Book 7 : 668-669 L.C. / 760 M.Y.
20 August
No luck in the port office, but they think the railway will have use for someone literate, numerate, and with practical knowledge of tunnelling and workshop practice. The railway committee are based in Meyroha, but the people at the port office know that they’re planning an office here.
As soon as Behmi knew I was looking for work she asked whether Aari would like to help in the kitchen, and we would eat for free and get free lodging, which seemed like a good deal, at least for a while. So now we’re above the cafe instead of in the boarding house, which is much more comfortable. Not least because stone walls and being on the first floor make me less nervous.
So Aari’s working from a little before noon until late, and I’ve got Aariini all day, while I wander around getting the feel of Laanoha, and looking what opportunities it offers. Fortunately Aariini is now happy sucking a pear and eating carefully deboned bits of boiled fish – Behmi’s suggestion. And keeping it down.
23 August
Today I walked out along the foot of the cliffs at the headland. For a little while I put Aariini down on a patch of grass. It was low tide, more or less, and I wandered down to the edge of the water. Lots of shellfish and seaweed.
I’ll get a bag tomorrow, and go down there again. I’m sure Behmi will be able to use them.
Can’t help remembering surviving on them raw. Safe enough there at The Weather, with a clean and violent sea. Probably not so good here, a couple of miles from a big town. But okay well cooked.
24 August
Got a bag in the market for a quarter coin. Good strong bag, and it hangs comfortably. Bag one side, Aariini in her sling the other. She’s happy, fiddling with the new bag’s strap. Sucking it. I wonder what they cured the leather with?
Judged the tide just right. Had to put Aariini down again, and she was a bit annoyed that I took her sucking strap away. I found her a few pebbles to play with – small enough for her to handle, but too big for her to try swallowing them. Probably nicely salty. Whatever, evidently good things to suck on.
Filled the bag with seaweed and shellfish quite quickly, took them back to Behmi – who is very pleased indeed, and gave me two coins. Those’ll go down really well with the customers, she says, they’re a rare treat nowadays. Nobody bothers to collect them any more, they’re all working on the railway now.
That building site is for the railway. They’re about to start building a bridge over the river to bring the railway right into Laanoha, right over the isthmus and almost down to the harbour.
Behmi remembers Biishi’s boarding house. She thinks Biishi died a few years ago, but she might have sold up. Someone else was running the place before they demolished it. No idea how you’d find her if she’s still alive.
You could earn more working on the railway than you can earn collecting ekraahi and seaweed, but not with Aariini with you! Don’t take my Aari away though – we’re a good team.
Don’t worry, Aari said, I won’t let him do labouring. Doctor says he mustn’t.
What kind of work is he looking for then?
Clerical, he’s good with writing and numbers. Or collecting ekraahi and seaweed!
Which is good as a stop-gap, but you’ve got another baby coming, Aari. And these shellfish are ekraahi, are they? No idea what they are in English1.
If I catch the tide right, I can probably get mussels, which I’m sure would be even more popular. But Aariini’ll be crawling soon, and that might put an end to this venture.
No, we can make you a better sling, so you can carry her with you while you work, rather than putting her down. Just make sure you don’t fall in the water, that’s all!
Okay.
29 August
Really I ought to contact the railway before they open their office here, and get in on the ground floor – but how do I do that? I can try talking the foreman or the clerk of works on the building site I suppose. Perhaps take a look at the work they’re doing for the bridge first, make sure I know what I’m talking about before I introduce myself.
Yes, says Aari. Familiarize yourself with as much as you can first. Then when you’re ready to introduce yourself, I’m going to have to have Aariini for a few hours, aren’t I?
We’ll manage, says Behmi, although we are much busier these days. Ekraahi and mussels and seaweed are certainly bringing the customers in!
Actually, we’re earning quite well. I’m managing to do two trips most days. I’ve got another bag, and I’m filling them both. If I get my timing right and I manage to get two bags of mussels as well as two bags of seaweed and ekraahi, Aari and I end up with eight or ten coins and Behmi is very happy too.
But somebody else will realize we’re doing well, and then there’ll be competition, and who knows what will happen? And what’ll it be like collecting shellfish and seaweed in winter? So I’m still going to try for a job in the railway office.
I have this horrible feeling I’m going to have to go to Meyroha though, once I’ve studied what’s going on here as much as I can, to meet with anyone who can make any decision about the kind of job I want, if I want to meet them before the office opens here. Probably best if Aari and Aariini come with me, too, and Behmi’s not sure, but she thinks it’s two days each way in the train. More by sea, of course.
22 September 668 L.C. / 759 M.Y.2
We’re on the train. This is not cheap – fifteen coins for me, ten for Aari, and two for Aariini. They took it on trust that Aariini isn’t a year old yet. Her ticket would have been five coins otherwise.
There are only nineteen passengers altogether, in a coach with seats for twenty-four. I haven’t counted the goods wagons, and don’t know what’s in them, if anything. There were huge stacks of stone, iron girders, timber and firewood at Kromaan, but I think they had arrived by train, and are waiting to be used on the bridge or ferried to Laanoha, rather than waiting to be loaded onto a train.
To catch this train, we had to get the first ferry in the morning, before dawn. It was cold! And foggy. No fog on the harbour side of town, but as soon as we were over the top and on our way down to the ferry – fog. And all the way across the river. Then climbing the hill to the station we climbed out of the fog again. Quite a view looking back, with the fog filling the estuary, and Laanoha and the headland floating above it, and the castle overlooking Laanoha on the other side, the sun just beginning to catch the castle and the top of the headland.
We delayed our trip to Meyroha until the shellfish and seaweed season was over. Conditions out on the headland aren’t safe for going collecting at this time of year, Behmi says, and it seems about the right time to me too. It’ll be a while before the bridge is finished, so I think there’s plenty of time.
If I’m not working for the railway by then, she says I have to learn cliff-hopping for the egg season in spring! I’m not sure I like the sound of cliff-hopping, but I’ve been up the rigging on sailing ships often enough though, and at least cliffs don’t sway about like that. But it sounds too strenuous, and Aari won’t let me do it.
I’ve learnt a bit about the railway in the last few weeks. They’re a relatively recent invention here – or more accurately, a re-invention, as in England. In both places, people have worked out roughly how the ancients’ railways worked. Very roughly: the old machinery is very rusty, and a lot of it probably missing altogether, looted or corroded away completely. Much of it doesn’t seem to make any sense, so although some of the ideas have been copied, there’s a lot of new invention.
The track here is much narrower than in England, and the rolling stock quite a lot smaller.
I think we’re about to leave.
I can’t write while the train’s moving!
We’ve stopped in a village, and some boxes are being unloaded, and others loaded. No idea what’s in them. I think it’s just one wagon that’s been opened, but I can’t see terribly well, leaning out of the window, and I don’t feel like getting out of the train. No passengers getting out, and none getting in, either.
The countryside we’ve been passing through is very flat and obviously very fertile farmland, but everything’s been harvested. There are pigs, sheep, goats and cattle about, but not all that many. People herding them – apart from the pigs, which seem virtually wild – but no fences that I’ve seen. Even the railway is unfenced, but the train is going so slowly that it doesn’t seem to matter. A good runner could probably outrun it, but not for very far obviously.
The line is very straight, so even if the crops were tall at a different time of year, you could see the train coming from a long way. You’d have to be pretty deaf not to hear it, too.
We’ve all been looking out of the window the whole time. Aariini seems to be enjoying it, especially when she sees animals or people. The people all seem to want to watch the train, and a lot of them wave at it, especially the children.
Most of the children seem to be wearing little more than rags. It’s really too cold for that, but they almost all look happy. Mostly their hair is completely unkempt, but who cares? As long as they’re cheerful!
You can see better with the window open, but it’s too cold to keep it open, and from time to time the smoke from the engine blows this way.
We’re moving again.
We’ve stopped again.
Just after Baragi – one of the other passengers told me that’s the name of the village where we stopped – we crossed a river. I couldn’t see the bridge, of course, but we were quite high above the river. It has quite a wide valley between steep walls cut by ravines and covered in scrub. The valley floor either side of the river is very lush.
Then there was more farmland, very similar to that before Baragi. Then just before we stopped, we crossed another river, with a valley just like the first one.
Aari corrects me: she’s sure it’s the same river, because this time it was flowing east to west, and last time it was west to east. I’m sure she’s right.
From both sides of the train we can see big snow-capped mountains ahead. We are heading straight for them. I’ve been told there are tunnels before we get to Barioha, one them quite long, but surely we don’t tunnel right through those mountains?
We’re still not moving, so that must be a different engine, not ours, that I can hear now. Stopped. Two chuffs. Stopped again.
Ah. Now we’re moving. Sounds like two engines3.
Stopped again.
We did have two engines. In places, the line was curved enough that from this coach, at the tail end of the train, we could easily see both engines at the front of the train, sometimes out the left side, sometimes out the right.
It’s obvious why we needed them. Both engines had to work very hard to get us up into the mountains. There is a tunnel, but only through the very highest part of the mountains. I don’t know how high the railway climbs, but I think it’s a lot higher than the highest hills in England – far higher than any railway in England goes.
The extra engine was going backwards. I just heard it again, so they’ve obviously detached it. I expect it’s going to wait for the other train coming the other way now, to help it up into the mountains from this side. I think it’s just as steep this side.
It’s a fantastic place, especially coming up the other side. At first it’s just a steep slope climbing an escarpment, but then the railway follows a deep gorge. Tunnels through spurs, incredible bridges back and forth across the gorge, high above the river, gaining height all the way. Amazing engineering! The noise of the engines is incredible, echoing around the gorge4.
Coming down this side, we go underneath the most fabulous viaduct ever. It carries the branch to Belgaam – and Briggi when they finish the work. So I’ve just been told. That’s the line to go on if you like gorges and impressive engineering, apparently. But you have to chat up the driver and ride in the cab, because they only do goods trains on that line. Maybe once they reach Briggi they’ll start putting a small coach on – not like this one, though, there wouldn’t be enough passengers to justify it.
We’re moving again.
23 September
We’re in Barioha, in the passengers’ dormitory, waiting to be called to get on the train again. I think I’m the only one awake, although it’s quite light already. Some of the other passengers went out into town last night. Maybe they didn’t get back until late.
Breakfast will be served on the train after we’ve set off. Train travel is really rather luxurious here.
I suppose it probably is in England, too, but I’ve only ever worked for the railways there, never ridden on them. What? Me? A railway passenger? How the hell did that happen?
Yesterday, after the extra engine was detached, we passed it sitting on a second track parallel to ours, attached to a train like ours heading in the other direction. Then the parallel track finished. Lunch was served just after that. We didn’t stop again all the way to Barioha. Dinner was served in the train half an hour after we arrived in Barioha, and then we were shown into the dormitory.
Not long – maybe an hour, maybe a bit less – after we passed the other train, we crossed another big river in a valley very similar to the previous ones, and then began to approach a line of cliffs.
Look! There’s Mezham! There’s Riimani’s house – and my old house, and the ruins of Uncle’s house! Aari was pointing at them, but I couldn’t tell exactly where she was pointing and couldn’t spot any particular house that I recognized, just the general view of the village and the line of the cliffs.
Then there were more children waving at the train, but we didn’t recognize any of them. Aariini waved at them all, and I’m sure she thought they were waving at her, but I think they were just waving at the train in general.
We ran along the foot of the cliff for a long way, with a scree slope up to it on our left, and a scree slope on our right down to farmland at first, and then thick forest.
There was a very long tunnel that must have taken half an hour or so to pass through, then more cliff, scree and forest, then mile after mile of forest both sides, and finally beautiful fertile farmland very like that at the beginning of the day.
Barioha seems like a big place, but you can’t see much of it from the railway as you arrive, or from the station.
We’ve just had a visit from a young woman in railway uniform, telling us that the train is ready for us to board, and we’ll be leaving in twenty minutes. Aari is washing herself and I’ve just dressed Aariini. I got washed over an hour ago.
STOP IT! Aari never got a chance to say that, I got it in first.
We’re on the train, waiting for it to leave. They have a little kitchen in the end of the coach, and cooked lunch on the train yesterday, but dinner was brought in from a kitchen on the station, and I think breakfast will be, too. I don’t know about yesterday’s breakfast. Lunch today will be served on the train, but we should be in Meyroha by early afternoon.
29 September
We are on the train, waiting to leave Meyroha.
Sad, sad, sad – Aari has lost the baby. But at least she is okay herself, and for that, thank the doctors in Meyroha and thank goodness it didn’t happen in the train, or in Mezham, or...almost anywhere but Meyroha. Oh, Laanoha might be all right, we don’t know what the hospital there is like.
Aariini’s been sick too, but only sick like children sometimes are, and she’s fine now.
We do have some good news: I have a job with the railway, starting at the beginning of next year. That’s Meyroha years, so I think it’s 9 February. I will be Senior Clerical Officer for Laanoha, in training in Meyroha for a season5. Then if the building work has gone to plan in Laanoha, actually running the office there. On my own until a season before the bridge opens and trains start to run right into Laanoha. Quite exciting, and with a good income.
We don’t like Meyroha, although we’re glad of its hospital. We got a bad impression from the start.
There’s a station enclave that you can wander around quite freely when you get off the train, with shops and cafes and inns, but it’s completely walled off from the city. You have to go through a guardhouse to go out into the city, and they want to see your papers. Of course we haven’t got any. Papers? What are they?
If you haven’t got papers, they issue you temporary papers, for a five coin fee, and you have to leave a deposit with them that you get back when you leave. As long as your papers are in order.
Twenty coins for Aari, and a hundred and fifty for me – because although I live in Laanoha, and I speak Laana, they don’t believe I’m Laanohan at all. They don’t believe my name is Mezhab. So I told them, no, I’m English, from England, and my name was originally Gordon Beer, but my wife is from Mezham and Mezhab Birgom is my adopted name in Laanoha. And they hmmed and hahed and got the Big Boss guard, and he heard me tell it all again and said he’d never heard of England, it must be a long way away, and I said, yes, it is, and he said the deposit would be a hundred and fifty coins and I think he was surprised I had that much.
I was worried we wouldn’t get it back, but that was a chance we had to take, really. At least, I thought, we have board and lodging in Laanoha, and come Spring I’ll be able to earn again if the worst comes to the worst.
Well, it hasn’t come to that. The railway offices were much more congenial. When I explained what I’d been doing in the port office in Manafa – where the hell’s that? they said. A long way, beyond Bhoemar. Oh, we’ve heard of that, but that’s a hell of a long way itself – and that I was a ship’s purser on a big ship for years… they’d been wondering who would run the office in Laanoha, none of the people in Meyroha wanted to go to Laanoha. They seem to think it’s the end of the world.
I wanted to know how they recruited the station master in Kromaan. He used to have an inn there, exactly where they wanted to put their station, because the engineers said it’s the best place for the end of the bridge over the Aaha to Laanoha. He can barely read and write, but he’s good with numbers.
We’re moving. Breakfast in a minute.
30 September
We’re in the siding waiting for the train from Laanoha. We can’t go any further until that’s passed us, and we’ve got the extra engine to help us over the mountains.
We saw Mezham again just now, and this time I managed to spot Riimaani’s house, and the ruins of Uncle’s house. But which one was Aari’s old house, I couldn’t see.
Yesterday we arrived in Barioha in the early afternoon, and went for a wander around the town. Much more pleasant than Meyroha! No hassle at the guard house. There is one, and you have to say hello and wait for them to wave you through, but there’s no checking of papers or anything like that.
It’s nothing like as big as Laanoha or Meyroha, but it’s big enough to have guest houses, a good range of shops and a few cafes.
The coach was full both ways between Barioha and Meyroha, but it’s half empty again now. They told me in the railway office in Meyroha that that’s how it usually is, but they expect it to be very different once the railway reaches Laanoha. They think they may need an extra coach then, or maybe even two. We’ll see.
I can hear the other train approaching, and I can smell lunch cooking. Aariini can smell it too. She’s taken to having a little of whatever we eat now, and sometimes she keeps it down.
And she says Maama and Baaba, too. Just started in Meyroha. I think she may have noticed Gobhu’s baby talking.
Gobhu is the landlady in the guesthouse where we stayed in Meyroha. Her baby is a couple of months older than Aariini, and has just started walking. Aariini stands up now if she’s got something to hold onto, but she’s not tried to walk on her own yet – only if you hold both her hands and almost do the walking for her.
Aari says Gobhu is an unusual name. She thinks she might be from Troum. I don’t know where that is. Neither do I, says Aari. People in Mezham think it’s beyond world’s end, and everybody else thinks Mezham itself is. And Zhaam, where Aibram comes from, is even further beyond than Troum. Far side of the accursed forest. Wherever that is.
We’re moving.
Stopped again to uncouple the extra engine. The passage through the mountain is just as dramatic in this direction, but you can hear the river not the engines in the gorge, and it takes about a third of the time to get through. On the other hand, the tunnel coming up seems to take forever, and the smell of woodsmoke in there is a bit much. It’s cold up in the mountains, but you want the window open for a while after the tunnel just to get rid of the smoke.
At the guard office in Meyroha, we did get the deposit back, after a very thorough examination of the receipt and my temporary papers. We’ve got railway papers now, so next time we won’t need any deposit, but I wasn’t going to show them on the way out this time – I wanted our hundred and seventy coins back first!
5 October 668 / 760
Behmi’s cafe is less busy now, not even as busy as it was before I started getting ekraahi and seaweed and mussels for her. She says it’s like this at this time of year, but she doesn’t have as much work for Aari now and wants a contribution for our food, which is fair enough – there really isn’t so much work. And she’s still giving us accommodation in exchange for the little bit of work Aari’s doing.
I’ve managed to get a few ekraahi, but I can’t get down to the mussel beds safely now, or to the best seaweed. But we have enough money, and to spare, to last us until my job starts.
8 October
We found Biishi! And delivered Graashi’s letter. Quite by accident, just wandering about and vaguely inquiring whether anyone needed a chef. Aari’s decided that’s a fair description of her skills. Biishi looks so like Graashi we just had to ask, and Bingo! She’s running another guest house, in a more salubrious part of town, with fewer rooms than she used to have, but higher prices. But no, she doesn’t need a chef, and doesn’t know anyone who’s looking for one – not at this time of year. Better chances in late Spring, she thinks.
She had written to Graashi to tell her the new address a couple of times, but had assumed her letters never got there, which we could confirm. I’ll try again, she says, now I know she’s still alive and at the same address.
22 October
Aariini walked! Right across the room. One moment she was standing holding onto my knee, and the next she was making a bee-line for her Maama. Of course we both clapped and praised her, and she beamed and looked so proud.
29 October
Aariini’s birthday. One year old today. People don’t take much – much? Any – notice of birthdays here, and Aari thinks it’s funny. But we made a fuss of Aariini anyway, and she has no idea why, but loves it. Behmi thinks it’s funny too, but is always happy to have any excuse to make a fuss of Aariini.
31 October
Earthquake! Bit of a rattle, really, that’s all. Enough to know it’s happened, and knock down a few precariously balanced items in the kitchen, but nothing serious.
Here.
Probably quite bad in Liimiha or in Briggi. Earthquakes are nearly always much worse in the far North, they say. That’s the same in England.
9 November 668 / 760
One season left before my job starts. Aariini celebrates by pronouncing her third word: khaach – fish. Typical of Aariini to choose a tricky one for her first word apart from Maama and Baaba, and then make it harder. Khaaiichch she says. So Aari says Khaaiichch as well and I try to correct it but Aariini is determined and repeats it again and again. It’ll be Khaaiichch forever now I expect.
And I am in trouble for writing this. Oh well. Such is life.
11 November
Yesterday we took a walk to the top of the headland. Never been up there before. Great view over Laanoha and the Castle.
And the work on the bridge. Can’t see any detail from up there. We should go and have a look from closer by sometime. But we could see that they’ve got four open caissons in use for putting down the foundations for the piers, and the first four piers, two each side of the estuary, already constructed to above ground level. They would have needed the caissons for those as well. Although they’re not in the water, as soon as they started digging, the holes would have filled with water.
Aari wants to know how I know so much about what they’re doing. We were doing similar work in London, before we started work on the tunnel where the accident was. Not an enormous bridge like this one though. Not as high and not as long, but much wider – two tracks not just one, with a clearance between the tracks, and English tracks have the rails nearly twice as far apart too.
12 November
We set off to go and look at the bridge from close by yesterday, but it was still foggy the other side of the town, and we decided to go up to the Castle instead. Some posh houses and rather fancy shops up there, even posher than the last street before you get to the open ground on the headland, where Biishi has her guest house.
You can’t go into the Castle. There are two entrance gates, with a guard house each, and fierce looking guards who seem surprised that anyone might not know you need Castle papers to get in. Fierce looking, and with terrifying looking weapons, but perfectly friendly to talk to. Not in the least bothered that I don’t look Laanohan, just interested to know where I come from – and seemingly a bit confused when I tell them.
They did give me one piece of advice, though. Don’t tell people that story, they say. Tell them you come from Mezham, and let them puzzle about your looks. We believe your story, but some people will think it’s a fairy story. Which might not matter, but sometimes it might, particularly if the people in question are guards.
I don’t know whether they really believed me or not. But it’s probably good advice anyway.
We walked all the way round the Castle. From there it just looks like one enormous building, but from the top of the headland you’re looking down on it a bit, and you can see that there’s lots of open space inside.
The fog in the estuary was beginning to clear by the time we’d walked all the way round the Castle, but we were ready for lunch and went home.
15 November
Disaster. Behmi’s brother has returned from Liimiha where he’d been working for the last few years, and wants his room back. We are homeless.
You can’t blame him. The earthquake hit Liimiha badly, and a lot of people are leaving, he says. Apart from the earthquake, the glacier isn’t far away now. It moved nearly a mile down the valley in one leap during or just after the earthquake, and it’s less than two miles from the town now.
A lot of people have moved to Briggi, the next town down the valley, but he doesn’t have connections there and thought it was time to come home. He says he’ll see if he can get building work on the railway.
We know Biishi has rooms available, but they’re expensive. We don’t want to go back to the boarding house by the harbour, although it’s cheap and friendly, because it feels like living in a tinderbox to me. There must be somewhere at this time of year.
We spent the day inquiring here and there. There are places in various boarding houses, the prices aren’t bad, and the landlords and landladies are friendly enough. But we’ve got used to a nicer room than any we’ve seen. And in the last guest house we visited, they offered us a house we can rent or buy, and brought us down here to show us. So here we are, renting it for the present, and maybe buying it if we still like it when we’ve got the feel of the place.
It’s very basic, just two rooms, one downstairs and one upstairs, and the one upstairs is just high enough for Aari to stand up in, but not for me, apart from right in the middle.
But downstairs it’s got a nice range that gets the place warm really quickly without using too much wood. It heats water in a tank on one side of the fire. There’s an oven and hotplate the other side, and a kettle ring right over the fire. It’s the bottom house in the last row before the headland on the harbour side, and there’s a good spring on the hill, behind the third house. The stream runs under that house in a little culvert, and then down the middle of the street.
It reminds Aari of her house when she was a little girl in Mezham, and she likes it. But here we’re very close to the sea – just twenty feet above high spring tides, to judge by the tide marks.
The rent is no more than we’d pay for a room in a boarding house, but we’ll have buy our own firewood as well as our food. But at least we’ll be cooking it ourselves, and buying it at raw food prices, not cafe meal prices.
Once my pay starts coming from the railway, we’ll be able to buy the house quite quickly. We’d be able to buy a bigger one or a better one, in fact, but Aari likes this one. Whether it’ll be big enough if we have more children, who knows? The family next door have three children and their house is exactly like this one.
19 November
Snow. And a south-westerly storm, straight up the street. The salt spray has cleared the snow from the bottom of the street, but there’s four or five inches further up. The street is steep, and it’s quite hard to get up it in the snow. But we managed, and Aariini thinks it’s hilarious. Or did, until she got cold. We’re back in front of our lovely stove now. We’ve got enough firewood for a few days, but I ought to get some this afternoon, while there’s some on the market.
Get some lamp oil, too, says Aari.
23 November
Aari has been worried sick, but the worst is over. The doctor says I will make a full recovery. Behmi’s brother has given us his room, and he is staying in a friend’s house just around the corner.
I had tried to carry a good load of firewood to our little house, and had another attack. Luckily people saw me fall, and got me into the warm and called the doctor. And one of them knew I used to live at Behmi’s place, and Behmi’s brother went and got Aari.
A bit of a fright for all of us. And if we do buy that house – and we’re still thinking we probably will – we’ll get someone to deliver plenty of firewood for us. I won’t try to carry it myself. With a decent income from the railway, we’ll be able to afford deliveries. But for this winter, we’re staying at Behmi’s. Thank you, thank you, Behmi’s brother. His names’s Keyrsham, says Aari.
Aariini knows I’ve been ill, and keeps coming over to me and putting her head on my knee and holding me round my lower leg. And I rub the top of her head with my palm, and she looks up at me and grins.
And then sticks her tongue out and laughs.
There’s more snow now. Everyone is saying it must be really bad at Liimiha, especially since they’ve not had time to repair everything since the earthquake. This is the worst snow anyone can remember in Laanoha.
25 November
The owners of our house called and say not to worry about the rent. No need to pay it until we move back in there, and if we say we want it, they won’t let it to anyone else. Yes, it’s fine that we won’t be moving in there until the beginning of summer next year, after I’ve finished my training in Meyroha. They own the next two houses up the street as well, and they say the neighbours say nice things about us.
Which feels nice.
I expect it’s Aariini. The baby effect.
Getting to be a toddler already.
20 January 669 / 760
It’s been a tough winter. There might be more to come, but it rained buckets and the snow went and now it’s bright and cold.
I’m getting stronger every day, and the doctor says it’s absolutely fine for us to go to Meyroha in spring, and that I’m lucky to have a clerical job, and I really, really mustn’t do heavy work. You think you’re a mountain of muscle, he says, and maybe you were once, but you’re not and you don’t have the heart you’d need if you were.
And Aari blames herself for the firewood incident, but it was my fault: I should have got someone to bring it for me. If we were going to stay in that house, we needed it. We can afford to pay people to carry things for us. Carrying firewood is a job for a donkey, not a man, never mind a feeble one.
You’re not feeble, says Aari, you’re just not the gorilla you used to be.
Aariini gives me a big sloppy kiss and a cuddle. How many words she understands I don’t know, but she understands emotions very well, I think.
5 February 669 / 760
We are on the train to Meyroha again. We’re stopped at Baragi just now while they unload and load boxes.
My training starts in four days’ time, but my railway papers are valid already, so we’re travelling for free – and being fed for free, too. Aariini is toddling all around the coach, making friends with all the passengers, most of whom seem to be utterly enchanted by her. The coach is less than half full – just eleven passengers, including us three.
The snow all thawed in Laanoha ages ago, but the mountains have white tops still reaching down a good deal lower than when we first saw them.
The Aaha at Laanoha was full, but not really in spate, but the Veyrha at Baragi filled the whole floor of the valley. It was the colour of chocolate, and you could see how fast it was moving, with uprooted bushes and small trees being swept along.
Then in the gorge as we were climbing into the mountains you could actually hear the noise of the river over the noise of the engines in some places. That’s despite the two engines climbing the gradient making a thunderous noise, echoing around between those rock walls.
Even at the summit, we were well below the snowline. But the lower reaches of those snowcaps must be thawing fast.
6 February
I’m awake before anyone else here in Barioha passengers’ dormitory again. It’s actually one of two separate dormitories. This one is the eastbound one. They keep them separate because the westbound passengers have to be up early for the Laanoha train, whereas our train leaves much later, for the much shorter journey to Meyroha.
The dormitories are upstairs, and sitting up in bed and looking out the window I can see the two trains sitting side by side on parallel tracks in the middle of the station at the moment, but the Laanoha train will be leaving soon. Here come the passengers now. They’ll have their breakfast on the train.
Yesterday, the Ouha at Mezham was barely any fuller than it was when we saw it last autumn6. We’ll cross the Ariha in the middle of Barioha, immediately after we leave the station. I’m interested to see how full it is.
Aariini has just woken up.
7 February
Gobhu was very welcoming as soon as we arrived, and says she certainly has room for us, but she doesn’t know whether the railway will have other plans for us once my training starts. If they’re happy for us to stay here, she’ll be very happy.
Tehmu and Aariini are looking at each other, but not making a move or saying a word. They seem to be thinking, I think I know you, but I’m not sure. Four months is a long time when you’re fifteen months old. If we do stay here they’ll be old friends in three months’ time.
9 February 669 / 761
Yaamon says we can stay at Gobhu’s place for a couple of days, then if she’s willing he’ll come and inspect the place and add it to his list of approved lodgings if it’s up to standard. Otherwise he’ll move us somewhere else.
Gobhu is nervous, but would love to be railway-approved. She and Aari are going to spend the next two days making the place perfect.
12 February
Yaamon has a short list of things that have to be fixed before he’ll confirm the approval, and Gobhu has a week to get them done. We can stay here pending the re-inspection. He says it’s a good introduction for me, because I’ll have to do inspections like this in Laanoha in a season or two’s time.
There are many facets to this job – much wider responsibility than in the port office in Manafa. Maybe more comparable with being ship’s purser, but even there you’ve got the captains as your ultimate authority, right there on the ship with you. Whereas in Laanoha the only authority above me will be two days away, here in Meyroha.
13 February
A man came in to look at, and we hope fix, the plumbing. He wants thirty coins for the job. We’ve paid Gobhu an extra week in advance – she didn’t have the money. Everything else on the list is things she and Aari or I can fix easily enough.
20 February
Approved. So now Gobhu will be paid direct by the railway. I have to fill in a claim form for what we’ve already paid, and the railway will reimburse us. And Yaamon says yes, that’s the sort of thing I’ll be doing a lot of in Laanoha.
Aariini and Tehmu are already best friends, and seem to be developing their own language. But they’re also both talking a lot more Laana than they were just two weeks ago. And quite a lot of it is comprehensible, too.
6 May 669 / 760
We are on the train, about to leave for Laanoha.
Apparently I’m a fully fledged Office Manager in the service of the Meyroha, Barioha and Laanoha Railway Committee, ready to take charge of the office in Laanoha. I don’t feel ready. I hope I am.
Aariini is introducing herself to all the other passengers. The coach is full, in fact technically overloaded. We have twenty-eight passengers, but six of them are under five. Or have been claimed to be. A couple of them seem a bit questionable to me, but what can you do?
I wouldn’t really care, but these are rich folk.
Most of them are only going to Barioha.
Some of the adults are being friendly with Aariini, but the children are all ignoring her completely, and she’s a bit crestfallen. Okay, a cuddle with Maama. That’s better.
We’ve been waiting in the passing loop halfway to Barioha for nearly an hour. The eastbound train is late for some reason. I’m not wearing my railway uniform, a fact I’m rather happy about. Some of the passengers are getting irritable.
Aari asks me, in Manafai, to read what I’ve been writing for her. Among this lot, what does it matter if we talk Manafai? No different from whispering, and they’re all too stuck up to say anything about foreigners. In fact, we can have a bit of a laugh.
And we did.
When I read, I wouldn’t really care, but these are rich folk she laughed again. Not exactly surprising, she says. Who’s more likely to cheat, rich folk or poor folk?
Good point.
Aariini has gone to sleep. Here comes lunch.
And I hear the other train approaching.
But it’s stopped before it got alongside us.
I popped my head out of the window to see what’s going on. The other engine has stopped alongside our engine, instead of bringing the train into the loop. The drivers are conferring.
Ah. Now the other train is moving again, and coming into the loop.
And we’re on our way.
7 May
We arrived in Barioha three hours late yesterday. We had to go very slowly for several miles, because of men working on damaged track. The westbound train had hit it at full speed the day before, and scared the poor driver silly. Luckily his train wasn’t derailed. They’re not sure what caused the damage, but they’re hoping to have it repaired before tomorrow’s first train.
We’ve just passed Mezham, and we’re waiting in the passing loop for the train from Laanoha and our extra engine to take us over the top. And about to have lunch.
Aariini is fractious. There are only two other children on the train, both much older than her, and ignoring her completely. The adults – we’re nearly full again, with a lot of new passengers getting on at Barioha – were interacting with her nicely for a while, but have gradually all excluded her. I think she’s missing Tehmu, too.
{At this point, there are several pages written in what I think must be Manafai, probably by Aari by the look of the handwriting, although it’s possible that it’s Birgom’s, just looking different because it’s a completely different script. But it makes sense that it would have been Aari. I guess that she didn’t want to write in Laana, because anyone could have read that. Sadly, I don’t know anyone who can read Manafai.}
[Nor do I.]
1 {Neither have I}
[Neither have I. Some kind of sea snail.]
2 [Birgom continues counting English months, but changes to Meyroha Years. But these don’t start on January 1st...]
3 {I think that’s what that scribble says!}
4 {I’m trying not to make any annotations other than essential explanatory notes, but I can’t resist mentioning that I had a similar reaction to this place the first time – about sixty years later.}
5 [Three months.]
6 [The different behaviour of these three rivers is easy to understand if you look at Owen’s map.]
Back to the top.
On to Book 8.