by Masha Leyfer
“Challenge the flow,” I say, only because I can’t think of anything else to say.
“You can’t challenge the flow. You are part of the flow.”
“Then how is history made?”
“History...I have my opinions about history.”
“For example?”
“Is history factual?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean?”
“You said that history is factual. Prove it.”
“Well, um...there’s evidence, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Evidence like what? Like cave paintings and literature and a broken spearhead. What does that mean? We can only guess and we accept it as fact...because. That bothers me.”
“But…” I say, “It fits together too well to be a coincidence.”
“There was a point in time,” she says, “In which people thought that the Earth was flat and that you could sail off the edge of the world. And why would they ever challenge that? How could it be anything else? It was pure logic: if the Earth was round, how would the people on the other side stay on? They didn’t know about gravity. We accept it as a law now, but back then? They stayed on the Earth because there was simply no other way to exist. And that’s why I hate history. We accept it because there is no other way for us to get to this point, and I think that that’s ridiculous. We think in a straight line, but what if there’s more? Having a linear history, which, like it or not is what we have, boxes us in. I think that there’s more. There has to be more. I think that we’re seeing only the flat side of a sphere.”
“Oh,” I say. “Wow,” and suddenly, it occurs to me that everyone in the Rebellion has incredible monologuing skills.
“We need to help Mike,” she says.
“Right.”
“All right, um...Ugh, I can’t concentrate!”
“Let’s just start with the most basic points: what do we know? Mike is going to kill somebody to pay off a ransom for those three people...what were their names?”
“Veronica, James, and Drew.”
“Right. Veronica, James, and Drew,” I repeat. “So he needs to kill somebody to pay off their ransom and this Augustus whispered something that convinced him to do it.”
“Right. So the next step is, what do we not know? We need to fill the gaps starting with, who does he need to kill?”
“What did Augustus whisper?”
“Yes, that’s important,” Smaller Sally nods. “Also, a little more about the histories between Augustus, Veronica, James, Drew, and Mike would help.”
“Who are the Carviates?”
“Mhhm. So that’s what we can consider the most basic information that we need to find out.”
“Okay. And the next step is?..”
Smaller Sally laughs nervously.
“This is the hard one: fill the gaps.”
“Oh. Um...I got nothing.”
“Okay, so Mike’s getting alcohol tonight. If he gets drunk enough, and he tends to drink more when he’s stressed, then maybe I could ask him about it directly, get the answers, and he won’t remember about it in the morning. That’s not at all a very reliant plan, however, so we need backups. He put the paper with the name in his back right pocket-”
“You noticed which pocket he put it in?”
“Yes, of course. You didn’t? Anyway, the point is, assuming he doesn't throw it away, I can just find it in his pocket while he’s sleeping or something like that. Then we’ll know at least that. Any ideas for the other ones?”
“Um...no.”
“In that case, let’s just start with what we have. You always have to start somewhere. Now let’s eat lunch and get back to camp.”
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __
We get back to camp during a time when most people are off at training. Only Anna and Big Sal are at camp. Big Sal nods knowingly at our arrival and Anna doesn’t ask about where we were. She must either know or sense that she she shouldn’t ask. We quietly push our snowmobiles into the shed and hurry off into the woods to try to find a new perspective on Mike’s plight. Smaller Sally grabs a board from the weapons tent—“Shooting things always helps,” she says in explanation, and we head off. We don’t speak until she puts the board down.
“So,” she says, shooting her first bolt. It lands smack in the middle of the board. “Any new ideas yet?”
“No,” I say, shooting a bolt as well. It lands right next to hers.
“I don’t know, Molly,” she sighs. “I’m just so concerned for Mike. I don’t even mean with this whole murder thing, I mean in general. He doesn’t take care of himself. He’s really strong but everyone can crack. I can’t let him crack.” She shoots another bolt into the center.
“He’ll make it.”
“You sound so sure of that.”
“It’s Mike,” I say.
“What’s your point?”
“He’ll always make it,” I say bluntly. Smaller Sally doesn’t respond for so long that I practically forget what I said in the first place. Her final response is so quiet and so subdued that I see a completely different person in her.
“Except when he doesn’t."
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __
Mike arrives slightly before dinner. I notice that he acts differently somehow. It’s so subtle that it could easily be a trick of my imagination, but I’m sure that it’s there. I also notice that Smaller Sally and Mike hug each other tighter than usual, as if they’re both trying to hold on to the other. He whispers, “I missed you,” into her ear and then faces the rest of the Rebellion and picks up his bag.
“Alcohol,” he says wearily.
After the racket dies down, Nathan and I detach ourselves from the crowd and walk down to the oak tree with a small bottle of sweet wine for him and a thermos of tea for me, as we did last time. Nathan brings along the guitar. We sit down and Nathan pulls out a ceramic cup.
“I didn’t forget cups this time,” he says.
“Hmm. Good.” I find it really amusing that he is drinking wine out of ceramic cups and not glass. Having worked as a bartender, I know which type of alcohol belongs in which type of glass.
“Cheers,” Nathan says.
“Cheers.”
We drink. He looks at me in concern for a moment and moves a strand of hair out of my face and behind my ear.
“You okay? You look kind of worn out.”
“Mhh? Oh. I don’t know. I’m just tired.”
“Have you gotten enough sleep recently?”
“Yeah.”
“‘Cause you look really tired.”
“You’re right,” I say, suddenly realizing how exhausted I really am. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why.”
“You wanna just sleep?”
“Really?”
“Yeah. We don’t have to drink.”
“Oh my goodness, to tell you the truth, sleep sounds like the most wonderful thing right now.”
Nathan corks the bottle closed.
“Then you should have just said so,” he says lightly. “Good night, then,” he says, leans up against the tree, and closes his eyes. I am about to suggest returning to our tents, but decide against it. The air is warm tonight and besides, Nathan looks so perfect in his pre-sleep state. I wouldn’t want to disturb that.
“Good night,” I say, quietly secretly extremely grateful that I don’t have pretend that I didn’t just witness Mike agreeing to a contracted murder. I breath out a sigh of relief and tiredness overtakes me. I lean up against Nathan’s shoulder. He puts his arm around me. My eyelids close. I breathe in the smell of his jacket and begin to drift off.
“Thanks for understanding,” I whisper drowsily.
“No problem. I want to sleep too, to tell the truth.”
“Mhh.” It drift in and out of sleep for another hour. Nathan falls asleep quickly; I can feel his chest rising and falling evenly. Finally, I too fall asleep and I don’t wake up until morning.
Before
leaving to camp the next morning, we toast to a good week. Nathan drinks a cup of wine, I take a swig of cold tea. We walk back to camp and, as was before, only Big Sal is there, knitting by the fire.
“You two don’t look that hungover,” she says suspiciously. “Molly, you don’t drink, but what about you, Nathan? What’s wrong?”
Nathan laughs.
“We were both really tired so we just slept.”
“Oh,” she says, dragging out the syllable. “I see.” Again, I feel like there is some underlying nuance that I’m missing, but I choose to ignore it.
“But do you want coffee anyway?”
“Yes,” Nathan and I reply in unison. We hand her our cups and Big Sal pours us both a cupful of the rich, dark liquid. I blow the steam off of the cup than take a tentative sip. It’s hot, rich, and sweet.
“You know, it's kind of nice when nobody's here," Big Sal says.
“I mean, everybody’s in their tents.”
“Yeah, but all of you dumbasses are down and I'm still up.” She shrugs. “It makes me feel like I've won.”
“That's slightly disconcerting,” I say. Big Sal shrugs.
“A woman must have her pleasures, Molly.”
“And yours is watching all of us suffer?”
“No, it’s knitting. Watching you suffer is more of a side hobby.” I laugh. Smaller Sally saunters out of her tent at this point.
“Good morning to all of you,” she says then turns to me. “Molly, come with me. Sorry guys, I'm taking her for now.”
“Please,” Big Sal says. I shoot her a look of mock betrayal and head off with Smaller Sally. She takes me a safe distance off into the woods. She seems slightly tipsy but in a decent enough state. After we stop, she drops her cover of cheerfulness and her face is flooded with concern.
“Okay, I need to update you.”
“Yeah, what's up?”
“Um...I'm not sure how to say this. So good news is that I found out whose name is on the slip of paper.”
“Okay.”
Smaller Sally looks at me with a strange mix of apology and fear.
“Bad news is…” She sighs and bites her lips before finishing. “Bad news is, the name is yours.”
CHAPTER 21
I freeze.
“What?” I say.
“The name is yours, Molly.”
“But what do these...the...the Car…”
“The Carviates?”
“Yeah, what the hell do they want with me? I’ve never even heard of them until yesterday.”
“I don’t know, Molly,” Smaller Sally says wringing her hands. “Mike wasn’t drunk enough for me to ask. He said, ‘I need to stay sober, for…’ and he didn’t say more.”
He needs to stay sober for murder.
“So Mike will?...” I start, but don’t finish. Smaller Sally catches my train of thought and hurries `to dismiss it.
“Of course not! Jesus Christ, Molly! No, no, no, of course he won’t kill you.”
“Are you sure? You weren’t so sure earlier,” I say shrilly.
“Absolutely. I said he might kill someone, but he definitely won’t kill you. Listen, Molly, just don’t freak out about it too much, but-”
“Don’t freak out about it too much? I might be dead by Friday!”
“No,” she says firmly. “We won’t let that happen and Mike won’t let that happen. We’ll figure out a way around it. The last thing you should do now is lose your head.”
“I’m not losing my head.”
“Okay, good. Um, okay. So, you were there when he talked to Augustus. He whispered something into Mike’s ear and that was what convinced him to take on his job. So that was a threat or a different perspective that we don’t have, or something like that.”
“Or a reward,” I say.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Mike wouldn’t kill anyone for a reward, and he definitely wouldn’t kill you.”
“What if it was a really big reward?”
“Like what?”
“Like fixing the Blast.”
“What do you mean, ‘fixing the Blast’? The Blast already happened, it can’t be fixed.”
“Okay, but what if it could? Just think on that scale.”
“He wouldn’t kill you,” she says. “He would find a way to fix things without death. He always does.”
“Okay, I believe it.”
And it’s true. If there’s one person in the Rebellion whom I believe in, it’s Mike. But that just makes me all the more nervous.
Because if he does decide to kill me, he won’t fail.
“All right, good. Anyway, I think that if we find out what it was that Augustus whispered to Mike, we can reverse it. So, if it was a threat of some sort, then we can eliminate the threat.”
“Or,” I say, “Alternately, if that doesn’t work, we can rescue Augustus’s friends. James, Drew, and Veronica.”
“Oh, you’re right, I haven’t thought of that.” She pauses to think. “Hmm. That’s seems like a very good idea, which is strange, because that’s what the Sternmenschen should have done. That would be easier even than asking Mike. Ugh, there’s more too this than we understand. All right,” she says. “I suppose we’ll have to play it blind. The fact that they asked Mike instead of performing a rescue operation most likely means that either they want something specifically from Mike or the Carviates are extremely dangerous. I will find out about the Carviates and we’ll see if we can do anything about it. Don’t ask Mike about anything. Let’s save that for the last resort.”
“Okay.”
“And keep calm, alright? I won’t let you die. Mike won’t let you die. You won’t let yourself die.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.” She squeezes my arm. “What are you doing today, training?”
“I don’t know. I think I might take the watch tower. We’re not training today, are we? With everybody in this state.”
“Yeah, you’re right. I forgot about that. Christ, I can’t keep my thoughts in my head. But you don’t worry about anything. And I won’t either. It’ll all be fine. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Okay. I’ll see you around, then.”
We split directions but before she gets out of earshot, I turn around.
“Smaller Sally, wait!”
“What’s up?” she says, rushing back.
“I don’t want to die.” I whisper.
“You won’t, okay? I promise. I swear on my heart. Don’t worry.”
“Okay, I promise I won’t worry. I swear on my life. I mean, what do I have to lose?”
Smaller Sally punches my shoulder.
“We’ll figure this out, okay? I promise.”
“Okay.”
I leave in the direction of the lookout post, making my way through the sprouting woods. Summer is less of a season than a break in Winter, but the world finds it in itself to make the most of it.
When I get to the lookout post, I look up as usual, trying to see if I can discern the platform on the tree, and, as always, I can’t. This routine having been finished, I shout up whoever is there. I assume it’s Anna, since she always takes the shift on days like this.
“Anna, you there?”
“Yes. Hello, Molly,” her voice drifts down to the ground.
“Hi. I was wondering if you want me to take over since you always do this on our drunk days.”
“Oh, how sweet of you,” her disembodied voice calls back. “I’m perfectly fine doing this, but thank you.”
“Oh. Would you like company, in that case?”
“That would be lovely.”
In several seconds, the ladder drops down to the ground and I climb up. When I reach the first platform, we pull the ladder up together.
Neither of us say anything for some time. There’s a certain rhythm of speech that must obeyed here. Once a thought has completed, there must a pause of enough length to absorb it before the next one can begin.
“Anna?”
“Hm.�
��
“How did you join the Rebellion?”
“It’s not as interesting of a story as you seem to think.”
“Would you tell me about it?”
“Do you want to hear it?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I’m just curious, I guess.”
“Fair enough. In that case, let’s do a story exchange. You tell me your story and I’ll tell you mine.”
“All right, sure.”
“Your story first.”
“All right. Well, my story isn’t that interesting.”
“That doesn’t make it any less meaningful.”
“Hmm. Where do you want me to begin?”
“Begin at the important part.”
“You know all of that. My life really began when I joined the Rebellion.”
“Well then, tell me about Hopetown.”
“What do you want to know?”
“What’s your most vivid memory of Hopetown?”
I think.
“The first execution,” I say softly. Anna nods.
“Then tell me about that.”
“When we found Hopetown, I was almost five, I think. The CGB took over when I was seven. And the first execution was when I was nine. The...The man who was executed, well, I didn’t know him that well, but I had seen him around. It doesn’t really matter what I thought. They killed him anyway. He was a rebel, kind of like us. He ran into the senate with a knife and a hammer. A knife and a hammer, can you believe it? They intercepted him before he made it down the hall. We didn’t know. My mother took me for a walk and in the center of town, and he- They didn’t even shoot him. He was hanged. I mean, when was the last time the government hanged people? And he...Neither of us reacted for a long time. Me and my mother, I mean. The man who was hanged, William Ashington was his name, he...He barely even looked like a human being anymore. I mean, this was the man who was brave enough to attack an entire government with just a knife and a hammer, but you could see how terrified he was of the rope around his neck. He kept trying to get it off, but his arms stopped listening to him. He was trying to breathe, but he couldn’t. He just couldn’t. And his legs were searching for solid ground, but there was nothing there. The worst thing was the noises though. They were part choking, part sobbing, part crying for help, and nobody could do anything. Can you imagine looking out at the people who you sacrificed your life for and you want to live, and everybody is right there, and they’re all just watching? Can you imagine that the last thing you see is all the people that could have saved you but didn’t? My mother would have covered my eyes and taken me away, but she was too shocked herself. We only left when...When he died. And that was even worse, because...He just stopped. It wasn’t gradual, it was, one moment he was fighting to live and the next he was just a body on a rope. And none of us could say anything. The CGB didn’t take his body down. They let it hang there until the next day, as a reminder of what they would do to anybody who opposed them. We only left then. After he died. And none of us could even mourn in public or give him a grave or anything like that. Because he was an enemy of the CGB. And anybody who sympathized with him was too. And we learned what would happen to enemies of the CGB. His name was just erased completely from our vocabulary. We were forbidden to say it. Parents wouldn’t even name their children William and those who already had that name were hastily given nicknames. We were so afraid of what would happen if we dared to even think about him. William Ashington. He was forgotten on purpose. We should have remembered. We should have remembered every day. But we let the CGB scare us into forgetting, so William Ashington, the first rebel of Hopetown, died for nothing. So...yeah. That’s what I remember of Hopetown.”