James Corey - Babylon's Ashes

The side of the van slid open, and the queue shifted in anticipation. Another week’s rations, however thin they might be. Nono felt a little stab of shame as her turn came near. She’d lived her whole life without ever needing basic. She was one of those who provided for others, not one who needed support. Except that she needed support now.

She reached the front. She’d seen the man handing out the packs before. He had a wide face, brown speckled with black freckles. He asked her address, and she gave it. A moment’s fumbling later, he held out a white plastic pack to her with the practiced efficiency of an automaton, and she took it. It felt terribly light. He only made eye contact with her when she failed to move away.

“I have a wife,” Namono said. “A daughter.”

A flash of raw anger rose in his eyes, hard as a slap. “If they can make the oats grow faster or conjure rice out of thin air, then do send them to us. Else, you’re holding us up.”

She felt tears welling up in her eyes, stinging them.

“One to a household,” the man snapped. “Move on.”

“But—”

“Go on!” he shouted, snapping his fingers at her. “There’s people behind you.”

She stepped away and heard him mutter something obscene at her as she left. Her tears weren’t thick. Hardly enough to wipe away. It was only that they stung so much.

She tucked her relief pack under her arm and, as soon as her eyes had recovered enough to see, put down her head and started home again. She couldn’t linger. There were others more desperate or less principled than herself who were waiting at the corners and in the doorways for the chance to steal water filters and food from the unwary. If she didn’t walk with purpose, they might mistake her for a victim. For a few blocks, her starved and exhausted mind entertained itself with fantasies of fighting off thieves. As if the catharsis of violence might somehow bring her to peace.

When she’d left their rooms, she’d promised Anna that she’d stop by Old Gino’s on the way home and make sure the elderly man was getting to the relief van. But when she reached the turn, she kept going straight. Weariness was already sucking at her marrow, and the prospect of propping the old man up and going back through the queue with him was more than she could face. She’d say she forgot. It would almost be true.

At the curve that led from the wide avenue into the residential cul-de-sac that was home, she found the violent fantasies in her mind had shifted. The men she imagined herself beating until they apologized and begged her forgiveness weren’t thieves, but the freckled relief man. If they can make the oats grow faster. What was that supposed to mean, anyway? Had he been joking about using their bodies as fertilizer? Had he dared to make a threat against her family? Who in hell did he think he was?

No , a voice said in her mind, as clearly as if Anna had been there to speak the words. No, he was angry because he wanted to help more, and he couldn’t. Knowing that all you can give isn’t enough is its own burden. That was all. Forgive him.

Namono knew that she should, but she didn’t.

Their house was small. A half dozen rooms pressed together like a child squeezing a handful of damp sand. Nothing quite lined up; no corner was perfectly square. It gave the space the feel of something natural—a cave or a grotto—more than something built. She paused before she opened the door, trying to clear her mind. The setting sun had fallen behind Zuma Rock, and the grit and smoke in the air showed where the wide beams of light streamed past it. It looked like the stone had a halo. And in the darkening sky, a pinpoint of light. Venus. Tonight, there might be stars. She latched onto the thought like a lifeboat in the sea. There might be stars.

Inside, the house was clean. The rugs had been shaken out, the brick floors swept. The air smelled of lilac thanks to the little sachet-and-candle that one of Anna’s parishioners had brought them. Namono wiped away the last of her tears. She could pretend the redness in her eyes was only the outside air. Even if they didn’t believe her, they could pretend to.

“Hello?” she called. “Is anyone home?”

Nami squeaked from the back bedroom, her bare feet slapping on the brick as she barreled toward the door. Her little girl wasn’t so little anymore. She came up to Nono’s armpit now. Or Anna’s shoulder. The gentle pudge of childhood was gone, and the awkward coltish beauty of adolescence was clearing its throat. Her skin was barely lighter than Nono’s and her hair was as rich and kinky, but the girl had a Russian smile.

“You’re back!”

“Of course I am,” Nono said.

“What did we get?”

Namono took the white relief package and pressed it into her daughter’s hands. With a smile that was like complicity, she leaned close. “Why don’t you go find out, and then come tell me?”

Nami grinned back and loped off to the kitchen as if the water recyclers and fast-grown oats were a brilliant present. The girl’s enthusiasm was vast and partly sincere. The other part was to show her mothers that she was all right, that they didn’t need to worry for her. So much of their strength—all their strengths—grew from trying to protect each other. She didn’t know if that made it better or worse.

In the bedroom, Anna lay on her cushions. A thick volume of Tolstoy rested beside her, its spine bent by being reread. War and Peace. Her complexion was grayish and drawn. Nono sat beside her carefully, putting her hand on the exposed skin of her wife’s right thigh just above where her knee had been crushed. The skin didn’t feel hot anymore, and it wasn’t stretched drum-tight. Those had to be good signs.

“The sky was blue today,” Nono said. “There may be stars out tonight.”

Anna smiled her Russian smile, the one her wife’s genes had also given Nami. “That’s good, then. Improvement.”

“God knows there’s room for it,” Namono said, regretting the discouragement in her voice even as she spoke. She tried to soften it by taking Anna’s hand. “You’re looking better too.”

“No fever today,” Anna said.

“None?”

“Well, only a little.”

“Many guests?” she asked, trying to keep her tone light. After Anna’s injury, her parishioners had made such a fuss, bringing by tokens and offers of support until it was impossible for Anna to rest. Namono had put her foot down and sent them away. Anna had allowed it mostly, she thought, because it also kept her flock from giving away the supplies they couldn’t afford to do without.

“Amiri came by,” Anna said.

“Did he? And what did my cousin want?”

“We’re having a prayer circle tomorrow. Only about a dozen people. Nami helped clean the front room for it. I know I should have asked you first, but …”

Anna nodded at her distended, swollen leg as if her inability to stand at the pulpit was the worst thing that had happened to her. And maybe it was.

“If you’re strong enough,” Namono said.

“I’m sorry.”

“I forgive you. Again. Always.”

“You’re good to me, Nono.” Then, softly so that Nami couldn’t hear them, “There was an alert while you were out.”

Namono’s heart went cold. “Where’s it going to hit.”

“It won’t. They got it. But …”

The silence carried it. But there had been another one. Another rock thrown down the gravity well toward the fragile remnants of the Earth.

“I didn’t tell Nami,” Anna said, as if protecting their child from the fear was another sin that required forgiveness.

“It’s all right,” Namono said. “I will if we need to.”

“How is Gino?”