by Luiza Sauma
‘What did you guys think of it?’ says Johnny.
Sean and Abby both open their mouths, ready to talk, but then Elias puts his hand up.
Johnny nods at him. ‘Yes, mate.’
Elias shifts in his seat. ‘I thought it was amazing,’ he says, looking at Johnny and then at the ground. ‘Truly. I was intimidated by its length, though we’ve read a lot of long books. There was something about –’ He pauses and looks up. ‘I’m from California. Not from Salinas, not even close, but still … I guess that’s what spoke to me the most – the love that Steinbeck has for California. The love we all have, maybe, for the place we’re from. And yeah, the other themes – good versus evil, the destructive power of love, sibling rivalry – they were all interesting, too. It made me think –’ He nods and leans back in his chair, deciding against whatever it is he was going to say. ‘Nothing. I don’t know. I loved it.’
Iris has been holding her breath. She exhales. Elias looks at her again and smiles, but he doesn’t look happy. His shining dark eyes give it away. A sense of … resignation. The discussion continues, but she doesn’t take part. She thinks of the book’s namesake, the club in London. Maybe people are there right now, drinking cocktails by the pool. Life going on. Elias doesn’t say anything else.
When the book club ends, there’s a sudden hubbub as everyone starts speaking at once. They stack the chairs and put them in a corner. Some of them leave, while others sit on the threadbare sofas, talking about other stuff. Iris hears little snatches of conversation.
‘Did you …’
‘Well, I’m …’
‘Oh, really?’
It’s meaningless noise. She doesn’t try to talk to anyone and no one tries to talk to her.
‘Come back to Earth,’ she whispers to herself. It’s been two weeks since she heard the voice. Obviously it was some kind of dream or hallucination, but she wishes it would return. Someone new to talk to, even if they don’t exist. Someone who misses her, who wants her back.
Abby walks over and nudges her arm. ‘You picked it, didn’t you? The book.’
‘What?’ says Iris. Had she ever mentioned the members’ club to Abby? ‘How did you know?’
‘Because of your face.’
‘Oh.’
‘Why don’t you go talk to him?’ Abby nods at Elias, who is sitting on a sofa, looking at something on his tab. ‘I’m going back to the room. Go talk to him.’ Abby smiles, showing her straight, white American teeth. The smile doesn’t reach her eyes, but Iris knows she means it.
Once Abby has left, Elias looks up and starts walking over. Iris fights an urge to flee the room, to avoid talking to this man she has admired for months. She realizes, in this moment, that she enjoys the infatuation as it is; that it relies on the distance between them. The distance is the whole point and now he’s going to ruin it.
But when he says, ‘Hey, Iris,’ she feels pleasure sparkling in her veins.
‘Hey.’ Her voice sounds like someone else’s – embarrassingly low. She coughs.
‘Thanks for suggesting the book.’
‘How did you know?’
‘Oh, I dunno. I could just tell.’
‘You’re welcome.’ Iris realizes she has never really talked to him, not properly. ‘I’m glad you enjoyed it. I did, too.’
Someone on Earth is watching, she thinks. They’re probably laughing at my awkwardness, at my love-struck face. Elias looks at her with a wry smile. His eyes are dark brown, flecked with gold. He lightly touches her arm for a second and it’s the greatest thing she has experienced in years. A wave of joy ripples from the touch. It feels better than drugs, music and alcohol, and all the other things she misses.
‘So?’ says Elias, cocking his head.
‘Yeah.’ She laughs. ‘OK.’
He begins to walk towards the door and she follows.
In the corridor, as they silently walk towards Annex 3, where he lives, Iris glances up at a camera above their heads. Its red LED is switched off. A few metres on, she looks up at the next camera – it’s also off. Huh, strange. But when she turns to Elias – who is looking ahead as he walks, with purpose – the strangeness is quelled by excitement. They flash their wristbands at the entrance to Annex 3, Block L, then again at the door to Elias’s room.
‘Good afternoon, Iris,’ says Tara.
‘Good afternoon, Tara,’ says Iris.
‘Tara?’ says Elias.
‘Yeah, that’s her name.’
‘I didn’t know that.’
It looks much like Iris’s room, but smells strong and pungent, like men. It’s not a bad smell. Iris doesn’t know who Elias’s roommate is. She wonders whether anyone saw them, on Earth or on Nyx, walking into his room, but the thought is brushed away as soon as he pulls her towards him and kisses her mouth. Both of them sigh with relief. It feels unreal.
‘How did you know?’ says Iris.
He pulls off her top and kisses her neck. ‘How could I not know? You’re like my little stalker.’
Iris laughs. ‘Well, that’s embarrassing.’
‘We don’t have much time. My roommate will be back soon.’
They separate, undress quickly and then lie on the bottom bunk, skin to skin. He enters her almost immediately, which hurts a bit, but it feels good to hurt this way. They barely kiss, because that, too, would be a waste of time. His lovely mouth stays mostly on her neck, his right hand between her legs.
‘Let me,’ says Iris, removing his hand, because she will do it better than him. On Earth, she often held back from doing this, for fear of seeming too sexual, too aware of her own body, but now it doesn’t matter.
He says, ‘OK,’ and she replaces his fingers with her own.
Several minutes later, when Iris starts to moan, Elias says, ‘Shhh,’ with his breath still on her neck.
Nearly there, nearly. Elias begins to whimper. Here it comes: a crescendo, a blur, a tsunami of pleasure, the world disappears.
But this isn’t the world; it’s far, far away.
Iris faces the metal wall, with Elias behind her. She would like to lie here for a while, feeling the aftershocks, but she can’t. As she turns to look at him, this near-stranger, he averts his eyes. Damn, she thinks, I forgot how weird this could be. She stands and dresses. Elias finally looks at her for a moment, but his eyes are unfocused. It’s as if he can’t see her. He reminds her of Abby.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says, covering his face.
‘What for?’ She can feel his semen soaking through her underwear.
‘I barely know you.’
‘That’s OK, isn’t it?’
Elias stares at the wall, behind her. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says again.
‘You don’t have to apologize.’ He wants her to leave, she realizes. ‘I should go. Send me a message, sometime?’
‘They’ll read them.’
‘Who will?’
Elias doesn’t respond. He closes his eyes.
‘OK, I’m going,’ says Iris, as she leaves the room. ‘See you later.’
The feeling of bliss has already evaporated. Even so, she can feel new paths forming in her brain, turning Elias from a person into a promise. That old biological trick. Iris looks up at the camera that hangs over the entrance to Annex 3. A red LED beams out from a dark corner. It’s still filming. She sighs with relief. Someone is watching. She still exists.
The next day, when Iris approaches Elias in the cafeteria, he looks the other way and leaves the room. Tears prick in her eyes, but she holds them off by blinking several times. Did anyone on Earth see that? she wonders. Did anyone tweet, ‘Wow, what an arsehole’? Did they notice her dejected face? Rejection feels just the same up here. Like you’ve suddenly regressed to being a child, an idiot who knows nothing.
Later, in the privacy of their bedroom, Iris and Abby analyse the situation to shreds, like teenagers. The conversation seems to break Abby out of her gloom, momentarily, but the topic quickly wears itself out, even for Iris. Elias is u
ndeniably beautiful, but her feelings for him are an echo of something else.
They stop talking and go back to reading their tabs in silence – Zadie Smith’s NW, the latest book club choice. The novel is so vivid, so quintessentially London, that Iris can almost smell home in its electronic pages: traffic fumes, weed smoke, desperation, fried chicken. At times, while reading it, she forgets she’s not in London and never will be. How can that be possible? Every time she looks up from her tab, she feels devastated.
After a few minutes of silence, Abby says, ‘Must be weird for you to read this, huh?’
‘I don’t know if I can carry on.’
But she will carry on. She can’t stop. All of those humdrum places and things – Willesden, Golders Green, Poundland, kebabs – make her want to puke with longing.
‘You OK?’ says Abby.
‘Yeah.’ Iris changes the subject. ‘Can I take a photo of you? For a post.’
‘I look so bad, though.’
‘You never look bad.’
‘Hmm. OK.’
‘Just sit there, pretending to read.’
Iris stands up, takes the photo and puts a warm filter on it. Abby’s eyes are downcast, but there’s a small smile on her face. Her dark ringlets are tied up, sprouting from her head like the leaves of a pineapple. Next to her, outside the window, is that same old view: the eternal 8 a.m. sun, the pink sand, and the indigo lake, so far away.
Here’s Abby enjoying our latest book, #NW by #zadiesmith. Have you guys read it? What did you think? #nyxbookclub #bookstagram #lifeonnyx #iriscohen
People are probably commenting, saying they love the book or don’t love it, recommending other books they think the Nyxians will enjoy, saying that Abby’s hair looks great, that she’s one of their favourites. Iris can’t see the comments, but she still asks questions in her posts. That’s something she learned at her old job. People love to be asked what they think, even if no one is listening to their answers. Iris once mentioned this in a social media presentation at Freedom & Co. All her colleagues laughed, as if they were superior to such people.
24.
These Are the Things
Grass. Swans. Cygnets in the spring. The last time Iris heard the word cygnet was when Mona reminded her of it, when they went swimming in the ponds.
Mona’s curly auburn hair. Mona in a bad mood, eating dinner in silence. Mona putting her thumbs through the wrists of her jumpers. Mona and her wire-rimmed glasses and her cute little nose. Mona, who was born when Iris was fifteen – too old to be her friend, too young to appreciate babies, too busy counting the years till university, when she could finally leave home. Mona, whom she barely knew – not like most siblings know each other – but whom she loved more than anyone on Earth, instinctively. Mona swimming in the pond, in her underwear, and laughing because the water was so cold.
Sometimes, Iris tries to imagine Mona’s face as it might be now. She rarely looks at the photograph she brought to Nyx, of Mona with Eleanor, but she can picture it exactly. The garden in Tufnell Park. Yellow sunshine on the grass. Mona’s childish white teeth. Their mother looking polished and beautiful.
Mona would have lost her puppy fat by now. Maybe she dyed her hair, straightened it and cut it short, and Iris wouldn’t even recognize her in the street.
What else, what else? Think of something else.
Robins, magpies, sparrows, geese, ducks.
Parakeets flying over the Heath, their high-pitched screeching. When Iris was a kid, she hardly ever saw them – they were almost an urban myth, these foreign lime-green birds, living in the centre of London. By the time she left Earth, they were everywhere, all over the city. There were several theories about their origins: they were descended from escaped pets; they were released by Jimi Hendrix in Carnaby Street; they were leftovers from a film shoot; they flew all the way from Africa and Asia, in search of a milder climate.
There are animals on Nyx, apparently – small ones – but no one ever sees them. They live somewhere else, far from the Hub.
She even misses pigeons.
Foxes.
Dogs in parks running ahead of their owners. She will never see a dog again, not even a photo of one.
The Heath, Regent’s Park, Springfield Park, Hyde Park; Hackney and Walthamstow and Tottenham Marshes.
Lipstick. Foundation. Blusher. New clothes.
She doesn’t miss removing her body hair, though – such a chore. They ran out of razors in Year 2, but she had stopped using them long before. All the Nyxians are hairy, both women and men. Iris’s legs are covered in dark fuzz, her pubic hair is luxuriant. It makes her feel warm and cosy. It must be what Eve looked like.
25.
Silent Night
Over the next few weeks, the texture of Iris’s mood shifts from low-level panic to high-level nausea, like a constant hangover. She retches into the toilet, but nothing comes up. At night, she passes out as soon as the lights switch off – a sweet, heavy slumber. She keeps her sickness to herself. She doesn’t even tell Abby, who has become increasingly distant and strange, as if she’s trying to delete herself from her own life. At mealtimes, she barely speaks. Most mornings, when Iris climbs down to the lower bunk, Abby stands up and walks out. Sometimes she’ll say something, like:
‘I need the bathroom.’
‘I’m going to shower.’
‘I have to meet someone.’
But often she’ll leave the room before Iris has even woken up. It makes her feel needy, like an unwanted child.
One night, when they’re lying in bed, Iris asks, ‘Are you OK?’
The blackout is down and the lights will soon switch off.
‘Am I OK?’ Abby says slowly, as if she is asking herself the same question.
‘You don’t seem –’ The lights go out. The room is so dark that Iris can’t see her hands, but she can still hear the hum of the Hub, its mysterious processes. ‘You don’t seem yourself,’ she says.
Abby doesn’t reply. The hum seems to be getting louder. Iris wishes she had some earplugs. Her eyes adjust to the darkness. She props herself up on the bed, on her elbows. When she turns, she sees a faint line of light tracing the edges of the window. The eternal light, the eternal hum. Her skin prickles with embarrassment. She hates difficult conversations. She’s like her mother, in that way.
‘Sorry,’ she says, ‘this is a stupid conversation to be having in the dark.’ No response. ‘Abby?’
Iris hears a sharp intake of breath. On Earth she would clamber down the ladder and turn on the light and talk about it, but she can’t turn on the light – it’s out of her control.
‘I’m just tir–’ Abby’s voice catches in her throat. ‘I’m tired of all this. Goodnight.’ She sounds like a stranger.
Iris wakes in the middle of the night. The room is still black. For a few minutes, she listens to Abby’s slow, heavy breathing, and the hum. She begins to fall back asleep, the darkness of the room dissolving into a deeper, blacker darkness; the hum dissolving into silence.
A woman’s voice, bright and soft, breaks through the quiet. ‘Silent night, holy night,’ she sings, into Iris’s ear.
Iris opens her eyes. ‘Abby?’ she whispers.
The singer, who is not Abby, continues: ‘All is calm, all is bright …’
Iris can feel someone’s breath on her cheek, she can even smell her light, grassy shampoo, but she can’t see her.
‘Round yon virgin mother and child …’
Iris remembers Christmas on Earth, years ago, just after her father died.
‘Holy infant, so tender and mild …’
Her mother had appeared at the door, wearing a white cotton nightgown. Her long blonde plait shone in the light of the corridor like wheat in the sun. She came and knelt by Iris’s side and sang till she fell asleep. Her breath smelled sweet and sour, like hot milk. Iris has no other memories of her mother doing this.
Her eyelids are heavy. The singing continues.
Sleep in heavenly p
eace,
Sleep in heavenly peace.
I’m just dreaming, she thinks.
Iris wakes up before the alarm-birds. The blackout has half lifted. A poor simulation of dawn. She looks down at the lower bunk, but it’s empty – Abby has already left the room – so she lies in bed for a while, reading her tab. Within a few minutes she becomes distracted and starts taking selfies instead. In the pictures her face is grey, with fine lines around her eyes, which will only get deeper. She’s still young, more or less, but her skin doesn’t have the easy glow of genuine youth. Thirty-five? she thinks. No, I’m thirty-six. It’s easy to forget. The nausea comes and goes, and then it just comes. There’s a tang of acid at the back of her throat and she begins to gag. Iris swallows and closes her eyes, takes sips from her water bottle, but it’s too much, too late. She leans her head over the side of the bunk and a cascade of sick falls to the floor. Splat. She lies back for a few minutes and relief rolls over her body.
Iris gets up and cleans the vomit with a towel, which she throws into the laundry room on her way to breakfast. Abby is sitting at their table. Elias is at another table, on the other side of the cafeteria.
‘Hey,’ says Abby.
‘Good morning.’
Iris sits and begins to eat. The bread and paste tastes like mould, shit, sick and other bad things, so she pushes it aside. She looks over at Elias, eating alone. He concentrates on his food as it if were very interesting and complicated – grilled lobster rather than a nasty piece of bread.
‘You OK?’ says Abby.
He won’t talk to me, Iris wants to say. Why won’t he talk to me? But she can’t say this here, in front of the cameras. Everyone would see.
‘Yeah. You?’
Abby stares at Iris. ‘I’m fucking fantastic.’
26.
Things
Iris doesn’t miss her job one bit. No way, José.
Good dark chocolate. Shit milk chocolate. Mediocre chocolate.