—
Amatka Children’s House Three had one hundred and seventeen residents between the ages of six months and fifteen years. The principal, Larsbris’ Olof, had no objections to Vanja’s surprise visit; he was happy to show her through the building and tell her about their hygiene habits. The air in the residential area of the building was thick with the smell of vinyl mattresses and soap. It was bathing day. In the long sunken tubs in the basement, the children sat in rows, each scrubbing the back in front of them. Those at the end of a row had their backs scrubbed by an older sibling. It was always a race to not end up at the back of a row. Elders always scrubbed too hard, seeking revenge for all those times elders had bruised their backs when they were little.
“Atopic eczema, acne, dandruff,” the principal said as he led Vanja back upstairs. “And fungal infections. That’s what we deal with here. We could use something more effective against dandruff. The hair soap we have, it doesn’t work—it just makes your scalp dry and itchy. It’s probably made in Essre. You can tell they’ve never been here and have no idea what the climate is like. No offense.”
Vanja laughed in the way that meant the place I come from is terrible, isn’t it.
They continued on to the classrooms. In three halls, one for each age group, students sat on long benches facing the teacher’s desk. From the doors of two of the halls, only the muted sound of a teacher droning out a lecture could be heard. But from the third came the sound of a choir. Children’s House Three must have gifted students or a skilled teacher, because the harmonies drifting out through the chink in the door made Vanja’s eyes prickle. They were singing a version of “The Pioneer Song” with a beat that had been slowed down to an almost leisurely pace. Leaning on a solid fourth voice, the third and second voices entwined in a dissonance that wasn’t quite a dissonance, out of which the first voice rose up into bright notes that somehow entered through the ear and into the throat, constricting it. The pain didn’t dissipate until Olof had led her around a corner and out of earshot.
She only half listened to Olof’s account of the house kitchen and the hygiene routines observed there. When he was done, she thanked him for the tour and left. She chose a route that brought her by the classrooms. The singing had ceased. Even so, she stopped for a moment, in case they might start again. Instead, the door swung open, and thirty children in the oldest age bracket drifted out. They squabbled, let out adolescent howls, elbowed each other, and stared at Vanja. There was no sign that any of them had just been part of creating a sound so beautiful it hurt. Vanja set her course for home with a feeling of having somehow been made fun of.
—
That night, the bed still hadn’t arrived. The four members of the household had dinner together; the conversation consisted mainly of Nina’s small talk and Ulla’s acerbic comments. Vanja replied mechanically to questions aimed at her. She caught herself avoiding Nina’s eyes. Bedtime was very slow in coming. They undressed in silence. This time, Vanja carefully scooted back until one of her shoulder blades brushed against Nina’s back. Nina didn’t pull away, but nor did she come closer.
Report 2: Summary
* * *
Herein follows a summary of the observations, examinations, and interviews not included in report 1.
The employees of Amatka’s clinic use the commune’s own products exclusively. When asked about her opinion of products from other manufacturers, such as Amatka’s First Independent Chemist, a senior physician replied that the products have not been available long enough to assess the effects of prolonged use. Therefore, the clinic administration has no interest in new products.
Employees at Amatka’s mushroom farms have expressed a need for a milder laundry detergent. The fungicides in the detergent used for their protective clothing cause many farmers to develop rashes and flaking skin. The skin reactions can be treated with creams, but return as and when treatment stops. No other needs have been expressed.
My general impression continues to be that except in the case of the mushroom farmers, there’s a sense of unease when discussing innovation and new products. Establishing anything but the commune’s first products seems to have been a struggle. Introducing even newer ones might be very difficult. I will, however, continue my investigations.
With kind regards,
Brilars’ Vanja Two
SECONDAY
The bookshelves in the library had been reorganized to make the gaps less obvious. Evgen sat behind his desk, writing index cards. When Vanja came in, he looked up and gave her a guarded smile. He looked less devastated.
“Hello again,” Vanja said.
“Welcome back,” Evgen said. “How are you getting on with number seven?”
“I like it very much.”
“Keep it a while. It gets better every time you read it.”
“I forgot to register it properly last time.” Vanja put the book down on the desk.
“Right, right.” Evgen took the library card from the pocket inside the cover and wrote something on it.
“Have you read any of her other poetry?” Vanja asked.
Evgen looked up. “What other poetry?”
Vanja hesitated. “I heard…I heard she wrote other poetry as well.”
Evgen rubbed the library card between his fingers. “Nothing that’s been published,” he said eventually. “Except the hymn.”
“A hymn?”
“Yes. But it’s not considered part of her work.” Evgen shrugged. “I can show it to you.”
He walked over to a bookcase in a different part of the room and drew out a thin booklet. “Here.”
The booklet was printed with the title A Book of Songs by Amatka’s Best Poets. Evgen opened it, turned a couple of pages, and held it out to Vanja. It was a call-and-response chant.
We chose the committee to care for us
We thank them for the gift of calm
We thank them for their steady rule
We thank them for telling us
What to do what to do
Thank you for your guidance.
Vanja looked up at Evgen. “It seems…,” she started, “sarcastic?”
Evgen gave her a tight smile.
An awkward silence descended on the room. Evgen seemed about to speak a few times but stopped himself.
“Listen,” Vanja said finally, “I was wondering if you have any historical information on…on hygiene habits?”
Evgen blinked. “Hygiene?”
“Yes. Because I’m actually here on an assignment. For a hygiene company. And I thought that maybe you might have some books or documents about that kind of thing.”
Evgen stared into space for a few seconds. Then he said “Hygiene, no, no books. But the letter collections.” He stood up and walked around his desk, heading for a door at the far end of the room. “Follow me.”
It was a long, narrow room, almost like a corridor. Shelves running the length of the walls were stacked with meticulous rows of gray boxes. Vanja walked along the shelves. The boxes weren’t marked BOX. Their rough surfaces were only labeled with years and subject words.
“Where did these boxes come from?” she asked. “Are they…?”
Evgen nodded. “Good boxes. They’ve been here from the start.”
He pulled out a box and put it in Vanja’s hands. “What’s this?” Vanja locked her elbows to get a better grip.
“Letters and journals. Some people I came to think of.”
“Do you know this archive by heart?”
Evgen reached for another box. “I sort all the documents that come in when someone’s died. All biographical texts are to be preserved.”
“But you haven’t always been here, have you? How do you know so much about them?”
“I like reading.” Evgen waved his box at the door.
He set his box down on the table in the middle of the library. Vanja put hers on top. Evgen took a pair of thin gloves from his pocket and handed them to her.
“Like I said,
letters and journals,” Evgen said, and opened the first box. “This one contains letters from one Kettuns’ Daniel. He frequently wrote to his brother in Essre about some sort of eczema he had. His brother sent the letters here a couple of years ago, after Daniel’s death.” He pointed to the other box. “Journal entries and letters from pioneers in that one. Some of them mention, uh, bodily matters.”
“Is this paper, all of it?” Vanja asked. “Good paper?”
“It is. And I won’t let the committee have it.” Evgen made a face. “Yet.”
“That’s good.”
“There’s coffee in my thermos,” Evgen said. “In case you need it.”
Vanja smiled at him. He returned the smile, warily, and sat back down at his desk. Then there was just the rasp of his pencil on the index cards.
Like Evgen had said, Kettuns’ Daniel’s letters were all addressed to a brother, Vikuns’ Tor, in Essre. The oldest letter had been written ten years earlier; the last one was three years old. Daniel had written about one letter every other month and almost exclusively about his body.
Dear brother,
I hope you’re well. Over here things have been a little rough lately. The eczema and all that is getting worse. I wash as little as I can and rub on rich creams but it keeps spreading. The doctor says it’s not psoriasis but it sure looks like it to me. I’ve read about it at the library. Bathe less and keep moisturizing, that’s what the doctor keeps telling me. I’m only supposed to take baths every other week and just wash with a cloth and soap for the rest. The doctor says the intimate soap is the best but I don’t like the smell. Then I’m supposed to use the rich cream. I rub it in and rub it in but I just get kind of greasy. It just sits on top of the rash. Well, that’s enough about that.
Vanja leafed through the pages. Detailed accounts of Daniel’s hygiene habits, his opinions on various soaps and creams, his ruminations on himself. He never referred to his brother’s replies. But the eczema grew steadily worse.
Well, I don’t know what to do. Nothing’s helping. That crusty eczema on the backs of my knees and on my back and in the crooks of my arms, they’ve spread to my scalp. The skin feels sort of brittle and it hurts when I touch it. The scurf on my scalp itch and run. The doctor says it could be a psychosomatic reaction. He means I’m a hysteric. He didn’t say “hysteric” but I could hear that that’s what he was thinking. He asked me how I was feeling. Fine, I said, except for the eczema. I don’t want to go back there anymore. I feel so small when I have to show them all my defects and ailments. Like I’m whiny. I almost wish I had a broken leg or something because then at least there would be something properly wrong with me. Then they could say “you have a broken leg” and fix it.
Daniel tried a range of different treatments: he was committed to the clinic for a round of warm mushroom poultices. He tried diets that excluded mushrooms, root vegetables, or beans by turns. Nothing worked. His joints and muscles began to ache. He wrote less and less often.
I wake up too early in the morning and just lie there, not knowing what to do with myself. I think about when we were little and played by the railroad tracks. Do you remember when we put forks and knives on the rails and waited for the train to come flatten them? We waited all afternoon. No train in sight. We’d got the day wrong. But you talked about taking that train one day, all the way across the tundra to Essre, and becoming someone special there. I hope you’ve become someone special. I thought about something else, too. Another memory:
The rest of the letter was missing. Vanja leafed through the pages. The letter at the bottom of the box consisted of a few short lines. It was dated several months after the previous one.
Things are tough right now. I don’t have a job anymore. They say I’m too ill to work. All I do is sit at home and look out the window. I think about you. Why haven’t you replied?
“Excuse me,” Vanja said out loud. “Do you know what happened to Daniel? Why he died? Because he didn’t die from eczema, did he?”
“I remember it well,” Evgen said from his desk. “He lay down in front of the auto train. People talked about it for months.”
Vanja opened the next box, which contained documents from a number of authors. The paper was thin, some sheets were brittle. The documents smelled dry and musty at the same time. She leafed through logs, letters, a few journals. Most were letters. She had some success: letters from an engineer discussing the development of the commune’s products with a colleague. A doctor ranting in his diary about the excessive use of soap. After a while, she noticed a cup of coffee by her elbow. The doctor’s diary ended abruptly. The last third had been ripped out.
Some letters from a “Jenny” filled the bottom third of the box. Jenny was a pioneer—not just a pioneer to Amatka from Essre, but born on the other side, before the colonization. She wrote letters to her mother in a childish, sprawling hand.
Vanja learned in the first letter that Jenny’s mother hadn’t joined the colonization. Jenny wrote to her anyway, to keep the memory of her mother alive. She gave detailed descriptions of the colonization as she lived it: long rides on uncomfortable seats in coaches that broke down one after the other; the temporary camps; the “hard mental work” of building Amatka. After that particular mention, the page had simply been cut in half. When the letter continued, Jenny was complaining about the lack of basic necessities and that they had to go months without basic hygiene and medical supplies.
I’m so tired of washing menstrual pads. I’m tired of the cloth pads and smelling people’s bad breath. It would be so wonderful to wear a disposable pad just once, or—the luxury—a tampon! And to brush my teeth.
Vanja noted the word “disposable pad” down. Several pages were missing from this letter as well. Finally, she got up to stretch her back. There was a vague discomfort in her belly. She must be hungry.
“Did you find anything?” Evgen said from his desk.
“Yes, plenty. But there are pages missing in several places.”
“That means they’ve been redacted.”
“Redacted?”
Evgen cleared his throat. Vanja pulled the corners of her mouth down. Evgen looked at her and nodded. Silence fell once more.
“Is that your job?” Vanja asked.
“Yes. At least it is when new material comes in.”
“So then you know what they said.”
He cleared his throat again.
“Sometimes I think…,” Vanja began, glancing at Evgen.
If she had misinterpreted him the last time she was here, this could end badly. She steeled herself and continued. “Sometimes I think it would be nice to know if one could choose another way of life. If it were possible to find out what really happened before. And then make up one’s own mind.”
Evgen met her gaze. He was about to reply when the door slammed in the coatroom. He instantly started putting the papers back into the boxes. Vanja slunk out the door while the new visitor quizzed Evgen about biographies.
—
The bed hadn’t arrived. They lay back-to-back. If Nina found it awkward, it didn’t show. If she liked sharing the bed, that didn’t show, either. Her studying Vanja that first morning had probably been a coincidence. Vanja lay awake feeling the warmth of Nina’s body where it touched hers, trying to soothe herself by thinking about what she remembered from About Plant House 7.
There was something about Berols’ Anna’s language. It was as though she understood words and objects on a deeper level than anyone else. The poems weren’t just simple marking rhymes or descriptions of the world. Vanja had a feeling that the plant houses didn’t need marking anymore, because Berols’ Anna’s words had fixed their shape so completely.
THIRDAY
Again, Ulla opened the door immediately, as if she had been waiting on the other side. She showed Vanja into her room. “Take a seat,” Ulla said. “I’ll get you something to drink. Would be rude if I didn’t.”
Vanja waited while Ulla dug out a little bottle and two c
ups from her cabinet. At length, she sat down and poured the bottle’s contents into the cups. It was wine, and it had a sour bouquet Vanja didn’t recognize. “What is it?” she asked.
Ulla winked at her. “It’s the good stuff. Go on, then, interview me.”
“Right.” Vanja picked up her notepad and pen. “Sarols’ Ulla Three, retired doctor. Your speciality?”
“General practitioner,” Ulla replied. “Retired fifteen years.”
“And what do you do now?”
“Wait for death or better times.”
Vanja looked up.
Ulla raised her cup and grinned. “That, and I rattle my pill organizer with the other decrepits at the recreation hall.”
“So.” Vanja cleared her throat. “You remember when new hygiene products were introduced?”
Ulla laughed. “Yes, hygiene products. All right. Yes, I remember. We all thought it was silly. Everyone was using the commune’s own, and then these two new companies came along. And there will be more, as I understand it. From Essre?”
“That’s the idea.”
“But there is no difference, you know.” Ulla poured herself more wine. “New manufacturers, new labels. The muck they make it from is exactly the same.”
“That’s actually not true,” Vanja ventured. “Among other things, extract of agaric is used in…”
“Extract of agahhhric,” Ulla mimicked. “Oh really. And what’s the main ingredient?”
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