“I promise to tell you everything I know,” he said. “No secrets. But right now, you need to sleep.”
I lay down on my mat, still in my Caretaker uniform. Not enough energy to change my clothes. Not enough energy for anything.
As I lay there, I felt the hardness of some of the things Mother had left for me. I could picture them all, buried within the mat. The smooth edge of the book by my cheek. Along the side, by my fingers, the small hardness of the knife that opened like a snake. I hadn’t told David about these things.
We all had our secrets.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
I tossed and turned, somewhere between rest and restlessness. Images, unconnected and fragmented, floated past each other, twisting and turning. Mother on her board, face turned to the wall. Mother at the end, curled on her mat, face still to the wall. Elsa in my arms. Father in his sweat-stained shirt. Joan smiling at me, the sun behind her, a halo around her. Lizzie biting her fingernail. The two girls in the bus-box with me on reproductive-testing day. They faded away, gray ghosts. Me, alone in the bus-box, being pulled along by a Transport Team past squirrels swirling like fog. In my sleep, I reached out to touch them, but they were too far away. David taking the first bite of an egg. His hand, holding the egg out to me. His fingernails, smooth and pink, against the whiteness of the egg.
And then I fell into a deep sleep, with David still beside me and my hand resting on the far edge of the mat, near Mother’s treasures.
When I woke up, David was seated beside me, vigilant and watchful. He stroked my cheek with one finger. A soft, smooth touch that made me smile even though my eyelids felt hot and swollen, and my lips rough. He went to the counter and came back with some water for me in his right hand, his left hand behind his back. After I drank some of the water, he took the ration cup then held out his left hand.
Flowers.
A fragile cluster of short-stemmed beauties. Small pink buds, unopened, tucked in between bigger flowers with white petals, yellow centers. Some purply sprigs that I could smell already, like the breeze across the trees and grass after a rain. A fern, lacy and soft, that swayed up and down even as he held the bouquet. There was even a soft blue bird feather among the stems.
I reached for them. They felt as fragile as Elsa, beautiful but dependent. “I held her,” I whispered, my nose buried in the flowers, the feather brushing against my cheek. He looked so happy when I said that, smiling so hard his eyes almost crinkled shut.
“What does she look like? How long did you hold her? All night, I hope.”
“Not exactly,” I answered. “Tell me. Do I have a dimple?”
“What? Do you have a what?”
“A dimple. A little dent in my cheek that gets bigger when I smile?” I tried to smile so I could show him, but my lips were dry and my face felt stiff.
He touched my right cheek. “Yes, right here, you have a beautiful, perfect dimple.” He leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek. “I love your dimple.”
“Mother had one, too. On her right cheek. But it seemed to get lost on her. Elsa has one. Her skin is so smooth, so perfect. I wish you could see her.”
“You can tell me about her. Every morning when you end your shift. You can tell me everything.”
I clenched and unclenched my fists, pushed my hair behind my ears, and took a deep breath. Surely, he didn’t believe just hearing about Elsa secondhand and never holding her would be enough!
“David, someday I will have your baby.”
He smiled, a shy little smile. “Oh, Emmeline, that would be so, I don’t know, so wonderful. A baby. Maybe a boy.” He paused. “Or a girl. Either way.”
“And, if I did have your baby—a girl or a boy, either way—you would never be able to hold that baby. Never. It would be a Children’s Village baby. Raised by the Republic.” I paused, studied his face, and then continued. “Perhaps,” I took a deep breath, “perhaps we shouldn’t have a child. Because it would never really be our child.”
He turned away from me. The air felt heavy with quiet sadness. “I don’t know what to say, Emmeline.” He turned back to me, his shoulders slumped. “It’s beyond our power. All of it.”
“Beyond our power,” I thought. That ugly word. It. Mother used to say that. It is what it is. I didn’t think that was good enough anymore. Not since I held Elsa. It was ugly and it hurt and it wasn’t good enough. But the whole idea of it was too big for right now, too big for the two of us in this Living Space. A Children’s Village worker and a Gatekeeper. We were nothing against it. I took a deep breath and tried to slow my breathing. Tried to push away ugly thoughts, tried to think of something good, if just for a little while.
“How did you get these?” I asked, pointing to the flowers.
“I didn’t,” he admitted shyly. “They were on the window slit when I woke up. Father must have left them.”
“But how? How does he do these things?”
“The first question is ‘why?’ I bet it was my mother’s idea.” He took the flowers and put them in the little bit of water left in the ration cup and then handed it back to me. “Back before the relocation, in the before-times, she had flower beds everywhere. Your mom was leading protests. My mom was pruning roses. Your dad and my dad and I were baling hay. Look where all of that got us.” He looked around our dismal area with a grimace.
I set the bottle and the flowers on the floor by my feet. I looked at my toes. So much bigger than Elsa’s. No longer pink and smooth. No longer soft, uncalloused, or unsoiled. Strong toes. Strong feet. Strong legs from walking the board. Flowers were good and sweet, but strength was better.
“How? How does he get them here? To our window slit. How, with Gatekeepers and fences around all of us? How?”
David went to the eating counter and came back with the one morning cube that was left. He broke it in half and handed me a portion. “You have to eat, Emmeline. Please. Share with me.”
I took his offering. He was right. I had to eat to be strong. We shared the cube, the dry sustenance from the Authority. It had no taste today, but it did have nourishment. From nourishment comes strength, in spite of the source.
“You didn’t answer me,” I said. “How does he get outside the fence? Can anybody get out there?” Outside the fence sounded like freedom.
“It’s Dad’s secret,” he said. “I can’t tell you.”
“No, David, no. Never again. No secrets. You promised me.” I knew if there were secrets between us, there could never be hope. Not for David, not for me, not for Elsa. “Did you hear me? No secrets. Not ever.” I put my hand under his chin and turned his face toward me. “Look at me.”
He looked at me with clear gray eyes, unblinking.
“I need to know everything. Everything you know. Everything that happened. The before-time. The relocation.” I paused. “How? Why? Tell me all of the terrible things that happened.”
“I don’t know if I can answer all of that. The how and the why—like I told you, I was just a kid.” He paused. “I wish there was a way we could spend time with Mom and Dad. They know more than I do. I’d rather they told you about it.”
I thought about what he was saying. Maybe he was right. Or maybe he was afraid of upsetting me. Maybe his memories were all buried. Deep, dark, ugly things. But I still wanted to know about these things the same way I want water when I am thirsty. Even a tiny sip is better than none at all.
“Then start with something small. Something you do know. How does your dad get outside the fence? Can you at least answer that?”
He nodded and walked to the doorway and looked out. I saw him look in both directions.
“Not now, Emmeline. Not now.” He put his finger to his lips, motioning me to be quiet. So many times I had seen Mother do that. I never knew why. Not until now.
The Gatekeeper was making rounds. I could hear his boots walking on the ground, in a circle from the first Living Space and on and on, past ours, his shadow past our doorway and then on, fading away to the last space. Fina
lly, he must have returned to his post, making his notations on his clipboard. What kind of people are these Gatekeepers? I thought, before remembering that David was one of them. There must be degrees of Gatekeepers, degrees of Transport Team members, degrees of Village workers, degrees of all classes. The secret was figuring out what degree someone was. Not all Citizens were the same. Regardless of what the Authority said or wanted. Not all Citizens were the same.
“Right. No secrets. Not ever. Not between us.” He sat next to me on the sleeping mat and talked quietly. “I heard him tell my mother that there is an old bus-box with a broken wheel parked beside the Children’s Village. All the bus-boxes are parked to the right of the building at night. They line them up for morning transport.”
He paused and went to the doorway again. The sunlight cast his shadow into our space but he soon came back and sat next to me.
“That one bus-box with the broken wheel has been there for a while, parked right alongside the fence. The Central Authority is inefficient when it comes to fixing things.” He laughed when he said that. “They are so busy making sure the Citizens do everything right, but they aren’t real good about doing their own work right.”
The flowers sat in the ration cup at our feet. I held his hand and it felt strong and sure. His long fingers curled around mine—they made me feel safe.
“Anyway, behind that bus-box, there’s a small break in the fence wire, right above the cement base. Every evening when dad parked his bus-box, he would go to that break and pull on it and make it a little bigger. The fence wire is thick so it took a lot of effort, a lot of time.” He smiled, and I knew he was proud of his father. I could just see it in the way his lips curled up at the corners and his eyes crinkled around the edges.
“After a while, the break in the fence became big enough for a person to slip through. No Gatekeeper can see the hole because it is hidden behind the bus-box. Dad would slip through it just to be where things are green and growing. Mom was upset when he told her about it. Said it was dangerous to go outside the fence.”
“Well, your mom is right.”
“Maybe she is. But,” he said smiling at me, “being out there is important to my dad. Just look at those flowers.”
He was right. Those flowers, those beautiful flowers, symbolized so much more than just love. They symbolized freedom. A life outside the fences. A life without Central Authority and Gatekeepers and nourishment cubes. A life with Elsa and David.
I liked the sound of that.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
David said it would take a while for me to get used to sleeping during the day and working the night shift, so we tried to nap again. He rubbed my back, trying to get me to relax, but soon he was kissing the side of my neck, right above my shoulder. Then he took my fingers, one by one to his lips, loving each. As he moved from finger to finger, it felt like my body was melting against the sleeping mat. He began to fumble with his clothes but stopped when we heard the shrill three-blast whistle warning of a Social Update Meeting.
He groaned and sat up, holding his head in his hands.
“I forgot. Social Update tonight.” He smacked his hand against the sleeping mat. “I’m sorry, Emmeline.”
I sat up next to him and put my head on his shoulder. “I’m sorry, too. Maybe later?”
He smiled. “Promise?”
“Promise,” I said, and my voice felt like it came from deep in my throat. I went into the washing-up area to get ready for the Social Update Meeting. David got our evening cubes from the box and we took turns eating them, taking bites from each other’s cubes, sharing in a way that seemed so natural, like it had always been this way and nothing would ever change. The terrible things Lizzie had told me last night seemed, briefly, far away and unreal.
The Gatekeeper was raising the Social Update flag by the gate. It made a screeching metal-on-metal sound. Time to go. Reluctantly we left our space and went together into the common ground of our Compound.
The couple from Living Space 2 came out at the same time. They were so much younger than the old man and woman who used to live there, but I could see the beginning of the same vacant expressions on their faces. They didn’t walk close together, instead leaving a big space between them, making them look unconnected to each other, or to anything else, for that matter. I reached for David’s hand and looked away from the young couple. They were too much of a reminder of how easily things could go wrong. Her poor baby, born not viable. That void in her life was the space between them as they walked; a space too big to be filled by any amount of tears. A space that destroys all hope.
And then I thought of the old lady being taken away from that same Living Space, away from her husband. Her matted and tangled hair, her scuffed shoes. She never looked back toward him, never called out to him. I remembered her voice, frail and quivery. “Are you my son, my Andy? Are you taking me to my Lizzie?”
We kept walking, merging with the people from all of the Compounds, moving like tall grass in the wind. David and I went into the Re-Cy section and stood ramrod straight, facing the elevated stage, waiting for the words from the podium. We stood with our shoulders touching. Paired. Over to the left, in the Transport Compound, I saw John in his orange uniform, and beside him, Joan. They were in the back row of their section and craned their heads, scanning the crowd. Finally John spotted us and nudged Joan. She touched her hand to her heart, so briefly that no one would really notice it. But that small gesture meant so much to me. I touched my heart in response.
This Social Update Meeting would be the same as all the others. Pledges, circle signs, information, announcements. But I felt different this time. More awake, maybe. Listening harder, watching, waiting for clues, information, anything. I looked at the faces of the Citizens, trying to tell what they were thinking or feeling. If they were afraid. If they really believed the pledges.
The Authority Figure, in his gold-trimmed black uniform with shiny black boots almost to his knees, came onto the podium. He was followed by two Enforcers, their boots just above their ankles. Citizens were never issued boots; we only got shoes. I looked at mine and those of the people around me. Flimsy shoes with thin soles, worn to nothing from so much walking on energy boards.
The uniforms of the Enforcers could not hide their bulk, their broad shoulders and large arms. Their thighs were as thick as tree trunks. They stood on either side of the Authority, but slightly behind him. They scanned the crowd mechanically, their eyes sweeping from Compound to Compound even though their heads barely moved. Polished nightsticks hung from their belts. But something was different this time. They all had rifles slung across their backs.
I glanced at David. His lips were as pale as his skin. He had noticed the guns, too.
The pledges started and we responded in unison, circle sign to forehead, pledge to protect the Earth, pledge to protect the animals and the plants, pledge to produce energy, pledge to remain loyal to the Authority, pledge to be thankful for the generosity of the Authority, for our shelter and our food and our health care. Circle sign, circle sign, circle sign until my fingers cramped.
Finally, the announcements. People began shuffling their feet, moving them a little on the dirt, and the shuffling almost sounded like sick, tired people being forced to march. Except no one was moving.
“Citizens,” said the Authority Figure, “I have news. News that is not good.”
The shuffling grew a little louder. Someone coughed. A collective sshh went through the crowd like a breeze.
“Groups outside of our Republic have been disrupting our food supply. They have vandalized the train tracks that bring our food from the farm commune. They may soon attack our farmworkers.”
All around us, Citizens raised their hands to their mouths and a communal whisper of “No” spread around the stage.
This would have been Mother’s cue to say, “Wars and rumors of wars.” And Father would tell her to be quiet.
The Authority Figure went on. “The damage to
the tracks has been significant. Until that can be repaired, your cubes will, of necessity, be smaller.”
This time the communal “No” was a little louder. The Enforcers stepped forward to the edge of the platform, and the voices fell silent.
“The army has been dispatched to guard and repair the tracks. And to protect the farmworkers, if necessary.”
He was silent for a moment and looked at some papers he held in his hand. “The groups outside of our Republic are envious of us. Of how much energy we produce. Of how we work together. Jealous of how we worship the Earth and all that is good on the Earth. We are stronger than them. We will destroy them. Praise be to the Republic.”
“Praise be to the Republic,” we said, following his lead.
“They are not like us!” he thundered, holding his clenched fists above his head. “They do not believe what we believe!” He lowered his voice, but it still sounded like thunder. “We believe that all Citizens are equal. Equally responsible for working, equally responsible for producing energy, and equally deserving to share the rewards.”
I looked at his brightly painted bus-box with its high sides. Better than any bus-box used for Citizens. Their shiny boots. Did he think we were fools? Yet, around me, most Citizens were listening with rapt attention, even adoration. Yes, perhaps some of us were fools. At my side, David was staring at the ground.
The Authority Figure looked at his script again. “While the military is deployed, I call on all of you to be vigilant. Use your eyes, your ears, report anything that could be harmful to our Republic. Praise be to the Republic.”
“Praise be to the Republic.”
“One last announcement.” He took a cloth from his pocket and wiped his forehead. “Birthrates have fallen. Again. Fewer viable new Citizens were born last quarter. We need new Citizens to grow our army and increase production of energy.” He paused, scanning back and forth over the crowd, looking dark and powerful. “Reproductive pairs who do not meet expectations will have their pairings dissolved and new pairings assigned. No exceptions.”