Authors: Carola Dibbell
Ok. I’m in the bubble in the shed. It is a little cold but there is a heater, though not inside the bubble. A heater could melt the bubble. Rauden and me check the rigging for the IV and the mask. He goes back inside to check did the monitor work. I gave him thumbs up. The monitor worked. I put on the mask.
“Do you feel anything?”
The catheter.
He came back to fix it, then sealed the bubble. There is a light inside the shed but it is still pretty dark. The heater is ok.
Rauden’s saying something in the monitor. I pointed to my ear. No sound. When he fixed the mic, I told him, “I did this before.”
So here we go.
He took one of those noisy breaths and pulled the lever for intravenous. I almost couldn’t get him to pull the airborne one.
The bad part of this Seal Room test is he is so afraid I’m dying here, he keeps waking me up. “I! You ok? Do you feel anything?”
I feel like I woke up. Man! Ok, I’m up. I take out a Breakfast Pak.
“I! Hello?” He’s waving at me in the monitor. “When the surgeon died at New Life, was it from a test like this?”
This guy. Now I’m in one place and cannot move, and would you believe he’s running intake again. I said I didn’t know. Man!
“I still don’t see how New Life made the contact. Hello?”
When does this guy sleep? I said, “The broker makes the contact when she is too old to pass.” The Breakfast Pak is hard to open. “Then you get her tested.”
“Too old to pass for what?”
I mix it with water from a jug.
“Cures? Virgin Cures?”
Oh, man. Who’s he been talking to? He been doing research. I drank my Breakfast Pak and said I didn’t know.
Besides Paks, I have MREs, PBJs, IVs, no TV, but I have old cartoon tapes.
“I heard about virgin Cures. Some evil broker has a stable of little girls he rents to end-stage sickos who think if they have sex with a virgin they won’t die.”
“Unprotected
sex,” I tell him. I’m watching a cartoon. “And she is not a virgin. That I heard.” I watch the cartoon to the end. “She just got to look so young she fools the client. And even if he figures it out, what is he, going to call a cop?”
Rauden goes, “Dear God.” This is what I mean about intake. Get over it, dude.
I told him, “If she is old enough to start the Curse, you could even time it around that. You got to pull out the hairs though.”
“You’re telling me they time the sex around her periods, so the client thinks he broke her hymen? And she’s what, twelve, thirteen years old?”
I said I didn’t know.
It could be eleven.
He’s out of the monitor. I don’t know where he went.
When I woke up next time, he’s saying, “And when the bus stopped in Kissena, but it wasn’t a regular Stop, were you the only one? I mean, on the bus?”
So he figured it out. That’s his problem. From now on I just said I didn’t know. Between you and me, it wasn’t even a regular bus.
I woke up and see him in the shed in the middle of the night! The cable got unhooked. The monitor’s dead. I mean, he is really at risk that close to me, even outside the bubble! He’s just wearing regular clothes. He should wear something, a bubble suit. At least a mask. What is he thinking? Then it’s fixed.
He’s on the monitor. Do I feel anything? Here we go again.
When the test is over, he runs his own urine and bloods too, in case he got something. I mean, lucky to be alive, I wasn’t the only one. He looks worse than I do.
I pour spray inside the bubble before he opens the seal. Then I take the bubble to a hole I had already dug in the woods where Henry told me and bury it.
Rauden got the first read of my bloods. “Nothing in the blood. No pathogens, no antibodies. Nada.”
“Read the urine.”
“Jesus!”
“It’s safe. They’re all dead.” I had done this before.
“So this is how it works! I have never seen anything like this in my life!” He is reading from the lock file, which is, like, Proof, what went in, what came out.
So. We finally got something that works.
He lets Henry come over and even Henry has a drink. Rauden already had a drink. I will say this, he didn’t drink anything the whole time of the test. He is still really shaky. Henry is wheeling all over the place. They are both excited. Now all they have to do is reach Rini Jaffur, but this time the problem is, wherever she is, systems are down, so they got to put me in a trailer in the woods, because Janet won’t let me in her house in case I got something from the Seal Room test, and they don’t think I should stay on the Farm because Rauden has to go to the clinic in Bovina and they don’t want me in there alone.
Rauden is furious at Janet. Now he knows how hardy I am, he is worried am I cold? Wet? Hungry? Like, I am so hardy, he has to make sure I don’t get anything! Janet won’t even help make the vidCast for Rini Jaffur. I hear Rauden scream at Janet from his Mobile but she just leaves a bag off at the Farm with makeup, a comb, her daughter’s old clothes in it. Rauden brings them to the trailer. We have to pin the clothes to fit. I have to clean up with water Rauden brings in a jug, dress, sit in a chair, look at the camera, and say, “My name is Inez Kissena Fardo. I lived my whole life in Queens and never got anything.”
I was alone for two days while he’s at the clinic. I stayed pretty much in the trailer. The trailer was ok. It had a burner, MREs. Beverage. No TV though. I only saw the Mumbai News when they finally let me back on the Farm. Twenty cities, six million dead. They say it got to China.
The vidCast just bounced back from Rini. Nada. We don’t even know where she is. He’s back from Bovina and I could stay at the Farm in the daytime. Rauden’s just sending message after message to Rini.
“Rini, do you realize the odds against someone like her turning up?”
Away message.
He gets drunk and calls her. “She may not be the only one like her in the world. But she’s the only one I’ve ever found! You are not going to get hardy talent like this, honestly, in your life.”
He reached her!
He yelled and then I heard him say, “Well, how fucking ethical would it have been with goddamn Madhur? Sorry! That was very callous of me but you fucking know what I mean.” He got off and punches everything he saw. “Damn that woman! Damn that woman!”
She sent a message saying she has changed her mind.
I hear him call her back. “You won’t regret this.”
She sent a message saying she has changed her mind.
It was the old message looping up.
From now on, he keeps leaving messages but nada from Rini Jaffur. “Rini! This could work!”
Zip.
“I’ll fucking sell to someone else!”
Now she left a different message. She’s stuck in Vancouver, in some quarantine checkpoint. This all takes so long, I’m ok for another Harvest, and Bernie’s back from Erie. This time the Harvest didn’t work, period. They don’t get anything. Not a single solo. Bernie took what they call a wedge, from the ovary, because that could improve ovary function, and you can freeze the wedge and use it for other things. It is invasive. Rauden gets so drunk Bernie won’t let him drive, and when Henry gets us back to the Farm in his special van, Rini Jaffur left a message saying it will not work.
And I start to think she’s right. It isn’t going to work. None of it.
Host already wasn’t going to work. I would of liked to be a Host. It sounded like real steady work. Now Donor isn’t even going to work. Even Courier didn’t work. What I brought in the Pak was compromised. It’s not going to work, period. Rauden could even deduct expenses from my fee. So I end up with nothing. Still, I had seen a cow.
When Rauden woke me up in the trailer, shouting, “All right! Rise and shine!” then looks me up and down like Bernie did, and goes, “What can we do with you?” I thought this is it. He’s sending me home. We head straight for Janet’s house, and he’s screaming at her door, “Fucking get over it! She doesn’t have anything!”
Janet lets us in. She has different clothes for me that her daughter used to wear, a track suit she will stitch to fit while I get in the bath. Janet even cut my hair. There is white trainers for my feet that are too big but what am I, going to train? My teeth, just try not to open up my mouth too wide.
“I mean, what does it matter?” Rauden mentions, shaking. “That’s environmental.” He just mentions it to himself though. Janet Delize is too busy putting my lipstick on.
Now bring me back to the Farm. Rini Jaffur bought her way out of the Vancouver checkpoint, is so rich she could afford three planes to Ottawa, a ride to Albany, and a glider-drop to hit Erdelyi’s field at three. She fucking changed her mind.
vii
You’re going to hear very soon what Rauden has in mind to do, and maybe you will hear somebody else say he just did it for the money. I’m not going to lie to you. Money was involved. But it was always about more than the money. And when you see who Rini Jaffur was—well, it was her money. But she was more to it than that. Even later, when maybe you will think she’s out of it? She never was totally out of it. She was always part of it. She knew what it was.
She walked right in the front room with big steps and came right up to where I was standing with Rauden. She wore a coat over, like, veils. The color of her veils is, if pink was gray, that color. The veils are wrinkled and her hair is falling down, but she does not seem to care. She’s darker than me, especially under her eyes. Under her eyes is almost black, and I could see that really good, because she sticks her face close to mine, then looks at it hard, then steps back and looks me up and down like everybody does, but even harder. And maybe you think I am used to it by now. I’m not.
When she was finished looking, she sat down on the orange sofa and patted beside her.
So I sat down.
She asked Rauden, “You don’t know anything?”
Rauden shook his head. “She could be anything.”
She shrugged her coat off and it fell behind her. Then, like you would put a coat on, or, I don’t know, a light on, she put a smile on. She shone it on me. Even her eyes were shining. It was like when you light a candle, when the power’s off? “Don’t you have any family?” she asked, and her voice was like a candle, bright.
I agreed.
“No mother? No auntie?”
I nodded, but thought about it and added, “But if I don’t come back, someone will know.”
Rini stopped smiling fast. “Rauden! What did you tell this girl?” She took my hand. She even stroked it. “Come. Did you think we mean to harm you?” There is no snow or rain outside the window now. There are even a few small leaves on those trees that was blowing around my first day at the Farm. It was still a little cold, even inside. But here, from Rini, it’s warm. She’s stroking my hand and leaning very close. “Do you understand exactly what will happen? Did Rauden say?”
I looked at Rauden.
“Rauden doesn’t know this answer. Look at me.”
And, I don’t know why, all at once I could not talk. I just sat there. It is a little hard to talk anyhow without the teeth showing.
I heard Rauden saying, very slow, “Look at Rini, I. Tell Rini what I said.”
So I looked at Rini, opened my mouth as small as I could, and told her, “Rauden will use my Life to make a child which will be yours.”
They both seemed stunned when I said that, like something hit them on the head.
Rini smiled so hard at me her whole head shook. She said very soft, “Did you think we meant to take your life away?”
I said, “I would be paid for it.”
Rini stopped smiling.
Finally Rauden moved. “Oh! Oh, I see what she means. She heard something someone said about the Life Industry. It’s not going to be your own life, Inez.”
Well, how it turned out, nobody knew whose life it is. But I didn’t know that. But I didn’t have to know. I just have to keep my mouth as closed as I could and let Rini say whatever she is going to say.
“You will not see or know this child,” and she went on stroking my hand. She leaned very, very close. “She will be my child.” And now she squeezed my hand very, very hard. “How do you feel about this?”
I got no idea how to answer that.
Now she raised her voice.
“How do you feel about this?
”
Who knows? Who cares? Man! This is the worst intake I ever had.
She suddenly rose to her feet and began to pace. She wore sandals. She even is barefoot in them, even though it’s still a little chilly, even though not so cold as when I got here. Finally, she stopped pacing, spun around and now she took those big steps back to me and sat down and took my hand again. “Now, I am going to tell you something that you do not know. I once lived in Siliguri, India, with my loving husband and four daughters, until my husband died from second Wave Luzon and I took my four daughters to my cousin’s home in Toronto, Canada, where next Wave Luzon had already hit, though we did not know it till we landed. My daughters all died in one month. Four daughters. Now, you must tell me,” and tears just popped out of her eyes while she went on, “and you may judge me for this, but you must understand what it is like to lose my husband and then four daughters in one month.” Tears just kept rolling down her face. “I cannot bear to lose another child. I cannot bear to go through this if you will change your mind.”
So now what do I do? I don’t want Rini to cry, or anyone to cry. I had it with how much crying I saw since I been up here. But I don’t even know what she means. I looked at Rini Jaffur and said, “I would be paid on delivery. So if I change my mind, I don’t get anything.”
Rini got very quiet. I noticed at this point
she
was looking at Rauden. I don’t know why.
“We must tell her,” Rini said suddenly. “I know we said she did not need to know, but I have changed my mind. Come. I’m going to tell you something else, and you may judge me for this, but when I lost four daughters in a month, I was mad with grief. When my final daughter, Madhur, died, I reached out to my husband’s old schoolfellow, Parvi, who lived in Ithaca and knew rubes, because I dreamed of doing something with what was left of my last daughter that people tell me is unethical. Parvi sent me to this fellow here,” and she looks at Rauden, “a DVM who Parvi told me was so unethical he might do the work.”