Shikasta

[SEE History of Shikasta, VOL. 3015, The Century of Destruction, Twentieth Century War: yd and Final Phase. SUMMARY CHAPTER.]

From SUZANNAH in CAMP 7, THE ANDES,

to GEORGE SHERBAN

My darling,

It is very cold tonight. It is not easy to get adjusted to this altitude. Kassim and Leila are all right, and that is the main thing. A lot of people are finding it hard. We have a lot of chest troubles. Our doctors are working all the time. Luckily we have plenty of medicines. But I wonder for how long. 63 people came in. They got out from France. They say there is nothing much left of Europe. They are full of all kinds of stories but I said I didn't want to hear. I don't see the point. I think it is morbid. What is done is done. So I came to our hut and left them talking. It would be a good thing if you could get hold of warm clothes for all the children. We have nearly 1,200 children now. I did what you said and put Juanita in charge of the children and she has made her husband work with her. They are a good team. All the children like them. Today a party came in from North America. 94. They want to stay here but I said this camp is full. Well it is. How are we going to feed everybody? That is what is on my mind. I said they could stay some days to rest and then they should go to Camp 4. It is only 200 miles. They can leave the weak ones and the children with us. They say North America is full of troubles but I said I didn't want to listen any longer. I have my work cut out. Can you try and find some shoes for the children? I think it would be a good thing if some more camps got set up, if the refugees are going to come and come like this. I don't see what can be possibly left up there. But I don't want to think about it. Kassim says he wants to come and be with you. I said he is too young but he is fifteen. Leila wants to come too. I said definitely no. I said I would find out what you think about Kassim. And they would have to obey. That is a question.

When you think about winter coming up in the North, it is a good thing for the epidemics I suppose, but it is a bad thing for the people who are left. But I don't want to think morbid thoughts.

Philip came in just now and says he saw you and you are working hard. He says you will be coming next week. When you come we should get married because I am pregnant. I am sure now. I wasn't sure until today. It is all very well these young people saying things like that don't matter in these times, but I think we should set an example.

I am two months and two days pregnant.

I hope it is a boy but with my luck I suppose it will be a girl. I don't really mean that, only partly.

I have got Pedro to mend the roof of this hut. Pedro is very nice and I want to suggest we should adopt him when you come. What I mean is, we should tell him we regard him as our child. He is feeling insecure. I can always tell things like that. It is not good for an eight-year-old boy to have no parents and nothing at all. I think we should have some kind of ceremony. We can always think of something. By the time we have finished I expect we shall have a dozen or more, if this goes on! Many a true word is spoken in jest.

I won't tell Pedro he can be our child until you have agreed. They have built a big fire in the centre of the camp tonight and there is a big moon and it looks nice. They are telling stories about their escapes from the different places. What happens is, someone steps forward into the place just near where the fire is and then everyone is silent and then this person tells their tale. Then this person goes and sits down and another gets up. Or someone sings a song. Some of the songs are very sad. Some of them romantic. And then someone else steps forward and tells their tale of woe. There will be a lot of babies born soon. We shall have to feed them. The doctors are watching all the babies very carefully. Everything is being done the way you said.

I feel very lonely without you, I know you don't like it when I say things like that.

I know it is no good my asking you if you feel lonely without me because I suppose you'll just smile as usual.

Well my dear, I shall see you next week, please God.

Your Suza

From KASSIMSHERBAN

Dear Leila, and dear Suza

And a very big kiss for little Rachel which is of course the most important thing of all. Tell her that and say I have a beautiful yellow bird for her.

Hello, hello and hello. I know that you Suza

This is a completely new town. I got here last week. It is the strangest town. Of course it is all of wood and stones and lacquered paper, but the shapes are not what you'd expect, I haven't figured it all out yet. I came walking down the hill into it, and it was like a dream. And what made it worse was that I was scared. After all I am young, not even my best efforts can disguise that, and I am still in the old Youth Army uniform, because I can't find anything else, and after all they were ru

That's all I can remember of it. I don't want to remember it I suppose. There seemed no place to hide when you heard that. How did we survive all that I wonder? - but I didn't mean to start on all that again. I keep deciding never to think of any of it again but my mind goes back to it.

Anyway, I came down into this town scared witless. I didn't know what to expect. At the very least I thought I would have to persuade them I was harmless. But that didn't happen. The town has a central square and a fountain. It is all done in stone. There were people standing about the square, and as I got into it, full of apprehension, it was the strangest thing, but I was accepted at once. No one expected me to be harmful. Can you imagine what that was like?

There is a guesthouse for travellers and for a week every traveller is given food, if not much, and then if there is work he can do he starts earning the food, and if not, he goes on somewhere else. I did not want to start work, because I was on a "fact-finding survey" so George said. So he said, and if you have to get facts, then you have to ask questions. Where better than in the guesthouse, and then the cafe, and the store, and the square again. It had dawned on me by then that it was the people who I was to meet - that was the point of the exercise. The people in the square and everywhere else answered any questions I asked. Facts. There are fewer facts in the world now than there were before the smash-up. A woman from the North, an Argentinian, took me to her house and told me what was happening there, and how the War had affected that area, and she made me meet others. It began to dawn on me then... all the time I was being reminded of something, I didn't know quite what, and I was lying awake every night trying to remember what it was, and even now I can't say much about it, but it is like what the other Rachel, and Olga, and Simon, used to tell me of how the three were taught by people just coming past, and how they learned things without there being actual lessons and timetables most of the time. I keep meeting people, and all of them seem to know at once who I am and what to tell me or where to take me. That is very peculiar. Something peculiar is going on, but I don't know what.