Time Zero

by Carolyn Cohagan

  “He’s not welcome here,” she says.

  “Why not?”

  “He’s a man,” she says, as if I’m an idiot.

  “I’m not going anywhere without him,” I say.

  “You’re not going inside with him,” she says.

  “Why?” I ask. “He doesn’t want to hurt anyone.”

  She looks at his gun. “Suuure,” she says, the contempt in her voice dropping the temperature in the room a few degrees. “He only wants to make women better listeners. Or make them better wives. Or better servants of God. Men never want to hurt anyone.”

  “No, that’s not what I meant.”

  Juda turns to go. “Forget it, Mina. I’m not wanted here. We should leave.”

  “Mina? Mina what?” the girl asks, very attentive now.

  “Clark.”

  “Nyek. Wait here.” She turns and disappears behind the door.

  Juda raises his eyebrows. “What was that?”

  I shake my head.

  “She’s nuts,” he says.

  “Maybe, but we have to see what the group is about, at least.”

  “I think I can tell you . . . ,” he says, grumbling. Then he smiles. “But you were right. It wasn’t a Twitcher.”

  I smile back, feeling uneasy. I hope there are other people here and it’s not just this one strange girl with crazy blue hair painting those leaves.

  Several more minutes go by. I sit down on the stairs.

  “Did you see what was in her bag?” Juda asks. When I don’t answer, he says, “It looked like a dead chicken.”

  “Really?” I say.

  He nods.

  “Maybe she despises chickens,” I say, trying to lighten the mood.

  “Only the male ones, I would guess,” he says.

  I laugh and the door opens, bringing back the girl. Her face is even angrier than it was before. I stop laughing.

  “You can both come in, but you . . .” She points at Juda. “You don’t talk to anyone, and you keep your face down. You got it? You are the subservient one here.”

  Juda nods, clearly wanting to march right up the steps and back to the Fields.

  “I’m Rayna,” the girl says, with irritated force, as if she hates her own name—or most likely because she has to deal with Juda in any way.

  “I’m Mina,” I say.

  She looks at me like I’m a moron, and I remember I already told her my name. Then Juda says, “I’m Juda.”

  “Speak when spoken to,” Rayna says, without looking at him. She opens the door, motioning for us to follow. I go first.

  It’s an unlit corridor with low ceilings, and only Rayna’s flashlight shows the way. The smell in here is stale, moldy, and rancid, and I bet the floor is peppered with mouse droppings. It seems like there’s less air to breathe than there was in the last room. Or is it that my lungs feel smaller?

  I’m becoming aware of the layers of earth above us, how this ceiling could collapse and bury us alive. I try to take long, deep breaths, but my heart beats like a clattering spoke.

  Rayna knows the way well. She walks quickly, so it’s hard to keep up with her, and the farther behind we fall, the less light we have. The floor is solid but dirty—every pebble and fragment seems to punch through the soles of my thin canvas shoes. Debris crunches each time I step forward.

  I’m concentrating on the long beam of light that flickers ahead of us, when, out of the corner of my eye, I spot a body. I freeze and shriek, and Rayna spins. “What’s wrong?!”

  “There’s a woman!” I cry. “By the wall!”

  As she shines the light to our left, I see it again—a naked figure frozen on the floor. “There!”

  “Don’t be stupid,” she says, kicking the figure with her boot. As it rattles and spins, I see that it isn’t real but made of plastic. “It’s a doll. They were called mannequins. You know, for selling clothes?”

  “Oh,” I say, mortified.

  “Can we keep going now?” Rayna asks, using the same voice my father reserves for dimwitted children. Is the whole group going to be just like her?

  Juda leans in and whispers, “We can leave anytime.”

  Rayna keeps walking. As we continue down the corridor, her flashlight allows brief glimpses of shelves stacked with more of the “mannequins.” I’m a little embarrassed to be looking at these naked women with Juda behind me, even if they are plastic. The figures seem completely out of proportion—the breasts enormous, the waists tiny, and the legs much too long. Did women in Time Zero look like this? What happened that made us so short and fat?

  I’m relieved when Rayna stops walking. We’ve reached the end of this disturbing crypt. Opening a door, she invites us to enter the next room, a cavernous space filled with electric light. Dozens of women lounge on jewel-toned pillows placed atop luxurious rugs. The smell of freshly baked cookies and black tea fills the air. The conversation stops as soon as we walk in. I take in the women’s faces, which are alert and curious.

  Then my stomach drops as if the floor beneath me has collapsed. I reach my arms out to steady myself, but I can’t seem to find the wall. I hear a loud rushing sound, like someone has opened a faucet in my head, and my whole body starts to tremble.

  “Mina? What’s wrong?” Juda rushes forward and wraps his arms around me. But I wrench myself from his grasp, tears streaming down my face, and run across the room—to embrace Nana.

  TWENTY-TWO

  I’M SURE SHE’LL DISAPPEAR BEFORE I CAN touch her. As I’m about to reach her, several large women rise to block my path. “What are you doing?” I say, trying to shove by. “What’s going on? NANA!!”

  I hear Nana’s voice through my yelling, calm and certain. “Be still, Chickpea. Everything’s fine.”

  Hearing “Chickpea” has an instant effect, and I back down. One of the women says, “We didn’t want you to approach her too fast. That’s all.”

  “Why?” My hand balls into a fist. “Is she hurt? Did you hurt her?”

  “I’m much better now,” Nana says. “Let her pass, ladies.”

  The women surrounding her sit back down.

  “This is my Mina, everyone!” Nana says to the room. She’s trying to shout, but her voice has lost a lot of its force. “The one I told you about!”

  A few women holler and whistle, and an exuberant clanging of pots and pans soon joins the uproar. I wince, concerned the racket will attract a hundred Twitchers. I guess the collapsed Macy’s muffles sound, but I notice a few other women also seem unnerved by the commotion.

  Nana is nested in a pile of bright silk cushions that I can now see are propping her up. The rest of the group, probably around forty women, sits on ornate rugs and pillows—there’s no furniture to speak of. They’re all smiling as they whoop and clap, happy to celebrate my presence. But underneath the smiles, some of the faces look haunted, while others look angry, like Rayna’s. Some of them are girls my age and younger. I see no boys.

  When the commotion dies down, Nana says, “Come here so I can get a proper look at you” and reaches out her arms. I kneel beside her, still nervous she’ll disappear, and she embraces me, pulling me close and kissing the top of my forehead. Her soft skin smells like warm bread, as always, but I also detect something sharp and antiseptic.

  “Look at you.” Nana brushes tears from my eyes. “You’ve become a young woman.”

  Her salt-and-pepper hair, usually short and carefully groomed, hangs around her face in shaggy disarray. Her hazel eyes no longer sparkle, and the skin around them is puffy and dark.

  “How can I have become a woman?” I ask, tempted to roll my eyes. “I saw you less than a month ago.”

  “The eyes. They tell me everything.” Women around her nod, as if this is common knowledge.

  “Mother told me you were dead!” I say.

  She looks as if she’s about to say something about Mother but changes her mind. “I would have been if it weren’t for the Laurel Society.”

  “Who?”

 
“This is Ayan.” She gestures to her right, and a tall black woman with a shaved head steps forward and bows. Given her sharp nose, square jaw, and mysterious eyes, Ayan’s lack of hair does nothing to distract from her beauty. She wears the same type of tunic and pants that my father does, but hers are emerald green. Wooden bracelets climbing up her arm make a clacking sound as she moves, but she’s all elegance and poise.

  “Welcome. We’re happy to see you,” Ayan says. “Your grandmother is an old friend.”

  “Thank you,” I say to Ayan, and then to Nana, “How did you get here?”

  “I was in the hospital with a broken hip,” Nana says. “But I wasn’t getting very good care.”

  “The doctor was examining her through a hole in a sheet,” one of the women says, with anger and disgust.

  The Teachers won’t let women have an education in order to become doctors, and then they won’t let male doctors look at women.

  “A young man set the bones and put me in a cast, but he didn’t do a very good job. The pain was excruciating. Luckily, Herra”—Nana points to a slight woman in the corner with a pixie-like face—“was bringing food to another patient and saw me there. Ayan arranged to smuggle me out.”

  “With a broken hip?”

  Nana smiles. “Ayan thinks of everything. She gave me a sedative, so not only did I not feel the pain of the journey, but she also disguised me as a corpse that needed to be disposed of.”

  “How’s your hip now?” I ask.

  “Regina reset it, but I’m afraid the first few days were crucial,” Ayan says.

  “What does that mean?” I ask, trying to suppress my panic.

  “Don’t you worry, Chickpea. I’m going to be fine,” Nana says, taking my hand and stroking it.

  “Don’t baby me, Nana. I want to know.”

  She just smiles at me, and it’s Ayan who answers. “She might not walk again.”

  “Oh.” I absorb the news. I remind myself that only an hour ago, I thought Nana was dead, so I should be praising God for her life. I try to feel grateful, but I can’t. I want to collapse into Nana’s arms and weep and do whatever I can to take away her pain.

  My eyes start to fill with tears again. Nana grabs my chin. “None of that. I’m exactly where I want to be—inside the Laurel Society with my Mina. You were so smart! You followed my clues perfectly. I couldn’t be more proud. This is a time for celebration, not sorrow.”

  I nod, trying to be brave.

  “You brought a friend,” she says.

  Realizing I’ve completely forgotten Juda, I twist to see where he’s gone. He hovers by the door, staring down as though there were nothing more interesting in the world than his feet.

  “Come meet Nana, Juda!” I say.

  “I would be honored,” he says, his deep voice echoing through the cavernous space, “but I don’t want to insult our hosts by looking upon them without their veils.”

  Until now, I hadn’t even noticed that all the women were uncovered. No wonder Juda is so captivated by his shoes.

  Ayan says, “None of us ever wears the veil inside. We consider it oppressive. We give you permission to look upon us.”

  Several seconds go by, as if Juda’s deciding what to do, but eventually he raises his head and finds my eyes. He walks over, carefully not looking anywhere but straight ahead, and stands by Nana and me.

  “Nana, this is Juda.”

  “My goodness, you’re big,” she says.

  He does seem to loom over her like a refrigerator.

  He kneels on the ground, looking more shy and boyish than I’ve ever seen him. While Nana looks him up and down, the other women size him up, too.

  “Thank you for helping to bring Mina to us,” Nana says.

  “I’m very happy for her that you’re not, um . . . that you’re well,” he says, squirming. “She speaks of you often.”

  “He’s delivered the girl. It’s time for him to go.” I look up to see Rayna standing over us, scowling, her hand resting on the pistol that’s part of her Twitcher uniform.

  I look at Juda, expecting him to be taut and ready to argue, but instead he looks completely submissive, with his hands in his lap and his eyes on the floor. Smart.

  “I couldn’t have found you without him,” I say to Nana, wanting to tell her everything about our journey but not knowing where to begin. I turn to Ayan. “He’s wanted. The Teachers are looking for him, and it’s my fault! You can’t just throw him out.”

  “Watch me,” Rayna says, lurching toward him.

  “No one is leaving tonight,” Ayan says, her voice soft but commanding. “The boy stays.” The other women murmur in surprise.

  “You’ve got to be kidding!” Rayna says. “No one here—”

  “I’ve made my decision,” Ayan says, cutting her off but not losing her cool. “It’s final.”

  Glaring at Juda, Rayna storms away, like a hyena denied her share of the carcass.

  Ayan continues, “But he will not join us for dinner. And he will have separate sleeping quarters. Understood?”

  She looks at me, not at Juda, for confirmation. I look at him, and, although his pose is still compliant, his jaw is tense. He’d be much more comfortable if he returned to the bunker, but I’d never forgive myself if he were caught on the way.

  “Well?” I ask him, my voice sounding more pleading than I want it to.

  He gives a quick jerk of the head, which I assume is a nod, so I say, “Yes. We understand.”

  “Good. Dinner is in an hour,” Ayan says. “Herra will find a room in back where Juda can wash.”

  Juda rises to go with Herra, and I pull him aside. “Thank you,” I whisper.

  “For what?” he says.

  “For staying with me.”

  “I didn’t do it for you.”

  My heart sinks, but I try to keep my face from changing.

  “If I went back onto the streets without you,” he says, “I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between a real Twitcher and a fake one. I’d be doomed.” A huge, beautiful smile takes over his grim face, and, once again, I want to pull his body toward me and kiss him hard.

  Herra leads him away. When I turn back to Nana, she’s frowning at me, as if she could hear my thoughts about Juda. I feel my face start to burn.

  Nana turns to a plump woman sitting next to her. “Regina, Mina’s going to help with my bath tonight. She and I have a lot to talk about.”

  Regina nods, and when Nana smiles at me, I realize that, for the first time in my life, there are some things I might not want to discuss with my grandmother.

  TWENTY-THREE

  RAYNA COMES OVER AND, WITHOUT DISCUSSION, lifts Nana into her arms. Nana relaxes right into her, so I assume this happens often.

  “Follow us,” Nana says.

  Watching Rayna be gentle with Nana and so mindful of her pain makes me start to reconsider my first opinion of the blue-haired girl.

  We leave the big room, cross a hallway, pass through a swinging door, and enter a large restroom, all shiny black-and-white tile, with a checkered floor. It still has all its stalls and sinks. It must be almost exactly as it was when the Macy’s was still standing.

  A dull, unpainted wood chair sits awkwardly in the middle of the room, and I wish I could remove it. Its presence ruins the perfection of the clean black and white lines, like a twig atop piano keys. Rayna gently places Nana in the wood chair and says to me, “Use the bucket and sponge in the corner. The water’s not hooked up.”

  I nod. “Where does the electricity come from?” This room, like the last one, is brightly lit.

  “That’s none of your business,” she says, and then walks out the door.

  “Should I be worried about her?” I ask, once Rayna is gone.

  “What do you mean?” Nana says.

  “Is she going to go beat up Juda?”

  Nana laughs. “No. She’ll obey Ayan.”

  I know Ayan said Juda was being taken somewhere he could wash, but what if instead H
erra put him in that horrible corridor with the plastic bodies and he’s just sitting there in the dark? I’m sure Rayna would love to use my Taser on him. I can imagine her smiling while she does it.

  “Rayna’s pretty crazy, huh?” I say.

  Nana’s mouth tightens. “Rayna suffered many horrible things before Ayan found her—things you and I probably wouldn’t have survived.”

  I think about Damon in my bed, one hand forcing my head back, the other clawing under my dress. I imagine Nana means even worse things than that.

  “Before you judge people,” Nana continues, “no matter how odd or irritating they may be, you have to force yourself to ask, ‘Who treated them so terribly that they became this way?’ Someone who is angry all the time most likely grew up in a family infused with anger. Or they suffered something so terrible, so painful, they can’t move past it. When people are unpleasant to you, Chickpea, it can be very hard to be sympathetic to them, but if you can manage it, you’ll hang on to your humanity. And you won’t overlook the people who need you the most.”

  Now I’m confused. “You mean, if someone treats me badly, I’m supposed to be nice in return?”

  “I’m not telling you to be a doormat. I’m not telling you to act grateful when someone spits on your toast. I’m just telling you not to be judgmental. Try to put yourself in that person’s shoes, and see if you can figure out what’s making them be such a pain in the rump. That’s all.”

  I can imagine being sympathetic to Rayna, but I don’t know if I’m capable of it with Damon, the one who tried to hurt me the most. My hatred for him increases daily, so much that it frightens me a little. Maybe I do understand how Rayna’s rage could seep into every interaction of her life.

  “I’m sorry I called Rayna crazy,” I say.

  “Fetch the bucket,” she says with a smile, so I know my lesson is over.

  I walk to the corner and pick it up. The water inside is so cold, I expect to find ice cubes in it. This room is cool and dank—from being so deep underground, I suppose. I now worry that undressing Nana might be dangerous. I don’t want to leave her cold and exposed. She seems frail, something I’ve never thought before.