“I’m okay. Give me a moment.” But she was looking at him over Zena’s shoulders and she noticed it.
“Are you sure?” the nurse asked, still keeping her body between Marie and Grant.
“Yes, please.” She wanted to be alone with him but didn’t dare ask.
“I’ll be here.” Zena stepped out of the way and went to the other corner of the room.
“How are you?” Grant took her hand and brought it to his face.
She didn’t know how to answer. It wasn’t just the pain. It was the humiliation that still made her weak in the knees a day after. It was the feeling of being powerless and at someone else’s complete mercy. Her eyes watered and she wanted nothing but to be hugged by him, to be in the warm embrace of his body. She could stand the pain. One look at the screen, and he understood she wanted him to follow her behind it. Once hidden by the relative privacy of the rice paper wall, she felt more courageous.
“I don’t want to hurt you.” He shook his head softly when she moved toward him.
“I need this.” She didn’t stop.
Grant opened his arms again, but this time he carefully put his hands on her shoulders on either side of her head. She leaned into him, her nose pressed against his chest, breathing his scent and listening to his heartbeat. He had run there; she could tell from his still-accelerated heart and the fall and raise of his chest. His hands caressed her head from neck to crown and back in slow motions.
“I didn’t know… I would’ve come earlier,” he whispered to her ear and then laid a soft kiss on her forehead.
It felt right. She raised her chin to meet his lips and his heart skipped a beat. Despite the pain, and in spite of everything else, Marie smiled. His lips descended on hers and she forgot herself and where she was. His mouth against hers was soft and warm. A strand of his hair brushed against her face. His fingers were pressing at the base of her head to tilt her face and she let him. When his lips moved sideways, caressing and opening hers, she gasped, the feeling too intense to bear.
“I’m… I don’t know…” Grant had stepped back, his lips swollen, his eyes bright, unevenly breathing.
“Is everything all right?” Zena was looking at both of them from over the screen, her eyes taking in the scene.
“Yes.” No! She wanted to kick herself.
Zena gave her a knowing look and raised her eyebrow. Then she turned to him and shook her head. “Young man, you should leave. It’s too dangerous.” She saw Marie’s disappointment and added, “We might save you from Callista’s anger if she found him here, but he would be better off dead.”
Marie’s back throbbed and she was reminded of the courtesy accorded to her. Callista wouldn’t be as generous with a worker. If he were lucky, Grant would be whipped within an inch of his life. “Please go and don’t come back until things are safe.” Mindless of the woman’s presence, she took his hands in hers and bought them to her lips. “Soon.”
Zena stepped away and turned around. “I’ll go see if the coast is clear.” She made enough noise to let them know when she was on the side of the room by the window.
Grant’s face lit in a small smile. “Marie,” he whispered and then bent over her and laid a small peck on the top of her head. “Soon.”
“Now!” Zena called, gesturing for him to move. “In a few minutes, it’ll be dinnertime and the whole place will be full of soldiers.”
Marie grabbed the neck of his shirt and dragged him down for a last kiss. Nothing more than a brush, but enough to send her heart in a mad race once again. “She’s right. Go.” She accompanied him to the door and watched as he disappeared behind it. A new, different pain permeated her whole being. A different reason to feel tearful. A different reason to feel alive.
“He’ll be fine.” Zena was still looking outside and she joined her at the window.
“What’s happening to me?” She rested her head on the nurse’s shoulder. “Why do I feel like I feel?”
“Do you want the long answer or the short one?” Marie felt the quiet laugh in Zena’s voice. “The world as we know it could end tomorrow.” The woman’s head leaned over hers. “You’re fifteen, and the heart wants what the heart wants.”
Heavens knew she had tried to fight her feelings. “Is it so wrong?”
Zena gently stepped away from Marie and looked at her. “Does it feel wrong to you?”
She sighed, the memory of his lips on hers still altering her breathing rhythm. “No, it doesn’t. It has never felt so right.”
Zena smiled. “Then follow your heart.”
***
Marie wandered through the infirmary the whole night. When she noticed Zena yawning and her eyes closing while she talked to her, she sent her to sleep. She tried to relax and take small naps, but eventually, she had to accept sleep wouldn’t come. At dawn, when Callista gave order to blast the siren to give Vasura the good morning, she was awake and still in pain. The private who had gotten her in so much trouble came to announce her break had ended and that every wasted woman had to report for duty in the main hub. The woman almost spit when she said the word “wasted woman.” Marie saw the hatred and the disgust in the pure breed’s eyes, as if everything had happened the way Callista had everybody believe. As if the private were the victim and not her.
Outside, not even five in the morning, the sunlight timidly appearing, it seemed that the whole female population had been forcefully gathered. Marie looked for Nora. She didn’t know what had happened to her after she had seen her last time at the infirmary. Eyes scanning the sea of people, she saw that among the crowd were kids, some as young as two or three years old. Some were boys she had seen playing around. They were now dressed in girls’ clothes. Pure breeds corralled the Vasurians the same way they would have done with cattle and made them wait for more than an hour. By the time Callista finally decided to deign everybody with her presence, Marie was on the verge of closing her eyes and sleeping on the street.
The major addressed the crowd with a smile. “I expect your full cooperation during my stay here. Any act not in accordance with my rules will be punished as you have already witnessed. Today, Vasura will have its first census in what appears to have been years. Form two lines, one for the women with kids, the other for the women without kids, and give your name and identification number to my officers.”
A murmur rose from the women. Marie didn’t understand at first, then saw the mothers clutching their boys and girls closer to them and realized Vasura’s lack of official urban planning wasn’t the only thing they wanted to keep secret. She saw some of the women with boys try to run toward the lateral alleys. One order by Callista and the soldiers were already dragging away kids by their collars to convince the mothers to cooperate. A rock was thrown at a soldier and two wasted women were hit in retaliation. The cries from the kids calling for their mothers became deafening. Marie could feel their terror and it soon was hers as well. She was frightened beyond reason that the army was going to harm them. Within a moment, panic swelled among the crowd and Vasurians pushed against the army to break the kids free.
“Stop them!” Callista ordered and the army charged against the crowd, rifles ready to shoot.
The Vasurians stepped back at once, a compact, mindless wave trampling everything in its wake. Marie was pushed and almost fell. While straightening up, she saw one of the little boys dressed in girls’ clothes aimlessly running around. He was lost under the forest of moving legs and she reached for him before he could be crushed by the stampede. The boy anchored himself to her, his small arms tight around her neck. “Mommy! I want my mommy!” he cried. She shushed him, caressing his head. She swung around, trying to determine where to go, what to do. Shots resonated loud. She ducked, one hand over the boy’s head. Several other shots followed. The boy hid his face against her collarbone, his sobs tearing her heart. Someone screamed. She covered the boy’s ears. People started running in every direction. The shots were now being fired to kill.
Marie watch
ed as a brunette turned toward her. Their eyes locked in recognition, only a moment before the woman collapsed on the ground, a splash of red expanding on her back. Marie stared in horror at the beautiful hazel eyes now frozen and cold. They belonged to Rachele, the woman who worked at the rainbow barrack. The voluptuous brunette with the sweet smile, who would never smile again. She started hyperventilating and heard her own voice, but she didn’t know what she was saying. The kid was clutched to her, frozen. Rachele’s eyes remained open, staring at her. Marie’s knees hit the ground and she started rocking, automatically caressing the boy’s back. She couldn’t stop looking at the woman who had been alive only a moment ago. Blood had pooled under Rachele’s body and was slowly reaching Marie. She couldn’t move. Fingers dug into her right arm. She was upright, but her legs weren’t supporting her.
“You, stop this.” Someone was ordering her. Friend or foe?
Marie looked sideways. Foe. She was pushed, hard. If it weren’t for the boy attached to her like another limb, she would have let the guard push her to the ground. “Mommy,” he whispered to her right ear. “Mommy, there, look.” He pulled at her earlobe and she turned where he pointed. A woman was running toward them, her face a horror mask. Blood stained her lips and nose.
“Ca—” She started to call her boy.
The soldier who had pushed Marie out of the way turned and pointed her rifle at the running woman. “Stop!”
“Please, don’t shoot! She’s this kid’s mother. They got separated,” Marie said, her voice hoarse, every word pulled out with difficulty.
“Is this your daughter?” The soldier swung around and pointed at the boy.
“Yes! Please, let me get to… her.” The woman hadn’t dared move and was only a few steps from Marie, who was trying to calm the kid with a few soothing words.
The soldier nodded and the woman unfroze. The boy jumped out of Marie’s arms and ran into his mother. The yellow skirt he was wearing floated up and down and for a moment revealed the shorts he was wearing underneath. Marie saw the soldier’s eyes widening and the mother hurried to smooth the skirt down.
“What was that?” The soldier moved toward the woman and raised the boy’s skirt. “Check all the little girls with short hair!” She shouted the instruction one more time to make sure the closest guard repeated it, and soon all the kids were being seized. Meanwhile, she had snatched the boy from his mother’s arms.
“What are you going to do to him? Leave him with me.” The woman’s cries filled the air.
The soldier didn’t answer; she moved through the crowd, her rifle in the air and the kid, screaming and kicking to get free, kept flat on her side. The mother followed a step behind, begging and sobbing. The soldier paused enough to turn and hit the woman’s head with the rifle’s butt. The woman fell on the ground like a heap of discarded clothes and lay motionless. Marie ran to her side and found her pulse. She cried in relief because the woman was alive, but the soldier had disappeared with the boy and soon Marie sobbed in desperation. A repeated tapping sound claimed her attention.
“As I said before, form two lines. Now, all the kids will be checked.” Callista’s hateful voice echoed over the crowd.
Marie raised her eyes and she saw the major standing on one of the barrack’s roofs, safe from the carnage. Beside her, ten soldiers had their rifles trained on the Vasurians below.
Callista raised one hand to stop the murmur her words had instigated. “It doesn’t matter to me if you live to see tomorrow. This is a sewage plant. New recruits arrive every month. I can ask to send replacements for all of you. This is how much you’re worth to Ginecea.”
This is a sewage plant. Sewage plant, the correct words Gineceans used to call a waste plant. Marie closed her eyes and let the tears flow. She felt the air moving around her body as people slowly walked to comply with the major’s order. Someone gently laid a hand on her shoulder and a familiar voice whispered, “Stand up.”
She opened her eyes to look at Carine. “I can’t leave her here.” She tilted her head to point at the still woman. “Help me with her.”
Carine nodded and they both tried to carry the woman, but she was too heavy for them, so they had to drag her. One soldier noticed what they were doing and ordered them to stop.
“She needs immediate medical assistance.” Marie looked the soldier in the eyes, hoping to find some humanity.
The woman, a blonde in her forties, briefly hesitated. Then another soldier came along and her face hardened. “Leave her there. You must get in line.”
“A doctor must see her.” Marie knew it was pointless to argue with them, but rage and fear were driving her insane and she didn’t care anymore if they punished her again.
“There’s a doctor there, checking the wounded. Go.” The second soldier, an older-looking woman—outranking the first—pointed her rifle behind her to show them the way.
Marie followed the pointer and saw Rane’s head emerging over the sea of people. She looked strained, but otherwise she was standing up and shooting orders to someone. Marie, helped by Carine, dragged the unconscious woman all the way to the doctor. “Rane!”
The doctor turned at hearing her voice and her face transformed at seeing her. “I was so worried about you.” She let go of whatever she was doing and ran to take Marie in her arms. “I kept looking for you in the crowd.” Her eyes roamed over Marie and then widened. “Are you okay? Were you hit?”
“No…” Marie lowered her head to look at what Rane was staring at and saw the red flower under her breasts. Her hands went automatically to touch the spot. “It isn’t mine.” Two green eyes and a blond mane flickered in and out of her line of sight and she gasped.
Rane whispered to her, “Make him go away. He’s going to get himself killed.”
Grant was staring at her from behind a brick wall standing just under the roof of the barrack from where Callista was making sure everything went according to her orders. Marie raised her eyes to show him in what danger he was, but he shook his head.
“Please,” she mouthed, “Go away.” But he didn’t move. “I’m fine.” She hoped he could understand what she was saying. A soldier walked in front of her and stopped to check what they were doing.
Rane diverted the woman’s attention by calling her. “Hey! I can’t do anything here. I need help to transport the wounded to the infirmary.”
“You need permission.” The soldier, a private no more than a few years older than Marie, moved an inch to the right and Marie looked over her shoulder.
Grant wasn’t there anymore. Thoughts of him being apprehended by Callista’s army invaded her mind and she struggled to breathe. She turned to Rane, unable to stop the sobs tearing her chest, but the doctor warned her not to say anything.
“What’s wrong with her?” The soldier gave Marie a good stare.
The doctor pulled her to her side and angled her body so Marie’s face was hidden against her body. “Give her a break. She’s just a child. Can’t you see she’s in shock?”
The soldier started to say, “I don’t c—” but one of the women standing on the roof with Callista called her. “Escort them to the infirmary,” she shouted.
Marie disentangled herself from the doctor’s safe embrace and looked up. Callista’s eyes were on Rane, a condescending smile on her frigid face. The meaning of her message clear. From now on, they would live or die based solely on her whims.
Rane lowered her head, a solitary tear running a straight, clean line through the soot on her cheek. Callista’s smile deepened at the doctor’s act of submission. Her lips moved. “Good girl.” The words as clear as if she had shouted them in their ears. Marie saw how Rane recoiled at the taunting. A slap would have been less painful.
“Don’t stand like that.” The private poked the doctor in the rib.
Rane blinked once and then turned to fetch some help. “You and you,” she summoned two Vasurians who looked relatively in good form apart from a few scratches on their faces and arms. �
�Look around and see if you can find other people who can help. We need to transport those three women first. The others can wait.”
Marie saw four other still figures on the ground. “What about them?” She indicated the two lying side by side in a peaceful pose.
Rane’s eyes darted toward the roof and Callista, and she shook her head. “Nothing we can do for them anymore.” She pinched the arch of her nose between her fingers and then instructed Marie and Carine on what to do next.
14
Marie worked at the infirmary the whole day without breaks. The wounded were more than they had expected. Several of them in precarious condition. One woman died later in the afternoon; she had been shot and then trampled by the receding crowd. She had been found only after Callista had declared the census done. By that time, she had lost too much blood.
Nobody had time to grieve over the loss of the human life. People kept entering the infirmary until late at night, when Rane finally had to redirect the less serious cases elsewhere. Around midnight, Mala offered to take care of the infirmary so that Rane, Marie, Carine, who had stayed with them the whole time, and Trisha, who had joined a few hours later, could rest. Nobody knew what had happened to Zena or why she hadn’t come back to the infirmary. Marie had looked at the door every few minutes, hoping to see the nurse enter. She kept telling herself that the woman was too strong and that nothing had happened to her. But when she wasn’t looking at the door, Rane was. The doctor had the same worried expression on her face, but neither of them uttered a word about Zena.
And so they went to lie on the floor—all the cots were taken—and tried to rest. Marie arranged a thin sheet under her body that did nothing to prevent the cold seeping from the tiles to creep through her bones. The hard surface of the tiles didn’t help either. She did sleep though. A fitful slumber filled with nightmares. Sweating while freezing.
Marie’s eyes were wide open and staring at the windowpanes at dawn when Callista awakened Vasura again. She and rest of the infirmary’s crew and patients who could stand upright walked down the steps in a mournful procession. A few minutes later, an angry but muted crowd had gathered in the main hub as ordered. Dread filled her heart as she realized not a single child roamed the street.
Marie's Journey (Ginecean Chronicles) Page 21