Elysium (25 page)

“Yes,” Eliel smiled, “so my mother has told me.”

Antoine took slow deliberate steps, and the boy followed close behind. They stopped and gazed at the long horizon. Antoine had roamed this very area when he was a young man. There were birds and green growing things then. He remembered the blue and the soft white clouds that floated through the sky like pulled cotton. That was in the days when he could still walk with a sense of unhurried freedom. But even then the sand had been encroaching from the west.

In the distance used to be a city. The hulking remains of it jutted out along the horizon at weird angles. He and his dad had visited once when great structures soared high into the air. All of that was gone now. His father had called it Elysium, land of the heroic dead. The sand and the dust had done their mighty work. Some of the buildings had been torn down for the metal they would provide. The others were left to rot and were worn away by the unending storms. All that would be left of this world soon would be the memories of old men like Antoine. And no one knew better than he that before long even that would be gone.

“Are you all right, Elder?”

“I am fine, Eliel. I was just thinking about something.”

Antoine watched as more people from the underground arrived. They seemed to be coming from all sides at once, one by one and in pairs. They walked among the crowd, helping to carry their stores onto the ship, checking their tickets, or idly standing around. Antoine wondered if they had come for the same reason he had. Many seemed to have nothing much to do.

Antoine’s veil slipped once more so that he had to maneuver it back into place. It felt silly to be constantly playing with the thing. When it dropped again, Antoine decided to leave it be and wear his face naked.

“Eliel,” Antoine said, “do you ever question your decision to stay on Earth?”

“Elder?” Eliel said. He looked at the old man with a kind of shock. Antoine was sure that the boy was wondering about the soundness of his mind.

“Don’t look so surprised. You
should
question it. You should question it every day. I have,” Antoine said. “It will keep you centered. It will keep you whole.” The last part felt crass and empty even as it passed his lips. That was the rhetoric he was supposed to say, but it was not how he actually felt. Questioning had kept Antoine far from centered. He had been feeling confused of late. This at a time in his life when he thought he should have a lot of the answers. The ideology that had sustained him all these long years was now losing its potency. Antoine wasn’t sure about anything anymore. Maybe the boy would find better answers than he had.

“But Elder,” Eliel said, “aren’t you happy in your vows?”

“Happiness is …” Antoine said. “Happiness is an elusive thing.”

He wanted to say something else. He thought he knew what, but the words got caught in his throat. Antoine walked on and Eliel followed him. They climbed to the top of a dune where they could see the queue of people boarding the ship. The long colorful line was beginning to disappear into
The Trajan
. It seemed to be swallowing them whole.

“Someone is coming,” Antoine said.

Eliel shaded his eyes and looked all around.

“Where, Elder?”

“There.” Antoine pointed to the faintest dot on the horizon. His ancient eyes were strong. “She will need our aid. Come.”

Eliel obediently followed the old man down the dune, which gave way easily under each step. He offered Antoine his arm. Antoine was about to refuse Eliel’s aid, but there was something in the boy’s innocent expression that made Antoine release his pride. He had been self-sufficient all his life. He never thought of himself as someone who needed anyone’s help. Maybe today was the day to put down old foolish ways.

The long blue gonar of the approaching woman fluttered in the wind like a sail. She held a small child on her hip. The closer she came into view, the easier it was to see the wariness in her slumping movements. Her child, a little girl, grasped at her mother’s flowing robe and buried her head within her mother’s veil. Antoine made his way to cross her path, with Eliel not far behind.

“Please,” she said, “I know I am late. I tried, but my husband won’t come. I … please … I don’t have tickets. Please …”

Antoine gently said, “Come with me and Eliel here. We will take you to an administrator. Eliel, ease her burden and take the child.” Eliel did as he was told, and the girl went to him without any fuss. The little thing wanted nothing more than to sleep and was forcing her eyes to stay open. Antoine patted the girl on the head as she rested in Eliel’s arms, then he slowly guided his new charges to the tent.

The administrator stopped everything he was doing to listen to Antoine explain the woman’s situation. Antoine had influence as the only son of one of the greatest of The Builders. Sometimes Antoine wondered if things would have been different if he had not been his father’s son. Maybe his life would have been much harder. He was never quite sure. The administrator asked for the woman’s name and wrote it down in his manifest. He said that he would try very hard to see that she and her child had a place in the ship. She took the news with gratitude, and Antoine led her to a seat inside the shelter.

The ship was due to leave in the evening, and it was getting dark. The faint radiance of the moon lay heavy on the horizon. There was a musty scent in the air. It was as if whatever moisture left in the sky released itself as the day cooled down. Antoine suddenly could breathe easier. A small wind picked up some sand in front of the tent and tossed it back and forth. It gave birth to a dancing brown dust faerie that swirled and twisted to the music of the moving air. Antoine followed the dust lady as she pirouetted, bowed, and curtsied to an invisible band. She swirled and turned and turned until she dissipated into nothing.

There were only a few people left standing in line. Because the wind had died down a bit, many pulled back their veils, revealing their wary faces. Their gaunt appearance spoke of the growing hunger rumored to be spreading among the aboveground population. The woman next to him sat in silence with her sleeping child. Together she and Antoine watched the endless flow of people as they entered one end of the shelter and exited the other to go up the gangway into the ship.

The mother pulled her veil back. Antoine could see her jawbones. Terror was written in the deep lines of her forehead and in the creases around her mouth. She seemed to be aging by the moment, though she did have a beauty to her. Her eyes were wide and dark, and her lips shimmered with neatly applied gloss. The intricate pattern woven into the delicate material of her gonar displayed high-quality workmanship. She must be a woman of some means. Antoine thought that she must find it strange to be in the position of begging for help. He was glad he could be there for her. It made him feel useful.

She got up to move nervously to the edge of the tent. She placed her hand on her mouth. It seemed as though she wanted to stop herself from saying something inappropriate. She was afraid. Those left behind on the surface would have to struggle to survive on the land. No one knew better than Antoine how they would fail.

“What is taking them so long?” she said.

“Patience. They will get to you in time,” Antoine said.

The little girl was awake now, but she was quiet and spoke mostly with her eyes. She climbed onto Antoine’s lap and leaned into the folds of his shirt to gently pull at his gray whiskers. Antoine put his hand before his face, then took it away quickly and softly said “shoo” to her giggles. As Antoine played this little game, her mother stared off into the administrator’s direction. He wished he could know how it would all turn out. What would become of this little girl? Would she get to grow old like him? He held her tight, then pressed her nose like a button. She giggled and patted him on his tummy.

An administrator approached the woman. Her eyes were wide and haunted. She watched his every move like a timid animal. He whispered words to her. Antoine could not hear what was being said. He only saw him give her something. She took the man’s hand and pressed it to her face. The administrator desperately tried to pull his hand away, but before he could she had already kissed his palm. Her gonar rustled as she bent over to gather her daughter out of Antoine’s arms.

“Thank you,” she said, her eyes glistening. With her warm lips she pressed hard against Antoine’s forehead. A flush of heat warmed his cheeks. The little girl waved goodbye as her mother’s back disappeared up the gangway and into the ship. Antoine raised his hand to return her farewell. He wondered if they would remember him. Probably not. Where they were going, they would have plenty of things to think about rather than the memory of an old man. Antoine tried to picture them on their new world. By the time they got there, he would have long since passed away. This ground would hold his bones.

Many still waited in line when the door to
The Trajan
closed. The people, once quiet and calm, pushed forward in a wild blur. A riot of color raged, turning and running and pushing. They tore at the tent, bringing it crashing down. Eliel grabbed Antoine by the arm to drag him behind a wall of men of the city, who had positioned themselves behind the crowd. A crazed woman lunged at Antoine. She came so close that he could smell her hot breath. Eliel struck her hard, and she fell to the ground. Blood flowed from a gash on her forehead. Antoine’s heart felt as if it would burst out of his chest, it was pounding so hard. He was as helpless as a child. Eliel covered him. Protected him. Antoine was grateful and ashamed.

“You will all stop!” an administrator screamed. He stood on the gangway of
The Trajan
. The resonance of his voice carried into the night. “You will stop this!”

Everyone went still.

“You all knew that this was a possibility! You knew! We warned you! We urged you to prepare, but still you did nothing! Now there is no room! And there is nothing more that can be done! Return to your homes! We’ve done all that we can! Now return home and try to make the best of it! Just go home!”

The crowd remained motionless. A long tense time passed before anyone stirred. An army of men stood firmly between them and
The Trajan
. Antoine watched as the crowd slowly began to drift away and dissolve into the darkness until there was no one left. It didn’t seem fair. None of this seemed fair at all.

The Trajan
roared its engines and shook the ground. The vow keepers gathered together to stand before this last departing ship for their final prayer on the surface. Antoine covered his face with his veil and made his way slowly to the semicircle they had formed. They waited patiently for him to join them, their veils flapping in the breeze.
The Trajan
lifted up, sending a mighty storm of dust scattering in all directions. The sound of its departure troubled the ear like water to a drowning man.