by A. J. Betts
I heard my name so I walked. My feet were soundless on the floor. I looked only ahead, at Luka, and not at the many girls and women who would surely be assessing me harshly. She hasn’t prepared enough, they must have been thinking, finding faults in my appearance. She isn’t pretty enough. Her bouquet is too simple. She should have waited before taking her best friend’s spot. She doesn’t deserve to wear the dress or the ring, so soon.
I was glad it was Luka I was walking towards. Peculiar and serious, Luka didn’t care for the fuss of marriage. Over his usual shirt, he wore the purple wedding vest. His hair had been combed and firmly parted, but even so, several strands stuck up and out. I joined him by the source, relieved to discover he still smelled like crayon.
When the priest brought together our hands, Luka’s skin felt soft and cool. His fingers gathered nervously around mine as the priest declared our marriage to be true and sanctioned by God. There was clapping, as expected, though to my ears it sounded hollow. The judge called the netters up to dinner, then invited the gardeners first to the wine. The priest smiled at us both before taking his cup to the wine barrel. Around us, people were standing and moving, their overlapping conversations returning to food and wine and their own private matters. The worst of the marriage was over.
Luka’s hands slipped free of mine.
‘You look pretty,’ he said, his gaze somewhere else.
‘This is . . . okay, isn’t it?’
Most boys wanted to be made a man, but on the day of the catch Luka had said he didn’t want to marry me. I hoped he’d merely been shy then. I hoped he’d changed his mind.
He nodded, then licked his lips, embarrassed.
‘I would have asked you properly,’ I said apologetically, ‘but it happened so fast. Celia couldn’t . . . can’t . . .’
‘I don’t mind.’ He shrugged. ‘I would’ve had to sometime.’
It made me smile. I was grateful for him, my reluctant friend.
‘It’ll just be you and me,’ I told him. ‘When we’re in the kitchen house tonight, we can do anything, you realise? We can talk –’
‘The doctor gave me a lesson. A summary.’ Luka’s eyes narrowed, remembering. He made such a serious student. ‘I think I get it.’
‘What?’
‘Marriage. What I’m supposed to do, with you. It’s . . . strange.’ Luka looked at me properly for the first time.
I smiled some more. ‘There are stranger things, remember?’
Then his elbow was tugged by an uncle and Luka was wheeled around. ‘You’ll need your strength, boy,’ I heard the man say as he led him to the feast. ‘Trust me.’
I filled my cup with wine but didn’t fill my plate. I wasn’t hungry and, besides, I was worried about spilling food on the dress. What I craved was quiet, so I left the crowded commons and returned to the garden through the way. It was my marriage night, after all. I could do as I wished.
But at the bamboo edging I hesitated, hearing low murmurs. They were female voices, and I realised Celia and Krystal must still be in the baths. I was struck by the fear of Celia walking out to discover me in this dress. There was a saying uncles had: rubbing salt into wounds. Celia was wounded enough.
So I backtracked through the way to the commons, where I took the next way: the one connecting to the kitchen. It was too early for the marriage to begin, but the kitchen, it seemed, was the best place for me to be.
Kitcheners were particularly busy in the evenings, especially after a feast. There was much to be washed, cleaned and stacked. Not wanting to disturb their efficient choreography, I stood by the wall where the copper pots hung.
There, in the pots’ polished bases, I saw myself reflected. I didn’t look like a girl about to marry. I lifted my neck. Pushed back my exposed shoulders. Practised a smile.
‘You needn’t worry about that, pet. It’s not your face he’ll be interested in.’
Aunts cackled and I felt a flush of shyness. What would Luka be interested in?
The marriage bed had been set near the oven. The bed itself was like any other bunk but lower and wider, its special marriage sheets reaching across the entire width. On top, passionfruit flowers had been sprinkled, and I wondered what the bees would think of such waste. One of the aunts was lighting candles with a poker. Another aunt poured wine. So much fuss, for me.
My belly prickled with the awareness of how little I knew about marriage. I wished I’d had a lesson, or at the very least, a summary.
At times, I’d caught the playful banter of gardener women as they tended zucchini or eggplant, remarking on peculiar shapes. Kitchener women, I’d heard, were more forthright in their recollections of marriage, their descriptions responsible for some girls’ aversions to carrots. In the netter house, marriage was compared to the process that took place in the meat-breeding tank. In the seeder house, it was likened to pollination. And enginers? They probably spoke of bodies as machines.
None of this helped me, then. I hadn’t had a lesson or learned any rules. Were there rules? Was marriage a kind of game for two? A puzzle to be solved?
A kitchener woman came to join me. Out of reflex, I checked her face for familiarity, but she didn’t look like a woman who might have birthed me.
‘The trick is to relax,’ she said, hanging a pot near my head. In the reflection of its base, my eyes were small and afraid. ‘It’ll be odd, mark my words, and there’s nothing I can tell you that’ll change that. But you’ll work it out. When it comes to marriage, your body knows more than any doctor can tell you. And if you’re lucky, you might even get to marry again. You may even want to. But for tonight, try to . . . tolerate the oddness.’
The first chime of curfew rang and the lights dimmed to gunmetal grey. Kitcheners gave the benches a final wipe then headed towards the baths.
‘But what do I do?’ I asked the woman, who winked.
‘You’ll work it out.’ She left too, joining the others to prepare for night.
Only a hunched aunt remained nearby. Her name was Rose, the marriage-maker. Her hair was so long it brushed the floor as she bent to inspect the bowls of dried meats, honeyed almonds, strawberries and snapdragons. I walked closer, watching as she checked the flask of wine and the dozen candles surrounding the bed. Then she dipped a finger into the pan of warm cocoa and tasted it. Her lips smacked with satisfaction.
‘Who’s the lucky girl then?’ Her head teetered on her crimpled neck as she looked up at me.
‘Hayley.’
‘And who’s the lucky boy?’
‘Luka.’
Luka would be in the netter house now, finishing his final talk with the men. At the second chime of curfew they would slap his back and send him pitching into the dimly lit way, which he’d sidle through before emerging into the commons. He’d then navigate his way here, past the kitchen’s benches and sinks, past the herbs and pantry door, aiming for the frizzling heat of ovenfire, where he’d find me, waiting.
‘Hayley and Luka sitting in a tree. K.I.S.S.I.N.G.’ Old Rose rocked her hips in time, making me smile. She repeated the song as she poured steaming passionflower tea into a cup. ‘It’s for desire,’ she said, her eyes sparkling as she handed me the cup.
Despite my nerves, my desire was strong already. I wanted this. Tonight I would spill all my secrets, and Luka would listen with belief, because he was a boy who looked up.
‘Drink,’ the aunt urged me, and while I did she murmured another unfamiliar song about girls swapping dolls for babies and turning into women. I wanted to correct her: I’d never cared for dolls anyway.
When I set down the empty cup, the aunt took my hand in hers. Her skin felt like corn husk. Something crackled between us. I opened my hand to find three leaves. A herb?
‘It’s to relax your body, dear. You’ll be thankful.’ Her lips puckered. How many girls had she aided in her long life?
&
nbsp; ‘What’s it called?’
Hobbledy-toothed, she grinned. ‘Necessary.’
The second chime of curfew rang. My heart leaped. Luka would soon be coming.
I chewed the leaves and Rose clapped her hands. Then she shuffled off towards the female sleeper.
Finally, I was alone. There was no sound but the sizzle and simmer of the oven’s low fire. The air was warm and muggy, smelling of cocoa. Soon I would taste it, and so would Luka. Soon there’d be no end to what I could do or say.
Maybe that’s what it meant to be a woman.
If I’d thought the white dress scratched before, the warmth of the ovenfire made it unbearable.
I drank a cup of wine as I waited for the final chime of curfew, when all the sleeper doors in the world would lock. I drank another as I waited for the footsteps that would signal Luka’s arrival.
I nibbled on honeyed almonds, then refilled the cup and drank some more. I licked my lips, glad there was no tint on them. Why would a boy care for tint or flowers, or even this complicated, scratchy dress? What did it matter when we were supposed to get naked anyway?
Naked? It was something a gardener aunt had said in the sleeper not long ago: the embarrassment of being naked with a boy.
Was that how I was supposed to be spending these last moments before his arrival? Was I supposed to be undressing in readiness?
Already I was failing.
In haste, I reached for the back of the dress to release each hook and eye. I pulled down the zip and lowered the fabric, freeing my arms so I could roll the dress down over my stomach and bottom. I stepped out of it, pleased to be able to breathe and scratch.
The ovenfire was low, but its wide stone mouth exhaled heat and leftover smells from the day – stew, garlic, sweet potato, cinnamon. The oven had warmed the bodies of every girl and boy who had ever met for marriage. If its mouth could speak, it would tell me if I was doing this right.
No. It didn’t feel right.
I recalled then another woman’s story of a boy’s trembling fingers taking too long to undo the buttons.
So I wasn’t meant to be naked?
I started to dress myself again, stepping into holes that seemed too narrow. The fabric scraped and resisted. My body felt too hot, my skin too sticky. A button popped and I swore, stepping out so I could try again, this time pulling the dress over my head – just as we did with our frocks – but it got tangled in my hair and something snagged at my elbow. Fabric prickled, then ripped, and the more I struggled, the hotter and weaker I felt. Something else clattered to the floor.
Then I heard footsteps.
He was coming!
I knew little of marriage, but I understood it shouldn’t begin like this: a half-naked girl bent over in a knot. I laughed suddenly, picturing how I must look, and it wasn’t embarrassment I felt but relief that it would be Luka who’d find me like this. Harmless, screams-at-an-octopus Luka.
The footsteps paused. A cough.
‘I’m stuck,’ I said with a light-headed laugh, though my words got muffled in fabric. ‘Can you help?’
I felt a tug at my shoulder and was grateful for the release of an arm that I could twist through and out. Hands got mixed up – his; mine – as the dress and I stretched. I laughed again, my nerves long gone. Soon, the worst would be over and our bodies would know what to do.
Hands pulled down and I forced my head through. I pushed hair from my mouth and my eyes. Luka was clothed and I was glad of it. He was tall.
I blinked, my eyes adjusting as the flickering candlelight found his chin, lips, eyes.
‘Luka?’
My hand went to my mouth. I stepped back in fright as the son stepped forwards, taking shape.
‘Hayley, be still.’
The son raised his hands but all I could think of was Luka – Luka! – and I stumbled backwards, veering to the other side of the bed.
‘Where is he? Where’s Luka?’
‘Hayley, be calm.’
He kept coming forwards, moving towards me with fingers splayed, his hands smooth and familiar. The hands of a son who knew too much and lied too well.
I shouted, ‘What have you done to him?’
His wild eyes stared at me and the dress. ‘Be still!’ he ordered, but I wasn’t.
I ran and he followed, shouting at me to be still, be still, but how could I be still when the son was coming for me in the night, not for marriage but trickery.
My own eyes played tricks on me then. The ground seemed alight. Fire, unleashed, leaped upwards.
I screamed as I ran, ‘Luka, where are you?’
‘Be still!’
It wasn’t the floor that blazed but the dress, alight, which the son dived on to, bringing me down to where the flames were blinding – be still! be still! – slapping me, trapping me in heat until I could kick myself free and scrabble up and away and keep running.
I held up that fiery dress and I ran.
I ran, afraid, knowing what fire was capable of.
I ran, terrified, not knowing what the son might do.
I ran so fast my legs couldn’t burn.
I ran to the netter house where I called his name – Luka! – and knocked from tank to tank, aiming for perimeter walls, where I’d bang on the male sleeper door and shout for him. Luka!
But I didn’t reach the sleeper door. I didn’t even cross the centre of the house, for there was no lid on the hub that night, only a yawning hole to trip into. Only air.
Only silence as everything else fell away and I fell away, and that fiery dress flailed like an octopus.
Chapter 13
Water slapped me. Held me. Then opened for me.
It let me in with a cold, wet relief.
Layers of dress floated upwards. My arms lifted too, drifting up as the water kept pulling me down into cold and colder, dragging me deeper into the watery hub, down towards the bottom, down to where God delivered his gifts of meat.
Water stung my eyes but I kept them open. I hoped to see the face of God. I wished to know, finally, why He did the things He did.
What I saw, between the rippling white fabric, was blue.
There was just one, at first. One blink of blue. It shone like a tiny growlight, small and purposeless in a hub without plants.
Another blue. Then another, floating. They blinked as though they were eyes that watched me as I watched them.
Twinkle, twinkle, little star. I remembered the song from the nursery and the actions that went with it – how I wonder what you are – with fingers twinkling, outstretched. The song, now, made sense to me. These are stars, Celia, I longed to tell her, though I was too far down, too cold and tired. I’ll sleep among stars, I thought, and then I’ll be happy . . .
But my elbow was hooked, and then my shoulder. A sharpness tore at me, tugged at me, pulling me up and up, when I wanted to stay down.
Panicked stars spun as I rose. The dress fought me, choked me, as I was lifted until my face broke water and my head tipped back to gasp at that awful air.
I could have let myself slip even then. I could have fallen back into that peaceful place, but fingers grabbed hold of me and dragged me to the edge of the hub. Strong hands heaved me up though I wished they didn’t, forcing me to the edge and over, where I was hauled along a hard wet floor.
The dress gushed. Exhaled. I flattened, heavy and cold. Stunned.
I wasn’t dead. And I hadn’t seen God.
It was the son lying on the floor beside me.
Like a meat after a catch, his whole body was heaving for life. His arms were outstretched. One hand still gripped the long-handled sickle he’d used to drag me back up to the air.
I knew that hand: its skin, knuckles, veins. It was the hand that had silenced me in the way. The hand that had magicked fire. The hand that mended a drip whic
h wasn’t imagined. The hand that had stabbed an octopus until the blade was blue.
I knew it, then, to be the same hand that had lifted Aunt Kate’s body and carried her in the night. The hand that had wielded the butcher’s knife and cleaved her apart.
I hated that hand. I hated the son. But I wasn’t afraid of him.
Propped onto my elbows, I said, ‘Where’s Luka?’
The son said nothing, his body still grabbing for breath.
I crawled to him and hovered above his chest, which was rising as a baby’s does when it’s new.
‘What did you do to Luka?’
Eyes closed, the son’s head rocked side to side.
‘You chopped him up –’
‘No,’ he breathed.
‘I know what you do to people.’
‘I didn’t –’
‘That’s why the hub’s open. That’s why I fell in. You chopped him up and threw him down –’
‘You’re mad.’
That word!
I was upon him, hitting him, hurting him for what he’d done to Luka and what he’d done to me with his trickery-lies that made me doubt myself. I wasn’t mad – it was real, all of it, the drip and the butchery and now this, an opened hub in the night. I had to tell the world so that they, too, would know the truth and I wouldn’t be the anomaly anymore.
I pushed myself up, fighting the dress that was trying to trip me.
‘Don’t!’ the son called, but I ran. I went in the direction of the sleeper, I thought, but my ankle was caught and I fell, my other leg grabbed as I knocked at the floor, knee colliding, chin banging, arms reaching recklessly, desperately, for something to hold on to.
He grabbed me, his hands reaching under my waist like vines. He rolled me over so that I saw up, saw him: the son on top of me, holding me in place.