Circuit Of Heaven (18 page)

But Nemo gave a startled grunt, tilted her chin up with the tip of his finger, and looked her in the eye. “Justine, I don’t know about your other dreams. But the one you just had is about Uncle Winston.”

She didn’t understand.

“Winston
Donley
.”

The thought repulsed her. “But I didn’t know his last name.”

“Senator Winston Donley? Are you kidding? He’s in the news every day. Even people out here have heard of him. We’re still voters, after all.” He caught himself and looked around. “Where we’re
pretending
to be, anyway. I was forgetting where we really are.”

“Do you regret it? Coming here with me?”

He held her close. “No,” he said. “Not a single moment.”

She kissed his cheek. “Even my screaming like an idiot?”

He laughed softly. “Maybe that part.”

She leaned back against the pillows, avoiding his eyes. “Why would I be dreaming about Winston?”

“I’m no psychologist, but I’d say you’re feeling guilty about sleeping with him.”

“I never said I slept with him.”

“You didn’t have to. Like you said, you made a mistake.”

“You don’t mind?”

He shook his head. “It’s not something I want to think about every day, but I didn’t even know you then. It has nothing to do with us. You seem to be the one who minds—dreaming you’re some woman dying in labor, her fate in his hands. Let it go, Justine.”

“I love you,” she said, but as she wrapped her arms around him, she caught sight of the clock. It was 10:55. She almost pushed him out of her arms. “Nemo, you’ve got to go back. You’ve been in here for over twelve hours. You’re going to feel awful.”

“It’s no big deal. It’s like a hangover. I’ll sleep it off. I’m not going to run off and leave you like this. You’re still shaking. Hell,
I’m
still shaking. Besides, I promised you a tour of the hood.”

“But Nemo—”

“But nothing. I’m not ready to go home yet. I want to stay with you.”

She was sure that visiting too long in the Bin was a lot worse than a hangover, but she didn’t argue with him. She wanted him to stay. She ran her hands up and down his arms, muscled from hard work. She imagined him chopping wood, digging in the earth. “If you were
really
at home right now,” she asked, “what would you be doing?”

He laughed. “Oh, that’s easy. I’d be getting something to eat.”

“Sounds great.”

SHE
FOLLOWED
HIM
DOWN
TO
THE
KITCHEN
.
THE
WHOLE
house looked as if someone had started tearing it down, had a change of heart halfway through, then put it back together again with whatever came to hand. The banisters on the stairs were car bumpers. Most of the windows were covered in plastic. The legs were missing from the sofas and stuffed chairs. They sat on the floor or were propped up on bricks. The kitchen table and chairs were molded plastic, what they used to call outdoor furniture. There was no refrigerator, only a two-burner alcohol stove, and all the cabinetry had been replaced with a stainless steel table salvaged from a restaurant or laboratory. She pictured Lawrence and Nemo dragging it down the street.

She sat down at the table with her coffee, while Nemo looked in the pantry, a huge metal locker attached to the wall,
CARL’S
CAR
CARE
stencilled on the doors. There was a small red-and-white box on the table. “What’s this?”

“Lawrence’s cigarettes.”

“You’re kidding. I’ve never actually seen ones this old.” She opened up the box, but it was empty except for a few grains of tobacco. “They’re all gone.”

“But that’s impossible. He just opened them yesterday.”

She held it up. “See for yourself.”

“Well I hope he doesn’t find any more. You should read the side of the box.” He rummaged through the pantry again. The metal rumbled and echoed as he moved things around. “What would you like?” He affected Lawrence’s nanny voice: “I’m afraid the menu this morning is rather limited.” He held up two jars. “Last summer was a bust. We’ve eaten up the good stuff. We’ve got okra and we’ve got pickles.”

“Just cereal will be fine.”

He smiled into the open pantry, setting the jars back inside. “Don’t have any of that, unless you want to call cornmeal cereal. Sometimes we have milk. There’s a guy about a mile north who’s got cows. Likes Nine Inch Nails. But we don’t get milk too often. It spoils too fast. No refrigeration.”

She felt like an idiot. Next she’d be asking for bananas. “What do you have?”

“I’m afraid all I’ve got to offer you this morning, besides the okra and pickles, is leftover stew, unless you want to wait a couple of hours while I cook up some beans.”

“How long has it been left over—with no refrigeration?”

“Just last night. It’ll be fine, really. The meat was smoked and cured, there’s no milk in it. Besides, we’re in the Bin, remember? No food poisoning here.”

“What sort of meat?”

“Rabbit. We raise rabbits.”

She winced at the thought. Her favorite story as a child was
The Velveteen Rabbit
. She’d feel like a cannibal. “I’ll just have coffee. I’m fine with just coffee.”

He poured her another cup and sat down at the table. He was studying her, making up his mind about something. “What did you eat when you were in Dallas?”

She shrugged. “When I was in the orphanage, they just fed us. Cafeteria food, lots of spaghetti and tuna fish casserole. Oatmeal for breakfast.”

“They must’ve been doing pretty well. A can of tuna fish bought this table and chairs you’re sitting at. What about after you got out of the orphanage? You were on your own two or three years, right? What’d you eat then?”

She thought about it, but she couldn’t remember a single meal. She looked around the kitchen, trying to remember any such place in her past where she’d cooked and eaten, but nothing came. “I don’t remember, whatever I could get my hands on, I suppose.”

“You don’t remember? It was only six weeks ago.”

“Does it really matter? I’ve been having trouble remembering things. I’m just disoriented. That’s all.”

“Are you sure you lived outside until six weeks ago?”

“Of course I’m sure.”

“People outside usually aren’t so squeamish about what they eat.”

“Would you lay off, Nemo? I’m not squeamish. I’m just not that hungry.”

“I am, but I’ll wait till I get back, and eat the real stew.” He stood up, gestured toward the back door. “Would you like to see them?”

“See what?”

“The bunnies. I’m sure they’re there. So far Real World Tours hasn’t missed a trick.” He walked to the door and held it open. “Just a few yards out the back—if you’re feeling strong enough.”

She was being tested somehow—the city girl come to the country. Okay, she thought. That’s fair enough. It was my idea to come here in the first place and see how he lived. “I’m feeling fine,” she said. “I’d love to see your bunnies.” She stood up, her coffee cup in hand. He held open the door for her, and she walked outside. It was a beautiful morning. The grass in the shadow of the house glistened with dew. He directed her down a brick path to a row of hutches rising out of the high grass on stilts. Dozens of rabbits looked out through the wire mesh. “They’re adorable,” she said.

Nemo pointed at the cage in front of them. “These are some of our current breeders. The smug fellow in the corner is Jasper. That’s Esmeralda, Penelope, Zoe, and Sophie. We only give names to the breeders.” He plucked a blade of grass and fed it to Sophie through the wire mesh. “If this were actually the real world, you could only skip so many meals.” He plucked another blade of grass and fed it to Sophie. “Vegetarians tend to starve in the real world. Sometimes the rains come, and there’s plenty to eat. Sometimes they don’t. But rain or shine, every four weeks, we have more rabbits.” He turned to Justine. “If you’re afraid of the stew, I could cook up Sophie. She hasn’t dropped a litter the last two times we’ve bred her.” Sophie’s face was pressed up against the wire, waiting for another blade of grass. Nemo reached through the mesh with his finger and scratched her between the ears.

“Why are you being so horrible?”

“You wanted to see where I lived, how I lived. I’m just showing you around.” He opened a cabinet beneath the hutches and pointed to something wrapped up in clear plastic. “I use that.”

She had to lean forward to see what it was through the folds of plastic. And then the shape came clear. It was a large clever. I guess I’m supposed to flee in horror, she thought. Instead, she straightened up and took a drink of her coffee. “This won’t work, you know.”

“What won’t work?”

“I don’t care whether you slaughter defenseless bunnies or shit in the woods or grub in the dirt for worms, Nemo. I love you. If you want me to leave you alone, ask. Don’t try to drive me away.”

He didn’t say anything. What could he say? She’d nailed him. She supposed she was to make it easy on him, and wish him farewell, but he loved her. She knew he loved her. “Sooner or later you’ll have to decide what you’re going to do about me, Nemo.” She reached out and scratched Sophie between the ears. “Just like you’ll have to decide about Sophie here, the next time you’re hungry.”

He still didn’t speak. His eyes burned with anger and desire. He seized her wrists, and her coffee cup fell to the grass, as they sank to the ground.

They made love in the tall grass, hundreds of rabbit eyes watching.

A
FEW
CUMULUS
CLOUDS
DRIFTED
SLOWLY
TO
THE
EAST
. The sun was still behind the house. Nemo and Justine lay on their backs at the edge of its shadow, looking up at the sky, a cool breeze blowing across their skin, their heads propped on their clothes. She wondered what Nemo was thinking.

Probably that this isn’t the real sky. It’s the sky of our imaginings—the mind’s sky, the mind’s sky, the mind’s eye. The world isn’t turning beneath my back. I‘ not really smelling the dirt and grass, the scent of our lovemaking. The ladybug moving across my stomach, her tiny feet marching, can’t fly away home.

She sang the song in her head:
Ladybug, Ladybug, Fly away home. Your house is on fire, and your children
…

She couldn’t remember the rest of it. When she was a little girl, she used to sing that song over and over, adding her own endings, belting it out in the echoey halls….
and your children want pie!…and your children are thirsty!…and your children aren’t tired
! Until one of the nuns would say, “That’s not how it goes,” and she’d say,
I
know
that
, and sing more verses until she was ordered to stop.

Unless it was Sister Sarah, and then she’d come up behind Justine without making a sound, and put her hand on top of Justine’s head like a bird had landed there, and sing a verse herself:
Ladybug, Ladybug, fly away home. Your house is on fire, and this kid won’t go to bed
! And I’d laugh, Justine remembered, and Sister Sarah would walk me down the hall, holding my hand all the way, trading verses until she tucked me into bed. She wasn’t old enough to be my mother, but I made up stories that she was, and wrote them in my diary.

She’s dead, Justine thought, long dead, but she didn’t know why. Sarah had been young, no more than twenty-two or three, when she went away to Cambodia the day after Justine’s tenth birthday. She’d baked her a cake with an angel on it. The candles made her halo. Notes floated about her like stars. But Sarah’s dead now, Justine told herself. I know it. I feel it. I lived through it. But she couldn’t remember when.

That’s been so long ago
.

Justine realized that Nemo was leaning over her, and she snapped out of her reverie. He was propped up on one arm, watching her. When their eyes met, he said, “You’re back.”

“I was remembering one of the nuns,” she said. “I was wondering what had become of her.”

He tilted his head and gave her a quizzical look. “Did you say ‘nuns’? How long ago was this, anyway?”

“I was ten, so it would’ve been ten years ago.”

“Catholic nuns?”

“It was a Catholic orphanage. Of course they were Catholic nuns.”

“Justine, there haven’t been any nuns since the fifties. The Pope went into the Bin and made himself Pope forever. There hasn’t been a Catholic Church outside since before I was born. So how do you know any nuns?”

The sun was just peeking over the house, grazing his shoulder with light. She knew that what he said was true. Everyone knew it. She couldn’t have sung in the halls at St. Catherine’s ten years ago, even twenty. There was no St. Catherine’s then. Who she thought she was made no sense. Now that she thought about it, all of her past was a puzzle with most of the pieces missing, none of them fitting together. She tried to remember beyond six weeks ago—where she’d lived, what she’d done, but it was just a few scenes like Freddie’s holos. After the orphange, there was nothing substantial. In the Bin, she remembered a few hotel rooms, a few clubs. She couldn’t recall a single conversation.

“I don’t know,” she said.

He didn’t say anything for a long time, studying her, trying to figure her out. “Justine, I don’t care how long you’ve been in the Bin, or how old you really are. I don’t see that it much matters in here.”

She sat up and started putting on her clothes. “You think I’ve been lying to you? That I’m some old woman who’s been rejuvenated? Believe me, Nemo, I wish it were that simple. As far as I know, I’m
twenty
years old. I’ve been in the Bin
six
weeks.”

He reached out and took her hands. “I’m sorry. I don’t think you’re lying.”

She shook her head. She wanted to scream. “But I have to be, Nemo. My past is impossible. I grew up in a place that couldn’t have existed. After that, I can’t remember where I was living, what I was doing, who my friends were. All I remember are tiny scraps that don’t go anywhere. They’re like a few scenes from a play, not even a whole play, certainly not a whole life. It’s like I didn’t have a life before I woke up yesterday morning. Winston said something about the Bin being disorienting at first, but I don’t even know who I am.”