Sims Bancorp Colony File #3245.12
Between her toes the damp earth felt cool, but already
sweat crept between the roots of her hair. It would be
hotter today than yesterday, and by noon the lovely spice-
scented red flowers of the dayvine would have furled their
fragile cups, and drooped on the vine. Ofelia pushed the
mulch deeper against the stems of the tomatoes with her
foot. She liked the heat. If her daughter-in-law Rosara
weren't within sight, she would take off her hat and let
the sweat evaporate. But Rosara worried about cancer from
the sun, and Rosara was sure it wasn't decent for an old
woman to be outside with nothing on her head but thinning
gray hair.
Not that it was so thin. Ofelia touched her temples, as if
to tuck an errant strand in place, but really to confirm
the thick strands of the braid she wore. Still thick, and
her legs still strong, and her hands, though knotted with
age and work, still capable. She eyed her daughter-in-law,
at the far end of the garden. Scrawny, hair the color of
scorched paper, eyes of mud. Thought she was beautiful,
with her narrow waist and her pale hands, but Ofelia knew
better. She had always known better, but Barto would not
listen to a mother's wisdom, and now he had Rosara of the
narrow body—like a snake, Ofelia had said once only—and no
children.
She minded that less than the others thought. She could
have welcomed a daughter-in-law independent enough to
refuse children. No, it was Rosara's determination to
enforce on her mother-in-law all the petty rules intended
to preserve the virtue of virgins . . . that she could not
tolerate.
“We should have planted morebeans,” Rosara called. She had
said that at planting, knowing that Ofelia could not use
all the beans she normally grew. She wanted Ofelia to grow
beans to sell, as well as beans to eat.
“We have enough,” Ofelia said.
“If the crop does not fail,” Rosara said.
“If the crop fails, a bigger crop would be a bigger
failure,” Ofelia said. Rosara snorted, but did not
contradict. Perhaps she was finally learning that it did
no good to argue. Ofelia hoped so. Ofelia went on working
on the tomatoes, pushing the mulch here and there, tying
up straggling ends of the vines. Rosara claimed the tomato
vines made her skin itch; she stayed away from them.
Ofelia hunkered down to hide a smile as she thought of
this, enjoying the strong green tomato smell.
She dozed off, there among the tomatoes, rousing only when
the slanting afternoon light probed between the rows.
Light in her eyes had always waked her; she was still sure
she had not slept at all in the cryo tanks because the
lights stayed on all the time. Humberto had said that was
ridiculous, that no one was awake in cryo, that was the
point. Ofelia had not argued, but she was sure she
remembered the light, always stabbing through her eyelids.
Now, lying drowsy on the crumbly mulch between the rows of
tomatoes, she thought how peaceful it looked, that little
green jungle. Silent, too, for once; Rosara must have gone
back inside without noticing she was asleep. Or perhaps
the bitch didn't care. Ofelia rolled the insult on her
tongue, silently, savoring it. Bitch. Slut. She didn't
know many such words, which gave the few in her vocabulary
extra richness, all the anger that some people spread over
many words on many occasions.
Bartolomeo's voice in the street cut across her reverie,
and she sat up as fast as she could, hissing at the pain
in her hip and knees.
“Rosara! Rosara, come out!” He sounded excited or angry or
both. He often did. Most of the time it was nothing, but
he would never admit it, even afterward. Of all her
children, Barto was the one Ofelia had liked least, even
in infancy; he had been a greedy nurser, yanking on her
nipples as if she could never be enough for him. He had
grown from greedy infancy to demanding childhood, the son
whom nothing satisfied; he had quarreled incessantly with
the other children, demanding fairness which always meant
his benefit. In manhood he was the same, the traits she
had liked least in Humberto magnified ten times. But he
was her only living child, and she understood him.
“What?” Rosara sounded snappish; either she had been
napping (something Barto and Ofelia both disapproved of)
or working on her computer.
“It's the Company—they've lost the franchise.”
A shriek from Rosara. It might mean that for once Barto
was upset about something worth the trouble, or it might
mean that she had just found a pimple on her chin. With
Rosara, it might be either, or anything in between. Ofelia
struggled to her knees, then, with a hand on a tomato
stake, to her feet. Her vision grayed slightly and she
waited for it to come back. Age. Everyone said it was age,
and it would get worse. She didn't think it was that bad,
except when people wanted her to hurry, and she
couldn't. “Mama!” Barto, bursting out the kitchen door
into the garden. Ofelia was glad to be upright and
obviously working; it gave her a tiny bit of moral
leverage.
“Yes?” She had spotted a fat caterpillar, and when he
loomed over her she had it fast in the loop. “See?”
“Yes, mama. That's nice. Listen, it's important—”
“A good crop this year,” Ofelia said.
“Mama!” He leaned over, pushing his face into hers. He
looked more like Humberto than anyone else, yet Humberto
had had gentle eyes.
“I'm listening,” she said, putting out her hand to the
tomato stake again.
“The Company's lost the franchise,” he said, as if that
meant something.
“The Company's lost the franchise,” Ofelia repeated, to
prove she'd been listening. He often accused her of not
listening.
“You know what that means,” he said impatiently, but then
went on to tell her. “It means we have to leave. They're
yanking the colony.” Rosara had come out of the house
behind him; Ofelia could see the patches of red on her
cheeks.
“They can't do that! It's our home—!”
“Don't be stupid, Rosara!” Barto spat onto the tomato
plants, as if they were her body; Ofelia flinched, and he
glared at her. “Or you, mama. Of course they can make us
leave; we're their employees.”
Employees who never got paid, Ofelia said to herself.
Employees with no retirement, no medical benefits except
what they produced for each other. Employees who were
supposed to support themselves and produce a surplus. Not
that they had produced the regular shipments of tropical
woods that they'd been assigned . . . it had been years
since they'd had enough adults to continue logging.
“But I worked so hard!” Rosara wailed. For once Ofelia
agreed with her; she felt the same way. She looked
sideways at the tomato plants, avoiding Barto's glare,
focusing on the fringed margin of the leaves, the tiny
hairs bristling from the stems. The first flower buds hung
like little chandeliers, still folded tight, ready to open
in the light, take fire, and—
“Listen to me,” Barto insisted. His hand came between
Ofelia and the tomatoes, caught her chin and forced her
face around. “You still have a vote in the council, mama.
You have to come to the meeting. You have to vote with us.
We have a chance to choose where we're sent.”
A meeting. She hated meetings. She noticed he didn't tell
Rosara, but then he knew Rosara would come anyway, and
vote however he told her.
“A vote is a vote,” he told her now, louder, as if she
were deaf. “Even yours.” He released her chin. “Go inside
now; get ready.” Ofelia edged past him, her bare toes
safely distant from his hard-soled boots. “And wear
shoes!” he yelled after her. Behind her, his voice and
Rosara's were lower without being softer, harsh mutterings
she could not quite hear.
She had bathed, washed her hair, and put on the best
clothes she had left. The dress hung loosely now, the
waist dipping where she had nothing left above to fill the
bodice, the hem lifting behind to accommodate the stoop in
her back. On her feet, the shoes she had not worn for
months cramped her toes and rubbed her heels. She would
have blisters from this meeting, and what good would that
do? She had leaned her head on the kitchen door and heard
Barto tell Rosara that on another world his mother would
surely be forced to dress decently again. He meant wear
shoes, and a dark dress like this, all the time.
She sat quietly on the bench beside Rosara, and listened
to the sounds of grief and anger that filled the room.
Only a few saw this as opportunity—a few men, a few women,
about half the younglings. The rest saw only wasted years,
loss, misery. They had worked so hard, and for what? How
could they start over, face the same hard work again? Here
at least they had houses already built, gardens already
planted.
Carl and Gervaise interrupted the complaints and presented
the alternatives to vote on, though they never said how
they'd learned about them. Ofelia did not believe the
Company would give them a choice; she was sure the vote
would come to nothing. Still, when Barto reached across
Rosara to prod her ribs and hiss at her, she stood when he
did, voting for Neubreit rather than Olcrano. The others
voted for Neubreit, almost two thirds of them, and only
the most stubborn, like Walter and Sara, insisted they
would not go there.
Only at the end of the meeting, when she stood up and
turned around, did she notice the Company rep, standing at
the door. He had the sleek, youthful look of a shipman,
someone whose skin never saw starlight but through a
hatch. No sun had baked him; no winter had frozen him; no
rains had washed, or winds dried, him. In his crisp, clean
clothes, his polished shoes, he looked like an alien. He
said nothing. Before anyone could speak to him, he had
turned and walked away, into the darkness. Ofelia wondered
if he knew about the slimetrails, but of course he would
have shipeyes; he would be able to see where colonists
could not.
The next morning, Ofelia rose at dawn and went out into
the garden, barefooted as always and wearing her oldest
workshirt. Until the sun rose, she refused to wear her
hat, and so she saw the movement along the lane beyond the
garden, the Company reps in their crisp shipclothes. Many
of them. All wearing the same blue-gray uniforms the color
of morning fog, with the Sims Bancorp logo.
One of them stopped to stare back at her. “Ma'am,” he
said, unsmiling but polite.
The thing she loved most about dawn was the silence, the
emptiness of it. He stood there, as if he had a right to
ruin her morning solitude. He was going to ask questions,
and in courtesy she must answer them. She sighed, and
looked away, hoping he would think her too old and fuddled
to be worth his time.
“Ma'am, did you vote last night?”
He wasn't going away. She looked at him, seeing the youth,
the differentness . . . the skin untouched by weather, the
eyes that stared right at her as if he had the right. . . .
“Yes,” she said shortly. Then, because courtesy would not
allow her to be so abrupt, she found herself saying, “I
don't know what to call you . . . I don't mean to be rude.”
He smiled, genuinely amused. Was courtesy so rare among
the shipfolk still? “I wasn't offended,” he said. He came
nearer. “Are those real tomatoes?”
He had not answered her question. She would have to be
more direct. “I cannot talk to someone when I have no way
to address them,” she said. “My name is Sera Ofelia.”
“Oh—I'm Jorge. Sorry. You reminded me of my grandmother;
she calls me Ajo. But—do they really grow like this, in
the open . . . contaminated?”
Ofelia stroked the leaves with her hand, releasing the
heavy scent. “Yes, these are tomatoes, and yes, they grow
in the open air. They have no tomatoes now, of course;
they are just blooming.” She turned up several leaves to
show him the clusters of flower-buds.
“It's too bad,” he said, in the tone of one who is
politely regretting some inconvenience he will not himself
endure. “You have such a garden, and it's wasted—”
“Nothing is wasted,” Ofelia said.
“But you're leaving in thirty days,” the young man said.
She reminded herself that his name was Jorge and he had a
grandmother who loved him. That seemed impossible; he
could have popped from a gliss-wrapped package like the
holiday gifts of her childhood, brightly colored and
smooth all over. Surely he had not been born in blood and
mess like real children. “You don't have to work in the
garden anymore. You should be packing.”
“I like working in the garden,” Ofelia said. She wanted
him to go away. She wanted to find out what had just
changed in her, somewhere inside, when he said “But you're
leaving.” She looked down. On the ground, on top of the
mulch, a slimerod oozed along looking for something to
puncture with its one hard part, its little hollow
cylinder of shell. Ofelia picked it up by its soft hinder
end and watched it lengthen until it was at least ten
centimeters long and thin as yarn. Then she flicked it
around with a practiced snap of the wrist, and cracked its
shell on her other thumb. It made her thumb sting a
moment, but it was worth the sting for the look of shocked
horror on the young man's face.
“What was that?” he asked. From his expression, he
expected to hear something terrible. Ofelia obliged. “We
call it a slimerod,” she said. “And the piercing part is
like a medical needle, hollow, so it can suck—” She didn't
have to say more; the young man was backing away already.
“Can it go through . . . shoes?” He was staring now at her
bare feet. Ofelia grinned to herself, and made a show of
scratching the back of one leg with her other foot.
“It depends on the shoes,” she said. She supposed it might
go through a pair of thin cloth shoes with holes in them
already. And it didn't go through human skin (she didn't
know why) but she didn't say that. Mostly it went through
the stems of her plants, not finding what it wanted and
leaving wounds the plants spent precious calories mending.
But if it made the young man sick enough to go away, she
would imply horrors.
“I guess you'll be glad to leave,” the young man said.
“Excuse me,” Ofelia said. “I have to use the . . .” she
gestured at the shed at the end of the garden. That did
it; he flushed an uncomely color and turned away abruptly.
She almost giggled. He should have known they had inside
conveniences; the first thing the colonists had done was
install their waste recycler. But she was glad to see him
go. In case he turned back, she walked the rest of the way
to the toolshed and went in.
Ofelia had moved before. She knew that it took longer than
thirty days to move, if you tried to take things with you.
The Company reps had told people they need take nothing;
it would all be provided. But forty years is forty years,
a life- time for some, more than that for others. Few of
the originals were left; Ofelia was the oldest of these.
She had the clearest memory of other places, and she
sometimes woke with vivid flashes of that memory. The
smell of corn porridge spiced with mezul . . . a spice
that could not be grown here. She remembered the day she
had used the last of it, after Humberto died. The way the
street looked outside their apartment in Visiazh, with the
vendors' bright awnings over piles of ripe fruits and
vegetables, mounds of colorful clothes, racks of pots and
pans. She had thought once she could not live without that
much color, that much noise and that many people; she had
moped a whole year here, miserable until she found the one
kind of bright flower that would grow along the edge of
the garden.
She had little to pack. She had not drawn many clothes
from the community store in the past decade. Her old
keepsakes had vanished over the years, one after another—
most left behind when they became colonists, the rest
broken by children, gnawed by insects, dissolved in one or
the other of the two big floods or rotted afterwards by
fungus. She still had a chipic of Humberto and herself at
their wedding, and one of the first two children, and a
ribbon she had won in primary school for spelling, now
faded a pale pearly gray. That and the fruit dish her
mother-in-law had given her, an ugly thing which had
survived her intentional carelessness when more beauti-
ful things perished. She could easily be ready in less
than thirty days. Except—she leaned her head against the
handle of the hoe hanging on the toolshed wall. Somewhere
inside, at the moment the young man had said she was
leaving, things changed. She felt for that change, as she
would have fumbled in the shadowy house for her crochet
hook in its bag of yarn.
She wasn't going. Ofelia blinked, suddenly wider awake
than she remembered being for a long time. A memory welled
up, clear as morning dew that reflected tiny curved
pictures of the world around it. Before she married
Humberto, before she got involved with that fool Caitano,
back when she had just finished primary, she had
flourished that spelling ribbon in her father's face and
insisted she was not—absolutely was not—going to quit
school and go to work in the local branch of Sims Bancorp
cleaning the floors at night.
Her mind recoiled from the memory of what had followed
that defiance; the facts were enough without the emotion.
In the misery of being only a janitor—she, who had won a
scholarship to secondary, a scholarship Lucia had taken
instead—she had fooled herself into a relationship with
Caitano.
But—she retreated from all that to the cool dawn shadow of
the toolshed. But she was here, and she was not going. She
felt light, suddenly, as if she were falling, as if the
ground had disappeared from under her feet and she would
fall until she found the middle of the planet. Was this
joy, or fear? She could not tell. She knew only that with
every heartbeat her blood carried the same message to bone
and muscle: she was not going.
“Mama!” Barto, at the kitchen door. Ofelia grabbed the
first tool her hand fell on, and she backed out of the
toolshed. Pruning shears. Why pruning shears? Nothing
needed pruning. She turned around, and found the words to
say.
“I can't find the little nippers, the ones for the
tomatoes.”
“Mama, forget the tomatoes. We won't be here to harvest
them. Listen—we're having another meeting. The Company
says it doesn't care about the vote.”
Of course the Company didn't care. That's what it meant to
be on contract. She understood that, if she understood
nothing else, what it meant to be signed, sealed,
delivered to the masters. They would not listen to the
colonists any more than Humberto had listened to her. She
did not say this to Barto. It would only provoke another
argument, and she disliked arguments, especially in her
special time, the early morning.
“Barto, I am too old for these meetings,” she said.
“I know that.” He sounded impatient, as always. “Rosara
and I are going; we want you to begin the inventory.”
“Yes, Barto.” Easier that way. He and Rosara would go, and
she could come back out and smell the garden in the
morning, its best time. “And we need breakfast,” he said.
Ofelia sighed, and hung the pruning shears back on their
hook. Already the sun was burning away the morning mist,
and she could feel heat on her head. Already she could
hear voices from other houses, other gardens. Rosara could
cook breakfast; she usually did. She didn't like the way
Ofelia cooked.
Inside, Ofelia mixed flour and oil and water to make the
dough, patted it out, and flipped the thin rounds on the
griddle. While they browned, she chopped onions and herbs,
leftover sausage, cold boiled potatoes. When the flatcakes
were done, she rolled them deftly around the cold filling,
adding a dash of vinegar and oil. Barto liked these;
Rosara wanted a hot filling. Ofelia didn't care. This
morning she could have eaten metal shavings, or nothing.
She paid no attention to Rosara's ritual complaint, or
Barto's ritual compliment. As they finished dressing, she
scraped the cutting board into the garden pail.
After they left, Ofelia carried the garden pail out and
dumped it into the trench, kicking dirt over the curls of
potato peels, the limp ends of carrots and turnip greens,
the bits of onion and herbs. The sun lay a warm hand on
the back of her neck, and she realized she'd come out
without her hat again.
That would be one benefit of staying behind. No one would
nag her to wear a hat.
Copyright© 2003 by Elizabeth Moon