Afterland

by Lauren Beukes

  “We should talk about it! The Church is all about openness. We all have to serve as living lessons to all our other Sisters. And especially for you, baby girl. You’re going to have a very confusing time with all the changes in your body. You need to hear this, so you can avoid the path of darkness. It was terrible for me. I was addicted! To the pleasures of the flesh.”

  He is going to hear her say that, in that voice, for the rest of his life. It’s going to be in his dreams.

  “Can I show you how terrible I was?”

  “What?” He raises his head, looks over his shoulder. Hoping. Dreading. But she’s fully dressed in the Apologia again and holding up a cell phone. “Are you allowed to have that?”

  “Don’t worry, it’s not connected. No sim card. But I’m allowed to keep it for my Penances.” She frowns at the screen. “I need to plug this in.”

  “Is it porn? I don’t want to see.”

  “Oh no, sweets. That would be forbidden. It’s my old Tinder matches.”

  “Do people still do that?”

  “Not in the Church! But I keep them to remember. It’s like a rosary, going through all my old swipes. I keep them to remember what I did, all the men I had sex with, and how it was so bad for me, how I could have been a better person. It was my fault. I was possessed by Jezebel, and I took those good men down with me. I say their names like a prayer. Sorry, this battery is dead. I’ll show you later. But I have this as a form of remembrance, too.”

  She pulls up her Apologia, and for one appalled, glorious, terrible moment, Miles thinks she’s undressing again. But she’s pointing to a long, sinuous tattoo that runs up her thigh. She doesn’t pull the robe high enough for him to see her panties. “It’s my mark of sin,” Chastity smiles. A woman being penetrated by an octopus, like the hentai his school friend Noah showed him once at his house, because his parents didn’t put safe search locks on his computer.

  “Let me tell you, Mila. There’s no creature on earth more depraved than a woman. Adam was made of divine clay, but we were made of his flesh, and we crave it, always. I thought I was liberated. I thought ‘slut’ was a, what’s the word?”

  “Compliment?”

  “Yeah. But it’s not. Is it? Women are weak, baby. You remember that. We’re weak and we’re helpless, and we need God to lead us because the men are gone.”

  “Uh,” he manages.

  “After I came to the Lord, I asked Sister Hope whether I could get the tattoo removed. But she told me that you can’t just walk away from your sin, that it leaves its marks on you. She said the black marks inside me were far worse than this one, that I should keep this as a reminder of the rot inside me.”

  “Isn’t sex normal?” he tries. “Like human bodies are normal? And we shouldn’t be ashamed?”

  “Oh no, baby.” She laughs. “It’s a sacred act. Between a husband and a wife. Sex will destroy you. Those urges nearly destroyed me. We live in physical bodies, sweets, but we’re spiritual souls—that’s our true self, and you can’t let your body’s urges control you.”

  There’s a knock at the door, and Chastity drops her robe back over her bare legs as Sister Generosity pokes her head in.

  “Came to tell you dinner’s almost ready. Sister Chastity, would you excuse us a moment? I need to have a word with daughter Mila.”

  Chastity sashays out. Miles doesn’t watch. He’s concentrating on killing his erection. The idea of Generosity having a Serious Chat with him helps. She comes farther into the room, hunching her linebacker shoulders as she steps through the door. Does she know? His puppy dick wilts and he sits up, rearranging his Apologia in his lap.

  “Daughter, I have something I need to say.” She breathes out the sentence. “It was wrong of me to try to give you a fright, back there, in the cave. I didn’t mean to upset your mother, and I’m sorry.”

  “Um. That’s the most important word, right?”

  “Will you forgive me?”

  “Um, yeah, sure, no biggie.”

  “Is that a fat joke?” she scowls. “I’m kidding. I’m kidding! It’s part of my sin life. I was always too large, and not only in the flesh. It was my personality. I was the loudmouth. I had to learn to tame myself, in many ways, to be a good woman, quiet and contained. But, as you can see, I still struggle with it. I guess it’s why I was trying to be funny in the cave.”

  “Yeah. No worries.”

  “I also overexplain. Sorry.”

  “I do that too!”

  “Let us try to be better with God.”

  “Amen!” he agrees. Mainly to end this excruciating conversation. Is this part of it? Everyone telling him the bad things they’ve done. Confessing and confessing and confessing? It seems super tiring.

  “Mila. Something else I want to say…” she takes his hands, looks into his face. Her dark eyes have gold flecks in them, but her hands are clammy and he wants to pull away. It takes all his resolve not to.

  “I see you. I’ve been through some bad times myself. All kinds of trouble bring people to the Church. But I want you to know I’m here for you. Like God is here for you.”

  “Um, thanks.”

  “I got you, daughter. I know who you are. Deep down. I see you. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “Yeah, thanks,” he says again, squirming away. “Me too.”

  In the dining hall, the nuns are chattering happily, their Speaks clipped away so that they can eat. The smell is crazy delicious; a huge bowl of chili and tacos in the center of the table, enough to feed all fourteen of them fourteen times over.

  “Mom’s not here,” he observes.

  “Still busy with her Confidances with Hope,” Generosity says. “Don’t worry, we’ll save them food.”

  “I hope so, otherwise she’ll have to eat her words!” But no one laughs, and he’s jabbed by another spike of longing for his father.

  He pulls out a chair between Compassion, who was a “wheeler-dealer” in finance and made some decisions that were very bad for people who trusted her, and Temperance, who used to be a child star in Los Angeles and got into drugs because fame is hard? And she wasted her whole life until she found God? It’s irritating the way she talks like that? She’s not a teenager? But Mom says some people get stuck at the age they get famous and, like, it’s not her fault? And you just need to be less judgmental? You know what’s even more annoying than Temperance’s upspeak? Mom doing the same thing.

  Boobs, his dumb brain announces again as he sits down next to Temperance. Yeah, thanks, someone should tell her to go up a size in her Apologia, please, for the sake of his hormones. He’s specifically avoiding Chastity’s side of the table—she’s down by Faith, the driver, ex-air force, and Fortitude, a migrant from Mexico who used to work in the strawberry fields in California. She had five sons, and they all died. She tells Mom about it at every opportunity, and how lucky she is to have her daughter still, but he catches her watching him often, her mouth trembling like she’s going to cry.

  “Hi, Mila!” Temperance taps his shoulder. “What do you think of our potential Heart? It’s beautiful?”

  “I’m not sure what a Heart is,” he says. Apart from an extra life in a video game. Generosity dishes him a huge helping of chili and hands the plate over.

  “Let me ask you,” Compassion chimes in. “How are you finding it here with us so far?” Her teeth are really bad and her breath stinks, no matter how many breath mints she chews. Because she had bulimia—the vain woman’s curse. She should have been called Modesty, but there was already a Modesty in Miami, where the Temple is.

  “Well, it’s very different. I mean, it’s cool. I think we’re helping people?” Now he’s the one who sounds like Temperance.

  “We are the Hands and the Voice.”

  “And we wear the Speak and we help people say the Word.” He’s picked up this much. “We’re on Mission, because we’re needed right here in America, although hopefully one day we’ll be able to spread our wings and go overseas to help our Siste
rs in pain too.” Parroting the words he’s heard in the hopes that this will get him off the hook. Hereth endeth the lesson. He just wants to eat.

  “That’s right, Mission four times a year, driving across the country to attend Pilgrimage at the Temple of Joy with the Mother Inferior.” Compassion leans too close and he shrinks away. Isn’t it enough that he has to wear the robes, say sorry-sorry-sorry in public with people who really don’t want to know?

  “Like a convention. All the different Sisters coming together.” With way worse cosplay, he thinks.

  “Exactly. But the problem with outreach during Pilgrimage”—Compassion taps her fork on the table—“is that we’re outward-bound. We introduce people to the power of forgiveness, and then we leave. What are they supposed to do?”

  “Go to the website?” He spoons the chili into his mouth. It’s warm and spicy and squidgy with beans and rice. So good.

  “We need outreach, but we also need in-reach. We need to install Hearts in communities, which is why we’re here in Santa Fe.”

  “What do you think?” Temperance beams. “Wouldn’t this make the loveliest place for a new Heart!”

  “Yeah. It’s cool. I like it.” Through mouthfuls of food. “It’s very pink.”

  “Hungry growing girl,” Generosity observes, approvingly.

  “And then we get assigned to new Hearts to work there?” Temperance says. “After we get back from Pilgrimage? Especially if we’ve found a really good one, then we get to choose to work there.”

  Compassion corrects her. “If there’s sufficient need, and support in the community, a viable and affordable location, and it makes fiscal sense.”

  “Yes, yes, Sister Purse-strings.” Temperance spreads her arms. “I love it here. It’s so beautiful and spiritual and calm? Doesn’t it feel calm? I hope we can come back. Maybe you and Sister Patience could come with! Wouldn’t you like to live here?”

  “Maybe.” But it does sound good. And everyone is so welcoming. And they could not be on the run, and maybe they could get dogs. Send for one of Spivak’s puppies. And the Church would be excited to have a boy, surely? They’d let him do his own thing, and isn’t there a law about Church and State, so even if the government wanted to take him away from Mom, the Church of All Sorrows would protect him. He could even get past the pink factor.

  Chastity has been waving her hands at her end of the table, still talking about her Penances, with some of the others chiming in with memories of their former sinful ways, almost nostalgic. Now she calls up to Miles: “Hey, maybe we should start thinking about your virtue name. What would your sin be, Mila?”

  Generosity snorts. “Oh, don’t be silly, she’s too young to have sinned.”

  If only they knew.

  “We’re all born of the flesh and its servant until we come to God,” Compassion intones, but most of the Sisters are smiling at him, warm, flushed, enjoying the food, the sense of unbuttoning. With a slight sense of shock, he realizes it’s not only the absence of Hope’s strict presence, but his mom’s watchful eye that has everyone more relaxed than usual.

  “I’m so glad you joined the Church?” Temperance says impulsively.

  “Me too,” Miles manages. And then, more enthusiastic: “Me too.”

  35.

  Billie: Proof of Life

  Late afternoon and still no sign of Zara, although Rico has texted her the list of ingredients Billie wants. There is no email from Cole, and no one will talk to her. She’s sitting sulking, swigging beer by the firepit, because there’s nothing else to do, when one of the meth skanks, hair pulled back in white-girl cornrows, presents her with a battered box of antibiotics, two years out of date and only half a course, which is no good, no good at all if she is supposed to get better. Better enough.

  She thanks Cornrows anyway. Can’t hurt to make friends. According to the label, the patient’s name was Margaret Grafton, for the treatment of cystitis, Rite Aid, Sioux Falls. Cheers, Mags, Billie thinks as she washes one of the chalky pills down with a swig of warm Lazy Horse. Somewhere in the dank gloom of the house, Rico is fucking the redhead, her cries like a yappy little dog above the burr of the cicadas, the wind through the trees, the whine of a quad bike engine in the distance.

  She is only pretending to get drunk, lining up the empties, but mostly pouring them out onto the grass when no one is looking. She’s watching, waiting, the goddamn David Attenborough of meth-head cracker gangs of the Nebraska woods. If that’s where they are.

  She was hoping to talk to Ash. Not to express her gratitude. But she needs her. Or someone. There are eight or nine of them, busy-busy-busy, all with eyes too bright (like shiny drill bits). Don’t think she hasn’t noticed the shriveled bit of wood, among the broken glass and the cans and the dead toy bunny in the firepit, which isn’t bark at all, but scabbed flesh, her flesh, a silver wad of duct tape and bits of blond hair. Fuck these animals. Fuck ’em with a drill.

  But when she sees her opening, no one around, and stands up, and ambles toward the underbrush behind the firepit, someone calls out a lazy “hey.”

  “Hey yourself,” she turns and calls back, clocking Cornrows lounging on a camping chair someone has hoisted up on to the deck of the treehouse, and who uses a treehouse? Playing lost boys. Girls. But girls have more to prove. You have to hit harder, meaner, crueler if you want to step into the Big Men’s shoes. Mrs. A. making a point with poor nervous Sandy. She gets it. You don’t have to be as good as a man. You have to be worse. It’s about escalation, proving you’re the baddest bitch in the room.

  “I’m taking a piss, if that’s all right.”

  “I wouldn’t,” Cornrows yells back.

  “I can’t take a piss?”

  “Poison oak, doofus. Use the toilet,” she jerks her thumb, exposing the gun strapped under her armpit. “Inside.”

  She does as she’s told. In the bathroom mirror, she turns her head this way and that. The bandage looks professional, or professional enough. Not a doctor. She wonders what that means. A vet. A dentist. A fucking handyman. Billie opens the cabinet to find a chaos of makeup, sanitary products, charcoal toothpaste, but no medicine, nothing she can use, apart from the contraceptive pill in its plastic wheel, marking twenty-eight days more of no one needing it. Or not for pro-recreational purposes anyway. She squeezes some of the toothpaste out and scrubs it across her teeth with her finger. No way is she using one of these junkies’ toothbrushes. Who knows what she might catch.

  The door barges open and Red comes in, flushed and reeking of pussy, bare-legged in a t-shirt.

  “I’m—” Billie starts, but the girl is already yanking down her panties, planting her butt on the toilet seat.

  “You can use my toothbrush if you want,” she says, unabashed over the sound of her urine streaming. “My makeup, too.”

  “No, thank you.” Billie averts her eyes, doesn’t want to see the flash of pink between her legs. She starts putting away the junk back where she found it, and then the girl appears at her shoulder and takes the eyeshadow palette out of her hands.

  “You look really washed-out,” Red muses, and then her eyes light up. “Oh! Oh my god! You should let me do you over.”

  And Billie thinks, why not? So she sits at that same kitchen table, with her face turned to the light, while the redhead (Fontaine, as if her parents picked the first fancy French word they tripped over to name her) hauls out a three-fold cosmetics box.

  Billie never lets anyone else do her makeup unless it’s for a professional shoot. The publicity pics for the Subterranean Supper Sublime, which made it into the Independent and the Daily Mail. Unfortunately, it wasn’t to celebrate the launch of the epicurean underground experiences in the abandoned postal railway tunnels beneath London, because her idiot business partner/lover/fuckwit of the day forgot to procure the necessary health and safety permits. She looked extraordinary, in that jade silk dress, asymmetrical cut above the knee to show off her legs, one shoulder bare, her hair cut in that slick bob. Not like
now. She’s a mess. A scruffy broken bird with a hole in her head and maybe her hair will never grow back again and she’ll always look horrible. Billie keeps her eyes closed against the brush and blender.

  “Rico tell you my own damn sister did this to me?” she says while Fontaine dabs at her eyelids.

  “I didn’t ask none.”

  “Well, she did.” She opens her eyes, looks into Fontaine’s. “She tell you why?”

  “Figured none of my business.” She frowns, licks her thumb. “Close.” Meaning her eyes, so she can smudge her mistake away, with her spit.

  “Don’t you have wipes?” Billie pulls back.

  “Used ’em up last night. On you.” Pointed.

  “Saved my life.” Billie succumbs to the damp digit grinding at the corner of her eye, the battery of eyeshadow, bronze, glitter. It’s not her style.

  “Lucky,” Fontaine says.

  “We’re going after her.” She drops her voice. “My sister. Rico tell you why?”

  “I don’t ask. She doesn’t tell. We’re not close like that. Look up.” She rakes the mascara wand up and under her lashes.

  “Huh.” Billie’s eyes water involuntarily. “That’s probably for the best.”

  Fontaine sprays her face, the mist cold and sharp like a slap. At least it’s not a drill. “What color gloss you want?”

  “Nude, if you have. And not gloss. Darker colors.”

  “They’re sort of plum. I’ve got Doublecrossed or Purgatory.”

  “You choose.”

  “She said it’s about a promise that wasn’t delivered on,” Fontaine relents. “She ran off with the product.”

  “Is that what she said?” Billie shakes her head, a little huff of a laugh. “Huh.”

  “That not what happened?”

  “Only in a manner of speaking. I mean, I wouldn’t call it ‘product’ when it’s a person.”

  “Who? A celebrity?”

  “Shit. I shouldn’t have said anything. I thought you knew.”

  “Was it Rihanna? Because I read that no one knows where she is. Like maybe she’s on a private island.”