Lighthouse Island

by Paulette Jiles

  It was merely a theory, said James. Meteorology is a notoriously inaccurate science.

  Well, here’s lunch, said the administrator. His voice was unnatural with rage but he spoke in a false, inviting voice. Look here, brought up from our own kitchens. Very good. These are excellent provisions. This establishment does not need demolition. It does not. Here, have some of this beef stew, genuine cow beef with fresh peas, carrots. From a cow. I have all the figures you want. We’re doing our own scrapping to make new pipes, prisoner labor, cheap, cheap.

  The room smelled wonderfully of furniture polish and detergent and clean air. Nadia envied the prisoner women approaching the table and watched as James accepted a soup plate of beef stew. Nadia would not be asked to serve until the dessert. Meanwhile she could simply steal glances at him. His muscled but pale hands, the healthy and coarse brown hair, and his very ordinary profile. He was real. He sat there in his wheelchair with an alert look on his face as if he were paying attention to the administrator. Taking up space, weighing a certain amount, breathing in and breathing out. He wore a watch on a leather band.

  Look at this room! said the administrator. Just redone this month! And this is all going exploding into the air? Oh my God, this is unreal.

  No, it will implode, not explode.

  According to your brother, who is notoriously inaccurate, I might be paddling downstream!

  Nadia glanced quickly from one side to the other. The entire room seemed to be electrified, its photons and electrons and atoms and beige-and-blue-striped curtains in a slubby weave were all charged with desire. With potential and kinetic love. With poetry and antique emotions. With faith, hope, and Charity, who was standing quietly by with a bread knife in her hand thinking of slitting the administrator’s throat.

  James said, The choice was between taking down the top three stories and taking down the whole thing. His voice was mild and full of authority. He had strong, deep lines around his mouth and between his brows and on his face a flat expression, a hard-set, a ram-you-damn-you look. He said, And in addition to the jail there are problems with the entire water sector. Never mind the rain predictions. This sector, including the paper mill, is over its allocation. Something’s got to go. You’ve got to go.

  What about them? Why don’t they go? said the administrator. He was a moderate-sized man with very large ears and fine, thin blond hair who knew nothing of love. Of imprisoned girls who were covert royalty. Reduced to slaving in the kitchens of loathsome fortresses. Drugged by magic devices. Prepared to undertake their own rescue given one small hope, one small hope.

  Can’t, said James. They make paper.

  Be damned to you, said the administrator. You’re one of the people on the problematic distribution list, aren’t you? Those people are usually arrested.

  No. Demolition doesn’t distribute anything. We don’t produce anything. On the contrary.

  It doesn’t matter, the list is the list.

  I see. James’s pale eyes were unreadable and flat to the plane of his face, his lids hooded. I want you to call for recyclers to start stripping this building immediately, get out all they can use and then we’ll begin assessment of the structure. You will have to distribute your prisoners.

  You’re in trouble yourself! cried the administrator and his reedy assistant flung himself about in his chair and made hushing gestures. I don’t care! I can say what I want! This is my building, my jail! You’ll never get set up, never; you’ll be arrested before you even get in a scrapping crew!

  At a signal Nadia stepped forward with two servings of the glutinous tapioca. Her straw slippers shuffled over the carpet. She put the first one in front of the administrator and then gave one to James. She stood very close to him and sat the dish down on his paper placemat. She could take in his scent, of good soap and clean linen and something that was just himself. He had written Uphusband not well on his placemat. Changed files. I have one week. Then he kept on scribbling and wrote over the words.

  What’s that? The administrator said. What are you writing?

  Calculating primer cord costs, said James. When will you start moving your prisoners?

  Moving? You are living in a dream world. You see how well they serve, said the administrator. They get good training here. Excellent training in the food services, janitorial work. If these buildings were to be demolished they would be parceled out. Probably thrown into the mines! Women! In the mines! Dragging carts of coal!

  Women, being shot on television, said James. For invented crimes. Maybe they’d prefer dragging carts of coal. What do you think?

  Nadia paused a fraction of a second before touching him. Before saying, Director Orotov, would you care for coffee? But if she opened her mouth it would be the end of her. She stepped back to her place behind the trolley.

  And poetry? said James. He laid the pen down and took up the dessert spoon in his fine, long hand.

  What? The administrator looked up. Poetry?

  Why not? I suppose they could be given some training in arts and culture. He dipped his spoon into the dessert. Shame to waste educated people, intelligent and creative people, in such minimalism. Our fine art is in a perilous state. You should be assessing each prisoner’s abilities before reallocating them.

  Arts and culture? The administrator stared at James. Educated people? Prisoners? You are living in some kind of a bubble. You need to be removed! You have no business trying to expand your agency by destroying my building! You’ve gone too far! The administrator’s voice cracked at the exclamation points.

  Try me, said James. He leaned back and pinned his mild gaze on the administrator. Nadia felt the tension between the two men like some kind of bitter odor in the air. Then to her amazement she saw James lift his right foot and put it forward on the footrest, lifting the toe of his shoe up and down. Then he dropped it down on the footrest again.

  The administrator said, Maybe I will.

  As they wheeled the carts out Nadia kept saying the puzzle words over to herself. Uphusband not well. Changed files. One week.

  That evening the head guard, the Lard Queen, got in a shouting match with their night-shift guards over showing the execution of the blond woman. The TV screen shone out in blue tones that flickered and jumped over the faces of all the women in the Q ward. Nadia found herself sitting on cot number thirty-four between Charity and one of the gypsy women. They were gripping one another’s sweaty hands without even realizing they were doing it. The screen was hostile, a man-eating thing, a predator. They watched the little blond woman led into the execution chamber, pressed back against the sandbags in her loose shift. She was pleading in a long, babbling scream. Then the Lard Queen settled the argument by ripping the plug out of the wall.

  Thank you, thank you, the women whispered.

  Chapter 28

  Early the next morning the guard yelled out that cot number thirty-four was to come to the door and be escorted to her counseling session.

  Nadia stood up. There had been no warning. The guard handed her her knapsack as she came out the door and, from the other women in the reeking and dirty Q ward, little faint good-byes. Too bad, said Head Prisoner. She meant that Nadia had to go and face whatever she had to face with no breakfast, no water.

  Because she had been handed her knapsack out of wherever they had stored it, Nadia knew that she was going somewhere else after the counseling session. She was leaving the quarantine ward.

  Live it up, Sendra, said Charity. Luck to you.

  Nadia’s escort guard said, I’m going off shift. There’ll be another guard take my place. She’ll be waiting when you get out of your session.

  I see, said Nadia. Her heart seemed to freeze in place for a moment and then went on normally.

  So here you are. Now you can tell your side of it, can’t you? The guard smiled at her and in a moment of sympathy patted her arm. Tell how you’re innocent and
everything.

  Nadia was so relieved to find herself in a counselor’s office instead of some kind of screen-test room that she felt giddy. She took hold of herself and stood calmly on the thin carpeting.

  The counselor was a youngish pale woman with blond hair tied up in rough plaits, and no wedding ring. Her computer screen was guarded on either side by pieces of cardboard that said LAUNDRY POWDER INSTITUTIONAL USE ONLY. There was a half-eaten sandwich on the counselor’s desk and a handful of candies. Nadia came in and stood. It was very cold and the carpet was dirty and the windows were painted out here as well. A large glass paperweight held the files down against a blowing current of cold air from the ventilation system. Inside the paperweight were a girl and a bird.

  Sit down, the counselor said. My name is Jeanne Uphusband.

  Nadia sat down. She put her knapsack on the floor. It was the name James had written on his placemat.

  You say Yes ma’am! Jeanne Uphusband turned to her, and for a moment wavered.

  Yes ma’am, said Nadia.

  The counselor was dressed in the same uniform gray color as the prisoners. Except her tunic top was faced with green piping and she wore a white blouse underneath, and an ID badge on a string. Her little felt hat with a veil sat on top of the computer monitor.

  You’re charged with not having an ID, being out of your sector without permission and no residence permit. You were seen coming out of off-limits abandoned housing and you were dressed as a boy. The counselor paused. Ah, yes, um, residence permit. This is the reality of it. So? A boy? What were you thinking? Good Lord. The counselor’s head wobbled slightly.

  What’s wrong with field research? said Nadia. Ma’am? I hope you don’t imagine all research is done on a computer.

  We contacted your supervisor by e-mail. He said the same thing. I gave him hell for sending you out on such an idiotic task. Hey, this is a genuine world here. You people in sociological research think you can get away with anything.

  You contacted my supervisor?

  Yes. Oversupervisor Thomas Stearns Eliot.

  Right. Nadia nodded, no hesitation. Well, I was just observing the area. Specifically, the abandoned apartment towers. Dogtown Towers.

  Let’s get to the truth. Your backpack had no ID in it whatever.

  Well, then, someone stole it. Nadia crossed her ankles. Having spent the last three weeks in quarantine I have heard a great deal of talk of a black market in phony IDs. I have had an interesting time in quarantine. So where did it go? Nadia had recovered her lost interrogatives; they came back like the pigeons to Dogtown Towers.

  The counselor stared back at her. Nadia detected a slight hesitation.

  How would I know? said Jeanne Uphusband. You’d have to make that claim on an official form. We have to stay in touch with the actual, here. The counselor’s head wavered and she closed her eyes and took deep breaths.

  Nadia hesitated and then leaned toward Jeanne Uphusband. Are you all right? You seem faint.

  I know. Jeanne Uphusband’s manner changed for a moment. I had some altercations with my superior and got cut back to one pint. My overly strong objections to these new screen tests. But never mind that. Never mind. We are all prisoners of thirst. I want you to explain what you were doing in abandoned public buildings with no ID and so on and so on . . . She trailed off and then bent forward and inspected the file that had come up on her monitor. Your record isn’t all that good, you know.

  Nadia said, My record is perfectly good, ma’am.

  The counselor said, With your education you could have worked your way up, you know. Earn credits, private apartment, a hundred kilowatt-hours, water features. Two-gallon recirculating Bubbling Woodland spring with leatherette fish or whatever. She wiped her face. Her fingers skipped clumsily over the keyboard and she looked at the monitor and stopped typing. Who is this? Why is this on here? She turned the big wooden monitor chassis with the flapping laundry-box wings so that Nadia could see it.

  There was a photograph of a young woman Nadia didn’t know, with the name Nadia Stepan at the top, and an ID number. Nadia felt her veins beating in her neck but she said, I don’t know. How am I supposed to know who that is?

  But Nadia knew it was Sendra Bentley. She gazed coolly at the monitor. Also under the name Nadia Stepan was a notation: Arrest when found. Theft of gov’t property and marital endangerment. Ref: Oversec. Blanche Warren. Keyword: Slut.

  Wait. There’s more in that file. The woman bent to her keyboard again and the first key she touched caused the photograph to disappear and then a PDF file came up. Author Sendra Bentley.

  Ah yes, said Nadia, and she bent forward and read some of the first page. Yes. Nadia read quickly. It contained phrases such as the politics of renaming, and disappearance of the homeless as an analytic category and collective identification of objectives in utilization of marginal urban spaces.

  How did that happen? cried the counselor. Why is that there? I never brought that up!

  I have no idea. Nadia read on. I loved writing that paper. Marginal urban spaces are the least known and the least explored. We tend to ignore them; I suppose it’s our celebrity culture.

  Celebrity culture. The counselor was dubious. Perhaps.

  Nadia said, Arbor Square and the abandoned public buildings there are an extremely rich field for spontaneous vernacular management of disregarded areas. It is exciting.

  The counselor reached for her metal tumbler and turned it up from habit. There was nothing in it. Write out an explanation. Someone educated like yourself, I don’t see why you have to go running around in boy’s clothes in abandoned buildings. I forgot about the boy’s clothes. She looked up but her eyes were not focusing well. The judge will hand down your sentence.

  I thought you said there would be mediation.

  It’s just a word. They like it. Doesn’t mean a damn thing. Sounds good. You’re going to have to spend quite a lot of time in solitary. Down in the refrigeration units. Then corrective labor. Good for you. Builds character. Only your supervisor’s intervention here is preventing something worse.

  Nadia paused, thinking, Worse how?

  I know what you’re thinking. The counselor braced her hands against the desk and a drop of sweat trickled down from her hairline. I know, I know. The guards are making jokes. Want to be a star? Want to be on TV? God. She wiped away the sweat.

  Nadia said, How long in solitary?

  Shortest, a year. Longest, five years. Jeanne Uphusband’s head was unsteady. She looked up and did not quite focus on Nadia. I’ll call the guard. The counselor stood up. The motion of suddenly standing up made her blood pressure drop like a stone. She took one step clear of the desk and fell, making a soft thump on the ragged carpet.

  Nadia rose from her chair and stood for a moment, wavering. Paused. Listened. Nobody at the door. Then she bent down and stripped the tunic with the white dickie from Jeanne Uphusband, jerking at the flopping, limp arms. She took the ID badge on its string. Then she ripped off her own jailhouse tunic and wrestled the unconscious woman into it. She was almost panting with nerves and animal fear.

  Nnnnngaaaahh, said the counselor. She opened her eyes halfway and her pupils were rolled up in her head.

  Nadia grasped the paperweight and struck the woman on top of the head. The bird within it flew through the glycerin and hundreds of bits of bread drifted around the girl’s head like snow.

  Silence.

  Well, there you go, Nadia thought. I’ve killed her. I’ve killed her.

  She put on the counselor’s tunic and adjusted the little white dickie. Jeanne Uphusband made a snoring noise and one of her arms twitched.

  Nadia had to calm down; she had to appear only a little flustered by the fact that a prisoner had fainted.

  She would have to leave the knapsack here on the floor. Nadia pulled the tote bag out of the knapsack, shook the tote ope
n, and stuffed the Girl Scout Handbook into it. From beyond the door she heard voices. A loud, harsh laugh. A new guard. She grabbed her dress top and her little heels with the rosettes, her straw hat and the journal. She jammed them into her tote-bag purse and then the horrible red polka-dotted runners. Then she dropped to her knees and grabbed everything she could; the blister card and her money and the feather duster and the tortoiseshell glasses and her combs and the precious flashlight, the crocheted cat, the water bottle and its woven cover. The sewing kit in its little tin had spilled open; leave it, leave the electronic thingie too. She grabbed up the silver St. Jude dangle on its chain.

  She took the counselor’s hat and the stack of files. She took the counselor’s shoes and shoved her own straw jail slippers on the woman’s feet. Nadia turned to the chair she had been sitting on and knocked it over to the floor with a loud thump. She opened the door and looked at the guard with an irritated little shake of her head. Please, she said.

  Terminal Verna stood up her full six feet. She had teeth like burglar bars. She had a nightstick and handcuffs and deep sunken green eyes. Hands like front-end loaders.

  What?

  The detainee has fainted. Please remove her and her effects. I believe she goes straight to solitary.

  Well, damn. Terminal Verna loomed in the doorway.

  How can I interview detainees when they are not being given enough water to think properly? She didn’t even make sense.

  The big guard walked into the room on her thick shoes and looked down at Sendra Bentley.

  Please call medical, Jeanne Uphusband said and hurried off down the hall.

  Chapter 29

  Most escapees spend many hours and days planning an escape from their immediate detention but then have no further plans once they get out. Where to go. How to blend in. They simply parade down the street in a state of delirious joy at being out of confinement and enforced hebetude and back into the skin of their own selves. They laugh, they skip, they sing, and their speech is alive with exclamation points and interrogatives. They are quickly spotted and rearrested. Nadia, however, sank deeply into the persona of Jeanne Uphusband as if into the cushions of a luxurious conveyance and planned on driving this conveyance for as long and as far as she could.