Black Diamond Fall

by Joseph Olshan

  Fairuza died of the Virus five years after we came to the Panah, leaving me alone to run it. The Virus lay dormant in her system, choosing to emerge when there was no way we could get help, even to soothe the pain at the end of her days. It was a terrible death she suffered, and it left me reeling. That’s why I went looking for Lin. Any girl could have carried on here, but I want someone of my own blood to close my eyes after I’m gone.

  Sometimes I wonder if the Perpetuation Bureau actually knows of our existence and allows us to continue. What if they’re keeping us tight in a web that they can destroy at any time? I like to torture myself with the idea when I’m in a dark mood. They come often these days. Lin does her best to snap me out of them, but she’s still a child. Sometimes it’s more comforting to think of destruction than survival. I don’t know why.

  But the Panah has been in existence for the last thirty years, so perhaps our allies have never betrayed us and maybe they never will. The Panah will exist as long as there’s a need for it, as long as men need woman—which means forever. It may be a life in the shadows, but at least no Bureau tells us whom to marry, whom to open our legs for. Nobody can experiment on our ovaries and wombs, pump us full of fertility drugs, monitor our menstrual cycles and ovulation patterns. Our bodies are not incubators that will “boost the numbers of women up to appropriate levels.” Above ground, we are only women, but here in the Panah, we are humans again.

  Rupa

  Every day my mind kept turning to the problem of making Joseph want me more than he wanted Sabine. At first it was a game, but something changed between us once I realized I was genuinely attracted to him. Then I became frustrated with his lack of interest in me, knowing that he desired only Sabine. I pressed myself to him in bed, I wound my arms around him and let my fingers stray. But he kept our embraces chaste, our nights clean. Once or twice he turned away from me, and I had to laugh to hide how much it hurt me.

  One night we were sitting in his spacious living room, looking out at the city lights blinking on and off. Faint music played somewhere in the city square, designed to calm the residents down and prepare them for a peaceful night’s sleep. The fountains combined colors with rhythms to soothe us into somnolence. Joseph watched me as I sang along to the familiar song, one taught to every schoolchild in Green City, boy or girl. “Don’t you know the words?” I asked Joseph.

  “The only song I know is the Green City anthem, and that’s only because I supposedly wrote it.”

  Then I tried to kiss him. I leaned close, my lips were only inches away from his mouth, and my breath was sweet with mint, which I’d chewed just after dinner.

  He stayed completely still, neither coming towards me nor backing away, and raised an eyebrow.

  “You don’t like me.” I wasn’t entirely heartbroken that he didn’t want to kiss me, but I wanted to see how close I could get him to disobey the Panah rules. Now the game had expanded, beyond Sabine, to see if my power was greater than even Lin’s. And to see if I could get someone as powerful as Joseph to break his own internal rules, endanger his job for my sake.

  “I like you. But rules are rules.”

  I turned away from Joseph. “Don’t you get sick of the rules sometimes?”

  Joseph grasped my upper arm tightly and pulled me back towards him. “There’s nothing less honorable than a man who doesn’t honor his contracts, Rupa.” He seemed almost angry now. And yet I felt—I knew—that he was being less than honest. He would make love to Sabine if only she’d let him.

  “Ow... You’re hurting me.” In truth, I liked his touch: hard and firm, steady and sure, the way a man’s should be. The pain reassured me that I did mean something to him.

  His fingers immediately eased their grip on my flesh. “I’m sorry.”

  “I’ll have a bruise tomorrow.”

  Joseph leaned over and, to my surprise, kissed my arm where his fingers had been just a moment ago. His lips on my skin were warm, tender, and I shivered. “There. That will make it feel better.” He straightened up and gazed at me. He had bags under his eyes, deep-set and hooded: the eyes of an old man. But I didn’t mind. They contained real wisdom; they were shrewd, and they’d seen more than I had in my short lifetime.

  “Do you want more coffee?”

  “Yes, please.”

  He got up and went to the kitchen, talking to me as he prepared the coffee. “So how is everyone at the Panah?” I laughed at his offhand manner, as if he were talking about my colleagues in an office, as if I were a man and knew what that was like.

  “They’re well. As they always are.”

  “Does anyone ever talk about me?”

  “We never talk about Clients.”

  He brought me a medium-sized blue china cup and sat down opposite me. “Drink up. Before it gets cold. Now tell me what they say about me.”

  “I just told you, nothing!”

  As I sipped the coffee, admiring its strength, I pretended not to notice Joseph watching me intently. I was annoyed for a moment: a man’s never happier than when you’re talking about him. I knew that Joseph was dying to know what Sabine said about him, what she thought of him. The way he kept giving me little meaningful glances, raising his eyebrows, urging me to say more about her. He could buy her time, her attentions, the superficial signs of affection, but he couldn’t buy her love. He needed me because he knew only I could tell him what he wanted to hear. My words had power. I decided right then to barter them for something I’d never asked for before.

  “I’ll tell you—if you do one thing for me.”

  “What’s that?”

  My heart was pounding. “Take me out somewhere—for a meal, for a drink, I don’t care. But outside. And then I’ll tell you everything Sabine says about you.”

  Joseph let out a yelp of astonishment. “Have you gone out of your mind? Take you out?”

  “Please, Joseph. I haven’t seen proper life in two years. It’s killing me. I’m suffocating there. Please, please, Joseph. I promise just this once, and I’ll never ask anything of you again.”

  “You know what happens if you’re caught. I’m sorry, but I can’t do it. I can’t take that risk.” He set his coffee cup and empty whiskey glass down on the tray with an angry crack.

  “You’d do it for Sabine,” I said, unleashing the taunt like a stone at his back as he shifted towards the kitchen. As soon as I said it, I knew I’d made a mistake.

  He threw down the tray with a clatter, whirled around and came up to me in two short strides. “Stop trying to provoke me, Rupa!” Then he dropped his head, breathing heavily to bring himself back under control. When he looked at me again, the rage had gone out of his eyes. He sank down opposite me on the sofa, his face still tight and tense and guarded. “So now do you want to know why I want you? Why I ask for you?”

  I nodded. I had never quite understood this agreement that was made on our behalf, where we were sent to these men to help them pass the night, without the physical act of lovemaking. I had grown up thinking that was all men wanted from women. Why else did my mother have two Husbands, if not to provide her body to both of them?

  “It’s very simple.” Joseph lit an e-spliff and blew the smoke out in little pauses between the short sentences that he spoke. “I spend my entire day with men. Men serve me. Men work for me. I work for other men. I socialize with them in the evenings. I dine with them at night. And for most of the hours of the day, I like it that way.

  “But when it’s late, like this, and I’m tired, I want a woman’s arms around me. You women don’t know—or maybe you do know—what magic there is in your arms. Well, on second thought, of course you know. Otherwise why else would there even be a place like the Panah?”

  I glanced down at my arms, surprised. This wasn’t the part of my body I’d expected Joseph to be most interested in.

  “Oh, there’s magic between a woman’s legs, of
course!” Joseph opened his mouth wide and blew out a smoke ring, a perfect O, just in case I needed more explanation. “But when I lie down next to you at night, and put my head on the pillow next to you, hearing you breathe next to me, hearing your heartbeat when I wake up at night and I know I’m not entirely alone—I can face the next day again without feeling like I want to murder someone.”

  He pulled me close to him, until we were touching all the way down the length of our bodies. “So you see, my dear. It’s you who keeps me human—and alive.”

  Suddenly frightened, I buried my head in his shoulder. I knew his words, the lies woven in with the truths, were not meant for me. He was talking about Sabine. Then I realized I could still make this go my way, if I was clever. I took a deep breath and spoke my next words with exquisite gentleness. I straightened up and looked at him.

  “Sabine really likes you, Joseph. A great deal. She just doesn’t know it. You have to help her realize it.”

  Joseph rubbed his face, massaging the skin around his eyes with his fingertips. “How?” he muttered into his hands.

  I glanced at the bottles of whiskey and wine and vodka on the shelf behind his head. More alcohol than anyone in Green City would ever see in their lifetime. Certainly more than Sabine had ever had in her life. He followed my glance with his eyes.

  “Maybe you just need to show her what a real man is like.”

  He scoffed, but from the way his shoulders slumped, I knew my words had found their mark. Weak men all have one thing in common: the slightest hint that you doubt their manhood, and they’ll do anything to prove it.

  Sabine

  Diyah is the only one who knows how lethargic and bad I feel after my sleepless nights. She always tries to distract me with jokes and stories. Today she asks me to join her for lunch in the Panah kitchen, a small space with green-painted walls, wood-framed mirrors, and low sofas that run all along the sides of the room, only a foot and a half off the floor. Our plates of food are balanced on small wooden octagonal tables, carved and inlaid with bronze flowers. A small wall fountain bubbles in a corner of the room, whispering unintelligible secrets.

  We usually cook for ourselves in the Panah. Diyah’s invitation to share her vegetable-and-lentil broth is a welcome one; I can’t resist the idea of someone nurturing me for a change.

  It’s strange, but over the years I’ve memorized the recipes in the cookbooks Ilona Serfati left behind. Lin says she was a great cook. I never met her, but from her food, always lighter in spice and oils than the rest, I can tell she was a woman of some discernment. When I found the cookbook, its spidery, ethereal handwriting already fading from the pages, I wanted desperately to save its contents, if not its form. Our mothers, aunts, grandmothers live only in representations of their lives as we, their daughters, try to re-create them.

  Lin’s agents procure all the food we need, getting it across to us in secret deliveries every two months, but there’s always a musty smell and taste to contraband food, duller and less intense than the bold flavors and strong aromas of the gourmet meals that Joseph cooks for me when I go to him. My mouth feels covered in plastic, a film that filters out the intensity and flavor of anything I eat in the Panah. Joseph’s meals are seductions in their own right. And I still remember the thrilling taste of that black champagne... I haven’t told anyone, not even Lin, that I drank it.

  I can talk with Diyah about this and that, nothing to do with Clients or the Panah. She’s good, chatty company, a fearsome mimic with a roguish smile that she flashes at me behind everyone’s back, when I’m trying to be at my most serious. Right now she’s telling me about a movie she’s seen on her device, an ancient Bollywood film with many spirited song-and-dance routines. She gets up from the table to show me the old-fashioned moves.

  “See, she goes like this—” Diyah thrusts her hip up so violently that I hear her joints cracking. “And then she does this!” She drops her hip and pulls an exaggerated sexy face, pushing her lips out in a duck’s pout, and rolling her eyes until I scream with laughter. If I laugh enough, I don’t think about my meeting with Joseph tonight—our fourth in the last six weeks.

  We look to see Rupa standing in the doorway, watching us, her lips twisted in amusement. I glance at her, then quickly look at our food, not wanting her to assume we’ve been discussing her. Rupa’s so moody that you never know if she’s going to greet you with a kiss or a slur.

  “What are you talking about?” She sits at our table and pours out a bowl of soup from the pot without asking. She begins to eat, every movement sensuous and feminine. The spoon to her full lips, the tip of her tongue snaking out to taste the soup that Diyah’s cooked. “Oh, this is too sour,”

  Diyah laughs good-naturedly. “Put it back, then.”

  “No, now I’m eating it.”

  It’s easy to chafe each other in the Panah. Seeing each other for hours and days on end, the closeness breeds an impatience we can’t help display from time to time, rolling our eyes at each other’s stories, finishing each other’s sentences. I feel so much for Rupa, who chose me out of all the others to share her secrets with, but there are still moments when she truly irritates me.

  “You were talking about something. What was it?”

  “A dance,” says Diyah, returning to the table and sitting next to Rupa. “I was just showing her an old dance. From Bollywood. My grandmother’s time.”

  Rupa glances at me, flashing a saucy smile. “Sabine’s not very good at dancing.”

  “Oh, please, Rupa.” I mop up some of the broth with a piece of flatbread. If my mouth is busy I won’t respond to her, which always turns out better for me.

  “I like to dance,” Diyah says, “even if I’m no good at it. It’s a relief not to have to be good at everything.”

  “Maybe your Clients would like it,” says Rupa.

  Diyah tries to sound serious as she admonishes Rupa. “I’m not there to dance for them. They can go downtown and find the dancing bots if that’s what they’re looking for.”

  Rupa reaches out for a piece of bread and pops it casually in her mouth. She chews, swallows, finishes. “Girls who dance well are the best at sex. That’s what one of my Clients told me.”

  Diyah clicks her teeth, and my insides tighten unpleasantly, as if someone’s reaching in and wringing them like wet washing. Really, this is too much, even for Rupa. “Don’t talk like that, Rupa,” I say.

  Rupa winks at me, expecting a response, the diamond in her nose glinting, her nostrils flaring slightly. She’s extraordinarily beautiful with something animal and capricious about her. She’s selfish, too, a captive to her own needs and wants.

  “You’re so prissy, Sabine. You probably would have made a perfect Wife. No frolic, just work. All those procreation charts would probably make you so happy. Look whose ovaries have the most eggs!”

  I shake my head, hoping that Diyah will catch my glance. Rupa’s in one of her tempers again today; it’s best not to engage her when she’s spoiling for an argument. I’ve never spoken to Diyah about Rupa, but I know that what Rupa went through before coming here has loosened something inside her, unleashed a false bravado in her, a flag she needs to wave at us—challenge and recklessness hiding the fear beneath. And the anger. Always there. Here, in the Panah, and only here, is where she feels safe enough to show it. With us. To us. It’s exhausting, but my heart breaks for her all the same. She has a wound that never heals.

  “I’m happy where I am, Rupa,” I say.

  Inexplicably, tears spring to her eyes, two patches of wet dark velvet fringed by thick eyelashes. She cried like this when she told me how she came to the Panah, in the first few days after her arrival. I think I fell in love with her a little bit then, or at least I understood how a Client might desire her in a way very differently than how he sees me. Nobody could resist Rupa in any of her moods. Her girlish tantrums would provoke any man into making w
ild promises, oaths of devotion, utterances of love. The illusion that she isn’t strong enough to resist comes off her in waves. And that’s what makes her, in turn, irresistible to those men, no matter how powerful they think themselves in life.

  “Happy where you are? What a good little Wife you’d have made. I bet you’ve memorized the entire Handbook. Do you kiss it goodnight before you go to sleep at night?” I say nothing. She’s like an angry child, talking nonsense. I know she doesn’t mean it. I must not let her words cut me open.

  She’s said before that I lack the urges and feelings of a normal woman. They probably all believe it—Mariya, Su-yin, Diyah, maybe even Lin. And maybe Rupa is right. If I have those urges, I’ve never felt them; they’re buried in me. Perhaps I’ll never learn how to feel, how to be a woman, how to surrender. Whom do I tell that I never feel anything beneath my waist, though? Apart from the usual aches and pains of menstruation, or the occasional morning when I wake up stinging or hurting, chafed by the cups we use for our flows, I don’t really know what sexual desire feels like. That part of me is no more special or different than my arm or my nose. I almost feel, sometimes, as if I just want to erase it. Is that really my fault though? The way they trained us in Green City, to only think of sex as a means to repopulate a broken city, why would I long for physical contact? The idea of it fills me with misgiving.

  I’ve come close to feeling desired, of course, in a Client’s bed at night. But it’s not about his face or his body, or how he looks at me. I don’t spend as much time preening in front of the mirror as Rupa does, imagining how my breasts or my hair arouses his astonishment. When I’m with a Client, there’s a moment where we switch roles: I become powerful and he grows vulnerable. My presence leads to his eventual emotional surrender; it’s a far more dangerous transaction for him than me. It’s my own decisiveness, not a Client’s desire, that turns me on. Rupa, operating on the level of the body only, can’t understand it. I’ve never told her how I feel. Rupa is too volatile to trust with my secrets.