I unlock my bike and pedal it down the front path and out into the street. The pedals creak and moan and shudder. This bike was owned by my cousin Marcia before me and must be at least fifteen years old, and leaving it outside all year isn’t doing anything to preserve it.
I start cruising in the direction of Back Cove, which is downhill, fortunately.
The streets are always pretty empty at this time of night. For the most part, the cureds are inside, sitting at dinner, or cleaning up, or preparing for bed and another night of dreamless sleep, and all the uncureds are home or on their way there, nervously watching the minutes swirl away toward nine o’clock curfew.
My legs are still aching from my run earlier today. If I make it to Back Cove on time and Alex is there, I’m going to be a complete mess, sweaty and disgusting. But I keep going anyway. Now that I’m out of the house I push all my doubts and questions out of my mind and focus on hauling ass as fast as my cramping legs will allow me, spinning down through the vacant streets toward the cove, taking every shortcut I can think of, watching the sun descend steadily toward the blazing gold line of the horizon, as though the sky—a brilliant, electric blue at this point—is water, and the light is just sinking through it.
I’ve only been out at this hour a few times on my own, and the feeling is strange—frightening and exhilarating at the same time, like talking to Alex out in the open earlier this afternoon: as though the revolving eye that I know is always watching has been blinded just for a fraction of a second, as though the hand you’ve been holding your whole life suddenly disappears and leaves you free to move in any direction you want.
Lights sputter in windows around me, candles and lanterns, mostly; this is a poor area, and everything is rationed, especially gas and electricity. At a certain point I lose sight of the sun’s position beyond the four- and five-story buildings, which grow more densely packed after I turn onto Preble: tall, skinny, dark buildings, pressed up against one another as though already preparing for winter and huddling for warmth. I haven’t really thought about what I’ll say to Alex, and the idea of standing alone with him suddenly makes my stomach bottom out. I have to pull my bike up abruptly, stop and catch my breath. My heart is pounding frantically. After a minute’s rest I keep pedaling, slower now. I’m still about a mile away but the cove is visible, flashing off to my right. The sun is just teetering over the dark mass of trees on the horizon. I have ten, fifteen minutes tops until total darkness.
Then another thought nearly stops me, hitting me straight like a fist: He won’t be there. I’ll be too late and he’ll leave. Or this will turn out to be a big joke, or a trick.
I wrap one arm around my stomach, willing the ravioli to stay put, and pick up speed again.
I’m so busy circling one foot after the other—left, right, left, right—and doing a mental tug-of-war with my digestive tract, that I don’t hear the regulators coming.
I’m about to speed through the long-defunct traffic light at Baxter when I am suddenly dazzled by a wall of zipping, bouncing light: the beams of a dozen flashlights directed into my eyes, so I have to skid abruptly to a halt, lifting a hand to my face and nearly flipping over the handlebars—which would be a real disaster, since in my rush to get out of the house I forgot to bring my helmet.
“Stop,” the voice of one of the regulators barks out—the leader in charge of the patrol, I guess. “Identity check.”
Groups of regulators—both volunteer citizens and the actual regulators employed by the government—patrol the streets every night, looking for uncureds breaking curfew, checking the streets and (if the curtains are open) houses for unapproved activity, like two uncureds touching each other, or walking together after dark—or even two cureds engaging in “activity that might signal the re-emergence of the deliria after the procedure,” like too much hugging and kissing. This rarely happens, but it does happen.
Regulators report directly to the government and work closely with the scientists at the labs. Regulators were responsible for sending my mother off for her third procedure; a passing patrol saw her crying over a photograph one night right after her second failed treatment. She was looking at a picture of my father, and she’d forgotten to close the curtains all the way. Within days, she was back at the labs.
Normally it’s easy to avoid the regulators. You can practically hear them from a mile away. They carry walkie-talkies to coordinate with other patrolling groups, and the static interference of the radios going on and off makes it sound like a giant buzzing den of hornets is heading your way. I just wasn’t paying attention. Mentally cursing myself for being so stupid, I fish my wallet out of my back pocket. At least I remembered to grab that. It’s illegal to go without ID in Portland. The last thing anybody wants is to spend the night in jail while the powers that be try to verify your validity.
“Magdalena Ella Haloway,” I say, trying to keep my voice steady, as I pass my ID to the regulator in charge. I can hardly make him out behind his flashlight, which he keeps trained on my face, forcing me to squint. He’s big; that’s all I know. Tall, thin, angular.
“Magdalena Ella Haloway,” he repeats. He flips my ID over between his long fingers and looks at my identity code, a number assigned to every citizen of the USA. The first three digits identify your state, the next three your city, the next three your family group, the next four your identity. “And what are you doing, Magdalena? Curfew’s in less than forty minutes.”
Less than forty minutes. That must mean it’s almost eight thirty. I shift on my feet, trying hard not to betray impatience. A lot of the regulators—especially the volunteer ones—are poorly paid city techs: window washers or gas-meter readers or security guards.
I take a deep breath and say as innocently as possible, “I wanted to take a quick ride down to Back Cove.” I do my best to smile and look kind of stupid. “I was feeling bloaty after dinner.” No point in lying any more than that. I’ll just get myself in trouble.
The lead regulator continues to examine me, the flashlight directed glaringly at my face, my ID card in his hand. For a second he seems to waver, and I’m sure he’s going to let me go, but then he passes my ID to another regulator. “Run it through with SVS, will you? Make sure it’s valid.”
My heart plummets. SVS is the Secure Validation System, a computer network where all the valid citizenships, for every single person in the entire country, are stored. It can take twenty to thirty minutes for the computer system to match codes, depending on how many other people are calling into the system.
He can’t really think I’ve forged an identity card, but he’s going to waste my time while someone checks.
And then, miraculously, a voice pipes up from the back of the group. “She’s valid, Gerry. I recognize her. She comes into the store. Lives at 172 Cumberland.”
Gerry swings around, lowering his flashlight in the process. I blink away the floating dots in my vision. I recognize a few faces vaguely—a woman who works in the local dry cleaners and spends her afternoons leaning in the doorway, chewing gum and occasionally spitting out into the street; the traffic officer who works downtown near Franklin Arterial, one of the few areas of Portland that has enough car traffic to justify one; one of the guys who collects our garbage—and there, in the back, Dev Howard, who owns the Quikmart down the street from my house.
Normally my uncle brings home most of our groceries—canned goods and pasta and sliced meats, for the most part—from his combo deli and convenience store, Stop-N-Save, all the way over on Munjoy Hill, but occasionally, if we’re desperate for toilet paper or milk, I’ll run out to the Quikmart. Mr. Howard has always creeped me out. He’s super-skinny and has hooded black eyes that remind me of a rat’s. But tonight I feel like I could hug him. I didn’t even think he knew my name. He’s never said a word to me except, “Will that be all today?” after he has rung up my purchases, glowering at me from underneath the heavy shade of his eyelids. I make a mental note to thank him the next time I see him.
Gerry hesitates for a fraction of a second longer, but I can see that the other regulators are starting to get restless, shifting from foot to foot, eager to continue the patrol and find someone to bust.
Gerry must sense it too, because he jerks his head abruptly in my direction.
“Let her have the ID.”
Relief makes me feel like laughing, and I have to struggle to look serious as I take my ID and tuck it into place. My hands are shaking ever so slightly. It’s strange how being around the regulators will do that to you. Even when they’re being relatively nice, you can’t help but think of all the bad stories you’ve heard—the raids and the beatings and the ambushes.
“Just be careful, Magdalena,” Gerry says, as I straighten up. “Make sure you’re home before curfew.” He tilts his flashlight into my eyes again. I lift my arm to my eyes, squinting against the dazzle. “You wouldn’t want to get into any trouble.”
He says it lightly, but for a moment I think I hear something hard running under his words, a current of anger or aggression. But then I tell myself I’m just being paranoid. No matter what the regulators do, they exist for our protection, for our own good.
The regulators sweep away in a group around me, so for a few seconds I’m caught up in a tide of rough shoulders and cotton jackets, unfamiliar cologne and sweat-smells. Walkie-talkies sputter to life and fade away again around me. I catch snippets of words and broadcasts: Market Street, a girl and a boy, possibly infected, unapproved music on St. Lawrence, someone appears to be dancing…
I get bumped side to side against arms and chests and elbows, until finally the group passes and I’m spit out again, left alone on the street as the regulators’ footsteps grow more distant behind me. I wait until I can no longer hear the fuzz of their radio chatter or their boots hitting the pavement.
Then I take off, feeling again a lifting sensation in my chest, that same sense of happiness and freedom. I can’t believe how easy it was to get out of the house.
I never knew I could lie to my aunt—I never knew I could lie, period—and when I think about how narrowly I escaped getting grilled by the regulators for hours, it makes me want to jump up and down and pump my fist in the air. Tonight the whole world is on my side. And I’m only a few minutes from Back Cove. My heart picks up its rhythm as I think about skidding down the sloping hill of grass, seeing Alex framed against the last, dazzling rays of sun—as I think about that single word breathed into my ear. Gray.
I tear down Baxter, which loops around the last mile down to Back Cove.
And then I stop short. The buildings have fallen away behind me, giving way to ramshackle sheds, sparsely situated on either side of the cracked and run-down road. Beyond that, a short strip of tall, weedy grass slants down toward the cove.
The water is an enormous mirror, tipped with pink and gold from the sky. In that single, blazing moment as I come around the bend, the sun—curved over the dip of the horizon like a solid gold archway—lets out its final winking rays of light, shattering the darkness of the water, turning everything white for a fraction of a second, and then falls away, sinking, dragging the pink and the red and the purple out of the sky with it, all the color bleeding away instantly and leaving only dark.
Alex was right. It was gorgeous—one of the best I’ve ever seen.
For a moment I can’t move or do anything but stand there, breathing hard, staring. Then a numbness creeps over me. I’m too late. The regulators must have been wrong about the time. It must be after eight thirty now. Even if Alex decides to wait for me somewhere along the long loop of the cove, I don’t have a prayer of finding him and making it home before curfew.
My eyes sting and the world in front of me goes watery, colors and shapes sloshing together. For a second I think I must be crying, and I’m so startled I forget everything—forget about my disappointment and frustration, forget about Alex standing on the beach, the thought of his hair catching the dying rays of sun, flashing copper. I can’t remember the last time I cried. It’s been years. I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand, and my vision sharpens again. It’s just sweat, I realize, relieved; I’m sweating, it’s getting in my eyes. Still, the sick, leaden feeling won’t work its way out of my stomach.
I stay there for a few minutes, straddling my bike, squeezing the handlebars hard until I’m a little bit calmer. Part of me wants to say, screw it, to shove off, both legs extended, and go flying down the hill toward the water with the wind whipping up my hair—screw curfew, screw the regulators, screw everyone. But I can’t; I couldn’t; I could never. I have no choice. I have to get home.
I maneuver my bike around in a clumsy circle and start back up the street.
Now that the adrenaline and excitement have faded, my legs feel like they’re made out of iron, and I’m panting before I’ve gone a quarter of a mile. This time I’m careful to stay alert for regulators and police and patrols.
On the way home I tell myself that it’s probably for the best. I must be crazy, zooming around in the half dark just to meet up with some guy on the beach.
Besides, everything has been explained: He works at the labs, probably just snuck in on evaluation day for some completely innocent reason—to use the bathroom, or refill his water bottle.
And I remind myself that I probably imagined the whole thing—the message, the meeting up. He’s probably sitting in his apartment somewhere, doing course work for his classes. He’s probably already forgotten about the two girls he met at the lab complex today. He was probably just being nice earlier, making casual conversation.
It’s for the best. But no matter how many times I repeat it, the strange, hollow feeling in my stomach doesn’t go away. And ridiculous as it is, I can’t shake the persistent, needling feeling that I’ve forgotten something, or missed something, or lost something forever.
Chapter Seven
Of all the systems of the body—neurological, cognitive, special, sensory—the cardiological system is the most sensitive and easily disturbed. The role of society must be to shelter these systems from infection and decay, or else the future of the human race is at stake. Like a summer fruit that is protected from insect invasion, bruising, and rot by the whole mechanism of modern farming; so must we protect the heart.
—“The Role and Purpose of Society,” The Book of Shhh, p. 353
I was named after Mary Magdalene, who was nearly killed from love: “So infected with deliria and in violation of the pacts of society, she fell in love with men who would not have her or could not keep her.” (Book of Lamentations, Mary 13:1).
We learned all about it in Biblical Science. First there was John, then Matthew, then Jeremiah and Peter and Judas, and many other nameless men in-between.
Her last love, they say, was the greatest: a man named Joseph, a bachelor all his life, who found her on the street, bruised and broken and half-crazy from deliria. There’s some debate about what kind of man Joseph was—whether he was righteous or not, whether he ever succumbed to the disease—but in any case, he took good care of her. He nursed her to health and tried to bring her peace.
By this time, however, it was too late. She was tormented by her past, haunted by the loves lost and damaged and ruined, by the evils she had inflicted on others and that others had inflicted on her. She could hardly eat; she wept all day; she clung to Joseph and begged him never to leave her, but couldn’t find comfort in his goodness.
And then one morning, she woke and Joseph was gone—without a word or an explanation. This final abandonment broke her at last and she fell to the ground, begging God to put her out of her misery.
He heard her prayers, and in his infinite compassion he instead removed from her the curse of deliria, with which all humans had been burdened as punishment for the original sin of Eve and Adam. In a sense, Mary Magdalene was the very first cured.
“And so after years of tribulation and pain, she walked in righteousness and peace until the end of her days” (Book of Lamentations, Mary 13:1).<
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I always thought it was strange that my mother named me Magdalena. She didn’t even believe in the cure. That was her whole problem. And the Book of Lamentations is all about the dangers of deliria. I’ve done a lot of thinking about it, and in the end I guess I’ve figured out that despite everything, my mother knew that she was wrong: that the cure, and the procedure, were for the best. I think even then she knew what she was going to do—she knew what would happen. I guess my name was her final gift to me, in a way. It was a message.
I think she was trying to say, Forgive me. I think she was trying to say, Someday, even this pain will be taken away.
You see? No matter what everyone says, and despite everything, I know she wasn’t all bad.
The next two weeks are the busiest of my life. Summer explodes into Portland. In early June the heat was there but not the color—the greens were still pale and tentative, the mornings had a biting coolness—but by the last week of school everything is Technicolor and splash, outrageous blue skies and purple thunderstorms and ink-black night skies and red flowers as bright as spots of blood. Every day after school there’s an assembly, or ceremony, or graduation party to go to. Hana gets invited to all of them; I get invited to most, which surprises me.
Harlowe Davis—who lives with Hana in the West End, and whose father does something for the government—invites me to come over for a “casual good-bye thing.” I didn’t even think she knew my name—whenever she’s talking to Hana her eyes have always skated past me, like I’m not worth focusing on. I go anyway. I’ve always been curious about her house, and it turns out to be as spectacular as I imagined. Her family has a car, too, and electric appliances everywhere that obviously get used every day, washers and dryers and huge chandeliers filled with dozens and dozens of lightbulbs. Harlowe has invited most of the graduating class—there are sixty-seven of us in total and probably fifty at the party—which makes me feel less special, but it’s still fun. We sit in the backyard while the housekeeper runs in and out of the house with plates and plates of food—coleslaw and potato salad and other barbecue stuff—and her father turns out spare ribs and hamburgers on the enormous smoking grill. I eat until I feel like I’m about to burst and have to roll backward onto the blanket I’m sharing with Hana. We stay there until almost curfew, when the stars are peeking through a curtain of dark blue and the mosquitoes rise up all at once and we all go shrieking and laughing back into the house, slapping them away. Afterward I think it’s one of the nicest days I’ve had in a long time.
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