The Wall

My eyes were bulged out of my head in disbelief. Matthew covered his mouth with his hand and laughed. The woman turned to him, cupping her hand over his ear, and whispered dramatically, “I thought you said she was clever?”

At this point, Joseph fell backwards on his mattress and started laughing uncontrollably. I walked to the glass and glared at him.

“Ooh, ouch,” he said. “If looks could kill.”

“If only!” I said.

Matthew tapping on the glass brought me back. “This is my grandmother, Adleta.”

Grandmother? I know I looked confused. My face scrunched up like if I refocused my eyes, she would look young again and things would make more sense. Suspecting my confusion, Matthew explained, “She is my father’s mother.”

“But how is she still alive? How did you find her?” I said, feeling more stupid every time I spoke. But this crumpled-up bag of skin didn’t look like a person to me. Her words sounded real enough, she seemed to have a lot of life in her, but I couldn’t quite grasp the idea of this being allowed, or even possible.

I nodded slowly, taking her whole form in. “Adleta,” I repeated. She was tiny, shorter than me. She looked like it was just her clothing holding her together. Her skin was sagging over her eyebrows, her cheeks slipping off her face like melting wax, but she wasn’t frightening. Just foreign. I could see Matthew in her bright eyes. That kindness and kinship was there.

“Call me Addy, please. I’m alive because I want to be. And he didn’t find me; I’ve always been here. I’m like the furniture, dear, old but sturdy,” she said, smiling crookedly; it looked like an effort to move her cheeks that far up her face.

Orry cried. He let out one long, howling note and then took several sharp intakes of breath like he was panicking. It was a noise that pierced right through me. He missed me. I knew it. I could feel it.

“May I?” she asked me.

“I guess,” I said shyly.

She approached the door without putting on the gloves and mask.

“I thought you were all worried we would make you sick or something,” I challenged.

“Like you said—I’m so old. I shouldn’t even be alive. I’m not scared of your Woodland germs,” she said dismissively, waving a wrinkled, bark-like hand at me.

Matthew stopped her. “Addy, you need to put on the suit. Otherwise, we will have to quarantine you as well.”

The old woman made a clucking sound with her tongue. “Very well, doctor man. You’re the boss.” She held her hand to her head in mock salute. He smiled back at her with such affection I felt embarrassed to be party to it.

Matthew helped her into the big, plastic coveralls, booties, and facemask while I watched her old limbs struggling to lift and maneuver their way into pant legs and armholes. She made an inordinate amount of noise for someone so small. Each movement of her bony body crackled and sighed like she was made of brittle sticks. It was almost too painful to watch.

Finally, she bustled through Orry’s door, large bag in hand, her oversized, plastic suit swishing with static. Placing the bag on the floor, she pulled out a knitted rabbit and placed it at the end of the cot. Matthew sighed and rolled his eyes. “You’ll have to leave that bag there now,” he said, trying to sound aggravated but coming off more amused. She rolled her eyes back and made a ‘pfft’ noise.

She scooped Orry up, who screamed at first, wriggling and fighting. Just like his mother, I thought. But she wrapped him up tightly and rocked him back and forth. She was strong. When she picked up Orry, I imagined she would crumple like a paper figure but she had him. He stopped crying. He felt secure.

She started singing.

“Are you trying to torture my child?” I asked.

Why would you sing about a baby falling out of a tree? It would give them nightmares. She paused, smiled, and changed the song.

Her voice was soft and dusty at first, but once she brushed it off, it was beautiful. The words were lilting and comforting. Rhythmic. And Orry responded to it immediately. The rise and fall of the melody brought tears to my eyes. How I ever lived in a world without music, I’ll never know. She sang about trying to get home. Once there was a way to get back home. The words flew over me and transcribed our experiences perfectly. Sleep, pretty darling, don’t you cry. I thought she was finished but then the last part gave me goose bumps all over my skin. How did she know?

Golden slumbers fill your eyes.

Smiles await you when you rise.

Sleep , pretty darling

Do not cry.

And I will sing a lullaby.

Orry calmed down and the old woman placed him gently in his cot. She stretched her back after he was down and planted herself in a chair in front of my cage.

“What was that?” I said, desperation pitching my voice higher. I was clinging to it.

She clucked her tongue. “You’ve never heard The Beatles before?” She shook her head like she was so very sorry for me.

“Can you teach me?”

She nodded. “Sure, but first you have to do something for me.”

“Ok,” I said, suspiciously. Matthew had walked away, talking to one of the other doctors.

“It’s give and take here,” she said in a matter-of-fact voice. “What can you do, apart from be a smart mouth?”

I paused. It had been so long since I’d done anything useful. I noticed the chair she was sitting on was wobbling, creaking every time she shifted her weight.

“If you bring me some tools, I can fix that,” I said, pointing to the chair.

“Deal. As long as it doesn’t end up a pile of splinters or slammed against the wall,” she said sternly but with a hint of humor to her voice.

So my education with Addy began.

Every day she brought me things to fix and in return, she helped me with Orry. She taught me songs, gave him toys, and answered my questions.

When I asked her about the Survivors, she tried her best to answer everything in detail. I wore her out, though. Quite often, she would fall asleep in the chair mid-conversation and I would have to wait until she had rested before continuing. Her age, and the way she behaved because of it, was intriguing to me. She was smart and aware like an adult, but she needed as much sleep as a baby.

I managed to find out the Survivors had been nomadic for the most part, moving from town to town until they settled here about twenty years ago. It seemed close to the Woodlands but it was far enough away that the helicopters, which were battery powered, always ran out of juice and had to return to the solar-charging stations before they could reach the settlement. The people were mostly of Russian, Mongolian, and Chinese descent. There were only a few Chinese—the Superiors hadn’t lied about that—as they were almost completely wiped out. Clothes were scavenged from abandoned factories, as were ca

Beyond the city was nothing, a vast blackness of dust and destruction. People who had dragged themselves from those ruins were diseased, or almost dead. Hardly anyone survived the first few years.

The population was small—maybe three thousand.

She had the same small charm around her neck, which she played with while she talked. It hung between her collarbones, her wrinkly skin and neck trying to envelope it with their sagginess. “What is it?” I asked.

She removed it and looked both ways before passing it through the door. She dropped it and it landed on the ground with a metallic chink. Examining it closely, it was just a simple circle of metal with a square hole in it.

“During a routine scavenge, we found a big metal box, as big as a house, standing out against all the rubble. Inside, we found millions of these, as well as stacks upon stacks of small slips of paper. We took some and thought it would be a useful way of identifying members of the community. Everyone has one. You’ll get one too.”