Kim woke up shivering. She lay under four blankets, but her teeth chattered like castanets. It had to be ten below outside. It wasn’t a whole lot warmer here in the house. There wasn’t much to burn in the fireplace, or in any fireplace in the village. The promised coal shipment hadn’t come. They’d long since cut down every tree within a day’s walk except for a few plums and pears that still bore. Those might go soon. If you froze now, who cared whether you had fruit later?
Just on the off chance, she flicked the switch on the lamp by the bed. The room stayed gloomy. The power was still out. It would probably come on for a couple of hours in the afternoon. She hoped it would. The Terrific Leader was scheduled to speak today, and she wanted to hear it. If anything could make you forget your troubles, one of his, well, terrific speeches would turn the trick.
Meanwhile, gloom. The sun rose late and set early at this season, of course. And the clouds that were bringing the latest blizzard muffled its glow all the more thoroughly. You had to make do, the best you could. Self-reliance—that was the thing.
Sighing, Kim got out of bed. She’d left on all her clothes except her boots when she went to sleep. Now she got into them. With the three pairs of socks under them, they might keep her feet from freezing when she went out to forage.
She walked into the kitchen. Her mother was making tea and warming her hands at a tiny fire in a brazier. “Good morning, Mother dear,” Kim said. “Are you fixing enough for two cups?”
“I suppose so,” her mother said grudgingly, as if she’d hoped Kim would sleep longer so she could drink it all herself. Then she unbent enough to add, “And there’s still some pickled cabbage for breakfast.”
“Oh, good!” Kim hurried over to the jar. They’d lived by themselves these past three years, since the police took Kim’s father out of the fields and drove away with him. Not a word had come back since. She hoped he was a labor camp, and that they hadn’t simply executed him. Either way, being related to an enemy of the state only made everything more difficult.
The scent of garlic and peppers filled her nose when she opened the jar. Pickled cabbage wasn’t very filling, but it was—a little—better than nothing.
On the wall above the jar was one of the three portraits of the Terrific Leader in the house. As she ate, she studied his face. He was so wise, so handsome! His piercing gaze peered far into the future. This was the greatest, strongest, freest country in the world. It wasn’t perfect yet, but it was on the way. The Terrific Leader saw the way forward. You could tell just by looking.
“Here’s your tea,” her mother said, breaking her train of thought.
“Thank you very much, Mother dear.” Kim drank fast, before it got cold. Sure enough, the cup wasn’t quite full. And the tea was weak. Like anyone else, her mother sensibly used tea leaves more than once. You never knew when you’d be able to lay your hands on more.
“I hope you have good luck,” her mother said.
“Oh, so do I!” Kim replied. “We could use some good luck for a chance. We’ve had too much of the alternative kind.”
“We’re doing fine,” her mother said stoutly. In the house where an unreliable had lived, the authorities were likely to have planted spy ears. They might keep working even without power for anything else. “We’re doing fine, and our wonderful country and the Terrific Leader, heaven’s blessings upon him, are also doing fine. Better than fine!”
“Of course, Mother dear. I’ll see you later.” Kim went outside.
In spite of her quilted coat and the two sweaters under it, the icy wind tore at her. Fat flakes of snow flew almost horizontally. And another blizzard was supposed to be on the way after this one. Kim pulled down the coat’s hood and wrapped a muffler around the lower part of her face so only her eyes showed. The other people out and about were similarly swaddled. You recognized them not by what they looked like but by what they wore.
Even walking took work. There was a foot of snow on the ground, and drifts got two or three times that deep. Because of that, Kim nearly missed the lump in the snow in front of the Parks’ house. Yes, that was a body, no doubt their eldest son; he’d been sick and getting sicker for weeks. No medicines, the nearest doctor miles away and unwilling to come for such an insignificant person…It was a sad story, but an old one. They wouldn’t be able to plant the Park boy in the village graveyard till the ground thawed, not without dynamite, they wouldn’t. Well, he wouldn’t go off as long as the weather stayed cold.
Kim gasped. Here came Old Man Lee’s dog, the meanest one she knew. He was a big brute, and did better in the snow than she did. She had a couple of stones in her pocket in case the dog or some hungry man gave her trouble.
But the beast ignored her. A moment later, she saw why: he proudly carried a rabbit in his toothy jaws. Jealousy sharp and sour as vinegar filled Kim. Old Man Lee and his nasty shrew of a wife would eat well today. Kim could hardly remember the last time she’d tasted meat. Even the guts and the head the Lees would give the dog would be so good stewed with cabbage or grain.
Grain…
Of themselves, her feet were taking her to the harvest ground. You never could tell. Maybe some of what had spilled last fall was still there under the snow. Even forlorn hopes were better than none.
Another young woman was already searching the ground. She looked up warily, then relaxed and said, “Hello, Kim.”
“Hello, Kim,” Kim answered. She smiled, though the muffler hid it. Sharing a name was no large amusement, but sometimes small ones would do. She added, “Heaven’s blessings on the Terrific Leader!”
“Heaven’s blessings on the Terrific Leader!” the other Kim echoed.
They worked separately. Had they joined forces, they would have needed to share evenly. Each hoped for better than that.
Kim dug with mittened fingers till she reached the hard ground. She came across some mushrooms that had sprung up in the last thaw and then frozen when the weather turned bad again. They weren’t much, but better than nothing. Into her left coat pocket—the one without the rocks—they went. Then, to her delight, she really did come upon some spilled grain. It joined the mushrooms in that pocket.
She got up and walked away. As soon as the swirling snow hid her from the other Kim, she hurried to a hedgerow to check traps she’d set the day before. The wind would soon blot out her tracks. She almost whooped for joy when she found a big, fat rat noosed in a snare, hanged like a leftish deviationist. Rat wasn’t as good as rabbit, but it was ever so much better than nothing. After resetting traps that were sprung but hadn’t caught anything (or that had been robbed before she got to them), she happily headed for home. Tonight there’d be…not a feast, but food.
Her mother exclaimed in delight when Kim showed her what she’d brought home. A little past two, the power came on. Lights flickered to dim, low-voltage life. What electric tools they had would work for a while.
And the Terrific Leader was going to speak! With her mother and the rest of the village, she gathered in the square to hear his inspiring words. The communal televisor, like authorized radios, got only government-mandated channels so no one could be exposed to outsiders’ wicked lies.
There he was! He was an old, old man now, though—of course!—still strong and vigorous. Everybody knew one of his sons, or perhaps his son-in-law, would eventually succeed him, and then a grandson, and so on. But he still ruled, as he had since long before Kim was born; even thinking such thoughts was risky.
He wore his trademark red cap, with his slogan—AMERICA IS GREAT AGAIN!—on the front in big letters. “I have a message for all of you,” he rasped. “The crime and violence that today afflict our nation will end soon. I mean very soon. Safety will be restored. Everything will be terrific, the way it’s always been.
“Our plan keeps putting America first. The powerful no longer beat upon people who cannot defend themselves. I have restored law and order. Our border wall has stopped illegal immigration, stopped gangs and drugs, and done lots of other totally terrific stuff, too. I respect the dignity of work and the dignity of working people. It trumps anything else there is. I mean anything else. Keep at it. America first like I said, America last, America always!”
“America first!” the village chorused as the televisor went off. Kim’s eyes filled with tears. She couldn’t help it. She loved the Terrific Leader.