Let Us Be True

by Alex Christofi

  ‘It’s like we’re not Americans any more,’ was how Herb put it. ‘It’s like we’re Mexicans or Haitians or something.’

  But that was Superstorm Simon. We came from his country now. We weren’t Americans, we were just storm people. We were outsiders trying to get in.

  The only time that whole day that anyone made us feel like we might be welcomed anywhere was when Senator Slaymaker came down. He was walking down the line of cars and trucks, talking to the people. He shook hands with me and Herb – we were sitting on a barrier by the roadside, swapping stories with some of the other folk – and he asked how we were doing and what our plans were. And then he walked over to our truck, and leant in to say hi to Carl and Copeland. You felt like he’d really seen you, you know? You felt like he’d really listened.

  But then he was gone and it was back to waiting, and listening to that woman wail. Apparently she lost a kid to the storm.

  CHAPTER 7

  ‘I guess you can’t be picking and choosing all the time, Holly,’ said Holly and Richard’s journalist friend Mariana, ‘but I mean Senator Slaymaker! Are you really sure you feel comfortable working for a guy like that?’

  Holly was seated next to Richard on one of the long sides of an oval table of pale polished wood. Opposite her sat her artist friend Ruby, and Ossia, the ballet dancer who was Ruby’s partner: the two of them on a trip south from Canada. At each end of the table were their hosts, Sergio and Mariana. The room around them was smooth, clean, pale, softly lit. They’d all just finished eating. The picture wall was unfolding a complex and semi-abstract work by a fashionable video artist.

  ‘I feel totally comfortable,’ Holly said, laying her napkin down as she looked straight at Mariana with bright, fierce, dangerously friendly eyes. She was not going to flinch. She was not going to allow anyone to imagine, even for one second, that she was not completely at ease with her own conscience. ‘Totally comfortable. I mean, we were talking earlier on about Governor Hendricks’ proposal to close off the Alaska border to the storm people. Well, Slaymaker’s taking a stand against that.’

  ‘So is the president, Holly,’ Sergio pointed out. He was an electronics engineer who specialized in the arrays of synthetic neurons that housed the new generation of AIs. ‘The president all of us here voted for. So why doesn’t Slaymaker support her, instead of undermining her every times he gets the chance?’

  Holly turned her brilliant gaze to him. ‘He doesn’t agree with her approach. He thinks it’s short-sighted. That it isn’t a—’

  ‘It’s a real shame,’ interrupted Ossia the dancer, ‘that Slaymaker has never shown the same concern about truly desperate people from outside of America as he suddenly seems to feel about the storm people.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Mariana. ‘And after all, it’s the people outside of America who need the help most. I mean, I know it’s really terrible for our storm people, but at least there’s some kind of safety net for them. At least they aren’t going to starve.’

  ‘What was that awful thing Slaymaker said about the famine in Mexico?’ asked Ruby.

  Holly’s eyes darted from one to the other of them. She hadn’t known Ossia for very long, but the others were old friends. Big, loose-limbed Ruby in particular she thought of as someone she really loved. She’d known her since her New York days and considered her the first real friend she’d made in America. But right now, for reasons that she didn’t entirely understand, Holly felt a sour contempt for them all.

  ‘Believe me, it’s not just Slaymaker who hasn’t got much time for people outside our borders,’ she said. ‘It’s America. America isn’t in the mood for helping foreigners. America thinks it’s got enough problems of its own. And right now, even—’

  ‘I’m sorry, Holly, but how do you know what “America” is in the mood for?’ demanded Ossia.

  I really don’t like you, Ossia, Holly thought. She’d never really understood why warm, relaxed Ruby was drawn to these bottled-up types. The elegance and gracefulness of Ossia’s movements, which everyone said were so lovely to watch, had always struck her as showy and artificial, as if a poet were never to stoop to ordinary conversation, but insisted on speaking continually in flawless verse.

  ‘I know what America’s in the mood for, Ossia, because I’ve been doing large-scale nationwide cloud polls on this for the whole of last week, along with focus groups and interviews, at Slaymaker’s expense. The overwhelming feeling in this country is that we have enough problems of our own without helping anyone outside, or letting anyone else in. And, like we were discussing earlier, it’s not just foreigners now that people don’t want to help. It’s the barreduras, too. Our own people. What Slaymaker sees is that, if we’re not careful, America will end up breaking into pieces, like India did, and Europe, and China, and Russia.’

  Ossia shrugged. ‘Well, I don’t think we’ve got any right to give up on the rest of the world. Have you seen what’s been happening in North Africa lately? Or Bangladesh? Or Nicaragua?’

  Richard had been poised to mediate between Holly and their friends. ‘We already have given up on the rest of the world, Ossia, I think that’s Holly’s point. We’ve been isolationists going right back to the Tyranny. The only reason America is still a relatively prosperous country is that we keep our population fairly stable, and have enough land and resources to be able to produce most of what we need within our own borders—’

  ‘Barring the minerals we get from our warlord clients in exchange for arms,’ muttered Sergio.

  ‘But we should fight that parochialism,’ said Ossia. ‘I don’t consider myself a citizen of America. I’m a—’

  ‘Well, you aren’t really a citizen of America, honey,’ her partner reminded her, laughing. ‘Or you won’t be much longer, anyway. You’re well on the way to being a citizen of Canada.’

  Ossia pursed her lips. What did Ruby see in her? Holly wondered. ‘I’m not a citizen of any country, that’s my point. I’m a citizen of Earth.’

  ‘I’m not saying you’re wrong, Holly,’ began Mariana. She was someone Holly normally did like, but tonight she was being irritatingly prissy. ‘But if it was me, I’m not sure I could bring myself to work for a man like—’

  ‘What do you actually mean, Ossia,’ Holly interrupted, ignoring Mariana, and turning back to the dancer, ‘when you say you’re a citizen of Earth?’

  ‘I mean that borders are just meaningless lines and have nothing to do with our responsibilities as human beings.’

  ‘None more meaningless than the Forty-ninth Parallel,’ Ruby chuckled, referring to the border that the two of them had crossed earlier that day, and rather obviously trying to move the conversation on to something more cheerful and less intense. ‘The good old Medicine Line. Literally a straight line drawn across a map.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Holly, still addressing Ossia, ‘well, we haven’t visited your new place yet, but I know you and Ruby have bought a large and lovely house, which you’ll fill with lots of lovely expensive things, just like Sergio and Mariana, and just like me and—’

  ‘What in hell has that got to do with it?’

  ‘I mean that, in practice, we all do look after ourselves first: ourselves and those we know and care about.’

  Ruby looked troubled. ‘We’re not perfect, it’s true. We fall short of what we’d ideally like to—’

  ‘But maybe that’s the wrong way to look at it, Ruby. That’s the difference between someone like Slaymaker and delicado types like us. We all look after ourselves first, him and us both, but he’s comfortable with that, he sees that as entirely natural and the way things should be, while we feel guilty about it. Not guilty enough to do anything much about it, mind you, but guilty enough to take the position that we think things should be different, and to find fault with those who disagree.’

  ‘I don’t feel guilty,’ Sergio said, ‘I don’t feel guilty in the slightest.’

  ‘You’re speaking for other people again,’ Ossia said. ‘How do you know what I
feel guilty about?’

  But Holly’s focus had shifted to Ruby. ‘I love you the way you are, Ruby. I don’t want you to feel badly about your good fortune. That’s the problem with people like us. We value empathy, we value sensitivity of any kind, and we’re afraid to own our toughness, our setting of limits, our willingness to go so far but no further. We are tough, we do set limits, we do look after ourselves, just like everyone else does, but for us it’s a dirty secret we don’t talk about. For someone like Slaymaker it’s as natural as breathing. He has limits to what he’s prepared to take responsibility for, and most of them extend no further than the borders.’

  ‘But that makes no sense, ethically!’ Mariana protested. ‘If you think like that—’

  ‘Listen,’ said Holly, and suddenly she was really riled, ‘empathy’s important, yeah, but so are limits to empathy.’ She could sense Richard watching her anxiously, but that just made her angry with him as well. ‘Otherwise no one in the world would ever, ever be happy. Believe me. I grew up in a home where I was expected to empathize deeply with every human being and every living creature on the whole fucking planet. And I tell you, I used to think, Fuck the planet, fuck the people dying in the Copper Wars, fuck the dead whales, how about a little empathy right here? How about a little warmth and happiness for us before we die ourselves?’

  They were all watching her with concerned faces. Oh God, how embarrassing. She’d become upset, she’d allowed one of her demons to get its hands on the controls, and everyone could see it. Richard was squeezing her hand under the table.

  She laughed. ‘Yeah, okay, I’m sorry. My personal history peeking out there. Enough of me. Let’s talk about something else.’

  ‘I do get what you’re saying, though, Holly,’ Ruby said. ‘You’ve got me thinking, actually. The reason we moved to Canada is there’s more space, less poverty and nicer politics. But the reason it’s so is that it has fewer weather problems and a way smaller population. And I guess that’s a lot to do with the fact that Canada’s frontier is every bit as strict as America’s. Ossia and I might complain about those strict borders – we’ve signed petitions, we even went on a demonstration once about letting more people in – but...’

  Holly leant across the table, pulling her hand away from Richard so she could reach out to Ruby instead. ‘I’m not trying to give you things to feel guilty about, Ruby,’ she said. ‘Just the opposite. What I’m saying is, enjoy it! Don’t beat yourself up about it. We’re not going to fix everything. We’re not even going to try. We may as well enjoy what we have.’

  Two hours later, Holly and Richard emerged under a starry sky, to walk the two miles home across the prosperous commuter village of Schofield. Soft streetlight, not much brighter than moonlight. Lamps still glowing here and there behind closed curtains. Two tiny figures walking between little toy houses with miles of atmosphere above them. The air around them soft, mild, scented.

  ‘I made a bit of a fool of myself over Slaymaker there,’ Holly said, slipping her arm through Richard’s. ‘Hope I didn’t embarrass you too much.’

  ‘I wouldn’t say you made a fool of yourself. Mariana was fairly accusatory. I reckon you had a right to defend yourself.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘And it’s true what you said about us as a class. The US and Canada are kind of an island of privilege and wealth in this world but you’re quite right, within that island, the delicado class is an island of privilege itself. It is a bit rich us lecturing other Americans about global justice, or claiming to care more than they do about the wider world.’

  Holly nodded but didn’t answer. They walked for a while in silence through the balmy air. Hard to believe that this same mild, invisible stuff had driven thousands of people out of their homes a matter of days ago.

  ‘I guess what Americans are starting to wake up to,’ Richard said, ‘is our relative good fortune beginning to unravel. We’ve got all this space, all these resources. But slowly, slowly we’re becoming more like the rest of the world. And yeah, I completely get your point. Whatever we might say, whatever some abstract notion of social justice might dictate, the issue isn’t really whether America opens its gates voluntarily to the entire world, because that’s not going to happen, period, any more than you and I are suddenly going to invite a bunch of poor folk off the street to share our nice home. The issue is whether America hangs together or falls apart.’

  They passed a racoon under a lamp-post on the opposite side of the street, gnawing at a bone it had retrieved from someone’s trash, and stopped for a moment to watch it until it sloped off.

  ‘You okay now?’ Richard asked as they continued. ‘About your mom and dad? The old wound was aching a bit there, I could see.’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  It’s NOT a wound, she privately thought. I am NOT wounded. It’s just something from the past that makes me cross. But Richard was trying to be supportive and she didn’t feel like arguing.

  ‘Not all delicados are like your ma and pa, you know, Holly.’

  ‘I know.’

  A little two-person car swished by, its occupants cuddled up together with their backs to the street in front of them, leaning close in to each other, gazing intently into each other’s faces as the car’s AI took them home.

  ‘I’ll tell you what, though,’ Holly said suddenly. ‘Never mind his politics, I would have loved to have someone like Slaymaker for a dad.’

  Richard laughed. ‘More fun than your real dad for sure. Come to think of it, I don’t recall ever hearing anything about Slaymaker’s kids.’

  ‘He hasn’t got any.’

  ‘Ah well, that explains it.’

  Richard glanced down at her. ‘I love you, Holly. You do know that, don’t you? There’s no doubt in my mind that in all the world, you’re the one I care most about.’

  Holly squeezed his arm, pressed herself against him. She knew he was doing his best, the best that anyone could do, to fill up the hunger inside her and it wasn’t his fault that she still felt hungry.

  CHAPTER 8

  Johnson Fleet

  I lived in Idaho back then with my wife Karla and our daughter Jade, but we were both from Brooklyn originally. We moved over to the northwest when Jade was two because we didn’t like the way things were going, with the crime and the floods and everything, and all those new people coming in from all over. New York wasn’t a good place to raise a family any more.

  We lost a lot of money on that decision. Property prices were falling through the floor, and what we got for our house was $370,000 less than the mortgage still left to pay. Negative equity: not good. I sold my garage business for less than I’d have liked as well, and I mean a whole lot less. But we took the hit and we moved. We’d put in a lot of work finding a new garage up in the northwest, and a house up there we could afford. Ended up in this little town called Dickensville in the Rockies. It was a smaller business than the one in Brooklyn, and a much smaller house, but we just about managed, figuring that if we both worked hard, and Karla established herself again as a hairdresser like she’d done in Brooklyn, we could maybe upgrade to something bigger later. And the crime rate was way lower up there, and the air cleaner, and there were no hurricanes or droughts to worry about.

  And here’s the thing. We didn’t ask the federal government for anything, and we didn’t expect anything from the federal government. Government isn’t there to hold people’s hands and wipe their asses, that’s how we saw it.

  So we moved, and we worked hard and we saved, and we built ourselves another life. We made new friends, we got to know our neighbors, we found a decent school for Jade, we built up our two businesses.

  About the time we finally started to feel settled was when you started hearing a lot more on the hubs about these storm people down south losing their homes to hurricanes. And pretty much the same time, you started to hear about dusties down in states like California and Arizona: farmers who’d had to leave their farms because of drought, people in to
wns with no more water...all of that.

  These things weren’t new, though. They’d been happening for years. They’d been happening since before Karla and me were born. But for some reason, about that time, they became big news all of a sudden. Yeah, I know the problem was getting worse, but my point is it didn’t exactly come out of the blue. Yet you wouldn’t know that from watching the broadscreen. ‘We’ve got to help these poor guys,’ was what we kept hearing. ‘They’re desperate. They don’t know what to do.’

  And of course old Gray Jenny Williams was always very generous with other people’s money. Now she was spending billions on those people, helping them rebuild houses, providing insurance that no sane insurance business would normally have been willing to sell, and setting up these trailer parks for people who claimed not to have anywhere to go. There was one just near our town, up in Idaho.

  Well, you kind of expected that from Gray Jenny. She’s Unity Party, which basically meant the party for losers. But then Senator Slaymaker started off, too. Karla and I had always voted for the Freedom Party, and we both liked Slaymaker a lot, but now he’d got the bug too. In fact, he was talking about spending ten times more than Gray Jenny, building whole new towns and cities in the north and the northwest, and making towns like ours into cities, just so all those people from the east coast and down in the southwest could move up here whenever they wanted.

  I couldn’t think what or who had gotten into him. A guy I followed on the whisperstream – Cynical Sam – said that Senator Slaymaker was getting a whole lot of money from the construction industry for his election fund. ‘Just a coincidence, I guess!’ he said innocently. Old Cynical Sam could be pretty funny, but he talked sense, as far as I was concerned.