snake trying to strangle her. Popé's gourd and a cup were standing on the floor
near the bed. Linda was snoring.
His heart seemed to have disappeared and left a hole. He was empty. Empty, and
cold, and rather sick, and giddy. He leaned against the wall to steady himself.
Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous … Like drums, like the men singing for the
corn, like magic, the words repeated and repeated themselves in his head. From
being cold he was suddenly hot. His cheeks burnt with the rush of blood, the room
swam and darkened before his eyes. He ground his teeth. "I'll kill him, I'll kill him,
I'll kill him," he kept saying. And suddenly there were more words.
When he is drunk asleep, or in his rage
Or in the incestuous pleasure of his bed …
The magic was on his side, the magic explained and gave orders. He stepped back
in the outer room. "When he is drunk asleep …" The knife for the meat was lying on
the floor near the fireplace. He picked it up and tiptoed to the door again. "When he
is drunk asleep, drunk asleep …" He ran across the room and stabbed–oh, the
blood!–stabbed again, as Popé heaved out of his sleep, lifted his hand to stab once
more, but found his wrist caught, held and–oh, oh!–twisted. He couldn't move, he
was trapped, and there were Popé's small black eyes, very close, staring into his
own. He looked away. There were two cuts on Popé's left shoulder. "Oh, look at the
blood!" Linda was crying. "Look at the blood!" She had never been able to bear the
sight of blood. Popé lifted his other hand–to strike him, he thought. He stiffened to
receive the blow. But the hand only took him under the chin and turned his face, so
that he had to look again into Popé's eyes. For a long time, for hours and hours.
And suddenly–he couldn't help it–he began to cry. Popé burst out laughing. "Go," he
said, in the other Indian words. "Go, my brave Ahaiyuta." He ran out into the other
room to hide his tears.
"You are fifteen," said old Mitsima, in the Indian words. "Now I may teach you to
work the clay."
Squatting by the river, they worked together.
"First of all," said Mitsima, taking a lump of the wetted clay between his hands, "we
make a little moon." The old man squeezed the lump into a disk, then bent up the
edges, the moon became a shallow cup.
Slowly and unskilfully he imitated the old man's delicate gestures.
"A moon, a cup, and now a snake." Mitsima rolled out another piece of clay into a
long flexible cylinder, trooped it into a circle and pressed it on to the rim of the cup.
"Then another snake. And another. And another." Round by round, Mitsima built up
the sides of the pot; it was narrow, it bulged, it narrowed again towards the neck.
Mitsima squeezed and patted, stroked and scraped; and there at last it stood, in
shape the familiar water pot of Malpais, but creamy white instead of black, and still
soft to the touch. The crooked parody of Mitsima's, his own stood beside it. Looking
at the two pots, he had to laugh.
"But the next one will be better," he said, and began to moisten another piece of
clay.
To fashion, to give form, to feel his fingers gaining in skill and power–this gave him
an extraordinary pleasure. "A, B, C, Vitamin D," he sang to himself as he worked.
"The fat's in the liver, the cod's in the sea." And Mitsima also sang–a song about
killing a bear. They worked all day, and all day he was filled with an intense,
absorbing happiness.
"Next winter," said old Mitsima, "I will teach you to make the bow."
He stood for a long time outside the house, and at last the ceremonies within were
finished. The door opened; they came out. Kothlu came first, his right hand
out-stretched and tightly closed, as though over some precious jewel. Her clenched
hand similarly outstretched, Kiakimé followed. They walked in silence, and in
silence, behind them, came the brothers and sisters and cousins and all the troop
of old people.
They walked out of the pueblo, across the mesa. At the edge of the clid they halted,
facing the early morning sun. Kothlu opened his hand. A pinch of corn meal lay
white on the palm; he breathed on it, murmured a few words, then threw it, a
handful of white dust, towards the sun. Kiakimé did the same. Then Khakimé's
father stepped forward, and holding up a feathered prayer stick, made a long
prayer, then threw the stick after the corn meal.
"It is finished," said old Mitsima in a loud voice. "They are married."
"Well," said Linda, as they turned away, "all I can say is, it does seem a lot of fuss
to make about so little. In civilized countries, when a boy wants to have a girl, he
just … But where are you going, John?"
He paid no attention to her calling, but ran on, away, away, anywhere to be by
himself.
It is finished Old Mitsima's words repeated themselves in his mind. Finished,
finished … In silence and frum a long way off, but violently, desperately, hopelessly,
he had loved Kiakimé. And now it was finished. He was sixteen.
At the full moon, in the Antelope Kiva, secrets would be told, secrets would be done
and borne. They woud go down, boys, into the kiva and come out again, men. The
boys were all afraid and at the same time impatient. And at last it was the day. The
sun went down, the moon rose. He went with the others. Men were standing, dark, at
the entrance to the kiva; the ladder went down into the red lighted depths. Already
the leading boys had begun to climb down. Suddenly, one of the men stepped
forward, caught him by the arm, and pulled him out of the ranks. He broke free and
dodged back into his place among the others. This time the man struck him, pulled
his hair. "Not for you, white-hair!" "Not for the son of the she-dog," said one of the
other men. The boys laughed. "Go!" And as he still hovered on the fringes of the
group, "Go!" the men shouted again. One of them bent down, took a stone, threw
it. "Go, go, go!" There was a shower of stones. Bleeding, he ran away into the
darkness. From the red-lit kiva came the noise of singing. The last of the boys had
climbed down the ladder. He was all alone.
All alone, outside the pueblo, on the bare plain of the mesa. The rock was like
bleached bones in the moonlight. Down in the valley, the coyotes were howling at
the moon. The bruises hurt him, the cuts were still bleeding; but it was not for pain
that he sobbed; it was because he was all alone, because he had been driven out,
alone, into this skeleton world of rocks and moonlight. At the edge of the precipice
he sat down. The moon was behind him; he looked down into the black shadow of
the mesa, into the black shadow of death. He had only to take one step, one little
jump. … He held out his right hand in the moonlight. From the cut on his wrist the
blood was still oozing. Every few seconds a drop fell, dark, almost colourless in the
dead light. Drop, drop, drop. To-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow …
He had discovered Tirne and Death and God.
"Alone, always alone," the young man was saying.
The words awoke a plaintive echo in Bernard's mind. Alone, alone … "So am I," he
said, on a gush of confidingness. "Terribly alone."
"Are you?" John looked surprised. "I thought that in the Other Place … I mean,
Linda always said that nobody was ever alone there."
Bernard blushed uncomfortably. "You see," he said, mumbling and with averted
eyes, "I'm rather different from most people, I suppose. If one happens to be
decanted different …"
"Yes, that's just it." The young man nodded. "If one's different, one's bound to be
lonely. They're beastly to one. Do you know, they shut me out of absolutely
everything? When the other boys were sent out to spend the night on the
mountains–you know, when you have to dream which your sacred animal is–they
wouldn't let me go with the others; they wouldn't tell me any of the secrets. I did it
by myself, though," he added. "Didn't eat anything for five days and then went out
one night alone into those mountains there." He pointed.
Patronizingly, Bernard smiled. "And did you dream of anything?" he asked.
The other nodded. "But I mustn't tell you what." He was silent for a little; then, in a
low voice, "Once," he went on, "I did something that none of the others did: I stood
against a rock in the middle of the day, in summer, with my arms out, like Jesus on
the Cross."
"What on earth for?"
"I wanted to know what it was like being crucified. Hanging there in the sun …"
"But why?"
"Why? Well …" He hesitated. "Because I felt I ought to. If Jesus could stand it. And
then, if one has done something wrong … Besides, I was unhappy; that was another
reason."
"It seems a funny way of curing your unhappiness," said Bernard. But on second
thoughts he decided that there was, after all, some sense in it. Better than taking
soma …
"I fainted after a time," said the young man. "Fell down on my face. Do you see the
mark where I cut myself?" He lifted the thick yellow hair from his forehead. The scar
showed, pale and puckered, on his right temple.
Bernard looked, and then quickly, with a little shudder, averted his eyes. His
conditioning had made him not so much pitiful as profoundly squeamish. The mere
suggestion of illness or wounds was to him not only horrifying, but even repulsive
and rather disgusting. Like dirt, or deformity, or old age. Hastily he changed the
subject.
"I wonder if you'd like to come back to London with us?" he asked, making the first
move in a campaign whose strategy he had been secretly elaborating ever since, in
the little house, he had reahzed who the "father" of this young savage must be.
"Would you like that?"
The young man's face lit up. "Do you really mean it?"
"Of course; if I can get permission, that is."
"Linda too?"
"Well …" He hesitated doubtfully. That revolting creature! No, it was impossible.
Unless, unless … It suddenly occurred to Bernard that her very revoltingness might
prove an enormous asset. "But of course!" he cried, making up for his first
hesitations with an excess of noisy cordiality.
The young man drew a deep breath. "To think it should be coming true–what I've
dreamt of all my life. Do you remember what Miranda says?"
"Who's Miranda?"
But the young man had evidently not heard the question. "O wonder!" he was
saying; and his eyes shone, his face was brightly flushed. "How many goodly
creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is!" The flush suddenly
deepened; he was thinking of Lenina, of an angel in bottle-green viscose, lustrous
with youth and skin food, plump, benevolently smiling. His voice faltered. "O brave
new world," he began, then-suddenly interrupted himself; the blood had left his
cheeks; he was as pale as paper.
"Are you married to her?" he asked.
"Am I what?"
"Married. You know–for ever. They say 'for ever' in the Indian words; it can't be
broken."
"Ford, no!" Bernard couldn't help laughing.
John also laughed, but for another reason–laughed for pure joy.
"O brave new world," he repeated. "O brave new world that has such people in it.
Let's start at once."
"You have a most peculiar way of talking sometimes," said Bernard, staring at the
young man in perplexed astonishment. "And, anyhow, hadn't you better wait till you
actually see the new world?"
Chapter Nine
LENINA felt herself entitled, after this day of queerness and horror, to a complete
and absolute holiday. As soon as they got back to the rest-house, she swallowed six
half-gramme tablets of soma, lay down on her bed, and within ten minutes had
embarked for lunar eternity. It would be eighteen hours at the least before she was
in time again.
Bernard meanwhile lay pensive and wide-eyed in the dark. It was long after
midnight before he fell asleep. Long after midnight; but his insomnia had not been
fruitless; he had a plan.
Punctually, on the following morning, at ten o'clock, the green-uniformed octoroon
stepped out of his helicopter. Hemard was waiting for him among the agaves.
"Miss Crowne's gone on soma-holiday," he explained. "Can hardly be back before
five. Which leaves us seven hours."
He could fly to Santa Fé, do all the business he had to do, and be in Malpais again
long before she woke up.
"She'll be quite safe here by herself?"
"Safe as helicoplers," the octoroon assured him.
They climbed into the machine and started off at once. At ten thirty-four they
landed on the roof of the Santa Fé Post Offiee; at ten thirty-seven Bernard had got
through to the World Controller's Office in Whitehall; at ten thirty-seven he was
speaking to his fordship's fourth personal secretary; at ten forty-four he was
repeating his story to the first secretary, and at ten forty-seven and a half it was the
deep, resonant voice of Mustapha Mond himself that sounded in his ears.
"I ventured to think," stammered Bernard, "that your fordship might find the matter
of sufficient scientific interest …"
"Yes, I do find it of sufficient scientific interest," said the deep voice. "Bring these
two individuals back to London with you."
"Your fordship is aware that I shall need a special permit …"
"The necessary orders," said Mustapha Mond, "are being sent to the Warden of the
Reservation at this moment. You will proceed at once to the Warden's Office.
Good-morning, Mr. Marx."
There was silence. Bernard hung up the receiver and hurried up to the roof.
