CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
I decided to turn right. David had said it didn’t matter. The sun had slipped a little below the treetops, but there was still plenty of light beaming through the humid air. I pedaled as fast as I could, but the circular road was rough, with ruts carved into it from the bus-box wheels. I seemed to be the only person alive. Soon the Re-Cy Compound was behind me and ahead I could see another Compound, another flag. I was sweating, my headscarf moist against my forehead and my hands damp on the handlebars. There was a squirrel-feeding station on the other side of the fence. Squirrels and birds squawked at each other, a flurry of fur, feathers, and noise. Below the feeding station were small flowers, pale pastels on short stems. Mostly pink, some yellow. Probably sprouted from seeds dropping off the feeding station. Bees dipped into one flower, then another. I could hear their buzzing, like a fly near your ear. The flowers were so close to the other side of the fence that I could almost reach them. Almost. How had David gotten flowers for me? How did he have the courage to break the laws protecting the Earth? I smiled. He did it for me.
Enough of that. Tonight I would focus on learning my job at the Children’s Village. And I would focus on Elsa—holding her, smelling her hair, learning her features, counting her fingernails and eyelashes and toes, teaching her the feel of my skin on hers. My Elsa. My child.
I passed the gate of the next Compound. The Gatekeeper didn’t stop me but did make a notation on his clipboard. A record was being kept of me. An account. The Compounds looked deserted, but there had to be people inside because they each had a Gatekeeper. Wherever there were Citizens, there was a Gatekeeper. Knowing that made me feel lonely; I didn’t know why.
I bicycled past more Compounds. Past the flags—Nourishment, Transport, Clothing. They all looked the same except for the flags. Square, squat Living Spaces backed up against the fence. Packed-dirt common grounds. Some of the Gatekeepers were making rounds, but even they took note of my passing, marking their clipboards. Sometimes one of my feet would slip off a pedal and the hard metal would hit my heel. I had to stop once because it hurt so badly.
There was a spot of blood on my stocking. I rested a minute, one foot on the ground, the other still on a pedal. The other pedal spun needlessly. There was no breeze and the leaves hung limp in the heat. Birds were beginning to roost after a day of carefree flight and song. Dusk was approaching. I started to bicycle again.
Walking this road would be easier than cycling. Cycling used different muscles because you had to keep your balance. I should have practiced more. I was used to walking. I did it every day on my board. But walking wouldn’t make enough energy for the Republic.
I understood the layout of the compounds better since David had explained it to me; I just didn’t understand the rules any better. Who made them? How did they get so much power? And what did they do with all the energy the Citizens created? I would have to remember to ask David.
I pedaled faster, trying to ignore the sweat on my face, the pain in my heel. The stocking glued to me with dried blood. And then, there it was: the gate to the Children’s Village. The blue and pink flags. And the Gatekeeper, walking with a lurch.
Randall.
He held his hand up as I approached.
I put my feet on the ground, straddling my energy bicycle.
“Your name?” he asked. A voice deep and harsh.
“Emmeline,” I answered. My throat felt tight as though a hand were squeezing around it.
“Your purpose?”
“Dusk-to-dawn shift at the Children’s Village.” I nodded my head toward the building and my headscarf slipped back, off my head, exposing my hair. I quickly pulled it back but it felt uneven, askew. I tried to straighten it with one hand, holding my bicycle up with the other. I felt clumsy, as though I might fall onto the dirt. My heel throbbed.
As he leaned against the gate, I realized he was trying to stand straight, trying to hide the fact that his left leg was shorter than his right. And when he talked, the left side of his mouth didn’t move the same as the right side. And his left eyelid drooped a little. He was not a perfect Citizen.
I straightened my shoulders and repeated, a little louder, “Dusk-to-dawn shift here at the Children’s Village.”
“I heard you the first time.” He made a notation on his clipboard. “Park your bicycle over there.” He nodded to a metal bar beside the entrance. “Secure it. Secure it well.”
I got off my bicycle and started to push it through the gate.
“Stop!” he said. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”
I didn’t know what to say. I stood, looking down at the dirt, afraid to meet his eyes.
“Citizen,” he said. “Praise be to the Republic.”
I looked up. He was making the circle sign.
“Praise be to the Republic,” I replied, making the circle sign.
He nodded without a smile, without any sign of approval, and motioned me through the gate. He didn’t stand aside, not even a little, so I had to brush against him. He smelled wet and musty, like dead leaves rotting around the bottoms of trees.
I secured my bicycle to the bar between two others. The metal securing chains were rough and rusty. I wouldn’t download my energy until I got back to my own space and I didn’t want anyone to download my energy into their cycle or storage bar. Energy was too valuable.
Little flakes of red metal fell from the chain and clung to my fingers. I brushed them off as best I could, one hand against another, then finger by finger. I wanted my hands to be as clean as possible when I held Elsa. Maybe there was sanitizing solution inside the Village.
I pushed open the door and immediately heard the sounds of sleeping. The soft in-and-out breaths, the tiny puffs of moving air. The hallway was dim. Off to the left was Joan’s office, empty now, but I remembered the first time I met with her when the sun came in the slit and made a sort of halo around her, making it hard for me to see her face. John had said I should check in with her in the morning, at the end of my shift.
I walked down the hallway, classrooms on the left and right, empty now. No little voices reciting praises to the Republic. Past the sleeping rooms of the older children. Deeper into the building and toward the nursery. My shoes made no noise. I could hear voices. Two women, from the sounds of it. There were two dancing lights in the dimness, lights that moved as the voices rose and fell.
“So she’s here tonight?” one said. She talked through her nose in a high, whiny voice.
“Sure enough,” said another, and the light bounced up and down.
“And you met her?”
“Didn’t exactly meet her. Joan had her come in. For an interview.” She said interview like it was something to make fun of. “Good old Joan. And we’re all supposed to be equals. Equal Citizens.” Whoever was talking coughed a wet, rattling cough and then made a throat-clearing noise. “Caught her getting ready to pick up a sleeping baby. Can you imagine?”
I held stone-still, waiting.
“Which baby?”
“Don’t know for sure. One of the girl babies. And Joan just standing there. Far as I can tell, Joan thinks this one is something special. Something more than equal.”
“Well, we’ll see to that, won’t we?”
And they laughed, together, the strange lights bouncing up and down. Another cough.
“So, anyway. Anything to report?”
“Not much. One was born today. That’s what I heard from Human Health Services.”
“And? Was it viable?”
They must be talking about that childlike woman from my Compound. The one who, holding her swollen belly, left on the bus-box.
“No. Crooked foot. Turned way in at the ankle. Too bad. A boy. Took him straight to Re-Cy.”
“The regulations have gotten tighter lately, haven’t they?”
It was getting darker in the hallway. My shift was about to start, and I couldn’t risk being late.
“Hello,” I called out. “I’m here.”
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The lights were turned toward me, shining in my face. I held my hand up to my forehead, shielding my eyes.
I couldn’t see them. But they could see me.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
“Almost late, aren’t you?”
Both lights were shining in my face. The one on the left was talking. She sounded like the same one I met the day I came for my interview with Joan. The one who told me not to wake a sleeping baby.
“Almost, I guess,” I said. “But I’m here now.”
“Did you bring your torch?”
I didn’t know how to answer. “My torch?”
They shuffled closer together. One of them reached up and turned off the light she was wearing. It was attached to a band that went around her head.
“Well, did you or didn’t you? Did you or didn’t you bring your torch?”
I shook my head. “I don’t have one.”
“How do you expect to work night shift without a torch?” The other one turned off her light, too, and the room was murky, the only light a faint haze coming through the window slits. “Look how dark it’s getting. My, my. Glad I have my torch. Wouldn’t want to be without it.” They both turned their lights back on.
One of them was wearing pink. The other, blue. Neither was very tall nor very heavy—both were altogether unremarkable.
“I’d best be leaving. My shift is done.” The one who was working the day of my interview turned her back to me, her pink uniform wrinkled and sagging around her hips. I didn’t know her name. “Have a good shift, Citizen.”
“Praise be to the Republic,” they said in unison and made the circle sign.
My arms hung down uselessly. Should I be making the circle sign? Should I ask their names, give them my name? Should I have known about the torch? I felt ignored and ill-prepared.
The one in pink started down the hallway to leave but called back to her friend. “I’ll say hi to Randall for you.”
“Don’t you be bothering Randall, you hear?”
And they both laughed.
The one in blue turned to me. “Well, then. No torch, huh? Guess you’ll have to stick close to me all night. Can’t have you bumping into things in the dark, can we?” I followed her down the hall and we turned into what looked like a large supply cupboard. Her torch shone up and down the shelves as she took stock of their contents.
A shelf of white cloths. A shelf of small bottles with nipples. A shelf of sanitizing solution and basins. More shelves. More supplies. The clean, sharp, almost acid smell of cleaning solutions. Propped in the corner was a worn, frayed broom next to a cracked dustpan. In another corner, a small red stepstool for reaching things on the higher shelves. Off to the side was a rocking chair. Hanging from a nail in the wall was a clipboard with a list of words, maybe names.
“What’s that?” I asked, pointing to the clipboard. I wanted her to turn her light onto the list.
She acted like she hadn’t heard me. She was taking stacks of the white cloths from the shelf, cradling them in her arms.
“What are those?” I asked, pointing to the cloths.
“What’s that, what’s this?” she said sharply. “Just full of questions, aren’t you? Just follow me and try to figure it out as we go. Understand?”
I nodded.
“All right then. Follow me.”
She shut the door and headed for the nursery. Finally I would see Elsa. I had to walk closely behind the woman in blue because the light from her torch was dim and cut only a narrow path through the darkness. I could smell her hair, oily like the fish-flavored nourishment cubes. She stopped abruptly, and I bumped into her back. She turned, her torch shining directly in my eyes.
“Be careful.”
The sharp tone of her voice made me feel cold and afraid.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t know you were going to stop. I was just trying to keep up.”
“There is no keeping up here. There is just doing. I have things to do. I stopped because I wanted to. I stopped just to see what you would do. Understand?”
I nodded, even though I didn’t.
“Here’s the deal. I’ve had this night shift since I graduated from the Children’s Village. It’s been mine. All mine. I do it my way. No matter what you’ve been told. Understand?”
I heard a small cry from a child somewhere down the dark hall. Elsa? No. It sounded like an older boy, not a baby. A child dreaming, maybe, of something dark and scary.
She didn’t seem to hear it, or she had no interest in checking on the child. My legs, my arms, my head wanted to find that child, smooth his covers, stroke his forehead. More than that, I wanted to see Elsa and hold her.
“First thing we do is restock. Get it?”
“Restock?”
“Yes. Restock. Put fresh diapers under the cribs. We do it for the day-shift workers.”
I remembered Joan saying restocking was not done on the night shift. But I didn’t say anything. Somehow, here in the dark, it didn’t seem safe to disagree.
“After we restock, well, we do what we have to.” She turned and went into the nursery.
We moved from crib to crib, with only her light to guide us. There were few babies in the nursery. Which one was Elsa? The woman didn’t shine her light on the children, only on the shelves under their cribs, and only long enough to take diapers from the cradle of her arm and move them onto the shelves. I had to move closely with her because the cone of light didn’t allow me to see anything except what she chose to show me.
“My name is Emmeline,” I whispered, finally.
“I know that,” she said. “Everyone knows that. No one cares.” She didn’t tell me her name but, from what Joan had told me, I knew she must be Lizzie.
She turned and went back to the supply cupboard. I followed, but not too closely.
This time she took some of the bottles with nipples off the shelves. For each bottle, she took a diaper and handed it to me. The bottles rattled against each other when she turned and left the supply cupboard.
The diapers felt rough against my skin. I had expected them to be soft.
I followed her back to the nursery. She stopped by the first crib and told me to hand her a diaper. She rolled it into a kind of round tube or pillow, using just one hand. Then she laid the rolled diaper next to the child in the crib. Finally, her light shone on the child. It wasn’t Elsa. It was a little boy, sleeping with his arms flung out beside him. She had to move one of his arms to get the diaper next to his face. She tugged on the back of his little shirt so he was turned slightly onto his side. Next she took one of the bottles and propped it onto the diaper so the nipple touched his lips. Tiny pink lips like the petals of a flower. He opened his mouth and she pushed the nipple into his mouth. He began to suck on it, his round, smooth cheeks moving, but he didn’t wake up. She had done this whole procedure without actually touching the child. She had only touched his clothing.
She started toward the next crib.
“Don’t you hold them to feed them?” I whispered to her.
She turned to face me. “I told you already. I do things here my way. Just follow me. No more questions.”
We went from crib to crib. Roll the diaper, put the diaper in the crib, turn the child slightly, put the bottle on the diaper, the nipple by the mouth, in the mouth, move on. As her light bounced back and forth, I looked at each child as carefully as I could. Two boys and three girls so far. No Elsa. As we walked to the last crib, my hands began to sweat. What if this last child was not her? What if she was gone?
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Walking to the last crib seemed to take forever, as though each step had slowed, and then become deliberate and motionless—like a mere mockery of walking. I could hear my own breath. It seemed loud enough for Randall to hear outside. Loud enough to wake the children.
When we finally reached that crib, the last one on the left-hand side of the nursery, Lizzie held out her hand for the last diaper. I stared into the crib, wa
iting for the light from her torch to fall on the face of this child. She rolled the diaper, placed it as she had done the others, and shifted the child slightly. Still no light. Finally, she placed the bottle and I could see clearly. I could see my Elsa.
I put my hands to my cheeks. Oh, how beautiful she looked, how peaceful. Her hands were curled into little fists, round and smooth. So tiny.
The bottle was against her lips but she turned her head away.
“This one gives me fits,” said Lizzie. “Stubborn from the first day she came in. Four months now she’s been here and stubborn every day.” She pushed the nipple against Elsa’s lips, but Elsa turned away each time. “She got started on regular baby food last week. About time, I say. Enough of this bottle stuff.” She moved the bottle again, rubbing it across Elsa’s lips. “Come on, come on. I don’t have time for this.”
“Maybe she’s not hungry right now,” I whispered. “Maybe if I held her?”
The light from her torch was turned onto me.
“It’s eating time. She’ll eat now or she’ll get no food.”
The light was still shining onto my face, into my eyes.
“And why would you want to hold her? What’s so special about Baby Six?” The way she said her sounded like her lip was curled up over the word, as though she was sneering, but with the light in my eyes, I couldn’t see her face to tell. I wanted to scream out that her name was Elsa. Not “Baby Six,” Elsa!
I blinked and tried to turn away from the light.
“I just thought—” I started to say, but she interrupted me.
“Oh, you just thought. Oh, yes, Emmeline just thought. My, my, my. Isn’t that interesting.” She pushed the nipple one more time against Elsa’s lips. This time Elsa accepted the nipple and began to suck.
“I already told you. Twice now I’ve told you. We do it my way.”
She turned and started to walk out of the nursery. Quickly, briefly, I touched Elsa on the top of her head, feeling her soft, feathery hair.
“Are you coming?” Lizzie asked, talking to me over her shoulder.