After (66 page)

“How is it decided, here, who gets to be a father?” Nix asked the proud papa sitting across from Melissa.

“Well, I guess it goes pretty much the way it used to. Women and men getting to know each other, coming to love each other. Of course, it's bound to be a little different, with so many of us, and so few of you.”

“Yeah.” She said it like an accusation.

“With us, it's like it is with a lot of families, here. My little Madison has three daddies.”

Melissa finally spoke up on her own, “How three?”

“Just, there's three of us...close to Adel. She chose us. Invited us into her bed.

And now, there's our little Maddy.”

Nix looked past the bobbing waves of revelers to mother and child; Adel's eyes, her smile had that same brightness that Kayla's and Marjory's had, that same lightness that cast doubt on the possibility of awfulness in her world. Adel felt the weight of the stare and turned. When she saw the other babies at her man's table, her smiling mouth moved, saying something to her companions, then she wove her way between benches loaded with people and tables laden with platters emptied except for crumbs, scraps, and dribbles left behind by the voracious diners, and brought little Madison to her father.

“David, why don't you take her for a bit? She can get to know her little peers, there, and I can eat a little something.”

The crinkles fanned out by David's eyes again. “There's my girl!”

The baby squealed and bounced a convulsive little jig, her naked, chubby feet prancing along David's thighs. Adel swooped down and kissed David's forehead, offered the others a brief, wide smile, then returned to her table. Tightening her grip on her own baby, Melissa stared after Adel, unable to comprehend the nonchalance with which she'd given up possession of her infant.

“You live together, the five of you?” Nix asked David.

“Oh, well, Adel's a pretty independent sort of person. I think it would drive her a little crazy, living with someone full-time. Even little Mads here, maybe. We all have our own rooms, two and two on either side of a hall in the Benedict residence. We all take turns, looking after Mads.”

“And take turns with Adel?” Nix said.

“Well,” David said, his smile paler, “maybe that's a way of saying it. When she's in the mood for company, sometimes Adel invites one of us to spend the night in her room.

It's nothing like what you're used to. Nobody has a claim, a right, to anyone else here.”

The meal went on, the Sewanee men doing their best to make innocent conversation. But nothing was innocent. Even babies could not be discussed without raking open a recent wound or an old scar.

There were toasts, toasts of welcome, toasts to a lifetime of happier days for the women who'd just arrived, toasts to bringing those still on the wrong side of the line to safety. By the time the rolls and the ham and the greens and potatoes and carrots had been mostly devoured, most of the refugee women were smiling, laughing, chatting again. Even Melissa was less stiff, clutching her baby boy less desperately. But the cold heavy thing in Nix's gut was still writhing and coiling.

“Nix!” A high solid voice carved through the night as she and Gareth walked back toward the residence.

From the sea of women scattering over the lawn into the buildings at its edge, a girl broke through, slight and blond, waving.

“Nix!” The child ran forward, threw herself against Nix, clamped her arms around her waist. When she let go and backed off and looked up she said, “It's you. I thought they caught you. We all did.”

Not a little girl. Andrea, the young woman from the orphanage. She'd made it. All the way from the auction block to here. Maybe untouched, even.

“I'm glad to see you. You're alright?” Nix asked, hearing how stoic she sounded, even though she'd meant to reflect back at least a fraction of Andrea's emotion, some sign of joy at seeing her alive.

Andrea nodded. “I'm alright. You? They didn't really get you?”

“No. They didn't get me. Thanks to Artel, here.”

Gareth smiled down at the wispy young woman, and Nix watched Andrea force a smile back. Untouched or not, she didn't seem too eager to give her trust to the men.

“Where are the others?” Nix asked. Andrea's wan smile faded away, and the thing coiling in Nix's gut unwound and slithered all through her. “They're not here?”

For a few seconds Andrea stood there, stiff and straight. Then her mask cracked, her mouth split in a grimace of loss, and tears flowed down her cheeks. “Char and Jan,”

Andrea said, just audible.

“What? Caught?”

Andrea shook her head. Nix just stood there, shaking like she was dying of not knowing. If she had the name of a town, a description of where they'd been caught she could go, find them, get them out. Bring them here. To safety.

Andrea's clamped-down tears dampened her words. “They made us promise.”

Andrea caught her breath, wiped her face dry. Her voice still shuddered, though, as she said, “They sent us on with the others. And this time I looked. Looked back. They held the men off for a while, but they got hold of Char. And she'd made us promise. All of us.”

Nix, white and still, breathed, “I know.”

“The men had her. They were hurting her. And Jan, I saw her. I saw. She shot her. In the head. And then she put the gun in her mouth. And she was dead, too.”

To outrun whatever was erupting inside of her, Nix forced herself to say, “But you made it. You and the others from the orphanage.”

“All of us. We're here.”

“Well,” Nix was holding it together, somehow, “if we could ask them, Jan and Char would tell us it was worth it. Their lives for your freedom. Worth that, and more.

Your freedom, you and the others, it's all they lived for. What gave them purpose.

Meaning.”

Andrea nodded, but it was plain that Nix's words didn't undo her sadness.

“Where are you sleeping? Do you want to come to our building?”

“No.” Andrea glanced across the quad. “No, I should get back to the other girls.

They're still nervous.”

Nix smiled. A little trooper, that Andrea. All ninety pounds of her. “Alright. I'll look for you at breakfast tomorrow.”

Andrea nodded and smiled and scampered off.

“Your comrades. Your friends. I'm sorry,” Gareth said.

“Come on.”

They made their way to their hall. She'd leave. Maybe tomorrow. The next day at the latest. Knowing that, it hurt less being around Gareth. When he halted on the second landing, she touched his arm, and he followed her up to her floor.

“Get undressed.”

He smiled, but it was the saddest smile she'd ever seen. Still, he started taking off his things. His jacket. His boots. The heavy flannel he wore over his t-shirt. But then there was a knock at the door. Probably Kayla, Nix figured. When she opened the door, though, it was a different woman, tall and lean, with cocoa skin and hazel eyes. Her smile was wide and bright, but her gaze was graver than the other Sewanee women's.

“Nix? I'm Nadia. I'm sorry to disturb you, but could I come in for a few minutes? I have something I'd like to discuss with you.”

Half glad for the interruption, Nix gestured her guest inside and closed the door.

“Hi. I'm Artel.”

“Hello.”

The visitor stared at Gareth, a strange expression melting her smile. She seemed to tear her gaze off him with effort, and turned to Nix.

“I realize you've just arrived, and probably everything that's happened, and these new surrounding are a bit overwhelming, but I didn't dare put off speaking with you, and some of the others as well.”

Nix gave the woman an indulgent smile. “You don't need to worry about overwhelming me.”

“No, of course.” Nadia flashed her wide smile again. “You and the others of the resistance who've landed here, I understand many of you only came as chaperons, to see the others to safety. And, perhaps, to make certain that the promised land is what it is rumored to be. A few of your comrades have already made it clear they don't wish to stay. That they will be going back across the line before the week is out. So my haste in speaking to you now, so soon after you've come, is out of a concern that I miss my opportunity altogether. ” As she spoke, Nadia kept glancing furtively at Gareth. “May I ask, do you intend to go back over the line, yourself?”

“Yes.”

“To continue with the resistance?”

“Yes.”

“I'm glad to hear it. Not that you'll be leaving, of course, but that the resistance hasn't lost such an asset. But I'd like to ask you to consider staying here a little longer.”

Nadia paused, Nix guessed, because she felt she was doing too much talking.

So Nix asked, “Why?”

Nadia smiled. “Of course you're aware of our role in the railway operation. That we'll run transports, now, until the slavers figure out what we're up to and destroy the tracks. But that's just the first wave. A tiny element in a much larger plan. You'd be a valuable asset in executing that plan, Nix. You would be able to do a lot more good, to help far more women, if you were to decide to stay and work with us, rather than return to the other side and work alone, or with small, under-armed guerrilla groups again.”

“And what is this grand plan?” Nix asked.

“Honestly, I think you'll have to see to believe. If you're willing, in three days' time I'll bring you and the others to the main base. You'll see everything, there. And if you decide you'd rather go back across on your own, go back to the resistance you know, the returning train can take you as far as you wish to go. You'll only have saved time.”

It was hard to trust. Even women. Even a woman with eyes as earnest and a smile as easy as hers. But the need to hope, to believe was as strong as her doubt.

“I'll think about it.”

With another of her wide, bright smiles Nadia said, “Good. Good, I'm glad. We'll be leaving on Thursday morning. I won't press you for an answer in the meantime, but if you want to talk before then, I'm in Hodgson Hall.” Nadia turned to Gareth. “And what about you...”

“Artel.”

Without any obvious change of expression, Nadia's gaze seemed to sharpen.

“Artel. What is your story? You're with the resistance?” Her voice sounded suddenly deeper, and wavered, now, looking at him.

“I'm with Nix. The others don't know me.”

“I see.”

“He's not afraid to kill the enemy. And he can be trusted,” Nix said.

“Well then, the invitation I made to Nix is extended to you as well. If you still wish to fight, but with less danger and greater success, come with us to the base on Thursday.”

“She acted weird with you,” Nix said when Nadia had gone. “The ways she looked at you. And she pretended not remembering your name.”

Almost indifferently, he said, “I thought so too.”

Nix smiled. Touched Gareth's hand. The first touch she'd given him in days.

“It's alright, Gareth, if she came to you before. You don't have to tell me. And you shouldn't feel any guilt.”

Gareth gave her one of his sad smiles. “She didn't. But someone else did.”

“I'm glad.”

“I refused what she offered.”

“Why? Out of some kind of loyalty to me? You should accept. The women here can give you things I can't.”

“No. You can give me something they can't.”

“Gareth—“

“Nix. I don't push. I only want what you want to give. If you ask me to go, I'll leave. If you want to go, I won't stop you. But don't ask me to touch those strangers. To let them touch me. It would hurt me to settle for a gift of custom, however kindly it's meant, instead of what we've shared. Instead of struggling together, with you, to find the things that have been taken from us.”

Before Nadia turned up, before this little speech of his, Nix had meant to let him spend the night. She'd thought she'd be leaving in the morning, or the next day at the latest. She'd wanted to give him one more night of closeness, of human warmth, of being held. But now that there was this other possibility, them traveling together to the base, maybe working at close quarters for another week or month, his nearness was tiring her out. Chafing her raw. Wearing her down.

She told him, “I'll see you in the morning.”

That sad smile. “Alright.”

* * * *

At breakfast, Kayla came and sat with them.

“I'd like to request a favor of you both,” she said. In spite of another night without sleep, Nix had a sense of being enveloped in Kayla's luminous warmth. Even so, Nix was stretched too thin to play at being friendly and eager and curious. Rather than prompting her, she just waited for Kayla to go on. “There's a sort of ceremony I'd like you to attend. For us, it's nothing out of the ordinary. It's one of our usual practices. But it's important that the refugees start participating—only as observers, I mean—and for them it will be rather difficult. Delicate. And it will reassure them, having you there.”

Once Kayla had explained it to her, the idea of the ceremony horrified Nix. But she'd go. She'd go and see what all was going on in this so-called paradise.

Nix and Gareth and other resistance men and women arrived ahead of the refugees, as requested. Kayla sat quietly while another—Mahal—explained what would happen during the ceremony, and what was expected of the observers. The resistance and refugee women and men were to remain silent and still, but would be allowed to quietly leave the room if anyone became too distraught to keep watching. After, the observers would have a chance to speak at will. The presence of the resistance women and men was meant to give the refugees a sense of safety, and also, it was hoped that those who had fought so bravely and endured so much so stoically would set an example of calm during the ceremony.

Kayla's counterpart delivered her instructions with the air of beatitude, like the Virgin Mary in the painting that had hung on Nix's bedroom wall when she'd belonged to her husband, the collector of things and people.

First, the refugees arrived. Funny how her protective instincts still kicked in. Nix took Andrea under her wing as soon as she saw her come through the door. No sign of Melissa.

As instructed, they arranged themselves in a circle around the platform. The bed.