The Woodlands (14 page)

Clara sat staring at the wall for a while. Then her hand lifted to the shelves
projected onto her side of the room and caressed the doll I had been looking at. I could tell this doll meant a great deal to her. I could also tell, for certain, that she was not under the fog, as her face was running through a myriad of emotions. I couldn’t tell if she was happy or sad.

“
This is my mother,” she whispered as she turned her head, only slightly, in my direction, her eyes still on the wall. “We have been apart a long time.” Her movements seemed very careful as she turned to face me. Her face was hard with resolve as she said, “I am going to see her again, and you will see your family again, Rosa Bianca.”

A small spark of hope
ignited inside of me. Maybe this girl knew something I didn’t. “How do you know my name?” I asked, trying hard not to lose my cool. Trying to whisper and keep calm so the staff didn’t notice our talking.

“
Apella told me,” she said nonchalantly.

“
What else did she tell you? I asked.

“
That I could trust you,” she smiled, “that we would be friends.” She patted her belly. The look on her face was so ridiculous, given our situation. She looked relaxed, like we’d just met at the grocery store. Not like a trapped, pregnant girl who had been drugged and god knows what else.

“
Yeah, sure,” I said, rolling my eyes. “We can be friends.” Friends, a rather pointless thing to have in our current condition. Allies maybe. I wondered why Apella had spoken to her. Why she had pushed us together was also a mystery to me. So was Clara’s odd demeanor. Was she crazy?

“
So you worked out the gas—how long did it take you?” she asked.

“
It must be about three weeks ago.”

“
Oh,” she said as she looked down at her belly again. “I have been awake for a lot longer than that, maybe about four months, though time is hard to measure here, isn’t it?” she said, giggling. I felt sorry for her. Perhaps she had been driven crazy from being down here so long, with no one to talk to. I wanted to reach over and pat her head.

I tried to keep the sarcasm out of my voice when I replied,
“Yeah I guess. So how old are you, Clara?”

“
Seventeen.”

I guess the surprise on my face was quite evident.

“Yeah, I get that a lot. I’m just petite. Well, that’s what my mother always used to say. I’m tiny but mighty!” She held her tiny, thin arms up as if showing off her muscles.

I laughed. S
he was as cute as a button. There was something about her that I couldn’t resist. She was unhateable. Likeable. Where I was suspicious and guarded, she was warm and honest. We talked for quite a while. I asked her loads of questions. She asked me some but eased off when she worked out she was only getting one-word answers. She seemed happy to share her past with me, and it was better than staring at the wall. She talked of her love for her family. About her deep respect and admiration for her hard-working father, who worked on a large farm fixing machinery and her devotion to her mother, who taught her how to make her dolls. She explained that her mother used to make toys for the Superiors’ children. When she asked about my family I kept it brief and, sensing my reluctance, she never pushed me.

Clara
talked incessantly about her home. “Palma, Ring Five!” she exclaimed, holding her hand up in mock salute. She went on to describe her home, her tiny little head nodding up and down as if attached to a spring, as she spoke. Her full, dark lips talking so fast it was hard to keep up. Palma sounded identical in size and shape to Pau Brasil but the people were different. My town was consumed with fear, where everyone watched their every move and tried so hard not to draw any attention to themselves. Palma was ruled by their love for each other. They poured themselves into creative work. They had art and stories not written in the standard, supplied history books. They even had people that made and played instruments. I was shocked. I thought all the towns were the same. That we were all in the same immovable boat, entrenched in thick, binding mud we could never pull ourselves out of. These people sounded crazy or brave, I wasn’t sure. I was shocked and so very jealous. So very jealous, until I heard how the people of Palma suffered.

“
How can you do things like that? I mean, how can you get away with it, without being punished?” I asked eagerly.

She scrunched up her thin
, pointed nose, “Oh, we’ve been punished.” She shook her head, recalling. “Once I saw I woman beaten to death in the street for not surrendering a simple wood pipe.”

I looked at her, puzzled.
“You mean, for smoking?”

She shook her
head, smiling, “No, an instrument. You blow on it to make music.” She showed me the Y shape of it by drawing it in the air and then held the invisible pipe to her lips and blew. I nodded and pretended I knew what she was talking about. What was music? “This woman fought with a policeman. The pipe had been given to her by her son, who had just left for the Classes a month earlier. She knew she would never see him again and this was all she had to remind her of him. I remember her holding onto it so tightly as the policeman tried to twist it from her fingers. They kicked her and kicked her until there was nothing left, wrenching it from her dead hands and throwing it in the bin. Others tried to intervene and they were arrested. They just disappeared. We have lost hundreds of lives trying to protect what we love.”

I recalled the heartless couple, wincing as I remembered all that blood.

I felt relieved, as stupid as it sounds, that at least one thing remained the same. They still took the children to the Classes. This, we all had in common. Still, I was quite shaken by this revelation. The people of Pau Brasil had removed their feelings. Parents were merely caretakers. I mean, I understood the reasoning behind it. What was the point of loving someone so much for eighteen years who was going to be taken away from you? I loved my mother and she loved me, but it was understood that this was always going to be temporary. So we kept each other at a distance. She’d had to say goodbye to her parents all those years ago, when she went to the Classes, and we had known my time was coming. It was foolish to care that much—it served no purpose. The way Clara’s people functioned made no sense to me. The love that she felt for her parents, her friends, what she called her ‘community’ was self-destructive in my mind. I didn’t understand it. Nor did I understand her love for that thing inside her. I didn’t get it but my heart longed for it. I had lost so much because of caring about things. I touched my stomach very gently. I wasn’t sure my heart could ever love that way again.

A woman arrived with dinner and we returned to our drone-like state. Clara was a pro at looking dazed and dopey. But she was
still so cheeky, taking risks I never would. When the woman’s back was turned, she poked out her tongue. We ate in silence, waiting until the woman returned to take our plates. She checked our milkshake cups to make sure they were empty and left.

Lights out.

“Do you know what’s in those milkshakes?” I whispered in the dark. But Clara was already asleep. I could hear her soft breathing and restless movements as I tried to sleep myself. That quiet sound of air escaping her lips was the best sound in the world to me. It felt good not to be alone anymore. I excitedly made a note of all the questions I needed to ask her in the morning, knowing I would probably forget most of them.

Clara was getting more sleepy and sluggish every day. She waddled around during our exercise as best she could, but she struggled to keep up. I had noticed that other women, who looked like Clara, were disappearing from the lines. One day they were there, straining under the weight of their giant, bulging stomachs. The next day they were gone. They didn’t return. There were always new girls to take their place, though. We all wound our way through the roped-off courses like a deformed caterpillar. The line of girls compressing and expanding when one bumped into another.

Despite her exhaustion,
Clara continued to radiate that aura of faith. I don’t know what she was hoping for, what gave her any hope at all. I knew for certain, she wasn’t going to get it. She was too sweet and trusting. I didn’t want to break the bubble that she had surrounded herself with. The one that let her believe she had any claim on the child she was carrying. Well, that’s not exactly true, sometimes I did. Sometimes, I wanted to take a giant, gleaming pin and pierce it, watch it explode, covering her in the dripping truth. I wanted to make her see the world the way it really was, cruel, unfair, and devoid of hope. But, knowing her, it would only strengthen her resolve.

One day they took
me to exercise and left Clara alone in her room. I couldn’t help but turn my head in worry as I left her. If they had taken her out of exercise, soon they would be taking her from me. Selfishly, I was concerned about being on my own.

When I
returned, I relaxed in relief to see her still sitting in her bed, eyes on the wall. She winked at me, as my attendant roughly ‘helped’ me onto my bed. This one was old and huge, her uniform barely stopping bits and pieces of her from billowing out. The staff kept changing now. When the large woman left, Clara started rubbing her belly again, a habit that disgusted me.

“
You know they won’t let you keep that thing, right?” I spat. She seemed so naive sometimes. Or caught up in her own world and I felt the cruel need to dent it, since I couldn’t join her there. She couldn’t be as strong as she seemed.

“
I know,” she said and, for a moment, a small crack opened in her positive armor. But then that light appeared from within, and she beamed at me. “I’ve thought of a name.”

I pursed my lips.
A name? That was insane! I couldn’t comprehend her love for this child. I couldn’t stand it. Why name it? I knew the name I would give mine. Leech. This thing that had intruded into my body was as unwelcome as it was detested.

She ignored my incredulous look
. “Hessa after my father, if it’s a boy. Rosa if it’s a girl.”

“
Don’t name that thing after me,” I snapped. I turned and looked at the wall. I felt wretched and angry. Most of the time I felt like Clara was crazy, that she floated around on a cloud that I couldn’t puncture or dissipate despite my attempts. Other times, she made me feel deficient, like there was something wrong with me for not feeling affection for this thing I was carrying.

She snapped back at me, her face seeming older, worn.
She slammed her fist down on her thigh. “I know you don’t understand it, Rosa, but I love this baby. I am her mother. That is a strong bond. My love is MY choice, don’t ruin it.” Her voice ran out at the end of her sentence and she started to pant, struggling to catch her breath. Each word seemed harder and harder to expel, like she was pushing them out and they were backing up in her throat.

I was taken aback, my body stiffening from the short attack.
Over the last few weeks, I had snapped at her many times, mocked her even. But she had always been this impenetrable source of hope, a light shining from inside her. She never stooped to my level, no matter how much I pushed her. I felt terrible for upsetting her, but for me, I didn’t feel anything other than the need to escape this nightmare. I was about to open my mouth and say something else rude when she screamed—a scream that tore through me, rumbling and echoing throughout the room and into the hall. Something was not right. Panic penetrated me, and something else, guilt. I prayed it was not my taunting that had brought her here.

“
Rosa, something’s wrong, something’s wrong,” she said in short, expelled bursts like hiccups. “Ahhhh!” She was holding her stomach and retching. She was in so much pain I could almost feel it myself. Beads of sweat crowned her forehead, her hands searching for something to hold onto. Her face was contorted into a grimace that didn’t sit well on her usually serene face. I was about to jump up when I saw the doors swing open.

The
white coats were swarming around her. Completely ignoring my presence. Clara turned towards me, her eyes wide with fear and adrenalin.

Harsh
Voice appeared, looking displeased but not panicked, and said, “This is not right, she’s only thirty-six weeks. It won’t do, we haven’t prepared her yet. Take her to theatre five. I’ll meet you there.” She adeptly unhooked Clara from her various machines and ripped a sheet of paper from the frantic, scribbling machine they’d wrapped around her stomach. As she studied it, the other people wheeled her out of the room. Clara screamed again. “Do something about the noise,” Harsh Voice called after them. Mid-scream there was silence. She stormed after them.

I felt pure terror.
For my friend and for myself. The pain she was in seemed unnatural. She looked sick. Was she sick or was this normal? What were they going to do with her? What did they mean when they said she wasn’t ‘prepared’ yet? I held the edge of the sheets tightly in my balled-up fists, as if I could pull them over my head and shut the horror out.
Clara
, I prayed,
please, please, please, be ok
.

I felt a hand touch my own. I snapped my head around
wildly. I hadn’t noticed that Apella had stayed behind. She stepped back a little and said, “It’s ok, Rosa. They won’t hurt her, she’s too important.” This was the first time Apella had spoken to me and I knew she was taking a big risk talking to me now.

“
What will they do?” I asked, the pitch of my voice escalating, feeling desperate and unhinged with every passing second that I didn’t know where Clara was.

“
I don’t know.” Apella looked at her feet. She looked to be close to my mother’s age. Her neat, blonde hair swung at her shoulders as she stared down at the ground, avoiding my gaze. She seemed to be bracing herself for a tirade. But I wasn’t angry. She wasn’t the culprit. Like me, like Clara, she was probably here against her will, recruited after the Classes and brought to this place. She had already risked too much for us.

A man
popped his head in the doorway. Apella quickly withdrew her hand. If he saw it, he overlooked it.

“
Semmez is asking for you.”

“
Ok. I’m coming.” Apella left the room, her timid footsteps barely seeming to touch the floor as she padded quietly away.

So that was Harsh Voice
’s name. I think I preferred Harsh Voice to Semmez.

For
two days I waited. Apella never came to check on me and I didn’t hear what had happened to Clara. I hoped Apella hadn’t been reported or discovered. Clara must have gone into labor that morning. Had she delivered the baby? What would they do with her after it was out? I started to think about the possibilities and shut myself down. These people were capable of horrible deeds. Clara could be, no. I wasn’t even going to think it.

I felt the fog rising but it was a fog of my own making, a cloud of fear and hopelessness, blanketing my brain. The problem was there was too much time to think
. I kept staring over at her side of the room. I was like one of her dolls, a perfect facade on the outside, wooden and dead on the inside. I wondered how Clara was feeling, if she was even alive. If they had taken the baby away from her, what grief she must be feeling right now. Her spirit seemed so tied to that thing. It nourished her in this hell of a place. Without it, I wondered what would be left of the girl I had come to love.

At night
, I felt the leech writhing inside me. I came to think of it as a monster. I dreamed it was tearing its way out of me. Claws scratching at my skin, pulling me apart as I screamed in pain. I woke up in the middle of the night with someone’s hand over my mouth, a hand that smelled vaguely of earth and smashed herbs. “Shhh!” the dark figure whispered. “You can’t be dreaming in here. The others don’t dream.” I nodded my head and he removed his hand. “Who are you?” I whispered into the dark, but he was already gone.

The next
morning, they wheeled her in. She was alive, drugged up to her eyeballs, but definitely alive and still very, very pregnant.

I waited eagerly for the people in white to leave so I could ask her what had happened
and it seemed like forever. They were fussing over every detail, making sure everything was in order. They brought me my dinner but brought her nothing. It was then that I noticed the new tube coming out of her arm. One woman disconnected the tube and syringed a yellow-tinted liquid into it. I watched it track up the tube and into my friend. She looked so tiny, so weak lying on that bed, her head propped up with a boulder sitting on top of her, her eyes closed. Maybe that’s what they did, drugged her to stop the labor. I had heard that was possible. We didn’t have those kinds of facilities in Pau. Anyone who had the misfortune of going into labor early was generally in big trouble. The baby usually died.

Once everyone had left
the room, I tried to wake her, to no effect. She was heavily drugged, and would only open her eyes for a second before falling back asleep. Her dark lids fluttering and closing like they were a leaden weight, too heavy to lift. I decided to let her rest and try and talk to her tonight, at lights out.

The day went by uneventfully. Although, again
, the white coats looked more stressed than they had been before. They looked tired. Tired and unhappy.

When I got back from exercise
, Clara was sitting up but there were people all around her again. I was led back to my bed and given dinner. Inside I was bursting to jump up and talk to Clara. I wanted to shake her awake and pepper her with questions. But I had to wait, eat my dinner slowly, and wait for the last check before bed. Looking calm and dopey on the outside but buzzing on the inside. I did what was required, and thought it was safe, until someone came in again and injected more liquid into Clara’s tube. I was very worried this was more mind-altering drugs, like the gas. Clara seemed so dopey, her head lolling from side to side listlessly. She barely looked in my direction.