by Laura Bynum
"No. Do you?"
We have to step delicately around people who're sitting on the floor, staked out on their bedrolls.
"No." Rita jumps over a woman still snoring beneath her covers. "I don't give a shit about that party."
"So you're not going." I try not to turn it into a question.
"Just long enough to find a date. I hear a whole busload of boys are coming from Springfield."
Rita moves ahead of me. She walks backward, stepping on unoccupied blankets and vagrant limbs as we move toward the hall. "Too bad you can't shake off that problem you're having with your sight, or whatever you call it."
People around us stop milling about and plummet into silence.
"It will come in time," I lie, ignoring my concern about how she knows.
Rita stops under the hall's threshold and asks loudly, "Without that main redactor, we're screwed, right?"
I step closer. Lift my hand and she reflexively pulls away. "What are you so worried about?" I laugh easily, as if I'm anything but worried. Remove a cobweb from her hair and hold it up to the overhead light. "You might want to clean up before the party."
Rita grits her teeth and marches away. Everyone else lies back down again, eager to be soothed.
It's my last session with Noam. We're in the only room not crowded with dozens of sitting or sleeping bodies.
"We're going to do some exercises today that might help us narrow down the field," Noam says. "You already know our ultimate goal. The number, letter, or name of the master. Whatever will provide us its exact location. We know it's in the Geddard Building, sitting in a room with a few thousand other redactors just like it." He nods at Amy, who's holding a large rolled-up piece of paper in her hands. She comes over and tosses it on the floor. We watch together as it unfurls. "This is an accurate schematic of the basement. We'd like you to simply try and choose a quadrant. See if you can't get a feel for direction."
I nod. I know the drill.
Noam pulls me away from the wall and centers me in front of the map. "Now close your eyes and try to relax. This is just the first try. Nothing life or death hinges on today's efforts. Okay?"
Life and death do hang on today's efforts, but I agree anyway and close my eyes. "Okay."
"Now, try to imagine a room full of boxes. And, in it, the main redactor, the master that will turn off all the others. The master that will turn off all the others . . . the master . . . that will turn off all the others . . . the master . . . the master . . . the master . . ."
I'm fatigued, and today it's a help, fading out and listening to Noam's undulating voice. As he talks me into a trance-like state, I float away into that basement room. Come back quickly with a solid direction.
"It's in the northeast quadrant."
"You sure?" Noam smiles.
"Yeah."
He takes Amy's clipboard. Stabs at the page with the tip of his finger. "As you know, they have the redactors set up in a master-slave configuration. If we accidentally take down a redactor that's not the master, the room, the building, the whole city gets locked down."
I knew about the alarm that would be sounded, but not this. John will get trapped. Any headway made by the first exercise has just been lost. I begin to sweat.
Noam puts a hand on my head, like my father used to do when he had something bad to tell me. "Lazarus didn't want you to know because he didn't want you to feel pressured."
"Well, I do, Noam. I feel pressured."
He shrugs. "This is our last shot. I'd like to try blindfolding you and giving you directions down into the basement as they've been provided to us."
"It doesn't work like that . . ."
"Please."
I nod. "Okay." I'll try anything at this point.
Amy wraps a black piece of cloth around my head as Noam begins to talk.
"West central Wernthal," he begins slowly. "A hundred feet below the Geddard Building. Encased in layers of lead and concrete. Try and travel in through the piping. Through a vent off the corner of State and Wellesley. Follow the heat backward home to the fields of turbines and air conditioners as big as cars . . ."
This isn't how it works. I travel only as I'm pulled. The journey begins at its end. Not the other way around.
"Noam, this isn't working." It's hard to explain to him why.
Poor Noam looks as if I've just popped his last balloon, although he already understands these basic truths. It's a trick of the mind, thinking we're all separate. Walking around disconnected from one another, without the same access to all there is to know. All one needs to do is shift focus. Sounds easy enough.
"Okay," Noam says, impatient. "We'll do it the old way."
He begins the chant to which I've become so familiar. I close my eyes and let his soft voice become a picture of the master. I imagine it as tall and wide, big as a room with a million flickering lights. I envision what it does, feel the heat coming off it like an oven.
Harper, do you think you can do this? Noam's worry has reached out and caught me. I'm pulled away from the redactors too fast, before I can mark my way back to them, or get a glimpse of the right one.
When I open my eyes, Amy sees I've come up short and starts to cry. Noam walks over and pats me on the shoulder.
"We'll try again later," he says, adding in a broken voice, "No worrying. It's counterproductive."
By midafternoon, there's an hour-long line for the shower. Bars of soap have been set out next to a gallon jug of shampoo. Someone's put out a mirror.
It's been weeks since I've seen my reflection. Even so, I have to look. "Jesus."
There's a trail of raised skin just under my hairline from some old wound I don't remember. The cut on my chin has been sewn shut, but Lilly's needle could only do so much. The deepest parts are still raw and look like day-old meat.
I walk back to my room and find Ezra putting on her makeup at my table.
"Come here," she says.
I sit down and she drops some folded fabric into my lap. They're clothes for tonight's party. A short black skirt and a sheer yellow blouse.
"These are on loan for tonight only," she says, straight-faced. It takes me a few seconds to understand she's joking.
I pull off my trousers. Work the skirt slowly up each thigh. It's snug. I don't want it to tear. "Thank you."
Ezra waves at me with the wand from her mascara. "Shut your eyes." She applies my new face tenderly, taking care around the wounds that are still healing.
I pucker my lips like she instructs. Pout so she can draw me a fuller set.
"Just so you know. Everyone is on lockdown tonight. That means no getting drunk and no going up top. You see anyone stumbling around or starting toward the back exit, you let someone know." Ezra drops the pink tube back in her makeup bag. "You're welcome, by the way. You look halfway decent."
Lazarus is wearing a long orange tunic and, on his head, a brown and orange cap. He leads me past couples lined up in the hall, giggling around pockets of spilled beer, and to the front hall, which has become nearly impassable. New people are standing around in clusters speaking loudly and in animated voices about what they saw last night on their way over. Lightning. Rain. A few frightened deer on the country roads caught in the flame of their headlights. Women are wearing too much makeup. Men are close-shaven. Everyone is smoking and drinking, filling up the air with clouds and cologne.
Most of the people near the stage have been born underground. I know by their age and their slate-free necks. They are largely teenagers, some in their early twenties. Their paper-white skin shows no moles or freckles, holdovers of sunburns or windburns, exposure to the topside elements. Without slates, their undisrupted necks look romantically long.
Some of these bunker-born people appear underdeveloped. Even with the required supplements they receive from birth, there are a handful of young men and women markedly shorter than the others. This lost height is in their legs. There beneath the hemline of the women's dresses and pressed against the outer line of the men's
trousers, their legs have an unnatural, outward bow to them, leaving a large space where their knees should be.
Lazarus leads me toward the makeshift stage beyond them. It's a series of cardboard boxes that have been pushed together to form a ten- or twelve-foot-long rectangle. An old man is already standing in its center, his arms waving to calm down the crowd.
"Who is that?" I ask.
"He's a storyteller." Lazarus answers with his head turning from one end of the room to the other.
"Looking for someone?"
"Yes." Lazarus turns back to me. "John. He'll only be here for a few hours before he has to get back to Antioch. They're flying him out to Wernthal tonight."
My face must lose all its color. Lazarus smiles and turns to the crowd, a finger held to his mouth. Immediately, they're quieted.
I lean in quickly and whisper into his ear. "You're sure John's coming?"
He nods yes. "Quiet now. You'll want to hear this."
"Why is he coming?"
Lazarus leans down, amusement and frustration compressing his lips. "To see you. Now, sssshhhh." He pushes on my shoulders until they're parallel to the stage. "Listen."
"Anna! Anna!" the storyteller yells. "Come on now, daughter." He beckons one of these pale young women with a puckered finger. "Move along! We have an audience to entertain!" His words are coming out strange, like they're getting caught on his tongue and tripping out of his mouth. I wonder if this is what I've heard Lazarus call an accent. "These fine people haven't risked life and limb to watch your old father tell tales."
Arms go up in protest. "Tell us about the beforetime," the audience begs. Their hunger is all over them. They long for stories about lives lived anywhere and anytime other than here and now.
The old man nods and holds up a hand. "Sovereignty!" he shouts.
"Sovereignty!" the crowd responds loudly.
On the stage, the old man bows his head slightly. "My home is across the sea. In a faraway country where God walks freely through the land. Through mountains made soft by snow and fields the color of the sun. All of it is a church. There, when you speak to God, you get answers. Clear as my voice, they come, and you understand them.
"In the land of my mother and father, we coveted sustenance for our souls as much as sustenance for our bodies. And, thusly, we kept our words as if they were made of gold." Such a voice this man has. The way he sounds isn't a sound at all. It's a river into which words are thrown.
"We knew the difference between that which cannot be expressed and that which must. We understood that while words are a path taking us only so far, they are requisite to the journey. They are like road maps that show us which way to go.
"Tonight's entertainment will be short and sweet, as tomorrow we go to war. This final tale will be the story of our landing. 'The Fallen Queen.'"
The storyteller holds up his hands and the room is hushed. Heads are bowed for the benediction. "God be with us on the field. Grant us pardon from the belly of this good earth. Let our numbers be sufficient. Let our hearts be valiant. Give us strength over whatever might try to stop us. Above all, let us move into our new world with what we've tried to bring over from the old. Give us ears to hear and eyes to see that we may never lose so much again. Amen."
A couple hundred voices: "Amen."
The old man is standing with hands down, his body diminutive in opposition to his voice. "Many years ago, we heard the cries of this country's people. We heard the rolling-back silence that is a soul being starved. So we came, a young man with a young wife. We came as missionaries to do what we could. My wife and I and a boatload of others came across the Atlantic, our voices strong, our stories sheathed like weapons at our sides. We were willing to die for the cause. To free a few kindred souls, should we make it through the harbor and the line of men with guns.
"We were an hour off the coast when a boy came sliding down from the crow's nest, his shaky finger pointing toward the land, eyes wide." The old man smiles big, providing the crowd a view of his rotting teeth. "We ran to the bow, prepared to see an army of ships, boats with guns aimed our way. But it wasn't any such patrol coming after us, a small group of well-storied missionaries. It was a woman. A woman tall as the sky! A hundred feet toe to crown and made of greened copper! In the highest hand, she held a torch to guide us safely in. In the other, she held a tablet. A book, it's said, inscribed with the date of their independence. Around her feet lay chains unbound--the remains of her former enslavement. She was still as a stone. We thought her a statue. Until she moved."
A few people gasp. Most go stock-still even though they've probably heard this story before.
The old man walks slowly along the edge of the stage, his eyes bright as stars. "She bowed down to us. To a small boat filled up with small people who'd sailed halfway round the world to help her. She bent at the waist, her brittle gown screeching. The torch came arcing down, like a seaplane landing. When it breached the surface of the water, there was a moment of luminescence. The nighttime harbor was set alight. It was as if the sun had fallen into the sea. Then it went out and she toppled forward. The chains that had been loosed began to move. Like a serpent, they slithered up her torso and wrapped themselves around her waist. They pulled her off the island's mantle and dragged her body down and away, down and away, until the only thing left was a circle of white marking a hole in the sea.
"Our queen was swallowed up right there before our eyes. And the boats that might have been set out toward us were swallowed up with her. We were pushed away from that shore and set on another hundreds of miles away. This mighty queen had drowned herself so that we might live. And each and every one of us knew it. We understood her sacrifice as if she'd whispered it in our ears." The man breaks off, one trembling hand held aloft in the air. Eyes squeezed shut, face pinched in sad remembrance, as if it had been real. "Long live the queen of America!"
Long live the queen of America!
"May we, on the morrow, do her proud."
Applause follows. But the clapping hands and whistles are tempered by sadness. There is no tall green woman standing off the eastern shore, holding a torch and welcoming strangers. Just a string of militia that runs the whole length of the seaboard to keep us in and others out. I don't understand the story. But I understand the sacrifice.
I look around me as the storyteller abdicates the stage to his daughter, Anna. John's still not here. Or at least nowhere I can see. I watch as the white-skinned woman takes her position in the center of the stage and begins stretching out liquid words of her own.
Summertime, and the livin' is easy
Fish are jumpin' and the cotton is high . . .
Goddamn the Confederation, I think. Had I heard music before, I would have joined up years earlier. There's something about the vibration in the woman's voice that feels familiar. I close my eyes and let Anna's song play behind my memory.
I think of Veracity as a newborn. She had a mass of curly hair and inky brown eyes. We spent my two weeks of maternity leave together in a gliding chair Mr. Weigland bought me. We rocked back and forth for days, her impossibly warm head on my chest, me making similar sounds. Like exhalations with tone. Nothing like Anna's song. Nothing with words. But the peace those expressions brought . . . I'd forgotten.
"Harper." John is standing behind me.
I turn and look at him. Encourage him with a smile.
"I know I'm presuming a lot by coming . . ."
"No," I say. "You're not." I reach out and curl one of his hands into my own.
"I only have until midnight."
I nod. "Lazarus told me."
We're so close, I can see the fine details of John's face. He has a scar just beneath his hairline and a mole above his left eyebrow. There are telling lines in his forehead and at the outer corners of his eyes that show me a lifetime of worry and concern.
Who are you? I blink. Are you safe? Are you someone I'll be able to know? To love? To trust? God, how I want to.
"Is this o
kay, Harper?" John asks.
I close my eyes and lean into him. Can I trust you? Can I trust you? "Can I trust you?" I finally ask. But it doesn't matter what he says. My heart's going to have its way, whatever his response.
"Yes." John leans down and kisses me on the lips, the neck, the line of my jaw. "I had a son," he says, his mouth moving between words. "He was six years old. They killed him for speaking a Red List word." He stops and looks into my eyes. His are pink, yet dry. Long-run-out tears nowhere to be seen. "I don't even know which one."
I resolve to let go of everything and make a deal with God. Give me a few moments of intimacy, a memory to carry with me into war and I'll give up the safety of isolation and let my heart love what it loves. Whom.
I follow as John leads me away from the stage, down the main hall, and into the one leading to the library. A light emanating from the handle reads his identity as his free hand holds mine. The door opens and warm air rushes past. I follow him up the stairs toward the far corner of the library. Only there do we take off our shoes. Kissing and touching, we make quick work of each other's clothes. Our hands are nimble. There isn't much time to catalog John's scarred body or the flecks of gold in the center of his brown eyes. The feel of his hands tangled in the back of my hair.
"You're safe here." He kisses me, repeating, "Safe. Safe."
We lie down together on the carpeted floor under the stars of a painting someone has only recently placed on the wall. John's hands guide me gently to him, stroking the flesh of my arms and face. He understands the history I can't forget and is giving me control. Whatever the spigot that will guide this love, my hands are on it. I tighten the valve, and John pauses, kisses my mouth, wipes away tears started in the corners of my eyes. I loosen the valve and he's free to remove my clothes and explore me. I turn my head into his shoulder and inhale. God, the smell of him. Just like that day in the alley.
Everything about this is bittersweet. Every feeling, movement, scent, and taste is tinged with our unfortunate past and the unknown future that begins nearly as soon as we've finished. He's going away. I am not.
"Harper." John is saying my name. Repeating it into my hair and neck. "Tell me what you want. Tell me."