It's wrong! We can't do that!' ' ' He made his imitation of Nina's voice prissy and falsetto and incredibly childish.
Nina didn't answer. She turned her face toward the wall so the man couldn't see that she was crying. Vaguely a thought flickered in her mind,
'Do I take your silence for agreement?' the man goaded her. 'But what are you agreeing to? That you want to betray this Jason you knew so well, the way he betrayed you? Or that what he said was right, and you're to blame for everything? Which is it?'
Nina forced herself to look back at the man.
'I,' she said fiercely, 'will never agree with anything you say.'
'Hmm,' the man said. 'That's interesting. Because I was about to make you an offer that could save your life. But it appears you're not in the greatest of moods at the moment. Guess my offer will have to wait.'
He stood up and took his chair and the pieces of the broken tape recorder and let himself out of her cell. Nina kept her head turned away from him so she could sob fac-ing the wall.
But when Nina was sure he was gone, she looked back and saw that he'd left behind a white handkerchief, neatly folded, perfectly pressed. Nina grabbed the handkerchief and crumpled it into a ball, ready to hurl it at the wall as well. But a handkerchief wouldn't hit with as much satis-fying force as the tape recorder had. A handkerchief would only float gently to the ground, like a bird finding a safe perch.
Nina looked around to make sure no one was watching, then loudly blew her nose.
Nina ate the bread, too. She was disgusted with herself, that she could gobble up every crumb and eat the wormy apple down to its seeds. She should be pining for Jason, sobbing endlessly like some poor spurned hero-ine in one of Aunty Zenka's books. But Nina wasn't heartbroken anymore. She was mad. The food just gave her more energy for fury.
'I was a Ninny Idiot,' she muttered to herself. 'I deserve my name.'
How could he? How could Jason have stood there in the moonlight, night after night, gazing into her eyes so lovingly, then turn around and do this? Had he been planning to betray her even a month ago, the first time he'd whispered in her ear, 'Why don't we let the others go on back? We still have a few more minutes, just for us'? And then he'd held her hand and nuzzled her neck, and Nina had felt weak clear down to her toes. Even now she could still feel the sensation of his hand against hers, the pressure of his lips on hers. She had relived every kiss, every touch, so many times. Her ears could still bring back the sound of his voice, whispering, 'I love you.'
But he hadn't loved her. He'd told the Population Police she'd done something evil, and they were going to kill her for it.
Nina spit out an apple seed with such force that it bounced across the floor.
She'd made a total fool of herself over Jason. She could remember all those meetings they'd held out in the woods, when she'd stared at him adoringly and said stupid things. Flirting. She could remember one time when a new boy, Lee Grant, had started coming outside, too. Jason was telling Lee about the rally that Jen Talbot had held, to demonstrate for the rights of third children. And Nina hadn't contributed a thing to the conversation except to echo Jason, 'The rally. .' She wasn't capable of saying anything intelligent, because she wasn't really listening to the conversation, just watching the dim light on Jason's face, admiring his strong profile. Studying the perfect slope of his nose.
Idiotic.
Even before that, before the first time she and Jason kissed, she'd flirted in a different way, acting big, making fun of males. 'Well, isn't that just like a boy!' she'd said probably a hundred times, with a simpering, stupid look on her face. She'd felt like she was acting in one of Aunty Zenka's TV dramas. All she needed was a ball gown and one of those dainty little fold-up fans to wave in front of her face whenever she said something particularly precious.
Ridiculous. That's how she'd really looked — ridiculous. How had she forgotten? She was a gawky thirteen- year-old with thin braids hanging down on either side of her face. Even if she'd had the ball gown and the fold-up fan, they would only have made her look sillier.
No wonder Jason had betrayed her. No wonder Sally and Bonner had inched away from her in the woods, like they didn't want to be seen with her.
Nina wanted to cry again, but the tears didn't come. Her heart felt like a rock inside her chest. Everything around her was cold and hard and merciless: the concrete walls, the cement floor, the iron bars of her door. She had thought she could wrap herself in her memories of being loved — by Jason, by her friends at Harlow, by Gran and the aunties. But Jason's love was fake. Her friends hadn't defended her. And Gran and the aunties seemed so far away and long ago that it seemed like it was some other little girl they had loved. Some little Elodie that Nina could barely remember.
Nina fell asleep, dry-eyed and hard-hearted, just one more cold thing in the jail.
'There's the deal,' the man said.
• •It was the middle of the night again, Nina thought, blinking stupidly and trying to wake up. The overhead light was blinding again. She felt dizzy from lack of food. Two crusts of bread and one small apple — in what, a day and a half? — did almost nothing to stave off hunger.
'We think you can be useful to us,' the man was saying smoothly. He was holding out his hand to her. Nina blinked a few more times and made her eyes focus. What the man had in his hand was too incredible to be believed: a sandwich. And it wasn't black bread and moldy cheese, the kind of sandwich Nina was used to, but a towering bun, thick and golden brown, with pale pink curls of — was that ham? — ham overflowing the sides. Nina had seen such a thing only on TV, on the forbidden channels that showed life before the famines.
'Here. Take it,' the man said, waving the sandwich care-lessly before Nina's eyes.
Nina had half the sandwich shoved in her mouth before she was even conscious of reaching for it.
'I see nobody ever bothered to teach you manners,' the man said in disgust.
Nina ignored him. The sandwich was divine. The bun was light and airy and hid a slice of pungent cheese along with the ham. There were other flavors, too — the words from an ancient commercial flowed through Nina's mind: 'Lettuce, tomato, pickle, onion…' Nina wasn't sure if that was actually what she was eating, but the sandwich was wonderful, absolutely perfect. She slowed down her chew-ing, just to savor it longer.
'That's better,' the man said huffily. Nina had almost forgotten he was there. He handed her a bottle to drink from, and the liquid it contained was delicious, too, sweet and lemony. Nina drank deeply, thinking of nothing but her thirst.
When the sandwich was gone and the bottle was empty, she finally looked back at the man.
'A… a deal?' she said hesitantly.
'By law, we could have executed you the day we arrested you,' the man said. 'But sometimes even the Population Police can benefit from ignoring certain aspects of the law.'
Nina waited, frozen in her spot.
'Oh, not that we would
'What,' Nina asked through clenched teeth, 'do you want me to do?'
The man shrugged. 'Nothing that you and your buddy Jason weren't pretending to do anyway.'
The words flew out of Nina's mouth before she could stop them: 'Would Jason help me?'
