California: A Novel (25 page)

In the bowl, the dough was rising. Frida imagined it inflating like lungs.

“A few babies died,” Anika said. “And we lost one woman to childbirth. That was in the beginning, before we had a handle on agriculture, when our nutrition was poor. I mean, our nutrition was never great, but in the beginning, it was the worst. If a pregnant woman doesn’t get enough protein, she’s at risk of hemorrhaging when she gives birth.” Anika sighed. “It’s harsh out here, for anyone. But for a kid? Melissa had been sick with the flu for days when Micah showed up.”

Her brother. This was where the story changed.

“Melissa,” Anika said, “she—”

“What happened when my brother got here?”

“Don’t interrupt me.”

“I’m sorry—”

“He arrived in the carriage one evening, right after dark. With August and a handful of other men: Burke, Sailor, Dave. None of the others yet—they would come later. Three weeks earlier, before sunrise, a group of Pirates had come.”

The Pirates had raided their reserves of food. They’d tied a red flag to the steeple as a warning, but no one saw it until afterward. “Almost all of us were still asleep when they rode up. I was awake, just about to head with Ogden to the river to do laundry. I had him strapped to my chest, and it was cold, so my hands were wrapped in scarves, to keep them warm. I don’t know why I remember that. I never do that now, haven’t since that morning.

“As soon as I heard their horses’ hooves pounding against the ground, I screamed until my voice went hoarse, my hands over Ogden’s ears. He started crying but miraculously stopped a moment later, as if he knew not to draw attention to himself.

“This time, the man with the scaly arms, the long-haired one, wasn’t there. A new Pirate was in charge. He was young, he couldn’t have been more than eighteen, and very tall. I remember thinking he was taller than any of the men on the Land. It looked like he’d tried to grow a mustache, but it didn’t take, it was just a bunch of dark scraggly threads. Not that it mattered, he was in charge, all the others followed his orders. There was something horrible and unfeeling about him, and I knew right away that things were going to be worse for us now that he was running the show. He trained his gun on me as his men pulled the others out of the Hotel and lined them up. One of the women tried to run, and she got clocked in the face.”

Frida shuddered. “What did they take this time?”

“What they took doesn’t matter,” Anika said. “It’s who.”

“Another woman?”

Anika shook her head. “The Pirate, the one who was now in charge, he got off his horse and walked down the line of us. He was wearing old black basketball sneakers, the toes mended with duct tape. I kept my eyes on the shoes as they moved from person to person. Even the kids knew to be still. It was quiet except for the wind, which was blowing pretty hard. Some door was slapping open and closed.”

Frida said nothing.

“Randy was eleven years old then, big for his age. He was the second-oldest kid and had been born in L.A. We sometimes joked that someday he and Melissa would get married.”

Anika smiled, but for only a moment.

“When the Pirate got to him, he stopped. Randy’s father was one of the first men killed by the Pirates, and, I don’t know, maybe that marked him. I remember Deborah, Randy’s mother, was farther down the line. When the Pirate nodded at Randy and pulled him out of line, Deborah saw what was happening and screamed. The babies started crying—but not Ogden, though. I remember whispering to him that we’d be all right. But, really, I was so scared.

“When a few of our men tried to step in and stop what was happening, they were shoved to the ground. Deborah ran toward her son, but one of the other Pirates tackled her. She would’ve let them kill her, except her son got right on the Pirate’s horse, as instructed. The boy didn’t say anything. Maybe he already knew what it all meant, that he was being recruited into their terrible army. And maybe his silence was what kept the rest of us in line. Randy was looking down at the horse, as if he’d never touched a saddle. It was like he was being sacrificed for our safety, and he’d accepted it.”

“He just let them take him?”

Anika didn’t answer.

“Anika?”

“We told Deborah that Randy was a hero for giving himself up like that, for the good of all of us. What else could we have said?

“We’d been so terrorized, that when Micah and the others showed up three weeks later, we were afraid. I came running at them with the scythe, screaming once more. They could slice out my vocal cords if they wanted to, I didn’t care. Micah held up his hands in surrender, and I was caught off guard. He had a pear in his hand. A peace offering.”

A few hours later in the Church, August asked them why they hadn’t fought off the Pirates. “We said we’d tried, but that we didn’t have the manpower or any more weapons. Micah did, and he had twenty-five more men and women waiting nearby, ready to come to the Land to protect us. He had a solution.”

The Pirates were using the Land, he said. “Unless there was a real threat against them, they would continue to steal from us until we didn’t produce enough to make it worthwhile, and then we’d be unceremoniously murdered, every last one of us. I remember he’d looked at Deborah and said, ‘But before that happens, they’ll take the stronger boys. I don’t want to say what they’ll do to the girls when they get older.’”

Micah and his people were looking for a place to settle. “They needed a permanent territory, and we were it,” Anika went on. “Back then, there had been a few Forms; they were built long before we came around, probably by some eccentric artist. Did you see them on your way in—they’re smaller, but no less frightening.”

Frida shook her head.

“Those original Forms gave Micah an idea. ‘It’s a natural border,’ he told us. ‘And you’ll be protected.’ Peter wanted to know more.”

“Peter was here all along?”

“One of the first.” Anika turned to Frida then and gave her a soft smile, as if she were a kind but firm boss about to lay off her least-productive employee.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Frida said.

“I suppose it’s time I tell you that Peter was Ogden’s father.”

A silly gasp escaped from Frida’s mouth. “You and Peter?”

“It’s long over,” she said. “It ended even before I gave birth.”

“So you guys came here together.”

“No, he came from Portland with a few of the others. We were from all over, though. I’m from Oakland. A bunch of us communicated online years before, and then we finally decided to meet and make a go of it. Not that we knew what we were doing. We came out here without any conception of what we’d need to survive.” She shook her head, a rueful look on her face. “We barely had enough food. We lived in constant fear of Pirates. Melissa was very sick, and when Marie’s milk dried up a few weeks earlier, her baby had nearly died of starvation until another woman got him to eat some sweet potato.

“I remember Peter’s arguments well, because they were articulated so clearly, it was almost impossible to find fault with them. He said we’d all perish if something didn’t change. We had to welcome Micah and his gang of settlers. They had skills; they would help us. He said that Micah’s plan meant safety for everyone. Peter’s confidence in Micah convinced everyone else.”

Frida nodded.

“The Pirates only returned to the Land once more. We’d started security shifts, and Micah told us to let that little shit leave the red warning, pretend we hadn’t seen him come and drop the bandanna in front of the Hotel in the middle of the night. Micah didn’t want them to know anything had changed, and that was smart.” She sighed. “Two days later, when the Pirates finally arrived, your brother stepped out of the house he’d claimed as his own, and without even a word he shot the young leader in the chest. The kid gasped, and he fell off the horse. I remember the way his long body hit the ground: sort of dripping off the animal. Randy was with them, on his own horse, his hair matted into knots, shirtless and in a pair of red gym shorts. He was sunburned, and he had what looked like cigarette burns all over his arms.

“Micah told the others to hand over Randy right away. I think the men were shocked. When Randy didn’t move, August and Sailor came out from behind another building and shot his horse. Randy fell off. For a moment, he wasn’t sure what to do. Micah said to stand up. As he spoke, some of our men emerged from other houses, all of them with guns. The Pirates who were left whistled once and turned around. I guess the new kid wasn’t worth a fight. I bet one of them was ready to take the throne after the assassination.

Frida wasn’t sure if this was surprising or predictable. Her brother was capable of shooting a man point-blank in the chest. She should have known. That’s what Cal might say. The Group had inured him to violence, made it into a game. And these Pirates had done unspeakable acts to the Land, and taken one of their children. She remembered her brother as a kid: long eyelashes, arms thin and lanky, pen marks all over his hands from drawing on the butcher paper Dada had bought them. Micah had never been interested in guns and shoot-’em-up games. He’d been sweet.

“You should know, Frida. Micah beheaded that man.”

“He
what?
”

“He called us all over and told us to watch. He pulled the body from the ground, and with his knife sliced his head off at the neck.” She paused. “If that sounds like it was quick, it wasn’t. The head didn’t come off easily, and your brother had to saw across bone and tendons until it was removed. One of the babies didn’t understand what was happening and was squealing with laughter. I remember Sandy covered Jane’s eyes—but Sandy didn’t keep herself from looking. None of us did. What Micah was doing was horrible, but that man had taken Randy. We
wanted
to see it.

“Deborah had grabbed for Randy as soon as she could, but when Micah started, Randy began to cry and pull away from her, as if the Pirate were his father. Micah ordered Randy to follow him out to a Form and made him hang up the head. Micah left it to rot into a skull. There were a few more skirmishes with Pirates after that, but never on the Land proper. By the time they stopped altogether, there were five heads hanging from the Forms.”

Neither woman spoke. Frida searched for something harmless to ask.

“You said you built more Forms?”

“We did. We hadn’t thought of them as security, as a gate to keep people out, until Micah suggested it. We also built the lookout Towers. We worked for months. Aside from using all the inessential stuff here on the Land to add to the Forms, August had begun leaving and coming back with discarded items for us to use. He was going to Pines—that’s when we found out about that. I remember my hands then; they were shredded from all the manual labor. I was glad the kids missed that.”

“You haven’t told me what happened to them. Where is your son?”

Anika looked like she might throw up, and Frida glanced at the window to check the dawn’s progress. The sun was about to rise. When Anika spoke, her voice was low and quiet. “It’s almost dawn. Morning Labor is about to start.”

“Just hurry and tell me now.”

Anika shook her head and grabbed the bowl of dough. “You can’t make me rush a story like that. Let’s knead this before it’s too late.”

A
t the morning meeting, they convened in a circle on the Church’s stage. It was so cold, they covered the icy metal chairs with blankets before sitting down. August had returned the night before; now he held a clipboard stuffed with yellowed loose-leaf paper and a pencil that he’d sharpened first with a knife and then, when that wasn’t quite sufficient, his teeth. Cal had to admit, the guy did look pretty tough gnawing at the lead. As usual, they spent half an hour reviewing Labor assignments, all of them outlined in August’s notes, and then Sailor told them about his meetings with the team leaders. Cal had been deemed a strong critical thinker by the construction team leader, though he was “unnervingly quiet.” Sailor raised an eyebrow at Cal as he said this. “And everyone in the kitchen loves your wife,” he added.

“What’s going on with the baking?” Micah asked.

“Please don’t stop them,” Sailor said quickly. “That coconut cake she made, and her sourdough? I mean—wow.”

“It didn’t occur to me that I
should
stop them,” Micah said. “As long as Frida wants to keep doing it, that is.”

“I’m sure Anika has a whole baking regimen in place—kneading, baking, calisthenics,” August said. “Poor Frida, I wouldn’t want to work for that woman.”

Cal wanted to say that his wife enjoyed her baking sessions with Anika, but he held himself back. Frida hadn’t had a friend in so long, not since Sandy Miller, and it was obvious that her time in the kitchen had helped her. To Cal, Anika seemed stiff and humorless, but Frida could draw out the fun in anyone. Hell, she’d done it with him.

“Makes me nervous,” Peter said, and Micah looked up at him quickly. Cal thought he detected a slight shake of Micah’s head, or maybe in his eyes, a speechless
no.
He wasn’t sure what they were worried about: that Frida would tell Anika about her pregnancy?

August changed the subject so deftly, Cal hardly caught that he was doing so. In moments they were onto other mundane matters: who wasn’t cleaning up after themselves in the Bath; what still needed to be done for winterizing; if there was enough meat on Snorts, one of the pigs, to butcher him.

When they got to questions of agriculture, Cal leaned forward. These past few days, he’d found himself loving this part of the meeting. It made him think of his job back in L.A., working with the volunteers to make sure the crops they’d planted were thriving.

“We want to reorganize the garden next spring,” Peter said, “but we have no real plan of action.”

Cal realized that everyone was looking at him.

“It’s a mess,” Dave said, and Sailor groaned. “If we lose another crop of lettuce, I’m going to—”

“Plus, the seeds,” August said.

“Sailor,” Micah said. “Tell Cal what you’ve got.”

He had heirloom seeds, Sailor explained, from his uncle in Charleston, South Carolina.

“Stuff you haven’t ever seen before, stuff that hasn’t been grown commercially for three, four hundred years,” he said. “He gave them to me when I left for Plank. I hoarded them when I first got there, don’t know why. But I brought them here. We should use them.”

Cal couldn’t help but feel giddy. He’d read about seeds like these.

“I’d be happy to take a look.”

The men, even Micah, beamed. That was it then: they needed a farmer for their Village People. This was why Cal had been invited into the circle of power.

They’d moved onto plumbing. There was a question of making the work mandatory for everyone, including themselves. “If we do it without complaint,” Peter said, “it’ll set an example.”

All the men begrudgingly agreed.

“The truth is,” August said, “the job can’t be voluntary anymore. Nobody wants to do it.”

“Latrine digging isn’t that bad, especially compared to maintaining the outhouse,” Dave said, and Micah held up a hand, wincing.

August turned to Cal. “This is glamorous, isn’t it?”

“Certainly is,” Cal replied, and August laughed.

Cal was relieved when the meeting ended. Even the discussion of security, plans to build three more Forms, and adding another man to the night shifts proved a snore. Part of him was glad the meeting had been so boring; he wouldn’t be compelled to talk about its tedium with Frida. When he’d finally learned about Pines two days earlier, about how August traded with them, Cal had been glad for the keep-quiet rule. It kept him from repeating to Frida what she might not be able to hear. It had been a relief.

Before Cal left the meeting, Micah winked and said, “Fun, right?”

Micah had used that word,
fun,
so carelessly. The meetings weren’t about fun. They were an opportunity: Cal had been invited to peer behind the curtain. At least Cal was learning how the Land worked. Frida didn’t seem that interested anyway.

The truth was Cal was biding his time. He had plans to ask about the recruitment process. It seemed a harmless topic, outdated as far as he could tell, since the Land’s philosophy was about containment, not expansion. He wanted to know who had lured Dave and Sailor here and why.

Toni had been the one to tell Micah and Cal about the Group. It was during her visit to Plank, after they’d gone to the street fair. Her cousin had eaten two funnel cakes and a fried candy bar, and as soon as they pulled onto campus he’d opened his door to throw up a murky soup that made Toni ask if she should call someone for help. To Cal’s delight, the boy had shaken his head and stumbled away, leaving the two roommates alone with the girl every other Planker was dying to talk to. Or at least smell. Someone had whispered it was jasmine oil she wore; someone else had seen her shampoo bottle in the upstairs bathroom. “Peppermint bark,” he’d reported, and the news was whispered from one ear to the next.

In other circumstances, Cal probably wouldn’t have given Toni a second glance, but this was Plank. No female students. No Internet porn. No neighborhood girls to fantasize about. Not even a female professor since he’d started. Sometimes it felt like Cal’s desire would eat him alive; he fell in love with trees, a certain horse, a washcloth in the farmhouse bath. Not that masturbation helped. That was just the body, turning inside out.

Toni was short and athletic, no breasts to speak of, her long brown hair tied into a ponytail at the top of her head. She seemed to like Cal, but only in the way you might like a boy you were babysitting: because he said funny things and went to bed on time. With Micah, she was different. Cal could tell by the way she laughed at Micah’s jokes, and the way her voice went higher when she addressed him, as if she wanted to sound more feminine. She seemed to drink in everything he said.

The three of them were leaning against the car, staring at the stars. Toni had asked Micah to point out constellations, and the only reason Cal was still there was because Micah didn’t know shit about stars and had said so.

“I hope my cousin won’t get you in trouble for going to the fair,” Toni said to him.

Micah nodded. “For that stunt? Definitely. We’ll probably have to clean up goat poop for three weeks straight.” He was lying, of course, but Toni didn’t need to know that.

“Reminds me of some friends I have in L.A. In Echo Park. They’re always pulling these crazy stunts,” she said.

She and Micah commenced a conversation about neighborhoods and geography that, at the time, didn’t make sense to Cal. He had looked back up at the stars, and the stars behind those stars, and then at the farmhouse. He thought he saw Plankers, perched at their windows, watching them.

“Anyway, my friends do this thing,” Toni said, raising her voice a little. She wanted to bring Cal back into the conversation, he realized.

“They call themselves the Group,” she had said.

“The Group?” Cal repeated.

Micah crossed his arms.

Her friends had created it, Toni explained; she’d met them while hitchhiking from Seattle, her hometown. “Or maybe they aren’t the founders. It’s all very nebulous,” she said. “It’s a performance group, but with a political edge. They do some amazing, thought-provoking stuff, and so far they’ve managed to get away with it. It’s probably because people aren’t sure who they are, but everyone loves their stunts.”

Micah had uncrossed his arms by then. “What kind of stuff do they do?”

“It’s better if you see for yourself. Get to a computer,” she said, “and look them up.”

She and Micah were standing closer now. Cal knew when to make himself scarce. He interrupted their conversation to thank Toni for taking him to the fair. “Have a nice night,” he’d called as he walked away, but they weren’t listening.

That night, Cal slept in the stable beneath a blanket that smelled like hay. He never thought he’d see Toni again, and he didn’t think his roommate would, either. But after that, Micah found a way to get off campus and to a computer and learn about the Group, and he and Toni started a correspondence.

Cal preferred not to think about the rest of that semester. How Micah began reading Guy Debord and a slew of other French writers, then some anarchists Cal couldn’t keep track of. There was even a small blue book written by an anonymous committee of writers and, predictably, the continual rereading of Marx. And then, who knew what else? Micah began asking others at dinner, “What do
you
believe in?” He was excited about returning to his hometown and seeking out the Group. “How will you make money?” Cal had asked once. Micah shrugged as if the question, and Cal’s pragmatism, bored him.

After they’d both moved to L.A., Micah invited Cal to a meeting of the Group. Cal had told himself he wasn’t interested in the Group’s stunts. He wasn’t, but he also didn’t want to see Toni. Not that he carried a torch for her or anything; it was just that he didn’t want to feel like a little boy around her: blushing when she spoke to him, feeling jealous when she paid attention to anyone else. Cal didn’t know then that Toni and Micah would become an item, and that she and Frida would become friends. Frida had no idea they’d met Toni at Plank; Micah and Toni had asked Cal to keep that secret, for reasons that Cal didn’t think too much about. But every once in a while it was hard not to ask himself the uncomfortable question: if Toni had been interested in Cal back at Plank, would he have joined the Group instead of Micah?

Now, Cal couldn’t stop imagining Toni marching onto the Land, unannounced. She had disappeared from L.A.; maybe she would reappear here, just as Micah had. Cal and Frida would have a chance to find out what had happened to her.

Perhaps she was the recruiter, and always had been.

He would ask Micah and the others, and they would tell him because he was one of them now. He’d just need to give it a little while. He reminded himself to remain silent, to listen, until the right moment presented itself.

The next morning, August held up a new secretarial prop, this time an old-school reporter’s notepad, which fit like a Device in the palm of his hand. “It’s time to start plans for the next journey. I’ll probably go in a few weeks, so I need to get another list going. Of needs.”

Cal had quickly learned that a
journey
meant a trip to Pines. Not to be confused with a
round,
which referred to August’s regular survey of the areas around the Land. From what Cal had gathered, there were only a few settlers scattered in a hundred-mile radius. All were peaceful, and few interacted with one another. On a round, August’s job was to make sure the settlers stayed put. They were not to go exploring. On a journey, August avoided these settlers; he had but one goal, and it was to get to the Community.

“They’ve asked us to report on the rate of disease,” Micah said.

“What’s the concern?” Peter asked.

“Probably isn’t one,” Micah replied. “They just want to feel smug that their mortality rate has leveled off. You know, that they’re truly protected.”

“I’m sure they’re vigilant about possible viruses,” Sailor ventured. No one responded.

“Let’s ask them, straight up, why they need that information,” August finally said to Micah. “They’ve been more forthcoming lately.” Micah nodded. August held up the reporter’s notebook and said, “And what do we need from them?”

Sailor leaned forward, his eyes rolled up to the ceiling, as if he were trying to recall the capital of some far-off country. “Housekeeping needs vinegar and another set of mops, if we can get them, and we’re low on iodine tablets. Anika wants the baking crate replenished.”

“Of course she does,” Dave said, and snorted.

“She does have a lot of requests,” August said. “Remember when we got her ChapStick with SPF? It was hard to get one tube, but once she had it, all the other women wanted one for themselves? We don’t want another situation like that on our hands.

“This list will be tough, too. Last time I was there, it wasn’t easy getting the iodine tablets. The demand is so high. They’re paranoid about the water supply. Lord knows why, with their filtration system.”

“Water at Pines tastes like a motherfucking swimming pool,” Micah said.

Everyone laughed except Cal. He knew he shouldn’t be shocked by the conversation, but this was the first time he’d witnessed the men make plans for a journey. They were being so casual about it. And why not? The facts seemed simple: August trekked to a Community, to Pines, to procure the Land’s supplies. And to get those supplies? They provided information: the rate of disease, who might be a threat, who was out here. Could that be all? It seemed too easy.

August said they could revisit the list of needs the next day, and the men fell silent.

“Now that August’s back,” Micah said after a moment, “the Vote is upon us.”

“Only one or two are uncertain,” Sailor said.

“It should be unanimous,” Peter said. “Even if it doesn’t have to be.”

Cal didn’t want to know how Micah planned to convince people to vote a particular way. Something to do with denying requests for supplies from Pines, perhaps.

On his way out of the Church, Peter called Cal’s name.

Cal hung back and let the others step outside ahead of them. Once the two were alone, Peter asked, “How’s Frida?”