The Birth of People's Republic of Antartica, стр. 129

was a rebellion about the time of the new year. Orri told Grandfather that Israel was involved peripherally. Cleopatra told Lazarus that Israel was a ringleader.

I do not know what happened. Nor do I know why Israel would have been so foolish to rebel against the Ice Cross. There was said to have been a massacre inside one of the satellite camps. Other than that, the record is silent. Orri could never tell Grandfather more than that Israel and Earle were sent away to the “plague camp.” That was the wretches’ way of saying Clarence West. When did Guy die, and where? And what happened to Thord? Orri loved Thord more than life. He did not speak of him. Cleopatra did not know what happened to the men, because she was separated from them when Fives O’Birne returned to Elephant Main in early summer (January 2000). She was returned to the brothel, or returned herself, soon after Charity’s death, taking with her Israel’s son, Solomon, and her own, Cesare, making their welfare a condition of her obedience. She was also permitted a protector, Babe, who buried his mother and then transferred his heroic allegiance to his sister. Orri survived the rebellion by accident, was transferred to the male aspect of the brothel.

I cannot reach any farther into the darkness and locate the circumstances of my family’s murder. I cannot even suppose. Peregrine and Israel were alive. Then they were dead. I have no more to say. I want to bash something, some source, and force it to tell me Peregrine’s last thoughts, Israel’s reason for rebellion, Guy’s and Thord’s last words—and Earle, how could he be killed? I realize I am not the last to lose everyone he loves to a pit. I also realize that a search for cause can too easily become a justification for revenge. I know that there abound examples in history of when a people, a way of life, was swept from the earth in such a way that nothing was left. I am insufficient legacy. I want a marker raised, more, an arch of triumph built across the whole of Elephant Island, and on it I want recorded the accusations of the murdered, the defense of the murderers, the verdict of Grandfather’s Lord God. I know hundreds of thousands died on the ice that year, mothers and fathers of children who were never granted the luck I have enjoyed. That is no comfort. I want my family remembered. Consider how pathetic it is to have left only what I have related: Peregrine and Charity starved themselves to death; Israel, Guy, Earle, and Thord were enslaved and made to disappear because they stood up against cruelty; Molly, cheery, poetic Molly, died despite everything Israel could do. This is all I have. Yes, I can wrap myself in Norse fatalism—dead is dead, mourn and keep on. I was not permitted mourning. There are no graves. There are no witnesses to tell the story. Peregrine was fifty-one years old. At that age, his own father, who was also my grandfather, was a well-pleased American, with three sons, my uncles, who were likely well-fed, regretful of the prodigal Peregrine. By accident, by bad luck, Peregrine’s path took him into penury, crime, exile, and abandonment. I am not saying that Peregrine was special—though he was to me—or that he deserved better than the multitude of wretches born into a poverty and hopelessness that I have never known. I am saying that such a man, my father, was born as one of the most fortunate creatures on earth, an American eldest son, and yet it was possible that he came to vanish into a silent, cold nothing, and there is no marking of his passing. He was created in joy, yet consumed in hatred. And why? How was it possible? Who was responsible? Show him, them, it, to me, and I shall make them account. But there is no one to show me, and there is nothing to be shown. I pound at silence.

“The Whore of Babylon”

My family vanished. Cleopatra, Babe, Orri, and the two babies survived. Cleopatra took charge of their fate. Her transformation was far from complete. She was cautious, guarded, a result of her starvation and recovery, knowing that if she did not act effectively, she could lose her will again. She was beginning to build her resources: she understood that in order to survive, she had to become as ruthless as possible, without moral limits on what she could do. As a first step, she made herself the center of a resourceful group of women and men in the brothel, including Orri. Babe made Cleopatra special, her armed might. What gave this clique added authority was that the brothel at Elephant Island was less a slave chamber than a temple of hope—in it, desire was possible, and it came to represent a mystical power to the Ice Cross and the wretches.

I do not understand how Cleopatra managed Fives O’Birne. He was a low, sly, ugly little man who might have been a double agent for one of the South American republics. I puzzle if Cleopatra was his mistress at all, instead a weapon he found and used. He permitted her unusual license in the brothel. He sent her to other Ice Cross officers as a gift. And yet he coveted Cleopatra’s strength, probably assassinated several Ice Cross officers who abused her, unless that was Babe at Fives O’Birne’s direction. Sometime in early 2000, Cleopatra became the consort of one of the new senior commanders at Elephant Island, Jaguaquara, a cagey, able, well-blooded Chilean. I cannot ignore my suspicion that Fives O’Birne directed this turn also. Jaguaquara, who called himself Islas Desolation, was then thought a brilliant butcher, veteran of several campaigns against the pirates in the Atlantic and Pacific. He was also thought one of the most merciful and competent Ice Crossmen, responsible for rebuilding camps destroyed by pirates and for improving conditions at