On Such a Full Sea (16 page)

But this Charter was even better. In fact, it was hard to believe. It was the last gasp of the afternoon as they slowly drove, the sunlight angling through the voluminous hardwood trees, their broad leaves tittering and waving with a coolish breeze, the stately houses and sleek, jazzy condos set well back from the road rather than built right on top of it like our airless, chockablock row houses. There were tallish, attractive people of various races and ethnicities going about (no pets, of course), some striding quickly in fancy exercise clothing, arms a-rowing, some smartly dressed for office work, others carrying little shopping bags full of goodies one couldn’t see. There were nannies, generally darker skinned and squatter, either pushing prams or leading a pack of colorfully jumpsuited toddlers, but they, too, seemed somehow light of heart and tender and happy enough in their mobile sphere of cry and babble. Where the shops were more concentrated it was busier but no less tidy, the windows of the businesses sparkling enough that you had to look twice to see the exquisite displays of women’s bags and dresses or elaborately iced cakes or the mock-up of a luxurious bathroom festooned with speckled soaps looking good enough to eat and towels so fluffed and white they made you want to bathe. It was still too early for dinner but the all-black-clad waiters of the restaurants were setting the outdoor tables with splendid burnished cutlery and massive wine goblets and tastefully spare bouquets of tiny wildflowers, the plush-lined bars within already mirthful with the cocktail hour. She saw the same around every curve, this unbroken continuum of soft, prosperous light and richly textural detail and the unerring sensation that this would be a moment lovely and eternal.

In a word, it was beautiful. A bit unusual, yes, with the living and shopping so fully integrated, but beautiful nonetheless. She hadn’t been hoping for it to be any particular way but she hadn’t been expecting this. It almost made her feel nauseous, but it wasn’t illness so much as an upending awe, neither exactly good nor bad, a state of being she realized she had never experienced back in B-Mor, where routine is the method, and the reason, and the reward.

If Quig and Loreen did not appear to be impressed—they’d seen plenty of Charters before—their lackadaisical attitude was likely due more to their still miserable condition; Quig was driving tentatively enough that he was attracting attention, people on the sidewalk staring at the dusty old-model car with a mismatched wheel that squeaked at low speed, one of them, Fan was certain, now making a dour-faced call to village security. Quig soon turned off the main street and drove through a clearly special neighborhood of single-family homes, all very large but in differing styles (if perhaps designed in the same way behind the façades, with prominent center halls and matching wings for bedrooms and vehicles) and with front lawns completely cleared of trees to afford the fullest view of the homes from the street. There were no fences or walls or gates, everything wide open save for the side yards between the properties, which were left densely wooded.

They found the right house number on the mailbox and went up the driveway, Quig parking before the triple garage doors. It was a Mediterranean-style villa, beige-stuccoed and topped not by stone but terra-cotta tiles, and as they stood before the front door, they realized music was being faintly broadcast from speakers hidden in the eaves—a famous aria from an ancient Italian opera, Quig noted. When the door opened, a petite middle-aged woman in a light gray service uniform greeted them. She was clearly expecting them and led them to a suite of bedrooms on the second floor. Quig and Loreen took one room and Fan, to her surprise, was given the other, equally large, which was furnished with a king-sized bed and an overstuffed reading chair and antique writing desk and a bathroom with two washbasins and both a shower and a tub. The soaps and shampoos were arrayed just like in the shop displays, along with cotton balls and swabs and a packaged toothbrush on the vanity, and the thick towels on the tub surround were stacked three high, a child-sized robe splayed out beside them. The helper, named Mala, invited them to wash up and rest before having dinner with Mister Leo and Miss Cathy at eight o’clock.

Fan ran the tub right away, pouring some of the bubble soap into the water, as she’d never tried that before. She stripped off her dirty clothes and looked at herself in the mirror, especially her belly, to see if there was a change. Was there the tiniest bulge? The light was different from when she’d peed on the road, and in the mirror it was evident. She sucked in her stomach and it didn’t go away. Still, she looked mostly like she always did, nothing too out of the ordinary. She was going to brush her teeth—it had been before the Nickelmans when she last did—but a funny feeling crept over her and she quickly slipped into the bubbly water, despite how hot it was. She scanned the ceiling, the seams in the molding, even the artwork on the walls, to see if there was an eye of a vid cam, but she couldn’t find one. When she was done scrubbing and washing her hair under the cover of the bubbles, she plucked the robe while sitting in the water and quickly stood up and put it on.

After cleaning her teeth and brushing her hair, she tried the bed. She was shocked how pillowy-soft it was, so unlike her firm cotton-batting mattress back in B-Mor and about five times as large. She lay down in various orientations and parts of the bed until she got back to the appropriate position, and she was going to shut her eyes for just a minute when suddenly she was slowly floating down a river, past a burning Who Falls Inn, before going over the lip of an artificial ledge into a deep pool, where Trish and Glynnis were swimming. They were splashing and gay, and it was all fine and easy with Fan showing Trish how to stay vertical underwater while keeping her feet above the surface. Quig was not present but for some reason Loreen was, complaining as usual about something from the water’s edge. But the three of them were ignoring her and Fan was on to showing Trish another trick, this one for twirling underwater, when the girl began to sink deeper and deeper. Fan couldn’t understand what was happening but she was sinking herself, or more like being drawn toward the bottom with greater and greater force, just like what happened to Joseph. Fan was a strong swimmer and could just escape the flow, but Trish couldn’t resist and dropped away into the depths. Fan let herself get drawn down right after her, and when she neared the bottom, she saw Glynnis pressed against a very wide metal grate, already drowned. Trish was stuck against the grate, too, fiercely struggling, and Fan kept trying to pull her from the main drag of the flow but it was no use. The poor girl couldn’t hold her breath any longer and opened her mouth, her body instantly rebelling against the water filling her lungs. She relented; then she was gone. Fan let herself get drawn in, too, and though she knew she could hold her breath a while longer, she was thinking maybe she should just give up, let the water cool the burning inside her lungs, when the flow suddenly ceased and she floated upward to the surface, Loreen’s voice coming clearer.

It’s quarter to eight, Loreen was saying, looming above Fan as she lay in bed. It’s time for dinner. Loreen said to get dressed right away. She looked mostly recovered, her face no longer so terribly pale like soap, and having washed and combed her hair and put on a beaded necklace, she looked almost glamorous, even with the shapeless, smocklike dress she was wearing. As Fan changed in the immense walk-in closet (into clothes Penelope had given her for the trip, a simple blouse and long skirt borrowed from another family), Loreen reminded her how important this meeting was, for Mister Leo was going to give them the geno-chemo Sewey needed, as well as the drilling equipment for the compound. When Fan stepped out, Loreen had her sit beside her on the bed, so she could brush Fan’s hair. Loreen took her time, running the brush gently through her short locks and pinning up one side and the other and then both, finally pulling all the pins and brushing her hair out again.

You know now why you’re here, right? Loreen finally said. I know you do. You’re not a dumb girl.

Fan nodded and said she did.

You’re going to be that woman’s helper. She’ll show you how to take care of the house. You’ll train under her and then someday take over when she retires. And you can live here the whole time, probably right in this room. But I will tell you this. These people don’t have their own children. It’s just the two of them. So who knows, if they really take to you, maybe someday all this will be yours. Can you imagine that?

Fan said she couldn’t, but that she understood. She knew she wasn’t going to live at the Smokes forever, so this was the best way, helping get the equipment for the new well, and especially Sewey his medicine. The one sad thing was that she would never see him or Eli or the others again.

Loreen pressed her hand between hers and, with what Fan could sense was genuine gratitude, said she would let them all know how she felt. That was when Quig knocked on the door and poked his head in to say they should go downstairs. Like Loreen, he looked chipper after washing up, like his usual self again, if much more nicely groomed, the one difference now being that he wasn’t really looking at her, seemingly unable to meet her eyes.

In the airy living room Mister Leo greeted Quig like he was an old childhood friend, taking both his hands for a hearty shake and addressing him by his full surname, Quigley. Quig reintroduced him to Loreen, whom he smiled at but clearly didn’t remember, and then to Fan. Mister Leo bent down with his hands extended and said, What a darling girl.

Loreen nudged her and she went to Mister Leo, who was perhaps ten or fifteen years older than Quig, though he looked just as young if not younger, being well fed but still impressively fit. Fan, like any of us B-Mors, would not have ever encountered such a person; the directorate people we might come across in the facilities or observing us in the malls were Charters, yes, but they were often technical types, engineers and accountants who seemed always tightly wound and focused, unlike this Mister Leo, who exuded a pure easeful sense of confidence and command and ever rightful ownership. He was very handsome as well and could have been spliced right into a spot for a supercar or luxury clothier, with his strong chin and full head of salt-and-pepper hair and startling cobalt eyes that matched the face of his bulbous platinum-cased diver’s watch. He was dressed in a silken black mock turtleneck and pressed black jeans with an alligator belt and he wore sleek tasseled black loafers made of a leather whose texture even from a distance looked to be extra-buttery and soft, which it was. He clasped Fan’s cheek and she braced at the surprisingly rough nubs of his fingertips on her jaw, exerting the subtlest pressure. Then he let her go. Mala brought out a tray of glasses of Champagne, and one with mango juice for Fan, and they followed Mister Leo as he showed them the artworks around the room, an abundant collection of sculptures and paintings and objets d’art. He walked with a limp—the leg Quig had saved—but not in the least pathetically, his gait more like it was lingering intentionally than it was skipping a measure. The art was pleasing enough to Fan, who didn’t know the first thing about what she was seeing; obviously Loreen didn’t much care. Quig, however, was quietly amazed, his eyes widening at certain pieces, as if he’d seen them before only in museum catalogs. Mister Leo was talking about a painting of the Italian countryside circa 1890s, highlighting its use of heavier brushstrokes and purer colors, when Fan glimpsed Mala walking off with the empty tray down the other end of a hall. She slipped away when they had moved on to a tabletop sculpture of a very skinny, very elongated figure and found Mala in the kitchen, working at one of two stainless-steel-topped islands.

The woman was alone in the immense, brightly lighted space, which felt to Fan more like a testing laboratory than a place to prepare anything edible. A steady draw on the air made it cool and dry and odorless. When Mala saw her, she smiled and motioned for Fan to come forward. Why don’t you help me? she suggested. She was making various canapés and gave Fan the cookie press to cut out the last few rounds of cheese and smoked meats and toasts. They assembled the components on the toasts as well as on slices of cucumber, and once they filled the appetizer tray, Mala asked Fan to bring it out to the others.

Mister Leo was delighted at the sight, giving her an approving clap-clap, and saying that if she would rather keep Mala company than look at boring art she should. Fan nodded. When she returned to the kitchen, Mala was on to getting one of the dinner courses ready, a salad of tomatoes and fennel and fresh mint. Fan must have paused, for the produce surely originated from a place just like B-Mor, if not B-Mor itself, and if she wasn’t recalling how Reg would test the ripeness of the fruits with his long, skinny fingers and in his joking drawl announce Yup or Nope or Maybe, how could she not think about the members of her household and their tireless labors in the facilities? She missed them and had even cried once early on at the Smokes after spooning out dinner from yet another blackened can, her heart heavy for the clinging odor of fry oil in their cramped row-house kitchen, but the truth was that she missed her own work of diving in the tanks just as much, if not more; it was in the work that she came closest to finding herself, by which we don’t mean gaining “self-knowledge” or understanding one’s “true nature” but rather how at some point you can see most plainly that this is what you do, this is how you fit in the wider ecology; in the water she felt fine-tuned, most thoroughly alive, for she could gauge the hardness and pH and trace salinity simply by how it played between her fingers, how it tingled her cheek; she could tell by how the fish were schooling whether they were hungry or stressed or content. And if all of us thought of our work more like this, wouldn’t we be better off? Although certain wider questions can needle if you let them: How did this ecology come to be? Is it the one we wish to endure?

Mala was surprisingly talkative as she readied the other dishes for dinner, going over unprompted how she had prepared each one with careful attention to healthfulness. It was all very fresh and vibrant and delectable looking, but afterward Fan had to say that none of it was half as tasty as she expected it to be, though she couldn’t exactly say why. It was seasoned enough and not unusually bitter or sweet, but there was something fundamentally sterile about it, as if the food had not been touched by human hands. Mala, of course, was touching it, and now so was Fan, having been enlisted to chop some herbs to sprinkle on the pasta, and ladle a dollop of sauce on the chicken pieces. Mala seemed to know that she was originally from a facility and didn’t ask about it or why she was with Quig and Loreen, only inquiring whether it was still the case that facility couples were encouraged to have at least four children and received special bonuses for having more, which Fan informed her was no longer so, given the gradually declining need for workers since the worldwide recession began, now quite a number of years ago. In fact, new couples were taxed on the third child and thereafter to offset the costs of health care and schooling and training. This seemed to intrigue Mala, and Fan wondered if she had been born in a production settlement, too. She was an Asian of some kind but her skin was quite dark and her hair wiry and thick and she didn’t look like she was of New Chinese blood. There were some facilities that had experimented with bringing in groups from places like Vietnam and Indonesia and the Philippines but that didn’t continue, often because there was trouble integrating them with our clans, both in the neighborhoods and on the facilities floors. They were eventually forced out, and there was a period of much strife and even violence and some bloodshed, worse than what happened between the natives and originals way back when, but soon enough it was done. Yet Fan still couldn’t help but feel an affinity for this woman, maybe it was the one-piece uniform so much like what Reg and his workmates wore; or her simple, unassuming expression; or that she chewed on a strip of dried ginger, just like Fan’s grandaunt used to do, her breath always spiced and aromatic. Mala also had these wonderfully petite hands like Fan’s, much smaller than it seemed they ought to be given her otherwise normal size, though looking very sturdy as well, like they could manage whatever task or operation that might be necessary.

While they arranged the food on separate platters—this was an informal dinner and so would be served as a buffet—Fan asked if she lived in the house all the time. It was an odd question to pose, but something about Mala seemed hidden to Fan, and she couldn’t help but ask. Mala told her that she lived here at the house twenty days in a row and on the twenty-first she spent the day and night away. The next morning she returned for another twenty before going away for a full day again. That was the schedule for the last seventeen years.

Where do you go?

Outside.

To the open counties?

Mala nodded. She was carefully layering the fruit and berries on the cheesecake and did not stop until she was finished.

You’re going to ask where I stay.

Yes, Fan said.

I will tell you. It’s nothing not to tell. I stay with my family. With my husband and my children.

They must miss you.

We’re accustomed to the schedule.

And apparently, Mala went on to describe, to the money, too. She had no need of any funds when she was working, and what she was paid went very far in the counties, enough that her daughters and her son could attend a tutoring center four days a week and her husband could have a dependable car to drive them there. Naturally, he didn’t have his own job, as he had to take care of and safeguard the children and the house. He was a good man. There was a rough period of adjustment but they made it through. Only once was the house not cleaned and vacuumed and the meals prepared for her day at home, when he was already drunk when she arrived in the morning and asked what happened, and he shouted, You’re not the king! She did not argue with him and went about picking up the toys on the floor and gathering the laundry and washing the dishes when he knelt before her at the kitchen sink and with tears in his eyes begged her for forgiveness. He was so lonely it made him crazy. She told him he was a man and should act that way, and that as long as he was faithful in his heart nothing else mattered. After that he was fine. And her children were fine, too, although she worried that they spent too much time on the handscreens she’d bought them last Lunar New Year, rather than studying. But the truth was where would that studying lead them, especially her son? Because of her work, her daughters, now sixteen and thirteen, would at least have sizable dowries they could offer to suitor families. But her son was eleven years old and disliked his tutors and shirked his studies, and she had little hope he’d do well enough on any tests to have a chance at one of the few corporation jobs. What would he have to do? Could he sell enough of something to make a living in the counties or else with mixed fortune marry someone like her?

They made up a fresh tray of drinks and brought it to the gallery, and Mala then gave Fan a quick tour of the rest of the house. They started from the kitchen and went upstairs to where Fan and Quig and Loreen were staying and then to the other guest bedrooms, which were also richly decorated and outfitted, but they didn’t venture inside the rooms at the other end of the house, as they were the master suites, one for Mister Leo and another for Miss Cathy. On the main level there was a vid room and gym room full of exercise machines and there was Mister Leo’s huge office full of screens that connected him to his mining operations all over the world, plus the commodity exchanges where the metals and rare earths were traded. There was a glass sunroom where Mister Leo and sometimes Miss Cathy had breakfast, which looked out onto the swimming pool and gardens and the rest of the spacious if not immense property. In the finished basement there was a wine room and a massage and sauna room and a very small pool that was meant for swimming when it was too cold outside, a continuous current flowing from one end. Perhaps Mister Leo would even let her use it. They toured the three-car garage, which seemed just as scrubbed as the kitchen and did not smell of fuel or oil, the vehicles sparkling under the bright lighting.

Finally Mala showed Fan her own suite next to the kitchen and laundry room, which, in fact, was quite nice, if downright spartan in decoration and furnishings when compared with the rest of the house, a bedroom and sitting area with a desk and a full bathroom, all finished in standard white paint and tile. There was nothing on the walls in the way of decoration except a few printed photographs of Mala’s family above her bed. Her husband was Caucasian and her children were exceptionally attractive in the way mixed offspring often are, enough so that it was hard to see how they were derived from their very ordinary-looking parents. There was a viewer on her desk and Fan checked with Mala before tapping the screen. It lighted up with more pictures of her kids, separately and together, and then of her husband standing in front of their house, a tidy-looking cottage painted yellow with white shutters and a dark asphalt roof. His expression was cheerful enough but not quite fixed of feeling, his gaze tentative and faraway. There were many other shots, most of them, Fan could see, obviously taken on her free-day, everyone dutifully assembling in various family combinations at whatever locale they’d decided to visit, a mini-golf or bowling center or an outdoor eatery at a lakeside beach, with Mala pressed in close among her loved ones but maybe with too much hopeful lean. Or maybe not.

There was a thumbnail of an unfamiliar girl, and when Mala excused herself to use the toilet, Fan tried to bring it up. But a passcode was required and Fan was not going to bother but then idly keyed in 2-0-2-0, the days Mala worked. Nothing. Then she tried 2-1-2-1, and amazingly, this brought it up.

It was a girl, Asian, too, around eleven or twelve years of age. But the difference now was that the pictures were taken here at the house, out back in the gardens, or in the kitchen, or downstairs by the little pool. None had Mala in them, just the girl. There were albums of other girls, too, seven in all, again in and about the house and property, each captured solo. They were smiling and not, engaging the camera and not, the backgrounds showing every season and various times of day, nothing common about the portraits except that the girls were all around the same age and of some kind of Asian blood. She noticed something funny about one picture, not the girl so much as the shrubs behind her, which were tiny. She could hear a toilet flush and the faucet running, and she touched one last image and it was of the same girl and Mala, the picture clearly snapped by Mala herself as she extended her hand. They were happy, even giddy, like a joyous mother and daughter, but what Fan was startled by most was how young Mala was, the image clearly many years old.