Elysium (6 page)

“I know … I can do only what I can do … I think Mother is mad at me.”

“You probably have some explaining to do tonight.”

“Great.”

Adrianne sat up. She pulled back her veil and took off her vitta, the headband that bound her hair together, and released her dreadlocks. She shook them loose, then finger-styled them to drape over her shoulders. The cab driver shot a dirty look at her through his rear-view mirror. Women of Adrianne’s generation were demanding more freedom in the way they presented themselves, and some were openly showing their hair. Not everyone was comfortable with that. She leered at him through the mirror, daring him to challenge her. He returned his attention to the road. Adrianne sat back and closed her eyes.

Antoine
.

She believed they had a connection that spread over space and time. No matter the distance, she thought that somehow, they would always find each other. Then, just like that, the dream was over. There was a barrier they could not cross, a place he could go where she could not follow. He was gone.

The cab pulled up to the entrance of the Cloisters and Thomas helped her out.

4.

From the time she was a little girl, Adrianne wore white. White veils, white dresses, white panties and then white bras. Whiteness was purity. Whiteness was good. Whiteness was strength. It was her shield and armor. Her brown skin covered always in white. It granted her access to all places unhindered. Even when she didn’t realize it, there was always someone moving out of her way, opening a door, giving up a seat. This privilege — this honor — was given to her in exchange for a promise. A promise that she would inwardly be as innocent and pure as she appeared. A promise to remain a woman-child. A promise she had kept for fifteen years, half of her appointed period of time. But Adrianne had a secret.

The soft sounds of her sandals scraping the stone-tiled floor resounded beneath the high ceilings of the Cloisters’ inner hall. She was alone. Thomas had gone to his room in the lower levels. Everyone else was at the games. Adrianne had the place to herself. It was a monastic hall filled with centuries-old art collected by diligent and discerning hands. Her favorite room was the one with the tapestries. A room with ceiling-high, hand-embroidered wall hangings that depicted an elk hunt. Each panel showed a different stage of the game played by noblemen of old, in search of the mystical creature who seemed to elude them at every turn. Adrianne had been told that these images held a metaphor for virginity, that the elusive elk was a symbol of the strength to withstand the temptation of copulation. It always seemed like such a thin explanation. Every time Adrianne looked upon these beautiful tapestries she thought of sacrifice and marriage.

She entered the next room. Before her the marble statue of Vesta, the veiled virgin goddess herself, looked down with maternal eyes. Within her hand was carved an oil lamp burning stone flames, and etched at her feet were stalks of wheat and barley. The image overshadowed everything. Its gaze went into far-off places. The statue had been brought here from a garden in lands overseas. It was said that it had once been painted — sienna, burnt umber, olive, ochre. Its alabaster appearance was all that was left after years of exposure to the elements.

She saw this statue on the first day she arrived in these halls. It was so long ago and her memories were hazy, as if it had all happened to someone else and not her. But that night, when she was still a child and the cold pricked her skin with needles, Adrianne and her mother came here.

They rode up on the train. It was late. The only other passengers in the car were asleep with their eyes open. Purple bruises marked her mother’s chin and around her left eye. She held Adrianne close as they drifted between sleep and wakefulness to the hum of the engine and the occasional rumble and scraping of metal on metal over the tracks. They passed many stations. The doors opened and closed, opened and closed. Finally they reached the end of that part of their journey, and her mother ushered Adrianne to her feet and out into a desolate subway station, a labyrinth of hallways and stairs and corners that smelled of pee.

Their heels clicked and echoed in the silence. They came to an elevator so old Adrianne was afraid to go inside. When she hesitated her mother pulled her along as she was not playing any games that night. Up and up and up, then out onto the street above. Ahead of them was an entrance to a dark place full of trees and a sign with arrows. Adrianne could read the letters, but not the words. Then, when she had no idea where she was, it had seemed the scariest of all medieval forests. A place where goblins and trolls and duppies lived. The hoot of an owl. The cry of a wolf. The growl of a cougar. She heard them all in her imagination. But it was just a garden path leading to the Vestals’ hall.

Her mother’s desperate pull dragged her through the park until they came to the Cloisters. Her mother pounded on the door. Everyone was asleep because of the hour. But that did not deter her. Purple bruises gave her strength. Purple bruises made her determined. She pounded on the door until it was finally opened. A woman in white greeted them and let them inside. There was a stillness in the hall. A calm. A silence. Only the crackle of the burning wood. That’s when Adrianne saw Vesta for the first time. The perfect alabaster marble statue gleamed in the light of a hearth, a slight smile on her face.

She heard her mother speak in hurried tones. Words, words, and more words. What was said made no sense. Leaving … Take her. … She’s a good girl. … She’s yours now. … Keep her. … Raise her. … I can’t take her with me. Not one more day. Not one more hour. Not one more slap. Not one more kick. … I’m not coming back.

Her mother placed Adrianne’s hand into the hand of the woman in white. Then one last hard look. Was there sorrow? A whimper. A cry. A wail. Who made those sounds?

“Hey,” Thomas said. “You okay?”

His sudden appearance jolted her out of her dream.

“I’m okay. Just thinking about the past.”

Thomas held her close. This was not allowed, especially while she was still in her robes. But this was Thomas. An exception for him could always be made. Within their embrace she heard him choking back tears. Then he pulled back and kissed Adrianne on the cheek.

“You be strong,” he said.

She felt a twinge of guilt. For a moment she had actually forgotten her recent loss. For the first time in a long while, her mind was on someone other than the person Thomas assumed she was thinking of.

She went to her cell on the upper floors — a small cubical area in one large shared room for all the girls. She curled up in bed, and drowned in her sheets. Sleep did not come easily. She tossed and turned until she found herself lying in bed staring at the high ceiling, listening to the silence until the sun went down and the room went dark, then the lights turned on. The silence was broken by the movement of careful feet as the others returned home from the games.

There were twelve Sisters. Four were the Sisters who were best friends (who now attended the flames). Two were Sisters who were more than that. One was the-girl-with-the-curly-red-hair-that-was-slowly-turning-auburn. One was Stephanie the brave. One was Helen. One was the-girl-with-the-gray-eyes-who-didn’t-speak-too-much. One was the Mother. The last was Adrianne.

In the night, the wind howled. Adrianne listened to the rain come down. It calmed quickly. It was if someone had opened a faucet, then shut it again. She fell asleep and wrestled in her dreams. In her sleep she was herself, but not herself. She went to the in-between space, neither here nor there, moving in and out of her body with ease, being herself, then staring at herself. It felt real. So fluid and natural, she was herself — just different.

Adrianne woke the next morning at the pre-dawn hour. In the cool of the morning she realized how odd her night had been. What felt natural in her dreams was now strange. Adrianne was herself and no one else. Reality was reality. And reality didn’t change.

Today it would be her and Helen and the-girl-with-the-gray-eyes-who-didn’t-talk-too-much and Stephanie tending the fire in Memorial Park. They ate a light breakfast, a little fruit, tea with no sweetener, and a piece of bread.

“Come on, girls, let’s get this one started,” Stephanie said, and the four stood up, scraping their chairs across the hard stone floors.

Adrianne hurried to the baths for her ritual cleansing. She put on her best starched white frock, bundled up her locs into the six traditional braids, and tied her hair up with a clean vitta, completing her look with a veil with a delicate purple-threaded hem. It draped loosely over her head. On the days they tended the fire they were expected to be formal and proper. One never knew who might make an appearance. Dignitaries. Film celebrities. Mourning mothers.

The wind was bracing as it came over the water. The long stone paths along the river’s edge were wet from the night’s rain. The four of them walked together in the customary two-by-two square. They had lobbied hard for the privilege to walk in public without an escort.

Through the park to the elevator, down into the subway, then onto the train. Adrianne always thought of her mother when she stood among the sleepy passengers on their way to work. Those not asleep moved out of their way and offered them seats. Only two girls accepted, Stephanie and Helen. Adrianne and the-girl-who-didn’t-talk-too-much stood nearby holding the poles like everyone else. A wide bubble of emptiness surrounded them in the otherwise crowded car. Adrianne loved this time of the day when she could make believe she was like normal people.

An early morning mist lay over Memorial Park, the center of the city, another world, almost another place in time. And so quiet. The gentle crush of grass under sandaled feet, the swish of dew across the hems of dresses, the flap of wings overhead as a large bird flew into the trees and disappeared from view were sounds that scarcely disturbed the silence. With pathways and walkover bridges spanning slim, slinking creeks and cascading river falls, this place of green was designed to be more like a forest than an urban manicured garden.

In the old days, a small town had been located here. The city forced the residents out when it decided that the public needed a place where every citizen could sit on a spot of grass or under a tree. The park became also the place for the essential ritual of which Adrianne was a part, the keeping of the eternal flame. In the center of the park, encircled by a colonnade of Corinthian columns, stood a marble structure open to the elements with the cauldron of Vesta at its center.

The previous shift of sisters bowed gracefully to them. They looked so tired. Adrianne said hello, but none of them seemed interested in reciprocating. The rain and wind from the night before must have made their time tending the flame difficult. They quickly left, their white cloaks waving in the wind.

“What’s wrong with them?” Helen asked.

“Who knows?” Stephanie said.

The Sisters began their cleaning duties. If an occasional piece of cinder, a leaf, or an acorn had fallen inside, these had to be swept away in keeping with their mandate that they maintain the area spotless. Dirt could be seen on the Sisters only while they tended the flame. The structure held only two small rooms off to the side and out of sight, a bathroom and a closet where bundles of kindling were kept. Adrianne went inside and picked up an armful of wood. She lightly tossed some of the branches onto the flame while Stephanie sprinkled on blessed water.

“Adrianne, how about after our shift we hit Twenty-five?” Helen said to Adrianne.

“Shh,” Stephanie said.

Helen gave Stephanie a dirty look and quieted. She waited until the others had turned away and whispered to Adrianne, “Well, how about it?”

Vestal Vestments — V-squared, or Twenty-five — was a clothing boutique specializing in fashions for ladies of the Order. A maturing society made the veil less and less important. Soon, even the long dresses would not be worn. It was becoming acceptable to wear jeans and a T-shirt. They could appear in public like ordinary young women, as long as they dressed only in white. The younger Vestals only wore formal wear in public on special occasions or when performing their ritual duties.

“God, Helen, we were just there.”

“Oh, come on, pleeeese,” she sang. “It will be fun.”

“Sure, fine. Whatever. After lunch.”

Helen smiled with her eyes and returned to sweeping nonexistent dirt from the marble floor.

People came here for many reasons. They had lost a loved one or had some misfortune in their personal lives. They were thankful for some blessing, like the birth of a child. Or they were tourists who wanted to take pictures for the folks back home. It was customary to find a small stick in the park and attempt to hand it to one of the sisters to burn in the cauldron. It was almost a game. The sisters would pretend they didn’t notice anyone. Then — when they felt like it — one of them would choose a random person from the many standing on the grass outside the structure and take his or her stick. They were often so grateful. A woman quietly waving caught Adrianne’s notice. She was not very old, but her eyes were lined and red.

“In memory of my son,” she said. “He died last week in the war.” Adrianne bowed and approached to receive her stick, but the woman held onto it a moment longer than was necessary. They played a minor tug-of-war with it.

“Could you tell me that his death was worth it?” she asked.