by Amos Talshir
Veronica tucked herself under Charlie’s arm. Frightened, she sought consolation, clinging to his chest. Charlie took his eyes away from Simon’s telephoto camera and focused upon his ongoing task, soothing Veronica’s spirits. For months now, Veronica was his main and only occupation. At night in the seat before going to sleep, and during the exercise runs on which Veronica forced him to go along with her three times a day, Charlie lectured her that everything would be fine. There was something in Veronica that was threatening to fall apart. Her jolly mood could transform into an anxiety attack in a heartbeat. She was pleased with her lot and stayed fit with an exercise routine that aroused the curiosity of all who were watching her, enjoying the sight of her flexible body stretching in her tight outfits. The small group of women sitting in the stadium joined her fitness routine, which ended with hugs and kisses until the next time. Veronica was addicted to bathing at the sink and freshened up there three times a day, accompanied by the group of women that had formed around her. Most of the time, she looked happy, even serving as an optimistic source of inspiration to the women who exercised with her. It seemed as if the necessity and possibility of exercising three times a day was a dream come true for the women who had gathered around her.
However, sometimes, she would be seized by anxiety in regard to her future, and Charlie was the one who had to calm her down. Now she was appalled because of the murder, demanding explanations from Charlie. He gathered up gossip, which accused the victim of harassing another man in the restroom, forcing the latter to attack him in self-defense. Veronica accepted the explanation and asked whether from now on, it would be dangerous for her to bathe on her own in the restroom. Charlie flooded her with reasoning claiming it was much safer here in the stadium than in the outside world. In order to get her to quiet down a bit, Charlie had to make up horror stories about what was going on outside and, in contrast, describe how clean and safe it was in the stadium. Veronica needed Charlie and his explanations, each of which ultimately evoked a smile from her as she fell asleep on his shoulder, murmuring that she couldn’t have kept on living without him. Charlie couldn’t figure out whether she believed him or was playing the game she expected him to play for her. He would describe the horrors of filth taking over the remains of the population that had been left outside the stadiums. Public disorder and violence. Raging hunger, a lack of clean drinking water, and human corpses with no one to collect them, causing disease and plagues and already threatening the very possibility of human existence outside. As expected, all of these descriptions soothed Veronica, and she began to believe that the stadium was indeed the safest place for her. Especially since she found all her happiness in exercise classes and fitness runs and could not have dreamt up a better place than the stadium for these to take place.
Veronica could have been happy if she could realize the one dream that had been recurring ever since she had so much time to think about the meaning of her life: the only thing that could bring her true satisfaction was to join up with someone who was truly close to her. Veronica wanted to love someone.
She wasn’t thinking of sex. In any case, she had not liked the sex that took place when she went on trips with the generous men. It really wasn’t the thing she had dreamed about when she was young. Once, she had been certain that sex should be an act of love. But that didn’t happen to her. Her men were always the kind who were in a hurry to get back home, or were just quick. They would jump all over her in random hotel rooms and did not even try to open up her heart, or their own. Even the little bit of warmth and sweetness she managed to feel in embraces and kisses in stairwells did not happen again. Even the boys in high school had been more sensitive and had managed to make her think she was the only one in their lives when they left hickeys on her neck and stared at her, moon-eyed, when she allowed them to touch her chest.
Veronica wanted to love but could only imagine the feeling. In her despair, she tried to tell herself that the expectation of Nicola touching her breasts—that expectation had been love. The moments of rapid breathing from the boys as she allowed them to rub themselves between her legs and kiss her passionately in the gym after school—was that love? Perhaps more so than with the men she had met in dance class, but she hadn’t had true love with them, either. Veronica wanted to love breathlessly. She wanted to write poems to the man she would love. She didn’t care if he didn’t love her back. She wanted to love. The years went by, and she did not give up on her quest for love, even the kind that Martine felt for her. Oh, pretty Martine, who had discovered she loved women and given birth to the son of Nicola the basketball player. Martine had truly loved her; Veronica sensed it, and wanted to love a man that way, with adoring eyes, with patience and with laughter. The way Martine loved her. She was willing to love him even if he did not love her.
It had been quite a while since she had bathed by the sink for the first time. There, she had felt that same sweet sensation of expectation, for the first time in a long while, when Charlie had stood next to her and helped her conceal her nudity. It had seemed like he truly cared for her, but it was unclear to her whether he felt the way she did. His mind seemed to be elsewhere, and she wanted his mind and his thoughts. She wanted him to talk to her and perhaps even touch her. But he was patient or shy, awakening the yearning for the love she had never experienced within her. She had given up on sex in the stadium, although the possibility of something like that happening had occurred to her. But she had managed to tell herself that maybe with him, with Charlie, it would be different. He might be interested in her poems, and she would be interested in his thoughts, and he would tell her he liked her mind, and then the thing she desired so much would take place: sleeping with someone she loved. It would be different than everything she had experienced thus far.
She fell asleep every night under Charlie’s arm, with a tiny hope that one of those nights, he would touch her, but that hadn’t happened. She talked to him about his son, Simon, and hoped this would enhance the bond between them. But his thoughts were focused on something distant, and she found that thinking about Simon and the attempts to arouse Charlie had awakened a fierce desire within her that she’d never known before—the desire to bring a child of her own into the world. She was afraid that she was about to break down, that she was about to skip over love and give Charlie her body, so that he would have a child with her who would be hers alone. Like with Martine, whose son was only hers, and Nicola the basketball player was not around to demand to be loved as well. Now she wanted only to love a child of her own. It was what she dreamed of when she fell asleep under Charlie’s arm.
Veronica loved to dance. On her own, with other people, with a partner or with the crowd. To dance and dance, to sweat and bathe by the sink. She was happy in the stadium; she danced around its outer circumference, and all the other residents of the stadium danced joyfully in her wake, trying to keep up with her floaty dance steps over the jogging tracks. Everyone liked her, was happy to have her with them, and hoped she would come back to them. She had never had it so good. But even the dancing that had filled her life in the previous world now left an empty pit in her body, which she managed to fill with dreams of a child of her own.
“Dad, you don’t really believe everything you’re telling her, right?” Simon whispered to his father.
“Ssshhh… don’t wake her up,” Charlie told Simon. “I’m just trying to calm her down.”
“You sound so convincing that it’s starting to scare me.”
“What’s scaring you?”
“What you’re saying about the people left outside. I think about Mom and Emily, and I’m scared that you’re getting used to this life, too.”
“Are you crazy?”
“Dad, we’re getting out of here, right?”
“As soon as we find a way.”
“Dad, are we getting out of here?”
“Why are you talking to me like that?” Charlie asked angrily.
<
br /> “Because I’m not sure you want to escape.”
“How can you talk like that?”
“Because I’m not sure you miss Emily and Mom.”
“We’re not staying here,” Charlie declared.
“Dad, I want to tell you why you should escape even if you don’t miss Mom.”
“Don’t say things like that. I’ve got Emily out there.”
“Okay, but, Dad, I want to tell you something completely different. I didn’t mean to hurt you. We have to escape because they’re going to kill us here. It’ll take time, but it’ll come. That man they killed in the restroom wasn’t harassing anyone.”
“Simon, why was he murdered?”
“Dad, look at the stand over there, where the moon is shining. You see an empty seat? That’s the seat that emptied out tonight. I’m marking all the seats that are being emptied.”
“That’s the murder victim’s seat?”
“Obviously. That’s the new empty seat, and it’s a visitor’s seat. The seats that are being emptied in the last few months all belong to visitors. Do you understand, Dad? The locals are starting to eliminate the visitors. The locals have already realized that the lockdown’s going to last forever and they’re starting to worry about the future and to kill off the visitors to make room for themselves.”
“Simon, I’m having a hard time believing what you’re saying, even though I’ve already learned that you always know what you’re talking about.”
“Dad, do you remember saying that ever since 9/11, you believe in anything that can’t happen?”
“I remember, Simon.”
“Well, believe it. It’s going to get a lot more surprising.”
Charlie and Simon continued talking in whispers into the night. Simon told Charlie everything he had learned from the president about what was going on outside, about all the rebels in the continent coordinating their takeover of the regime, about fuel running out, about ground and air transportation ceasing to operate and about the sea, left outside the revolutionaries’ control. Simon said he was very close to completing his escape plan and reminded his father they had to plug into the stadium’s PA system through the electrical system powering the floodlights. Charlie pretended to be asleep, not answering Simon, mostly because he felt he was letting his son down, but also because they now had to take care to be quiet and not provide the snipers with a reason to shoot them for violating the sleep regulations. He felt the heat of Veronica’s neck under his arm and hoped that Simon, adjacent to him on his other side, would also fall asleep tonight immersed in hope for a new, different morning.
Then Charlie noticed the vibration in Simon’s pocket. No phone calls had been received since the lockdown had begun. He himself had long given up on charging his cell phone, but Simon repeatedly claimed that the line was active, even if he could not manage to make or receive calls. Now, after lights-out and the enforced quiet, a call was coming in on Simon’s phone. Charlie hoped his son wouldn’t dare answer, which would put him at risk of being shot by a sniper. But Simon thought differently. He knew there was only one person who would insist on getting in touch with him after so much time. He hid his head under the wing of Charlie’s coat, extracted the illuminated phone from his pocket and brought it to his ear.
“Smiley, Smiley, can you hear me?” Simon heard Emily’s voice coming from a distance.
“Emily, I hear you. Don’t stop talking. I’m not going to talk because it’s dangerous, but you talk until you can’t anymore. Like those diving competitions we’d have, until we couldn’t take it anymore. Don’t stop talking until you can’t anymore.”
He stopped talking and listened to Emily’s voice, as she indeed talked for as long as she could. Little Emily was two years older but still maintained her doll-like voice, reflecting her admiration for her big brother.
“Smiley, where are you guys? Don’t worry, I understand everything you’re saying. You can’t talk since you’re not allowed to talk. I know. We’re also not allowed to do a lot of things that we used to do all the time. So you can hear me, right, Smiley? Just like you taught me, I’m imagining what I want to happen. I’ve already talked to you lots of times in my imagination, and I’ve heard you listening to me. Now I’m sure that you’re listening to me. I’m talking to you on Annette’s good phone. Do you remember Annette, who used to be in your class? You once told me you dove under her and you saw how pretty she was. I asked you how you could see she was pretty underwater, and you said I was little and you couldn’t explain it to me. You can hear me, right, Smiley? I’ll do exactly what you told me to. I’ll keep talking until I can’t anymore, just like diving. So Annette suddenly showed up with her parents, since all the people from the mountain estates escaped to the sea. They’re like us, they stayed home after the revolution, and there’s no one to take care of them on the mountains. Annette and her parents came because pretty soon the second winter will arrive, and they don’t have any more fuel to heat the houses, so they asked to be with us, by the sea. Annette told Mom she was your girlfriend at school. Is that true, Smiley? I told Mom it wasn’t true because if she had been your girlfriend you would have told me for sure, right, Smiley? But Mom told me that it didn’t matter and if we can help them, then it’s okay even if she wasn’t your girlfriend. Smiley, you can hear me, right?”
Simon prayed that their seatmates would not hear Emily’s voice and demand that he try to contact their families overseas as well and talk to them. Such a commotion would obviously attract the sharpshooters’ attention. He choked down his longing for Emily in his throat and did not say a word. Only the sound of his heavy breathing was heard on the cell phone.
“Annette gave me her new phone because mine broke down a long time ago and you’re not here to fix it for me and there are no more stores and no people who can fix anything. She said I should call you and she knew you and Dad were in the revolution stadium. Annette knows a lot about you. She knows you went to the Continent Cup game and she knows you’re an excellent swimmer and she asked me if I was a swimmer like you. Smiley, I lied and told her I was a better swimmer than you. You don’t mind, right? She really looks up to you, so I wanted her to think good things about me, too. Say, did you know that Annette loved you that much? She and her parents are living with us now and Mom goes fishing every day so that they’ll have food, too. Mom told them that Dad taught her how to fish and thanks to him, we have fish. I’m already sick of eating fish. We eat fish all the time. Annette likes fish. She says her dad couldn’t fish in a million years, and he doesn’t even know how to swim, and she’s jealous of me ’cause my dad taught us how to swim and fish. Smiley, do you swim there? When are you and Dad coming back? You’ll come back, right? I know you’re there. I can feel your breathing, Smiley.”
Emily continued talking until her small voice grew hoarse and her throat grew parched. Simon listened and did not say a word until he heard signals from his old battery begin to weaken Emily’s voice. Her voice gradually faded away, and she continued talking until that voice was merely an exhausted murmur, and then Simon only said, “I promise we’ll escape,” and said no more. The phone died off.
Charlie heard Emily’s tiny voice fading away inside Simon’s device and was struck by anxiety. Suddenly, he realized he had never truly believed they needed to escape. He still treated Simon’s plans with an indulgence meant to soothe a child possessing unusual ideas. He understood that he had not researched plugging into the PA system since he had not believed the circumstances would truly require them to escape. He continued to hope that something would happen and the entire nightmare would come to an end, revealed to be some kind of stunt by terrorist cells. They had hijacked planes, and now they were hijacking a stadium. It was supposed to end, like all trouble came to an end, one way or another. For the first time, he truly perceived that this time it was different. This was going to be their life. He was mad at himself for getting used to s
leeping in a seated position. He had started to like Veronica after about a year of sleeping side by side with her. Recently, since he had stopped being so tense, he had even felt a kind of attraction to her.
Charlie asked Simon in a whisper why he needed the PA system, and Simon said he was planning a diversionary tactic for their escape operation. He had plenty more questions to ask Simon, but the people sleeping around him demanded firmly that they stop talking. On that night, Charlie found out that if he did not want to lose his son, he better believe that the moment of escape was approaching. He decided to treat his son seriously for two reasons. The first—that everywhere in the world, throughout the course of time, and in various circumstances, there came a moment when the majority began to kill off the minority. The second reason was that he was convinced, more than anything in the world, that his son was hell-bent on escaping, and that nothing would stop him.
31.
A woman was giving birth in the stadium. This was not the first time; women who had been pregnant when they arrived in the stadium had given birth before. But this time there was no doubt that the woman had conceived during the lockdown period. She was carried on the arms of the local fans, who ran across the pitch, but before they could reach the restroom facilities, they had to stop at the foot of the visitors’ stand. The pregnant woman’s water had broken. They laid her down on the turf and formed a protective circle around her. This was unnecessary, although the crisis between the local majority and the visitor minority had already produced moments of violence, brawls and even a murder in the restrooms, far from the sharpshooters’ eyes. But this tension had yet to inflict any harm on a newborn baby. Especially since every fan knew his head would be blown apart by a sniper’s bullet the moment he threatened to disrupt the peace.
