The MaddAddam Trilogy

by Margaret Atwood

  While I’m lying on my pillow, come and take my pain from me …

  Hell would be an eternity of Nuala’s lyrics, thought Toby. Anyway it wasn’t the Weeping Willow, it was the White Willow, salix alba, with its available salicylic acid. That’s what killed the pain.

  Pilar was lying in her cubicle, on her bed, with her beeswax candle still burning in its tin container. She stretched out her thin brown fingers. “Dearest Toby,” she said. “Thank you for coming. I wanted to see you.”

  “You did it yourself!” said Toby. “You didn’t tell me!” She was so sad she was angry.

  “I didn’t want you to waste your time in worrying,” said Pilar. Her voice had dwindled to a whisper. “I wanted you to have your nice Vigil. Now come and sit beside me, and tell me what you saw last night.”

  “An animal,” said Toby. “Sort of like a lion, but not a lion.”

  “Good,” whispered Pilar. “That’s a good sign. You’ll be helped with strength when you need it. I’m glad it wasn’t a slug.” She gave a tiny laugh; then her face contorted in pain.

  “Why?” said Toby. “Why did you?”

  “I got the diagnosis,” said Pilar. “It’s cancer. Very advanced. So, best to go now, while I still know what I’m doing. Why linger?”

  “What diagnosis?” said Toby.

  “I sent in some biopsy samples,” said Pilar. “Katuro did it for me – took the tissue samples. We hid them in a jar of honey and smuggled them to the diagnostic labs at HelthWyzer West – under a different identity, of course.”

  “Who smuggled them?” said Toby. “Was it Zeb?”

  Pilar smiled as if enjoying a private joke. “A friend,” she said. “We have many friends.”

  “We could take you to a hospital,” said Toby. “I’m sure Adam One would authorize –”

  “Don’t backslide, my Toby,” said Pilar. “You know our views on hospitals. I might as well be thrown into a cesspool. Anyway, there’s no cure for what I’ve taken. Now, please hand me that glass – the blue one.”

  “Not yet!” said Toby. How to postpone, delay? Keep Pilar with her.

  “It’s just water, and a little Willow and Poppy,” Pilar whispered. “Deadens the pain without knocking you out. I want to stay awake as long as possible. I’m good for a while.”

  Toby watched while Pilar drank. “Another pillow,” said Pilar.

  Toby handed her one of the husk-filled sacks from the bottom of the bed. “You’ve been my family here,” she said. “More than the others.” She was finding it hard to talk, but she refused to cry.

  “And you’ve been mine,” said Pilar simply. “Remember to tend the Buenavista Ararat. Keep it renewed.”

  Toby didn’t want to tell her that the Buenavista Ararat was lost to them because of Burt. Why upset her? She propped Pilar up with the pillow: she was strangely heavy. “What did you use?” she asked. Her throat was tightening.

  “I’ve trained you well,” said Pilar. Her eyes crinkled at the edges, as if the whole thing was a prank. “Let’s see if you can guess. Symptoms: cramps and vomiting. Then a respite period during which the patient appears to improve. But meanwhile, the liver is slowly being destroyed. No antidote.”

  “One of the amanitas,” said Toby.

  “Clever girl,” Pilar whispered. “The Death Angel, a friend in need.”

  “But it will be so painful,” said Toby.

  “Don’t worry about that,” said Pilar. “There’s always the Poppy concentrate. It’s the red bottle – that one. I’ll let you know when. Now, listen to me carefully. This is my will. As we say, shrouds have no pockets – all earthly things must be passed from the dying to the living, and that includes our knowledge. I want you to have everything I’ve assembled here – all my materials. It’s a good collection, and it confers great power. Guard it well and use it well. I trust you to do that. You’re familiar with some of these bottles. I’ve made a paper list of the rest, which you must memorize and then destroy. The list is inside the green jar – that one. Do you promise?”

  “Yes,” said Toby. “I promise.”

  “Deathbed promises are sacred among us,” said Pilar. “You know that. Don’t cry. Look at me. I’m not sad.”

  Toby knew the theory: Pilar believed that she was donating herself to the matrix of Life through her own volition, and she also believed that this should be a matter for celebration.

  But what about me? thought Toby. I’m being deserted. It was like the time her mother died, and then her father. How many times did she have to go through the process of being orphaned? Don’t whine, she told herself sternly.

  “I want you to be Eve Six,” Pilar said. “In my place. No one else has the talent, and the knowledge. Can you do that for me? Promise?”

  Toby promised. What else could she say?

  “Good,” Pilar whispered, breathing out. “Now, I think it’s time for the Poppy. The red bottle, that’s the one. Wish me well on my journey.”

  “Thank you for all you’ve taught me,” said Toby. I can’t stand this, she thought. I’m killing her. No: I’m helping her to die. I’m fulfilling her wishes.

  She watched as Pilar drank.

  “Thank you for learning,” said Pilar. “I’m going to sleep now. Don’t forget to tell the bees.”

  Toby sat beside Pilar until she stopped breathing. Then she pulled the coverlet up over her tranquil face and snuffed out the candle. Was it her imagination or had the candle flared up at the moment of Pilar’s death as if a little surge of air had passed it? Spirit, Adam One would say. An energy that cannot be grasped or measured. Pilar’s immeasurable Spirit. Gone.

  But if Spirit wasn’t material in any way, it couldn’t influence a candle flame. Could it?

  I’m getting as mushy as the rest of them, thought Toby. Addled as an egg. Next thing I’ll be talking to flowers. Or snails, like Nuala.

  But she went to tell the bees. She felt like an idiot doing it, but she’d promised. She remembered that it wasn’t enough just to think at them: you had to say the words out loud. Bees were the messengers between this world and the other worlds, Pilar had said. Between the living and the dead. They carried the Word made air.

  Toby covered her head – as was the custom, Pilar had claimed – and stood in front of the Rooftop’s hives. The bees were flying around as usual, coming and going, bringing their leg-loads of pollen, waggling in their figure-eight semaphoric dances. From inside the hives came the humming of wings as they fanned the air, cooling it, ventilating the cells and passageways. One bee is all the bees, Pilar used to say, so what’s good for the hive is good for the bee.

  Several bees flew around her head, golden in their fur. Three lit on her face, tasting her.

  “Bees,” she said. “I bring news. You must tell your Queen.”

  Were they listening? Perhaps. They were nibbling gently at the edges of her dried tears. For the salt, a scientist would say.

  “Pilar is dead,” she said. “She sends you her greetings, and her thanks for your friendship over many years. When the time comes for you to follow her to where she has gone, she will meet you there.” These were the words Pilar had taught her. She felt like such a dolt, saying them out loud. “Until then, I am your new Eve Six.”

  Nobody was listening, though if they had been they wouldn’t have found anything odd, not up here on the Rooftop. Whereas down below at ground level they’d have labelled her as a crazy woman, wandering the streets, talking out loud to nothing.

  Pilar used to bring the news to the bees every morning. Would Toby be expected to do the same? Yes, she would. It was one of the functions of the Eve Six. If you didn’t tell the bees everything that was going on, Pilar said, their feelings would be hurt and they’d swarm and go elsewhere. Or they’d die.

  The bees on her face hesitated: maybe they could feel her trembling. But they could tell grief from fear, because they didn’t sting. After a moment they lifted up and flew away, blending with the circling multitudes above the hives.


  35

  Once she’d pulled herself together and arranged her face, Toby went to tell Adam One. “Pilar died,” she said. “She took care of it herself.”

  “Yes, my dear. I know,” said Adam One. “We discussed it. She used the Death Angel, and then the Poppy?” Toby nodded. “But – this is a delicate matter, and I am counting on your discretion – she didn’t feel the Gardeners at large should be told the entire truth. Final self-journeying is a moral option only for the experienced and, I have to say, only for the terminally ill, as Pilar was; but it’s not one we should make widely available – especially not to our young people, who are impressionable and prone to indulge in morbid sulking and false heroics. I trust you’ve taken charge of those medicine bottles of Pilar’s? We wouldn’t want any accidents.”

  “Yes,” said Toby. I need to get a box made, she thought. A metal one. With a lock.

  “And now you’re Eve Six,” said Adam One, beaming. “I’m so pleased, my dear!”

  “You discussed that with Pilar too, I suppose,” said Toby. The whole Vigil thing was just a stall, she thought. Keeping me on hold until Pilar could clinch the sale.

  “It was her earnest desire,” said Adam One. “She had such a deep love and respect for you.”

  “And I hope to be worthy of her,” she said.

  So the two of them had trapped her. What could she say? She found herself stepping into ritual as if into a pair of stone shoes.

  Adam One called a general Gardeners meeting, at which he made a lying speech. “Unfortunately,” he began, “our dear Pilar – Eve Six – passed away tragically earlier today after making a species identification error. She had many years of impeccable practice to her credit – but perhaps this was God’s way of harvesting our beloved Eve Six for His greater purposes. Let me remind you of the importance of learning our mushrooms thoroughly; and do confine your mushrooming activities to well-known species, such as the Morels, the Shaggy Manes, and the Puffballs – those about which there cannot be any confusion.

  “While she was alive, Pilar expanded our mushroom and fungus collection enormously, adding a number of wild specimens. Some of these can be an aid to meditation during your Retreats, but please, do not try them without taking informed advice, and watch for those telltale cups and rings – we do not want any more unfortunate incidents of this nature.”

  Toby felt outrage: how could Adam One disparage Pilar’s mycological expertise? Pilar would never have made such a mistake: the older Gardeners must know that. But maybe it was only a way of talking, just as suicide used to be called “death by misadventure.”

  “I am happy to announce,” Adam One continued, “that our worthy Toby has agreed to fill the position of Eve Six. This was Pilar’s wish, and I’m sure you’ll all agree that there is no one more suited to the position than she. I myself rely upon her completely for … for many things. Her great gifts include not only her extensive knowledge, but also her good sense, her fortitude in adversity, and her kind heart. This is why she was Pilar’s choice.” There was some subdued nodding and smiling in Toby’s direction.

  “Our beloved Pilar wished to be composted in Heritage Park,” Adam One continued. “She herself thoughtfully selected the shrub she wished planted on top of her – a fine specimen of Elderberry – so that in time we may expect some foraging dividends. As you know, an unofficial composting is a risk, as it incurs heavy penalties – the Exfernal World believes that even death itself should be regimented and, above all, paid for – but we will prepare for this event with caution and carry it out with discretion. Meanwhile, those of you who desire to see Pilar for the last time may do so at her cubicle. If you wish to present a floral tribute, may I suggest the nasturtiums, which are plentiful at this season. Please do not pick any of the garlic flowers, as we are saving them for propagation.”

  There were some tears, and some outright sobbing from the children – Pilar had been well loved. Then the Gardeners filed away. Some smiled again at Toby to show they were pleased by her promotion. Toby herself stayed where she was, because Adam One was holding on to her arm.

  “Forgive me, dear Toby,” he said when the rest had gone. “I apologize for my excursion into fiction. I must sometimes say things that are not transparently honest. But it is for the greater good.”

  Toby and Zeb were chosen to select the location for Pilar’s composting, and to pre-dig the hole. Time was of the essence, said Adam One: the Gardeners did not go in for refrigeration and the weather was warm, so if they didn’t compost Pilar soon she was likely to undertake the process a little too rapidly herself.

  Zeb had a couple of Heritage Park groundsman suits – green overalls and shirts, with the Park logo in white. The two of them put these on and set off with a couple of shovels and rakes and a mattock and a pitchfork rattling around in the back of their truck. It was news to Toby that the Gardeners had a truck, but they did. It was a compressed-air pickup, which they kept in a pet store over in the Sewage Lagoon. An abandoned pet store – not much call for pet pampering in the Lagoon, said Zeb, because if you did have a cat there it was likely to end up in someone else’s deep fryer.

  The Gardeners painted different things on their truck, said Zeb, according to need. At the moment it had a Heritage Park logo on it, impeccably forged. “There’s a number of ex-graphic artists in the Gardeners,” said Zeb. “Of course, there’s a number of ex-everything.”

  They drove along through the Sinkhole, honking to get the pleebrats out of their path and shooing away any who tried to force-clean their windows. “Have you done this before?” Toby asked.

  “By ‘this,’ you mean burying old ladies illegally in public parkland? Nope,” said Zeb. “No Eves died on my watch until this. But there’s a first time for everything.”

  “How dangerous is it?” said Toby.

  “Guess we’ll find out,” said Zeb. “Course, we could just leave her in a vacant lot for the scavengers, but she might end up in a SecretBurger. Animal protein’s getting very pricey. Or she could get sold to the garboil folks, they’ll take anything. We’re saving her from that: old Pilar was death on oil, it was contra to her religion.”

  “Not to yours?” said Toby.

  Zeb chuckled. “I leave the finer points of doctrine to Adam One. I just use what I have to, to get where I need to go. C’mon, let’s grab a Happicuppa.” He swerved into a mallway lot.

  “We’re drinking Happicuppa?” said Toby. “Gen-mod, sun-grown, sprayed with poisons? It kills birds, it ruins peasants – we all know that.”

  “We’re in deep cover,” said Zeb. “You have to act the part!” He winked at her, then reached across her and opened the truck door. “Cut yourself some slack. I bet you used to be a babe until the Gardeners got to you.”

  Used to be, thinks Toby. That about sums up everything. Nevertheless she was pleased: she hadn’t had a gender-weighted compliment for some time.

  Happicuppa had once been a feature of such lunch breaks as she’d been able to snatch, back when she worked at SecretBurgers; it seemed a lifetime since she’d drunk any of the stuff. She ordered a Happicappuchino. She’d forgotten how delicious they could be. She drank it in sips: it could be years before she got another, if she ever did get one.

  “We better go,” said Zeb before she was quite finished. “We’ve got a hole to dig. Put your cap on, stick your hair up under it, that’s how the girl parkies wear it.”

  “Hey, Park bitch,” said a voice behind her. “Show us your shrub!” Toby was afraid to glance around. But Blanco was back in Painball again, Adam One had told her – that was the word on the street.

  Zeb picked up on her fear. “If any guy bothers you, I’ll hit him with the mattock,” he said.

  Back in the truck, they mowed their way through the pleebland streets until they reached the Heritage Parkland north gate. Zeb waved his forged pass at the gatekeepers and they drove through. The Park was officially pedestrian, so there were no vehicles other than theirs.

  Zeb d
rove slowly, passing families of pleeblanders seated at the picnic tables with their barbecues going full blast. Rowdy groups of pleebrats were drinking and messing around. A rock bounced off the truck: the Heritage Parkies weren’t armed, and the pleebrats knew that. There’d been swarmings and even fatalities, Zeb told her. Something about a bunch of trees made people think they could cut loose. “Wherever there’s Nature, there’s assholes,” he said cheerfully.

  They found a good location – a patch of open ground where the Elderberry shrub would get enough sunlight, and where they might not encounter too many tree roots while digging. Zeb set to work with the mattock, loosening the dirt; Toby shovelled. They’d put out a stand-alone sign: Planting Courtesy of HelthWyzer West. “If anyone asks, I’ve got the authorization,” said Zeb. “Right here in my pocket. Didn’t even cost that much.”

  When the hole was deep enough they packed up, leaving the sign in place.

  Pilar’s composting took place that afternoon. Pilar travelled to the site by truck, in a burlap sack labelled Mulch, with the Elderberry and a five-gallon water tank beside her. Nuala and Adam One marched the Buds and Blooms Choir through the Park, right past the burial spot, so anyone in the vicinity would be looking at them rather than at Zeb and Toby and their shrub planting. They were singing the “Mole Day Hymn” at the top of their lungs. When they came to the final verse, Shackleton and Crozier in their pleebrat T-shirt disguises jeered at them from the pathside. When Crozier tossed a bottle, the Buds and Blooms yelled and broke ranks and ran down the pathway. All the pleeblanders watched the chase with interest, hoping for violence. Zeb deftly slotted Pilar into the hole, still in her burlap sack, and positioned the Elderberry shrub on top of her. Toby shovelled and tamped; then they watered.

  “Don’t look mournful,” Zeb told her. “Act like it’s only a job.”

  There was another onlooker, a tall dark-haired boy. He wasn’t distracted by the Buds and Blooms sideshow; he stood leaning against a tree, as if indifferent. He was wearing a black T-shirt with a slogan that said, THE LIVER IS EVIL AND MUST BE PUNISHED.