Perfect

by Cecelia Ahern

  “Raphael,” I say, hearing the tremor in my voice.

  “Fish guts,” he says too quickly. “They use these warehouses to gut and pack fish.”

  I’d like to believe that’s what’s happening in there now, but I don’t.

  Raphael’s door opens and a Whistleblower orders him out. We barely even get to say good-bye, he just yells, “Good luck, kiddo,” before the door slams.

  Then mine opens and I’m taken outside. I’m accompanied on either side by two Whistleblowers. Raphael is taken to another Whistleblower car, to be brought to Highland Castle.

  The door slides open on the warehouse. The entrance has a security X-ray machine that I pass through safely, an ID machine that identifies me immediately. Men are taken right; women are taken left. I want to retch from the smell of fish in the building. As I’m entering the women’s quarters, another worker appears, her apron covered in red, like she’s just butchered a body. Our eyes meet and her eyes soften.

  “Sorry,” she says softly, and hurries on to meet a friend, another worker in a bloodied apron, as if they’re late for something.

  I step into the women’s quarters and I’m faced with hell.

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE, my fellow Flawed women, turn to look at me. Some cheer, some come to me and shake my hand, pat me wherever they can reach me. One woman cries because she believes I can rescue her; another cries because my capture means that now all hope is lost.

  I look around the warehouse and take in the scene. It is indeed a fish-processing facility, where fish are taken in fresh from the boats, gutted, and sent to the local market and businesses. Long lines of what look like rectangular sinks fill the space so that employees can work in a comfortable standing position. The floor is made of light clay tiles, for easy cleaning, and sloped so that the blood can easily flow to the drainage outlets. Why are we here? My imagination works overtime and the scene makes me shudder.

  In the crowd I see one familiar face. A blond girl. I know her from a photograph I was given recently by her boyfriend, Leonard.

  “Lizzie?” I ask.

  She looks up at me, confused.

  “Celestine North? How do you know me?”

  “From your boyfriend, Leonard. He’s looking for you. He always knew you were Flawed. He helped me. I promised him I’d try to find you.”

  She stands up, confused. “But Bahee told me that Leonard found out I was Flawed. That he didn’t want anything to do with me. He told me I had to leave. That I’d put them all in danger. I didn’t want to go, but he made me.”

  I shake my head. “Bahee was lying all along, to a lot of people. Leonard loves you; he’s been looking for you since you left.”

  “Oh.” Her eyes open in surprise at probably the best thing to have happened to her in the weeks since Bahee dumped her in the worst part of town. She smiles. “Thank you.”

  “He rescued me from the Whistleblowers; he’s a good person,” I say.

  A whistle is blown and everyone is silenced.

  A projector lights up on the warehouse wall.

  Flawed TV. Many groan to show their discontent and disapproval.

  “We have Judge Crevan live on Flawed TV to tell us what’s happening today,” Pia Wang’s replacement says, bubbly, like she’s on an entertainment channel.

  Crevan appears on-screen, sitting in a brown leather armchair in the Guild study, wearing his red robe. “It is the fortieth anniversary of the Guild, which my grandfather founded. I feel we have come a long way since then. If we can cast our minds back to the state of the country then, politically and economically, and the pandemonium which emerged from the careless, ruthless decisions for our leaders and then look at where we are now …

  “We are on our way to becoming almost cleansed of all Flaws, of irrational, immoral, unethical, and downright irresponsible decisions. Our businesses are led with competence; we are recognized on the world stage as a country that is trustworthy, and one to do business with.

  “Recently there have been a series of riots in the city and across small towns in the country; we appear to be losing our way, losing our focus. Today is a day to refocus. Today there will be a display of those we are protecting our society from. A parade of the poisonous few who do not think and act like us. Of course we love our family members—branding them does not make us love them less, but it helps us, sends a signal to the rest of the world that we are an organized, decent society.”

  He looks straight down the camera lens, his blue eyes searing into all of us. “What you will see today is the reason why the Guild is in place. The people you will see are the population that you will join if you do not wish to live in our organized, decent society. I invite—I implore the public to get outside, line the streets, and support us.”

  The picture disappears and all the women in the warehouse immediately start talking, debating, some keeping their cool, but mostly an air of panic is rising.

  A whistle blows and it needs to be blown four times before the chatter dies.

  A head Whistleblower stands above the rest and yells, “Flawed! Take off your clothes and dress in the outfits laid out in the piles at the top of the room. Do it without questions, and do it now!”

  I stand on tiptoe to see what’s at the top of the room. I see red items; some look tie-dyed, as though they’ve been just stained, and suddenly the women I saw outside with the red stains on their white aprons make sense to me. They’ve been dying clothes red—red for Flawed.

  At first the movement is slow. Women discuss it among themselves, before slowly shuffling up the sloped floor to the displayed clothes, but it’s when there’s a realization that the amount of each size is limited that everyone starts grabbing, some pushing others aside to fight for the red rags.

  Small, medium, large, extra-large. An old woman beside me whimpers. I go to the table, grab an extra-large for her, hoping that that size will be enough for her. There are no other small sizes left. A woman to my left hands me hers and reaches for the medium pile.

  “Thank you,” I say, confused.

  Nobody tackles me, to my surprise. The old woman accepts the extra-large I hand to her, in tears.

  When I shake the garment out from its crumpled pile and hold it up before me, I am appalled, as is everyone else, judging by the howls and the shrieks and the shouts. It’s a red string slip that leaves little to the imagination.

  “I’m not wearing this,” a woman shouts. “I am not wearing this.”

  The line quickly works its way across the crowd until everybody agrees to take the same stance, some confidently, some timidly, and the red slips are thrown to the floor of the warehouse.

  A group of Whistleblowers make their way to the woman who began the protest. “By order of the Guild you must put on these clothes.”

  Everyone quiets down to watch.

  The woman picks up the slip and then tosses it on the floor at the Whistleblowers’ feet.

  There’s a pause, then the baton is whipped out and it takes the woman down by the backs of her legs. She falls forward and bangs her face; her lip bursts open, blood gushing, and she yells out in pain. This causes two things to happen. Some women retreat and immediately dress, others attack. I’m away from it all, at the back of the circle, stunned, terrified by what is happening. We are crammed in here, being treated like animals.

  Suddenly the Whistleblowers start whistling. We look around at one another, confused. They’re not asking for silence, they’re whistling as if they’ve caught somebody. But everybody here is Flawed and so we look around in confusion—can a Flawed be caught twice? It would be unheard of.

  Most of the Whistleblowers leave their stations as if it has already been rehearsed, blowing their whistles and pushing through the crowd of Flawed. Instead of surrounding a Flawed woman, they stop at a Whistleblower, who is looking around at them, terrified. She is completely surrounded by her colleagues. The sounds of the whistles are so loud in the echoey warehouse that she and all o
f us have to block our ears. They gather around her, huddle around her in a circle, and start prodding their fellow Whistleblower with their batons. And they’re not joking, either.

  “Take your clothes off, Karen.”

  “It’s an insult for someone like you to wear our uniform. Get it off,” another one yells.

  “You know what you did, Karen,” one jeers.

  “We heard what you did,” another sings.

  They continue to heckle her, poking her, prodding her, until she screams at them all to stop. She screams for help, but none of us do. Moments ago she was forcing us to remove our clothes, and now she is suffering at the hands of her colleagues, a punishment for something she did that we’ll never know of. A mistake at work? Something in her personal life? Whatever it is, they know, they found out. Karen is not safe. They planned this attack on her, even worse for her this way because she’s been taken down in front of hundreds of Flawed.

  The Whistleblowers push her to the floor and start to remove her clothes, through much kicking and yelling. They succeed in removing the uniform and putting the slip over her head. She tries to get her uniform back, but it’s useless. She can’t get out of the warehouse: They won’t let her out; it’s locked and she’s trapped among us now. She is completely powerless, just like the rest of us. She retreats from all of us, to the corner to cry.

  This stops any further fights from breaking out for a moment. I move to the wall, back against it so that no one can see my sixth scar, and I dress in the red slip. I’m looking down at myself, feeling the emotion bubbling up inside me, when a scrap starts between two women on the far side of the room and brings me out of my self-pity. It sounds vicious, and they start lashing out at each other.

  “She took my slip!” one shrieks.

  “I did not,” another snarls. “I had it first. I put it down for a second, and you grabbed it!”

  People stand by uncertainly, not wanting to get involved. I look at the Whistleblowers and see the lead Whistleblower laugh, the delight on her face is obvious, and I literally see red. I charge through the crowd, push through the women standing around the fight, and launch myself at the two women fighting. I pull them apart and break them up immediately. They’re bigger than me, older than me, stronger and tougher than me. They look at me in surprise.

  “They. Are. Laughing. At. Us,” I say. I meant to whisper it so the Whistleblowers couldn’t hear, but instead it comes out as an angry menacing hiss.

  One woman isn’t listening to me, still ranting about the dress, but I have the attention of the other. She looks at the Whistleblowers, sees a group of them chuckling together at us arguing over scraps of clothes. Her fists clench.

  “Do you want them to laugh at us?”

  She shakes her head.

  “You are giving them exactly what they want,” I say, feeling the anger surging through me.

  “You’re Celestine North,” the woman says.

  This grabs the attention of the larger woman, who finally turns to me.

  “But this,” the bigger woman growls, clenching her hand around the slip, “doesn’t fit me. It fits her.”

  “It’s too tight, you can see what I ate for breakfast.”

  “This thing won’t even go over my head. And that is two sizes too big for you. Use your common sense!”

  “Tough! I got it first!”

  The Whistleblowers have a right old giggle again at the argument over the dismal scraps of material, the only things to hide our modesty. The arguing women glare at them, argument paused. I sense their rage. Now they’re on the same side.

  “Work together.” I keep my voice low.

  “No whispering, North!” the lead Whistleblower yells, stepping closer.

  I ignore her, keeping my voice low. “The minute they put us in this room together, we became friends. We are all on the same side in here. We are against them, not one another.”

  I take the slip from the bigger woman’s hands. “Look, stretch the fabric like this.” I put my arms into the slip and widen my arms, the cotton stretching. Then I lift my knee and push it with my knee, stretching it further. The red turns a pinkish color as the fabric stretches. I hand it to the leaner woman. “Give her the bigger size.”

  She thinks about it, then sighs and hands over the larger slip. They look at the slips in their hands, like two petulant children.

  “Now, smile.” I lighten my tone.

  “What?” They look at me in confusion.

  “Smile,” I say perkily, through gritted teeth.

  They attempt to smile.

  “Chins up, let’s get through this with some dignity.”

  They lift their chins, and it has the effect of working its way through the crowd. Our show of togetherness wipes the smirks off the Whistleblowers’ faces.

  The Whistleblowers blow their whistles so loudly, together, that we have to block our ears. We’re moved like cattle into a series of single files, broken up only by the long fish-gutting tables. I stand behind Lizzie. Even Whistleblower Karen must embark on the next journey, whatever that is, and she knows what’s coming and looks pale, lost, as though she’s going to vomit.

  The old lady continues to cry in the line beside me. She stands in her tight red slip, stripped of all her modesty, her pride, her aged flesh sagging, her varicose veins on display. Bodies burst out of the slips, boobs too big, butts and hips straining the fabric. Others are too tiny, having to pull up the strings and tie bows at the top to protect their bodies. All of our shapes are on show. A girl who looks younger than sixteen but can’t be, due to Flawed rules, tries to hide her changing body with her hands and arms, red-faced.

  As women, we dress to please ourselves, to hide our imperfections, to accentuate our best features. Our clothing is an extension of who we are, a reflection of what we are thinking and feeling. This is ripped from us now, we are laid practically bare, all the parts of us, the parts we want to hide, the parts we are ashamed of, or the versions of ourselves we don’t want anybody to see. And even if anybody isn’t self-conscious of their bodies, the wearing of a uniform is simply demeaning. They have stripped us of our individuality, our uniqueness. They have told us we are not to be differentiated, we do not matter, we are insignificant. We are just numbers, a weakened army of imperfections.

  And we all wonder the same thing: What is this in aid of? What’s going to happen next?

  We’re each handed a pair of flip-flops, the soles so thin I can still feel the cold of the clay tiles through them once I put them on. The lead Whistleblower patrols the line, inspecting us. She stops at me, looks me up and down, with a face like she’s smelling raw sewage.

  “You. Celestine North. You like to play at being a leader, don’t you?”

  I don’t answer.

  “Well, now’s your time to shine,” she says nastily. “Front of the line.”

  I walk through the single files, all eyes on me.

  “Go on, Celestine,” one woman says.

  Another person claps, like they’re gearing me up for something, like I’m about to walk into a boxing ring. I feel pats on my shoulder, on my back, receive encouraging winks and nervous smiles. The entire room starts to support me, and I feel the tears come to my eyes, tears of appreciation and pride to be so propped up.

  The Whistleblowers blow their whistles to stop the rising support, which the lead Whistleblower hadn’t counted on. I take my place in the front of my single file. We will be the first line to move, and I will be the first in line, though I don’t know where we’re going.

  The warehouse door slides open and light fills the space, and we’re told to walk.

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  AT EXACTLY THE same time as we exit, the men exit their quarters beside us. They wear red tank tops and boxer shorts. From the look of some fresh bleeding noses and shiners it’s clear their uprising was lost, too. Some women start to cry as they see the men. Some men start to cry, and others look away out of respect, when they see us.

  The
man who leads the Flawed line looks at me and curses when he sees what we have to wear. The male lead Whistleblower immediately clatters him across the head, which silences him. We meet in the middle and are ordered to walk alongside each other. I lead the women; he leads the men. I wonder what he’s done to be picked to go first; I’m sure men weren’t fighting over their boxer shorts. I scan the men’s line to see if I can find any familiar faces, but a whistle is blown loudly in my face, signaling that I must keep my head straight.

  “You’re Celestine North?” the man beside me asks, lips not moving.

  “Yes.”

  “What’s going on here?”

  I look around. “I don’t know.”

  “Well, I hope you have a plan of some sort,” he says.

  We step onto the docklands and the streets are lined with people, members of the public who have come out from their houses and workplaces to see the Flawed parade through the streets. The walk of shame. The walk of blame. Dotted along the sidewalks are Whistleblowers dressed in their riot gear, shields in their hands.

  We are in the old part of the town. On the other side of the river is the urban, vibrant, modern city, which rises from the once-derelict docklands. On this side, the old cobblestoned roads have been maintained, home to the market traders, wholesale and retail, from fruit and vegetables to meat and fish—a thriving, busy, colorful world filled with people and life. And so this is where we begin our journey, from the warehouses, past the stallholders in the market, and I feel it’s fitting. I feel like cattle about to be traded, sold, gawked at, and valued.

  Then the laneways widen and bring us by cafés and restaurants, stories of apartments above, people out on their balconies, watching us with steaming cups in their hands. The cobblestones are difficult to walk over in our flimsy flip-flops, and more than once I stub my toe on the sharp edges of the pitched paving and am not alone in stumbling. A few people fall to the ground, cutting their knees, and are helped up by their fellow Flawed.