Dead and Alive

beaten and were not permitted to turn off their pain.
    “I thought you’d understand, Glenda. We’re all in the same quicksand, aren’t we, whether we’re the provisioner or the wife.”
    Uncomfortable with this intimacy, Glenda said, “There’s no store open at this hour, selling boys’ clothing. But …”
    “Yes?”
    Fear rose in Glenda’s eyes, and her previously placid face tightened with worry. “There are many articles of boys’ and girls’ clothing here in the house.”
    “Here? But there are no children here.”
    Glenda’s voice fell to a whisper. “You must never tell.”
    “Tell what? Tell whom?”
    “Never tell … Mr. Helios.”
    Erika pressed the battered-wife sympathy play as far as she probably dared: “Glenda, I am beaten not just for my shortcomings, but for any reason that suits my … maker. I am quite sure I would be beaten for being the bearer of bad news. All secrets are safe with me.”
    Glenda nodded. “Follow me.”
    Also off the south hall on the ground floor were a series of storage rooms. One of the largest of these was a twenty-by-eighteen-foot walk-in cooler where a dozen of the highest-quality fur coats were stored—mink, ermine, arctic fox…. Victor had no sympathy for the antifur movement, as he was engaged in the much more important antihuman movement.
    In addition to the rack of coats, there were numerous cabinets containing clothes of all kinds that would not fit even in Erika’s enormous closet in the master suite. By having a series of wives who were identical in every detail, Victor spared himself the expense of purchasing new wardrobes. But he did want his Erika to be at all times stylishly attired, and he did not expect her to choose from a limited garment collection.
    From several drawers in the farthest corner of the room, Glenda nervously produced children’s clothing, article after article, both for boys and girls, in various sizes.
    “Where did all this come from?” Erika asked.
    “Mrs. Helios, if he learns about it, he’ll terminate Cassandra. And this is the only thing that’s ever made her happy. It’s made us all happy—her daring, her secret life, she gives the rest of us a little hope.”
    “You know my position on being the bearer of bad news.”
    Glenda buried her face in a striped polo shirt.
    For a moment, Erika thought that the woman must be crying, for the shirt trembled in her hands, and her shoulders shook.
    Instead, Glenda inhaled deeply, as if seeking the scent of the boy who had worn the shirt, and when she looked up from it, her face was a portrait of bliss.
    “For the past five weeks, Cassandra has been sneaking off the estate at night, to kill Old Race children.”
    Cassandra, the laundress.
    “Oh,” Erika said. “I see.”
    “She couldn’t wait any longer to be told the killing could at last begin. The rest of us … we so admire her nerve, but we haven’t been able to find it in ourselves.”
    “And … what of the bodies?”
    “Cassandra brings them back here, so we can share in the excitement. Then the trash men who take other bodies to the dump, they take the children, too, no questions asked. Like you said—we’re all in this quicksand together.”
    “But you keep the clothes.”
    “You know what the dormitory is like. Not an inch of extra space. We can’t store the clothes there. But we can’t bear to get rid of them. We take these clothes out some nights, take them over to the dormitory and, youknow, play with them. And, oh, it’s very wonderful, Mrs. Helios, thinking of the dead kids and listening to Cassandra tell how each one happened. It’s the best thing ever, the only good thing we’ve ever had.”
    Erika knew that something profound must be happening to her when she found Glenda’s story disturbing, even creepy, and when she hesitated at the prospect of dressing the poor sweet troll in the clothes of murdered children. Indeed, that she should think
murdered instead of merely dead
had to be an indication of a revolution in her thinking.
    She was torn by something like pity for Cassandra, Glenda, and the others on the staff, by a quiet horror at the idea of Cassandra stalking the most defenseless of the Old Race, and by compassion for the murdered, toward whom she had been programmed to feel nothing but envy, anger, and hatred.
    Her actions on behalf of Jocko crossed the line that Victor had drawn for her, for all of them, in the afore-mentioned quicksand. The curious sense of