3 SUM (13 page)

“And they believed you?”

“Sure, it happens all the time.”

We sat down at a large wooden table in the kitchen, and Raisa introduced us to everyone. Vadim the brother entered. His sleeves were rolled up, and I could see a red P tattooed on his arm, the sign of Femocratic captivity. I hoped they'd treated him well.

“You don't look like one of those men on the other side of the fence,” he said to me.

“I'm a new man,” I replied, “an experiment.”

“Couldn't take orders from a woman?”

“Depends what she's ordering,” I replied.

He laughed and opened the bottle of vodka he was holding. I liked him, he had a measured tone, and my Russian was improving.

An old woman, the aunt, brought across two glasses, and he poured. I nearly choked on the homemade hooch, to everyone's amusement. Still I didn't give up easy these days and took another shot. The younger boys looked impressed.

“You're safe here,” said Vadim.

It wasn't only the vodka warming my insides.

Potato stew, with lumps Vadim called beef, was served with bread and more vodka. I was glad Anais had lemonade, one of us needed to stay sober. I'd been duped before, for a lifetime.

Chapter Twenty-Three

I woke up two days later with Anais looking over me, smiling. Her hair was down, and the sun shone through the rafters of the converted barn over her body. She looked like an angel.

There was an open tin bath full of hot water, and she washed me down. I was the only animal in sight, but I didn't take advantage. I just might need some of my new found strength later in the day.

Just when I thought this could be Heaven, Raisa stormed in. She looked agitated, drawn and haggard, in spite of the fresh air. She climbed a rope to the top of the barn and came down with a kit in her mouth. Paradise was lost as she shot up.

“I only got another two day's supply,” she said.

That was OK with me. Any longer and I might not want to leave, beasts or not.

I'd wanted some exercise, and was happy to join Vadim in the fields. There was no machinery, and I no longer wore nail varnish. It was a world apart from my old life. We loaded the cart with potatoes, and I watched Vadim shoe a horse. In between work, Anais and Raisa brought us jugs of beer. They had tea but I couldn't get used to the white liquid inside, taken from a cow. The unhatched chickens they called eggs disturbed me; I was used to a substitute, like me, artificial and sterile. I stomached the beef, for now, but felt disgusted with myself until I had another beer.

“You have a wife, girlfriend?” I asked Vadim.

“Girlfriend in Moscow. And you?”

“The colonel.”

“Then you'd better be careful my friend; she's used to giving the orders.”

“Don't worry, sometimes I get to call the shots, where it counts.”

“Then maybe you're going to be a father, Valiant.”

I went white. I'd never given it any thought.

Vadim laughed.

“Don't worry, it's easy after the first time,” he said.

There were no known cases in the Femocracy. Test tubes had replaced fallopian tubes.

“Isn't natural birth dangerous?” I asked. “Painful?”

“Women are used to pain, they're stronger than us. You should know that.”

They were crueller too, far more than anyone had dared imagine, including the professor. And now Vespertina wanted everyone wiped out, permanently. I had to stop her, with Anais' help. But there was one thing I could never do: return home. I had become a man.

I was becoming suntanned, the stubble was now forming a short beard, and the old lady of the farm had cut some style into my short hair. The great outdoors was exactly that, and with a heavy heart and some regret I listened to their plan in front of the evening fire. Real wooden logs from the forest crackled as the owls hooted nearby. I had felled the burning trees earlier in the day with Vadim, and we were buddies.

Raisa turned on the TV, it was small, and in the corner, unlike the guest on ‘Cockerel', the nation's favourite food programme according to Vadim.

So that was Queensy Sevastopol. She obviously tasted her own dishes, but the weight, the curves; she was a dish all on her own. Is that why she fled from Vespertina? There were plenty of rumours of her appetite for women, and her demands. Queensy had jet black hair, dyed, but who would care with such a radiant face? Life was treating her well in her new home.

“Your new book, ‘La Femme de la Crème Soup', is already a best seller. What do you put your continued success down too?” asked the show host.

He was wearing a shiny dark blue suit and a shirt with no tie. His eyes were soft, old, but his skin taunt.

“Honesty and originality.”

“And the food?”

“Of course the food. My recipes are inspirational.”

“Your story, escape from the Femocracy, is an inspiration to millions.”

“Thank you.”

“Is it true you sleep with an armed guard?”

Queensy laughed. “Not literally, but I do have round the clock protection.”

“And you let only men close?”

“Any woman could be an agent, an assassin from the other side. So of course I surround myself only with men. I see it as a perk.”

“Any vacancies?” asked the host, and the audience laughed.

“Oh please turn it off,” said Raisa. “I'd much sooner talk.”

Vadim obeyed, and I filled the house with stories of the Femocracy and laughter. My friend Steve 873 raised the roof.

I was already regretting leaving, but Vadim enjoyed plying me with more drink and it cheered me up.

The old woman had agreed, and left us to our plan before I led Anais to our bed.

Chapter Twenty-Four

We woke up early, and helped fill the back of the van with sacks of potatoes. Vadim had pulled the seats forward, and the three of us slid in the back under a sheet of corrugated iron covered in spuds. My chest could breathe but my back ached along the bumpy road. When it smoothed out I knew we were close to Moscow. I went to hold Anais' hand, only to find Raisa had got there before me.

The van stopped and I could just about hear Vadim talking in Russian. I hoped we weren't being served up for dinner; stranger things had happened, just look at the old me, a guy in a dress designing nail polish.

The sentries were duped or bribed, I couldn't be sure which, and I could hear the barrier being lifted. There was a small hole to my right through the rusting chassis, and I could see their boots, and the butt of a rifle resting against a wall. If they were on Vadim's payroll, I doubted they would have betrayed the cause for a handful of credits, had they known a Femocratic Colonel was on board.

We parked in an old garage and Vadim cut the engine just before the fumes overwhelmed us. As we crawled out the, two men unloading the sacks took no notice. The potatoes tumbled into crates ready for market. At the bottom of the sacks were tiny packets of pills. My chest went tight, and I leant against the wall for support, my legs weak.

“Don't worry,” said Anais. “These are for recreation, not sterilisation.”

I looked less bitter, and felt a lot better. I wasn't angry at Anais; she was a product of the system too. And none of us had questioned our existence in the Femocracy.

“There's not enough money in spuds,” said Vadim, trying to justify himself, “and one day I'll be an old man.”

He didn't have to explain to me, a guy who'd been diagnosed, caged, and plugged.

“It's not that,” I said. “It just brings back painful memories of my old life.”

He patted me on the shoulder. He understood.

“You know, I have one regret,” he said, “my sister got hooked.”

“You know?”

“Of course, and more. But I'm not going to break our Aunt's heart.”

“She's a great kid,” I said. “A heart of gold.”

“That can weigh you down sometimes,” he said. “Take care of her, if you get the chance.”

“I promise.”

“And look after yourself too, Valiant, and that Colonel of yours. They play for keeps in Moscow, and the worst one's hangout at the Red Star Casino.”

We shook hands, and I felt like a real man, the ones in the movies. We left them in the garage, and slipped into a side street via a side door.

“Same as before,” said Anais to me, “keep quiet.”

I nodded, I was still neutered. Two guys stepped by in leather trench coats and bear skin hats. I'd been used to faux leather and fur, and now only realised where those terms had come from: animals, such a waste of them and for us. Vadim was a good guy, although Semyon hadn't been. I had met too few to form an opinion, but now I'd see some of the Undiagnosed close up.

The city women looked sophisticated, cultured not downtrodden. I could tell Anais was as surprised as me. Were these the women that needed rescuing?

Half the men wore beards, long hair and short in equal measure, but no eyeliner nor mascara.

It seemed strange and threatening, politeness was adrift to strangers. I noticed the bigger guys, striding, stepping like geese, expecting the smaller ones to move aside on the pavement. The taller men looked impervious, imperialistic, and the shorter acted more aggressively. You could see it on the roads, in the traffic jams, the horns honking and the gestures out of the window; I guessed they weren't friendly.

The women signalled their intent in another way; the unaccompanied, unchaperoned, wore tighter clothes, colours more vibrant, eye catching, like a bird. Those with a man on their arm communicated to those around them with laughter, signalling their happiness to other men who might fight for the right to mate with such joy. And for rival females it was a warning they couldn't give as much pleasure to their beau, and should look elsewhere.

I had left the fields, for a field experiment. There was no such thing as accidental behaviour, and I was the ideal student, uncorrupted.

Three women branched across the sidewalk, arm in arm with children in front. They were displaying solidarity and fertility, warning other rivals. Children pushed in carts were used as weapons to clear the ground ahead, and singles of both sexes often talked into mobile phones to signal their unseen popularity.

A woman winked at me, I was startled more than star-struck. My response prompted her to lift a finger with a ring upon it. A rude gesture, I surmised. So I wondered if the women turning away when I caught their staring eyes were hiding something. The city's inhabitants appeared dishonest; men and women both playing a game, with bluffing males and pretentious females.

A column of soldiers were marching down the street towards us, the International Brigade from South America. We'd given asylum to thousands of their shemales before they finally entered the war on the other side. North America was in the FLR, Female Led Republic, a natural ally to Euroland along with Canada and Oceania. Although Alaska was too cold for dresses, and had re-joined Russia.

We stepped into a retail store to avoid them; maybe they would sense our fear. Bad move, there was a sale on, and men and women jostled and elbowed each other over reduced-price TVs.

In the supermarket I queued patiently for some cheese until Anais told me the source. The female cashier and shopper ahead of us were prolonging their discussion on the weather, before I put down my purchase. It seemed everyone wanted to annoy someone that had what they didn't. In this case, Anais and I had each other.

Back on the streets everyone was vying for attention, or affected by those seeking it. Perhaps it was the overcrowding or the constant bombardment of advertisements. I suspected it was the inequality, but if everybody was somebody then nobody was anybody. For a brief moment I wasn't sure if I wanted to stay, until Raisa took Anais to a beauty shop. I stayed outside out of embarrassment for my past life.

On a billboard across the street hung a picture of celebrity chef Queensy Sevastopol promoting her new book ‘La Femme de la Crème Soup,' and a tag underneath ‘Resident Chef at the Red Star Casino.'

“You can see the Red Star from here,” said Raisa, applying her new lip gloss. “Twenty floors top, the most expensive apartments in Moscow. The windows only see out and are bullet proof. No numbers on the doors, only safety and anonymity.”

Anais tugged my sleeve, and pointed ahead at the skyline. The star wasn't painted red but rusted.

“Papers?” Anais asked Raisa.

“You only need the spending variety to get in.”

“And where do we get that?”

Our funds had dried out.

“My friend Olga.”

“What's in it for her?”

“I thought you sisters on the other side were supposed to trust each other.”

“I'm not on the other side,” said Anais, “not yet.”

“She has a score to settle with the casino owner.”

“Which is?”

“You're nothing if not persistent,” said Raisa. “Her husband did his brains at blackjack, went in over his head and his cheque book. The owner took his new bride as payment.”

“And that was Olga.”

“You learn quick, sis.”

“What happened to the husband?”

“Came back the next night to win back his bride.”

“Guess he lost again?”

“Big time. This time he paid with his life. Olga's been waiting five years to pay Nikolay back in kind. He keeps her employed, out of charity or a guilty conscience.”

There was a wail from around the corner.

“We'd better get off the streets,” said Raisa. “The night brings out the worst in people.”

“Which ones?”

“Pimps, pushers, drunks, and bums.”

“And the women?” asked Anais.

“That is the women, the men in this part of town will be too busy fist fighting. Apart from measuring the length of their dicks, that's all they're good for after a few drinks.”

“They measure their, you know, really?” asked Anais.