Time Zero

by Carolyn Cohagan

  “I don’t want you back out there.”

  “In the streets?”

  “In the world!” he says, blurting it out before he can stop himself.

  I laugh, but I don’t think it’s funny. “Then we might as well be locked up in the Tunnel.”

  “So being here with me is like prison?” he says, voice cracking.

  “No, of course not. But we can’t stay holed up in this little room for the rest of our lives!”

  “What choice do we have?”

  I can’t believe he’s saying this. “We still have choices. This city is huge! The Ashers won’t search for us forever.”

  “You don’t know Damon.”

  The tiny room narrows in on me. Sleeping here for one night was one thing, but now Juda seems to think that I’ll spend a lifetime in this hole in the ground. Is he as crazy as the Ashers? As bad as my mother? “I need air,” I say, walking past him to the stairs.

  “Don’t go out there,” he says.

  I start up the steps.

  “Mina, I order you to stop!”

  I freeze out of habit, my head lowering in automatic deference. But as I realize what I’m doing, I’m filled with fury. “You order me? Under what authority?”

  He shifts uncomfortably. “My authority as a man.”

  I look up, my eyes narrowing. “The only reason I’ve trusted you, listened to you, until now is because I thought you were different. I thought you actually cared about what I had to say and that you didn’t believe you were better than me just because of what’s between your legs. But I guess I was wrong. At the end of the day, you’re just as bad as Damon.”

  I storm up the remaining stairs and out the door.

  NINETEEN

  BURSTING OUT OF THE STAIRWELL, I DART across the derelict kitchen, gasping for fresh air, but I stop dead and stifle a shriek when I see a veiled figure standing in front of me.

  “God in Heaven, you nearly gave me a heart attack!” she says.

  I scared her? I look around, expecting other people to swarm in.

  “Relax,” she says, her voice assertive. “I’m Juda’s mother.”

  Still trembling with the shock, I say, “I’m sorry. I . . . You surprised me.” As she walks toward me, I see that she wears the black cloak and veil of a widow. Not even her hair or hands show; nothing of the woman underneath is revealed.

  “Sorry about that,” she says. “I brought you a few things.” She holds up a little cloth bag in her gloved hand. “But we should go down to where it’s safe.” She gestures toward the metal door behind me.

  Back down with Juda? It’s the last place I want to go. “I came up to get some air.”

  “I understand.” Approaching, she puts a hand on my arm. “But you can’t stay up here. Not on your own.”

  She’s not exactly ordering me, but the confidence in her voice suggests she’s used to getting her way. If I break free, where am I going to go? I don’t know my way around the Fields. I’d probably be spotted in seconds. I watch, unhappy, as she opens the metal door.

  Juda stands right behind it.

  “Ma?” he says, a gasp of surprise in his voice.

  “We’re coming down,” she tells him.

  “Do you need help?”

  “Why would we?” she asks, pushing past him.

  Juda scurries after her. When we reach the bottom, he stands in the corner, looking everywhere but at me. The tension in the room is worse than the smell of the squirrel, which sits half-eaten in the middle of the floor. Juda’s mother doesn’t seem to notice the strain between us.

  She raises her veil, finally revealing herself. Her face is softer than her rough voice, though deep creases around her mouth and between her eyebrows betray a certain intensity. Her skin is brown, and her eyes are darker than Juda’s, but I’m relieved to see they hold the same warmth. She’s shorter than I am, with a surprising little potbelly.

  She looks around the room, pursing her full lips. “It’s a mess. The secret to living in a small space is to keep things very tidy at all times. You know that, Udi!”

  “Yes, Ma,” he says, bending to pick up the abandoned squirrel meat. I feel a bit sorry for him, knowing how clean he’s kept it until now.

  “Do you have fresh water?” she asks.

  “Yes,” he replies. “Right here.” He points to a bucket. “Would you like a cup?”

  “No, no. I was thinking Mina might like a wash and a change of clothes,” she says, holding out her bag.

  “How did you know I was here?” I ask.

  “Juda told me this morning when I came by.”

  She’s already been here today? How long was I asleep?

  She juts her thumb at Juda. “He’s been worried sick about you, you know.”

  I smile tightly, not quite ready to give up my anger at him.

  “Look through the bag. Use whatever you want. There’s soap, a nice sponge—you’ll see. Use whatever you want.” She places the bag on the floor, claps her hands, then looks at her son. “Let’s give Mina some privacy, eh?” She moves back to the stairs.

  Juda follows her without protest, probably happy to avoid any conversation with me.

  “Where will you go?” I ask.

  She smiles. “Don’t worry about us. We know the good spots, and we’re quiet, like angels on clouds. Come, Udi.” She walks up the stairs, Juda traipsing behind her.

  I stand there gaping after them, half-wanting to run up and yell at Juda some more and half-wanting to beg his mother to stay and take care of us. Instead, still disconcerted, I pick up the bag and sort through it.

  There are two cloaks, one purple and one black, several changes of underwear, a cotton T-shirt, a simple pair of cotton pants, and—praise be to Mrs. Alvero—a pair of shoes, simple canvas slippers. I try them on. They’re a little tight, but they’ll certainly do. I also find soap, a sponge, and a comb. It really was very thoughtful of her. My only regret is that there’s no bra, mine being somewhere back at the Ashers’.

  I take out the soap and sponge and, using the bucket of water, proceed to give myself a very cold sponge bath. I kneel on the ground to wash my hair, lathering it with the bar of soap, figuring it’s better than nothing, and then I rinse it over and over again. Seeing no towels in the room, only washcloths, I use two on my hair and then one to dry my body a few inches at a time. I’m shivering in the concrete room, thinking of Mother’s fights with Father about hot water and how she thought it was more important than a weekly ham. I’m starting to see her point.

  Soon, though, I’m putting on clean clothes and feeling enormously improved. The cotton pants have a drawstring, which I’m sure is why Juda’s mother chose them—they’re big but adjustable. The T-shirt is white and soft and feels great next to my clean skin. I run the comb through my hair and then hang the washcloths from the shelves. Drying might take a long time down here, without any sunlight or breeze. I hope they don’t get moldy.

  Once I’ve tidied up, I lie back down on my pile of clothes from the night before. There really aren’t a lot of places to go in the room—it’s stand or lie down—and I must fall asleep for a little bit, because the next thing I know, Juda and his mother are in the room with me.

  “Nice and clean!” his mother says. “All better?”

  I sit up. “Yes. Thank you so much for the clothes.”

  She waves away the gratitude—something I’ve seen Juda do—then tosses off her cloak and plops herself onto the floor. She crosses her legs underneath her, looking more comfortable than I would expect, like a plump cat who’s assessed the situation and quickly found the best spot in the room. She wears the same tunic and pants as the farmers, but hers are clean and neatly pressed. She wears a wedding ring on her left hand, with a pretty matching chain and gold heart around her neck. She squints, saying, “Juda told me about your fight.”

  I flush. “It wasn’t a fight, exactly—”

  “Sure it was. And I’m glad you know how to stick up for yourself.”


  I blink. She likes how I spoke to her son?

  “But you behaved badly.”

  Here we go.

  “You can’t just go running out the door when you have a disagreement. It’s too dangerous. You understand? You have to trust each other. Udi trusts you, enough to put his life in danger and bring you to his hiding spot. You trust him, because you stayed here overnight, which most unmarried girls wouldn’t dream of doing. Let’s be honest, he could’ve only wanted to ‘unbuckle your belt,’ as they say.”

  I feel myself turn a deeper crimson. I glance at Juda, whose face is purple with embarrassment.

  “You’ve already put a lot on the line for each other, which means you can’t go running around every which way, putting yourself or each other in danger, right? Do you both agree or disagree?”

  I still can’t imagine reacting any differently than I did to Juda’s piggish behavior, but I know she’s right in theory, so I say, “Agree.”

  She glares at Juda, until he mumbles, “Agree,” and then she stands up. “Fantastic. Now, I have to get to work. You should be fine for the rest of the day, and I’ll check on you again in the morning.” She walks to the stairs. “Mina, if anything happens, I packed a black cloak. That way people will think you’re married and won’t give you a hard time about being together. We just have to pray there are no new Ordinances for a while, and that the length and style remain allowable.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Alvero.”

  She comes back over and gives me a little hug. “Take care of yourself. And don’t call me Mrs. Alvero. Call me Rose!”

  She hugs Juda, who says, “Goodbye, Ma. Peace.”

  “Peace,” she says, climbing up the stairs.

  As soon as the door has shut behind her, Juda turns to say something. When he sees my face, however, he asks, “What’s wrong?”

  Sure I’ve gone white as a corpse, I grasp for something to say. But all I can think of is the name I just heard. Did his mother really just say “Rose”? I want to pretend I didn’t hear it. I want the moment to go away.

  “Mina, are you all right? Are you going to be sick?”

  I shake my head, drifting over to the stairwell, as if I can summon his mother back to tell me that I misheard her. I sit on the bottom stair.

  Juda hunches over me, placing his hand on my forehead. “Maybe the squirrel was off. But I feel fine—”

  “It’s not the squirrel.”

  “What is it?”

  Mr. Asher had an affair with a woman named Rose. I look away from him, afraid that somehow he’ll be able to read my mind. He told me yesterday that his father was dead, and I know he believed it. He had genuine pain in his eyes—eyes that, God help me, now that I think about it, resemble the olive green of Mr. Asher’s.

  “Maybe you’re dehydrated,” he says, going to a bucket and scooping out some water with one of the cups.

  His mother doesn’t want him to know. All this time, Juda’s been working under his father’s roof . . . so she must have wanted him there. What else did the letter say? Rose wanted to raise her son among her own family. The beginning said something about a brother—Sal or Tal?

  I sip the water. “Thank you. That’s helping.”

  He sits by me on the stairs. “Should I bring my mother back? Maybe you need a doctor.”

  “I . . . uh . . . it’s just a girl thing,” I say, unable to come up with anything better.

  He stands right back up and sputters, “Oh . . . uh . . . okay. Well, that’s good. I mean, not good that you feel bad, but good that it’s not something serious.”

  I would laugh, if I weren’t so miserable. “Udi?”

  He shrugs. “Nickname. It’s how I said my name when I was little, I guess.”

  “Your mother’s great.” I breathe a silent prayer, grasping at the tiny chance that I could still be wrong, and say, “Is she your only family?”

  “When I was little, we lived with my grandfather, but then he died and we moved. And my uncle Jiol helps out my mother when he can. And then there’s Uncle Mal, her baby brother, who runs a butcher shop. His meat has gotten us through a lot of winters.”

  Mal. That was the name. Nyek.

  I now think back to Damon and Mr. Asher fighting about how Juda’s punishment should be handled—how Damon was insisting on death and Mr. Asher wanted to wait to hear Juda’s explanation. Mr. Asher wanted to protect his other son. It all makes sense now.

  Juda’s mother lied about his father. My parents lied to me about my grandmother. Why is everyone so deceitful? I don’t understand why people think their children can’t handle the truth.

  “How about you?” he asks. “Is there anyone besides your nana that you’re close to?”

  I shake my head.

  We sit in silence while I struggle with my conscience. How would I feel if someone told me I was related to the Ashers? They may be despicable, but they also have more BTUs than most banks. Maybe this information would have mattered to Juda a week ago. Now, it’s useless. He destroyed his relationship with them forever when he struck Damon. Which he did for me. But maybe, if he knew the truth, he would want to go back and mend things. Is it my right to take that option away from him? I resolve to tell him the truth.

  Tomorrow.

  Juda kneels down on the floor in front of me, his face soft and sad. “I’m really sorry about what I said earlier. I was angry, but . . . I was scared, too.”

  I’m so focused on my new revelation about Juda’s relationship to Mr. Asher that I’ve forgotten about our fight. “Of me?”

  “No. I was scared of you leaving, of losing you again and not being able to protect you, and I just blurted out the first thing that came into my head, and it was stupid. Please forgive me.”

  I smirk. “Did your mother tell you to say that to me?”

  “No. Well, maybe some of it. I told her we fought, but I wasn’t stupid enough to tell her exactly what I said. She might’ve slapped me in the head.” He grins.

  He’s so close to his mother. What will he do when he learns that she lied to him?

  Taking his hand, I stroke his palm. Things for us just seem to get harder and harder.

  He leans forward, as if to kiss me, but then pauses to look into my eyes. I’m afraid he might see that I’m keeping a secret, so I lean in to meet his mouth. He responds by kissing me deeply.

  My mind finally stops spinning, so that the only things that exist are his feel and his taste. I wrap my hands around his head and run my fingers through his hair. He leans closer, resting his hands on either side of me on the stair. He begins to kiss my neck, sending a shiver down my spine.

  I whisper, “I’m sorry I ran away from you.”

  He doesn’t stop kissing my neck. “Promise you won’t do it again?”

  “I promise.”

  “Good,” he says, running a finger down my arm. My skin seems to melt under his touch, as if my body is liquid and will flow whichever way he leads it.

  I remove my hands from his head and move them to his shoulders, which are tense from leaning into the stairs. He shifts forward, causing his muscles to move under my fingers, making me want to touch every part of him. His breath has gotten deeper and faster, and when his mouth meets mine again, there’s a new urgency, and I feel myself being pushed back against the stair.

  This must be what my mother means when she says, “When a boy and a girl are alone, they become hungry for nothing but each other, and only the Devil will make them full.”

  His right hand leaves the stair and wraps around my waist. He pulls at my shirt, grabbing a handful of cotton fabric, and I know he’d rather be touching the flesh that’s just underneath. I know because I’d rather be touching his skin, too.

  I pull away from him, alarmed by my own desire.

  He looks surprised that I’ve stopped and then ashamed. Standing, he walks away from the stairs. “Sorry, I—”

  “Don’t be,” I say quickly.

  “Now you’ll think it’s what my mother said, t
hat I brought you down here for—”

  “Don’t be silly. You brought me down here to save my life.”

  He sits on a clothes pile, his back to me. He says nothing, and I feel awful. I didn’t mean to upset him. How did we go from everything being so perfect to everything being tense and awkward? “I’m sorry,” I say.

  “No,” he says emphatically. “Don’t apologize. It’s . . . you were right.”

  “About what?”

  He turns to look at me. “About staying here. We can’t hide here forever. We’ll drive each other crazy.” He looks away again. “One way or another.” He lets out a long, low sigh. “Promise me, if there’s nothing there, we’ll come right back.”

  “Where?”

  “Macy’s.”

  My breath catches. “Of course.”

  “And if we run into danger on the way, we turn around.”

  “Yes.”

  I wait, as he seems to be fighting against making the final decision, but finally he stands and says, “If we leave now, we can be back by dark.”

  TWENTY

  WE WAIT UNTIL AFTERNOON PRAYER IS OVER, SO by the time we cross the Fields, it’s almost two o’clock. We walk side by side along Central Park South, our determination to look natural of course guaranteeing that we’re stiff and awkward. I wear my veil and new black cloak, even hotter than my purple one, but the new, comfortable canvas shoes protect my damaged feet. God bless Rose.

  Juda wears the simple black tunic and pants of a married man, reasoning that the Twitchers will be looking for a private guard in uniform. He was, however, unwilling to leave behind his gun and decided to conceal it underneath his waistband. At first, I thought this was a bad plan: if we get scanned, the Twitchers will immediately see the gun—a “pistol,” as Juda explained. But then he pointed out that if we get scanned, our names will come up and we’ll be sunk anyway. So I gave in.

  How funny—less than two weeks ago, I was conspiring just to speak one word to Juda, and now here I am, pretending to be his wife. I feel a thrill knowing that he can reach for my hand whenever he wants, that we can speak in public, that people will even assume we’ve had a wedding night. . . .