No mad land, p.3
No/Mad/Land, page 3
Hakim is the only one who can identify their individual songs. It is so beautiful it can be described in two overflowing sentences: “It’s like the aviary in a zoo. The air smells of humus like in a greenhouse.”
Then what seems like thousands of birds fly out of the hundreds of tunnels and nooks and crannies in the cliff. Alan motions to the Pulldogs to stay still. The group becomes immobile. Then he lowers his hand and gestures them to sit on the ground. He brings a finger to his mouth and then to his ear as if to say, “Close your eyes and listen.”
On first impact the cacophony seems a little threatening, but slowly becomes a festive, raucous song.
Unable to resist his curiosity, Alan opens his eyes and sees them all perched on a cliff at least ten meters high. It is a breathtaking spectacle. Slowly he points his phone and sees hundreds of canaries, green- and blue-headed parrots, robins, pipits, and white-eyed parakeets.
The tuff cliff is a changing rainbow, symphonic and deafening. When entire rows of perching birds all sing at the same time like they were a choir, it is as if the branches rustle in the breeze they make, but listening more carefully shows the united sound separates into a knot of hundreds of soloists, the noisy twittering of a multitude of individuals.
Suddenly two flocks rise into the sky; it looks like they are arguing, pushing against each other, diving sharply to demonstrate some right or the other, claiming a better place or just more attention.
“What do you think they are saying?” Silvia says, resting her chin on Alan’s shoulder.
“They are friends. I think they are talking about where to go and eat later. They are arranging to meet before breakfast.”
Tasia can’t resist taking a seed from her pocket. She’s immediately surrounded and covered by a cloud of small green parrots, happy to take advantage of a free meal.
The show lasts for a few minutes, then each bird goes its own way, flying alone or in a group through the forest. Alan moves to restart their walk. When he stands up he realizes that many of the Pulldogs kept their eyes open and hadn’t lost the opportunity to record the natural concert.
“Marvelous! We’ve been to our first bird rave party.”
* * *
In the evening, after the shadow of Mount Amiata has come down like a sheet over a corner of the forest, Alan falls in beside Nico.
“Have you seen the marks on Silvia’s skin?”
He nods.
“And the vomiting?”
Another nod.
“Do you think it’s serious?”
The group is skirting around the ruins of an old monastery. The building is majestic, a rectangular cloister adorned with columns and an ancient wisteria plant climbing to the top of a crumbling tower.
“The nanites are programmed to react to the environment surrounding them. Neither more nor less than what genes do.”
A chapel in limestone with pointed arches, though abandoned, retains its dignity. Peering through one of the windows in the wall they can see sodden mattresses and tinned tomato crates piled up along the walls, two confessionals being used as wardrobes and some dilapidated chairs.
“Silvia vomited two hundred grams of mercury. She said she had purged forty years of medicines. Does that seem like a good reaction to their environment to you?”
The bright green meadow below the apse has won the battle against the flagstones, and the frescoed plaster has succumbed to damp. What must once have been religious magazines for the faithful have been reduced to piles of stained cellulose.
“It depends, because as they work faster than genes, nanites’ reactions seem prodigious.” Nico points at Alan’s legs. “You should know better than anyone else.”
Alan hasn’t forgotten the accident at Globalzon, nor what Miriam and Ivan did to give him back the use of his legs. He can remember his old organism, his heart pumping blood independently of his desires, lungs breathing even when he was sleeping, neurons activating with every thought, a heritage of unconscious functions given by nature to all living beings…but his bone marrow was unable to repair the connectivity of his Schwann cells damaged by a fall in the warehouse.
A human being’s central nervous system does not stretch, not even a little, and if it snaps – unlike that of many animals – it stays inert, like Alan would have done, as a paraplegic, if it hadn’t been for the nanites. After swallowing them though, his ‘neuroms’ stretched and within a few months he was able to walk again, better than before. In any case, he has never felt like a self-aware android worrying over the question: ‘Who programmed me and why do I function in this way?’
The creator of his nanites has a name and surname, even if neither Miriam nor Alan have ever met them. They know this person is Chinese, has been living in Italy for years, and gave this nanotechnology knowledge to free distributed cooperation projects. In his hands a generic assemblage engine, thought up by Ivan Shumalin for the Ending Hunger project, had made a miracle possible.
“You know very well that those nanites had a different purpose. They were supposed to repair my damaged bone marrow, not improve the efficiency of how we nourish ourselves. I’d like to know if there will be other side effects that will transform our lives into nightmares.”
“Would you have felt better if Silvia’s organism had expelled a milligram of mercury per month, Alan? I mean, we know what is happening to the outside of our bodies, but inside? Many things are a mystery, with or without nanites. Is the intelligence working in cellular mechanisms so different to that regulating nanites’ microscopic processes?”
“Nico, I asked you a simple question and you answer me with three other questions. I just want to know if Silvia might have the same illness as that bastard Grisha.”
“He wasn’t as ill as he wanted us to believe. He had an endogenous fever like all of us, perhaps a little higher, but in the end he decided to leave the viaduct and betray us for thirty pieces of silver.”
“So it isn’t the same thing?”
“I don’t know. Nanites do good and bad. They are like the wind, they blow in every direction.”
“That’s a shitty answer.”
“Do you want another one? Here you go: I’m not a doctor, nor do I think there is anyone specialized in medicinal nanotechnology, not yet at least.”
Alan says nothing, but continues to walk by Nicolas’s side.
There are many points where the stones have fallen, taking large parts of the facade with them. Inside, something is making noises, there are probably owls or bats living in the bell tower or the cellars. The floors of the second story are only held up by rusty arm-thick metal struts and Rafabel has to make sure Tasia, Pino, and the smaller children don’t go and play underneath.
Alan walks on in a state of agitation. Every now and then, almost as if trying to attract Nicolas’s attention, he kicks at bricks in the fallen perimeter wall. Then he grabs a crumbling stone and crushes it between his fingers.
“What a place…. Time has won here. There is no future here.”
“I can’t even see a present here. Tell me how it smells, Alan.”
“It stinks…it’s disgusting.”
“I thought so. Let’s not set up camp here tonight. Shall we go back?”
“Back where?”
“I saw a footpath, three hundred meters before we got to the monastery. If they built it here the monks must have had access to a freshwater source.”
“Perhaps you’re right, on the other side of the Val d’Orcia I saw two modern buildings that look like fairly new hotels.” Alan checks his smartphone. “Found ’em. It is the San Filippo baths. We can look for a place there.”
“OK, but if there are hotels nearby, we’ll have to be careful.”
* * *
Alan leans out above a really steep slope. “Hurry up! It’s incredible!” he calls out.
The others run to him and spread out beside him.
“Be careful, there’s a lot of mud and a layer of slippery leaves too.”
Then he starts to make his way down and is the first to get to the bottom, waving his arms enthusiastically.
“What is it?” shouts Silvia, only halfway down.
The slope takes them to a white hill made of limestone formations. Alan climbs up to a plateau to stand hands on hips with his feet in a pool of naturally sulfurous water.
“Our swimming pool. What do you think?”
Fosso Bianco is a pleasant discovery: along the river fed by various sulfur water springs there are a number of natural limestone pools where the younger members of the group are already splashing around. In the woods Rafabel is gathering silver-shelled snails as if they were gemstones.
“Are you sure this is a public place?” Miriam asks her son.
“Well, I didn’t see any gates or no-entry signs.”
The Pulldogs’ skin is impregnated with the perfume of lemons. It is a feature that Nicolas wanted because mosquitoes hate this smell and it keeps them away. This is especially useful when the weather starts to get warmer again.
The air is damp beneath the fir wood’s canopy and the high clouds look like sculpted marble. Sitting in a circle around the fire, the Pulldogs are doing something unusual for them.
There are evenings like this when they discuss the importance of walking and the value of a volatile community, kept together by steps that are renewed every day rather than by rarely questioned social ties. Other times it is their daily difficulties that make their union desirable, like when they are chased away by a round of blank shots, or when they are walking in the pouring rain. Even though it is January, it hasn’t snowed.
When evening comes down, the day never seems to have passed like a normal day, nor is it broken down into hours, minutes, and seconds, ground into pieces by the flowing of digital time. The only ritual that marks the passing of time is the setting up of the communal tent. Once a week, instead of putting up single, double, or family tents, they mount a structure capable of welcoming the whole group. Sleeping one next to the other guarantees a sense of deep togetherness, the kids feel safer, the young people have fun, and the adults socialize.
Usually, during these evenings everyone sleeps better, but tonight, shortly after one, the blue lights of a forestry police car are reflected in the puddles in the road leading to the San Filippo baths. Ariel and Leira are the lookouts, and as soon as they see a few shadows holding flashlights they alert the others with a bird call.
After leaving their car by the side of the road three policemen continue on foot along the path down to where they are camped.
The bird call alarm travels quickly and when the policemen reach the camp they find a group of sleepy, but standing, people and various animals.
Rafabel shoots a quick look at Alan, who immediately starts talking.
“Please, we just need some water. We couldn’t find any anywhere else around here. We won’t stay long, we’ll leave before dawn.”
The largest officer, gray moustache and crew cut, ignores Alan’s proposal and turns his radio on.
“There are about twenty of them,” he says to someone on the other end of the radio. “A couple of old people, some children and some animals, horse, sheep, cows…. Should I move them on?”
Officer Tash nods and waves at the other two to follow the order.
Seeing as the soft approach gained them nothing, Nicolas tries another way.
“We aren’t doing anything wrong. This is a public area.”
The two officers circle Nicolas. They point their flashlights at his feet then bring the beams upwards, to his torso, and then his face, irritatingly in his face. The other Pulldogs look at each other, not knowing what to do. Alan wants to keep a low profile, Dikran and Hakim keep calm, Kenshij is wary: in their experience encounters with the forces of law and order frequently end up as a danger to their safety.
To protect himself from the bright light Nicolas raises his arm. The two officers widen their eyes when they catch a glimpse of what is on his forearm.
“What kind of tattoo is that? Is it moving? And what’s that? Surviving Isn’t Enough. What a load of shit.”
“If you don’t like it, I’ll get rid of it.”
Officer Tash grimaces. “Enough games. Now get those animals together, gather your possessions, and leave. Now!”
Alan wants to say something, but Officer Tash is keeping his eye on them like a parent making sure the kids tidy their room properly.
Nicolas makes an open-palmed gesture at Alan to stop. The memory of Little Simon’s death is still fresh. No one wants a pleasant evening to degenerate into a tragedy because of a trio of local cops.
The Pulldogs take down their tents and load the sleepy children on litters.
One of the officers – the jumpiest of the three – takes out his pistol the moment twenty minutes have passed and starts waving it around trying to impress them.
“C’mon, hurry up! Tourists will be coming here tomorrow morning and they won’t want to have crazies like you under their feet. This isn’t a no-global campsite.”
After the Pulldogs start their trek along the path leading to the main road, the three officers check over the area with their flashlights to make sure they have not left any nasty surprises behind. At a certain point, while Officer Tash, visibly irritated, removes a large animal poo, a light appears in the forest. At first it looks like a ball of light, then they can see it is a nutshell wrapped in flames, and in the end it lands in the clearing where the camp was.
Officer Tash waves the other two to hurry before a fire breaks out.
The nut is covered in a material that doesn’t burn very well. After stamping on it five or six times the fire goes out and Officer Tash can read the words on a flap of skin as large as the inside of a forearm: Surviving Isn’t Enough.
Chapter Thirty-One
Mount Adone
They have been walking without stopping since they left Fosso Bianco.
At midday they are in the Vallombrosa reserve.
When they reach the banks of the Arno, beneath the pillars holding up the A1 motorway, Alan whistles to a fisherman still anchored in the middle of the river, and negotiates being taken across in exchange for fruit. After a little while the fisherman returns with a small raft and ferries them all to the other side.
They follow the course of the winding river, its bends and inlets, for a few kilometers. Alongside the Arno there are a few meters of dirt track covered in rushes, and a footpath passing farmhouses, isolated barns, and country people’s sheds. When they meet another walker or a cyclist, the Pulldogs, as if they were normal hikers, ask directions which they then ignore and go straight to where they were told not to go.
The act is part of their strategy.
Last week, when they were near Bomarzo, Nicolas had recklessly offered nanites to the farmer allowing them to sleep in his barn. The man had been moaning about the ever-waning harvests, the constantly declining prices of agricultural produce and how nutraceuticals were taking his work from him, but when Nicolas hinted it was possible to refuse the global market’s blackmailing grasp once and for all and liberate himself from traditional food, the farmer had given him a strange look.
“This land has been in my family for generations. My ancestors made this place what it is, and in exchange the land made us what we are.”
As if this were not enough, Nicolas continued, “I have a great respect for your connection to the land, but in China they are already composing good quality rice in three varieties in nanomats, in one move erasing the ancient agricultural system of the rice paddies. Five hundred million farm workers have hung their hats on a hook and turned to other activities.”
“Ah, I saw something about that on the TV, but what do you expect me to do with this land? Yet another B&B or boutique farmhouse hotel like all the others popping up all over the place? Go and ask them if they will let you sleep for free in one of their barns for the night.” Then he got up, half offended, and left.
The day after, as they were leaving, he said his goodbyes unenthusiastically.
* * *
Once they reach the Vallombrosa reserve the Pulldogs start singing; the music is a tool, like a stick: it stimulates speed and reinforces determination. Anyway, Depeche Mode’s ‘Enjoy the Silence’ encourages them to carry on walking.
Alan is convinced, with the right soundtrack, they will reach Monte Adone the following evening and be able to leave the animals with people who will know how to look after them properly. Afterwards they will have to take stock of these first weeks and decide where to head with their next strides.
They are all repeating the last verse when a shot rips through the air. Then another, closer shot scares everyone. Silvia grabs Alan by the arm.
“Quick, on the ground or behind a tree!”
He raises his eyes just in time to see a shadow disappear quickly into the leaves two hundred meters ahead of them. The first to move is Hakim.
“Wait!” Alan tries to stop him, but he has already gone. “No one move, got it?”
The dingoes growl. Nicolas and Rafabel take Tasia and Pino by the hand; the others hide amongst the trees.
Two minutes go by, then Hakim appears again in the bushes. He is cradling a wounded bird of prey. “Poachers.”
“Are they looking for it?”
“Maybe. It’s a red kite, an endangered species.”
“We have to take it with us then.”
Hakim is perplexed. The kite tries to open its beak to let out a cry. He holds it closed to avoid being discovered.
“It’s only a flesh wound but I don’t know how long it can hold on.”
Silvia asks Nico to bring the animal closer.
“Could nanites help him?”
“I don’t think so. They can’t perform instant miracles. It would take them too long.”
