Story: Sympathy for the Torturer (part two)

Sympathy for the Torturer

(part two)

Anton waited at the end of the table. Beans and brown bread today, applesauce, milk. Nothing limited. More of bread, more of milk or applesauce…if the woman would come over, and if he could stand to ask her.

Nothing limited, nothing flavorful.

The salt stealer had said to Herward, “My name is Crispola.”

It was a brand of cooking oil; she was Hidtha, and this was how the Hidtha chose their public names.

“They have words used by only men or only women. Taboo words that are a dishonor to speak. When the Jocelynists abused them, they gave false Hidtha names to put filth in the mouths of people they considered idiots.” Palma had shared this with Anton, and a shrug, a cold closeness, as to the idiocy of Jocelynists. “The Hidtha were tortured, they were murdered, but they never told their names. They approve of the G.R.A., and so they play a little joke on them, that’s all.”

Anton’s roommate at the prison had gone by Uno.

Samantha Ochiltree had recurred, asking this time for candlesticks, and Mrs. Leonhardt had bargained the price of two hundred salt packets. Currency. Appropriating salt, then, learning what Crispola and her friend would give for it? Disloyal to Herward, who’d made the relationship, so that Mother could get salt for silver. So that Samantha’s string could be tugged, Mother’s string could be tugged, his own…

 He felt it, how he thought about food, how the lunchrooms were placed, and you had to walk to them, and it took twenty minutes…somehow it did…from anywhere you lived or worked. Forty minutes round trip, forty-five more you were allowed to stay at the table, have firsts and seconds, thirds on coffee—if it was a rare coffee day.

And if you were not at the lunchroom every day, you wouldn’t know.

Almost an hour and a half dedicated to lunch. Workers were given two hours for hardship, told the time would be reduced as the G.R.A. began to leave. The G.R.A. had been beginning to leave since the invasion of six years ago.

Herward banged down a tray. “Brown bread and beans.”

“I know that.” Anton grabbed for his plate.

“Not so fast. There’s a treat.”

The bread was buttered today, and Herward, being in uniform, had been given ice cream. “Have this. I’m good without it.”

“No.”

“Grow a little. I’m offering you ice cream. Tell me why refusing to be pleased is rewarding to you.”

Because… A trap was being sprung, an unfair one. Herward’s assignment would end. Herward’s sheltering uniform would vanish, Herward having dragged his charge into employment, nagged him to overriding his normal/abnormal impulses…

It was what they wanted, you to present as a conforming citizen. The G.R.A. did not care for your struggle. Control it. Hide it. (“Some jobs are harder than others.”)

“I don’t want that guard getting mad.”

He said this, an Anton thing to say. Greatly paused over beforehand.

Herward said: “She has forgotten you.”

2

Tourmaline

Tourmaline (part three)

(2016, Stephanie Foster)