‘So which island would you suggest?’ Luovi said to him.
‘Let me think about it.’
Parren was regarding him aggressively.
‘I think I know what you’re thinking, Ordier,’ Parren said. ‘Why should I succeed where others have failed?’
‘The Qataari represent a substantial challenge to researchers,’ Ordier replied neutrally.
‘I wouldn’t have given up my career in Jethra if I’d thought it was a challenge I couldn’t respond to.’
‘Of course not.’
‘There are a number of ways that haven’t been tried before.’
‘Can you give an example?’
‘I can give you the main one. I make no secret of my ideas.’ Parren was sitting forward intently. ‘There is one feature of the Qataari settlement that no one seems to pay any regard to. It’s so obvious, in fact, that like everyone else involved in the subject I almost missed it. The Qataari habituate the equator.’
‘Almost the whole of Tumo is on the equator,’ Jenessa said, but she sounded intrigued.
‘The island does indeed straddle the equator, but the valley where the Qataari have made their settlement is exactly on the line itself. Have you ever wondered why that might be so, Ordier?’
‘It’s happenstance, surely? I assume they were installed in the valley by the authorities after they left their homeland. Presumably it was one of the few places large enough to accommodate such an influx of homeless immigrants.’
‘No, sir,’ said Parren. ‘The Qataari went to that valley because they asked to go there, indeed demanded to go there.’
‘Tumo isn’t the only island on the equator. Why should they choose this one?’
‘Because the other islands either didn’t want them or weren’t for one reason or another suitable. I’ve looked into it closely, Ordier, and I can tell you that the settlement on Tumo wasn’t found for them straight away. The Qataari were relocated many times around the Archipelago, and for several years, before they settled on Tumo. In all that time they never strayed more than a degree or two away from the equator.’
‘They were from the south originally, weren’t they?’
‘Yes, but you must surely know the position of the Qataari Peninsula.’
At last Parren’s remarks began to make sense to Ordier. The Qataari Peninsula was part of the southern continental landmass, the long northernmost tip of a huge triangular plain reaching into the Midway Sea at what was consequently its narrowest point. This subcontinental promontory, known as the Tenkker Wilderness, extended so far to the north that part of it, the Qataari Peninsula, actually crossed the equator. As a result some of its land lay, uniquely for the southern continent, in the northern hemisphere. Although most of the Tenkker was uninhabited except by nomads, the mountainous portion beyond a swampy, mangrove-ridden isthmus – which virtually created an island – was where the Qataari originated.
‘With respect, Jacj,’ Jenessa said, ‘all this has been known for years. It’s one of the features of the Qataari that makes them of interest, but no one has ever shown what effect the equatorial source has on their culture.’
‘That’s right. And no one has ever tried observing them from the air.’
Jenessa looked back at him blankly.
‘From the air,’ she repeated.
‘I intend to fly over them. The temporal vortex enables stationary flight above any point on the equator. I intend to observe them from above.’
Jenessa reached across the table to start collecting the empty dishes, stacking them up before her with an absent expression.
‘Surely that would never work, Professor Parren,’ she said.
‘I fail to see why.’
‘Because the presence of any aircraft flying low enough for you to observe them would induce the same reaction as always.’
‘The temporal vortex crosses their settlement twice a day,’ Parren said. ‘The sight of aircraft overhead is one they’re accustomed to, which enables anyone flying overhead to observe them with a fair chance of not being noticed. Anyway, it’s never been tried.’
‘Possibly with good reason. The vortices pass over here too, of course. The stationary flight is an optical illusion. Flying through the vortex doesn’t gain you a better view of the ground.’
‘So you say. Have you tried it yourself?’
‘I haven’t,’ Ordier admitted.
‘There you are, then.’ Jacj Parren looked at the two women as if for support.
Jenessa would not meet his gaze, and took the plates she had collected to the hatch that led to her small kitchen.
‘You lack ambition, Jenessa, my dear,’ said Parren.
‘Probably,’ she replied.
Ordier rarely saw Jenessa in the company of her academic colleagues and because of the condescending way Parren was speaking to her he suddenly felt sympathy for her. He knew that the frustrations of trying to study the Qataari had already wrecked several of her departmental colleagues’ careers. Somehow she had stayed on, but not through personal ambition.
‘Ambition is the foundation of achievement,’ Luovi Parren said, smiling first at her husband then at Ordier.
Ordier said, ‘For a social anthropologist?’
‘For all scientists. Jacj has taken leave of a brilliant career to study the Qataari. But of course you would know his work already.’
‘Of course.’
Ordier was wondering how long it would be before Parren or his wife discovered that one never took leave to visit the Archipelago. Maliciously, it amused Ordier to think that Luovi probably imagined, in anticipation of her husband’s success, that completed research into the Qataari society would buy them the ticket back to Jethra, where the brilliant career would be resumed at a higher level. The islands were full of exiles who had once nurtured similar illusions. The few ways there were back to the north were not ones someone like Professor Parren might ever find.
Jenessa returned to the table with a large glass bowl containing the chilled dessert she had prepared earlier. Ordier looked covertly at her, trying to work out exactly how she was taking all this. He and she had spoken on the telephone during the afternoon, when she made it clear that Jacj Parren was one of the most influential academics in her field. It might be in her career interests to be patronized by him, at least on social occasions like tonight. She had spoken truly when she accepted her lack of personal ambition, but that was not the whole story.
Because Jenessa had lived for so much of her life in the Archipelago she had a sense of island nationalism that Ordier himself lacked. She sometimes spoke to him about the history of the Archipelago, of the distant years when the Covenant of Neutrality had come into being. A few of the islands had put up resistance to the enforced neutralization. For some years there had been a unity of purpose amongst these rebels, but the big northern nations had overcome the resistance. The whole Archipelago was said to be pacified now, but contact between many of the islands, and between nearly all of the island groups, was restricted. Jacj Parren might for the time being delude himself that he could choose the island on which he wished to live, but he would find, soon enough, that in practice his choice was severely restricted.
Jenessa often said that in spite of the frustrations there remained a definite purpose to her work. It was nothing like Jacj Parren’s single-minded ambition. There were many Qataari artefacts available for study now that there had been a military resolution to the Peninsula occupation, and these were providing a steady stream of research projects. Some of them were starting to bear fruit. On a larger ambit, Jenessa and other scientists saw their work as a step towards the Dream Archipelago’s eventual assimilation into the modern world. She had no illusions about the immediate worth of studying Qataari fragments – because without access to the culturally dominant societies of the north, her research could never produce definitive results – but it was nonetheless scientific intelligence that would in the end contribute to the store of knowledge.
&
nbsp; ‘Where do you fit into all this, Mr Ordier?’ Jacj Parren said, filling a pause that had appeared in the conversation. ‘You’re not an anthropologist, I gather?’
‘That’s correct.’
‘So your line of work is …?’
‘I’m retired.’
‘So young?’ said Luovi Parren.
‘Not so young as perhaps it appears.’
‘Jenessa was telling me you have a house up by the Qataari valley. I don’t suppose it’s possible to see their settlement from there?’
‘You can climb the rocks,’ Ordier said. ‘I’ll take you up there one day if you like. It’s not an easy climb, though.’
‘That’s all there is to it? As simple as that? Clambering up a few rocks?’
‘It’s one of the ways of seeing the Qataari. It’s no better than any of the others. You won’t actually witness anything. The Qataari usually post guards all along the ridge.’
‘Then I could see the guards!’
‘Of course. But you wouldn’t find it satisfactory. They’ll turn their backs as soon as they realize you’re there.’
Parren was lighting a cigar from one of the candles on the table. He leaned back with a smile and blew smoke into the air.
‘A response of sorts,’ he said.
‘The only one,’ Jenessa said. ‘It’s worthless as an observation because it’s responsive to the presence of the observer.’
‘But it fits a pattern.’
‘Does it?’ Jenessa said. ‘How does anyone know what their behavioural patterns are? The few glimpses we’ve had are completely insufficient for serious study. We should be concerned with what they would do if we weren’t there.’
‘Which you think is impossible.’
‘And if we weren’t here at all? If there was no one else on the island?’
‘Now you have ceased to theorize, and are fantasizing instead. Anthropology is a pragmatic science. We are as concerned with the impact of the modern world on isolated communities as we are with the communities themselves. If we must, we intrude on the Qataari and evaluate their response to that. It’s a better study than no study at all.’
‘Do you think no one’s tried that?’ Jenessa said. ‘There is simply no point. The Qataari wait for us to leave, and wait, and wait …’
‘As I said. A response of sorts.’
‘But it’s a meaningless one!’ Jenessa said. ‘It becomes a trial of patience.’
‘In which you say the Qataari must necessarily prevail?’
‘Look, Jacj … Professor Parren.’ Jenessa, visibly irritated now, was leaning forward across the table. Ordier noticed that strands of her long hair were falling across the uneaten dessert on her plate. ‘When the Qataari were first settled here a team from our department went into the camp. They were testing exactly the kind of response you’re talking about. They made no secret of their presence, nor of what they wanted. The Qataari simply waited for them to go away. They sat or stood exactly where they had been when the team arrived. They did nothing for seventeen days! They didn’t speak, move, eat, drink. If we give them food or water they take it, but will do nothing to find them for themselves. When they had to sleep they lay down wherever they happened to be. If that happened to be in a muddy pool, or in their own mess, or on rocky ground, then it made no difference. When they woke up they resumed the position they’d been in before.’
‘What about the children?’
‘Children too. Like the adults.’
‘And bodily functions? And what about pregnant women? Did they sit down and wait for the team to leave?’
‘Yes, Jacj. Except that they were only sitting down if they had happened to be doing that when the team arrived. It’s interesting you should mention the pregnant women. It was because of the medical condition of two of them that the experiment had to be called off. In the event both women had to be treated in hospital. One of them lost her baby.’
‘Did they resist being taken away?’
‘No … the Qataari resist nothing.’
‘What about later attempts?’
‘Exactly the same. Details are different of course, but in essence the Qataari act in such a way that ethnological study is impossible. I was on several entry teams myself before the field work was called off. These days almost nobody from outside is allowed in.’
‘Who decides that? The Qataari?’
‘No … the authorities here.’
Luovi suddenly said, ‘Nothing you’ve told us contradicts what Jacj has said. What the Qataari do when intruders arrive can be seen as a response to the outside world.’
‘It’s no response at all!’ Jenessa said, turning towards the other woman with almost truculent speed. ‘It’s the opposite of response, it’s the stopping of all activity. You must know the photographs …’
‘I have seen the photographs,’ Jacj Parren said dismissively.
‘Then you can appreciate the problem. We have hours of video footage in the department: there’s a lot you probably haven’t seen. You’ll see: the people don’t even fidget. After ten days, twelve days, they are still stationary, watching us, waiting for us to leave.’
‘Then they might be in some kind of trance.’
‘No, they are waiting! There’s no other possible interpretation.’
Watching Jenessa’s animated expression Ordier wondered if he recognized in her some of his own dilemma about the Qataari.
Jenessa maintained that her interest in them was a professional and scientific one but in every other part of her life she was rarely unemotional in her dealings with people. And the Qataari were special people, not simply to anthropologists.
They were simultaneously the best and the least known of all the races in the world. There was not a single nation on the northern continent that did not have a social or historical link with the Qataari. For one nation there would be the warrior tradition: the Qataari who turned up in times of war and fought with fanatical bravery for their side. For another country there would be the heritage of public buildings or palaces, designed by Qataari architects and built by itinerant Qataari masons and artisans. There were the Qataari doctors who mysteriously arrived in times of plague. The Qataari rescuers who materialized unbidden at scenes of natural disasters. The Qataari playwrights, artists, dancers who performed, excelled, then departed. The athletes, nurses, mathematicians. All came, made their mark, left afterwards.
Physically, the Qataari were a beautiful people. It was said in Ordier’s own country, for example, that the model for Edrona – universal symbol of male potency, wisdom and mystery, captured in marble sculpture and famous throughout the world – had been a Qataari. Similarly, a Qataari woman, painted by Vaskarreta nine centuries before, embodied sensual beauty and virginal lust. Her face, pirated in the cause of commerce, adorned the labels of dozens of different products: cosmetics, cereals, underwear, household paints, electrical appliances.
For all the visited history, the persistence of the legends and the revered traditions, the civilized world still knew almost nothing of the Qataari or their homeland.
Where the mangrove swamps gave out, where the first hills of the Qataari Peninsula rose thick with tropical forest, there stood a line of guards. They were guards like no other. The Qataari never prevented others from entering, but the guards were in place to send a signal warning of the intrusion back to their people. In reality, few outsiders had ever tried seriously to gain access to the peninsula. The Tenkker Wilderness was huge and trackless. At the south it was desert and mountains; further north on the long approach to the Qataari Peninsula it was covered with dense and uncharted rainforest. Even the swampy, infested isthmus defied transit. Approaches from the sea were equally difficult, as landing places were few along the steep, rocky coast. By virtue of their lack of contact with the outside world the Qataari were assumed to be self-sufficient in most matters, but practically nothing was known about their customs, culture or social structure.
They were believed, t
hough, to be of unique cultural importance in the world. Their society apparently represented an evolutionary link between the civilized nations of the north, the myriad peoples of the Archipelago and the barbarians and nomads of the south. Certainly, evidence of their skills and intellectual abilities could be found everywhere. Several ethnologists had tried to visit the peninsula over the years, but they had all been frustrated in their work by the silent waiting and watching that Jenessa had experienced and described.
There was only one aspect of Qataari life that was known with any confidence: they dramatized their lives. Aerial photographs and the reports of the few visitors revealed that there were open-air auditoria beside every village or community. People were always present. Theories about the auditoria abounded, but it was now widely accepted that the Qataari depended on drama as a symbolic means of action: it was used in some way for decision making, for the exercise of the law, for the resolution of problems, for celebrations.
What few pieces of Qataari literature had reached the world’s libraries were baffling to a non-Qataari readership. Although it was couched in the form of drama or declamation, the prose and verse were impenetrably and maddeningly elliptical. Many characters were given names, but they seemed to play a symbolic role as well as being referred to by an apparently endless list of contracted, familiar or formal names. Semiotic deconstruction of Qataari texts was a major academic activity in the northern universities.
The few Qataari who travelled, who visited the northern countries for one reason or another, invariably spoke obliquely of such matters. One Qataari woman, a linguist who had arrived unexpectedly to help mediate a political summit conference, had obligingly agreed afterwards to discuss Qataari life in a public forum. She memorably explained to an audience of postgraduate students that she was a mere actor in cultural exposition, a mouthpiece for words that were not her own. Everything she said, including the content of her present speech, had been preordained by improvisation workshops and teams of collaborative writers. She answered all other questions by reformulation of this exegesis. The transcript of the meeting was still being studied, interpreted and argued over by experts.