by Bina Shah
Here and there it looks as if a rooftop is melting, then falling. The lights are turning into stars, erasing the barriers between construction and creation. I have to blink hard to keep it all straight, and I’m annoyed at myself for getting tipsy so quickly. I’m such a naïf, in more ways than one.
I glance down at my hands; they’ve grown so pale from lack of sunlight. My fingers look lonely; they long for companionship. Once I traveled everywhere with my parents, holding their hands as they guided me in and out of buildings whose names I hadn’t needed to know. Now I spend my life in this indoor existence, going from the Panah to one rich man’s bed after another.
My head has too much noise in it, I buzz like high-tension wires with all the words and sentences that built up during the day. In the Panah, we pass the days by talking; at night, my Clients talk to me. So many words, words, words. I want to run out screaming with my hands pressed to my ears with the strain of never-ending chatter. Utter silence, just for one hour—I want that more than currency or clothes or carats.
Joseph is making impatient sounds now, somewhere halfway between a groan and a growl. I turn around again to see him opening the door to his bedroom. He turns down the covers to the bed, a new, sleek, chrome and platinum offering. It glints under the low lights of the bedroom.
He works methodically to make the bed comfortable, to his liking, and then he arranges himself on it and pats the space next to him, a wolf inviting me to lie down beside him. I pad across the heated floor, my nose filled with the scent of cologne and leather and brandy. Dizzy, I’m glad to be able to lie down. The whole world is slowly wheeling around me.
I look up at Joseph, who’s gazing down caringly at me. I begin to panic. There’s a thickening in my chest and throat. I need to stand up. I need to …
“Sabine? Sabine?”
I blink. Joseph is staring at me from the bed. “Why are you just standing there like that? Come here. Are you all right?”
Who is this man with his arms stretched out toward me? Why am I standing in a room with chilled air and a heated floor? And why am I shaking?
“Lie down,” says Joseph. “It’s all right.” He wraps his arms around me but his embrace is gentle, the way a father would cradle a daughter, protective and warm. My heart is still galloping. I close my eyes and breathe out slowly.
“There, there,” he whispers. “You’re all right. You’re safe with me.”
“I’m fine, Joseph,” I say, making my voice bright.
“Ssshh, ssshh.” Joseph enjoys playing the role of my protector.
I give up the struggle. Joseph feels my limbs unlock, and he grows even more tender towards me. His kisses on my forehead are gentle, the timbre of his voice deepens. There is a courtliness to his embrace, as if he’s rediscovered his own nobility in my weakness.
I wonder if Joseph ever wants to know what goes on in my mind, or if he is only concerned with how I make him feel.
I rest my head on Joseph’s shoulder. I’ve always fantasized about being able to sleep easily, a butterfly floating into the air, wings fluttering in gentle currents. Instead, I’m taking a run to the edge of a canyon and leaping high into the air, to hurtle down towards a great blackness where nothing exists, and nothing can ever grow.
From the Voice Notes of Ilona Sarfati
The Charbagh is my favorite part of the Panah. It’s best at night, when the others are out with their Clients, and the garden goes into nighttime illumination mode. I like to sit on a bench at the far side of the garden with a cup of tea warming my hands.
Fairuza’s a brilliant biochemist. She’s used all her skills to nurture this garden, divided into four quarters, lined by waterways, a small fountain bubbling in its center. Its murmurations delight us, the quiet whispering of the grasses and plants, the bushes and pygmy trees releasing natural, not synthesized, oxygen. Panels on the ceilings absorb and process it into soft artificial sunlight that lights up the garden year-round. If there’s a god, may he bless Fairuza’s Persian ancestors for coming up with the idea of a garden meant to re-create paradise on earth. It gives us some measure of beauty in our underground colony. When I was in school, I learned about ants, the workers, sexless drones marching in and out serving a glossy and beautiful queen. Here, Fairuza and I are the queens but we toil for a purpose totally at odds with the way nature works.
Fairuza found the old map in the Geoscience archives and together we discovered this bunker. We had a small window of opportunity to come here, before they widened the restrictions on international movement to include domestic territories as well. We both chose the name Panah, a Persian word that means “sanctuary.” Our refuge is made of reinforced concrete and radioactive-proof metals. It keeps us hidden from the men and their scanners above ground. And with luck we’ll be able to go on living here for generations to come.
Gifted as she was, Fairuza could do nothing about the Virus, which morphed from a rare strain of HPV into a fast-spreading cervical cancer epidemic. Men could be carriers, but it was women who were felled, quickly and inclusively. Most died within four to six months of catching it. This is the reason the Perpetuation Bureau stresses fidelity within marriage; a woman’s protected from the Virus when sexually restricted to her legal spouses, who are always tested before a marriage is allowed to take place in Green City.
While the Officials tried to put a stop to the men roaming the city in packs, assaulting and gang-raping any woman they could find, in those chaotic days of Restoration and the new rule, we worked day and night to refurbish our rooms here. We faked our own deaths, gave up all our belongings, cut off ties with our families. We even burned our clothes to destroy any remnants of our DNA that could be used against us. A hard thing to do in your mid-twenties, but we had to.
I was a communication specialist for the government of Green City; I was good with words. So naturally I wrote the first message to the handpicked Officials we invited to be our first Clients:
“We represent a commodity no longer available in Green City. It’s not just economics; it’s also science, of a sort: the alchemy that takes place between a man and woman, far more compelling than any drug for its powers to soothe, heal, rejuvenate a spirit broken by the stresses and strains of the day.”
At first we went out on assignations ourselves only with most high-powered Officials: Agency high-ups, Perpetuation Bureau managers, generals in the army. We chose our Clients carefully: men placed highly enough to protect us and keep our activities hidden from the Agency or the Bureau.
In the early days, we looked for how outwardly loyal the would-be Client was to Green City. If a man ranked high enough in the hierarchy of Agents, Officials, and Leaders, yet engaged in behavior that contravened Green City’s strict codes—keeping a woman all to himself, for his own pleasure, instead of sacrificing his desires for the greater good of the society and its reconstruction—his involvement with the Panah would be classed as rebellion. Only the ones who expressed doubts in the new order, who wrote of missing the old days, suited our needs and passed our test.
Soon we had enough business to consider expanding the Panah, with caution. We couldn’t take just any woman to join us. She had to be double- and triple-recommended by our own contacts. Any assets she could bring to the Panah were a bonus—liquefied property, good contacts, and, above all, an unswerving commitment to our secrecy. The vetting methods were rigid because one weak link would bring us all down. The Perpetuation Bureau would easily sacrifice a few errant women to teach the rest a lesson. Green City would use our deaths to illustrate the futility of revolt.
Fairuza died of the Virus five years after we came to the Panah, leaving me alone to run it. The Virus lay dormant in her system, choosing to emerge when there was no way we could get help, even to soothe the pain at the end of her days. It was a terrible death she suffered, and it left me reeling. That’s why I went looking for Lin. Any girl could have carried on here
, but I want someone of my own blood to close my eyes after I’m gone.
Sometimes I wonder if the Perpetuation Bureau actually knows of our existence and allows us to continue. What if they’re keeping us tight in a web that they can destroy at any time? I like to torture myself with the idea when I’m in a dark mood. They come often these days. Lin does her best to snap me out of them, but she’s still a child. Sometimes it’s more comforting to think of destruction than survival. I don’t know why.
But the Panah has been in existence for the last thirty years, so perhaps our allies have never betrayed us and maybe they never will. The Panah will exist as long as there’s a need for it, as long as men need woman—which means forever. It may be a life in the shadows, but at least no Bureau tells us whom to marry, whom to open our legs for. Nobody can experiment on our ovaries and wombs, pump us full of fertility drugs, monitor our menstrual cycles and ovulation patterns. Our bodies are not incubators that will “boost the numbers of women up to appropriate levels.” Above ground, we are only women, but here in the Panah, we are humans again.
Rupa
Every day my mind kept turning to the problem of making Joseph want me more than he wanted Sabine. At first it was a game, but something changed between us once I realized I was genuinely attracted to him. Then I became frustrated with his lack of interest in me, knowing that he desired only Sabine. I pressed myself to him in bed, I wound my arms around him and let my fingers stray. But he kept our embraces chaste, our nights clean. Once or twice he turned away from me, and I had to laugh to hide how much it hurt me.
One night we were sitting in his spacious living room, looking out at the city lights blinking on and off. Faint music played somewhere in the city square, designed to calm the residents down and prepare them for a peaceful night’s sleep. The fountains combined colors with rhythms to soothe us into somnolence. Joseph watched me as I sang along to the familiar song, one taught to every schoolchild in Green City, boy or girl. “Don’t you know the words?” I asked Joseph.
“The only song I know is the Green City anthem, and that’s only because I supposedly wrote it.”
Then I tried to kiss him. I leaned close, my lips were only inches away from his mouth, and my breath was sweet with mint, which I’d chewed just after dinner.
He stayed completely still, neither coming towards me nor backing away, and raised an eyebrow.
“You don’t like me.” I wasn’t entirely heartbroken that he didn’t want to kiss me, but I wanted to see how close I could get him to disobey the Panah rules. Now the game had expanded, beyond Sabine, to see if my power was greater than even Lin’s. And to see if I could get someone as powerful as Joseph to break his own internal rules, endanger his job for my sake.
“I like you. But rules are rules.”
I turned away from Joseph. “Don’t you get sick of the rules sometimes?”
Joseph grasped my upper arm tightly and pulled me back towards him. “There’s nothing less honorable than a man who doesn’t honor his contracts, Rupa.” He seemed almost angry now. And yet I felt—I knew—that he was being less than honest. He would make love to Sabine if only she’d let him.
“Ow … You’re hurting me.” In truth, I liked his touch: hard and firm, steady and sure, the way a man’s should be. The pain reassured me that I did mean something to him.
His fingers immediately eased their grip on my flesh. “I’m sorry.”
“I’ll have a bruise tomorrow.”
Joseph leaned over and, to my surprise, kissed my arm where his fingers had been just a moment ago. His lips on my skin were warm, tender, and I shivered. “There. That will make it feel better.” He straightened up and gazed at me. He had bags under his eyes, deep-set and hooded: the eyes of an old man. But I didn’t mind. They contained real wisdom; they were shrewd, and they’d seen more than I had in my short lifetime.
“Do you want more coffee?”
“Yes, please.”
He got up and went to the kitchen, talking to me as he prepared the coffee. “So how is everyone at the Panah?” I laughed at his offhand manner, as if he were talking about my colleagues in an office, as if I were a man and knew what that was like.
“They’re well. As they always are.”
“Does anyone ever talk about me?”
“We never talk about Clients.”
He brought me a medium-sized blue china cup and sat down opposite me. “Drink up. Before it gets cold. Now tell me what they say about me.”
“I just told you, nothing!”
As I sipped the coffee, admiring its strength, I pretended not to notice Joseph watching me intently. I was annoyed for a moment: a man’s never happier than when you’re talking about him. I knew that Joseph was dying to know what Sabine said about him, what she thought of him. The way he kept giving me little meaningful glances, raising his eyebrows, urging me to say more about her. He could buy her time, her attentions, the superficial signs of affection, but he couldn’t buy her love. He needed me because he knew only I could tell him what he wanted to hear. My words had power. I decided right then to barter them for something I’d never asked for before.
“I’ll tell you—if you do one thing for me.”
“What’s that?”
My heart was pounding. “Take me out somewhere—for a meal, for a drink, I don’t care. But outside. And then I’ll tell you everything Sabine says about you.”
Joseph let out a yelp of astonishment. “Have you gone out of your mind? Take you out?”
“Please, Joseph. I haven’t seen proper life in two years. It’s killing me. I’m suffocating there. Please, please, Joseph. I promise just this once, and I’ll never ask anything of you again.”
“You know what happens if you’re caught. I’m sorry, but I can’t do it. I can’t take that risk.” He set his coffee cup and empty whiskey glass down on the tray with an angry crack.
“You’d do it for Sabine,” I said, unleashing the taunt like a stone at his back as he shifted towards the kitchen. As soon as I said it, I knew I’d made a mistake.
He threw down the tray with a clatter, whirled around, and came up to me in two short strides. “Stop trying to provoke me, Rupa!” Then he dropped his head, breathing heavily to bring himself back under control. When he looked at me again, the rage had gone out of his eyes. He sank down opposite me on the sofa, his face still tight and tense and guarded. “So now do you want to know why I want you? Why I ask for you?”
I nodded. I had never quite understood this agreement that was made on our behalf, where we were sent to these men to help them pass the night, without the physical act of lovemaking. I had grown up thinking that was all men wanted from women. Why else did my mother have two Husbands, if not to provide her body to both of them?
“It’s very simple.” Joseph lit an e-spliff and blew the smoke out in little pauses between the short sentences that he spoke. “I spend my entire day with men. Men serve me. Men work for me. I work for other men. I socialize with them in the evenings. I dine with them at night. And for most of the hours of the day, I like it that way.
“But when it’s late, like this, and I’m tired, I want a woman’s arms around me. You women don’t know—or maybe you do know—what magic there is in your arms. Well, on second thought, of course you know. Otherwise why else would there even be a place like the Panah?”
I glanced down at my arms, surprised. This wasn’t the part of my body I’d expected Joseph to be most interested in.
“Oh, there’s magic between a woman’s legs, of course!” Joseph opened his mouth wide and blew out a smoke ring, a perfect O, just in case I needed more explanation. “But when I lie down next to you at night, and put my head on the pillow next to you, hearing you breathe next to me, hearing your heartbeat when I wake up at night and I know I’m not entirely alone—I can face the next day again without feeling like I want to murder some
one.”
He pulled me close to him, until we were touching all the way down the length of our bodies. “So you see, my dear. It’s you who keeps me human—and alive.”
Suddenly frightened, I buried my head in his shoulder. I knew his words, the lies woven in with the truths, were not meant for me. He was talking about Sabine. Then I realized I could still make this go my way, if I was clever. I took a deep breath and spoke my next words with exquisite gentleness. I straightened up and looked at him.
“Sabine really likes you, Joseph. A great deal. She just doesn’t know it. You have to help her realize it.”
Joseph rubbed his face, massaging the skin around his eyes with his fingertips. “How?” he muttered into his hands.
I glanced at the bottles of whiskey and wine and vodka on the shelf behind his head. More alcohol than anyone in Green City would ever see in their lifetime. Certainly more than Sabine had ever had in her life. He followed my glance with his eyes.
“Maybe you just need to show her what a real man is like.”
He scoffed, but from the way his shoulders slumped, I knew my words had found their mark. Weak men all have one thing in common: the slightest hint that you doubt their manhood, and they’ll do anything to prove it.
Sabine
Diyah is the only one who knows how lethargic and bad I feel after my sleepless nights. She always tries to distract me with jokes and stories. Today she asks me to join her for lunch in the Panah kitchen, a small space with green-painted walls, wood-framed mirrors, and low sofas that run all along the sides of the room, only a foot and a half off the floor. Our plates of food are balanced on small wooden octagonal tables, carved and inlaid with bronze flowers. A small wall fountain bubbles in a corner of the room, whispering unintelligible secrets.
