Christmas Carol (24 page)

“A what?” Pen looked at her brother in
bewilderment, but Nik was smiling into Carol’s eyes.

She could not avoid smiling back at him. His
enthusiasm and hope were inspiring. There was much more Carol could
have said on the subject of eliminating repressive governments.
There were twentieth-century examples she might have cited, of
countries where disparate groups had worked well together until
their freedom was achieved, at which point those groups fell to
fighting each other with a bloody violence that doomed the weakest
and most helpless souls in their societies.

Carol said none of this. Instead, she sat
listening during the long evening of discussion, and her heart grew
heavier with every word that was spoken. Some, and perhaps all, of
those who sat at table with her would die in the struggle to come.
Yet they believed the possible cost was worth the gamble, for the
prize was political and religious freedom. In spite of her fears
for them and her own lingering cynicism, Carol absorbed some of
their idealism and their hopes for the future.

Toward the end of the evening, Carol saw Lady
Augusta watching her with approval written on her lined face.

“Is this what you wanted me to learn?” Carol
asked as the group around the table broke up.

“In part,” Lady Augusta said. “There is more
to come. The hardest lesson of all will be the last one.”

“And what is that?” Carol demanded.

“When the time comes for you to learn it, you
will know what to do.”

“Car,” Nik interrupted, “Pen and Jo will show
you to the women’s sleeping quarters.”

“But—I thought—” Carol looked at him in
confusion. She had imagined they would spend the night
together.

“I must leave the house,” Nik said. “There
are important tasks ahead of me tonight. Do not ask what they are.
Go with Pen. She is waiting for you.”

“What are you going to do?” Carol cried,
seeing Nik, Bas, and Luc pulling on heavy outdoor garments. She
immediately envisioned the three rebels attempting to blow up
railroad tracks or a power station. Nik seemed to read her
mind.

“Nothing violent, I assure you. Among other
things, we are going to visit another dissident group, to make some
final plans so we won’t have to meet during the Solstice, when the
civil guards are always especially suspicious.” Lightly, he laughed
away her concerns. “Aug will be with us, so we shall be safe.”

“Can’t I go, too?” Carol asked.

“It would be better if you stay here.” His
hand on her shoulder reassured Carol that he did understand why she
was worried. “The three-day holiday begins tomorrow. Then we will
all be free for personal pleasures.” He waited until Carol bowed
her head in assent before he removed his hand.

“Do as he says,” Lady Augusta murmured to
Carol under her breath.

“Will I still be here tomorrow?” Carol asked
her. “Or the next day? I would like to see this famous Solstice
celebration.”

“We will remain in this time,” Lady Augusta
replied, “for three, and perhaps for four more days. For as long as
is necessary.”

“Thank you.”

“Spare me your gratitude until you know what
the future holds,” Lady Augusta snapped with a tinge of her old
sharpness in her voice. Gazing at Carol as if she pitied her, Lady
Augusta added, “You are as great an optimist as Nik is, and that
surprises me. I would not have thought it of you.”

The sleeping quarters were underneath the
kitchen, in what had once been a storage cellar. The two rooms were
clean, but sparsely furnished, and a faint smell of damp earth
lingered in the air.

“The women sleep in one room, and the men in
the other,” Pen explained, showing Carol the way into the women’s
bedchamber. “Bas closes up the outside door and bars it every
night, so we are secure.”

“Does everyone sleep in here? I thought Nik
said that you and Al—that is, don’t you occasionally want
privacy?”

“There are rooms upstairs,” Pen said. “It is
just that we are safer down here.”

“This is a terrible way to live.”

“I dream of another way,” Pen said. “I would
like a room with windows I dare to open, to let in a breeze when
the weather is hot. Sometimes, I think of bright colors. Once, I
saw the wife of one of the Great Leaders when she came to Lond for
a visit. She was wearing a long robe the exact color of the sky.
How wonderful it must be to dress in colors.”

“Why can’t you?” Carol asked. “Is it
forbidden?”

“No ordinary person could afford dyed
fabric,” Pen replied wistfully. “If I were to wear such a garment
all my friends would wonder where I had obtained it, and what I had
done to earn it.”

“No wonder you are willing to risk your lives
for a better government,” Carol muttered. “You people are little
more than serfs.”

The mattress on her cot was thin, and so was
the blanket she was given, but after her conversation with Pen,
Carol was not inclined to complain. She found it difficult to relax
in her underground surroundings, and the lamp that was left burning
at all times kept her awake for hours. In the morning she
discovered that Nik and his companions had not yet returned.

“Where were they going?” Carol asked Pen.

“I do not know. Nik takes care not to reveal
his activities when he goes out at night.” Pen regarded her with a
slight smile, then put an arm around Carol’s shoulders. And Carol,
impelled by an affection born three centuries in the past, returned
the embrace. “They will all come back safely, Car. Don’t forget,
Aug is with them.”

“If you want to keep busy,” Jo put in, “then
come with us to the market. Bas has given me a list of supplies to
buy for the Solstice feast.”

Curious to discover what this future version
of London would be like, Carol agreed, and the three women set out
at mid-morning. Because the weather was so bitterly cold, all of
them wore extra garments over their usual outdoor gear. Carol was
wrapped in an old cloak-like woolen covering worn over her lined
raincoat. In addition she had on a knitted hat and thick mittens.
She was certain no one seeing her would ever suspect that she did
not belong where she was.

They walked. There did not appear to be any
public transportation. Carol could not help wondering if this was a
deliberate tactic of the Great Leaders, a way of keeping the
populace from traveling very far from where they lived, thus
preventing people from communicating with each other and perhaps
fomenting a rebellion. If such was the intent of the Leaders, they
were not particularly successful.

There were great open spaces in the city, but
they were not the parks Carol remembered. All traces of trees or
grass or public gardens were gone, and large sections of “Lond” lay
in rubble. The scenes she saw reminded Carol of photographs taken
at the end of World War II. The difference was that the evidence of
that earlier war was removed as promptly as possible and new
buildings were quickly erected on the bombed-out sites. The damage
she saw now was decades old. Pen and Jo told her there were people
living in the windowless, half-ruined houses they passed, as Nik
and his friends lived in the building they called Mar House.

“At least Buckingham Palace is still
standing,” Carol murmured, “but it doesn’t look to be in very good
shape.” The wrought-iron fence was gone, half of one wing had been
destroyed, and most of the windows were boarded up. A hideous new
windowless building rose where once there had been acres of
well-kept royal gardens and a lake. This building was the only sign
of new construction Carol had seen since arriving in the future.
There were still guards at the palace entrances, but instead of the
colorful uniforms of Carol’s own day, these guards were clad in
dark brown overcoats and trousers and they carried wicked-looking
weapons and wore metal helmets.

“Those are the Government offices for all of
this country,” Pen said, hurrying Carol along.

“Don’t go near those buildings unless you are
on official business. I have known people who went in there and
never came out again.”

The market where they were to shop was set up
along the Mall. Here there were crude stalls made out of brick and
stone scavenged from ruined buildings. Carol saw a few old doors
being used as counters, but most of the foodstuffs lay in baskets
on the ground or on top of piles of broken building material. All
of the stalls were crowded, for this was the first day of the
three-day Solstice celebration and most workers were free to spend
their time in preparations for the holiday feast.

“Here, the biggest meal of the year is eaten
at the Fall Equinox,” Pen said in answer to Carol’s questions,
“because it occurs in the middle of the harvest season when a lot
of extra food is brought into the city. Is it different where you
live? Nik didn’t mention your home city.”

“I think it’s best if I don’t talk about
where I usually live,” Carol replied.

“I understand. Discretion is always the
safest option.” The readiness with which Pen accepted her false
response was depressing to Carol. That a young woman whom she knew
to be open and sweet-natured should have to resort to such
caution—that Pen should have to go about in fear for her life—made
clear to Carol why the present Government needed to be replaced
with something much better.

“This is the best stall for fresh foods,” Jo
said, interrupting Carol’s unhappy thoughts.

At this winter season the produce displayed
was primarily root vegetables. The women bought turnips, beets, and
carrots. Pen added a small bunch of greens and some herbs, and then
they moved on to the meat and poultry section of the market. Here
Jo took charge, saying Bas had told her exactly what to buy.

“Chicken, unless it’s too dear,” she said,
examining the few birds hanging from metal racks. She haggled with
the poultry man, ending with the best chicken she could get for the
money she had to spend. Carol thought it was a scrawny bird too
small to feed all of their group, but she kept quiet, not wanting
to embarrass Pen and Jo.

“On to the sweets,” said Pen. “They are the
best part of the seasonal celebrations.”

The provision of sweets was apparently the
most profitable business at the holiday, and there were at least a
dozen booths selling them. The sweets, formed of hardened, molded
sugar, or of a substance that looked remarkably like sugar, were
laid out on trays in front of each booth. Carol stared at them.

“Don’t they make your mouth water?” Pen
asked. “I do so look forward to the sweets. I’d eat them every day
if it were allowed. Perhaps it’s just as well the Government only
lets them be sold four times a year.”

“I’m sure the law cuts down on tooth decay,”
said Carol in a dry tone. She regarded the sweets with a dislike
that stemmed from what she had learned about the all-powerful
Government. “They are trees. Little sugar trees with an
orange-colored sugar ball stuck in the branches. I suppose the ball
represents the Orb you were talking about yesterday, Pen.”

“We should buy one for each of us,” Jo put
in. “Nik gave me enough money for fourteen of them.”

“When do we eat them?” Carol asked, still
viewing the miniature creations with a jaundiced eye.

“Not until Solstice Day,” Jo said.

“I’m not sure I can wait,” Pen said,
laughing. “First the dawn ceremony and then the festival meal.
Then, at long last, the sweets.” Glancing around to be sure there
was no one to hear her next words, she added in a whisper, “After
we change the Government, I hope we can still have sweets on
holidays.”

“If you succeed in changing the Government,”
Carol told her, “you will be allowed to eat sweets every day of the
year. The decision will be yours, along with a lot of other
decisions. I hope you have thought about that. Making choices can
be exhausting.”

“Do be quiet,” Jo warned, and Pen smiled and
shook her head and did not say anything in reply to Carol’s
remarks.

Carol found the hours she and the other women
spent away from Marlowe House disorienting because of the physical
changes that had taken place in the city she knew so well, and
saddening because there were so few signs of a cheerful holiday
spirit. She missed the sparking white fake snow, the red and green
and tinsel decorations, and the brightly colored lights that once
had made the shops glow.

She also missed the street lamps, for in this
desolate version of London there were none. Pen told her that
people were expected to stay home after dark and thus lamps were
not needed. In any case, there was no electricity, except in the
Government offices and the houses of the most important officials.
There were no shops, either, just the booths and, here and there,
some goods spread upon the ground without the protection of a
booth. It was not long before Carol wished she could hear just one
person telling her in a cheerful voice to have a merry
Christmas.

Nik, Bas, and Luc returned to Marlowe House
in the late afternoon, shortly after Carol and the other women
finished unpacking and storing the food they had purchased. The
three men sauntered into the kitchen as casually as though their
day had been no more adventurous than the women’s walk to the
market. Aug was not with them, but no one remarked on her
absence.

“We will eat the remains of last night’s stew
this evening,” Bas decided, pulling off his outer garments and
heading toward the cooking fire, which Jo was presently feeding
with bits and pieces of wood. “But tomorrow, we will enjoy a great
feast.” He launched into a series of questions aimed at Jo, most of
them about the food for the following day.

Over the heads of the others now crowding
into the kitchen, Nik’s eyes met Carol’s. She did not need to touch
him or even speak to him to know he had thought about her often
during the day. As she had thought of him, for his image had been
with her while she gazed at the ruins of a once-great city, and
later, as she helped her new friends to carry home the paltry,
bruised ingredients for a holiday that meant nothing to her.