The reason I started thinking about this is because last week I was waiting for the shuttle, and a man I had never seen before joined the queue. I was near the end of the queue, and so I was able to get a good look at him. He was dressed in a gray jumpsuit of the kind my husband wore, which meant he was some sort of service technician at the Farm, maybe even at the Pond, and over his jumpsuit he was wearing a lightweight nylon jacket, also gray, and a cap with a wide brim.
I had been feeling strange for the past few weeks. On the one hand, I was happy, because it would soon be December, and December was the best time of year: The weather sometimes grew cool enough for us to even wear an anorak at night, and although there were no rains, the smog that hung over the city lifted, and the store began stocking produce that only grew in the cold season, like apples and pears. In January, the storms would come, and then in February, it would be the Lunar New Year, and everyone who worked on a state site or for a state institution would get four extra grain coupons and either two extra dairy coupons or two extra produce coupons for the month, whichever you wanted. My husband and I would usually split our extra coupons, so between us, we would have eight extra grain coupons and two extra dairy coupons and two extra produce coupons. The year after we got married, which was also the first year my husband worked on the Farm, we had bought a wedge of hard cheese with our surplus coupons: He had wrapped it in paper and put it in the far back corner of our hallway closet, which he said was the coolest place in the apartment, and it had kept for a long time. This year, there was a rumor that we might get an extra day that week for bathing and laundry, which we had gotten two years ago, but not last year, because there had been a drought.
But on the other hand, despite everything I had to look forward to, I also found myself thinking about the notes. Every week on my husband’s free night, I emptied out the box again to check if they were still there, which they always were. I would read all of them again, turning the scraps of paper in my hand and holding them up to the lamplight, and then I would replace them all in the envelope and put the box back in the closet.
I was puzzling over the notes the morning I saw the man in the gray jumpsuit join the queue. His presence meant that someone in the zone must have died or been taken, because the only way to get a housing assignment in Zone Eight was to wait for someone to leave it, and no one left Zone Eight willingly. And then something strange happened: The man adjusted his hat, and as he did, a long piece of hair fell loose, brushing against his cheek. He swiftly pushed it back under his hat, and looked around, quickly, to make sure no one had seen, but everyone was staring straight ahead, as was considered polite. Only I had seen him, because I had turned around, though he hadn’t seen me looking at him. I had never seen a man with long hair before. The thing that interested me most, however, was how much the man resembled my husband—they had the same color skin, the same color eyes, the same color hair, although my husband’s hair is short, like mine.
I have never liked it when new things happened, not even when I was a child, and I have never liked it when things aren’t as they’re supposed to be. When I was young, Grandfather would read mysteries to me, but they always made me anxious—I liked to know what was happening; I liked things to be the same. I didn’t tell Grandfather this, however, because it was clear that he liked them, and I wanted to try to enjoy something he enjoyed. But then we weren’t allowed to read mysteries anymore, and so I was able to stop pretending.
Now, though, I had two mysteries of my own: The notes were the first. And this man, with his long hair, living in Zone Eight, was the second. It made me feel like something had happened and no one had told me, and that there was a secret that everyone knew but that I couldn’t figure out on my own. This happened at work every day, but that was fine, because I wasn’t a scientist, and it wasn’t my right to know what was happening—I wasn’t educated enough, and I wouldn’t have understood anyway. But I had always thought that I understood where I lived, and now I was beginning to worry I was wrong about that after all.
* * *
It was Grandfather who explained free nights to me.
When he told me I was going to be married, I was excited but also scared, and I started walking around in circles, which is something I do only when I’m very happy or very nervous. Other people get uncomfortable when I do this, but all Grandfather said was “I know how you feel, little cat.”
Later, he came to tuck me into bed, and to give me the photograph of my husband to keep, which I hadn’t thought to ask for earlier. I looked and looked at that picture, touching it as if I could actually feel his face. When I tried to return it to Grandfather, he shook his head. “It’s yours,” he said.
“When is it going to happen?” I asked him.
“In a year,” he said. “So, for the next year, I’ll tell you everything you need to know about being married.”
This made me feel a lot calmer—Grandfather always knew what to say, even when I didn’t know it myself. “We’ll start tomorrow,” he promised me, and then he kissed me on the forehead before turning off the light and going to the main room, where he slept.
The next day, Grandfather began his lessons. He had a piece of paper on which he had written a long list, and every month, he would pick three topics for us to discuss. We practiced conversation, and being helpful, and he taught me different circumstances in which I might have to ask for help, and how I should phrase it, and what I should do in the case of an emergency. We also discussed how I might come to trust my husband, and what I could do to be a good spouse to him, and what it was like to live with another person, and what I should do if my husband ever did anything that made me feel frightened.
I know it seems strange, but after my initial anxiety, I was less nervous about getting married than I think Grandfather thought I might be. After all, aside from Grandfather, I had never lived with anybody else. Well, that isn’t completely true—I had lived with my other grandfather and my father, once, but only when I was a baby; I couldn’t even really remember what they looked like. I suppose I assumed that living with my husband would be like living with Grandfather.
It was toward the end of the sixth month of my training that Grandfather told me about free nights: Every week, my husband would leave the apartment and I would have a night all to myself. And then, another night, I could leave the apartment and be by myself, and do whatever I wanted. He watched me closely as he told me this, and then waited as I thought.
“What night of the week will it be?” I asked him.
“Whichever you and your husband decide,” he said.
I thought some more. “What am I supposed to do on my night?” I asked him.
“Whatever you want,” Grandfather said. “Maybe you’ll want to take a walk, for example, or maybe you’ll want to go to the Square. Or maybe you’ll want to go to the Recreation Center and play a game of ping-pong with someone.”
“Maybe I can come visit you,” I said. The one thing I had learned that had surprised me the most was that Grandfather wouldn’t be living with us; once I was married, I would remain with my husband in our apartment, and Grandfather would move someplace else.