The Power

by Naomi Alderman

  Of course, there’s a meeting point in the parking lot of a Denny’s. Of course there is. Of course, there’s a blindfold ride in a jeep and men wearing black – all white men – with balaclavas over their faces. These are men who’ve watched too many movies. This has become a thing now: men’s movie clubs, in living rooms and back rooms of bars. Watching particular kinds of movie over and over again: the ones with explosions and helicopter crashes and guns and muscles and punching. Guy flicks.

  After all this, when they take off his blindfold, he’s in a storage locker. It’s dusty. There’s someone’s old boxes of VHS cassettes labelled ‘A-Team’ in the corner. And there’s UrbanDox, sitting in a chair, smiling.

  He looks different to his profile pictures. He’s in his mid-fifties. He’s bleached his hair so that it’s very pale, almost white. His eyes are a pallid, watery blue. Tunde’s read some things about this man; there was, by all accounts, a terrible childhood, violence, racial hatred. There was a string of failed businesses, leaving dozens of people owed thousands of dollars each. There was, eventually, a night-school law degree and a reinvention as a blogger. He’s well-built for a man of his age, though his face is faintly grey. The great change in the tide of things has been good for UrbanDox. He’d been blogging his mean-spirited, semi-literate, bigoted, angry rhetoric for years but, recently, more and more people – men and, indeed, some women – have started to listen. He’s denied over and over again being tied to the violent splinter groups that have bombed shopping malls and public parks in half a dozen states now. But, if he’s not linked to them, they like to link themselves to him. One of the recent accurate bomb threats contained simply an address, a time and the web address of UrbanDox’s latest screed on the Coming Gender War.

  He’s softly spoken. His voice is more high-pitched than Tunde was expecting. He says, ‘You know they’re going to try to kill us.’

  Tunde has said to himself, Just listen. He says, ‘Who’s trying to kill us?’

  UrbanDox says, ‘The women.’

  Tunde says, ‘Aha. Tell me more about that.’

  A sly smile spreads over the man’s face. ‘You’ve read my blog. You know what I think.’

  ‘I’d like to hear it in your own words. On tape. I think people would like to hear it. You think the women are trying to kill –’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think, son, I know. None of this is an accident. They talk about “Guardian Angel”, that stuff that got into the water supply, and how it built up in the water table? They say no one could have predicted it? Phooey. Bullcrap. This has been planned. This was decided on. After the end of the Second World War, when the peaceniks and do-gooders had the upper hand, they decided to put this stuff in the water. They thought men had had their turn and we’d messed it up – two world wars in two generations. Pussy-whipped betas and faggots, all of them.’

  Tunde’s read this theory before. You can’t have a good conspiracy plot without any conspirators. He’s only surprised that UrbanDox hasn’t mentioned Jews.

  ‘The Zionists used the concentration camps as emotional blackmail to get the stuff shipped out in the water.’

  There we go.

  ‘It was a declaration of war. Silent, stealthy. They armed their warriors before they sounded the first battle cry. They were among us before we even knew we’d been invaded. Our own government has the cure, you know, they’ve got it under lock and key, but they won’t use it except on the precious few. And the endgame … you know the endgame. They hate us all. They want us all dead.’

  Tunde thinks of the women he’s known. Some of the journalists he was in Basra with, some of the women from the siege in Nepal. There have been women, these past years, who have put their bodies between him and harm so he could take his footage out to the world.

  ‘They don’t,’ he says. Shit. That was not what he meant to do.

  UrbanDox laughs. ‘They’ve got you right where they want you, son. Under the thumb. Believing their crap. Bet a woman’s helped you once or twice, right? She’s taken care of you, she’s looked after you, she protected you when you were in trouble.’

  Tunde nods, warily.

  ‘Well, shit, of course they do that. They want us docile and confused. Old army tactic; if you’re only ever an enemy, the people will know to fight you wherever they see you. If you hand out candy to the kids and medicine to the weak, you jumble their minds up, they don’t know how to hate you. See?’

  ‘Yes, I see.’

  ‘It’s starting already. Have you seen the numbers on domestic violence against men? On murders of men by women?’

  He has seen those numbers. He carries them with him like a lozenge of ice lodged in his throat.

  ‘That’s how it starts,’ says UrbanDox. ‘That’s how they soften us up, make us weak and afraid. That’s how they have us where they want us. It’s all part of a plan. They’re doing it because they’ve been told to.’

  Tunde thinks, No, that’s not the reason. The reason is because they can. ‘Are you being funded,’ he says, ‘by the exiled King Awadi-Atif of Saudi Arabia?’

  UrbanDox smiles. ‘There are a lot of men out there who are worried about where this thing is heading, my friend. Some of them are weak, traitors to their gender and their people. Some of them think the women will be kind to them. But a lot of them know the truth. We haven’t had to go begging for money.’

  ‘And you said … the endgame.’

  UrbanDox shrugs. ‘Like I say. They want to kill us all.’

  ‘But … the survival of the human race?’

  ‘Women are just animals,’ says UrbanDox. ‘Just like us, they want to mate, reproduce, have healthy offspring. One woman, though, she’s pregnant for nine months. She can care for maybe five or six kids well across her life.’

  ‘So … ?’

  UrbanDox frowns, like this is the most obvious thing in the world. ‘They’ll only keep the most genetically healthy of us alive. See, this is why God meant men to be the ones with the power. However bad we treat a woman – well, it’s like a slave.’

  Tunde feels his shoulders tighten. Say nothing, just listen, take the footage, use it and sell it. Make money out of this scumbag, sell him out, show him up for what it is.

  ‘See, people got slavery wrong. If you have a slave, that slave’s your property, you don’t want damage to come to it. However bad any man treated a woman, he needs her in a fit condition to carry a child. But now … one genetically perfect man can sire a thousand – five thousand – children. And what do they need the rest of us for? They’re going to kill us all. Listen to me. Not one in a hundred will live. Perhaps not one in a thousand.’

  ‘And your evidence for that is …’

  ‘Oh, I’ve seen documents. And more than that, I can use my brain. So can you, son. I’ve watched you; you’re smart.’ UrbanDox lays a moist, clammy hand on Tunde’s arm. ‘Join us. Become part of what we’re doing. We’ll be there for you, son, when all these others have gone away, because we’re on the same side.’

  Tunde nods.

  ‘We need laws now to protect men. We need curfews on women. We need the government to release all the funding they need to “research” that cure. We need men to stand up and be counted. We are being ruled by fags who worship women. We need to cut them down.’

  ‘And that’s the purpose of your terror attacks?’

  UrbanDox smiles again. ‘You well know that I have never initiated or encouraged a terror attack.’

  Yes, he’s been very careful.

  ‘But,’ says UrbanDox, ‘if I were in touch with any of those men, I’d guess they’d barely gotten started. A bunch of weapons got lost in the fall of the Soviet Union, you know. Real nasty stuff. Could be they have some of that.’

  ‘Wait,’ says Tunde. ‘Are you threatening to orchestrate domestic terrorism with nuclear weapons?’

  ‘I’m not threatening anything,’ says UrbanDox, his eyes pale and cold.

  Allie

  ‘Mother Eve, will you give me y
our blessing?’

  The boy is sweet. Fluffy, blond hair, a freckled, creamy face. He can’t be more than sixteen. His English is prettily accented with the mid-European tones of Bessapara. They’ve picked a good one.

  Allie is only just on twenty herself and, although she has an air to her – an old soul, the piece in the New York Times reported several celebrity acolytes saying – there’s still that danger that she doesn’t always look to have quite the gravitas needed.

  The young are close to God, they say, and young women, especially. Our Lady was only sixteen years old when she bore her sacrifice into the world. Still, it’s often as well to start with a blessing of someone who looks definitively younger.

  ‘Come close,’ says Allie, ‘and tell me your name.’

  The cameras push in on the blond boy’s face. He is already crying and shaking. The crowd is mostly quiet; the sound of thirty thousand people breathing is broken only by the occasional shout of ‘Praise the Mother!’, or simply ‘Praise Her!’

  The boy says, very quietly, ‘Christian.’

  There’s a sound at that, an indrawn breath around the stadium.

  ‘That is a very good name,’ says Allie. ‘Don’t fear that it’s not a good name.’

  Christian is all sobs. His mouth is open and wet and dark.

  ‘I know this is hard,’ says Allie, ‘but I am going to hold your hand, and when I do the peace of Our Mother will enter into you, do you understand?’

  There is a magic in this, in telling what will happen, in saying it with full conviction. Christian nods again. Allie takes his hand. The camera holds steady for a moment on the pale hand clasped in the darker. Christian steadies. His breathing becomes more even. When the image pulls out, he is smiling, calm, even poised.

  ‘Now, Christian, you haven’t been able to walk since you were a child, have you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What happened?’

  Christian motions to his legs, lumpen underneath the blanket swaddling the lower half of his body. ‘I fell off a swing,’ he says, ‘when I was three. I broke my back.’ He smiles, full of trust. He makes a motion with his hands, as if he were breaking a pencil between his fingers.

  ‘You broke your back. And the doctors have told you you’ll never walk again, that’s right, isn’t it?’

  Christian nods, slowly. ‘But I know I will,’ he says, his face peaceful.

  ‘I know you will, too, Christian, because the Mother has shown it to me.’

  And the people who curate these events for her and make sure that the nerve damage isn’t too severe for her to be able to do anything. Christian had a friend from the same hospital; a nice kid, even more of a believer than Christian himself, but, unfortunately, the break was too profound for them to be sure she’d be able to cure it. Besides, he wasn’t right for this televised segment. Acne.

  Allie lays her palm at the top of Christian’s spine, just at the back of his neck.

  He shudders; the crowd gasps and goes silent.

  She says in her heart: What if I can’t do it this time?

  The voice says: Kid, you always say that. You’re golden.

  Mother Eve speaks from Allie’s mouth. She says: ‘Holy Mother, guide me now, as you have always guided me.’

  The crowd says, ‘Amen.’

  Mother Eve says: ‘Not my will, Holy Mother, but Thine be done. If it is Your will to heal this child, let him be healed, and if it be Your will that he suffer in this world to reap a great harvest in the next, let that be done.’

  This is an exceedingly important caveat, which it’s as well to get in early.

  The crowd says, ‘Amen.’

  Mother Eve says, ‘But there’s a great multitude praying for this humble and obedient young boy, Holy Mother. There’s a great crowd here pleading with you now, yearning for Your grace to fall upon him and Your breath to raise him up as You raised up Mary for Your service. Holy Mother, listen to our prayers.’

  The crowd is full of people rocking back and forth on their heels and weeping and muttering, and the simultaneous translators at either side of the stadium are racing to keep up with Allie, as Mother Eve’s words spill from her faster and faster.

  While her mouth is moving, Allie’s tendrils of power are probing Christian’s spine, feeling out the blockage here and here, and where a boost would get his muscles moving. She almost has it.

  Mother Eve says, ‘As we’ve all lived blessed lives, as we all strive every day to listen to Your voice inside us, as we all honour our own mothers and the sacred light inside every human heart, as we all worship You and adore You and love You and kneel before You. Holy Mother, please, take the force of our prayers. Please, Holy Mother, use me to show your glory and heal this boy now!’

  The crowd roars.

  Allie delivers three swift pinpricks to Christian’s spine, flicking the nerve cells around the muscles of his legs into life.

  His left leg swings up, kicking at the blanket.

  Christian looks at it bemused, startled, a little afraid.

  The other leg kicks.

  He’s crying now, tears pouring down his face. This poor kid, who hasn’t walked or run since he was three years old. Who’s suffered the bedsores and the muscle wasting, who’s had to use his arms to carry himself from bed to chair, chair to toilet. His legs are moving from the thigh now, jerking and kicking.

  He levers himself up from the chair with his arms now, his legs still twitching and – holding on to the rail put there for the purpose – he walks one, two, three stiff and awkward steps before clinging there, upright and weeping.

  Some of Mother Eve’s people come to take him off stage, one on either side of him, and he’s saying, ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you,’ as they lead him away.

  Sometimes, it sticks. There are cases of people she’s ‘cured’ who are still walking, or holding things, or seeing months later. There is even starting to be some scientific interest in what it might be she’s actually doing.

  Sometimes, it doesn’t stick at all. They have a moment on stage. They feel what it’s like to walk, or pick something up with a dead arm and, after all, that’s something they wouldn’t have had without her.

  The voice says: You never know; if they had more faith, maybe it would have stuck around longer.

  Mother Eve says to those she helps, ‘God has shown you a taste of what She can do. Just keep praying.’

  They take a little interlude after the healing. So that Allie can get a glass of something cold behind the stage, and to bring the crowd down a little from its fever pitch and remind them that all this has been funded by good people like them who opened their hearts and their wallets. On the big screens, they show a video of the good works done by the Church. The screens show Mother Eve giving comfort to the sick. There’s a video – it’s an important one – of her holding the hand of a woman who was beaten and abused but whose skein never came in. She’s crying. Mother Eve tries to wake up the power inside her but, though she prays for help, the power won’t come to this poor woman. That’s why they’re looking into transplants, she says, from cadavers. They have teams working on it already. Your money can help.

  There are friendly messages of greeting from chapter houses in Michigan and Delaware with news of saved souls, and from missions in Nairobi and Sucre, where the Catholic Church is eating itself alive. And there are videos of the orphanages Mother Eve’s set up. At first, there were girls set loose by their families, wandering, confused and alone, like shivering stray dogs. As Mother Eve’s power grew, she said to the older women, ‘Take in the younger. Set up homes for them, as I was taken in when I was weakened and afraid. The least you do for them, you do for our own Holy Mother.’ Now, a scant few years later, there are homes for young people all over the world. They take in young men and young women, too; they give them shelter; they give them better outcomes than state-run facilities. Allie, passed from pillar to post throughout her life, knows how to give good instruction in this matter. In the video,
Mother Eve is visiting homes for abandoned children in Delaware and in Missouri, in Indonesia and in Ukraine. Each group of girls and boys greets her as mother.

  The video ends on a musical trill, and Allie wipes the sweat off her face and goes back outside.

  ‘Now, I know,’ says Mother Eve to the crowd, full of crying, shaking, shouting people, ‘I know there’s been a question in some of your minds for these long months, and that is why I’m so happy to be here today to answer your questions.’

  There’s another round of shouts and ‘Praise!’ from the crowd.

  ‘To be here in Bessapara, the land where God has shown Her wisdom and Her mercy, is a great blessing to me. For you know that Our Lady has told me that women are to gather together! And to perform great wonders! And to be a blessing and a consolation to each other! And’ – she pauses after each word for emphasis – ‘where have women gathered together more than here?’

  Stamping, hollering, whoops of delight.

  ‘We’ve shown what the power of a mighty crowd praying together can do for that young man Christian, haven’t we? We’ve shown that the Holy Mother cares for men and women alike. She doesn’t withhold Her mercy. She won’t send Her goodness just to the women, but to anyone who believes in Her.’ She makes her voice soft and low. ‘And I know some of you have been asking, “What about the Goddess who’s meant so much to you all? What about She whose symbol is the eye in the palm of the hand? That simple faith that sprang up from the soil in this good country, what about that?”’

  Allie allows the crowd to go very quiet. She stands with her arms folded in front of her chest. There’s weeping and rocking among the people gathered here. There’s waving of banners. She waits a good long while, breathing in and out.