A metal door clanged behind him and his body automatically tensed. Roll call was early and he knew, as all prisoners know, that any break with routine could mean trouble. He faced the door of the cell and promised himself that he must resist. Resist what? He couldn’t have said. But the impulse itself held the last glowing ember of his self-respect.
The cell banged open and daggers of light pierced the dimness.
“83915,” the guard said gruffly.
“83915, sir.” It came automatically.
“Collect your possessions.”
Devin began to gather his belongings. He took a change of clothes—a shirt and pants of scratchy denim, which now hung loose on his tall and wiry frame—and a comb that he could drag only with difficulty through his heavy beard, which had now become flecked with gray. By reflex, he packed a tick book entitled The New Understanding and the New America, whose turgid prose all prisoners could recite by heart but none believed. Last, and with special care, he placed in the duffel bag a Polaroid snapshot of two small boys.
“Let’s go—chop-chop!”
Devin, in reply, walked to the cell door, duffel in tow, and faced the guard. The guard was short and sullen, and he stared intimidatingly at Devin for a moment, then stood aside. Devin marched out of his cell and into the dank corridor that smelled of stale cigarettes and urine. He did not know where he was being taken, but he knew that he was not afraid. What might come next could not be worse than what had gone before.
Andrei Demsov’s penthouse floated high above Chicago, a haven of pleasure and power amid the drab remains of a once-great metropolis. In his entryway alcove, a spray of fresh flowers glowed in the soft light, casting their lavender perfume. Against the huge windows with their commanding view of the oddly quiet city, leather settees suggested indolence and sociability.
Kimberly Ballard, slipping out of her coat in the dimness of the hallway, felt the same mix of emotions she had experienced the very first time she had visited Andrei here. A dizzying sense of privilege mingled with unease; qualms of conscience coexisted with the unquestioning sensuality of luxury. As though brushing those qualms away, she ran a hand through her streaky blond hair, and though she thought she was alone, she instinctively smoothed the silk dress that she was both embarrassed and delighted to own.
She entered the living room and reached for the dimmer that controlled the lights. Midway through the gesture, her arm was grabbed roughly. In that first instant of baffled surprise, Kimberly felt neither fear nor anger, but only sadness that even here, in the apartment of her powerful protector, there seemed to be no safety. She could barely muster the will to resist the grasp that held her.
It was Andrei.
Kimberly smiled. She could not find it within herself to resent his frightening her. She was used to feeling frightened.
Andrei refused to smile back. “God, you’re stupid,” he snapped.
Kimberly tried to step away, startled by this unexpected welcome, but he tightened his grip on her arm.
“What’s wrong?”
“I worked all night, but I took a break at midnight.” He paused, awaiting a response, “I went to the little church where you and your Mends put on your little play. Your banned, illegal, outlaw play.”
A small smile played upon her mouth. She was an American beauty attracted to power but filled with impetuous moods and spontaneous reactions.
Kimberly leaned into him, pleased in spite of herself that he had watched her perform. She playfully togged at his loosened tie. “Did you hear me sing?”
Andrei released his grip and stepped back, gesturing in frustration. “Do you have any idea what a difficult position you put me in? Any idea at all?”
She brushed past him toward the bedroom. “I can do anything I want,” she said petulantly, without a backward glance.
He shook his head as he wearily followed her into the bedroom. “No, you can’t. You can’t, I can’t, nobody can.”
“You don’t own me,” she said, sitting on the edge of the enormous bed and kicking off her shoes.
“No, I don’t.” She rose and started for the closet. He grabbed her by both shoulders and pulled her toward him. “But that doesn’t-mean you can do anything you want.” He kissed her roughly. She kissed back, laughing a little. He raised his eyebrows, his face softening. “What?”’
“You haven’t answered my question.”
His expression was blank.
“Did you hear me sing?”
He nodded. “Some.”
“How was I?”
He laughed, shaking his head in disbelief. “You absolutely amaze me.”
“Did you cry?”
He looked at her defensively. “Don’t be silly.”
“You did, you did!” She kissed Mm joyfully. “You see, it’s so sweet, so innocent. Why would you ban a play like The Fantasticks?”
He began to undo his tie and sat on the edge of the bed. His cologne carried with it a whiff of clove that always made Kimberly want to inflate deeply against his neck. She sat next to him, tracing his thigh with her fingertips.
“I will grant you that censorship is an imperfect science, but it is our policy to discourage art that agitates the human spirit.” A small smile began to play on his lips. “And The Fantasticks is art, however minor.”
She slipped out of her dress—the surest way she knew to prevent Andrei from holding forth too long on politics and theory. “It’s so dumb,” she said, standing rather incongruously, in her slip, in front of a row of formal portraits of Andrei with various world leaders: the aged Castro of Greater Cuba, Mbele of the Socialist Republic of Southern Africa, Barghout of Iraquistan. “You know people will go to plays,” Kimberly went on, “whether or not you ban them. And they’ll continue to listen to good music and to read good books.”
“Yes, my dear, but it is demoralizing to have your pleasures made illegal, to have good taste be a crime,” he said, unbuttoning his shirt. “Also it makes it easy for us, when we wish to discipline someone. Every person of taste is by definition a criminal.”
She stepped in front of Mm and took over the task of removing bis clothing. She loved the first touch of his skin after his crisp shirt slid from his chest. “I hate politics,” she said.
“It is vastly hatable. But necessary.” His shirt now discarded, he hooked one finger underneath the thin strap of her slip, pulling it off her shoulder.
She pushed Mm back onto the bed, playfully tumbling on top of him. “Andrei,” she teased, “tonight, when you came to the church and saw us, if you hadn’t been my lover, would you have had us arrested?”
He rolled on top of her, gently grabbing a handful of her hair. “Yes. The others would have been jailed. You, however, would have been brought here for special treatment.”
Peter Bradford was awakened at dawn by his inner alarm dock. He lay on his back staring at the ceiling, thinking. His sense of duty allowed no transition period between his dreams and the reality of the day, and his mind was at once active. Active and angular—the words described Bradford’s face as well as his personality. He had a square, set jaw, and a determined and almost severe tautness in his smile. Only the eyes suggested humor and softness—and perhaps, as some people saw it, a certain lack of resolve. Peter’s thoughts were accompanied by the steady breathing of his wife and partner of the past twenty years.
He got out of bed carefully so as not to disturb Amanda. There had been a time, before the takeover, when no matter how rough his exit, Amanda slept on. She’d been serene, and she’d looked it, with smooth skin, a ready smile, and eyes full of mischief and affection. Since the takeover, her sleep had become more fractured—riddled with uneasy dreams and fears that had left their tracks across her cheeks and brow.