Pandora's Genes (22 page)

Just now the trees and weeds were whipping back and forth while merchants hurried to cover their wares ahead of the approaching storm. In the center of the mall, the Great Tower seemed to move too as dark clouds rolled past it. The sight of fresh produce reminded Evvy that she hadn’t eaten. With a worried look at the clouds, she darted into the confusion of the market. In spite of the noise, the smells, the dangers, she felt completely at ease here.

She had been in the Capital half a year and was still thrilled with the city. As a very young girl she had lived in a town, but most of her life had been spent first in the barren northern hill country, and then in the Garden, with its quiet, strict ways. The city seemed to have no rules at all, not even the natural laws of rising and sleeping with the rhythm of the sun. Here there was activity at all of the hours of the day and night; and most of it concentrated on the mall, at once a marketplace, theater, and free home for those clever enough to avoid robbers and the Principal’s soldiers.

At idle moments in the clinic Evvy liked to gaze out at the constantly changing scene, watching farmers, merchants, housewives, jugglers, pickpockets, children, acrobats, mount dealers, lovers, and brew salesmen all going about their business. Sometimes it seemed to her that in this one grassy area on a fine afternoon all possible human activity was occurring at once, in the open and among the trees. Once she had watched a yellow-clad poet kneel under a tree, singing and playing a feathered lyre. He was a thin, very young man with a homely face, and did not sing or play nearly so well as Zach, but when he had finished his songs, bowing and collecting the small contributions of his audience, Evvy’s face was wet with sadness and longing.

The first day Evvy had arrived, along with Lucille and Lucky, the Principal had held a great rally on the mall just across from the clinic, an ancient building supported by marble pillars the size of trees, and sheltering a gigantic statue of a seated bearded man. The Principal had told them he had chosen this site because it was easily accessible from the mall, yet could be defended from all sides.

That night he had delivered a stirring speech to the assembled crowd. “Before the Change,” he said, “there were more girl-children living than boy-children. Before the Change, mothers rejoiced at being with child, and seldom did they sicken or die. Before the Change there was one woman for every man, and families lived in happiness and plenty.” He paused. “That time can come again.”

As always when she heard him speak, Evvy was thrilled. She and Lucky were seated on a blanket on the grass. In a semicircle around them were four of the Principal’s men, including Daniel, the handsome, clean-shaven young general, who was looking not at the Principal, but down at Lucky. Lucky was excited and couldn’t seem to sit still or to keep quiet for a moment.

“Are there always so many people when the Principal gives a speech?” she asked Daniel; then, without waiting for an answer: “I love the way the buildings look in the torchlight, like ghosts of the past.” She stopped a moment to listen, then continued, “He’s so good at making speeches, Evvy, don’t you think so?”

“Yes,” said Evvy, laughing. “Shh.”

The Principal was continuing, talking about his hope of curing the woman sickness one day soon. Without speaking directly of medical testing or birth control, he promised a piece of metal to any woman who would come with her husbands to the clinic and then return three days later. Evvy was startled by low, angry murmuring and looked into the crowd to see expressions of mistrust and puzzlement. She turned to Lucky, then Daniel, whose lips were set in a tight line. His hand, she saw, was lightly touching his sword. She shivered, then turned back and watched the Principal, who had seemed not to notice any negative reaction and was continuing to speak with passion, his face and body so animated that he looked as if he might suddenly rise into the air and fly out over the crowd.

When the speech was finished, there were cheers and applause, but beneath them was a deeper sound of suspicious murmuring. Still, despite the less than wholehearted acceptance of the Principal’s project, Evvy was cheered to see looks of hope on the faces of many young women in the crowd.

As they walked home with the guards, Evvy noticed that Daniel and Lucky stayed a little apart, deep in conversation. She saw Daniel’s hand brush Lucky’s and then take it. Evvy smiled to herself, but at the same time she felt a pang and imagined for a moment that Zach was beside her, his big hand surrounding hers.

After that first day, Evvy saw very little of the Principal. She and the other women were busy with testing all during the day and evaluating the material till late into the night. The Principal had appeared at the clinic briefly on the first morning of operation but had spoken to the women only perfunctorily, wishing them luck, then turning matters over to Daniel and his guards.

Evvy felt relieved and at the same time curiously disappointed. In spite of the terrible things he had told the Mistress that night on the journey to the new Garden, she was drawn to the Principal. It was almost as if he were two men – one visionary and charming, the other angry and unpredictable.

She knew that the angry Principal was capable of almost anything, even taking her from the Garden by force; but she also sensed that the other Principal would not allow anything to interfere with her work.

The routine never varied from day to day. Early in the morning the guards helped the women set up their tables, two to one side of the seated statue, where Evvy and Lucky conducted screening, and one on the statue’s other side, where Lucille administered the test. When all was prepared, the guards stood back to allow women to enter one by one, followed in most cases by ragged dirty children and sullen, suspicious husbands. In spite of the guards and Lucky’s reassuring giggles, Evvy felt safer with Baby there. The fox-cat seemed to sense that her presence would be frightening to the patients, and sat the whole day quietly, hidden by the table, at Evvy’s feet.

At midday the clinic closed for a meal break, and then reopened for more testing or, twice a week, to give birth-control classes to the women who had proved susceptible to the woman sickness, or who simply did not want to bear more children. Evvy felt important and useful when she explained to exhausted and frightened women how to follow their own bodily cycles using colored pebbles and how to prepare abortifacient teas and fowl-gut barriers.

The first family that Evvy interviewed were typical of the hundreds that followed. The woman was young, scarcely older than Evvy herself, though her face was lined and anxious, and her body sagged from bad food and four pregnancies. She was dressed in a shapeless dark skirt and over-tunic, her hair neatly tied back with strands of blue wool. Her husbands were twins, both thin to the point of emaciation, with narrow, deep-set eyes.

Evvy smoothed the long, flat leaf-paper in front of her and dipped her pen into a pot of ink as if she were accustomed to doing this all the time. “Your names?” she asked, covering her nervousness with a businesslike manner.

“Gladyss, daughter of Gladyss,” the woman answered. “These are my husbands, Walt and Wendell, sons of Maria.”

“Occupations?”

“Fruit farmers,” said Wendell, almost apologetically. “Me and Walt plant and gather, Gladyss tends to the trade.”

Evvy recorded this information, then checked for her next question on the thin wooden board propped in front of her.

“How many brothers did you have?” she asked Gladyss.

“Four.”

“Sisters?”

“I was the only girl. My mother died of the sickness when I was two.”

Evvy nodded and recorded. “How many fathers did you have?”

“Three. Two brothers and my first-father.”

“Did they take another wife?”

The woman shook her head and gave Evvy a look that indicated she hoped future questions would be more sensible. Now Evvy turned to Gladyss’s husbands. “How many brothers in your family?”

At this point Wendell spoke up. “Ten altogether. But we’re here to keep Gladyss from getting the sickness. And what about the piece of metal the Principal promised?”

“We’ll get to all that,” Evvy said calmly, surprised that her nervousness was gone and that she felt as authoritative as she sounded. “But we need some information first. How many sisters did you have?”

The interview continued, and Evvy learned with excitement that Walt and Wendell had three sisters and several girl cousins. This would be an interesting case to follow.

The line had been growing and now stretched down the long marble steps and into the street. Worried about the time, Evvy hurried Gladyss and her husbands to the table where Lucille would administer the scratch test. Evvy straightened her pile of leaf-papers before interviewing the next family and watched from the corner of her eye as Lucille scrubbed Gladyss’s grimy arm clean with fire-berry disinfectant, then took a sharp glass pin and scratched the skin on the inside of her elbow. Gladyss cried out in surprise and drew her hand back angrily.

“Don’t wash this arm today,” Lucille said, “and come back in three days for your piece of metal.”

M
UCH TO
E
VVY
’
S DISAPPOINTMENT
, G
LADYSS
and her husbands did not return. She was almost certain that the woman would show positive for the trait – and that her husbands were not carriers. This meant that any daughters Gladyss might have would have an even chance of being susceptible, and that Gladyss herself would probably never develop the woman sickness. What more it might mean, and how they could use the information, would depend on the results of hundreds of more tests over the coming months and years.

There were so many possible combinations that Evvy found herself growing impatient at the amount of time it took to thoroughly question each family that came in. And she was becoming increasingly angry at the large number – nearly half – who never returned for the results of the test and to receive their reward.

Even now, six months later, she could scarcely believe that anyone would refuse to accept free treatment that might save her life – or on a more practical level, than anything would prevent poor citizens of the District from following the instructions to win a piece of metal. Pushing her way through the maze of stalls and display carts in the market, Evvy could smell the approaching storm. She was returning from taking Baby home; in the last few days the little animal had become restless, refusing to stay quietly hidden, and this morning she had emerged from beneath the table twice, growling and spitting, terrifying the patients. Evvy had been unable to calm her, and finally agreed to take her home at lunchtime. When she put Baby into the room she and Lucky shared in the mansion across from the Principal’s House, the little animal would not stay quiet; she stationed herself by the doorway and began to howl loudly when Evvy tried to leave the room. Evvy sighed, then knelt and scratched her pet behind the ears. “I’ll be back in just a few hours,” she said soothingly. “Don’t worry, Baby.” At that the fox-cat mewled piteously, then took Evvy’s skirt in her mouth, pulling toward the center of the room. Evvy gently pulled her hem free, then picked the little animal up and set her on the bed. “Now, stay here,” she said. “I’m going, whether you like it or not.” Baby remained on the bed, but she continued to howl. Evvy reluctantly left, feeling cruel as she shut the door on her pet’s cries.

Baby’s behavior worried her; perhaps, as Gunda had long warned, the little animal was finally reverting to her natural wild state. Or possibly she had simply been spooked by the approaching storm.

Just ahead of her Evvy saw a wooden cart heaped with purple and green fruits. The dispirited-looking woman who was trying to cover the cart and sell at the same time looked somehow familiar. Evvy peered at her while the woman counted out change. Her brown hair was tied back with blue yarn, and her torn and dirty tunic swelled over a soft bulge in her abdomen. Suddenly Evvy recognized her: “Gladyss!”

The woman looked up suspiciously, then a quick look of fear crossed her face.

“Do you remember me?” said Evvy. “From the clinic?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the woman said. Clearly, she was shaken.

“I was sorry that you didn’t come back,” Evvy went on. “Do you remember the scratch we gave you? Did it ever start itching or turn red?”

“You’d better get out of here before my husbands come back,” the woman said. “They won’t like hearing your godless science talk.”

Now Evvy noticed the double spiral, carved of wood, that the woman was wearing on a thong around her neck, and realized why she had not returned; somehow, between the time they had appeared at the clinic and the time they were to return, Gladyss and her husbands had become Traders.

As she sat munching a new-plum and watching people on the mall quickly taking cover from the gusty winds and pelting drops of the storm, Evvy wondered how many other test couples had been frightened by Trader beliefs. She would have to discuss this with Lucille and Lucky as soon as they returned from lunch; perhaps there was something they could do to persuade even Traders to return for the results of the test. In the meantime, she wanted to go back to the mall and shake some sense into Gladyss, but she realized that she herself could easily have become a Trader if Zach had not come and changed her life.

Zach. He had been gone four years, and still he appeared in her dreams almost nightly. He never changed, didn’t grow older as she did. If he should return now, would he even recognize her?

“A bit wet out there, eh?” Evvy looked up, startled. Standing across the table from her, his yellow-bordered cape dripping on the marble floor, was the Principal. At the entranceway stood two of his men, looking like shadows in the dark light of the storm.

As always when she saw him, Evvy’s heart seemed to stop beating. His soft woolen tunic was darkened from the rain, and glistening drops clung to his dark curly hair. At just that moment lightning struck a tree across the Avenue, lighting him in a way that made him look far taller than he was.