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The heper girl steps up to me until it’s less than a yard away. Before I realise it, its arm blurs towards me, smacking me on the side of my head.
“Hey—”
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?” I say, feeling the side of my head. No blood, just the sting of humiliation.
“Don’t call him it.” She bends down and grabs a fistful of dirt. “This ground is an it. That tree over there is an it. That vegetable is an it. That building is an it. Don’t call us it, that’s just insulting. What’s your problem, anyway? What makes you so high and mighty? If you think we’re a bunch of its, you can just walk on out and never think about coming back here. Besides, if you think we’re nothing but its, then you’re as much an it as we are.”
“Fair enough,” I say, the side of my face still smarting. “I apologise.”
But in my mind, there is a huge difference between them and me. They are savages, undomesticated, uneducated. I am none of those. I’m a survivor, self-made, civilised, educated. Next to me, though we might look the same, they are nothing like me. But as long as I need them to survive, I’ll play along as necessary. “Wasn’t really thinking, no harm meant at all. Look, I’m sorry, Sissy. Epap, I’m sorry.”
She stares at me, unmoved. “You’re so full of it.” The moment grows tense as the other hepers, taking their cue from Sissy and Epap, look back at me with suspicion.
It’s little Ben who breaks the tension. “Come here, I’ll show you my favourite fruit!” He then runs to grab me, pulling me along by my arm to a nearby tree.
“Ben, don’t—” Epap cries after us, but we’re already gone.
“Come on,” he says, leaping up to grab a low-hanging red fruit. “The apples from this tree are the best. The south tree has apples, too, but not nearly as good as these ones. Love them.”
So strange, I think, to use the word love so openly. And for a fruit to boot.
Before I know it, an apple is sitting plump in my hand. Ben is already tearing into the apple he’s plucked for himself. I rip into the apple, the juices bursting into my mouth. I hear footsteps behind us. The group has caught up. Maybe it’s the sight of me enjoying the fruit with such kidlike joy, but they don’t seem quite as hostile as before. With the exception of Epap, of course. He’s still glaring at me.
“Aren’t these fruit the best? Wait till you try the bananas from—”
Sissy places a gentle hand on Ben’s shoulder. He quiets immediately and turns his head to look at her. She nods softly, then turns to me. It’s with the same look she just gave Ben: reassuring, but with a strange command, a gentle insistence. “Actually, we would like to know. Why you are here. Do tell.”
After a long moment, I speak. “I’ll tell you,” I say, my voice hitching for some reason. “I’ll tell you. But can we move inside?”
“Just tell us here,” Epap snaps back. “It’s nice right where we are now and—”
“Inside is fine,” Sissy says. She sees Epap about to cut in again and quickly says to me: “The sun can’t be comfortable for you. You’re not used to it.” She is already beginning to walk towards the nearest hut, not bothering to see if the others follow.
Gradually, one by one, they do. And last to go is me, trailing all of them into the opening of a mud hut.
What I tell them is almost the truth. That’s not as good as the complete truth, I know; but I like to think I don’t so much lie as neglect to disclose certain parts. Still, as my second-grade teacher used to say, the almost-truth is the same as an outright lie. But I do it – lying – with aplomb: easy to do when your whole life is essentially a lie, easy to deceive when your whole identity has been built on deception.
There are many of us on the outside, I lie. In every sector of community, at every level of society, hepers abound. Our existence is as widespread and diverse as snowflakes during a night storm. And yet, like snowflakes in the night, our existence is unseen. We are joined by our shared lives of secrecy, of passing ourselves off as normal to the general populace. We are scrupulous about shaving, fake fangs, maintaining a blank demeanour. We do not form underground societies but build small networks of three to five nuclear families. It is a dangerous existence, but an existence not without its joys and pleasures.
Like what?
Like the pleasures of family life, I say, continuing my lies, the freedom within our cloistered homes once the shutters have fallen at sunset. Foods we love to eat, songs we love to sing, laughter and smiles and (rarely, only when necessary) the crying of tears. The retention of tradition, the passing along of books and ancient tales. Then there are the very occasional secret meetings we have with other heper families in the bright of day while the rest of the city sleeps behind shuttered walls, oblivious. And as we get older, there are the possibilities of romance, the exhilaration of falling in love, the eventual beginnings of our own families.
Why are you here?
I was recently hired to be on staff at the Institute.
You replaced the Scientist?
Yes, I have replaced the Scientist, moved into his abode, am continuing his research. He was very diligent, extremely hardworking; it will take me months just to catch up.
And so you know about him.
Of course.
That he was a heper.
A pause. Yes, of course.
Where did he go? He just disappeared on us.
What? What did you say?
Where did he go?
Can I have some more water, please?
Where did he go? He told us he was going to get us out of here. To a land of milk and honey, fruit and sunshine. A new beginning, a new origin.
It is something you think about, getting out of here?
Of course. Every day. We have been here all our lives. Imprisoned by glass, imprisoned by the desert, imprisoned by fangs and claws. The Scientist told us he was going to get us out of here. But he never said how or to where. Do you know where?
I do.
Where?
I point to the eastern mountains. Over there. Over those mountains. Where we are originally from. Where there are thousands of our kind. A land of milk and honey, fruit and sunshine.
How? It is too far away. We will die.
I nod. Of thirst, of starvation.
But they shake their heads. No: we will be hunted down and killed before we get halfway there.
Of course. Of course.
How will we get out?
I answer without looking at them. The Scientist. He will get you out.
Sissy nods with excitement. That’s what he said. That he would lead us away. That we should always trust him. Even when all hope seems gone, he told us never to give up, that he’d come through for us. And then he disappeared one day. It was hard for us; we almost gave up hope. And now you. You appearing out of nowhere after all this time. You can help us, right?
Give me time, give me time. The Scientist left me mountains of papers to get through.
Well, we have a lot of that. Time.
I wake with a start. It takes me a second to realise where I am. Still in the heper village, still in a mud hut. On the floor, lying down, head atop a soft sack. The sun shines through the sieve-like ceiling, leaving a patchwork of sunspots about me.
They are sitting in a semicircle around me. A few of them are lying down in a semi-doze.
“He’s awake!” Ben says.
I leap to my feet, heart hammering. I’ve never woken up in a crowd. In my usual life, I’d be dead by now. But they’re looking up at me with amused, harmless faces. I sit back down, unnerved.
Sissy tells Jacob to fetch some more water, David to see if bread has arrived in the Umbilical, and Ben to pick some more fruit and vegetables. The three scuttle off. Only the two oldest, Sissy and Epap, remain. Somehow, I don’t think this is unintentional.
