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Like a child! She could not imagine any woman of the age they must share saying in El Barrio or anyplace else she had lived, “Me myself, I drum magnificently!” Indeed, they were like children, all in unisex rompers, sitting at their long kindergarten tables eating big plates of food and making jokes. “I can see wanting to look at your own child’s drawing. But wouldn’t other people get tired of it?”
They had reached the table through a sea of spicy odors that touched her stomach to life. Two places were vacant, set with handsome heavy pottery dishes in earth colors, glass tumblers on the heavy side, and cutlery of a smooth substance that was neither silver nor stainless steel and perhaps not even metal. Someone–slender, young–leaped up and hugged Luciente, held out his?/her? arms to her, checked the gesture, and smiled a brilliant welcome. “You got through! Wait till everybody hears about this!”
“Never mind. Did you save us lunch? I’m thi
They were literally patted into their seats and she found herself cramped with nervousness. Touching and caressing, hugging and fingering, they handled each other constantly. In a way it reminded her again of her childhood, when every emotion seemed to find a physical outlet, when both love and punishment had been expressed directly on her skin.
Large platters of food passed from hand to hand: a corn‑bread of coarse‑grained meal with a custard layer and a crusty, wheaty top; butter not in a bar but a mound, pale, sweet and creamy; honey in an open pitcher, dark with a heady flavor. The soup was thick with marrow beans, carrots, pale greens she could not identify, rich in the mouth with a touch of curry. In the salad were greens only and scallions and herbs, yet it was piquant, of many leaves blended with an oil tasting of nuts and a vinegar with a taste of … sage? Good food, good in the mouth and stomach. Pleasant food.
Luciente was saying everyone’s name, leaving her battered. Nobody seemed to have more than one. “Don’t you have last names?”
“When we die?” Barbarossa, a man with blue eyes and a red beard, raised his eyebrows at her. “We give back with the name we happen to have at that time.”
“Surnames. Look, my name is Consuelo Ramos. Co
They looked at each other, several adults and children consulting the ke
She felt blocked. “I suppose you have numbers. I guess you’re only called by first names because your real name–your identification–is the number you get at birth.”
“Why would we be numbered? We can tell each other apart.” The tall intense young person was staring at her. Jackrabbit, Luciente had said: therefore male. He had a lot of very curly light brown hair and he wore the sleeves of his pale blue work shirt rolled up to expose several bracelets of hand‑worked silver and turquoise on each wiry arm.
“But the government. How are you identified?”
“When I was born, I was named Peony by my mothers–”
“Peony sounds like a girl’s name.”
“I don’t understand. It was the name chosen for me. When I came to naming, I took my own name. Never mind what that was. But when Luciente brought me down to earth after my highflying, I became Jackrabbit. You see. For my long legs and my big hunger and my big penis and my jumps through the grass of our common life. When Luciente and Bee have quite reformed me, I will change my name again, to Cat in the Sun.” He produced on his thin face a perfect imitation of Luciente’s orange cat squeezing its eyes shut. “But why have two names at one time? In our village we have only one Jackrabbit. When I visit someplace else, I’m Jackrabbit of Mattapoisett.”
“You change your name any time you want to?”
“If you do it too often, nobody remembers your name,” Barbarossa said solemnly in his schoolmaster’s ma
The old brown‑ski
“All right–you have those things on your wrist. Somewhere there’s a big computer. How does it recognize you?”
“My own memory a
“But what about the police? What about the government? How do they keep track of you if you keep changing names?”
Again a great buzz of confusion and ke
“This is complicated!” The old woman Sojourner shook her head. “Government I think I grasp. Luciente can show you government, but nobody’s working there today.”
“Maybe next time. I will try to study up on this, but it’s very difficult,” Luciente moaned.
“We should all study to help Luci,” a child said.
“In the meantime, maybe you could ask something easier? You said something about the paintings?”
“It doesn’t matter. I just thought it was fu
A slight blond man, Morningstar, peered into her face with puzzlement. “But they’re all ours.”
“We change the panels all the time,” Jackrabbit said. “For instance, say I make one and later it stales on me. I make a new one. Or if everybody tires of one, we discuss and change. I did that whole big river namelon on the east, cause people wanted.”
Luciente put down her fork. “What’s wrong, Co
“Co
Luciente put an arm around her. “You look gutted. Remember this food will not sustain.”
“Why not?” She felt thick with fatigue and the room swayed. “I can taste it.”
“As in dreams. You experience throughme … . We better go back.”
“Finish your lunch first.” The voices seemed to drift around her and her eyelids drooped.
“This exhaustion worries me. I must teach you exercises–”
“Not here. Can’t think. Too many people.”
“Come! Give me your arm. We’ll visit again. This is only a false spring, a January thaw of begi
She felt leaden, her feet wading through loose sand. As they shuffled out, Luciente looked worried. Standing at last on the stone walk, Co
“Your body is where it was, unchanged in dress. Understand, you are not really here. If I was knocked on the head and fell unconscious, say into full nevel, you’d be back in your time instantly … .” Luciente drew her into the firm embrace with their foreheads touching. She was too spent to do more than fall into Luciente’s concentration as into a fast stream, the waters churning her under. She came to propped against the wall of the seclusion room. The tears had dried on the sleeve of her faded dress. She lay down at once on the bare, piss‑stained mattress and fell asleep.
FOUR
Spring in the violent ward was only more winter, except for a little teasing of the eyeballs when she stood at the high, heavily barred window. The radiators still pumped blasts of heat into the air that the smell of disinfectant and stale bodies turned into a foul broth. Pain and terror colored the air of Ward L‑6. Pain silvered the air; when she was lurching into drugged sleep, pain sloshed over from the other beds. Yet spring finally came to Ward L one April Wednesday.