
The ocean liner was sleek, elegant, and more concerned with speed and efficiency than luxury, which suited Hyacinth’s displaced household just fine. The lack of portholes in their last-minute, below-the-waterline bunk rooms suited Erik in particular just fine, but their size and ceiling height didn’t. Fortunately, there were two decks, a café, a restaurant, a bar with a lounge, and a tiny movie theatre, with two dozen seats!
Erik had already consumed all the movies three times, in three languages, and he was contenting himself with a deck for the moment. Hey, if he gave it enough time, he might forget that everyone murdered that guy on the Occidental Express. That might be kinda fun, but he wasn’t sure how much time they had left, exactly. Barring a catastrophe, probably less than a day, because…
“Is that it?” he cried, pointing. “Is that one Zanzamin? Are we almost there?”
Hyacinth consulted a brochure-sized map and a postcard, through her reading glasses, for reference. She pulled them down her nose and squinted into the near-opaque atmosphere above the glassy, dark waves. “You actually see land out there?”
Erik popped out his eye and held it over the railing, as if offering a little extra distance for clarity. “Nope! Not anymore!” He laughed and clicked it back into the socket.
“It’s not,” said Mordecai, without even looking. He stood up, faced the railing and spread his arms. “We’re heading south.” He waved his right hand. “I write with this hand, and Zanzamin is that way. That’s still Farsia.” He adjusted his coat, breathed a visible cough and sat down again, behind the shelter of a grey wooden windbreak. Only the very adventurous, the very seasick and the very concerned for their low-impulse-control loved ones were out here in this weather. The salt air was weeping.
Erik blew a quick raspberry. “Bleh. Seen it. Bored of it. Too expensive and complacent. I like Zanzamin, they’re scrappy and irritable!” He beamed. “Like us!” He snatched the map from Hyacinth and tried to position it the right way up. “Do wage slaves count as slaves, Uncle? Could we get in that way?”
“Definitely not, and buskers are not wage slaves,” said Mordecai. “Please don’t tease an entire country, dear one, we are going to be their guests. I don’t care about me, anyway, but I’m sorry about your dads. If we knew it was Jimmy, for sure, you might have a chance.”
Erik looked up, over the crumpled, damp and well-leafed brochure map. It had the name of each island, points of cultural interest, a brief history, and the text of Fadi’s Law. They were going to New Tanga first, the big one, but they’d see Jiwe Dogo, hardly more than a reef with a bird sanctuary and once of great utility to wreckers, off the starboard bow an hour before that. “Maggie says you don’t have to be sure, that’s not how slavery works. You just have to be plausible and sincere. I might still get in if I try!”
Hyacinth came up beside him with an ironic grin, steaming like a dragon. “Kinda surprised you’re so hot to have dual citizenship when you saw Queen Kefilwe stab her coloured boyfriend to death and lie about it, kid.”
“It was over a thousand years ago and I don’t think it’s as bad as slavery.” He shrugged. “She really loved Fadi and he pushed her to do it, it’s kinda cute.”
“No it’s not,” said Mordecai. He paused. “Romantic, maybe, but only in story form. Don’t let Maggie kill you for real, dear one.”
Erik snickered and covered a blush with his hand. His uncle had caught him and Maggie playing that, more than once. To be fair, it was a very melodramatic story and required a lot of yelling, two swords and an arrow, a big speech, and three-to-five minutes of death agonies from an aspiring performer-in-training. Look, when you were trying to get your girlfriend to put her sword through your heart so you could stop fighting and stay in what was left of your village, “ooo, that smarts” just wasn’t enough.
They’d even come up with a comedy version. “Now make sure you definitely tell everyone you stabbed me, and tell them why,” he’d say, choking. “Okay,” she’d reply, smiling. “What’re you doing with that arrow?” he’d say. “What’s an ‘arrow’?” she’d say.
“It’s not the real story, though,” Erik said. He shook his head. “I mean, it is, but literally no one else knows it and I can’t prove how it happened, so it’s not like Farsia likes to pretend. She lied so good, everyone else gets to be honest.”
“Bleh,” said Mordecai. “Now you’re reminding me of my old girlfriend.”
“Our First Coloured Prime Minister?” Erik said, blinking.
“No, and not Cathy either.”
“Linda?” said Erik.
“No. After Cathy and before Linda. The one I don’t talk about because I might get her executed for treason.”
“I can’t picture you with all these women you claim to have known,” said Hyacinth, with a quizzical tilt of her head. “You’re awfully sedate for a rake. Sure you’re not really gay and overcompensating?”
Erik elbowed her in the ribs. “You’re channelling David again. Cut it out. That’s my job.”
She scowled at him and he grinned in reply.
“Pa… My other friend.” Mordecai had a hesitant hand over his mouth. He sighed, a long curl of white like a wizard with a pipe. “Shirley. That guy I used to argue with all the time, the one who thought Immanuel Kant was hot shit…”
Erik was nodding, but he already knew his uncle meant Pavel, who wasn’t in the band but drank a lot and did drag on open mic nights.
Mordecai nodded too. “We called him Shirley, for the papers. He used to call her Spin, sometimes, for the papers. And sometimes Pins. Shirley was always screwing around like that. He said it made us look bigger than we were, but I don’t think he meant it. He just thought it was funny. Spin was a good name for her, though. She encouraged him. She was our ‘propaganda artist,’ she said it like that, but I don’t think it’s worth dignifying. None of it is. We put her in charge of the goddamn reporters because she was good at it, that’s all.”
“Snip’s still alive?” Erik said. “Shirley too? For real?”
Mordecai shrugged. “We don’t send each other Yule cards or anything, dear one. That wouldn’t be…”
Maggie plunked down in a nearby deck chair and thudded a small, plastic bottle on the table beside it. Erik drew a little closer, checking for liquor and wondering if he might steal a sip — just to keep warm! — but it said “Acetone” in big Anglais letters. It was only nail polish remover. “Hey,” he offered her pensive frown, with a big smile. “You’re almost home!”
She covered her face with both hands and choked out a sob. “I fucking hate that place!”
◆◆◆
Ann slammed the door of the tiny cabin, muttering to herself — or possibly to Milo. She had a small bundle of something in her arms.
The General flipped down a largish, though still inconveniently glossy and optimistic, book of Zanji history. There were no recent additions that lent Erik’s alternate history any credence, but she didn’t find the official story much more credible. From a strictly practical point of view, the idea that General Ikram had been a girl and changed her name to Kefilwe, meaning “I was given” in a language that was spoken far south of Zanzamin, at least neatened up a few inexplicable holes.
She tapped the temple of her glasses to switch off her “text enlargement” spell — it was distracting. “Miss Rose?”
“I’m sorry,” Ann said. “I’m just looking for Milo’s suspenders.” Aha, so the small bundle in her arms must contain the rest of Mr. Rose. “He hasn’t been out since we got on the boat, and…” She shook her head. “If you’ve seen them, I’ll just get out of your way altogether. Apparently, that’s the best place for me,” she added, with undeniable venom.
The General set the book aside and sat forward. “Who would say such a thing?”
Ann turned away from the luggage rack with a snarl, “Your daughter. And, might I say, one or the other of you might have mentioned it before now… Perhaps back at that Prokovian hotel, when your daughter was saying such lovely things about this… this stupid country we’re going to visit!”
“I was busy,” said the General, blinking. “I delegated. These decisions were made without my input. Was there anything in particular that Magnificent omitted?”
Ann dropped the bundle of clothes and held up both hands, fingers splayed. “How about the fact that my existence and Milo’s independence shall be forfeit because of our skin, General D’Iver?”
◆◆◆
Ann had been sampling yet another mysterious tea-like substance in the café and gazing out the misty window with a smile, at a cozy table that invited limited company.
Maggie sat down on the other side, with a pained, embarrassed expression.
Ann saw the polish remover right away, laughed, and shooed a hand. “Oh, dear, I know. Don’t worry. It’s fine. We both know, but it’s just an excuse.” She held up her hands, showing her pretty painted nails. “I’m not going to let Milo spend our whole lovely trip hiding in ships’ cabins and hotel rooms, just because he likes what David did to our nails. It’s starting to chip anyway, honestly. It’s just hard for him, you know?” She laughed again. “And sometimes it’s hard for me to decide whether he needs patience or a good, swift kick in the rear.” She stuck out her heeled shoe, demonstrating. “Maybe we can split the difference!”
Maggie shook her head, no less pained. “It’s not… I mean, I like seeing him. I’ll be happy to see him, and show him around, and make sure nobody grabs him and starts talking and scares the hell out of him. I’ll help him, I don’t mind that.”
Ann nodded, but a bit more soberly. “Are you worried he might…? Well, I don’t mean embarrass. Might… Might be a bit much for them? Are they… Do they expect a lot of smiles and talking?”
Maggie shook her head, nodded, and shook it again. “Yes, but… I think Milo should see Zanzamin…”
“Oh, of course, dear. We know what it means to you. It’s not that he doesn’t want to. He’d never…”
Maggie put up both hands like Erik begging for a pause. “I-I think Milo should see Zanzamin, and… and it would be better if you waited for Parsa… Or maybe Roma. Maybe it would be better if… if you let him have a turn until we get to Cossura, in Roma.”
Ann sat forward, no longer smiling. “Have I done something to offend you, Maggie? Or do you think I will?”
“No,” she said firmly. “Not me. Never me. I-I love you, Ann.” She clenched both hands on the edge of the table. “I just don’t want you to get hurt.”
“Just what sort of a place is Zanzamin, Maggie?” Ann asked, eyes narrowed. “You’ve always spoken so highly of it, until now.”
“It’s… It’s smaller,” Maggie said desperately. “It’s poorer. It’s harder for them, they don’t have as much… as much stuff. Just, like, the sapphires, that’s it. Not even land. They… They don’t have a lot of people who look like you…”
“I see.”
“Or Milo!” Maggie cried. “The colour of you! It’s like how Uncle Em already has one strike against him for being weird, but it won’t be like that there for him, or Erik, or me. It’s… It’s you, and Hyacinth, and my mom, but…” She wrung her hands. “They look more like girls.”
Ann had folded her hands on the tabletop. Her mouth was a tight line with clenched teeth behind it. “And just what might happen to me if I should decide to step off the boat in Zanzamin, and they notice I’m not a girl?”
“I wouldn’t let them! I belong there, they have to listen to me. I’d never let them do anything bad!”
“And if you weren’t there?”
Maggie lowered her voice to a humiliated mutter, “Take Milo’s passport and arrest you for public indecency.”
“Is this more of a fifty-sinq fine situation or a police brutality one?”
“Not the police.” Maggie looked down and away. “They’d put you in a jail cell with men, probably drunk men, and drug addicts…”
Ann parted her clenched teeth with narrowed eyes…
…and Maggie darn near fell out of her chair in her haste to retreat. “No! Not like Seth. Not nice ones.” She shut her eyes. “Men who think they can hurt you and no one will care because of your skin. You’ve never had to deal with that, not that, and I won’t let you. I won’t let you go to jail like that.” She sat forward. “I don’t care if you want to step off the boat in nothing but fishnets and a corset, Ann, I won’t let them hurt you! This is just…”
“This is just the simplest way of preventing me from being assaulted in a jail cell?”
Maggie nodded weakly, head hanging. “Yeah…”
Ann picked up the polish remover and thumped it firmly on Maggie’s side of the table. “We don’t need that.”
“Ann…”
Ann clasped her hands and all traces of polish evaporated in a flash of orange light. “There.” She showed both hands, fingers splayed. “It’s gone.” She stood up. “If you’ll give me a moment, I will be too.”
“Ann, I…”
“Please tell us, is this liable to be the situation in Parsa too? Is it all that different from Zadrakarta or are you just being safe?”
“It’s…” Maggie shook her head helplessly. “It’s the colour of you, of the people. Zadrakarta is right by Prokovia. You don’t stand out. Parsa…”
“Parsa is right by Zanzamin,” Ann said coldly.
“It’s not Zanzamin’s fault! It’s not like they’re friends! These cultures despise each other — even when they do mix, they don’t admit it.” She slumped forward, pleading. “Zanzamin… People who look like you have been fighting with Zanzamin for over a thousand years. They came from…”
Maggie gestured out the window, but there was no land to be seen and very little sense of direction. She had to settle for just pointing up.
“Not even Farsia. The Ankora Empire, it was much bigger, farther north, and the Kemet Empire… That was basically Thessalonia when it fell apart, and then all of them went north too. Even after Ikram and Fadi… They wanted slaves. People who look like you wanted slaves, and Zanzamin wouldn’t let them, until the ILV got in on it and opened up another route, but they still didn’t stop fighting. They still fight, and sometimes they die. All that history…” She was shaking her head. “It’s too much. They don’t see individuals anymore. Some — they’re not all horrible, I’m Zanji too! — but… Not enough to be safe. They won’t see you.”
“So what’s Parsa’s excuse?”
Maggie was still shaking her head. “It’s not an excuse. I don’t know. Parsa’s not like that, but people will stare at you. People will stare at you and look for a reason you’re there. My mom hates it — she practically stays an eagle the whole time, they don’t stare at that and the updrafts are phenomenal. I-I don’t know if they’d hurt you.” She sighed. “But I don’t have a passport that says I belong in Farsia. I-I…”
She stuffed a hand in her pocket and flipped the little billfold open to show both photos, and two sets of stamps, with much fewer on the Zanji side. Zanzamin wasn’t recognized as a nation in a lot of places, including Marsellia.
“Ann, I have a passport that says I belong to a terrorist organization that’s been screwing with Farsia for a thousand years, but arresting me is more trouble than it’s worth ‘cos I belong to Marsellia too. If something bad happened, it would be so much harder to help you there.”
Ann held her unpainted fingers a small space apart. “So there is just the teeniest chance I get assaulted in a jail cell while you’re doing international diplomacy to get me out.”
“I’m sorry.” Maggie said. “It’s not fair and I hate it and I’m sorry.” At last, she nodded. “But, yeah.” She tried to reach across the table, but Ann pulled away. “I-I don’t want that to happen. It won’t happen to Milo — I’m positive! He can… He can visit for you! New Tanga City is… It’s amazing. If you liked the big battery in Zadrakarta, you’ll love the sky in New Tanga. And they have that aquarium I was talking about — you can see the real fish in the real ocean, and whales. You gotta see the birds, you helped me with the birds, you gotta tell Calliope and the kids about the birds! And Parsa… Parsa has a really great science museum… They invented algebra!”
Ann walked past her without acknowledging the fish, the birds, or the invention of algebra, which Milo had been terribly interested in until about three minutes ago. “No thank you. Milo prefers to stay in the hotel room, in both places.” She looked back over her shoulder with a bitter smile. “Oh, but it sounds lovely. Do have fun. Don’t let us stop you.”
◆◆◆
“Maggie,” said Mordecai.
“Shut up!” said Maggie. She choked and wiped her eyes with a fist. “You are not my dad! I don’t even want you on this! But if I try to get the ring away from my mom, I’m gonna hafta talk to her, and she understands even less. She thinks you can just… just steamroll your way through everything and you can’t. Sometimes you just can’t, okay? Sometimes you don’t have enough. Sometimes you hafta piss off your best friends, even if it’s not their fault and they’re right. Sometimes… Sometimes good people trying to do a good thing are fucking morons doing damage for no reason!”
◆◆◆
“Ah,” said the General, with a curt nod. “While I do approve of the uncharacteristic efficiency with which Mr. Rose has styled your voice and camouflage paint, I suppose a gentleman can’t help being tall.”
“Hhhyoou,” said Ann. She appeared ready to burst into flames. She growled but it turned into a resigned sigh. “You are not wrong about me, General D’Iver — and we find ourselves alone in this shoebox, so I suppose you must suppose it doesn’t really matter — but calling me a girl is not just a matter of respect, it is a matter of safety. If I’m unable to pass,” she flung up both hands again, helplessly this time, “then there is nothing I can do for Milo in a city full of people who will stare at him and wait for him to put one toe out of line in case he… I don’t even know! Snaps his leash and decides to kidnap and enslave someone? Do they really think he would?”
◆◆◆
Mordecai lifted a finger. “Okay, that part, I understand. I have been a fucking moron doing damage, irreparable damage, for no reason, and I didn’t even get a country out of it.” He offered a weak smile of chagrin. “You know that.”
Maggie sniffled and swiped a crumpled tissue under her nose. “You let a guy in a dress help.”
He blinked at her. “Did I tell you about…?”
She pointed at Erik. He nodded and pointed at himself.
“Ah.” Mordecai nodded too. “Okay. But I almost got him killed, several times. And we had more than one fistfight, with each other, while we were supposed to be on the same side. I’m not actually smart, I just have experience and a high opinion of myself — which is not warranted by my experiences.” He tried another smile, more sheepish this time.
Maggie blew out a breath, not quite a laugh. “Same.”
Now Erik had an objection, “Maggie, if what you are isn’t smart, then I must be a turnip,” and Hyacinth laughed.
◆◆◆
The General allowed a small smile. “I share your frustration, Miss Rose, if not your lack of experience — not entirely, although my husband and daughter are much better acquainted with racism and I find I must defer to their judgment in most cases. Nevertheless, I can assure you on their behalf that it is not rational and will not respond to logical arguments.” She shrugged. “I have also been informed that, although it has no basis in reality, it has been so deeply ingrained in our societal structures that one cannot simply clap one’s hands and say ‘I do not see colour’ in order to make it go away. It is not so much that the Zanji public thinks you will harm them as it feels hostile towards you and won’t stop looking for a reason to justify it.”
“Then I do not understand why your daughter wanted so badly to be a part of it!” Ann snapped. “She moved back to Ansalem for a week when poor Sam told her he didn’t like the idea of it. I didn’t understand that then, and I don’t understand it from a completely different perspective now. Your husband loves you and he didn’t want to involve you in this. What’s her problem?”
“She is not here to defend herself,” said the General. “However, if you are asking me to guess, I must only assume she did not consider the negative consequences because she is used to them.”
“What?” She flung a frustrated gesture at her dress and pointed to the pile of clothes on the floor. “Used to Milo and I bending over backwards to present a face that won’t get us killed in whatever godawful situation we’ve landed in? Used to us hiding? She just expects us to do it on automatic like it’s no big…”
“Not at all, Miss Rose,” the General said calmly. “I believe she must not have realized how insulting it is to be made to change one’s face to suit the situation, as you say, because that is how she lives every day of her life, at home or abroad. She is willing to do it on automatic.”
Ann’s mouth fell open, utterly silent.
◆◆◆
“Dear one, you are not a turnip,” Mordecai said gently. “Not now, not ever. And I’m not stupid and neither is Maggie. There are types of smart. Nobody can cover all of them all at once. Not families or individuals or people who think they can operate a revolution, or whole countries.”
He turned towards Hyacinth with a smirk. “It’s those ‘unintended consequences’ you and Ann are always telling me I can’t control. It’s always the problem you can’t see that’s gonna sneak up and bite you in the ass.” He offered Maggie a helpless shrug. “So Zanzamin has been fighting for freedom so long, it’s decided oppression is a colour — and they are not entirely wrong about that, just wrong enough to hurt people they wouldn’t want to hurt under different circumstances.”
Maggie cut a hand at him. “I knew it was stupid that way when I filled out that damn form. I had to wait’ll I was eighteen, because my dad didn’t want any part of it. He saw how they treated my mom… I saw it too! I thought… We had that big argument and I said there’s no way it’s going to get any better if we throw up our hands and refuse to participate — they will just run us right the hell over if they don’t see us. But they don’t let me participate like that. I don’t even live there! I get an absentee ballot in the mail and a whole bunch of stuff about sweatshops and human trafficking and carceral systems. I don’t get a box to tick that says, ‘less racism, please,’ just candidates and policies that don’t do anything about it.”
She blew out a sigh and dropped her face into her hands. “My mom can take it. I’ve seen her. It’s like it doesn’t even touch her. But Ann and Milo can’t. It’s so much worse for them.”
Hyacinth raised her hand. “Would these folks be thrilled with me hitting on girls, if I…” Maggie was already shaking her head. “I see.”
“But you don’t,” she muttered. She looked up with a frown. “Seriously, you’re worse about commitment than Uncle Em.” She clapped both hands over her face with a groan that was nearly a snarl. “I know it’s still horseshit, Cin, I don’t want to fight, but Zanzamin is so much better than the worst things about it!”
Mordecai broke in with a chuckle, “Oh, no, patriotism.”
Maggie glared at him.
He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I’m never not going to be a revolutionary, I’m just very good at hiding. That’s what we called patriotism. Shirley was doing his own Devil’s Dictionary, but I don’t think he ever finished it. ‘Patriotism, noun, an allegiance to an imaginary country that lives in your head that lets the actual country you live in get away with murder.’” He smirked. “It’s not very punchy, is it?”
“How’m I supposed to fix the damn thing if I can’t imagine it any better?” Maggie said.
“Well, I’ve had some ideas about that, but they didn’t pan out,” said Mordecai.
◆◆◆
“My daughter’s way of being is unconventional — not unlike yours, Miss Rose, and Mr. Rose, if you’re listening.” The General offered the ghost of Milo a subtle bow. “She rarely if ever encounters someone who can treat all aspects of her identity as equal at all times. Even Miss Opeyemi and Mr. Halsey experience some difficulty, although Mr. Halsey’s complexity is similar to hers.”
The General held up a hand, toting up three fingers as she spoke. “My daughter has three strikes against her in most situations, her sex, her weight, and her skin. When her skin is accepted as the default, her heritage isn’t. She finds challenging every slight against her exhausting and counterproductive, so she chooses her battles.” She offered a smile. “I believe she decided this one was not worth fighting without consulting you. An error of judgment on her part.”
Ann plopped down on a bunk and put her head in her hands. “She’s not wrong, General D’Iver. Milo and I don’t think it’s worth fighting, either, not now. We just don’t like how it is, or how she said it.”
The General lifted a single brow. “I doubt she disagrees with you on any of those points.” She smiled, rather smugly. “So what was the argument about?”
◆◆◆
Mordecai stood with a resigned sigh, followed by a cough. “‘Perfect is the enemy of good’… That is rather punchy and I don’t trust it for that reason, but that doesn’t make it wrong. We have to roll with a lot, and we get used to it, but every once in a while, something happens that makes us remember how bad everything really is.”
Maggie looked stricken, and Mordecai quickly shook his head.
“This isn’t so complicated. Good people doing a good thing in Zanzamin… are willing to slap your friends and family in the face over the colour of their skin — and their fashion and romantic inclinations. And you’re willing to roll with that.” He put up both hands. “No value judgment, that is not the worst thing a country can do. But there is a line. There will be some things they might do that you can’t roll with. You need to think about that, and you should probably write it down, to keep yourself honest.” He smiled sickly. “I’m not sure what to do if they go over the line, I’m really not, but that’s when it’s time to stop being a patriot, and be something else.”
“A revolutionary,” Erik said, frowning.
Mordecai threw up his hands like Erik had just pulled a gun on him. “I am not saying that! I am definitely not saying that, because we tried that and it didn’t work!” He blew out a long sigh and sat down again. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, okay? Now let’s see what we can do to make it up to Milo and… Oh.”
Milo had been approaching them in utter silence and he was only about five feet away. Maggie read approximately this off Mordecai’s expression and turned with dismay.
Milo backed up a step and signed right away, NOT MAD. I/ME UNDERSTAND.
Maggie shook her head. She stood up and patted down his hands. “Don’t. I don’t want you to understand. I don’t understand. It’s okay if you don’t want to do anything in Zanzamin and you hate it the whole time… But I’ll be there if you change your mind.”
He nodded.
“Is Ann still mad at me?”
He twitched a weak smile and shook his head. MACHINE TALK.
“What?” Maggie said, blinking.
He cocked a thumb over his shoulder, towards the door to the cabins. The “machine” herself was emerging from said door, with a hand covering one ear.
“Oh my gods,” said Maggie.
“Magnificent,” said the General, a bit too loudly. “If you wish to speak to your father…”
Maggie groaned. “Oh, gods, Mom. Uncle Em and everyone already straightened me out. Don’t bother…”
“I did not bother them, Magnificent. They are bothering me. Hold, please. No, not you, Captain. Ah. Yes. I’ll ask. Magnificent?”
“Yeah?”
“If you are not too attached to the science museum in Parsa, would you mind waiting in New Tanga for two or three days? Mr. Levitt would like to pick us up.”
Maggie smiled. “I dunno. Milo, do you mind?”
Milo shook his head.
“Erik, how ‘bout you?”
He shrugged and smiled. “I’m not gonna fill out a form right when we get there, but I’d love a few days to give ‘em a chance. Wait-wait-wait!” He pointed over the railing. “Is that one Zanzamin? Is that it?”
Maggie nodded, grinned and clasped his hands. “Welcome to Zanzamin.”
Erik gave her a squeeze. “Welcome home.”