This is the canary version of Fiat Lux. It changes more often and may contain rougher prose than the relatively stable version on AO3.
Ante Finem Mundi
Collie looked out the bus window, wistful and hungover, as the streets went by. She was only stirred by an ad about a one-dollar coffee as a promotional price, and a gas station display that said six-something a gallon. Grabbing the railing in the least demeaning way she could imagine, she alighted from the bus and beat herself up over being convinced to have one of Maia’s mocktails for dinner, the cause of her present unease. She bought a $25 poke bowl for lunch, to celebrate the fact that she did not kill an undergraduate in the morning for the crime of not reading the Mohsin Hamid assigned to him. The miso soup was extra.
The break room had an AC unit installed by someone’s butch rendezvous
a week before the summer term began. The school would have liked to
complain about unregulated appliances, if the school had so much as
bothered to inspect. Collie buttoned up the cardigan Nona knitted. Her
laptop had a tab open about how to get soy sauce out of wool and another
about the university housing portal. The portal showed a label that said
waitlisted without any further information.
The container went into a separate bin, installed two years ago, and the paper spoon over wooden was a procurement choice supposed to be again up for debate at the next student council meeting. She stepped away halfway into a stack of essays of dubious provenance, to go to the campus electronics store and cradle anew her now crack-free phone screen. The first thing she did with it was DM Maia about not coming home for dinner, yes, the workload was bad, and yes, the soup looked excellent, but no, at this rate she’d be sleeping on campus.
Adjunct Swartz (please, just Collie is fine) of the classical studies department had her own papers to grade now, and worse. The university had her assigned to teach freshmen about colonialism without mentioning Said and economics without mentioning Friedman. She spent her evenings in the long-awaited flat, thankfully far below market rate for something this comfortable this close to her workplace, which on the days that she did not have to wrestle Canvas meant just around two corners and the bookstore. Nona visited, quite often, and told her about the charity she worked at. One election cycle, she got Collie to show up on a video about the grain dole and what a government owes its people. The food bank director was in the next slot.
Nona had dragged Maia too, to observe the meeting where the campus food bank’s funding would be discussed. The three left to celebrate before the board took up the Biology department’s reply to the government’s RFP for regional water quality assurance. The dinner was at a restaurant lit with amber bulbs and fenced by overgrown trellises. The blackboard perched on the sidewalk touted that marinara sauce was made from local hothouse tomatoes.
The water had a marginally higher chlorine content two years after, and Collie did not notice. The next contract review proudly presented downward pressure on the UV disinfection budget.
Nadia Elbakyan is confused why the buses come in two colours and why one of them is noisier. Her mom Nona tells her that two different companies run the buses now, and that’s also why the map is confusing sometimes. Her friend Maddy, though, is even more helpless. But once she drags Maddy onto the bus, they can just relax and listen to the hum of the engine. Nadia always likes that their neighbourhood has more of the newer and less dirty red buses, instead of the noisy blue ones in downtown. Mom usually drives if they have to go downtown anyways. Maddy’s mom is someone who is very smart, and works at the university, where all the red buses live just outside. Auntie Collie is a nice woman, and sometimes big brothers and sisters come to her study room and ask her questions, and she kisses them both and tells them to cross the street to the park. Maddy doesn’t like the girls in the daycare next to that park, and Nadia is always sorry that Maddy has to study there. Auntie Collie has said that the daycare is safe, and that she is sorry too about the girls, but she will make sure that they are dealt with.
She likes Auntie Collie’s house too. It is on the third floor of a red brick building and it is so close to the supermarket and her study room. After work, Auntie Collie always teaches them fun things like how to make massive soap bubbles from bacon grease and ash from a campfire, or her mom would teach Maddy and her how to tie different knots and make sure that the branch is sound before swinging hard on it. She likes hanging out with Lewis too. He is a bit older and his mom Maia works at the observatory on the mountain, so he gets lonely sometimes. Lewis likes his console, and Auntie Maia gives him a game disk just before each time she has to go back to the observatory. Nadia wants to ask why the observatory people can’t move closer so Auntie Maia can be with Lewis.
Collie got Lewis a proper bunk when he was twelve and spent as much time at her apartment as he did at Maia’s place. Maia did sob and thank Collie through the handset when informed of the matter. Lewis, for his part, never did find a proper three-player game, the teams never were balanced. One time, over the lip of a patched pothole he slid off his bicycle with the console in his backpack, and—thankfully—one of the controllers took the hit. It still worked when he got to Mrs Swartz’s place, the scratched plastic just dug into his hands a little.
Nadia crashed her cart into his, and the controller didn’t rumble. He noticed it, just a little bit. When he rode back in the morning, his father took the thing apart, and showed him where the wire to the motor had gone loose. Lewis opened the window and held his breath as dad put a soldering iron to it and made it work again.
Remember, always test before you put the shell back together, save you some time.
He helped strip down and put back together Maddy’s bike in the summer when Mrs Swartz found it at a yard sale. The old brake cables had to be swapped out and the seat was too high. The console lived in the living room of her place now, which always was the more sensible option. The lights would go out after dinner sometimes at his father’s place, and the console with it. Last time mom was home, she talked with dad about selling the place when they thought he was asleep.
Senior Lecturer Swartz?
Please, just Collie is fine.
A Nona Elbakyan says she knows you?
That would be so, what is the matter? Swartz grabbed her coat.
She presented at the university clinic with acute abdominal pain, the clinic says they don’t treat unaffiliated patients.
She is affiliated with me. Is she still at the clinic?
Yes.
Bring me to her.
Miss Swartz—
Doctor, Doctor.
Right, Doctor Swartz, you simply must understand that we are overloaded as is. There are twenty students out in the waiting room not yet even triaged.
I understand, and I sympathize. I furthermore ask you to consider the fact that Mrs Elbakyan’s child is currently in my living room unawares and that I have a mobile phone in my pocket I would most regret using as a device for—
I regret to tell you, but she is neither student nor staff, to treat her would mean treating the rest of the city.
It needn’t be, if you can deliver her safety, I can do my utmost to make sure the resources of your clinic are both sufficient and efficiently spent.
I—
She is a mother and treasured member of the community, Doctor, if this goes out the optics could be disastrous.
Doctor Swartz—
I ask only for her safety, Doctor. She held his hand unblinking.
Of course, Doctor Swartz. And then it was a handshake.
She shook his hand one too many times and said thank you, in the way where an exhalation from her nose stole half the syllable and a healthy cough stole the rest.
Her pupils were too big, he was certain of that.
Outside the room, her thumb stroked the back of Nona’s hand.
You’re going to be okay, ma’am, he said.
Nadia won’t even notice. Collie smiled at her friend.
Someone heard wheezing in the clinic’s washroom, knocked, and a raspy Collie said she was fine.
Maia and her husband came to Collie’s door for Christmas and did not leave until April, when the international students flew back home and never came back and the flats were open.
Collie washed her good dress by hand a month before the semester started.
Maia’s old house had finally been sold, and the silver took two people to bring to the third floor. They taught the children the importance of carrying the ration cards that the university printed and the three women signed. The two for Nona and Nadia were delivered over three pots of tea, while the children played with the console in the living room.
Madame
The art gallery was downtown, with three stories of floor-to-ceiling glass sediment on five of masonry. Her father had taught her how to tell the difference between igneous and metamorphic rocks. The exhibition celebrated the injection-molded chair, and sculptures made from it. Over the phone, she told her father she was going into the museum now, and no phones inside, and that she would video-call them after she went back to her room.
There was a greenscreen set of a man-made creek, it gurgled alongside an art piece with a video element of the artists talking. Someone made a rug entirely out of old printer cables, and hematite was the beadwork.
She retired to the gallery bar after she ran out of film. There was one bartender and one other client. The latter was in his shirtsleeves, and was scrolling on his phone — up, down, and then up again. The document he was looking at did not require his signature, only his receipt.
She thought he had a nice suit, and saw the cufflinks on his wrists. He was drinking something that was not in the cocktail canon.
The math she did agreed with where her heart went.
He folded his phone, and asked the bartender for a Vieux Carré. She took the second stool to his right.
«the é…», she said in French.
«Quoi?» He saw that she had earbuds in.
«your watch. mercredi.»
He checked, it was complaining about an elevated heart rate, and it was no longer Monday.
«What is the word you use for chocolate-filled bread.» he said in French, and pulled the stool closer to him.
«…»
He pushed the stool back in.
Bartender! Get the lady whatever she wants.
uhh…, un.. a, cabernet, pla—please? she switched to English for the bartender, who got cabernet.
Bréal steadied himself for holding conversation in French.
«Seems like we both need some schooling,» he said in the diction the language school taught him. «Bréal is my name. Welcome, Mademoiselle, I think.»
«don’t use it back home…»
«—oh, merde, sorry—»
«…but I like.»
The bartender pretended to not overhear as he brought their drinks.
Bréal closed the first two buttons on his shirt back up. «Very well, Madame.» He raised his glass to toast.
She pulled back her glass. «mademoiselle. i just told you.» She pressed down on the base of the wine glass.
«Then it shall be,» a chuckle, «mademoiselle.» And then the glasses clinked, with hers firmly planted, and his doing the swing.
The date after that, they went to a restaurant that required an elevator. The patio was closed on account of the wind, and there was a pot of dried flowers at every table.
She asked the waiter to take the flowers away, s’il vous plaît. Bréal asked for champagne.
The waiter brought sparkling wine instead.
She had sablefish, and he had chicken tarragon. Dessert was lava cake, with vanilla gelato on top. Back on the ground, they had sorbet at a more colourful establishment. The cherry syrup tasted of chemistry and saccharine.
He drove her to the airport, in a car that did not announce itself, when the dig site on another continent opened. She said she would bring back souvenirs. The truck that drove her to the dig site had its windshield swapped out in the middle of the tour, because the wiper pushed the sand and the sand ground down the glass to a dreamy haze.
They had her and the other students nail down extra anchors for the tents. She got used to breathing through a headscarf and with goggles pressing on her nose.
After she came back, she brought them to a place that pretended to be a dumpling shop out front. The lamps inside were red, and the spirits were green. You were supposed to speak only at a whisper there. Before he could discreetly tell the bartender to cut her off, she finished the rest of her Sazerac in one gulp. «What’s wrong?» he said. She put his hand on her cheek, and held it there, where she was warm. She smelled of lavender as he pulled her in.
She had mocktails after that, and outside the second bar of the night he told her about getting disowned just about in that art gallery. She did nothing except hold his hand and call a rideshare.
She dropped him off at the Epsilon house, where a TV was glowing from some game that had a flashing-lights warning. The brothers asked where…wrong, in Anglais, she said bar and nothing else. Then she walked back to her own room.
The date after that, she made him drive her to a chicken place, where the tables were greasy and white rice came with fried chicken. She was making him eat a spoonful of ketchup on rice when the earbuds whispered battery low.
«excuse me, bathroom,» she said. A piece of chicken skin was crunched behind her.
«take your time, ma chère.»
It was locked, and the sign on it said No Public…
Non Publique… pas de … publiques. The line under that
said cashier. Someone flushed.
She went to the till. A few teenagers were chattering and laughing about their amusements.
uhh, toilette? she tried in English as the deep fryer fizzed.
The cashier looked at her, and pressed a button. She jogged to the bathroom.
Inside a stall, she took out her earbuds and put them in their case.
She had foam spares, the good ones from the store brand. It was quiet again. She let her ponytail down, so that the hair covered her ears.
She gave him the crunchy foods to eat, and had herself a fruit cup and the rest of the ketchup rice. Bréal spoke slower after that, a bit louder too, and only while she was looking.
They stopped for gas on the way back to the university, and he filled with Regular. The radio was tuned to a dead channel at the lowest volume.
There was a lightbulb on his desk, and the lamp glowed red. He didn’t have anything to drink, neither did she. He made sure the blanket covered both of them.
Her earbuds glowed green as they were charged, and she turned their LED away from the bed.
She smelled of lavender, and the wool of her sweater tickled him.
His fingers landed on her as if he was terrified. She took each in hand and guided them up to her ears.
«are you sure?» he whispered.
«…»
She made his fingers pinch the orange foam, and he pulled the earplugs out at the speed of a melting glacier.
They were set down next to the lightbulb.
Before she went home for Christmas, he gave her a piece of jade from a crystal store. «For the family.» She flew right back to the dig site after New Year’s Day, and did not come back until May.
In late January, though. A package of knits, wines, and books arrived at the Epsilon house, for a M. Bréal.
The sandstorm shut the road back to town. The professors were digging in the site with them too.
The University issued them the goggles, but the KN95s Vavasseur bought himself before getting on the plane. The professors paid him back after. It was better under the digging tent, where they did not have to wear the PPE.
She was brushing a piece of sandstone with a horsehair brush. He was in the same pit, doing likewise.
«Do you think we will get named?» Vavasseur asked.
«Professor… fat glutton, eat credit.»
«Like vase, ha?»
He found something, and wanted her to photograph it.
She packed her film camera in the inner section of her backpack, and had wrapped it in two layers of Ziploc bags.
The film rolls went to the professor, who locked them in a trunk until they were mailed back to campus.
They did not dig this semester, and the professors put her on TA’ing and analyzing the artifacts.
The next time Bréal was in her room, he saw a cast iron pan hanging on the coat hook.
«Why?»
«is reliable, durable.»
He nodded. When they wanted to go to the chicken place that night, his car puttered out at the turn of the key.
He did a round of replacement analysis a few weeks after that, his car had indeed reached the end of its economic life. On a day when she was not busy—which was rare—he brought her to a dealership.
She wore loose linen with a beige cardigan up top. He wore a merino navy quarter-zip. His usual smartwatch was swapped out for a mechanical timepiece. Sunglasses were standard-issue.
For me, and my woman. he said to the salesman who had grey pants on.
The salesman was talking too fast, using too many weird words, she could not follow. The number on the sticker, however, was perfectly legible.
The man in the grey hiking pants went away to get them coffees, she had wanted to say she wanted a mocha.
His shoes did not match his belt, and his shoes were brown, She had read one night on how Bréal’s strata would consider it an insult.
non, she whispered into his ear.
non?
non.
«let’s just look, then,» he said.
They drank their coffees after that, and test drove a few before deciding to mull on it a bit more, as Bréal said.
He wanted to bring them to the neighbouring restaurant, she steered him toward the bakery two blocks down. She looked at the croissants and ordered the chocolate muffins instead.
«we buy used,» she decreed without hope of challenge.
«Why?»
«in the desert, the new ones broke. the townsfolk fixed the old ones.»
«but the parts are older.»
«the mechanics told us, less parts in old ones.»
«but where to find them? even the used ones we saw had touchscreens.»
«online, and, we buy outright.»
«…»
«and i tell vavasseur to teach you fixing. good skill.»
«you think father was right…»
«we prepare, and we don’t run like him.»
She set down her muffin’s wrapper, and held his hand.
«you stand and fight, no?»
Bréal remembered the protest that got him disowned.
«We do.»
He held her hand back.
She was learning to sew at the desk. He was on his phone, browsing.
He found the car to buy on a website dressed for the last millennium. It was pick-up only, a ferry and two valleys over yonder. He texted his robot concierge for a car, and it could only schedule for him to pick up at a car rental.
Father’s old human concierge could have driven it to me, he thought to himself. Then his mental image of her scolded him for irresponsible spending.
The real woman was patching an elbow while humming a tune. He told her where they were going that weekend.
The seller insisted on cash, and the bank still brought him to the back rather than let him queue. She felt proud of herself, for reining in what remained of his portfolio. The banker handed him something to sign, and Bréal kept the envelope the banker gave him in his inside pocket.
The pen was gold-plated at the nib, this she allowed him to keep.
The rental place ran out of the car they had booked, so they had to drive it themselves. And because humans were driving, there was an extra insurance premium. And because Bréal was under twenty-five, there was another charge. It came out double the initial estimate, and the PIN pad scratched the metal on his credit card.
There was a bilingual expletive when he drove it off the lot.
He was juggling texting the truck’s owner and an inane mobile game on the ferry, and she wanted to go to the onboard restaurant to grab lunch for the both of them.
«You sure you can handle it?» he said to the screen.
«mmm, i can just point.»
«You sure you don’t want me to go with you?» he said with the phone face-down.
«i have to practice.» She put on her earbuds.
«I want the soup, and bread. Come back if you can’t handle it.» The phone buzzed.
She went upstairs to the passenger area.
The line was long, and she saw that the soup was labeled
salmon …saumon, he would like it. She wants… the
salad.
It took a few tries, but the staff was as patient as the line behind her allowed. She used her own debit card to pay. The soup came in a plastic bowl shaped to be an oversized ramekin, and the salad was grab-and-go from the cold shelf, which was a blessing.
She set the tray at the dashboard, and they ate until the captain said something on the PA.
«what is it?» she said with darting eyes, no one was panicking, so it was probably okay.
«There are orcas, want to look?»
The captain cut the engine off after that, and he handed her a pair of binoculars. There were orcas, a grandmother leading the pack and two males flanking. A juvenile was playing, and her mother followed.
It was the same pair of binoculars his father gave him, when he was old enough to do the ropes on the family yacht.
One valley of driving later, she declared that she was hungry again. He drove past a café chain and parked in front of a grocery store. They grabbed a tuna sandwich, and at the till he grabbed a pamphlet selling a points card. The cashier unfolded the pamphlet and unstuck the card that was taped inside at the factory.
The card had a bar code on its back, and beeped under the same scanner as the one tall can of kombucha did. She asked the cashier for two packets of ketchup.
He threw out an old business card or two, to make room for the points card. In the car, they grabbed a wedge of sandwich each, said bon appétit, and ate.
In the backseat, Bréal changed into a polo and beige slacks.
They got to where the seller had agreed before dark. The seller was tanned up to the elbow, and had a beard as white as melting slush. He had a deer gun on his person.
You here about the truck?
Yessir, he checked the gun, can’t tell if it’s loaded. Let’s make it quick for both of us. Future mother-in-law would have my head if I don’t bring her back on the last ferry.
The seller left his gun leaning on a tree.
Bréal looked under the hood, and then under the carriage. By the guide he had followed, there was nothing alarming. The seller rode shotgun when Bréal did the test drive the guide prescribed.
Bréal handed him the envelope, the seller counted the bills inside one by one. The exact amount as they had agreed on. The seller just about figured it was the woman who made him haggle.
Might be too big for your girlfriend. he said.
She won’t have any other. Damn near twisted my arm off.
The seller shrugged, and gave them the keys.
Might not make it to the ferry. the seller said.
I figured we’d sleep in the truck if that came to be.
I’ll tell my Martha to pray for you. The seller grabbed his gun and hat and walked back to his barn.
She drove the truck in front, and he followed in the rental. The pedals were a little too deep in the footwell for her. They returned the rental at the local branch, which added another pile of fees.
They laid the seats to as flat as they went, saw that it wasn’t enough. They went to a big-box store, and got an inflatable mattress sized for the canopy as well as a USB charger that plugs into the car.
They cracked the windows open, and held each other for warmth overnight.
In the morning, they shared the truck’s one charger between his phone and her laptop, to do his essay and to write feedback for her students.
In November, her family sent them another package, and a sum in her account. They said planes were too expensive now, so just enjoy Christmas on campus. Their Christmas gift to her was a treadle sewing machine, she texted them that they shouldn’t have.
She had Bréal come over from the Epsilon house. The TV was showing a variety show, and he was nursing a cup of hot cocoa. A turkey would have been too big for just the two of them, so it was a chicken in her cast-iron pan that went into the oven. The handle burned her close to the elbow when she took the bird out.
«Fuck!»
«What is i—shoot, okay, okay. it’s just a little.»
She was trying not to cry, it was hard. He was bringing her to the sink.
«It’s okay, ma chère. It’s okay.»
The rumble in his chest assured her of his robustness, which she was happy about.
The water ran for another few minutes, and he finished making the rest of dinner.
The smell of rosemary did not leave until New Year’s, and she sent him back to the Epsilon house with two chicken salad sandwiches. The stuffing she kept for herself.
In the spring, Vavasseur sent Bréal for blinker fluid. She was assigned to do her research, her professor came back from the dig site with another few crates. The university cut the funding for next year’s excursion. She combed through and classified the artifacts they had.
Bréal said to her that the student insurance would cover glasses, and so she got a pair. Round ones, with metal frames. It could take heat and bend back into shape, not like the plastic ones.
She learned to polish them with a rag instead of the microfibre cloth. Bréal turned a piece of cedar and attached hinges to make a case for the glasses. She said it was beautiful, and saw that they indeed were.
Continuity Test
Lewis had a job now, at the old repair workshop that fixed Collie’s phone back during grad school. He hated laptops and got handy with a microscope. Sometimes, new frames were milled instead of bought, because their fixer was reliable with bringing in liquor and spotty with chips and they were going to wait anyways. Maia wanted him in the electrical engineering department, but had to search for someone in the faculty to meet with him and see his projects. Fridays were paydays, when he would put his copper wires back into his backpack to put at home. Madam Swartz had grown a habit of patting him on the head on those, even though he definitely wasn’t that age anymore.
Every other weekend, though, Bréal and the boys from Epsilon Rho Rho would toot the horn outside the building to tell him they were there, and then they would all drive out to the city to find old parts. Madam Nona always made him bring two vials of mead on the way out. The small one for the guards at the gate, the bigger one for the boys around the fire. And she will want new rubber gloves and a few bundles of sage by next Monday.
The smoke cancelled the last three trips. Lewis grabbed his backpack from the same corner of his room.
Maia always hugged him tight before they headed out, he couldn’t bear to tell her that it was a bit embarrassing.
At her behest, he double-checked his backpack: one large electrician’s toolkit (packed last night), two pairs of insulating gloves, one hardhat, one tourniquet and first aid kit. One large vial of mead, one medium vial of mead, and one small vial of grease and ointment each.
Best bring back all your fingers. They’re for the saws to eat. If you lose one, though, the going rate is two pounds of sausage to a finger.
No it isn’t, don’t listen to your father except the bringing back fingers thing.
The truck bed smelled of french fries as it rolled down the highway towards the city. The governor was set at thirty-five miles an hour, with a screw that his father made sure he knew how to turn before his first outing. The biscuits had a taste of ginger from Nadia’s patch, and covered the slight rancid smoke from the exhaust.
The road to the hardware store had flashing red in the traffic lights and two moving cars on it. His job there was to haul salt and painkillers and disinfectant, which always was heavy, though it didn’t show until that night. The staff made him go into the warehouse and find the rubber gloves himself. Which the manager said now cost two vials of poppy. The trucks will be going elsewhere next month.
The medical student threw up from the fumes about the time when they lost sight of the river. From the cab, Bréal handed him a pouch of dried mint and a square of rolling paper, for the egghead.
First time, egghead? Lewis snatched the mint.
Yeah. The egghead wiped her lips with a stretched sleeve.
First time in a truck or first time in a truck bed?
A lick on the edge of the paper.
Well, the buses, and then we had cargo bikes. We never drove growing up.
That’ll do it, try and keep your eyes on the road.
Lewis took out his flint and knife and told the egghead to lean in. She held the cigarette with the hand she wiped her lips with, and held her briefcase with the other.
…what about you?
Must be in the dozens of trips now.
All smelling like… something died and someone fried it?
It ain’t so bad once you get used to it. Right, you oughta try these biscuits from my auntie.
They got to the town before sundown. Bréal dapped up the two campus guards who said something about can’t wait to eat at the dining hall again after a month out in the country, before they got to briefing the two guards from the caravan who would be their replacement.
The other med student had been here for three months, and handed over to Egghead the binders for the village and which patient was on what for how long, and which old man could never be trusted to take his pills so make his son make double sure.
He caught the general store just before it closed, and got himself a link of sausage and a yard of casing for the return trip.
The rest could wait, for tonight, they just had to sit around the town fire and share the soup the folks had made. Five jars of honey clinked in his backpack, next to a dozen of the smoked salmon from another run by another crew to another town.
The schoolteacher hugged her beau, the carpenter who rode the truck behind Lewis and Egghead. By the book, she still had five more months with this class before she would come back to the university.
The fire seemed to be the axis on which the world spun, and the mead made the world spin faster. Lewis passed the bottle toward the carpenter, and the schoolteacher in his lap grabbed it instead. A chorus sang Ayy when she decanted from the bottle into his open mouth.
Lewis fell back-first into the truck bed, and did not feel the falling stop even after he snugged himself in his sleeping bag.
The copper run took place south of the town, when the rest of the trucks were already almost full with the butter, leather, and jam from the fields, and while the boys were busy with raising a barn or whatnot. Bréal unlocked the toolbox and tossed him the heavy pliers. Then, he got himself a hunting rifle and a shade for standing hours through a sunroof. The cut chain on the doors lay two feet from where they had cut it that spring. Lewis got to tagging out junction boxes and flagging appliances.
The clock on the wall said two in the morning and the overcast shade said about noon. Lewis wiped off the grease on his hands and bit into a sausage with his left, while his right sorted the rounds that would be of use for Bréal from another pile destined for his backpack. Someone had an ex-police laptop open and was jailbreaking a phone that was once a display unit.
My auntie said she needed some sage, so pardon me while I grab some.
Sure, lil bro, good luck out there.
Behind the thicket there was a blind with the littlest path to a lodge, and from there a dirt road back into town.
One knock, two, then out with four.
He adjusted his collar like how Madam Swartz taught him.
A deadbolt moved.
Diana.
She let him in.
The two drops that remained of the big bottle of mead sat on the steps to the blind.
He had at last learned to grab his aluminum mug by the handle instead of the body when she poured from the thermos. It smelled like chicken noodle soup, more metallic, more fatty. Strong sweet notes from carrot and onion. Herbs too, not like the dry stuff that made it to the university.
Duck noodle soup.
I see.
Made it this morning.
It is very good, thank you.
They waited for the soup to cool some more.
The hinge will want greasing soon.
Yes, ma’am.
And, it is good to see you. Diana said as she rose and put on her gear.
And I love seeing you too.
Sage, right?
Stay safe out there.
The hinge had grime on it, most likely from the last fire from inland. Lewis grabbed a brush from his backpack and got to work. He was brushing dried leaves off the roof when a gunshot cracked from the other side of the hill. He grabbed an armful of the leaves to start a fire.
She brought back a rabbit just as the fire took.
Y’know, my auntie always said that eating nothing but rabbits is how you starve.
That so? That woman teach you anything that would be useful out here?
I certainly pick up more with you.
Good boy.
She handed him his sage.
Anything else before I head back?
Well, umm.
The leg?
A nod.
She moved the empty bottle, sat down, and pulled off her metal leg.
Maddy was the one that made this cream, I told her I had a sore shoulder and she said she added peppermint to help with it.
Must you always bring up other women? She grunted as he massaged the stump.
What, you scared of my sister? We can talk about other things.
Tell me how good that Egghead character is, and if she can help with the leg.
Didn’t you just say no women?
It’s different when they’re a doctor.
He left a jar of Nona’s honey she told him to keep for himself, and put into his backpack an identical jar, with honey-sweetened huckleberry jam. The casing he’d brought would be filled with deer by the next time he came by.
Mother says hi, and to mind the trip home. A kiss. And he was on his way.
He met the crew back at the parking lot, the underside of his fingernails still peppermint-numb.
Bréal counted the convoy before they headed back.
Thirty kegs of salted butter, five sides of leather, twenty crates of jam. Seven bags of pool shock, two shipping boxes of laptops and speakers and headphones. A requisitioned trailer pulling two requisitioned generators cached and hidden two weeks ago.
One freshman relieved after two weeks under a tarp. Egghead’s predecessor, hugging the town children, two Campus Security guards and a Pelican case between them. One high-school aged child with a letter from the schoolteacher and a rucksack embroidered with red thread. The convoy was short one beau, and the town was up one carpenter.
Someone in the cab said something about how sweet sage must burn if its smoke can lose him in a forest, shut up. Someone else chuckled, and they went past university perimeter with thirty kilos of copper.
Maia made him swear that the mead went to the guards and the boys respectively, and he could honestly say yes. Maddy made her ointments with a bundle of herbs from another brother on the convoy. Madam Swartz did not say anything, but served the next breakfast with butter and huckleberry jam. The week after that, she brought cake batter to the bakery and layered it with the jam when she got it home. She told Maddy to bring a slice to Bréal and his lieutenant.
He held his breath as he helped puff the sage smoke onto the apiary.
Fortification
Standard Loaf, version 2daeb1ae
From: Department of Food Sciences, Dietitian Nona Elbakyan
For immediate distribution to affiliated bakeries.
Formula
| Ingredients | % |
|---|---|
| Flour, 75-25 wholemeal-oatmeal | 100 |
| Water | 66 |
| Salt | 2 |
| Yeast, fresh | 2 |
| Honey | 2 |
| Malt | 0.5 |
| Chalk | 0.5 |
Process
| Stage | Time | Temp | Endpoint |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Sponge: 50% of the flour, all the yeast, water to slack batter | 360-720m | 25°C | Rising stops. |
| 2. Final Mix: Remaining flour, salt, honey, malt, chalk, water | 10-15m | — | Dough comes together. |
| 3. Fermentation | 45-60m | — | Dough doubles. |
| 4. Divide | 15-30m | — | 1000g apiece for a 2 lb loaf. |
| 5. Rest | 15m | — | Moulds without tearing. |
| 6. Mould and pan | 10m | — | Greased pans, seam down. |
| 7. Proof | 45-75m | 25-30°C | Three-quarters tin’s height, finger press springs back. |
| 8. Bake | 30-45m | 220-230°C, falling | Internal temperature 99°C. |
| 9. Depan and cool | 60m | 25°C | Depan and cool on racks. |
Printed by Arbutus University Press.
The Swartz Carrot Cake
Serves eight, prepare and bring to the bakery after lunch when the oven has cooled slightly.
Ingredients
12 oz flour, try and get as much wheat content as you can
1 teaspoon potash
6 ounces salted butter
6 ounces oatmeal
6 tablespoons honey
3 tablespoons vinegar, use the mead vinegar.
6 tablespoons carrot, grated.
1 fistful salmonberry or blackberry raisins
2 eggs, whisked.
Your choice of toppings. We have huckleberry jam, but whipped cream is traditional if we ever found some.
Water to mix
Steps
Mix flour and potash in a bowl, then rub butter into it with your fingers until roughly incorporated. Add oatmeal and carrots and stir in two eggs and the honey. Add water slowly until you have a stiff batter. Butter the frying pan and put the batter in, use the one with our name on the handle. Time yourself 30 minutes, go to the market or do the washing in the meantime. Serve with huckleberry jam smeared on top.
Maia Tsien’s Dandelion Mushroom Noodles
Fill bellies in a pinch before the harvest comes in
What
Dandelions, yet to bloom
Salt to taste
Garlic with the greens, mince the bulb
Water
Noodles
Dried mushrooms, if the botanists still have any
Ginger, sliced
How
Rehydrate mushrooms in the pot the night before.
Pick for buds and their leaves, bloomed ones are more bitter. Serve buds straight.
Boil water with aromatics and mushrooms, cook noodles till good. Rinse the leaves in running water, then blanch in the broth for twenty seconds. Serve in the pot.
Formulary
The last doctor had left a note on the table, something about how Rusina is better at soups and Seia is better at pastries, as well as which family hearths would not pass health inspections if med students conducted health inspections. The note itself was held down by a grip-trainer, someone had carved moo on the handle.
Egghead flipped the note, and there was a small prayer to whoever is lactose intolerant.
The sign on her office said The Doctor is Out, find him
her at this location.
The last doctor introduced her to the frequent fliers, and told her where to fire up the autoclave.
Hammers echoed down the street, someone was using a saw.
She said her greetings to Rusina, and Rusina had her kneel and learn how to squeeze an udder. The hammers gave a percussive rhythm as her arms wore out. The cow’s name was Ginger.
The trucks left with a foot of bandage and a square of gauze wrapped around a hand. It was her opinion that some people should not be trusted with hammers.
See you in the spring.
Day broke, and she flipped the sign on her office to The Doctor is In. There sat a young woman in flannel on the porch, with a yard of sausage draped across her torso and a bundle of pelt at her feet.
Doctor Egghead, right?
Actually, I prefer Rosa.
Egghead suits you more to me. Name’s Diana, see that your office just opened, Doctor Rosa?
Just Rosa is alright, no Doctor.
Out here, we call things by their names, Doctor Rosa.
I accept the compliment. So, how may I be of service?
The old stump is sore again. The last doctor left you anything about that?
Hmm, I do not recall seeing it last night, if you can tell me about it? And please do come in.
The pelts were set behind the door of the examination room.
Diana took off the sausage, and held it out.
’sfor you, and the visit.
I couldn’t possibly.
Yes you can. It’s deer.
Well, in that case. Thank you, Diana. If you could take off your pants and take a seat on this bed?
’course.
Rosa turned to face the wall while she did so. Diana rolled her eyes.
Thank you, it is the left leg, correct?
Yes ma’am.
Rosa gently leaned the prosthesis on the bed.
I see that you have doubled up your socks. The inside one was greasy.
Had to since fall, the socket gets loose.
Every year?
Every year.
I am so glad to hear that you are managing that.
We make do.
And so, when and where does it hurt?
About afternoon and evening, after I am done walking the traps.
You’re a trapper?
Yes ma’am.
I can already tell I will love the sausage. Now, does it hurt if I press… here?
Can’t say so.
Here?
A bit sore.
What about here?
Ow, fuck—pardon me.
It’s quite alright, so it hurts there after the day?
Yes ma’am.
Besides the sock, are you doing anything else about it?
Well, I try and stay in the blind more, get me more sit-down time in the day…
Okay, okay, that is very good.
And there is this lotion I been using. My boyfriend got it for me.
Hmm, do you have it on you?
Yes, should be in my satchel if you’ll gimme a moment.
Of course.
Some metallic things clinked together as she dug into her satchel.
’sgot peppermint in it is what I hear.
Must help with the pain, if I can take a bit out?
Whatever you gotta do.
Hmm, this is quite thick, Rosa pushed the thimbleful around her finger. Do you know what else it is made of?
Dunno, I just warm the vial against me before I use it.
You said your boyfriend gave you this? What does his family do?
Well, just from the vial it’s quite clear they got someone making medicine, and always be talking about herbs and bringing mead so I figure they do beekeeping.
Rosa put the sample up to her nose.
Beeswax, then.
Something about it?
Well, Diana, you see how it is greasy and stays sticky after you put it on?
Yeah, saw that in the morning. The inside takes the grease so the outside stays fresh.
Mhmm, that is smart. When did you start using it?
Yesterday, when the boy was last over.
Is he on the convoy?
Maybe, maybe not.
That’s alright.
Rosa pressed more at Diana’s stump, and saw that the red had faded within the safety margin, though longer than she would have liked.
Been like this for a long while.
Has it taken longer? Shorter?
Well, takes longer after tracking season, and shorter when I’m holed up in the blind.
Rosa got her clipboard.
Alright, and if you are comfortable, can you tell me how the amputation happened?
Rosa could hear her own pen click.
It’s alright if you—
Crushing injury, when I was… twelve, I think.
I am sorry to hear that.
Dad brought me down the mountain, and, and, the vet helped me with it.
Okay, okay, that is all I need to know. Thank you for telling me.
Diana’s left hand combed her ponytail.
So… give it to me straight, doc.
From what I am seeing, it is a nerve bundle that had grown in when the amputation happened. Nerves grow into a blob when they’re cut, you see. And one is right here on the back left of your stump, just beneath the skin. And walking on it all day is what is hurting it and annoying you.
Can’t you take it out?
That would be beyond what I can do. A surgeon is needed for this operation.
I see.
But, keep using the ointment if it helps, though make sure that you put it on before bed and to wipe it clean before you put the socket back on. It would be dangerous if you put it on, and then walked. The numbing makes you unable to feel if it is hurting too bad and you need to take a break. Any questions so far?
Where can I get a surgeon?
I can write you into the queue for the university hospital, but the waitlist is quite long, so I can’t promise anything in the short term.
I see.
And, just to note, the time it took for the redness on your stump to fade was still within the safety margin, but towards the high end. See if you can adjust your workday so you walk less and spend more time in the blind. If the redness stays for more than ten minutes, come to the clinic at once.
Understood.
One last thing, try and get the formula off of your boyfriend.
What kind of doctor puts the easiest thing last?
Well, medical student, in my defence. Any questions?
Can’t say so.
Diana put her leg back on.
Thank you, doc.
You are more than welcome, Diana.
The next case came at lunch, when she was cutting bread for her butter, cheddar, colby, butter-fried egg and butter-fried onion sandwich. It was young Abe’s birthday, so Rosa had him stick his tongue out and then dropped the tincture in. It apparently tasted like salt and a bit like mold. There was some apple juice in the ice box, courtesy of her predecessor, and she gave it to the child to wash it down. The fact that it kept him in observation for the next ten minutes was entirely incidental.
The family gave her four bottles of buttermilk as thanks.
She hung the sausage on the coat rack at the front of the clinic, and slept on the examining bed.
Notifiable
Off Label Part I
Rosa spent the morning on horseback, the ranch had put her on a mare to help with driving the cattle in. There were several small expletives she would rather not repeat, and a curse to her past self for not paying attention during the four-credit riding course. Someone rode for her before noon, she tossed her whip to the closest townsman and followed. The rider’s horse did not so much as slow down in the u-turn.
Sorry, what did you say? Can’t hear anything over these hooves.
Cassidy kid, kicked, in the head. Went down on hay, thank god.
Okay, head trauma, she trained for this.
When did it happen?
I heard that cry and rode and had a look and then I rode for you.
How long ago? Rosa yelled, only part of it was for the hooves.
Say ten minutes.
Was he making sense when you left? The other half of her mind was counting what was in her panniers.
Was moaning, didn’t hear him say much.
Where on the head?
On the side. Was bleeding when I left.
Shit. Okay, breathe in, four seconds, hold, four seconds, breathe out, four seconds, hold.
How much?
Well, uhh…
Seeping or gushing? The gauze was in her bandolier.
About the middle.
Where is he now?
Just outside the Cassidy barn, the folks dared not move him.
Good. He awake?
Yes ma’am.
Did he black out? The alcohol was in a pouch on her right hip, 140 proof. It never stopped smelling like cinnamon when it was empty.
No.
Doesn’t mean much.
Okay, what’s next, what’s next. What did Doctor Franklin say in freshman year?
How old?
Fifteen.
Lying down, how? She slacked the reins more.
On his back.
Did you see any vomit?
Umm—
Rosa wondered what the rider was to young Mr Cassidy.
Yes or no. Now!
Yes.
No time for caution, she unhooked the carabiner holding the keys to the clinic. And tossed it to the rider.
East wall, middle—right—cabinet. Need: stretcher, head immobilizer.
Understood.
Mrs Cassidy was kneeling next to him, crying, and holding a handkerchief to his head. The father too. And hardly any better.
Freeze! Keep his head straight! They made sure she could yell before sending her out.
Dismount, a stumble, she took off one side of the mare’s pannier and washed her hands from the pouch.
If you’ll excuse me, Mr—
Please, you have to save him. Please, you can take whatever you want, please.
Hey, my name is Rosa, I am a doctor and I am here to help you. What is your name? The gauze she unwrapped was packed in wax paper, and was stamped with a seal of Arbutus University.
Impact on temporal bone, major laceration, moderate bleeding.
uhh, i am… attis? Dazed, he opened his lids. The right pupil was larger than his left.
…
…
Right.
She put a finger into his mouth.
No indication of blocked airway.
Okay, Attis, I am putting a piece of cotton on your head, can you hold onto it where I put it? Patient’s nails are pink, blanch returns slow. Matches cold ground.
mmm.
Mr Cassidy, we are turning him to the side now. I need you to hold him at the thighs. Mrs Cassidy, hold his torso from the left side. I need to hold his head.
He was heavy, the way a sack of flour is heavy.
And what day is it today?
it’s a thursday, november… don’t think i recall the date.
Do you remember what happened?
a gate, i… kneel down for the lever, and Buttercup panicked. please don’t put her down.
I see, and I promise that won’t happen.
Okay, Attis, now I need you to keep pressing that cotton for me. And I need you to remember three words: Bundle, Book, Banana.
what’s a banana?
Shit, uhh, Don’t worry, let’s do… sword, tree, pillar.
mmm.
Now, I am going to take your wrist for the heart rate. The watch was branded by a company that she thought no longer existed. The back cover was engraved with the university’s seal and motto. T+0-60, fifty-four BPM. T+60-120, twelve breaths, irregular.
Not good.
I need your arm for blood pressure, if you can raise your forearm so I can slide it on?
She pumped the leather bellows. The gauge read 148/72.
…okay.
I am going to shine a light in your eyes, keep them open for me, okay? She had just cranked it before dawn.
Pupil constriction, right side slower than left, slightly. Don’t show panic, if you panic everybody panics.
Mom and Dad, do you remember what happened? She said as she shone her light in his ear. Something in the shape of tear tracks ran to the back of his head, duller than when it must have glistened before Rosa got here.
It was my fault! We were turning the cattle in, when, when I went to get the barn, and then— Mr Cassidy put an arm around his wife.
Okay, okay, ma’am, deep breaths, take it easy. Now, sir, did you see what happened?
Mr Cassidy shook his head.
Now, Attis, can you tell me the three words again?
umm, sword, apple, …paper?
Mrs Cassidy screamed, but not before burrowing herself into Mr Cassidy’s chest.
I am going to take your vitals one more time, m’kay?
mmkay.
170/60, pulse 44, pauses in breathing. Rosa tried her best to recall what it was you were supposed to say to the parents now. She asked Attis about the man who rode for her.
She told Attis that it was okay to feel drowsy, and said that his uncle would be back any moment now, to bring him to the clinic, where she had the rest of her equipment. She signaled the parents to come and hold him steady. Mr Cassidy said something about how supper was still on the stove, son, with the good bread from the baker. Mrs Cassidy’s thumb stroked her boy’s chin.
Agonal breathing arrived, and Rosa pulled out her stethoscope. His lungs sounded of bubbling stew, with a burnt bottom.
His uncle came back, with the stretcher and the head immobilizer. He saw the new doctor performing chest compressions, and announced that he brought what she asked for.
She looked at her watch, the one by the extinct company, and pronounced Mr Attis Cassidy dead at 1148 hours. She pulled his eyelids down, pushed his jaw back up, and logged the hour in her planner.
He was rolled, back to supine.
She removed the blood pressure cuff, wrapped bandage on the gauze on his temple, and clicked back into place the holster of her flashlight. She decanted her canteen entire, to wash away the blood on her hands.
Y’all can move him now. Would you like me to tell the priest on the way back to town?
they could handle it from here, thank you, doctor.
and, madam, the bleeding was inside his skull, nothing could have saved him after the kick. he wasn’t in pain.
…moving him would not have helped.
The uncle was saying a prayer.
i will be back, saturday, noon, at your home. does that sound alright?
Mr Cassidy flicked his wrist, back first.
…otherwise, i’ll be at the clinic.
Rosa put the pannier back on her mare, and collected the university’s stretcher and head immobilizer.
the keys, please.
right, and buttercup…
The Cassidys did not answer.
On the way back to the clinic, she ripped a blank page from her planner, sprinkled mint like how the boy on the back of the truck did, and licked it at an angle that spilled a dash of the dried leaves. The matchbook was from an outfit along the river, and it was in the clinic, half-used, when she moved in.
There was a figure, sat on the porch of the clinic. The mare took a few more steps, and the figure resolved to the Schoolteacher. Rosa took off the pannier, and let a man lead her mare to the stable. The figure’s face resolved into a name.
Rusina.
Madame Ii
The fall after that, another sum came into her account, along with it an instruction to buy gold, and that they were coming. Your landlord had sold the house, a synthesized voice was readind what the policeman typed out. You have two weeks to leave the room.
The trees must have been in the way. She found a corner of her block that still had cell signal, and called Bréal, crying. Her heart began to race midway through the call.
He brought with him Vavasseur and a few brothers that weekend, after he had his last midterm. The bed in Bréal’s room was a twin, he and another brother took the legs off and brought the bedframe out.
That night, they slept on a bare mattress, surrounded by cardboard boxes and plastic totes. On Sunday, Bréal drove to pick up a full-sized bedframe and mattress. Fumigating the mattress took another day, but by Tuesday he had the bed ready. He learned that day that machining a key was rather easy.
She found old fitted mattress covers at the university’s free store, and took out the elastic to sew in drawstrings.
The Archaeology department cut all non-essential staff before December, and she held onto Bréal for warmth. The texts she sent home never got a read receipt, and the news coverage did not look good.
Bréal tucked her into bed and went downstairs, something made of glass was broken, and there were shouts. She stayed up to listen to the shouts until there was no more. The news was banned from the common room TV after that.
The grocery chains shuttered, one by one. The church started to come by after that. Bréal was the one to haul the flour. The sacks were stamped three times, once by the mill, once by the wholesaler, and once by the church. The cross was large, and on the other side from where the mill stamped.
The tax bill went to her old address, and there was no one who minded when she did not pay.
The food in Epsilon got better, gradually—the year or two after that—because several brothers’ grandmothers had moved in. A woman offered to do daycare, and a small office was made in the common room. Vavasseur came to live in the house too, and he was the one who solved the problem of who-parked-where, because they were running out of parking spots.
She learned to can in the common kitchen from the grandmothers, the Carpathian way. She kept herself busy by sewing for people in exchange for flour. She always needed more patches.
Somewhere downstairs, an old baker who moved in arm-wrestled a brother who never did leg day.
The wholesaler’s stamp on the flour was not there one day, the Food Services department took its place. After that, the cross went away from the back, and it was just the names of the mill, and the university.
It went from white flour to brown, and the year after that, it needed more kneading. They started handing out dried beans too.
Bréal was the one who stood in line, because it was too noisy there. He was always extra hungry after getting the sacks home.
The Epsilon house grew an earthen oven when electricity dropped. Eventually the notice board told everyone that their block would have power in the afternoon.
Everyone kept gathering firewood, and the microwave was put into the house attic.
The oven in the range, though, came to have hot stones on the bottom and things to keep warm on top.
The sacks came every week. On the first of every month, the dining hall began to hand out vegetable oil and salt. There was powdered milk too, but you had to prove you were a mother to get it.
For a season, the flour was stamped with the flag of another country. And then it went back to the two names.
It was still the churchgoers who handed the sacks out.
There were guards from Campus Security at the tail of the flour truck, the megaphone said they now want to see student or staff ID before handing out sacks, and that one with card can fetch for two at most. That night, the guards were strung up on the streetlights gone dark, and all manner of things were flung.
She did not ask why it took so long for him to get home, it was dangerous outside. Could have been a million things.
Bréal covered her ears for her, even though she had the dead earbuds in.
There was something new on the noticeboard after things went quiet, it was in black and white.
«what does it say?» she asked.
«Says that dependants may remain on campus, and that I have to bring you to register when the trucks come.»
«do i have to be in the queue?»
«I’ll make it work.»
Bréal found a pair of red earmuffs at the flea market, and she tied a little knot on top with green yarn in an idle moment.
She put on her white linen and flour-soaked beige cardigan. He put on his old suit, as clean as river water could make it.
«You look lovely,» he said before they set off to registration.
She walked holding his arm, which was assurance and security in the queue. They moved the registration to inside the old gymnasium, and the end of the line was two blocks from that.
They did not bring enough water, there was someone in a blue vest who wheeled a cart. The glasses were re-used with a rinse in-between. It was hydrating.
In the gymnasium, a woman cried at the front of the queue. She was on her knees, in sneakers, and held a crying infant in her arms. She begged, saying something. It was too loud, and too contorted by sorrow, and too muffled by the earmuffs to be understood. The clerk did not stamp something, and seemed pained himself. She got flour and lentils, but no milk powder. Eventually, a guards gently removed her from the desks, another carried her ration for her.
They were in front now, she held on a bit tighter.
Name? The clerk said. He had matted hair, and bags under his eyes.
Bréal, he presented his student ID.
The clerk said something, too fast.
Bréal said something softer, and moved his hand to her shoulder.
The clerk had them stand in front of a camera, one at a time.
The clerk typed something into his computer, printed something, and stamped it. There were two cards, and a line on each for him to sign his name. She waited for him to be done with his fountain pen.
It was gold, and she did not let the people behind them see that it was gold.
The clerk laminated the cards, they collected their ration at the station behind the clerk.
At home, she looked at the cards closer.
«He got my first name wrong,» she said.
«Mine too.»
«And, they put down my last name as Breal, not even with the accent.»
«Englishmen.» He scoffed.
«Why does it say I am your wife?»
«It was the slot they had.»
She thought for a moment.
«There is a line on yours, says the University can …use you.»
The same line on hers had been stamped over, by the clerk, after Bréal pointed at her earmuffs.
«They only mean for work, like the churchgoers already do.» He kissed her on the forehead.
She thought some more on the other side of that skull, and decided to lean into it.
There was another poster on the noticeboard, and in the biggest type
it said POLAR VORTEX, which did not need translation.
Vavasseur started coughing, a brother who was a medical student said it
was an infection. She heard that they turned him away from the
clinic.
They kept him in a room, and there was a schedule to care for him.
you… boil wrong. she said to the one who was responsible for cleaning the bedding.
Huh? the man said.
the …manual, says big boil.
We are low on firewood.
is dangerous, if we do not.
We’re just going to run out, then what?
…
…yeah.
you boil, i find wood. And that was that.
She did the boil too, after that. Feeling came back to her fingers about ten minutes into poking the bedding.
After the sun went down, she took Bréal’s jacket from the chair to its hook, and felt that it was damper at the shoulders than it should be, for a man who worked inside that day.
She snuggled herself against him on the bed. He was always so warm, and such a messy sleeper, they should have gotten a bigger mattress.
«You scared me,» he said to her hair.
«why?»
«i was told you went outside. it’s not safe out there.»
«we needed firewood.»
«promise me you won’t leave the house.» He held on tighter. «without someone with you.»
«i had to, or we would get sick.»
«i know, i know.»
They fell asleep before she could promise, or not.
The doctor who was a brother saw Vavasseur again, and knew what he needed to take. He prescribed it by his word, outside Vavasseur’s room, with the door closed.
In the morning, Bréal, the doctor, and the brother who boiled the bedsheets set off on Bréal’s truck. They went back with the ration first, and then said they had some other business to do.
«Don’t wait up.»
She went outside, in her own coat. The noticeboard said there was something happening next to the old free store.
She went back to the Epsilon house, and grabbed her earmuffs.
MUTUAL AID
FIRST AID CLASSES REPAIR CLASSES FOOD PRESERVATION EMERGENCY FUNDS
HOT FOOD AT NOON EVERY DAY BASEMENT OF THE STUDENT UNION BUILDING
MIDNIGHT STUDENTS SOCIETY ARBUTUS
It was dark, but they had battery-powered lamps, some that were a bright white, others that leaned more amber. One was at the desk, and some scattered across plastic crates. People were huddled around a floor-table. Some had cushions, others sat on their jackets.
It was a cold that was attenuated by way of body heat and an HVAC gone silent.
…’allo? she probed.
Hi, hey, welcome. You here for the sewing circle? The woman who answered was younger than her.
…yes?
Come, we are learning how to sashiko today. Don’t believe I caught your name?
bréal, madame bréal, she mumbled it once, then again, because someone dropped a pin.
And my name is Cecilia, it is so good to see you.
They made room for her at the table.
The circle was the same time the day after that, and they kept patching the same holes. She had told the Epsilons it would be until late, and to not wait. From two handkerchiefs and a foot of twine, she made a satchel and loaded it with her day’s flour.
She had brought a t-shirt that was chewed through by moths, and closed the holes before they headed outside to start a fire. She added her flour to the liquid they boiled. Cecilia had an onion, and there was more flour and oatmeal. A tiniest pinch of salt for the pot, which never made it past a bare simmer.
Cecilia was at the ladle, and she made sure the youngest ate first. A girl called Nadia spilled some because the stainless steel bowl was hot. She caught it from Nadia’s hands, and set it down without saying a thing.
Mercy, the girl said with the wrong stress.
The children cleaned the bowls with their tongues, and then they were rinsed in snow. She worked on someone’s piece that had a lining, and then she worked on someone else’s. She let the hand that did not catch the bowl hold the needle.
By the time they were packing up for the first aid class after, Cecilia held her hand and asked her to come back often. «S’il vous plaît,» she said, in an accent that was better than Bréal’s.
Skywave
Isolation
The coffee pot was once complained about, the way it turned water acrid and then made the cup noodle gross. Even now, that bitter threatened to pollute the acidic notes of the rose hips and blackberry by whoever plucked today’s blend. Though, a gentle overthrowing of this herbal vinegar would not be entirely undesirable.
The compressor kicked in and replaced the slight tinnitus in Oyá’s ears. The LEDs on the board glowed while her professor sat in the next chair and read something that was definitely not from the university library.
At least I am not out there slowly getting carbon monoxide poisoning like the sparkies.
Oh, blink and it’ll be your turn digging pipes and laying wells out in the sticks, just try and enjoy it.
I am trying, get me that flask.
She held out her mug.
The professor said something about oak chips and about the chemistry department.
The odometer slaved to the south inlet turbine stayed the same number while the day got warm. The professor folded a page out from the extracurricular publication.
A yellow LED came on.
What is it, Oyá?
South tank, draining.
Wait, what time is it?
The wall clock said 1000, Oyá’s wristwatch said two-past-ten.
Either way, that isn’t right. What does sensor 342 say?
Gauge says dropping pressure, is that not one of the inbound pipes from the—
Yes.
The landline phone did not have a number pad on the front. The operator got the professor the engineering office.
Before she connected them, though, the professor gave the handset to Oyá.
You know enough. Then it was a handshake.
The phone fizzed to life.
South Station, Grand Central. Grand Central requests two trucks out to radio readings on gauge three-hundred-and-ten through to twenty, and three-hundred-and-forty through fifty.
And one more with a high-gain radio, I want the city on the line. The professor shouted from the record room.
And one communication truck to establish contact with city water works at 1215 Windsor Street.
South Station receives.
The map on the table was printed the same day Oyá was born. The professor’s scrawl on it had yet to dry. The handset was on speaker.
South Station, readback on gauge three-four-three.
Right, uh, sorry, field team one reported 25.5 metres half an hour ago.
Radio them for another readout.
Standby…
24.8 metres, Grand Central.
Thank you, South Station.
0.7 metres over half an hour, that’s 1.4 per hour, contamination starts at 14.3…
The professor began using the red marker.
Check time, the wall said 1104, contamination begins at around 1830.
South Station, prepare eight work parties at your location, details to follow. Phone the Douglas station and send a runner with the message “Isolate northern municipal ingress, begin filling trucks”.
South Station receives.
Bréal went downstairs to fill his water jug, and let it run for about ten seconds until it was clear. Must be the university patching the pipes again.
The Epsilon house had running water, the others on this block had buckets and a schedule he did not himself manage.
It was ice-cold, and tasted faintly of blood.
He whittled his pencil, and considered how to convince the Rector not to look too close at the pledge records this semester. Then onto more pragmatic matters, if an extra circle on top of a “0 credits this term” read convincingly enough as an 8.
Vavasseur called for him to the common room, said a Madam Oyá asked for the bossman on the phone, and that it was urgent.
You’re talking to him.
…
I see.
…
Loud and clear, thirty minutes.
The phone clicked shut with a thud.
If you would ring the bell and rouse the men with me. I want every brother in their work gear and at the driveway in ten.
Grand Central, Operator. I have the team at Windsor on the line. Connecting you now.
Perun, get me some good news.
Hate to disappoint, Prof. We found two guys and a red phone that nobody on the other side picked up.
Any information you got on why the pressure dropped?
An iron segment gave at midnight, corroborates with our downtown clinic reporting dropping pressure on their daily radio.
The professor covered the microphone, and told Oyá to issue evacuation orders for the community clinics on the office phone.
Anything else?
Yes, get those valves turning on their end, and take whatever maps they have that aren’t twenty years old. Bring the two workers back to the university.
One sec… The shift leader said they already tried the valves. About three neighbourhoods are already bone-dry and the rest of the city will depressurize by 2000.
You have a pin on the broken segment?
Yes I do. Robert Street and Sixsmith Street.
That will be all. I will hand you back to South Station.
The truck rumbled down University Road at eighty an hour. Bréal spoke into the CB radio thus:
Friends, Brothers, Epsilons. The University again needs us.
Yesterday, it was foes who would crush us under their heels, but today!
today we dig our university her pipes, or by sundown we hold our loves
in death. Illness, is our enemy. The very soil they have made their
fortress, and I know what we do to fortresses. He lifted his finger
off the radio’s TRANSMIT button, and took a breath.
Feel that shovel in your hand, and know today we are
deliverance.
From outside the rolled-down window: the rumbling of engines.
Valve E-2 connected the municipal water mains to the university farm, and then entered the campus proper through the South Station. Oyá circled where it would be from what the team at Windsor Station described, in the red marker. Then, it was simply an issue of calling the agronomy and medicine departments with the utmost composure she could muster.
FM AGRONOMY DEPT
TO EPSILON RHO RHO FRMN BREAL
INFO MEDICINE/FOOD SCIENCES/FIRE SERVICES
NR 013
GR 91
RESTORE WATER SUPPLY TO GREENHOUSES 1 AND 2 AND PLOTS 5 AND 8 AT BEST
SPEED STOP WATER INLET LEFT OF EAST ENTRANCE STOP TRIAGE LIST TO FOLLOW
USE FIRE HOSES FOR EMERGENCY PIPING DIETITIAN NONA ELBAKYAN WILL BE
OUTSIDE GREENHOUSE 1 TO COORDINATE
FULL WATER GREENHOUSE 1
ATROPA BELLADONNA
DIGITALIS PURPUREA
PAPAVER SOMNIFERUM (PRIORITIZE FLOWERING PLANTS)
SALIX ALBA
VALERIANA OFFICINALIS
SURVIVAL DRIP GREENHOUSE 2 AND PLOTS
ALLIUM SATIVUM
ARTEMISIA ABSINTHIUM
CALENDULA OFFICINALIS
LAVANDULA ANGUSTIFOLIA
MENTHA PIPERITA
ROSA CANINA
SALVIA OFFICINALIS
SYMPHYTUM OFFICINALE
LEAST PRIORITY
BORAGO OFFICINALIS
MATRICARIA CHAMOMILLA
TANACETUM PARTHENIUM
BTThere was a camp now, outside valve E-4, six men to a tent meant for four, in twelve-hour shifts to lay the new permanent pipes.
Bréal was in the office tent, where the engineering department had laid the pencil drafts on a folding table. Someone tried to knock on the canvas opening.
Enter.
Good to see you, Bréal, how is the project going? The powder on Collie’s face had barely set.
Half the farm is brown, in the middle of the dry season, and, the agronomists said not to mind. He pinched his nose bridge. But all we are getting are pickles and biscuits from the country. Fifty blocks are on water trucks, and we are running low on gas. What brought you here, Madam Swartz?
Well, I am glad to hear that what needed to be saved was saved.
Just, get to the point.
I can get your men whatever fresh produce the Swartz family can get, in exchange, you restore water service to our district first, right after the hospital and school get it back.
I don’t believe that is up to regulation. And, why should I do this?
Because, Bréal, I have some jam of my own, and Maddy already brought your woman a sample. At your dorm.
Is that a threat against my property?
Oh, nothing of the sort, just something for our boys out in the camp. I saw your men breaking their backs for us just coming in.
How do we explain this?
Oh, you won’t have to. Just… recommend the engineers to recompute the district triage with slightly different weightings. The sandwiches are just here to relieve our working boys, yes? She coughed, and took to her smelling salts.
Okay, okay.
And, just for my best foreman. Collie produced a bottle that must have been tied to her calves. A gift, from Château Swartz.
Where did you find grapes?
I have my means.
Untitled Neighbour
Boil Water
Maddy woke up some time in the night, before the sun rose up. She was in the top bunk, and Nadia was on the bottom. Some birds were outside, cawing. Lamplight shone through the bottom of the bedroom door. The LED lamp that Collie had in the office growing up, next to the little statue of Venus that always made her laugh.
She snuck down the ladder, she was good at that part.
Mom.
Maddy. Quite early today. Collie held a lit piece of paper, and put it in the iron.
Yeah.
Your sister still asleep?
Most likely.
Fetch the kettle, and make us both some tea.
Collie was ironing her good dress, the one she hung to dry inside her room instead of on the clothesline that stretched to Lewis’s side of the building.
Mr Tsien said he will have our chunk of the hallway walled up by the weekend, if Lewis would help with hauling brick from the fifth floor.
So he will be the one at home this week? The kettle was getting heavier quite slowly in Maddy’s hands.
Yes, and he wants opinions on which of our doors to install in the new wall.
I always liked ours better.
The tea was from Maddy’s pouch, dried from whatever good leaves she found on the family patch in the greenhouse.
What are you ironing the good dress for?
Oh, just a meeting with the Emeritus today.
What about?
Bréal and I had a chat, and that gave me an idea. And why are you up so early?
mmm.
Is it getting too hot? I can have Lewis bring us back a fan.
No.
The sheets itchy? Nona can take a look.
Not that either.
Well. Let’s just drink some tea then, you always pick such a calming mix. You’ve got school and I’ve got work, long day ahead. Collie hung up the good dress, and pulled in a shirt from the clothesline. The bearing squeaked if she went faster than a creep.
I dreamt about her.
Collie opened the iron’s lid, and quenched the smoulder with a squeeze sports bottle. To bring the temperature down.
What about?
I couldn’t save her. I fed her juice and I held her up and I couldn’t save her.
Maddy held her mug with both hands, Collie worked on the sleeves.
Neither could I.
She smiled through it.
She did. And she did it most to you.
The collar was stubborn, someone had put too much starch in the washing. Maddy delivered a new lump of coal by way of tongs.
Why did it happen?
We don’t know, but we lost a lot of good people that season.
She took her medicine. I helped her steam the syringes.
And you made her the peppermint oil for the nose.
There were two tabs open on Collie’s computer the day before they made their first vial: one was about children needing some amount of agency when encountering stressful situations, on the left. The other was a website on homemade smelling salts for nausea, on the right.
And mom is still dead. Buried in a grave in the city.
…yes, and we did our best, Maddy. We all did. Do some deep breaths for me, baby. She didn’t tell Maddy that the drug safety agency was tendered out three summers before that.
Maddy didn’t.
Did it hurt? When mom died?
It didn’t, the syringes were properly disinfected and stored, and it drew excellently that day.
Collie’s smile provided the rest of the comfort.
We, found some poppy. She just went to sleep.
The undertaker kept to his hour, and knocked on the Swartz door thirty minutes after the needle left Alice.
Maddy nursed her cup. Collie put the iron down, poured more of the tea, and went back and worked on the chest.
We loved you, we loved you so much.
And she is gone, mom. It doesn’t change that.
No, it doesn’t.
It is unfair.
Yes, it is.
Collie squeezed the bottle too hard. There was a plume of steam.
Who was she to you, mom?
She, was the bookworm, if you’ll believe me. The one who gave me her textbooks with the year-old notes and the one who got winded from chasing the bus.
And the one who had no rules growing up, a mistake grandpa and grandma did not make twice.
And they couldn’t find a better vial for her.
They couldn’t find a better vial for anyone in the city. Grandma—and I—did everything we could.
That doesn’t make it any better.
No, it doesn’t. The bottom of the shirt was always the most wrinkled.
A flock of birds cawed outside, Collie hung up the shirt and doused the coals more. Maddy poured herself another helping. There were a few more hangers on the clothesline.
They were quiet for a while.
You must be hungry, when was the last time you ate? Come help me with breakfast.
I ate a late lunch, with Doctor Franklin, when the rush died down in the hospital.
Then you are having two eggs with your breakfast. Come on, what do you want to eat?
Maddy considered the onions, and rejected them on the grounds of chemical crying leading to emotional crying. She then rejected the cheese, because the grease won’t sit well by lunch. She looked at the sausage, and decided that Collie already had enough trouble for one morning.
The tomatoes, the ones Nona brought back from the Terrarium.
With the mushrooms, I insist.
I can tell you are trying to cheer me up.
I always was a bad liar.
They put potatoes in the boiling water. Maddy was cutting the mushrooms and Collie whisked the still-warm eggs.
What did she tell you? Before she died?
She, Collie struggled to synthesize the sentence, she didn’t make a lot of sense around the end.
Collie unhooked the frying pan, the one with the Swartz name on the handle. She flipped it over, and then back again. Her mind was busy with something else.
She told me to take care of you, Medea.
Why did you give me that name?
Because we picked it, together, remember?
The mushrooms were thinly sliced, and they would go into the butter before the egg.
You taught the play to us, in the common room.
I hope I was a good schoolteacher.
That Medea did things, like you.
Like us, my dear.
Collie washed her hands, even though they were perfectly clean. The mushroom dissolved its flavour into the butter. Maddy recalled the old ID card, that said Madeline …something. It was in a shoebox, Maddy thought, that had to be somewhere in the apartment.
What were their names?
Collie deglazed with a spoonful of water. The tap was slow.
You are my daughter, dear.
Maddy held a shallow breath, for half a second. I want to know.
You have a photo of them both framed, on your desk.
You never mention their names.
Collie moved the mushrooms to one side of the pan, and did not look at her thirdborn child.
Alice, her name was Alice Swartz and she was my sister. I was there when you were born and I was there with you when we buried her. Take out and mash the potatoes. She set down the spatula, and grabbed the bowl of whisked eggs. Maddy took the pot off the stove and took out the potatoes. She was generous with the ramekin of butter. Your father, Richards, he, God.
That is all, thank you.
Maddy set down a cloth where Collie then set down the pan. She gave Collie the nice bowl of potatoes she smoothed with the spoon, instead of the one she mashed in. Her bowl had the potato up to the edge on the left side and dug out on the right.
She, she told me to protect you, and, giving you the Swartz name was the only way, to make sure that the ration men knew you were mine.
Collie sprinkled some more salt on her eggs, and tried not to think of the woman who did not get powdered milk.
I am sorry, Maddy. I am sorry I never told you why.
She cut the tomato into bite-sized pieces, and then carried on cutting. Its juices coated the mushrooms.
I can write it all back, now that things are better.
Maddy glanced at her aunt, skewered two mushroom slices on her fork, and stabbed a third unblinking.
Don’t worry about that, mom.
The tomato was raw.
Collie did the dishes, and Maddy dried them with a towel before setting them back in the cupboards.
I have to do my makeup before I go, you go and get some sleep.
I want to watch. Maddy said with the smile that listed to one side, it was not yet a perfect seventeen degrees.
Collie smiled back.
There was a black paste and a rust-red one.
This one is called eyeliner, used to be that it came as a pen, like a fountain pen. I made it with an Egyptian recipe, with our beeswax and oil and crushed charcoal. Close your eyes so I can put some on you.
The brush was from a younger Collie’s attempts at watercolour, the old house was filled with oil paintings signed A. Swartz.
This one is blush, it is the same base, but with purified rust. Women began making these in Persia five thousand years ago.
Collie’s fingertips were warm. She did another two dabs on Maddy’s cheekbones, supple, but not overwhelming.
There. Now you’ll be the fanciest apprentice in the entire hospital. Don’t touch your face if you can help it.
Maddy looked into the mirror, a different woman looked back.
I always liked that upward flick on her. Collie said, spinning the brush in her hand.
Collie put hers on, while Maddy packed her lunch and notebooks and braided and tied her hair up.
So what does the day hold for you? Collie asked.
Oh, probably just checking in on the diarrhea cases. Looking to discharge a few.
Good, remember to keep your handkerchief on tight when you are in the sick ward.
The nurses already drilled that into me. Maddy double-checked that she packed a spare.
And, take these.
Collie held out the two compacts and the brush.
Just, keep them in one piece. They used to be grandma’s.
mmm.
Madame Iii
Hyperbolic
The Emeritus’ property was something done in concrete and stone, in the brutalist style that was in vogue after the Second World War (unlike the red brick construction of the Swartz property that was popular before that). The windows were no longer glazed, but rather covered with wooden shutters that did not seem to be painted, or at least painted yet. Collie relaxed the fingers gripping the straps to her tote, and presented the doorman with her card.
And the purpose of your visit, Madam Swartz?
Socializing.
Please come with me.
She was led in, and was patted down once the two turned a corner. The doorman apologized for the measures, and Collie was gracious in understanding due caution. She was delivered to him, in the garden, where hydrangea and lavenders were in bloom.
She walked past a bronze sculpture of Demeter.
Coelia. On his knees, he clipped a weak branch, before turning to face her.
Dr Fleming. Collie’s smile reached her mouth first, and her eyes a millisecond later.
Sit, my dear. He said, in the process of standing up, leaning on his walking stick.
Your servant took my bottle, said she is to cool it for us.
Oh, yes, quite lovely, isn’t she?
And the loaf, she said she will bring them sliced with the butter.
You simply must try the one she makes with lard and dill.
I can hardly wait for the cinnamon buns. Collie’s eyes did not twitch.
Ada, Fleming’s granddaughter, brought the fine china. She poured tea into Collie’s cup first, which she had the arm to do from the other side of the table without standing up. She was in a dress too, another pre-collapse piece, but with fresh embroidery at the waist and shoulders. Collie could faintly recall seeing the same dress from an old magazine.
Let us wait until we are done with the first course, today is too good a day to squander in the name of business. Dr Fleming said.
Tell me, how has Maddy been doing at school?
Apprentice now, hospital took her in in the spring.
I simply must see that little sunshine again soon. Fleming said. What of Lewis?
Fixing old laptops, building parts and pulling wire with Epsilon on crews.
Laptops. Ada interjected, with the tone and eyes that one reserved for relics.
He is a resourceful young man. Collie replied.
Dr Fleming drank from his cup, a delicate porcelain one etched in pink and gold. A bee crawled on the tip of a bloom.
I see you finally finished the old greenhouse. Collie said.
Yes, Ada, why don’t you tell Coelia what you did about the roof? Fleming commanded.
Well, it wasn’t much, really. Just some strings and weights and some quick math to get the frames just right. Ada’s voice was almost all nasal, and her throat did only half the work of talking.
Oh, you know it was anything but trivial. Fleming pressed.
Umm, well, y’know, I just, did it with physical models. Collie could see that Ada was shy.
And entirely without electronics! Isn’t she smart? Fleming patted his grown granddaughter on the head. From his eyes, she was just still a baby.
Well, Ada, that really is something to be proud about. I don’t even know how to operate a slide rule. Collie said.
Oh, well, it’s easy, dealing with the thorns is harder, I am sure. Ada put on her best impression of puppy eyes toward her grandpa.
Shame the old faculty never got to it. And for once I did the trendy thing in time. He chuckled.
Picturing the creature that had transfixed the internet population for two months and thirteen days, and the dance that Dr Fleming did in imitation of it four months in, Collie smiled from her eyes and covered her mouth half a second after a rhythmic giggle began their departure.
It is good to see you, Coelia.
The servant brought them the bottle and the sliced bread, with three butters, jam, and a platter of cheese. There was pepper butter, cinnamon butter, and a plain one. The servant decanted the Swartz mead into champagne flutes.
I was curious, where do you get your butter, Fleming?
Same town as you, most likely, the one to the east. What’s its name…
Aldermere, papa. Ada supplied.
Funny, then. My Lewis has a sweetheart there, though he thinks I am clueless. Collie said.
He is getting about that age, isn’t he? I hope you are learning just how fast they grow up. Fleming stroked Ada’s cheek with his thumb, Ada covered her face, Collie said an Aww.
And how about your own? Collie said a moment after they toasted, to good health.
Oh, Cecilia’s out building now, with the rest of the engineers. Last I heard she was up the coast, fixing mountain passes.
And her mother?
Ada went still for a moment, Dr Fleming went still for half of that.
Less so, Klara’s quite lethargic these days, doctors say nothing to worry about, though.
The doctor put her on a plan, she is comfortable. Ada recited.
See? What would I do without her? Fleming chuckled.
Collie topped her toast with pepper and gouda, Fleming had his with cinnamon and jam, Ada just had hers with butter.
I will have my people bring herbs, then. Collie said.
Right, regarding that. Fleming washed down a crumb with a sip of tea. That girl, Nadia. My sweet Ada said your girl is quite excellent helping in Botany. Ada giggled, in a way that did not engage the vocal cords, but rather made its sound entirely by the rushing of air out of her nostrils.
Yes, she really is so much more a green thumb than our generation ever was. Collie said.
I have something for her. Fleming said, in a tone befitting the line.
Collie perked up, but caught it in time to turn it to a piqued.
Ada, would you go back to the weaving? Me and Lady Swartz will need a moment to ourselves.
Yes, papa. Ada nodded, and excused herself back to the ground floor, where the looms were.
She will want some field experience soon, for her degree. I have a slot for her, for the next season.
She is already quite comfortable in the greenhouses, I think.
—and a less backbreaking post for… what’s her name, Nona, yes? I am sure you would love it.
She slathered one more slice of toast, with jam and parmesan. A moment passed before she triangulated her next line. Have you considered voting in support of the treaty with Epsilon and Iota?
The servant came back with more tea, along with a few strips of bacon and eggs for the two, nothing too absurd to get in the way of the afternoon.
I don’t think I can, Coelia.
Bréal would be delighted.
Yes, he would, but you cannot possibly think he would always be bought with wine alone.
It worked for Rome for four hundred years.
It was less reliable east of the Balkans. He let the bacon’s heat melt the pepper butter, onto a slice of toast. There was rosemary in the loaf Collie brought.
Collie helped herself to another cup.
Coelia, think of this less as foederati, but as the legions.
And you wrote the book on how the oligarchs got filthy rich, after the Soviets fell. Collie opened a jar of liver paste, which made a pop as the button gave under it. You could be the biggest winner. Nobody quite remembers who took over Doctor’s Sausage. Collie folded her legs, under her wine-dark dress. The same one she wore for the first week of every semester.
My bloc won’t flip, I suggest you ask me to help you find a place for Bréal instead of scheming about a private army.
Collie sighed, and rose to follow Dr Fleming’s walk through the glass-covered garden.
I will tell Bréal myself first, then the rest of the men.
Just Bréal. Because after the vote, you will be escorted by Campus Security into the Epsilon building, to convince them to hand over their guns. Fleming fed a caged bird with nectar.
I say this now, before the University commissions you to, because he and I would both trust you to do it right. Fleming continued. There was a shower above the university then, and the catchment from the roof flowed upon the glass to water the covered gardens.
Then I would appreciate a slot for Lewis in Electrical Engineering.
Dr Fleming sighed, rang a bell, and whispered into his servant’s ear. He sits, like anyone else. Dr Fleming wiped what was left of the yolk with a piece of toast.
Of course. Collie gripped on her knife a little too hard, and the muscle was seen straining.
He will be behind, and would be for two years.
You always were steadfast about academic integrity.
It is sausage that fills stomachs. You yourself should know panem et circenses.
I specialized between Athens and Sparta.
Hobbes wrote in Latin.
They had something fluffy and light after that. Topped with whipped cream.
In exchange for Lewis, I want you to cover something for my Ada when I am gone.
What will she need?
She is smart, she will know. All she needs is someone like us to sign.
Someone like us.
Klara is in no condition to sign. And, I want to back the bill that would grant us our holdings. Collie helped Dr Fleming sit back down.
That bill was going to pass anyway.
Generous, then, to show us the reason why we should back you. Collie said.
The matter with Nadia, please do not take it personally. I just found the notion of attending a coronation tiresome. He said.
They had another helping of mead.
Right, I don’t think I ever got back to you on how that internship went. She said.
Well, how did it go?
That department had the budget slashed midway, there was no return offer.
Would have been a sinking ship anyway. Host and guest emptied their second pot. I just want you to know. When I wrote in that letter that you would have thrived anywhere, I really did mean it.
One must focus on what they can control. Collie set cup and plate back on the table.
…and still as disconcertingly amicable as always.
You taught me that, before the thesis defense.
Take care on the way home, Lady Swartz. And, congratulations on the new apiary. Fleming did the above-the-waist part of a courtly bow. With the twisting of the outstretched hand as flourish.
Deliver my greetings to the family, Lord Flemiovich. Collie did a curtsy.
Fleming considered which flowers to put on the family Coat of Arms, and settled on wheat.
The oven was fifteen degrees warmer than it was supposed to be at this hour. The man working the counter gave the woman before Collie two dozen flatbreads to put into her bag herself.
No pie today, Madam Swartz?
No, not this week. What do you have hot?
The samosas just finished baking. We have potato and we have peas.
Two. And a sausage roll.
Madam, you look green, is everything okay?
Just the pastries, please.
Collie had a metal one for takeouts—and in the earlier days, gruel—its lid held with a spring-loaded mechanism that she was never quite able to describe in words.
It clicked down, sharp. Here you go, madam.
How much would that be?
Fifteen dollars.
Collie opened her leather wallet, and gave him a ten and a five. On the Obverse were three reproduced signatures, one by the University President, one by the Dean of Economics, and one by the Director of Food Services. The centered seal had a Dogwood flower wrapped in a Mahonia wreath.
Collie did not look at the bills that closely. She went to the market after, to distract herself.
Fitting
Out of ideas, she headed for the window.
And that, kids, Alex said from the top of the pole. is how you don’t touch the cancer juice.
Lewis and the other students craned their necks to see him.
A window swug open, and a girl’s voice said Daaaaad.
The students looked at the new voice, and Lewis thought of licking a live wire.
Hmm, what is it, Nadia?
Do you know if Auntie Maia can sew?
Oh, your old grandma always complained that she couldn’t. See, I brought her home for New Year’s when the planes still flew…
One of Lewis’ classmates asked about the grid on the other side of the planet, Nadia stood by the window.
…and that’s why we should have gone with way higher voltage when plugging into the dam. Alex holstered his orange pliers. Sorry I wasn’t much help, Nadia. Maybe Collie will have an idea.
No, she won’t.
Lewis, you’re up! Don’t be thinking you get special treatment. Alex lofted down the pole with swan-like elegance.
I never knew he did. Nadia said before turning away from the window.
Ground
Nadia, be sweet and grab me a bottle of soda from the ice-box before you head to the greenhouse? Alex Tsien said, kneeling before a waist-high wall coming up on the family’s side of the third-floor hallway.
Here, and one for Lewis, when he comes down.
Thank you, tell the botanists I love whatever they’re putting in these bottles.
The elevator doors were perpetually open and there was a garden gate installed so people wouldn’t fall in. Alex was there when they took the car out. What remained was a winch that reached the top floor, a cargo basket rated to carry 500 kilograms, and a label in bold font that said DO NOT EXCEED 100 KG. You drove it by sending a young man to the ground floor and hollering down the well step on it, Lewis! Nadia, of course, took the stairs.
It would appear that he cursed himself, under the breath, for forgetting to tell her to buy some new hinges on the way home.
A basket came down from the fifth floor. Lewis’s voice came down the well. Daaaad, bricks for ya.
Come down and help me with the wall.
They sat down and drank the soda first. But not before Alex went to the bathroom and ran the tap to a bucket. It was a honey-sweetened bug, with a smattering of whatever it was that Nadia helped grow in the greenhouses. It smelled faintly of oak.
How are we gonna take out the threshold? And I found tiles to match our foyer on fifth.
Foyer?
A xuanguan.
Ah.
So, after this is done, we’re gonna put the shoe rack on the new back-wall?
Might have to paint Nona’s one black, like ours. The white is so dirtied.
Water spilled onto the shower’s floor.
Now, help me with mixing the concrete.
Collie came home sometime in the afternoon, and made the boys wash their hands before handing them their potato samosas. They had bits of carrot and onion in them, and were spiced with dill and caraway.
They took off their tools, and doused themselves in their clothes. Collie put her good dress back in the wardrobe and washed off her makeup before the sweat did it for her. Someone had ripped a knee off their jeans, and Nona was at the greenhouse so it was up to her to patch it.
Vavasseur came, with a bottle of something under his arm. Collie made him pour for all four, before sending the boys back to work. He left with a jar of honey the same size as the bottle he brought.
Two t-shirts that were not grey in the morning found themselves in the hamper. Alex found Lewis a stool for laying the top of the wall. Two arms complained about a trowel’s journey up and down and a scoop of paste and back up again. Someone pulled out a length of string to measure for the doorway they needed to nail together tomorrow.
Several pieces of 2x4s framed the doorway, the women had to duck coming home. Lewis said sorry and that it will be gone tomorrow, promise.
Father and son washed up with a towel, in the men’s part of the river. Alex made sure that Lewis’s hair was as dry as the towel could get it.
The nightstand held a beeswax candle, unscented.
Alex.
Hmm? What is it, four-eyes?
The committee talked today.
On?
Promise me to keep it secret.
Should I know this?
I am scared.
Then it will be like I had never even heard of it.
The, the radio station, at the capital. They went quiet, two weeks ago. We lost the time signal.
It’s okay, hmm, they haven’t bothered us in so long. and they are so far away.
They told everybody to keep it secret. And, they want me to do the time signal.
That’s good, no? Alex stroked his wife’s hand.
They want me back up there to do the packing. Before they build the new observatory.
Alex thought of the bandits, or rather, what Lewis said about a brother said about what he heard about bandits.
The first time Maia shot their gun, she got knocked on her feet.
When are they sending you out?
We haven’t decided yet, but they say it will be after the dry season.
And they must need an electrician, right?
They should.
You should tell Collie, then.
I will, in the morning, I just wanted to tell you first. Maia hugged him tighter.
There, there. We’ll go up there together, hmm? A gun can’t be that different from a nail gun.
I’m just, then Lewis will be here alone. And when he rides we won’t know if he—
—He will have the cousins, the boys are careful, and Maddy is smart, she can keep him alive.
—but we won’t know how long we will be away! He hardly had me, I can’t take you away from him too.
His hand covered hers, he could feel her nose and forehead on the small of his back. The candle flickered from a gust of wind.
We could bring him too, he pinched at the back of her middle finger, letting the skin slide off his fingertips.
But—
An electrician needs an assistant.
And he will be away from the family.
And close to us, and another hand to pack things, and we will be out in no time.
But, won’t it be better, if, he is young, and, if we don’t, Collie would—
We will, I promise. Our son has good eyes, your eyes.
With his left hand, he held her hand in his; with a shuffle, his right palm smothered the light.
The shuffle continued, and turned him supine. The hand that found her chin was still warmer than blood. He cursed himself for getting the order backwards, though her lips were soft candlelit or not.
She shifted the held hands.
Why is the doorframe only half as thick as the wall?
Because I’ve been meaning to get us a proper gate, like how we had back in the old country. They knew their things.
Right, so, I’ll want to find one next time I am out?
Ha! Just don’t get left behind by the big boys.
Oh, Dad, they won’t dare to leave a brother, much less a Swartz.
…Better be, now get the keys to the machinists, I’ll get us all something chunky for dinner.
Collie brought home a casserole, with thinly sliced potatoes, butter, and pickles on the side. A towel was formed into a donut shape, to hold the round-bottomed pot of corn chowder ladled from the dining hall. Mugs toasted with apple cider in them, to celebrate the new entrance. The tiles set into their places beneath a temporary plank.
The pot was labeled a wok, when a young Alex Tsien bought it from an Asian grocer three months after landing on this side of the planet. He also bought something made of mango and sago that day, for the train back to campus.
Lewis picked the lock on another apartment on the fifth floor. The shelves they found took a bit of finagling to tie to the cargo basket. The pair of radios he found on last week’s run came in handy. Nona complained about the sawdust in the second living room, so they ended up building the rest of what Collie asked for outside the building, out of old pallets from the city.
Collie’s room was on the west side of the apartment, and the afternoon would remind her of her duties outside of it. One of the women was working a hand crank to bring a basket of groceries up.
Someone knocked on her door. She closed a binder.
Enter.
Doctor Swartz? A head peeked in.
By Jove, Alex! How long have we eaten from the same loaf, just Collie is fine.
…can never be too polite.
Walk the rest of yourself in, sit, tea?
Would be lovely. The chair was upholstered in a pleather that had stayed remarkably intact.
So, what is it?
Well, just, regarding the decision to expand the storeroom in the other side of our property, I had Nadia go to the archives, and there may be a weight concern.
How so?
I looked at the building’s blueprints and age, nobody had been inspecting it for years…
And?
Nona and Nadia make honey, and it might be too heavy to put on our floor, grains, too.
Does Lewis have an opinion?
Not yet, he is still tearing things down on the fifth floor.
Have him take a look at it, Collie sipped from her mug, in your professional opinion, where should we put our storeroom?
Well, the simplest would be to just buy as we need, and to keep the honey at the apiary, Alex looked at Collie’s face, but I understand that something closer would be best for winter.
Yes, it would.
We would want the weight on the foundation, so we either build a new storehouse off the road, or, we wall off a chunk of the ground floor.
I see. Did the blueprints give any obvious options?
The common room, I think, or one of the abandoned stores, the common room would be easier to secure.
That, then.
But, we would then also be walling off the common room. I don’t know how we can handle that.
Oh, it shan’t be too hard. Worry not about the neighbours. The cargo basket was really nice work. We can acquire locks and keys, yes?
Certainly.
Would it be hard to secure the common room?
The windows will want a few more men to handle, but it is the same brick.
How many?
Me and Lewis… Alex did something with his right hand, I will want four men, six in total. Two days, in our building.
I will need some time to arrange the bedding, how does next Wednesday sound?
Should work.
And, given that we are not installing more shelves, can you and Lewis make two rooms out of the living room? Or, actually, can you disassemble the bunk bed into two beds?
Would be easier just to build a fresh one. Will push the common room business to… next Friday.
I will visit Epsilon, but in that case expect them next-next Monday.
Yes, ma’am.
Collie let that slide.
Alex, what do you have for the rest of the afternoon?
Oh, just building out the backlog.
I hope I am not taking too much of your time. I know electricians don’t handle concrete if they can help it.
The season has been quiet, so it is good to keep my hands busy. And less dangerous work too.
And how is Lewis? Picking up the trade well?
Yes, he knows a lot already, brings himself back alive from the trucks. Just, is a bit more willing to work on hot wires than I want him.
That I can’t help you with.
You operating any power tools later? Collie asked as she bent down from her chair.
Why do you ask—oh. Well, I shouldn’t.
It is 24-proof on a good day, just one. You said yourself Lewis can handle himself.
…but, his mind raced for an excuse, still I need to take measurements for the stuff and…
You sure? Collie had a smile, a wide one, with no teeth.
Very well, just one. I tell you, just one.
It was not just one.
Midnight
They did the dress first, the other two. Collie had the idea from a textbook she wrote and Nona actually made it work. It was labelled a saree when it was bought.
It was a rich green, that Nona dyed to a blue-black without asking Collie first, not that she needed to. The gold trim glimmered against the dark. Nona had Nadia put the extra stars in.
They clipped the dress onto her, one metal clasp on each shoulder, the excess fabric draped across her breast, a wide cerulean girdle at her waist to fasten.
Nerves. Collie had her have nothing but warm honeyed water for breakfast, and only sips at a time. Nona told her to exhale, before squeezing the belt in another hole.
Now, tell me what you are going to tell the Senate. Nona said.
Um, uhh, to issue a weather warning. Maia focused on the clock, and then the umbrellas next to the door, and then the parasol with tassels at the rim.
Collie began to braid her hair, it involved knitting needles.
Not just that, some senators don’t know yet. Nona replied.
Um, do I tell them the whole story?
No, just what you heard in the observatory.
Do I tell them about the, the—
—no, not the transmissions, just the, sounds.
The needles pinched her at the scalp.
The dress is good, Collie, where is the makeup? Nona asked.
Purse, brown leather.
Alex and Lewis were waiting at the door, with the two grad students who were on the same shift as Maia. The plate carrier on Alex was not fully fitted.
Lewis carried the shotgun, Alex held a borrowed revolver, with five rounds chambered and the hammer down on the empty one, the way Vavasseur loaded it.
Their neckties were tucked under the carriers.
The women came down, Collie was in front and Nona held the parasol from behind, it was white and silver, and the tassels went down to the three women’s shoulders.
Lacking other means, Maia walked by following where Collie’s feet went.
The girls were sent away to work, after Maia told them the story across the dinner table. They were not quite Senate age yet.
Shall we, gentlemen? Nona asked.
Lewis blew into a bugle, which was attached to an olive drab strap. The two men flanked the three women as they walked. The students tailed one man each.
Maia, now tell me what you won’t be telling them. Collie’s voice came out half-muffled on the far side of the tassels.
So, I, won’t be telling them the screaming.
No, I mean, yes, no, that is good.
And I won’t be—
Alex, chin up, back straight. Nona interjected. Sorry, Maia.
It’s okay, Maia resumed, so, I won’t be telling them about the distress signals.
No, you will. Collie said, you just won’t be graphic.
Understood.
And you will lead with what matters, why they should care, and you will stress the farms. Nona added. They couldn’t care less if we didn’t frame it as relevant.
mmm.
A child was walking across the street, his mother grabbed him first by the collar and then cradled him in her arms.
Collie dipped her head, and the mother bowed.
Lewis took out a pressed flower from his back pocket, which he reserved for these occasions.
It was in his back-right pocket, so the shooting hand would be occupied when he handed the gift to this child or any other.
Lewis dipped his head, with a serene Swartz smile listing 17° toward the child.
The mother mouthed the words thank you.
…As I was saying, you will give them options, the impractical one first, and then the good one.
Listen to Nona. Collie advised.
After the meeting, we will have you meet the aides, you tell them what actually needs done.
But, we need the Senators.
We have the votes for tomorrow, we just need them to agree to the proper containment.
Maia looked at her husband, her escort.
She told Alex first, under candlelight, in their bedroom, away from everyone else.
She held him until the candle stopped weeping.
They told Lewis the night after that. His face did not show signs of minding.
Eyes forward, Dad. Lewis said.
Maia and Collie were outside the chamber now, Collie buttering up coworkers and Nona shaking hands with their entourages. The boys were told to put down their weapons or wait outside.
They waited outside.
There was a metal detector she had to walk through, which was yellowed into a deeper beige. After it beeped, a coil with a cable to a waist-mounted something that used to be a lecture loudspeaker was used to scan her belt and shoes.
Sorry for the interruption, Madam Tsien. You may now proceed.
It is forgiven. Maia recited.
She looked back, Nona nodded with a smile.
The Dogwood-and-Mahonia seal leered over the Chair.
The time is now ten a.m. I declare that this emergency committee is in session. All rise.
All were solemn except for a typewriter’s clacks.
This committee respectfully acknowledges that our meeting today is taking place on occupied…
Maia did the square breathing thing, that Lewis taught her. She shut her eyes and focused on the breathing, and nothing but.
…for their enduring care of our soil and sea.
Doctor Tsien, please come with me. A clerk asked.
The lectern was a bit too big.
Your left hand, please.
They had prepared a copy of the Analects for her.
Oh, can I have a Bible, please? King James.
Of course, so sorry. The clerk picked up another book. Now, if you would repeat after me.
mm…mhmm. Nona had told her to be aloof.
You, Doctor Maia Tsien, do solemnly swear…
I, Doctor Maia Tsien, do solemnly swear.
That the testimony you are about to give…
That the testimony I am about to give…
Before this Arbutus University Senate Committee…
Before this Arbutus University Senate Committee.
shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God…
…shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God.
Thank you, the clerk said, you may begin.
Nona told her to read off the script, but not to stare at it.
Chair, Vice Chair, and members of the committee. Two days ago, our Campus and Hamilton Peak observatories independently detected a series of faint electromagnetic pulses at around midnight…
Say the important part first, Nona had drilled into her.
…indicating a nuclear exchange somewhere on the Eurasian landmass. Confirmed by seismic and infrasound sensors hours later—Yes, Senator?
Roughly how many devices were used?
We, detected about forty-four distinct bursts.
The senator nodded, with a slightly scrunched brow and an open mouth.
…with our current projections, we expect radiation to make landfall in three to—
Why were we not briefed? another senator asked, this time without raising his hand.
Um, uhh—
The Chair would like to remind the committee that this is the briefing, and that the nuclear exchange is not yet public information in order to prevent panic.
Another deep breath.
Doctor Tsien, please continue.
At this scale, me and my colleagues estimate a minor nuclear winter, and an increase in UV light concurrent to it.
What does it mean for us?
…the Observatory recommends, there was something called a Royal We, a public health warning, and to distribute counter-radiation measures—
Such as?
Um, uhh,
Do you not know?
One of her students stood up, the other dragged him back down.
The Chair requests that committee members reserve policy recommendations for testifiers competent in the field.
Okay, okay.
The Observatory recommends that we recommend civilians to avoid exposure to rainfall, and to avoid the upcoming harvest, pending further investigation.
My colleagues would be able to better answer more agriculture-related questions. Yes, Senator?
Were you the astronomer who detected it?
Maia thought of the distress calls that came in.
Yes, I was.
The Chair asks that we stay on topic.
Allow me to rephrase: Doctor Tsien, do we know how it happened?
We don’t know. What we had been able to collect points toward water stress in the region.
Do you know how many died?
don’t think of the screams don’t think of the screams don’t think of the screams
We, based on the change in radio traffic, we can assume that population centers were the target. For approximately forty bombs over major civilian areas, we can expect ten million souls at the exchange.
The room nodded in acknowledgement.
And, ongoing firestorms would increase the death toll over the coming days.
Is the observatory expecting a major disaster-response effort to be necessary?
One of her students walked up, and whispered in her ear.
No, at this time, we do not.
The student whispered a bit more.
We expect only an increase in granary withdrawal.
What about the hospital?
Maia thought to say “Pre-collapse literature.”
…Historical literature shows manageable effects for similar situations.
The Chair would like to ask when the Senate will have more data.
The, um, the report is being compiled. Committee members and senators will have it before the afternoon session.
The Chair did not seem satisfied, yet. Collie taught her something, she forgot the name, but did it anyway.
And, a series of weather balloons may be sent up with Senate approval, when landfall is expected. We will have meaningful data at most three days after that.
And that is how many days from now?
Uhh, four days, at least, and seven, at most.
Does your department have recommendations on how to inform the public?
We recommend that the university only state that there was a nuclear incident of unsafe nature, and to clearly communicate the countermeasures.
Okay, thank you for your testimony, Doctor Tsien. Chair, motion to move to the next testimony?
It was in the afternoon when they were all back home. Lewis brought the vests and revolver back to Epsilon. There was no incense, so Alex took some of the candles instead. He took three, of the long slender ones. He and Lewis set off to the temple, with the boy still clutching the shotgun.
In his room, in the dark, Lewis refueled his lighter by himself.
Hold
There was a private contract to fix a till. The client was not a store owner, but rather someone who refurbished tills, for stores. The move to University money was good for business in that way.
Alex could not tell why that client thought it was economical to bring the till to him and have him work on it. Instead of just finding a better one.
Lewis is always out with the other boys scrapping when he should be at home, learning with him. He just had to be fond of the big hot lines. Where did he get that temperament?
But, he was not going to complain about a few quick bucks.
Within an hour, there were two breadboards and a rainbow of wires. Making sure there were no shorts took up more time than the actual debugging.
It stopped smelling like magic smoke around the fifth time he ran current through it, and then it took a second, but it woke up.
A-ha! It was a simple joy, and Maia would always be impressed.
…Oh, right, the observatory thing. The campus telescope was not that far away, they really need to get Maia a bicycle.
Didn’t he tell Lewis to find one? Maybe he didn’t. He’ll tell him next time. Or maybe he’ll buy one if Lewis, too, forgot.
He had a drink of water to wash down the bismuth taste in the solder.
Through the wall, two voices began to be audible.
not asking…a date. Collie sounded stern.
…real mom won’t…
doesn’t have to be here… she… golden child… irresponsible.
you… no right… she…
I… keep you… alive.
I can’t do this right now.
Maddy’s soles were bony, and still managed to thump the floorboards the way boots do.
Hey Maddy, what’s wrong?
Everything. She walked past Alex in the living room, and shut herself in Lewis’s room.
He heard her scream into a pillow, but not before flipping it to the other side.
He peeked across the foyer. Collie was seated, pinching the bridge of her nose in the other living room, the one with the board games.
He puffed up his cheeks, and exhaled.
Collie was preparing dinner now, and he spent the last twenty minutes soldering and desoldering the same joint. The wick was soaked through. He turned the gear off and left his workstation.
A few gentle knocks, Maddy, can I come in?
No, go away.
okay, let me know if you want anything.
Just, go back to your stupid LEDs.
He backed off, quietly. She didn’t mean it.
He went across the foyer, to grab another cup of water.
Don’t worry, she will come around. Collie said without looking up, while rehydrating a stockfish.
The maker’s mark on that glass was on the bottom, and Swedish. It tickled his fingers until he set it down outside Lewis’s room.
there is water outside, with salt, how you like it.
He delivered the working till back to the client, and the cup was empty when he was back.
He went downstairs again, to go to the baker. They had garlic bread, everybody likes garlic bread, right?
And a jar of applesauce, from his own allowance. Maia made him do the accounting for them both and he was honest about it. He did the arithmetic, and made a promise to himself to ask for more, when Maia is back next week.
He carried the food upstairs in his toolbox. The top compartment had a stray pencil and a wrench.
Collie…? Collie was sewing a patch onto something.
Just Col—yes? She said while attempting to pick a stitch. The needle was not cooperative.
Well, Collie, Maddy just told me she isn’t hungry, so don’t fret about dinner, okay?
She threaded the needle back through the last loop.
Sure, whatever suits her.
The toolbox was open, with the garlic bread stacked on the jar of applesauce. It sat where Maddy just had to open the door a crack to grab it and the water.
The heavy pliers were in the bottom compartment of the toolbox, which Alex forgot to empty. The box scratched the floor for a whole minute when Maddy dragged it in.
The gate in front of the door meant that one could hear someone unlocking something, before the actual door was touched. The first tumbler worked smooth as it unlocked the gate. The second tumbler, the one for the door, needed grease.
Nadia.
The house was quiet, Collie was cooking dinner proper now. Alex was working on some junk to fix. How does one even open this?
Nadia.
Hey. She hung her straw hat next to the door.
Too late, Nadia went to the other living room. He heard a knock on the kitchen door.
…difficult…Lewis’s room.
…
…boy…just to see.
…
clean…help.
Alex left a mess on the table, to intercept Nadia coming out of the bathroom.
Hey. god, what was he doing.
Hey…?
So, you heard from Collie, Maddy is angry at her.
I don’t think I got the whole story. I need to help with dinner, you tell me what happened after.
ok.
Dinner was something with potatoes simmered in a little milk, and stockfish, rehydrated, partly by being mashed into the mixture.
The table had room for eight, the dinner was enough for four-and-a-half, and there were three at the table set for four.
Nona came home when they were just about to dig in.
Maddy’s not eating with us?
No, um, she, isn’t feeling the greatest for dinner. Alex somehow intercepted.
hmmm, Nona grunted, though it seemed her eyes read his.
Nona helped herself to some extra pickled beets.
So, how is the new job? Collie asked.
They gave me two assistants, I said I only needed one. They didn’t let me send him away.
Whoa… Nadia exclaimed.
Don’t be impressed by that, Nadia. We are meant for this. Collie added.
mhmm, Nona mumbled with a mouthful of potato.
mmm.
Collie and Nona did dishes after dinner, they had Alex folding laundry and Nadia do her assignments. In her room, the top bunk was empty, and unmade.
Someone knocked on Nadia’s door.
Enter.
Nadia, can you help me with this? Alex said from behind a mountain of folded shirts.
Whoa, geez, okay, I got the top. I got the top.
The rails on the dresser did not need grease. It was some sort of low-friction plastic, that just slid without complaint for as long as the two could remember.
So, tell me what happened with Maddy, why she’s all pissy.
Your, Collie. By what I heard was something about a date and a boy.
Oh, wow, not exactly subtle, is she?
You’d know better.
I was told you’re managing her?
Until I can find a better handler.
…who actually has a say. You’re it.
What about your mom?
She just got that new job, no way she’ll make a sound at Collie.
The dresser took some squeezing to put its drawers back in, a bit too full was the problem.
Look, Nadia, I just, have no idea.
The department said they want me for a trip next week, so you’ll have to figure it out. You will, you figured out Lewis.
Alex wanted to say something, but blanked on it at the last second.
Just, one pointer, please.
She climbed up the ladder to the top bunk. There, bring him to her. She handed it to his arms. It was a sheep, or rather, a pillow’s idea of a sheep. The fur was matted, the black face faded to a grey, and the horns and ears were all it—he, he had for limbs.
And the horns were harmless.
And, um.
Hmm?
she, maddy, seemed she brought up a… ‘real mom’? as well.
oh.
yeah.
Nadia grabbed a framed photo that sat next to her assignment.
there, bring this too.
It was a Polaroid, tinted blue, that depicted two people eating fried chicken at a local joint. The man posed to smoke a fry with ketchup on its end, the woman posed a peace sign while holding a bottle of ginger ale. She was blonde, with black roots showing above the braided pigtails.
next time, start with the big thing. Nadia advised.
yes miss.
Collie was asleep now, in her room, way before when she was used to sleeping. Alex fetched a new glass of water.
Three knocks.
Maddy, um, Nadia told me to get you your sheep. It was quiet inside. Baaaah, the sheep said in Alex’s voice.
Still quiet, well, if you don’t want to come out yet, Mister Sheep will be here waiting for you, and there is a glass of water too.
The door opened.
His name, Maddy said, face buried in the sheep, is Hopper.
Don’t forget your water either.
I want to pee.
okay, okay, you can use the one on our side.
Hopper jumped onto Lewis’s bed.
He refilled the cup before she came back out, and, because she didn’t shut the door, he started a kettle.
It was something herbal, for sleep, and because crying girls need water.
There was enough for two mugs, which Maddy set down next to Lewis’s soldering station.
Right, almost forgot, Nadia also handed me this, Alex produced the Polaroid. Don’t know who they are, but seems they are important to you.
It took a moment for Alex to notice that it had been klepped from his outstretched hand.
thank you, she whispered.
well, don’t thank the messenger, vapours billowed above the mugs. May I come in?
She moved back from the doorway, and did not agree or disagree.
The Polaroid stood next to a box of mismatched screws.
So, what did mom do to get you so angry?
She sipped from her mug. She did not say anything. He panicked.
…it’s okay if you—
She wanted me to meet Vavasseur, to go and have a lunch with him.
and who is Vavasseur?
Doesn’t matter. The tea leaves twirled at the bottom of the cup. I don’t wanna.
Okay, that’s okay. That’s an okay thing to not want.
Mom didn’t even ask me. Her eyes did not leave the floor, I hate that.
Alex did not know how to answer. mhmm, he improvised.
and then, she told me, that, she thought of how to end the sentence, it is for my own good.
Alex did not answer. He drank from his mug.
and, real mom won’t have done this, I know she won’t. She looked up, at him.
she sounds like she was a good mom. Alex said, do you have someone already? Is that why you don’t want the date with the Vavasseur fellow?
Maddy lowered her eyes back down, and cradled her mug.
Actually, I was stupid to ask that. he admitted.
They were quiet for a while, Maddy set down the mug and held Hopper instead.
The tea cooled.
The mugs will want to be washed. I will make you breakfast tomorrow, okay?
She hid her face under Lewis’s blanket.
and, I will tell the hospital you are not feeling well.
He smothered the candle with his fingertips.
When he brought it home, the phone was in a plain cardboard box, surrounded by a nest of straw. He wired in a phone for every floor from ground till fourth, not that Lewis wasn’t made to do the long wire runs for the price of a pasty a day.
It was made by an outfit that grew out of the Electronics Club, and was compatible with the Arbutus standard.
He picked up the phone at two past seven in the morning, when the operators were back at work.
Arbutus General Hospital, please. For a Doctor Franklin?
They abolished on-hold music when they made the new network, so the last twenty years were not all terrible.
Doctor, I am calling to notify that Medea is not feeling well today?
…
Yes, I meant Maddy.
…
I am the head of her household. T-S-I-E-N.
…
Okay, thank you.
He grabbed the toolbox, for getting breakfast. And then on second thought, he went and found Maia’s grocery basket instead.
Collie was at the foyer, blocking the door.
Where are you going? She asked softly, with the pursed smile that listed to one side.
Oh, uhh, to grab a breakfast, heh. He is, though, why is he so unconvincing? Start of the day! He did an arm-pumping motion. …yeah?
There are sandwiches on the dinner table, egg salad. Collie did not mention that she whipped the mayonnaise herself. Make sure that girl eats, won’t you?
okay. Wait, Vavasseur.
Collie.
Yes, Alex?
Maddy is a smart girl.
She very much is.
Why don’t we let her be a doctor for a while, and then we will see.
She’s book-smart, like her mom. Collie looked at his shoes, and fidgeted in perfect 4/4, I worry she’ll end up with some buffoon.
My Lewis is around, most of the time, he knows how to chase a boy away.
You appear vested in this, why.
Lewis’s grandma never finished her degree.
Collie hmm’d.
Yeah, we’ll come back to this later. she said, I have grad students to manage, don’t burn the house down, okay?
Small victories.
Ada was at the door of the greenhouse office, and hollered from just behind her incisors: Nadia~! A call for you.
From whom?
Your dad~
Huh? But… Oh, yeah, it’s probably him. One sec!
She closed the sample bin, and left the trowel and gloves on the ground. She patted her palms on the front of her jeans as she walked to the office.
Ada left the handset lying on the Secretary’s Desk, and, for the price of a quick hug, vacated the room for a measure of privacy. Nadia picked up the phone, Alex, what’s up?
Heyyyy, Nadia. So, you mentioned the department wanting you on a trip next week?
Uh huh, cut to the chase.
So, I was wondering, since you’re gone for a few—
Point being?
Okay, uh, can you bring Maddy along.
She guessed as much, and sighed, away from the microphone. Please, Alex added.
Collie isn’t the forgetful type.
I know, I know, I can deal with that.
Can he?
Nadia reached into her pocket, felt the relief pattern on the ration
card in her wallet. The one that had SWARTZ stamped in on
one side, and TSIEN on another.
It was hard metal, warmed by her touch.
Fine, I’ll see what I can do.
Thank you, thank you.
You owe me and mom one, and no passing the buck to Lewis.
Wild Oats
A secretary was leaning on a workbench and staring at Bréal, when the latter saw the newly spun part blue on its surface.
Sup, Vavasseur?
New requisition letter from Agronomy, needs your rubber-stamp.
And what might that be?
They want three trucks, with drivers, for something called phytoremediation, something about grass.
They’re farmers, it is always about grass.
Here’s your pen, bossman. Pages one and four will want your signature, and all pages will want initials. But, before you sign, just want to let you know that a kid specifically asked for Lewis driving her.
We a valet company now? Bréal looked closer. Wait, that just me or does that say Medea Swartz on the third slot there. The one for Planting Assistant.
That do be the case. That’s Lewis, Nadia, and Medea for truck 02.
Huh.
That’s why I said the But, boss.
What the hell they sending out the princesses for?
Something about grass, I figure.
You did get signatures for everybody?
Yessir.
And where is the AO?
Three-day circuit inside University country, radio check-ins every eight hours.
Okay, that I can sign off on. Bréal put it down in cursive. And get truck 02 some extra firewood and uhh… whatever else you got lying around. We got pemmican?
We got pemmican. Vavasseur jotted something down.
Bréal grabbed a towel, the part was no longer blue. Now, V, stand aside if you don’t want to risk a nasty blister. The whatchamacallit cooled further on the now-complete tray, next to its brethren.
Boss, permission to speak freely?
Spit.
Why you seem so pressed about them? Lewis is cool, if anything bit soft for a brother. And the girls capable bachelorettes.
Well, the bossman took off his safety glasses. You ever seen them all together? Like, lined up, side by side. Or, like, heard Lewis talk about his moms and dad, singular?
They do look very different, yes.
The dad, he had me brick up a good chunk of the ground floor at his building.
But it is the Madam that frequents us. What I do know of Mr Swartz is that he is an electrician working for the university.
And I used to be in a private school, Bréal nailed the lid for the parts. Get them the pemmican.
The seed launcher on the back of truck 02 would, twenty years ago, have been classified as a Destructive Device and bankrupted the university in tax stamps. It was electrically primed, from a pair of alligator clips attached to a lead-acid battery (itself next to the cooler). It made a satisfying thunk when a seed packet fell in and subsequently flew out in a beige confetti.
God, and to think you get to roll on these streets every other week, Lew! Nadia shouted into the cab, a few minutes after rolling something herself. The herbs being from the garden on fifth floor.
Thunk.
Yeah, and no workman’s comp. Gimme that rollie and keep busy. Lewis steered around a pothole.
Put that thing on the B-side first. Nadia wheezed, having been jostled by the rim of the same pothole.
Thunk.
Maybe this’ll finally put some hair on your chest. Lewis smoked with his left hand and flipped the cassette with his right. It took ten-ish seconds, but it was okay because the road was empty anyways.
Puff, puff, pass. Man. A third voice joined in alongside a hand making the gesture of a gimme.
No thunk, there was instead a guitar solo.
Where did you even learn that, Mads? Lewis inquired, eyes still glued to the road.
Oh right, your problems don’t puke cancer on you. Maddy spat.
Sod off, at least you know you’re dying if’n you fuck up. Lewis the Junior Electrician parried.
Maddy had been taught what an accelerator is thirty minutes earlier, and the brake, ten. It was Lewis and Nadia’s turn on the launcher. The cab window was rolled down, in case Maddy needed reminders about which pedal was which. So far, though, she seemed quite alright and not inclined to converse. They were on one of Nona’s cassettes, there were no vocals and a disconcerting amount of cello.
Thunk.
What’s the next stop again?
The uhh… Lewis unfolded his map. …Calypso Diner, at Weirwick, they’re expecting us. The flag is in the toolbox, right?
Yeah, I double-checked. What do they eat out here in the country anyways?
Oh, I dunno, you know I run the other route.
Well, it’s not like Maddy would have a better idea.
Thunk.
So? Take a guess at what’s our lunch?
This is fish country, see if we warrant some fish and chips maybe.
Maddy’s voice rang in, from the cab. Remember, only eat the hot stuff.
But it’s so hoooooot, Nadia moaned.
Okay, this advice I can actually get behind. The rest of that child’s antics notwithstanding. Lewis grabbed another seed packet.
Ugh, we were like three months apart. There was a growling that was not from the engine. One of these days I am going to be the family doctor, and then you’ll be sorry.
The seed spreading stopped two crests before the fishing town, and the flag was raised one crest before that. Lewis was on the binoculars, and Nadia behind the wheel.
The piers and wharfs grew into the water, the way a tree takes root. It was half-empty. Scaffolding cocooned one apparently distressed boat on the shore.
Visual, guard tower one o’clock. Driver, toot the horn twice.
The horn on this truck was something more guttural than a toot.
Driver, roll to stop just after the crest. Turn off the engine.
Lewis waved his hand from the window, Maddy could see that the man in the tower had his own binoculars. She did another count of what they had on the truck. And visualized Hopper and the shotgun in their briefcase.
A voice came in on the radio. Lewis opened an envelope and mumbled something back into the microphone.
Maddy, stand up on the bed and wave to them.
They let them in, the handful of people on Main Street turned their heads.
A few children could be seen jumping rope. The three of them held their breath as they drove past the cannery.
Nadia unfolded the leather wallet the department gave to her and produced her chit, along with a metal seal of Arbutus University. The mayor and his men took stock of their share of seeds and said the diner was expecting them.
Here, at the front for our university’s officers. And, you are a doctor, right? Madam… A woman in an apron welcomed them.
—Maddy, and just a Medical Assistant right now. No Madam. The bar was full of fishwives, as were the tables further from the window.
Right, Nurse Maddy, a few of the townsfolk would like you to have a look. After your lunch, of course.
…Okay, we only have three hours here, though.
The woman walked back into the kitchen.
…Officers? Maddy said to no one in particular.
That’s what’s on the paper. Nadia stated.
All fancy schmancy now, aren’t ya?
Oh, as if you don’t enjoy yourself on your trips, Lew.
Fuck off. He said while unscrewing the cap on their disinfectant.
It was not fish and chips, but rather fish and potatoes arranged together in another manner.
Salmon chowder with biscuits, for our hardworking botanists. The woman said as she unloaded her tray.
Nadia blew her smoke away from the table, it was something milder than her morning one. So, tell us about your girls, playboy.
Just the one, this I stress, Lewis said. How did you know anyways?
Oh, I told her. Maddy interjected, while trying to snap off a chunk of biscuit. Why is this so tough to crack?
Are there no secrets under our roof?
No, not really. Except that magazine you keep under your pillow. Maddy said. Nadia raised her eyebrow.
Lewis groaned, and gestured for the cigarette.
Well, uhh, name’s Diana, lives on the outskirts of town, real good trapper, lives with her mom. God, and the way she looks when she’s angry.
And you either love her under the sky or in her mother’s home. Nadia muttered something about men.
What is it with y’all and my romantic life.
We only want to make sure that you love her, yes? Maddy’s eyes had a sharpness to them.
Yeah, of course, absolutely. Where do you think the honey goes and where the jam comes from?
That’ll do. Nadia dipped her biscuit into her soup.
Well, then, Nadia. What about who’s getting you so giddy after the long days at the greenhouse? Maddy pivoted, before taking a sip of the tea she asked for.
Oh come on!
Maddy conducted her practice on the cleared diner table, with her kit from the truck. A man who had yanked out something sharp from his hand that morning brought in his boy. The finger had been swollen since two days ago and the boy had slept a single digit of hours since. She disinfected her scalpel on the griddle. An earwax plug was flushed out next and the woman wanted to bring it home as a keepsake.
Nadia instructed the mayor’s men on how to spread the seeds over the polluted areas, and not to disturb the land for several years. It took some sweet-talking and leaflets to convince the farmers to plant the new landrace, which was far easier on the land than the old crop, for the price of yielding proportionally less.
She was authorized to assign four additional oxen for each town, and had before the trip thought it was a ridiculous number.
Lewis hooked another generator into the town’s power grid. Three fuses were taken from the truck.
Nadia and Lewis leaned on the right side of the truck, and shared a waterskin. Maddy walked out of a house that was not a diner.
Lew, need you to work the radio.
Who to?
The hospital, need to call something in.
M’kay. Lewis said, as Nadia was already starting the engine.
There was static at first, and then Maddy told the other two to walk to the street corner until she waved them back. Something about confidentiality.
They could see that she adjusted her collar as she walked back to that house. The fishwife in that house could see the sun behind Maddy’s hair, or rather what still showed of her hair beneath the cap.
Took you long enough. Nadia said.
There is still a queue I need to go through before we leave.
How many? Lewis asked.
Five.
Good god, we’re supposed to be rolling in thirty. Lewis sighed.
What do I even tell them?
Have a swig first. Nadia handed over the waterskin, and looked at Lewis. You know how the paper makes us officers for the duration of the ride?
Mmm.
University officers are also supposed to render aid to our townships where possible.
Are we now?
Yes.
Maddy was on the precipice of emptying the skin.
We have enough play in the seeding window?
They did the math, I saw it.
Mmm.
The bees’ll live?
They’re hardy.
Nadia took the waterskin, and screwed the cap back on.
Well, the wires will want inspection.
Yes, and the farmers will want to know more about the new irrigation schedule.
…Radio’s still warm. I’ll let them know. We leave tomorrow noon. You heard that, Maddy?
Yessir.
Maddy got to two more patients before supper, which the three took at the house of her last patient. It was grilled salmon with a side of sauerkraut. The patient’s wife was the woman from the diner. She brought out the good bread, and gave Maddy another helping of the salmon.
The couple had two children around the table, one was fifteen and one was ten. The younger one asked Lewis about what it was like in the university, and the older one asked about the new seeds they brought in. The woman said that the older one was always quite curious so do forgive him, did I tell you how he helped his father with shaking down the last boat? Maddy took from her satchel some herbal candies she and Collie made, and ate one first, at the dinner table. They were the green ones and not the white ones, Maddy made sure of that.
After dinner, the woman had the kids go wash the dishes. Husband and wife uncorked a bottle of something that they said was nothing much, and toasted to good health. Maddy expressed an amused concern about him pulling his shoulder again.
Nadia went outside with a torch, to bring the truck closer, so that it would be easier to haul the briefcases with them back inside. She recognized the front of the house by the fact that it was one of the bigger ones, and that the paint was smooth. The husband was entertaining Lewis with what the sailors brought back from their trips down the coast, when the wife intercepted a Maddy who had just brushed her teeth.
Madam.
Miss Swartz, I would just like to give my heartfelt thanks regarding fixing my husband’s arm, it had been bugging him in the shipyard ever since the last doctor left.
Oh, it is no problem, just doing my job.
In the living room, Lewis did the laugh that Collie did. The one she used when she wanted something done and had to laugh with someone for it.
But, really, it is more than that to all of us. Really, thank you. Now, before we go back to the boys, let me just get you to the guest room for you and Nadia, mm?
Maddy reached for her collar, and stopped short, to tug at her shirt around the third button down. That shifted the collar by half a degree.
Most certainly. She walked upstairs, behind the woman from the diner.
The bed was plush, something with layers of wool above the hay. The pillow had a fabric tag on one end.
I want to talk with you about my boy.
Hmm, yes. He seemed quite sharp to me, is there anything I should look at?
Oh, no, nothing of the sort. He is perfectly healthy, I assure you.
Then what would be the matter?
Well, he is coming of age, and quite sharp in mathematics…
Yes, he really is. Few people can keep up in conversation with my sister, you have reasons to be proud.
Oh, thank you. You really are an angel.
I can only say I was properly trained.
And so humble too, the woman thought.
In that case, Miss Swartz, can I ask you for a favour?
How can I be of service?
She produced an envelope, as yet unsealed. There was a letter of recommendation inside, addressed to University Admissions. A few lines of handwriting each, from a skim, between navigators, shipwrights, and builders.
I was wondering if you could add a line yourself, or even just bring it back to the university.
Why, I certainly can deliver it.
Maddy signed the letter, next to the other signatures, and put the envelope in her pocket.
Thank you, Madam Swartz, thank you.
Just doing my duty, ma’am. Maddy said to a woman twice her age.
And, if this is not too much to consider, there is this other letter I was writing, for your mom and dad.
Oh.
I was wondering, how should I address them?
Um, my mother’s name is Collie, and father is, uhh, Alex.
The woman scribbled something down, on the top of the letter that was otherwise written. Okay, thank you. It’s just, the boy really should be going to the university soon, and he would need someone there.
Of course, of course.
And, the townsfolk all agree, it already was wonderful having you help all of us.
Oh, it’s nothing, the next doctor will come soon anyways, and can help better than me.
You have been so kind.
I am flattered.
The woman sealed the envelope. Just know that, whatever happens, a bed would be here for you, okay?
Why, thank you. You are being such wonderful hosts.
Downstairs, Nadia hauled two briefcases from the truck cab to the foyer. Something warbled through the stairwell and communicated the general idea of Lewis-Luggage-Now. The two brought the briefcases and themselves up. Nadia was brought to the room Maddy sat in, and Lewis was being guided to the adjoining one.
Maddy looked Nadia in the eyes. Nadia’s head nodded half a degree.
Um, madam, actually, we would like to have Lewis in the same room? It’s how we slept growing up. Nadia lied.
Oh, but the other room—
—really was wonderfully made, ma’am, but I can’t begin to imagine what these two would do to me if I defied them. Lewis said truthfully.
But, Maddy, think of what your mother would think. You and Nadia sleeping with Lewis in the same room. The lady said.
I get why you worry, but, we would feel a lot more comfortable if we had big brother close.
Not much was said afterwards, except that Lewis unlocked the briefcase with their personal effects, and took out the family shotgun. The action was freshly greased, and the two shells slid in without a sound. The floor was not cold, but his back grew sore from the hardwood as Nadia and Maddy slept, holding each other. The other bed was empty.
Wind tousled the translucent blinds, and moonlight shone on the girls. Lewis felt with his thumb the part of the stock carved with the Tsien family name, in the script that he could hardly read. His eyes were half-closed and still locked onto the closed door.
The bed creaked, and a figure haunted Lewis.
Nadia set her foot down onto the floor with a light thud, and gestured about the gun.
Gimme.
He did, and conked out perpendicular on the empty bed. Nadia felt for the shells in their breech.
She had the watch.
Mulberry
Something was wrong with washer #17 in the university laundromat on the corner of Prospect Drive and Campus Parkway. The unit was on the end of the first row in, on the right, next to the machines with the German badges. Alex took off the bent-sheet control panel on its front and looked at the wiring. The original warning labels had faded to a translucence, and there was some text in Korean under that. On the back of the university’s panel was a label, with the name of the student who rewired the machine and the professor who signed off on it.
The loads in the other machines were pure white.
Alex made a connection manually, and watched it sputter and attempt to spin. It jiggled back and forth instead.
How long would it take, Mr Tsien?
Hmm, could just be a bad connection, or could be a broken sensor. I’ll have to bring it out and get a better look.
The closest workshop was two storefronts next to them, and Alex worked outside it under the shade of a tree. Goddamn direct drives were always a pain in the ass and he wanted the extra light.
He spun the drum with his hand. Hmm, smooth, so it’s not a mechanical issue. He then unscrewed a panel. There was a mild stink inside, crossed with ozone, nothing unexpected. Okay, check the connections the rebuilders must’ve soldered and those look good… something was green at the terminal, and the wire was sheathed in red rubber.
Hmm, should be this one then.
The multimeter did not exactly have the longest wires, but he still got the common to sing.
He washed the lead with vinegar on something that was once a tablecloth, rinsed it with alcohol, and got to reflowing it with his soldering pen. He put some more alcohol on after the lead cooled down.
It took two extension cords to wire it back to the shop. On making a connection, the machine wanted to fill itself with water, and then began to jiggle in the way that it was supposed to.
Alex wrote in his name and fix on the inside of the bent-sheet panel, and wheeled it back in. The next job wouldn’t be for half an hour, and he mulled about Maddy. Then, he remembered what the women said about jerrycans, and, set aside mulling the way one sets down bone china.
Maia moaned about how the hospital just had to take over the laundromats in the driest month of the year, and about why the kids just had to be off-campus this weekend. Nona folded the cleanest towel they had, and put it between the top of her head and the bottom of the tubs she was carrying.
Collie was weighed down on one side more than the other, by the washing board and their clothesline. The soap was a powder in a canvas pouch.
The river seemed to flow okay. The men had already bathed in the morning and the women wouldn’t come for a few more hours. It was the best time of day to do laundry, as the other wives attested by their presence. Someone nodded and greeted the three with Madams.
Come on, let us set up the clothesline first. We won’t want to after bending down for the wash. Nona commanded.
The clothesline was made, in part, from chunks of the fifth floor, after one side snapped from age some time ago. It had hinges to fold its legs in, should the family ever want to move it off the rooftop. Alex made it look so easy. They began with Nona setting a bucket into the river and pulling up water almost to the brim. The dirtiest pieces were to sit in there until the other pieces were done. The other two buckets were sprinkled with soap, she told the others to start with the nice clothes.
Collie took out her nice dress, the wine-dark one she wore when she delivered gifts. Nona ran the line between the two poles of their clothesline, and tied with a knot that neither Maia nor Collie could name. The tub was built for stepping in, but Collie used her hands instead. Maia received the sopping dress with two hands, rinsed it in the river, and squeezed it dry not in fistfuls but a folded palm.
Maia’s and Nona’s best clothes were back on the third floor, in a closet. What was here, though, was an abundance of graphic tees, jeans, and dress shirts, beyond every colour the children could imagine.
With every reach, Maia rummaged the hamper of dirty clothes longer than was necessary for grabbing just the topmost one. Now I am sure that Maddy packed my cropped hoodie for her trip out.
I am literally washing a hoodie you stole off a guy you only dated for three months. Nona said. The women had rearranged themselves relative to the river for better conversation.
It’s her size now, isn’t it? They grow up so fast. Collie said to no one in particular.
I don’t have the heart to tell her, but pairing that with the light jeans really should still call for capital punishment. Maia drowned a t-shirt further into the river.
I don’t think Missus Hoodie-and-Leggings should have that strong a fashion opinion. Collie had the home-field advantage.
And you had the ones that had the freaky strap going under the foot too. Nona had picked a side.
It worked, and it worked beautifully. Maia mounted a rudimentary defense.
I believe you, and I am not one to abuse an astronomer and her… particular requirements. Collie flanked.
Shame they wore out, though. Pajama pants just don’t have the same feel. Maia said.
Yeah… it was all spandex when we were their age, now everyone’s all baggy all the time. Nobody shows off properly anymore. Nona wrung the soap free of the hoodie. There was half a logo left, of a band none of them listened to.
Are we becoming our parents? Maia asked, but not really.
Rinse this hoodie and I will tell you. Nona extended her arm to Maia.
Some time after that, the women made Collie sing, just sing whatever. She began with something that was made with an 808 and an inordinate amount of autotune. The women joined in, one singing the lyrics the others had forgotten. By the time the hamper was two-thirds empty, they had run out of songs from that era. In their silence, a woman from another house sang something in Arabic, and the three hummed along.
Around the bottom of a hamper was an item of underwear. Nona had bought it from a seller who somehow found a full case of the things and broke the bulk in the university’s bazaar. It was soaked in lye for half a day before anyone wore it, and she took out the elastic when it rotted and sewed in a cord to tie instead.
The name MADDY had been sewed in on the tailbone, facing outward. Nona put it in her bag, and made a mental note to run a small bucket and soak it overnight. Something to work on for tomorrow.
The bedding was the hardest to wash, large and unwieldy as it was. Collie and Nona did the wringing. Collie had to be swapped out for Maia about halfway. Collie complained of a sore wrist and Maia almost twisted her back. They washed the clothes on their backs last, the pieces they hung up first had already begun to billow slightly in the wind.
The t-shirts they were wearing hung somewhere around the tail-end of the clothesline, where they still had room after the bedding ate most of the rest. Maia coaxed the block of soap in her hands first, before massaging the liquid into Nona’s hair, Collie sank most of herself into the river.
Nona, babe, can I ask you a favour?
Hmm? What is it.
The dress, the good one, it’s sagging at the waist.
You want me to bring it in? Nona said as Maia clasped a lock of her hair between her foaming palms.
Yes… but only if it’s not too much trouble.
We’ll want dresses for Nadia and Maddy pretty soon too. Maia said to Nona’s part.
I already have an idea. Nona, you can grow us dye, right? Collie bubbled from barely above the surface.
See if you can chat up the chemistry department, they’ll know better. Then she told Maia to be stronger with her fingers.
I think Nadia would look better in the Egyptian style.
You already got a pattern? That’s not like you at all.
It’s literally just two yards of rectangle.
And it would not embarrass the girls? Maia raised, between two attempts at untangling Nona’s hair.
Helen of Troy launched more ships with less.
And, Collie. I know I won’t remember it, but just bring me yourself and the dress when we’re at home. Nona accepted the favour.
Cheers.
The big radio needed the engine running, and the engine was noisy, so Lewis wired it to the CB handset and took the call in the cab. The girls were unloading the rest of the gear into this town’s pub, to the room upstairs.
University Station, this is Truck 02, coming in for our evening check-in. Over.
Truck 02, University Station receives, status report. Over.
Making good progress, preliminary data from the Mission Specialist indicates a higher variance and greater recovery effect than previous models predicted. Joker on fuel, settlements cooperative. Expect to RTB tomorrow afternoon. Over.
University Station receives. And, one message from your mom, Lewis. Over.
Huh? Over.
hang on let me just… Truck 02, message is as follows: Lewis, hope trip is well, need grocery, get liver or blood sausage, hush, is surprise, Love, Nona. Message concludes, over.
Thank you, University Station. Over.
Good luck with your groceries, Truck 02. Check-in complete, see you at 0600.
Maaan, fuck you, Vavasseur. Over and out.
Notions
The town was dry, and sandy at the margins. Nadia, Lewis, and Maddy rode in before dark and checked in as university officials. Nadia bought a discount for dinner by opening her leather wallet to the other side and presenting the ration card stamped with the Swartz name. They shared an onion and egg pie, with less butter than they were used to. For vegetables they had something they and the town called kimchi, though the specific spice profile would have been alien to their parents. Ale with hops washed it down. It was good.
A few children played skipping rope outside, before the innkeeper told them to get going and head home for dinner. The children put their tire-made sandals back on and walked home.
Nadia had to walk out midway, to sign some papers for this town’s seeds. Maddy speared and stole a slice of hard-boiled egg from Nadia’s pie when she was busy. Nobody would say they noticed.
After dinner, an oil-lamp light shone in the girls’ room. Maddy was supine, on the bed, doing half a cat’s cradle. Nadia crunched the numbers that came in from this town’s mayor. The wall adjoining Lewis’s room was silent (barring a snore audible only when both of them held their breaths).
Still working? Maddy asked.
Almost, the abacus will want wax when we get back.
How are the numbers?
Good, better than what the Professor had theorized. At this rate the soil will be stable in two hundred years.
Maddy translated two hundred years to her language, roughly eight generations. Whoa.
Yeah, he’s going to love the numbers. Nadia did not notice the exclamation.
Any inducements I can give to get your head out of the books?
Sadly, no.
What if I told you I found something to read when cleaning mom’s room and snuck it out?
Mom Nona?
No, other mom.
… Nadia took a moment. Maddy, see if the innkeeper has more oil, and go down and grab us a snack. I’ll finish up.
Hehe. Maddy chuckled as she stood up and made for downstairs.
They found themselves a bowl of dried nuts, roasted to a slight bitterness. Maddy excavated the better half of their suitcase to retrieve the smuggled article. Nadia sat herself on the bedroom floor and ate a pinch of the nuts.
A magazine. Nadia uttered, between mastications.
Yes, I found it buried under a stack of old periodicals, Maddy said as she settled herself opposite Nadia.
Why is the woman in front of the title?
Beats me. Maddy laid the magazine flat on the wooden floor.
Come on, page one.
It was a two-page advertisement, a model raced down mahogany stairs carrying a clutch.
Oooh, Nadia exclaimed. She’s got one of Auntie Maia’s big wallets.
Maddy’s eyes rested on the bag, with the same naturalness with which a hand settles on a well-worn tool, and lingered there for a while. After the brief trance, Maddy’s eyes followed the model’s three-fingered cradle on the bag upward to her arms, her shoulders, dwelled a moment at her scarf, and then her cheeks. The model was thin, and tall, her name was known to Collie, and her current whereabouts were unknown to anyone west of these mountains.
The dress the model was wearing did not seem to have pockets.
But where does the canteen go? Maddy replied, belatedly.
She must have drank at fountains. Nadia confidently extrapolated.
Must be annoying, always having to find one.
Or maybe she had servants to bring her water.
mmm. Maddy conceded.
Nadia reached and turned the next page.
Another two pages, bought out by one brand. On the left a woman stood in a form-fitting lilac top, and a high-waisted leather midi skirt. The stilettos were made of the same leather.
Maddy looked at her calves, and saw that they were in tension. She is on her tiptoes. The model was photographed face-on, and so the heels were covered by the front of her feet.
No, look, there is no crease in the shoes, Nadia said. They’re heels. Look at the photo on the right.
Maddy’s eyes began at the mesh-covered waist and the translucence that allowed the patterned tights to show through, and marched down to the other model’s feet.
Oh god. Maddy’s legs went sore, vicariously and approximately twenty years late.
It’s just a little taller than the pair Mom Collie has.
But it’s on a needle. How is she standing?
Mustn’t be that hard. Nadia guessed.
Remember that time you fell and almost scratched mom’s pair walking in them? And they were way wider.
That’s only because they were a size too big. Nadia flipped to the next page, and Maddy said Hey, I was still looking.
It was a two-page spread of a leopard.
What a strange cougar, Nadia said.
Wait, why is it weird?
…You don’t get to call me silly for the heels.
Next page. The flame flickered.
A bust of a model, with tousled hair, wearing a pair of bulky smart glasses with a dedicated app that received a total of five updates, though nothing on the page communicated its electronic nature.
Oh dear, must have been embarrassing for her, Maddy remarked.
Did she get stung by a bee? Why did they take her photo like this?
Right on the lips too, and still pushing out a smile…
An injection, yes. Though of hyaluronic acid rather than bee venom.
That’s a cool leather jacket, though. Nadia defended her.
They didn’t put any patches on for her, Maddy said, while picturing Bréal’s own jacket.
Must have been a loaner.
Maddy reached over, to turn to the next page. The paper was old, at once burning from dry fire and gluing itself together from the melting ink.
The paper ripped itself approximately two centimetres before Maddy stopped herself. Nadia held her breath.
Shoot. Uhh, Maddy thought.
Oh God.
Well, at least she hadn’t noticed in the two weeks since I pulled it out.
Yeah, I am sure it would buff right out. Nadia said as she rubbed the rip between two fingers as gently as she could.
Next page, but not before blowing some warm breath to unstick the ink.
For the record, the lamp ran out of oil before they ran out of nuts.
In the dark, Maddy brushed her teeth with salt, and spat the mixture out of the window once she was done with it. When Maddy handed the cup and brush over, Nadia had said it would not have been necessary. Maddy reminded her of Auntie Maia’s last visit to the barber, about the wisdom tooth.
Nadia thought to herself to spit the salt-water further than that little witch ever could.
Discounting Hopper, Maddy always was the small spoon, even though she was almost too big for it now.
On the other side of the wall, Lewis curled into a ball to keep himself warm.
The clock they used was also from before they were born—and was wound mechanically. It rang its physical bells before the sun came up. Nadia covered the hammer a second after it came on, and told Maddy to go back to bed. She set the alarm to ring again in ninety minutes. Doctors needed good sleep to work at their best.
She changed from her pajama pants into her jeans and lit a lantern. The backpack with her kit was heavy when she went to lift it up, and considerably less unwieldy when she put it on. The last item of preparation was to go down to the truck and collect the family’s bees, which were kept warm under a blanket.
The dry grass crunched under her boots. The local apiary had been expecting her, Mom Nona told her. Nadia scratched at an itch on her nape. She couldn’t wait to finally go home for a proper wash.
All was quiet before dawn. The house was a baby blue, and the east side windows upstairs were boarded up. The grime in the nooks was mixed with sand.
She cleared her throat and knocked on the door to the beekeeper’s house. The door opened.
Nadia Elbakyan-Swartz, I am here about the mites?
Oh, yes, young lady, the mites.
The boxes were painted in different vibrant colours, and reflected in the beautiful pastels even now, peppered among the ones that were just plain wood, with worse nails and the same dedication to carpentry.
No, miss, with this style of smoker you hold it like this.
Oh—I see, thank you, sir, Nadia said under the cover of mesh.
The bees in the cup did not seem to mind, until the moment the alcohol came in, the beekeeper seemed to wince under his own hat when shaking the sealed cup.
Five mites.
See, Nadia?
Yes, I understand how that could be a problem.
Your mother told us that you have the queens, the new queens.
Yes, in my backpack. That is why Mother sent me out, sir. To make sure everything worked right. Shall we gather some more recent data?
The smoke was harsh, and only faintly smelled of the sage. Nadia’s abacus clacked against itself as she ran the calculations, though the movements she was taught were calibrated for someone with longer fingers; fingers that were not wearing two-poppy rubber gloves.
Just nine queens should suffice, sir, by my math.
We will want more. Drought, the radio told us. The bees died in the north. The university will want more.
Oh, Nadia said. I was not aware.
Came in last week, miss.
I apologize for the underestimate.
’salright, miss.
Freshly drowned bees floated on top of alcohol in a jam jar.
At dawn, they followed the beekeeper’s month-old paper to the infected hives. This month, the boxes were heavy. The beekeeper was the one to pick out the queen with his forceps, and Nadia installed the new queens in their mesh boxes, open-side up. The queens’ attendants saw their first sunrise in days.
The opening was sealed with a yellow candy that Maddy was told explicitly to add no flavouring to.
By the time the candy was gone, the bees would have become accustomed to the new queen.
There was a hive whose record was underlined in the beekeeper’s paper and circled twice in Nadia’s from this morning.
When they opened the hive, a sizable chunk of the bees fell out, crawling on the ground. Their wings were growing in deformed.
The box was one of the colourful, sun-bleached ones, except for a few planks swapped out for newer raw strips from pallets. It was the same baby blue as the beekeeper’s house.
The paint job seemed to have been amateur. There were places where a hammer struck but not on the nail, leaving impressions.
The beekeeper did not wince.
This one, this one needs to be cleaned out, Nadia said.
No, miss.
We have to, before the other hives rob them and spread the mites.
No. We won’t. The beekeeper kept his cool, mostly.
Why?
We can deal with this ourselves, miss.
Ah.
Right. Of course.
The beekeeper took out his multitool and then put it back in.
Sir, House Swartz would still like a sample.
Come with me.
When they departed from the town, Nadia put into the logbook—the one not for the university, but rather Nona—that two viable queens were secured and on their way back home.
Glean
He was hungry, first thing he noticed when he woke up was that he was hungry.
He was a lucky one, though. He found a backpack that locked, one of those old plastic ones that refused to be cut with a knife. He kept this bag with him, at all times. He wore it on his back when he was working, and held it when he went to sleep.
He hoped to find a lock to link together the two runners on the big zipper, keep it safe when he was asleep.
What woke him up was the six a.m. bell from the clock tower. It was colder in the winter, because one had to stay somewhere where the sound could reach.
At the langar, the two who had shoes took them off, and left them at the front. He just walked in and washed his face. A lentil stew and two pieces of flatbread, and a cup of yoghurt. The yoghurt was done in a Greek style, because the family that made it was Greek.
It was quiet, except for the noises of mastication and metal trays clacking together. Someone read something off the message board, for her friend, who could not read. Seemed to be a job to work in a cannery, two days away by foot. Three if loaded with a backpack like his.
When he got back to his part of town, he helped a friend carry hay to make a bed.
For the afternoon, a priest wanted men to dig a grave. The dead woman had stopped coming to the langar two days ago, they buried her in her clothes, six feet deep, where the wolves wouldn’t dig her up.
He escorted the woman’s companion back to their home, and said he was sorry. The companion loathed himself, that he should have come back sooner, he told the companion that there was no way he could have known.
The medicine the companion brought back was sold off before the sun went down. He used the money to buy a plushie, for her. He dug a small hole with his hands and buried it, so that she had something soft and small to go with her.
See you some day, my dear.
The companion said the Rosary in the twilight.
We have to go, my friend. Or the others will eat before we get back.
…
He knelt, next to the companion, and repeated what the companion prayed.
Mr Bréal came before breakfast, and kept his hand on the horn until everyone came out of the doors. And then some after that.
You, you, and…
Bréal’s eyes scanned the line of eight souls, and about five whole men put together.
You.
It was his lucky day.
Get in, coolie. Don’t make me wait.
The bed of the truck smelled of rancid french fries, he gulped the saliva back down his throat.
They had him laying bricks, which came down on a winch from some upstairs. The old mortar was still on there, faintly. Bréal showed them how to, and then stood back, and told them to earn their pay. He only intervened in three ways, shouting, slapping hands, and raising the string rule.
They were sealing a window, a few windows, actually. One big continuous one to the outside, and a few smaller ones that ran from ceiling to floor which pointed at the hallway. Bréal told them to lay the bricks close to where the wooden frame for the eventual door would go, and told them to not worry about the door.
A man was working on the door, and gestured at an apprentice to come have a look. Only that the apprentice was not there.
Bréal made them take off their bags, set them at a corner, he kept one eye on them as he worked the bricks.
His wrist hurt by the time the big window was half-bricked up, and two layers after that, his hand slipped and the brick fell onto his toes.
The corner hit his second toe, before the rest of it crushed the back of his foot.
There was a strong exhalation, something approximating a moan, and then he was on the floor.
His crotch was then damp, with ammonia.
Fucking useless, Bréal said as he dragged him by the collar. The other workmen looked at the floor instead of his eyes.
Bréal was so strong, why didn’t he and his men brick the windows by themselves?
They were in the hallway now.
Bréal, what is it with this one?
Can’t do a job right, wrecked his foot.
Hmm, yes, would be a good idea to have him rest a little.
He was still panting.
Bring him to the front, Bréal. He will want some water.
Oh, thank you, madam, thank you, he said.
Speech, Lady Swartz spat, was not what you were hired for. Do not make me reconsider.
Or I can save you some money, Bréal offered.
I am feeling generous today. Like I said, him, front.
Whatever you say.
Bréal set him down in the hallway the way one set down a duffel bag of sweaty laundry.
Sit, Lady Swartz will deal with you. And then Bréal walked back to the room being bricked up.
He wanted to crawl back to the room, to get his bag, he did not know the other workmen very well.
Lady Swartz brought him a piece of bread—rye bread—and a cup of cold broth. The bread was just handed to him, and the broth was served in a stainless steel bowl. She smiled at him, with no teeth. The air exhaled from her nostrils blew a ripple into the cold soup.
Eat, and when you can stand, go back to your foreman.
He nodded. Lady Swartz tilted her head seventeen degrees to the side.
The broth had hints of richness. There was bone, garlic, carrots, celery and celery seeds, caraway, fennel. Hints of sausage, though no actual chunks. A good handful of split peas were found at the bottom of the bowl.
His dad used to be a cook, a Michelin cook, back in the old country, before the war happened, and before he brought wife and children to here, it was hard learning English, and then the refugee benefits stopped coming.
He lapped up what was still stuck to the bottom of the bowl.
It was a good broth.
A minute after that, he stood up and limped back toward the room that needed boarding up.
Lady Swartz was there, at the stairwell. She explained to two of her neighbours that now that they can put things in the common room, she can buy at wholesale rates for the whole building. One of Bréal’s friends rested his shovel three steps behind her and started to smoke, Lady Swartz asked him if he could smoke outside.
Bréal made one of the workmen lift the foosball table upstairs with him.
When they came down, Bréal looked at him, and told him to man the mortar station. He looked at the bags, and saw that they were undisturbed. He wanted to check the insides, but that would have to wait.
He did not have to be on his legs for that job, and it did not hurt as much as the bricklaying did.
When they were done, the room was dark except for the light that shone in from the one doorway that remained. Lady Swartz came back, had them line up, and handed them fifteen dollars each. The first man in line bowed when he received his share, so he bowed too.
It was hard to balance on his good foot, but he stayed steady. The backpack at his feet helped anchor him.
The bill was, for the most part, soft, clean, and crisp. There was a pattern on it, on the center-left, a mathematical rose. Red, for the five-dollar note. The machine that generated the pattern was itself made by a professor of engineering. University bylaw stipulated that any new dies for the mathematical rose may only be made one at a time, with Senate approval.
The hemp content made it tough, and the pulped old books made it cheap enough to print. Lady Swartz did not pay them from a wallet, but rather from a manila envelope.
It had a string on it, it was the kind that mama put their passports in, the same kind as the one she held to her chest in the back of that cargo container.
He wondered if Lady Swartz had ever been in a container, eaten in a container, slept in a container, defecated in a container, held her backpack high in a container, so the water did not ruin the diplomas inside.
He wanted to thank her, but he was smarter than that.
One of the workmen lent him a shoulder to lean on, as they walked back to the truck. It rained on the way back home, and the dust from the day washed off into the truck bed.
When they got home, he went back to his house, to dry off at the oil-drum fire someone had moved to the living room. Someone else took the money and came back with two loaves of bread and three onions.
They threw the onions into the fire, and used a metal pike to skewer them back out when they were done. The same pike as the one sleeping closest to the door held in their sleep.
It was hot, and soft, and thunder cracked through the open window.
It was an okay day.
Untitled Diana
Ruts
Madame Iv
Splendor
It was some time in the afternoon. Birds were chirping outside, and the cherry tree did not move, because no wind came through the glass roof. Ada signed for the delivery at the door and let two of the helpers carry it up.
She had it from the stairwell, on a hand-cart. It rang, resonant and bell-like, when cart and can landed in the room.
You won’t believe what I did today, Ada said. Papa made me cut the ribbon on the Terrarium’s new front.
The fridge compressor kicked in.
And every time somebody said hello, the first thing out of his mouth was, oh did you see my baby up there on the pedestal. Ada twisted a valve shut. It’s a pediment. The carvers insisted.
She pressed a button on the monitor. Its plastic had been pumped out
of the ground in Arabia, pelletized somewhere wetter, and
injection-moulded sixteen hours from wherever the machine was built. She
plugged the hose into the new can, the one that said
Iota Iron Works, pressed the button again, and the machine
stopped complaining.
Klara’s cheek was warm.
Lunch was good, though. I wish you’d been there. A drop of saline went down the IV. Ada lifted the chair two inches off the floor before she moved it, and set it by the bed. A butcher cut the lamb right there in the garden, and one of the professors burned the bones and the fat. Papa got us the loin.
Klara’s hair wanted washing.
They made me so pretty for the statue. They put me in a hat from the museum, said it crossed an icy river once. She smoothed the blanket. The long jacket smelled funky, though.
Ada failed to mention that they did not give her a shirt.
The Chief of the dam told me the turbine I was holding is the same kind they use up the river. Papa let his little boy kiss my hand, a pause, and he also said the Chief is a good man.
The girl from Aldermere was there too, the one who did my hair between sittings. They let her keep her glasses on, mama, and her glasses had chains, she told me she put the sweetgrass in them herself.
Her people had given her a jade ring for the ride to Arbutus.
There was a whole row about whether to carve her hair up or down. She did mine with your handkerchief, and I made sure they carved that in. Ada picked a speck of lint off the blanket. They made her urn pour out salmon, mine just gave water.
The clock struck five. The tower bell, across the campus, did not come into the room.
I’ll be back in a moment, okay?
The syringe and needles had been boiled before they were put away. Ada boiled them again. In the scullery the helpers dipped their heads as she passed; they were eating something red, with carrots, and lamb sinew cooked soft.
The helpers ate beneath a landscape painting. It was an amateur oil, which depicted a land where there were neither mountains nor ocean in sight. Ada had helped them put it up, until Papa made her step down from the stool before she broke a bone.
Upstairs she tied her hair back.
The medicine lived in the fridge, in its own wooden box, next to the spirits. They were low on mead. She broke the ampule. What was in it would trade for five vials of poppy.
She drew it slowly, and the needle went slower. She folded the blanket off the left shoulder, the same as yesterday. She realised, undid her mistake, and kept the rest of her mother covered. The swab was cold.
sorry.
One smooth push. Saline, alcohol, the cap.
Get well soon, mama.
Another boil, and then Ada did her own injection in her room.
Some time had passed, Lewis was not sure if it was an hour or a week.
The fire outside smouldered, then stopped, and a hand lay across his pecs. Something heavy sat on his ribs. The roof spun at the pace of wind-blown dandelion.
She had something grown in Aldermere. He’d had something grown in Aldermere too.
The walkie-talkie on his jacket crackled.
lewiswheretheFUCKareyou.
Diana rolled off him and onto the floor. He went to the coat hook on his knees.
isweartogodifyoudon’tpickup.
Yeah. Lewis. What’s good, V.
Bossman rang. Trucks back by sundown. Come back to town. NOW.
Oh, oops, hehe.
Uhhhhhh, be there in twenty.
Diana growled at the radio.
Vavasseur did not seem convinced. A bit-crushed sigh, then Look, be for real with me. Do I need to come get you at the shack?
how did you, no. I’ll make it. promise.
Bréal’s gonna kill me. Static. Make that thirty minutes, and not one more.
Kiss goodbyeee, Diana said from the floor, weak in the knees, and crawled to him while he did up his kit.
Her lips tasted like mead, ash, and victory.
Gotta go, babe. Next week. His free hand grabbed something for the road.
His buckle jingled half the way down the trail. He was carrying less than he had brought up. His notebook remembered for him that Diana’s mother liked Maddy’s candles, and the pep in his step told him that he’d left her two.
Vavasseur caught him by the chin at the trucks.
Hrrm?
Left, right. He picked a hair off Lewis’s lip and flicked it away. No obvious cuts or bruises. Looking handsome.
Hrrm??
Something got pushed up, I’m backing up Bréal, and he wants you on goon duty.
Nobody tells me anything…
Get in, ride shotgun. It’s the hose if you throw up.
He conked out till the perimeter. The sun was still up, and they put the searchlight on the truck anyway. It sobered the last bit of him up.
At the Epsilon house was a woman who spoke no English, and who wore earmuffs with a leaf up top like an apple. She measured his shoulders with her eyes and handed him a tux that was loose in the waist. He knew how to tie the tie, though. Auntie Collie had seen to that.
Bréal’s suit fit him like a fitted suit, which it was, showoff. He walked them down to the gun locker.
You know a shoulder rig?
Yes, boss.
Semi or wheelgun?
Um.
Relax, kid. It stays in, probably. We just need it in the room.
…I’m feeling lucky.
Good choice. He handed him the .44. Punk.
The shoulder rig was adjustable, and the waist turned out just right.
Fleming ate a light lunch; it would be rude to not eat during the dinner.
Ada did his tie herself: green, white and blue, the tartan they had all been issued. She filled his flask with tea she had steeped, strained, and boiled down in a frying pan until it was nearly black.
A servant came to say that Madam Swartz was outside, with the motorcade.
Until I’m home, you open the door for no one but the Dean.
mmm
Ada.
Um, yes, papa.
Lady Swartz had been issued the same scarf, and it fought her mulberry dress. She had written to Fleming about it two weeks ago, and she arrived in ultramarine: a seamstress’s copy of the Minoan goddess with a snake in each fist, the bodice closed, the neckline left exactly where it was. A small bee was pinned at her shoulder. It was the only thing that clashed.
The limo had been drawn from a pattern shown at a World’s Fair a century before. Engineering had taken the chrome off it, and leather was used in place of rubber. The doorman shut them in and got in front. The interior was hemp.
There were two panes of glass between the back seat and the front.
Time’s a’changing. He was not looking at her face.
Look at the content of their character, Fleming.
You don’t want that.
Then I suppose we can judge a man by his shoes. She looked at his feet. Brogues?
And the same stilettos as ever. My Ada told me the cobblers prefer wider bases now. Steadier. He put on his seatbelt. Wisdom, he told the window, was always less than convincing from that mouth of yours. The sun was going down over the water. A lovely blue, though.
A cylinder knocked under the hood.
…Some things are in our power.
Remind me. The old Director of Food Services. What was his name?
Collie’s hand grabbed a fistful of ultramarine. She fought the hand open one finger at a time and smoothed the wool flat. Four in. Four held. Four out. No visible damage.
You stood in that line behind me, Lord Emeritus, with a ration card in your breast pocket. Four held. I had the courage to change the things I could. I trust you have the wisdom for the rest.
The tea sloshed in his flask. Outside, two riders kept pace, one at each headlamp. Fleming scanned the horizon beyond.
You, you did not see what I saw in the Balkans, Coelia. I know how the women came through. They came through with nothing. An exhale through the nose. You came through in silk. Spared even the inconvenience they suffered after.
Wool. We wear what we make. No matter. In your… fantasies, I wasn’t doing a whole lot of seeing eye to eye anyways. Collie tried to chuckle.
I would hardly imagine such things for a girl who still plays house. He turned from the window then. A stolen bastard. The Tsien boy. Whoever is on your first floor this month. Does it help? Arranging them?
Collie dug into her clutch for nothing in particular, it helps them eat.
It helps you sleep. There never was an urgent need for the bastard. A doll would have sufficed, a doll would have survived, you. Fleming wagged a finger at her, in a circle. Did you ever tell Nadia why she has her mother’s name? Or is she still too busy swapping between Swartz and Tsien as one does with jackets?
It is no more necessary for her life than it would be for the newspaper to know of the stable you keep in Aldermere just for Ada.
A moment.
I taught you to hide your tracks better, Coelia. I kept my suit starched, waiting for the Dean to bless you and the older Tsien. How lucky you did not have a funeral to arrange when the trucks came back.
I suppose I was not your best student. A smirk that did not show. Did Cecilia ever write home? Or has Iota been told to keep her busy?
You were my best student. That, I hazard, is partly to blame for our present Circumstances.
Drunkard.
Whore.
The wheels found the gravel in front of the Terrarium. The doorman put on his gloves.
Collie double-checked her eyeliner. Clean.
both broken, then. Quieter: maddy’s not a bastard.
He watched her a moment longer than he needed to, then laid the cane across his knees.
Tempered, Coelia. The word is tempered. Fleming adjusted his collar. Broken we reserve for absent friends.
The door opened. They were smiling before it did.
The doorman followed the two principals in, and he did not note that Madam Swartz was wrapped around Lord Fleming’s left arm, and that another guard was holding his cane for him.
It was good to be in Campus Security, and better to be in Principal Protection. Because after the faculty and guests were done there was good food in the downstairs.
The Terrarium always had the best seconds. They stood at a corner before the dining hall. There was a light spot on the wall that once held a plaque, which once upon a time remembered such-and-such donor and his generous donation making the conservatory possible.
He got the message in his ear, to bring the principals in.
On the opposite end, four men rolled in. He was briefed, a room for sixteen, booked for four, the one with the ponytail was Bréal, the willowy one was Vavasseur, and two guards to match—
—was it just him, or was Honey Boy one of the guards?
Isn’t he an electrician? What is he doing here?
Well, no matter. Madam Swartz’s chair still needed pulling out, and they still needed to retreat to flank the doors. He saw the menu, figured they’re getting salmon soup tonight, with the good radish and the rendered bones.
Inside the Terrarium, no two hanging lamps were the same cut crystal, and no two clashed. A jukebox was covered with a wooden shelf, and alumni from the music department made live music.
Old cathode-ray tubes danced in psychedelic fluorescence. A gold-green lockstep made to fit the lights and rebuke the stars.
The Sun set; the geodesic dome turned to an amber kaleidoscope. No leaves rustled.
Collie did not let herself notice that Lewis was in a suit, and playing bodyguard for Epsilon.
Bréal, it has been a while. Fleming shook Bréal’s hand; she held him up by his left. She based her posture on the other women she had seen on Fleming’s arm. And you must be Vavasseur?
Yes, Lord Fleming. A glance. I look forward to the dinner.
I take it Bréal doesn’t let you see the sun that much?
They laughed.
Please, just Fleming, we can leave the titles for the paper.
I suppose you have met Lady Swartz?
Vavasseur glanced at her.
Yes, she has been a wonderful patron and friend to us both.
Bréal did not need to be told that Collie wouldn’t let go of Fleming, and kissed her left hand instead. Fleming made the doorman turn back, so he could pull Collie’s chair for her.
Do they still do the goat cheese salad? Bréal pictured the night’s menu and asked anyway.
The chefs got tired of making it, I heard. Fleming said. what was it that we are having for salad today?
Caprese, m’lord. Collie deferred, as was the plan. it was Vavasseur’s idea.
The moment they said they pick the tomatoes in front of us, I knew we had to.
The men laughed, full-throatedly. Vavasseur’s laugh had a tracheal component, and Collie figured she should cover her mouth and giggle.
Glad to hear we can at least agree on sparing no expense. Fleming said.
Collie signalled for the mead. The waitress set down wine glasses and began to pour.
A little something, from Château Swartz, to the future?
To a bloody war. Vavasseur probed. Silent: or a sickly season.
Better, Fleming asserted, to the Arbutus.
In unison: To Arbutus.
The tomatoes were of an heirloom variety. The waitress was screened twice, once by Campus Security, then by Epsilon.
Two fruits sliced thick were enough for four. Someone feasted with his eyes as the salads were assembled. The cheese was proudly brought in fresh from Aldermere just today.
In the background, a trombone played a part meant for a synth.
The waitress’s name was Peggy.
Bréal was going too fast, too rowdy. Vavasseur knew that much.
Fleming and Swartz… wasn’t it their daughters who were fond of each other? He marked the datum for later exploration, if there was a later.
Lewis wasn’t a good shot, and his aunt was here. He wasn’t here for his shot.
A man clapped his hands together, and the world came back into focus.
Lords and Ladies, as planned, your second course is going to be omakase. I am your chef. Over the next half-hour or so, please enjoy my works one-by-one as I bring them out.
A breath.
Today’s menu celebrates our Arbutus and her townships, with freshly grated wasabi from just under this dome, and a fermented mushroom dipping sauce for a uniquely local umami.
The chef said something more, and then went back to the kitchen. After the door swung closed, Fleming said something about how the crop he studied most did not end up growing here.
Collie made a cat’s claw and swung at the speed of wind-blown willow, and Fleming remembered what she had said about tangents this morning.
Vavasseur threw him a curveball question about soybean cultivation; the answer was on page a hundred-and-sixty-eight of Fleming’s thesis. It ran to one-hundred-and-ninety-two, from there until page two-five-five it was just citations.
Vavasseur had read those too.
Halibut was the first fish, the chef said. Cured in kelp, served atop brown rice, from our experimental paddy.
They wheeled in a bowl for each diner, with soap on the side. Vavasseur had expected to coach Bréal on how to eat nigiri, but Bréal told him it was common sense.
Grab with the hand, gently, dunk in… garum, and place in one’s mouth topping-side-down.
Isn’t she just a doll? Fleming breathed. My collie had this dress made just for tonight.
So lovely, you two. Bréal probed. When can we expect an announcement?
Oh, you should know we keep some things to ourselves… Fleming seemed comfortable.
Collie held Fleming by the chin and leaned in for a kiss. He grasped the back of her head, light enough to not smudge her lipstick. Fleming learned she wore a perfume that smelled of opium.
…for dinner or otherwise. Fleming said.
A tiny sliver of ginger to cleanse the palate. They had yellow ones instead of red.
The wasabi tasted different from the horseradish Vavasseur remembered from his youth. The fish was less briny, but somehow tasted more of the sea than imitation crab.
Is Ada taking to her new mother well? Vavasseur asked, over his glass.
Splendidly, said Fleming. We’ll see, said Collie, at the same moment.
Then, to the She-Wolf, Bréal said. And the man who would tame her. Two glasses clanged, and Fleming held Collie at the shoulder. As agreed.
Does Cecilia know yet? Or is she still busy with Iota afield? Vavasseur probed.
Collie ate a piece of tuna.
She gave Fleming a piece of ginger, on the eleven-o’clock side of his plate.
Bréal, how about your own? Ada told me she found a ring on her last month. Fleming caught the signal.
Collie gasped in mock excitement. Goodness! That so? Congratulations, Bréal.
Bréal looked at the tablecloth and chuckled. We kept it quiet, she never was one for crowds, no.
Almost wished you were our sons, you two. The way you brought bread and water back to Arbutus was nothing less than miraculous, Collie said.
Vavasseur wanted to say he was flattered, but Maddy was not here in his arms, and talk is cheap.
He said he was flattered, and did not turn his head to read Lewis’s face. There was no cucumber in the nigiri, so there was no crunch.
Now, I hate to be the stuffy one, but shall we discuss the terms? Vavasseur had priced this line yesterday.
Bréal chuckled, and said A miracle, this one. One day he’ll run the place.
I was under the impression my collie had it all worked out. Fleming straightened himself. But I suppose we needed an excuse for dinner.
On the first page, we would like to see an expansion on the definition of ‘Brother’.
His mouth was dry. Vavasseur had another swig.
They had sea urchin after, on white rice, a short-grain cultivar they had just made barely viable in the country. The white vinegar was the same base as balsamic, but flatter, less complex, and more readable in the now.
Bréal saw that his lieutenant tried to suppress amazement. He wanted to tell him it was okay, that not everybody was given the privilege at first, but the ones who got it themselves most deserve it.
By the looks of it, he should have brought a better brother than Lewis.
Collie was occupied. The old man was on a last hurrah; it seemed he had misjudged the situation.
He ate like how Nero ate grape. She ate like how mother ate the communion wafer.
This is bad alpha, yes. But is better show.
And to think the Swartz girl was lined up to replace Franklin.
Right, was his blonde safe at home? And how many months was she? Ah, damned! Could Lewis have seen?
…and barely any French in Arbutus.
No, No, he had to focus on the night.
He took a drink. He should have priced that Fleming would move the meeting up, now the horses did not bring back the wine in time.
He swirled the liquid in his mouth, and thought of the vineyards there instead of the shacks behind them.
By the Virgin Mary, he whispered inside his head. This swill make me think I should have stayed with father on the yacht.
A long white cloud drifted aimlessly somewhere beyond the horizon.
But he was the different one, the one that knew wealth is power, and with great power comes great responsibility.
He twirled his butter knife, and his eyes focused to nowhere in particular. Maybe they read the smile as evil? Shame, he had thought the Englishwoman a better negotiator.
The crown would have been heavier on him than it ever was.
It began in Weirwick, though the man in this story calls it by another name, a more familiar one.
The paper came. In black and white.
…
…And in black and white, there was an evacuation order. He could hardly read the alphabet they put it in. His daughter told him they wanted them all to go away. The town notary said the same.
They couldn’t tell, and they wouldn’t.
They had four days, which was longer than most.
The house went first, because it had a scenic view and the population always needed more living-room. And then the car; they wouldn’t have needed it anyways. The boat went last, and he had tried to be an ass about all of it.
She was a part of his flesh, he had told his daughter. The man in the tophat did not understand the language, and offered instead a wad of cash for the boat, here, now. It was a good deal.
They put the money in the bank, and the ones who put up the order on the paper, in black and white, took what was in the bank too.
It was the first time she lost sight of the ocean, and then the first time he lost sight of a river.
There were snow-peaked mountains, and then desert fields, where they told them to build their own prison.
They made do, they made food that reminded them of home, they celebrated when there were things to celebrate, and then in the years they had plenty they even got to sell the surplus.
It got a pair of boots for every working man.
They didn’t let them touch water ten years after that. He ended up spending fifteen years running a sushi restaurant in the east end of the town, where his son was born and told of his late sister.
Regarding his choice on what to put on the menu: they couldn’t tell, and why would they? A roll is a roll.
He never stepped on a boat after she went.
His son did not want to carry on the restaurant. When he was growing up, his father brought him to bow at people about the restaurant every month. It came to him that his father took on great humiliation to get the restaurant going.
We’re better now, Dad, he said. You don’t have to bow to them any more. Retire, I got you.
His dad never did retire.
Now, the man who was taken from the shore and who returned had a great-grandchild who was the best chef in Arbutus, serving the best of Arbutus. The one keeping an art alive so far from home.
It was more than what he could ever have imagined.
As for the four guests: they could tell, most likely. But why would they?
A year after that last man was evacuated, a male Swartz — one Collie never met except at his funeral — purchased five of the same make and model, to be re-rigged for crabs up the coast. He greatly preferred the equator for himself, though.
A child nicknamed Lily once slipped on the floor of his grandson’s yacht, before her side of the family became estranged. Shame, though. Her sister Alice would have made a cutthroat successor; they get it from their mother.
But, what can you do about an Englishwoman?
An excerpt from Chef Akiyama’s Technical Guide to Arbutus Cuisine, as printed by Midnight Publishing:
Chawanmushi, as served in The Terrarium
To serve four.
Notes
Use thin-walled ceramic cups with lids, metal is acceptable as a substitute.
Steamer necessary.
Ingredients
1 blade dried bull kelp (do not wash)
50 g dried sardines (see page 16)
50 g halibut fillet (or other white fish)
4 spot prawns dressed (see page 25)
50 g brown mushrooms (as available)
3 large eggs
1 green onion or other garnish
1 Tbsp vodka or other neutral spirit
8 slices kamaboko (fish cakes) (see page 10)
1/2 tsp honey
1/2 tsp fish or mushroom garum (see page 65)
Salt to taste
Steps
Rehydrate kelp overnight.
Gut and behead sardines if necessary.
Add sardines and simmer gently, remove kelp before bubbles surface. Simmer three more minutes, and strain liquor through cloth. Mix in honey and vodka, and let cool.
Once cooled, add liquor to eggs in mixing bowl, at a ratio of 2.5 parts liquor to 1 part egg by weight.
Add in garum and salt.
Whisk gently, minimise bubbles.
Strain mixture through fine sieve to remove bubbles.
Slice halibut and kamaboko, thinly.
Remove tails from prawns.
Remove roots from mushrooms and cut into chunks or slices as necessary.
Layer fillings into cups, top with kamaboko and green onions as garnish.
Fill cups with egg mixture through another sieve.
On lowest heat, put lidded cups into steamer. Keep at bare simmer with the steamer lid slightly open. Steam for twenty minutes or until skewer enters eggs and exits with clear liquid.
Serve hot.
Peggy took the last of the plates, and informed them the stew would be ready in a moment. The utensils were moved aside for papers.
First Lieutenant. Bréal muttered. Remind me, how many ranks are there?
You’ll be an O-2, my dear. Collie wiped the corner of her mouth. …of four. Same as Iota’s.
And no higher?
It would have to mean re-negotiating with Iota, and Campus Security. Fleming had a sip of the buckwheat tea. Rest assured we left the best billet for last.
On the general commerce license for Epsilon. I want us to get fast-tracked for the additional licenses. Bréal glanced at his second. And I want Vavasseur as a shareholder.
It was not part of their plan.
Well, then. I suppose we should ask the man himself. Collie said softly, strike the iron while it’s hot. Vavasseur, what do you think?
I… would be excellent, it would be excellent, yes. Vavasseur collected himself, to be diplomatic. But I know something will have to move to make room.
hmm, Bréal, I suppose the wine has made us all generous. What are you ready to offer? Fleming asked.
Collie helped Fleming with his pages, and pointed at a specific provision.
Item 9 stipulates that the weapons be stored as they were, in Epsilon, with a lock devised to require two key-holders to open, one of which shall go to M. Bréal, the other an officer as the Senate appoints and amends from time to time… And for a third officer to confirm the locks are in good shape monthly.
We would like the weapons in our own armoury…
Done. Bréal spat.
Lord Fleming was just drawing a breath. Listen to the rest, my dear. Collie said.
…and ownership transferred to Campus Security proper.
Vavasseur looked at his bossman, just for a split-second.
Bréal had a swig of something. Vavasseur, I remember you gave particular attention to where they grow the spice here? And that you wanted to show the Lady your own gastronomy.
I— Vavasseur recalled no such thing. …suppose I did.
Bréal signalled Peggy to bring another bottle. I brought something from the breadbasket Lord Fleming would love to taste.
Collie put her napkin back on the table, folded neat, of course.
Vavasseur rose, and offered her his hand.
Shall we, Madame?
Paths in the Terrarium twirled and pooled, like the intestines inside an animal.
Do you think he would, Vavasseur? Collie said on the far side of the brass band.
If the past predicts the future.
I see you were escorted by my son.
He is a loyal man, yes. I have been told it is a shame that he looks more like his father, and Madame Maia.
My nephew, then.
No, son is good. My aunties called me the same.
May I ask why?
To represent the rest of us. We had to have one brother in the room who did not speak French.
I assume the other guard has his orders, then?
Vavasseur did not answer her. He picked a ripe tomato, and brushed his thumb at the tomato’s skin. It was supple, it was grown here, and it was softer than the outside would have allowed.
A splice, Vavasseur mused, I was told. They put potatoes under this plant, and belladonna on the leaves. One last Manhattan Project to bring with into the night.
I was told your old country starved.
I am sure they think the same of us.
I hope the main course would help.
Few things do, that is why we go to the towns.
There was a bottle of spice at the back of my pantry, it promised to taste of your home. Did you ever find your people?
Once. On horseback. Vavasseur imagined the green bottles still racing to Arbutus. I am afraid I cannot tell you where.
My Maia does her best, for the father. Though it is not the same.
Does he prefer your hearth?
He eats only at hers.
Then I was mistaken. Vavasseur updated. I look forward to the Lady Fleming. Vavasseur flattered.
That title is spoken for already, I believe.
By whom? Madame Ada? Vavasseur read her face. I suppose it is. He put the tomato against his nose. So she is not Ada’s new mother after all.
The tomato seemed to smell of peppermint. Is Maddy doing well under Franklin? Vavasseur asked.
Excellent, I have been told.
I trust you know to verify.
Fleming taught the same.
I see it in her eyes. Collie said.
Then it is time to let it play out. Vavasseur set the tomato down, gently, down the path from the old plant. It was no longer rational to hold. Deliver my best wishes.
They took the garden path back.
Vavasseur, congratulations. Fleming said as they walked back. Bréal did not look up.
There was a wet spot on the tablecloth, and the bottle had already been taken away.
For coming back just in time for the main? Collie joked, and signalled to Peggy to bring it in.
Second Lieutenant Bréal has appointed the Monsieur to head Epsilon after the charter.
Thank you. Vavasseur said with his eyes. Bréal made the eyes for a Loud and Clear.
…and your shares will come in due time. But before that, I was told my collie had something special arranged for the main? No wonder she was so excited.
Yes. Collie smiled. I had found something in the family larder a younger Collie never opened, and I asked the chef to make some last-minute changes.
It was fifteen green dollars at the till, fifteen years ago. The menu was frozen a week before this.
I could only imagine how hard it must be to live so far away from family, and so I thought to…
Peggy came in, just in time to continue the sentence.
For your main tonight, the Terrarium is proud to present oxtail in the Caribbean manner, with Scotch bonnet from this dome, served with a side of rice and beans. Lady Swartz generously provided authentic seasoning from her own stores.
Vavasseur considered the dish fit for a last supper, and proposed it to Collie without using that word.
Smells good, V. Bréal said to no one in particular.
Dig in, bossman. Vavasseur took a deep breath. There is plenty for everyone.
It did not taste like grandmother’s. It tasted restaurant quality.
Vavasseur wondered if she was okay. He wanted her to worry about him, he didn’t want her to worry about him.
She would have told him the collar was wrong, even though it was right.
Vavasseur scooped another ladleful onto the boss’s plate, without asking him first.
The stew was tender.
Bréal, such a shame your wife couldn’t join us, leaving just one girl here all by her lonesome. Is she well? Collie asked with Peggy in sight.
I have been telling her to rest, but you know how headstrong our women can be.
Is she still pursuing admission? If she needs someone to countersign. Collie offered, Fleming touched her hand and she did not react.
I shall arrange for an introduction if she gets back in. She would want company in the museum. Bréal’s tongue was slightly numb. Since we are on the topic, how is Maddy? I hear she is going to the Christmas dance? Bréal asked. Collie’s eyes darted at Lewis. Vavasseur’s own eyes tried to notify, but Bréal had tunnel vision on her.
…and Nadia too, but Lord Fleming had been telling them to focus on school.
Well Received, Bréal’s eyes finally said.
They had a peach strudel after that, Peggy said something about the new cannery back East that made it possible. The ice cream was made with oak, and smelled of vanilla. The extinction of the latter—when the news came—was of least concern to Arbutus.
There was chocolate syrup for garnish, thin strands that landed on the ice cream, set, and turned dry.
Someone had written the English title on top, in bold. The ink was iron gall. They played it after dessert.
Auld Lang Syne
थाट बिलावल, ताल कहरवा (मात्रा ८)
| स्थायी | |
|---|---|
| प̣ | |
| सा ऽनि̣ सा ग | रे ऽसा रे गरे |
| × | ० |
| सा ऽसा ग प | ध — — ध |
| × | ० |
| प ऽग ग सा | रे ऽसा रे गरे |
| × | ० |
| सा ऽध̣ ध̣ प̣ | सा — — ध |
| × | ० |
| अंतरा | |
| प ऽग ग सा | रे ऽसा रे ध |
| × | ० |
| प ऽग ग प | ध — — सा̇ |
| × | ० |
| प ऽग ग सा | रे ऽसा रे गरे |
| × | ० |
| सा ऽध̣ ध̣ प̣ | सा — — |
| × | ० |
They shook hands in front of the steps. Fleming and Bréal held the paper for all to see, Vavasseur and Lady Swartz backing each respectively. A journalist from the old student paper lit a flash pan, and the four of them held their eyes open as the camera did its work. Two more flashes, and then a few moments for the sketch artists to catch up.
Lewis went home an hour and a half after Auntie Collie did, thirty minutes for the dinner, thirty minutes to return the .44 (he was by all accounts lucky; the gun, however, had hoped otherwise), and thirty more because he walked back.
He kept in the ice box what the chef let him bring home. It was good breakfast for Nadia, who ate it reading the front page story.