The Habitation of the Blessed - Catherynne M. Valente [43]
But Astolfo murmured: “Yes. Please, help me.” His body could summon up no further word, not even one.
The men opened the mussel along its edge with their fingernails, grown long and orange with age. Within, it showed pinkish-white wetness, like soaked silk, and a kind of pearly sweat seeping from the flesh of the shell. I helped my love forward, my poor creature, my lost one. He stepped into the deep blue mussel; it closed up after him. He did not emerge for four days, and all the while I kept vigil, leaning against Hadulph’s flank, watching the stars wheel, warm and certain in their spheres. I tasted the milky water once—it tasted like skin. Once, as we waited and the old men hummed, Hadulph asked me:
“Do you wish the Abir had gone another way? That it had paired you and I, or you and some less delicate soul?”
After a long while I answered: “No. I wish everything to happen exactly as it did, for if it had not, it would not, and what trouble we would be in then. And after all, I have you anyway.” And I rubbed his soft muzzle.
When he emerged, Astolfo was whole and flush, and such joy shone from his eyes that I felt it as a blow, heavy and pleasant against my breast.
And from that day, he never spoke again.
The shell takes its trade, always.
THE SCARLET NURSERY
The summer rain ran rivers around the al-Qasr. Rain is a melancholy animal. It pads after one in the late afternoon, when all is soft and dim, pricking the spirit with silver darts. When I looked out of the nursery window all curtained with thick red and tied back with crimson cord, I always wished it were snow instead. In the wide basin of Nural, the great capital city, the city of sard and onyx, home but not my home, it never snowed.
One morning some years past I woke to find the water in our chapel’s lustral basin lightly iced over, the barest whisper of ice, so that one touch of my fingertip shattered it. I was filled with such delight on that day; I walked through every hall and street full-up, as though carrying a wonderful secret. But it was a single crystal bead in an endless strand of hot stones. In Nural, clinging warmth was our constant companion, clinging to papaya leaves and baobabs, milkberry vines and bleeding roses. The great rains circled the summer solstice like a great golden drain, and though every flower opened up on the streets like beggars’ hands, I drooped in the warmth. The children could not play outside, and in their thwarted wildness broke a dozen toys and several other objects which were not toys, such as my snowshoes, and all before noon.
This is how it went with us:
Houd, Who Was Mainly To Blame for the Snowshoes: I shan’t apologize, either! You oughtn’t to have such ugly things! It never snows here!
Ikram, Who Broke Three Clay Soldiers Herself: One day she might go home, Houd. Especially since she has to look after beastly things like you.
Lamis, Who Broke Nothing and Was Mild: No, never! Mother would never allow it! You must never go home! You are our Butterfly, and no one else’s, and I shall thump anyone who says different right in the face!
Children, you must understand, are monsters. They are ravenous, ravening, they lope over the countryside with slavering mouths, seeking love to devour. Even when they find it, even if they roll about in it and gorge themselves, still it will never be enough. Their hunger for it is greater than any heart to satisfy. You mustn’t think poorly of them for it—we are all monsters that way, it is only that when we are grown, we learn more subtle methods to snatch it up, and secretly slurp our fingers clean in dark corners, relishing even the last dregs. All children know is a clumsy sort of pouncing after love. They often miss, but that is how they learn.
Their hands are so big, so big, because they need so much. They reach out and out and you could disappear in their grip.
I know all this now, for I am