The country where Sofia lived was so small, it was one that foreign children would forget to name on their maps at school. Her mother had said the First Great War was the birth of the country. Until the war, the Elysian people were citizens of the Enemy country. They were disliked by the Enemy as they were a different ethnic class. They were discriminated against and mistreated.
The Elysians had traditionally lived in the forests, espousing a pantheistic view of nature. They believed the trees were alive and every living thing was filled with consciousness. The Elysians had their own cavalry, which became necessary for the Enemy in their fight on the Western Front of the Great War. Then the Elysian people engaged in a great act of treachery. In exchange for their independence, they allowed the opposing army through the Western Forest. They wanted their own country—of course they did. Their country was made up of the forest and land along the western border, the northern border (which was the only access the landlocked country had to the sea), and of course the Capital. The Enemy could keep their colder, rockier eastern land.
According to Sofia’s mother and every other adult in the country, the twenty years following the Great War were a wonderful time. The country invested hugely in the arts. The Elysians wanted to be considered Western. The Capital looked very much like a sophisticated European city with all its gorgeous stone buildings. But it had several idiosyncratic touches. There were statues that represented trees and animals. The country distanced itself from its earlier feelings towards the forest. Thus its religion was relegated to folklore. Folklore books, with old Elysian tales, were bought only for children.
The country was in the vanguard of art and ideas. Nothing was boring or traditional. There was an artist who painted laughing prostitutes with black chalk. There was a ballet dancer who performed being horny. There was a tuba player who composed a symphony called Ode to the Fart. There was a clown who stood on a chair with a noose around his neck while reciting sins that were so mundane as to be hilarious.
The Elysian people believed they were going to be a celebrated part of European culture, although the West had promptly forgotten about them. But despite the lack of interest from any international community, they continued to create their art in the city and farm in the country. To their own delight, if no one else’s.
After the end of the Great War, a new dogmatic and conservative view of national identity arose in the Enemy country. They began to advocate for the nuclear family, the supremacy of males, and pure bloodlines. Instead of a God, the Enemy believed in a great Motherland. They could not be great without Elysia. They wanted back the land Elysia had stolen from them. They built up an army in order to reclaim their former dominance. And that army grew and grew and grew.
But no one really took it very seriously until the Enemy elected a new leader. Clara and Sofia went to the movies one weekend. It was a warm spring day, and Clara wore a chic pink coat down to her ankles and a blue velvet hat. Sofia trotted along beside her in her favourite navy sailor dress and new button-up boots. They walked past all the apartment buildings to the theatre district, where lights formed constellations advertising all sorts of fictional adventures. They were at the Elf Tree Movie House to see a film about a suicidal clown when they saw the Leader for the first time in a reel before the feature.
The speech in this reel began with the charismatic Leader stating the Enemy’s usual opinions about the Elysian people. The West had given the Elysians their land in order to plant the seeds of a corrupt capitalistic foreign presence, he said. The Elysian people were representative of the worst excesses of the West. He accused them of advocating pedophilia, of destroying the family unit. He said the women had no morals. They were promiscuous; all had syphilis and made the men in the country insane.
These accusations from the Enemy had become so commonplace and repetitive that they hardly made an impression. But in this speech, the Leader suddenly began attacking the arts in Elysia. He said the Elysians were degenerate and untalented and incapable of producing any art of merit. The artists celebrated the grotesque. Then there were descriptions of people in their country who epitomized the Elysians’ decadence.
He had a list of the twenty most wanted people in the country. There was an image of a cabaret dancer wearing high heels and fishnets and a mask over his eyes. He was a renowned emcee who was known for his hilarious critiques of government policy.
There was also an image of a singer named Claudette, which caused shouts to emit from some members of the audience. Claudette had been a prostitute at the age of twelve but had since captured the hearts of the country. If you had a fantastic backstory in Elysia, you could be a popular singer. You didn’t need talent, so much as you needed a grand personality. She was very large. She coated her sinking jowls with white pancake makeup and decorated her face with black beauty marks. It was considered very sophisticated taste indeed to find beauty in something that was conventionally ugly. Claudette had sung a song about being happy in her youth despite its being awful. It was a surprise hit that unofficially became the national anthem.
Why had the Leader called them out? How could this be? How could an artist be tried for political treason? This sent a murmur through the crowd. That was the truth that had startled everyone in the cinema. They wanted to murder Claudette for singing funny songs! They did not want access to the sea; they wanted to exterminate every one of them.
The camera swung over a massive crowd that cheered wildly at the Leader’s words. And everyone in the theatre audience was terrified of this hysterical mob.
Her mother had scoffed and made loud jeers with the rest of the audience when these entertainers were put up on the screen and denounced as political enemies.
Then a photograph of Clara appeared. She normally liked photographs of herself, and she adored having her picture taken. This was not a flattering photo. She had her mouth wide open and her finger up in the air. It made her look more severe than she usually did.
Sofia looked over to her mother. She found it strange to be sitting next to someone while her image was up on the screen.
How many thoughts can fit into a second? How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? As soon as she saw her mother’s face, Sofia remembered the context. Her mother was being accused of being a monster, a degenerate, a pervert. She shrank into her chair. She and her mother were quiet. Her mother stopped jeering and calling things at the screen. Clara was listening and internalizing each word the Enemy said about her. She looked as though she thought people in the theatre might listen to the Leader’s accusations and attack her. Or, what was worse in Sofia’s mind, look at her with disdain and contempt.
The Leader had said she was an obscene woman who hated men. She hated the family. She wanted to undermine the family as the cornerstone of modern civilized society. It was her debasement of women’s virtues that had led to this degenerate art. It is for women to impose morality on society. Women need to be subservient to men or all hell breaks loose. Or there is no more virtue. Instead she wanted a world where women descended into pornography and sexual disease. She would be tried for her insidious writings.
A young woman in the front row stood up, cupped her hands around her mouth, and yelled, Leave us alone, you old pervert. All the women in the audience again began shouting at the screen together. Their voices drowned out his. But the subtitles were still there, to be read above the women’s boos and heckles.
What was the plot of the main feature that followed? Neither Sofia nor her mother would ever be able to tell you.
As they left the cinema, Clara kept her head tilted so that the brim of her hat obscured her face. Usually she loved being recognized by fans. But she didn’t want to discuss what had happened with any stranger.
“I didn’t expect him to be so charismatic,” Clara said as they walked, although she seemed to be talking to herself and not Sofia. “And the way all those people were listening to what he had to say. Without any sort of critical lens. It was terrifying.”
Clara was silent the rest of the way home. Sofia did not know what to say to her mother. She could not guess what her mother was feeling or thinking. Was she afraid of the Leader, who was demanding her arrest? Were her feelings hurt? Sofia felt as though the Leader had changed everything about their reality, but she didn’t know how.
As soon as they were safe in their apartment and the door was locked, Clara broke her silence. “When you are singled out by the Enemy, you must respond in kind. You must accept the challenge. You must recognize the new power and importance it gives to you. The Enemy has directed his ire towards me because my words are a threat. My words are a tool that can undermine all his hate and lies. I will show him that he cannot erase our history. As long as there is one writer with all the words and ideas of Elysia in her head, this country will flourish.”
Sofia had not expected her mother to be reinvigorated and thrilled by the Leader’s speech. But her mother often surprised her.
Her mother came alive when she encountered opposition. All the aches and pains of a middle-aged woman disappeared. She no longer complained about her sore breasts or dozed off mid-afternoon. She was immortal. She was twenty years younger.
Her mother’s first act of resistance was to go on the radio.
When she was called on to speak on the radio, it was as though she were a general being called to battle. She paced back and forth in a flurry of activity. She looked over her notes. With a pen in one hand and a cigarette in the other.
She always dressed impeccably. No one could see her, of course. But from the tenor of her voice, one could tell she was well put together. She smelled wonderfully. She was freshly out of the bath and smelled like a bouquet of creams and hair products.
Sofia had heard the gist of her dialogue rehearsed around the apartment in the days before she went on air. But she tuned in to listen.
“The Capital is the most magical city in the world. The Capital is what it is because of every one of us. You must never leave it. You will never be able to return. It will be like a lost childhood. You will spend your life feeling nostalgic for it. Without you, our language will vanish with the wind.
“Would I die for Elysia? Yes, because I will never live anywhere else. I am nothing without Elysia.
“We will stay together and resist. And if our army is defeated and all our soldiers are gone, we will continue to resist. Everyone who stays should now be considered a soldier. We will fight them with everything we have. We will fight with kitchen knives. We will fight them with our songs. And if you don’t think our music is a threat, then ask yourselves why they are trying to ban it.”
Clara Bottom herself had a stake in what she was saying. She was staying in the Capital even though the Enemy had singled her out. She was in more danger than anyone, and she was staying. It was both elegant and noble.
But Clara’s radio broadcast had little effect. The film reel caused the beginning of the exodus. Those who had money found passage to France and elsewhere in Europe, and some even to America. As she was walking to the grocer’s, Sofia couldn’t help but notice all the traffic on the streets. The cars were piled with entire families. Including grandparents. There was furniture tied on top of the cars, and the trunks were half open. There were cats on laps and dogs with their heads in the windows. There was even a car that had a large cage with birds in it. It was strange to see such a procession moving past the sleeping theatres and grand buildings.
There were also so many people on foot. They were on their way to the train station. Women were pushing perambulators with two children inside and two other children holding on. A small park was filled with people with suitcases, trampling the grass underfoot. They were all heading past the Theatre Quarter and the opera house, past the Grand Park, to the bridge and the river that would lead them on boats to the sea. They were dressed in good clothes, hoping they would be taken in as esteemed immigrants and not refugees.
Sofia’s father, who was abroad, had called the Sunday night before, as was his custom. He had insisted that Clara leave with Sofia immediately. But Clara had yelled back that he had never properly loved Elysia and that was what was wrong with their marriage to begin with.
Now Sofia stood next to her mother at the entrance of their building, watching the crowds stream down the street, feeling it was the two of them against the idiotic masses. Clara had on a fine blue coat, although in truth, her nightgown was on underneath it. Sofia still held on to the remains of her breakfast croissant, which she stuffed into her mouth. She did not feel nervous about staying put. She was at her mother’s side. And there is no safer place for a child to be than with her mother.
Every stranger she saw rushing down the street seemed to be in direct disobedience to Clara’s supplication. Sofia looked at her mother, to see whether her feelings were hurt and she was taking their actions personally. She seemed like an ordinary woman, and not a famed author.
It was hard for Sofia to ascertain what she was thinking. Because Clara was looking at them stoically.
No one noticed her at all. The people pushed forward as though the country were already in its past. As though someone like Clara Bottom no longer had any power over them. She had a look of disappointment, and yet not surprise. As though she had never really expected much.
It was a look Sofia was somewhat familiar with. Because she had seen her mother look at her in that way.
She was used to her mother’s disappointment. So when she saw it directed at other people, she was pleased. She stood next to her mother, wearing a pretty frown on her face.
A girl her age passed by. When their eyes met, Sofia stuck out her tongue at her. And then she quickly snuck it back in as though nothing had happened. The girl looked at her with discomfort and unease. But Sofia looked away, delighted by the surge of power she felt. This was what it was like to be wicked. It took feeling as though one had the higher moral ground in life to be able to be wicked.
“You should not have said we will fight the Enemy with songs,” Sofia said.
Her mother looked down at her.
“Not very practical. Unless you have a terrible voice that’s off-key. That could be considered a form of torture.”
“Stop, Sofia,” Clara said, but Sofia saw she was smiling.
“Drop a piano from a window onto a tank.”
She pulled Sofia’s hat over her face to stop her.
“Tie them to a chair and read them bad poetry.”
She couldn’t remember making her mother laugh so hard. She was in a good mood.