The Fire Sermon (19 page)

“But you don’t know what it is?”

I shook my head. “As long as they feed us, I almost don’t care.”

We heard a shouted order beyond the door, and only minutes later a young woman in a red headscarf came in with a bucket and emptied it into the round wooden tub that stood by the fire. She made three more trips, throwing Kip a bar of soap the final time she entered. “The boss said you’d be needing this, and by the looks of the two of you, she’s right.”

The prospect of a proper clean was too enticing for us to wait for the water to warm fully. Kip gave me the soap and sat pointedly with his back to the tub while I undressed and stepped into the lukewarm water. It was deep enough that if I tucked my knees to my chest and lay back I could get my whole head underwater. Surfacing, I lay for a few moments, but my sharp bones were painful where they jabbed the tub, so I set about washing myself. The soap didn’t lather well in the tepid water, but I scrubbed until my skin, cleansed of its layers of grime, looked unfamiliar, and weirdly pink. I scrubbed my hair, too, until it squeaked under my hands.

The door was pushed open again, and I banged my head as I curled low in the tub to hide myself, but the girl didn’t enter this time, simply flung two towels and a bundle of clothes and let the door slam.

“Can you pass me a towel?” I gave a stifled laugh at Kip as he politely sidestepped to the towel, then sidestepped back, keeping his back to me even as he tossed the towel my way.

“Oh for goodness’ sake. You’re not the one I have to hide my body from,” I said, stepping out and wrapping myself in the towel. “You know I’ve got both arms. And I can’t imagine the rest of me is any great surprise.”

“Sorry,” he muttered, but kept his eyes averted while I rifled through the clean clothes the girl had left us. When I had on a shirt and trousers I had to ask him for his help to bind my arm again, which we did with my old shirt, before concealing it with a thick sweater.

Kip picked up the second towel, stepped over and looked into the tub.

“I’m sorry it’s so grotty,” I said, embarrassed. “But at least it will have warmed up a bit more by now.”

Despite my earlier teasing, I did as he’d done and kept my back turned while he undressed and bathed. The sounds alone were oddly intimate, though. I could hear every splash, every reverberation of the tub against his elbow and shoulder blades. Then the sounds of the towel rasping on his skin, of clothes being drawn over his body.

The woman with the pipe entered without knocking while we were putting on our shoes. She looked us over. “That’s more like it. Now come along to the kitchen. Leave your dirty clothes here. We’ll get them washed. Best get rid of all that horse hair, for one thing, before anybody starts asking questions.”

Kip and I shot each other a look as we followed her out of the room, down the long corridor, and into a room noisy with the sounds of cooking. Suspended above a huge fire, two pots steamed. Another fire, beneath a metal grill, kept a number of smaller pots bubbling, and the girl in the red headscarf was cutting carrots, her knife rapping a speedy beat on the chopping board.

The woman surveyed us unabashedly. “Looks like between the two of you I’ll get one good day’s work. And you won’t be good for that, I’m thinking, until you’ve eaten something. That’s if you can remember how.” She seemed to view our thin state as a personal affront. As she spoke, she grabbed a cloth, lifted the lid of one of the larger pots, ladling the stew into two bowls, and jabbing a spoon into each. “And when you’re done with those,” she said, thrusting the bowls at us, “you can wash those potatoes. Though there’s not one of them as dirty as the two of you when you wandered in here.”

She left. Sitting on a low bench by the wall, we ate as fast as the scalding food would allow. Even though my stomach hurt at the onslaught of food, I devoured the chunks of vegetables and scraped the bowl clean at the end. Next to me, bowl wedged between his knees, Kip did the same.

The young woman took our bowls. Below her red scarf she had a single eye, in the center of her forehead. Her skin was dusky brown and she was plumper than the older woman. She introduced herself as Nina. Kip introduced himself, too, and I gave my name as Alice. It didn’t feel as unnatural as I’d thought it might. In the first month or two at the settlement I’d become used to hearing myself referred to as “Alice’s niece,” and even at the end of my years there, everyone still called my home “Alice’s place.”

Nina showed us the potatoes, two bags half as big as me, slumped against the wall. Kneeling over the bucket of water, I was frustratingly clumsy with my left arm strapped tight against my stomach. I couldn’t scrub the potatoes one-handed, so Kip and I ended up sharing the work: I’d hold each potato, turning it while Kip scrubbed with the small brush, then rinsing it in the bucket. We worked steadily, the pile of clean, white potatoes growing. The food, and the heat from the fires, made me sleepy, but I enjoyed the simplicity of the task, and the sense of working in tandem with Kip, as if we were two halves of a single body.

Nina got on with her work without chatter, so we were spared the questions we’d been dreading. The noises of the kitchen prevented the lack of conversation from seeming awkward.

It was Kip who finally asked what sort of place this was.

Nina raised an eyebrow. “Do you not know?”

We shook our heads.

“You never thought all this food was for me and the boss?” Nina laughed.

Kip shook his head again. “But there’s nobody else around—it doesn’t seem to be an inn.”

“Not a paying inn, no.” She wiped her hands on her apron. “You’d better come and have a look.”

We followed her out of the kitchen and into a courtyard in the rear. As we crossed the yard, the night sounds of the city drifted in from above. At the side wall, Nina turned back to us and pressed her finger to her lips, before opening the door. At least three times as large as the kitchen, the room ran the whole length of the courtyard. Most of the candles in the brackets had burned down, but two were still giving off the last of their light. All along one wall, neatly lined up, were beds and cots. With Kip beside me, I walked along the row of beds. All the sleepers were children, the oldest perhaps twelve, the younger ones only babies, all of them exposed in the absolute vulnerability of sleep. Some lay on their backs, mouths open like baby birds. In the bed closest to me, a small girl had kicked off her sheets and was curled tightly on her side, sucking her thumb. On every visible face I could see the brand.

chapter 14

A door at the far end of the dormitory opened and the older woman entered, a sleeping child in her arms. She placed the child in a cot by the door, carefully tucking the blankets over the sleeping form. Then she joined Nina by the other door, indicating with a jerk of her head that we should follow. In the courtyard, she whispered some instructions to Nina, who returned to the dormitory, while the bowlegged woman led us back to the kitchen.

“Is it an orphanage, then?” asked Kip, as the woman busied herself with stirring the large pots on the fire. But it was me who answered.

“They’re not orphans.”

The woman nodded. “That’s right. They’re Omega kids, those whose parents can’t find anywhere better for them. We’re a holding house.”

“And how do they end up here?” asked Kip.

“Used to be that Omega kids would be taken straight into an Omega settlement. Just handed over to the settlement closest to the village. Or, often, the Alphas would stay in touch with their own twins, send them their Omega child to care for when the time came. So the kids would be raised by their aunt or uncle. But these days more and more Alphas won’t go near a settlement, won’t acknowledge their twin, let alone stay in touch with them. And the settlements have been driven farther out, too, to even poorer land. With that, and all the increases in tithes, Omegas can barely feed themselves, so they can hardly take on a kid. And no Alpha family will keep their Omega child long enough for it to be able to take care of itself, as some people used to.” She looked around at the kitchen, stacks of bowls piled high on the open shelves. “So they come here.”

“The Alphas just dump them here?”

“It’s not as bad as all that, lad. They can’t risk any harm coming to the kids, of course, so they leave them with money, usually, enough to ensure we take care of them. It’s just that the networks people used to rely on to take their Omega children—relatives, neighbors, even friends—they’re weakening now. The drought years were the turning point—I’ve always said there’s nothing like hunger to turn people against each other. Now, with all this stuff the Council goes on about—contamination, separation—Alphas can hardly bring themselves to speak to Omegas these days, so when it’s time to hand over their Omega kids, there’s nobody but us.”

“So the Omega children—do they stay here forever?” I asked.

“No. A few do—you’ll see them tomorrow. Those who nobody else will take. But most, nearly all, we find a place for with an Omega family. We only do what the Alpha parents did themselves, once. Alphas have always banged on about contamination. It’s just that this new lot in the Council seem dead set on acting on it.” She looked appraisingly at us. “You’ll be from the country then, maybe out east, if all this is new to you.”

I didn’t want to say anything about our origins, so instead I said: “I’m Alice. And this is Kip.” When the woman didn’t respond, I added: “And you? You haven’t told us your name.”

“And I hope you’ve had the good sense not to tell me your real names. But I’m Elsa. Now, let’s get the two of you to bed. I’ll need your help in the kitchen early tomorrow.”

She lit a candle and passed me the holder, then led us back out to the courtyard and into a small room at the rear, where four empty beds were lined against the wall. “The beds are small—they’re kids’ beds—but I reckon you’ve had worse lately.”

Kip thanked her as I placed the candle on the floor. As Elsa was closing the door she said quietly, “The other thing about this room is that there’s only a little drop from the window to the outhouse roof, and from there a person could get clean away down the back streets. Just in case of a fire, say, or a visit from our Alpha friends.” The door was shut before we could react.

When I asked Kip to help me unbind my arm, he asked, “What if she comes in, in the night?”

“She won’t,” I said. “And I don’t think much would surprise her, even if she did. Anyway, I can’t sleep trussed up like this—it’s bad enough in the daytime.”

The knotted sleeves of the shirt, wrapped around my body, had drawn tight, and it took the two of us a minute to loosen the knot and free me. I stretched, enjoying the luxury of movement, then saw him watching me.

“What is it?” I climbed on the bed closest to the door, pulled the blankets up.

“Nothing.” He got into the next bed. “It’s just—your arm. Today, working in the kitchen together, it felt like we were the same. And I wouldn’t wish it on you—you know that. But seeing you untie your other arm now—it’s just a reminder, that’s all. That I can’t do the same.”

The candlelight was enough for me to see him staring at the roof. Elsa had been right about the beds. I had to lie diagonally, and even then my feet were pressed against the bars at the end. Kip’s feet stuck clear through the bars of his bed. But the soft mattress and the clean sheets were an almost-forgotten extravagance. I licked my finger and thumb, reached down, and snuffed the candle in between our beds.

The physical closeness that had gone unnoticed in our weeks on the run was suddenly conspicuous in these domestic surroundings. For the last fortnight we’d huddled close each night, sleeping in thickets and shallow caves and beneath fallen trees. Here in the tidy, unfamiliar room we lay staidly apart in our separate beds.

Finally I spoke. “Can I come in with you?”

He sighed. “Because my bed’s not small enough already?” I heard him throw back the blanket. “Come on.”

I climbed in next to him. He was on his back, and I lay on my side, where his left arm would have been. Facing him, I wrapped one arm over him, and his hand met mine, so that our clasped hands rested on his stomach. I could smell soap on both of us. Outside, a pigeon gave a small, somnolent coo, while on my forehead I felt the warm, rhythmic breath of Kip, already half-asleep.

The pigeons on the roof woke us, and we bound my arm quickly before heading across the courtyard to the kitchen. Nina greeted us with a distracted nod, set me to work stirring a pot of oats, and directed Kip to a pile of copper pots needing washing.

There was an eruption of noise in the courtyard when the children emerged. We could hear Elsa’s voice, shushing and bossing, and then a rush of footsteps past the kitchen door. It took both Nina and me to carry the big porridge pot along the corridor and through to the dining room, where the children, perhaps thirty of them, were crowded on benches around two long tables, laid with spoons and tin bowls. The children were well fed and clean, but looked even younger in the daylight. Lined up on the benches, most of their legs swung well clear of the ground, and some of the bigger children held the littlest ones. A few looked barely awake. One girl sucked sleepily on her spoon as they waited for the porridge to be served.