The Windkeeper

THE WINDKEEPER

by Simo Srinivas

You cannot, in fact, keep the wind. You can hold it for a time, and then you must let it go.

—Tepal Tomell, Windkeeper

I am the windkeeper. I live at the edge of the windswept plain. On the newer maps, I am Windkeeper #170. In my house of white-washed stucco-concrete, with its round windows like portholes, I look out over the sea of grass. The only “trees” and “flowers” for miles are the windmills in my keep, steel stalks and petals shining against the yellow sky.

The electricity they generate does not come to me. I do not need it. I make my own waxlights. They throw out a strong light and do not burn away too quickly.

I have books that I read by waxlight.

The books that I dislike, I keep for emergency fuel.

Others, I pass on to travellers who happen my way. I do not pine for travellers. I am happy in my own company.

I have a record player that runs on a hand-crank. 

I have my harness, my goggles, my helmet, my ear-protectors, my breathing apparatus, and my toolbox.

I have a chocolate Labrador called Sumatra. I named her after a monsoon wind. (I do not drink coffee.)

I have in my care just twenty-five windmills; my strip of good air cannot support more than that. To the east, in the wide-open spaces, are keepers of larger operations. I do not know how they do it. I myself maintain one windmill per day, climbing into the dust-thick sky. 

It is best to be down before the noonday electrical storms. When the electricity is rolling in balls across the plains, I confine myself and Sumatra indoors. In the evenings, I either do my chores or shirk them in favour of a record or two with the hand-crank. Then, to bed.

In this manner do we pass the days.

•••

I am the windkeeper. I know the pattern of the seasons, and I know we are coming to the end of the season of thick air. This is a weather window. Soon I will see someone, a traveller, a black spot at the edge of the plain. I get five or six a year, when the weather turns fine. They will come to me from a place where humanity clumps close together and hums, like a hive of ground-bees. They will come on foot through my field of metal flora, removing their breathing apparatus, for it will be a fine morning or evening (at midday, as I said, we have frightful storms), and at such times, it is polite and pleasant to show one’s face.

They will come, and I will offer to host them overnight and listen to their news. It is customary. Sometimes they cannot stay; their business is urgent, their feet impatient. But if they can spare the time, I will show them to the bed in the guestroom or, perhaps, to the bed in mine, leaving Sumatra to whine in the hallway outside.

In the morning she will look at me reproachfully, but by lunchtime all will be forgiven.

The traveller will depart, and I will climb whichever windmill is next on the schedule.

In this manner…

•••

The wind is a song.

—Mara Rutlegg, in Memoirs of a Dustbowl Dentist: My Life on the High Plains

The house has the look of a bicuspid tooth, glowing white under the dust-hazed morning sun. The windmills spin overhead, ghostly revolutions that put Mara in mind of ancient film footage unaccompanied by sound.

The silence of such gargantuan things should be frightening. But Mara—several weeks removed from the thunderous vibrations of the nearest metropolis—is accustomed to it now.

He is his own accompaniment, anyway, an instrument of many keys clattering across the burned yellow plain.

When his thoughts run thin, he repeats to himself his inventory: gas stove, spare canister, air filter, spare filter (set of ten), Faraday tent, tent patches (pack of three), mirrors (set of two), tooth polisher, tooth curette, probe. Goo—his own description for the meals he carries—(running low). The Twelve Lovers of Ronan Recorsa (337 leaves remaining). 

Mirrors, tooth polisher, tooth curette, probe.

One foot in front of the other.

Somewhere above him are clouds, carrying static but no rain, creating shifting patterns of shadow and light in the dust.

From the doorway of the bicuspid comes an eruption of barking. An arm is raised, toothpick-thin in the distance.

•••

Illustration by Jacob Tonellato

The windkeeper has a beautiful smile. (Square anterior teeth, well aligned, Mara observes; a dentist always notices these things.) He is holding a fat brown dog back by a good leather collar, etched with spirals that evoke swirling wind. A bell hangs from the collar, a bud of bronze with a mellow tongue.

They have each removed their respirators, but a mechanical quality remains in the windkeeper’s voice, a roteness in his hand-signals.

It is customary to share a meal.

Where are you bound?

“The city, eventually,” Mara says. He coaxes the first words he’s spoken in days into the air like a parent encouraging a child standing awestruck before an idol.

Mara’s childhood idols were garbage collectors and, later, vaqueros. He did not learn about windkeepers until university. He had thought all windfarms were industrial; upon the discovery of smaller operations, he’d decided they must be artisanal, gathering rarefied mountain air to be sold at a premium, likely in glass bottles.

This windkeeper (#170, according to his coveralls) has something of a vaquero in him, Mara thinks. He’s sizing Mara up like one might size up a bull. Mara wonders how many visitors he receives a year and concludes, not many.

The dog, on the other hand, has already decided that they’re going to be friends.

Her name is Sumatra.

The windkeeper’s face is unreadable under its coating of dust.

Won’t you come in?

•••

The windkeeper’s threshold is raised to keep the dust outside. His sitting room is decorated in a light and airy plains style. A pair of horns hangs over the hearth. 

I do not use the fireplace in the season of thick air. You may place your pack there.

“How much do I owe you for one night’s stay?”

Nothing.

“But I must repay you.”

You can leave a book.

“Ah,” Mara says, glancing regretfully at The Twelve Lovers spilling from his pack, “I haven’t finished it yet, and I’m not likely to in a single evening.”

You can tell me news of the city.

“Would you be interested?”

It is customary.

The windkeeper gestures at a leather sofa. Have a seat. Mara does, then runs his fingertips down the sofa’s supple sides. “You have many lovely things.”

Thank you. I am particularly fond of my record-player. We may use it after supper. This season, I have been listening to the guitar music of Almo Uddin.

The windkeeper moves toward the door. 

“Where are you going?”

To the windmills. I’ll leave you the dog for company. Sumatra, stay.

“See you,” Mara murmurs to the windkeeper’s departing silhouette, black against the sea of gold.

•••

The dog alerts him to the windkeeper’s return. She lifts her snout from his lap to wuff once and runs barking to the door.

Two hours have passed, according to Mara’s watch, which is in need of a winding. 

From his wrist, Mara moves his eyes to his index finger, pinched between the pages of The Twelve Lovers of Ronan Recorsa, and repeats to himself: 287 leaves remaining.

“Welcome back,” he calls.

The air is crackling. The dog jogs back to Mara, who pats her on her dusty brown flank; a shock flies between them.

He meets the windkeeper’s eyes, clear and almost silvery in a lean golden face. 

A shock flies between them, too.

Time to lock up, the windkeeper says finally. Stay here while the electricity is rolling and look eastward.

How luxurious, Mara thinks, to be able to relax on a comfortable sofa—without the straps of your respirator digging into your skin, without your hastily assembled Faraday tent flapping around you and your heart banging in your chest—to watch the balls of lightning zinging over the plain.

Looking westward, he sees electricity arcing between the blades in jagged blue lines, transforming the windmills into a field of spectral dandelions.

The windkeeper joins Mara on the sofa with a vacuum flask, a sleeve of biscuits, and a book of his own.

Indicating the flask—

Tea. Chamomile. Help yourself.

Indicating the window—

East is the other way.

Mara smiles. “I know. I’m taking it all in.”

We have three hours of storms in the afternoon, followed by relatively clear nights. 

“So I’ve discovered.”

Have you been on the road long?

“I have no fixed address.”

This disclosure normally elicits curiosity, but the windkeeper appears uninterested. I see, he says. The air will get thinner and thinner until the year turns. It’s a pleasant time to travel.

“Do you travel?”

No.

The windkeeper opens his book. It is Abnormal Currents of the Southern Straits by Admiral Ma He, translated by Suzan Lungback.

“Who brought that one to you?”

What do you mean?

“I thought you were extracting books from travellers. As a sort of toll.”

I don’t collect tolls. The windkeeper checks the inner flap, but there is no dedication, no signature, no stamp. A professor, I think. A professor on her way to see her daughter who lives on the coast. It may have been Suzan herself.

“And… are you enjoying it?”

It’s too soon to tell. I’ll let you know when I’ve made more progress.

Taking the hint, Mara returns to Ronan Recorsa. Sumatra settles panting at his feet. 

The wind rises. The air sizzles. The house is as sturdy as a well-rooted tooth.

•••

Mara opens his eyes from a dream of bull-riding. It takes a moment to remember where he is. 

“Windkeeper?”

No answer. The air carries the scent of hot oil. Mara follows his nose from the sitting room and finds the windkeeper emerging from a cellar with cans pinched against his chest, Sumatra at his heels.

“I thought I’d lost you,” Mara says, taking the cans from him. “This is a big house.”

The windkeeper replies once his hands are free. It was built for a big family.

“Do you know who you replaced?” Mara trails the windkeeper into a dining room. “I replaced a woman who retired.”

Dr. Nira Aditty said she was going to a seaside town where the only rotation she’d have to complete would be between her bed and the boardwalk. And the only chompers I’ll be examining will be my own! 

But enjoy yourself, she’d also said. It’s a brilliant job when you’re young and strong. A wink. A flash of teeth. And perhaps you’ll find someone to keep you company on the road.

The keep was empty when Sumatra and I arrived, the windkeeper says. No one else would accept the posting.

“It’s like a place out of time,” Mara says. “This morning I felt like I was walking into the ancient past.”

My windmills aren’t ancient.

“I’ve offended you.”

I’m not offended, the windkeeper says. Merely stating a fact. They’re about as old as I am.

“How old is that?”

Now that, surely, is an offensive question. The corners of the windkeeper’s eyes crease as he smiles. Shall we?

Supper is canned tomato sauce and canned beans, a thick pile of flatbread, and the shavings of an aged and very pungent white cheese. For Sumatra, a mound of dog food topped with the hindquarters of a rabbit she caught herself.

The windkeeper and Mara drink from the same wine glass.

To save on the washing up, the windkeeper says. I want to have enough time to listen to a record before bed. Do you mind?

“You could serve me raw flour from your two cupped hands,” Mara says, “and I would be delighted. I’m sick of meal replacement gel.”

I’d give you some cans to take with you, the windkeeper says, but I suppose they’re too heavy.

“Yes,” Mara says. “I try to keep my pack weight under forty pounds.”

Yet you brought such a heavy book.

Mara tips sauce onto his bread and spreads it around with a fragment of cheese. “Nice try. I’m still not going to leave it here with you.”

The windkeeper smiles. It was worth a shot.

•••

After supper Mara lies on the sitting room rug with the dog. The windkeeper brings out a polished wooden box and two LPs in vibrant sleeves. He talks one-handed while he cranks, in a voice that seems to lilt.

I am winding up the spring.

It is a mechanism similar to clockwork.

As in your wristwatch.

The record player is a remarkable object. Ornately carved, meticulously restored, and lovingly polished, with a steely crank and steely needle, it is a gorgeous carapace for a gorgeous thing: the sound of humanity, of a man far away and long ago coaxing a guitar to sing.

Now the spring is wound, and we have reached seventy-eight revolutions per minute.

I like this piece very much.

Listen.

It’s been weeks since Mara heard any music. On the road, he talks to himself; unable to carry a tune, he neither sings nor hums. He wracks his memory. When was the last time?

When he left the city, staggering under the weight of his pack, a busker was playing an electric clavier on a street corner.

When he left university, his classmates were singing a drinking song.

When he left home, his grandmother was humming while she hung the washing out to dry.

Tears sting his eyes, desiccated by the air of the plain.

“I hadn’t realized how much I was missing this.”

Instead of signing a response, the windkeeper touches Mara’s hand.

Sound continues to flow, glistening, from the windkeeper’s wooden box. It reminds Mara of amber. It reminds Mara of the sun on ocean waves.

The windkeeper traces a pattern over Mara’s knuckles.

My name is Tepal.

•••

I have been climbing my windmills. I have been reading and listening to music. In this manner I do pass the days. Bring me something from the city. Bring me a song. I await the sight of you on the horizon.

—Tepal Tomell, in a letter to Mara Rutlegg

I am the windkeeper. I have entertained a traveller in my house of white-washed stucco-concrete. Now the traveller has gone, and I must make my bed and placate my reproachful dog. I sign my apologies. I climb and service Windmill 23, and by the time I return to earth, Sumatra has forgiven me.

During the storms of the afternoon, I have a new book to read. It is about the first six lovers of Ronan Recorsa. The traveller, who tore his book in half before departing, has promised to bring the other half to me in one year’s time. Until then, I will read it slowly, stretching every sentence.

I have a record player that runs on a hand-crank, that I will listen to alone tonight.

I have slept well and will continue to do so.

I have a beautiful smile.

The traveller, Mara Rutlegg, has told me so.