After: Nineteen Stories of Apocalypse and Dystopia (40 page)

“Thank you,” the woman says. Her eyes are hard, but mine are not. I am crying as she
leaves the tent.

Jas moves close to me.

“The first one is always hard,” Jas says. “It gets easier.”

“How can it get easier?” I ask.

Jas shrugs. “It just does.”

He leaves me to myself as I do my job of packing the machines. I try to remember that
we are performing a kindness. No one, the Way says, except for those who are three
or four for four, will live for very long. It is better for them to go down when they
are young. It is less painful than to know them and then put them down.

“Orange and Brown is so rare, though,” I say.

“Yes,” Jas says. “Very rare.”

“Why couldn’t we have spared her for the orange and brown?”

“The sequence. Three or four for four. It is what we live by. It is our code. It is
the law.”

After one week, we arrive at the next town that needs us.

We are halfway through the feast when a man comes from a remote village. He has heard
through the Romas that we were on the road. He comes to plead his case.

“We are a small town. Very small. We are new. We have only two girls who are of age.
We are prepared to give so much for just this chance. We are ready to join the Way.”

Sometimes this happens. New towns form. The Romas get tired of wandering and fighting,
and they settle down and make a town. In order to grow, they must join the Way. It
is hard. The Romas take a chance by inviting the Paters in. The girls must be tested
to see if they will fit into the Way. If they do, then Paters will be sent to them.
If not, then they will not join the Way and the town will likely die.

Jas is the oldest. It will be him to decide. It will be him who will go with the man
to visit the girls. He consults with the man. They look at me.

“Geo,” Jas says. “They are desperate. The Way is their best chance. And they have
birds.” Birds are rare. My stomach and eyes delight at the thought of birds.

“Why don’t you go?” I ask Jas. He should go. He is the leader. He is the Counter.
I am just an Apprentice Counter. But then, as I look at him closely, I see that I
don’t have to have him give me an answer. I can see by the way he holds himself, as
though it is with great effort to stand, by his paleness and by the way he has spent
so much time by the side of the road, like the others. It will not be long before
the fact that he is ill will be known to all. It seems as though many people in all
of the towns are ill. But I have not weakened at all. The walk has made me stronger.

“I will do it for the birds,” I say.

I will be gone a few days, and that will give the group a chance to rest and get better
while I do our duty.

The man is so thankful, he pumps my arm up and down as though I will give water. It
is shocking to be touched. But he is crying. And I try to remember that the Romas
ways are not our Ways. He gives a sack of goods to Jas, with the promise for more
upon my return.

I get my pack and find the man waiting by the gate. It is strange for me to leave
on my own with a stranger. His accent is difficult to understand, but we make do with
hand gestures and good will. We begin to walk. I can tell that he is sorry that I
have to walk because it is far and the terrain is treacherous. And I am a Pater. I
try not to let on that I am only an apprentice and have never seeded anyone, and that
this is my first trip, and that after two hours my feet are in pain. I am his hope.
I must always look like it.

We are walking up and up and up a mountain. As we turn on the path, the valley and
the ocean spread out below us. The view takes my breath away. The water is silver,
the sky is blue, and the ruins from two cities are in perfect view. I cannot help
but wonder at the amount of people who lived there once. I cannot imagine the world
without worry of extinction. The trip is worth it for this moment of beauty and sadness.
My guide stops with me, and we both take a moment to ponder our fate, given to us
by those who lived in those impossible buildings.

Jas has been slowly teaching me how to read the words of those from the ruined cities.
He says that sometimes the answers to our questions lie in there. But the books are
fragile and cannot stand the light. And many things that are written are confusing
and incomprehensible. But I am always amazed at the things those people seemed to
be able to do. Even everything in ruin seems more than what we are able to accomplish.
I am amazed.

My guide nudges me, and I tear myself away from the view. I discover that I am close
to crying, so I try to hide it, as though there is dust or sun in my eyes. I make
a big show of adjusting my hat. But I think that my guide knows my heart. For he puts
his arm around me and squeezes my shoulder in a sympathetic way. A way that says,
“My heart is heavy for us all, too.”

Just before sunset, we make it up to the village, if you can call it that. It is five
houses and a well. Most of the few people here are old. Very old. These are Romas
who are too tired to roam.

Here, in this village, there are two girls who are my age, in their sixteenth or seventeenth
year. They have no tattoos. No one has tattoos. Romas don’t have their line on their
arms. They are outside of the Way. I look at the girls in a respectful manner, with
my eyes down. Their features are different than the girls and women I know. One of
the girls is shy. She looks at her feet and hides her face behind her hair. The other
girl, who is more homely, comes up to me. She looks at me in my eyes, which makes
me
feel strange. As though she is looking right inside of me. No one looks at anyone
like that. It is disturbing, but I take it to be another of the strange ways of the
Romas. She motions for me to follow her, and she shows me to a small shack where I
will sleep. From her pocket she pulls out a red thing. She polishes it on her shirt
and hands it to me. Then she takes one out for herself and begins to eat it. I have
never seen something like it. I sniff it and smell a faint pleasant perfume. I bite
into it. It is not soft, but hard, yet it is juicy and it makes my tongue feel alive.

“Good?” she asks.

“Good,” I say.

“Minerve,” she says, extending her hand in what I know to be a Romas grip. It is a
greeting among them. We of the Way usually do not touch one another, but I extend
my hand and touch hers. It feels electric.

“Geo,” I say.

She smiles. I notice that her eyes are green. I have never seen green eyes.

As she goes she closes the door behind me and leaves me to my preparations.

This town is so far out of the Way that there is no feast. Minerve comes back later
and brings me a plate of food. Everything on the plate looks strange. Some of it I
do not care for. But most of it is alive with flavor. When I am done eating, I feel
full in a way that I have never felt before.

I begin my preparations. I will have to give them all a tattoo. I must choose a color
and enter it into the book. I consult the charts. I notice that red has faded out
a long time ago; it has not been used for more than fifty years. It makes me think
that orange and brown will go that way soon, too, unless things change. But red has
been gone for so long that it will be safe to give this town red. I am allowed to
be with red. I like Minerve. Would it be wrong to make her a line that I can seed?
I blush. But still, I settle down in my room to mix the color. If the girls are three
for four, then I will give this town the color red.

The next morning, Minerve comes, and I am given breakfast. Once again there are things
I have never seen before.

“What is this?” I lift up my food.

“Pan,” she says.

“Pan,” I say.

It is like eating a cloud.

A bell rings, and the other girl, the shy one, comes to my hut, along with all of
the villagers. Everyone in town is outside my hut and the whole town amounts to no
more than sixteen people. I understand now why the Counter has a ceremony and a script.
It is too stressful to do this without a script. I take the first girl’s finger and
prick it. Everyone lurches forward to see as I put the blood on the machine. It whirs,
it clicks. It buzzes four times red. Everyone is still. We all breathe as one as I
take Minerve’s finger. I look up at her. I must look like hope. But I feel fear. A
drop of blood blooms on her finger. I place it in the machine. It whirs. It clicks.
The first code comes up green.

AGGCTTACACCG

My heart lifts. I touch her knee.

The second sequence comes up green. I smile at her. My heart feels warm.

The third sequence comes up red. I squeeze her knee. The whole town is holding their
breath. It could still be okay; she might just be three for four, like me. If so,
then Paters will come. She will be seeded. The town will be allowed to trade. With
birds, they will likely be rich.

The fourth sequence comes up red.

No one speaks. Someone gasps. There is a sob. Even the Romas know what that means.
They will not be a part of the Way. I shake the machine, as though if I shake it,
it will become green.

The man who guided me up the mountain suggests that we all have a meal together that
evening and a good night’s sleep before we go back down so that I can join the others.
The townsfolk disperse. Minerve stays.

“You should go,” I say. “I’m tired.”

“You are upset,” she says.

I had optimistically mixed the color to tattoo the village. I had ignored the protocol
of
wait and see
. I am still learning, and now I understand that these rules are made to avoid disappointment.

I do not want her to make fun of my emotions. I am tired of people making fun of my
sensitivity.

“Is it so terrible to be upset?” I yell. I kick the color pot on the ground. I want
to smash the machine. But instead I yell again.

“It’s okay, Geo,” Minerve says. “We will go on as before, without the Way. It will
just be our way.”

But we all know that the Romas numbers are dwindling. That is why in the past ten
years Romas are trying to make towns and join the Way.

She comes over to me and touches my tattoos. She traces them with her fingers.

“Beautiful,” she says.

I go over to the pot. There is still some red in it. I take the needle from its pouch
and I tattoo a red mark on her. I just want to see how the red will look on skin,
since I have never seen it. When I have done a large enough circle on her shoulder
for it to be noticeable, I stop. I cover it up with a bandage. She puts a hand on
my cheek.

No one will be able to see the mark unless she is not wearing a shirt. I have not
given her a false line. I have just given her a decoration that will be our secret.

I am suddenly very tired. I go to the corner and lay down on the bed. Minerve comes
and lays down next to me and puts her arms around me. No one has ever held me. It
is the most me that I have ever felt. I hold her like something known but long forgotten.
I fall asleep.

A bell rings and the meal begins. It is modest, not a celebration. There is no pomp
and glamour. I do not feel like wearing my red robe and yellow scarf. I wear my simple
underclothes, and they make me feel more at home than in Sandig. There is a bird for
a meal and a husk. I watch as the others open their husks. I have seen these kinds
of husks before, but no one bothers with them. Where I am from, there is no part of
it to eat. Just a white cone. But these husks are different: I notice that there are
yellow insides. Minerve shows me how to bite into it, and it is sweet and earthy.
When the yellow is eaten, all that is left is the white cone that I have seen before.

Later, as the town sleeps, I lie awake. I think about the babe in the town that we
put down. I think about how if Minerve had been in the Way, she would have been put
down too. I think about the birds. I think about the husks. I think that this town
has something more than the sequence, more than our code, and that it must be saved.
I cannot sleep. I want to wander outside and find Minerve. I want her to hold me again,
but I know that is wrong. I close my eyes, my mind abuzz. When I do sleep, my dreams
are vivid and wild. I dream of Minerve. I dream of the birds. I dream of the husks
and the green.

In the morning, before dawn, my guide comes to get me. I notice that Minerve is with
him. He is carrying a pack. He opens it to show me that it is full of gifts that he
promised to Jas for my time: strange plants, dead birds, small pots. I nod in thanks.
Our business done, Minerve then steps up to me and puts a small bag into my hands.
I open it. It is the dried yellow parts from the husks we ate. I told her of the land
near Sandig, where the fields are full but there are only empty cones inside.

“Will you walk with me?” I ask.

“I am glad to,” she says.

On our way down the mountain we talk of everything and anything we can think of, because
it will be our only conversation. We stop and stare at the ruined buildings, and I
am glad that she reaches for my hand. Outside of the gates of the town, Minerve and
the guide stop and converse. She takes the pack from him, and he stays while Minerve
walks me all the way to the gate. Once there, I put my arms around her. I wish I could
say that I will see