– Go down to the cult. It will do you good. Take the Radix. You must move. Eat with the others. We can no longer stay up here caring about ourselves. Now is when the community must believe in us. I'll go too when I'm done.
Alondra obeyed. She put the little wooden bird in the pocket of her habit, went down the narrow stairs and knocked on the door of the living room. Mirlo received her with a confused expression. On the one hand, it seemed that she wanted to feel her closeness, but on the other, she placed on Alondra the weight of responsibility for the situation in which they found themselves. Since Agua was always nearby, in the laboratory, they couldn't talk. Alondra, not knowing how to answer this look, took hold of the little blackbird that she kept in her pocket and showed it to Mirlo. Mirlo glared at her and placed her hands on Alondra's hands that held the blackbird. Alondra made as if to give it to her but Mirlo resisted, gently pushing her wrists to make her keep it and leaving the room. They went down the snow tunnels and down the road, very carefully. They entered the dome. There were a few Identes here and there, trying to get warm. Almost all of them were in the rooms in a state of semi–lethargy, since they had been eating the minimum for many days. It was rumored that out of necessity and dogma it would be necessary to start a community fast. Some Identes feared the radicalism of others. It was not ruled out that some would refuse to eat again if so much energy was concentrated in the fast.
This was not only related to the new circumstances of the war in the city, but also to the different opinions that the Radix Speciosa's pregnancy had generated. This news radicalized the feelings of the community. The more extreme Identes believed that to feed the seed that grew in the Radix it was necessary for the Identes to stop eating. They understood that it was sacrilegious to continue feeding on the fruits of the earth while the seed grew. These fruits had to be an offering to the Radix, which was among them. She was the only one who should have the right to eat. The more pragmatic Identes replied that this would mean leaving the Radix alone without a community of belief, which seemed highly counterproductive to them. What was the point of starving for the Radix to eat? Among these there were also several groups. Some of them agreed to start a community fast, but controlled and with specific dates, since they understood that the offering to the Radix was symbolic, but that the state of spiritual communion to which fasting should lead them was necessary to generate the result that they all expected, which was none other than the advent of the goddess. There was yet another group, smaller, but influential, since within it were some of the Ten youngest, who believed that, on the contrary, it was the obligation of Las Identes in these circumstances to eat correctly, taking into account the existences, and of course giving preference to the Radix. But that it was necessary to trust that food could be produced again in the Spring, because after the solstice the time would come to start the ecumenical mission, in all the ways that the state of peace or war required. If life had to be risked, it had to be then and not now.
[…]
The mysterious movements to return to the womb were made in individual connection with the earth. They constituted an interior pilgrimage towards the past and towards the incarnation of the seed. But the Radix, on its earlier visit to the dome, had begun a collective phylogenetic journey back up the chain of life, from adult body to newborn, and from there to mammal, reptile, fish, small unicellular organism, and quiet matter. This meant returning to a place before the seed itself. It had been a clear experience for the Identes. This time something else happened: the Radix and the second Agua began to interact with each other. They looked at each other. Actually, they had been looking forward to seeing each other since Agua had broken the fast. Alondra thought that if the war had returned then Mirlo and what grew inside her were the only thing that made sense to continue living. For Mirlo, Alondra had become everything: lover, cow and teacher of everything she did not expect. Since they could not be together alone, and since they knew that their position in the group was privileged, they took advantage of the space in the dome to share their privacy, even if it had to be in full view of everyone. After all, they were expected to impress the rest with some peculiar performance.
They remembered the first day they touched each other amicably. Their closeness had begun like this: first through violence and then as the relationship between a domestic animal and a human being. Later, Alondra, as she became curious about Mirlo, had also begun to behave like a puppy. As the Identes began their daily ceremony of mysterious movements, Alondra remembered the movements Mirlo had performed the other time in the dome. Mirlo remembered the day they played on the rug on Alondra’s living room floor in the city, when the rainbow came out of the great tower. They realized that they had known each other long enough to share memories. They started moving as fast as they could look each other in the eye, because they wanted to. The rest of the Identes followed. They were like two birds calculating their attack, or like two lovers looking for each other in the night. They got animalized. They remembered theirstory of touch and how violence and tenderness, friendship and passion, indifference and dependence, the feminine and the masculine, pleasure and fear, fire and water had mixed in it. They began to touch each other in a language difficult to interpret. Their limbs turned to claws and wings, their eyes seeing infrared heat and ultraviolet colors, their ears straining to hear the tenseness of the dome's skin, the shuffling of hair on the ground, and the luxuriance of all the leaves on the forest’s ground. It was the proximity of war and the imminence of the danger of death and of the life that had been created as an excrescence of one's own body. All the Identes picked up on the game and abandoned themselves to it in the same way.
When two bodies indulge in a game, the experience that arises from what they share can still be private. The intimate expresses that transferability of the individual. It is said that they become one. But when this same experience becomes the doing of a group, it becomes a ceremony. What may have started as an imitation of what the Radix and the second Agua were doing quickly turned into a collective state of catharsis. Each Idente poured out the emotions of living in community, the feeling of uncertainty due to the expectation that the doctrine had transmitted to them, the fear of war and the hope of contributing to change. The puppy game came to express the momentum of two hundred years coming to an end. The dome heated to fog and all the Identes danced, or fought, or shouted, until weary, they dropped to the ground exhausted, listening to everyone's breathing.
Then Mirlo got up by the fire and closed her eyes, as she had done before. The Identes were experts in rituals and could recognize a pattern when they saw one. The Radix was generating rule. But they didn't know if they should imitate her or let that be her gesture. Alondra, who had been by her side the whole time, she also stood up and closed her eyes. The rest of the Identes, following the criteria of the oldest, unable to agree on what to do at the moment, decided to observe. The Ten did not usually have doctrinal initiatives, but followed what Water and tradition said. Therefore, they did not intervene either. The Radix and the second Water intertwined their fingers.
Although Mirlo was afraid of what might happen, and especially of the possibility that the fetus would kill her if for some reason they ran out of Water, she also felt the same sensation as Alondra: that what was growing inside her had been created by through their passion. And it was not possible not to see a miracle in it, for all sorts of reasons. So they partook of the religious spirit. They also liked the idea that what was really going on was a secret they shared. They were afraid, but they were also happy. They felt despondency, but also a strong energy. They were on the edge of the abyss, and on the edge of the abyss there was a lot of light. They stayed like this for about fifteen minutes, and at the end they took a deep breath and woke up, returning to their surroundings and the awareness that the rest were there.
When they opened their eyes, all the Identes said in unison:
Venus and the Moon reign in the sky
The rainbow sprouted from the earth
The waters mixed
The lake reaches the city
Although not all the Identes considered it appropriate to speak in the dome, this was not a normal time. There were fissures and challenges to respond to, circumstances that required coordination, and new religious practices were being generated, which had to be collected and systematized. They had already gotten used to the new prayer, but it was hoped that the Radix and the new Agua could explain its meaning. However, the new prayer had been created by Agua.
– At this moment there are many questions, and they must be asked for what may come if the war has returned.
Ujué said this. She was one of the youngest of the Ten, one of those who believed that the ecumenical mission was imminent and that it should be expressed outwardly. Everyone looked to the second Agua and the Radix for an answer. Mirlo looked at Alondra. If Alondra refused to speak at this time, the balance would surely fall on the side of those who thought she would become a marginal or transitional figure. Alondra realized that if she wanted to play the cards in her favor, she could not be an expendable figure.
– And what would those questions be?
Ujué was younger than Alondra. She had been living in Las Identes since around the age of the girl Marta. She firmly believed in the rule and doctrine, but also thought that they should be addressed to assess the future of the community and the planning of the ecumenical mission.
– If the army has rearmed, are we going to stay here waiting for them to come for us? What will happen if it is a boy? Why are we praying to the rainbow and the lake now?
There was a gesture of disapproval among the older Identes. These were too direct questions and involved the revelation of mysterious doctrines. But Ujué belonged to the Ten and they had greater freedom than the rest when it came to speaking. They were considered to be inspired, even though there were all kinds of opinions about each of them.
Aisha was another of the Ten. She was older than Alondra and of gentle demeanor. She had been born in Las Identes during the hardest times of the war.
– Two nights ago I had a dream. We all made a pilgrimage to Pico de la Miel, where the steep stones are. From the summit we could see the sea. And when we asked ourselves how it was possible that we were seeing the sea from here, we realized that the tips of the city's towers were poking out of the water
– They all listened in amazement– But it doesn't end there. When we were coming back down from the mountain, there was an avalanche of snow and half of us died. I was one of those who died. Then I woke up.
– I had a dream too! – Suyin said. She was the youngest of the elderly women who lived in the residential building – I dreamed that I was the one who was pregnant. I was young, I don't know if this is some lost memory or a mix. But the fact is that it was war and a soldier had raped me. I was pregnant and felt very certain that it was a boy. So I was afraid of the community, that they wouldn't let me in because I was carrying a boy child. In the end, the community welcomed me, but when I got to my room it wasn't a child I had, but a huge cushion that someone had placed on me and I hadn't realized. I felt a sense of relief.
Silence fell. The Identes looked at the wooden floor of the dome, wondering if these dreams could do anything to answer the questions posed by Ujué. Suddenly the songs of a blackbird and a lark were heard. Alondra clutched the little wooden blackbird in her pocket, as if she believed it had been it. Mirlo craned her neck to peer into the vault opening. They were perched there, on the edge of the opening. All the Identes raised their eyes and ears in the direction of the chant. Mirlo looked at Alondra in astonishment.
It was a fluke. It was a pure coincidence but Alondra had always seen Mirlo as a little god. Mirlo had always seen Alondra as an all–powerful being. It was a coincidence, but neither Mirlo nor Alondra could help but feel like protagonists. However, they could not say it out loud. They felt that perhaps it was all true. That the Identes' beliefs made sense. Mirlo touched her belly, wishing with all her might that the seed that grew inside her body was a girl.