“The quality of mercy is not strained,” he said, “but falleth as a gentle rain from Heaven and sitteth at the right hand—” He stopped abruptly.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t think I have it quite right. Let me try another one, one we used to say at school. I pledge allegiance.” He stopped again and there was an awkward silence. He looked like he was remembering something that hurt, something sharp and pointed.
I wanted to help him past that hurt; I ran my hand across the back of his head, feeling the smoothness of his hair, across the back of his neck, and rested it on his shoulder.
I broke the silence. “Mother taught me: I’m a little teapot, short and stout, so tip me over and pour me out. Does that work for poetry?”
“It’ll do for now,” he said, smiling. He put his hand over mine and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Time for bed.”
The baby grew and kicked and squirmed within me.
“Mother,” I asked the next morning, through the window slit, “what’s it like, having a baby?”
She didn’t answer right away. I could hear her walking her board.
I asked again.
“It’s hard to explain. It hurts. Except after it’s over and you hold the baby, you don’t remember the hurt.”
“How does it hurt? How do you know it’s time to have the baby?”
“You just know.”
My needle was a little past halfway. Outside it was raining. A Social Update Meeting was scheduled for this evening. Everything in the Living Space looked gray and damp. The baby hung heavy in me. Like a rock. Like an anchor.
“Does it hurt like a knife? Like, sharp?”
“All I remember about having a baby is that it was like I suddenly had to push you out so bad that I didn’t care who saw me, didn’t care who was watching, didn’t care about anything except pushing and pushing.”
That didn’t sound like something to look forward to.
“Is there any other way to do it?” I asked.
“No.”
“What else do you remember?”
“I remember seeing you for the first time. You were pink and red and wet and slippery. Your face was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. Your fingers were small and perfect, and your fingernails were small and perfect, and your toes were small and perfect. You were curled up and you fit into the crook of my arms. Your father kissed my forehead.” She sounded like she was crying. I couldn’t see her face. I could just see her arms holding the sides of the energy board.
“Are you crying?” I asked. “Why are you crying?”
She didn’t answer me. I saw one of her arms move as though she were reaching up to wipe her face with her hand.
“Why won’t you answer me? Why are you crying?”
There was a long pause. “Because,” she finally said, “because all you will have is the pain. You will never see your baby. You will never have the joy.”
It was still raining.
We kept walking, Mother and I, in silence.
CHAPTER TEN
My nourishment cubes were now bigger than George’s because of the baby. But I wasn’t very hungry that evening. My arms and legs were sore, and my heart was heavy. I gave what I couldn’t eat to George. I didn’t care if it was against the rules.
“You’re not hungry?” he asked.
I shook my head. He put his arms around me. “Okay, little teapot. Pour it out.”
“I talked to Mother today. About what it’s like. What it’s like having a baby.”
His arms felt strong and safe around me.
“She told me I will never see the baby.”
He stepped away and looked out the window slit. I could see the stains on his uniform from the harness straps. The rain had picked up and the packed dirt in the common area was beginning to soften. Small puddles formed where the ground was uneven.
“Emmeline, you already knew that, didn’t you?”
“No, I didn’t know it! How would I know?” I wondered whether he was right. Did I know but hadn’t cared until now, now that something was going to be taken away from me? Something that was precious and valuable and should’ve been mine forever?
“Emmeline, you had to know it. Do you ever see any other women with their babies? Of course not, but you didn’t want to think about it.”
He was right; I just didn’t want to think about it. I turned away from him, arms folded across my chest, hugging myself. “Don’t talk to me. Don’t. Unless you can tell me how they got this power.”
I turned back to him. He had his head down, not looking at me. “Father said they got it a little bit at a time. Nothing very important. Nothing to fret about. But that’s not true at all; this was important. Why didn’t anybody stop them?”
I lay on the sleeping mat, trying to curl up like I imagined I had as a newborn in Mother’s arms, but my belly was too big. George was right. I should have known they would take my baby. Maybe I thought it wouldn’t happen to me. Never again would I think that way. Anything could happen to me.
* * *
George didn’t wake me to go to the Social Update Meeting. The Republic gives special permissions to pregnant women. Extra food. Extra sleep. Praise be to the Republic. When I woke up, it was dark outside. I could see a few stars through the window slit and I heard the Gatekeeper walking by, making his rounds. The rain had stopped. Whispers came from Mother’s Living Space, and I knew they were home from the meeting. George must be with them.
They didn’t hear me enter. Father was saying something about being on next week’s schedule with George to pick up grain for feeding stations.
“I don’t know,” Mother said. She scratched at a spot above her elbow. “No one knows for sure what’s out there.”
“There might be armies. We know there are animals, like wolves, and community farm co-ops. Our best shot is the train depot, if the train is running,” George said. “The farm co-ops are pretty far out. The less time it takes, the better.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked. They all looked up, startled.
“Did you have a good nap?” George asked. “How do you feel?”
“What about the depot and the co-op?” I asked again and sat down. I would keep asking until someone answered me.
Father put his finger up to his mouth, saying shhh. We stopped and listened. I didn’t hear anything except an owl, far away. A lonely, mournful sound coming out of the dark. George and Mother sat on either side of me like protective pillars. The baby, my baby, was stretching in me, moving in me. I put my hands on my belly. George and Mother put their hands on top of mine.
Father went to the window slit and looked out. Then he came back and sat down facing us. He began talking softly and urgently.
“Maybe, just maybe, there’s a way for you to keep the baby. George and I are assigned to pick up grain two days from now.” He went back to the window slit and looked to both sides. “We’re thinking maybe we could hide you under the empty grain bags.”
I watched his lips move, how they stretched wide with some words, curled into an O-shape with others. I watched his eyes. Dark, darting. He had sweat above his lip.
They hadn’t worked out all of the details. How to get me under the empty grain bags. How to avoid the army and whatever else might be out there. How to allow George and me to slip away. Maybe we could find a worker at the farm co-op who would help us. We would have to avoid Enforcers. How to explain George’s absence when Father returned?
“But where would we go? How would we get our nourishment cubes?”
“Emmie, if it works, you could keep your baby,” Mother whispered.
“But isn’t it dangerous?”
“Yes,” Mother said. “Very.” She lowered her eyes then looked back up at me. “But most things worth doing are.”
Father went back to the window slit and watched for a while, then came back to us.
“Enough for tonight,” he whispered. “We have ti
me to think this through.”
George walked me back toward our Living Space. The moon was big, round, silvery, and stars were strewn across the sky. I eased onto my sleeping mat and he covered me with my blanket, tucked it around my feet, and whispered softly. I couldn’t hear what he said.
I had restless dreams that night. I dreamt of grain in my mouth, of squirrels running across my legs, and of the baby in my belly. I dreamt of her deep inside me making a circle of her tiny thumb and forefinger and holding it to her forehead.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The next morning, Mother and I walked our boards just like every other day, her in her Living Space and me in mine. It was almost as if last night hadn’t happened. We didn’t dare talk through our window slits about it. The air was fresh and cool after the rain, but still I felt hot and couldn’t walk as fast with my belly as big as it was. Mother slowed her walking pace to match mine and we finished about the same time. Not quite dusk. The half-hour-to-dusk warning bell rang, signaling the time when Father and George should arrive at home.
The Gatekeeper was bringing around the nourishment cubes. A metallic screech echoed across the Compound as one nourishment box lid after another was opened. The dull thud of the cubes being dropped in. His footsteps, approaching, receding.
Eager for more fresh air, I went to my nourishment box and found only one cube and one water bottle. “Wait,” I called to the Gatekeeper, “you made a mistake.” He kept walking away as though he hadn’t heard me.
Mother was at her nourishment box, too. She was holding up one cube, one water bottle. Her hands were shaking, her face pale.
Something was terribly wrong.
A bus-box pulled up to the gate. Two men in all-black uniforms—Enforcers, then—approached the Gatekeeper. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but the Gatekeeper was nodding his head like he was agreeing with them. Then they went to Mother’s door. She cried out, like the mournful call of the owl I had heard the night before. I stepped back inside my space, trembling. Then they came with Mother to my door. Her headscarf was black.
“We regret to inform you,” one said to me, “that we must take your headscarf and replace it with this.” He held out a black headscarf like the one Mother had on. Her hands were shaking as she finished tying it in place.
“There’s been an accident,” the taller of the two said. He was a man of authority, power. A man with a mustache. “Your partner and father were traveling back to the Central Authority from an outpost, going down a hill. They were going too fast, couldn’t control the bus-box, and it overcame them. Both died instantly, we regret to inform you.” The way he spoke, the way he stood there stiff and straight, made it easy for me to hate him, but it also made it hard for me to believe what he was telling us.
Just last night George had covered me with a blanket. And I could see Father’s face when we stood outside talking. I could see him pick up a leaf, hand it to me.
They couldn’t be dead. I turned to Mother. Her face was buried in her hands.
A bird flew overhead, then another and another.
The shorter man stepped forward. “You will both be relocated to Compound 18, the Recycle Compound, and assigned a Living Space together. The Republic will use your Living Spaces here for Transport Team replacements. No space can be used by a single individual. You will be living together until further decisions are made. Be prepared to move in one hour.”
This couldn’t be true. They had to have made a mistake.
“I want to see their bodies.”
“No. A statement will be read at the next Social Update Meeting recognizing their service to the Republic. That is the protocol.”
I was stunned. That is the protocol?
They made the circle sign on their foreheads, turned, and walked away in lockstep. The Gatekeeper nodded, let them pass, and made a notation on his clipboard.
* * *
Mother and I didn’t talk after the men left. We just sat in my Living Space with our arms around each other, silent and frightened. Mother was sobbing, but I couldn’t. I was having enough trouble just breathing. The baby was strangely motionless in my womb. No kicking, no turning. We just sat, still and heavy as stones. I don’t believe they’re dead.
Within an hour, the Transport Team arrived. I rolled up my sleeping mat and went with Mother to her space. She had trouble rolling her mat. It seemed stiff, or maybe she was just distraught. There was nothing else to pack. Our uniforms in Compound 18 would be a different color.
The Transport Team took us to our community’s Authority building. A file clerk was looking at charts for available housing, and available partners. I was, after all, of reproductive age. I would require an appropriate partner to pair with. After this baby was born, I would have to make another and another and another. The Republic required it. I had learned that much, but I still knew so little. Mother stood beside me, this woman who had once loved poetry, wearing her black headscarf like a shroud.
The Central Authority building had a smell like moss, old shoes, and wet grass. The light was dim and the workers looked pale and dull. The file clerk working on our case was about Mother’s age. She leaned forward across the counter that separated us and whispered, “I am so sorry for your loss.”
I felt a rush of love for this stranger. She touched my hand, then quickly pulled away. A warmth lingered where she had made contact.
“Compound 18, Recycling,” she said. “Available housing. Available partner. Youth recently turned adult named Jeremy.” She studied the forms in front of her carefully, reading them slowly, her lips moving as she read. “Youth recently turned adult?” She shrugged as if she didn’t agree. I wondered what she was thinking.
She laid the forms down on the counter and went to another file cabinet. Mother tilted her head sideways at the abandoned forms, reading them. She frowned and shook her head as she read. When the file clerk came back and saw Mother studying the papers, she snatched them up and gave her a severe look.
“For now your mother can stay with you. Just until Central Authority makes a disposition decision. Until Jeremy can be relocated from the Village to the Compound. The final paperwork and reproductive-ability testing for Jeremy will take a few days.” She handed the paperwork to the Transport Team leader, made the circle sign on her forehead, and turned away.
“Wait,” I said. She turned back to me. I made the circle on my forehead and said, “Thank you.” I hoped she knew why.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The Living Space that Mother and I were relocated to in Compound 18 was identical to the one in Compound l4. The arrangement of Living Spaces along the fence was the same, too. The sameness added to the dullness. The only differences were the dull green color of the flag and the heavy, putrid smell in the air. The smell of recycling.
Father was gone.
George was gone.
I was over seventeen years old, but I felt as helpless as a baby. I felt like someone had reached in and pulled out part of me and left a hole so big that no amount of tears could ever fill it. The edges so jagged that no matter which way I turned or sat, it ripped at me. A hole invisible to Enforcers and Gatekeepers and the Authority but nevertheless all-consuming.
I thought about what Father had told me last night. The grain bags. The escape. Was he serious? Could Mother and I still try it ourselves? Impossible. There was no one to help, no one to care. And even if we succeeded, then what? I dismissed the idea just as quickly as it had come to me.
After we moved into our new Living Space, Mother stopped walking on her energy board. She stayed on her mat all day, curled up on her side, facing the wall. Father was gone and it felt like I was losing Mother, too. I tried to get her to talk. “Tell me one of your poems.” “How do you make vegetable soup?” “How old was I when I learned to walk?” “What kind of cookies did you make for your students?”
She didn’t answer. She never did. She just lay there. Silent, unmoving. I finished walking my board, then I walked hers. I
had to produce enough energy to justify our very being.
The Gatekeeper brought our nourishment cubes that evening. He looked exactly like the Gatekeeper from Compound 14. Did they move him here to watch us? He gave me a banner to hang out of our window slit when I went into labor. It was a bright red triangle with the image of a newborn in the center. The newborn had a hand to its forehead, fingers curled in a circle. “Praise be to the Republic,” he said, when he handed me the banner. Mother wouldn’t look at it.
“Praise be to the Republic,” I replied, and made the circle salute.
* * *
I had trouble getting comfortable on my sleeping mat. How dark the little bit of sky beyond the window slit seemed. Even the moonlight seemed dull. I laid the red banner beside me and stroked it. Suddenly I felt a wet rush of hot liquid on my legs, spreading up my back. So much liquid. Even the edges of the banner got wet.
“Mother,” I said. “Mother, I’m all wet. Everywhere.”
I heard her turn over. “Oh, Lord,” she said. “It’s time.”
She shuffled over to me, lifted the banner, and hung it out the window slit.
I heard the clanging of the bell; the Gatekeeper signaled for the Transport Team. Then he was at our door.
“Put your headscarf on,” he said. “They’re coming.”
* * *
They wouldn’t let Mother come with me. I wanted her with me more than I ever wanted anything. I held on to her and she held on to me. We clung to each other’s arms tightly. But the Gatekeeper and the Transport Team separated us. They handled Mother roughly, pushing her aside. “Stay here, lady,” one of them said. “You are not welcome.”
In the bus-box they let me sit on the seat that had a backrest.
* * *
I don’t remember having the baby. As soon as we got inside the Human Health Services building a technician gave me a shot. She said it would make labor easier. She said it was an amnesiac, and I wouldn’t remember the pain. I didn’t know what that meant, I just remember feeling like I had to push.