“Well…soap base. And cream base.”
Ulla raised an eyebrow. “And what’s that made of? Because it’s not all mushroom extracts and bean oils.”
“It’s…” Vanja struggled. “It comes from the factories in Odek.”
“That’s right.” Ulla patted Vanja’s hand. “And what do they manufacture in the factories in Odek? What is the substance they use to make every last thing we have?”
Vanja swallowed.
Ulla shot her a sharp smile. “Isn’t it strange how one is so frightened by, say, a cup dissolving into sludge? And in the next moment, one rubs oneself all over with something that’s made from exactly the same sludge.”
“It’s not the same,” Vanja protested. “It’s…a cream base. The other is…it’s…”
“You know what it is. Everything that comes out of the factories is made from the same stuff.”
It was almost as though the shape of the cup in front of her was starting to melt, as though the table were suddenly sagging.
“Table,” Vanja mumbled reflexively. “Cup.”
“Exactly!” Ulla said. “You know how it works. Everyone knows how it works.”
“Why are you being like this?” There was a sour taste at the back of Vanja’s throat.
The sharp smile returned. “Because I think it’s funny. It’s so funny that you can be so aware of the truth, and still come here and try to sound as though your…specialists, or whatever they are, that you’re making something that doesn’t come from the same place as everything else. Tables and cups. Creams and clothes and…suitcases.” The last word was no more than a whisper.
“You said it yourself, everyone knows.” Vanja pushed her chair back.
Ulla watched her with unblinking eyes. “But have you never wondered?” she said. “If you just changed a consonant, or…misspoke. Just once.” She pointed at Vanja’s cup. “Knife,” she hissed.
The word stabbed at Vanja’s ears. She couldn’t look away from the cup. It kept its shape.
Ulla laughed. “Look how scared you are!”
“I could…I could report you.” Vanja got to her feet and moved away from the cup.
“Go ahead. Don’t just stand there like an idiot. Go and make your report.” Ulla reached for Vanja’s cup and raised it to her lips. “But I don’t think you will.”
“Why not?”
Ulla looked at Vanja over the rim of her cup. “Because I think that someone who lets two of her things dissolve over the course of just one week…might not be too happy with the order of things, if you know what I mean.” She slurped at her wine. “Besides, didn’t you hear? I’m old and confused.”
—
Vanja spent the afternoon in her room, wrapped in a duvet at her desk. All she could see through the window were roofs and the curves of the plant houses beyond. About Plant House 7 lay opened in front of her, full of comforting descriptions of the world, more and more soothing every time she read them. And yet Ulla’s words wouldn’t leave her alone. Someone who lets two of her things dissolve over the course of just one week might not be too happy with the order of things. Neither was Ulla, it seemed. And if one were to judge from that hymn and handwritten poetry, nor was Berols’ Anna. There was more to her than the plant house poems and the simple epitaph in the history book. Ulla knew something. She wanted something, too. The question was what.
FOURDAY
“Distillate Number One, forty-six volume percent alcohol. Made from turnips,” Vanja read out loud.
“Amatka’s most popular alcoholic beverage, after Distillate Number Four,” Nina said. “Average consumption three point seventy-five liters per person per year.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I have patients with cirrhosis. There’s a lot of cirrhosis going around.”
“In Essre, it’s two and a half liters,” Vanja said.
“And how do you know that?”
“I wrote a pamphlet about temperance.” Vanja held out her cup.
Nina chortled and gave her a refill. It was the afternoon. It had been about an hour since Nina came home and set the bottle on the table with a deep thud: “I have tomorrow off. Let’s drink.”
And that was that. Nina made strong coffee and poured enough distillate in the cups that the rising steam pricked Vanja’s nostrils. The liquor was harsher than in Essre and spread an acrid warmth through her chest. Nina was rosy cheeked and told stories about patients with weird injuries.
Vanja’s shoulders were slowly lowering. She had no funny stories to tell, but she enjoyed listening to Nina.
“It’s great seeing you laugh,” Nina said.
Vanja flushed. “What, don’t I normally?”
Nina shook her head. “No. And that’s a shame, because your whole face lights up. You’re so serious all the time, all worry lines.”
Vanja scraped at the bottle’s label with her thumbnail. “Maybe.”
Nina reached out and stopped her fidgeting. “Hey. What happened to you?”
“What do you mean, what happened to me?”
“You know, when we were at the clinic. Down at the fert unit.”
“Oh. That.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“There’s not much to say.”
Nina took the bottle and mixed them a new batch of coffee and distillate. “It happened to me, too,” she said. “Before I had Tora. Ivar and I had been inseminating at home, you know, with one of those baster things…”
“Inseminating?” Vanja said. “I thought you were…”
“What? No, no.” Nina laughed. “Haven’t you ever wondered why we have separate rooms?”
“I thought it was so there would be fewer empty rooms.”
Nina laughed again and shook her head. “No, no, no. See, we’re best friends since the children’s house. We’ve always lived together. It was just more practical to make a couple of children together, instead of standing in line at the clinic or trying to pick someone up at the leisure center.”
“I see.” Vanja started picking at the bottle label again.
“Anyway…we’d been trying for a good while with that syringe. And then I thought it finally worked. But I had a miscarriage more or less straight away. It was horrible.”
“But why?” Vanja said quietly. “Why was it horrible?”
“Because I’d been hoping, you know? And because I wanted to have children, and, well, contribute. Do my part for the commune. According to my ability, right?” Nina shrugged. “But then Tora and Ida came. I guess I’m trying to say that things might go better next time.”
“There is no next time,” Vanja said. She pinched a corner of the label between her thumb and forefinger and tugged at it. “They’ve given up. It didn’t work.”
Nina sighed. “I’m so very sorry to hear that.”
Vanja tore the corner off and rolled it between her fingers. She downed her drink. “But that’s not why.”
“Then why?” Nina tilted her head.
“I mean. What if one doesn’t want to.” The words seemed to have a will of their own. “If one doesn’t want to have children. One waits, and sort of hopes that it doesn’t have to happen. And then one turns twenty-five, and the questions start coming, and they put you in a room with a counselor who explains that it’s one’s communal duty, and finally one gives in, one goes to the fert unit and shakes hands with some pitiful man who has to masturbate into a cup so the doctors have something to impregnate one with, and one resigns and puts one’s feet in the stirrups because one has. No. Choice.” She was out of words. She rested her face in her hands.
Nina got up from her chair and sat down next to Vanja. She pulled her close and held her without speaking.
After a while, Vanja straightened up. She wiped her face with her shirtsleeves.
Nina put a hand on Vanja’s knee. “I’m sorry you’re in pain, Vanja. I really am. But both you and I do know why everything is like it is. It’s so that we can survive.”
Vanja stood up. The room seemed to tilt sideways ever so slightly. “I’m going out.”
She went up to her room and stuffed two blankets into her satchel. She looked into the kitchen on her way out. Nina sat with her chin in her hand. She was topping off her cup again.
—
The raw lake air was refreshing, even though everything still felt remote. Vanja walked north along the beach. Tundra, shingles, grass. She came to a spit of land where a group of boulders offered shelter from the wind and a place to sit. She spread out a blanket and sat down with her back to one of the larger rocks. Dusk was falling. Slow waves lapped against the beach; the rush of water on stone was unfamiliar and calming at the same time. Her eyes felt crusty from tears and alcohol. Vanja tied her earflaps under her chin, leaned her head back against the rock, and closed her eyes.
They were always kind. The doctors, the nurses, the technicians. It was always with the same polite care that they showed her to her room, established that it was time, examined her. A nurse held her hand and gently pushed her shoulders back into the chair when she panicked. They tried to comfort her, telling her that it was normal to be nervous, that she was such a good girl, while they attempted to plant a little parasite inside her.
The sound of footsteps made her open her eyes again. It had grown darker, and the waves had abated. A figure stood a few steps away. In the fading light, it was hard to make out features, but the posture made it look like an old woman in a pair of overalls. She was holding the end of something resembling a stick, or a pipe, which she’d plunged into the water. The woman turned. It was too murky to see her face. She nodded at Vanja and turned back toward the lake.
When the water whitened, the old woman raised her arms so that the end of what she was holding hung just below her chin. She supported her elbows on her stomach and remained standing like that while the water froze. Vanja tried to keep her eyes open, but the drowsiness was overpowering. She managed to raise her eyelids a couple of times. The woman was still there, unmoving.
When Vanja managed to open her eyes one last time, all she could see was the woman’s silhouette against the light from Amatka’s plant houses; the lake was a still, black expanse, inseparable from the night. The woman took a deep breath and put her lips to the thing she held in her hands. Vanja felt rather than heard the note vibrate through her body. It continued for a long time. Finally, the sound faded. The woman straightened and pulled the pipe up. It ended in a narrow funnel. The woman slung the pipe over her shoulder and left.
It was warm between the blankets. The rocks around her were comfortable if Vanja just adjusted her position a little. She leaned back, turned her head, and closed her eyes again.
It happened at dawn. Something like a chorus of discordant flutes rang out. Vanja turned her head. A group of people were approaching across the ice. She couldn’t quite make them out; their shapes wavered as if in a heat haze. She was so tired. Her eyes fell shut again.
The beach bathed in the light of morning. She must have slept through the breaking of the ice. Her neck ached. When she stood up, the hangover hit her.
FIFDAY
Nina sat by the kitchen table with her head in her hands. If she’d been sitting there all night, or if she’d just sat back down, was impossible to say. The bottle and the cups were cleared away, in any case. She turned toward the door when Vanja entered.
“Where have you been?”
“By the lake.”
“All night?”
“All night. I fell asleep.”
“How stupid can you get?” Nina stood up. “You walk off just like that and don’t come back. Do you think that’s fair?” She was standing in front of Vanja now, gripping her shoulders. “And you can’t just spend the night there. People have disappeared that way, Vanja.”
Vanja looked down at her shoes. Nina let go of her shoulders and rubbed her face.
“I’m sorry,” Vanja said. “I didn’t know you’d be worried.”
Nina lowered her hands and stared at Vanja. “You are stupid.”
Vanja stared back. “I don’t understand.”
“Yeah, that much is clear.” Nina took one of Vanja’s hands in hers and trailed her fingertips over the red knuckles. “You’re all chapped.”
She abruptly let go and went into the bathroom. After rummaging around for a moment, she came back out, a jar in her hand. “Sit down.”
Nina sat down next to her, opened the jar, and dipped a finger in it. She took one of Vanja’s hands and rubbed cream into the knuckles with light, circular movements. Vanja’s skin stung as the cream sank in. Nina’s hands worked their way down her fingers. Where she touched the delicate fold between the fingers, little warm jolts traveled up Vanja’s wrist. Her consciousness narrowed down into the point where their bodies met. Vanja extended her hand, and Nina’s fingers wandered up to the thin skin on the inside of her wrist. She didn’t dare look up.
Nina leaned over until their faces nearly touched, so close that Vanja felt the warmth radiating from her skin. Then her lips brushed the corner of Vanja’s mouth. Just once, gently. She pulled back a little.
Vanja touched the spot where Nina had kissed her. It almost hurt. “I didn’t think.”
There were no more words. Instead, she leaned forward.
—
Later, when they lay curled up face-to-face in Nina’s bed, and Nina’s hand traced the contours of Vanja’s face, the cuff of her sleeve tickling Vanja’s cheek, Vanja said: “What do you dream about at night?”
Nina smiled weakly and ran her fingers through Vanja’s hair. “Oh, you know. About Sevenday and playing with the girls. About going to work. Or about going to work naked.” She raised her eyebrows. “Or about being naked with someone…like that shy beauty from Essre.” She chuckled. “You’re blushing!”
“No, I’m not.”
Nina stopped laughing, but the corners of her mouth twitched. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”
Vanja smiled a little and shook her head. She made another attempt. “Have you ever dreamed about something that doesn’t, I mean, that doesn’t belong here?”
Nina stiffened. “Why would you ask me that?”
“I was just wondering.”
Nina rolled over onto her back. She stared at the ceiling.
“I think everyone has,” Vanja said. “Sometime.”
“I don’t understand why you want to talk about it.”
Vanja hesitated. “Not sure.”
Nina glanced at her. She extended an arm and pointed at the poster on the wall. As morning comes we see and say: today’s the same as yesterday. “Today’s the same as yesterday,” she said.
“Today’s the same as yesterday,” Vanja echoed.
“Full stop.” Nina rolled back onto her side and pulled Vanja toward her. She was solid, tangible. Vanja sank into her spicy-sweet scent.
—
The slam of the front door woke her. She glanced at the clock. It was almost three. Beside her, Nina stretched languidly.
“I have to go,” Vanja said. “I have to make a telephone call at four.”
“To whom? Your supervisor?”
Vanja nodded. “It’s some sort of debriefing. I’m supposed to get new assignments for the final week…” She paused. “This is my final week.”
Nina slid an arm around her waist. “Stay a while longer,” she mumbled into Vanja’s neck.
“I really have to be there at four.”
“No, I mean stay here. Quit that job. Stay here with me.”
“Is that what you want?”
“I just told you.”
Vanja sat up. “I need to think.”
“I don’t like the sound of that.” Nina pulled her arm back.
“No, I mean…” Vanja picked at the cuff of her shirt. “I need to think.”
“I’ll try not to worry while you do, then. Off you go.”
—
Vanja walked in a slow spiral through the streets toward the center. Soon, sh
e would board the train and go home. Everything would be just like before, the days lined up in perfect uniformity: she would go to work, go home, go to bed. She would go to the leisure center on Sevendays and watch the others play games and dance; day after day after day, just like she always had, until she retired and moved into the home for the elderly to await death. Without Nina.
At five minutes to four, as she stood at the commune office’s reception desk with a large, black telephone in front of her, she had made up her mind. She read the wall posters while the receptionist shuffled papers on the other side of the desk.
“It’s four o’clock,” the receptionist eventually said.
He picked up the receiver, pressed a button, and handed the receiver to Vanja.
The supervisor’s voice was faint and crackly on the other end of the line. She was very impressed with Vanja’s work so far, and would send her extra credits as a reward. She looked forward to seeing Vanja do a presentation when she returned to Essre. Vanja’s work was so outstanding it would be used as a model for future market research. And would she be interested in going to Odek or Balbit after this? Or would she prefer to stay in Essre?
“No,” Vanja said carefully. It felt right. “No. I’m going to stay here.”
“But you can’t do that,” the supervisor said. “You were supposed to give a presentation. That’s part of the assignment.”
“That’s not in my contract. It says I’m supposed to collect and send information.”
“No, but of course you’re supposed to present it, too. We have to be able to ask questions!”
“Everything is in the reports. There’s not much else. I’ll send the final report soon.”
The line crackled empty for a moment. “I don’t know what to say,” the supervisor said eventually. “I didn’t see this coming.”
“My contract doesn’t state,” Vanja repeated, “that I’m supposed to do more than conduct an investigation and then send you reports.”
“But it’s a given.”
“Not to me. And it doesn’t say how long I have to work for, either. You only said to take all the time I needed. And I have.”
“I see.” The supervisor’s voice was strangely small. “You do understand that you’re making our job harder, Vanja. What we’re trying to do is no easy thing.”
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