“Goodbye,” I said, and began walking.
“Wait,” he said, after a moment. “Wait, Charlie. Wait.”
But I pretended I couldn’t hear him and kept moving. I didn’t look behind me. I ventured into the Square and stood in the herbalists’ section and waited until I was certain he had left. Then I turned and walked home. Once I was inside the safety of our apartment again, I took off my helmet and suit. My husband was out somewhere; I was alone.
All of a sudden, I felt very angry. I am not an angry person—even when I was little, I never threw tantrums, I never screamed, I never demanded anything. I tried to be as good as I knew how for Grandfather. But now I wanted to hit something, to hurt something, to break something. But there was nothing and no one in the house to hit or hurt or break: The plates were made of plastic; the mixing bowls were made of silicone; the pots were made of metal. Then I remembered how, even though I had not been angry as a child, I had often been frustrated, and I would moan and buck and claw at myself as Grandfather tried to hold me still. So now I went to my bed and practiced the method he’d taught me when everything seemed overwhelming, which was to lie on my stomach and press my face into the pillow and inhale until I felt dizzy.
After this, I got up again. I couldn’t stay in the apartment—I couldn’t bear it. And so I rezipped myself into my cooling suit and went back outside.
It was now late afternoon, and the day was becoming slightly less hot. I began walking around the Square. It felt queer to be walking alone after so many weeks of doing so with David, and it was perhaps because of that that, instead of just walking around the Square, I entered it on the western side. There was nothing I needed or wanted in the Square, but despite my aimlessness, I found myself moving toward the southeastern section.
I’m not sure why, but this quadrant of the Square had a reputation for being unseemly. How this had happened was something of a mystery; as I have said, the southeastern part was mostly occupied by carpenters, and if you weren’t too bothered by the sound of buzz saws and hammers, it was actually a nice place to be—the wood smelled clean and sharp, and you could stand and watch the woodworkers make or repair chairs or tables or buckets, and they wouldn’t shoo you away like some of the other vendors would. And yet, for some reason, this was where you came if you wanted to find one of the people I have mentioned earlier, the people who weren’t licensed and who didn’t have a stall and yet who also occupied the Square, the people who could solve problems you didn’t know how to ask about.
One theory I’d heard about how this had happened didn’t make any sense. The southeastern part of the Square was closest to a tall brick building that had once been the library of a university that had been located nearby. After the university was closed, the building served for a period as a prison. Now it was the archive office for four of the island’s southern zones, including Zone Eight. This was where the state kept its birth and death records for everyone who lived in these areas, as well as any files or notes on those residents. The front of the building was all glass, so you could look in and see the tiers of cases filled with files; in the lobby, on the street level, there was a windowless black cube, about ten feet on all sides, and inside that black cube sat the archivist, who could find any file you needed. Of course, the archive hall was only accessible to state officials, and only those officials with the highest clearance. There was always someone in the black cube, and it was one of the few buildings that were always lit, even during the hours it was illegal to turn on the lights because it was a waste of electricity. I never understood what the southeastern corner’s proximity to the archive hall had to do with its illicit activity, but that was what everyone said: that it was easier to do dangerous things closer to a state building, because the state would never consider that anyone would do anything illegal so nearby. That was what everyone said, anyway.
As I have said, these people I have mentioned had no permanent station or stall, and so it wasn’t as if you could just go to one area or another and expect to find them—they had to find you, instead. What you did was wander slowly among the vendors. You didn’t look up; you didn’t look around. You just walked, looking down at the curls of wood that covered the ground, and eventually, someone would come up to you and ask you a question. The question was usually only two or three words, and if it wasn’t the right question, you just kept walking. If it was the right question, you looked up. I had never done this myself, but I had once stood near one of the woodworkers and watched it happen. There had been a young woman, pretty and fair, and she had been walking very slowly, with her hands behind her back. She had worn a green scarf on her head, and I could see some of her hair, which was thick and red and chin-length, peeking out beneath. I had watched her pace in a loop for about three minutes before the first person, a short, thin, middle-aged man, approached her and said something I couldn’t hear. But she kept walking, almost like she hadn’t heard him, and he moved away. A minute later, another person approached her, and still she kept walking. The fifth time, a woman walked up to her, and this time, the young woman raised her head and followed the woman, who led her to a small tent made from a tarp on the very eastern edge of the Square, then lifted one side of it and looked around her for Flies before ushering the young woman in and slipping inside herself.
I don’t know what made me start walking about the southeastern quadrant myself that day. I concentrated on my feet moving through the sawdust. Sure enough, after a few moments, I felt someone following me. And then I heard a man’s voice say, very low, “Looking for someone?” But I kept walking, and soon the man walked away as well.
Shortly after, I saw another man’s feet approach me. “Sickness?” he asked. “Medicine?” But I kept walking.
For a while, nothing happened. I walked more slowly. And then I saw a woman’s feet coming my way; I could tell the feet belonged to a woman because they were small. They drew very near me, and then I heard a voice whisper, “Love?”
I looked up and realized it was the same woman I’d seen earlier, with a tent on the eastern edge. “Come with me,” she said, and I followed her to her area. I wasn’t thinking about what I was doing; I wasn’t thinking at all. It was as if what was happening was something I was watching, not something I was doing. At the tent, I saw her scan the sky for Flies—the same as she’d done for the young woman—and then beckon me inside.
Inside, the tent was stiflingly hot. There was a rough wooden box that had been secured with a padlock, and two dirty cotton cushions, one of which she sat on and one of which I sat on.
“Take off your helmet,” she said, and I did. She wasn’t wearing a helmet, but she had a scarf wrapped around her mouth and nose, and now she unwound it, and I saw that the bottom left part of her cheek had been eaten away by disease, and that she was younger than I had thought.
“I’ve seen you before,” she said, and I stared at her. “Yes,” she said, “walking around the Square with your husband. A nice-looking man. But he doesn’t love you?”
“No,” I said, after I had recovered myself. “He isn’t my husband. He’s my—he’s my friend.”