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“The sticks,” he said, stretching out his hand to me.
The fire grew. Every once in a while, he’d hunch down and blow into the fire. It’d rear up in anger and surprise, venting sparks. He placed two shorn branches into the fire and sat back. The fire roared with a ferocity that frightened me. He told me to fetch the books and journals, and I brought them over to him.
For a long time, they lay next to him. He sat without moving until I realised he could not muster that last ounce of willpower for that final, irrevocable act. He asked me to come to him, and I did, sitting in the cosy warmth of his lap. I held a picture book, my sister’s. I knew every drawing inside, the colour of every dog and cat and house and dress. He took a deep breath, and for a moment I thought he was going to explain again why we were burning the books. But instead his whole upper body began to hitch, as if he were trying to contain loud hiccups. I put my hand on his broad hand, muscles and rocks under his coarse skin, and told him it was OK. Told him I understood why we were burning the books, that because Mommy and sister had disappeared, we could not keep anything in the house that would cause unexpected visitors to ask about them. I told him “it was too dangerous”, reciting back words he’d earlier told me that I had not understood and still did not.
I think he meant to go through each book with me one last time. But for whatever reason, he did not. He simply took each book and threw it into the fire one after the other. I still remember the feel of my sister’s picture book pulled away. I did not resist, but the feel of the journal against my fingertips as it was whisked away and tossed into the fire felt like something lost forever.
We left an hour later, when there was nothing left of the fire (or books) but dying embers and grey ash. Like my father, ashen and grey, his inner fire smothered out. Just before we crossed the clearing, I went back for the burlap sacks we’d forgotten to take with us. They were lying right beside the pile of ashes. As I bent to pick them up, something came over me: I blew softly into the embers the way I’d seen my father do. Fine ash kicked up into the air and into my eyes. But right before my eyes shut, watering against the sting, I saw the smallest glow in the midst of the black ashes. Red, orange, a resurgent spark of an ember. It was a drop of the June sun in a sea of grey ashes.
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It was not until years later, in a schoolyard on a drab grey night, that I saw the colour of that red glow again. It was the colour of her hair, a girl I had never seen before but from whom I could not look away. When she turned to me, our eyes connecting even across the length of the schoolyard and through the kaleidoscope of criss-crossing students, I remembered that red ember glowing in the dark ashes like a June sun.
Her designation is Ashley June, I thought to myself.
Alone in the library, standing before her in the beams of the midnight moon, this is the memory I share with her.
The press are out in full force when we step out of the library. As far as the brick path extends to the main building, reporters and photographers are lined along each side. Mercuric flashlights pop everywhere, not that they bother us. An escort leads us at a maddeningly slow pace, stopping us every few steps to pose for a camera or to answer a few interview questions.
Ashley June’s arm stays hooked in mine the whole time, her wrist bent at the crook of my elbow. It’s an awesome feeling. Alone, I would have hated the fanfare and onslaught of media attention. But with her next to me, I’m comfortable and at ease, and I sense the same is true for her. The soft weight of her hand on my arm, the occasional moments when the side of her hip brushes lightly against mine, the sense of togetherness as we navigate down the path. I think it’s because we’re masters of this game of image projection and deception that we’re so comfortable with the media. A pose, a sound bite, an image: right down our alley.
“How has your training gone? Do you feel prepared for the Hunt?”
“It’s been great, and we’re chomping at the bit to get on with it.”
“Is it true that the two of you are an alliance?”
“It’s no secret. We’re together.”
“Which of the hunters do you think will challenge you the most?”
And on and on went the questions.
The usually short walk takes us almost an hour, and there’s no let-up of media and curious guests once we get to the main building. They’re still arriving in droves, guests and media, in carriages of various shapes and sizes; the horses are sweaty and out of breath as they are led away to the stable out back.
Inside, there are even more media and onlookers. They’re cordoned off behind velvet ropes, and our escort thankfully takes us past them without stopping. “To the main hall,” he says, glancing quickly at his watch.
They’ve spared no expense in decorating the main banquet hall. Gold chandeliers descend from high ornate ceilings, casting a misty mercuric light over each table. Onyx-embedded table silver, porcelain plates commissioned during the neo-Gothic Ruler era, wineglasses encrusted with diamond shavings set on embroidered violet linen tablecloths. A flower basket sits centre on each table, double-layered jade stemming from the Selah dynasty. Tall windows with decorative swagged velvet curtains loom over and around us. Guests cluster at the windows facing east, gazing at the Dome. It sits like a sliced marble ball. At the far end of the banquet hall, the grand staircase ascends to the first floor, its perfectly centred red carpet bright and lush like a swollen tongue. In the centre of the hall is a large dance floor, gleaming under the mercuric lights.
The hunters are separated, each to his or her own assigned table. When Ashley June removes her arm from mine to be taken to her table, it feels like a tragic parting. High-standing Palace officials sit at my table, their spouses peppering me with nettlesome questions. The food comes out in waves, tuxedoed waiters and waitresses with ruffled front blouses balancing trays of dripping meat as they manoeuvre between tables. Large bibs are tied on us, draping over our tuxedos and gowns from our necks to knees. They quickly become splattered with droplets of blood as we eat. After days of eating endless plates of meat sopping in blood, I can barely stand the sight of more. I hardly touch my plate, citing overexcitement with the Hunt tomorrow night.
Throughout the endless courses of meat, I steal glances at Ashley June. She’s in her element, engaging the guests at her table with charm. Even during the main course when the fattest portions of meat are served, she still has their rapt attention. This setting plays to her strength. It’s how she’s always lived her life of deception. Offence is the best defence. I recall her words.
After dessert – cakes and soufflés, for which I claim to have regained my appetite – a succession of speeches are made by a handful of top-ranking officials. I spend my time gazing at Ashley June, who’s in my line of vision. Her slender arms flow gracefully out of her gown, the gleam of silvery light along her arm like the reflection of moonlight along a river. She gathers her hair from the back and with the expert sweep of one hand brushes it over her shoulder, exposing the sinuous nape of her neck. I wonder if she is thinking of me the way I am of her: incessantly, obsessively, helplessly.
I’m not the only one who’s looking at her. Gaunt Man, two tables away, is staring at her, his eyes wide and bulging. He takes a sip from his wineglass. And another, his eyes never budging from her.
Last to speak is the Director. He’s powdered his face, puffed up his hair, polished his nails a blood red. “Dear esteemed guests, I trust that you have found the Institute – with its unsullied reputation – to have met your high expectations tonight. The food, the décor, the grandeur of this ballroom – all, I do hope, to be pleasing to such regal guests as yourselves, who ordinarily wouldn’t deign to travel so far for entertainment. But this is not an ordinary occasion, is it? For tomorrow night, the Heper Hunt begins!”
The guests, already with a few drinks in them, clink glasses, pound tabletops.
“Tonight is the night to celebrate the benevolent sovereignty of our beloved Ruler, under whose leadership the Heper Hunt was made possible. And celebrate we shall! Without restraint! For we will have plenty of time tomorrow daytime to sleep off tonight’s excesses!” The rasping of wrists sounds across the hall.
The Director totters slightly; I realise that he’s had a few too many drinks in him. “Now, just in case some of you are getting ideas, ideas about, hmm . . . shall we say, ‘unofficially’ joining this Hunt tomorrow, upon my shoulders falls the burden of dispelling any such hope. This building goes into lockdown mode an hour before dusk. You simply won’t be able to leave this building for the duration of the Hunt.”
He swirls the wine in his glass dramatically, gazing at it in the mercuric light. “Sometime before lockdown, the hunters will be taken to an undisclosed, secret location. At the cusp of dusk, as early as each shall dare, they will set off into the Vast after the hepers. And so,” he says, his voice rising, “the most exciting, most scintillating, most extravagant, most bloody, most violent Heper Hunt ever shall begin!”
The banquet hall erupts into a spasm of hisses and bone cracks and wineglasses smashed.
After the speech, as the guests settle down, a string quartet assembles on the edge of the dance floor. The quartet plays the Baroque piece slowly and freely, a late-century arrangement. Gradually, couples make their way to the floor. Halfway through the first song, I catch sight of Gaunt Man rising from his chair. He has his eyes on Ashley June, and as he starts making his way towards her, his tongue sticks out, licks his lips. I push my chair back and walk swiftly towards Ashley June, outpacing Gaunt Man. She sits with her hands placed in her lap, her back straight, head up, expectantly.
As I draw closer to her, her head tilts up ever so, and she looks at me from the corner of her eye. Do I detect the faintest smile touch her lips, a brief emergence of her cheek dimple? I offer her my elbow and she takes it, rising gracefully from her chair with the slightest pull on my arm. We walk to the dance floor, past Gaunt Man, left standing stiffly and awkwardly by himself.
As if on cue, the quartet starts another song, this one softer and more romantic in tone. There are whispers and murmurings all around, and then the other couples on the dance floor slide away to the edge, surrendering the spotlight to Ashley June and me, the hunter couple. The floor is ours. And suddenly, unwittingly,
all eyes in the ballroom are on us. A few photographers move into position, cameras at the ready. I turn to face Ashley June: a hint of dread in her eyes. Neither of us wants this attention. But it is too late for that. My shoulder squares with hers, so close I feel heat waves humming off her body. And despite everything, there is an almost audible click of rightness. A strong pull draws us closer, as if our hearts are powerful, insistent, opposite magnets.
Drumming up everything I learned in school, I fist both hands and interlace my knuckles with the knuckles of her fisted hands. Back at school, I dreaded dance classes, hating the proximity, fearing that I hadn’t shaved the light hairs on my knuckles close enough. But with Ashley June now, I am free of fear. And free to feel: the texture of her skin, the musky proximity of her body, her breath delicately touching my neck. Her glistening green eyes look into mine. I wish I could whisper to her, but there are too many eyes upon us, the music too soft. But what I would say.
I’m so lost in the moment that I almost forget we actually have to dance. I press my knuckles deeper into hers to let her know I’m about to start. A slight push back in acknowledgement, and then we begin. For two people who’ve never danced together, we’re surprisingly adept. Our bodies move in fluid synchrony, the distance between us constant and close. Other than a few minor brushes, our legs are harmonised and rhythmic, our feet falling within inches of one another, never closer. In my school dance class, dancing was never more than a bullet-point progression to follow, a checklist to complete in sequence. But with Ashley June it is a flow, a matter of simply hoisting a sail and allowing yourself to be caught up. At the end of the piece, I let her loose for the three-step spin, and her long, slim arms raise above her head like a whirling dervish. She teases out of her spin, hair spilling seductively across her face, her green eyes puncturing me deep inside. I hear a few gasps coming from the tables.
“Wow,” I mouth to her.
The next piece begins. Ashley June and I separate. Now begins the obligatory dances with the wives of the officials, all streaming their way over to me, their high-official husbands too disinterested in dancing or their wives (or both) to bother rising from their tables. It’s taxing, the endless dancing and perfunctory small talking, and after a number of dances, a film of sweat starts forming on my forehead. I need to take a break, but there are simply too many women waiting in line.
