by F. M. Busby
This time she sat on Voris’s lap. When she asked of Ivan, he said, “They wouldn’t let me see him. Said he was in punishment status, whatever that means. They wouldn’t say, but it can’t be too serious — he’s only eight. Next time — “ Then, in a voice that raised prickles on Rissa’s spine, he said, “There’s a name — I’m going to tell you, and you must never forget. Newhausen — Colonel Osbert Newhausen. Rissa — can you remember?”
She frowned. “Newhausen?” She was no longer sure of her memory. “Just a minute, Uncle Voris.” She jumped down, ran to the dormitory, and brought back the nametag from her cot. “Write it down for me? On the back of this?” He took the card; she saw him print the name carefully. She repeated it and said, “Why do I have to remember that?”
“This is the man who killed your mommy and daddy — Selene and David — so that you were put in here, and Ivan where he is.” Voris sighed. “Rissa — it’s a lot to ask of a little girl. But if I and the others fail — perhaps someday you’ll get the chance to pay him back for all of it.” She was not sure she understood but unsmiling, she nodded.
When he left she returned the nametag to its place, and that night she told Selene about Colonel Osbert Newhausen. “You have to help me remember, Selene — will you?”
Voris did not come again, nor did she see Ivan. She asked older girls about seeing her brother, and then an adult supervisor who told her, “I don’t have the authority. Mr. Croutch does.”
Rissa nodded. “All right. Can I ask him?”
“He doesn’t come here.”
“Then how — ?”
“I’ll put in the request for you. But don’t expect anything.”
Rissa ate and slept, worked and played and watched Tri-V, and at dark she talked to Selene. Her jumpsuit wore out and became too small; she was issued a larger one. By accident she learned a way to touch herself so as to feel excited, and then relaxed; every night, after she told Selene goodnight, she did this.
Some of the girls, she saw, had friends. But Rissa had never had any friend but Ivan.
In the windowless Center, Rissa knew no seasons; time passed uncounted. One afternoon in the gymnasium she wrenched her ankle and limped back to lie on her cot alone. She was dozing when the new chief supervisor, a middle-aged woman, brought in a small, crying girl. Rissa sat up, yawning. The woman said, “Can you take care of this one for a while?” And, as Rissa nodded, “What’s your name? How old are you?”
“Rissa Kerguelen. I’m five.”
The woman shook her head. “You’re older than that.”
“No — my last birthday, I was five. I remember.”
“But — oh, never mind. Here — take this kid — talk to her or something. Somebody’s scared her.” The woman turned away, then looked back. “You’re a hell of a lot older than five; I know that much.”
When the woman was gone Rissa considered the crying child — small, with big ears and a thin face below the freshly clipped blonde hair. She ran her hand over the plushlike texture and tipped the little girl’s face up to look at her.
“I’m Rissa. What’s your name?”
The child gulped, hiccupping. She shook her head. “I want Ladygirl!” Again she cried. Rissa drew the small form to her — clasping, cuddling, putting the head to her shoulder and stroking it.
“Who’s Ladygirl?”
“My best dolly — they said — they said I could have her!”
Remembering, Rissa thought, they lied to her, to keep her quiet until they got her here. That’s even worse than . . .
She shifted the child off her lap and sat her on the cot, turned to face her. “Look,” she said, and placed her arms and hands to hold Selene. Back and forth she rocked Voris’s gift.
“What are you doing . . . Rissa?” Then; “I — I’m Elena.”
“All right, Elena.” She continued rocking. “Now maybe Ladygirl can’t get here for a while — you see? But right here — “ She patted Selene’s head. “ — I have a pretend doll. Her name’s Selene. My uncle Voris gave her to me, and nobody can ever take her away from me.” Elena’s eyes were huge. Rissa thought, I know it’s only pretend — but I can’t give Selene away! So she said, “Would you like to hold her for me?” Elena nodded. Rissa moved to make the transfer. “Be careful, now — don’t drop her.”
“I won’t.” Carefully Elena held air as though it were substance. Rocking, she crooned to what she held. Her voice sounded sleepy.
Rissa spoke. “Why don’t you take a nap with her? You don’t have a cot yet, do you?” Elena shook her head. “All right; you can use mine.”
Soon Elena slept. When the supervisor came in, Rissa put finger to lip. The woman nodded and beckoned. Limping not so much now, Rissa followed to her office.
“I see you handled her all right; thanks. Here’s her nametag; pick any vacant cot you like.” Rissa nodded. “Now, then, sit down.” She sat. “What’s the idea of telling me you’re only five years old? I looked it up — you’re eight, almost nine.”
Rissa shook her head. “No. How could I be? I haven’t had any birthdays, and — ”
“Of course you’ve had birthdays! Three of them, since you came here.”
“Nobody ever told me . . .”
Eyes narrowed, the woman said, “Why, you’re telling the truth, aren’t you?” And frowning now, “I’m new here — I don’t know all the problems — but that’s ridiculous. It can’t be all that much extra work to keep track of the dates so you kids could sing ‘Happy Birthday’ for each other. I’ll put it up to the Director.” She paused. “What happens here at Christmas? Anything?”
“No — there isn’t any Christmas here, I think.”
“Hmmm — well, maybe I couldn’t swing that one; funds are short. But I’ll ask.” She stood and held out her hand; Rissa rose and grasped it. “I’m Natalie Kimbrough. Anything you want to know, come and ask me.”
“Could — can I see my brother Ivan? I haven’t, since . . .”
“Ivan Kerguelen? How old is he?”
“Ivan Marchant. He’s — he was eight when I was five.”
“Do you know your birthdays?”
Rissa shook her head. “No. I did, but I forgot.”
“Then he could be either Prepube or Postpube by now. I’ll check, and let you know.”
“Thank you, Natalie Kimbrough. Uh — should I go now?”
“All right — no, wait a minute. You’re old enough to be helping with the younger ones. Have you been?”
“No. Not much, anyway.”
“Why haven’t you? You seem to be good at it.”
Rissa shrugged. “I just — I don’t talk a lot, I guess.”
“I see. Well — will you take care of little what’s-her-name?”
“Elena? All right.”
“Good. Okay — maybe you’d better hop to it now.” And as Rissa left, for the first time she smiled at a Welfare supervisor.
She affixed Elena’s nametag to a vacant cot near her own and turned to find the child awake, watching her. “Here’s your cot. I put your name on it — see?”
A nod. The little girl rose, still holding Selene, and moved to her place. Rissa thought, and said, “Here — I’ll have to put Selene back now, where she’s used to sleeping.” Elena whimpered, and Rissa said, “ — but you can have her sister.” The small girl quieted. “Here — let me put Selene to bed before she wakes up and cries. Then I’ll bring you, uh — ”
“Who, Rissa?”
“Oh! We haven’t named her yet. She’s very young.” Rissa pantomimed the taking, the laying down of one, then the picking up and transfer of the other. “What would you like to name her?”
Brows wrinkled above Elena’s small face. “I think — Ladygirl!”
“But — “ Then Rissa realized that Elena knew. She said no more.
Rissa adopted Elena as her charge, and suddenly found herself talking more with other girls of her own age and older, mostly in regard to their young wards. It was from a twelve-yea
r-old, suddenly transferred to Postpube, that she informally inherited small Marie. Marie, dark and chubby, seemed content to be Elena’s shadow; Rissa was equally content to leave it at that.
In the dining hall Natalie Kimbrough hung a large page-per-day calendar; onto each child’s nametag she stuck a tiny replica of the appropriate birthday page. Few could read but all could memorize the sticker and recognize, at breakfast, the calendar page that matched it. Each girl had the responsibility of announcing her own birthday, so as to be sung to by the rest at dinner.
In Natalie Kimbrough’s office: “Rissa — about your brother — I tried, but no permission. First, he’s in Postpube; that makes it tougher. Worse, every time I ask he’s in punishment or on probation and can’t have visitors — or messages, even. I’m afraid the boy isn’t doing too well.”
“But if I could see him — I could tell him, don’t do things and get punished. I — ”
“I know — but that’s not the way they work it here.”
One morning, short of Rissa’s own birthday, the calendar was gone. She went to Natalie Kimbrough’s office; a stranger greeted her.
“Kimbrough? She’s not here any more. A troublemaker, she was. But I’m putting a stop to all that.” The woman scowled. “And what did you want with her?”
Rissa thought fast. Troublemaker? “I — I was just supposed to report whether Elena and Marie were getting over their colds. They are — they’re fine now.”
“All right. You — whatever your name is — get back to work.”
Rissa went. And now again, as before the time of Natalie Kimbrough, she stayed well clear of the supervisor’s office.
But she could now, after a fashion, count time. She could name the months and knew how many days made a year. She stole a pencil — her very first theft — and along the inside of her cot’s frame she listed months and days.
She knew her calendar was not exact. She was not sure which months were longer; to fill out her year, she assigned them thirty days or thirty-one at random. And she was uncertain of the exact time-lapse between the loss of the large calendar and the beginning of her own — five days? Eight? She settled for a week and began from there.
But her year did not run January-to-December. She began it with her birthday. And since she had forgotten the date of Christmas she put it at the end of her year, giving her two consecutive personal holidays to share with Elena, Marie, Selene, Ladygirl and — Marie’s pretend doll, Selene’s other sister — Samantha.
So when Rissa first bled — her breasts as yet hardly noticeable — she knew she was eleven, nearly twelve. She also knew she must report the occurrence or be punished when it was discovered. She was frightened because girls who bled were taken to Postpube and did not return, even to visit. But no one had said they were punished, so — after saying good-bye to her two young friends and seeing them safely in charge of another girl — she went to the chief supervisor.
She pointed to her stained jumpsuit. “I’ve started.”
He nodded, unsmiling, and rose. “Come with me.”
“My papers?”
“I’ll see to them. And you don’t need to return to the dormitory; you own nothing there.” So she followed him, down corridors and up stairs she had never seen, to a door marked “Surgery.”
Inside the first room — green walls, a carpet on the floor — behind a desk sat a woman with unclipped hair. She looked at Rissa. “Tubal ligs, right? All over before it begins.”
“Probably. But this one — I checked — she’s named in that old recovery lawsuit. So use the magnetic sections, just in case. Not much chance, of course, but there’s no point in giving the Underground any more to make a stink about, than we can help.”
The woman snorted. “All right, if you say so. You sign the authorization, though. I’m not financing any reversibles.”
Rissa understood none of it. The supervisor left; the woman took her to another room. Soon she was on a table with a cone over her face, fighting to breathe. When she woke, her belly hurt.
She lay on a cot in a strange dormitory, almost like the one she knew except that the cots were larger. And so were the girls — some of them she knew from before. So she knew she was in Section Female, Juvenile, Postpubertal.
She remembered the tall, pale girl — Sandra? — yes — who came to stand by her bed. “Rissa, isn’t it? Hadn’t expected you so soon. How you feeling?”
Rissa touched the blanket over her belly. “It hurts. What did they do?”
“You’re sterilized, that’s all. Like the rest of us.”
“What’s sterilized? Why do they — ”
“So we won’t ever have babies. They cut out something so we can’t. Too many of us already, they say.”
“Oh.” As Sandra walked away, Rissa thought, I didn’t want any babies anyway — not in here. And I don’t need any. I’ve got —
But she hadn’t! Now she realized — she had left Selene on her old cot! She formed her arms into cuddling embrace and whispered, “It’s pretend — she can be here, just as easy.” But no matter how she willed it, there was no Selene. Nor could she now conjure a substitute.
Fatigue overcame her. Before sleep, her last thought was: Whoever gets my cot, I hope she’ll know Selene’s there — and be good to her . . . .
Her belly’s soreness eased; the bandages came off. She was left with minor scarring, and gradually it faded to whiteness.
She had lived with children; now she was among adolescents. And adult supervisors were more in evidence. Emil Gerard, chief supervisor in Postpube, was a fattish man. He smiled a great deal, but the smile did not reach his eyes or voice.
She learned new tasks. Among them, once a week she dusted Gerard’s office, early in the morning before he arrived. In that office were wall and desk calendars — she discovered and corrected the errors in her own. Her accumulated discrepancy, she found, was only six days.
Some things here differed from Prepube. Not many girls used this gymnasium. Rissa did not mind — she liked to run, and here she had more room and fewer obstacles.
Missing Selene’s solace she needed others to talk to, and became less solitary. Sandra, fat Eloise, a black girl named Delia — these came
to be, if not friends, her closest acquaintances. The four shared rumor and gossip and minor conspiracies against Authority — such as smuggling tidbits from dinner for late snacks.
One night Sandra came to Rissa’s cot. “Let me show you something,” she began to touch Rissa in the way Rissa liked to touch herself. “Have you done this before?”
“Only by myself.”
“Do it to me, too.” Rissa did. After a time, Sandra stopped. “That’s enough. Wasn’t it good?”
“I guess so. But not like it is when I do it myself.”
“Oh. Well, here — maybe this is better.” But to Rissa it was not. And when the next night’s attempt also failed, Sandra did not try again.
Rissa was fourteen when the epidemic struck. She was one of the last to succumb. Several had died, she knew, so the illness terrified her. Fever racked her, and delirium; she dreamed of horror and was not sure of reality. Once she thought she saw Gerard and heard him ask an attendant, “This one — you think she’ll live?”
“I doubt it, sir. She’s pretty bad.”
“That’s all. You can go.” The other left; Gerard locked the door and pulled a screen to shield Rissa’s cot. Then he removed his garments and climbed atop Rissa — and now she knew it was real enough. He angered her so with pain that she set her mind and refused to die.
When she recovered and next saw Gerard she feared his look. “How are you feeling?” he said. “Stronger?”
“Yes. But I cannot remember anything — except such terrible dreams.” He nodded and turned away, and then she felt safer.
Now she was old enough to be sent outside, carrying a date-stamped Welfare pass, to work. The first day, waiting with her group, she listened carefully. The speaker, a Client from Section Femal
e, Adult, began, “Most of you are new so I’ll tell you the rules. First, stay with the group and do not lose your passes. Or your lunchbags — our employers don’t feed us and it’s a long haul from breakfast to dinner. If you ever do get lost, ask the nearest freeperson to call the number marked on your pass. You’ll be picked up — and punished, of course, enough so you’ll be more careful next time.”
Her lopsided grin lacked humor. “Anyone who’s thinking of running away — and hell, I know some of you are — forget it.” She touched her head, then her jumpsuit. “There’s no refuge on this continent for Welfare haircuts and Welfare clothes. And when you’re brought back, you’re really punished.”
She looked back and forth across the group, keeping her gaze on someone to Rissa’s left. “Anytime I give this talk, I can spot the smart ones. You’re thinking; steal a wig, steal a dress. Sure — it’s been done. Steal some money, even — right? But where are you going to steal a freeperson’s ID with your fingerprints on it, sealed in plastic?” She shook her head. “No — don’t try it. I’m no Welfare toady — I hate this place and make no secret of it. That’s why you can believe me when I say there’s no way out. Because if there were, I’d be out.”
Rissa did not hear the question, but the woman’s answering laugh held even less humor than her grin. “The Underground? I wouldn’t know. I tried to get in contact with it — never mind why. That’s what put me in here — turned out I was talking to an undercover Committee agent instead.
“All right; the bus should be ready. Let’s go.”
The work, that day and most later ones, was scrubbing, washing — any task freepersons would not perform for the pittance Total Welfare charged. Working outside had advantages — Rissa knew that each day meant a small credit to her Welfare account. And she enjoyed seeing different places, outside the Center — and morning and evening, from the bus, the almost-forgotten outdoors!
