘Even from the Genetically Engineered?’
‘Of course,’ said Milena, engulfed in calmness. ‘We believe that they are human even if they say they do not. We don’t have to tell anyone that she is Genetically Engineered. We can accept her and her work as being human.’