Yesterday (33 page)

Garren and I lock eyes. We knew this was coming but it feels like a surprise anyway. There’s just over forty minutes until the news and we both have our hair rinsed out in time for the report. There’s no footage of the actual incident, just a police offi cer explaining what witnesses recounted seeing— several people running in the direction of the north end of the shopping center on the upper level, exchanging gunfi re. Various witnesses said that at least two men, possibly three, were shot, and that a young woman was spotted committing multiple physical assaults. None of the parties involved remained on the scene when police arrived. Because of this, there’s suspected organized crime involvement.

After the police offi cer is fi nished with his statement a reporter interviews a succession of Eaton Centre shoppers, asking them for their reaction to the incident. Most people are shocked that an outbreak of such violence would occur in a public place and worried that innocent bystanders could easily have been hurt.

Garren and I continue watching the news right to the end, in case there’s anything about the robbery at Janette’s house. There’s not (it must not be a big enough story) and we discuss the gun again and decide to abandon it somewhere in Hamilton before we leave for Parry Sound tomorrow afternoon. Checkout time is noon and the next beds we sleep in will be somewhere in Vancouver, days from now.

That’s if we arrive as planned, nothing slowing us down or altering our strategy. But the future’s a blank slate. Hard as I try I can’t tune in to any visions. It’s as though even the universe doesn’t know what will become of us yet.

The sun’s fi nished setting and our hair has dried an identical shade of brown that at fi rst glance makes us look like fraternal twins, though the rest of our features are very different. Neither of us has eaten a bite since this morning’s spaghetti and we’re both starving. I suggest the Indian buffet restaurant just down the street. It looks like an obscure enough place that no one would think to look for us there.

Garren swallows another three aspirin and says he’s good to go. As he’s slipping on his coat I notice he’s sewn up the tear in the right sleeve where the bullet punctured his coat. He must’ve done it while I was asleep. But it’s his hair that I can’t stop starting at because I’m not sure what I think of it.

“What?” Garren asks, picking up on my attention.

“Just … shouldn’t you put on your hat too? Otherwise you could make the woman at the checkin desk suspicious.

You know, a guy checks in without a credit card and the fi rst thing he does is dye his hair.”

“Right.” Garren nods like he can’t believe he didn’t think of that himself. He fi shes Mr. Resnik’s black wool hat out of his coat pocket and tugs it over his head. “I can go fi rst, if you want. Wait for you at the lights?”

“Okay. See you at the lights.” I watch Garren close the door behind him and wait another two minutes before leaving the room. Down in the lobby I pass an elderly woman with long hair the color of freshly fallen snow. I’ve seen lots of old people since we’ve been back here (outside of the welfare camps, few people in the U.N.A. truly looked like senior citizens) but she’s the oldest one yet. Her skin’s a delicate shade of pink and deeply wrinkled but her eyes are sharp and she smells like satsuma. It’s the nicest thing I’ve smelled all day and I automatically smile at her, which makes her smile back.

There’s a warmth in her face that I didn’t expect but that shouldn’t surprise me. The fi rst person who helped me and Garren was a complete stranger, the blind woman whose house we’d charged into when Henry was chasing us. I don’t think the people in 2063 were any worse, deep down, than the people here but we were more distant from each other and more frightened, even when we didn’t realize it.

I keep thinking of 2063 as the past but it’s still out there, still happening. It’s a diffi cult thing to comprehend.

Outside the hotel I swing right and walk towards the traffi c lights. A lone fi gure who must be Garren is standing there in the distance and I feel relief well up inside me at the sight of him, although we’ve only been apart a couple of minutes. Before the events of the past few days I never would’ve imagined that it’d be possible to experience such a range of emotions in one day. I keep zooming back and forth between anxiety at what comes next and elation that we’re alive and have made it this far.

At the restaurant we consume outrageous amounts of aloo gobi, sweet rice, tandoori chicken and lamb curry. The place has a homey cheerfulness about it that makes me feel safe, especially the music and the smells. The stress falls away from me as I allow the room to work its magic. Garren seems more at ease too and after we’ve invented our cover story for the train journey, we begin to talk about our 1985

experiences and our old 2063 lives.

I know Garren had been planning to become a lawyer in the U.N.A.— the kind who would concentrate on helping the illegals and the Cursed. It would be tricky for him to do something like that now, considering our status, and I ask him what he wants to do in the present.

“I haven’t had much of a chance to think about it,” he says. “I think I have to really get to know the times fi rsthand before I make up my mind. If I was older and knew what the directors were plotting I probably would’ve wanted to get involved and help them rewrite history.” He scoops rice into his mouth, chews and swallows. “What they want to do to us is wrong but I respect their larger aims. The West has done too much damage to the planet. If we can change it, I think we have a responsibility to try.”

I do too and I ask, “So what would you do to us if you were them?”

“I don’t know. But I wouldn’t be able to wipe someone’s memory knowing that the process could mutilate their mind. I couldn’t be that ruthless.” Garren pauses. “But I shot at those guys today. Potentially I could’ve killed someone. So maybe I’m wrong and I do have it in me.” Garren sets down his fork and stares at me, his face long. “I
would’ve
killed them if that’s what it took to keep them from taking you.”

The thought seems to make him unhappy and I stop eating and remember my feeling at the shopping mall railing, how I couldn’t stand the thought of them capturing him and considered throwing myself over both to save him and to die as the person I am now rather than letting myself be butchered.

“What is it?” Garren asks.

“I shouldn’t have put you in that position.”

“You didn’t,” he says. “You told me not to come.”

“But if you’d listened, they would have taken me.”

Garren drops his gaze and rakes his fork through his rice. “Then I’m glad I was there. If it wasn’t for you I’d still be living a lie.”

It wasn’t a lie exactly and he’d have been safe that way.

But I think Garren’s like me and given the choice would’ve picked the hard truth. He wouldn’t want to forget his sister or his other mother any more than I’d want to forget Latham.

It’s not remotely the right time for this but I can’t control myself. The things I imagined I felt about him in the past, when I didn’t know him well enough to really feel much at all, and the more genuine feelings that have evolved over the last few days are fl oating to the surface and I stare at my plate and confess, “I used to watch you sometimes … back then.

Did you know?”

Garren releases his fork and leans across the table, lowering his head so that I can’t avoid his eyes. “You did?”

“Yeah.” My voice is almost a whisper. “In the halls at school. You knew that, right?”

He’s quiet, thinking. Then he says, “Maybe … a little.”

“I knew it. I knew you knew.”

“Not really.” He shakes his head. “I don’t know what I thought.” He draws one of his fi ngers over his lips, blinking slowly. “Maybe you should tell me what to think.”

Earlier today I told him “but still” because I thought it would make things easier but I’m already wondering if I was wrong. I don’t know what to say. I’m not sure what I want him to think.

Garren hesitates, opens his mouth and closes it again before asking, “So, knowing who you really are, what do you want to do with your life now? You never said.”

That’s easier to talk about and I reply, “I used to think I wanted to be a tree doctor, or something like that. Help nature thrive.” After what we’d done to it, nature needed all the help we could give it. When and where we’re from, the list of recently extinct species is depressingly long. With the gravity of our own situation I hadn’t really thought about those animals until this moment but the wonder of knowing that so many of them are still out there makes me light-headed. I think of British Columbia, where we’re heading, and how the whales and dolphins are swimming off its coast this very second.

No one has seen a great whale, other than those kept in captivity, since 2034 and awe seeps into my words as I say, “I want to see the whales. We should be able to when we make it to British Columbia. They’re still in the ocean now. And then, sometime, I want to go to Africa. On safari, you know?

See elephants, giraffes, rhinos, all those things. They seem like mythical creatures almost. I want to see them with my own eyes, not in a zoo but in their natural habitat, just living their lives like they should be.”

“That would be incredible,” Garren says, sounding awed too.

“So maybe you can come with me,” I say lightly.

Garren’s cheeks swell with the beginnings of a smile.

“I’d like that.”

I don’t know exactly what it is we’re agreeing to in saying these things but the music playing in the background is so celebratory that I imagine I know what the singer’s feeling even though I don’t speak Hindi.

Garren and I begin to talk about what it would be like to see present-day New York City. Before they built the fl ood barriers, before the Twin Towers were bombed even. Or San Francisco, with its steep hills and cable cars, before everyone left. In the future, no one lives in the southwest anymore. The droughts drove away those who could move and killed those who couldn’t. It’s a wasteland.
Was
a
wasteland.

Not now.

I imagine walking across the Golden Gate Bridge, the Pacifi c Ocean on one side and the San Francisco Bay on the other. An architectural marvel framed by blue. I wish we could see it in person but the United States is too dangerous for us, according to what the director told me. Since the U.N.A.’s political operation in the U.S. is more important than the civilian one up here, their security force would be better, harder to evade.

All the same, the thought that the Golden Gate Bridge is teeming with activity makes me want to dance— that and Garren telling me he’d like to come with me to see the animals. “I feel like I’m drunk on food,” I say. “Is that possible?”

“When you’ve eaten as much as we have.”

I sip my water. “I wish we didn’t have to leave here.”

“The restaurant?” Garren casually scans the room.

“You’re easily impressed.”

I smile and knock one of my knees against his under the table. “It doesn’t feel like we’re in trouble now. It feels like as long as we stay here we’ll be fi ne.”

Garren narrows his eyes. “Why? What do you see?”

“Nothing, absolutely nothing.” But it’s easier to pretend we’re average people while out at dinner than it is in our hotel room.

“Maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe it means there’s nothing major to worry about.” Garren digs into what’s left of his curry.

“Maybe so.” I’m spending too much time staring at him again and I plant my elbow on the table, lean into my palm and look away.

Garren asks the waiter for more water, providing us with an excuse to stay a few minutes longer but eventually we make our way back to the hotel room. Garren gives me the keys so I can go fi rst. I sit inside our room waiting for him to knock and feel the same relief I experienced at the traffi c lights earlier when I hear him rap at the door.

With the two of us safely inside I go into the bathroom to brush my teeth and change into jogging pants and a T-shirt.

Then I climb into bed and wait for him to fi nish getting ready and turn out the lights. I’m scared to sleep but not as scared as before we went to the restaurant and tiredness quickly overwhelms me.

When I open my eyes again it’s dark and I know I’m not dreaming because everything’s just as it was before I went to sleep except that Garren’s shouting. Not words exactly but anguished cries. I sit up in bed and say his name. “Wake up,”

I add. “Garren.
Garren.
Wake up.”

I’m nearly as loud as he is. I have to be if I want him to hear me over his own noise. If there’s anyone in the room next to us they must be cursing him.

I get out of bed and step closer to his form in the moonlight. “Garren.” I touch him high on his shoulder, careful to avoid his gunshot wound. “Garren, you’re dreaming.”

He opens his eyes and stares at me like he doesn’t remember where he is or who I am. I can literally see it all begin to come back to him, weighing down his conscious self.

“You were dreaming,” I explain. “Yelling in your sleep. I was scared it could wake the people in the next room.”

Garren rubs his eyes, his pupils sharpening their focus on me in the bright moonlight. “Sorry,” he murmurs.

“If it wasn’t you it’d probably be me. Maybe we’ll just keep taking turns having nightmares from now on.”

“Let’s make a point of not doing that,” Garren says.

“We can try. What were you dreaming?”

He exhales audibly as he sits up. “Nothing good.”

“I dreamt about Latham earlier,” I confess, stepping back to sit on the side of my bed. “That’s what I was dreaming when you woke me up— that he was here and was going to kill me.”

Garren presses his lips grimly together. “Kinnari was violent like the rest of them when they came for her. I can’t imagine what it must be like in the U.N.A. now.”

So many dead, I don’t want to imagine. “Maybe your mother and my father eventually will be sent back here too.”

“We’ll never know it, but I hope so. Although that would probably mean things were even worse. A point of no return.”