Ophelia Immune: A Novel

by Mattson, Beth

  “Ficelle, ficelle, ficelle.”

  “Bagnole, bagnole, bagnole.”

  “Very good,” she caressed my shoulder blades, her fingers massaging my slippery muscles. I bent my knees until her fingers were on my neck, with no t-shirt between our skins. One of her tips tickled a small cut that Juliet had left beneath my ear. She smeared a droplet of black blood sideways to help it dry faster. She didn’t wince or shrink away from my Infection. She didn’t turn away and vomit in horror. She brushed the black smudge onto her jeans, and pointed to a fire escape.

  “This one looks good.”

  She wound her silky onyx locks around her fingertips, drawing them into spirals and twisting them around each other until she had a long, loose snake winding down her back, secured by a bit of râteau. Silhouetted by the tallest Highrise in Turington, the one with a bronzed plaque on its foundation and a locking front door with Human guards, she called me to the ladder. We climbed up – past the Families with dogs, past the Families with chicken coops, all the way up to the Families with curtains and blinking electronic lights powered by whirring generators.

  They didn’t need to keep mini dinosaurs for food or flea-ridden dogs for protection, she said, they could just use their money to buy new stuff. They were the Factory over-seers, Rangers, Doctors, and Gangsters. I shuddered but couldn’t unwind my fingers from hers.

  I hoped that we wouldn’t rob a Buyer or Seller who recognized me. Or maybe I did. Either my head would finally be smashed or the two of us could kill the asshole together. I hoped that we wouldn’t rob a Gas Station Gangster who was cooking his dinner with a gun and a store of ammo in his breadbox, but Kite said she could tell which windows belonged to New Money because they had the newest curtains, woven in Post-Plague styles, and that they would be off eating in restaurants.

  Restaurants were places where there were tables covered in cloth with cooks who made food for money, not for their Family and Friends. The New Money Family that we robbed while they were out spending their cash had a gigantic generator that was too heavy to carry, but we stole their radio and batteries.

  The servants’ bed in their pantry was empty. No bought Wife slept there, waiting to do their bidding and be underfed from their ample storage bins. Or maybe she had recently died, sent to the market and captured by a fat man with a leash, torn apart by a dead thing that had recently Turned, or escaped to starve in the streets. There was no girl for me to save, to take care of.

  Kite cut her wrist, smeared “merci” on the wall above the sink, gave a kick to the food appliances that we couldn’t use, and, with an armful of speakers, leapt out the window. With one last glance at their full shelves and a caress of their plush hand towels, I did the same. I marveled quietly over their expensive belongings as I slunk through the falling evening shadows. Kite loudly boasted that we needed no Human bullshit jobs and no money when we could steal everything that we wanted. She strode down the street, cords trailing behind her boots, proud of her loot and uncaring if any of our Neighbors saw her. She didn’t know yet that there were Humans looking for me.

  I didn’t stop to invite her in or ask her again if she would leave. I wanted her radio, I wanted her French lessons, I wanted her to keep talking, and I wanted her bare skin. I didn’t want to be alone and she didn’t hesitate. I showed her where I hid the key to my door, and watched as she twisted the speaker cords into the radio’s body. She balanced them on the windowsill, illuminated by the disappearing purple sun. She smacked her lips as she clicked the batteries into place and showed me her perfectly straight, golden teeth as the first notes of a gleeful dance tune jolted out of the speakers.

  “What’s a booty?” I asked, smiling to be like our Neighbors. Like everyone else, we could have tea at nightfall, enjoy our temporary peace, and take care of our small charge. Like a Family.

  “It’s what I’m shaking,” she said, but I couldn’t tell which part she meant.

  “I’ll make the tea,” I offered, a hot tide spreading from my knees to my cheeks.

  “Nah, I need something stronger,” Kite headed for her mortar and pestle, “I guess coffee will have to do. No alcohol in your cabinets, I noticed.”

  “There’s some rubbing alcohol in the bathroom,” I said.

  Kite giggled without looking up from her coffee grinding.

  Juliet was still tied to the fridge where we left her. She reached out and grabbed Kite's ankle, bringing the soft turquoise leg warmer to her mouth with a rip.

  “Ah! Filthy Beast!” Kite screeched, spun around and buried her foot squarely into Juliet’s stomach.

  “No!” I leapt to Juliet’s defense, wrapping my arms around my Sister.

  “Right. Sorry. I forgot. You’re going to keep her,” she brushed a stray hair off of Juliet’s forehead, “But keep those nasty, little teeth off of me, you little … Scamp,” she winked at Juliet and tied the leash tighter to the fridge.

  I slumped against the cabinets and let Juliet chase my laces.

  “Kite, where is your Family? You never kept any around after they Turned? Because it is safe for us to keep them. They can’t hurt us.”

  “I have no Family.”

  “I’m sorry. They all died?”

  “I didn’t say that. I said that I have no Family.”

  She folded her cheesecloth into a filter, avoiding my eyes, hurt by the same beasts that had destroyed the Families of every Human. I understood. I wanted her to know that I understood, that my Family had failed me, too. That I missed them all. That I wished that I had more left than a few sewing and engineering lessons and a plastic barrette. I wanted to tell Kite that Juliet was all that I had to hold onto from my old life. That if we found a real Cure, we could both return to our pasts without all of this horror.

  “It’s ok if you want to talk about your Family,” I assured her, “If we can find a Doctor with a real Cure …”

  “There is no Cure! I have no Family!”

  She dropped the mug she had been holding, blinked furiously, and snapped that she was lucky that she had no mascara on, and then hunched to pick up the ceramic shards. I was glad that she hadn’t broken one of the good cups or a water bowl. I tried to help her, but she slapped my hands away and glared at Juliet as she snatched the sharp bits out of her reach. She threw them into the sink with a clatter, smashing them into smaller bits. She stomped to her chair by the window.

  Juliet grappled to reach her while she composed herself. Breathing deeply, Kite patted the chair next to her.

  “Come on Ophelia, let’s practice your French.”

  I scooted my chair away from hers, but she pulled me in closer, so that she could hold my hand while she gave me new words.

  “Ma amie, ma amie, ma amie,” I repeated.

  The Flyers

  Kite was not afraid of the daylight. She walked past our open window fearlessly and said that all of the good radio shows were on in the morning, because all of the best newscasters demanded to be home before dark. She said that you could tell which towers were the radio signal towers on the tops of buildings, because they were the only ones without laundry hanging on them. Nobody wanted to mess up their favorite programs. Soap operas in French, quiz shows with loud buzzers, and a daily news update with Melanie in the Morning crackled dryly out of the fuzzy, felt circles that sat underneath the grey, plastic knobs. Our antenna was propped against a claw mark on the wooden pane of our window, open to let the sun in.

  Kite said that the light emphasized her assets. She took down the cloth that I used to hide the bathroom mirror, stretched one of her jade earlobes and poked a small silver hook through the wobbly center. A little plumb bangle hung from the silver hook. She kissed her reflection and flung the drop of blood into the bathtub, where it splattered. She didn’t wipe it off; she pierced herself with more jewels: red, blue and pink. She didn’t offer me any, but I would have said yes. She saw me looking.

  “Maybe you should steal some jewelry the next time we go exploring,” she tweaked my cheek
on the way to her backpack. She pulled out her bottle of lavender oil and rubbed it onto her neck and the forests under her arms. Juliet tried to grab a bite, but Kite just smiled at her, reached into her pack and pulled out a new ribbon for the leash.

  “I think this is a little more your speed,” she tied it onto Juliet’s tether, at which Juliet snarled, “Manners, Juliet, manners. Come Ophelia, let’s go.”

  “Go where? It’s Morning.”

  “So?”

  “I don’t like to go out in the day.”

  “What are you so scared of? The Rangers? Like you couldn’t handle a few of those even if they paid attention to you. You can’t just sleep all day while your decaying … Sister clatters around breaking all your stuff.”

  “She’s not … It’s just that … ”

  She dragged me outside by my elbow. I didn’t tell her who was looking for me, that I would get her killed, too. I should have told her, but I didn’t.

  She wrapped both hands around my bicep and batted her eyelids at me until I agreed not to run back inside. She sweat against my slick skin, but I didn’t Infect her. She kissed my undecorated ear and pranced into the crowds of daytime Humans. She knew where to go: the tallest buildings, past the Clinic, away from the Factories – thirty, fifty, seventy floors above the Markets that squatted around their ankles selling Hiker’s Stew and soap sewn into cloth sacks and branches carved into spoons. There were tangles of day laborers, raising their hands and volunteering to carry freshly repaired generators and Rich, elderly grandmothers up to the twenty-ninth and forty-sixth floors in exchange for packets of yeast, salt, and flour.

  Just as Kite had promised, nobody paid attention to us. Nobody looked at us. Nobody cared about us, not that we were green, not that I had destroyed an Auction.

  They couldn’t be bothered. We didn’t look like we had piles of coins to spend but with the nice clothes that Kite dressed us in, we didn’t look like we were trouble-makers. We did not lean over the edges of their stands and peer at their homemade goat cheeses while pick-pocketing their fresh eggs, because we didn't need to eat eggs. The beggars didn’t notice us either– they were too busy with their Ranger-avoidance and fake canes and crutches. The day workers were too busy shouting for the attention of the even better-dressed employers who stood on top of the benches with scarves held over their mouths as they selected from among the stinking laborers.

  I ducked and shrank the first time that we saw a Ranger, but with no more than a glance in our direction he approached a more obvious target – the nearest huddle of begging Squatters – and poked them in the ribs with his baton until they moved out of his sight. When he was finished bullying them, he cajoled a group of grandmothers in shawls to show him what they carried in their woven baskets. They gave him a whole chicken so that he wouldn’t take their carts full of potatoes and eggs. He didn’t bother to wonder if we were young, unarmed Wives sent to buy supplies for our husbands, or if we were two Squatter girls about to get abducted for sale at Auction, or if we needed any protection at all. He was off around a corner to steal himself a fresh keg of moonshine before he could think of the ways that he could profit from two lonely, well-dressed girls.

  “Doesn’t anybody care that we are green?” I asked, shocked not to be chased for anything at all.

  “Does it look like anybody is Patrolling for anyone but themselves? If anybody stared at us long enough to see us, we could beat the sausage casings out of them and disappear into the crowd.”

  “I don’t want to beat anybody.”

  “Hey,” Kite flashed a mottled grey paper in front of my nose, “Look at this Flyer. It says there’s a Concert this afternoon, on the tenth floor of that limestone building, just around the corner. It’s a crappy Flyer. I could make a better one. The ink is all smudged, but, hey, a Concert is a Concert. Admission is two canned goods to benefit the Rangers.”

  “I don’t want to benefit the Rangers. I don’t think we should be in an Audience.”

  “Come on. Don’t be a chicken. We’ll steal more than we donate,” she steered me through the crowd with five knuckles on each of my hips, tickling the bare skin beneath my jeans.

  I couldn’t resist her attention or the jokes that she told me while she lifted four cans of creamed corn and ushered us back into the throngs of people, her arms full of loot. She whipped past a yarn stall and then, instead of following the long, whispy strands that dangled down her spine, I was following a white, wide-brimmed Sunday hat with buttons arranged like flowers. She jammed a yellow straw sunhat with duck feathers over my temples and shouted for me to keep my head down while she paid the Concert bouncer with the corn tins.

  “No, no, wait,” I tugged her belt loops, “Wait, I have to tell you something.”

  The heavy buttons on the brim of her crocheted hat made it droop over her eyes when she whirled to look at me. She brushed me off of her arm.

  “You worry too much,” she said.

  “I attacked an Auction and the Rangers are looking for me,” I rattled.

  She spun again, lifting her brim to look at me this time.

  “You what?”

  “I attacked an Auction, so the Rangers are looking for me.”

  “Attacked?”

  “Yeah, that’s how Swan, the girl you killed on the roof, …”

  “I didn’t kill a girl. I killed a zombie.”

  “... That’s how she got Infected. We got sold and then ambushed the Buyers and Sellers with Molotov cocktails. And we burned a bunch of vans, and hit some Buyers and Sellers pretty hard. And we stole their girls, and sent them to a Safe House with a guy named Carl.”

  Kite’s mouth and eyes were frozen mid-smile.

  “So, they called the Rangers, and I’m pretty sure they’re all looking for me.”

  Kite closed her mouth and grasped my forearms.

  “Well, well, well” she said, “A bit barbaric, but I think I’m impressed. Is this all really true?”

  “It didn’t end well, and now …”

  “Now we should find out if they’re really after you.”

  “Oh, I don’t think …”

  “Yeah, you really don’t, do you? Let’s go.”

  She smiled at me, twined her fingers around mine, and pranced us directly towards the Concert. We kept our hat brims low as the Ranger working the door examined our canned corn. He stooped to fit under the green limestone entryway that he was guarding. We kept our yellowed teeth hidden behind closed lips while he squinted at our cans.

  “Expired,” he commented, frowning over his bushy beard, gristle dangling from the lunch that he was still chewing. His tattoo bulged as he wiped his jaw on his sleeve, “And it’s just corn. Get in line behind the folks who at least brought beets.”

  “Oh, come on! Creamed corn goes with everything!” Kite pouted, but let me drag her away to our assigned spot in the Concert line. Ladies in nicer hats than ours, with real flowers, stood in the front, fondling their cans of artichoke hearts and mandarin oranges that they couldn’t wait to give to the Rangers’ Association. Behind them were the beet, bean, corn and nut butter holders; behind us the cabbages and sauerkrauts. The band of musicians entered past the line, toting their mandolins, trombones and a black and white keyboard with a long cord dangling behind it.

  “This all looks super normal. I don’t think anybody’s after you. You didn’t really attack an Auction did you? You’re so full of bullshit.”

  The ladies leaned forward, beckoned to the band with their silk scarves and tucked the fresh petals from their hats into the shirts of the musicians. The musicians bowed to them and kissed their hands. A small vial of olive oil tumbled out of the ample cleavage of a lady who was attempting to kiss the neck of the accordion player. The woman gasped – the oil was the finest item she had brought for the Rangers.

  She snapped her fingers and a girl tottered out from behind her on scarred, skinny legs, dressed in a frock of holes and patches. She was dirty and scuffed, and when she lunged for the esca
ping oil, she tripped over the drummer’s foot, landing squarely on his music stand, knocking it to the floor, scattering sheets of paper down the line of attendees. The drummer paused for a moment, stroked his beard, snatched up the vial of olive oil and handed it to the young girl sprawled across his feet. He lifted her up and dusted her arms. The owner of the oil and the girl rushed forward as quickly as she could free herself from the gaggle of hats and tinned pineapple.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry. So sorry! She’s new, very new!” the lady dug her smooth nails into the girl’s kidneys, “You clumsy brat! I knew I paid too much for you!”

  The drummer helped the girl up from her knees again, slipped a package of crackers into her patchwork pocket and disappeared behind the curtain into the Concert. The lady punched the tall child again, daring her to complain or rub the sore spot. I hit a bass note from deep within my chest and realized that I was only barely restrained by Kite’s body-locking hug around my middle. I strained against the worn out velvet rope that contained us.

  “Woah there! Damn, O. You really are more savage than I gave you credit for. We’re in a lobby full of Rangers and their pals. What are you going to do, attack all of them?”

  “I thought you said we could take them,” I rattled.

  She dragged me, gagged with her hand over my mouth, out of the Concert building. I raged against her restraint and incoherently flailed and gestured that we should go back and save the poor, clumsy girl, bought by a lady who didn’t even spare her the humiliation of public bruises. I didn’t stop my slavering insistence until Kite threw me up against the bare limestone, pointed down the alleyway, told me to use my eyes and let me go.

  “Geezus, you idiot. If they’re really looking for you, you want to attack inside of a building full of Rangers? Besides, why don’t you worry about the bigger problem than the one lady and the one girl.”

  Twenty yards deeper down the alleyway there was a man with a hideous mustache barely covering a jagged scar, and another with a gapped tooth smile beaming above his filthy bowtie. There was a rickety Fresh Hot Grits Stand hastily constructed out of scraps, but they weren’t selling grits. There was a long line of girls standing behind the money-takers – they were selling girls at a concierge stand. I marched directly towards them.