Tamaruq Read Free Page B

purpose were oblivion. All around her, people are moving.
Not dead yet
. Their concerns are now her concerns; like them, her focus must be to survive, but she will always be an intruder, not wanted here, and reliant on camouflage to avoid detection.
    She walks the height of the tower, floor by floor, barely noticing the ache in her feet. She counts the remaining peng in her pocket. There is enough to get herself something to eat. Her stomach churns at the thought of food. She needs to wait, to spin the money out. What is she going to do now? She can’t go back to the Larssons. She has no credit, no belongings but the clothes she is wearing. She’s alone.
    She keeps wandering until the stalls begin to shut down. Evening brings a different crowd, one intent on liquor and gaming. She watches as objects are exchanged, City things, petty there but of value here, and realizes that what she is witnessing is the black market. In one hall there is a pit where huge rats are taken out of cages and set against one another. She can hear the scrabble of their claws and the shrill squeaking and she can see flecks of blood where their teeth sink into haunches and bellies. She stares, transfixed by the vicious struggle of the creatures. Bets are called, money changes hands. There are arguments. Heated words. A rat whimpers in a pool of blood.
    She hasn’t been there long when a fight breaks out. She is too slow to spot what is coming, or to move; the first thing she knows is the weight of a woman crashing into her. She falls and lands awkwardly. All at once the hall is full of noise and limbs lashing out. She rolls out of the way just in time to avoid a boot in her ribs. The grey blur of a rat scurrying away. Through the commotion she senses eyes upon her.
    Dizzy, overwhelmed, she goes outside and manages to sidle onto the waterbus without paying for a ticket. It’s getting late and she doesn’t know where to go. She stays up on deck and the western towers slip by in the dusk, barely lit, gargantuan and prophetic against the deepening sky. It’s cold, bitter, end-of-winter cold. The conductor calls the stops:
Ess-two-seven-four-west, ess-two-seven-five-west
. His voice is hoarse and thick with phlegm.
Ess-two-seven-six-west. Ess-two-seven-seven-west.
    She sees the light from a fry-boat hatch parked at a tower decking, and it is only then that she remembers the kelp. She still has the kelp. All day the bag has been in her hand and somehow she has clung on to it, even during that fight. She scrambles to get off at the stop with the fry-boat, and approaches the vendor, resolute. The vendor is chatting with a customer. She waits for the man to notice her. When she has his attention, she taps her throat, which has become her sign for muteness, and holds the bag of kelp to the hatch. They haggle. The man says it is stale. She shakes her head and squeezes the bag.
    She gets half the price she paid for it this morning, but it is peng in her pocket, and the vendor also gives her a bag of leftover weed squares and a few hot squid rings. The transaction brings a glow of pleasure to her cheeks. She holds on to it, telling herself over and over that this is a victory: her first in this hostile new world. She sits on the decking trying not to eat too quickly, feeling faint with the sudden influx of protein. But soon enough the dusk is swallowed into the night. The fry-boat packs up and drives off to another tower, and with its departure her elation fades.
    She gazes up at the dilapidated tower. Washing hangs down from the windows, strung from lines, the clothing shapeless in the dark. Its owners are out or they have forgotten it or they are not coming back. She goes inside. There is no security on western towers. Further up, people are sitting in the stairwells, smoking manta, their eyes glazed and sated. She chooses a level with a bridge out so she can run if she has to and curls up, chilled and exhausted, in the stairwell. Now she can feel the deep