Shikasta

Take a simple thing like the shape of this town. There were no plans. No architect. Yet it grew up symmetrical and on the shape of a six-pointed star. I didn't realise it was a star until I walked up out of the town very early one morning, and when I looked down, trying to see if I could notice anything different, I was able to see the star-shape. But no matter who I ask, no one seems able to say anything about plans or a master plan or anything like that. And there is another thing. When I walked down into this town, I was taking it absolutely for granted, but absolutely, that there were going to be different factions and the rulers and the armies and the police and I would have to watch my step and be careful what I said. Do you realise how we have all had to do that? Do you? Of course I don't mean the little ones, not little Rachel, but even Philip or Pedro. All the time watching our step. It has been drilled into us. But after a couple of days I felt a great relax all over my body, like yawning and stretching, and then I suddenly understood I wasn't afraid of doing the wrong thing and landing in prison or ending up as butchers' meat. I simply couldn't believe it. I can't believe it even now. I haven't seen anybody fight. I haven't seen a riot or walls being smashed down or stones being thrown or people being dragged off screaming or anything like that at all. There is a very old Indian here, and when I was talking to him I said things like this I've written here, and he said, you are the child of great misfortune and now you must learn differently. Did yon know that when the old explorers came here long ago there were Giants here? The old Indian told me that, he had learned it in what he called the White School - does that take you back? - but it was true, because his grandfather and his great-grandmother knew all about it. Well, I wouldn't like to be asked what facts I have got from being here, but I am leaving tomorrow. I have been hoping that the people who were kind to me in this town would say: In the next town, look up so and so. But they haven't. I am walking with four others. An old Israeli, he was a scientist in Tel Aviv, and a girl from the old United Arab Emirates, and an old woman from Norway - she got here somehow - and another woman with two children from the Urals. They' wanted to stay here and find work but there isn't any, but there is news that people are wanted thirty miles off in another new town.

It is a week later. When I came down the hill into this town I was looking to see if it has a shape, you bet, and it has. It is beautiful, a circle, but with scalloped edges. The wavy edges are gardens. It is made like the last one I wrote about. It has the same paved centre, a circle, and a very beautiful fountain, with a basin, round, in a local stone, a yellowish rose colour. The basin is shallow, a couple of inches, and the water trickles into it in patterns, and there are patterns in the stone shining up from under the water, and there are the same patterns in the roofing of the houses and the floor tiles and everywhere. It is the most beautiful place I can remember. Again, no one knows anything about plans or architects, it just grew up, or so it would seem. Again I am in the guesthouse. We are all still together, but the woman with the children has got work in the fields and also in the laboratory, and the scientist has, too. As for the others, no luck so far.

Again people talk to me and tell me things. I just move from one to another. I know all about this area and this town and who is in it and what they do and what they have done before the War and what they think. I have the most peculiar thoughts. They are the most extraordinary and outrageous thoughts, but I am having them and so I propose to stand by them. Tomorrow I am moving on with the Arab girl and the old woman from Norway. They haven't got work. Also a new travelling companion, a jaguar who walked into the guesthouse last night and lay down and was still with us in the morning. We thought he was tame but no one knows him. We gave him some maize porridge and some sour milk, and we expected him to turn up his nose but he didn't. Apart from the jaguar there is little Rachel's yellow bird, not a real one, it is made of dried grasses, and a very fine mongrel dog who has taken a fancy to me and he and the jaguar gallop along on all sides of us when we walk abroad.

A week later.

This time the town which we came up the hill to is octagonal, but we didn't work that out until we were well inside it. It is composed of six linked hexagons. The hexagons are gardens. The lattice is buildings. Again these buildings are strange considering what we are all used to, of bricks and adobe and dried grass screens and lacquered paper. Everything is very light and airy. The central place is a star, and it has a fountain, making patterns of stone and water that echo each other. There are patterns on the walls and floors - different ones from the patterns in the last town. The old Norwegian woman got work in the kitchen of the guesthouse. The girl from the United Arab Emirates is with a man she met at the fountain. That leaves me and the jaguar and the dog. I have spoken with a lot of people in this town. Now I am going to have to say it. Regardless. This is what I have been thinking about all the way along these roads. We used to believe George was so special, well I am not saying he isn't. Not that I thought all that much about it then. I just went along with everything. But there are a lot like George. Did you realize that, you there, Suza

It is the same in this town as everywhere else. Now I am getting used to walking into a town with my stomach muscles relaxed and not in a twist and not on my toes all the time in case something comes out at me from some corner, and not having to look out for the local Camps, and not feeling scared to death if I see a group of young people, the way we all were. Yes of course I wasn't exactly old myself. Do you suppose that living in a town has been like this in the past? I mean, people relaxed and easy and things happening the right way without laws and rules and orders and armies? And prisons, prisons, prisons. Do you think that is possible? Well, it is an outrageous thought, but suppose it is true?

It is four months later. I have been to four more towns, all new ones, a triangle, a square, another circle, a hexagon. Do you know something? People are leaving the old towns when they can and making new towns in new places, in this new way. Doesn't that make you think different thoughts? The people talk about the old towns and cities as if they are hell. If they are like what our cities used to be then they are hell.

I have had quite a few different travelling companions and heard all kinds of stories. From all parts of the world. Suza