Separation

“It is good of you to meet with me,” he said stiffly as she admitted him to the house.

“Is it really that hard to talk, especially as you’re the one who asked?” she replied with warmth.

He smiled wryly. “No and yes in equal measure. I feel as much of a fool as my brother called me for being sucked into his schemes, and yet I have no one now that I can turn to for advice.”

“And you want advice from me?”

He shrugged. “Perhaps. I still feel uneasy about traveling to the whitelands and mixing with the pale ones…and yet I know this is foolish, as my own brother and Elias have shown that treachery and deceit are not endemic to color. I have also seen your friends, worked beside them now, and know them to be good people. But I cannot shake that feeling that is within me.”

Mildred took his hand and led him to the table in the corner of the room, seating him on one of the chairs while she took another.

“You know, you shouldn’t be too hard on yourself about this,” she began. “You’ve had a lifetime of your brother telling you something, and you know, he wasn’t without a point.”

“You can say this?” Markos asked, surprised.

“Look, there are things about me that you can never know and would never understand…things that you would find hard to believe. But, for whatever reason, I know what it was like before skydark came across the world. And there were plenty of reasons for black people to feel the way that you and the other separatists feel about the whitelands. There was a time when we couldn’t use the same restaurants, the same latrines, the same wags. Couldn’t have equal housing or equal jack, and were treated like pieces of shit. Things began to change, but it was forced, and there were those who felt that it would always be that way. They wanted a separate land for blacks, a separate nation. They were right.

It was forced. But the point is that with each generation it got a little less forced on each side, and eventually people would have seen no difference. Just because it doesn’t happen in the span of your lifetime doesn’t mean it’ll never happen. You fight for your sons and daughters as much as yourself.

“And things have changed since the nukecaust. Yeah, I’ve seen people get picked on because they’re a different color, a different race, but also because they’re from a different ville or are muties and so different. That’s what it’s all about—difference. It doesn’t matter what they make that difference, it’s still about fear of being something else. Just like you’ve got the fear of the pale ones being different. Makes you the same as them.

“But now, it’s about your ville rather than your color. People live together and pull together to survive. No one gives a damn that you’re black if you’re helping them bring in the harvest or pulling them out of a hole. As long as none of you buy the farm, that’s all that matters.”

Markos pondered this. Finally he said, “I wish I could truly understand that. I can see the sense of your words, but there is a part of me that questions their veracity. These are different things.”

“Oh, yeah, they’re that, all right,” Mildred replied. “But you’ll see and soon enough.” She fell silent for a moment, thinking of J.B. and the rest of the companions, people she would pull with and chill for. “Yeah, you’ll see soon enough,” she reiterated.

Chapter Twelve

Exodus began shortly after daybreak with the Pilatans gathering the last of their belongings and moving away from their old homes and toward the inlet bay, where the boats lay waiting with their cargoes of animals and belongings, the former quietened by fear and a lack of understanding about what was about to occur. There was a subdued, melancholy air about the islanders as they loaded the boats and prepared to cast off.

Sineta and Markos would be the last to board their vessels, the sec boss because he was determined to oversee the final moments of the exodus and make things run as smoothly as possible and the new baron because she felt a great sadness at departure and a sudden desire to stay, even if it was on her own.