All Good Children Page 2

  “Going to ground.” Zuma shakes his head. The lip of his hat shadows his eyes. “Unwise. Do they think to wait it out, as if this were a common storm?”

  “There do not seem to be many wise decisions left to us, Lieutenant General.”

  “You are right. What can we do? Fight. Flight. Those are the rock and the hard place, as far as I see it. Neither offers salvation. Strange no one has yet chosen surrender.”

  “Strange?” Silamo folds his fingers together so as not to make fists. His knuckles whiten with the strain. “You would have us surrender? What does that mean to them, other than death?”

  “What does it mean to whom?”

  “Them.” His eyes flick left without seeing much more than amorphous shadows. “The izulu.”

  Zuma’s eyes linger on the creatures before turning back to Silamo. His smile appears even more bemused. “Izulu, you say? That’s delightful. Our people have many names for them. Demon is most common. When they first rose—what was it? twenty years ago?—the popular term was vampire, which is closer. Vulture, of course, works best as far as resemblance. I think it’s regional, the names. Certain ones stick better than others. I must admit ‘izulu’ is new to me.”

  Silamo struggles for a nonchalant shrug. “What do you call them?”

  “They prefer to be called ‘the Over.’ It derives from Nietzsche’s übermensch. Over men. You’ve heard of this? They have a mild preoccupation with our human philosophies.” Zuma chuckles.

  Silamo has trouble catching a breath long enough to ask, “How do you know this?” When Zuma only smiles into the question, Silamo suggests, naïvely—but, god, how he longs to be naïve—”Do you control them?”

  Zuma outright laughs; his mouth opens and his shoulders move with the boisterous sound, but his eyes remain steady and fixed on Silamo. It makes the hairs along Silamo’s arms stand up.

  The laugh is cut off by the sharp cry of the tea kettle. Zuma says, “I’m quite parched.”

  Silamo makes no move to get up from the table. He is afraid his muscles will prove too weak for the task. He wipes sweat from his brows with his fingers, and slides his hands into his lap under the table.

  “Allow me,” Zuma says.

  He rises and goes to the stove. Silamo listens to him pour the tea and open the tins on the counter, searching for sugar cubes. The lieutenant general begins to whistle. A light smell of herbal sweetness fills the room.

  Zuma places a steaming mug in front of Silamo and retakes his seat at the other end of the table. He stops whistling and sips from the mug, making a satisfied sound as he puts the mug back down.

  In the silence, something large and nearby explodes outside. Neither man flinches; they are staring at each other. One of the house’s old floorboards begins to moan, and Silamo says, “So you have surrendered.”

  “You misunderstand,” Zuma says. “I have not given up; I’ve defected. And you will, too, by the end of this conversation.”

  While Zuma talks, Silamo eases a small blade out of its sheath on the underside of his belt. He holds it against his thigh. “Convince me, then.”

  Finally, Zuma abandons his false smile. “You know this is not a war, don’t you? You have always been a smart man, a prudent man. Pretoria, Jozi, the whole of Gauteng—this isn’t even a battle, not to them. It’s practice, a rehearsal; it’s training, it’s recruitment, it’s preparation for the Big Show. Not far off, that. You know what Australia was? A failsafe. They’ll always have Australia. That sounds like a song, doesn’t it? Is it a song?”

  Silamo’s sweat runs cold along his skin. Suddenly, he feels calm. Zuma is insane, he thinks. An insane man who has given up. A man of high rank, which makes things difficult. But not lost.

  “Perhaps a movie,” Silamo says.

  Zuma slaps his palm on the table, shaking the mugs a little. “A movie! That’s what we’re missing. That is something that would take the fear out of it, isn’t it? To memorialize in film the colossal failure that was the War for Australia. The entire continent a nuclear wasteland, unfit for human habitation. Exactly how the Over planned it.”

  “You seem excited.”

  “That’s a side effect of the mind control.” Zuma twists his back toward Silamo, and Silamo’s arm goes rigid, his fist tightening around the blade. But then Zuma removes his hat and bends his head forward enough for Silamo to see the large hole at the base of his neck. A glossy membranous film covers the wound’s two-inch diameter, the skin around it an irritated pink. Silamo’s mouth slacks open and he has to work hard to close it.

  Zuma twists back around. “How does it look? I haven’t seen it myself. It’s a mite fresh.”

  Silamo struggles to work up saliva. “You let them do this to you? I would have died. I would have fought them. I would have died fighting them.”

  “Is that why you packed those three bags at the door?” Zuma’s smile returns. “Full of weapons with which to fight your enemy? I know you are running, and that is smart, Chief Silamo. In fact, I want you to run. The Over want you to run. But they would prefer if you took a select group of citizens with you.”

  “I’ll do nothing for them.”

  “Will you listen? Listen to yourself. Only when backed into a wall do you find your strength, your bravery. I’m hefting you over that wall. I’m giving you the tools to—”

  “—to be mind-fucked?”

  “—to climb over. Mind-fucked? You’re killing me, Silamo. May I call you Dominick? Formalities seem silly at this point, do they not?” Zuma sips at his tea again, although by this time it has cooled enough to gulp. “I misspoke. Mind control isn’t exactly correct. I admit, I wanted to shock you. I see it worked. But no, it’s not that exactly, it’s…a pathway. A communications link. This way, they can speak to me. I can know them, the way only a handful of us are beginning to know them. It’s, well, it’s a form of trust. They trust me. They trust me to be their Liaison, to begin negotiations of their treaty.”

  “I don’t believe this.”

  “No need to take it on faith, dear Dominick. They’ll be more than happy to show you. They’ve already shown me so much. They’ve shown me the future, Dominick, and it certainly isn’t here. No, we must sacrifice our holdings here, for the survival of our species. That’s what they’re offering us, after all, survival. Not only that, but—listen, the treaty will be signed, I’ve no doubts. Our president has already signed it. All the leaders will. And when we explain it—you and I and all the other Liaisons—to the citizens, the world will understand. They’ll see it is not so great a sacrifice, the things the Over ask of us. A few will die, certainly, but look out your window, Dominick—look at the city burning, the people burning it. Can we survive much more of this? Can we?

  “I know you have a knife on you.”

  Silamo plays Zuma’s bluff. “Yeah, and a sharp shooter outside with you in his sights. I have nothing, Zuma. I have nothing.”

  “The Over tell me it’s clutched in your right hand, and when I turned my back to you a moment ago, you nearly raised it to throw at my neck. Let’s not play games anymore, Dominick, shall we?”

  “Do not use my name,” Silamo growls. He brings the knife up to the table and rests his knuckles against the edge. “I’ll kill myself before I let them take me.”

  “Don’t be so dramatic.” Zuma laughs and throws up his arms, shaking his head at nothing. He fits his hat back onto his head, looks into the living room and hooks a thumb at Silamo. “This guy.” He looks back at Silamo. “Are you shaking? I am trying to tell you, Chief Silamo, that there is no need for shaking. No need for fear. Listen. All I need for you to do is evacuate the people on this list.” From his breast pocket, he produces two sheets of folded paper and slides them across the table to Silamo, who does not reach for them. “You’ll have to take them to Jozi and use the rivers to the Indian Ocean. There’ll be a naval ship waiting at Durban. The Over will not attack you; it’s not them I’m worried about. But our citizens are panicking. They no longer fear o
ur human consequences, if ever they truly did.

  “The names on this list, these men and women are important. They’re vital to the Over’s treaty negotiations. Failure of this mission is not an option. That is why you need to be made a Liaison, Silamo. Total trust.”

  “I think you had it right, Zuma. It is mind control. A touch of madness hasn’t helped your case so much either. No man with any honor would strike a deal with demons.”

  “It’s a good deal,” Zuma says. “Ninety percent of the world’s current population will be spared. And that’s a worst-case scenario—if the negotiations take longer than expected, if certain world leaders try their nukes again, or chemical warfare. But with full cooperation, we may only lose one or two percent. A token number, in the grand scheme. As I said, they’ve shown me the future. It’s a controlled future, certainly, but it allows us to keep many of our familiar freedoms. It isn’t communism. There will be systems in place so the Over will get what they need, and what they need is us. Humans. We are life to them. Life. Let me show you.”

  Zuma rises once again, and Silamo rises with him, knocking his chair back in his haste. He presses the edge of the blade to his throat and says again, “I’ll kill myself. I want no part of them. I’ll kill myself, I swear it.”

  “Dominick” Zuma frowns, and for a moment his eyes appear genuinely sad. “You disappoint me. Very well. If you cannot find it in your heart to care about the billions of lives you will save by joining the Over, I think you can find some compassion for your wife and daughter.”

  “They’re dead,” Silamo says. “They died in one of the first riots. There is nothing you can threaten me with, Zuma. My only choice is death now.”

  “Die now.” Zuma picks up the list of names and holds it out to Silamo. “Or die later. Die a coward or a hero. The people on this list are counting on you. You are their salvation. Surely you can sacrifice your own life for something greater than spite?”

  Silamo’s eyes blink to the izulu—the Over—standing in the living room. They haven’t moved, but their heads are tilted identically, as if they are listening though they have no ears. The floorboards creak again.

  Silamo lowers the knife and sets it on the table. He takes the list of names from Zuma. “All right. I’ll do it. This one last mission. Only…only not here. The fires, the bombs, they’re getting closer. We’ll go somewhere safer. Then I’ll do it.”

  Zuma clamps a heavy hand on Silamo’s damp shoulder. Silamo fails to turn his grimace into a smile, but Zuma smiles wide enough for both of them. “Good man,” he says. He stretches an arm out in front of them. “After you.”

  Silamo’s body tenses as he walks beneath the archway into the living room. The sentries watch him; his mind flashes a memory of watching a movie with his daughter only—what? last summer? earlier? In it, a young boy on a quest must pass through a guard of giant golden sphinxes, whose eyes are closed. As he walks, their eyes open and they fire lasers at him. He makes it through, but only just. Silamo closes his own eyes as he walks past the izulu; if they do laser him to death, he prefers not to see it coming.

  He doesn’t open his eyes until his foot bumps into one of the duffel bags. He looks down at it. No need for it now, not for him. He stuffs two fingers into his pocket and fishes out his wedding band. He drops it onto the duffel bag as he moves to the front door.

  Outside, the wind has picked up and the world feels as if it exists inside an oven. Everything is closer, pressing in: the shouting, the crying, the breaking, the burning. Maybe Zuma, despite his insanity, does have a point. If the treaty can stop this violence, can save billions, as Zuma claims it can, maybe it is worth it. Maybe it is worth giving up the world.

  Zuma walks out of the house, closing the door behind him. He adjusts his hat to best shield his eyes from the glare of the sun, straightens his unruffled shirt front, and marches to Silamo’s side. “A car is waiting for us at the bottom of the hill, if it hasn’t been bombed yet.” His white teeth burn through Silamo. “Shall we?”

  “The Over.” Silamo looks back at the house. “Aren’t they coming?”

  “Oh my, I thought I’d explained clearly. Being a Liaison to the Over requires total trust. You broke that before you even began. They couldn’t just let that slide. It wouldn’t be fair.”

  From inside the house, a child’s scream rips open Silamo’s gut. He shouts for her, “Heaven!”

  The heel of Zuma’s hand crashes into Silamo’s nose. The world blinks out and gravity rushes away from him. Pressure mounts inside his head, and he is squinting at the sky, the sun an evil eye burning out his sins. Zuma’s dark head bends into his field of vision. He can feel the blood streaming from his nose into his mouth, down the back of his dry throat. He can hear his wife crying, and the sound of something else, some vital thing being pulled apart.

  “Pity,” Zuma says, a drop of spittle falling onto Silamo’s eyelid. “You were my first choice for this mission. Remember that god awful charity gala? We had some laughs. I had hoped to spare you. Well.” Zuma lifts his heavy boot above Silamo’s face. “I’ll find someone else.”

  ONE

  JORDAN

  THOSE SLENDER WRISTS. BARE AND smooth, she must moisturize. There’s that game the other kids play at school, curling index fingers around wrists to touch the thumb, and moving up and up and up. The farther they can move up, the more babies the person will eventually birth. The science of junior high reflecting the spells we learned in grade school using only a well-placed buttercup to discern how boy crazy you might be. I could wrap my fingers around those wrists and all four tips would touch my thumb. She would have ten children, maybe, a household or two, a village. But the elbow might put a stop to that, and the muscles that come after, though they’re hard to see beneath her blazer. Blue like her eyes. I wonder what she’ll tell us and what her voice will sound like when she speaks.

  I am upstairs in my room. I used to share with Jeremy, until last summer when he successfully traded up for a second-hand baby grand piano and I was relegated to the attic. Dad put my mattress on top of a group of boxes full of memories he swears we’ll never need to check on, but just in case, we’ll save on a box spring. My sheets are pink with pale yellow flowers and they match my pillowcase and my comforter. I didn’t pick them out. Jason has sheets patterned with antique muscle cars, and Jeremy has plain black, and I have yellow flowers swimming in a pink expanse, and my name is Jordeena (an old family name) but I haven’t let anyone call me that since I was three. It’s Jordan, please and thank you.

  The woman pulls into the driveway. I placed a bet with myself that she would park on the street, but now her Mazda is boxing in our pickup and it’s a possibility that this was calculated. I wonder if she knows that my parents would never run—well, maybe Mom but never Dad—and if they did, we have horses in the barn that can go places her Mazda only sees in its SUV dreams. She’s wearing heels and a skirt that only pretends to fall past her knees. She probably wouldn’t chase us. She’d make a call, that’s all it would take, and wait disinterestedly for us to fall. Fall. It’s almost Summer.

  I pick through my dresser. Mom would kill me if she knew I was not dressed yet, but she’s still at the hospital and Dad’s in the field. We have a fox problem and our last good dog died last week. I think I’ll dress down, fuck impressions.

  A pair of Jason’s old Wranglers, torn at the knees almost symmetrically, two sizes too big and I won’t bother with a belt. Mom doesn’t know about the stud in my bellybutton so I throw on a long black t-shirt. Seems to me that kind of thing should be no big deal, but she freaked when Jeremy pierced his ears last year and I’m not taking chances. Sneakers on, and one last peek out the window.

  She’s finger-combing her hair and checking her makeup in the Mazda’s side mirror. Doesn’t look like she’s wearing much, some light lipstick, blush, subtle eyeshadow. She’s pretty and I wish she weren’t. Her hair’s the same shade as mine, light brown if you look too quickly or from too far away, golden if yo
u don’t blink. The sleeve of her blazer slides down her arm as she combs, and the wrist stares up at me. Briefcase at her feet. I wish I’d been told what to expect.

  Before I leave my room, I grab the beaded bracelet from my nightstand. We made them in art class yesterday, and it’s garish and bright and doesn’t go with what I’m wearing. If she admires it, I’ll offer it to her.

  The doorbell doesn’t even have a chance to ring before Jeremy’s piano starts up, and I can’t tell if it’s “Chopsticks” or something Mozart scribbled on a napkin before dessert. Jeremy likes to experiment, mixing scores like a human blender, and then convincing the uneducated that he composed them himself. I know why he’s playing now, as rehearsed as anything, and I want to hit him. I hope he’s wearing a tie and the silver cufflinks Mom bought him; I hope his shoes are polished and he hasn’t shaved the inch and a half of pale yellow hair above his lip that he insists is a mustache. If he takes her hand and kisses it, I’ll punch a wall or pee my pants, I haven’t decided yet.

  Downstairs, the smell of baking cookies wafts into the living room. If Mom managed to get Jason to bake, then I will pee my pants.

  Jason comes into the room at a half-run, almost knocking into the couch. He’s not wearing a suit but he has his nice pants on, the ones Dad picked up from the dry-cleaner yesterday, probably the first time he’s ever set foot in one of those places. I wanted to go with him because I bet myself that the place smelled like dryer sheets. Jason’s short-sleeved flannel shirt is tucked into his waistband, and he looks at his reflection in our only framed piece of “real” art (a print of Van Gogh’s “Starry Night”) and licks his hands and smooths back his dark hair. He shaved.

  “Let me get the door,” he says, walking right by me, never even looking.

  I slouch on the sofa, propping my feet up on the coffee table and keeping my knees spread as far away from each other as possible. I wish I had some gum.