MaddAddam 03 - MaddAddam

by Margaret Atwood

  Amanda’s at the end of the table. She’s still pallid and listless; Lotis Blue and Ren are fussing over her, urging her to eat.

  Rebecca’s having a cup of what they’ve all agreed to call coffee. She turns as Toby sits down.

  “It’s ham again,” she says to Toby. “And kudzu pancakes. Oh, and if you want, there’s some Choco-Nutrino.”

  “Choco-Nutrino?” says Toby. “Where’d you get that?” Choco-Nutrino had been a desperate stab at a palatable breakfast cereal for children after the world chocolate crop had failed. It was said to contain burnt soy.

  “Zeb and Rhino and them gleaned it somewhere,” says Rebecca. “And Shackie. It’s not what you’d call fresh, don’t even ask about the sell-by date, so I figure we better eat it now.”

  “You think so?” says Toby. The Choco-Nutrinos are in a bowl. They’re like tiny pebbles, brown and alien-looking, granules from Mars. People used to eat this kind of stuff all the time, she thinks. They took it for granted.

  “Last-chance café,” says Rebecca. “Kind of a nostalgia trip. Yeah, I used to think it was disgusting too, but it’s not bad with Mo’Hair milk. Anyway it’s fortified with vitamins and minerals. Says so on the box. So we won’t have to eat mud for a while.”

  “Mud?” says Toby.

  “You know, for the trace elements,” says Rebecca. Sometimes Toby can’t tell if she’s joking.

  Toby sticks with the ham and the kudzu pancakes. “Where are the others?” she asks, keeping her voice neutral. Rebecca counts them off: Crozier has already eaten and is taking the Mo’Hairs out to pasture. Beluga and Shackleton are with him, one spraygun between them, covering his back. Black Rhino and Katuro did sentry last night, so they are sleeping in.

  “Swift Fox?” says Toby.

  “Taking her time,” says Rebecca. “Having a doze. I heard her thrashing around in the bushes last night. With a gentleman caller or two.” Her smile says, Like you.

  No Zeb yet. Toby tries not to peer around too obviously. Is he, too, having a doze?

  As she’s finishing her bitter coffee, Swift Fox joins them. Today she’s wearing a pale gauzy shift, shorts, and a floppy hat, pastel green and pink. She’s done her hair in pigtails, with plastic Hello Kitty clips. It’s the schoolgirl look, and if it were former times she’d never get away with it, thinks Toby. She’d been a highly qualified gene artist, so she’d have feared ridicule and loss of status, and dressed like a grown-up to advertise her rank. But that kind of rank and status have peeled away, so what exactly is she advertising now?

  Don’t be so hard on her, Toby tells herself. After all, she took a big risk: she was an undercover MaddAddamite informant before Crake hijacked her and made her a whitecoat brainiac serf inside the Paradice dome, along with the rest of the kidnapped MaddAddamites. He’d scooped most of them.

  But not Zeb: Crake never managed to corner him. He’d covered his tracks too well.

  “Hi, everyone,” Swift Fox says, stretching her arms up, lifting her breasts, aiming them at Ivory Bill. “Ooh, I could go right back to bed! Hope you slept well. I fucking didn’t! We need to do something about the bugs.”

  “There’s spray,” says Rebecca. “We’ve still got some of that citrus stuff.”

  “It wears off,” says Swift Fox. “Then they bite and you wake up, and then you can hear people talking and etcetera, like in one of those not-your-real-name motels with cardboard walls.” She smiles at Ivory Bill again, ignoring Manatee, who’s staring at her, his mouth tight. Is it disapproval or extreme lust? Toby wonders. With some men it’s hard to tell the difference.

  “I think we should have a curfew on vocal cords,” Swift Fox continues, with a sideways glance at Toby. I heard you, that look says. If you must indulge in dusty, ridiculous middle-aged sex, at least put a sock in it. Toby feels herself blushing.

  “Dear lady,” says Ivory Bill. “I trust our sometimes heated nocturnal discussions did not awaken you. Manatee and Tamaraw and I –”

  “Oh, it wasn’t you, and it wasn’t a discussion,” says Swift Fox. “Are those Choco-Nutrinos? I threw up a whole bowlful of those once, back when I still got hangovers.”

  Amanda stands up from the table, clamps her hand over her mouth, hurries away. Ren follows her.

  “There’s something wrong with that girl,” says Swift Fox. “It’s like she’s pithed or something. Was she always such a dimwit?”

  “You know what she went through,” says Rebecca, frowning a little.

  “Yeah, sure, but it’s time for her to snap out of it. Do some work like the rest of us.”

  Toby feels a rush of anger. Swift Fox is never the first to volunteer for chores, nor has she been within spitting distance of a Painballer: used like a prostibot, leashed like a dog, practically disembowelled. Amanda’s worth ten of her. But apart from that, Toby knows she’s resenting the snide innuendoes Swift Fox aimed at her earlier, not to mention the gauzy shift and the cute shorts. And the breast weaponry, and the girly-girl pigtails. They don’t go with your budding wrinkles, she feels like saying. Tanning takes a toll.

  Swift Fox smiles again, but not at Toby: right past Toby. It’s a full-disclosure teeth display and dimple trigger. “Hey,” she says in a softer voice. Toby swivels: it’s Rhino and Katuro.

  And Zeb. Of course, of course.

  “Morning, everyone,” Zeb says evenly: nothing special for Swift Fox. Nor for Toby either: the night is the night, the day is the day. “Anybody want anything?” he says. “We’re doing a quick scan around the area, couple of hours, just checking. We’ll pass a few stores.” He doesn’t spell out his real object because he doesn’t have to: they all know he’ll be looking for signs of the Painballers. It’s a patrol.

  “Baking soda,” says Rebecca. “Or baking powder, whichever. I don’t know what I’ll do when it runs out. If you’re going to a minisuper …”

  “Did you know that baking soda comes from the trona deposits in Wyoming?” says Ivory Bill. “Or it used to come from there.”

  “Oh, Ivory Bill,” says Swift Fox, favouring him with a smile. “With you around, who needs Wikipedia?” Ivory Bill gives a semi-grin: he thinks it’s a compliment.

  “Yeast,” says Zunzuncito. “Wild yeast, if you still have the flour. You can make sourdough that way.”

  “I guess,” says Rebecca.

  “I’ll come too,” says Swift Fox to Zeb. “I need a drugstore.” There’s a pause. Everyone looks at her.

  “Just tell us your list,” says Black Rhino. He’s scowling at her bare legs. “We’ll get it for you.”

  “Girl stuff,” she says. “You wouldn’t know where to look.” She glances in the direction of Ren and Lotis Blue, who are over by the pump, sponging off Amanda. “I’m gleaning for all of us.”

  Another pause. Menstrual wadding, thinks Toby. She has a point: the stash in the storeroom is dwindling. No one wants to fall back on torn-up bedsheets. Or moss. Though we’ll come to that sooner or later.

  “Bad plan,” says Zeb. “Those two guys are still out there. They’ve got a spraygun. They’re third-time Painballers, there’s nothing left of their empathy circuits. You wouldn’t want them to grab you, they won’t bother with the formalities. You saw what happened with Amanda. She was lucky to escape with her kidneys.”

  “I totally agree. It is in fact a very bad plan for you to leave the confines of our cozy little enclave here. I will go,” says Ivory Bill gallantly, “if you will trust me with your shopping list, and –”

  “But you’ll be there with me,” says Swift Fox to Zeb. “As protection.” She lowers her eyelashes. “I’ll be so safe!”

  Zeb says to Rebecca: “Got any coffee? Or whatever you call that crap?”

  “It’s okay, I’ll change my outfit,” Swift Fox says, switching her tone to brisk. “I can keep up, I won’t be a drag. I know how to handle, you know, a spraygun,” she adds with a little drawl, letting her eyes drift downward. Then she resumes pertness. “Hey, we can pack a lunch! Have a picnic somewhere!” />
  “Get it together then,” says Zeb, “because we’re leaving right after we eat.”

  Rhino starts to say something, stops. Katuro is gazing upwards. “I think it will not rain,” he says.

  Rebecca looks over at Toby, lifts her eyebrows. Toby keeps her own face as flat as possible. Swift Fox is eyeing her sideways.

  Fox by name, fox by nature, she thinks. Handle a spraygun, indeed.

  Snowman’s Progress

  “Oh Toby, come and see! Come now!” It’s little Blackbeard, tugging at her bedsheet.

  “What is it?” says Toby, trying not to sound irritated. She wants to stay here, say goodbye to Zeb, even though he’s not going very far, or for long. Just a few hours. She wants to put some sort of mark on him, is that it? In front of Swift Fox. A kiss, a squeeze. Mine. Stay away.

  Not that it would be any use. She would make a fool of herself.

  “Oh Toby, Snowman-the-Jimmy is waking up! He is waking up now,” says Blackbeard. He sounds both anxious and supercharged, the way kids used to sound if it was a parade or a fireworks display – something brief and miraculous. She doesn’t want to disappoint him, so she allows herself to be piloted. She looks behind once: Zeb and Rhino and Katuro are sitting at the table, forking up their breakfasts. Swift Fox is hurrying away, to shed that stupid hat and the lookit-my-legs shorts and don some bottom-hugging camouflage.

  Toby. Take charge of yourself. This is not high school, she tells herself. But in some ways, it more or less is.

  Over at Jimmy’s hammock there’s a crowd. Most of the Crakers are gathered around, adults and children both, looking happy and as excited as they ever look. Some of them are already beginning to sing.

  “He is with us! Snowman-the-Jimmy is with us once more!”

  “He has come back!”

  “He will bring the words of Crake!”

  Toby makes her way to the hammock. Two of the Craker women are propping Jimmy up. His eyes are open; he looks dazed.

  “Greet him, Oh Toby,” says the tall man called Abraham Lincoln. They’re all watching, they’re listening intently. “He has been with Crake. He will bring us words. He will bring a story.”

  “Jimmy,” she says. “Snowman.” She puts her hand on his arm. “It’s me. Toby. I was there at the campfire, down near the beach. Remember? With Amanda, and the two men.”

  Jimmy looks up at her. His eyes are surprisingly clear, the whites white, the pupils a little dilated. He blinks. There’s no recognition. “Crap,” he says.

  “What is this word, Oh Toby?” says Abraham Lincoln. “Is it a word of Crake?”

  “He’s tired,” says Toby. “No. Not this word.”

  “Shit,” says Jimmy. “Where’s Oryx? She was here. She was in the fire.”

  “You’ve been sick,” says Toby.

  “Did I kill anyone? One of those … I think I had a nightmare.”

  “No,” she says. “You didn’t kill anyone.”

  “I think I killed Crake,” he says. “He had hold of Oryx, he had a knife, he cut … Oh God. There was blood all over the pink butterflies. And then I, then … I shot him.”

  Toby’s alarmed. What does he mean? More importantly, what will the Crakers make of such a tale? Nothing, she hopes. It will make no sense to them, it will sound like gibberish, because Crake lives in the sky and cannot possibly be dead. “You’ve had a nightmare,” she says gently.

  “No. I didn’t. Not about that. Oh fuck.” Jimmy lies back, closes his eyes. “Oh fuck.”

  “Who is this Fuck?” says Abraham Lincoln. “Why is he talking to this Fuck? That is not the name of anyone here.”

  It takes Toby a moment to figure it out. Because Jimmy said “Oh fuck” rather than plain “fuck,” they think it’s a term of address, like “Oh Toby.” How to explain to them what “Oh fuck” means? They would never believe that the word for copulation could mean something bad: an expression of disgust, an insult, a failure. To them, as far as she can tell, the act is pure joy.

  “You can’t see him,” says Toby a little desperately. “Only Jimmy, only Snowman-the-Jimmy can see him. He’s –”

  “Fuck is a friend of Crake’s?” asks Abraham Lincoln.

  “Yes,” says Toby. “And a friend of Snowman-the-Jimmy.”

  “This Fuck is helping him?” says one of the women.

  “Yes,” says Toby. “When something goes wrong, Snowman-the-Jimmy calls on him for help.” Which is true, in a way.

  “Fuck is in the sky!” says Blackbeard triumphantly. “With Crake!”

  “We would like to hear the story of Fuck,” says Abraham Lincoln politely. “And of how he has helped Snowman-the-Jimmy.”

  Jimmy opens his eyes again, squints. Now he’s looking at the quilt covering him, with its Hey-Diddle-Diddle motifs. He strokes the cat and the fiddle, the smiling moon. “What’s this? Fucking cow. Brain spaghetti.” He raises his hand to blot out the light.

  “He would like you to move back a little,” says Toby. She leans in close, hoping she’ll block out whatever Jimmy says next.

  “I fucked it up, didn’t I,” he says. Luckily he’s almost whispering. “Where’s Oryx? She was right here.”

  “You need to sleep,” says Toby.

  “Fucking pigoons almost ate me.”

  “You’re safe now,” says Toby. It’s not uncommon for someone waking from a coma to hallucinate. But how to describe “hallucinate” to the Crakers? It’s when you see something that isn’t there. But if it isn’t there, Oh Toby, how can you see it?

  “What almost ate you?” she says patiently.

  “Pigoons,” says Jimmy. “The giant pigs. I think they did; sorry. It’s all spaghetti. Inside of my head. Who were those guys? The ones I didn’t shoot.”

  “You don’t need to worry about anything right now,” says Toby. “Are you hungry?” They’ll have to start with small quantities, it’s best after a fast. If only there were some bananas.

  “Fucking Crake. I let him fuck me over. I fucking fucked up. Shit.”

  “It’s okay,” says Toby. “You did fine.”

  “Fucking not,” says Jimmy. “Can I have a drink?”

  The Crakers have been standing respectfully at a distance, but now they move forward. “We must purr, Oh Toby,” says Abraham Lincoln. “To make him strong. In his head there is something tangled.”

  “You are right,” says Toby. “There is something tangled.”

  “It is because of the dreaming. And the walking here,” says Abraham Lincoln. “We will purr now.”

  “After that he will tell us the words of Crake,” says the ebony woman.

  “And the words of Fuck,” says the ivory woman.

  “We will sing to this Fuck.”

  “And to Oryx.”

  “And to Crake. Good, kind …”

  “I’ll get him some fresh water,” says Toby. “And some honey.”

  “Got any booze?” says Jimmy. “Crap. I feel like shit.”

  Ren and Lotis Blue and Amanda are sitting on the low stone wall near the outdoor pump.

  “How’s Jimmy?” says Ren.

  “He’s awake,” says Toby. “But he’s not very lucid. That’s normal when you’ve been out so long.”

  “What did he say?” says Ren. “Is he asking for me?”

  “Do you think we could see him?” says Lotis Blue.

  “He said the inside of his head feels like spaghetti,” says Toby.

  “It was always like spaghetti anyway,” says Lotis Blue. She laughs.

  “You knew him?” says Toby. She’s aware that there was a connection between Jimmy and Ren in the early days, and then between Jimmy and Amanda. But Lotis Blue?

  “Yeah,” says Ren, “we figured it out. She did.”

  “I was his lab partner at HelthWyzer High,” says Lotis Blue. “In Bio. Intro to Gene Splicing. Before I took the bullet train out west with my family, that time.”

  “Wakulla Price. He told me,” says Ren, “that he had such a crush on you! He says you broke
his heart. But you never came across for him, did you?”

  “He was so full of bullshit,” says Lotis Blue. Her tone is fond, as if Jimmy is a naughty but adorable child.

  “And then he broke my heart,” says Ren. “And God knows what he told Amanda, after he dumped me. Most likely he said that I broke his heart.”

  “I’d say he had a commitment problem,” says Lotis Blue. “I knew guys like that.”

  “He used to like spaghetti,” says Amanda: more words than Toby’s heard her speak since the night of the Painballers.

  “At high school it was fish fingers,” says Ren.

  “Twenty per cent real fish, remember?” says Lotis Blue. “Who knows what was really in them.” They both laugh.

  “They weren’t all that bad, though,” says Ren.

  “Labmeat goo,” says Lotis Blue. “But what did we know? Hey. We ate them.”

  “I wouldn’t mind one of those right now,” says Ren. “And a Twinkie.” She sighs. “They were so retro-nouveau revival!”

  “You felt like you were eating upholstery,” says Lotis Blue.

  “I’m going over there,” says Amanda. She stands up, straightens her bedsheet, pushes back her hair. “We should say hello, see if he needs anything. He’s been through a lot.”

  Finally, thinks Toby, a sign of the former Amanda, the girl she’d known at the Gardeners. Some of that energy, that resourcefulness: backbone, it used to be called. It was Amanda who’d been the initiator, the transgressor of boundaries. Even the larger boys had given her space, back then.

  “We’ll come too,” says Lotis Blue.

  “We’ll say, Surprise!” says Ren. The two of them giggle.

  So much for broken hearts, thinks Toby: Ren’s doesn’t appear to have anything fractured about it any more, or not in connection with Jimmy. “Maybe you should wait a little,” she says. What will it do to Jimmy’s state of mind if he opens his eyes and sees three of his former beloveds bending over him like the three Fates? Demanding his everlasting love, his apologies, his blood in a cat food saucer? Or worse: the chance to baby him, play nursie, smother him with kindness? Though maybe he’d like that.