I Am Margaret (10 page)

His eyes moved quickly on again, pausing on other faces as well, and a fresh knot of fear relaxed inside me. He wasn’t going to betray me by accident, even in these ghastly moments. Again he raised his hand slightly, tracing the sign of the cross over us. I could almost hear his voice in my head.
Keep the faith, Margo
.

“What’s he doing?” asked Caroline, in a hushed voice.

“I think it’s called a blessing,” volunteered someone else.

“Is it magic?” asked Harriet.

“Well, I imagine it’s supposed to be… or something like that,” replied the more knowledgeable someone.

“
The
EuroBloc
don’t think so,
do
they,” sneered Jane.

“We could use some magic,” said Harriet wistfully. “But… why’d he do it to them too? They’re going to… kill him… aren’t they?”

“Priests will bless anything if it holds still long enough,” retorted Jane.

“Margo, why’d he bless all of them? It is good magic, isn’t it, not a curse or something?”

My mouth was so dry I wasn’t sure I could answer, but I had to try.

“It’s an important thing for them, Harriet.” How had I managed to speak so normally? “He’s supposed to forgive everyone, no matter what they do to him.”

“
But
why
?”

I mustn’t sound too knowledgeable...

“I think they love absolutely everyone as a brother or sister, or something like that. I don’t quite understand it myself.”

No lie. I believed in the theory with all my heart, but right now I really was having trouble understanding how I could
ever
love Richard or Sidney or the judge who’d just condemned my dear friend to one of the slowest and most agonizing deaths ever invented by mankind. My heart just didn’t feel as though it could ever expand enough to accept such monsters into it.

Syringe in hand, Richard was finding the vein on Uncle Peter’s arm. Uncle Peter’s trembling hands knotted into balls again and his chest heaved, but he closed his eyes firmly and lay very still. With a sound of satisfaction, Richard slid the needle in and drove the plunger home, then withdrew it and dropped the syringe into the sharps bin held by a hovering minion.

Whether Uncle Peter fought the drug’s paralyzing effect or not, his hands relaxed, his breathing grew slower and more regular, and his head fell to one side as his muscle control drained away. A minion stepped forward to fit a brace to hold his head upright as Richard and Sidney set to work, and the other two converged, armed with an assortment of utensils for clamping blood vessels.

I watched with a kind of sick fascination, unable to look away, unwilling to look away, for irrational as it might be, to look away felt like to desert him. Perhaps it was. To look away because
I
couldn’t bear it, when he could do nothing
but
bear it…

Skin. That was first. The largest sheets of it, carefully packed away into those bags and placed inside the medical cooler.

Eyes, second. They lifted his lids and hooked them back with a gentleness that was hideous, mere care not to damage the merchandise…

Tongue, third…

It went on and on and on. I’d never realized how many parts there were in the human body. Bones, muscles, organs... And always the suffocating horror, the knowledge that Uncle Peter was quite conscious, that he could feel every slice of those cruel blades…

My own helplessness crushed me. I wanted to rush down there and save him… yet I could not. It simply
was not possible
. Guards and card-locked doors blocked my path; my solitary, unarmed, untrained self simply
could not
save him. I wanted to scream, shout, howl out my grief and horror, but I couldn’t do that, either, for how many others would I condemn to Uncle Peter’s fate, and for what?

Still I watched and still they sliced and cut and packaged.

When they finally cut out his still-beating heart, I began to shake, long spasms that I couldn’t stop. It was over. It was over. He was at peace and with his reward promised to outweigh his sufferings a thousandfold, he was blessed indeed. But right then, with the grisly evidence before my eyes, I could think no further than his sufferings.

Everyone was moving now, talking in hushed voices; some girls were crying and hugging each other. Many clustered at the back of the gallery, not looking. Harriet fought her way through the throng and flung herself onto my Sarah-free side; automatically, I slipped an arm around her as well. Someone had been sick—I’d not even noticed that it had happen.

Caroline came hurtling after Harriet, followed by Annie, and I fought to yank my mind from its numbness and comfort them as best I could. Another two arms would’ve helped… of course, there were two spare ones down there, now… the thought drifted across my mind, unbidden, and I swallowed hard as my stomach heaved.

Oh, Uncle Peter. Uncle Peter…

“Now, gather round, girls,” our twisted jailer was saying, “come up to the glass, now.”

Harriet wouldn’
t go nearer, still clinging to me.

“
That’s what they’re going to do to
us
, isn’t it?” she whispered, staring down at the gurney, where the last few usable parts were being removed and packed up.

“We won’t feel a thing, Harriet. We’ll be fast asleep.”

“They’re still going to cut us up into little pieces!”

“Well, yes.” What could I say?

Harriet wasn’t the only one who didn’t want to go any closer and the sounds of fear and crying filled the gallery.

“
Get up there, all of you!” snarled Captain Wallis, driving us all before her.

“You finished, Sid?” asked Richard, down in the Lab.

“Yeah, heart’s all packed up, you want anything else?”

“Not from a forty-two year old. Let’s knock off.”

And leaving their red coats with a minion, they strode out of the room.

“Gather around, girls,” ordered Captain Wallis, “Take a good look. Very few people have an opportunity like this outside of medical school, you know.”

Tearful and cringing, everyone tried not to look while looking like they were.

“Isn’t it simply fascinating, girls?” Captain Wallis was saying. Her eyes were strangely hot and she kept moistening her lips. “To be able to see a human body in parts, to know this is what a human being is—mere intricacies of flesh and blood and bone…”

Her voice hardened. “To know there is
nothing more
to it. That a dead body is made up of only two things—useful parts and useless parts. That the human race is made up of the same—useful people and useless people. This superstitious witch doctor is one of the useless ones—his only usefulness is in death. Rather like you girls,” she finished deliberately.

Harriet started crying so hard I gave her a hasty hug. She wasn’t the only one to break down completely. Captain Wallis licked her lips yet again, seeming to savor the moment.

Until a very simple girl called Bethan spoke up innocently.

“Don’t people have a magic part or something? My great granny’s magic part went to a lovely place, Mummy said so. So hasn’t his magic part gone there too?”

Captain Wallis reached Bethan in two strides, grabbed her by the collar and dragged her forwards, shoving her face close to the glass.

“
Your mother lied to you, you credulous idiot,” she hissed, then went on gloatingly, “There is
no such thing
as a magic part. There
is
no lovely place. Your great granny no longer exists and nor does this fool.
This
is all that is left of him.”

I stood there looking down at my friend’s warm, still remains, the warden’s twisted triumph ringing in my ears, and something I’d never really felt before bubbled up inside, hot and black and corrosive, like red-hot, poisonous teeth sinking into my soul.

Hatred.

I hated her. This stupid, short-sighted, sick woman. She hadn’t even killed Uncle Peter herself and yet at that moment I hated her far more than Richard or Sidney or the judge or the minions. They’d been doing a job, but this woman had enjoyed every minute of Uncle Peter’s torment.

Images cascaded through my mind, memories from earliest childhood, Uncle Peter lifting me up, up onto his shoulders, Uncle Peter sitting on the carpet with me, trying to teach me subtraction with rows of sweets, Uncle Peter saying Mass, holding the bread before our eyes as it became Our Lord, Uncle Peter listening gravely to every little childhood sin I confessed, replying with words of healing and encouragement, always, always taking me seriously in everything, always, always teaching me, teaching me math, teaching me morals, teaching me hope, teaching me joy… and this woman, this stupid, wicked woman, dared to gloat over his physical body, dared to say that was
all he was!

I wished her in hell and I could’ve sent her there myself.

“Margo?” whispered Caroline tearfully, staring at me wide-eyed.

My teeth were about ready to break, they were clenched so tight. With effort, I relaxed my mouth, realizing Captain Wallis hadn’t finished with Bethan yet—Bethan was crying and struggling as the warden pushed her face harder and harder into the glass.

“
Open
your eyes, you little fool!
Open them!
Take a good close look...”

“Please,” sobbed Bethan, “please, I’m sorry! What did I do? Please, I don’t want to, please stop…”

Captain Wallis put a finger and thumb to Bethan’s face and tried to force her lids open—Bethan started screaming...

I’d reached them before I was aware of taking a decision to move; I pulled Bethan out of the Captain’s grasp and pushed her behind me.

“How dare you...” hissed the warden.

My mouth opened on vicious, venomous words… And again I saw Uncle Peter, lying on that table, his fingers raised in blessing, heard his voice whispering, ‘I forgive you’. I stood there in front of the woman and though I shook from head to foot, I swallowed those words. I don’t know how, so it must’ve been grace. It was not me.

“Captain,” I said coolly instead. “I was just wondering; when is the next ReAssignees Welfare Board inspection?”

She stared at me, reading the anger and hate in my eyes, seeing the rebellion in my interference and definitely understanding the threat in my mild words. Her hands twitched, as though she’d
smash
my head into the glass. But it was a very
good
threat.

“Girls,” she barked at last, still staring balefully at me, “You will each take a proper look at these useless scraps and when the last one of you has done so, you may go back to your dormitory.”

Everyone shrank back, so she grabbed the nearest girl and shoved her up against the glass as well, and as the girl stumbled away whimpering, everyone suddenly decided to obey after all. There was rather a scrum as they all tried to touch their noses to the glass to prove they’d done it.

After that, satisfied at last, the warden marched us back to our dorm, where chaos promptly reigned. Girls threw themselves into each other’s arms, sobbing, or lay on their bunks, staring at the wall; Jane paced up and down the center of the room, snapping at anyone who got in her way; Sarah, Bethan and Hazel went into a nervous huddle and Harriet, Caroline and Annie continued to cling to me like limpets.

I tried my best to comfort them but I was near the end of my tether. I shook uncontrollably, nausea threatened to overwhelm me, and I kept losing track of who’d said what to whom. It was no use. If I didn’t get out of there, I was going to lose it.

Pleading a need for the bathroom, I coaxed Harriet, Caroline and Annie into a mutual hug and bolted for the buzzer. Fortunately the guard arrived before anyone noticed my sudden availability as a shoulder to cry on, and I made my escape.

“You going to be long, lass?” asked the elderly guard, sounding bored. He made no move to step into the washroom and out of the camera’s eye—the smarter guards knew better. Apparently it wasn’t totally unknown for a girl to take such an error of judgment as an opportunity for a bit of revenge, and claim some inappropriate behavior had occurred. That was a career-stopper if the RWB—ReAssignees Welfare Board—got to hear about it.

“Probably,” I said, as calmly as I could.

“Give me a buzz when you’re done, then,” said the guard—‘Watkins’ read his badge. The stairwell door clicked closed behind him as he headed back to the guardroom.

Laudate Deum
, I was alone. I could hold it off no longer; shudders wracked me from head to foot and my stomach began to heave in earnest. Diving into a cubicle, I kicked the door shut behind me and was violently sick. I went on being sick until eventually there was nothing to come up but bile and kneeling there, my forehead pressed to that cold cinder block wall, I cried and cried until my face was on fire and every drop of water in my body ought to have evaporated from it.