Sundry Days (22 page)

Chapter 41

Rebekah

An Evening’s Entertainment

The people here like to be entertained. By their spouses privately—they like that the best—and by each other.  Especially in winter when the days are short, the nights are long, snow blankets the vineyards and gardens, and most outdoor work comes to a halt.

Not that we don’t work in winter.

I go to the infirmary, as usual. Someone is always breaking or spraining a body part, major or minor. There are all the usual illnesses, although most people here tend to be pretty healthy. And babies get planted, grow inside their mothers, and get born. Sometimes easily, sometimes with great difficulty.

There’s not much of a distinction here between nurses and doctors, physicians and surgeons.  We just all pitch in and do what we’re capable of doing.  Skills and knowledge are informally passed on and shared.  People become tenders and menders—which is what health care workers are called here—because they’re naturally drawn to this kind of work.

I don’t know if I’m naturally drawn. Nursing was the career I chose in the Coalition because everyone had to choose something. Then I got more training in Kitchener, and worked with Marjorie in Winnipeg. I like what I do here, and I’m learning a lot, especially from Alex, the chief tender and  mender—although he’d never call himself chief.

Alex, who’s in his 60s now, has been a fixture at the infirmary since he was a boy. Tending and mending runs in his family. He says his late mother was sewing people up, setting bones, and catching babies until she died a few years ago. And his oldest daughter, Janine, knows more about medicinals than anyone.

I asked Alex once why he thought girls were being born at the same rate here as boys.

He says a better question to ask is why girls aren’t being born at a normal rate everywhere else.

“So why?” I ask.

“That’s a good question,” he says, and laughs. “Damned if I know.”

There are six of us who work in the infirmary, plus a handful of adolescent trainees who mostly look but don’t touch. We all work on a rotating basis, and help whenever we’re needed.

David also stays busy, no matter what the season. He’s part of a team of engineers and mechanics—men and women who keep the power generators going, the plumbing operational. They build, tinker with and fix everything mechanical that needs to be built, tinkered with or fixed.

Mostly though, in the winter, people have more time on their hands, so finding ways to keep us entertained also becomes a job for someone.

“Please don’t make us do that,” I tell Miriam. “It was bad enough when we had to stand up in front of everyone at our wedding ceremony and answer endless questions about our sex lives.”

“Oh, you enjoyed it,” she insists. “And this will be educational.”

Miriam is in charge of organizing entertainments this month.  Usually they consist of plays, readings, song fests, talent contests—things like that. She thinks it will be a nice change, and very entertaining, for David and me to give a community lecture on what life is really like in the Coalition.

David is as appalled as I am.  But in the end, we reluctantly agree to do it.

We’ve been curiosities of sort ever since we came here. We’ve been welcomed and made some good friends—especially Zora and Abraham—and have always tried to be open and honest when people ask us about our former lives.  It’s a whole other thing, though, to stand in front of an audience and ramble on about the Coalition as if we were some kind of experts on that particular doomed and dying civilization.

The funny thing is, I feel as if I have to defend it.

“It’s really not the fault of our families, or any of the people where we come from, for having to live that the way they do,” I begin. “They haven’t been able to fix the birth rate. They’re just stuck.”

I look at David to help me.

“Yeah,” he says. “It’s not their fault, personally, that humans ruined the planet more than 600 years ago, and The Great Flood washed just about everything away, and now girls aren’t being born like they’re supposed to be.”

“Everyone has had to figure out a way to live,” I continue. “And in my opinion, the people in the Coalition are handling things in a much better way than say, the nasty old men in Eden Falls, whose ancestors came from right here in New Eden.”

There are some murmurs from the crowd.

Someone stands up. I don’t know his name.

“We realize that,” he says. “Please don’t get the wrong idea. We’re not interested in finding fault or feeling superior. Well, maybe a little.”

Everyone laughs.

“We’re just very curious,” he says. “Most of us can’t figure out how one woman could possibly handle a whole bunch of husbands. How do they do that? And why do the men put up with it? Why haven’t they all become mean, selfish old farts like our former kinsmen in Eden Falls?”

“Well, I guess it’s because mean and selfish men aren’t considered suitable for marriage where we’re from,” I explain. “Men who don’t get married have to be satisfied with pleasure women, like in Winnipeg. And men who do get married have to have the right kind of dispositions, so that sharing a wife isn’t a problem.”

Several people in the audience ask specific questions about sex.  They want to know how it’s handled in polyandrous households. They want details.

“You’ve got to understand that David and I were very young when we left. The adults talked about sex to us sometimes, but mostly it was to warn us not to have it with each other.”

Someone asks David if he was considered suitable for marriage, just not with me.

He answers honestly. He explains that women are required to marry at 18, but men not until they’re at least 25. So he wasn’t yet evaluated.

“But it’s doubtful anyone would have had me,” he says.  “I’m possessive, at least I was when it came to Rebekah.  I’m competitive. I’m jealous. And I tend to act rashly. Those traits should have been bred out of me.”

“Bred out of you?”

“What do you mean?”

David looks at me sheepishly.

Fine. Now I have to tell everyone here how Coalition women are trying to build better men.

Susannah insisted that it was something that should always remain a secret. Unfortunately, being a compliant and obedient girl was never bred out of me. So I let the New Edeners in on the trick with sponges.

Alex stands up and points out that it would take countless generations before that kind of selective procreation could possibly result in a more peaceable population.

“No doubt you’re right,” I say.

“Still, you have to give those women credit for at least trying,” opines Zora, who’s sitting near the front.

Then we talk for a while about other aspects of life in the Coalition—the cover-all cloaks for women, the increasingly oppressive ordinances—although everything seems to revolve, in some way, around sex.

Finally, we’re done. Everyone has been sufficiently entertained.

“Did you know that before The Great Flood people got almost all their entertainment by staring at little hand-held screens?” asks David after we get home.

“Wish they had them now,” I say. “No matter what Miriam says, there’s no way the two of us should ever be considered entertainment for the masses.”

“Yes. But privately, I do find you extremely entertaining. Especially when no talking is involved.”  David thinks he’s becoming quite the wit.

We do talk some, though.

I tell David, as we get undressed, that I think maybe we shouldn’t use sponges for a while, and see what happens.

“See what happens?  Isn’t a baby what will happen?”

“Maybe. I might not get pregnant right away.”

“But you want to?”

“Yeah.  I do.”

“You’re sure you want to procreate with someone who’s unlikely to pass on peaceable qualities to the next generation of men?”

“No,” I tease. “But you’re the only husband I’ve got. And I like having sex with you. And I’m tired of sticking in the stupid sponge.”

“Well, those are good enough reason for me.”

I really don’t know what’s come over me.  Until recently, I never even thought about getting pregnant. But two days ago, I assisted at a difficult birth. The labor was long and extremely painful. Alex had no choice but to cut the woman open, using a local anesthetic. I held the newborn while her mother was sewn up, and then, a little later, watched the two of them come together again, skin to skin. And something just sort of shifted inside of me. There was a wanting. A wanting took hold of me.

Now, in this moment, I only want David.  I want us to be wholly one, like Zora says. And if we happen to make another, and possibly better, person, well, isn’t that what men and women everywhere have always been meant to do?

Chapter 42

Susannah

All in the Family

As if things aren’t bad enough, Mama shows up with Matt, Jeff and Lars. Because she’s bored, I assume.  She has been, ever since she lost the last election to the crazy politician from Kitchener, who no one thought could win.

Of course, he never could have won under normal circumstances in ordinary times. Unfortunately, there’s nothing normal or ordinary about our situation.   And, in the end, it’s probably not going to matter much who’s in charge anyway.

“Why don’t you ever bring my fathers with you when you visit?” I ask Mama. They’re getting very old, and none of the three is doing too well lately. It probably doesn’t help that Mama ignores them completely. She only ever goes out with Matt, Jeff and Lars.

“Oh, your fathers are just fine where they are right now,” she says. “You know, Susannah, you really ought to have gotten yourself some new young husbands while you could still pick and choose. It would have done you good. Plus they’re good protection. Now you’re going to have to take what you get, and spend your last few fertile years in bed with unpleasant strangers, who probably aren’t even handsome.  You should have listened to me.”

She never stops. If there’s a way to annoy me, she finds it. Not that I’m her only target. If I knew she was coming over, I would have told Simon—who made the mistake of opening the door—to find somewhere else to be. Simon, though, tolerates her better than the rest of us.

“You’re being a good boy, aren’t you Simon? You know, you’ve always been my favorite grandson.”

He smiles and allows her to kiss his cheek.

“What about Ethan and Aaron? What’s wrong with them?” I challenge.

“Oh, they’re still too little. Who can predict how they’ll turn out,” she says.  “There are too many unknowns now, Susannah.”

Well, she’s right about that.

“Have you thought about what I told you, the last time I was here, Simon?  You should join the Community Guard.  Lars, Jeff and Matt have signed up.  They’re doing defense training in their spare time, aren’t you, my sweets?”

“The three of them only have spare time, and Simon is not joining the Guard.”

“Oh, it doesn’t take that much time,” says Lars, as he, Jeff and Matt plop themselves down, and get comfortable.

Everyone except Sam is home today, but they all found things to do in other parts of the house when they heard my mother’s voice. Smart men. And since I see no reason to subject innocent people to Mama, not even Simon, I tell him to take his step-grandfathers to the garage to see his new sun-cycle. If they proceed to tell him about how much fun he can have in the Community Guard learning how to defend his mother, so be it.

“Seriously, Susannah, the Guard could be our sex’s only hope,” Mama tells me when we’re alone, as she watches me make tea.

“Well, if it’s our only hope, then there is no hope.  What makes you think that overgrown puppies like Matt, Jeff and Lars, and bred-to-be-mild boys like Simon can suddenly transform into fierce protectors of womankind?”

“Why are you always so negative?  We’ve got to do something.”

“There’s nothing we can do, Mama.  I think this is the end.”

The Community Guards have been formed in case bands of Lost Boys decide their time has come, and descend upon cities and towns to forcibly take what they want, on a first come, first served basis, instead of waiting their turn. I think that’s highly unlikely to happen. 

So far, we’ve been lucky.  There were marches and rallies before the elections. Lots of talk and lots of bluster among unattached men.  And huge, but mostly peaceable, celebrations after Mama and the other powerful females were ousted from office.

Now everyone is just waiting for directives to filter down from Chicago and Toronto. It’s not clear yet how the Equal Access to Women ordinances will be enforced.

The great male hope from Kitchener, the crackpot politician who now holds the highest office in the land, believes—and has others believing—that, based on his own personal experience, the more husbands in a family, the better the chance of producing a girl.  He ran on the slogan:
Give Men a Chance
. He won because, this time around, single men demanded the right to vote.

They figured out that there’s strength in numbers. It’s not just a cliché. It also happens to be true that men, generally speaking, have more brute strength than women. That’s just biology.  So here we are, at the mercy of hordes of so-far patient males, waiting for their chance to procreate and give the world more girls.

My guess is there will be some kind of a lottery or other system set up for assigning additional men to families. Women will become highly regulated baby-making machines, even more than we are now, until there aren’t any of us left.

“Have you heard any more news from David?” my mother asks.

“No. Nothing more.”

She knows about the packet of letters we received almost a year ago. There was no point in keeping it a secret from her.

“Well, here’s the thing, Susannah. I’m thinking I might take a little trip to Winnipeg with Matt, Jeff and Lars.  Maybe I’ll see David, if he’s in the vicinity. And I’ll need you to look after your fathers.”

“What?”

“Winnipeg. I think I’ll be safer there.”

“Safer?  What are you talking about? What do you mean safer? No one’s going to force unwanted additional husbands on you. You’re an old woman now.”

“Do you always have to be so nasty, Susannah? The Designer willing, I still have many years ahead of me. The problem is, I’m a persona non grata in the Coalition now that there’s a new power structure. I’ve received anonymous hate male from castrati, and if Lost Boys come barging into town, who do you think they’ll attack first?”

“Oh. I thought Jeff, Matt and Lars are becoming trained stalwarts of the Community Guard so they can better protect you.”

“Yes. Well, we all have to try to be prepared. The Guard is important, as I’ve told you, and my boys are doing their part now. But it’s in my best interest to go to Winnipeg.”

She confides that before the election, the Coalition sent scouts to investigate the territory between Thunder Bay and Winnipeg.

“They haven’t been able to find out much about the monogamist cults,” she says. “They’re mostly run by religious fanatics, and probably harmless.  So you don’t need to worry too much about David. But the really good news is, Winnipeg is fairly civilized, despite the lack of government oversight and ordinances. Must be because of all the drugs they make. In any case, people of substantial means tend to do very well there. All it takes is money.  So I’m in the process of making arrangements.”

I don’t know whether to strangle her, or be glad that she’ll finally be out of my hair and too far away to drive me insane on a regular basis.

“It’s probably for the best,” says Seth, after she and her entourage leave. “And it won’t be so bad having your fathers move in with us. We’re a family. No matter what happens we’re still a family.”

Then Sam comes home, and we start to think that maybe Mama is on to something, and we should all move to Winnipeg, although that’s never going to happen.

“Things are going to get bad, very bad,” Sam announces. Because of his involvement in the Easter-Esther Festivals, he knows lots of single men. People tell him things. He moves in different, wider circles than my other husbands.

“I heard that the ordinances now being drafted are going to be a lot more draconian than anyone ever anticipated,” he says. “Girls are still the goal, of course, but women are going to be expected to do more than give additional men the chance to father a female. Every house is going to turn into a pleasure house of sorts.”

The balance of power, if you can call it a balance, has shifted. Men are in charge, women are just commodities to be distributed.

“It’s not going to be pretty,” says Sam.

Already, more babies than ever are being born, almost all of them male. But there are only so many babies a woman can deliver.  I figure I may be able to get pregnant two more times tops, before menopause. And then, I guess, like every other remaining woman, I’ll be an unwilling pleasure lady for the rest of my life.

Unless The Designer changes His mind and decides to fix whatever’s wrong with our reproductive systems, I suppose it really doesn’t matter what we do while we wait to die as a species.

Maybe people will fade away more pleasantly in Winnipeg. But there’s no way we can all go there.  I’ll leave Winnipeg to Mama, and pray for at least a peaceful demise.