David Nickle - Eutopia

“The march of events.” Andrew snorted humourlessly. “I take it we’re in the quarantine—one of the wards.” She nodded. “Who are those women?” he asked, indicating the other beds.

“I don’t know them,” said Mrs. Frost. “They were present when I woke up here; and they’re not so conversational as you, so I couldn’t learn as much of them as I’m sure I can of you. But to be honest, I don’t care to interrogate you, Dr. Waggoner. I presume you came here much as I did—beaten by some sheet-wearing thug into unconsciousness. Although I daresay you look as though you put up more of a fight.” Her mouth twitched into a tiny and, to Andrew’s eye, thoroughly unpleasant smile. “You would think that the people here would have more gratitude, for the society that we—that Mr. Harper—provided them.”

We . “You work for the Eugenics Records Office,” said Andrew. “Your people had more than a hand in this town, didn’t they?”

“Not in a way that we like to advertise,” said Mrs. Frost, “but yes. The ERO watched this place with interest. We even helped it along. Do you know that Eliada means ‘watched over by God’?”

“Really.”

“It’s a fine statement of the middle of our aim,” said Germaine, “to make a perfect society of strong-backed men and their wives, who would never stray far from the healthful path; of children, who were disposed to be healthful by dint of their inheritance. But we were foolish in its application. I hope you won’t take great offence if I tell you that your hiring here was a matter of some controversy at the office.”

“You had a hand in my hiring?”

“Not I. But if I had known and been placed to intercede, I like to think that I would have been one of those who advocated on your behalf. As matters stood, the ERO was in the main opposed to the hiring of a nigg—a Negro doctor. It was Garrison Harper’s intercession, I gather, that brought you here. He believed that excellence in a man is not dictated by race or creed—but by the strength of the lineage. Great men come from all corners of the Earth. It is a belief a few of us share.”

Andrew tried not to laugh. “I’m flattered you—or at least Mr. Harper—thought so highly of me,” he said.

“You ought to be,” she said, and: “Oh. Hush .”

The door from the ward room swung open as Mrs. Frost lifted the cloth.”Lie back,” she said. Andrew reclined, but he watched as the small figure stepped through. It was a girl—very young, this one—with long dark hair tied into an off-centre braid. She wore a grey frock, and a serious and wide-eyed expression as she went to the bedside of one of the women at the far end of the room. She delicately put her hands on the woman’s belly, rubbed them in circles, and began to sing.

She’s singing to Jukes , Andrew thought. Because all these women are carrying Jukes. Just like Maryanne Leonard, and Loo Tavish .

The woman responded to the child’s song, the circling touch—writhing obscenely beneath the sheet, stretching as though waking from a long and restful sleep. The woman didn’t wake, but she did join in—and the strange, wordless song became a duet.

Mrs. Frost set the cloth on his forehead again. She drew it across his brow, down his cheek. The damp tip of it stopped at the corner of his mouth. She leaned over him.

“You ought to be flattered,” she said softly, her breath sour as the night. “You are a fine, strong, smart Negro. I know they didn’t appreciate that in Paris—in New York, when you tried to find internships there. They look at skin, and they think—inferior, by dint of darkness.” She huffed, and spat: “ Prejudice .”

Andrew reached up and took her hand. Her eyes widened, and she snatched the cloth away, and for barely an instant, she looked quite fierce.

“They can scarcely tell,” she said, “when Gods walk among them.”

Gods . Andrew thought about that. Gods were what these people thought they were making: people like Bergstrom, like Harper… like the people who worked with Mrs. Frost. How susceptible they all must have been, to the alluring lie of the Juke, which put worms into the wombs of virgins to make saviours; into the flesh of men, to make prophets of them… .

Did any of them ever mark the day, he wondered, when they fell from reason into madness?

And then he wondered: Did I ?

“Mrs. Frost,” Andrew said, “I must find your nephew. Jason Thistledown. Can you tell me where he is?”

“My nephew,” she said thoughtfully. “Jason. You need to find him, you say?”

The little girl had moved on to a second patient, three beds away from them. Germaine Frost glanced over her shoulder, as she bunched the cloth up into a ball in her fist, then back at him.

“To what end?” she asked.

Andrew lowered his voice. “The boy is in as much danger as any of us here,” he said. “I don’t know where he might be—I’ve come back looking for him, but had no luck. But he’s your nephew, Mrs. Frost. If you’re hiding him from these people—these Feegers—you don’t need to hide him from me. He may be with Miss Harper.”

Mrs. Frost looked back over her shoulder. The little girl was making circles on the new woman’s belly, same as before, singing a song with a slightly different cadence. She regarded Andrew with a twitch of a smile.

“I don’t know where he is,” she said, “but I can guess. He’s an intelligent boy—a fine boy—and he will have known where to go. There is not much that gets past a boy of Jason Thistledown’s stock.”

“Where, Mrs. Frost?”

“We would have to go together.”

“All right.” Andrew glanced at the little girl. She had moved around so as to face away from them. “She can’t be the only one here. Are there others waiting outside?”

“Who can say? I saw two men bring you in. And the last time she was here, she didn’t come in by herself. She was with a man who was so tall. Practically a giant. But now—”

“Well, that’s a problem,” said Andrew. “I’m in no shape to deal with someone like that and you—”

He didn’t get the opportunity to finish. Germaine Frost spun a quarter turn on her stool and in three large steps moved past the foot of two beds. The girl stopped singing at the commotion, and lifted her hands off the woman’s belly as Germaine Frost stepped nimbly as a spider between the beds.

She took hold of the girl by the hair and tugged, but the child didn’t cry out: Mrs. Frost had already jammed the wadded-up cloth into her mouth, and with her first and middle finger, pushed the soaking wet cloth into her nostrils. The girl took hold of Germaine’s wrist with both hands and tried to pry the hands away. Mrs. Frost set her mouth and held fast. The girl soon gave up on wrist, and tried to claw at Mrs. Frost’s eyes. She got close enough to knock Mrs. Frost’s glasses from one ear, so they dangled over the bridge of her nose. Mrs. Frost responded by bearing down on the child, and pushing her to the floor between the beds.

Andrew rolled off the bed, and nearly fell as his feet hit the bare wooden floor. He clutched Mrs. Frost’s stool like a walking stick and, bent like an old man, moved from that to the foot of the bed beside him, and the bed beside that.

He managed to stay upright as he looked down on Germaine Frost and the child. All he could see of Germaine were her shoulders, wide and round enough to nearly fill the space between the bed. They worked and shifted as though she were kneading dough.

Her skirts were hiked past the knee, her stockings torn to reveal long ovals of pallid flesh. All he could see of the child were her feet. They were pinned beneath Mrs. Frost’s crossed ankles, so she couldn’t kick or make noise on the wooden floor. She could not make any noise at all by now. She was barely struggling.