The Lightest Object in the Universe: A Novel

by Eisele, Kimi

  “Right. Or it’ll be just like Blue,” Beatrix said.

  “My dreams keep showing me charred, barren landscapes. Lunar. Lifeless. Except—”

  “There’s a bird?” Beatrix said.

  “A boy.”

  Rosie stood behind a hedge at the end of the street, where one neighbor’s house ended and another began. Technically, she was still in bounds. Still, her heart raced.

  Diego put his tongue behind Rosie’s ear, then licked her neck. “You taste good,” he said, moving toward her mouth. “What’s on your lips? I like it.”

  That morning, she’d given herself a sponge bath and rubbed herself with the lavender sachet that Anita had given her. She’d put on some of the berry lip balm. Effective, she thought now, as Diego breathed her in, moving his hands to her waist and under her shirt, his fingers kneading her skin. Diego took her hand and led her to the park. This was definitely beyond legal land, but Rosie didn’t care. They walked through a small village of tents until they came to one that Diego unzipped.

  “Whose tent is this?”

  “A friend’s,” Diego said. “He won’t mind.”

  Rosie’s heart was jumping out of her chest. She crawled in, and Diego closed the zipper behind them.

  The tent was blue, but inside everything looked green—Diego’s hand and her breast beneath it, even her grimy underwear, which he peeled off her body a little too soon. She froze. “Wait.”

  “Wait for what, mi linda? I thought we were doing this.” He looked up at her, his mouth open as if to catch something.

  “Yes,” she said.

  He unbuttoned his jeans. His breath smelled of soap and sinus, and Rosie saw only his eyelashes and the shine of his eyeballs, and then he was pressing his hips onto hers and then, oh, he was taking up all the space down there. She sucked in her breath and held it as his boy body moved up and down, knocking into her, making noises like a dog. After a minute or two, he made a strange high-pitched squeak, and she wondered if that was the coming.

  Just then, someone opened the tent zipper. “Who the hell is in here? What the fuck!” The head of a man appeared. His skin also looked green, like theirs, in the light, and his thick eyeglasses distorted his eyes into two oversized saucers. Mortified, Rosie untangled herself from Diego, wriggled back into her clothing, and crawled outside. She rushed from the park, assuming Diego would follow. She was mad, but not that mad, because at least they’d done it, and now they could sneak back to the front porch and he could put his hand on her knee and they’d be forever connected.

  But when Rosie got to the edge of the park, Diego was not with her. She turned around and went back to look for him.

  Not far from the tent were half a dozen kids on bikes. Rosie’s heart dipped deeper into her chest. They were not PBB riders. They carried weapons—a chain, a machete, a knife. They were standing around, leaning on their bikes, waiting. Then she saw Diego. He was holding a stick over the man whose tent they had just vacated.

  “Diego!” she called. He looked to her, but at that moment, someone whistled and the kids all took off on their bikes or went running. Diego pulled something from the man’s hands, then ran to join the others.

  Rosie stood in disbelief, sick to her stomach. Had he been with the T-Rize all this time? And the sex? What was it for? Had it been some sort of initiation game? Did all the T-Rize kids have to have sex with someone to get in? Her stomach churned.

  When she reached the house, she felt the sting of tears. “Please let no one see me,” she said under her breath. She snuck to the backyard, crept behind the egg house, and cried.

  CHAPTER 10

  The landscape was a book, and every visual interruption—a cluster of poplar trees, incompetent power lines, dead cars—seemed a silent character. The pages kept coming, and Carson read and walked, read and walked, as Nebraska stretched flat and green all the way to the horizon.

  His arm had healed, thanks to the soap and bandages, and the new-to-him boots were working fine. But his feet had swollen in the heat, and his toes burned and itched. He wished for icy drinks and mountains. Springs and water tanks were blessings—signaled by graffiti symbols scratched on surfaces or by moisture in the air and green-leafed trees.

  He’d finished the food from the sick woman’s pantry—even the cornmeal, which he’d mixed with water and eaten as a sweet and chalky gruel. Now it was back to wild greens and crab apples. He was on the lookout for something elastic so he could make a slingshot. If a dog could catch a bird, why couldn’t he?

  More and more, he met “Pilgrims” traveling toward the Center. One family reminded him of the group he’d met just outside the tunnel, a lifetime ago it seemed. The men all wore beards, and the women, long skirts, like they’d stepped out of another century. He half expected to find the cherubic little girl who’d given him that cabbage sandwich. But he also came upon modern travelers, in jeans and T-shirts and sneakers—determined and hopeful despite their losses. Within a day, entire tributaries of people were coming from all directions, coursing toward the Center.

  “Where we’ll finally eat,” said a man, maybe late forties, with a grizzled beard, in a Red Sox T-shirt and scuffed hiking boots.

  “I’m Randy,” he said. His kind, crinkly eyes also reminded Carson of those first Pilgrims: the gaze cast slightly upward, as if following a distant bird or airplane that Carson couldn’t see no matter how hard he looked.

  “How far have you come?” Carson asked.

  “Nearly two hundred miles, I’d say. Kansas City,” Randy said. “It was a nightmare there. Nowhere for the shit to go, so it kept piling up. An epidemic just waiting to happen. And we were hungry and out of options.” He hooked his thumbs together and held his hands, palms open, in front of his chest.

  Carson thought of his students, all their hand signs and signals, and felt like the ignorant administrator he’d once been. For good measure, he put his thumbs together and made the gesture, too. A young woman with stringy hair saw it and gestured back, then scampered off with startling energy, skipping along the track, her well-worn jeans hanging off her thin body. Every few paces, she bent down and gripped the rail lines, lowering her ear to them, as if retrieving some silent message. Then she’d get up again and wave her arms to the sky, relaying whatever she’d heard.

  One man, his pink face riddled with acne scars, spoke in staccato sentences strung together into never-ending paragraphs. “I’m alone. I used to sell insurance. I bought stock. I sold stock. I lost everything. The water ran out. I’m not good with my hands. I’m hungry. There are gardens. This could be the upgrade.”

  It was Blue’s term, “a civilization upgrade.” Maybe that explained everyone’s erratic, energetic behavior—they truly believed they were heading to some sort of advanced Eden.

  One woman, with almond-shaped eyes, took Carson’s hand and held it as if she’d known him forever. Bundled on her back was a child with the same almond eyes. She leaned in so close to Carson that he smelled her breath—a sweet blend of corn and milk. “We are lucky,” she whispered. He hesitated, not quite knowing how to respond. When he finally spoke—what else could he say but “Yes”?—she dropped his hand and dashed ahead to catch her companion, the fabric of her long red skirt swishing as she ran.

  Carson quizzed Randy. “So are you going for the food or the”—he hesitated—“family?”

  “Look, we’re not the ones that have been following him for years. It’s a step up from hell. It’s gotta be. But I admit, what he says makes a lot of sense. Like maybe this giant unplugging is what we’ve needed.”

  Randy was traveling with his wife, Claudia, who cocked her head to the side when listening. The couple had two boys, who looked to be about ten and twelve.

  “And there’s food,” Claudia said.

  “A steady supply of it,” Randy said. “Truth be told, I’ve been dreaming about a grilled cheese for two hundred miles.”

  Carson salivated a little. He’d been craving one, too.

  �
�Power Ninja!” one of the boys said, leaping for his brother.

  “We told the boys there would be games. Not video games, exactly, but something better,” Randy said, his voice soft and apologetic. “It keeps them walking.”

  “Everything is possible,” Claudia said. “That’s what Jonathan Blue says. And I, for one, think he’s on to something.”

  Or on something, Carson thought.

  They walked for another hour, then came to a road intersecting the tracks.

  “It’s northwest from here,” Randy said, pointing ahead to where Pilgrims moved in small, dark clumps, like elk.

  Carson hesitated. He looked west down the tracks. “Eshu,” he murmured, remembering the Yoruba deity of the crossroads. Then he turned to follow the Pilgrims.

  They came upon a group resting under a tree, and everyone greeted one another with the hand gesture. “No vans in sight,” said a stocky man who seemed like he was used to being in charge.

  “The last one we saw drove by yesterday morning,” Randy said. “Full.”

  “What do they run on?” Carson asked.

  “Veggie grease,” said a woman who was gnawing on something that looked like beef jerky. When she noticed Carson watching her, she held up a piece. “Deer?” she said, her eyes brown and doe-like themselves.

  The cast of The Red Raven included experienced actors and neighbors chosen for their voices and enthusiasm. They held rehearsals in Thelma’s living room, using scripts Thelma and Beatrix had copied by hand.

  A violinist slid her bow across the strings, and Thelma cued Flash, who began to read with his narrator voice: “Across a dark, charred landscape, nothing moves but dust and smoke, choking the air. No one lives here. Civilization has been erased. Or so it seems. Into the nothingness, something moves. Above, the silhouette of a bird in flight. Below, a boy walking alone, ragged and searching. He sees something on the ground ahead, something bright. He runs toward it, but the wind carries it away. He chases it and finally catches it. A single red feather. He is standing at the base of large snag, a dead tree, its branches intact. He climbs the tree and finds a large nest. He crawls into the nest and sleeps.”

  “His voice is absolutely perfect,” Thelma whispered to Beatrix.

  The sound-effects team readied its voices and props as Flash continued. “In the night, bright flashes of light come to the sky and touch the boy in the nest. When he wakes, he finds himself in a small pool of water. He drinks. He feels heavier and lighter at the same time. Still clutching the red feather, he climbs down from the tree.”

  “Pause,” Thelma said. “Fantastic, Flash.”

  She looked to the sound-effects crew. “Just a reminder that you won’t be able to clear your throat like that on the air. Does anyone need something to drink?” Thelma gestured to a pitcher of water. She had a way of being in control, kind, and motherly all at once.

  “Be careful with that water,” Beatrix said. “It’s probably poisoned.”

  “What?” someone said. Everyone looked at Beatrix.

  Beatrix explained her theory of Jonathan Blue’s deliberate contamination. “Dragon is still sick, after all.”

  “He does seem to be a bit nutty, that Blue,” one of the cast members said. Then: “I’m sorry about your friend.”

  “No one else is sick, though. So it’s probably just a bug,” Flash said.

  Thelma scribbled on the script she was holding. After a moment, she cleared her throat. “I think perhaps boiling the water from here on out is wise. I do not, however, think it’s worth scaring people with stories that are predicated on fear instead of fact.”

  “It might be true,” Beatrix said. “Dragon is sick.”

  Thelma glared at her. “It is true, or do you just want it to be true?”

  Beatrix became aware of her audience. She did not know Thelma well, and she’d certainly never seen her irritated before. No, she didn’t want it to be true, but she didn’t want the people she loved to leave.

  “If you want to make the improbable possible, Beatrix, you do it through fiction. That is why we are all here,” Thelma said. “Now, may we continue?”

  Beatrix looked down at her feet, her flip-flops staring up at her a little too cheerfully. She felt punished. The conviction she’d held a few moments ago fizzled. Maybe Thelma was right. Maybe Blue was just her own enemy, not everyone else’s. Maybe she was being unnecessarily conspiratorial. Maybe this was a fight she could let go of. Dragon is sick. Maria del Carmen and Rosie might leave. Focus on that, she told herself. Let the rest go.

  Thelma flipped a page of the script. “Let’s fast-forward to present day in the story. We might open here, in the middle of the action. Let’s see how it reads.”

  “Action,” someone said.

  “There’s that trash guy. He’s creepy.”

  “He’s not creepy. He’s just quiet.”

  “He’s creepy.”

  “Who’s his family? Does he have any kids? A wife?”

  “No. They say he just showed up here one day, back when he was a boy.”

  “Before we were born.”

  “During the fires.”

  “That must be why he’s so strange.”

  “He’s not strange. Like I said, he’s just quiet.”

  “Let’s go talk to him.”

  “Look at all that stuff he carts around in that wagon.”

  “Hey, Trash Man, what do you do with all that stuff?”

  “Look, he’s got bones and branches, an old net and . . . what’s that?”

  “A plastic comb.”

  “Cool! Where’d you find that?”

  Flash narrated. “Reilly looked at the children in front of him. Then he pointed to a hillside.”

  “Over that hill? Is there more?”

  “Choose whatever you like from here.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “Cool. What’s your name?”

  “Reilly.”

  Together, the actors animated the story of Reilly Crawford, the man who became the Red Raven as a boy. A shy and awkward man who collects seemingly useless things in a settlement of survivors living in a new world, Reilly shows the children an old landfill. When one of the children goes missing, Reilly transforms with a sudden flash of light into the Red Raven and flies overhead to spot and save the child.

  Approximating the sounds of footsteps, wind, and a nearby river, they clicked wood on the table, swished air from their mouths, sloshed water around in a bowl. The violins played, and Flash delivered the refrain: “From the depths of despair and desperation comes the red feather of hope. No more despair, no more fear. The wondrous Red Raven is here. Finding the wings within . . . The Red Raven.”

  “Great job, everyone!” Thelma said. “With just a few rehearsals, you’ve really made it come alive. Let’s be sure we pick up the pace a bit tomorrow, but all in all, wonderful work.”

  “Yes, everyone, fantastic!” Beatrix said, opening a bar of chocolate and passing it around to celebrate.

  “The famous Fair Share chocolate!” said Flash, in his Red Raven voice, and everyone applauded.

  “Opening night tomorrow,” Beatrix said. “Five o’clock call. We go on the air at six.”

  “Let’s get home, Beatrix. Gotta check on Dragon,” Flash said as the cast filed out.

  “I’ll catch up,” she said. She exchanged a few quick ideas with Thelma, then jumped on her bike.

  She hadn’t gone a block when she heard the sound of another bike behind her. Flash? Glancing back, she saw a young girl riding at her fast, two ponytails flying out from her helmet. The girl swung a chain at Beatrix’s leg and hit it. The sting was sharp and sudden, causing Beatrix to lose speed. The girl looped back quickly, jamming something into Beatrix’s front wheel. The bike halted, and Beatrix flew over the handlebars and hit the concrete. She pushed herself up as quickly as she could, her hands throbbing from the impact.

  She sized up the girl. Scrawny. Beatrix could take her down easily. Her ey
es fixed on the loose bike chain dangling from the girl’s fist. “Are you planning to use that?” Beatrix said, her own matter-of-fact tone surprising her.

  “I did once already,” the girl said, pointing to Beatrix’s bloodied calf. She sounded like an elf or a Broadway kid star, her voice high-pitched and forceful. “I’m robbing you,” she added, as if it needed explanation.

  “You could ask first,” Beatrix said. “I’m generous.” Not to mention empty-handed. She had nothing on her. She’d even left the script at Thelma’s.

  The girl glanced at Beatrix’s bike.

  “Take it,” Beatrix said.

  “You don’t have a bag or purse?”

  “No bag, no purse,” Beatrix said. “No money. No food.”

  The girl stepped toward her, pulling the chain tight. “I don’t believe you,” she said, her lip rising in a sneer.

  Beatrix almost wanted to laugh, but the chain was right at eye level, and it didn’t look kind. Her heart was battering, and she pressed her hand on her chest as if to stop it. There, in the front pocket of her shirt, was the remaining square of Fair Share chocolate. “Wait,” she said. “I do have something.”

  The girl squinted.

  “Put the chain down, and I’ll give it to you.”

  “What is it? Give it to me first.”

  “Put the chain down.” Beatrix reached into the pocket. She pulled the chocolate out of her pocket and held it up. “I’ll set it right there.” She pointed to the space on the asphalt between them.

  The girl dropped her arms to her sides. The chain went slack and hit the asphalt. Beatrix tossed the chocolate toward the girl’s feet. The girl lunged for it, and Beatrix backed away, her calf throbbing. She righted her bike, her eyes glued to the girl.

  The girl bit into the square of chocolate viciously, chomping like a dog.

  Beatrix hobbled onto her bike and pedaled furiously away.

  In two days, the group of Pilgrims had nearly tripled. No vans had yet materialized, and Carson suspected they never would. He wondered how many people were really listening to Blue, heeding his call. He thought about others who had traveled over this landscape, either for need or promise: indigenous tribes following herds of buffalo; pioneers on the Oregon Trail; African Americans moving north for freedom; Okies escaping the dust; Mexicans flowing north for work. Would this, too, go down as one of the great migrations? Or was it just a minor movement of the hungry and hopeless?