1/2986

by Annelie Wendeberg

  I dimly remember the dark thing that came flying before I blacked out.

  ‘You tried to shoot the dogs, so Katvar hit you on the head.’

  ‘Why would anyone befriend dogs? And who’s Katvar?’

  ‘He’s kept an eye on you in the past three days. Both eyes, actually. I told him to take a nap. The people here keep dogs to protect the village against wild dogs, and to pull sleds or carts.’

  ‘Crazy. Oh, but…’ The food in my mouth suddenly tastes stale. ‘How can they survive in the lowlands?’

  ‘They are nomads, sort of. They live here in winter and move up in the mountains when the snow melts.’

  ‘Hmm.’ I finish my sandwich. ‘By the way, that guy, what’s his name, creeps me out. Never seen anyone so…sulky.’ I laugh. What an understatement.

  ‘He protected his dogs.’ Runner’s voice sounds wobbly. I look up at him. He looks tired and pale, as if he’s about to pass out. I offer him my food, but he declines. ‘I thought you were hungry?’

  ‘No. No, I…I’ll lie down for a moment.’

  He shuffles from the room. He can barely walk upright. That was a close shave, closer than I’d thought. For him, at least. I stare at my food. My appetite is gone.

  ———

  I wake up to the man, Katvar, sitting on his stool again. He pushes his cap farther up when he sees that I’m awake. The white dog lies panting by his feet. I wish I had my hunting knife.

  ‘Hey,’ I say. He pulls his silent staring thing. ‘Thanks for hitting me on the head.’ Wow, I had no idea his expression could turn even fiercer. ‘So, you’re too noble to speak with lowlifes. Why don’t you just piss off?’

  He stands and shows me his middle finger when he leaves the room. I send a loud, ‘And don’t come back!’ along. The dog rises with a grunt and follows him, tail going left and right in synchrony with his butt, claws clacking on the wooden floor.

  A pile of clean clothes sits on a small drawer next to my bed. I put them on, gingerly inserting my bandaged foot into the left leg of my pants, or whoever’s pants. I decide to ignore my chopped-off toes as long as possible. At the moment, I can’t stomach yet another wound. There’s a crutch next to the door; someone must have had fun imagining me hobbling over to get it and probably falling and bonking my head again.

  I stand and give it a try. When I put my weight on my heel only, I’m okay, as long as I ignore the pain. I reach the crutch, grab it, pin it under my left arm, and explore the house. It’s oddly quiet. My pad (wool sock), plop (bandaged foot), pad plop sound through the hallway. Quiet clinking pulls me to the right and I spot the kitchen with Runner sitting at a table that looks like someone carved it from a single piece of mighty trunk. He’s staring into a mug filled with what smells like coffee. A half-eaten slice of bread lies on the plate in front of him.

  ‘Good morning,’ he says when I step in.

  ‘Hey.’

  ‘You look better.’

  ‘You, too. What’s that black stuff on your neck?’ I ask, and sit down across from him.

  ‘Shale oil. The people here use it for medical purposes. They treat infected wounds with it. I analysed it and found it contains a lot of sulphonates.’

  Sulphothings. I wonder if I ever heard that word in chemistry class, but I come up blank.

  ‘Sulphonates kill bacteria,’ he provides.

  ‘Where did you get this from?’ I point at his plate. ‘And where is everybody?’

  ‘Behind you on the counter, in the cupboard, on that shelf.’ He waves. ‘To answer your last question: outside, sled-dog training. And before you ask: no, I didn’t father any children in this village.’

  That pulls me up short. ‘I wasn’t…what’s wrong?’

  ‘You nearly died,’ he says quietly.

  Way too serious a topic. I get up and search for edible things. ‘Two toes, Runner. That’s all.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  I put a loaf of bread, a knife, butter, and jam on the table. ‘Where are the cups?’ I ask, and he points. I spot a thermos, open it, and sniff. Barley coffee. Wonderful!

  ‘It will not get easier, Micka,’ he says when I sit down. ‘I made a grave mistake. I planned for us to run into a pack of wild dogs, planned to send you away, make it look as if I sacrificed myself. I wanted to see how you would react, how you assess danger, and what decisions you make. I wanted you to question my stupid decision. But…I didn’t anticipate this. More than sixty dogs! I’ve never seen a pack that large. Ten to fifteen dogs are the norm; easy enough to scare off with a rifle. I have no idea how a pack of this size feeds itself. The people here believe that several packs merged temporarily.’ He shakes his head and rubs his face, as if to wipe a thought away.

  ‘When I saw them, I knew our chances were slim. So I sent you away in earnest. And you did question my decision then and I could have…I could have killed you for it.’ He balls his hands to fists. ‘I meant business when I pointed the gun at you.’

  ‘Okay.’ I don’t look up. I pretend to be busy spreading butter on my sandwich.

  A hand stops mine on the way to the jam. ‘Thank you, for saving my life and risking your own.’

  I gulp. ‘Yeah…umm…welcome.’

  ‘It has been five months,’ he says.

  My stomach makes a lurch. I quickly take a large bite of my breakfast, so I don’t say anything stupid.

  ‘Your probation is over. You’re ready for an apprenticeship, should you still want it. Considering…’ He points at my left foot.

  ‘Two toes.’ I mumble. Then, I’m just chewing, wide-eyed and stupid-looking, most likely.

  ‘You are a good shot, Micka.’ He looks up and I see something working behind his eyes. As if the fact that I can aim decent enough is significant to whatever plan he’s brewing up.

  ‘You ordered only one rifle so your sacrificing yourself would look better?’

  He nods.

  ‘Will you keep playing these games during my apprenticeship?’

  ‘No.’ He draws his eyebrows down. ‘Remember that you cannot contact your friends and family from the moment you enter apprenticeship.’

  ‘I know.’ And I couldn’t care less. Although… ‘I should send a message to my parents, so they don’t think I died.’

  He lowers his head. ‘Write a letter, and the new Sequencer in your area will take it to your parents for you.’

  The penny drops. He came just for me. ‘Why…how do you choose apprentices?’

  ‘Lock the door, please.’

  I get up and lock it. Once I’m back on my chair, he begins. ‘The old Sequencer made the suggestion to test you two years before he was to be replaced.’

  ‘Why was he replaced?’

  ‘He asked to be retired.’

  ‘Ah. Yeah. He must be something like seventy or eighty years old now.’

  Runner laughs and says, ‘He fell in love with a woman. They wanted to stop traveling and have children. So he asked for relief. He is not that old. Only sixty-two.’

  ‘But why did he suggest me?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  I shrug. ‘First, I thought you were having a good laugh.’ I don’t tell him that I believed he was a pervert who dragged girls away from their parents and buried them in the woods. ‘But now it feels…real. I have no idea what to make of it. Everyone else was good at school. Why did you not choose any of them? Why the…’ I was about to say ‘village idiot,’ but somehow I don’t feel like this anymore. The special treatment by Runner has already changed me.

  He looks at me with those intense black eyes and I’m about to wilt. ‘We choose highly creative, intelligent, independent, and sensitive people.’

  No idea who he’s talking about. I snort, but he continues calmly. ‘We are not interested in the authority-obeying, adapted mass. We are not interested in people who strive for a goal that aids only them. We want the dreamers, the people who think differently, who doubt themselves and others constantly. We want the ones who fail, fall, stand
up, and try again. The ones who put puzzle pieces together in a way others can’t. The ones who see the large picture, who see the world and the humanity within, and not just their own small bubble of reality. We need the ones who can put anger, fear, and hate aside and analyse data independently of their own wants and needs. We want the excellent observers, the ones who are so sensitive to their surroundings, to the mass of normal people with all the ignorance they spread, that it destroys them. And of these few, we choose only the ones who never externalise their frustration; never the ones who torture others — the weaker, the smaller, or animals in their care. We almost always choose the ones who take it out on themselves.’

  He bends over the table and tips his fingers to my chest. My scars begin to hum.

  ‘I want to see yours,’ I whisper.

  ‘I didn’t cut myself, I tried to drown myself, three and a half times, without success. I was a coward, I guess.’ He offers a tilted smile.

  ‘I’m glad you were.’

  ‘May I see yours?’ he asks and I begin to tremble. My gaze flicks here and there. ‘Micka, all I said is I wish I could see them, not that you have to show me.’

  I pull up my sleeve. Of the ones I inflicted, this is the scar that counts the most. He looks at the small 1/2986, puts a fingertip there, and asks, ‘What happened?’

  ‘I…’ My throat shuts down. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to show it to him. I cough to get my words out. ‘One day, Father whipped my brother so hard he soiled himself. For years afterwards, I dreamed of it every night. When I learned about the Great Pandemic in school, I cut the 1/2986 into my arm, because I found it unfair that ten billion people had to die, but my father was alive to terrorise us. I was little. I didn’t understand a thing.’

  ‘Your brother?’ he asks and I shake my head. I’m not ready to talk about him.

  ‘Did the dreams stop?’

  I nod, thinking of Father and his idiotic passion for the military. He loved great-grandfather’s antique army belt. He loved talking about a soldier’s discipline, although there have been neither armies nor soldiers since the day he stopped pooping his diapers. I can’t remember what my brother had done or how often the leather hit his bare behind. But I clearly remember the yellow diarrhoea that leaked from there. I remember that clearer than the screaming and the slap of leather on skin.

  Runner withdraws his hand. ‘Think about this apprenticeship, Micka. Think hard. Think of the day you cut this into your skin. Much harder days will be coming, should you choose to be my apprentice. Think of the day you dragged me across the snow and you wished I was dead and you could go on.’

  How can he know I thought that?

  ‘Think of your darkest memory,’ he continues. ‘And then imagine it to be much worse. This is what some of your days will be like, and — if we are unlucky — most of our days might be like. At some point, you’ll hate me for it. You’ll hate me as much as you can hate. I promise you that.’

  He doesn’t know my darkest memory. It can’t get any darker than that.

  I find Katvar outside, playing with the dogs. When he sees me, he jumps to a chopping block, fetches a knife and something else — a thing so small I can’t see what it is.

  ‘What is it with you and weapons? First you hit me on the head and now you want to stab me?’

  He shakes his head. His face reddens.

  ‘Don’t you have a voice?’

  His jaw sets. Both feet firmly planted in the snow, he mouths the word no.

  ‘Oh,’ is all I can say, freezing in shock and embarrassment. He rolls his eyes, whistles, and all dogs swarm around him, yapping and lolling their tongues, spittle rolling off their incisors. I see the white one that was rolled up against me when I woke up. It’s focussed on Katvar. They all are, as if he’s the most delicious food the beasts have ever tasted. He directs the dogs with his whistling and body language, and they totally adore him. He is all smiles. Maybe he loves dogs because they don’t care whether he can speak human-tongue or not.

  He sees me smiling at the jumble of furry bodies and waves at me invitingly. Hoping the dogs won’t tip me over, I approach. My crutch moves dog butts and curious noses out of the way, but the animals are pushing too much. I’m about to drop face-first into the snow. Katvar makes an ooof-ing sound and they all plop down. I’m amazed.

  Their scent is a mix of tart rhubarb, mushy and brown apple about to ferment, and fallen leaves. Wondering how their fur or their noses would taste, I bend down and tip my finger at the white dog’s neck. Its head whips around and I stumble back. Katvar steps forward, sits down next to the dog, and beckons me closer.

  I kneel, ready to bolt should the dog try to bite me. Then, I tentatively put my hand on its neck. No, gestures Katvar, takes my hand and places it on the animal’s side. Together we stroke the thick fur. I nod at the dog’s face and Katvar signals, yes. I touch the animal’s cheek and soft lips. It closes its eyes and pants. I think I like dogs. My fingers comb through its fur until it turns its head and flicks his tongue over my hand. Immediately, I stick my finger into my mouth. The flavour is different than expected. Fresher. I lean close, watching the dog for any signs of disapproval, and then I lick its ear. Hairy and quite undelicious.

  Katvar cackles and I sit up. He places two fingertips against my forehead, and frowns.

  ‘What’s there?’ I ask. ‘Oh…that.’

  He draws a circle around my one eye.

  ‘Is it black?’ I haven’t looked in a mirror since… I can’t even remember.

  He nods, the corners of his mouth pull down.

  ‘Don’t worry. It’s not my first black eye.’ The bruise from the head injury must have sagged down to my eye, because the eye itself doesn’t hurt. It’s the bone and skin above it that are tender.

  Katvar stands, points to his chest, then to a shed a couple of hundred metres away. He makes a swinging gesture with his hand, palm flat against the snow. Sled. Then he slaps his thigh and all dogs jump up and follow him.

  I rise and walk a few steps to a clean patch of snow, sit down, pull off my left boot and sock, unwrap the bandage, and stick my foot in the snow. The cold bites, but slowly, the throbbing dulls. When the wound feels numb enough, I begin rubbing snow around the sutures, carefully cleaning my foot. What I see is absurd and disgusting. Swollen and reddened scars and empty air where two toes should be. Impossible to blink away.

  When I look up, Katvar and his dogs are taking off with a sled. The tinkling of the sled bell and the yapping of exited animals spread flavours of fresh snow and cranberry jam on my tongue. I’m left to wonder how he managed to tame these fierce predators.

  The image of Katvar with his rifle and his fierce expression flickers past my vision and I burst out laughing. Maybe the dogs have tamed him.

  ———

  Runner appears rested today. There’s even a little colour in his face when he kicks the slush off his boots and enters the house.

  ‘I have another question,’ I say as he takes his sweater off.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Why did we come here?’

  He stops, puts his sweater back on, and tells me to follow him outside. We walk a semicircle around the village until he finds a tree stump to sit on. He brushes the snow off and sits down. His breath comes hard; he’s in no shape to go on extended hikes. ‘You know that tuberculosis and cholera killed a lot of people.’

  I nod.

  ‘The problem with tuberculosis was, and still is, that the disease spreads silently. Most people didn’t know they were infected until another serious disease hit.’

  ‘Cholera.’

  ‘Not in every single case, but in principle, correct. Tuberculosis weakens the immune defence and any other infection comes quicker, more severe, deadly, even.’ He looks at me. ‘We are still in the middle of the tuberculosis pandemic.’

  I feel like he’s just poured a bucket of boiling hot water down my neck. ‘What?’

  ‘About eighty percent of humanity is infec
ted. The majority has latent TB and will never notice it, nor die of it. But all have a risk to develop active TB, and about twenty percent does. Many of those who do are people with a compromised immune system, for example, from malnutrition. Some are too old or too young to fight off TB bacteria. Most of those who develop active TB, die.’

  I remember the long and hard winters. The coughing that never stopped. The bloody mucous that told of death if you were too young or too old. I nod at my boots. ‘Are you infected? Am I?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you not afraid to get the disease?’

  ‘I take precautions. We all do. Cacho tested you before suggesting you for an apprenticeship, and I tested you again in the woods.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I took a saliva sample when you slept.’

  ‘That’s pretty—’ I start to protest.

  ‘Reasonable,’ he cuts across. ‘You let an infected man kiss you.’

  I raise my eyebrows.

  ‘Ralph,’ he explains. ‘Do you believe I’d risk infection? The constant exchange of saliva with someone who has tuberculosis is too high a risk.’

  ‘I’m not planning to exchange saliva with you! Especially not on a constant basis!’ I protest and get a nonplussed stare in return.

  ‘You did already,’ he says with a shrug. ‘You drank from the cup I drank from, you drank from a canteen I drank from, you were breathing close to my face when I was injured, you used my fork and spoon several times. And vice versa. I’m asking you to not get too close to anyone you haven’t tested with a FireScope. Specifically, don’t let anyone cough in your face or kiss you, and don’t eat from a dirty spoon or similar. All Sequencers get tested at regular intervals. Everyone else doesn’t.’

  Ralph. The thought of his stinky tongue makes me shudder. ‘You should have warned me earlier.’

  ‘The village we’ve been to is tuberculosis-free, as is Kaissa and her family. They know how to protect themselves from infection. I wanted to warn you before we reached this settlement here, but that didn’t work out as planned.’