[stylist] DBG 4/5 (was chapters 2 and 4A)

[helene ryles]

Chapter 4
First memories by Nadia Murat
1991 (Five years later).

Where has Aunt Liza got to? She should be here by now, but she wasn't.
I lay huddled on my bedroom floor, feeling more anxious by the minute.
A wet and slightly abrasive tongue licks my face.  It was Bella the
Growlin Shepherd, a failed police dog who slept on the bottom bunk.
I let her continue to lick my face.  Then I wrapped my arms around her
large furry neck.
We were in my bedroom, which is the smallest room in the house apart
from the bathroom which is next door.  The room is full of toys and
picture books.  I had a bunk bed that I shared with Bella. She had the
bottom bunk and I slept in the top.
Outside my room is an indoor play area.  It’s a really huge space with
lots of things to climb,  a swing, a trampoline and a long tunnel.
Bella and I crawl up the tunnel to get to the next floor.   All the
toys used to belong to my aunt when she first came to live here.  She
still uses the trampoline sometimes.  She also has a treadmill and few
other contraptions which involve lifting up heavy blocks of metal.
They don’t look much fun to me.
 Bella and I had been expecting Aunt Liza to arrive soon after my
babysitter left for the day, only she left hours ago.    Where on
earth could my aunt have got to?  My anxiety rose as the sun stopped
shining from my small slit of a bedroom window.
My aunt did not come back that night.
Instead the dragon came.  I usually loved to stroke him, but today I
was too worried about my aunt’s failure to arrive.
“I want my auntie.  Where is she?” I demanded, stamping my foot.
Suddenly, an image of Liza flashed into my mind.   The image came from
the Dragon who was communicating to me using Dramic, which is a
telepathic language via words and images.
In this image I saw Liza in a whitewashed hallway full of sick people.
 She was lying down in a sort of large trolley.  There was something
wrong with her legs, which were at an odd angle.  She seemed to be in
a lot of pain.  I recognised that place.  I’d been there before but I
couldn’t remember when.  I just remembered that it smelt strongly of
disinfectant and the well lit waiting room lights had hurt my eyes.
I next visualized a bowl of dog food.
“I can’t eat that,” I protested in sign language.
I visualized a little girl with an empty bowl.  The message ended with
a question mark.
“Ice-cream, candy and a large packet of cookies,” I told him.  This
was not my usual diet but the dragon didn‘t seem to know this.  He
came back with the food I had asked for.  I shared the rest of the
cookies with Bella after she had finished her dog food.
The food distracted me for a short while, but once it had been eaten
my anxiety returned with renewed force.  What was wrong with my aunt‘s
legs?  Would she ever be ok again?  I was unable to get to sleep so I
began to pace round the play area.  My stomach felt very delicate.  I
ended up returning most of the food that the dragon had brought me in
the toilet, which fortunately was next door to my bedroom.
What would I do if Aunt Liza never came back?  Even Bella’s furry form
was unable to pacify me for long.

                      ***  ***  ***

I woke to feel a scaly hand nudging me, handing me my glasses which I
wore firmly attached to my head by an elastic strap.   Another large
scaly hand wrapped itself around my chest, tugging me towards him.  At
that point I began to rise.  I looked up to see a large pair of wings
moving back and forth towards the ceiling.    The dragon took me out
of the trapdoor to the living room.  To my great relief, the dragon
dropped me onto the thick green carpet, in front of Aunt Liza.  She
had returned at last.
I picked myself up, rushing to hug my aunt, who sat propped up with
various cushions on the floor.   Both her legs were covered with a
couple of large white plaster casts.
 Aunt Liza is very pretty, with light grey skin and long black curly
hair like mine.  She wore a loose red dress.  Around her neck she had
a black cylinder shape called a Monocular.  She used it to help her
see.
Today there was an anxious look in her dark brown eyes.  She put on a
bright smile when she saw me, but it did not stay on her face for
long.
"I was so worried about you last night," I complained using Darthrilan
sign language.
“Sorry Nadia.  Yesterday I did my parachute training.  Unfortunately I
messed up on the landing.  If you fetch me one of your picture books I
will read to you."
 "I don't want you to read from a picture book today. I want you to
tell me a real live story..."
My aunt gave an exasperated sigh.  She sat motionless for a few
minutes, deep in thought.
"Ok, I'll tell you a story then. I'll tell you how you came here in
the first place."
"Wasn't I born here?"
"No, you weren't.  You were born in a hospital somewhere in Darthrila.
 After that your mother took you back to Nazdonia with her.  You lived
there until your triplet sisters were born.  I took care of you while
your mother was in hospital.  After that I felt it necessary to rescue
you."
"Why did you do that?"
"Your mother is a wicked witch.   You weren’t being properly cared for
and she was forever hitting you and your sister, even then.”
“Just one sister? I thought you said there were triplets?”
“That’s right, but the other two triplets were being cared for by my
aunt Arielle, as your mother didn‘t want them around.   Anyway your
sister died after your mother shook her. Unfortunately your mother
insisted on keeping you with her, and your father wasn’t man enough to
protect you from her, so I had to do something about it"
"How?"
"You were in Darthrila at the time.  You were having your cochlear
implant.  Normally when you have a cochlear implant you don't get to
stay in hospital for so long as you did.  When I had my cochlear
implant, I only stayed overnight and went back home the following
morning.
“However, you were very small and malnourished with a lot of
suspicious looking bruising.  The audiologists considered your home
life in Nazdonia too unhealthy to recover in.   They were very
concerned about your mother’s behaviour.  So you stayed in the
children's ward for several weeks.
"Your mother expected you to hear normally straight after you were
implanted.  When you obviously couldn't, she got very angry, demanding
a full refund.  She put the painful curse on several of the hospital
staff, and even threatened to curse their whole family if they didn't
pay up.  In the end she had to be dragged away by the police.  They
tried to press charges for harassment, but unfortunately your mother
has connections. My aunt Beria is the chief police officer.  Another
police officer is your mother’s sister-in-law, P.C. Rickshaw.   Beria
and P.C. Rickshaw let family ties interfere with justice.  The staff
at the hospital felt they had a very raw deal.
 "So they were more then willing to help me get you away from your
mothers clutches.  Even without the bribe that I offered them.  They
lied to your mother about your activation day."
"What's that mean?"
"That's the day your cochlear implant gets switched on.  They have to
let your head heal first, before they can expose you to sound.  That's
when you first start to hear.  Anyway they pretended your activation
day was a week later then it actually was.   A nurse sneaked you out
of the hospital.  She even helped me to board you onto Talmon's back
after you had been activated.  So I flew you here.
"Of course mother soon found out what had happened.  Luckily Talmon
was with me.  Talmon picked her up in his sharp claws and dropped her
into the sea.  The next time she paid us a visit Talmon kept blowing
jets of flames at her, until she agreed to leave our property..."
"She didn't get burnt?"
"No, she is a powerful witch, so she could put up a shielding charm,
to protect her body from the flames.  She has never been back with
Talmon guarding us, but I sense her waiting, biding her time to
strike, when Talmon is not around.
"Now that will have to do for a story today. I'm very tired.  I didn't
sleep too well in the hospital bed.  I was too worried about how you
and Talmon would cope without me.  Another thing, Talmon now knows
what human children eat, so you won’t get away with omitting the salad
again.”


                ***  ***  ***


Aunt Liza spent a lot of time with me, while her legs were on the
mend.  She would read to me from picture books that all seemed to
feature flying children.    We would sit on the luxuriously thick
green carpet together.  Dragon living quarters are very spacious
affairs.  The room was the size of a large hall. The walls were lined
with large metal shelves.   The ceiling was so high that it was out of
my range of vision, and so were most of the top shelves.  Aunt Liza
told me that there were several hooks on the ceiling where things were
suspended from, including a giant hammock, where Liza and the dragon
sometimes lay together.
    I would be scribbling all over Liza’s plaster casts when Talmon
came to sit right next to us on the carpet.   He watched Liza
intently, through half-closed yellow eyes.   His hands would reach out
and stroke my aunt’s long curly black hair.  His hands were very
similar to human hands except for the scales.   His legs were short
and stubby with sharp claws at the end of his feet. Liza regularly
spent time trimming his claws. He had large bat-like wings that he
often stretched, creating a light breeze against my face.  When fully
stretched out his wings were twice as long as his body.    I used to
peer inquisitively at him, reaching out and stroking his beautiful
shiny back.    Aunt Liza would gaze adoringly at him.
At that point Bella would often remind us of her presence by pawing at
us.  So I stroked her as well.  I was so happy when we were all
together like this.

             ***   ***  ***

At other times my aunt would insist on speaking to me while using a
system that involved special hand movements called cued speech.  I
would have to peer into her face in order to read her lips.
 “I’ve been told not to use any sign language with you.  Beria says
you don’t need sign language with your cochlear implant.  She wants
you to just rely on your cochlear implant to hear with.  What does she
know about it anyway? She doesn’t wear a cochlear implant, like we
do.”
“Who’s Beria?” I asked, thinking the name sounded familiar. I decided
then and there that I didn't like Beria at all.
“She‘s my aunt, and her dragon is friends with Talmon.  She’s got a
deafblind mother who doesn’t use sign language, so she assumes the
rest of us shouldn‘t use it either.  I am going to show them all how
well you can do, with both systems.  You are not going to have to
strain to lip read and decipher cued speech all the time like I was
put through.”
“I thought you said your Nanny was Deaf and used sign language?”
“Yes, that’s right.  Talmon found Shania for me when I was a baby.
Shania is part of a big deaf community in Nassoli where I used to
live.  In Nassoli everyone signs.  I could sign fluently and I was
fully literate.   Unfortunately Beria didn’t think much of my speech.
“Lip-reading is all very well but it involves a lot of guess work.
Especially since I was born profoundly deaf and didn‘t get a cochlear
implant until I was an adult as cochlear implants didn‘t exist while I
was growing up. Even now with my cochlear implant, I still need to lip
read.  There are also times when I have to remove the speech processor
to stop it getting damaged, like when I do my parachute training.    I
find the instructions too hard to understand when I’m trying to
decipher their lip patterns alone.   I get so lost that they may as
well be using a foreign language.  No wonder I got the instructions
wrong and end up in hospital with two broken legs.”

                             ***  ***  **


In the early hours of the morning Aunt Liza shook me awake.   She gave
me some clothes and my hearing devices to wear.  I then had to climb
down a ladder into the basement where most of the dogs lived.
“Beauty, Bramble and Beans aren’t quite as soft as Bella," my aunt
signed, "Bella's exceptionally good with children, which is why I
trust her to spend so much time in your company.  They can be trusted
but I would rather you kept your distance.   Don‘t try to hug or
cuddle them and they should be okay.   I’ve had Beauty for a long
time. She’s quite old now.     The others are all failed police dogs.
Bella, Bramble and Beans failed because they were too soft.  It‘s not
what they are looking for in a police dog.   My other three are more
aggressive.  I’m keeping you out of their way until you are older.  I
had another dog when I was younger, but your mother set fire to her.”
"Why did she do that?" I asked.  I was quite horrified at the idea.
"Because she's a cruel hearted monster, that's why. Let's go."
 Like most homes in Darthrila, the main entrance was situated on the roof.
 There was a second way out through a dog flap and down a narrow
tunnel in the basement, which the dogs and I used to crawl through.
This led to an outdoor dog run.  I could see nothing at all in the
darkness outside.  I took a few careful steps forward.  My
outstretched hand reached a wire mesh fence.  I trailed my hand along
the fence until I could feel the wrought iron gate.   I sniffed the
smells from the nearby beach, while I waited for Liza to get there.
Normally the sea air delighted me, but today I felt sad, thinking
about the poor murdered dog.
Aunt Liza was too big to get out of the dog flap.   She used to abseil
down from the roof instead.
I felt a sense of relief when Liza’s hand touched mine.  When Aunt
Liza had told me about my mother burning Liza’s dog it reminded me of
the other story, about how I had needed to be rescued.  The more I
thought about it, the more fretful I became.
As Liza opened the gate, I felt several furry bodies squeezing past
me.  Liza said something I didn’t hear, because of the sound of
seagulls and the crashing of waves.  Then the dogs started barking.
“Could you please repeat that,” I asked, reaching for her hands so I
could feel what she was signing.
“I was talking to the dogs.  What's the matter Nadia?" Liza said.  As
it was so dark she was using tactile sign language.   A system where I
lightly touched her hands while she signed, so I could feel what she
was signing to me.
"You said mother set fire to one of your dogs.  Would she set fire to me too?"
"She won’t get the chance, while you are here with me.  You are safe
right now; Talmon is watching us from the roof.  He's guarding us..."
I hoped my aunt was right.
"What if she set fire to Talmon?"
"Killing a dragon is a capital offence in Darthrila.  The police would
come and execute her.   Even Beria's influence wouldn't help for an
offence as serious as that. There would be one wicked witch less in
the world. Wouldn't that be great?"
We both held on to a dog each.  They led us for a walk along the sandy
beach, which was not far from where we lived.    I could feel the cold
wet sand under my bare feet.
"Quick! Get under this blanket.  I think I can hear someone coming,"
My aunt signed. I felt my aunt's hands shake as she signed in frantic
jerky movements.
"I thought you said Talmon..."
"Never mind Talmon, you could be dead by the time he gets to us" she
told me.    She grabbed me in quivering hands, and pushed me under a
coarse blanket which smelt strongly of dogs.  I sensed her fear as we
waited for whoever it was to leave.

Chapter 5: Replaced by a career by Nadia Murat
1993 (2 years later)

“I’ve got a job at last.  I'm going to help train the police dogs, at
Stilosarka police station," My aunt told me using tactile sign
language.  We were on one of our nightly walks.   It was a full moon
tonight so I could just about see vague shapes as the dogs mulled
about.
I stopped short.  I had an angry scowl on my face.
"What about me?”
"I'm going to hire tutors to teach you.  You will be all right with
them.  Please be reasonable about this.  This is my big chance to get
a career at last.  I‘ve failed my parachute course so I‘m lucky to get
any openings at all."
"I don't want tutors. I don‘t want you to get a job. I want things to
stay the same as they are now!"  I cried, stamping my foot.  I gave a
yowl of pain as my bare feet hit a broken shell.
"Oh grow up Nadia!  You're eight years old now.  You are too old to be
throwing such a silly tantrum.  I really do need a career you know."
I pulled my hands away and started wailing loudly.
My aunt put a finger against my lips.  When that didn't quieten me
down she roughly grabbed my hands.
"Exactly how do you expect me to hear anyone approach when you are
making that dreadful racket?  Shut up now so I can listen in case your
mother approaches us.   You can throw your silly little tantrums when
we get back home."

                         ***  ***  ***

“Come along now Nadia.  We are going to do some cooking today. As this
is  your first lesson we will start with something very basic,” my
tutor announced, speaking into a box that she wore round her neck,
called an FM system, which helped cut out background noise.
 I got up sullenly and followed her into the kitchen.  I didn’t like
the fact that she spoke to me.   I wanted her to sign like Liza
normally did.
“Today I will show you how to use the microwave.  If you look into the
freezer you should find several tubs of food.  Take one of the tubs
out.  That’s a good girl.  Now put it in the microwave.  Close the
door and press the bottom button” she instructed.  She put my finger
on the desired button for emphasis.
“Now when you hear the beep take your food out and put it on a plate.”
I already knew how to warm things up in the microwave.  I had a lot of
practice since my Aunt's shifts were long and the train journey from
Druzil to Stilosarka was   an hour each way.

As well as cooking lessons and several hours of speech therapy, my
tutors taught me all about Darthrila where we live.  Stilosarka where
my aunt works is the capital of Darthrila.   It is a very cosmopolitan
country with many different languages and customs but all Darthrilians
are required to speak Drasp and swear allegiance to our leader
Excellus Darth, who is a dragon.
The Dragons who run Darthrila prefer female humans.   Women in
Darthrila have higher paid jobs, (although the highest Jobs of all are
all occupied by the Dragons themselves).  Most Darthrilan soldiers,
police officers, lawyers, and bankers are female.   Men in Darthrila
get the menial jobs like running the manually operated lifts that the
old and physically disabled use if they are unable to climb a ladder.
The dragons are very keen on preserving the environment.  Cars are
banned in Darthrila.  The only petrol-powered vehicles that are
permitted are fire engines and ambulances.  The rest of Darthrila uses
pedal and solar power to get about with.  You get bicycles, Pedal
driven rickshaws and solar powered trains and monorails.  You also
have to conserve electricity since you only got as much electricity
that can be generated by your own solar panelling.  If that ran out
you had to use pedal power, which involved continuously pedalling a
bicycle-like contraption to keep the electricity working.   We used
most of our electrical supply on lighting, cooking and recharging our
cochlear implant batteries.







                              ***  ***  ***

When my tutors were not there I spent a lot of time reading with only
Bella for company.
Most Darthrilan children's books centre on a group of winged children
and a dog.  Even the dog is airborne.  Either that or the children
were keen Paragliders or young witches who could operate various
flying objects.   The only children I read about without the ability
to fly at all were desperately unhappy about it.  The story often
ended with them magically receiving wings.  I assumed that everyone
except me and Aunt Liza could fly.
"Hi Nadia, Have you had a good day?" my aunt asked me after she came
back from work one day.   She sank heavily on the green carpet.
"Aunt Liza, Why don't we have wings like other people do?" I asked her.
"Nobody has wings; we’re all earthbound at present."
"Everyone I read about has wings..."
"They are only stories.  I'm afraid the dragons are obsessed with some
absurd notion of changing that.  They’ve been squandering huge amount
of money into  researching ways of making us all airborne.  So far
nothing has really been successful.  There has even been talk of
introducing a police bog. That's a cross between a bat and a dog.
They did manage to fix some wings on his back, but the idea never left
the ground and neither did the bog."
"Why do they want us to fly so much?"
"I've no idea.   There was a lot of complaints when I became a police
officer because I‘m too earthbound.
 “Normally you are really supposed to be able to use a parachute as we
ride dragons and sometimes need to jump off.  My parachute landings
have often left me in hospital.  Luckily the rules were bent in my
favour.     Some officers objected very strongly to my presence in
their police force because of this.
“I think they look down on land animals altogether.  Some officers
want to replace our dogs with police birds.  They’ve tried everything
from hawks to parrots. I believe there are a few police hawks still in
circulation but they are just for show.  The parrots were more useful
because you could train them to say ‘stop thief’ and ‘you’re under
arrest’.  Plus a flock of parrots can do quite a lot of damage to any
criminal foolish enough to resist arrest.   However, they don’t quite
have the right image.”
I was enjoying my aunt's company when Talmon fluttered towards us.  He
was carrying a silver tray with a couple of glasses of fruit juice and
some cookies on it.  He held the tray to me and Liza.
My heart sank.
Often, when Liza finally did get back she would spend time lying on
the carpet with Talmon lying next to her.   Sometimes she would fall
asleep like that.  At other times she would lay lovingly caressing
Talmon’s long scaly back.
“Please don’t go,” I begged, I clutching at my aunt.  I remembered the
day before, how Talmon had picked Aunt Liza up and flown out of my
range of vision with her.   I could only assume he had taken her to
his hammock but I couldn‘t see that far up.  It had made me feel
really shut out.
“All right, Nadia. Talmon can stay with us today.  Sometimes we want
to be alone together.  You will just have to put up with it.”
I watched enviously as Talmon stroked my aunt's hair.  She said
something to him, reaching out to kiss his muzzle.  After that he
licked her face, before settling down on the carpet to watch us
continue our conversation.


                 ***  ***  ***

“What’s that?” I asked on one of our nightly walks.  Liza got me out
of bed at about four am every morning before catching the first train
to go to work.   My hand had just touched a long metal object.
“That’s a long cane. I use it to get to Druzil railway station.  You
won’t tell anyone.  I don’t really need a cane.  I could just as
easily use a torch, but this method is quicker.  I might need it later
on, if I lose the sight in my other eye too.    Beria insisted I learn
blind skills.    I can’t say they didn’t come in useful.   It’s your
grandmother who could really do with these blind skills though.  My
father insists on doing everything for her while she is confined to an
armchair all day."
“Does my grandmother have delicate eyes like us then?”
“Your grandmother is completely deafblind.  Deafness and cataracts run
in our family you see.  Sometimes we get helped with modern
technology, but that does not always work.   Beria knows a lot about
blind skills.  It’s a shame she doesn’t know as much about Deafness.
She has very audist views.”
“What’s audist mean?”
“An Audist is someone who is against the deaf learning to sign.  They
want the deaf to speak and rely on lip reading, even when they can’t
see.  My father forces mother to feel his lips using a method called
Tadoma.  That‘s where the deafblind person places their hands on the
speakers lips and throat.  Sort of like tactile lip reading.  Mother
hasn’t a clue what Father is talking about, but then neither does
Father.  He's a very ignorant man.   It seems ignorance also runs in
the family, since Beria is just as bad.  She keeps comparing me really
unfavourably with her mother who is also deafblind.”
“Why do you put up with it then?”
“I want to keep my job, that’s why.  It isn’t easy, but life never is.
  Some of the other police officers made enough fuss about me.    I’m
not the only deaf person at that station, but some officers make it
clear that they don’t want us there.  I shudder to think how they
would react if they knew I used a cane sometimes too.  This is our
little secret, okay?”

                        ***  ***  ***

A few months later, I was messing about with some of the buttons on my
speech processor, when I overheard the sound of a couple of
disembodied voices.       I turned the volume on my speech processor
right up in an effort to eavesdrop.  I must have set my processor on
the ‘T’ position and Aunt Liza must have put on my FM system.
I was expecting my aunt to come soon.  She had taken some time off
work so she could spend some extra time going over my lessons.
"You shouldn't be doing this Liza..." A domineering voice announced.
"But she murdered Maya and Zakia. I couldn't just stand by and let
that cold bloodied monster hurt Nadia too," My aunt replied.
"No she didn’t.  She was heart broken when first Maya then Zakia died.
 They were both accidents.”
“I don’t believe that.  One dead baby can be explained away by
accidental causes.  Two starts to look really suspicious.  It was
especially suspicious after several of my sisters also died in
mysterious circumstances.”
“Why don’t you try to be more understanding towards your half sister
Madrella?  My brother Snyder was very unkind to her.  He had a grudge
against her right from the start, because of a curse that Madrella’s
father put on your mother, just before he died.  Madrella has had a
really hard life.”
“So have most criminals but I don’t catch you being so bleeding
hearted about them.”
“Nadia is going to have to start school soon.  She needs to be with
children her own age.  She’s already missed first and second grade.
This is not good enough.  If she doesn’t start school next month I‘m
going to have to report you both for truancy…”
“Can’t it wait a few more years?  The loathsome she-devil will be
searching all the local schools for her…”
“No I can’t.  Has it not occurred to you that you might have got it
all wrong? The babies could have all died naturally, after all the
area where Madrella lived in when she gave birth to Maya is very
primitive.   There is no modern medicine, so there is a very high
mortality rate.  You obviously forget that, having lived all your life
in Darthrila”
My aunt swore.
“That kind of language won’t impress me.  If you want to stay in the
police force you are going to have to become a little more detached.
My owner asks me for…” Beria lowered her voice at that point so I
didn’t hear what she said next.
“Talmon…”
“If you are referring to your owner you should say so.  It is in
extremely bad taste to refer to a dragon by their name.”
“All right, my owner then.   He doesn’t eat human legs.”
 “Lucky you…”   the dogs started barking at that point so I hastily
turned down the volume until they stopped.   When I tried turning the
volume back up again, the voices had gone.

(Replaced by a career was devided as half the chapter happened before
'the sad fate of lisa Bronze' and the other half happened after that
chapter takes place.)