Twelve Days

by Steven Barnes

  I saw it … so that civilians like you don’t have to.

  “Olympia,” he said.

  His voice was friendly-neutral, but she sensed that it required enormous effort to keep it in check.

  Holding back what? Or was that just more wishful thinking?

  “Terry,” she replied. A game. Tit for tat. Childish, fun, sad in an odd way. She received an answering nod in return. Olympia accelerated away before she could embarrass herself.

  * * *

  In the backseat, Nicki tickled and teased Hannibal, who was lashed into his safety restraint. Georgia law did not require an eight-year-old to use a booster seat, but Hani was small for his age and she had no wish to give any Smyrna cop an excuse to pull her over.

  As she waited in Shiloh’s drop-off queue, Olympia watched through the rearview mirror, disliking the flash of jealousy she felt when Hannibal whispered in his sister’s ear.

  Some of the time she was sure that the whispers were nonsense, perhaps a favorite poem like “Jabberwocky” or “Eletelephony” or G. Nolste Trinité’s classic “The Chaos”:

  Dearest creature in creation

  Study English pronunciation.

  I will teach you in my verse

  Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse …

  Hani loved the tongue-twisting rhymes. They calmed and thrilled him. Nicki wouldn’t give a clue as to which of their favorites she was engaged in, claiming secrecy was part of a deal she’d made with her brother. But at times she was certain that they actually talked to each other, in a way that he never did with her, or so far as she knew, anyone else in the entire world.

  Nicki adored her brother, smothered him in a cocoon of hugs and kisses. He seemed to be more receptive to Nicki’s affections than her own. His hand slipped reluctantly out of his sister’s as she opened the rear passenger door, blew Mom a kiss, and sprinted off.

  Jealousy is a thing of small parts and intimate imaginings. Instantly, Olympia was ashamed of herself and grateful to her daughter for providing a bit of the stability they might have enjoyed in another, better life. Her daughter ran lightly along the line of cars, long dark braids bouncing on her shoulders, graceful as a gazelle. As she vanished into the school, Olympia felt her heart surge with love so powerful it was like being tumbled by a wave. Her vision wavered, and she wiped the back of her hand across her eyes before continuing on.

  The Golden Dream community center was another five minutes away through commuter traffic, tucked in the back of a shopping complex dominated by a Best Buy electronics superstore and a Wells Fargo bank. She passed two ethnic eateries, a sports uniform shop, a dry cleaner, and a storefront called Caskets ‘n’ More. On numerous occasions her reporter’s instinct had prodded her to investigate, but she had never quite managed to do so.

  She pulled her three-year-old silver Kia Soul into a space between a brown station wagon and a white Mercedes SUV plastered with a faded OBAMA bumper sticker glued down over an even more faded HILLARY FOR PRESIDENT banner. Hani didn’t need to be coaxed from the car, thank God. He loved this place. Somehow it lured him “out of himself” more than any other school ever had.

  Crackling techno-pop music bounced across the parking lot as they approached, hand in hand. The center hosted classes on dance, yoga, and martial arts, as well as—miracle of miracles—a licensed K through sixth grade private school with a sliding payment scale. She knew that the center was one of many Golden Dream centers in a dozen countries, and one of … nine, she thought. Yes, nine. Nine in the continental United States. Olympia knew that they believed in a “common thread” of spiritual truth running through all world religions. And also, thank God, in something called neurodiversity. They accepted everyone.

  She’d fallen in love with the center the moment she’d walked through the door. Maria Cortez, a blogger who worked with her at CNS, had first mentioned the Golden Dream centers, in connection with a story about fringe spiritual groups in the Bible Belt.

  Whatever their beliefs, they didn’t try to proselytize, and despite their robes and blissful smiles seemed pretty harmless.

  It sounded too good to be true—an affordable, state-accredited private school that didn’t stigmatize kids like Hannibal. When she’d first walked through the door Olympia had been joyously bombarded with the sights and sounds of happy children bounding and kicking and tumbling and twisting like little circus acrobats. From the first moment, Hannibal had been transfixed. And that was all she’d needed to see.

  After talking to the director she went to the back room and saw kids hooked to LCD video screens by sensor bands attached to foreheads and fingertips.

  Her first question of course, had been: what is all of this? The reply had been like a double espresso on a cold morning: the Golden Dream was testing children, and they reassured her that unlike the world in general, or even her own family, they hadn’t the slightest inclination to hold her responsible for Hani’s condition.

  The number of children diagnosed with autism and ADD was skyrocketing, but Olympia was assured this was primarily due to improved diagnostic procedures, not an increase in the number of such children per thousand. Attention deficit disorder was a mental issue, and could be likened to conflicting computer programs causing crashes and slowdowns of a CPU. But the autism spectrum was a matter of external communication. A problem in social interaction. More like a breakdown between the CPU and the monitor or speakers or camera. Perhaps Hani’s internal world was simply more interesting to him, with outsiders reduced to no more than unwelcome intrusions.

  Thank God the Golden Dream center had welcomed her son, and had immediately done everything possible to provide him with a happy, healthy space. The space was cavernous, large enough to hold two RadioShacks and a Tastee-Freez. She wondered if the recession had had at least one blessing associated with it: making a resource like this affordable on a single mother’s budget. The front room was jigsaw-matted front to back, with a narrow walkway around the edges leading back to a door in a pastel-blue wall. The walls were arrayed with weapons and odd pointy tools, as well as framed photos, posters, and drawings, many obviously by the students themselves.

  One of the instructors, a slender man with broad shoulders and a flat stomach, was totally engaged with a chunky kid whaling on a heavy bag with clumsy, enthusiastically swivel-hipped tae kwon do kicks.

  “That’s it,” the instructor said. “Fade back, get your distance. There’s a sweet spot in every technique. Have to figure your timing and…” He suddenly noticed her, snapping his head around. “Ms. Dorsey!”

  “Yes?” Olympia asked.

  “Your group is meeting in room B.” His high, pale forehead glistened with perspiration, as if he had been demonstrating a moment before she walked in. He pointed toward a door at the room’s far end.

  Unable to remember his name, she nodded a generic thanks. Pass through the door and you entered a maze of cubicle classrooms, each aswirl with its own joyous frenzy, some teaching language arts, some math on computer-linked Smart Boards, and others practicing various gymnastics or dance drills.

  Hand clasping hand, mother and son entered a tiled hall, and continued on past three more doors. Through the door’s window, Olympia could spy on adults chanting and stretching as instructors in gold-fringed uniforms paced between their rows. The third door opened to a smaller martial arts room, where six children were tying themselves into pretzels.

  Releasing her hand, Hani giggled, then howled with laughter and scrambled into a series of rolls and leaps over and around a carefully designed obstacle course constructed of blue matting. All of this was observed and guided by the head instructor, a shaven-headed, smooth-skinned Asian named Mr. Ling.

  “I still have a hard time understanding why you provide so much service to your students.” Ling could have been anywhere between thirty and sixty. She smiled to herself: the “black don’t crack” axiom was nothing compared to some of the Chinese or Vietnamese she had known. “Only six of them … you can�
�t be making much money.”

  Ling smiled. “Not everything is about money, ma’am.”

  “No,” Olympia said. “Not everything. Nice to hear someone say that.”

  “It is good to find mutual needs satisfied, ma’am.” Ling’s voice, fractional bow, and patient expression possessed a pleasant combination of Asian formality and Southern gentility. “We have ancient methods for healing and strengthening mind and body, but westerners are quite pragmatic. We believe what we can see. Our task is to demonstrate the value of our methods.”

  “Well, Hannibal loves it here.”

  “I assure you, the feeling is mutual.” Ling sighed with what seemed deep satisfaction. “For most of these children, we’re using rhythmic entrainment, bilateral motion to stimulate cognitive development, teaching them to focus … everything we’ve spoken of…”

  “But?”

  Ling consider for a moment. “But we may be moving Hannibal from this group.”

  Her stomach clinched. She realized she was bracing for the talk that would shake her from her denial that Hannibal could thrive anywhere. Ever. “Why?”

  “We’ve completed his tests, ma’am.”

  She froze. Then whispered: “I think that he’s had enough tests, thank you.” A firestorm erupted in her gut. I thought you people were less judgmental …

  Ling touched her arm gently. “No, you don’t understand. We’re not criticizing Hannibal. Just the opposite. We think he is … extraordinary.”

  Despite his soothing tones, something inside her bared its teeth. “He’s been called ‘special’ before.”

  “Have you ever heard the term ‘indigo child’?”

  She gnawed at her lower lip. “No…”

  Ling smiled again. “The world is a living thing, ma’am. And it responds to challenges, just as nature evolves new species when the environment changes. We believe that children like Hannibal are part of that response. They are … special. And we will eventually learn how to nurture their new abilities.”

  Despite her initial chill, she found her interest piqued. “How?”

  “We have a center north of here,” he said, “in the mountains. Very lovely.” He clapped his hands, as if delighted by a sudden thought. “You should go! I’ve spoken with our head instructor about it.”

  “About this class?” Olympia asked.

  “About your son. Some children need to focus—that seems to be the issue with ADD. But we believe autistic children are focusing just fine.” He grinned. “But not upon the things we wish they’d focus on. Much of the theory suggests that they are unresponsive. We believe that, to the contrary, they are too responsive, too sensitive, and in essence learn to trip a mental ‘circuit breaker’ to disengage with that intensity. They retreat to a safe place where the input can be managed. Hannibal has tested highly on some special measurements we have devised. Madame has already heard of these results, and is very interested.”

  “Who?” she asked. “Madame?”

  “Madame Gupta.” His eyes widened with evangelical fervor. “Our guru and inspiration. You’ll be able to speak with her yourself. She’s coming here for a demonstration.”

  “Martial arts? A woman?” Her memory scanned back over the poster-heavy walls, recalling a framed photo of a bronze-skinned, fierce, smiling Amazon in overlapping meditative and martial poses. Very, very feminine features, her fierceness unlike some of the macho MMA women she’d seen, virtually men with breasts. This was different, someone who looked as deadly as a leopard, but still every inch a woman. Her African blood was clear but there was something else, something more exotic. South Asian? Sri Lankan? At first Olympia had found the apparent contrast between femininity and warrior aspect puzzling, but in time it had simply faded into the background.

  Could that be the “Madame” he referred to?

  Ling smiled. “It is either a new world, or a very old one. Some of the greatest masters were women. But the martial arts are the merest splinter of her skills.” A sudden thought brightened him. “You are encouraged to invite a friend, if you know someone interested in such things. The demonstration is rare, and not open to the public … but each member, or parent, can bring one guest. Hannibal’s father, perhaps?”

  “I’m a widow,” she said, too quickly.

  “I’m sorry,” Ling said, chagrined by his faux pas.

  She paused. She did know someone interested in such things, didn’t she? Wouldn’t it be a neighborly gesture to …

  Damn, who was she kidding? “There may be … someone else,” she blurted out. “A friend.”

  “Well.” Ling’s smile returned. “Why not bring him. Her?”

  “Him.”

  Ling gave a shallow, apologetic bow. “Political correctness in the twenty-first century. Whichever it is. You would both be welcome.” Ling seemed to read her mood. “And Hannibal, of course. By all means, please bring him.”

  He looked over at her son, who was already playing with a set of blocks. And … constructing another building, perhaps thinking of the two-dimensional one at home.

  Was that a better world he was assembling, one saw-edged block at a time? A happier, healthier world? She wished she knew, and simultaneously dreaded the answer, whatever it might be.

  CHAPTER 4

  Hannibal dreamed, awake …

  A thousand rooms, a hundred halls. It was his, all his, and everything within it was the result of his daily efforts. He couldn’t remember when he had begun the Game. There may not have been a beginning. It might have always been under construction. And that meant it might never end, and that was good, because it was the safe place, the happy place.

  Hannibal was alone, as he had always been alone in here, which was good. That was safe. Alone, there was no one to leave you. No one to tell you what to do (which he often just ignored, anyway).

  In the Game, there was nothing but learning and playing and remembering.

  Every room had exactly ten objects in it: here, a yellow Pikachu statue, a Michael Jackson poster, a miniature blue electric guitar, a stuffed piranha fish, an Ultimate Spider-Man graphic novel, a DVD of a movie about a Saint Bernard, a bottle of dried watermelon seeds, a blank slate, a pink wig, and a Christmas card from an imaginary friend. Every object bristled with ten hooks. Every corridor had ten rooms. Every wing had ten floors. Every floor had ten corridors.

  Every day things happened, opportunities to learn, and he remembered everything, everything, and stored them all in their places. Nicki’s morning kiss on a branch of a Christmas tree, next to a gymnastics cartwheel learned yesterday. A SpongeBob joke about pancakes reflected in an ornament next to a crazy slide Pax did across a waxed floor. Funny! If there was something unusually interesting, or something that he needed to know, he could return to it later, find the wing and floor and corridor and room and object on which he had placed the memory, and experience it once again.

  He could not share this with Mommy. Wished he could share it with Nicki. Nicki, a warm and loving shape, a happy smile and adoring eyes, strong arms holding him close. His very first memory, the foundation on which all others rested.

  Her smile was so strong, like looking into the sun, that he could not long withstand its focus, had to look away.

  Touch had grown almost as bad. It felt as if he had no flesh, no bones, only raw bundles of nerves. He heard the way the doctors talked about him. They used phrases like “theory of mind,” which seemed to mean that he saw other people as costumes, as bags of skin with nothing inside them. They said it right in front of him, as if he weren’t there, talked about how he didn’t understand people, couldn’t understand how they felt.

  It made him want to laugh and cry, but he was afraid that if he started, he would be unable to stop. They thought he understood and felt too little. The opposite was true. Everything threatened to overwhelm him, and he needed a place to be safe.

  That was the Game.

  Always he had been alone there, but lately, he had begun to wonder if that was still tr
ue. There were signs, small signs, that something in the Game was changing. It was most obvious in certain dreams. When he slept most deeply, so deeply that he had trouble awakening in the morning. In those times, he walked the Game and fell into memories of curling on the couch watching Phineas and Ferb and Power Rangers, or splashing in the pool with Nicki, or riding their neighbors’ Great Dane, Pax. He was almost too big to do that now. Pax chuffed and labored but still put up with him, so it was all good.

  A few times, potted plants had appeared in the halls, plants he could not remember placing. And through the windows (he almost never peered out the windows. He didn’t care what was out there) odd trees had become visible. Palm trees, things that might grow in Florida.

  Or Africa.

  The last time Hannibal played, he had seen his daddy standing at the end of a corridor. Handsome Daddy, still wearing his paramedic’s uniform, still waving and smiling at the son he loved. That was normal, and had happened many times.

  But this was different. In the eighth room on the seventh floor of the third wing, a teddy bear sat on a white wooden chair. And on the third of ten hooks on that bear’s belt, there was a memory of the time he and Nicki and Mom and Dad had seen Finding Nemo. He could go into the bear, and inside it were rooms, and floors, and hooks, and in the totality lived every image, every word of every moment of that movie. He could play them forward and backward, take them to the big television room and watch them, surrounded by his toys, and all the friends he had never had.

  But the last time he was there, a leafy green shrub of some kind was growing through the floor, like a sprig of grass pushing up through a concrete sidewalk. That wasn’t the only strangeness: a little girl had slipped in as well. He did not recognize her. Had never seen her before. She was darker than he, but a little strange, her face thin. Pretty. She sat watching the movie. Something about her posture made him think she was very sad, but she turned and smiled at him.