Chapter Text
“Thank you for the meal.” I feel the need to bow my head a little. Joss always does it with Mum and Dad. Maybe her parents insist she does it? Her mother looks very pleased. From behind the napkin with which she pats her mouth, she is glowing with content. Then again, she usually is when I come to Joss’ place. Simon thinks she wants Joss to marry the son of the president.
Former president, soon, but I don’t remind her.
Spending time at Joss’ place is… different. The Fuhrer’s, now president’s estate is huge, no question, but Mum and Dad made a point of raising us as closely to normal children as possible – aka letting us sleep in their bed, having their room in the same wing, not hiring a nanny, cooking dinner whenever possible. Joss is basically royalty.
She and her brother have their own wing. It comes equipped with one bedroom each, two bathrooms each and one big one for that ginormous bathtub-jacuzzi thing, a guest room, three playrooms, the nanny’s quarters, the maid’s room and butler’s pantry for snacks, a balcony turned into wintergarden and a ballroom for practising etiquette, music and dancing.
We used to spend hours and hours in the playroom where Joss’ parents had model railways set up that encircle the whole room. There are custom-made trains, bridges, tunnels, a scaled-down version of their own mansion. The other playroom is like a private indoor funfair. It has the rich people version of rocking horses with the stupidest name – kiddie rides. Rocking with electricity, Joss’ parents had a unicorn and a bulldozer made. (Joss’ brother used to love construction sites. I think he still does, but he doesn’t fit the kiddie bulldozer anymore.)
We put the napkins we kept over our laps on the table. I’m not sure Mrs Darlington knows where the plates are stored in her own house, that’s how much staff works here. They serve every warm meal with those silver domes over the plates.
In the music room, I am served tea while Joss is to play her most recent piece on the grand piano. Mrs Darlington doesn’t play, but she sits in on the lessons, Joss says, and so she knows where to correct her daughter.
She doesn’t do it when I’m here. The way she watches me over the rim of her expensive Xingese porcelain cup, I can’t help but believe Simon’s theory. Feels like an auction, and I’m the only bidder.
“Mamá will be having tea in the library,” Joss says as she leads the way upstairs. It’s the parent-free zone – this is nanny and children domain. The best part of any sleepover is escaping here.
A warm fuzz in my tummy eases the uncertainty I’ve felt the past days about Reign, about Mum being upset, about it all being a secret. At least at my home, I don’t need to flee from my parents or hide in my room where I know they won’t come in.
Joss doesn’t mind too much. It’s a slight nuisance to have her every breath observed and judged, like having to retie a shoe for the third time.
She takes my hand. I almost stumble when she suddenly drags me across the gallery overseeing the rounded stairs, past the nanny’s room and into the west wing. Her parents’ territory.
Her eyes flit around. The butlers are busy cleaning up after dinner downstairs, so she hustles me down the hall, into a seemingly unprepossessing door. It’s dark in here. A dim cone of light reaches us from under the door. Joss lets go of my hand. I squint until my eyes adjust, watch her tread carefully towards the window where she opens the curtains a slot wide to let evening sun streak in.
Shelves against every wall. They stretch up to the ceiling, cramp into the tiniest nooks. Bespoke, some of them, so that they fill every corner and ever spare angle. Joss is tracing the contents of one shelf with her finger, but never touches them. I venture closer to her. There’s a gramophone, so dusty that no light will reflect on it.
From the lowest rack, Joss takes what looks like a suitcase. I’ve seen these before – Kain has lots of them. Portable radios or audio players. Like gramophones but for headphones.
“Papá is out this weekend,” Joss quietly says.
Her father is big cheese at the stock market. Made millions, was trusted with huge investment plans, founded two companies and swallowed another three, one of them for consultancy on stocks. Before that, he was a journalist. His research back then helped him gain the knowledge and connections he now has. This must be his archive from back then.
Most of these shelves are spilling over with old newspapers. Mostly economics, but I also spot some local news, important world news, out-of-the-ordinary things.
The shelf Joss was skimming holds files – audio files; disks small enough to fit the player.
She plugs in the headphones, puts the disk into place, then pauses. I wait for it to spin. Her finger hovers. Eyes big and questioning, she fingers the envelope of the disk, finally presenting it to me.
The Interview.
It actually says it on the label, exactly the way Jean said it.
Joss knew something was up. She moved heaven and earth to be selected as my partner in school. They usually just put us in pairs by how we sit, but she made up this huge story of how she twisted her ankle, the inconvenience of the seating arrangement, something about cattle drowning in the south – you had to be there, it was amazing. The entire day, she kept on limping to convince the teachers. They sat her closer to the door (to me) so she wouldn’t have to suffer all the way to her usual seat.
Naturally, we didn’t work on our project at all. She asked what was wrong and I told her about Reign, about Mum nearly crying and about what Jean said. For some reason, Joss didn’t sound overly surprised (only cried twice with how sorry she felt for me and Mum. Mrs Wallace brought her ice, thinking it was pain from the ‘twisted ankle’).
Joss felt sorry for me. She might be spoiled rotten, but her empathy is on a whole other level. I didn’t say anything, and still she knew right away how betrayed I feel. Sad, but also betrayed.
In the last shreds of dusk, I scan the label she’s holding. Below The Interview, it says December 30, 1918. One day before New Year. Four months after I was born.
Joss is cradling the headphones in her lap. I nod. We each press one side to our ear. The audio player turns on with a click that makes Joss glance at the shut door. Then the disk turns.
Applause. My heart speeds up. Some interviews are held with a live audience, then broadcasted over the national radio channel. This one’s about the first anniversary of Dad as the Fuhrer of Amestris. More applause.
Mum’s voice.
Joss scoots closer to me. I’m hot, my breathing quick but as quiet as I can manage.
Mum is apologising that Dad couldn’t make it to the interview. The host is happy she’s there, and I believe him.
He’s nice. Annoying but nice. He sounds like his rambling could make you deaf but I think it’s just because Mum’s answers are so concise in comparison. I imagine her with hands folded in her lap, back straight on an old slouching couch. The folded hands make me think back of her on my bed, when I asked about Reign’s plushie, so I modify the picture in my mind and have her cross her legs all business-no-bullshit like, hand busy sipping a glass of water.
Not a word wasted.
The host is a waterfall, jumping from one topic to the next with little to no transition. In my mind’s eye, I see him holding a list of things to talk about. He sounds young, maybe Mum’s age at the time, maybe younger, springy.
‘With that out of the way, it sounds to me like the new year can come!’ The host says.
Mum says nothing, probably doesn’t even nod because it wasn’t a question. Anyone else would have chimed in with enthusiasm – politicians always assault an opportunity of boasting about something positive; anything at all.
Not used to the silence, the host continues, ‘Plans for the holidays?’
‘We might take tomorrow afternoon off.’
The crowd laughs. They don’t know Mum isn’t joking – she’s saying it for a laugh, yes, but I don’t remember a single New Year where Dad or even both Mum and Dad weren’t in Dad’s office at home for a couple of hours.
“Now,” Joss whispers.
I swallow. It feels like a coin dropping down a vending machine, wedging uncomfortably in the pit of my stomach. Something about other people having heard this, about my best friend having heard this before me, leaves a sourly-dry taste in my mouth.
‘Our revered Fuhrer’s dedication to his country is admirable.’
The crow cheers. They had to – democracy wasn’t until five years later.
‘Is he as good a leader as he is a father?’
‘Are you asking about his Excellency’s parenting skills or fertility rate?’
The crowd howls and sputters at Mum’s reply. She’s unfazed, even when the host suggests a separate interview on the latter. Creep.
‘Since we touched on the topic – my auditors are dying to know how your little one is faring.’
The crowd applauds their approval.
‘It’ll be his first time hearing fireworks.’ Mum sounds sorry for me. She told me that for almost six years, I would hide in the cellar, wailing by lungs to wrinkly raisins at the idea of fireworks, while Eliza slept through them. Neither of us appreciated the beauty of it until much older.
‘A microphone might toughen him up for the big event. A little gig at our studio, a bit of brabbling. What do you think, folks?”
The crowd cheers.
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Alright, alright, I get it.’ I imagine the host holding up his hands in defence. ‘Careful with the baby‑stuff. You know, the Fuhrer’s reputation as our Amestrian flag’s dragon – fire alchemy and all – is a fitting image.’
Clapping from the crowd.
‘Lately I heard people dub you the nation’s lioness with how protective you are of him and your family.’
A few cheers. Someone whistles.
It wasn’t a question so Mum says nothing.
Joss takes my hand. I wince. My heart is strangling my throat.
‘Can’t blame you, no, with your kid dying last year. What was it again? Pneumonia? Fever? Sad stuff. Tragic, really. And the funeral in that weather! Anyway, is there—’
Someone gasps. The host tries to finish his sentence, asking about future plans and I don’t know if he means politics or another child or baby-me, but no one cares. There’s a mad rustle, as if the man behind the microphone wants to dash forward. The table of the host rattles, a glass clinks, water sloshing.
No, it’s not water.
The wetness splatters. Mum heaves, like she isn’t inhaling air but a knife shredding down her throat. For a second, I’m not sure it’s her but a dying animal.
‘Mrs Mustang!’ The host forgets she kept her last name.
Murmurs go through the crowd, drowning in the overall swishing of backstage people hustling to the sofa to help Mum. I hear ‘threw up’ and ‘blood’ and ‘god’ and ‘hush’, mostly ‘hush’. And then nothing.
The recording ended. A monotone buzz crackles on. She didn’t apologise for the inconvenience. She didn’t excuse herself. She only wheezed and coughed and maybe collapsed.
My eyes focus on the label of the recording. December 30, 1918. Below is scribbling I can’t read.
“The guy said ‘It happens to the best of us’ and switched over to the singer he had hired for the evening,” Joss whispers. “Papá says there was never a bigger drop in listeners. A few of the women invited to the interview, the ones clapping, started a campaign to fire the host.
“More and more joined and it became a movement to support mis‑carri‑age, safe abo‑tion and research in child dis-eas… uh, sickness,” she reads from the notes under the date that I can’t decipher. Her dad’s writing.
“Was he fired?” I croak. I don’t know why I asked; I don’t care about the man.
“He was. Moved up north. The Interview left such an impact on the people who were there that not one of them made a statement for the tabloid press. A week after the turn of the year, Amestris had agreed to never bring it up again – not in the media and definitely not in front of your parents.” Joss points at the handwriting under the label. “That’s why you didn’t know. I’m sorry.”
“No.” I wrench the headphone from my ear like swatting a mosquito. “Thanks for showing me.”
I’m shaking. I clench my jaw, clamp my legs together. It won’t stop. I’m sitting on my heels, but they tremble too so I drop down, try to attach myself to the floor.
I can feel Joss watching me. She doesn’t comment. Quietly, she puts the headphones back into the box – they fit exactly into a mould of foam. The recoding slides back into its case, and two minutes later, all evidence that we were here is on its shelf as if nothing ever happened, curtains drawn. She isn’t doing this for the first time.
Joss takes my hand again. My legs calmed down. My heart hasn’t yet, not completely. I let her help me to my feet and we sneak towards the door. With the light off in this room, we stare at the streak beneath the door, wait for the two shadows to disappear. They close in.
Tugging on my hand, Joss pulls me into the corner behind the door, just as it opens. A figure leans in. The light from the hall catches on angular glasses in an otherwise dark face.
“Lyn, get out of Pa’s room.” Ernest, Joss’ older brother, sounds bored. He flicks her forehead when she emerges.
“Hey!”
“Quiet,” he says, again without any irritation. Closing the door behind us, he pushes his big square glasses up his nose and jerks his head in the direction of the gallery. The motion makes him have to adjust the glasses again.
We follow, Joss reluctantly, me curiously. I should be more afraid of being caught in someone else’s house but I’m still in shock. I stare at the chequered sweater vest on Ernest’s lanky frame, at his long gait, at feet that make me wonder if he has to climb stairs on tiptoes.
Back to the safety of the children’s wing.
His room is perfectly functional. A single bed, tidied by the maid (no one else tucks in the blanket under the mattress – you have to get it out again each night), a lamp for reading, an armchair inviting for more reading with a standard lamp. No frills on the lampshade, just a curved shape. The fabric is a plain beige, as is most of the room.
Ernest sits the wrong way around on the chair at his desk to face us, arms folded over the backrest against his chest. The most rebellious thing you’ll ever see him do – sit the wrong way around. There are books stacked on his desk, some open. He’s preparing for finals. Eliza and I are four and a half years apart. Joss and Ernest are too, only he’s the eldest.
His attitude makes me wonder just how old he is mentally – like people calling me mature for my age. When he shut the door behind us, it didn’t feel like a lecture coming, more like an alien imitating a human shutting a door too precisely to seem natural.
“What were you doing in Pa’s archive?”
“Nothing,” Joss lies.
Ernest’s lips lower in mild displeasure. Like dropping a 500 Cens piece at your feet and having to pick it up.
“Tell me and I won’t tell Pa,” he says. There’s no excitement behind it, no cunning haggle he’s planned. They must have this discussion often but he neither tires of explaining the rules each time, nor yells to get it over with. Eliza would have long stomped her foot or hissed or looked for a bargain.
“Why do you always need to know everything?” Joss tuts. She looks at me, and I nod. Something about Ernest makes me think he already knows. “We listened to ‘the Interview’. The adults didn’t want to tell Lucien about it.”
“The adults?”
“I answered your question.”
I squeeze Joss’ hand. She hasn’t let go and I feel bad if I pulled away when she’s doing her best to comfort me. If our roles were reversed, I wouldn’t know what to do to support her.
Ernest glances at me; feels that I’m about to speak.
“I didn’t want to ask Mum or Dad. Last time I asked Mum about Reign – my older sister who died… It didn’t go too well.”
Ernest nods when I say Reign. Apparently, all of Amestris knows her more than I do. “That’s a good thing. I imagine your father wouldn’t be too thrilled either.”
“He took it better.”
“I mean the Interview.”
My ears perk up. So then he does know more. It doesn’t need more than my eyes gaining a spark for him to continue.
Before he does, Ernest signals with his hand for us to sit. Joss pulls me over to the armchair – maybe he has a quirk about no one sitting on his bed – and we squish in together. Ernest doesn’t care about our closeness at all, unlike most girls in class. They’ll make jokes and whisper. He doesn’t seem to register it.
“You listened to the whole thing?” he asks.
I nod when Joss does. We got to the crucial part, that’s for sure.
“The host was a stinker, a stupid stinker!” Joss nags.
Ernest’s lips drop again with that tepid disapproval. If he were water, he’d always be lukewarm.
“There was an article about it shortly after. The Fuhrer had it burned and the papers ceased reporting on the event by his order. Mr Beauchamp was part of the meeting the Fuhrer held when the First Lady was giving the Interview. That meeting was more important to the Fuhrer, of course, than a witless New Year inquiry-response cycle.”
“Mr Beauchamp is Ernie’s private algebra tutor. Financial guru or something. Ernie’s such a smug, he does math in his free time.”
“Quiet, Lyn,” Ernest says, still without any tremor of anger. He looks at me when he goes on. “Mr Beauchamp said that news of the Interview reached the meeting, and that your father got up at once and left and didn’t come back. Only after two days, someone sent out letters with a postponed meeting date. The burned paper were all the orders he gave. For the countdown, he showed up for precisely two minutes. The First Lady didn’t come at all.
“I took my private lessons at the Beauchamp estate. Mrs Beauchamp didn’t take part in the campaigns but she didn’t let a day go by without mentioning the Interview – quietly, at home. She was more concerned with the First Lady than the general deficit in the field of miscarriage or child mortality. The public became rather attached to your mother,” he tells me.
I don’t know how to feel about that. Mum’s awesome, the best mum there is – I could be happy that others see it too. I’m not. Reign’s death was left alone, but for all their sympathy towards Mum, the press can’t keep from slandering about us. So what, they write badly about Dad and not Mum most of the time? They must know that it affects her too! All of us. Their pity feels worthless and their appeal to Mum hollow.
“We read the mess-carriage thing,” Joss says.
“Miscarriage,” Ernest corrects. As if that explains anything. He’s so patient though, so impartial it’s almost enraging. “Miscarriage is the premature death of an embryo or foetus during pregnancy. In other words, the death of Reign Mustang saved the lives of countless unborn babies and young women wanting abortion.
“To this day, the media hasn’t tired of reproaching the president for his use of national funds; for shifting what could have been invested in the economy. Amestris’ armaments industry was at an all-time low because of demilitarisation. He didn’t tell the state that he was preparing for democracy. He almost wasn’t elected because his own party wanted to kick him out for secrecy.
“Be that as it may, some economists had – and still have,” Ernest lifts a finger importantly, “the audacity to call the circumstances back then ‘close to a financial crisis’. Other counsellors criticised the approach for more reasons than money. There were ethnic minorities and religious groups that went berserk to the point of committing arson, robbing shops and wreaking havoc because of the extended abortion laws protecting women instead of unborn children.”
I stop watching Ernest’s finger. I’m staring at my feet, my mind a foggy mess. I want to punch someone. I want my tennis racket, then the people who’ve been harassing Dad and Mum all these years standing in a line so that I can batter ball after ball at them.
“Tell him about the president’s answer,” Joss urges Ernest.
She’s smiling. I look at Ernest.
His glasses are high enough, but still he pushes the bridge of his glasses into the bridge of his nose out of habit. “That’s right. There was one thing the president used to say when confronted with such accusations and it never failed. He asked them about population growth.”
“Population growth?”
“Children born in Amestris.” Ernest circles his palm as if he’s given this lesson three times today. “Not immediately, of course. Research takes time, abortion rates went up. But give it a year and already, there was an increase in fertility behaviour. Another year and vaccines for babies brought early death from tetanus, smallpox and scarlet fever close to zero. It was incredible.”
There’s emotion in Ernest’s eyes for the first time – not much, not yet what I’d call reverberating enthusiasm, but something. Science and math are what get through to him, Joss always says.
It makes me wonder if there’s anything that gets through to me. Something that truly resonates with me. Not politics, that’s for sure.
I remember the finance tutor and, more than ready to change topics, ask Ernest about what he’ll do once he finishes school. Joss rolls her eyes when he starts explaining the stock market where his father works, how he’d rather be part of an individual company where he can make a difference, not just watch what happens.
We’re let out with the same alien exactness, an inner robot controlling Ernest’s hand on the doorhandle as it moves down and back up.
“So nosy.” Joss sticks out her tongue when the door is shut. She doesn’t go on though, because for being nosy, Ernest also likes to share.
We sit in Joss’ room, on the huge Certan rug, rolling a ball back and forth between us. At first, Joss spits a couple of insults about the host of the Interview, but when I don’t react any more than with a hum, she falls quiet. Our legs become goals, opening and closing like scissors, and we build hurdles from roll pillows and stick horses that the ball has to bounce over.
When the maid comes to tell us it’s time for bed, Joss and I haven’t touched our homework, just played ball and lazy darts and sprawled out on her four-poster, tracing each other’s heart line. We made up so many silly horoscopes for one another over the years, but today, I don’t feel like saying any more than ‘goodnight’.
The guest room is huge and oppressing at the same time. Silence seeps into my bones.
No singing from Eliza, no middle-of-the-night work that ends with that lung-depleting sigh from Dad. No kiss goodnight from Mum. Tomorrow, before Joss and I leave, I’m going to call Mum. Hear her voice without the chill of retching gasps.
