The City in the Middle of the Night Read online

  Bianca leans over and touches my wrist. “You’d be a great leader, if you just got out of your shell.” She takes a stiff drink, and then says, “You always try to see the worth of everyone. Maybe you’re right about Matthew. I’ll try to put him at ease next time.”

  * * *

  How long have Bianca and I been roommates? Sometimes it feels like forever, sometimes just an interlude. Long enough that I know her habits, what each look or gesture probably signifies, but recent enough that she still surprises me all the time. According to the calendar, it’s 7 Marian after Red, which means the first term is half over. When I’m not talking to Bianca in person, I’m thinking of what I’ll say to her the next time we’re together and imagining what she’ll say back.

  Lately, when Bianca talks to me illegally after curfew, I crawl onto her shelf so I can hear her whisper. Her breath warms my cheek as she murmurs about school and art and what would it even mean to be free. Our skins, hers cloud-pale and mine the same shade as wild strawflowers, almost touch. I almost forget not to tremble.

  Everybody says it’s normal for girls my age to have intense friendships with other girls, which might even feel like something else. Some childish echo of real adult love and courtship. But you’ll know when it’s time to abandon this foolishness, the same way you know when to eat and sleep. I close my eyes and imagine that when I open them again I will have outgrown all of my feelings. Sometimes I clasp my eyelids until I almost see sparks.

  I still haven’t gotten used to those times when Bianca has to go to some fancy ball or dinner near the Palace. She’ll break out some shimmering dress, made of vinesilk, hanging at the back of her closet, which sways with her body. And she’ll hug me and promise to think of me while she’s doing her duty at the Citadel. Sometimes lately, I don’t even see her for a couple of shutter-cycles, but she always comes back in a strange mood, with sagging shoulders.

  One time, I don’t see Bianca for a while. Then, I come back to our dorm room, and she’s sitting on her bed next to Matthew, the Progressive Student organizer with the nice legs. They’re holding hands, a couple buttons of her tunic are unbuttoned, her ankle-skirt is undone, and her lipstick smeared. His hand has a thatch of hair across the knuckles.

  Bianca doesn’t startle when I walk in on them, she just laughs and gestures for me to sit on my own bed. “Matthew’s leaving soon anyway. We’ve been talking about solidarity, and how to make it more, uh, solid.” She laughs, and so does Matthew. I try not to stare, but there’s no place to put my eyes.

  After Matthew leaves, Bianca flops backward onto her bunk and says, “You were right about him. He’s a sweet guy. And he cares about making a difference. I think he could be fun.” I feel like my tongue has dissolved in my mouth, and I’m swallowing the remains. I slump onto my own bunk.

  Bianca notices my face. “He’s not that bad. I promise! And it’s been too long since I had someone. It’s not good to be single too long. I feel like you helped set the two of us up, so maybe we can help you find a boyfriend next.”

  I shake my head. “No boyfriend.”

  “Right.” She raises her hands. “You told me about Mark. That sounded ghastly. But I’m sure you’ll get over it, once you meet the right guy. You’ll see.”

  Bianca’s eyes are the most awake I’ve ever seen them, her cheeks suffused with color. She’s so transported that she’s wriggling on her bunk and humming to herself. I wonder if that’s how I looked when I finally let Bianca take an interest in me. I’ve been so stupid.

  Every time I think I know what’s wrong with me, I find something else.

  * * *

  The five leaders of the Progressive Students Union sit in the cellar of the Zone House, emptying a jug of gin-and-milk and swapping personal stories. The jug and cups wobble on a low table with unlevel legs. This isn’t an official meeting, so we’re not hiding deeper underground, and people only mutter about politics in oblique half references. You can still tell from all the olive-green pipe-worker jackets and rough-spun scarves that we’re a group of freethinkers. Upstairs, the ragtime band thumps out a slow, dirgelike rendition of “The Man Who Climbed into the Day.”

  Bianca is holding hands with Matthew, right in front of the group, and the two of them exchange little glances. I’m convinced everyone can sense my jealousy, hanging like a cloud in this moldy basement. She throws me a quick smile that packs a million snarky in-jokes into its contours.

  I look away and see one shaft of light, coming through a tiny window over our heads and striking the wall opposite. They don’t cover that window, even when all the shutters close, so this faint sunbeam never lets up, and over time it’s stripped away the paint and torn off the plaster, just in that one spot. Even the exposed bricks have deep ugly fissures that meet in the middle like the impact site from an ancient meteor. I wonder how long before the entire wall comes down.

  Maybe if I can speak in front of the group for once, Bianca will pay attention to me again. She’ll realize Matthew has nothing interesting to say, and she was right about him the first time.

  I open my mouth to make some joke that I know won’t be funny, and I ignore the hot prickle that I always get under my skin when I try to talk to strangers, or to more than one person at a time. This shouldn’t be so hard, I tell myself. You can tell one joke.

  Just as I say the first syllable, the police cascade down the rickety stairs in a blur of dark padded suits, corrugated sleeves, and shining faceplates. They’re carrying guns—high-powered fast-repeaters, which I’ve never seen up close before—and they stand over our little group.

  Their leader, a short man with a sergeant’s insignia and no helmet on his square head, comes in last and addresses our tiny gang, using the polite verb forms but with a rough edge to them. “Sorry to disturb you. We’ve had some information that one of you student radicals stole some food dollars from the Gymnasium. Those notes are marked. Whoever took them ought to speak up now.”

  He keeps talking, but I can barely hear what he’s saying.

  A memory comes to me: on our way here, I saw Bianca slip inside the Bursary, on the ground floor of our dorm building, and emerge a moment later stuffing something in her pocket. She made some joke about being able to buy a round of drinks for the leaders of the revolution.

  “You people. You ‘revolutionaries,’” the sergeant is saying in a growl. “You always act as though the rules don’t apply to you, same as everyone else.”

  I look at Bianca, next to me, and she’s frozen, hands gripping the sides of her chair. Her face closes in on itself, nostrils flared and mouth pinched. If they find the food dollars in her pocket, this could be the end of her bright future. She could do so much for this city, for all the struggling people. This could crush out the light in her eyes forever.

  And me? I’m invisible.

  I slip my hand into Bianca’s pocket and close my fingers around three cool strips. I pull back and slide them into my own jeans, just as the cops start searching everyone.

  “We’re not any kind of ‘group,’” Bianca is hectoring the cops. “We’re just a few friends having a drink. You are invading our privacy with this unwarranted—” She chokes in mid-sentence as they start patting her down, her whole body rigid as she stands, swaying, over her chair.

  When they don’t find the stolen cash, Bianca goes limp. She almost topples into her chair, and then she recovers. Her eyes dart around the room. Husky rasping sounds come out of her mouth.

  Then the police come to me, and I have just enough time to brace my hips before one of them finds the pocket where I stashed the money. “What did I say?” He laughs. In the cop’s gleaming visor, I see a distorted reflection of a girl with a wide-eyed expression.

  Bianca looks at me, and her face changes shape, her mouth slackening, as she realizes what I’ve done. She tries to speak, and nothing comes. Tears cluster around the inner rims of her eyes as they turn red. Matthew reaches for her and tries to offer comfort, and she shakes him off.

/>   She tries to step forward, to put her body between the police and me, but she hesitates a moment too long, and two of them are already grabbing me. I’m aware of nothing now but my own loud breathing and the tightness of their grip on my arms.

  When I can hear the world around me again, Bianca has gotten her composure back and is talking to the sergeant in her best talking-to-stupid-authority-figures voice. “Fine. You found the money. Congratulations. I’m sure none of us have any idea how it got there, including Sophie. But this is an internal Gymnasium matter, in any case. You can take us to the Provost, and we’ll just sort this—”

  “Not this time,” the sergeant says. “Time you ‘student radicals’ learned a lesson. You want to just sit down here and natter about how you’re going to ruin everything we’ve built, to take the bread out of my mouth. Out of everyone’s mouths, with your anarchist nonsense. You don’t get to do whatever you want just because you’re clever.”

  The cops grab me by the armpits, two of them, and drag me to the rickety staircase that Bianca and I normally sit under. My legs scrape the floor as I try to plant my feet.

  “It’s just a few stupid food dollars!” Bianca is screaming now, her voice already hoarse. The other Progressive Students are still frozen in their seats. “Bring her back! This is wrong. She’s done nothing, she’s a good person, maybe the only good person, and I … Stop! Please!” Bianca’s face turns crimson, shiny with tears, and she’s grabbing the sergeant’s sleeve in her fists until he throws her away.

  The men with opaque faceplates pull me up the stairs, still gripping my armpits so hard I get friction burns. All my kicking and squirming just leaves me bruised.

  “You can’t take her!” Bianca’s shriek comes from her whole body. My last glimpse of her is a crying, shaking, furious blur of black hair and clenched fists. “She doesn’t belong with you, she belongs with me. She’s done nothing. Bring her back!”

  Then I’m yanked up the rest of the stairs and into the street.

  The cops keep pulling me by my arms instead of letting me just walk between them, so my feet scuffle to gain purchase on the slate street. They make a lot of noise on purpose, so that even though I try not to cry out, a crowd still gathers. Workers, teachers, some of my fellow students from the Gymnasium. Daniel, who’s in my Chemistry class, throws a dirty food wrapper at me and misses.

  Bent over backward by the hands on my armpits, I can only see the sky, which is the same milky color and consistency as always. Like a wide dome made of mother-of-pearl, always pressing down. The cops’ helmets keep swimming into view, and each time, I see a half image of my own teeth, biting air. I hear the hoots as we reach the Boulevard, and get my head up enough to see the streaky lines of the mob reflected in the giant plate-glass windows of the shopping center.

  My ears fill with noise, but I can still hear my own breath: tiny wheezing sounds.

  We reach a small police lorry and they throw me in the back, with a cage around me. They drive slowly, like a parade, and I watch as we pass the side of the Palace and the Founders’ Square. The high-garretted houses and sleek sandstone buildings loom over us as the sky puts on its shroud, layer by layer.

  People in the main market look up from peering at vegetables, and stare as we drive past. More hooting, and now some shouting. This whole scene feels like something happening to someone else a long way off, as if my amygdala has transformed into a special distorting lens.

  I keep bracing for us to swerve onto a side street, so they can deliver me to the police station and bombard me with questions about subversive groups. I picture the look on my father’s and brother’s faces when they find out. I haven’t spoken to either of them in so long.

  But then we drive past the station, and the jail, and the cops just laugh at my confused face. There’s one more magistrate office, just up ahead, but then I realize we’re not slowing down for that, either. The sergeant, in the front passenger seat, sees me staring out the window, and chuckles. “Eh. Not wasting anyone’s time with you.”

  Then we pass the farmwheels, which fill my entire view: towering stone structures, each the size of the Palace, they push up out of the ground. A thousand spokes revolve in slow motion, rotating crops from shadow to indirect sunlight and back. Every few moments one of their tracts blots out half the sky.

  After that, the Grand Arches, and their recessed carvings of crocodiles embracing tigers, with the Golden Sphere nestled between them. I used to love those carvings.

  Everywhere we go, people point at the ungrateful child who challenged the system that provides for all of us. I might as well have tried to pull the farmwheels down with my bare hands. I still feel as though I’m somewhere else, watching this scene from high above.

  The Boulevard splits into five kinked streets that form one wedge of a maze, and we take the middle path, plunging into the dark side of town. Everything takes on the same gray cast that I remember from childhood, and the crosshatched view through my caged window fills with factory towers and apartment blocks. Pipe-workers and builders wander past, wearing coveralls, and most of them just shake their heads and look away. One or two spit at the car, but I don’t know if they’re spitting at me or the police.

  I know where we’re going now, and all of the terror that I’ve kept at a distance rushes in. I start breathing harder, and making more noise, and beating my arms and legs against the wire cage inside the lorry. The fear drenches my insides, suffocating me, and I can’t bear it, I need to break free, I keep kicking the mesh. The sergeant laughs and looks at his timepiece, as if he has a wager for how long I would take to start freaking out.

  I can’t bear this crashing inside me.

  I need to escape, I can’t escape.

  The cage was built for much stronger legs than mine, and I can’t catch enough breath to scream, even if I wanted to. I can already see the outer wall of Xiosphant, along with the slope of the Old Mother, the mountain that protects the city against the night. Out here, the sky is the color of damp soil. Down at the far end of the Warrens, the slate-roofed houses, factories, and warehouses seem to huddle against the cold.

  Maybe they’ll relent at the last moment. Put the lasting fear into me. They could shove me out of this lorry right on the edge of town and let me go with a warning.

  But when we reach the big reinforced stone wall, one of the helmeted officers fumbles for a big key and unlocks a thick metal gate, which opens with a weary hiss. They pull me out of the backseat cage by my wrist, and I overbalance, falling onto one knee. The sergeant shoves me through the doorway between dusk and full night, then gestures for the two nearest officers to accompany me. Two large men each take an elbow and steer me the rest of the way through the door, into the coldest air I’ve ever felt.

  The Old Mother rises over us, a great dark tooth silhouetted against the black sky.

  I’m still wearing my casual flirty café-wear. Jeans made of a thin hemp-and-wool blend, a loose chemise coming down past my waist, and a little skirt pinned around my ankles. And light woven sandals. The cold rips into me, coming off the mountainside. The police wear thick padded suits, heavy gloves, boots, and protective headgear.

  But still, the two officers shove me and gesture with their guns, until I climb the sheer surface the best I can, with my frozen hands and feet. I can’t see where I’m going, and every meter or so I stumble and fall onto my palms. I almost lose my purchase on the stone and tumble backward a few times. They kick my leg until I keep going.

  A thought forces its way past my firebreak of panic: Bianca will never even know what happened to me.

  I claw at the rock, kick it with my bare toes, find handholds and footholds, relying on sheer wretched desperation.

  A slow keening comes from the night, as though the crocodiles are baying in anticipation of fresh meat. Maybe they can already smell me coming somehow.

  By the time I climb about halfway, I want to quit. What’s the point of even reaching the top? Nobody ever comes home from the nig
ht, except for the occasional survivor of a hunting party. But when I stop and sit on a tiny ledge, trying to aim a defiant look behind me, the cops raise their guns.

  I take a deep breath and turn back toward the rock face, because I’d rather keep scratching at the mountainside, even lose all the skin on my fingers and the heels of my hands, than just give up and accept the death they’ve chosen for me.

  The only warm hope in all this frozen nothing is that Bianca is okay. She’ll have the life she deserves, and maybe she’ll end up in a position to change this city. She’ll forget about me, after a while, but maybe some tiny pocket of her heart will preserve my memory, and it’ll inspire her to do something for others. I can die out here, knowing that she’s going to be amazing. I try to tell myself that’s enough, that it’s as good as a whole life by her side.

  * * *

  The wind stings my face, washes out my sight, and forces me to shed more tears than I can spare.

  But some mechanical part takes over and I keep groping for handholds and pulling myself up, meter by meter. I lose all awareness, almost like sleepwalking, and my hands and feet are already numb.

  I’m startled when I pull myself up one more time and reach the summit. I find a tiny plateau, where I can stop and drag some frosty air into my lungs. A dozen meters away, a sliver of direct sunlight hits a raised crag, hot enough to sear your skin off with a single touch. Even that one bright spot is too painful to look at.

  Behind me, the city is splayed out, already asleep behind thick shutters. And beyond that, the Young Father slices the bright horizon—the smaller, smoother mountain that shields us from daylight.

  I stand there on this wide ledge, panting, and try to regain some feeling by putting my hands under my bruised armpits, when the cops grunt at me. They’re eager to get back to the city, to drink their own pitcher of gin-and-milk, next to a fireplace. They nudge me with their guns, and I turn back toward the other side of the mountain.