youngest is two,” I tell him. “Her name is Miramar.”
“I never liked children,” he says flatly, awake again. “They want too much.”
“All of us want too much, Hermes.”
“Don’t get philosophical, Penelope. I’m in no mood.”
I take one of his hands in both of mine. I press them as if to warm them, though my own hands are cold with dread. “Hermes. We have known each other for nearly a year.”
“Sixteen months, actually.”
He’s been counting!
“Since the worst of the fighting,” I remind him. “I’ve always been cooperative. My children and I have always made sufficient contributions.”
“Sufficient,” he agrees petulantly, “but little more.”
“But we’ve been cooperative. We’ve never shown disrespect.”
He shakes his head in disappointment. “I’ve known you’ve always hated me.”
“Hated what you do,” I say. “Not hated you.” I’m not sure what I’m saying. I’m not sure where this might take me. But I’m frightened and desperate and willing to go anywhere but to Home Base.
He pulls his hand from mine. “You showed me today how you really feel.” He speaks as if we were lovers. Only then do I realize how much danger I’m in. Only then do I decide to run.
As a girl, I was a forward in field hockey and good at it only because I ran headlong without fear. Other girls were much better at stick control and more generous as teammates. When the ball skidded my way, I was like a single-minded terrier. Ball to goal! Ball to goal! I heard myself yelling, my heart drumming in my head. As I sprinted downfield, I felt only exhilaration—a kind of thoughtless transcendence—until I fired at the goal and stopped finally. Then my joints burned and my lungs ached and my ears rang. Only then did I understand that I had limits.
So I run now, blindly down the Avenue of the Beloved Saints. Ball to goal! I am surprised at how fast I am still. A panicked rabbit. I hear Hermes gasping, his long legs keeping him close behind me, the soles of his rubber boots smacking the ruined asphalt. Then the tinkle and clatter of metal tumbling from his dropped bag.
I leap over a two-foot mound of rubble, then a wheeless plastic shopping cart, then I dodge an elderly couple whose wide eyes signal dismay and alarm. Then the street is suddenly crowded. I’m downtown. And it’s supper time and nearly dark. Everyone looks old and frightened and hunkered down when I sprint past—as if I were a screaming Mimi.
Behind me I hear the cathedral bell strike the hour: a skull-thudding bong! Someone snatches at my coat but I rip away and hurl myself down one of the ornate galleries—with filigreed grillwork overhead—that connects the Avenue of the Beloved Saints to the Avenue of the Departed Souls. The second gong echoes over me. This street, where all the monuments are, we call the Avenue of the Dead. When first proposed by our President two decades ago, people took it seriously. Yes, fine, our heroes deserve recognition, everyone agreed. I break through a small crowd, nearly slip on the slate walk. Hermes skids past me. I take off again. The third bong resounds. Ball to goal!
The first statue was of the President’s mother, who choked on a pulled pork sandwich while eating in bed. She was only sixty-two and the President called for a full year of mourning, all of us in black. The second monument was of Mister Gorman, the President’s college roommate and best friend who threw himself in front of a tram that was about to hit the President. (It still hit the President but didn’t kill him.) The third monument was to Gregory Peck, who wasn’t dead at the time but who was, in The Man’s estimation, “the greatest actor on earth and deserving of every monument we might erect in his honor.”
For thirteen years, until his death, Mr. Peck politely refused our President’s invitations to visit our humble country. No doubt the great actor had heard that our President was a dead ringer for him and, in fact, had financed a remake of “To Kill A Mocking Bird,” which every one of our citizens knows as TKM II, “starring The Man as Atticus Finch.”
As the fourth bong descends like a giant hand, I race past Mr. Peck’s statue. It towers nearly fifty feet and has a fine green patina streaked white with pigeon shit.
Behind me I hear Hermes growl: Kill you! Or is this my imagination?
Other monuments include statues to The Man’s first grade teacher, his voice coach, his dance instructor, and his first publicist. No one complained until he began erecting statues to his wife’s dearly departed shih-tzus—she had dozens of them. It seemed one died every year.
I sprint past one dog, then another: Lazarus, Boethius, Felipe, Serendipity, Rosalia. Poised on a marble plinth, each bronze replica looks exactly like the one behind it. The fifth bell sounds.
Is it starting to snow? My face is wet, my ears freezing. I am heaving, nearly sobbing, for breath. Suddenly something snaps in my right thigh. I almost hear it before I feel it. Hamstring! The pain needles from my lower spine clear down to my heel. Immediately I collapse, scraping my palms and forehead as I somersault. A huge weight tumbles over me. I see Hermes flying forward, arms outstretched like a ball player leaping for home. His chin grinds into the asphalt, his arms bounce like a shaken doll’s, then he hits the curb head-on.
Bleeding, gasping, I haul myself up. Hermes isn’t quite unconscious. He’s groaning. A crowd has gathered. They gape at me. Do I look like a madwoman? I’m pointing at Hermes. But I can’t catch my breath to speak. My hamstring howls in pain. Can I walk? I try to back away but the crowd hems me in. Maybe someone’s eager to claim a reward. As the President is fond of saying, “Reporting suspicious behavior makes heroes of us all!”
“Him!” I gasp.
“Who’s he?” someone asks.
“Rapist!” I blurt.
“Rapist?”
“Raped my sister,” I say. I pause for breath. “Then he went—” I still hear the bells. “After me.” I gulp another. “I ran.”
“Rapist!” someone else says in disgust.
A few older men stoop to pull Hermes up by the collar. He looks groggy, his mouth is open as if to speak. “We’ll take care of him,” one of them says.
“Don’t kill him,” I caution.
Then I stumble off, feeling drunk with relief and fatigue. Only now do I realize the trouble I’ve created for myself. Where did I think I was running to?
It is snowing fine flurries.
Maybe I could have talked my way out of Home Base. But the RM says, “No one’s safe at Home!” We’ve all heard stories.
My children weep when they see me, even hard-hearted Nadia. They clamor for a hug. They ask what has happened. How did I get away? I struggle to keep from collapsing in their arms. I’m suddenly so weary, I want only to sleep with them heaped around me.
“We have to take a trip,” I announce.
“Where?” they ask. “Now? It’s dark! And snowing!”
They’ve lit the couch batting we found earlier today. It smolders from the sooty fireplace nearby. We’re sitting on a tarp on the floor, Miramar in my lap.
I have no choice but to tell them that I am a fugitive, that we will have to go away until the Revolutionary Militia wins.
“They’re gonna win?” Nadia asks skeptically.
“Of course they’re going to win,” I say. “Then we’ll come home.”