by Megan Hart
“I love them,” she said, injecting as much sincerity into her tone as she could.
The Reb looked at her for a long time. Elanna noticed the lines around his eyes and the streaks of gray in his hair and beard. The Reb looked tired. And old.
“I’m an old man,” Reb Ephraim said, as if echoing her thoughts.
“No,” Elanna began in protest, but he waved her to silence.
“Hush, my dear. I’m an old man, and I know it. I suppose I’ve forgotten what it is that young girls like.” He leaned forward, hands on his knees. “Now, what would you really want?”
She was treading uneven ground. If she told him what she really wanted, he could become insulted that she didn’t like the earrings. If she insisted the jewelry was fine, he might get angry at her lies, and she’d get nothing. Elanna swallowed, hating the games she felt forced to play.
“I’d like longer than a year,” she ventured. Her words emboldened her. “I’d like to raise a child as my own.”
She half-held her breath, waiting for him to strike her. At the very least, to shout. Reb Ephraim was a kind man, but there were limits even for him.
“Elanna,” Reb Ephraim sighed and touched her cheek gently. “I wish we all could have what you ask for. But I’m afraid…”
“It’s not possible. I understand.” She ducked her head to hide her disappointment and anger.
Getting up, she straightened her clothes and began to fix her hair. She held her shoulders straight as she looked into the mirror. She didn’t want him to see her agitation.
“Elanna,” Reb Ephraim said. “Come here and sit down.”
Her first thought was: Again? But she shrugged it away as she did what he ordered. It was unlikely he’d be able to manage again so soon, but if he wanted to try she had to comply. It was her job. Her duty to the Tribe.
“Yes, Reb Ephraim.” Her voice shook a little and so did her hands.
“My dear,” the Reb said, turning her gently until she looked at him. “We’ve spent many nights together like this, haven’t we?”
She nodded, not trusting herself to speak. The Reb smiled at her. She could not force herself to return the expression.
“You’ve borne me children, Elanna,” the Reb continued. He looked over her shoulder, his gaze far away. “Do you think I don’t remember that each time I lay with you?”
“I don’t know what you think,” she blurted. The Reb had never spoken to her like this before.
He was still looking far away. “You’re a beautiful young woman, you know that. But that alone is not enough to bring me to your bed. I’m a married man. I love my wife. I don’t come to you out of lust. That would be a violation of the vows I shared with Miriam under the chuppah.”
Now he looked at her directly, his face seeming older but his eyes alight with fire. “I know you keep appointments with any who’ve been deemed an acceptable match, as is required by our law. I know, too, that the motives of some of those men aren’t pure. But that doesn’t matter, my dear. You’re a hopemother. You have a wondrous, precious capacity. You’re the future of this tribe, Elanna. Don’t ever forget that.”
“As if I could,” she said more bitterly than she had intended.
Reb Ephraim’s eyes grew soft. “Aren’t you happy?”
“I don’t know.” Her honesty stung even her.
He shook his head. “You live a privileged life. You can have what normal women only dream of. You can bear children.”
“I can’t get married.” Elanna got up from the bed. It would make saying what she felt easier, if she didn’t have to see his face. “I can’t have a family. I can bear children, but I can’t keep them.”
“How else would a hopemother be able to perform her duties? If she’s emotionally and physically taken up with raising a child, how can she be expected to open herself up? How can she expect to start keeping appointments again, or get pregnant again?”
“Women did it.” She whirled on him, fists clenched. “Women had lots of children, and they didn’t have to give any of them away!”
“Two hundred years ago, perhaps,” the Reb said, undaunted by her sudden temper. “But you know that’s not possible now. And what of the women who can’t have children? Would you deny them the joy of motherhood, simply because you choose to be selfish?”
But they’re mine, she thought, even as she knew she could never have raised eleven children herself. Even as she knew she didn’t care. “It’s not fair.”
“Really, Elanna,” Reb Ephraim said reproachfully. “I’m surprised at you. This behavior I might have expected from some of the other hopemothers, but not you. You’ve always been such a good girl.”
She had nothing to say. So she swallowed her anger as she’d done so often over the years and stood aside to watch him leave. When he’d gone, Elanna looked down at the bed, at the rumpled sheets and strewn covers that had everything to do with lovemaking and nothing whatsoever to do with love.
She wanted to scream and could not. She wanted to cry and would not. Elanna sank down onto the bed and pressed the heels of her palms hard against her eyes. Her breath felt thick and heavy, and she forced it to calm.
This sudden lack of control over her emotions scared her. She always felt a bit weepy in the first weeks of pregnancy, but this time was different. She’d been walking on eggshells for weeks now, struggling with her temper and fighting tears at the slightest provocation.
Everything and everyone grated on her nerves. Even the things that used to bring her joy -- sharing a meal with friends, gathering in the social hall, visiting the gardens, nothing satisfied her anymore. It was as though she were made of glass, and anything could make her splinter.
She checked the mirror to make sure she looked all right. Aside from a little redness around her eyes, she looked as she always did. Reb Ephraim had called her a beautiful young woman, and Elanna supposed he was right.
Men had told her they loved her blue eyes, or her dark auburn curls. They loved her full red lips, her heavy breasts, her rounded belly. Most of all they loved the womb they hoped might fill with their child. Men loved every piece of her, but not one had ever loved all of her.
She didn’t want to stay here any longer. The room was just one of a dozen exactly like it. It was only large enough for a bed, a chair and a washbasin, and it was as bland and featureless as oatmeal. It suddenly disgusted her.
Yanking open the flimsy door, Elanna burst out into the hallway and straight into a solid male body. She hit him so hard he staggered, knocking against the corridor’s opposite wall. He coughed, rubbing the elbow that had received the brunt of the blow.
“Job!”
“About today,” he began.
She shook her head, shushing him. “Forget it. I was being stupid.”
“I’m sorry, Elanna.” Job touched her shoulder. “I wish I knew how to make you happy.”
“Don’t I seem happy?”
“No,” he answered. “You don’t.”
She felt the carefully constructed wall of her expression begin to break. “Let’s not talk, okay?”
Job had been determined to be genetically incompatible with her. The risk of a child born with deformities, disease, even something as simple as poor eyesight, was too great. The Tribe desperately needed children but didn’t have the resources to care for babies with problems.
Job had been forbidden to her, and maybe that was why she’d let him have her. That small defiance hadn’t seemed like such a terrible thing at the time. But now, knowing they’d created life and the consequences both of them would face if she couldn’t somehow make this right...All at once she wanted nothing more than to sag into his arms and let him stroke her hair. Let him touch her if he wanted, let him make love to her if he insisted. At least he would be holding her. She wanted to tell him the truth, that she carried his child.
“Come with me,” she said, and took him into the dark. The shadows. It wasn’
t quite love, but it was all she could
have.
−5-
“Get up,” the man wielding the knife said. He pulled the knife back but didn’t sheathe it.
Oddly, Tobin wasn’t as afraid as the situation should have warranted. The man in front of him looked about as ancient and withered as Old Pa right before he died. The hand holding the knife shook.
Still, the old guy did look like he could bolt at any time. Slowly, hands out in front of him to show he meant no harm, Tobin wriggled out of his sleeping bag and stood up. The old man squinted at him.
“Toyna round. Alta vay.” Only the twirling gesture he made with his knife made the strangely accented words make sense.
Tobin did as ordered, turning slowly with his hands still raised slightly. “I wasn’t sure I’d find anyone here…”
“I didden azg to ear yor livez tory,” the man said. “Anni fown djew. Vutteryew doyn ear ennyvay?”
It took Tobin a few seconds to decipher the man’s words into: “I didn’t ask to hear your life’s story. And I found you. What are you doing here, anyway?”
Before he could answer, the old guy grew impatient. “Never mind. Pack your things. You come with me.”
“Where?” Tobin asked cautiously, as he bent to follow the old man’s orders.
“Never mind. You come.”
Not a great way of showing hospitality to a stranger. Maybe they got a lot of travelers through here and could afford to be rude. Not like in Eastport, where they treated every new face like visiting royalty. Watching the old man’s shifting eyes, Tobin decided things would never be the same as they were in Eastport. The realization caused a sharp pang in his chest just under his heart.
“You alone?”
It sounded like “yewa loan?” But Tobin understood the question this time. “Yeah.”
The man looked at him with shifty eyes. “You’re not from here.”
“No.”
“Never mind.” The man gestured with the knife around the storeroom. “This your stuff?”
“It’s mine.” Tobin finished rolling the sleeping bag and secured the ties. Everything else folded or collapsed and went into the backpack.
“Oy, I should have such luck,” the man muttered. He gestured with the knife again. “What’s your name?”
Tobin hesitated in his answer as he tugged the straps of his backpack more firmly into place. Every movement seemed surreal to him, as though he were moving in a dream. He’d come to New York to find people. He’d never thought about being held at knifepoint. His fingers smoothed the tough fabric of the bag, already dusty and no longer so new.
“Tobin Winter,” he said, finally, looking up at the man. “What’s yours?”
“Asaph.”
“I’m on my way to California.”
The man began to laugh. He laughed so long and so hard he began to cough violently. A fine spray of spittle left his lips, and his face turned beet-red.
Alarmed, Tobin offered the man his canteen. After a few sips, the coughing stopped. The man wiped tears from his eyes with a ragged handkerchief he pulled from his black coat pocket.
“What are you, meshuggeh? There’s no California. California fell off the world a long time ago. Earthquakes. Shook the land so hard even we felt it. Knocked the top right off the Empire State Building. California’s gone, boychick. Plop! Into the ocean.”
His skepticism offended Tobin more than the knife at his throat had. “I heard there’s babies being born there.”
The man grew solemn. “This is not to joke about, nu? Babies are precious.”
“It’s what I heard,” Tobin repeated stubbornly. He hefted his belongings. “Now, where did you want me to go?”
The old man put the knife away, squinting at Tobin carefully. He nodded, as if coming to some secret conclusion. His smile showed rotten teeth. The old man laughed again, though not so violently this time. “Where you from?”
Annoyed, Tobin shifted his pack to his other arm. “I’m from Maine.”
The old man shook his head. “Main? Where is that? By the stadium? The Bronx, maybe?”
Even though he’d grown accustomed to the man’s weird accent, Tobin had no idea what he was talking about. He didn’t like this guy, and he didn’t like being trapped in this little storeroom. If he could get past him and out into the main store, he’d just make a break for it. The man had a knife, but there was no way he could run as fast as Tobin.
“You a spy? From the other settlement, over there in Queens, mebbe? Brooklyn? You’re not a Bridger, I can see that well enough.”
“What?” It was Tobin’s turn to laugh. He’d read about spies. “You mean like James Bond?”
The man looked at him shrewdly. “I don’t know this James Bond.”
“He’s a spy.” Again, Tobin became aware of how surreal this situation had become. “In those books, the 007 books. The library in Eastport had the whole series. And I saw a few of the movies on Old Pa’s eTablet before it ran out of batteries.”
The old man looked over Tobin’s gear with greedy eyes, then back at his face. “You come with me.”
Tobin put down his bags with a thunk. More than anything he just wanted to get on his bike and ride away from this city that stank of destruction. He just wanted to find a safe place to sleep, maybe even dream a little. Something pleasant, not like this nightmare he was living now.
“What else you got in your bag?” Asaph whipped out the knife again with hands even more unsteady than before. He gestured with the blade. “Open it.”
Tobin looked at the knife and then at Asaph. Finally, he sighed. “Fine. If it will make you feel better.”
“Just do it!” Asaph ordered. He kept looking nervously over his shoulder, but refused to step into the room and shut the door when Tobin suggested he might feel safer.
Tobin unlatched the top of his backpack and flipped back the top. The flap made a heavy noise when it hit the back of the pack; he’d filled every compartment. He unzipped the top flap and pulled out his utensils – the knife, fork and spoon that fit together neatly against one another to save space. With them was the collapsible bowl and plate set. Next came the small, flat flashlight and waterproof box he had filled with matches and two short candles.
Asaph’s eyes grew wider and wider with every item he saw. His face grew redder and redder, until Tobin began to worry that the old man was about to keel over. He was sympathetic, though. He remembered how he’d felt upon seeing all of these same things on the shelves. Amazed.
“You have more?” Asaph asked hoarsely.
Tobin tugged open the drawstring holding the bag shut. “I have some more stuff, yeah.”
“Take it out.”
Out came the lantern and the small stove, both collapsed to the size of a paperback novel. Next came the foil blanket, still in its packaging, that was supposed to keep you warm even in “sub-arctic” temperatures. Whatever that meant. Out came the fleece jacket and pants, the extra underwear and the soft, clean, white socks, all rolled as tightly as possible to conserve space. Underneath those were several flat packages of dried meat and powdered soups, two “snack-pack” bags of cookies and one of cheese curls, three small waxy boxes filled with juice, and a flattened box of tea bags. Also, the jar of whitefish and the cans of chicken broth from the storeroom. Finally, at the bottom of the sack were Tobin’s real treasures: the compact book of maps, three well-worn paperback novels, and five packages each of regular, large, and super-size batteries.
At these last items, Asaph let out a low whistle that trailed off and became something like a groan. “Such treasures.”
Tobin sat back on his heels and waved his hands over the stuff. “This is it. And I have my sleeping bag, and my bike. And my knapsack…”
“There’s more?” Asaph sank to a squat, shaking his head. For a moment he was speechless, his mouth working until the spittle gathered in the corners of his lips and made a froth. Finally he seemed to find his voice again. “Show me.”
The knapsack was much smaller than t
he backpack. Tobin opened it up and pulled out the contents one by one, setting them on the floor by the others. Two bottles of spring water. Two toothbrushes, one still in its package. A super-large tube of toothpaste. A box of dental floss, unopened. A washcloth in a plastic bag. A small bottle each of aspirin, cough medicine and anti-diarrhea medication. A small bottle of shampoo, three-quarters full. A razor and an extra package of blades. An extra pair of shoelaces. A small package of adhesive bandages. Finally, a travel-sized sewing kit.
Asaph stared at all the goods spread out in front of him. Hesitantly, hands shaking even harder, he reached out to run his fingers over the goods laid out on the floor. He touched the clothing reverently and moved his hands over the shiny can opener. The look on his face was something like awe.