In opstand

by Marieke Veringa

  “Are you curious?” he asks me softly when we’re standing in the surf together. My hand fits his perfectly, and a warm, tingling glow spreads through my body.

  I was never the most curious girl of the lot. I didn’t dare to be, because I was afraid I’d be disappointed. But now, I have enough courage. Now, I’m no longer alone.

  “Yes,” I answer him just as softly. “The world is waiting for us.”

  After that, I lay my head on his shoulder and the two of us quietly watch the rising sun.

  Lis Lucassen

  The Tribunal

  From the Sectorial Decree

  […]

  The proposition that all are born equal is an illusion. This was once again proven by the Fourth World War. There will always be winners and losers, rulers and subjects, Sectorals and Stateless. Segregation is needed to maintain the established order. The Sectorate therefore upholds Inequality in order to prevent future uprisings. Safety through Segregation.

  […]

  One exception only to Sectorial Segregation is acknowledged – before the Tribunal, all are equal.

  [...]

  Prologue

  “PLEASE! We don’t have much time.” My words are a plea that I hope won’t fall on deaf ears. I extend my hand. Actually, ‘not much time’ is an understatement: the floor shakes under my feet with the thunder of stomping boots. Hundreds of men are marching our way.

  She hesitates. I can see it in her eyes, by the crease growing between her light eyebrows. Surely she can’t have any doubts after all that’s happened. Why is she still debating with herself? I’ve never been surer of anything in my whole life. That arrogant bastard I used to be, that haughty guy overflowing with pluck and bravado? He’s gone. All of this has changed me – has turned my soul inside out. It must have had an effect on her too, for sure? I swallow down my doubt.

  Shouting.

  Only a few more moments and they’ll be here. Only a few more seconds before it’s really too late…

  My fingers are trembling. They’re callused and tanned and so different from hers, slim and soft, fingers that once trailed down my skin like raindrops falling on dry earth to invigorate it once more. We touch each other, almost. The distance separating us is less than an inch.

  “Justa, please.” I’m not one to beg. I don’t use the word ‘please’ lightly, but now it tumbles from my lips again. Not knowing how to convince her, I say nothing after that. There’s nothing left to say. I’m speechless, probably for the first time in my life.

  The first soldier rounds the corner. Everything seems to decelerate to slow motion. The first shot is fired, air whooshing past me when it misses me by a hair. Another voice joining the first shout directed at me. “Freeze!”

  The second bullet hits me in the shoulder. It’s just a superficial wound, the metal grazing my skin instead of penetrating my flesh. It leaves me feeling merely uncomfortable. After all, it’s nothing compared to the pain I’ve had to endure in the past few days. My body is a collection of red, blue, and purple bruises, welts, and potential scars. Blood wells up from the bullet wound, strikingly red against the gray of my clothes.

  It is this that shakes her out of her stupor. She makes a sound, a kind of soft squeak, as though a bit of air is forcibly squeezed from her lungs.

  A third soldier runs toward us. Then a fourth, a tenth, a fortieth. I can’t even count how many have been sent out to stop us. To stop her. Panic bubbles up like soda from a shaken bottle uncapped by a clumsy hand.

  Time’s up. It’s over.

  1

  I NOD politely at the two soldiers keeping watch at the door leading to the Arbiter’s House. They don’t react. Both boys – they can’t be much older than me, about seventeen – look ahead unblinkingly, their faces hidden by their caps. They stand with legs slightly apart, their left hands on their side arms and their right arms straight down their sides. Protectors of our Sector. We should be thankful for them keeping out the rabble. Or keeping us inside. Sometimes, I’m not sure which one it is.

  The door literally weighs a ton, and the impenetrable metal reflects back a distorted version of me: unremarkable, straight blonde hair cut in the prescribed bob, green eyes that somehow seem too light above a Milky Way of freckles, and a nose slightly turned up at the tip. I look like every other girl in the Sector, and yet, I am different today.

  Inadvertently, my fingers touch the mark on my right wrist. The temporary brand looks grayish against my freckled arm. It’s shaped like balanced scales and the Tribunal number is written underneath – 5568-23. This number will inseparably connect me to two other people in the coming days.

  The other Tribunal members… I wonder who they are. Well, I’ll find out soon enough. I push the door open and step inside.

  The long corridor of the Arbiter House is immaculately white. Marble covers the floors, the walls, and even the ceiling. Lined up on either side are busts on pedestals of all the different Arbiters who’ve served the Sectorate, the last one showing a remarkable likeness to the man who’s waiting for me at the end of the hall.

  “Justa. You’re late.”

  I wrap my arms around his waist as he gives me an encouraging hug. I notice I’m trembling.

  “I was held up in last period. Mr. Bartholomew wouldn’t let me go.” I look up at him, at the man who’s been my surrogate father for almost sixteen years. “I’m sorry, Marcus. I should have insisted to be allowed to leave the classroom.”

  Marcus steps back and stretches his muscular arms to hold me a few inches away. He looks at me, his gaze examining my face. I feel dissected, somehow. Then, he lets go of me completely and I suppress the urge to flee from his stern eyes.

  “I will take this up with him.” Marcus nods and a rare smile pulls at his mouth. “You’re nervous.”

  There’s no use denying it, because he always sees right through me. The man has an unfailing sense of truth. A thing every Arbiter needs, I admit to myself, swallowing my protests. If Marcus thinks he needs to rebuke my Sectorial Legislation teacher, there’s nothing I can do to stop him.

  Before I can reconsider my decision, Marcus opens the door and beckons for me to go in first. I suppress my panic. It feels like countless grains of sand from the quarries are clogging up my throat.

  The first thing I notice is the color of the narrow room: blue and gray. Different from the white hallway, but just as bleak. Sterile. Like a surgical room impassively waiting for the next patient whose life hangs by a thread.

  The second thing I notice is that there are people inside.

  Spectator stands line the walls on either side. I cast my gaze down, because I don’t want to be confronted with all those eyes closely watching my every move. Marcus puts his hand on my elbow and ushers me forward toward the long table. One seat is still free. I sit down and look aside. Relief washes over me in briny waves. It is Ernst who sits there and winks at me, and it makes me realize how lucky I really am. I want to tell him how happy I feel to find him sitting next to me, how all of this is somehow easier with a familiar face in the room, with a friend at my side. But I don’t get the chance.

  Commotion explodes in echoes through the room. The people in the spectator stands start to jeer, and angry cries fill the space fencing me in. The gray walls close in on me, the voices pull and push and scratch at me. To my right, a door swings open. Two soldiers enter, escorting a third person who can’t stand on his own two feet. Dressed in a gray overall, head lolling forward, crew-cut hair. The soldiers are dragging him forward, pull him to his feet, then make him sit down on a chair in the middle of the courtroom. They leave his hands cuffed, so he’s forced to keep them on his back. His military escorts take a few steps back and line up on either side of him.

  The wild shouts coming from the spectators blend into one word. A choir of rough voices sings in my ears:

  “Murderer! Murderer
!”

  His head jerks up and I see the bruise on his cheekbone, the bloody line of his crushed upper lip, and the abrasions in his neck. His eyes force their way into mine, and the brown color of his irises is so radically different from the blue and green that I’m used to, that I’m surrounded by, that I’m a part of. His gaze makes me feel like I am the one with her hands tied.

  Contempt.

  Nobody has ever looked at me with such revulsion openly. In the Sector, you need to be respectful of your superiors, and I’m his superior. I hold my breath, frozen in my chair. He cocks a battered eyebrow without breaking eye contact, then spits a blob of blood-red saliva onto the floor in front of me and… laughs. He laughs.

  I don’t see the soldier coming. I only see the fist hitting his face, knocking his head backward. Then, silence descends in the room.

  2

  “TRIBUNAL Number 5568-23 is now in session.” Marcus’s voice shatters the silence. I can’t sit still, shifting uncomfortably in my designated seat. The plush of the three chairs we’re sitting on makes them look like red, velvet-lined thrones. It feels like I’m sinking completely into the luxurious seat. I want to sink down into it and disappear right now.

  I cast a sideward glance at my friend. Ernst is sitting there like a king, his arms broad and his back ramrod straight in a regal posture. He was born for this, I realize. He feels at home in this setting. My awkwardness is in such immense contrast to his innate authority. Next to Ernst is a girl I don’t know. She has a haircut like me, the same uniform, and the same number is etched into her wrist. My gaze drops to her hands. They’re elegant, with smooth skin and slender fingers tapering into perfectly chiseled nails. I ball my own hands into fists, hiding my fingers with their gnawed fingernails in my palms.

  “This Tribunal is made up of Justa Advena, Ernst Medax, and Myrthe Crudelis.”

  I hear my name and try to focus on the words Marcus speaks. His back is turned toward us as he addresses the crowd like a master of ceremonies facing an arena of tacit listeners.

  “They will pass judgment on the Stateless who goes by the name of Aron.”

  Marcus points to the guy. To Aron, sitting on his chair and staring at the floor. Did the knock on his head made him oblivious to what’s going on around him? Does he even hear what’s being said about him? Does he know that this trial is about him? After all, Stateless are supposed to be of limited intelligence, which is why their basic instincts and animal impulses make them unsuitable to be a part of our civilized society behind the Sector Gates. That’s what they teach us in College. So why did Aron’s eyes strike me as shrewdly intelligent just now, as he seemed to look right through me?

  “The Stateless stands trial for committing the grossest violation of the Sectorial Decree imaginable.” The spectators collectively hold their breath, the sound in the room slowing down like a sluggish dewdrop crawling down a blade of grass. I notice I’m joining in, keeping the air trapped in my lungs. I let it out, quickly and inaudibly. Marcus remains silent for a beat or two, the seconds slinking away like a culprit hanging his head to avoid accusatory eyes. And then, he speaks the words that make my heart stop.

  “The Stateless, Aron, stands accused of murdering Sectoral Irina Custes.”

  My entire being is in shock at these words and I gape – I gape at him. At the young man who murdered my best friend, and I suddenly wonder: why me? Why now?

  I swallow. Swallow again. Swallow back my anger, my panic, and my pain. And I keep looking. I keep looking into those eyes, no longer brown but black. Black like the night. Black like the dried-up puddle of blood I found Irina in that day.

  I look and want to look away but I find that I can’t. And that’s when his eyes tell me what he’s realized.

  I’ve already condemned him.

  3

  “ARE you okay?”

  Ernst looks at me from across the dinner table. I nod and distractedly stab my fork into – what? I don’t even know what’s on my plate. My stomach lurches at the mere thought of food. I put my fork down and close my hands around the glass of water in front of me.

  “Can you imagine? Your first Tribunal ever, and…” Ernst doesn’t finish his sentence, which makes it even worse. The absent words trap me in a cluster of possibilities. The water passing my lips is clear. If only my thoughts were like that.

  “Justa? If you can’t do this – if it’s too much for you, you can always ask Marcus to replace you. Everybody will understand, including him.”

  We both know Marcus won’t understand, though.

  I only notice I’m scratching the number on my wrist when my skin starts to sting. When I look down, I see I gashed it. Quickly, I hide my hands under the table and put them on my thighs. Even if Ernst saw what I was doing to myself, he doesn’t comment.

  Marcus lives and breathes the rules of the Sectorial Decree. As an Arbiter, he should be a role model to people around him. He doesn’t take his responsibilities lightly. I myself have known the three basic tenets from the Decree by heart ever since I learned how to talk. And it’s these very principles that guide Marcus’s life, which means my life and Ernst’s life are inextricably linked to them, too. They pervade my entire being.

  - Every Sectoral is obliged to fulfill his or her duty to serve on the Tribunal, irrespective of who stands trial or any possible relation between Tributant and Suspect.

  - The Tributant will judge without any sense of remorse, pity, or other sentiment, but will base his or her judgment solely on the facts at hand and the evidence presented.

  - Before the Tribunal, all are equal.

  In short, it doesn’t matter how I feel. It’s not important that anger and sadness and disbelief are fighting for precedence within my heart. All I can do is to accept my place in that chair and listen to the evidence. Marcus will think I’m weak if I ask to be excused. It will be proof to him, once again, that I’m not worthy of being his daughter. That I’ll never be like Ernst, who can just sit there with his back straight to listen to all the gruesome details in deep concentration.

  “This is Irina we’re talking about.” I search his eyes. For just a moment, a pained expression crosses Ernst’s face. I want to know if he agrees with me when I think it’s particularly bizarre – us being Tributants in this very case. How is that possible? But it’s got to be a coincidence.

  Because the Tribunal is the Tribunal. Impartial and infallible. A perfect system for our flawless society, which has managed to sweep every last bit of remaining blemish out the gates after the Fourth War.

  “There’s always a chance of having to deal with people you know when you’re a Tributant, whether they be the victim or the accused. Our Sector isn’t that big, Justa. And besides, it doesn’t matter. You’re obliged to base your judgment on facts. Your own opinion and emotions shouldn’t interfere.” Ernst drums his fingers against his glass. “You know you have to take that chance into account.” He doesn’t just look like Marcus – his words are an exact echo of his father’s, too.

  “But…” I start to protest, but I’m cut short when Marcus enters the dining room to sit at the head of the table. He unfolds his napkin and proceeds by flattening it out on his lap. Ernst shoots me a look and I shake my head to signal him that he shouldn’t ask the question I can read in his eyes. Discussion closed. I don’t want Marcus to know about my fear and insecurities. My weakness. If I tell him I can’t cope – or even worse, that I’ve already made up my mind without ever having seen a single shred of evidence…

  I’m a disappointment. I’m the persistent stain on Marcus’s otherwise immaculate coat of arms. A familiar pain stabs my heart. The only thing I want is to live up to his expectations. The man took me in as his own daughter after… I’m too weak to even let the words take shape in my mind, let alone speak them out loud.

  After those Stateless beasts murdered my parents.

  “Justa? Is some
thing the matter?” Marcus’s voice startles me like a gunshot next to my ear. The bullet of surprise hits me in the midriff and makes breathing difficult for a few seconds. I force myself to pick up my fork and skewer a few green beans onto it.

  “I’m just tired after today, I guess. Is it always like this? So taxing?”

  Marcus laughs. It sounds clear, like tones from a perfectly tuned instrument. An inadvertent smile pulls up the corners of my mouth, and I see Ernst grinning along as well.

  “My dear Justa. No, it’s not always this taxing. It’s just dumb luck that your first Tribunal ever is a murder case.” Marcus’s laugh tapers off. He must realize that to me, this is more than just a murder case. “I know you and Irina were close. We all liked her very much. I can’t count the times she’s been here to visit. But a Tribunal is no place for emotions, Justa. If you’re unable to perform your task…”

  “No,” I interrupt his speech, startling myself with the sharp edge in my voice. “No. I can do this.”

  I need to do this, I finish inwardly. I have to make sure Irina’s murderer gets what he deserves, and that he’ll be punished for what he’s done to her. For what he’s done to me. And the fact that my motivations fly in the face of everything the Tribunal stands for, that I’ll judge the accused based on emotions, that I honestly couldn’t care less about the facts, and that I’ll disregard everything I was taught about the norms and values that Marcus and Ernst hold dear – I can’t think about those things.

  I have to do this.

  4