The Book of Strange New Things(170)

Peter’s mind re-played the vision of the calf-like newborn, the cheering crowd, the dressing ceremony, the eerie beauty of little ???????, clumsily dancing on his inaugural day of life, waving his tiny gloved hands.

‘Yes, they do,’ he said.

‘Well, there you go,’ said Adkins.

Lover Five, confined to bed in her brightly lit chamber of care, looked just as small and alone as before. If only there could have been a USIC worker laid up with a broken leg in one of the other beds, or a few healthy ????? sitting nearby, conversing with her in their native tongue, it would have been less awful. Awful for who, though? Peter knew it was for his own sake as well as for hers that he yearned for the pathos to be less sharp. In his career as a minister, he’d visited many hospital wards, but never, until now, to confront a person whose impending death he felt responsible for.

‘God ble?? our reunion, Father Pe???er,’ she said as he walked in. Since he’d last seen her, she’d gotten hold of a USIC bathtowel and deftly folded it around her head as an improvised hood. It lent her a more feminine appearance, like a hijab or a wig. She’d tucked the loose ends under the neckline of her hospital gown, and pulled the blankets up to her armpits. Her left hand was still naked; her right was snugly bound in its cotton sheath.

‘Lover Five, I’m so, so sorry,’ he said, his voice already cracking.

‘??orry no??? ne??e??ary,’ she reassured him. The absolution cost her an absurd amount of effort to pronounce. Insult to injury.

‘The painting that fell on your hand . . . ’ he said, lowering himself onto the edge of the bed near the meagre hump of her knees. ‘If I hadn’t asked for . . . ’

With her free hand she did a surprising thing, a thing he’d never have imagined anyone of her kind doing: she silenced him by laying her fingers against his lips. It was the first time he had been touched by the naked flesh of an ?????, unmediated by the soft fabric of gloves. Her fingertips were smooth and warm and smelled like fruit.

‘Nothing fall if God have no plan for the falling.’

Gently he enclosed her hand in his. ‘I shouldn’t say this,’ he said, ‘but out of all your people . . . you’re the one I care about the most.’

‘I know,’ she said, with barely a heartbeat’s hesitation. ‘Bu??? God have no favouri?????. God care for all alike.’

Her constant allusions to God poked a spear into his soul. He had big confessions to make, confessions about his faith, confessions about what he intended to do next. ‘Lover Five . . . ’ he began. ‘I . . . I don’t want to lie to you. I . . . ’

She nodded, slowly and emphatically, to signal that he need not complete the thought. ‘You feel . . . in lack of God. You feel you can be no Father any more.’ She turned aside, looked at the doorway through which he had come, the doorway that led to the outside world. Somewhere in that direction was the settlement where she’d first accepted Jesus into her heart, the settlement that now lay empty and abandoned. ‘Father Kur?????berg al??o came ???o thi?? feeling,’ she said. ‘Father Kur?????berg became angry, ??poke in a loud voi??e, ??aid, I am no Father now. Find another Father.’

Peter swallowed hard. The Bible booklet he’d sewn lay curled up on the blanket near his useless arse. Back in his quarters, there were so many balls of brightly coloured wool still waiting to be used.

‘You are . . . ’ said Lover Five, and paused to find the right word. ‘ . . . man. Only man. God i?? more big than you. You carry the word of God for a while, then the word become ???oo heavy, heavy ???o carry, and you mu????? re?????.’ She laid her hand on his thigh. ‘I under?????and.’

‘My wife . . . ’ he began.

‘I under?????and,’ she repeated. ‘God join you and your wife ???ogether. Now you are unjoined.’

In a flash Peter recalled his wedding day, the light through the church windows, the cake, the knife, Bea’s dress. Sentimental daydreams, as irreclaimably lost as a bug-eaten Scout uniform tossed in a bin and taken away by garbagemen. He forced himself to think instead of his own house as it was now, surrounded by filth and debris, the interior plunged into darkness, and, half-hidden in those haunted shadows, the shape of a woman he couldn’t recognise. ‘It’s not just that we’re apart,’ he said. ‘Bea’s in trouble. She needs help.’

Lover Five nodded. Her bandaged hand screamed louder than any words of recrimination that there could be no trouble more serious than the trouble she was in. ‘??o,’ she confirmed, ‘you will fulfil the word of Je??u??. Luke: you will leave the nine???y-nine in the wilderne??, and look for the one who i?? lo?????.’

He felt his face redden as the parable found its mark. She must have learned it from Kurtzberg.

‘I’ve talked to the doctors,’ he said wretchedly. ‘They’re going to try their best, for you and for . . . the others. They won’t be able to save your hand, but they might be able to save your life.’

‘I am happy,’ she said. ‘If ??aved.’

He shifted uncomfortably on his perch at the edge of her bed. His left buttock was going numb and his back was getting sore. In a few minutes from now, he would be out of this room and his body would revert to normal, restoring normal blood circulation, pacifying disturbed neurological activity, soothing over-extended muscles, while she was left here to contemplate the rotting of her flesh.