The Songbirds of Pain

Book 311: Gateway Essentials

by Garry Kilworth

Genres: Horror; Science Fiction; Sci-fi Action & Adventure

Synopsis

Garry Kilworth's first collection shows him to be one of the most original and enjoyable writers in the field. The thirteen stories in The Songbirds of Pain mix science fiction and fantasy, with a dash of unclassifiable strangeness. Kilworth is particularly adept at evoking colourful and exotic locales in distant parts of the world, as in 'The Dissemblers', a story set in the Arabian deserts, about a man resorting to bizarre self-torture in his attempts to see beyond the veil of death. 'Blind Windows' is an adventure set in the Far East, reminiscent of an updated Rider Haggard: a group of Westerners searching for some fabled crystals find their way into a hidden underground world. 'Scarlet Fever' is about an artist in a sterile future society who gives himself the disease in an attempt to stimulate creativity. And the titled story tells of a woman who undergoes a strange and painful series of treatments in order to achieve perfect beauty.

Release date: December 14, 2012

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 320

Sample

A short story should be as precise and accurate as an acupuncture needle in hitting the right nerve. There the analogy stops, for the nerve should jangle, not deaden. Since the target is a different one each time, uniformity of type is not possible in a collection such as this, but there are linking aspects which, though vague, I hope will serve to smooth the reader’s path from one story to the next. The settings are often exotic and sometimes oriental: they are drawn from cultures I have experienced and experience is too valuable to be wasted. The characters are usually ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. Occasionally, where extrapolation is more important than either character or setting, such as in “Oubliette”, these are not readily identifiable, but even here the subconscious must draw on reality, and familiar, lighted areas emerge from the dark background. What I hope the reader will find is that each story can be viewed from more than one perspective: “Sumi Dreams of a Paper Frog”, for instance, could all be taking place in the narrator’s head, with no reference to external events; or the outside world is “real” and has a warping effect on the protagonist’s mind.

Also, though the plots differ in their courses, there are common themes. Many of the stories deal with the soul — that is, not the Christian concept of the soul exactly, but the spirit that is fashioned from the personality: conscious, sub-conscious, memory, emotions, and all the other abstract qualities that make the human psyche. “The Invisible Foe” concerns a soul caught between ambivalent loyalties; “The Rose Bush” a soul tormented by an unfulfilled and desperate desire to bear a child; “The Man Who Collected Bridges” an exotic soul stained by contact with commonality; “The Dissemblers” is about the marriage of souls. These are all contemporary themes, albeit dressed in the richly-coloured robes of science fiction and fantasy.

Immortality is another connecting theme — “Almost Heaven” and “Lord of the Dance” are two different approaches to the same house. In these two stories the subject is dealt with overtly, but it is also there in “Scarlet Fever” and, in a darker, racially-inherent sense in “God’s Cold Lips”. “Blind Windows” and “Let’s Go to Golgotha!” stand a little apart from the rest, as does the title story, “The Songbirds of Pain”.

Apart from these connecting threads I hope, on another plane, that these few stories satisfy, at least to subsistence level, a certain taste for a sense of wonder. What is intended is that they should move the emotions and through them reach that soft spot in the intellect which allows entry to the story form known as “science fiction”. These tales span ten years of writing in a chosen genre which for many years I admired as a reader and am now proud to be part of as a writer. I believe in science fiction as a serious literature form which is swimming against a tide of ignorance (not in the derogatory sense of the word) and a natural distrust of the unfamiliar. However, any new, perceptive readers to science fiction may quickly realize that it is only the props that seem unacceptably strange — props that allow a greater penetration and deeper journey into the world of the imagination — not the subject matter, nor the characters.

Garry Kilworth1984

“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death …”

Christian teachings still run thickly in my blood. My new religion, a mere two years old to me, is like an adopted child: dear because it is mine by choice, not accident. But, yet, like an adopted child it can never be truly part of me. It is a grafted branch, well-taken and, indeed, an extension of me, but not inherent. Thus, those phrases from my childhood learnings spring to mind more readily in crises, than do the new words, though I love the latter more. Those others were with me from birth, and now I am nearer to death than the beginnings of my life, I sometimes panic. Will I be ready? Will I be ready? Or will they scream “Dissembler!” in my wake as I try to gain entrance into a world I barely believe in?

“You must be Orget. I’m Jane Reece.”

I looked up from my newspaper to observe a tall, elegant blonde woman in a safari outfit. The clothes were obviously Zandra Rhodes. The woman inside them finished by a Swiss school.

“It’s rude to stare, Mr Orget”

“I’m sorry. Please sit down.” I placed the four-day old paper on the table before me and nodded to her companion, a thickset man with square, tan features. He was about two-thirds her height.

“You too, sir, whatever your name is.”

“His name is Chota. He’s a deaf mute,” she replied for me, taking one of the rattan chairs. Chota followed her example. Around us coffee was being served in glasses the size of egg-cups. I signalled the Arab waiter. He saw my three fingers and gave the slightest of nods, not even turning his head. Through the glassless window behind my guests I could see the mountains of the Hadhramaut rippling in the heat waves. Before them, the dust-rock desert furrowed unevenly by deep wadis. Brown kite hawks created invisible whirlpools in the air above. I turned my attention back to my visitors.

“I expected you yesterday,” I said, “and him not at all.”

She stiffened, two red spots appearing on her high cheekbones. “Chota is here for a reason. It’s nothing to do with protecting me, Mr Orget …”

“Ray.”

“… though he’s quite capable of doing so. He’s from Papua. A forest Indian.”

“Well, you look as though you usually know what you’re doing. Did you fly up from Aden? In the DC3?”

She nodded. “The one wallpapered inside with a rose pattern design.” It was a serious remark.

“There is only one. Bit of a hairy ride, isn’t it? I suspect the wallpaper is to hide the cracks in the fuselage … it gets a bit bumpy over the Radfan hills … the thermals. Tends to shake up the superstructure.” I could see my frivolity was having very little effect and immediately abandoned it “Let’s talk about why you’re here,” I said.

The coffee had arrived accompanied by three glasses of water. The waiter placed them on the table. I paid him immediately, the coins clattering on the small, brass tray. Jane Reece was staring at the thick, black sludge in her coffee glass.

“I don’t want this …”

“Then don’t drink it, but we’re in a coffee shop. It’s paid for. Now, I understand you want me to find your husband for you. That’s what the letter said.”

Her blue eyes observed me coolly. I could see a strength in her face I was not used to in one of her class. Then, mentally, I reprimanded myself for my prejudice.

“I haven’t heard of anyone called Reece in the Hadhramaut,” I continued, “and I would have done so, if he were here. There’s not that many whites in the area.”

“His name is John Freeman. I didn’t take his name when we married and he didn’t ask me to.”

I held up my hand as her mouth began tightening.

“Please. You needn’t go into details. John Freeman I have heard of. He was at the Consulate in Sana’a, wasn’t he? Then he came down to the Hadhramaut last cool season. I understand he discharged himself from the diplomatic service …” The Papuan Indian momentarily distracted me by dipping his finger into his coffee. After licking it gingerly, he took another dip and grinned at me with small blunt teeth. I smiled back.

“Friendly guy. Is he a tracker? You’d have been better with a Yemeni or an Adeni. There aren’t many jungles in South Arabia.”

“I don’t need your sarcasm, Orget, just your knowledge of the local geography. Chota has a special job to do and what it is, is my business, not yours. You won’t trick me into revealing what he’s here for. You’ll know when I’m ready to tell you.”

A hot breeze came in through the window and lifted a few wispy strands of her hair. She was wearing it tied up with a yellow bandana and I was about to say something banal, like, “You look beautiful when you’re calm,” and then remembered in time that macho males had been out of fashion since Hemingway’s heroes fell from grace, and in any case, I was too old and tired. Well, perhaps not too tired but it was a good excuse for not attempting something at which I was bound to fail.

“Fair enough Jane … Reece,” I added. “We’ll try and find your husband for you. In my engineering days I drilled half the local desert looking for oil I never found. A man should be easy. At least he won’t be hiding underneath the sand. Do you prefer horses or camels?”

“Horses.”

“And a thousand wasn’t it? Riyals, that is.”

“It was seven hundred to look and three when we find him.”

“If we find him.”

“I didn’t come all this way just to go home with my tail between my legs. We’ll find him, one way or another.”

“And when you do? What then?”

“That’s where Chota comes in.” And for the first time she smiled.

We met the next day and arranged enough provisions at the village to last us several weeks. I explained to Jane Reece that I knew the general whereabouts of her husband and that his location would at least be confined to one of fifty places. “He’s got to live near a well,” I said.

“What about food?” she asked.

“If he’s got money, that’ll be no problem. Other well-users will sell him food as they pass through. And anyway, there’s gazelle and small game.” I began to check our own provisions. Sugar, tea, raisins, flour ... We were going into the empty quarter from Shimab, where I would have to rely on reports from strangers. Hopefully Freeman would not take too long to track down. Then I could get back to my wife in Shimab. I had not told Jane Reece about my wife because, to use Jane Reece’s own words, it was none of her damn business. We were ready to set off just before noon. The horses stood waiting nearby. I unrolled my mat, took out my beads and knelt in the direction of Mecca.

“What are you doing?” asked Jane Reece in a voice that suggested I was about to take part in some revolting perversion.

“I’m about to say my prayers. I’m a Moslem.”

“Oh.”

“You don’t have any objections to Islam, do you?”

“Plenty,” she replied, “but I won’t let them interfere with the expedition.”

“The women?” I said.

“The women,” she confirmed, “and the disgusting, barbaric practice of circumcision on small girls …”

“Islam is beautiful,” I said, “it is people that are ugly.” Then I ignored her and all about me to contemplate Allah, the One God, and the Prophet, peace be upon him. The strange thing was, as a young man I had never been particularly religious. It was a woman who had been responsible for my conversion. They would never have allowed me to marry her unless I was a Moslem. Once the rituals obtained a hold on one’s soul however, they were difficult to shed. They were as addictive a drug as qat grass, which I had also taken to, since settling in the Hadhramaut. I knew that Jane Reece considered me one of those peculiar whites who have “gone native” but I was not going to explain my complicated reasons to her. What her Papuan shadow thought, I had no idea. The whole alien scene must have been totally bizarre to him, yet his impassive face registered nothing. He was probably storing all these wonders of humankind to mime before a camp fire in his native forests. (… And then this old whitey goes down on his knees and starts waving his arms at the sun, while the woman walks around him slapping the side of her boot with a short whip …)

The wind-blown dust and grit bit into our shins as we made our way among the foothills. Diurnal temperatures at sea level were around 150 Fahrenheit, nocturnal they were still over a hundred, yet when we went up into the mountains the waterbottles froze solid. Jane Reece had made no murmur of complaint since we had started out, three days before. She had seen black scorpions, sand-snakes and camel spiders as big as soup plates, but she just clenched her teeth and swatted at them with her crop. The privation in the empty quarter is not a pleasant experience and though she protected as much of her skin as she could, her milky complexion suffered under the harsh sun. I felt sorry for her but she would have hated me for it, so I kept my pity to myself.

On the fourth night out, at the well of Jebel Rakmel, we made a fire and cooked a lizard I had caught She chose it as the moment to begin telling me about her husband and why she was searching for him. The story made me sick with apprehension.

“My father has been in the diplomatic service since he left university in 1922 and there was no reason why John should not take advantage of that. I persuaded him to take a post that daddy found for him in Paris. John worked there quite happily, until he was sent to Singapore to negotiate on behalf of a Briton there who had been convicted of smuggling narcotics. They still hang people for drug dealing in Singapore. John failed to obtain clemency and had to witness the execution.

“When he arrived back in England he was very shaken. Shaken, I suppose, is an understatement … he was deeply disturbed and began to develop an obsession with death — especially death by hanging. Books on capital punishment began to arrive by post in batches. John would take these packages to his room and lock the door, spending hours at a time, presumably studying them. Of course, I was aware how unhealthy it was and contacted the family doctor but each time he called, John would either laugh it off or treat him brusquely. John’s whole demeanour altered. From a fairly passive but optimistic personality he deteriorated into an intense, pessimistic individual. He became hollow-eyed and pale, and rejected any sort of approach by me which might interfere with his new ‘interest’. Finally I broached him on his reasons for his passion with death. I told him that I was jealous of anything that took up so much of his time and he agreed to talk about it.

“ ‘I want to look over the edge,’ he stated, enigmatically.

“ ‘Over the edge of what?’

“ ‘Death. I must see what’s on the other side.’ There was little excitement in his tone but there was an earnestness I had not witnessed in him before. We were in our bedroom at the time — I was preparing for bed and feigning interest in my appearance because I hoped it would encourage him to disclose more if I did not appear to be concentrating on him completely — and he paced up and down behind me as I sat at the mirror.

“ ‘I believe,’ he said, ‘that if a man could take himself to the edge of death … yet still remain on this side, then he could observe the naked soul … supposing it exists.’

“To my credit, I did not call the doctor immediately. I allowed him to finish his explanation.

“ ‘I’ve been reading about Newgate prison … about the triple tree — that was a sort of three-cornered gallows at Tyburn where they could hang nine people at a time. The hangman was always called Jack Ketch and he hung the criminals for at least half-an-hour before allowing them to be cut down. This was in the days before dropping the malefactors to break their necks. They were usually hauled up slowly from the back of a cart. Occasionally … just occasionally a man or woman would still be alive when friends cut them down.

“ ‘One of these people, a man called Half-hanged Smith, recounted his feelings on being taken to the very point of death.’ He picked up an open book, which rested on the floor on the side of the bed, and began to read.

“When I was turned off (hung) I was sensible of very great pain, occasioned by the weight of my body, and felt my spirits in a strange commotion, violently pressing upwards. These having forced their way to my head I saw, as it were, a great blaze or glaring light, which seemed to go out of my eyes with a flash — and then I lost all sense of pain. I saw my soul rising upwards into the ether — then I was cut down and began to come to myself, the soul returning the blood and spirits forcing themselves into their former channels, put me, by a sort of pricking or shooting to such intolerable pain that I could have wished those hanged who had cut me down.”

“That night I told John he had to abandon his lunatic studies or I would have him committed to an asylum. He looked at me as if I had just betrayed him — a sort of hurt, bewildered expression —but, you understand Ray, I had to shock him out of it. I had to be blunt and honest, not kind, and to prove it to him, I telephoned our doctor there and then to arrange an appointment with a psychiatrist. John just stared at me with that helpless expression still on his face. Then he stuttered something about being sorry, and, yes, he would get rid of the books the following morning. Naturally, I cancelled the doctor’s appointment immediately. Afterwards we made love — as well as we’ve always done.” She hesitated, then nodded, “I tell you that so you’ll realize we were reconciled.”

“What happened next?” I asked. Her eyes were glistening in the firelight I think she was upset but her voice was clear and even.

“Outwardly, he seemed to have put his obsession aside, but secretly he had applied for a post in the British Consulate in Sana’a — Ray, I’d like to ask you a direct question. Do you find me attractive, I mean, do I repel you in any way? Please answer honestly.” I thought over the answer for a full two seconds.

“I think you’re one of the most exciting women I’ve ever met.” My answer was sincere.

“Thank you,” she said quietly.

After she was asleep, I sat up and stared across the fire at our Papuan companion. He gazed back at me placidly.

“I wonder what a man who has witnessed his soul looks like?” I said softly. “Does his body blanch, to become white as an albino’s? Does it become brittle, hard, like a diamond, with no feelings evident? What do you think, Chota?”

His broad face creased a fraction and there was a hint of a smile just below the surface.

“I think,” I continued, “that a man who has seen his own soul, would have to be mad. I think that John Freeman is already mad. I think he is as cuckoo as an early spring. Crazy. Savvy?” I tapped the side of my head. Suddenly the smile was there, fully, and the two rows of small teeth shone white in the firelight I nodded, returning the smile, then lay back and stared at the stars, wondering why, as I lived longer, I should be dragged deeper into this morass of strange human activity known as the “search for truth” by others of my kind. Around me I could hear the desert wind whispering dust into the dry shrubs: the insect world toiling amongst the shale. This was no Sahara, with high golden du. . .