The MaddAddam Trilogy

by Margaret Atwood

  Then Ivory Bill tells Zeb about Toby and how Blanco’s dead now, and Zeb looks at Toby and says, “Well done, babe.” It’s kind of shocking to hear Toby called a babe: sort of like calling God a studmuffin.

  I work up my courage and say we need to find Amanda and get her away from the Painballers. Shackie says he’ll vote for that, and I think he means it. Zeb says he’s very sorry, but we have to understand that it’s an either/or choice. Amanda’s just one person and Adam One and the Gardeners are many; and if it was Amanda, she’d decide the same thing. Then I say, “Okay, I’ll go alone then,” and Zeb says, “Don’t be silly,” as if I’m still eleven.

  Then Croze says he’ll go with me, and I squeeze his hand for thank you. But Zeb says he’s needed at the cobb house, they can’t do without him. If I wait until he and Shackie and Rhino and Katuro get back, he says, they’ll send three guys with me, with sprayguns, which will give us a much better chance.

  But I say there isn’t enough time, because if those Painballers want to trade Amanda, it means they’re tired of her and they could kill her at any minute. I know how it works, I say. It’s like Scales, with the temporaries – she’s a disposable – so I really have to find her right now, and I know it’s dangerous, but I don’t care. Then I start crying.

  Nobody says anything. Then Toby says she’ll go with me. She’ll take her own rifle – she’s not a bad shot, she says. Maybe the Painballers have used up their last spraygun cell, which would lengthen the odds.

  Zeb says, “That’s not such a good idea.” Toby pauses, then says it’s the best idea she can come up with because she can’t let me wander off into the woods by myself: it would be like murder. And Zeb nods and says, “Be very careful.” So it’s settled.

  The MaddAddams hang up some duct-tape hammocks in the main room for Toby and me. Toby’s still talking with Zeb and the rest of them, so I go to bed first. With a Mo’Hair rug the hammock’s quite comfortable; and though I’m worrying a lot about how to find Amanda and what will happen then, I finally manage to sleep.

  When we get up the next morning, Zeb and Shackie and Katuro and Black Rhino have already left, but Rebecca tells Toby that Zeb’s drawn a map for her in the sand of the old kids’ sandbox, with the cobb house and the shore marked on it, so she’ll know the directions. Toby studies it for a long time with an odd expression on her face – a sad kind of smile. But maybe she’s just memorizing it. Then she wipes it away.

  After breakfast Rebecca gives us some dried meat, and Ivory Bill gets two lighter hammocks for us because it’s not safe to sleep on the ground, and we refill our water bottles from the well they’ve dug. Toby leaves a bunch of stuff behind – her bottles of Poppy, her mushrooms, her maggot container, all the medical stuff – but she takes her cooking pot and her knife and the matches and some rope, because we don’t know how long we’ll be gone. Rebecca hugs her and says, “Watch your back, sweetheart,” and then we set out.

  We walk and walk; at noon we stop to eat. Toby’s listening all the time: too many birdcalls of the wrong kind, such as crows – or else no bird calls at all – means Look out, she says. But all we’re hearing is background cheeping and chirping. “Bird wallpaper,” says Toby.

  We keep walking, and eat again, and walk some more. There are so many leaves; they steal the air. Also they make me nervous because of the last time we walked in a forest and found Oates hanging.

  When it gets dark, we choose some big-enough trees and string up the hammocks and climb in. But it’s hard for me to sleep. Then I hear singing. It’s beautiful, but it’s not like normal singing – it’s clear, like glass, but with layers. It’s like bells.

  The singing fades away, and I think maybe I was imagining things. And then I think, it must have been the blue people: that must be how they sing. I picture Amanda among them: they’re feeding her, taking care of her, purring to heal her and comfort her.

  It’s make-believe. Wishful thinking, I know I shouldn’t do it: I should face reality. But reality has too much darkness in it. Too many crows.

  The Adams and the Eves used to say, We are what we eat, but I prefer to say, We are what we wish. Because if you can’t wish, why bother?

  SAINT TERRY AND ALL WAYFARERS

  SAINT TERRY AND ALL WAYFARERS

  YEAR TWENTY-FIVE.

  OF THE WANDERING STATE.

  SPOKEN BY ADAM ONE.

  Dear Friends, dear Fellow Creatures, Fellow Sojourners on this dangerous road that is now our pathway through life:

  How long it has been since our last Saint Terry’s Day on our beloved Edencliff Rooftop Garden! We did not realize then how much better those times were, compared with the dark days we are living through now. Then, we enjoyed the prospect from our peaceful Garden, and though that prospect was one of slums and crime, yet we viewed it from a space of restoration and renewal, flourishing with innocent Plants and industrious Bees. We raised our voices in song, sure that we would prevail, for our aims were worthy and our methods without malice. So we believed, in our innocence. Many woeful things have happened since, but the Spirit that moved us then is present still.

  Saint Terry’s Day is dedicated to all Wayfarers – prime among them Saint Terry Fox, who ran so far with one mortal and one metallic leg; who set a shining example of courage in the face of overwhelming odds; who showed what the human body can do in the way of locomotion without fossil fuels; who raced against Mortality, and in the end outran his own Death, and lives on in Memory.

  On this day we remember, too, Saint Sojourner Truth, guide of escaping slaves two centuries ago, who walked so many miles with only the stars to guide her; and Saints Shackleton and Crozier, of Antarctic and Arctic fame; and Saint Laurence “Titus” Oates of the Scott Expedition, who hiked where no man had ever hiked before, and who sacrificed himself during a blizzard for the welfare of his companions. Let his immortal last words be an inspiration to us on our journey: “I am just going outside and may be some time.”

  The Saints of this day are all Wayfarers. They knew so well that it is better to journey than to arrive, as long as we journey in firm faith and for selfless ends. Let us hold that thought in our hearts, my Friends and fellow Voyagers.

  It is fitting that we remember those whom we have lost so far on our journey. Darren and Quill have succumbed to an illness, the early symptoms of which are cause for grave apprehension. At their own request we have left them behind us. We thank them for showing such praiseworthy concern for those of us who remain healthy.

  Philo has entered a Fallow state, and is at peace on top of a parking garage, a location that reminds him perhaps of our own dear Rooftop.

  We should not have allowed Melissa to lag so far behind us. Via the conduit of a wild dog pack, she has now made the ultimate Gift to her fellow Creatures, and has become part of God’s great dance of proteins.

  Put Light around her in your hearts.

  Let us sing.

  THE LONGEST MILE

  The last mile is the longest mile –

  ’Tis then we weaken;

  We lose the strength to run the race,

  We doubt Hope’s beacon.

  Shall we turn back from this dark Road,

  Footsore and weary,

  When deep Despair has drained our Faith,

  And all seems dreary?

  Shall we give up the narrow path,

  The plodding byway –

  Chose swift transport and false delight:

  Destruction’s highway?

  Shall Enemies erase our Life,

  Our Message bury?

  And shall they quench in war and strife

  The Torch we carry?

  Take heart, oh dusty Travellers:

  Though you may falter,

  Though you be felled along the way,

  You’ll reach the Altar.

  Race on, race on, though eyes grow dim,

  And faint the Chorus;

  God gives us Nature’s green applause –

  Such will restore us.
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  For in the effort is the Goal,

  ’Tis thus we’re treasured:

  He knows us by our Pilgrim Soul –

  ’Tis thus we’re measured.

  From The God’s Gardeners Oral Hymnbook

  74

  REN. SAINT TERRY AND ALL WAYFARERS

  YEAR TWENTY-FIVE

  When I wake up, Toby’s already sitting in her hammock doing some arm stretches. She smiles at me: she’s smiling more lately. Maybe she does it now to encourage me. “What day is today?” she says.

  I think for a moment. “Saint Terry, Saint Sojourner,” I say. “All Wayfarers.”

  Toby nods. “We should do a short Meditation,” she says. “The path our feet will travel on today will be a dangerous one; we’ll need inner peace.”

  When any of the Adams or the Eves tells you to do a Meditation, you don’t say no. Toby climbs out of her hammock, and I stand watch in case of surprises while she goes into the Lotus: she’s quite flexible for someone her age. But when it’s my turn, although I bend myself into the shape just like rubber, I can’t do the Meditation properly. I can’t manage the first three parts: the Apology, the Gratitude, the Forgiveness – and especially not the Forgiveness, because I don’t know who I need to forgive. Adam One would say I’m too fearful and angry.

  So I think about Amanda, and everything she did for me, and how I never did anything for her. Instead I allowed myself to feel jealous of her about Jimmy, though Jimmy was in no way her fault. Which wasn’t fair. I have to find her, and get her away from whatever may be happening to her. Though maybe she’s already hanging in a tree with parts of her cut out, like Oates.

  But I don’t want to picture that, so instead I imagine myself walking towards her because that’s what I’ll have to do.

  It is not only the body that travels, Adam One used to say, it is also the Soul. And the end of one journey is the beginning of another.

  “I’m ready now,” I say to Toby.

  We eat some of the dried Mo’Hair meat and drink some water, and cache the hammocks under a bush so we won’t have to carry them. We should take the packsacks, though, says Toby, with the food and stuff.

  Then we look around to make sure we haven’t left any obvious traces of ourselves. Toby checks the rifle. “I’ll only need two bullets,” she says.

  “If you don’t miss,” I say. One for each Painballer: I picture the bullets moving through the air, straight into – what? An eye? A heart? It makes me flinch.

  “I can’t afford to miss,” she says. “They’ve got a spraygun.”

  Then we rejoin the pathway and continue on in the direction of the sea, towards where I heard the voices coming from in the night.

  After a while we hear those voices, but they aren’t singing, just talking. There’s the smell of smoke – a wood fire – and children laughing. It’s Glenn’s made-on-purpose people. It has to be.

  “Walk slowly,” she says in a low voice. “The same rules as for animals. Stay very calm. If we have to leave, back away. Don’t turn and run.”

  I don’t know what I’m expecting, but it isn’t what I see. There’s a clearing, and in the clearing there’s a fire, and around the fire there are people, maybe thirty of them. They’re all different colours – black, brown, yellow, and white – but not one of them is old. And not one of them has any clothes on.

  A nudist camp, I think. But that’s only a joke I make to myself. They’re too good-looking – way too perfect. They look like ads for the AnooYoo Spas. Bimplants and totally waxed – no body hair at all. Resurfaced. Airbrushed.

  Sometimes you can’t believe in a thing until you actually see it, and these people are like that. I didn’t quite believe that Glenn had really done it; I didn’t believe what Croze told me, even though he’d actually seen these people. But now here they are, right in front of me. It’s like seeing unicorns. I want to hear them purr.

  When they spot us – first one of the children, then a woman, then all of them – they stop whatever they’re doing and turn to stare at us, all together. They don’t look frightened or threatening: they look interested but placid. It’s like being stared at by the Mo’Hairs, and they’re chewing like the Mo’Hairs as well. Whatever they’re eating is green: a couple of the kids are amazed enough by us that they keep their mouths open.

  “Hello,” says Toby. To me she says, “Stay here.” She steps forward. One of the men stands up – he’d been squatting beside the fire – and moves out in front of the rest.

  “Greetings,” he says. “Are you a friend of Snowman?”

  I can hear Toby pondering her choices: Who is Snowman? If she answers yes, will they think she’s an enemy? What if she answers no?

  “Is Snowman good?” says Toby.

  “Yes,” the man says. He’s taller than the others, and seems to be their spokesman. “Snowman is very good. He is our friend.” The rest nod, still chewing.

  “Then we are his friends too,” says Toby. “And we are your friends as well.”

  “You are like him,” says the man. “You have an extra skin, like his. But you have no feathers. Do you live in a tree?”

  “Feathers?” says Toby. “On his extra skin?”

  “No, on his face,” says the man. “Another came, like Snowman. With feathers. And one with him, who had short feathers. And a woman who smelled blue but did not act blue. Perhaps the woman with you is like that?”

  Toby nods as if she understands all of this. Maybe she does. I can’t ever tell exactly what she understands.

  “She smells blue,” says another man. “That woman with you.” All the men are now sniffing in my direction, as if I’m a flower or maybe a cheese. A number of them have sprouted huge blue erections. Croze warned me about this, but I’ve never seen anything like it, even at Scales, where some of the clients went in for body paint and extenders. Several of these men are giving out a strange humming sound, like the kind you make by rubbing your finger around the rim of a crystal glass.

  “But the other woman that came was frightened when we sang to her and offered her flowers, and signalled to her with our penises,” says the chief one.

  “Yes. The two men were frightened also. They ran away.”

  “How tall was she?” says Toby. “The woman. Taller than this one?” She points to me.

  “Yes. Taller. She was not well. Also she was sad. We would have purred over her and made her better. Then we could have mated with her.”

  It must be Amanda, I think. So she’s still alive, they haven’t killed her yet. Hurry up! I want to shout. But Toby’s not going anywhere yet.

  “We wished her to choose which four of us she would copulate with,” says the main one. “Perhaps the woman with you will choose. She smells very blue!” At this, the men all smile – they have brilliantly white teeth – and their penises point at me and wag from side to side like the tails of happy dogs.

  Four? All at once? I don’t want Toby to shoot any of these men – they seem so gentle, and they’re very good-looking – but also I don’t want those bright-blue penises anywhere near me.

  “My friend isn’t really blue,” says Toby. “It’s just her extra skin. It was given to her by a blue person. That’s why she smells blue. Where did they go? These two men and the woman?”

  “They went along the shore,” says the main one. “And then, this morning, Snowman went to find them.”

  “We could look under her extra skin and see how blue she is.”

  “Snowman has a hurt foot. We purred over it, but it needs more purring.”

  “If Snowman was here, he would find out about the blue. He would tell us how we should act.”

  “Blue should not be wasted. It is a gift from Crake.”

  “We wanted to go with him. But he told us to stay here.”

  “Snowman knows,” says one of the women. So far the women have been taking no part in the conversation, but now they all nod and smile.

  “We must go now and help Snowman,” says Toby. “He is
our friend.”

  “We will come with you,” says another man – a shorter one, yellow in tone, with green eyes. “We will help Snowman too.” Now that I notice, they all have green eyes. They smell like citrus fruits.

  “Snowman often needs our help,” says the tall man. “His smell is weak. It has no power. And this time he is sick. He is sick in his foot. He is limping.”

  “If Snowman told you to stay here, you must stay here,” says Toby. They look at one another: something’s worrying them.

  “We will stay here,” says the tall man. “But you must come back soon.”

  “And bring Snowman,” says one of the women. “So we can help him. Then he can live in his tree again.”

  “And give him a fish. A fish makes him happy.”

  “He eats it,” says one of the children, making a face. “He chews it up. He swallows it. Crake said he has to.”

  “Crake lives in the sky. He loves us,” says a short woman. They seem to think this Crake is God. Glenn as God, in a black T-shirt – that’s pretty funny, considering what he was really like. But I don’t laugh.

  “We could give you a fish too,” says the woman. “Would you like a fish?”

  “Yes. Bring Snowman,” says the tall man. “Then we will catch two fish. Three. One for you, one for Snowman, one for the woman who smells blue.”

  “We’ll do our best,” says Toby.

  This seems to puzzle them. “What is ‘best’?” says the man.

  We step out from under the trees, into the open sunlight and the sound of the waves, and walk over the soft dry sand, down to the hard wet strip above the water’s edge. The water slides up, then falls back with a gentle hiss, like a big snake breathing. Bright junk litters the shore: shards of plastic, empty cans, broken glass.