Monserrat pointed elsewhere in the audience, and Jemma, who never was sure if people were pointing or waving at her and so never responded to a wave or a point, no matter how friendly or imperious, still felt a little flushed as the finger waved in her general direction. Vivian was worried about Monserrat, and secretly called her the Tamalagogue, because she argued, or at least proclaimed, so passionately, and seemed able to make people feel what she was feeling. “She is a screaming teakettle with barely a quarter inch of water in it,” Vivian said, a little unfairly, Jemma thought, because the lady did not seem shallow to her. Jemma had fixed her diabetes, and touched something rich and angry in her, some deep resource that previously was employed only in peddling tamales which no one could ever turn down, not even the nauseated or the full or the vegetarian.
Monserrat folded her arms across her chest and nodded vigorously, approving very strongly of what she had just said. Dr. Sundae was next in the speaking order. “Obviously,” she said, “obviously we will all have to play a part in deciding what comes next. But will it just pop up on its own, like some surprising weed, or is it something that will require planning, and even cultivation? We’re all very smart, here. I think we know what the answer is.
“In a month, or two months, or three months, I think we could be landed. I think the waters are waiting for us, and will be drawn back as soon as we demonstrate that we have become a worthy colony, one fit to be put ashore in a new, unspoiled place. And how will we demonstrate this? Well, the first step will be tonight, for you are choosing your direction when you are choosing your director. I mean no more slight than is absolutely necessary against my competitors when I say that if you choose someone with no clear vision of how to make this demonstration, and by that I really mean — I must say it — someone besides me — then you should be prepared to stay out here… indefinitely. But perhaps you like it out here.
“And maybe there is much to like, now. Certainly there are many distractions. We concoct new ones every day. But weave me the basket, please, that will redeem the sin that called down destruction upon you. Teach me the mathematics that will prove we were innocent, or undeserving of destruction. Play me the instrument that does not increase our trespass. We should be refined by our affliction, but instead we wave our hands in front of our faces and say, Look at the bird!
“I tell you we will be destroyed little by little if we do not look inward and back, to discover and disown our sin. We are rocked in plenty out here, and given days full of nothing but the opportunity for reflection. I propose that we begin to do so systematically, and with all our effort, and put our bright minds to the task of designing a repentance, and yes, there may be fasting, and scourging, and weeping, and yes, yes—gnashing of teeth. But look inside, all of you, do you think anything else will suffice for what you’ve done?”
It was very quiet when Dr. Sundae stopped talking. Had there been surviving crickets anywhere in the world, Jemma was sure she would have heard them, then. She didn’t think she could make much in the way of a prediction about who was going to win, but she was sure Dr. Sundae would come in dead last.
“Thank you, Dr. Sundae,” said Vivian, the next to speak, “for that frightening harangue. I’m afraid I agree with part of what you’ve just said. In three months we could very well still be out here. We have no way of knowing how long it will be. We’ve all thought about the possibility of it being forever. I feel like it will be less than that, but the angel’s not telling and my magic eight ball is confused on the subject.
“I wonder sometimes how much it matters, though. It already feels to me like we’ve been out here forever, and it feels like the waters came just yesterday. It was ages ago, and a moment ago that the kids all got better. I hope I don’t sound too much like Dr. Sundae if I say it’s not how much time we spend out here, but what we do with it, that matters. And I think it happened for a reason, too, of course I do. I mean, we know it wasn’t global warming, right? And I think we should reflect on the reason — find out why it happened and reform ourselves accordingly. But it won’t profit any of us to gnash our teeth or crawl down the catwalk in a hair-shirt fashion show. I don’t think the water is waiting for us to be good. We’re all good already, we’ve all done good things in the past months, and who knows what good things you all did before that. And maybe that’s why you’re here now. As I said, the eight ball is confused.
“We should build something, I think. We should decide together what was wrong about the old world and start building the new one, because it has to start here, whether we land someplace tomorrow or in ten years. So that’s what I think we’ll be doing in the coming months, building up a new world out of this place where children used to come to die. I have a clear vision for it. I hope you’ll let me share it with you.”
Jemma felt a curious attraction toward her friend, and thought she saw people leaning a little toward the stage, and then suddenly leaning back away from it when Dr. Snood started to speak.
“Well,” he said. “Children never came here expressly to die. I think we all realize that. Sometimes we did our best and failed them, but we never lured them to our candy house to practice atrocities on them or smother them in their sleep. I think it’s important to be clear on this point, because what we were is what determines what we will be. This is still a hospital, no matter how we trick it up with stages and playing fields and movie theaters, and our work is still the work of a hospital — preservation. We have been granted either a reprieve or a new mandate, I do not know which, and I don’t think anybody does know which, even the agent of the change. Dr. Claflin, are you out there? May I ask you, do you know, is it a reprieve, will we all be going back to our old work in a month or two months or three?” Jemma could not believe the gall of him, to pimp her in this crowd, to reach back in time to pull his pimping prerogative out of the old, dead order. She was surrounded by short children, and had nowhere to hide.
“Better ask the eight ball, Doctor,” she shouted back at him.
“Yes, well, I understand it’s confused. I don’t think we can know, Dr. Claflin. It is all too strange and new for most of us, which is exactly why we should preserve our old, familiar forms, even if we have to fill them with new things. Because I tell you we are a hospital, and will always be a hospital, because a hospital, more than anything else, even more than a place where children go to become well, is a community, and this hospital was a community for many years before it became… how it is now… isolated.
“I think in a month we will be a more perfect community, and in another month, and another, we will become still more perfect. We are already building something, in ourselves, between ourselves, and outside of ourselves. Look around you at all the changes, and look inside yourselves at all the changes. We have only begun to apply the sort of energy that kept us going during those weeks and weeks of thirty-six-hour shifts, the same wonderful dedication that gave such excellent care to children as sick as any I have ever seen, and not a single child died, not a single child. We are still a hospital. We are still a community of workers, and the work we are going to do is something truly wonderful.”