High above the furthest doorway, in the back of the balcony at the back of the assemblage entire, a boy just of age and only recently fatherless raises his hand out of nowhere, then shouts. Ooo Ooo Ooo, call on me…over here — what question can he have; heaven forbid us assume. There’s a great rustling, a jocose jostle, as the kid’s accommodated, he’s handed toward the front, the crowding unclothed passing him to each other, up and over one another to the railing, his feet to dangle over the balcony’s filigreed edge. Perched there as if a musing God, a philosopher, or a miniature king just resting a little, still mulling, he scratches his head as if he’s only now lost the nerve; then, after a moment clears his throat and with his voice just breaking asks his question out into space — as if a tiny planet, to be accompanied by the murmur of moons.
The kid says, when do we eat?
Suddenly, amid hushes in shushes, pshts, fingers held to lips pursed in thirst — try to behave yourself, set an example, fix your hair, look your best — two goyim have entered the Hall, coming in up the stairs then through the crowd with their escort, guardparting with elbows, prodding with nightsticks, they’re proceeding down the aisle to the steps up to the dais on risers: one Doctor Abuya trying for dapper in a dark suit blue or black they can’t tell which, white shirt, slickly red silken tie, he’s pudgy, pasty, an excess of face beset by jowls, fatty as if of plastic gulleting between where the chins should be the chin, a wad of white hair messy atop the glaringly inclusive forehead, presently adorned with the unflatteringly rectilinear metallic glasses of a goy you can only trust never to trust, and so you know him — his eyes distorting his face with squint, like dimples made by fingers, knobbily kneaded into the face of unleavenable dough; the other goy, to be known to them as the Nachmachen, is taller and leaner though for now largely inscrutable in a tight robe that flows to the heels, hermetically dark and expensively hooded: half alterebbe, half secretsociety monk (a shadow purse of lips, a crescent bone of nose); everyone thinking in whispers, how important does he have to be to get away with a uniform like that. Doctor Abuya grips the podium, uncomfortable, stiff and shifty, his knuckles pale as if he’s at stool. And then silence — until he sighs, loosens, holds his pants in his hands, hoists the band up to his waist. From his hood, the Nachmachen forces a cough that’s a signal. A swath of slate descends. Chalk is brought, a clutch of bonewhite fingers borne to Doctor Abuya atop a pillow trimmed in plaited lace; the young Arab assistant retreats, scampers back into the wings. The Doctor feints to follow him off, his hands held behind the back, his stomach sagging him hunched, but he’s only pacing, around and around the surface, suspended. A blackboard hanging unsettled with the weather inside. The stripped boys and those older, beyond death, they sit, they stand, they throng, impatient but laudably so given the circumstances, who would believe; their eyes and heads follow his pacing; their ears swell, the hairs prickle; they pay attention through the nose — sniffling, an occasional sneeze. Only silence and the goy’s fatty footfalls, until — a screech…then, erasure by a coat edge, charily pinstriped wool stained with white. A small laugh bursts out from the assembled, in odd, nervous clumps, and the Nachmachen stomps a foot on the dais, carpeted in thick blue, which mutes his reprimand to a muffle. On the board slightly swaying, blackness is quickly being covered in markings, with numbers and letters in fingernail scratches like unhealing scars, desperate scrapes either for life, or against it—the Schedule…
0600 is Reveille, meaning wakeup, they’re advised, with a rousingly roostery trumpet, the metallic horn of a mechanical ram: the morning’s sounding of the Garden’s siren, which had been made to alert to air war, to send people a lifetime since dead, their entire families and livestock and what food and drink they could and candles by now a century past eaten and drunk and kindled extinguished down into the earth deep into their bunkers, to huddle amid the graves and the dust to wait out within them the damning fire and sky — it had been looted from a town in Europa, which has since been forgotten, in Polandland it was, a village whose name in any language has gone unremembered, untongued. It sounds loudly and long once again, though this here’s just a test to make them familiar: conditioning, call it, to put the fear of governance into them, to install the alarm in their souls. Then, static pours through the PA, whose speakers, they’ll find, are rigged up and wired throughout, perched like rusted nests on the signposts, boughdeep buried in the trees, suspended from every ceiling corner, screwed under grates, secreted down crawlspaces, inaccessible ducts, under each pillow, feedback, in our very own mouths…
Shalom, Garden! the Voice says, that of their new deity who’s to be referred to only as Das, good morning!
Overhead, generationold fluorescents go mercury mad gas discharge, flick flick flicker, remain fixed.
On the square just outside, a slip of water once used for docking and now, frozenover, an orchestra tunes, warming up for the Flag Raising, delayed.
As for the flag, for now it’s just a naked pole, as no one knows which stars to fly — the fifty spangles of fivepointed, or the single whose points number six, maybe both. We’ll keep you informed; it’s still being worked out in committee.
0630 is the time of Morning Prayer, which is known as Shacharit, don’t ask — with a projected thousand minyans open to any denomination; rabbis off to form groups, scrambling to put in the forms for tallis and Torah. A guide to available services is to be posted like teffilin between your eyes, upon your arms, then on the walls between the two Commissaries; check it, as there should be daily updates.
On the Sabbath, though, things are different, and on Fridays late, too, when the holy begins. Shabbos it’s called, mark it TBA — we’ll proceed; I’m sure you’re all very hungry…
And so you’ll be excited to know that everything’s kosher. Always, it’s glatt, rest assured: no outside food’s ever allowed. Mehadrin. The Shade Administration vouches; the President’s given the hechsher himself. Hope that answers your question. What else? We begin serving at 0700, and provide three meals per day. Our menu revolves each moon, regurgitates you might say. All meals are served in the Commissary, which you’ll find labeled on the maps provided as #7…and there’s a mass folding over, an accordion wheeze of outscrolled paper, a squeezeboxy tear. Might we share, mind if I save myself over your shoulder. Seven, sieben, sept, sette, siete, siedem, hét…interpreters secreted throughout the Hall call out numbers, the informative Babel. On offer are all your favorite popular cereals of sugared flakes, and healthy granola, too, müsli with seasonal fruits to top (allow us to take the opportunity to thank our wonderful sponsors, including ten or so companies allied with prominent senators and a conglomerate or two for which President Shade had once been on board), along with a full complement of milks, percentaged whole to skim and flavored almond, butter, chocolate, and soy, those for the lactose intolerant. Of course, we’re speaking of the Milk Commissary, it’s the dairy that’s talking; you’ll find the Meat nextdoor, labeled with the #8 and eight echoes throughout: acht, huit, otto, ocho, osiem, nyolc, BOCEM