“Just let me know if you need to go outside.”
Vanja straightened. “No, no need. Can we get started?”
Nina looked at her for a moment, frowning. Then she nodded and continued down the corridor.
They spent the morning visiting the different units. Amatka’s population suffered from lifestyle diseases and work injuries: bad backs from work in the plant houses and the mushroom farm; cardiovascular disease; osteoporosis. And depression, everywhere depression.
“It’s a little darker here than in Essre, have you noticed?” Nina said.
Vanja shook her head. “I think dawn and dusk come at roughly the same times as usual.”
“No, it’s not that. The daylight is weaker. It’s at ninety percent of the brightness in Essre.”
“Who says?”
“The research department.”
“Oh.” Vanja considered this. “What does it feel like?”
“Feels? I’m used to it. But you must have noticed it’s dimmer.”
“Maybe a little… No. Not really.”
“Well. That’s how it is, in any case. That’s why we have the light rooms.” Nina pushed open a pair of double doors.
The corridor they entered was more brightly lit. The doors on either side had little windows that revealed rooms entirely furnished in white. Every room was populated by people in white coats who sat in white reclining chairs, their legs wrapped in white blankets. Ceiling lamps spread a bluish-white light.
“Anyone can go in here when they need to,” Nina said, and nodded at the door closest to them. “Some come every day. Most people come about once a week or every other week.”
“Does it help?” Vanja squinted at the patients. Most were reading books or deep in conversation.
“It does. Most of the time. And don’t forget we have coffee, too.” Nina winked at Vanja. “But I suppose we’re all a little melancholy, even those of us who aren’t ill.”
Nina left Vanja in the clinic’s storeroom and went to take care of some administrative task or other. Vanja busied herself making an inventory of the hygiene products stacked on the shelves: soap, rubbing alcohol, cream, lubricant, disinfectant. The unease that the stench permeating the corridors had stirred up in her chest slowly dissipated. It crept back when the door opened and Nina came back in.
“How are you doing?”
Vanja frowned at her list. “Not sure any of this is useful. You only use the commune’s products. Are there things you don’t stock? Things you might need?”
Nina sucked her front teeth. “Don’t think so.”
Vanja put a bottle of lotion back on the shelf. “I’m done. Let’s move on.”
“There are only a few more units left to see. This way.”
They went down a set of stairs and into yet another white corridor, where a pair of double doors were marked DOORS TO FERTILITY UNIT. Nina pushed the doors open, releasing a fresh puff of disinfectant smell. The stink crept into Vanja’s nostrils and down into her stomach, sending it into a new spasm. Nina paused with a hand on the right door and looked over her shoulder.
“What’s wrong?”
Vanja shook her head. “We don’t need to go in there,” she said.
“Why not?”
“How about we just say we’re done.”
Nina gazed at Vanja and then at the sign on the door. “All right.”
She turned back and headed in the opposite direction. Vanja followed her. They were alone in the corridor; the sound of Nina’s shoes echoed against the walls.
“Do you have children, Vanja?” Nina’s voice was low.
“No.” The word sounded harsh.
Nina’s voice softened further. “You’ve been to that kind of unit quite recently, haven’t you?”
Vanja glanced sideways. Nina’s face didn’t have the expression of sickly pity that her sister’s and Marja’s had had. On the contrary, she looked a little weary. Vanja nodded and squeezed her lips shut so they wouldn’t quiver. Her eyes stung.
Nina sighed and ran the back of her hand down Vanja’s arm. “It’s hard.”
“Yes.” Vanja pulled away.
“I’m sure they did everything they could for you. Sometimes that’s just how it is. It happens more often than people think.”
Vanja hummed and crossed her arms over her chest.
“I should warn you, our children are visiting this weekend,” Nina said as they reached the end of the corridor. “If that’s too difficult, then… we could find some other solution.”
“No. It’s not that.”
“Then what is it?”
“Uh.” Vanja’s face was warm and tingly. The words wouldn’t quite get into sequence. She breathed in and out a few times. “It’s not that. I don’t care about your children. It’s… I don’t care about them.”
Nina stood still, studying her with a deep frown.
“I’ll be going now. Thank you,” said Vanja. “I can find my way to the dressing room.”
Nina nodded slowly. The frown didn’t disappear. “You’re welcome.”
Vanja walked back the way they had come, fighting the impulse to run. As she walked past a set of double doors, they opened to let through an orderly pushing a wheelchair. The woman in the wheelchair was dressed in a paper gown. Her temples were shaved and scabbed over. She stared blindly into the air. The orderly gave Vanja a sharp glance and moved past her.
The woman had been taken care of, like Lars had been taken care of, like everyone who spoke out of turn were taken care of. There was no death penalty in the colonies. Dissidents had to be stopped from endangering the community, however. The procedure that destroyed the brain’s speech center was an elegant solution. Vanja ran the last few steps to the exit.
The cold air in the street rinsed the clinic’s stench out of Vanja’s nostrils. Few people were out at this time of day, but she still felt claustrophobic. The whole colony and its buildings crowded her. She went home to pack her satchel.
Vanja followed the fat water conduit eastward. To her right and left the plant houses marked Amatka’s perimeter. Beyond the plant houses there was only the tundra and a narrow path along the irrigation pipeline. The lake was visible as a broad gray band on the horizon. It separated ground and sky, made them two distinct units.
It was a longer walk down to the bay than Nina had said. A slight breeze blew across the tundra, and Amatka’s sounds gradually faded behind her. The silence made her ears ring.
She had been outside a colony once before, beyond the protective shell of civilization or a vehicle. Leaving the colony wasn’t forbidden as such, but straying outside the narrow safe zone was intensely discouraged. Good citizens kept inside the plant-house ring. Only eccentrics ventured farther out willingly.
East of Essre, out on the steppe, there was a place about which everyone knew, but of which it was inappropriate to speak. Lars had spoken about it sometimes, only to Vanja and in whispers, when Vanja and Ärna came for their weekend visits.
When the pioneers arrived, Lars said, they discovered they weren’t the first. Out on the steppe, east of what would become Essre, they came across a cluster of empty buildings. Whoever had once lived there had left no other trace. The architecture was alien, the proportions inhuman: huge, lumbering houses with odd angles. And despite the fact that the buildings lacked anything resembling markings or letters, they were completely solid. The place was off-limits, but everyone knew that this was where they put criminals: far away from everyone else, in a place they couldn’t ruin. One wonders who the builders were, Lars would breathe, and why we can’t go there. Nobody knows where we are. But we’re not allowed to speak of it.