Then Will the Sun Rise Alabaster (Machine Mandate) Read online

  Then Will the Sun Rise Alabaster

  Benjanun Sriduangkaew

  Copyright © 2019 by Benjanun Sriduangkaew.

  Cover art by Tithi Luadthong.

  ISBN: 978-1-60701-537-6

  Prime Books

  www.prime-books.com

  No portion of this book may be reproduced by any means without first obtaining the permission of the copyright holder.

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  Then Will the Sun Rise Alabaster

  Morning begins in apocalypse: by accident of location, sunrise on this star comes in like a herald of the great finale, that severance of time, a sky flushing to red and shivering with fire. The Church, the fall, the final armageddon that awaits them all. For the last eighteen years of her life, this is what Panthida recognizes as dawn.

  She is older than eighteen. She may be twenty-five or twenty-seven. But the years before these eighteen have been pulped up between the Church’s jaw, swallowed like communion wine down its long throat. The Bible is teeth and each time she touches it, it is as though she’s handling bare razors. Sometimes she imagines the pages gleam like them too, redder than anything. Red, she is fixated on it, the color and the sound even though in English it sounds nothing like what she used to speak—a language now forgotten, burned up along with everything else, a language of vowels like a feast and tonal variation like music. Reeducation is a blunt process. She has kept her name and that is more than most of the women raised here can say.

  She imagines what her habit would look like in crimson. She envies the priests’ stoles, which come in all shades, breaking the monopoly of black and white upon the body. They visit here but rarely and she perceives them as black wraiths brightened up by those slashes of vibrancy, scarlet or green or purple, threaded with gold. A species apart from hers.

  Sometimes she dreams of the ship that carried her family, still drifting in the dark, slowly sawed in half. A vast numinous fruit and when it finally breaks, it vents an avalanche of the viscera and the wet humors that reside beneath human skin. All evaporates instantly. Nothing remains that is recognizable: no face, no body. Afterimages seared into memory—anonymous flashes—but that is all.

  Red, red. The color of her dreams. The color of memory. She is obsessed with it, consumed by it. In her sleep, she hears its voice calling to her in that dissipated tongue, the tongue of her childhood.

  After morning prayer, they are summoned to greet the new intake. Orphan girls, some younger than Panthida was when she came here, some older. Twelve at most. She wonders where the older ones go or if, over that age, a child is judged heathen and too impure for redemption. She searches their faces—her own is blank and remote, as is every other nun’s—and remembers her own baptism like drowning; she was submerged a long time, the better to erase what she once was, to erase the years that existed before the convent. These children: they could be from anywhere, fair- and dark-skinned, eyes like hers or like no one’s at all. Perhaps a station failed, perhaps like her parents their ship was intercepted or stranded in the dark, and the only offer was to give the children away to a passing Vatican vessel in exchange for survival. Only children, because adults are beyond conversion, have been immersed too long in infidel manners, infidel uncivilization. Cleaved from the Lord, the Gospel.

  She sees in their faces no recognition, no common ground. But then from their perspective she is another jailer, another enforcer of what is to come: the canings, the flagellations, the hours of knees on cold, rough stone in the chapel. She wonders how many will remember their names when all is said and done; whether they have already forgotten. Occasionally she thinks of extending a hand, committing small subversions, and whispering to one of the orphan girls that she is here to help—that they have a friend, not all of the sisters are their enemies, that she was like them once. But her back has been bloodied one time too many, and no one ever offered her anything.

  In the Abbey of the Pale Mother, charity has specialized definitions.

  The children are separated, more than they already have been—no siblings or cousin, any family ties have been sundered long before; there are plenty of convents and monasteries. Boys to one place, girls to another. That there exist categories beyond those two is not a point the Church cares to acknowledge. Panthida leads her assigned orphans to their cells, one per. No point allowing them to conspire or commiserate. Escape is impossible in any case, but children are easier to break in isolation. She says nothing to them, and they say nothing to her, and she leaves them each a Bible. Small and made of paper: overlays are not permitted until one makes their perpetual vow to Christ, and even then they are heavily limited, tuned to Vatican broadcasts and not much else.

  Panthida remembers a life where she had overlays from an age as early as five, an AI companion integrated at six.

  Once the children have been put away—sedated for their first night, to minimize disharmony—she is pulled aside by a senior sister, who tells her, “You’ve been here for a long time, Sister Josephine, and you are exemplary in all ways.”

  That is not her name—never will be. But she says, “Yes, Sister.”

  “We have a rare visitor today.” A meaningful pause. The deeply lined grooves in her face crinkle, like dunes stirred by wind. “You will have heard of the Order of Eshim.”

  The armed division, the avenging angels of the Lord, those clergies who dedicate themselves to root out sacrilege and hunt down apostates by force. “Yes,” Panthida says, again. Within the cloisters her lexicon is a narrow, truncated thing.

  “One of them is bringing us a new sister today and shall be staying with us for a time to purify her thoughts, ease her mind after her time as a sword to our Lord. I’d like you to be her guide. Of your class, my dear, I trust you the most.”

  Trust, she thinks, a peculiar concept to apply to someone like Panthida—to any of them, as if they have come here willingly and chosen this life. Once she feared that in the absence of all else, she’d come to love the Abbey, she’d come to love these women that terrorized her for eighteen years: that she’d crave their attention, their approval, their kindness after such long deprivation. That never came to pass. Somewhere between the praying and the beating, she lost all capacity for affection. Under Church doctrines, devotion is meant to go one place only, upward to the Lord, like myrrh or golden light exhaled from one’s lips. This adoration never eventuated within her either.

  Though she has been told the Eshim is female, this fact does not register until she gazes upon the actual person in the convent’s landing bay. Two women step out from the shuttle. The new sister is dressed much like any of them are, the long habit that cloaks the figure, the wimple and veil that obliterate all identity. But the other one. A woman like no woman Panthida has ever seen, clothed in a black cassock split at the waist to show black trousers. The ensemble is so precisely tailored that there is no mistaking the shape beneath: the broad dark-skinned frame, the small high breasts, the thick biceps. Red stole trimmed in alabaster.

  The Eshim smiles faintly—Panthida startles; she has been caught staring. “You’re to be our host, I believe, Sister . . . ?”

  “Josephine.” She curtsies, her cheeks warm and her eyes floorward. The Eshim wears polished shoes, as sharp as the rest of her. Almost secular in their fineness. “Please follow me, Revered Eshim, and I’ll show you to your cells.”

  “One cell will do. The two of us have traveled together for some time.”

  Nothing improper in that: they’re both women, after all, and sworn to chastity. Yet somehow it feels wrong, if only because the Eshim wears such ve
stments. She steals another look, searches for evidence that this woman is a weapon of the Lord’s, the guns or knives or something else. But at a look it seems the Eshim carries such things concealed, no weapon disturbs the lines of her clothing. On the way to the cell, the Eshim introduces herself as Anoushka and the sister as Numadesi. Heathen names, Panthida thinks, not baptized ones. And beautiful, and she envies. Perhaps it is the privilege of the Eshim and those they bring into the fold, to retain their names.

  “How long may we stay here, Sister Josephine?”

  She blinks, still keeping her eyes down. A reflection of Anoushka in the black marble that makes up the Abbey’s corridors. How tall the Eshim is, how long-limbed. Anoushka makes the few men Panthida has seen in the Abbey look stubby and graceless, clumsy boulders next to Anoushka’s poise and stride. “As long as you wish, Revered. For that duration it’ll be my honor to serve you in any way.”

  The Eshim’s image laughs softly. “You shouldn’t promise people that, Sister.” They walk past new novices, tight-lipped girls in white being herded to their Latin class. “There must be a lot of children here.”

  “About eighty, Revered.” Higher than average, lower, right in the median—Panthida will never know. She’s only been out of the Abbey of the Pale Mother a few times, visiting other similar institutions. “Half under ten. The rest somewhere between that to seventeen.”

  “The sisters must be most caring to shoulder the guardianship of so many. Truly God is full of mercy.”

  The cadence of with which this is uttered makes Panthida glance over her shoulder, but the Eshim’s expression is noncommittal, as empty of meaning as blank paper. Sister Numadesi’s face likewise betrays nothing. She sees them off to their room and lets them know the Abbey’s prayer and meal times.

  Panthida spends her evening preserving flowers and turning them into jewelry. All the nuns have their chosen crafts: pressing flowers into bookmarks, weaving, sewing doll clothes. Hers is dipping lilies and orchids and peonies in gold, bronze, brass. They become broaches or pendants, and she hears they are in demand, in the world outside: secular women wear them alongside crucifixes, to display their devotion and their appreciation of the Abbey. On her part, she does it because it is the one thing she can call her own, even if she doesn’t get to keep them.

  Her company is usually Sister Menodora, a woman of indeterminable age who long ago took vows of silence, and who has never done anything to Panthida. How old she is, Panthida can’t tell—she has not changed much since Panthida was fifteen. Perhaps her extreme piety has caused true stasis, suspending her within a smoothness of face and body that suggests statues, bas reliefs, a mask. Menodora most likely has another name too, but Panthida has never heard her called anything else. She is currently painting a rose in preservatives, in the solutions that would keep the petals stiff and ready for metallic pigments.

  It is companionable work. Function and quiet. She needs to pay attention—even after the preserving and hardening the flowers remain delicate, and after the process they don’t remain intact long, most likely falling apart on some woman’s blouse or jacket. Even attempting to imagine clothes beyond habits is difficult now. Silk and lace, skirts and long coats, what are those. Only this rough fabric she wears, faintly scratchy, the better to reinforce physical poverty so the spirit may be enriched.

  An hour through and they have made enough ornament for two dozen women or only one woman with a particular enthusiasm. Panthida wonders if such a woman exists—whether she is, obscurely, opening a line of communication to the outside world; whether that woman looks forward to each batch and each collection. She tries to make them unique and tries not to imagine them dissolving to dust.

  Their work finishes. They part ways, as they always do, each to her own duty. Panthida sometimes looks for signs of alliance, an overture of trust, but Menodora is a blank slate, an entity of neutrality absolute. A mirror which reflects back nothing, and yet the closest she has to a friend.

  She opens her overlays. They are not the same ones she had as a child, in that forgotten former life; she has a clear memory of her original implants being ripped out one by one, her connection with the time before severed on an operating slab. (Did she cry or struggle? She does not recall that part.) Under the Church, even overlays are overwhelmed by song, the choir of angels. Merely to check the time—as she now does—is to be flooded by holiness.

  The Eshim has been informed of supper hour, but she expects it best to be sure: this is her newest task, and she has learned what it means if she fails in any way, deviates from what is given to her. On the way she imagines making conversation—this is the first time she’s been in the personal company of someone so unusual, the first time she’s ever met an Eshim. She formulates questions, safe topics. Small talk, even that is foreign to her, it does not quite exist in the Abbey. Gossip yes, after a fashion. But to speak to an Eshim, a person sublimated by being God’s weapon. Even as she knows that is not a blessed profession, even as she knows someone like that must have played a part in events that cause orphans, the same orphans that are sent to a place like this and have everything within and without them eroded into emptiness: clay dolls to be reshaped by the nuns’ hands.

  Even so. A woman like that, a woman in such garb and such colors, whose height dwarfs men’s and whose mien declares that nothing in all of cosmos strikes fear in her.

  Anoushka’s and Numadesi’s cell is a little larger than most, though like the rest the door is not locked. She reaches to knock and pauses when she hears a low, rough sound: as of someone in pain. The door gives and she rushes inside.

  On the cot, Sister Numadesi is straddling the Eshim’s lap. Her head is tipped back, her mouth ajar. One of Anoushka’s hands is on her hip, holding her upright. The other disappears beneath the habit, and though much is obscured by fabric, Panthida knows. Sheltered from the secular world or not, such things are nevertheless whispered of among the orphans. Adolescent thoughts may be punished if caught, but the flesh tells its own verity. She stands paralyzed, captivated. Numadesi’s legs are parted and her breathing is labored, as if she means to suppress an impossible agony. “My lord,” she says, hoarse.

  The Eshim’s hand goes still. She raises her eyes to meet Panthida’s. Her mouth curves. “Sister Josephine, you may misunderstand. This is prayer that we’re doing.” Her arm shifts, adjusting the sister on her knees, changing angle. Something she does makes Numadesi cry out. “See how she finds rapture and approaches ecstasy, as did the saints of old. This is divinity received, Sister. It is nearness to God.”

  Panthida finds she cannot move. Sister Numadesi clutches at the Eshim’s shoulders. The line of her spine bends as she pushes against—what? Against the Eshim’s fingers, against the wicked deeds being done to her there. But Numadesi makes no effort to flee, to avert this sin. Instead she bucks and moans and begs, “My lord, please—” Then she goes rigid, eyes wide, veil thrown back. Her hair has come loose, a brilliant black tide. A glimpse of her throat, long and shadowed, and Panthida finds herself thinking how splendidly shaped that is, the geometry that makes up a woman’s throat.

  Slowly Anoushka eases the sister onto the bed. She withdraws her hand: it gleams wetly. “Was there something you needed of me, Sister Josephine?”

  “I—” For an instant it is as if she was the one balanced on those powerful knees, the one who was impaled on that hand and writhed as though suffering from a fatal thrust. Panthida does her best to not look at Numadesi at all. “I wanted . . . I meant to say, supper is soon, Revered. In ten minutes.”

  The Eshim smiles wider. She licks her fingertips, one by one. From the littlest to the thumb. Her tongue is pale pink and small. “Delightful, Sister. My thanks. Will you be showing me to the dining hall?” She crosses the room, almost impossibly quick, to wash her hands in the basin. Nonchalant as anything, as though she was caught doing nothing more extraordinary than counting rosary beads.

  “Sister Numadesi won’t be joining us?”


  “We take our meals in private, she and I, but as it is my first day here I thought I should be more communal in my manners. I’ll make sure she is fed, at this moment she’s indisposed.”

  Panthida half-expects something more, another sacrilege: perhaps the Eshim will kiss the sister, will rip the habit off. But Anoushka does no such thing, leaving Numadesi on the cot with eyes shut, breasts rising and falling harshly beneath the black cloth. Cheeks flushed and limbs splayed as though in a dead faint. Panthida hurries out.

  The Eshim follows, walking level with Panthida, hands clasped at her back. Her eyes take in the black marble, peer at the stained-glass windows where the images of virgins filter the world: the immaculate mother, the female saints, those touched by angels. She expects Anoushka to smirk, to sneer at such things, but the Eshim looks merely intent. Her footfalls are bold, her stride determined and long. She does not walk like a nun.

  In the dining hall, Anoushka is invited to say grace; save the Mother Superior herself, the Eshim is the highest-ranking woman on the premise. She recites the words with solemnity. Her voice reaches the entire chamber of bare stone unaided, a voice of cool command. For the entire supper, she is the focus of attention. Few of them have ever beheld a creature like Anoushka, if another like her exists.

  The Mother Superior invites the Eshim to contemplation. Panthida watches them go, trying to locate the word with which she will make her report to the Mother. The Eshim was defiling her charge. No. She committed the gravest of sins under this roof . . . The sin of what, exactly. She knows the rhetoric and the tenets, she knows the vows that she has herself taken. Pledged to Christ, bride of the Lord, as unblemished as the Great Mother herself. And yet. The way Numadesi moved and sounded.

  “What is she like, Josephine?”

  Panthida nearly drops her bread roll, but she realizes Sister Ruth cannot possibly mean the state of Numadesi on that cot. “The Eshim?” she says, a little stupidly.

  “Yes, her.” Ruth is a fair-skinned girl with sharp glittering eyes, Chinese perhaps, her birth name could not possibly have been Ruth either way. Panthida imagines—though has never asked—that it might have been something more elaborate, something like Xiaohuan. It is a name she remembers hearing once, possibly in a play. “Who else would I mean? That’s the most interesting thing I’ve seen all year.”