And where were her children? I had another sudden, horrible thought. I felt for wounds on her, found scratches and dried blood, but no penetrating wound, no terrible soft place on her head. She had been brought in with the rest of us. Chances were, she was alive when she was brought in. Wouldn't our captors have noticed if she were dead? We were all dumped into this room and locked in by way of our collars during the same few minutes.
After that, no one had come in.
Perhaps, then, it was the gas that had been used on us. Could she have died of that? She was the smallest adult in the community, smaller, even, than Nina, Doe, and Tori. Was it possible that she got too much of the gas for her small size, and that killed her?
And if so, what did that say about our children?
************************************
Somehow, time passed. I sat rigid beside the body of my friend, and couldn't think or speak. I cried. I cried in grief and terror and rage. People told me later that I made no sound at all, but within myself, I cried. Within myself, I screamed with Teresa, and I cried and cried and cried.
After a time, I lay down on the floor, still crying, yet still making no noise. I could hear people around me moaning, crying, cursing, talking, but their words made no sense to me. They might as well have been in a foreign language. I couldn't think of anything except that I wanted to die. Everything that I had worked to build was gone, stolen or dead, and I wanted to be dead too. My baby was dead. She must be. If I could have killed myself, just then I would have. I would have been glad to do it I awoke, and mere was sunlight streaming through the window. I had slept How could I have slept?
I awoke with my head on someone's lap. Natividad's lap. She had come to sit against the wall next to Zahra's body. She had lifted my head off the floor and put it on her lap. I sat up, blinking and looking around. Natividad herself was asleep, although my moving woke her. She looked at me, then at Zahra's body, then back at me, as though the world were just coming back into focus for her, and it distressed her more and more every second. Her eyes filled with tears. I hugged her for a long time, then kissed her on the cheek.
The room was filled with sleeping women and girls. I counted 19 of us including myself and... not including Zahra and Teresa. Everyone looked dirty and scratched and abraded, and they lay in every possible position, some sprawled alone on the floor, some in pairs or larger groups, heads pillowed on laps, shoulders, or legs.
My breasts ached and leaked and I felt sick. I needed to use the bathroom. I wanted my child, my husband, my home. Near me, Zahra was cold and stiff, her eyes closed, her face beautiful and peaceful, except for its gray color.
I got up, stepped over people as they began to wake up. I went to an empty corner that I knew needed repair. A small earthquake a few months ago had caused a slight separation between the wall and floor in that corner. It wasn't obvious, but ants came in there, and water spilled near there ran out. Gray had promised to fix it, but hadn't gotten around to it.
I moved people away from the area—told them what I was doing and why. They nodded and gave no trouble. I wasn't the only one with a full bladder. I squatted there and urinated. When I finished, others followed my example.
'Is Teresa still there?' I asked Diamond Scott, who was nearest to the window.
Di nodded. 'She's unconscious—or maybe dead.' Her own voice sounded dead.
'I'm so hungry,' Doe Mora said.
'Forget hungry,' Tori said. 'If I could just have some water.'
'Hush,' I said to them. 'Don't talk about it. It just makes you feel worse. Has anyone seen our captors this morning?'
'They're building a fence,' Diamond Scott said. 'You can stand back from the window and see them. In spite of the collars they've put on us, they're building a fence.'
I looked and saw maggots being used to string wire behind several of our homes, up the slope. As I watched, they smashed through our cemetery, breaking down some of the young trees that we planted to honor our dead. The maggots were well named. They were like huge insect larvae, weaving some vast, suffocating cocoon.
Our captors were keeping our land, then. Until that moment, this had not occurred to me. They were not just out to steal or burn, enslave or kill. That was what thugs had always done before. That was what they did in my old neighborhood in Robledo, in Bankole's San Diego neighborhood, and elsewhere. A lot of elsewheres. But these were staying, building a fence. Why?
'Listen,' I said.
Most of the room paid no attention to me. People had focused on their own misery or on the maggots.
