The Woodlands

by Lauren Nicolle Taylor

  “You should be quiet, Rasheed, you’ll get us in trouble,” I winked.

  “Call me Rash, and I think trouble’s more fun!” He winked back, eyeing my piled-high plate with amusement.

  I dug in and, to my disappointment, found that everything tasted the same. The red meat tasted the same as the noodles with soup, which tasted the same as the orange fruit. I stared at my plate, confused.

  Serge spoke, “It’s synthetic, made to look like food from home but tastes like grey sludge. It has all the nutrition we require. I think it’s supposed to stop us from feeling homesick if it at least resembles something from home.” We rolled our eyes in unison. I was grateful that dinner, at least, tasted like real food.

  “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day,” Rash said with a wicked grin, brandishing his spoon like a weapon. I was sure I shouldn’t be associating with this boy but I couldn’t help myself. He was like me; I’d never met anyone like me.

  When breakfast was over, we were told to report to our town room for allocations and the Letter. I had forgotten about the Letter. Once we received our Class allocation, we would be given one hour to write a letter to our parents, informing them of what we would be doing and to say farewell. I wondered what they would do for Ana’s parents. It had to be on our own paper and with our own pens so that the parents would know it was from us. The Superiors treated us like we were ignorant peasants. If they wanted to fake a letter, they could, easily. They thought of these inane ways to placate the people when all they really needed to do was maintain the fear. And they certainly did that.

  Rasheed grabbed my hand and gave it a friendly squeeze. “Good luck, see you at dinner,” and with that he was off to meet his group from Banyan, Serge to the Birchton group.

  I followed Joseph and the others down the hall to a door with the Pau Brazil tree stenciled on the front. Upon entering I could see my place, with the five pens on the table that mother had found and our family letterhead stamped on the top of the paper. There was an envelope on the table that I knew contained my whole future. My allocation. Everyone took their places and started opening their envelopes hungrily. There were sighs of relief, looks of confusion and sheer devastation. I opened mine. It read ‘Rosa Bianca has been allocated the Class of Construction’. Confused didn’t even begin to cover how I was feeling. It was like getting sucked down a drain hole, gripping the edge for a moment before it pulled you down a waterslide. Joseph turned around to face me. I mouthed the words, ‘construction’. He mouthed the words ‘medical’. We both looked confounded by what we had read. Though Joseph was far better off than me—I was headed for a life in the Lowers.

  We were barely given time to process this new information before we were told we had one hour to write our family letters. Everyone started writing frantically. I just sat there and stared at my page. What could I say? This would be a disappointment to Paulo or maybe a triumph. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing I had failed. My mother would be destroyed by it. I wanted to write something personal, tell my mother I missed or loved her, but nothing came, my hand was still but for the pen pecking dots on the paper. Joseph was scribbling away at a frenetic pace. In fact, so was everyone else. What was wrong with me? With about fifteen minutes to go, my hand selected a pen and wrote:

  To Lenos Bianca,

  I hope you are happy now.

  Sincerely, your daughter,

  Rosa Bianca

  P.S. Thanks for the eyes.

  I folded it up carefully, slowly, drawing out the last few remaining minutes. I put it in the envelope and wrote his name on the front. Then I just sat there and waited for them to call time.

  Joseph was writing right up until they told us to stop. His broad shoulders hunched over his desk, his arm wrapped protectively around his precious letter to his beloved parents. I was so jealous of him and angry with him too. He could talk to me—he should. He owed me at least that.

  “Please stand up and place your letters on the front desk.” We stood and Joseph’s hand shot back. He shoved a folded-up piece of paper into my hand and walked out, without turning around. I quickly stuck it in my waistband and followed. We had twenty-five minutes before we were to report to our Class rooms. I took this opportunity to walk to the gardens.

  I stepped through the gate and was immediately enveloped in greenery. It was cold but my cheeks felt warm. My heart was beating so fast as I raced to find a place I could sit and read. I was hoping it was an apology or maybe even a confession. That he wasn’t going to ditch me in this place. That he was still my friend. I should have left it to my imagination.

  The first part was crossed out. I thought I could read the words ‘your father asked’. But then the rest was illegible. The part that I could read was an apology. But it was not the apology I was hoping for. Joseph said that he was very sorry. That he had used me for comfort, as a distraction while he was in the waiting period and upset about leaving his family. He said he never should have let it go on as long as it did and that he felt terrible. He said he did care for me, but now that he was going to the Uppers and I was going to the Lowers, it was better for both of us that we spent time with people from our own Class. He asked me not to talk to him and asked forgiveness for his behavior.

  I felt my insides turning to stone, my heart slowing, my breath taking longer and longer to go into my lungs and out.

  If I didn’t know how I felt about him before the letter, then I certainly knew my feelings now. Now, when it was too late. So this is what it felt like to have your heart broken, I thought. I hadn’t even noticed that I was crying until the words on the page started to blur as the ink ran together. I knew I wouldn’t come back from this.

  I stood up and scrunched the letter into a tight ball in my fist. I let the stone turn inside me, feeling the exquisite pain of love lost—before I even had a chance to hold it. I walked to my Class, feeling heavy but empty with tears still streaming down my face.

  I burst into the Class on the first day. Bleary-eyed, wiping my nose with my sleeve, smearing snot across my face. I was the last one in, of course, and they all stared at me in surprise. Their wide eyes tracked me for two reasons: one, because of my disheveled and unsettling appearance, and two, because I was the only girl in the Class. I was about a foot shorter than everyone and tiny by comparison. These boys were big and burly, like Joseph, except for one. There, standing on the end of the line, was Rash. He looked concerned and motioned for me to pull my hair out of my face and wipe my eyes. I allowed myself a small measure of relief at the familiar face and stood next to him.

  Our teacher slammed through the doors about two minutes after me, scanner in hand. The big, heavy doors nearly hit him in the back of the head as they hit the wall and rebounded towards him. He scanned our wrists and told us not to be late. It was so hard not to point out his hypocrisy but somehow I managed to bite my tongue. He introduced himself as Thiago Gomez. He was a strong-looking man himself, with no hair and a grimacing face. Short and stocky, I was the only person he didn’t have to look up at to make eye contact with. He hid his surprise well, but he scanned my name twice before beginning the first lesson.

  Mister Gomez held a two by four in his hand, clapping it into his palm as he spoke for emphasis. “In this Class you—thwack—will learn every skill required for building—thwack—fitting out and also repairing a Woodland home—thwack.”

  It sounded dreadfully boring and I was sure I would be terrible at it. Creating things, building things, was not my forte. I always thought I would be much better at destroying.

  “This will range from concrete pouring to cabinetry. This is important and I expect you to pay attention and work hard.”

  I rocked back and forth on my heels, thinking of how I could get out of this Class.

  “It will be back breaking, grueling, and you’ll develop callouses in places you didn’t even know you had, but if you boys, er, students, listen and pay attention, you can make a good career f
rom this Class,” Mister Gomez said, pacing in front of us, gripping the two by four plank and waving it around the class. “Don’t disappoint me.”

  We all leaned back from the swaying plank as it grazed past our noses but his actions weren’t threatening. He then gave each of us a hammer and a box of nails and set us to work on framework for walls. The boys all clanged and clamored around like they had done this before. I hung back and observed. Observed nails being bent and Rash making an idiot of himself. I held the hammer in my hand—it was heavy, reassuring in a way I hadn’t expected. It was simple and aweing in its purpose and it was perplexing. What made them think this was for me? I stared down at it for a long time like I was waiting for it to tell me something. It didn’t.

  I returned to the dorms after dinner, feeling lost. This was so very far from what I had anticipated. I walked through the garden with Rash, kicking dirt and playing with my hair distractedly. I could tell he was as surprised as me.

  “So... construction... who’d have thought?” he said, breaking the silence.

  “What were you hoping for?” I asked.

  “Um, I wasn’t really hoping for anything. This is already more than I could have dreamed,” he said, not joking.

  “Really?” I was surprised.

  He kicked some loose stones and a plume of dust clung to his grey pants. When he planted himself on a wooden barrier, near the pens I had picked out as animal housing from the air, his expression was somber. It didn’t fit.

  The farm animals were separated, with gold plaques screwed into the fence posts of their enclosures naming them as goats, sheep, chickens, pigs, boars. Hands in his pockets, Rash looked like he wanted to say something but it was difficult for him. I sat down close, our hipbones touching. He leaned into my shoulder. He was almost as sharp and bony as I was.

  Already, I felt like we were linked. Like our similarities drew a connecting line from one to the other. I didn’t look at him but said, “You can tell me. But you don’t have to. We can go make comparisons between the farm animals and the Guardians. I think Gomez looks like that boar with the missing tusk.” I pointed to the pen, the hairy creature snorting as if he was offended. Rash laughed half-heartedly. He took my hand and told me his story. It was cool and steady, easy to hold. And if I had been in his situation, I would find it hard to laugh about anything.

  His father died when he was one and with no one willing to marry his mother at her age and with no money, she turned to servicing the local law enforcement. “If you know what I mean?” he said. I nodded. Rash was her second child and his mother was old. Sometimes she would get money, sometimes a beating. She cursed Rash for her bad fortune and he copped a fair few beatings himself. One night, after a particularly bad run in with a customer, his mother crept into his room and held a knife to his throat.

  “She was crazy. I reckon she was like that because of what she had to do to survive. She used to scream for my brother.” Rash looked down at our joined hand and traced our knuckles with his other fingers. “I think she wished he had survived and not me. She blamed me for everything,” he said in a voice so small it was like Rash had been swallowed.

  Then his mood switched, “She did it all the time. The same speech, different methods.” He said like it was something altogether ordinary. Like saying, ‘I like milk on my cereal.’

  “You ruined my life! she would say,” Rash yelled in a hag-like voice, throwing his fist in the air. He then went on to comically demonstrate the various methods his mother had used to try and kill him. Hands around his neck trying to choke him, his tongue hanging out, making strangled noises and coughing, and fighting to breathe with a pillow over his face. He looked so funny flailing around on the ground, like a beetle on its back, that I laughed despite myself.

  He got up and I dusted the dirt from his back. His face changed. No longer a smile, but a sad expression that made him look older. He shook his head, trying to dislodge the horrible memory.

  “She’d never used a knife before. I wasn’t ready for that. I had to fight back. I didn’t want to die.”

  I didn’t know what to say. So I didn’t say anything. I just squeezed his rough hand and stared out into the trees, watched them pick up the slight wind and dance on it. Nodding their heads in agreement that no one should have to go through something so horrible. Wishing I could lift some of the burden, that I could reach into his head and pluck out those painful memories.

  “I tried to save her but there was just so much blood. Too much.” He wasn’t crying. He talked about it almost like it was someone else’s story, like he had watched it from a distance. Commented on the angle of the knife, the ineffectual method of stabbing that left the victim bleeding for hours before the release of death.

  “Anyway, I buried her, under the house. Then I told the neighbors she had run away. Of course they reported me straight away and, before I knew what was happening, I was on a chopper to here.”

  I nodded. He was right. Anything was better than that. His expression quickly changed, his face relaxed, and he was easy-going Rash again. He let go of my hand and punched my shoulder lightly, “Farm animals?”

  “Sure.” I guess everyone had their own way of coping. This was his.

  After time spent joking with Rash at the animal pens, we separated and I went back to my dorm. It was dark and the moonlight made the buildings look less harsh, less like they were going to rise up and devour me. But I still felt small; the eyes of the concrete creatures clinging to the drainpipes followed me, mocked me.

  I lay awake thinking about what Rash had said. Realizing that things could be a lot worse for me. Construction was a surprise, yes, but there must have been a reason why they picked it, something in my tests that pointed them in that direction. I would try. I would go into Class and absorb everything I could. I fell asleep easily. Anticipating the ‘hard, hard work’ but kind of looking forward to it.

  It didn’t take me long to realize that there had been a reason. I was good at this, really good. Every week we would learn a new skill, repeat it as many times as was necessary to perfect it, and then move on to something new. Our teacher was passionate and intense, but he wasn’t unkind. He had never-ending patience for the ones that struggled. For once, somehow, that wasn’t me. I enjoyed making things. Taking a piece of wood and crafting it into something useful was calming and centering for me.

  My classmates were all genuinely decent young men, despite the swearing. They looked out for me in the beginning, protective because I was a girl, but once they could see I was managing really well on my own, they would often come to me for help.

  Daydreaming about Joseph, I was plummeting a drill bit into a piece of plasterboard, white dust flying everywhere like toxic snow. I was thinking about talking to him, imagining a confrontation that didn’t end in him running away from me. A strong hand wrapped around my own and pulled the drill back.

  “Uh, Soar?” My new nickname. “What the hell are you doing?”

  I snapped my head around to face Nik, a tree stump of a boy whose ropey exterior resembled an even rougher and ropier interior.

  “Oh, damn, sorry Nik, I wasn’t concentrating.”

  He looked at me dumbfounded, “What yer apologizing to me for? I jest needed yer help with sumthin’.” He ran his hand through his black-as-batwing hair awkwardly, “Er, that is, if ya have the time.”

  I let in a puff of pride at the fact that this boy needed my help. Trying not to be too girly and blush, I punched his arm, which felt exactly as I thought it would, like punching a bag of nails, and said, “Of course. What do you need?”

  “Well, I can’t reach that goddamn tin of oil up there.” He pointed to a high shelf. I felt myself deflating. “Can I lift you up there to get it?”

  “Oh, sure,” I said quietly. He grabbed me by my waist and lifted me with ease. I snatched the tin and slammed it on the bench.

  “Thanks,” Nik muttered. “Um, Soar?”

  What now, did he want me to fix the
ceiling fan while I was up there?

  “Yes.”

  “Ah crap, how freakin’ long does this take fore I can put a second coat on it, and um, do ya sand in between?”

  I grabbed his impossibly hard arm, steered him to his workbench, and began instructing him, Gomez looking silently over my shoulder.

  As I selected a piece of fine-grit sandpaper, I asked, “Nik?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why Soar?”

  His pale blue eyes fixed on me and he gave a crooked grin. “Aw ya know, coz yer the high flyer in the class. And, der, it’s Rosa backwards.”

  My mouth twitched into a half-smile. I didn’t correct him.

  As the weeks went by, the violence faded, as did the heartache. I was surrounded by friends who respected me and it salved my heart inadvertently. The students were all working hard towards the mid-year assessment. I saw Joseph from time to time, hanging around outside the medical building, swinging from the concrete pillars, wearing his white coat. He seemed happy. I tried to be happy for him, despite the stone that twisted in my heart. He never looked at me.

  At meal times I ate with the boys. Mucked around with Rash. I was the only one from Pau Brasil in my Class. Rash was from Banyan as were two of the others, the rest were from the rocky towns of Birchton and Radiata. They were big, tall boys with strong bodies and rough language. I loved it. I loved that they treated me as their equal, never censoring themselves. They slapped me on the back just as hard as the others. I went flying, but I still appreciated it.