Chapter 20
The child’s mother had been very clear, so Dallmin walked briskly away. It was what she wanted. Apparently if he didn’t move quickly she was going to call someone else. That confused him because he would have been happy to have met someone new, but she made it sound like it was something he wouldn’t like. It was the second time he had heard the name ‘Thapolis’ and he was curious to meet him or her. However, the woman clearly preferred him to leave, so he did. He hadn’t even had a chance to hug the little girl. She hadn’t been smiling so he’d wanted to make her happy. Her mother had become very loud when he’d explained that to her.
He found a street he hadn’t seen before and turned into it, careful to stay on the smooth raised strip along its edge. There were at least ten other people on the path ahead of him; however, he didn’t try to talk to any of them. Perhaps his English was not as good as he had thought, but he was beginning to understand that it was more than just a language problem. The people didn’t want to greet him. Not even with a hug, and that didn’t take any words at all. They didn’t greet each other either. There were so many people here and yet they must see each other often if they didn’t feel the need to even acknowledge each other when they crossed paths.
Freezing gusty wind tugged at his clothes, and his fingertips ached from the cold. Annie had warned him that the place beyond the cave might be very cold or very hot. He’d expected his clothing to compensate for that, and had recently been given some warmer clothes to wear, but even they weren’t quite enough. No wonder the buildings here were so different. Even the largest shelter trees in the Garden would have had trouble keeping this wind out.
A new sound snagged his attention. It came from one of the painted stone buildings with the large glass walls. He smiled. It was music unlike anything he’d ever heard, so he followed someone through the doorway and into the shelter, and then paused. When no one told him to go away he proceeded to look around. The source of the music was not obvious, but there were beautiful things everywhere. Many gemstones glittered in the light from the tiny false sun. He could smell something burning, which reminded him of a bush that grew on an island he’d once lived on. He’d brought some dry branches back to the valley to add to the other scented plants that were used to make clothing smell nice. This scent was so strong it made him sneeze, which then made him chuckle.
‘Sorry, the incense can be a bit overpowering if you’re not used to it,’ a husky feminine voice called from the back of the shelter. Finally, someone who wanted to talk to him.
‘Can I help you with something?’ the woman asked, placing an animal carving up on a shelf with some others. Her hair was the colour of berries, and her skin sagged a little.
‘I’d like to fly,’ he explained.
The woman looked him over, her bright red lips pressed together. ‘Sorry buddy, you’ve got the wrong shop. I can help if you’re after spiritual healing or natural therapies but you’ll have to go somewhere else for the other stuff.’
So it was another shop. He was starting to figure out what those were. Every time he saw something he wanted it was in a shop. And every time he asked for it he was asked, in turn, for something called money. Annie had tried to explain it to him but he really didn’t understand how it all worked, and everyone seemed so disappointed that he had none to share.
He decided to tell her before she could ask. ‘I have no money,’ he said. Pity. Healing sounded interesting. He was curious to know what they did when they got hurt since there was no Living Fruit here.
The woman shook her head. ‘Then I’m sorry, I can’t help you. I don’t know what it’s like where you came from, but running a business in a country town is tough enough. I can’t afford to give hand-outs to every vagrant that walks in off the street.’
Dallmin looked around at all the beautiful things she had. It would have been nice to have been able to give something pretty to Annie. Perhaps it was time to find some money. Thanking the woman the way Annie had taught him, he turned and walked back out into the icy wind.
He was hungry again. He was always hungry here. The first few days had not been fun. It was hard to even remember them very clearly, except that he’d been so hungry that he had been sick, and there was no Fruit to make him better. He had tried nearly everything he could find. The leaves were all bitter and some of the plants had refused to even stay down. No animals came near him at all, let alone any tired ones that wanted help to stop. How did people live here?
He continued to wander, passing shops where he could see steaming trays of food and bright cabinets stacked with bottles of coloured water, but he was reluctant to go in to any of them because it had not gone well the last few times. Eventually he started to walk back to where the white-haired man lived. The man had given him food a few times now. Annie had told him that people here would expect him to give them something every time they gave him something. Dallmin hadn’t found anything to give so had sung for him instead. The man had seemed pleased.
The ground was cold and hard and his bare feet were aching by the time he arrived back at the large shelter with the two crossed sticks on top, and he pushed open the double wooden doors and entered with some relief. The place still intrigued him. He had helped build a stone tower once, much larger than this. A grand project that had taken many seasons, and now the tower was always full of people. How many people must have helped to make this place? And yet it was usually empty.
Three of the walls had coloured windows that caught enough light to avoid the need for one of those tiny false suns that seemed to be standard in every other room. Pink and blue sunlight reflected the distorted window pictures onto the carpet. Dallmin sat down on one of the long wooden benches and stared up at the stories again, wide eyed, as he breathed in the scent of wax and polished wood. There was a baby in some of the pictures, so maybe the stories were in celebration of the precious child.
‘Back again, are you?’ The voice was deep and rough, but held none of the tension he’d heard in so many others. It was the white-haired man, Andrew. Dallmin rose and hugged him and the man smiled and patted him twice on the back.
‘Are you hungry, Dallmin? I’m on my way back to the house to get some lunch. Come and I’ll find you something.’
The little spoons were getting easier, he decided a few minutes later as he swallowed the hot soup. Andrew was happier when he used them. Dallmin finished the bowl and served everyone some more.
Both Andrew and his life-partner Penny thanked him. He had met them not long after the thrilling car travel experience. The man riding the car had introduced them. He told them he’d found Dallmin standing in the middle of something called the Wimmera Highway and had said that he was worried for his safety. Penny had shown him where to sleep. She’d also taught him a few things about how to stay clean without having to find a river, which was good because the water that ran near the town was very cold. Talking to her was easy because she was better attuned to his wants than most others, so in turn he was able to read her better.
Right now she was studying him through the little windows she wore on her face. They made her eyes look larger. Maybe it was one of those weird things people here did to look more pleasing to each other—more attractive, Annie had said. Big eyes like a child.
‘So, Dallmin,’ Penny said. ‘It’s been a week since you came here. Are you able to tell us anything else about where you came from? We’d like to help you to get home if you’ll let us.’
He shook his head. He didn’t want to go home yet. ‘I’d like to fly,’ he explained again, wondering if there was something in the language he was missing.
‘Can you at least tell us something about your family?’ Andrew asked. ‘Maybe we can contact them.’
‘My father moved across long ago. He had a wonderful party. We sang for many days. My mother lives far away, across the sea.’
‘Oh … Is there any way we can reach her?’
Dallmin thought about it. He was certain Annie wouldn’t be comfortable with them coming through the cave. She never liked people to go there, and she’d told him that the people here were not supposed to eat the Fruit. ‘You would have to ask the Sentinels about that.’
The man and his life-partner looked at each other, and Penny gave that twitch with her right shoulder and eyebrow that meant she didn’t entirely understand but didn’t need to. They kept eating for a minute, and then Andrew asked, ‘Dallmin, why do you want to fly?’
What sort of a question was that? Couldn’t Andrew imagine how much fun it would be to fly?
‘I am curious to see what the birds see. To go up and not have to come down.’
A frown formed on the minister’s face that reminded him of Annie.
Dallmin knew that one. ‘Do you have two wants?’
‘I don’t understand. What do you mean?’
‘You are making your not-happy face. Is it because you have two wants?’
‘Are you asking me what I want?’ Andrew asked, wiping up the remains of his soup with some bread.
‘Sometimes we do not do what we want to do, and it makes us … not-happy,’ he said, feeling a bit astounded at having to explain that to someone fully grown. ‘I have been told that there is a taint here that can make people do what they don’t want to do, but I don’t understand why.’
‘Have you been reading Romans?’ the man asked, looking bewildered.
Dallmin looked back at him, confused, and then twitched his right shoulder.
‘Never mind. What I want is to find where you belong, so I can help you.’
‘I want what you want. May your will be done,’ Dallmin replied earnestly.
The minister looked at him with wide eyes, his shoulders suddenly stiff. ‘Are you mocking me?’
Dallmin put down his spoon. ‘I don’t know that word. I’m still new at English. I mean that I want whatever you want. The same way you want what the Creator wants. I have heard you speak to Him, and that is the way you say it.’
Andrew sat back in his chair. The clock on the wall ticked many times before anyone spoke again, and then Penny frowned at her partner.
‘This isn’t getting us anywhere, Andrew. He needs more help than we can give him. Surely there’s someone around here who knows who he is?’
Andrew’s shoulders stiffened even more than before. ‘Noah? You really are trying to mock us—’
‘No, I don’t think he is,’ Penny interrupted, laying a hand on his wrist. ‘Maybe he means the Noah who volunteers at the Indigenous youth centre.’
Andrew glanced at her, then back at him, and smiled. ‘I probably should have thought of that before. I’ll call them first thing on Monday.’