To Paradise (77 page)

“No, he won’t,” I would say. “I told him I was coming to see you.”

Then Grandfather would sigh. “Come up,” he would say, and I would go upstairs with him and he would put down his briefcase and give me a glass of water, and then he would walk me home. On the way, he would ask me questions about how work was, and how my husband was, and whether we were comfortable in our apartment.

“I still don’t understand why you had to leave,” I would say.

“I told you already, little cat,” Grandfather would say, but gently. “Because it’s your apartment. And because you’re married now—you don’t want to hang around your old grandfather forever.”

At least Grandfather and I still spent every weekend together. Every Friday, my husband and I invited him over for dinner, and he and my husband would talk about complicated scientific matters I couldn’t understand past the first ten minutes of conversation. Then, on Saturday and Sunday, it would be just the two of us. Things were very hard for Grandfather at work then—the capital had fallen to the insurgents six weeks earlier, and the insurgents had held enormous rallies, promising to reinstate technology to all citizens and to punish the leading members of the regime. I was worried, hearing that, because Grandfather was part of the regime. I didn’t know if he was a leading member, but I knew he was important. But so far, nothing had happened, except that the new government had instituted a 23:00 curfew. Everything else, though, seemed exactly the same as it had been. I was beginning to think that nothing would change in the end, because in reality, nothing had. It didn’t matter to me who was in charge of the state: I was just a citizen, and would be either way, and it wasn’t my place to worry about such things.

That Saturday, August 14, was a typical day. It was very hot, and so Grandfather and I met at 14:00 at the center and listened to a string quartet. Then he bought us some iced milk, and we sat at one of the tables, eating the milk with little spoons. He asked how work was, and if I liked Dr. Wesley, who had once worked for Grandfather, many years ago. I said I liked work, and that Dr. Wesley was fine, both of which were true, and he nodded. “Good, little cat,” he said. “I’m glad to hear it.”

For a while, we lingered in the air-conditioning, and then Grandfather said that the worst of the heat would have broken, and we could go look at the vendors’ offerings in the Square, which we sometimes did, before I went home.

We were only three blocks from the northern entrance when the van pulled alongside us, and three men in black got out. “Dr. Griffith,” one of them said to Grandfather, and Grandfather, who had stopped to watch as the van approached, standing next to me with his hand on my shoulder, now took my hand and squeezed it, and turned me to face him.

“I have to go with these men, little cat,” he said, calmly.

I didn’t understand. I felt like I was going to collapse. “No,” I said. “No, Grandfather.”

He patted my hand. “Don’t worry, little cat,” he said. “I’m going to be fine. I promise you.”

“Get in,” said another of the men, but Grandfather ignored him. “Go home,” he whispered to me. “You’re only three blocks away. Go home, and tell your husband I was taken, and don’t worry, all right? I’ll be back with you soon.”

“No,” I said, and Grandfather winked at me and climbed into the back of the van. “No, Grandfather,” I said. “No, no.”

Grandfather looked out at me and smiled and began to say something, but then the man who had told him to get in slammed the doors shut, and then all three men got into the front seat and the van drove away.

By this point, I was shouting, and although some people stopped to look at me, most did not. Too late, I began to run after the van, which was driving south, but then it turned west, and it was so hot, and I was so slow, that I tripped and fell, and for a while I remained on the sidewalk, rocking myself.

Finally, I stood. I walked into our building and up to our apartment. My husband was there, and when he saw me, he opened his mouth, but before he could speak, I told him what had happened, and he went immediately to the closet and took out the box with our papers, and removed some. Then he went to the drawer beneath my bed and took out some of our gold coins. He put them all in a bag, and then he scooped some water into a mug for me. “I have to go see if I can help your grandfather,” he said. “I’ll be back as soon as I can, all right?” I nodded.

I waited all night for my husband to return, sitting on the couch in my cooling suit, the blood from the scrapes on my forehead drying in place and making my skin itch. Finally, very late, just before the curfew began, he returned, and when I asked, “Where is Grandfather?,” he looked down.

“I’m sorry, Cobra,” he said. “They wouldn’t let him out. I’m going to keep trying.”

I began moaning then, moaning and rocking, and my husband
finally got my pillow from my bed so I could moan into it, and sat on the floor by my side. “I’m going to keep trying, Cobra,” he repeated. “I’m going to keep trying.” Which he did, but then, on September 15, I was notified that Grandfather had lost his trial and was to be executed, and five days later, he was killed.

Today was the six-year anniversary of the day Grandfather was taken, which my husband and I always commemorated with a bottle of grape-flavored juice we bought at the store. My husband would pour us each a glass, and we would both say Grandfather’s name aloud, and then we would drink.

I always spent the day alone. Every August 13 for the past five years, my husband would ask, “Do you want to be alone tomorrow?” and I would say “Yes,” though in the last year or so, I began to wonder whether that was actually true, or whether I was saying yes only because it was easier for us both. If my husband instead had asked, “Do you want company tomorrow?,” would I not also have said “Yes”? But there was no way I would ever know this for sure, because last night, he had asked as usual if I wanted to be alone, and as usual, I said I did.

I always slept as late as I could on that day, because that meant there was less of it to use up. When I finally rose, around 11:00, my husband was gone, his bed as neatly made as ever, a bowl of porridge left for me in the oven, a second bowl inverted over it so the surface wouldn’t dry out. Everything was the same.

As I was walking toward our bathroom after I had washed out my bowl, however, I noticed there was a piece of paper on the ground near our front door. For a few moments I stared at it, because I was for some reason afraid to pick it up. I wished my husband were here to help me. Then I realized that perhaps it was a note to my husband from the person he loved, and this made me even more afraid—it was as if, by touching it, I would be proving that this other person existed, that he had somehow gotten into our building, and climbed the stairs, and left a note. And then I was angry, because although I knew my husband didn’t love me, how could he care for me so little that he wouldn’t tell this person that this was the worst day of my life, that every year on this date all I thought about was what I had
once had, and how it had been taken from me? It was that anger, finally, that made me stoop and snatch the note from the ground.

But then my anger disappeared, because the note wasn’t for my husband. It was for me.

Charlie—meet me at our usual storyteller today.

It wasn’t signed, but it could only be from David. Now I was confused, and I began to walk in a circle, deliberating aloud about what I should do next. I was too embarrassed to see him: I had misinterpreted his feelings for me, and I had behaved stupidly. When I thought of him, I remembered the look on his face before I had pulled away from him, and how it had been not mean, but worse—it had been kind, even sad, and that was more shameful than if he had pushed at me, or made fun of me, or laughed at me.

But I also missed him. I wanted to see him. I wanted to feel as I had when I was with him, the way only Grandfather had ever made me feel, as if I were special, as if I were a person of interest.

I paced for a long time. Once again, I wished there were something to clean in the apartment, something to organize, something to do. But there wasn’t. The hours passed slowly, so slowly that I almost went to the center for a distraction, but I didn’t want to put on my cooling suit, and I didn’t want to leave the apartment, either—I don’t know why.

Finally, it was 15:30, and although it would take me just five minutes, less, to reach the storyteller’s tarp, I left anyway. It was only on the walk over that it occurred to me to wonder how David had known where I lived, and how he had gotten into our building, which you needed two keys to access, as well as a fingerprint scan, and suddenly I stopped, and almost turned around—what if my husband was right, and David
was
an informant? But then I reminded myself, again, that I knew nothing, and was nobody, and I had nothing to hide and nothing to say, and anyway, there were other explanations: He could have seen me go home one day. He could have handed the note to one of the neighbors who was entering the building, and asked them to slide it beneath my door. It would have been unusual
to do so, but David was unusual. Yet this reasoning led to another unpleasant thought: Why did he want to see me after all this time? And if he
did
know where I lived, why had he not tried to communicate with me earlier?

I was so consumed by my thoughts that it wasn’t until I became aware of someone speaking to me that I realized I had been standing at the edge of the storyteller’s tarp, not moving. “Are you coming in, miss?” asked the storyteller’s assistant, and I nodded, and spread my piece of cloth on the ground, near the back.

I was arranging my bag at my side when I felt someone standing near me, and when I looked up, it was David.

“Hello, Charlie,” he said, and sat down next to me.

My heart was beating very fast. “Hello,” I said.

But then neither of us could say anything more, because the storyteller had begun to speak.

I cannot say what the story was that day, because I was unable to concentrate—all I could do was think about my questions and my doubts—and so it was with surprise that I heard the audience applaud, and then David say to me, “Let’s go to the benches.”

The benches were not really benches, but a line of cement blockades that had been used years ago for crowd control. After the insurgents were defeated, the state had left a row of them in front of a building on the east side of the Square, and sometimes people, especially old people, sat there and watched as the pack that circumnavigated the Square walked past. The benefit of the benches was that they were private, even though they were in the open, and you could stop there and rest. The drawback was that they were very hot, and in the summertime, you could feel the heat rising from the stone even through your cooling suit.

David picked one of the benches at the southern end, and for a few moments, neither of us spoke. We both had our helmets on, but when I reached up to unstrap mine, he stopped me. “No,” he said. “Leave it on. Leave it on and look straight ahead, and don’t react to what I’m going to say.” And so I did.

“Charlie,” he said, and then he stopped. “Charlie, I’m going to tell you something,” he said.

His voice sounded different, more serious, and once again, I was scared. “Are you mad at me?” I asked him.

“No,” he said. “No, not at all. I just need you to listen, all right?” And he turned his head toward me, just slightly, and I nodded, just slightly as well, to show I understood.

“Charlie, I’m not from here,” he said.

“I know that,” I said. “You’re from Prefecture Five.”

“No,” he said. “I’m not. I’m from—I’m from New Britain.” He looked at me again, quickly, but I kept my face blank, and he continued, “I know this is going to sound…strange,” he said. “But I was sent here, by my employer.”

“Why?” I whispered.

Now he did look at me. “For you,” he said. “To find you. And to watch over you, until it was safe.” And then, when I didn’t speak, he continued, “You know that there’s a new illness coming.”

For a moment, I was so shocked that I couldn’t speak. How did David know about the illness? “It’s real?” I said.

“Yes,” he said. “It’s real, and it will be very, very bad. As bad as ’70—worse. But that’s not why we need to leave immediately, though it certainly complicates matters.”

“What?” I asked. “Leave?”

“Charlie, eyes front,” he whispered, quickly, and I repositioned myself. It was unwise to display anger or alarm. “No bad emotions,” he reminded me, and I nodded, and we were silent once again.

“I work for a man who was great friends with your grandfather,” he said. “His dearest friend. Before your grandfather died, he asked my employer to help get you out of this country, and for six years, we’ve been trying to do that. Earlier this year, it finally looked like it might be possible, like we might have found a solution. And now we have. Now we can get you out of here, and take you somewhere safe.”

“But I’m safe here,” I said, when I could speak, and once again, I felt his head move, just a bit, in my direction.

“No, Charlie,” he said. “You’re not safe. You will never be safe here. And besides,” and here he shifted on the block, “don’t you
want another kind of life for yourself, Charlie? Someplace where you can be free?”

“I’m free here,” I said, but he kept talking.

“Somewhere you can—I don’t know, read books or travel or go where you want? Somewhere you can—you can make friends?”

I couldn’t speak. “I have friends here,” I said, and when he didn’t answer, I added, “Every country is the same.”

And now he did turn to me, and through the tint of his face screen, I could see his eyes, which were big and dark, like my husband’s, and were looking straight at me. “No, Charlie,” he said, gently, “they’re not.”

I got up then. I was feeling strange—things were happening too fast, and I didn’t like it. “I have to go,” I said. “I don’t know why you’re telling me these things, David. I don’t know why, but what you’re saying is treason. Making up stories like this is treasonous.” I could feel my eyes turn hot, my nose begin to drip. “I don’t know why you’re doing this,” I said, and I could hear my voice becoming louder and panicky. “I don’t know why, I don’t know why,” and David swiftly stood and did something extraordinary: He pulled me to him and held me and said nothing, and after a while, I held him back, and although at first I was self-conscious, imagining that people must be looking at us, after some more time I didn’t think about them at all.