Bímer and his machines! Well, even Beres was getting excited about them. Not so strange, after all; they were brothers, sons of an unpleasant Jalno who made things up and was convinced they were real. Fine, take them. He gladly gave up his children to them. But afterward, not a tear, not a whine!
Those machines!
To think he used to get worried about such things and spend months chewing his fingernails.
Machines for doing what? For doing the same things Bímer did?
If Bímer and his machines, if Beres and a few more, if his own children, if all of them together were getting the idea of building houses like the ones in the city, perfect! That was just fine. Same thing if they suddenly felt like tearing them all down (except for his!) and making new ones, completely different. Perfect. They could do whatever, anything at all, except bother him, bother Borles.
Borles had his roof—he didn’t want a better or a worse—and he didn’t need anything else, nor did he want to find out he might need something else. Everything was fine, just fine!
4. The Ships
Bímer woke up feeling very bad.
Light filtered softly through the small stained glass window in the roof and beautiful hues decorated his bed, made from fresh, fragrant grass. Dawn was breaking; outside, the wind blew cold and dry. Just by lifting his head and listening, Bímer knew that everything was okay. Nevertheless, his queasiness persisted.
He saw that Borles was drawing near, looking at his house. Then he heard him knock, and the thin metal door rang like a bell. He jumped to his feet at once and opened it.
Borles, seeing him, got so embarrassed that he did an about-face and quickly walked away. Bímer ran after him and held him by the arm.
Borles greeted him and said he was going back to his place because there was a storm on its way.
What storm? The sky was bright, not a cloud. Bímer let go of his arm. Hadn’t Borles come to see him about something? Suddenly Borles was holding Bímer’s hands tight. Yes, he’d come about something, he didn’t know exactly what; he felt bad, he was suffocating!
Borles was completely overwhelmed: it was the fear again, the big fear! He collapsed at Bímer’s feet. Bímer kneeled beside him. They actually hadn’t spent much time together the last few years; after Jalno died, everything had changed. Every man went about his own business, living as best he could, creating the little things that made life more passable. Yes, they’d cleared those ruins and fixed them up a little. The years hadn’t been bad.… And yet, right now it seemed like nothing had been good.
Maybe the machines, the valley.…
“Me too,” said Bímer. “I woke up feeling bad, inexplicably bad. We’re probably very old now but haven’t noticed yet.”
No, Borles thought, that’s not it exactly. All night long the image of the three giant desert flowers kept appearing insistently in his dreams, whipped by torrential winds, and the sky.…
Bímer turned to look at him, his face pale.
“Could it be another ‘rain’ of symbols, Borles?”
At that moment Borles’s eyes opened wide; they weren’t looking at him, they were staring straight ahead, right through him.
“That’s it,” Borles shouted, “the symbols!”
Bímer and Borles took off running, not knowing where, stumbling over stones and clumps of grass, over the tall and brittle stalks; then they left off running and, anxious, holding each other tight, lay stretched out. Borles grabbed Bímer by the head and forced him to listen to the rumbling of the ground.
“Listen, listen!” Borles was shouting. “Can’t you hear?”
Bímer’s ears were hot, burning hot. Yes, he heard the noises of the forest, the wind, the distant waves breaking on the sea.…
“Listen close!” Borles shouted.
Bímer squatted down; he instinctively covered his head with his hands, as if someone were about to hit him. Borles jumped on him and knocked him down.
“Keep still,” he gasped into his ear. They felt pressure overhead, a ringing; blood flowed from their noses.
Bímer saw the blood and began to cry. He hugged Borles, kissed him; he was afraid.
+++
Don’t look up, they remembered.
Nur B, Bímer’s grandfather, had lived through the “rain.” But it was assumed that the phenomenon would never happen again. Bímer felt like he could hear Jalno talking. “My parents told me that it wouldn’t ever happen again in our world, told me not to worry. I was afraid every night and could only sleep if I was hugging Selna. My mother was beautiful, Bímer; I think she was the most beautiful thing in the world. She was so sweet, so calm, so nice-smelling, so gentle! Well, you never knew her. Your grandparents were so different from us; you can’t imagine how different. Come here, Bímer, are you afraid too?”
Jalno? Borles was thinking. Could anything he said be believed? Had that Nur B ever existed? Was there really a “rain” of symbols? Borles writhed as if stung. Bímer lay on top of him and held him down by his shoulders.
“Don’t worry, Borles. Looks like it’s all over. It wasn’t the ‘rain.’ I’m not sure what it was.”
Borles was looking up, astonished; his body went cold. Bímer stopped pressing down on his shoulders; he turned his head, following the direction of Borles’s gaze.
“Machines,” Borles whispered. “Machines, in the sky!”
Bímer saw them; so many, the valley was plunged into darkness. Then he looked at his hands, and he saw his symbol on them. He jumped to his feet, pulling Borles up by an arm.
“Let’s run for it, Borles!”
Borles seemed incapable of moving.
“Don’t you get it?” Bímer shouted. “Those machines don’t have our symbol!”
Borles stood up slowly; Bímer shook him, but he couldn’t stop looking up at the sky. His face was drained of all expression; he took a few shaky steps and halted. What did this mean, what could it be? He’d never seen anything like it, never even imagined that such machines could exist.…
While Bímer tugged at him, Borles pressed his head with his hands, as if he were trying to squash it, or were racking his brains for a memory. Suddenly his face brightened.
Flying machines! Wouldn’t those be Jalno’s real machines? Bímer momentarily thought of abandoning him there and running for shelter, but couldn’t make up his mind to do it.
“Let’s run for it,” he urged.
“Those are Jalno’s machines! They really are—that’s what he told me, Bímer, your father did. ‘Listen here, Shrew, machines can do everything, even fly.’ Get it, Bímer? ‘That’s what a ship is, Shrew: a flying machine. You’re so stupid, Noahsark!’ he used to say. Those are Jalno’s machines, Bímer.”
Bímer was about to tell him he was