35.

Her First Ballot

Requiem City, 181

Mina pulled the loose cuff button clear of its old thread and put it in the hollow of her palm. She had meant to wear the blouse, not spend the morning repairing it. Three days it had waited beneath other people's clothes. Now her own lack of a button was holding up the whole business of leaving the house.

She found the right thread without looking through the box. There was enough on the needle for this small job and no reason to cut a fresh length. She settled the cuff across her knee, pushed a black wave of hair back into the loose knot behind her head, and began.

Nell knocked while the needle was through the cloth.

“Come in. Mind the basket.”

Her daughter opened the door into the basket, backed it away with one foot and stepped over the handle. She had dressed already. A narrow blue ribbon lay against her coat, and she was carrying another between finger and thumb as though it might crease if she held it properly.

“You aren't ready.”

“I'm putting on the finishing touch.”

“Is that what we call a sleeve now?”

“Hold it there.”

Nell put down the ribbon and held the edge of the cuff. Her long, deep-brown fingers kept the cloth flat while Mina worked around the button. At twenty-three she could still look aggrieved by a delay of three stitches. Mina liked having her here. She had been looking at the clock more often than the job required.

“I thought we'd go through the market,” Nell said. “Then we can come back for the bread. They do the cheese one before midday.”

“With the onions?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

Mina wound the thread under the button, fastened it and held out her hand for the scissors. Nell gave them to her with the blades closed.

It was pleasant to have the rest of the day arranged for her, up to a point. She had made time for it herself, told two customers when their things would be ready, and cleared the corner of the table where work otherwise spread into her meals. She had put her name through the new registration weeks ago. Residence and adult civic status: the clerk had checked the entries, entered the decision and told her where to go on the day. At fifty, Mina had qualified without acquiring property or joining a guild. Nell had already voted under the local guild qualification. That did not give her an extra claim on the cheese bread.

“I'll be a moment.”

Mina went behind the screen with the blouse. The repaired cuff button slid through its hole with the small resistance it ought to have. She rolled her shoulders, settled the blouse over her broad hips and came back to the table.

Nell picked up the spare ribbon.

“Here.”

“No, thank you.”

“It's only a ribbon.”

“And a pin. I like this cloth as it is.”

Nell looked down at her own ribbon. “You could put it on your coat.”

“What for?”

“For Fenner.”

Mina reached for her purse. “I'm voting for Lott.”

Nell remained with the ribbon held out. Then she lowered it.

“Beren Lott?”

“That's the Lott on the paper.”

“Isha Fenner wants the late services extended.”

“I know.”

“Properly funded. So they can keep running.”

“I know where some of the funding is meant to come from, too.”

Nell folded the spare ribbon in half and then in half again. Before Nell arrived, Mina had pictured telling her that she was voting for Lott and seeing her pleased. The two blue ribbons suggested that Nell had made much the same arrangement for Fenner.

“You've been talking about the roof,” Nell said.

“The market roof. And the working space beneath it.”

“I thought you meant it wanted fixing.”

“I do mean that.”

“I didn't think you meant instead of everything else.”

Mina put her purse into her coat pocket. “There are two names for one municipal place, Nell. I can't mark all the improvements.”

“You can choose the one that helps people get home.”

“Or the one that helps them get their work done.”

They looked at each other across the small table. Nell's loose black hair had caught on the back of her collar. Mina wanted to lift it clear and decided that this would probably be the wrong moment.

“We ought to go,” Nell said.

“I was waiting for you.”

That got a look, and Mina smiled as she put away the needle.

Outside, Nell began to explain that they should take the passage beyond the covered market instead of going around the long side.

“I've been walking through that passage since before you could walk,” Mina said.

“I know where you've been walking. I was saying where the entrance is.”

“Then say where the entrance is.”

Nell gave the directions in two sentences. They were useful, and Mina listened to both.

*   *   *

The market smelled of wet boards where the morning's rain had come through. Under the first sound stretch of roof, customers had gathered more closely than they needed to, keeping clear of the patched place farther down. Mina knew that patch. It was a broad one with a narrow leak at its edge, which meant that someone could point to a great deal of work having been done while water still fell onto things.

At the binding seller's stall, a wet cloth hung over an empty crate. Another was being pulled from beneath a tray of folded bands, half the tray balanced on the seller's wrist.

“Give me that end,” Mina said.

She took it before the bands slid. The seller drew the cloth an inch farther and stopped.

“Nell, the corner.”

Nell put her purse away and took the other corner. The seller freed both hands, tugged the cloth out and dropped it into a basin below the counter.

“Now where?” Nell asked.

“Here. Wait. No, there.”

The seller cleared a dry space with one sweep of an arm. They set the tray down.

Mina looked up. A drop hung from the join in the boards. While she watched, it grew heavy and fell onto the edge of the counter they had just cleared.

“That's why,” she said to Nell.

“I can see it.”

“It's not just wet bindings. You've got work arriving, work waiting to go out, people trying to keep one another's things dry. Every time there's rain, half the place has to move.”

“A little less than half,” the seller said. “Only the half that pays me.”

Mina laughed. Nell looked again at the tray, then at the roof. She was not pretending it was sound. That made Mina more impatient to have her understand why it mattered.

“When I collect cloth here, I have to bring it home fit to use,” she said. “If it's wet, I can't just tell a customer to pay me while it dries.”

“You shouldn't have to.”

“And putting another charge on people who use the market doesn't mend the roof.”

“The charge is meant to pay for the services.”

“I know what it's meant to pay for.”

Nell pushed the hair back from her collar. “Then don't say it as if the money disappears.”

Mina had not meant quite that, but she had enjoyed saying it as if it did. She looked at the seller, who was flattening the dry cloth beneath the tray.

“You've heard both of them,” she said.

“I've heard a great many people on this corner. Most of them know just where the money ought to go.”

“You want the roof done.”

“I want to finish here and get home, too.” The seller tucked in a loose edge. “Don't make me pick which part of the day I dislike.”

Nell's mouth moved at one corner. Mina declined to acknowledge it.

“Lott has made the roof a priority,” she said.

“I've had priorities stand right there and promise me things before.”

“Fenner's put the cost into the proposal,” Nell said.

“Which cost?” the seller asked.

“The later services.”

“I meant mine.”

Nell laughed, but the seller waited.

“Some people using the market would pay for part of it,” she said.

“Including me,” Mina said.

“I know. I'm not telling you it's free.”

“You're telling me to pay for it.”

“Yes. So people can get here and get home. People who work here need the service as much as anyone.”

“And they need this place to stand in,” Mina said.

The seller looked from one to the other. “You can have the corner until the next customer. Then you have to take the election outside.”

They moved far enough along to leave the counter free. Nell remained near the shelter of the roof, looking out at the damp stones. There were people walking toward the poll with their coats over their arms. Nobody had to hurry yet.

“It's a longer walk on those nights,” Mina said. “I know that.”

“Sometimes it is. Sometimes I've waited first.”

“Then why wait?”

“Because it might come.”

Mina opened her mouth, but Nell went on.

“And if I start walking, it might come after I've gone. Last week I stood there until I could have walked most of the way. Then I walked. I got home and ate the bread I'd left out while I was taking my boots off.”

“You could have heated something.”

“I could have. I meant to. I meant to wash my hair, too. I'd meant to have an evening.”

Mina looked at the long loose waves against her daughter's coat. They were clean today, and Nell had taken trouble with them. She had brought two ribbons. She had come early enough to wait while Mina put a button on.

“The one I can rely on has gone by the time I finish,” Nell said. “There's a later one, if it comes. That's the one I keep waiting for.”

“I hadn't counted the waiting,” Mina said.

“Count it when you're in there, then.”

“I'm thinking about it.”

Nell glanced toward the passage. “If we go now, we can still be out before the bread's all gone.”

Mina moved away from the wet patch. She was hungry already. Nell took the outside of the path without explaining where it led, and they went on together.

*   *   *

The queue went from the polling room into the entrance and stopped a few paces short of the street. Mina had imagined more people. Then she looked through the open door and saw that there were more people; they were simply moving.

A woman ahead of them turned and greeted somebody farther back. She began to ask about an illness, stopped herself and went back to speak close enough for the answer not to travel the length of the queue. They let the line move past them. By the door, a man who had come to the wrong entrance was shown the other one and departed with the directions repeated under his breath.

Nell leaned nearer. “This is the right one.”

“I gathered.”

“I wasn't saying you thought it wasn't.”

“Then there's no need for either of us to say anything about it.”

Nell made a small noise. Mina looked at her. Her daughter was trying not to smile, and that was enough to set Mina off. They stood in the queue laughing at very little until the person ahead of them moved and they had to catch up.

Inside, the room was bright along one wall. Clerks sat at tables with the lists. Beyond them were screened places, and beyond those a box in the care of another official. Mina watched a voter leave a screen with a folded paper and put it through the slot. The official turned to the next person.

She knew the broad steps. Nell had told her those and she had wanted to hear them. What Mina had not known was the sound the room would make: feet moving, paper being handled, names spoken at the tables, the ordinary clearing of a throat before a question. From here she could still hear the two women in the entrance, their conversation now low and cheerful.

Mina unfastened her coat. The morning was warming, and she had dressed for how it had looked through the window. Nell took her own coat off and draped it over her arm, leaving the blue ribbon pinned where it was. Mina's blouse lay easily across her shoulders. She pressed the repaired cuff button once with her thumb and left it alone.

When she reached the desk, the clerk asked her name.

“Mina Ellert.”

The clerk found it on the list.

“And your address?”

“She's at the...” Nell began.

Mina gave her address. Nell stopped and stood beside the end of the table, with her coat folded over her arm.

The clerk followed the line across. Mina saw the completed marks beside her registration, the same residence and adult-status entry she had been told was settled. A fresh mark went into the space for issuing the paper.

“Here you are. One choice. Fold it before you come out, and put it in the box.”

The clerk indicated the screened places. Mina took the paper by a clean edge.

“Thank you.”

Nell was moving up to give her own name. Mina walked on.

*   *   *

There was a pencil on the small shelf. Mina set down the paper and read both names.

Beren Lott. Isha Fenner.

She could choose Fenner. If the later service ran as promised, Nell could get home with enough of the evening left to sit down over hot food instead of eating while she took her boots off. Mina wanted that for her. She could come out and tell Nell, and watch the pleased look spread across her face. They could buy their bread and talk about anything.

Mina put her forefinger beside Lott's name. She thought of the tray resting on three people's hands, and of bringing cloth home damp when she had promised it back dry. She still wanted that work done. The roof had not improved because she now understood the walk.

She lifted her finger, picked up the pencil and made her mark beside Lott.

The mark was clear. She put the pencil down, folded the paper with the names inside and took it to the box. Its edge caught lightly at the slot. She changed the angle and let it go.

Outside, she found a place beside the doorway where she would not be in anyone's way. She could see the queue from there. A few more people had joined it while she was inside.

*   *   *

Nell came out carrying her coat and looking for her. When she saw Mina, her face opened into a smile.

“Did you do it?”

“Yes.”

Nell caught her by the arm, briefly, and then let go so they could turn away from the entrance together.

“I thought you would. Once you'd thought about the evenings.”

Mina stopped. They had come a little way down the side of the building, away from the people at the door. Nell turned back.

“I voted for Lott,” Mina said.

The smile did not quite leave Nell's face. It became something she appeared to be holding in place until the rest of her caught up.

“You said you were thinking about it.”

“I was.”

“And you still...”

“Yes.”

Nell looked toward the street. Mina waited. She could feel herself preparing the whole roof again, beginning with the leak and working down to the damp cloth. She did not want to do that in this narrow strip of shade.

“I voted for Fenner,” Nell said.

“I thought you would.”

“Well, I thought you would.”

They looked at one another. Mina almost laughed, which would not have helped.

Nell said, more quietly, “I thought you'd understood.”

“I did understand.”

“Then...”

“I still think the market should come first.”

“It's always first for somebody.”

“So are the services.”

“Because people have to use them.”

“And people have to use the market.”

Mina heard where they had arrived. She put her hands into her coat pockets and then took them out again because she was too warm.

“Are we going to campaign until supper?”

Nell drew breath, kept it for a moment and let it out.

“You were starting again.”

“I hadn't started yet.”

“I could see you getting the roof ready.”

That made Mina laugh properly. Nell's mouth twitched, and then she laughed too, looking down at the folded coat on her arm.

“We could eat first,” she said.

“Yes. We could do that.”

They came out of the side lane into the smell of the hot bread. At the stall, onions were being pushed across the cooking surface with a broad scraper. The soft ones had begun to brown at their thin edges. Mina watched a flatbread opened, filled and pressed down long enough for cheese to run toward the seam.

“That one,” she said.

“That one's mine,” said the customer beside her.

“The next one like it, then.”

Nell turned her head away, smiling. Mina nudged her with her elbow.

They ordered a large one to share. Nell was reaching into her purse when Mina put down half the price.

“I said I'd take you out.”

“You did. Here I am.”

“Mother.”

Mina moved her coins closer to the stallholder. Nell added hers, and the stallholder swept them up before either woman could begin another discussion. Mina was glad of that. She did not want to stand arguing beside the onions while they browned for somebody else.

The bread came wrapped in paper, cut through all but the last thin piece of crust. They carried it to a low wall along the opposite side of the open space. From there the polling entrance was visible beyond the people crossing. A man went in with a woman on either side of him, all three talking. One woman was carrying an empty basket. Another person came out and looked up at the cleared sky before going on alone.

Mina sat down and eased the skirt away from the backs of her knees. Nell laid her coat on the wall between them and set the bread on it, with the paper folded thick beneath.

“You'll get grease on that,” Mina said.

Nell lifted a corner to show the layers. “I've thought of grease.”

“So have I. Give it here.”

Mina settled the wrapped bread onto her lap while Nell pulled her piece away. A strand of cheese stretched between them.

“Wait,” Nell said.

She pinched the strand through a fold of paper. Mina held her half steady until it broke. Nell's piece dipped, spilling a few soft onions back onto the wrapper.

“There. Now.”

Nell took a large bite before anything else could escape. Mina took a smaller one from the pointed end of hers. The onion was sweet and very hot; she held the mouthful for a moment before chewing. She had been more hungry than she knew.

Beside her, Nell was looking down at the browned edge of Mina's half.

“That bit's better.”

Mina swallowed. “You've got the thicker middle.”

“I like the edge.”

“You chose that piece.”

“I chose the piece that was falling.”

Mina broke off a little of the crisp edge and put it on the paper between them. Nell took it, but she tore away a piece of her own middle in return, carrying a thick fold of cheese. Mina accepted it. She had been looking at that.

They ate for a while without talking. The paper grew translucent where it touched the bread. Nell unpinned the ribbon from her coat and laid it across her knee so that it would not trail in the food.

Mina reached for one of the fallen onions.

“Those came out of mine,” Nell said.

“I caught them.”

“They fell onto the paper.”

“Which is on my lap.”

Nell looked at her for a moment. Mina divided the onions with two fingers, leaving a small heap on either side of the paper. Nell tore two little pieces from her crust, used one to scoop up her onions and held the other out to Mina.

“You'll want that.”

Mina looked at her shining fingertips and accepted it.