Turnabout

by Carmen Webster Buxton

  Teleza grabbed my hand. “Come!” She said the one word and then she jumped up and ran for the sheltered space under the second floor balcony.

  I let her drag me along, but as soon as she stopped, I pulled myself free of her grasp. “Why?” I asked in Neluan.

  She pursed her lips in frustration, and then put her hand on my forehead. I had a vision of a copter-like vehicle swooping down into the courtyard while female commandos leapt from it, snatched me up, and dragged me off into the sky.

  It made my head reel for a couple of reasons. First I hadn’t realized Teleza could communicate images she had never actually seen. Second, in her vision I looked a good deal buffer than I actually was. In fact, I looked just a tad like the ‘after’ guys in the Bowflex commercials. And third, I hadn’t really believed Hobart’s warnings about kidnapping.

  Teleza moved her hand and my head cleared, but she wouldn’t let me go back to the bench until the hovering vehicle moved away.

  It came to me then that I wasn’t just imprisoned in the house. The whole damn world was a prison for anyone with a Y chromosome.

  I LIKED my lessons with Teleza. Hobart let her teach me more and more—whenever she wasn’t at school or doing chores. I spent mornings with him and afternoons with her. Afternoons were more fun.

  Teleza had a killer smile, and I could bring it out just by using a new vocabulary word correctly. On the other hand, I could get a hearty laugh by pronouncing it really badly. Teleza laughed a lot, but not in a mean way.

  The only thing was, aside from missing Ryan, my family, and decent music, I was getting cabin fever from never going anywhere outside the house. I wanted out.

  “Don’t you ever leave the house?” I asked Hobart one morning after my language lessons. I said it in Neluan, and I was proud of my accent after only two weeks of practice.

  He answered in the same language. “Every now and then.” He gave me a measuring glance, like he expected me to wig out or something. He started up the stairs toward his own suite, and I followed because I had nowhere else I wanted to go.

  “When?” I asked.

  Hobart switched to English, maybe because he thought I wouldn’t be able to follow the conversation—or maybe to be sure I understood. “There’s an Omdur Assembly every few months. I go to those, if our household is attending.” He opened his door and glanced around like he was checking to see if it was tidy.

  An assembly sounded interesting. I recalled the Ocan Garun was in the Omdur clan. “What happens at an assembly?”

  He made an abortive gesture, not quite a shrug, and advanced into the room. “Not that much, usually. A lot of it is just recordkeeping and socializing. But if there’s any issue up for a vote, Adeola goes, because she’s the senior wife for this household and casts our vote. I like to go because it’s a chance to see other guys—in person, not just on the phone.”

  He used the English word even though the Makoron device was more like talking over the net through a laptop than using a cell or a landline phone. He flopped down at his desk, which stood in a bookshelf-lined alcove that was almost a small library.

  I was wondering more about something else—specifically, how had I ended up here in the same household as Hobart? “Are any other guys from our world in the Omdur clan?”

  “Just me and Max.” He lifted his brows. “You remember him—the Ocan Garun’s husband.”

  Now that surprised me. Adeola and his other wives all seemed quite fond of Hobart, but the Ocan Garun had spoken to Max with all the affection of a drill sergeant giving orders.

  I must have looked shocked because Hobart chuckled. “Don’t worry about Max; his other wives are much nicer.”

  That was another shock. It occurred to me that Mr. Walters has always used the singular when he talked about his wife. “Even the Ocan Garun doesn’t get a man all to herself?”

  A strange expression crossed Hobart’s face—not disgust, but maybe fear or anger. “No, and the only Ocan Garun to ever try that found out her mistake the hard way.”

  His tone made me glad I had never mentioned Mr. Walters. It occurred to me that Walters had used the same words for the world and for the city leader that Hobart did, so wherever Dodomah was they probably spoke Neluan or something close to it. “So what does this world look like? You’ve never shown me a map of Makoro.”

  Hobart squinted like he was thinking about it, and then he pulled a book from the shelf behind him. He laid it down on his desk and flipped it open to a double-page map of the world as I had never seen it.

  The resemblance to the Earth I knew was there, but subtly. The Americas were most recognizable, even though instead of the isthmus of Panama joining the two continents, a hundred miles of ocean separated them. Africa had the same horn shape at the south end, but the northern half was flatter and partly missing. I could identify Europe because Scandinavia looked the same, but instead of an inland sea, the Mediterranean formed the western end of a large ocean that separated Greece from a huge land mass that kind of looked like Asia. I could tell India at least, but Australia seemed to be attached to Southeast Asia.

  I had never expected Makoro to be so different from my earth. “Holy fuck!”

  Hobart didn’t seem shocked by my language. “Kind of brings it all home, doesn’t it?”

  I nodded. “Where are we?”

  He pointed to an area on the east coast of North America, roughly where North Carolina should be. “Here’s Egume.”

  I leaned over to study the markings on the map. Egume seemed to be about a third the size of Kansas, with the city itself being more or less dead center in the pale blue area outlined in black. Just north of it was a slightly larger pale green area labeled Dodomah.

  Most of the map was the same kind of patchwork—small areas colored and outlined. The whole world was made up of countries no bigger than Belgium.

  “So where do they speak Neluan?” I asked.

  Hobart’s hand waved from the Rockies to the Atlantic coast, including a peninsula that sort of looked like Florida, but it was half the size. “Here, wherever there were other Nelu colonies centuries ago.” He ran his hand down the western coast. “They speak Kechuan here, in the part that was never conquered.”

  It rocked me to know I was somewhere where I not only had no clue how things were, I had no clue why they were that way. I swallowed and nodded at the patchwork world. “So, are all these other city-states the same as Egume?”

  He cocked his head. “How do you mean?”

  It frustrated me to be so ignorant that I didn’t even know where to start asking questions. “Do people live in the same kind of households?”

  Hobart’s eyes squinted as he looked me over, like he was assessing my reasons for asking. “No, not all of them.” He held his hand over pseudo-Europe. “It’s not that different here, but here,” he swept his hand across the sea I had no name for to cover pseudo-Asia, “here young women fight to join households—literally fight, with knives, fists, whatever. Over here,” his hand flitted to flat-topped Africa, “the virus hit harder. They have even fewer men. When a boy baby is born, the government takes him, raises him if he lives. He spends his whole life in a virtual prison making deposits for the state-run sperm bank.”

  It sounded like a weird life. “You mean without women?”

  His expression got grimmer. “You ever see a cow hooked up to a milking machine?”

  I had a vague memory of my geography class in fourth grade. “Just in a movie.”

  He tapped the map. “Well here it’s not cows, and it’s not milk they’re after.”

  The mental picture wasn’t pretty. “So, you’re telling me I’m lucky to have landed here in Egume?”

  He shook his head. “I wouldn’t say you’re lucky to have made the Turn. But I’m telling you it could have been worse.”

  He turned like he wanted to make a call, but he didn’t do anything. I realized he was waiting for me to leave, but I didn’t feel like being polite. “So, how do you call som
eone on that thing?”

  He shook his head. “First you have to be authorized or the phone won’t work for you.” He glanced over his shoulder at me. “And then you have to know someone to call.”

  And I didn’t know anyone I could talk to but him and Max. I gave it up and left. I went back downstairs to the gym and stood by the window and looked out at the street. The traffic moved briskly, pedestrians, hovercars, and bicycles. Everyone I saw was female, in a hurry, and free to go where she liked. Hundreds of years ago some guys had fucked up this world, and now I was paying the price for their stupidity.

  That night I put the radio on before I lay down to go to sleep. I had found a station that wasn’t anything like jazz, but at least it sounded closer to pop than to Bollywood. When I closed my eyes, I could almost pretend I was back home. It wasn’t any worse than the time Mom had drunk most of a bottle of wine and gotten out her Abba collection.

  I thought about my life at home and compared it to my life in Makoro. I had less responsibility here, and less work, but I couldn’t go anywhere outside one very large house. At home I had spent my time resenting the fact that I was surrounded by people with more possessions than me, without ever realizing that I still had my essential freedom.

  I slipped out of bed and went to the window. Instead of a busy street, my room looked out on the courtyard. The moon was up, a white disc just above the blinking red light at the tip of the janullo. The sky and the moon were the most familiar things in Makoro, even though the moon’s craters looked subtly different. What came over me abruptly was a sudden sympathy for Monica Martin. She had been raised in one world and then transplanted to another. I knew now how painful that could be.

  And then I noticed a shadow in the window across the courtyard from mine but on the second floor. Someone was standing in that window looking in my direction. It had to be a woman, since all the males were housed in my wing, safe behind our barred windows and steel doors. I counted windows from the corner and recalled my tour of the house. It was the room Teleza shared with Panya and Ulu.

  Whoever it was couldn’t be looking at the moon because it was on the wrong side of the sky to be visible from that window. No, whoever it was was looking at my window.

  I hoped it was Teleza.

  Eight

  “Why can’t I go to the Assembly?” I asked. I said it in English, because I was fed up with speaking nothing but Neluan. “You’re taking Kafele and Gyasi, so it must be safe.”

  Hobart slipped an ankle-length, short-sleeved, red thrya on over his shirt and trousers and studied himself in the full-length mirror on the wall. “You’re only a ward of this household, not part of it. That means you’re not officially in the Omdur clan.” He spoke in Neluan.

  I could understand him just fine. I was eating my meals with the family now, and I could follow most of their conversations, except for the occasional word or phrase. But I wasn’t in the mood to cooperate, so I answered in English. “It’s not fair.”

  He grinned, but he kept speaking Neluan. “The Wahlau holiday is coming up in less than two weeks. We’re having company for that. You’ll get to meet new people then.”

  The Wahlau holiday celebrated friendship, and Adeola had invited another Omdur household to visit that day. It was the only time since I had arrived that a large group of outsiders had been invited into the household. Even the older girls who had jobs didn’t bring friends to visit without asking Adeola’s permission first.

  Having company wasn’t the same as getting out of the house and looking at something other than the same old walls, the courtyard, and the view from the gym windows. I looked around at Hobart’s bedroom. The huge bed had a sort of gold satin tent over it, with the sides tied back with silk cords. The alcove with his desk and bookshelves was bigger than Gyasi’s whole room. Hobart had a sitting area, too, with a gas fireplace, a sofa, and a really comfortable armchair.

  Hobart dropped the red thrya to the floor and took a blue one, shorter but with long sleeves, from his walk-in closet. He slipped it on and turned so he stood at an angle to the mirror. “What do you think?” he asked, still in Neluan.

  I was tempted to tell him it made him look fat. I had never watched a guy try on clothes before, and it creeped me out to see a straight man his age pay so much attention to what he was wearing. “It’s okay.”

  Hobart must have decided he liked the blue thrya better, because he headed for the door. He left the red one on the floor. I knew someone would hang it up for him. Just as Teleza’s mother taught the children, Panya and Ulu’s mothers cleaned the house and did the cooking, with help from the girls.

  I followed Hobart through the dimness of the corridor, down the stairs, and into the sunlight of the courtyard. Three hovercars stood parked by the gate. I had known the family owned three hovercars, but I had never seen them all at once because they were garaged in a nearby alley.

  Adeola waited beside the first vehicle, her eyes following Hobart as he walked toward her. When she reached out to put one arm around him, I saw she was wearing a sidearm. A quick glance around confirmed that all the women and the older girls were armed.

  It freaked me out. I watched as Hobart entered the first hovercar, and then Kafele got in the second car with his mother, and Gyasi got in the third with his mother. Adeola rattled off names, directing the others where to ride. Most of the remaining women and girls distributed themselves into the three vehicles, leaving me standing there with Adeola, Teleza and her mother, and Panya and Ulu.

  Adeola spoke to Teleza’s mother. “Be sure you az shukar the locks as soon as we’re through the gates.”

  I didn’t recognize all of the Neluan words, but the meaning was clear. The household was circling the wagons.

  Teleza’s mother obviously understood. “Of course.”

  Adeola nodded once, a curt gesture. She glanced at me. “You will stay in your quarters until we’re back, Jayzoon.” She said my name with that same odd inflection everyone but Hobart used, but with a dose of stern authority that even my mother had never used.

  I didn’t say anything. Arguing wouldn’t get me anywhere, and I didn’t feel like being polite.

  “I will see to it, Adeola,” Teleza’s mother said.

  Adeola got into the driver’s seat of the first hovercar. I heard the door locks thunk, and then all three hovercars lifted with a loud rush of air and started for the gate.

  They whooshed through almost soundlessly, and then the gates clanged shut.

  Teleza’s mother touched the screen on her portable console, a sort of tablet but with more controls, that interacted with the house’s systems; her fingers moved in a rapid pattern. “You girls all have your assignments,” she said, dashing my hopes for some time alone with Teleza.

  The three girls went in one door, and I started for another, but Teleza’s mother caught my arm.

  “Come to the kitchen, and I’ll get you something to eat,” she said to me. “And then you can go to your room or the gym.”

  That was one consolation. I would have the whole of the men’s wing to myself. I could work out or even wander around Hobart’s suite if I felt like it. Or I could stand in the gym and stare out the windows at the traffic in the suburban street next to the house like I always did when I felt like I was in jail.

  For a second I considered telling Teleza’s mother to have one of the girls bring my food, but I wasn’t sure it would work if they had chores. Besides, I would have more food choices if I went to the kitchen myself. It was three hours at least until dinner time, and I knew I would be hungry before then.

  I followed Teleza’s mother into the huge kitchen. Rows of pots and pans hung from the wall above the stove, and a long counter separated the kitchen from the equally large dining room. It reminded me of Monica’s grandfather’s house, only bigger.

  Teleza’s mother went into the cold storage unit, a sort of walk-in refrigerator, and came out with a platter of leftover leg of lamb. “Would you like some bread and cheese with th
is?”

  “Sure,” I said as she sliced the lamb.

  When she put out a loaf of bread, I made myself a sandwich, which made her smile.

  “That’s a cruzca way to eat. Hobart likes to do that with cold meat, too.”

  I wondered whether cruzca meant peculiar or maybe convenient. I’d have to look it up. “It’s called a sandwich.”

  She just shook her head like it was too much trouble to learn a new word, but she got me a glass of juice and a tray, so I could take my meal back to my room and eat when I was hungry.

  She also followed me through the courtyard, and I heard the steel door to the men’s wing lock as soon as I went through it.

  Gloom overcame me as I let myself into my room. I locked my door just for spite, but I was feeling sorry for myself in a big way until I turned and saw Teleza standing next to my bed.

  “Hello,” she said.

  I nearly dropped the tray. “What are you doing here?”

  She smiled at me and took two steps to take the tray from my hands and put it on the dresser. “I wanted to be alone with you. We’ve never been really alone.”

  It was only sort of true. We had spent a lot of time alone, but we were always in the courtyard or the sitting room or somewhere where people could walk in on us any time.

  I cleared my throat. “Was there some reason you wanted to be alone?”

  She lifted her face to look at me. “Do you like me, Jayzoon?”

  It sounded like a trick question. “Sure. I think you’re nice.” And hot, but I didn’t say that.

  She put one hand out to touch my cheek. “We’re going to be married soon.”

  Whoa! “I-I—uh, is that certain?”

  Something very like a frown darkened her expression. She dropped her hand. “Don’t you want to be married to us?”

  The plural pronoun still sounded weird. “Well—”

  She cut me off before I could go any farther. “Don’t you want to be married to me?”

  Substitute ‘go to bed with’ for ‘marry’ and there was no question. “Sure.”