I rummage through the bathroom cabinet, and luckily manage to find an old tube of foundation and some yellowish concealer. I layer on the makeup until the kiss is no more than a faint blue spot on my skin, then arrange my hair in a messy side-bun knotted just behind my right ear. I’ll have to be very careful over the next few days; I’m sporting a mark of the disease. The idea is both thrilling and terrifying.
My parents are downstairs in the kitchen. My father is watching the morning news. Even though it’s Sunday, he is dressed for work and eating a bowl of cereal standing up. My mother is on the telephone, working its cord around her finger, making the occasional noise of assent. I know immediately that she must be talking to Minnie Phillips. My father watches the news; my mother calls Minnie for information. Mrs. Phillips works at the records bureau, and her husband is a policeman—between the two of them, they know everything that happens in Portland.
Almost everything, that is.
I think of the twisting, darkened rooms of uncureds last night—all of them touching, whispering, breathing one another’s air—and feel a rush of pride.
“Morning, Hana,” my dad says without taking his eyes off the television screen.
“Good morning.” I’m careful to keep the left side of my body angled toward him as I slide into a chair at the kitchen table and shake a handful of cereal into my palm.
Donald Seigal, the mayor’s minister of information, is being interviewed on TV.
“Stories of a resistance are vastly overblown,” he is saying smoothly. “Still, the mayor is responsive to the concerns of the community . . . new measures will be effectuated . . .”
“Unbelievable.” My mother has hung up the phone. She takes the remote and mutes the television. My father makes a noise of irritation. “Do you know what Minnie just told me?”
I fight the urge to smile. I knew it. That is the thing about people once they’re cured: They’re predictable. That is, supposedly, one of the procedure’s benefits.
My mom continues, without waiting for a response, “There was another incident. A fourteen-year-old girl this time, and a boy from CPHS. They were caught sneaking around the streets at three in the morning.”
“Who was it?” my dad asks. He has given up on the news and is now rinsing his bowl in the sink.
“One of the Sterling girls. The younger one, Sarah.” My mother watches my dad expectantly. When he doesn’t react, she says, “You remember Colin Sterling and his wife. We had lunch with them at the Spitalnys’ in March.”
My father grunts.
“So terrible for the fam—” My mother stops abruptly, turning to me. “Are you all right, Hana?”
“I—I think I swallowed the wrong way,” I gasp. I stand up and reach for a glass of water. My fingers are shaking.
Sarah Sterling. She must have been caught on her way back from the party, and for a second I have the worst, most selfish thought: Thank God it wasn’t me. I take long, slow sips of water, willing my heart to stop pounding. I want to ask what happened to Sarah—what will happen—but I don’t trust myself to speak. Besides, these stories always end the same way.
“She’ll be cured, of course,” my mother finishes, as though reading my mind.
“She’s too young,” I blurt out. “There’s no way it’ll work right.”
My mother turns to me calmly. “If you’re old enough to catch the disease, you’re old enough to be cured,” she says.
My father laughs. “Soon you’ll be volunteering for the DFA. Why not operate on infants, too?”
“Why not?” My mother shrugs.
I stand up, bracing myself against the kitchen table as a rush of blackness sweeps through my head, clouding my vision. My father takes the remote and turns the volume up on the television again. Now it is Fred’s father, Mayor Hargrove, whose image comes into focus.
“I repeat, there is no danger of a so-called ‘resistance movement,’ or any significant spread of the disease,” he is saying. I walk quickly out into the hall. My mom calls something to me, but I’m too focused on the drone of Hargrove’s voice—“Now, as ever, we declare a zero-tolerance policy for disruptions and dissidence”—to hear what she says. I take the stairs two at a time and shut myself into my room, wishing more than ever that my door had a lock.
But privacy breeds secrecy, and secrecy breeds sickness.
My palms are sweating as I pull out my phone and dial Angelica’s number. I’m desperate to talk to someone about what happened to Sarah Sterling—I need Angelica to tell me it’s okay, and we’re safe, and also that the underground won’t be disrupted—but we’ll have to speak carefully, in codes. All our phone calls are regulated and recorded, periodically, by the city.
Angelica’s cell phone goes straight to voice mail. I dial her house number, which rings and rings. I have a flash of panic: For a second, I worry she must have been caught too. Maybe even now, she’s being dragged down to the labs, strapped down for her procedure.