Severance

by Ling Ma

  I understand, I conceded, then almost couldn’t help myself: But the workers are dying, I repeated, as if I knew.

  I mean, the thing is this. There’s nothing else like the Gemstone Bible on the market, and we think a title like this is going to do very, very well. So I want you to tell me where we can go from here, as far as the Gemstone Bible is concerned. Can your Hong Kong office find another supplier?

  I had to tread gently. We could try, yes, but this is now an industry-wide problem. It’s not just one gemstone supplier. This isn’t an atypical issue in Guangdong.

  Guangdong? Her voice grew incrementally more exasperated.

  It’s a province in China, where all the gemstone suppliers are centered. This isn’t an isolated incident. Almost all suppliers are suffering from the same problems and are also suspending production to evade lawsuits.

  Almost all, she repeated.

  Yes, almost all, I confirmed, then tried a different tack. We could package the Bible with faux gemstone charms instead. We know a plastic supplier—

  I could almost hear her shaking her head. No. No. We’re committed to the Gemstone Bible. We placed the order with you guys as the Gemstone Bible. We’re not reconceiving this entire project on the basis of one supplier failing. She was speaking very quickly, her words stumbling over one another. Obviously, it doesn’t reflect well on Spectra that you guys placed this job with a shoddy supplier.

  I’m very sorry, I said mechanically. The working conditions—

  I know. She sighed. Everyone says placing jobs in China is a risk. There are no rules, no enforcement. But that’s why we used an intermediary like Spectra, because you guys are supposed to eliminate the risk. Otherwise, we could’ve just dealt directly with the suppliers ourselves.

  I started, Let’s try—

  So what I need you to do, Candace, she continued, is to replace the supplier, find another gemstone source. It can’t be that hard. You need to pull every string you can, call in every favor. Because, honestly, if you can’t produce this, then we’re going to look elsewhere, maybe even in India. Maybe we’ll start working directly with suppliers.

  She hung up before I could respond.

  It took me a second before I put the receiver down. Then I picked it up and put it down, picked it up and put it down, picked it up and threw it, the receiver unleashing a loud, repeating signal in protest. With both hands, I took the phone and yanked its cords out of the wall, dumping the whole thing into the wastebasket. With my heels on, I jammed my foot into the basket, until I heard plastic crack. I took my foot out, assessed the damage. I took the phone back out of the basket, swabbed it with some antibacterial wipes, reassembled it, and plugged it back in.

  I picked up the phone and called Hong Kong. It was six in the morning there, but I knew there would be someone who’d come in early to work. There was always someone. I had been to Spectra’s Hong Kong office. Through the sweeping windows, you could see the sun rising over the shops along Causeway Bay, the Tian Tan Buddha, the Hong Kong Cricket Club, Victoria Park, so named after the colonizing English queen herself, over the mountains and over the sea, rising and rising, an unstoppable force, bringing in a new day of work.

  2

  Let us return, then, as we do in times of grief, for the sake of pleasure but mostly for the need for relief, to art. Or whatever. To music, to poetry, to paintings and installations, to TV and the movies.

  But mostly TV and the movies.

  Has anyone ever see Torn Curtain? Bob bellowed. Who’s seen Torn Curtain? Raise your hands.

  Is that the one with Jimmy Stewart? Todd said.

  No. Paul Newman. Bob looked around. C’mon, Hitchcock, guys. Film History 101.

  When no one said anything, he sighed. I have my work cut out, I see.

  We were clustered around the fire, at night. We sat on logs, huddled in coats and blankets, waiting for dinner to cook in the Dutch oven. Somewhere in Pennsylvania.

  Bob continued with his Torn Curtain rant. Released in 1966, Torn Curtain is a Cold War thriller starring Paul Newman and Julie Andrews. Though overlooked as one of Hitchcock’s minor works, it is notable for an extended murder scene that shows a man being killed in real time. In the grim struggle, a man is headlocked, stabbed with a knife, struck with a shovel, and gassed in an oven. It is gruesome not for the tactical maneuvers, which are no more or less grisly than other homicidal depictions in movies, but for the scene’s painfully protracted duration.

  All of this is to say, Bob said, that it takes a long time for a human being to die. You have to do a lot of things, an alternating method of deprivation and attack, a winning combination of pressures and releases, levers and pulleys. A human body accumulates stresses. Killing is more an accumulative effect rather than the result of one definitive action.

  But what are you saying? Evan asked.

  The point, Bob said. The point I’m making is about the fevered. They aren’t really alive. And one way we have of knowing this is that they don’t take a long time to die.

  It was true, sort of. For the most part, from what we had seen, the fevered were creatures of habit, mimicking old routines and gestures they must have inhabited for years, decades. The lizard brain is a powerful thing. They could operate the mouse of a dead PC, they could drive stick in a jacked sedan, they could run an empty dishwasher, they could water dead houseplants. On the nights when we stalked their houses, we wandered through their spaces, looked at their family albums. They were more nostalgic than we expected, their stuttering brains set to favor the heirloom china, set to arrange and rearrange their aunts’ and grandmothers’ jars of pickles and preserves in endless patterns of peach, green bean, and cherry, to play records and CDs and cassette tapes they once must have enjoyed. Familiar songs drifted out at us from strange rooms. Bobby Womack, “California Dreamin’.” The Righteous Brothers, “Unchained Melody,” possibly the most beautiful song I have ever heard, more hymnal than anything. But it was not the emotional content of the songs that they registered, we deduced, only the rhythm, the percussive patterns that had worn grooves inside their brains. Dolly Parton, Kenny Rogers, “Islands in the Stream.” Tears streamed down their cheeks. Recognizing their residual humanity, we shot them in the heads but not the faces.

  It’s like we’re in this horror movie, Todd said. Like a zombie or vampire flick.

  Bob thought about this, scratching his sling. He frowned. Well, no. Vampire and zombie narratives are completely different.

  How are they different? Evan asked, winking at Janelle, who swatted his arm to stop him from egging Bob on.

  Bob looked back and forth between the two of them. He smiled benignly. Excellent question, Evan. With vampire narrative, the danger lies in the villain’s intentions, his underlying character. There are good vampires, there are bad vampires. Think of Interview with the Vampire. Or even Twilight. These are character narratives.

  Now, on the other hand, he continued, let’s think about the zombie narrative. It’s not about a specific villain. One zombie can be easily killed, but a hundred zombies is another issue. Only amassed do they really pose a threat. This narrative, then, is not about any individual entity, per se, but about an abstract force: the force of the mob, of mob mentality. Perhaps it’s better known these days as the hive mind. You can’t see it. You can’t forecast it. It strikes at any time, whenever, wherever, like a natural disaster, a hurricane, an earthquake.

  Let us apply this, Bob said, to our situation. Let us familiarize ourselves with the fevered.

  Wait, I interjected. What are you saying? Because number one, the fevered aren’t zombies. They don’t attack us or try to eat us. They don’t do anything to us. If anything, we do more harm to them.

  I surprised myself when I spoke. It was rare that I did. But, having spoken, I felt short of breath, nauseated. Everyone looked at me.

  Bob gave me a look. Candace. When you wake up in a fictitious world, your only frame of reference is fiction.

  Are you okay? Janel
le asked me.

  I ran into the woods, where, at the base of a tree, I threw up. The rice and beans we had for dinner, the peanut-butter-and-canned-beet sandwiches we’d had for lunch. Leaning with my hands pressed against its trunk, gasping, I braced myself against another wave of nausea. Whatever was left inside me puckered. The strawberry Nutri-Grain bar we’d had for breakfast, some cold instant coffee. But I didn’t stop there. It seemed like I was throwing up a month’s worth of food. Like the things I’d eaten in my last days in New York. The slices of hard, old bread that I’d dip into seltzer water to make them more palatable. Powdery mouthfuls of Manischewitz matzo ball mix, spooned out of the box. Tomato soup, made with Heinz ketchup packets and seltzer water. The pallets and pallets of strawberries, dark and spotted with mold, just dumped out on the sidewalk.

  Emptied, I wiped my sour, acidic mouth with the palm of my hand and smeared it on the tree bark. I leaned against the trunk for a moment, breathing into the crook of my elbow.

  Candace.

  I spun around to find Bob walking up behind me. Here, he said. In his hand was a bottle of Pepto-Bismol.

  Oh, that’s okay, I said, on instinct.

  Come on. You need it. Sensing my reticence, he went ahead and opened the new bottle. The plastic shell around the cap crinkled as he tore into and discarded it.

  I looked at the plastic piece of litter on the ground.

  Littering is only a problem if everyone does it, Bob said wryly.

  I accepted the Pepto-Bismol. I could feel him watching me as I took a sip. We didn’t know each other. I had been the last out of New York, then absorbed into the group quickly. It had only been a week, a week and a half, since they’d found me.

  Is that better? Bob asked, as if the wonders of Pepto worked this swiftly.

  Think I’m just tired, I said.

  Bob’s light gray eyes softened. It’s hard for everyone here. Luckily we’ll get to where we need to be soon, and we can settle in and not do all this traveling.

  A burst of laughter from the campfire cut through the air. Bob waited for it to pass.

  But speaking more broadly about this situation we find ourselves in, he continued, my advice is to find some form of spiritual guidance.

  I nodded politely. Sure. Like a self-help book or something.

  Something like that, he said, pausing. Do you practice any form of religion?

  My parents were religious, so I did have that upbringing of, you know, Sunday school. But it’s been years. I never went to church after high school.

  He was silent for a moment. When he spoke, he said: Before this, I wouldn’t consider myself religious at all. But lately, I find the Bible to be very comforting. He cleared his throat. What do you think we all have in common in this group?

  I don’t know, I said. I guess the most obvious thing is, we’re all survivors?

  He smiled, professorially. I’d rephrase that to something more nuanced. We’re selected. The fact that we’re immune to something that took out most of the population, that’s pretty special. And the fact that you’re still here, it means something.

  You mean, like natural selection?

  I’m talking about divine selection.

  I shifted uneasily. Who knew what was true. The sheer density of information and misinformation at the End, encapsulated in news articles and message-board theories and clickbait traps that had propagated hysterically through retweets and shares, had effectively rendered us more ignorant, more helpless, more innocent in our stupidity.

  The question that had hung over all of our heads: Why had we not become fevered? Most of us must have been in contact with airborne spores that had fevered others. To Bob, it all boiled down to his religious conviction that we were chosen. That’s the story to which the group officially subscribed.

  To me (and to Janelle and Ashley and Evan), the fever was arbitrary. The fact that we were alive held no special meaning.

  On the few occasions I had been caught alone with Bob, I had managed to avoid his religious talks. Now I felt myself rescinding, emptying of all personality, emotion, and preferences, so that he would know as little of me as possible. My eyes flickered back toward the campsite, the campfire visible through the trees. I could hear laughter. He caught me looking.

  Either way, I’m just happy to be here, I said, with a forced laugh.

  He pressed, How do you like it here so far, being with us, I mean? Do you think we’re the right fit for you?

  He asked this in all seriousness, as if I had any other choice.

  I like it so far, I managed. It’s taken some adjustment. The group dinners are a new experience for me. I’m just not used to doing everything together, the group activities and dinners. I’ve been—I hesitated—alone for a long time.

  He leveled his gaze. I’d like you to be more participatory, if possible. Now that you’re one of us, we’re counting on you.

  Sure, I said.

  That Pepto you’re holding, he continued, that was harvested on one of our stalks. We make lists of our necessities. We take what we need. We divide up our labor. We organize together to live. We stay together. Do you understand?

  I nodded.

  Well, we should get back, he said. Everyone’s probably waiting for us for dinner.

  When we returned to the campsite, I saw that everyone had dishes in their laps, plated with untouched food. The rule was that we couldn’t eat until someone, usually Bob, said grace. They were drinking on empty stomachs, half-full bottles of Amstel Light and Corona.

  This is quite a spread, Bob said to Genevieve approvingly.

  I sat down on a log, next to Janelle, who handed me a bottle of water. You okay? she asked. What did you talk to Bob about?

  I shrugged. I uncapped the water bottle and took a giant swig, swallowing along with the water all the residual bile in my mouth. It was seltzer water, the bubbles biting my gums, my tongue. I capped it as I swallowed.

  Genevieve passed me a plate of food, baked beans and peas. I was not hungry.

  So are you okay? Janelle asked. Ever since I’d told her about my situation, she asked whether I was okay so often that I was afraid the others would figure it out.

  Yes, I finally said. I’m fine.

  Bob smiled at me from across the campfire, as if we shared an inside joke. He said, loud enough for everyone to hear: Candace, will you lead us in saying grace tonight?

  I looked at him. His expression didn’t change.

  I bowed my head and began.

  3

  I arrived to the city carried by the tides of others. Most of my college friends were moving there, if they hadn’t already. It seemed like the inevitable, default place to go. Arriving, we did exactly what we thought we wanted to do. Jobless, we sat outside at sidewalk cafés, donning designer shades, splitting twenty-five-dollar pitchers of spiked Meyer lemonade, and holding tipsy, circulating conversations that lasted well into evening, as rush hour waxed and waned around us. Other people had places to go, but not us. It was the summer of 2006 and the move itself seemed like a slight, inconsequential event in the grand sequence of things. Which was: my mother died, I graduated college, I moved to New York.

  My college boyfriend had joined the Peace Corps. When he wasn’t digging wells or developing crop rotation systems in outlying South American villages, he was reading postcolonial theory in chambray shirts, sheltered by the cool, gentle shade of indigenous palms. Across weak, spotty reception, we held obligatory sessions of phone sex, more for the novelty of the thing than the thing itself. (You’re a fox. I’m a hen. Chicken coop. Go.) He broke up with me via email after the calling card minutes ran out.

  All I did that first summer in New York was wander through lower Manhattan, wearing my mother’s eighties Contempo Casuals dresses, looking to get picked up by anyone, whomever. The dresses slid on easily in the morning. They slid off easily at night. They were loose-fitting and cool, cut from jersey cotton in prints of florals and Africana. Wearing them, I never failed to get p
icked up but I usually failed to get anything else—not that I wanted anything else, as I told myself and whomever else. Still, I overstayed my welcome in their beds, wondering what they did for a living as they dressed in the mornings. Where they were going.

  I was tying this guy’s tie one morning. He wanted a Windsor knot. I tried to follow the step-by-step instructions he gave, blundering on the fifth or sixth step every time.

  My wife usually does this, he said apologetically. Ex-wife, he corrected. After his divorce, he’d moved out from Westchester to Williamsburg, into one of those sleek gray high-rises that overlooked the East River and boasted skyline views of Manhattan.

  What’s the occasion? I asked. For the special knot.

  I’m getting remarried, he said, and laughed when I looked up. Just kidding. No, I’m going to be on TV.

  Congratulations, I said, trying not to look too impressed. But don’t they have their own wardrobe people to help you with this?

  It’s local cable. He smiled patiently. I’ll call you tonight.

  Later, I watched the show. It was one of those political debate programs. They were doing a segment about unemployment rates among youth just out of college. I didn’t recognize his face right away, not with glasses on, but I recognized the tie I’d helped him pick out and the knot that had taken three tries to get right. The show identified him as Steven Reitman, an economist and author of You’re Not the Boss of Me: Labor Values and Work Ethic Among America’s Millennial Youth.

  Steven looked into the camera, sitting against a backdrop of New York skyline. He spoke with authority: The millennial generation has different values from most of America. These kids coming out of college today, they don’t want jobs, they expect trust funds.

  The host chimed in. What would you say, Steven, to recent statistics showing that millennials are the most educated generation of the American workforce? Isn’t that an indication that the new generation is primed for more advanced professions?

  Steven nodded. As I’ve written in my book, the problem isn’t education, it’s motivation. It’s a mentality issue. What does this mean for the United States as a leading economic force? We should be troubled.