Woman on the Edge of Time

“We have high production!” Luciente’s black eyes glinted indignation. “Mouth-of-Mattapoisett exports protein in flounder, herring, alewives, turtles, geese, ducks, our own blue cheese. We manufacture goose-down jackets, comforters and pillows. We’re the plant-breeding center for this whole sector in squash, cucumbers, beans, and corn. We build jizers, diving equipment, and the best nets this side of Orleans, on the Cape. On top we export beautiful poems, artwork, holies, rituals, and a new style of cooking turtle soups and stews!”

“Why isn’t anybody in a hurry? Why are the kids always underfoot? How can you waste so much time talking?”

Jackrabbit waved his arms windmill fashion. “How many hours does it take to grow food and make useful objects? Beyond that we care for our brooder, cook in our fooder, care for animals, do basic routines like cleaning, politic and meet That leaves hours to talk, to study, to play, to love, to enjoy the river.”

“At spring planting, at harvest, when storms come, when some crisis strikes, Connie, we work, we stiff it till we drop … . The old folks story about how they used to have to stiff it all the time. How long the struggle was to turn things over and change them. After, what a mess the whole ying-and-yan of it was from peak to sea.” Luciente waved off into the distance. “Now we don’t have to comp ourselves that hard in ordintime … . Grasp, after we dumped the jobs telling people what to do, counting money and moving it about, making people do what they don’t want or bashing them for doing what they want, we have lots of people to work. Kids work, old folks work, women and men work. We put a lot of work into feeding everybody without destroying the soil, keeping up its health and fertility. With most everybody at it part time, nobody breaks their back and grubs dawn to dust like old-time farmers … . Instance, in March I might work sixteen hours. In December, four …”

“You said you made jizers, comforters. Where are the factories?”

“We just passed the pillow and comforter factory.”

“Can I see it?” When she met Eddie, she had been working in a loft where many Spanish-speaking women sewed children’s clothes.

Jackrabbit bounded ahead and the door opened. Inside the opaque peach cube, she saw no one. The machinery made the most noise she had heard in the village. “Is this all automated?” she shouted.

“Fasure,” Jackrabbit shouted back. “Who wants to stuff pillows? I tore one open once hitting Bolivar over the head. What a mess! Gets up your nose. And the padded jackets with down—they’re very warm but who would want to stuff every patch?”

“They’re stuffed first, then sewn,” she said. “So nobody works in this factory? Not even a supervisor?”

“It’s mechanical,” Luciente said. “The analyzer oversees it, with constant monitoring and feedback. In operations like the brooder, most everything is automated, but we need human presence because mistakes are too serious.”

“This runs off solar energy?”

“No, methane gas from composting wastes.”

“Okay, you can automate a whole factory,” she said as they walked back into the sunshine. “So why do I see people grubbing around broccoli plants picking off caterpillars? Why is everybody running around on foot or bicycles?”

“We have so much energy from the sun, so much from wind, so much from decomposing wastes, so much from the waves, so much from the river, so much from alcohol from wood, so much from wood gas.” Luciente checked them off on her fingers. “That’s a fixed amount. Manufacturing and mining are better done by machines. Who wants to go deep into the earth and crawl through tunnels breathing rock dust and never seeing the sun? Who wants to sit in a factory sewing the same four or five comforter patterns?”

“There are ten, in fact,” Jackrabbit said. “I counted them.”

“Only you have been in enough beds to be sure,” Luciente said with a tucked-in smile. They walked on toward a joined group of free-form buildings of sinuous curves suggesting a mass of eggs, but with long loops thrown off and high arches and arcades. This just-grew was the color of terra cotta. A vine ran all over the south side, with big velvet flowers that gave off a fragrance of cloves. Bird feeders hung from every protrusion, out of windows, on posts. The roof was studded with bird-houses and a pigeon coop built in, as if the masonry broke into lace through which pigeons went fluttering and cooing.

Small gardens ran right among the clump of buildings, vegetables and flowers intermixed, tomato plants growing with rosebushes and onions, pansies and bean plants. Some were planted in open borders and some were surrounded by a thin shimmery fence like spiderweb. Out over the bay a towering mass of gray clouds was forming as the wind rose.

“Smells like rain,” Jackrabbit said. “The day’s turning.”

“I hope if it’s going to rain, Innocente has time to complete a shelter.” Luciente eyed the clouds. “Hope Bee and Otter get back before the storm. Lux too, I mean,” she added guiltily.