Cloud Permutations Read online

  CLOUD PERMUTATIONS

  by

  Lavie Tidhar

  PART ONE

  PIKININI

  — Chapter 1 —

  LONG EPI AILAN I BIN STAP WAN MAN BLONG MAJIK

  ON THE ISLAND OF EPI THER LIVED A MAGICIAN.

  The magician was tall and thin and looked rather like a snake-bean. Ragged white dreadlocks fell from around the narrow bald dome of his head, and a small, slightly wan smile on his face spoke of days spent performing in front of greater audiences than these. Nevertheless, he performed magic, and he did it well.

  The magician’s name is not recorded. This, in the history of Kal, is merely an oral account, and may be apocryphal.

  Kal watched enthralled. The magician had just made a handkerchief disappear in the palm of his hand, and had launched into a long and convoluted story which told of the handkerchief (a blue one) belonging to the sea, and how the water in the sea rises to become clouds (there were murmurs at this, which the magician ignored), and the clouds make rain, and the rain falls down to the land, and makes trees grow …

  All of which went to aid the magician’s next move, which was to detach a leaf from the nearby tree, wrap it around his left thumb (making a fist around it with his right hand) and then proceed to pull out from the hole the same blue—if slightly wrinkled now—handkerchief.

  Kal applauded. Beside him, his grandfather shook his head. ‘Hemi no mekem tru majik,’ he said. He doesn’t make true magic.

  ‘Be hankajif—’ Kal said—But the handkerchief!—and began to explain, about the rain, and the ocean, and the clouds, and—

  ‘Clouds?’ Kal’s grandfather said. In front of them the magician, sweating slightly now, was showily shuffling a pack of cards. ‘One shouldn’t talk lightly of clouds.’

  Kal was about to protest, when he saw his grandfather fall quiet (a thing not of sound but of the whole body) and with him the others in the audience. Finally, even the magician’s constant patter trickled to a halt, and the cards in his hands, too, fell silent and unmoving.

  Kal followed the adults’ gazes.

  Coming slowly through the open ground to the left of them, not from the village but from the trail through the bush that led up to the high mountain, was a man Kal had not seen before. The man was small, and his head was entirely bald. Though black, his skin was different to Kal’s and the others’. Blue, Kal thought. His skin was a deep, dark blue, a shade fading into black and yet—and yet other. And his head—as the man approached Kal could see that his head was criss-crossed with faint white lines, and now that he looked he saw that they extended downwards, all the way down the man’s naked body, so that he looked strangely like—

  A cloud, Kal thought. There was something hard about the man, and yet, something that resembled cloud. He looked up at the sky, disconcerted, and saw the giant clouds spread out against the sky, enormous and patient.

  There was a gust of wind. It blew the cards from the magician’s hands and sent them billowing in a cloud towards the sea. The man coming through the bush seemed to smile, very slightly, as he came slowly closer. He seemed in no hurry.

  Then he was suddenly there, as if he had always stood amongst them, and the crowd parted before him like water receding from a shore. The man walked towards the magician, the same slight, unreadable smile on his face. Half-way to his destination, however, he paused.

  He had stopped beside Kal. Turning, the man looked at Kal (they were almost of the same height, Kal realised suddenly) then turned to Kal’s grandfather. Inching his head towards the boy, the man murmured, ‘Wanem nem blong hem?’—What is his name?—and before Kal’s grandfather could answer Kal said, quite loudly, and clearly, ‘My name is Kalbaben.’

  The man who had come from the bush smiled. Years later, Kal still remembered that smile. ‘I will see you again, Kalbaben,’ the man murmured. Then he continued on his way.

  Isolated now, less by his role as performer than by the sudden abandonment of him by his audience, the magician stood alone. At his back was the sea, a vast blue glittering stillness, and the shades of the islands of Nouvelle Ambrym and Northern Efate. The man from the bush moved a little way further, stepping from dry land into wet sand, leaving behind him a line of small feet-marks.

  ‘Solwota—’ said the man, which meant Salt-Water, or Sea, or Ocean, ‘hemi go ap, hemi mekem klaod—’ and Kal smiled, because the man from the bush was making fun of the magician now, with his tale of the blue handkerchief that became water became cloud became rain—’mo man, hemi semak.’

  At this, a murmur rose in the crowd, as rhythmic as the sea. Kal was confused. What did he mean, man was the same? Men did not—

  Then the man who came from the bush lifted his arms. Above his head, the giant clouds seemed to stir, like a waking leviathan shaking off sleep.

  The sun dimmed. And faint rain began to fall.

  The rain fell, and as it did it grew in volume and intensity. It fell on Kal and his grandfather and the rest of the crowd, and drenched them. The drops were warm and heavy and when they touched Kal’s skin they brought with them strange sensations and thoughts, confusing him. Later, in the night, they evaded his dreams still, in big incomprehensible chunks, as if his brain was trying to digest the dreams of something far bigger than himself.

  The rain fell, also, on the magician, making his soaked dreadlocks appear like loose branches giving weight under a downpour.

  The magician, his face tired, merely stood there. Like everyone else, he was looking at the man who had come in from the bush.

  Alone, he stood on the shore of the great sea. Above him the immense, all-encompassing clouds shifted lazily, turning from dark to light as water fell from them onto the land. The man’s hands continued to be raised. The white lines on his skin grew in tone, and the blueness of his skin, too, seemed more pronounced; he seemed to become sea, become sky, become rain.

  Become cloud.

  As Kal watched, the man’s body seemed to lighten, the way the clouds above were turning light. The rain fell not on him, but from him—he had become water! Kal thought. The man had become drops of water, and was falling into the sky. You may have seen Wasarak’s painting of the scene, which for a time was reproduced endlessly.

  It was from that moment on, when he saw the blue-white man turn to rain and fall away into the sky, that Kal had one ambition, one desire that would pilot a course for his voyage through the sea of his life: he wanted to fly. He was three years old at the time.

  — Chapter 2 —

  WAN SMOL STORI BLONG HILDA LINI

  ‘THE HILDA LINI,’ Mr. Henri said, the words taking the shape of a comfortable and well-used sing-song, ‘was old and battered, scarred by all the long years she had spent in space.’ He was reaching the end of the lesson, and looked secretly grateful for the fact. ‘Old and battered, but she was also tough. A big lady, she was, built to bear her children across the vastness of space. The people of the archipelago, those who had gone on to the moon, and to Mars, and to the asteroids’—the names, comforting in their familiarity, nevertheless failed to conjure, for Kal, any obvious images—’came together for her. Man Epi and Man Pentecost, Man Tanna and Man Malekula, Man Efate and all the others, all put aside their differences to claim the great ship. It was the time of the Exodus.’

  Beside Kal, Vira Zebedee, who was a year older, had a shock of thick black hair around her head like a halo, and fascinated Kal much more than Mr. Henri’s history lesson did, had stuck her elbow in his ribs and surreptitiously passed Kal a note. It said, succinctly, ‘This is boring. Meet by nambanga end of lesson.’

  Kal read it, crumpled it into a ball, and agreed with a nod of his head. Vira grinned at him, and an unfamiliar, though not entirely unpleasant, fee
ling made Kal’s stomach flutter.

  It was hot.

  The coolness of the morning had dissipated like a dream; noon was approaching fast and the sun, coming through the thick layer of eternal cloud, seemed determined to invade every corner of the world, and in particular the small classroom in which Kal was being made to sit. This, despite Kal’s having far more interesting things to do, such as catching fish or krab along the beach, or swimming in the shady part, or going into the bush in search of buried treasure …

  Or the best part of all, which was secret and wonderful in equal measures, and involved climbing up the mountain—

  ‘The Hilda Lini,’ Mr. Henri said reverently, ‘had travelled through space for aeons with its precious cargo of frail humanity. Who can tell me how long an aeon is—you, Teua?’

  There was no reply. Beside Kal, Vira sniggered.

  ‘Teua?’

  Further down from Kal, on the other side of the room, Teua sharply raised his head from where it had rested (in the crook of his arms) and slowly blinked his eyes. ‘Sir?’

  Mr. Henri sighed. ‘Never mind,’ he said. It was hot.

  Kal, too, was drifting. He thought of the kite he and Vira had been secretly building. The wood came from the southern side of the island, light wood that they put together with cloth and nails and glue, a little cross-shaped device hidden in a cave on the cliff above Bluewater. Vira wanted to call it the Hilda Lini II. Kal was firmly of the belief it should be called The Flying Fox. They were still arguing over it though, as Kal had found out, he tended to eventually lose those arguments to Vira and, somehow, he didn’t mind so much.

  ‘For aeons,’ Mr. Henri said, a little weary, ‘the ship had travelled with its sleeping cargo. For more time than the combined age of all her passengers, the Hilda Lini searched for a new home. She passed through three solar systems, mapping them along the way, but none was suitable: none could fit the kastom of the people. Until—’

  ‘Until we came here!’ Teua, awake now, called excitedly from his corner.

  Mr. Henri gave him a guarded look and responded with a tired smile. ‘Indeed. The world she found was perfect. And we called it—’ He waited. ‘Heven!’ Teua called again. Mr. Henri smiled. ‘Tru,’ he said. ‘Because it was. Or seemed to be. It was a place we could live according to kastom. A world of the sea, a world of islands. A world …’ he hesitated. ‘Of clouds. Although what that meant, exactly, we only found out a long time afterward.’

  Somewhere in the distance, a faint bell rang. The children waited. Mr. Henri shrugged, and said, ‘Go.’

  Kal went.

  Lunch would be long, and Mr. Henri sleepy afterwards; and no one would miss him, Kal, nor Vira, if they failed to return that afternoon. Kal, hands dangling happily at his sides, went towards the nambanga—the banyan tree—and the shade. They would swim, he thought; and maybe catch a fish to roast over a small fire for lunch. And afterwards …

  Hilda Lini waited for them on top of the cliff.

  — Chapter 3 —

  REN LUKEM YU, REN I KAM

  AFTERWARDS, it was hard to explain what had happened. Kal’s memory felt scrubbed and raw as if washed by heavy rain. Sharp moments of pain appeared, but seemed disconnected from an internal narrative, from any sort of cause-and-effect linkage. What had happened, the way it was told, later, in the nakamal, when the adults, the elders all gathered under the great banyan tree, was this:

  Kal and Vira had climbed the cliff and had stopped at the top, and looked out to sea.

  From this high, the village below seemed like a deserted ants’ nest, with only a few, sluggish figures wandering slowly across the shady parts as if befuddled by the heat. From up here, the land below went on, sloped down until it became white sand, then poured out into a calm blue ocean that reached out across the world and disappeared, eternal, on the horizon. From here, too, you could see far, out to the large islands of Nouvelle Ambrym and Northern Efate, and even further: there, a small shape on the horizon, was the island of Pentecost, and even further, Kal imagined he could see the chain of the Tusk like a string of pearls stretched until it broke. They were all Earth names, old names, kastom names. But this, Kal thought, was not Earth. This was Heven. It was a new world, his world, and he would not bow down to kastom.

  He wanted—desired—to fly. And flying had been forbidden by kastom.

  ‘Come on, Kal!’ Vira said, but not harshly. For a moment he felt her hand, resting lightly on his shoulder, and closed his eyes, willing the two of them to stay that way, if only for a little while longer. ‘I think it’s ready,’ Vira announced. Her hand was no longer on his shoulder. Her voice came from a distance, sounding hollow. He turned and smiled at her; she was standing at the entrance to the cave.

  He turned back and looked for one moment longer over the view. There, below, were the islands, small specks of dust in the distance. There was the great sea, planet-wide and ancient, yet familiar, comfortable like a blanket.

  He raised his head. There—they were almost level with him, or so he fancied. The giant ancient clouds moved in the sky, almost imperceptibly—dark and bright woven into each other, shifting, changing, but slowly, so slowly. They looked asleep, restful. For a fleeting moment, he thought about the man he had seen when he was younger. A man the colour of the sky. He opened his lungs and sucked in a deep breath. ‘I’m ready,’ he said, turning, and ran to help Vira with the kite.

  How it happened, then, no one was certain, and least of all Kal. As to the why, that question did not even arise. Kal and Vira had broken kastom; not, as they had perhaps thought, old Earth kastom, but kastom of this world, a kastom of Heven, and made such for a reason.

  They had dared to fly.

  The kite was not large enough for two. Light wood and cloth, it was a glider, a moth, a toy enlarged to kid-size. They tossed stones for it, and Kal had lost.

  Vira held on to one side of the kite, its canoe-shaped body. Her eyes flashed. Kal held the other side. Together, they ran.

  As they neared the edge of the cliff Vira hopped onto the seat. Kal pushed. For a sickening moment the kite tottered on the edge of the cliff …

  Then it took flight.

  Kal watched. The kite flew straight, flew true. Vira, perhaps terrified, perhaps ecstatic, held onto the beams that fastened to and controlled the slight wings. Below, sleepy folks perhaps looked up to the sky and saw something amazing, a flying girl.

  Then, close by, lighting flashed, so close as it hit that earth flew, and fragments of stone shot through the air and hit Kal. He touched his hand to his cheek and it was wet, though there had been no rain. Later, much later, though the doctor had done her best, a scar remained there.

  Thunder came second. It rolled over the cliff, a slow deep sound that Kal felt in his bones. Above his head the clouds darkened. The sun disappeared. The sea, now agitated, crashed with growing force against the shore.

  Vira, the Hilda Lini, flesh and bones and wood and glue and nails and cloth, animate and inanimate made into one thing, flew through strange, calm air. For a moment, Kal thought Vira had turned her head back, was looking at him. She was too far away (though still so close! he thought. She had barely made it to the border of land and sea) for him to see her face. He raised his arms, and was suddenly reminded again of the man he had seen, the man who came from the bush. The man who could speak to clouds.

  Afterwards, he remembered the silence. There was the lightning, and then thunder, and then a strange, solemn quiet, the sound of solitude before it is broken. His heart was beating in his chest like an outboard engine struggling against muddy water. He was not afraid before, but now the silence scared him, and he didn’t know why.

  The wind, on this everyone agreed, seemed to have come out of nowhere. In the scientific language one could speak of high and low pressure, of localised weather systems, of abrupt barometric changes and freak conditions; but in all other respects, everyone agreed, it was the anger-wind of clouds.

  It hit the kite in mid-fli
ght, the way a bat may hit a ball, and then again, and again. The kite dived, swooned, rose and fell. Kal could do nothing but watch.

  The kite was higher now, the winds that tossed it kicking it up, until it seemed to over-reach even the clouds. Vira was a tiny freckle on its face, holding on to a thing that, for a short time, seemed to have become a part of her and was now breaking beneath her, as useless as a discarded toy.

  The kite broke in mid-air.

  The winds, abruptly, stopped.

  The kite fell, pieces of it like motes of dust falling down. Kal cried, though he didn’t know he was doing it. Beside the falling wreckage, distinct from it, a small figure, plunging down into raging grey ocean. Vira and the kite fell, both broken.

  They dropped down through still, clear air. When they hit the waves, heavy rain began to fall.

  Kal tasted salt, as if the spray of the waves had somehow reached him, high and alone on the cliff. From somewhere outside himself words came. ‘Ren lukem yu’—the words those of an old, old song—’ren i kam.’

  The rain looked at you, Vira, he thought, numb. And the rain came.

  He stood on top of the cliff and watched her body disappear in the waves.

  — Chapter 4 —

  MAN TANNA

  THE PEOPLE OF TANNA have always, even in the days before the Exodus, been fiercely independent. The island of Tanna, wide, mountainous and remote, weathered, in days long gone, the misrule of missionaries, blackbirders and the British Empire. It was an island of strange beliefs and even stranger truths, heavily-populated in a region where population density was nearly non-existent. When the time came, the people of Tanna, first from that remote corner of the world that was once called the New Hebrides and later Vanuatu, went out into space, to seek work with the mining corporations in the Asteroid Belt. From one archipelago of distant islands, each isolated from the other, each with its own languages, its own kastom and beliefs, they were the first to seek out that other tranquillity, that other isolation that is space. The others followed: Man Efate and Man Epi and Man Malekula, they came too, shipped off-Earth by the giant Malay and Chinese corporations. When the time of the Exodus came, the people of Tanna were instrumental in acquiring the Hilda Lini.