Afterland

by Lauren Beukes

  49.

  Miles: Miles in Miami

  The bus. The whole world. Not for much longer, though. They’re officially in Florida and Miles is sitting with this sketchbook across his lap. The humidity is like soup rushing in the open windows, making his Apologia cling in uncomfortable places. He’s taken to stuffing Mom’s sanitary pads in his underwear to conceal the bulges. He wishes he could shrug off the weight of his own sins, the lie he lives with.

  Mom is lying down in the back of the bus, feeling sorry for herself because her mouth is sore. He knows she’s butt-hurt that he’s not there with her, but he’s frustrated that she’s acting like they assaulted her when it’s part of the ceremony, and it’s her fault for not doing what she was supposed to.

  The bright sky has given way to sullen gray low clouds brooding above the palm trees running alongside the highway. It’s so green and wild, he thinks. Or not completely. He notes the turnoffs marked Universal Studios, Disney World. He wonders if the theme parks are still running. Probably. Embassies of decadence, like the casino in Black Hawk or the sex shop in Denver. Weird to think he was once a kid who would go to a theme park and think it was innocent fun instead of Satan’s roller coaster. Maybe that’s why they got sick when they went to Disneyland. Divine punishment.

  “What are you drawing there?” Generosity hauls herself into the empty seat beside him.

  “Designs for a theme park.”

  “Distractions,” Generosity tuts, as if he doesn’t know that. “We will do anything to distract ourselves from the world and our worries. Theme parks. Drugs, alcohol, sex. God is the only way we can make peace with ourselves.”

  “But what if it was an All Sorrows theme park? Temple of Joyland! All the rides could be based on holy verses and…”

  “That’s a beautiful thought, Mila,” Generosity says, gently closing his sketchbook on his hand to stop him drawing anymore. “But that’s not our way.”

  “But doesn’t God want us to have fun too?”

  “Of course. Out of sorrow, joy.”

  “But no theme parks.”

  “Exactly.”

  Miles sighs and stashes the book. They pass a sculpture of a huge stone hand reaching for the sky. To touch God, like in the Sistine Chapel. Not reaching for a penis, not a monument to jerking off. Stop it.

  They pass along stretches of road where there’s ocean on either side, mansions roosting on the shore across the water, mostly boarded up.

  Multistory parkades sprout greenery like Nebuchadnezzar’s hanging gardens. He’s pleased with himself for his new knowledge. Urban farms, he guesses, like they were doing in Salt Lake City.

  “Hey Gen, does the Church allow you to have dogs?”

  “All animals are beloved by God, named by Adam. We couldn’t take a dog on mission, but if we were to set up a Heart somewhere, I think dogs would be essential, for security. And joy.”

  Gottit, he thinks. No masturbation. No theme parks. But dogs are okay. Simple joys.

  And then the highway draws them into Miami proper, a jungle city, like Durban, he thinks, flowers in the trees, those white ones hula girls stick in their hair, and spiky palms. The skyscrapers are so high they’re scratching at the heavens. “Human vanity,” Generosity says. “Like the Tower of Babel, trying to reach all the way to God. We should have known our place.”

  But to the left of the highway is a gaping hole and rubble, fenced off with cement blockades and barbed wire. “No Entry,” reads a bright yellow sign. “This Site Is Unstable.”

  “What’s that?” Miles cranes forward to look. It’s chaos and devastation, whole blocks bombed to rubble, an armored truck turtled upside down on the rubble. Buildings have been ripped through the middle, electrical cables and furniture hanging out like guts.

  “Holy sh—” Miles barely stops himself. Mom comes up to look, slides into the seat behind him, because Gen has taken her spot.

  “We’ve seen this before. It’s so sad. Like Salt Lake,” she mumbles through her blistered lips. And yeah, but that was just some bullet holes in the wall, and one damaged building near the Temple. This is bigger and scarier and emptier. It’s a giant wound in the middle of the city.

  “Battle of Miami,” Faith grunts. “Attempted police coup of the city during the Die Off. A friend of mine was posted here with the coast guard when it went down. Dominick O’Clare. He got taken out by a mortar during the attack on the city hall.”

  “I need to photograph this! Where’s my phone?” Chastity says, searching her backpack. “Has anyone seen my phone?”

  “Where did you last have it?” Temperance tries to help.

  “I don’t know! Atlanta, I think.”

  “Might have slipped down between the seats.”

  “But what if I can’t find it? All my Penitences!”

  “Can we drive any closer?” Miles asks.

  “That’s a no,” Faith says. “It’s dangerous. The buildings could collapse at any time. Could be there’s unexploded ammunition. Everybody got to go around it.”

  “Why don’t they fix it up?”

  “It’s a memorial, daughter,” Hope says, “to fear and mistrust and what happens when we turn away from our faith.”

  “More like the city didn’t have the budget,” Faith says and turns the bus down a detour along the river, or maybe it’s the ocean. Miles can’t stop looking back. Ruins of the old world.

  “Don’t worry. Nothing like that is going to happen again.” Mom squeezes his shoulder. But she doesn’t know that. There are no guarantees.

  Faith turns in to a weird little road, almost like it’s going to an island, framed by water on either side, a boom across the entrance. The skies are darkening, growing more oppressive, the humidity thicker. A pair of gills would be useful right about now. He nearly says it aloud to Mom, but then remembers he’s mad with her.

  “What if I’ve lost it?” Chastity is still going on about her stupid phone. “What am I going to do?”

  “Worldly goods,” intones Generosity.

  The boom slides up, and they drive into a shabby neighborhood, with bungalows among the jungle plants and leaning fences, but there are other busses here, branded with the Church’s insignia of the teardrop surrounded by the rays of God’s light, and other Sisters walking the streets, their Apologia a riot of color. And there’s music blaring and a marquee set up beside the park with tables and benches and a buffet with Sisters preparing and dishing food. And other kids!

  A gang of girls in t-shirts and skirts cut from the same cloth of the Apologia, but their hair free, are dashing between the nuns, laughing. His gut twists, reminding him how much he’s missed being around other people his age.

  But he’s also disappointed by what he sees. The academy in Atlanta and the villa in Santa Fe had led him to think this Heart would be much grander.

  “Is this where we’re staying?”

  “Miami real estate is still at a premium,” Gen says. “It’s a very desirable place to be, which is why we’re needed here. More souls require more hands and voices.”

  “But nicer Hearts, surely?”

  “We’ve got the Temple of Joy. Wait till you see it.”

  They’re assigned a house to stay in. Him and Mom and Generosity and Chastity and Faith, next door to a group of women from the chapter from Boston. Everyone is so happy to see each other, little clusters at picnic tables and bursts of song, but Mom skulks off.

  He finds her at the scrubby end of the park at the edge of the island, sitting on a bench under a tree. She’s holding a phone.

  “Is that Chastity’s? She’s looking for it.”

  “Shit. You scared me.” She’s still mumble-mumbling. She’s pulled down her Speak so it doesn’t chafe her blister, a thick bubble of goo on her lips. Yuck.

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “We need it more than she does.”

  “Theft is a sin, Mom.”

  “Least of our sins. Come sit. I have updates.”

&nbs
p; “What is it?” He stays standing, arms folded.

  “I heard from Billie. She’s alive.”

  “Was she dead?” he deadpans. But his heart is racing. The bloody shirt. The silence and the gaps and holding it all in, like that blister on her mouth waiting to pop. Lying to him.

  “I thought she was. I should have told you before. The whole story. I was scared out of my mind, I reacted in the moment. But she’s okay, and we’re getting out of here.”

  “What if I don’t want to get out of here?”

  “Why would you say something like that?”

  “What are we going to do, Mom, keep running forever?”

  “Last stretch, tiger. I know it’s frustrating. But me and Kel and Billie, we have a plan. I’m sorry, I know it’s been frustrating for you.”

  Maddening. Terrifying. He doesn’t say anything.

  “Trust me,” she says. “This time. Everything we’ve been through, everything I’ve put you through, has been to get us here. We are so close, Miles.”

  Low blow using his actual name. He sits down next to her. There are seagulls fighting over a pizza crust, their shrill squawks cutting across the park.

  “I need you to trust me now. Can you?”

  He leans his head on her shoulder. “No more lies, Mom.”

  “I never lied to you.”

  “No more not telling me things, then.”

  “Okay.”

  “So what’s the plan?”

  “We get out. I don’t have the details yet.” But she’s withholding again, he can tell.

  50.

  Cole: Baby Land

  Mistrust. Something they’ve never had between them. Part of growing up, the normal gravity between teens and parents pulling them apart. She always thought she’d have to worry about him sneaking out, drinking, or doing drugs. She never imagined him going full evangelical. She can’t tell him. He’s not quite thirteen, too young to be playing poker.

  And there is a chance, the slightest possibility, that he’ll let something slip to his new BFF, Generosity. It’s for his own good. Everyone’s favorite excuse.

  So he’s a boy again? Careful, boo. Get lax and they’ll catch you out.

  She doesn’t tell Mila about the two new emails.

  The one from Kel reads:

  Get to Blood & Sweat Records up in Little Haiti. Ask for Dallas. She’ll get you to the boat. Don’t worry it’s paid for. Do it soon. DO NOT MISS THE SAILING DATE. Stay safe! Love from Sonke & me and the dogs.

  x

  And then one from Billie:

  Coley, don’t leave without me. I’m on my way! Wait for me! You promised.

  xBx

  She’d go right this very second, but there’s the matter of the boom gate, a hundred witnesses. Plus she needs one last raid on the Bus Bank, Kel’s promise notwithstanding.

  Patience. Try to live up to your name.

  The afternoon Repentnals are a big production, all eighty-seven of the different chapters present setting off in different directions to help the masses find forgiveness. Hope briefed them on the city-wide intervention on the way here.

  “It’s a wonderful opportunity,” she’d said.

  Yup. To slip away, no looking back.

  So she’s ready at 2 p.m. when they all traipse back onto the bus she will be happy never to see again. Her stash, tucked into her bra, is up to $790 by now, and she can feel its clammy crackle. She’s already sweating through the Apologia.

  But Mila has a pogo in her step. She’s actually looking forward to this. All the more reason not to tell her. Yet.

  The kid will understand. Later on. You’re doing the right thing, boo.

  It should be reassuring that Miami is still hustle and bustle, even with the ghost miles of the battle-site memorial. It’s an old-new god, this city. It feels like everyone is trying to live up to the mythology of the place. Gangsters and immigrants, Latin America swagger and white retirees who golf, spring break and old money, Art Deco and neon.

  They head up to Coconut Grove, which is as swank and charming as the name suggests. Art Deco buildings with curlicue cornices and apartment blocks in blue glass, including one caught in a frozen pretzel twist on its axis between the palms.

  And life! Multicultural, with all shades of brown; a girl with double rattail plaits down the back of her neck skates a longboard down the road, dodging a rusty camper van. A gaggle of ladies in floaty dresses and the talon nails of the leisured classes are window-shopping the upmarket stores that line the street, because despite the containers at the docks filled with more rotting sweatshop clothing than another fifty generations of humans would ever be able to wear, overpriced fashion is still a thing.

  The spicy smell of Jamaican meat patties wafts through the window, mingled with a fug of garbage. In a gym with glass windows overlooking the street, a runner nearly falls off her treadmill in excitement, pointing out the bus to her buddy. The religious freak show on wheels. Cole flashes them a peace sign.

  A woman in a yellow summer dress pedals past, a goggle-wearing Maltese poodle in the bike’s basket, and she wants to nudge Mila and point this out. But she’s staring out the window, blank-eyed.

  They get out at a little mall, but the timing is bad. A trio of young women, maybe eighteen, nineteen, wearing cut-off denim shorts and white vests and bright beaded necklaces are setting up steel drums and a violin and a small PA system, in between the dog walkers and workers having late lunches on the benches, in gray overalls with yellow reflector strips and hard hats slung over their arms like handbags. A middle-aged woman in a purple tracksuit is throwing bread to the pigeons and one shameless rat.

  The violinist has her eyes closed, her natural curls bouncing to every elegant swerve of her bow, and then one starts beatboxing, and the third breaks into a rap, and it just works. A better strategy than theirs, making it easy for everyone, a moment of pleasure and admiration that doesn’t demand that you engage or even make eye contact. Coins gather inside the velvet-lined instrument case at their feet.

  Some of the bystanders are bopping their heads, and it all feels so urgently alive Cole catches herself thinking that this could be somewhere they could stay. How hard would it be, really, to disappear into this city?

  Meanwhile it’s too much spectacle in one place for the Sisters, and they can’t compete with the music. So they head off again, on Temperance’s recommendation, to Wynwood. It doesn’t look very promising at first. Blocks of warehouses and semi-industria, mostly shuttered up, give way to playful murals, sugar-skull portraits of Frida Kahlo and Wonder Woman, little monsters in Day-Glo colors, children with birds’ heads. But many of the buildings sport signs advertising “Commercial Space for Rent” and so far, so abandoned. Until they turn the corner, into art kid hipster central. In the outside courtyard of Panther Coffee (“We have the real deal! Also chicory substitutes”), a woman in a West African print dress and matching headwrap is staring into the distance above her laptop screen with the glaze of someone awaiting inspiration. Two women in ugly-on-purpose clothes, too baggy, weird shoulders and matching edgy haircuts, are having an animated conversation outside a watch store, their respective dogs, a French bulldog and an Afghan hound, sniffing each other out.

  “This is perfect. Good suggestion, Temperance,” Hope says.

  The Sisters spread out along the street in their little clusters of brightly painted gloom, trying to reach out to the lost and the weary, except these people are neither. They are busy and doing things, and the Sisters are in the way. Who was the patron saint of lost causes? St. Jude. He’d appreciate Sister Hope’s devotion in preaching to the singularly uninterested.

  A businesswoman in a tailored suit and high heels with red soles, like a venomous spider’s warning signal, speaks into her phone, giving them a pointed glare. “Sorry about the racket, sweetie. No, I have absolutely no idea. Maybe it’s that awful improv group.”

  “Let’s try down this way,” Cole says, tugging Miles away from the crowd, past Taco
Coyo.

  “Excuse me,” she asks a butch woman with blinking lights strung around her neck, faux mustache and sideburns expertly applied, “do you know where Blood & Sweat Records is? Little Haiti?”

  “Sorry, lady. Whatever you’re selling”—she throws her hands up—“I just can’t.”

  “Patience, huh, tiger?” But Mila isn’t beside her, she’s up the road, easing through a gap in the fencing. Rain is starting to spatter down.

  There’s a poster. Wynwood Walls. Special exhibition through 30 July 2023: “BABE IN THE WOODS.”

  She hurries after her, and steps into a courtyard framed by walls sporting more murals. There’s a tiger and a cub tugging on its ear painted in dripping black and white, creepy beautiful children with eyes that are too large and wide, some of them wearing animal heads, part Margaret Keane, part Roger Ballen. A painting of a pregnant woman with the world in her stomach (that’s going to be a hell of a labor process, Cole thinks), a whole series of photographs of fathers from different countries, holding their newborns. Gyeong-Suk Kim, Seoul. Lovemore Eshun, Harare. Tero Ykspetäjä, Turku. Her gut clenches. She’s not the only one affected. A pair of women are quietly sobbing, and when one reaches out to touch a photograph, a security guard in a Wynwood t-shirt steps in to stop her, but gently.

  And actual babies, a giant lifelike fetus suspended in a bubble of blown glass hanging from struts that cross over the courtyard, the centerpiece of the show. A little boy, close to being born, hanging head down, his blue eyes seeming to track you as you walk past.

  Another wall displays a video from conception to birth, time-lapsing from the millions of tadpoles besetting the egg, a big bang of the universe (some creative liberties, although she remembers knowing, just knowing, the moment of conception like a detonation inside her, a sun flaring in her vertebrae—even though Devon didn’t believe her). And then the fetus growing from reptile alien zygote to little fish to tiny formed human and then a bloody birth, the baby’s head crowning.