She folded the paper and returned it to Marina. “You can come on through. Greta isn’t here yet but we expect her later in the day. Until then you’re welcome to go through the Memoriam at your leisure,” she said with a smile.
She turned to the people standing behind the line that marked where those awaiting entry should be and said in a clear voice, “I’ll be right back. Who would like to count those who leave for me and keep track of anyone new that comes?”
Several hands shot up and the shadow, a very pretty young woman with unusually light brown hair, smiled at a young boy about the same age as the kids brought in for fighting.
“Thank you, young man,” she said to the boy and his face lit up. “Why don’t you come up here?”
She gave him the little stack of number cards and unfolded a stool for him to stand on, making it easier for him to see, and then helped him up onto it. She ruffled his hair, reminded him to hold the rail on the stool so that he wouldn’t fall and then beckoned Marina to follow her inside.
Marina looked back at the boy and almost laughed at his dazed expression. She remembered too well how easy it was to develop a crush at that age and how sensitive one was to any mention of such. Once they entered the big doors and stood in the vestibule of the Memoriam proper, she told the shadow, “You’ve made his day! He’ll dream of you for years.”
The shadow laughed a musical and light laugh that matched her appearance and held out a hand, “I’m Florine. And you’re Marina, the great finder of lost things! Nice to meet you.”
Marina flushed at her words and sidestepped the praise, “I assure you I’m not. I just stumbled on it by chance.”
“Ah, well,” Florine said as she opened the vestibule door and motioned for Marina to enter, “however it happened, I’m very glad it did.”
The hush that fell once the doors closed was unique to the Memoriam. There were lots of places that were quiet, but this was a different quiet. It was reverent. The ceilings here didn’t have sound dampening tiles or anything else to lower them and the spaces soared up to the concrete ceiling above. Pipes and conduits crossed everywhere but here they were painted to match the lower side of the concrete ceiling in a blinding white. The pipes were given only discreet stripes of the color they should be painted.
The floors, which were tiled like most spaces, were further covered in rugs woven from various plant materials. Only the edges of the rugs, each shaped to match the space they were in, had any real color in them and each bore the color of one of the categories of workers. Even the walls were painted blinding white. The displays were meant to be the focus of this space and it had been scaled back in distracting ornamentation to ensure that was so.
Marina looked around and inhaled the fragrance of old paper and that strange plant-like aroma the rugs gave off. When she stepped onto the rug from the tile, she felt odd and a bit guilty. One didn’t tread upon material like that. It would make it wear and that was a waste. In this place, however, the muffling of footsteps was more important and she took another tentative step forward.
Florine smiled an understanding smile. She wrapped an arm around Marina’s own and led her forward, toward the hallway with the first displays. As they walked she said, “I’ll just take you to your room so you’ll know where it is. That way, you can take a rest now, or whenever you like, while you wait.”
Marina glanced at a wall with black and white portraits hung equally spaced along its length, each one mounted against a square of colorful fabric over some kind of backing material. Each was rendered with such detail that Marina thought they looked like softer versions of the image she had found in the watch. Each also had a small label below the portrait with a name and their age when they went to clean. Almost all of the people were older, though a few were heartbreakingly young. As she passed, Marina placed her hand on her chest, fingers extended toward her heart in remembrance. As they came to the end of the hall, she put a halting hand on Florine’s, which was still around her arm. She stood beneath the portrait of the only person on this wall she knew.
Grandy had been drawn just as she looked when she first requested her name be added to the lottery for cleaning. She had still looked healthy then and it had been very hard for Marina to accept that she was gravely ill. Though the woman had been like a mother to her for more of her childhood than not, Marina wore no Badge of Honor because Grandy hadn’t been in any way related to her.
She had volunteered and been selected for the raising of the orphans. She had been unable to bear a live child herself and even the assistance provided when she went for annual renewals of her Birth Lottery had been ineffective. Eventually, they had stopped renewing it and she had released her husband to join with another. He had been tested and deemed a healthy man, ripe for reproduction, so it was only fair.
Still, Grandy had ended up with four children and had, to Marina’s eyes, been a very happy woman. She enjoyed her own version of motherhood for the dozen years or so that Marina lived with her. And when she was diagnosed with breast cancer she had confided to Marina that she was very glad she had been unable to bear any children for fear that she would simply pass on the affliction.
Marina understood this sentiment well. To ensure one recorded every deviation from the norm in their medical files and have any potential mate cleared as a good match before making commitments was a duty for everyone. This Memoriam stood as a testament to the survival of their people when they were poisoned by those bad Others, those monsters who were less than human. They were beating the poison with every new life but they would only continue if they were diligent.
Marina gazed at the portrait for another long moment. She wanted to reach up and touch the cheek drawn there and see if it was as soft as the cheek of the gentle woman it represented. Instead, she dashed away a tear. Florine patted her arm and urged her forward without words. They wended their way through the halls and past display rooms until they finally reached a door marked as private. A number combination lock stood above the latch on the door and Florine let go of Marina’s arm and entered a few numbers. The latch clicked and she held the door for Marina to pass in.
Before Marina could ask the question, Florine answered it. “I’ll give you a card you can use in the slot instead of a combination. Since these are our private quarters and also the entrance to the archives, we have to have some sort of lock. In the past people just came right in, not paying a bit of attention to the sign. That’s quite awkward when you’re trying to sleep or take a shower.”
“I’ll bet it is. Thanks.”
“Ah, everyone asks that. We get enough guests for it to be standard.” She winked at Marina and led her down even more twisting hallways and past the communal spaces. Historians did marry and did have children, but not often. It was a passionate calling that sometimes left room for very little else in a person’s life. Instead, they mostly lived here in the rooms behind the Memoriam and all shadows were required to live there. It was another reason many of them couldn’t make it through the long and arduous shadowing process. Those that simply couldn’t live their lives back here in the company of other historians eventually left.
Most historians were women, which was a bit odd in Marina’s view, but Joseph had a theory about that. He had declared that no man worth his boots would walk about wearing that many colors at once. It was a funny thought but now that Marina could watch Historians from close proximity, she couldn’t help but see his point. The way the stripes of color were sewn together with the arms and legs of different colors did seem very feminine. She decided to keep that thought to herself. She would have to evaluate some of the male shadows and the one male Historian closely and see if she got a different impression from them.