SL Huang - Up and Coming - Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors

“Apple strudel,” grunted Hermann, the four-year man in charge of the early morning guard shift. “Those pasty scientists don’t know good eats. Imagine leaving strudel to sit.”

“Cafe Sluka has the best strudel in Vienna, so everyone says,” Mikkel said as he passed through the security gate.

“Like you’d know, moron. Wouldn’t let you through the door.”

Mikkel ducked his head and kept his eyes on the floor. “I heated them in the microwave for you.”

He rushed out into the grey winter light as the guards munched warm strudel.

Mikkel checked the baby as soon as he rounded the corner, and then kept checking her every few minutes on the way home. He was careful to make sure nobody saw. But the streetcars were nearly empty in the early morning, and nobody would find it strange to see a two-year man poking his nose in his lunch pail.

The baby was quiet and good. Anna would be so pleased. The thought kept him warm all the way home.

Anna was not pleased.

When he showed her the baby she sat right down on the floor. She didn’t say anything—just opened and closed her mouth for a minute. Mikkel crouched at her side and waited.

“Did anyone see you take it?” she asked, squeezing his hand hard, like she always did when she wanted him to pay attention.

“No, sweetheart.”

“Good. Now listen hard. We can’t keep it. Do you understand?”

“She needs a mother,” Mikkel said.

“You’re going to take her back to the lab. Then forget this ever happened.”

Anna’s voice carried an edge Mikkel had never heard before. He turned away and gently lifted the baby out of the pail. She was quivering with hunger. He knew how that felt.

“She needs food,” he said. “Is there any milk left, sweetheart?”

“It’s no use, Mikkel. She’s going to die anyway.”

“We can help her.”

“The beak is a bad taint. If she were healthy they would have kept her. Sent her to a crèche.”

“She’s strong.” Mikkel loosened the rags. The baby snuffled and her sharp blue tongue protruded from the pale beak. “See? Fat and healthy.”

“She can’t breathe.”

“She needs us.” Why didn’t Anna see that? It was so simple.

“You can take her back tonight.”

“I can’t. My lunch pail goes through the X-ray machine. The guards would see.”

If Anna could hold the baby, she would understand. Mikkel pressed the baby to Anna’s chest. She scrambled backward so fast she banged her head on the door. Then she stood and straightened her maid’s uniform with shaking hands.

“I have to go. I can’t be late again.” She pulled on her coat and lunged out the door, then turned and reached out. For a moment he thought she was reaching for the baby and he began to smile. But she just squeezed his hand again, hard.

“You have to take care of this, Mikkel,” she said. “It’s not right. She’s not ours. We aren’t keeping her.”

Mikkel nodded. “See you tonight.”

The only thing in the fridge was a bowl of cold stew. They hadn’t had milk for days. But Mikkel’s breakfast sat on the kitchen table covered with a folded towel. The scrambled egg was still steaming.

Mikkel put a bit of egg in the palm of his hand and blew on it. The baby’s eyes widened and she squirmed. She reached for his hand. Talons raked his wrist and her beak yawned wide. A blue frill edged with red and yellow quivered at the back of her throat.

“Does that smell good? I don’t think a little will hurt.”

He fed her the egg bit by bit. She gobbled it down, greedy as a baby bird. Then he watched her fall asleep while he sipped his cold coffee.

Mikkel wet a paper napkin and cleaned the fine film of mucus from the tiny nostrils on either side of her beak. They were too small, but she could breathe just fine through her mouth. She couldn’t cry, though, she just snuffled and panted. And the beak was heavy. It dragged her head to the side.

She was dirty, smeared with blood from the incineration bin. Her fine black hair was pasted down with a hard scum that smelled like glue. She needed a bath, and warm clothes, and diapers. Also something to cover her hands. He would have to trim the points off her talons.

He held her until she woke. Then he brought both space heaters from the bedroom and turned them on high while he bathed her in the kitchen sink. It was awkward and messy and took nearly two hours. She snuffled hard the whole time, but once he’d dried her and wrapped her in towels she quieted. He propped her up on the kitchen table. She watched him mop the kitchen floor, her bright brown eyes following his every move.

When the kitchen was clean he fetched a half-empty bottle of French soap he’d scavenged from the lab, wrapped the baby up tightly against the cold, and sat on the back stairs waiting for Hyam to come trotting out of his apartment for a smoke.

“What’s this?” Hyam said. “I didn’t know Anna was expecting.”

“She wasn’t.” Mikkel tugged the towel aside.

“Huh,” said Hyam. “That’s no natural taint. Can it breathe?”

“She’s hungry.” Mikkel gave him the bottle of soap.

“Hungry, huh?” Hyam sniffed the bottle. “What do you need?”

“Eggs and milk. Clothes and diapers. Mittens, if you can spare some.”

“I never seen a taint like that. She’s not a natural creature.” Hyam took a long drag on his cigarette and blew it over his shoulder, away from the baby. “You work in that lab, right?”

“Yes.”

Hyam examined the glowing coal at the end of his cigarette.

“What did Anna say when you brought trouble home?”

Mikkel shrugged.

“Did the neighbors hear anything through the walls?”

“No.”

“Keep it that way.” Hyam spoke slowly. “Keep this quiet, Mikkel, you hear me?

Keep it close. If anyone asks, you tell them Anna birthed that baby.”

Mikkel nodded.

Hyam pointed with his cigarette, emphasizing every word. “If the wrong person finds out, the whole neighborhood will talk. Then you’ll see real trouble. Four-year men tromping through the building, breaking things, replaying the good old days in the colonies. They like nothing better. Don’t you bring that down on your neighbors.”

Mikkel nodded.

“My wife will like the soap.” Hyam ground out his cigarette and ran up the stairs.

“There now,” Mikkel said. The baby gazed up at him and clacked her beak. “Who says two-year men are good for nothing?”

Four-year men said it all the time. They were everywhere, flashing their regimental badges and slapping the backs of their old soldier friends. They banded together in loud bragging packs that crowded humble folks off busses and streetcars, out of shops and cafés, forcing everyone to give way or get pushed aside.

Six-year men probably said it too, but Mikkel had never talked to one. He saw them working late at the lab sometimes, but they lived in another world—a world filled with sports cars and private clubs. And who knew what eight-year men said? Mikkel cleaned an eight-year man’s office every night, but he’d only ever seen them in movies.

Nobody made movies about two-year men. They said four-year men had honor, six-year men had responsibility, and eight-year men had glory. Two-year men had nothing but shame. But it wasn’t true. Hyam said so. Two-year men had families—parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts, brothers and sisters, children and wives who depended on them. They had jobs, humble jobs but important all the same. Without two-year men, who would grub away the garbage, crawl the sewers, lay the carpets, clean the chimneys, fix the roofs? Without two-year men there would be nobody to bring in the harvest—no sweet strawberries or rich wines. And most important, Hyam said, without two-year men there would be no one parents could point at and say to their sons, “Don’t be like him.”