Paradise and Elsewhere by Kathy Page

from their flimsy homes, going always on foot. They sang and played instruments, they told stories and riddles, and drank an intoxicant brewed from moulds cultivated inside the mouths of the thirty-nine pits beyond the square. Traces of this mould have been found on the concave surfaces of the pottery fragments we have discussed, and inside the hexagonal towers which we deduce to be public kitchens. Under the influence of this drink, they became convinced that they could read the future. They saw or guessed how their own demise would come, and how the sighted world would inevitably misunderstand their achievements. Consider these people, blind, scattered, knowing themselves to be unique in their peaceful and economical culture: proud, and justifiably so, but also vulnerable, afraid and alone. Perhaps it’s not surprising that they wanted to build a city such as this, itself a riddle that could be unlocked only by the knowing touch of those, like them, free of the distraction of sight.
    â€œLadies and gentlemen, you have here a moving testimony as to the diversity of our species. For almost two thousand years the Siddanese lived here, in a completely different manner from the other peoples of the world. Navigating in their inner darkness across the desert, they built a city without the use of tools; they refrained from eating meat or using animals as beasts of burden, they avoided trade and eschewed science: developing not astronomy like the Egyptians nor geometry like the Greeks but their own austere metaphysics and philosophy. Whilst all the other peoples of the globe were slaves to superstition, the Siddanese pondered the problems of communication and interpretation, fitting one stone carefully on top of the next. Whilst others looked back to the origins of the gods and sought to bend nature to their own will, the Siddanese felt their way forward to the future and guessed what was to come. But as well as all this, I like to think of them as a deeply sensual as well as a serious people, rather as I like to see myself.” He smiles at us properly for the first time.
    â€œWe are lucky, I think, that such a people lived. You may take photographs if you wish, though remember, this place is not designed to appeal to the eyes! There are various publications on sale by the entrance, and some small-scale replicas of the statue: an intriguing puzzle which you can try to assemble yourselves. I suggest that in the few remaining minutes you close your eyes and explore Sidda by touch, for it’s only in darkness that its full beauty can be appreciated.”
    Nowadays no one asks questions of a guide. It either works or it does not. He moves to wait in the shade for the next group. Gratefully, I close my eyes again and wander, arms outstretched, blundering unpractised until my fingers touch Sidda’s walls. I feel the sun’s fatal heat on my back as I trace the border between one stone and the next. I slip my fingernail into the gap between. I feel how in these last hot days and years the world is full of parables, prefiguration and correspondence. Even half-truths or outright lies hide lessons and examples, and somewhere, beneath one of these dry stones, curled like a bug, is hope. I can hear other people on the path, and the cry of the veiled woman’s child, but apart from that it is quiet under the dome. I press against the wall, opening myself to its roughness and accumulated warmth. I have come to my last site. I want to touch our guide, to take his hand in mine—it would be dry and warm, like the stone—with my eyes still closed.
    I know that there may be yet other guides. I know that they may even come in shapes different than ours—limbless, green-skinned, minute, extra-sensory, photosynthetic, mechanic, invisible: “We’re nearing the end of our tour. Just one more thing—below is the planet earth. Mostly desert now, though once it was uniquely fertile and inhabited by many forms