Transcendence (24 page)

“
If the law of man says a woman shall bear no children without its consent, then that law is evil and must be disregarded. We live in a land of evil, woman Janus. God is the only one who can purge you of sin. I am the instrument of God. Now go, clean yourself. And speak nothing of this to anyone, or burn forever in the fires of hell.”

Two days later—two, because she couldn’t bear to face Bonette that day or the next—she asked Bonette’s mother for the no-baby pills.

“
Please,” Janus had insisted in her friend’s tiny kitchen, “don’t tell my parents. They would be so unhappy with me if they knew I was a sinner. I’ll find a way to pay you for them.”

“
Oh, child,” the woman had said, a crooked smile on her face, “there’s no sin in what you’re doing. If it’s what you want, it’s okay; but don’t let anyone talk you into something you don’t want.” Then the older woman laughed.

“
Sin, ha! Not everything that father of yours says is right. And I don’t want your money; the city practically gives these away.”

And she had taken a plastic bottle down from a shelf and pressed it into Janus’ hand. “Take one every day unless you feel crampy, then take one every other day.”

Janus looked at the bottle, opened it, dumped a tiny white pill onto her palm, and threw it into her mouth as if not doing so would cause her to become sick. Bonette’s mother drew a quick breath.

“
Not like that, child. With water!” She ran a glass of water in the sink and handed it to Janus.

Janus drank down the whole glass; the water seemed to help. It tasted clean.

“
Can I leave them here and take them when I visit Bonette?” she asked. She had already begun to learn how to survive.

“
Of course,” the woman replied, taking the glass and setting it in the sink.

Janus had caught a glimpse of Bonette’s eyes just then, dark brown islands afloat on pure white lakes. They seemed to ask countless questions, they seemed intensely intrigued and begging for details, and it was as if Janus had been struck with a fist in her gut.

Her whole body grew tight and weak at the same time, and she felt there was so much inside her that had to come out that she would just explode if she stayed within sight of her friend.

She muttered a hurried thanks and goodbye and ran out of the apartment. For what seemed like hours she ran, first at a sprint and later at a stumbling jog. Eventually she came to the river, and there she had fallen into the tall weeds.

She lay in the weeds for hours, her fingers clawing into the sand beneath her, her shoes kicking occasionally as well into the sand. Brown ants paraded past her, in and out of a tiny cavern. They intrigued her. She wondered if she could bury herself if she continued to do this—to kick and claw like an ant making a new cavern—and how soft and cool the sand felt. Even the bristly stems of the weeds were soothing—the little cuts they left on her arms kept her from crying.

However, as the shadow of night began to fall, when the cool air touched the back of her neck, she couldn’t stop herself.

She cried like a little baby, as she had when she was young enough for the spankings. She tried to think like a baby. She wished she could go back to the spankings instead of this woman business.

“
I hate being a woman!” she screamed into the dusk. When the sky put on God’s paints of red and purple, she rose from the weeds and headed home. The walk seemed to take forever.

School was over, so her head was silent. The silence was bad. She turned on the 24-hour Edufeed channel; that would look good to her teachers, anyway. She concentrated hard on the digested news notes, and followed up on stories she found interesting.

By the time she got home, she’d spent half an hour in the Library of Congress files, researching “nebula.” She walked right in to the dining room where Mommy and Father and Rachel were already eating, but Father didn’t say a thing. His look was enough, but he didn’t say a thing.

She would remember that over the next three years: Being a woman meant no punishment from Father, only the bearing-children business. Eventually, she was even able to not dread the afternoons when Father came to her bedroom. She had learned deep concentration.

Her grades skyrocketed. In a year, she was ahead of most 18-year-olds in math and science; in 3VRD sporting events, she beat most of the girls her age at running and hurdling. In two years, she was taking college feed at adolescent-discount, which pleased Father, since he wouldn’t have to pay for it at full price later. She had learned not only to manage being a woman, but also to excel. She no longer thought of the bearing-children business as dirty, or even as unpleasant, but merely as part of life, not unlike folding laundry.

Not long after she turned 16, Father lost his certification. Now, when he came to her room, he not only quoted Bible passages but also explained his climbing onto her with phrases like, “It’s time you gave something worthwhile to this household,” and “I dump the burden of Man’s sin into you.” At times, he even scared her with completely irrational mutterings.

And then Rachel had come to her one morning. Janus looked in horror at the red stain in the crotch of her sister’s yellow pants.

“
I’m dirty,” Rachel said. “Mom says this makes a girl dirty.”

“
Shut up, Rache,” Janus said. She reached beneath her mattress and pulled out a pantyshield from her stash. “Take off those pants and underpants, then put this in your underpants like this. . .”

She became so frustrated with Rachel’s unblinking stare and inaction that she couldn’t stand it. She snarled and headed for her sister’s dresser, where she hastily pulled out a fresh pair of underpants and stuck the shield in them.

“
Take those off!” she said as loud as she dared. Rachel jerked back but obeyed. Janus ran to the closet and pulled out the spare bag she had made out of pillowcases three years prior. She returned to her sister’s dresser and began stuffing the bag with necessities.

Finished, she saw Rachel was naked from the waist down. Golden wisps hugged the girl’s pubis, but between the thighs the hair was soiled. Rachel held the removed clothing several centimeters from her hip. Her skin was so soft, so smooth, so pale-white that Janus nearly vomited with the thought of Father’s scratchy thighs against this girl. She had forgotten how it had felt those first times, but now it all came gushing into her mind like a geyser.

Janus squeezed her eyelids shut for a moment.

“
Give me those and put these on,” she finally ordered, handing Rachel a fresh pair of pants and the prepared underpants, and taking away the stained ones. She rolled up the latter and stuffed them deeply between her mattress and suspension-case.

“
Hurry,” she added.

“
What’s going on?” her sister asked, pulling up the pants.

“
Be quiet. I’ll tell you later. We’re going to town together. It’s a secret, so don’t tell anyone, especially Mom and Father. It’ll be nice, you know, our first outing together. But we might need some things.” As Janus spoke, she went back to the closet and grabbed the bag she had packed just a few months prior; it had been camouflaged by dusty stuffed animals in a corner of the closet she suddenly remembered oh, so vividly.

They threw the bags out the window then exited through the front door. After a few minutes standing outside without having drawn Father’s curiosity, Janus checked the server and found him arguing furiously with a city manager: “Mr. Librarse, the citizen-shareholders have voted, and they will no longer tolerate Literalist programming.” Janus beckoned Rachel to follow as she crossed to the back of the house and picked up their bags.

An hour later, an electric bus carried them swiftly toward downtown Montgomery. They spent the afternoon in the Municipal Museum. Rachel didn’t ask any questions; she seemed proud to be on the town—intheflesh—with her big sister.

They spent their first night together in a homeless complex, the two of them stuffed into a single bunkroom: Its walls were white duraplas, inscribed here and there with people’s names. The ceiling rose only a meter and a half, and the walls were spaced only two meters apart. But here, Janus felt safe. It seemed much more secure than a closet, and far from Father. She pulled the heavy hicarb brace across the doorway and locked it in place. The stale smell hardly bothered her; she’d endured worse in her own bed.

For several minutes, they lay on the padded floor, side by side, their heads supported by the bags of clothing. They listened to air hush in and out of the little room, filtering past dusty gratings. Near the doorframe, a cracked, red button bore the word, “INTERCOM.” A sticker on the door read, “IN CASE OF FIRE EXIT STAIR B,” and a diagram showed the path. Its edges were scratched away, and the diagram was difficult to read, but Janus felt satisfied she could get her sister out safely if need be.

“
Why are we here?” Rachel finally asked. Janus had begun to hope she might never ask.

So she explained what it meant to become a woman in their Father’s house.

“
No!” Rachel shouted, the word sharp in the confined space.

Janus simply continued to describe her experiences, from the first day on. At first Rachel wouldn’t believe a word of it: “Not my father!” Then she became angry at Janus, then she screamed curses at Janus, then more curses at Father which Janus didn’t know the girl could use, then she wept, then she withdrew for a while in silence.

Janus felt oddly guilty for saying anything. Indeed, she had considered a myriad other explanations, but in the end decided only the truth would serve her properly. She didn’t want to become enmeshed in a web of lies, anyway.

“
He’ll find us here,” Rachel finally said.

“
That’s okay. If he calls the police and reports us as runaways, we tell them everything. I want him to find us. Then he’ll be taken away, and we can live with just Mom. Even if she doesn’t believe me, even if she hates me for taking him away, I can live with her. I can live with hate.

“
But I couldn’t stand to think of him doing that to you, Rache. Do you understand?”

Rachel didn’t respond. Janus fell asleep sometime during the silence.

The following morning, a little speaker near the intercom button buzzed. “Eight o’clock,” a man’s muffled voice said. “Half hour ’til checkout.”

“
Is it all still true?” Rachel asked in a small voice. “It wasn’t a dream?”

“
It’s true, sis.”

“
Did he call the police?”

“
They aren’t looking for us. I just checked. No runaway report.”

“
What’s that mean?” Rachel sounded alarmed.

“
Maybe the bastard knows what I intended. Maybe he thinks we’ll come crawling home soon, and he’ll teach us both a good woman lesson. The bastard. The fucking bastard.”

“
Jan! Watch your tongue. Jesus is listening.”

Janus laughed, a barking sound that startled even her. “The hell he is. At least he’s not listening to me. Maybe he still hears you. Yeah, maybe.”

No more was said about their father that day, or the next. The girls found dull but filling and reportedly nutritional food in a cafeteria on the complex’s first floor. They refused to use the common bath, except the stalls, which they entered together and locked while they did their business and washed with damp towels.

Six days and nothing from their parents or the police. Had Father forgotten about his daughters? Worse, had Mom? What had happened to her? Janus grew depressed watching her sister’s face shrink in upon itself.

On the seventh day, Miguel sat next to them on the bench before a long, steel table. A thousand spoons clattered against a thousand plates and bowls. A thousand voices shouted and laughed and mumbled inanities. One man looked into Janus’ eyes. His eyes were as dark as Bonette’s. His skin glowed a soft brown, and black hair cascaded around his thin shoulders.

“
You two don’t belong here,” Miguel said. “See that guy?” He pointed to a tall, middle-aged man a few tables away. “He’s been watching you for days. I say he makes his move tonight, at dinner. He’s a black-market feed producer. See how nice his clothes are? See his pretty jewelry? Do you see anyone else here who looks like that?”

Janus could hardly swallow the mouthful of starchy vegetable. She felt a chill stab her back. That would be worse, yes, worse than Father. At least Father was a known quantity with familiar morals and drives. What have I done?

“
So how do I know you’re not a bad guy?” she asked. Rachel stirred beside her.

“
You don’t. It’s good to be cautious. Just let’s be friends. Let me watch out for you. I had a sister. . .” His eyes drifted away.