Sometimes I think she knows. Sometimes I think they’re in collusion. Sometimes I think she put him up to it, and is laughing at me; as I laugh, from time to time and with irony, at myself. Let her take the weight, she can say to herself. Maybe she’s withdrawn from him, almost completely; maybe that’s her version of freedom.
But even so, and stupidly enough, I’m happier than I was before. It’s something to do, for one thing. Something to fill the time, at night, instead of sitting alone in my room. It’s something else to think about. I don’t love the Commander or anything like it, but he’s of interest to me, he occupies space, he is more than a shadow.
And I for him. To him I’m no longer merely a usable body. To him I’m not just a boat with no cargo, a chalice with no wine in it, an oven – to be crude – minus the bun. To him I am not merely empty.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
I walk with Ofglen along the summer street. It’s warm, humid; this would have been sundress-and-sandals weather, once. In each of our baskets are strawberries – the strawberries are in season now, so we’ll eat them and eat them until we’re sick of them – and some wrapped fish. We got the fish at Loaves and Fishes, with its wooden sign, a fish with a smile and eyelashes. It doesn’t sell loaves though. Most households bake their own, though you can get dried-up rolls and wizened doughnuts at Daily Bread, if you run short. Loaves and Fishes is hardly ever open. Why bother opening when there’s nothing to sell? The sea fisheries were defunct several years ago; the few fish they have now are from fish farms, and taste muddy. The news says the coastal areas are being “rested.” Sole, I remember, and haddock, swordfish, scallops, tuna; lobsters, stuffed and baked, salmon, pink and fat, grilled in steaks. Could they all be extinct, like the whales? I’ve heard that rumour, passed on to me in soundless words, the lips hardly moving, as we stood in line outside, waiting for the store to open, lured by the picture of succulent white fillets in the window. They put the picture in the window when they have something, take it away when they don’t. Sign language.
Ofglen and I walk slowly today; we are hot in our long dresses, wet under the arms, tired. At least in this heat we don’t wear gloves. There used to be an ice-cream store, somewhere in this block. I can’t remember the name. Things can change so quickly, buildings can be torn down or turned into something else, it’s hard to keep them straight in your mind the way they used to be. You could get double scoops, and if you wanted they would put chocolate sprinkles on the top. These had the name of a man. Johnnies? Jackies? I can’t remember.
We would go there, when she was little, and I’d hold her up so she could see through the glass side of the counter, where the vats of ice cream were on display, coloured so delicately, pale orange, pale green, pale pink, and I’d read the names to her so she could choose. She wouldn’t choose by the name, though, but by the colour. Her dresses and overalls were those colours too. Ice cream pastels.
Jimmies, that was the name.
Ofglen and I are more comfortable with one another now, we’re used to each other. Siamese twins. We don’t bother much with the formalities any more when we greet each other; we smile and move off, in tandem, travelling smoothly along our daily track. Now and again we vary the route; there’s nothing against it, as long as we stay within the barriers. A rat in a maze is free to go anywhere, as long as it stays inside the maze.
We’ve been to the stores already, and the church; now we’re at the Wall. Nothing on it today, they don’t leave the bodies hanging as long in summer as they do in winter, because of the flies and the smell. This was once the land of air sprays, Pine and Floral, and people retain the taste; especially the Commanders, who preach purity in all things.
“You have everything on your list?” Ofglen says to me now, though she knows I do. Our lists are never long. She’s given up some of her passivity lately, some of her melancholy. Often she speaks to me first.
“Yes,” I say.
“Let’s go around,” she says. She means down, towards the river. We haven’t been that way for a while.
“Fine,” I say. I don’t turn at once, though, but remain standing where I am, taking a last look at the Wall. There are the red bricks, there are the searchlights, there’s the barbed wire, there are the hooks. Somehow the Wall is even more foreboding when it’s empty like this. When there’s someone hanging on it at least you know the worst. But vacant, it is also potential, like a storm approaching. When I can see the bodies, the actual bodies, when I can guess from the sizes and shapes that none of them is Luke, I can believe also that he is still alive.