Oh, Ashley, Ashley, she thought, and her heart beat faster. . Idiot, thinks Wilma. Destruction is at hand and you’re mooning over that wimp? Atlanta will burn. Tara will be gutted. Everything will be swept away.
Before she knows it, she’s nodded off.
She’s wakened by Tobias, gently shaking her arm. Was she snoring, was her mouth open, is her bridge in place? “What time is it?” she says.
“It is time for lunch,” says Tobias.
“Did you find any food?” Wilma asks, sitting up straight.
“I have acquired some dried noodles,” says Tobias. “And a can of baked beans. But the kitchen was occupied.”
“Oh,” says Wilma. “Some of them stayed? The cooking staff?” That would be consoling news: she notes that she’s hungry.
“No, they are all gone,” says Tobias. “It is Noreen and Jo-Anne, and some of the others. They have made a soup. Shall we descend?”
The dining room is in full swing, judging from the noise: everyone’s getting into the spirit of things, whatever that spirit may be. Hysteria, would be Wilma’s best guess. They must be carrying the soup in from the kitchen, acting as waiters. There’s a crash; much laughter.
Noreen’s voice looms up, right behind her ear. “Isn’t this something?” she says. “Everyone’s just rolling up their sleeves and pitching in! It’s like summer camp! I suppose they thought we couldn’t cope!”
“What do you think of our soup?” Jo-Anne, this time. The question is not addressed to Wilma but to Tobias. “We made it in a cauldron!”
“Delicious, dear lady,” Tobias says politely.
“We raided the freezer! We put in everything!” says Jo-Anne. “Everything but the kitchen sink! Eye of newt! Toe of frog! Finger of birth-strangled babe!” She giggles.
Wilma is attempting to identify the ingredients. A piece of sausage, a fava bean, a mushroom?
“The state of that kitchen is disgraceful,” says Noreen. “I don’t know what we were paying them for, the so-called staff! Certainly not for cleaning! I saw a rat.”
“Shhh,” says Jo-Anne. “What they don’t know won’t hurt them!” They both laugh gleefully.
“I am not alarmed by a simple rat,” says Tobias. “I have seen worse.”
“But it’s awful, about the Advanced Living wing,” says Noreen. “We went to see if we could bring them some soup, but the connecting doors are locked.”
“We couldn’t open them,” says Jo-Anne. “And the staff are all gone. That means. .”
“It’s terrible, it’s terrible,” says Noreen.
“There is nothing to be done,” says Tobias. “The people in this room could not care for those other people, in any case. It is beyond our powers.”
“But they must be so confused in there,” says Noreen in a small voice.
“Well,” says Jo-Anne. “Once we’ve had lunch, I think all of us should just stiffen our will power and form up into a double line and march right out of here! Then we can tell the authorities, and they’ll come in and get the doors open and move those poor people into a proper location. This whole thing is beyond disgraceful! As for those stupid baby face masks they’ve got on. .”
“They will not let you through,” says Tobias.
“But we’ll all go together! The press will be there. They wouldn’t dare stop us, not with the whole world watching!”
“I would not count on that,” says Tobias. “The whole world has an appetite for ringside seats at such events. Witch-burnings and public hangings were always well attended.”
“Now you’re frightening me,” says Jo-Anne. She doesn’t sound very frightened.
“I’m going to have a nap first,” says Noreen. “Gather my strength. Before we march out. At least we don’t have to do the dishes in that filthy kitchen, since we won’t be here much longer.”
Tobias has done a circuit of the grounds: the back gate is besieged as well, he says, as of course it would be. He spends the rest of the afternoon in Wilma’s apartment, availing himself of her binoculars. More people are gathering outside the lion gate; they’re brandishing their usual signs, he says, plus some new ones: TIMES UP. TORCH THE DUSTIES. HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME.
Nobody ventures inside the perimeter wall, or nobody Tobias has spotted. The day is overcast, which makes for lower visibility. It’s going to be an unusually chilly evening for this time of year, or that’s what the TV was saying before it went silent. His cellphone is now inoperative, he tells Wilma: the young people out there, although lazy and communistic, are adept at manipulating digital technology. They tunnel secretly here and there inside the Internet, like termites. They must have got hold of a list of Ambrosia’s inhabitants and accessed their accounts, and switched them all off.
“They have oil drums,” he says. “With fires inside. They’re cooking hot dogs. And drinking beer, I suspect.” Wilma would like a hot dog herself. She can picture walking out there and asking politely whether they might be inclined to share. But she can also picture the answer.
Around five o’clock a scanty clutch of Ambrosia Manor inhabitants musters outside the front door. Only about fifteen, says Tobias. They’re arranging themselves in a double line, as if for a procession: twos, and the odd three. The crowd outside stills: they’re watching. Someone among the Ambrosiads has found a megaphone: Jo-Anne, says Tobias. Orders are given, indecipherable through the window glass. The line moves forward, haltingly.
“Have they reached the gate?” asks Wilma. How she wishes she could see this! It’s like a football game, back when she was an undergraduate! The tension, the opposing teams, the megaphones. She was always in the audience, never in the game, because girls did not play footbalclass="underline" their role was to gasp. And to be fuzzy about the rules, as she is now.
The suspense is making her heart beat faster. If Jo-Anne’s group can make it through, the rest of them can get organized and try the same thing.
“Yes,” says Tobias. “But something has happened. There has been an incident.”
“What do you mean?” says Wilma.
“It’s not good. Now they’re coming back.”
“Are they running?” says Wilma.
“As much as possible,” says Tobias. “We will wait until dark. Then we must leave quickly.”
“But we can’t leave!” Wilma almost wails. “They won’t let us!”
“We can leave the building,” says Tobias, “and wait in the grounds. Until they go away. Then we will be unimpeded.”
“But they aren’t going away!” says Wilma.
“They will go away when it’s over,” says Tobias. “Now we will eat something. I will open this can of baked beans. Humanity’s failure to invent a can opener that actually functions has never ceased to dismay me. The design of the can opener has not been improved since the war.”
What do you mean by over? Wilma wants to ask; but doesn’t.
Wilma prepares herself for the proposed excursion. Tobias has told her they may be outside for some hours, or possibly days; it all depends. She puts on a cardigan, and takes a shawl and a packet of biscuits; also her jeweller’s loupe and the e-reader, which is light enough to be portable. She worries about trifles; she knows they’re trifles, but still, where is she going to put her teeth tonight? Her expensive teeth. And what about clean underwear? They can’t carry much with them, says Tobias.