The Mark. Edyth Bulbring
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up the stairs onto the main street. At some point, people will search their bags for their things and find them missing. But I will not be there to see it.
The Posh wander past me in the main street. Perfume fails to mask their sweat smell. It curdles my stomach. There is nothing more disgusting than the smell of the Posh.
They play racquet and ball on the sidewalks. They call out to each other in high voices, each syllable an ice chip. Their slanted eyes, shuttered behind dark glasses do not see me.
I am a girl of many masks. The one I wore for the Locust was a girl in distress. The face I wear as I kill time on the pavements is the face of a nobody. I become invisible to the somebodies.
The ball hits me on the side of my face. A Posh kid laughs. “Nice shot.” The ball rolls into the street. “Hey, you there. Go fetch. Fetch our ball,” he shouts, waving his racquet at me.
I fetch it.
I wander up and down the promenade, roasting the soles of my feet on the concrete. I wipe sweat and seeping fluid from my blistered face.
The siren screams. Back to the ghetto. I check the sun. It hangs low in the sky. Clouds like clots of blood lie over the taxi rank. I hustle for a ride, along with everyone else on their way home. Too many people, too slow. As a taxi rolls away, I jump on and squeeze myself inside. Sun-scorched flesh traps me in my seat.
Market Nags laugh and slap their hands on their knees as they recall how lucky they were to escape the monster.
“I felt it as I ran out of the water. Did you see the way it chased that child onto the beach?”
“It nearly ate me, but I got away.”
I make my ears go deaf to their nonsense. The taxi Pulaks, harnessed in pairs, strain as they haul the carriage. One stumbles, and his partner takes his elbow to steady him. The taxi warden up front flicks his whip over the Pulak’s back. “Move faster, you useless sack of bones,” he shouts.
My face, squashed against the moist arm of a Market Nag grows numb. Sleep whispers to me. But I must stay alert. The wound on my spine warns me. I claw at my back and the pain jolts me awake. Rule Number Four: never shut your eyes until you are home safe. If I obey Handler Xavier’s rules of the game, I will not get caught.
The Pulaks drag us through the gates and over the bridge that spans the river separating the ghetto from Mangeria City. Water the colour of vomit and thick with debris spills from the sewers.
The taxi empties at the entrance to our ghetto. Slum City we call it – its official name rejected and long forgotten. My spine tingles. I check to see if anyone is following me. Check again. I am safe. I fix my eyes to the ground and trudge past the Locusts manning the booms.
“Where’s your pass?” a Locust says. I stop. He reaches past me and grabs a man trying to slip under the boom. “We’re on curfew. You can’t leave the ghetto without a pass.”
“I’ll be really quick,” the man says. The Locust silences him with a gloved fist and turns him back.
I stop outside a block of flats in Section O. Home. High-rises shedding their paint. Washing on balconies, people calling out across narrow passages between the buildings. I do not look at them or listen to their gossip. I pretend I am not there. They neither see me nor call out to me.
My feet fight with broken toys and rubbish cluttering the stairwell as I take the stairs to the fourth floor. The stench of unwashed children assails me. As I climb, I follow the fungus trail on the walls that is fed by leaking pipes. I wipe my hands down my shorts when I reach my floor. I hear him whistling outside my room.
Handler Xavier is pacing the corridor. “What took you so long? Where’ve you been, Ettie?”
“I came home at final curfew.” I bow my head under his gaze and enter my room.
A girl looks up at me from the mattress on the floor. Kitty Seven, my roommate and partner in the game. Her eyes are red from crying while I have been barbecuing my feet on the streets.
Unlike me, Kitty does not wear masks. Everything she thinks is written on her face. And as much as I have tried to teach her to lock down her heart and muffle her thoughts, nothing helps. She cannot learn the way of masks.
Even when Kitty is sad or scared, like now, she is always beautiful. Yet it is a mystery. Her nose is too flat, her cheeks are too plump, her eyebrows too thick. It is as though all the pieces have collaborated to make her lovely.
When I look at her, I feel that I must be lovely too. That it is something I might catch, like sun sickness. But beauty is not something I have ever been accused of.
I toss my sunglasses on the table by the mattress and step over the pile of stuff on the floor: sunglasses, a stack of credits, some jewellery, sunblockers. I empty my bag and add to the pile.
“Is that all? It’s a sad haul for such a long day.” Handler Xavier sweeps his eyes across my face.
I promise with my hand on my heart and hope to starve to death. My mask hides my deceit.
Handler Xavier spends his words like a scrooge. His curt ways make people think he is stupid. But I know what he is. He is a sponge. Always listening, watching, absorbing the words and actions of those in his presence. I have to be careful around him.
“You were careless today, Kitty. That Locust saw something suspicious. If it hadn’t been for Ettie over here acting as a distraction, he’d have bust you.” Handler Xavier squeezes my arm. Hard, on my blisters. I do not want his approval, but I must not shrug him off. He must never have reason to doubt me. “Good thing that Locust didn’t report your number, Ettie.”
Kitty cowers on the mattress. “I’m sorry. I made a mistake. I’m sorry. I’ll try harder next time.”
I dismiss her sorries. “She won’t learn. I’m sick of her.” I set my face in stone, avoiding her swollen eyes. “She flies too close to the sun and I always have to risk the burn for her when she messes up. I won’t pay the price for her stupid mistakes any more.”
I know it is not going to work, but I try anyway. I want the handler to take Kitty off the game. To let me work alone so that she will be safe. One day I will not be there to protect her.
The handler shakes his head. “She’ll play the game with you until you’re done. She may be slow, but she’s pretty. There’ll be days when we’ll need the men to be looking her way.”
Handler Xavier pockets the credits and waves his hand over the stuff on the floor. Yes, he’s counted it. “One of you take this to Cowboy at the market. I’ve got to check on the others. Let’s hope they did better than you two rubbishes today.”
When he is gone, I go to a corner of the room and lift a paver from the floor. I reach inside the hole where we two keep our secrets. Safe from the handler. Always looking to catch us out.
Among our special things that I had left behind this morning – Kitty’s ribbons, Kitty’s lip paint, Kitty’s hair clips – were two mangoes. One of these apparently exists in the past tense.
“Where’s the other mango? I know I had two this morning,” I say.
Kitty lowers her eyes.
“You’re a greedy-guts, Kitty. Those were mine.” But I am glad. I do not want her getting sick.
I toss her the last mango and she catches it with her left hand. Bracelets jangle, sliding from her wrist to her elbow, concealing the scar that reminds me how much I owe her.
She tears the plastic off the mango with her teeth. I watch her eat, the juice running down the sides of her mouth. I cannot mask the complaint that comes from my stomach. She opens the doors to the balcony, sucks at the mango as she watches the people below.
I slip the book from under my shirt. It has hidden against my stomach most of the day. My skin has been branded with a red rectangle.
I open the book, and yellow paper