People of Mars

by Rita Carla Francesca Monticelli

  “I know. And I know you will all make out just fine.” A coughing fit made Dennis’s voice fail. His wife resumed weeping.

  “No, please.” He sat up with difficulty, so he could reach out and touch her face. “You must be strong.” Their gazes met.

  “I’ve got everything in my life. I wished I had more time, but time is something we can’t control. I’m sorry to leave you, but at least I know you won’t be alone.”

  She placed her hands on his.

  “This is the last favour I ask you,” he whispered.

  6

  She pushes a fallen lock of hair from her eyes, but it falls back again. She’s waiting for an answer. I open my mouth to speak, but the adrenaline paralyses me and little more than a hiss comes out of it.

  “I’m Melissa,” the girl continues, tilting her head to the opposite side.

  “Anna,” I’m finally able to say. “My name is Anna.”

  Melissa’s mouth opens in a smile.

  “Are you the one coming from that distant place?” She moves closer and sits down in front of me.

  I guess I haven’t recovered from the surprise yet. It’s absurd. What I’m afraid of? It’s a child.

  Melissa starts lulling her toy. Now that she’s under the light of the lamp, I see it’s a doll, carved in wood. But she continues to watch me.

  “Distant?” I’m not sure I’ve understood her question.

  “That place up there.” She points an imprecise spot over her.

  I raise my eyes. Obviously, I just can see the greenhouse roofing. I grasp she isn’t referring to it.

  “Earth,” she specifies. “Is that its name?”

  I nod and I give in to the facts. That girl knows about me more than I know about her. This thing is making me feel a little ill at ease. Or perhaps it’s her inquisitive gaze.

  “There are nine billion people up there, aren’t there?”

  I haven’t expected a question like this. The concept of a billion is difficult to comprehend for a child, even more so when living in a small community. Actually, I have no idea how small it may be. I look around by instinct, as if I’m expecting to see other people coming out from the orchard. But there’s nobody there; it’s just a weird sensation, the one of being watched from afar. Studied.

  Perhaps I’m just paranoid.

  “They are thirteen billions, now.”

  Melissa’s gaze lights up. “Oh …” She seems happy with the information, but at the same time it’s like she is considering it. Maybe all she did earlier was nothing more than repeating what she’d heard from others, but this reaction of hers seems genuine, as if she really cares.

  “Melissa, where are your parents?” I cannot let a child grill me. Now it’s my turn to investigate.

  “Are they all beautiful like you?” she asks me, ignoring my words. She smiles again.

  I can’t help but feel flattered, but at the same time, for a moment, I have the unpleasant sensation that Melissa doesn’t want to lose control of our conversation.

  “There are people of all kinds.”

  She watches me with a quizzical expression on her face, as if she wants me to keep on talking. The truth is that I don’t know what to say. I crack a smile.

  “Can I see your doll?”

  Melissa looks at the doll and then at me. I guess she is deciding whether she can trust me. Finally, she offers it to me.

  I take it into my hands. It’s a little work of art, finely carved. Surprised, I realise its face looks just like Melissa.

  I raise my gaze.

  “Oh, shit,” escapes my mouths, as I drop the toy on the ground.

  Three more children stand behind her. I didn’t heard them come in. They are fixing me with the same curiosity in the eyes. One is a boy, more or less her age. The other two, a boy and a girl, are younger; they are holding hands. They are all wearing identical white nightdresses, their faces sleepy, but their looks alert.

  I feel as though I’m being analysed. Sure, it’s natural they would be studying me. They’ve never seen me before. Yet I perceive something morbid in their curiosity. Whatever I’ve been given for the pain is throwing my emotions into a turmoil. I’ve gone from euphoria to anxiety.

  “She is Anna,” Melissa explains, pointing to me. Then she lowers her gaze to my top. “Persson,” she adds hesitantly, stressing the double S in a hiss. “What the heck kind of a name is that anyway?”

  I’m speechless for a moment, and then I remember I have my identification tag on all my clothes, while my country’s flag is on my sleeve. That’s why Jack knew about my name.

  “It’s … wrong.”

  It makes me laugh. Euphoria must be back. My reaction invokes disappointment on Melissa’s face. As if caught in the act of doing something wrong, I let my own face grow serious again.

  “It isn’t in English, but in Swedish.”

  “Ah.” It seems she’s understood, though I doubt it. But then she smiles again. I’m surprised to be relieved about it. Her face is as friendly when smiling as it is unsettling when serious.

  I’d like to laugh again, but I hold it back, though with difficulty. I turn to the other children. “And what are your names?”

  They smile as one, but don’t open their mouth.

  “Alexandre, Marisol, and Sven,” Melissa replies. It seems she is the spokesperson of the group. She is surely the smarter one.

  She snaps forward, reaching out towards me. Her sudden movement catches me by surprise and I draw back by instinct, but she just takes her doll. She strokes it with care, removing the dirt.

  In that moment, I perceive a vibration of the ground. The children ignore it. Then a loud puff.

  “Someone should be in their bed.”

  That voice!

  As I hear it, Melissa’s jaw tightens. She’s irritated.

  From behind the steam cloud, on the opposite side of that surprising garden, where it seems getting lost in the dark, a human silhouette takes shape almost from nothing.

  The girl casts a furious, nasty look in its direction, then she stands up and run away.

  Following her movement, I realise that the other three children have gone, vanished in silence, the same way they’d arrived.

  7

  Only stars above her. That was the sensation she felt while staying in the observatory of Station Alpha.

  It was used mostly as an entertainment area, given that nobody from the crew was an astronomer. Located on the upper floor of the building, in the south wing, the observatory was a large circular room rising three metres above the remainder of the roof. The ceiling was a dome of very resistant, insulating, anti-glare glass. The same material extended from the east, round through the south side to the west, occupying more than a half of the cylindrical wall. There were some positions for star observation in the middle, consisting of comfortable tilted seats combined with a telescope. Around them were some upholstered benches, three of which were located just in front of the transparent wall. They allowed watching the landscape from dawn to dusk, thanks to the partial dimming of the glass during daytime, which blocked ionising radiations.

  But it was dark now. Small spotlights embedded under the benches threw a weak light down onto the dark floor, leaving the view of the sky undisturbed. And Anna, lying on a bench with her eyes blurred by tears, could barely distinguish a myriad bright spots.

  A deep sense of discouragement had taken possession of her body, paralysing her. She couldn’t do anything but think, but that just increased her sadness and loneliness. She was lost. She knew she was sad for a long series of wrong reasons and had ended up, yet again, wondering what was wrong with her.

  A click alerted her that the door was opening. She sat up by instinct, while hearing the same door closing. Some moments later Hassan’s face emerged from the darkness.

  “What are you doing here?” Frightened by the intrusion, Anna moved her legs to the other side of the bench, as if she was preparing to escape at any moment. She wasn’t at all in
the mood to bear his persecutions again. She had had enough of them for today.

  “I was looking for you,” he said candidly. He didn’t look menacing or, rather, he looked less menacing than usual. But mostly tired. “If it were daytime, I would’ve found you in the greenhouse.” He cracked an almost benevolent smile. That was really something new. “But given that it’s night-time, you are here.”

  He’d been checking on her, he knew her habits. The surprise made her lower her guard and, without reacting, she let him sit down on the bench, facing her.

  “You’ve been crying,” Hassan observed. He looked away from her for a moment. It seemed as he was making a huge effort to behave adequately. “I’ve exaggerated.”

  In his own way, was he maybe apologising?

  As if replying to the incredulous expression from Anna, he let a quiet laugh escape. “I’m trying to be kind and, as you see, I’m having some difficulty.” He contemplated her with a half smile.

  She kept a straight face for a little time, then she couldn’t contain herself. “Oh, cut it out and tell me what you want. Or go.” He was softening her up so that he could suddenly hit her with one of his venomous remarks. No, this time he wouldn’t succeed in scaring her.

  “Listen, Anna. I’m talking seriously.” He was annoyed now. He stopped, as if holding back, again. When he resumed speaking, his tone was more conciliatory. “Let’s do five minutes of armistice, how about it?”

  She emitted a disbelieving cry and relaxed. At once she felt overwhelmed by the events of the day and new tears surfaced, rolling down her cheeks.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the movement of Hassan’s hand reaching out to her, and she froze, drawing back her head. His hand stopped mid air. She stayed still, fixing it, as if it was something horrible, then raised her gaze to the face of its owner.

  It was in that very moment that she saw him for the first time. Not the man reminding her of her father and her origins she despised, but her companion in that adventure on Mars, the person with whom she had shared her existence for over one thousand, three hundred days since they had left Earth, the astronaut and physician Hassan Qabbani. How was it possible?

  She nodded almost without realising it and Hassan’s fingers reached her face, where they gently collected a tear.

  “What will become of us?” she asked, whilst his hand lingered on her. It sounded more like a plea than a question.

  “We’ll get on all right,” he reassured her, without the slightest hesitation. “Do you really find it so terrible to spend a thousand days more here? Or however many more there’ll be?”

  ‘Yes.’ But instead she shook her head. “I dunno, I no longer know anything.”

  Torn between the search for consolation and the childhood conditionings that had guided her for such a long time, Anna let herself go and laid her head on his shoulder. After a moment of uncertainty, he placed his arms around her body.

  They stayed this way, in a silent hug, for a time which seemed never-ending.

  Venom. That was the word his mother had used more than once to define that kind of man. That simple memory made her feel a stab of guilt, as if she was breaking a tacit promise. At the same time, she was shaken by the sense of dread and suspicion that had been instilled deep in her soul. An unusual excitement, coming from the subtle fear of undergoing something forbidden, took control of her. She had already felt it and knew well where it would bring her. And once more, she didn’t care. In fact, it was all she longed for.

  She raised her head to welcome his kiss.

  Sometime later, when their naked bodies, wrapped in the faint glow of the spotlights, were lying joined on the carpeted floor, Anna turned her gaze to the glass dome. Now she could finally see the stars gathering like a myriad of diamonds on a velvet cloth.

  “I knew you were beautiful,” Hassan whispered.

  This time she was really feeling beautiful, without fear, nor rage, nor shame, nor hatred.

  And all of a sudden, the stars became bigger, meeting her and dispersing with their light all the loneliness.

  Hassan’s hand stroked her hair, as she rested her head on his chest, listening to the tranquil beat of his heart. The rhythmical movement recalled the unpleasant image of what she had seen in the gym, when he had brushed against Michelle’s hair. For a second she considered asking him what was between them, but then she let it go. She didn’t want to ruin that moment of serenity. She didn’t want to discuss.

  “You really are an unfathomable mystery, little Anna.” Hassan broke the silence.

  She raised her head to look at his face. She didn’t like being called that, most of all by him. It was as if he considered her an inferior being. But perhaps it was so. In the end, she was just a woman, wasn’t she?

  She opened her mouth to protest, but then he smiled. “It’s me who doesn’t understand those like you.” Replying with a grave tone was surely better than complaining. She would not give in.

  As usual, as if he had understood everything, Hassan laughed. “Again with this story?” He found it amusing. “Those like me? You mean, men?” He challenged her, but with a smile.

  Anna shook her head, struggling to keep a serious expression. “What is the most politically correct word?” She looked to the side, pretending to think about it. “Middle-Eastern? Asian?”

  “You mean, like you,” he teased her.

  And she was taken in. “I’m Swedish!” The moment after she had spoken, she realised she’d walked into a trap.

  “And I’m from Vancouver, which, for your information, is in Canada.”

  Anna rolled her eyes.

  “If I’m not mistaken,” Hassan added, as if he was pondering on it. “Canada is west of Sweden, isn’t it?”

  “Oh, stop it.”

  And he laughed again. Anna tried to pull back, but he held her. So she laid her head on his chest again and turned her gaze to the glass wall. It was pitch black outside; the external lamps were off. She felt vaguely angry, but all the same, she stayed on him as though nothing had happened. The truth was that she had no desire to do without that contact. She didn’t want to feel alone again, but she’d rather have been with someone who made an effort to understand her, instead of making fun of her.

  “Maybe you don’t know.” Hassan resumed speaking with a serious tone. “But my mother has got blue eyes and a beautiful head of blonde hair.”

  Surprised by the information, Anna snapped up her head and looked at his face to see if he was being serious.

  “As you see, we are more similar than you think.”

  Now she really felt little and stupid. She had looked at him, learnt his name, and had labelled him. Point. She hadn’t even considered that the reality might be different. But, in the end, what had changed? His mother was a western woman; he, instead, was one of them all the same. Her face contracted in dismay. He was right: she was one of them, too. No, there was a difference and it wasn’t the name.

  “You are Muslim.” It was the last card, but he couldn’t question it.

  “Ah, so yours isn’t racial intolerance, but a religious one.” He looked anything but convinced.

  Any attempt by Anna to make a lucid reasoning was totally useless. She was too tired, and in all honesty there was little reasoning in her prejudices. She surely had nothing against the Islamic religion. What did she know about it? Perhaps the problem concerned the traditions or the outdated mentality often associated with certain religious groups. She looked at Hassan. What had he to do with all that? Probably nothing. Doubtless, he had nothing to do with the man who’d broken her mother’s heart over thirty years earlier. All the more now that they were hundreds of million kilometres from the origin of the mentality that made her feel ill at ease. But that sensation of suspicion was so rooted in her heart that, although she realised how it was void of any foundation, she wasn’t able to get free from it completely.

  “Let me guess. You are Swedish, so Lutheran Christian?”

  “Theoret
ically,” Anna replied, grateful that the question had pulled her out of her cogitations. “My mother was Lutheran, but I’m not suited for that stuff.”

  “What d’you mean?”

  “That stuff about faith. I don’t understand it.”

  “You aren’t supposed to understand faith. Either you have it or you don’t. Anyway it’s never too late to embrace it.”

  Anna sat up and addressed a hesitant look at him.

  “May I say what I think?” he asked.

  “May I stop you from doing so?”

  Hassan laughed again and this time she followed suit. She couldn’t remember ever seeing him that way. Although their ways of thinking were light years apart and there were sides of his character she found horrific, to say the least, she was aware that fighting would take them nowhere. Sometimes the best thing to do was to let go.

  “I think your father was a coward.” He sat up and leaned his back against the stuffed edge of the bench. “I can’t deny that his cultural background would somehow have been involved in his decisions. His family wanted him to marry a woman from his country, from his religion. It’s very common nowadays; imagine what it must have been like at that time. But he owned all the necessary tools to make the right decision. He lived in a country where he wasn’t actually subjected to any pressure, and he had perfectly adapted to that lifestyle. He was an adult and free to make his choices. In the end, the will of his family was just an easy excuse to justify the way he didn’t accept the responsibility of his relationship with your mother, way before she became pregnant. All that had nothing to do with the colour of his skin or the God he believed in.” He placed a hand on her arm, ran its length with the tip of his index finger, then he lingered on her wrist. “Despite what you may think, a man abandoning his pregnant partner and then never taking an interest in her for the rest of his life is anything but a good Muslim.”

  Without realising it, Anna found herself gaping as she listened to him. That principled-man version of Hassan was totally new to her and clashed with most of what he had said and done since the first day she met him, so much so that for a second she wondered whether he was just acting.