“I always love spending time with you, little cat,” said Grandfather, slowly. “But you need to get used to being with your husband; you shouldn’t begin your new life thinking about how often you’re going to see me.” I was quiet then, because I felt that Grandfather was trying to say something else to me without quite saying it, and I didn’t know what it was, but knew that it was something I didn’t want to hear. “Come on, little cat,” said Grandfather at last, and he smiled and patted my hand. “Don’t be upset. This is an exciting time—you’re getting married, and I’m so proud of you. My little cat, all grown up and about to start a household of her own.”
In the years since my husband and I were married, I have had to make use of very few of Grandfather’s lessons. I have never had to go to the police because my husband hit me, for example, and I have never had to ask my husband for help with the chores, and I have never had to worry about him withholding his food coupons from me, and I have never had to pound on a neighbor’s door because my husband was yelling at me. But I wish I had known that I should have asked Grandfather more questions about free nights, and how they would make me feel.
Shortly after we were married, my husband and I decided that Thursday would be his free night, and Tuesday would be mine. Or, rather, my husband had decided, and I had agreed. “Are you sure you don’t mind Tuesday?” he had asked me, and he sounded concerned, as if I could say, “No, I’d rather have Thursday after all,” and he would switch with me. But it was fine with me, because it didn’t matter which night I had.
At first, I tried to spend my free night elsewhere. Unlike my husband, I would come home from work and have dinner with him first, and then I would change into my casual clothes and leave. It was strange being outside the apartment at night after all those years of Grandfather’s reminding me that I was never to leave the house by myself, and absolutely never when it was dark. But that was when things were bad, and it was dangerous, before the second uprising.
For those first few months, I did what Grandfather had suggested and went to the Recreation Center. The center was on Fourteenth Street, just west of Sixth Avenue, and because it was already June, I had to wear my cooling suit so I wouldn’t overheat. Up Fifth Avenue I walked, and then west on Twelfth Street, because I liked the old buildings on that block, which looked like versions of the building my husband and I lived in. Some of buildings’ windows were lit up, but most of them were dark, and there were only a few other people in the street, also walking toward the center.
The center was open between 06:00 and 22:00, and only to residents of Zone Eight. Everyone was allowed twenty hours of time at the center per month for free, and you had to thumbprint in and then thumbprint out when you left. You could take a class in cooking at the center, or sewing, or tai chi or yoga, or you could join one of the clubs: There were clubs for people who liked to play chess, or badminton, or ping-pong, or checkers. Or you could do volunteer work, making bundles of sanitary supplies for people in the relocation centers. One of the best things about the center was that it was always cool, because it had a big generator, and during the temperate months, people would stay home and conserve their hours so they could spend more of the long summer days in the air-conditioning, rather than in their apartments. You could take an air shower here as well, and sometimes, when I was desperate to be clean and it wasn’t yet a water day, I would use some of my time at the center for an air shower. You also came to the center for your annual vaccinations, and your biweekly blood work and mucus smears, and to claim your monthly food coupons and allowances, and, from May through September, the three kilos of ice per month that every resident was entitled to buy at a subsidized rate.
But until my first free nights, I had never been to the center for recreation, even though that was one of the things the center was for. Grandfather had brought me once, after the center had opened, and we had stood and watched a game of ping-pong. The center had two tables, and while people played, other people sat in chairs around the perimeter of the room and watched them, and clapped when someone scored a point. I remember thinking that it looked like fun, and it sounded like fun, too, the bright, sharp tap that the ball made as it struck the table, and I stood there for a long time.
“Do you want to play?” Grandfather whispered to me.
“Oh, no,” I said. “I don’t know how.”
“You can learn,” Grandfather said. But I knew I couldn’t.
As we left the building that afternoon, Grandfather said, “You can come back, little cat. All you do is sign up for the team, and ask someone to play with you.” I was quiet then, because sometimes Grandfather said these things as if they were easy for me to do, and I became frustrated because he didn’t understand, he didn’t understand that I couldn’t do the things he thought I could, and I felt myself growing itchy and angry. But then he noticed, and he stopped walking and turned to me and put his hands on my shoulders. “You know how to do this, little cat,” he said, quietly. “You remember how we practiced talking to other people? You remember how we practiced having a conversation?”
“Yes,” I said.
“I know it’s not easy for you,” said Grandfather. “I know it’s not. But I wouldn’t be encouraging you to do this if I didn’t believe, with everything I am, that you were capable of it.”
And so up I went to the Recreation Center, if only because I wanted to be able to tell Grandfather—who was still alive then—that I had. But once I was there, I wasn’t even able to make myself walk inside. Instead, I sat on a ledge outside the building and watched other people walk in, in twos or alone. Then I noticed that there was a window on the other side of the front door, and that if I stood at the correct angle, I could watch the people inside playing ping-pong, and it was nice, because it was almost like I was one of them, but I didn’t have to actually speak to anyone.
That was how I spent my first month or so of free nights—standing outside the center and watching ping-pong through the window. Sometimes the matches were particularly exciting, and I would walk home quickly, thinking that I might tell my husband about one game or another I’d seen, even though he never asked what I did on my free nights, and never told me what he did on his free nights, either. Sometimes I imagined that I had made a new friend: the woman with the short curly hair and dimples who slammed the ball across the table, lunging back on her left heel as she did; the man who wore a red tracksuit printed with white clouds. Sometimes I imagined that I joined them at the hydration bar afterward, and I thought about what it would be like to tell my husband that I wanted to use one of the bonus liquid coupons so I could have a drink with my friends, and how he would say that of course I could, and maybe he would come and watch me play a game someday.
But after a few months of this, I stopped going to the center. For one thing, Grandfather was dead, and I didn’t feel like trying any longer. For another, it was getting hotter, and I was feeling bad. And so, the next Tuesday, my next free night, I told my husband that I was tired, that I was going to stay indoors instead.