The Habitation of the Blessed - Catherynne M. Valente [104]
The one called Glepham, whom Hajji introduced as the ivorysmith she liked best, when she was in the market for ivory, which was very rarely, brought us all a hot, thick, goaty milk swimming with lavender seeds. He explained that the panotii had dispersed, slowly, one by one, “like water dripping from a glass, down into the lowlands, into the capital, to find work and warmth and of course each passing Abir spreads them further, but Nimat is still our home, and here we do not turn the Lottery barrel. In all other cities the panotii remember Nimat-their-touchstone, the way you remember which side of the sky the sun comes up in. We are so pleased to have our little sister back in our arms, to wrap our ears around her and share heat.”
I could not in any way account for the distress Hajji clearly suffered. She shook; her eyes darted; she tugged her ears tight around herself. She moved as though she expected some terror to crash down upon her at any moment. She smiled, but her smile was an animal’s bared teeth, cornered, desperate.
“We came to see him,” she kept saying to Glepham, who demurred—one more cup of milk, sister. One more tale of how Mara upset the white lions by letting the beer boil too long and spoiling it all—one more tale of how dearly the white lions love their black, black beer. I thought of Hadulph’s mother. I wondered what her name was. I wondered if she lived here. I thought: Love is not a mountain; it is a wheel. No harsher praxis exists in this world. There are three things that will beggar the heart and make it crawl—faith, hope, and love—and the cruelest of these is love. I wondered if, tonight, when the red lion slept, he would repeat his mother’s mystifying and beautiful inversion of Paul, and if he would miss her. Again, my thoughts came round and round to it: either this is the devil’s country or it is God’s. They invert everything I know to be true. But whatever they say is proven real by my eyes, my ears, my hands.
And moored in these thoughts I saw her, in the whipping snow, a monolith of white—Hadulph bounded toward the figure, and pressed his nose to hers. I shielded my eyes from the wind. Their growling came soft and wordless.
“Vyala,” Glepham nodded happily. “She knew he was coming. She collected many tears to shed when she saw him again.”
“John,” said Hajji. “Let us go. You will want to see him by moonlight. It is best that way. His humors are up, at night.”
“Who do you mean?”
Hajji shook her head, quivering with anxious energy. “They will stay if you tell them. Or come. It doesn’t matter to me.”
“Hajji!” I said, half laughing. “Stop it! Who is it you mean?”
“Thomas,” she said wretchedly. “You said you wanted to see him. He is here. He is here because here is where I left him.”
Hajji led me as if I were her own meek child. Up, up, further even than Nimat, into the thin air and the ice. I shivered; my beard took on icy beads that jangled in the wind. The others stayed with the hot milk and the lavender and Vyala, whom Hagia especially had longed to meet, and whom Hadulph was passing pleased to present. I had never seen the blaze on his scarlet chest puffed so high. In the end I took only Hajji, though more truly Hajji took me. The others would not understand, or I should hardly see the tomb I came so far to find for pausing to explicate the finer points of the history of Christendom. I was not unaware that they had tried to be patient with my ignorance—but I could not bear their disinterest just then. I longed for the presence of God, for the touch of the pale light of the Logos in my soul, the peace that I had lost.
Hajji