The Secret City

by Carol Emshwiller

  “OK, OK.”

  “You know there is another word for OK.”

  I suppose he’d say, Yesh.

  “OK, OK.”

  Does he think it has be said twice to count?

  Down here there’ll be all sorts of night noises. I hope he isn’t frightened … or any more scared than he already is.

  I WAKE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT. BEYOND OUR sheltering tree, I can see the starlit sky and Jack, silhouetted against the dazzle of it, looking up. I watch him watching. I think what he must be thinking, never having seen stars. Odd, I’m feeling so proud of this world, so proud of this sky, though what have I got to do with any of it?

  IN THE MORNING WE HAVE A SPECTACULAR SUNRISE. I teach him, “Beautiful.” He says it, though for all I know, he thinks it means garish. (It is a little overdone.) Or maybe he even thinks it means ugly. Or maybe just means sunrise or colorful or sun. I say, “Sun.” I point. I gesture. I draw a circle in the dust. I make a solar system. “Earth. Sun.”

  Small gray birds flit back and forth with wonderfully complicated calls. I whistle but I can’t imitate them. Jack tries, too. We laugh. “Birds,” I say. “Bird, birdss. One bird, two birds, three birds, four….”

  “OK, OK. Bird. Bird sss.”

  “You got it.”

  I’VE TAUGHT HIM “SLEEP,” “COME,” “ONE TWO three four five,” “let’s go,” “thank you,” and… (and I couldn’t help it) I taught him, Yay and Wow. Those were by mistake. Wow is what I said whenever I suddenly came across a spectacular view. Yay is what I say when we see the first houses.

  We come to a dirt road, hike a mile down it, and there they are. These are those of the fancy summer people, scattered high in the foothills. This time of year they’re empty. Shuttered. Everything turned off. No water, no heat, no electricity.

  Jack has been wearing my long underwear under his shorts. He looks too weird for coming into town.

  I hate to break into a house and steal—yet again—but I’m already wanted for much more than that. Besides, I’m just going to take a pair of pants and maybe a shirt. Under my sweater my shirt—Ruth’s husband’s shirt—is little more than rags. It wasn’t that good even before they cut the sleeve off to get at my wound.

  I have to break into three houses before I find clothes big enough for us. I pry off one shutter and break one window in each house. I teach him, “stay” and the hand signal as if for a dog. I hide him each time behind an arborvitae—almost all the houses have them. I only help him climb in, after I find a house with clothes the right size. I hope he doesn’t think this is how we go into houses all the time.

  I say, “You may not think so, but there are such things as doors.”

  Because of the shutters, there’s not much light except near the shutter I broke. When I check for clothes, I find a big flashlight. I hand it to Jack. He flashes it around the rooms.

  There are big paintings of these very same mountains on the walls. He examines them as if he’s never seen such art before. I know our people had carvings because of all those up in the Secret City and then Mother drew pictures for us. How could we not have had paintings? Or maybe they wouldn’t have had them of the exact same mountains which are right outside the shutters. That does seem a little odd.

  There are lots of photos of the natives … on the mantle, desk, tops of bookcases. He brings them to the opened shutter and studies them. All those sharp, smooth faces—so much finer than ours. There are both blonds and brunettes … much more variety, even in this one family, than we have among our people.

  There are two telephones, two TV sets, radios and CD players but the electricity is off. I don’t dare turn it on. Light would shine out from the shutters.

  I show him the bedrooms. He bounces on the beds. Lies down. Smiles a big smile as if a good bed is the best thing he’s seen on this world so far.

  I take the flashlight and leave him on the bed. I find him polypropylene underwear, blue jeans, a sweater…. There’s a pair of scissors. I’ll chop off his hair.

  And here are dresses and some loose silky slacks … shoes that look … at least to me … as if for dancing. Jack makes me happy because I see everything with new eyes, but, on the other hand, everything is dulled down because Allush isn’t here to see it with me. I’d have taken a dress for her or these loose silky slacks. I wonder what she’d look like in a nice dress and with her hair cut and combed. I wonder what her legs are like not all covered up with leather. And Mollish…. I’d have stolen her some polypropylene underwear. Maybe she’d have liked a dress, too, though the way she strode around I doubt it.

  When I check on Jack, he’s sound asleep, sprawled on the king-sized bed. I leave him be.

  There’s food in the house. Rice, pasta, flour … coffee and tea … left in the cupboards from the summer.

  I find where the water’s turned off and turn it on. The gas is off but I find a little camp stove. I start cooking pasta.

  There are no cans or jars of tomatoes, they would freeze, nothing to put on the pasta except some Parmesan.

  There’s a battery radio. You can only get one station up here in the mountains. I was hoping for news but it’s country music.

  When the spaghetti is done I wake Jack. Hard to do. For once he’s really sound asleep. Probably for the first time since he’s been here. I’d let him sleep, but the pasta will be gummy if it sits too long. Not that he’d know the difference.

  By now he’s hungry enough to eat some of anything though I can see the stringy spaghetti bothers him. I wish I could explain what it’s not.

  We sit in the dark kitchen in front of a window where no doubt there’s a magnificent view out from behind the shutters.

  We listen to the music. The news comes on. An accident on Main Street. A drug arrest. A couple of lost dogs. Which team won the softball game. A storm is coming. Maybe get here by tomorrow night. Jack leans close to listen.

  I sleep on the bunk bed in a kids room. He goes back to the master bedroom. In the morning I heat water on the camp stove. We have tea and then we shave using the disposable razors in the house. Even brush our teeth. We wash as best we can without hot water. Then I turn the water back off.

  I have a hard time getting him to climb out the window. He doesn’t want to leave.

  “Ayyaa. Ayy yaa.”

  “I know it’s nice, but we can’t stay. If the arborvitae are alive, somebody comes by to water and look after things.”

  “Ayy yaa!”

  “We have to. And the word you want is, No.”

  “OK, OK. No.”

  I pull him from the farthest corner of the bedroom, through the living room. I make the gesture of an uppercut.

  “Ayyaa.”

  I push him out the window and prop up the shutter I broke.

  He’s presentable: tan floppy hat that looks as if he grew up in these mountains (except he’s too pale and puffy though a little better after our days of hiking and him not eating much.) The clothes are all better than anything I could ever afford, fancy farmer’s shirt, fancy jeans, navy blue sweater. There’s nothing in those houses but expensive things.

  “You’re dressed all in blue. Blue,” I say.

  We hike down the dirt road till we come to the paved road to town.

  “Road,” I say.

  “OK, OK.”

  The first time a car goes by, Jack almost falls over with surprise.

  He says, “Yay!” and then “Wow.”

  I say, “You betcha.”

  And he says, “You betcha.”

  “No, it’s a car. Car.”

  “OK, OK. Car. You betcha.”

  BUT MONEY!

  I didn’t take any when I left Ruth. I didn’t want to have anything to do with it ever anymore. I wanted to get out in the wilds way beyond money. I was hoping my own people have some other way to live than accumulating money. Mother never said. I never asked. I wonder how Allush will get along there on the homeworld without it. Maybe they all get what they need some other
way.

  But if Jack is going to stay in the Down … even for a short time, that’s going to take money.

  There’s a field of cows, brown with white faces. Females with calves.

  Jack says, “Yay!” and, “Wow!”

  “Cows,” I say. “And calves.”

  I talk. “These are not the kind where milk comes from. Not that you’ve had any milk. Besides, it will make you sick. It does all of us.”

  “Kind where shick,” he says. Or something rather like it.

  He sits on the edge of the ditch by the side of the road and watches. The calves come over and watch him, too. They cavort around, jump and play like all young things do. Jack laughs. He’s not so scared anymore. I don’t know if that’s good or bad. Better that he’s scared and careful.

  When we get up to leave, the calves, romping, follow us along the fence as far as they can—until they’re fenced off. Then they call out after us. Jack yells, “Yay,” back at them and makes a little pushing gesture. Is that how they wave good-bye on my world?

  We start seeing people. First, in the distance in the fields, sitting on tractors, harvesting hay and alfalfa. Jack keeps looking at me as though I could tell him about it. I say “Hay smells good,” and touch my nose.

  Then a girl turns on to the road and walks right past us. Jack yells, “Wow!” even louder and actually stops and stares as she goes by.

  “Sorry ma’am. He’s feebleminded.”

  She doesn’t answer but hurries past at a trot. I don’t blame her.

  Jack turns around to watch her leaving.

  I say, “Ayy yaa! No, for heaven’s sake! Don’t do that!”

  I don’t know if I get through or not.

  But he does it again. This time it’s two men. He could get in trouble if he does that to the wrong people. Thank goodness he hasn’t done it to a wife walking with her husband.

  I push him. I use that sideways push my parents used with me. That’s our way. We don’t spank or whip like some natives here do. It’s never a hard push, but it puts you just a little bit off-balance. You have to step sideways so as not to fall. His parents must have done that to him. He’ll know what I mean. Well, maybe not until I do it again at the proper time.

  Those men will be thinking we’re both crazy. But they go on by. I can see why he stared, and yelled, though. One of those men was like us, big, heavyset, thick features, bumpy forehead, barrel chest…. His hair isn’t black streaked with red like ours, but completely carrot red. Jack looks at me again.

  I say, “Now you see why we can get by on this world.”

  We’re almost at the town. First smaller fields with maybe a couple of goats, then sidewalks begin and rows of little houses, several of them Carpenter’s Gothic, colorful, with bobbles and knobs and dowels and pegs. He stops and stares at those in particular.

  “Are you thinking these are nice or too much? Actually I like them.”

  “Actually I. Actually I.”

  I don’t think he has the idea of what makes a word. I point. “I. You.” I say again, “I … I like them.”

  “I? I you?”

  We walk to the middle of town. There’s only one main street. There’s people. I have to push him three times before he stops staring at them.

  We look in the shop windows. I try to teach more words, but I know it’s got be grammar one of these days, too. I keep talking to keep giving him the feel of the language. Also it keeps me busy. If I didn’t I’d feel too depressed about Allush.

  “Those are shoes; those are dishes and pots and pans, that’s a pan like mine; dresses—for women—girls, like that girl you saw. And here’s a pair of pants just like yours….”

  We still have dried food left, and I took a little instant coffee from that house. We find a park with a pond and benches, a water fountain. Ducks in the pond. We sit and eat and drink cold coffee out of my one cup. A few other people are picnicking, too. We people-watch and duck-watch. I talk again. “Pond, ducks, bench, people….” And then, “You know we’re in danger. There’s a man. Well, he’s after me, not you. He can talk the home language. You’ll be able to talk with him.” I say, “Worse luck,” and, “I hope never.”

  If Youpas shaved, cut his hair, and put on native clothes, I’d never recognize him but I’m not any different from what I was. He’ll not know that Allush has gone home. There’s not a sign of any of us left back on the trail except some burned patches. I wonder what he’ll make of those.

  “I wish I could ask you if Allush can come back if she changes her mind. When could she come and where? Do I need a beacon so she can home-in on me? Should I go back to the Secret City in spite of Youpas? I wonder what Allush’s native name was? I didn’t think to ask. I never think to ask anybody anything. Not in time, damn it.”

  Jack says, “time damn it.”

  I say, “And here come dogs. Dog. Dog ss.”

  In town they’re mostly fenced in but here in the park some are loose. All my life I’ve had a problem with dogs … or rather some dogs. My people have an alien smell. Most dogs seem to think we’re a curiosity they have to keep examining, but some attack—even dogs who’ve never attacked anybody before. Mother was scared of them. She never let us have any. But I’ve gotten friendly with some when I had the chance. I wonder, though, there weren’t any up in the Secret City. You’d think they’d have come in handy. Allush would have liked them. She said she tamed fox kits. She said she once had a pet raven.

  So dogs come sniffing around us. Three. Two are just curious but one won’t stop barking. We’re disturbing the whole park. I throw out our last piece of dried rat. (I’ve been calling it that to myself from the start though not out loud to Mollish and Allush.)

  A toddler wanders over and stares. I’ve wondered before if little kids can tell. They always look as if they can. As soon as they can talk, that seems to go away. The kid points at us, says, “Daddy.” Toddles closer. He’s one of those completely white-headed babies.

  Jack stares again. “Don’t stare.” I gesture as if to push him though the kid doesn’t care if he’s being stared at or not. In fact the kid is staring, too. Not a good lesson for Jack.

  “Do people on our world stare?”

  Allush and I…. If we couldn’t have children of our own, we could adopt some. Maybe. If I had a decent job and identity papers. Unlikely that I ever would have.

  Jack is smiling. The kid smiles, too. Jack is starting to relax even though the dogs scared him. The parents of the kid look at us.

  I get up. I say, “Let’s go.”

  “OK, OK. Let’s go.”

  I wonder if he thinks we’ll have another nice bed tonight. More likely it’ll be a hayloft with animals underneath or a garage. Or maybe the back of a truck.

  ALLUSH

  IN THE MORNING THE BRIGHT LIGHT IS STILL ON BUT not so noticeable. All the dazzle is from outside, and each wall is a window. I slurp myself out of bed and look out. I’m thinking, Wow, wow, wow, and wishing there was somebody to share it with.

  I notice there’s a mirror I hadn’t seen last night. Or did it just appear? A morning thing? I laugh when I see my hair. Short and in all sorts of swirls and designs, parts of it straight and parts of it curly. Because of being in the sun, there used to be lots of bleached red to it but they’ve colored it a uniform shiny black. My face looks different without my mop of hair. Kind of naked. I’ve no idea if I’m good-looking or not. I mean for one of my kind. Beautiful Neanderthal? Not back on that world.

  One of the men from last night pops out of the elevator without knocking. I think it’s one of the same ones from last night though dressed differently. I have a hard time taking him seriously with that hairdo though I know mine is pretty much the same.

  He says, “Greetings, greetings,” in the home language.

  I ask for a drink of water. Now—a little late—he gives me a lesson in the buttons. He says he’s sorry, he thought I’d know. He also shows me there’s a bed adjustment. (Soft and softer.) There actual
ly is a closet with blankets. And clothes … kimono-like clothes … in three different sizes. There’s a pop-out shower over that depression so I didn’t make a terrible mistake when I peed there.

  Next to the closet door, there’s a bathroom door. It’s a tiny room with a hole in the floor. I didn’t know those were doors and even if I’d known, I wouldn’t have known you had to push inwards first to pop them open outwards.

  Then he says the Special wants to talk to me and then gives me a lesson in how to use the elevator.

  Once down, I try to look in ground floor windows of what look to me like stores. The man says, “Don’t do that.”

  “But aren’t these stores?”

  “Yes, but not that kind.”

  “What kind then?”

  I think he says, “For other people.” Or maybe,

  “Other kinds than you.” Anyway not for my kind—whatever that is.

  “What is my kind?”

  “That’s to be determined later.”

  That scares me. Is there some sort of caste system I don’t know about? With some people not as good as others? So low they can’t even look in store windows? They had that same kind of things back there though they tried to pretend they didn’t. Worse in some places than in others. Then I think about how, except for Mollish who came as a helper, all the tourists came from wealthy families. Who else could afford to go? I must have come from a wealthy family. How could I not? Can’t they tell that?

  They’ve given me stiff shoes that make me two inches taller. They hurt. I’m used to moccasins. I clunk along. I’d rather be barefoot.

  “I can’t walk far in these foot things.” (I forget their word for shoes.) Now I’m sorry I didn’t pay more attention to our language, but then us kids wondered if we’d really ever get back home. Home! I always wanted to come here, but I’m not so sure anymore—not if I’m the wrong kind. Maybe Mollish was right all this time. She liked it better back there.

  He says, “It’s not far, but a swing, if you have a prefer.”