Liberation Day by George Saunders

Book Preface

It is third day of Interim.

A rather long Interim, for us.

All day we wonder: When will Mr. U. return? To Podium? Are the Untermeyers (Mr. U., Mrs. U., adult son Mike) pleased? If so, why? If not, why not? When next will we be asked to Speak? Of what, in what flavor?

We wonder avidly. Though not aloud. For there may be Penalty. One may be unPinioned before the eyes of the upset others and brought to a rather Penalty Area. (Here at the Untermeyers’, a shed in the yard.) In Penalty, one sits in the dark among shovels. One may talk. But cannot Speak. How could one? To enjoy the particular exhilaration of Speaking, one must be Pinioned. To the Speaking Wall.

Otherwise, one speaks like this.

As I am speaking to you now.

Plain, uninspired, nothing of beauty about it.

Hearing Mr. U. coming down the hall, we wonder: Might tonight be Company?

But no. Soon, we find, it is mere Rehearsal. Mr. U.’s intention: to jam.

“Ted, where are you, what are you doing?” Mrs. U. inquires in the angry voice from elsewhere in the house.

“In the Listening Room,” he says. “Jamming.”

“Oh, for Lord’s sake,” she says.

It is a special feeling one gets when Mr. U. has sent your Pulse but it has not fully arrived. Like a pre-dreaming or déjà vu is how Craig and Lauren and I have described it on those rare occasions when, risking Penalty, we have spoken among ourselves. Once the Pulse is fully upon you, here will come your words, not intended by, but nevertheless flowing through, you, built, as it were, upon the foundation that is you, supercharged by the Pulse, molded to the chosen Topic, such that, if Mr. U. has dialed in, say, Nautical, whoever he has chosen to go first will suddenly begin Speaking of things Nautical in his or her own flavor, but far more compellingly than he or she could if unPinioned. Mr. U., jamming, may choose to have all of us Speak of Nautical simultaneously; in a whisper or quite loud; may Pan right to left (from Craig to Lauren to me, per our current Arrangement), each of us, in turn, putting his or her own spin on Nautical.

Tonight I feel the pre-dreaming/déjà vu feeling and then, Across the slick vast field of the main deck aslant with the latest breaker, I find myself calling out, amid a positive Babel of shouted voices in manifold accents and dialects, hoary hands grip and release rainslick masts as the rain pounds crosswise the darkwood deck veined by ancient ropes greenish with mold beneath the booted feet racing to address a faltering knot or stay as each lad wonders will he live out the storm or come to claustrophobic choking end sinking deep to expire in the watery Jones locker with the many-tentacled abyss creatures of the—­

Even as I am Speaking, I am aware of looks of pity, of commiseration, from Craig and Lauren, looks that seem to say: Although we are not exactly following you, good job, Jeremy, well Spoken, you are clearly doing your best to Speak of Nautical, and if the result is somewhat vague and hard to parse, well, that is the fault of Mr. U., who apparently has set your Prolixity too high.

But they dare not judge me too harshly.

For soon their Pulses too will come.

On Break we stay Pinioned, resting. Our current Pose: arms and legs thrown out wide, in the shape of the letter X, each of us askew at a slightly different angle.

Like stars, or a trio of folks falling from a great height.

Mr. U. comes back in with a beer and some chips.

“I think,” he says, “City. A cityscape. What do you think?”

The Penalty for speaking being perpetually in effect, we merely nod, indicating: Sure, yes, City sounds good.

The Control Board allows Mr. U. to produce many shadings of Speech. It is not just City of which I (again first, I happily note) now begin Speaking; it is City, plus Sad, plus Summer; a dominant coloration of green-blue; City arranged N/S along a wide river. I am made to Speak in short, brisk sentences. Lauren, following me, Speaks, also, of a N/S-trending, river-spanning City, but, plus: Hunger, Raining, Exaltation, her whole Pass consisting of one long sentence. Craig is: City arranged E/W, white, Winter, no river, overrun by cats, alternating short and long sentences, and toward the end of his Pass, he begins to rhyme, or trying to rhyme, and is also Speaking, or attempting to Speak—Mr. U. is attempting to get him to Speak—in iambic pentameter (!).

For Finale, all three of us Speak of our Cities at once, as Mr. U. dials in Crescendo, such that afterward all three of our throats really hurt, so energetically does Mr. U. have us Speaking there at the end.

Mr. U. has been Recording. He plays us a snippet. Is pleased. So, we are pleased. Who would not be pleased? Well, Mrs. U. He calls her in, plays her the snippet.

“That is just some random noise, Ted,” she says, and walks out.

We watch Mr. U. closely. Is he peeved? Seems to be. Yet still believes in us. We can tell by his smile, which says: Has she ever liked a piece of ours yet?

And we smile back: Not yet.

Mr. U. climbs the stepladder to pop into each of our mouths a lozenge. Jean, the maid, comes in with three water sponges on sticks, with which she moistens our lips, and then it is Dinner, and she Feeds us by attaching our Personal Feed Tubes to the tri-headed Master Feed Tube coming out of her large jar of Dining Mélange.

Then steps aside to read her book as we Dine. Though sore-throated, we have elation: Interim is over. Again we feel useful, creative, part of a team.

Late in the night the door creaks. Mrs. U. enters in nightwear. She steps directly to me, as always.

“Jeremy,” she whispers. “Are you awake? I don’t mean to bother. But.”

“I’m awake,” I whisper.

She wheels over Podium slowly, so as to maintain quiet, sets it just so. She slides a mic on a stand to my lips and dons headphones so as not to disturb the others or alert Mr. U. Sitting on the floor before me, she reaches behind and above herself to hit, on the Control Board, Go.

Tonight it is Rural, plus Ancient; overtones of Escape.

I begin Speaking (or, rather, per her Settings, Whispering, into the mic): of her Beauty, and we meet beside a placid Italian lake; in simple, objective sentences, for we are farmers; of the distant hills into which one day, I promise her, we will disappear; more of her Beauty; with quite high Specificity, and I find that, as I describe her Beauty (her hips, her breasts, the way her hair falls across her shoulders in the early morning light, the way it makes me feel to glimpse her across the community table on feast days) I am becoming aroused, as is she, but also, if I may say it this way, am becoming, as well, in love with her, as, I believe, she is becoming in love with me, even though her family, her farming family, does not wish it, because she is betrothed to a cocksure troll of a man, son of the richest family in town, and as we pass hand in hand through a flock of sheep belonging to his family, which also owns the distant mill, she leans into me, indicating (I am Whispering all of this into the mic): I do not want him or his sheep, only you.

One new Feature tonight: a storm approaches. Soon we are drenched and I take off my outer garment and drape it across her slender shoulders. The storm is hers; it is in her Settings, part of Rural. But the garment-draping is mine; I supply that and can see that it pleases her, real her, sitting cross-legged there before me.

Then, beneath a waterfall, or actually just to one side of it, we make love, and I describe it well, and though I am Pinioned and therefore may not reach myself, Mrs. U. is not Pinioned, and may, and does, reach herself.

As is often the case, I wonder whether it might not occur to Mrs. U., once she has been in that way unburdened, to stand up, step over, unburden me.

But it does not. It does not seem to occur to her. It never does. Never has yet.

Which is, I always feel, once my arousal has receded, probably for the best.

She merely rises to her feet abruptly, takes off the headphones, and, as if regretful, sharply wheels Control Podium back to where it was, restores the Dials to where they were, steps over to Lauren, then Craig, shining cellphone dimly upon them to see if they were awake during what just transpired. As usual, she concludes they were not. Sometimes, they really were not. (Paradoxically, though Pinioned and motionless all day, we are always exhausted at night.) On occasions when they have, in fact, been awake, as she approached with cellphone, they have quickly pretended to be asleep, not wanting her to feel in the least troubled.

All these four years she has never once gone to sit before Craig. Only me. And lately has begun sitting before me more often, and longer, to the extent that sometimes the dim harbinger of dawn, a sliver of yellow light that creeps in from what we believe was formerly a window but is now boarded up but not all that well, will fall across her lap, and she will leap to her feet, mumbling, for example, “What the hell, morning already?”

She is, that is, I believe, falling for me. And I am falling for her. When I first began Speaking to her of her Beauty it was, yes, mostly the Settings. The Settings said: Jeremy, Speak, while looking at me, of my Beauty. Also, my Specificity was always set, by her, to high. Speaking of her Beauty so often, with such high Specificity, made her Beauty real to me; made me notice it. (She really is so Beautiful.) As I began Speaking to her of her Beauty with more fervor (feeling more fervor, because noticing her Beauty with more Specificity, thereby Speaking of it with greater precision), she began, from there on the floor, to get, more and more often, a certain soft look upon her face, an arousal look, yes, but also a love look. I believe so.

She rarely speaks to me. I do not know her heart. Does she have love for me? When I am not Speaking to her? When she is, for example, elsewhere in the house, lost in her thoughts, having her day?

I can’t know.

But I do know that never in my life have I felt anyone to be as surpassingly Beautiful as I feel Mrs. U. to be when, Pulsed, I am Speaking with high Specificity of her Beauty and she is gazing up at me, looking for all the world as if she may love me.

Does that feeling pass? It does.

But also, it sort of endures.

That is: these days, I think of her constantly, and feel that I love her even when I am not Speaking to, or of, her, and she is nowhere near.

This morning Mr. U. leans in.

“Company tonight,” he says. “We’ll do City.”

So: a long, anxious day. We would really like to Rehearse. But Mr. U. must go to Work. What I do to prepare: think about City, all day. Once we begin, it is mostly us. Our Speaking is being supercharged and made more articulate via the Pulse, yes, shaped, of course, by the Settings, but still, at the end of the day, it is, mostly, us. It is me, Craig, and Lauren, and we do not Speak identically well, if I may say so, and preparation is part (but only part) of the reason why one of us may, for example, tend to Speak better (in a more lofty, engaging way) than the others. There is also something innate: talent, one might term it.

It is not a competition. And yet it is.

What I have found: the more I live, in my mind, beforehand, within my Topic, the better my flow will be once I begin.

Mr. U. calls it: “priming the pump.”

All day I prime my pump, getting to know my City better by thinking about it.

It is a Sad city, yes, for that is in the Settings, but I imagine a livelier quarter of the City, where all the City’s celebration occurs, over there on a small island that may only be reached via canoe (a small fleet waits at a common pier).

What color are the canoes? Have they drivers? What is the direction of the current, as the drivers propel their canoes across the bay to the isle of celebration? Are there fireworks, which light up the faces of the shopkeepers and workers who have scrimped and saved to celebrate there, so that they may, for at least this one night, leave their sadness behind? The fireworks must, I imagine, be reflected, rippling, in the shallow water lapping in the narrow inlets that punctuate the island, along which orange-brown cafés are nestled, strung with tiny lights, lights that bob with any slight breeze, there in the cafés that nightly ring with the sound of the laughter of those relieved to find themselves made briefly joyful.

In this way, all day, while Lauren and Craig nap, I prime my pump.

Lauren wakes, gives me a look, as in: Jeremy, wait, are you priming your pump?

My look in return says: I am. Is that an issue?

Lauren and Craig feel that I am strange, too sensitive. I fall under the sway of the Settings, it is true, with greater alacrity than they. Always have. Well, I love my work. I aspire to always be feeling more, thus Speaking with more gusto, thus evoking greater emotion and engagement in my Listeners.

This is what, I feel, makes me unique among the three of us.

Around five Mr. U. comes home from Work. Still in Work suit, he steps into Listening Room and announces an inspiration, had at Work, for a new Arrangement: me, far left, ten feet above floor; Lauren in the middle, twenty feet above floor; Craig, far right, thirty feet above floor. We will thus make an ascending three-pointed line. We will be given, also, a new Pose, more in keeping with City: each of us standing upright, hands shading our eyes, as if gazing off at the distant Cities of which we will soon be Speaking.

Jed Dillon arrives to administer the Required Inter-Pose Stretching. Or, as he says it, “for to Stretch y’all.”

Stretching, after nine days in the shape of the letter X, feels, as one might imagine, both good and bad.

We are then costumed in the mode of City dwellers: tuxedos for Craig and me, long flowing gown for Lauren.

Adult son Mike brings in a ladder, scaffolding, and the rubber-matted platforms upon which we must stand for re-Pinioning. Once in position, each of us leans his or her head back into the Fahey Cup, allowing the three Fahey pronglets to settle gently into the Fahey receptors at the base of the neck.

Then a test is run: Mr. U. makes each of us say the alphabet extremely fast, then extremely slow.

And we are ready.

We wait nervously, hearing the hum of Company as they enjoy Buffet in Main Living Area.

In they glide, smiling up at us politely, then take their seats in folding chairs grumpily put out earlier by adult son Mike. Mr. U. enters briskly in the blazer he dons for Performances, takes up his position at Podium. Mrs. U. takes up her position at rear of room, looking, if I may say so, pained, as if she wishes she could incur Penalty, then be forced to go sit in Penalty shed until Performance is done.

But alas: they are married, she must stay.

We begin.

Lauren goes first, Speaking of her City (arranged N/S along river, Hunger, Raining, Exaltation) in one long sentence. Midway through, Craig joins in, Speaking of his City in iambic pentameter: arranged E/W, no river, white, Winter, overrun by cats. Then, with Lauren and Craig still Speaking, I join, and Speak of my City (Sad, Summer, green-blue, arranged N/S along river, blue-green canoes oriented toward the celebration island like magnet needles, the lucky shopkeepers and workers dreamily trailing their hands behind in the cool, clean water, as, with fireworks bursting overhead, they are rowed past the orange-brown cafés toward the one bastion of happiness in their disappointing lives).

I feel I Speak beautifully of my City; I represent it well. Craig and Lauren also Speak well. Well enough. It is as if we are creating, for Company, those three Cities, upon those distant plains, while gazing out at what we have created, hands shading our eyes.

Even as we make our Cities, however, we sense that Company is not thrilled. They gaze down at their feet, pretend to be reading the programs printed up by adult son Mike earlier in his room. Some yawn, others glance at the ceiling, as if longing to escape up through it. Wives elbow husbands, as in: Don’t whisper that sarcastic comment to me just now, Ronald, I do not wish to be rude, by cracking up. When members of Company glance back at Mrs. U., she only lifts up her hands, as in: Honestly, I have no idea.

Mr. U., too, knows we are not killing it. In vain, with a red face, he desperately fine-tunes our Settings, positively sweating through Performance blazer.

Afterward, looking like he might cry, he accepts a series of false, contrived congrats from Company, then retreats with them into Main Living Area, for cake.

In Listening Room it is just me, Craig, Lauren, and the folding chairs, many of which have been knocked out of their rows by the haste in which Company fled.

Mr. U. rushes back in, tie loosened.

“Not your fault,” he says. “You did everything I asked of you. I blame myself. We’re going to think about this. Then try something new.”

Our hearts go out to him. He works so hard. And is always disappointed.

Then he sends in cake, which Jean holds up to our mouths on her Proffering Plate, at the end of her Reaching Rod, and on the sponges tonight there is wine, and the Feed feels richer than usual, as if Mr. U. has had some beef broth supplement put in there.

Craig and Lauren and I exchange mutual looks of: Goodness, what a trial.

Then, still standing upright, still dressed fancy, hands still shading our eyes, we sleep.

· · ·

In the night, adult son Mike barges loudly in.

“Gosh, sorry,” he says. “Did I wake you folks? Anything you need? I felt, honestly, so bad for you all tonight. That was the worst.”

We would like to reply: Yes, adult son Mike, we know it was the worst. What we need now is sleep. Please go out.

But if we reply, adult son Mike may impose Penalty. He has done so before: imposed Penalty when we replied to a question he had just asked, which he would then claim was rhetorical.

Adult son Mike is a person of low character. It is best, we have found, not to engage with him.

Hence we merely stare ahead implacably.

“I just want you all to know,” he says. “You’re not alone. There are many of us who see this thing for the monstrous excess it is. You’re human beings. You are. Even if the world—even if my parents—seem to have forgotten it. But help is coming. It is. Soon.”

Then does his palms-together bow and leaves.

Lauren and Craig and I exchange looks of: Wow, thanks, adult son Mike, we did not know, until you just now told us, that we are human beings.

Then exchange worried looks.

It is always regrettable to have attracted the attention of adult son Mike.

We well remember the time when, having learned in grad school that costuming is one of the most fundamental and ancient modes of human self-expression, he demanded of Mr. and Mrs. U. that more attention be paid to our mode of dress. Adult son Mike can be quite the effective repetitive pain. He just never lets up. Soon, here came many pairs of slacks and various tunics and jean jackets and colorful hats, laid out before us on the floor of Listening Room, and each of us had to select those articles he or she found most appealing. Thereafter, our clothes were to be changed, by order of adult son Mike, three times a day. And there went our downtime. It seemed we were just always having our clothes changed, by Jean. When Jean complained of overwork, Mr. and Mrs. U. pulled an intelligent fast one, by mandating that adult son Mike assist Jean. Adult son Mike, being a person of low character, unfond of work, made observably uncomfortable when forced to deal with the underwear of the males among us, i.e., Craig and me, soon withdrew his protest re costuming. And things returned to normal, i.e., we would wear Sweatsuit #1 for four days, after which Jean would change us into Sweatsuit #2 and take Sweatsuit #1 away to wash it.

And thus we got our downtime back.

Ever since, not a peep re costuming from adult son Mike.

So, tonight we worry. What did he mean, “help is coming”?

From where? For what? Why would help be needed here, where we all get along nicely and, with the exception of adult son Mike, have creative, fulfilling work to do?

Next morning brings a mood of defeat. Mr. U. comes in at nine. With a tray of Danishes. He seems to want to give us each a Danish of apology, but we are too high on the wall for him to reach. So, he sets the Danishes on a folding chair for now. In truth, none of us will ever get his or her Danish. They will just sit on that folding chair all day.

Because what a day it turns out to be.

“I hope you will forgive me for the debacle that was last night,” Mr. U. says. “Today is about a new start. And making amends. Sometimes, in art, in life, one has to invest. Whether one’s wife approves or not. If and when she finds out.”

Then gulps nervously. As if for comic effect. And yet not.

How we love Mr. U.

Jed Dillon and Jean come in. Our City clothes are removed, by Jean, who then assists us in redonning Sweatsuits #I. We Stretch, are put into a new Pose (standing erect, hands hanging free) in a new Arrangement: standing on floor, very close to one another, Craig tight against the wall, then Lauren, then me. It is the closest to each other we have ever stood. Won’t this look errant? we wonder. To Company? A gloriously wide, tall Speaking Wall, and three Speakers huddled in one corner, as if Listening Room had tilted in the night and all had slid over?

Mr. U. disappears behind the Speaking Wall to reposition our Anterior Receptors.

“You may be wondering what’s going on,” he says from back there.

We are.

“Jed!” he calls out.

At which, Jed leads in eleven Singers. We know they are Singers by their vests. The first comes over, stands next to me, his arm against mine, as the others fill in along the length of the wall.

Then Mr. U. comes back out, holding aloft a small box.

“Anybody know what this guy is?” he says.

We do know, courtesy of fallen Ed, our colleague, briefly with us, then sent away for spreading lies.

It is: Knowledge Mod.

We know it by its bright red casing.

Gosh, we feel, Mr. U. is not joking around, Knowledge Mods being, per fallen Ed, not cheap.

Mr. U. spends the next ten minutes on his side, shirt hiked up, grunting, swearing, wiring the Mod into the Control Board.

Then it is time to try.

The Pulse from a Knowledge Mod, we find, is fatter, with stinging edge, a bit of a spiky pillow. It opens out nicely on the back end, like a forced jig-dancing at the end of a long and tedious day.

And suddenly we know so much. About “Battle of the Little Bighorn.” Also known as “Custer’s Fight.” Or, popularly, “Custer’s Last Stand.” None of which, I can tell you, previous to right now, I knew.

“Name of horse Custer rode into battle?” Mr. U. says, testing.

“Vic,” we three Speakers say at once.

“Although Dandy was also along,” says Craig.

“And many incorrectly believe it was Comanche,” says Lauren, “which was the name of the sole surviving Seventh Cavalry horse.”

“Who was actually ridden into battle by Captain Myles Keogh,” I add, smiling at how pleasant it is to suddenly know all of this.

“What tribes, peacefully gathered in the valley of the Little Bighorn, did Custer and his men attack?” says Mr. U.

“Lakota, Arapaho, Northern Cheyenne,” says Lauren.

“Members of which tribe, the historical enemies of the Lakota, served as scouts for Custer?” says Mr. U.

“Crow, also known as Absaroka,” we all say at once.

The Singers, who cannot Speak, or even talk, just nod, as if to say: Though we, as part of our development, have been rendered mute unless Pulsed and Singing, we agree with all that has just been Spoken by our colleagues.

Mr. U. claps his hands once, hard, as if pleased.

“This will be great,” he says, then goes to Lunch.

The Singers emit a prolonged one-note group hum, the women an octave above the men, which we understand to mean: Hi, hello, looking forward to working with you all on what promises to be a truly exciting and original project.

Being on a Knowledge Mod is, let us say, different.

It is not just us emptily riffing, as usual, on general concepts such as Nautical, such as City. Now we are given facts. Real facts. Which are helpful. In making compelling structure. It is like walking down a tight hallway, constrained on either side by gray walls of fact. It is like stumbling through a desert and suddenly a mist of knowledge rains down composed of the exact details you have been craving but did not previously know you craved.

Mr. U. unfolds the Timeline Chart that came with the Mod, binder-clips it across two music stands. Turns out, he is a whiz at Shaping: at Shaping who Speaks what facts, for how long, and in what order.

What results is like a story.

And even we are more interested.

I am Private Fritz Neubauer, frightened German immigrant, who joined the Seventh Cavalry because I could find no other gainful employment. My boots are the wrong size, and they hurt. My English is poor. I am not sure how to properly load my weapon. Craig is Yellow Dog, a young Lakota teased by his fellows for his good looks, swimming in the Little Bighorn, having stayed up too late dancing last night, making many new friends among the gathered tribes. He has chosen this portion of the river because, just there, beneath the cottonwoods, some young women, Black Leg Doe among them, are gathering wild turnips. She is over there now, frowning, pretending to scour the ground near the far bank, so that Yellow Dog may see her and she may, as she now does, look up, see him, feign surprise, then smile, admitting, by that smile, that her surprise was feigned. They look frankly at each other for a few seconds, after which she turns to rejoin her friends, knowing he is watching her go. Everyone is happy. It is a glorious summer morning, with nothing to be done for the rest of the day.

Lauren is Major Marcus Reno, ordered by Custer to take his battalion and attack the village at its south end. Custer has promised to support him in this. Reno would prefer to stay with the main group. He has never been in a proper Indian fight. But off he rides. When the village comes into sight, the battalion breaks into a gallop. The men whoop. Soon they will be covered in glory. In the distance: white shapes, fragile structures, containing human beings. The aim is to fire into the tents, ride over them, cause a panic, chase down and kill any who flee on foot.

But now a dozen or so Hunkpapas appear, riding back and forth in the path of the advance, raising dust in an attempt to gain the women and children time to escape.

Structured by facts, we feel a sense of urgency. This really happened, is really happening. How will it turn out? Will Private Neubauer live through the coming fight? Will Yellow Dog? Will Black Leg Doe? Are there not children in the village? What will become of them? Why are these mounted men so bent on attacking this peaceful gathering? We honestly do not know. Either Mr. U. has loaded only part of the Mod, or the Mod itself possesses a tight temporal confinement feature, i.e., reveals itself only gradually, i.e., is arranged into “chapters.” In any event, we are, so to speak, on the edge of our seats. We are still riffing somewhat on top of the facts (I have, for example, given the private a riding-related back injury not suggested by the Mod), but with so many facts at our disposal, there is less need, as well as less room within which, to riff.

Then our Singers join in.

And it is a wonderment.

Sometimes they will double, with their Singing, the words we are Speaking. Other times they arrange themselves into two-or three-Singer clusters, Singing the experiences of individuals peripheral to the main action (those proximate to Private Neubauer, Reno, Yellow Dog, or Black Leg Doe, for example). At one point, each Singer becomes a different Lakota youth racing along the banks of the river, back toward the village, sounding the alarm. In a truly startling moment, all eleven Singers break into a complex fugue representing the collective mindstate of Reno’s troops as they attack (their excitement, their longing for home, their anticipation of a quick, painless victory).

Even as we are part of it, are somewhat lost in it, we know it is amazing.

Mr. U. puts us on Pause.

“My gosh,” he says. “My goodness.”

We Speakers, we Singers stand there, out of breath, proud and beautiful in our exhaustion.

Like the horses of the Seventh, we think, like the ponies of the tribes.

· · ·

We Rehearse late into the night, running through it again and again, adding layers of detail with each Pass.

Warriors on horseback begin appearing on Reno’s flanks. He has been drinking whiskey from a flask all morning. Stricken by anxiety, fearing an ambush, he halts the charge, orders the men into a skirmish line. With this, all hope of a quick victory is lost. Hundreds of warriors materialize, as if from the dust. Among Reno’s troopers, order begins to break down. Men sneak away from the line, taking refuge in a grove of trees nearby. In the grove, Reno’s Arikara scout, Bloody Knife, is shot in the head. His brains splatter across Reno’s face. This traumatic event (marked by the Singers with a series of jarring, atonal chords) unhinges Reno. He calls for his men to dismount, then remount. Abruptly, he bolts away ahead of his troops without sounding the retreat. Later he will claim this was meant to be a charge through the Indian lines. In fact, badly frightened, he has forgotten entirely about his men, these men who have entrusted him with their lives. Many die now, ridden down like buffalo by warriors as they try to reach, and then cross, the river. Some who have lost their horses are killed as they scramble on hands and knees up what will evermore be known as Reno Hill.

Having incurred grave losses, the battalion, or what remains of it, is now gathered atop this hill, surrounded, dispirited, disoriented, under siege.

Where is Custer? we Speak, we Sing.

We Speakers ask this in a range of American accents being supplied to us by the Mod. The Singers ask this repeatedly, in a melody (the Mod somehow tells us even this) adapted from the main theme of an obscure Italian opera by a composer named Federici.

But there is no answer, no one knows where Custer is; he was last seen an hour ago, on the ridge above, as we embarked upon our ill-fated attack, waving his hat to us, believing us soon to be victorious, riding off to the north with the several companies in his charge.

We wait on Reno Hill all afternoon, in the great heat, desperate for water, being fired upon whenever we move, expecting at any moment to be overrun by these powerful fiends who, having so mastered us, now seem an utterly supernatural force, beyond our power to resist.

And then we become those “fiends,” those Lakota, Arapaho, and Northern Cheyenne, these sons and husbands and brothers, to whom the white devils on the hill no longer appear frightening (as they did in the early moments of the attack, when the sleepy village was caught by surprise) but, instead, pitiful and disgusting; they have traveled far, to kill our children, and when we fought back like men, they panicked, threw down their arms, cried, begged, crawled away.

From all across the village, we begin streaming south to confront them.

We hope we will succeed in killing them all before night.

Mr. U. abruptly shuts us down.

It is a bit of a shock, to be merely ourselves again.

“You are making me very happy,” Mr. U. says.

I raise my hand.

Mr. U. points at me, indicating that I may speak without fear of Penalty.

“How long ago was all of this?” I say.

Mr. U. seems pleased to have been asked.

“Well, what we’ve covered so far?” he says. “Took place on June twenty-fifth, 1876.”

“When is it now?” I say.

He smiles, shakes his head, gives a little laugh.

“I’d say it’s time for some sleep,” he says.

Mr. U. turns off the lights, exits Listening Room.

What we know, what we retain of what we just now knew, floats about in our heads like the dust we made as we rode. In dreams that soon come, we are Lakota, Arapaho, whites, Cheyenne, Crow, moving freely about a room-sized scale model of the battlefield, shouting jokes, racing our mounts, suddenly friends, having forgotten entirely that just now, in the daylight, we desired to obliterate one another.

I wake in the night to find Mrs. U. wheeling over Podium. She slides the mic stand over, Sets her Settings, dons the headphones, sits, leans back.

We are still on the Mod, the Mod she does not yet know Mr. U. has purchased, which, when she reaches behind and above herself to hit Go, Auto-Engages me at a random Location within itself, overriding whatever Settings she has just now Set.

I find myself Whispering to her in the form of a letter from a captain, a Captain Evers of Minnesota, longing for her, his wife, even as he, on his belly, waits for Reno Hill to be overrun. Nearby, friends of his, dear to him from many years of service, weep in terror. The body of Carvelli lies where he fell, shot between the eyes as he deliriously sought water. None of us has ever been this thirsty. We experience this thirst as a kind of madness. From somewhere a woman is shrieking. It is not a woman. It is Dietzen, the trumpeter. Our enemies seem able to instantly kill whoever does not lie flat, mouth full of the dry earth. Someone tells Dietzen to be quiet; someone remonstrates with him to show some pride. Dietzen goes on shrieking.

How did we, the mighty Seventh, come to this? We are aghast to have been so reduced by what we had imagined to be a paltry force of feeble savages but turned out to be a swift killing machine perfectly pitched to existing conditions of geography and landscape. We wish to go home, start over, never have come here.

Now, for the error of coming, we must die here, by hand, as it were: war-clubbed, pierced through with arrows, shot or knifed at close range. We have, mere hours ago, seen certain dear friends of ours perish in precisely these ways.

It will happen. It will happen soon.

It will happen soon, to me, I fear. To this precious body, which I have known and loved all my life.

I mention none of this in my letter. To my wife. She is delicate. It is not, anyway, a real letter, for I have nothing with which to write and no light by which to see; I write her this letter in my mind, to give myself comfort. Though things are dire, I tell her (I Whisper, to Mrs. U.), I am taking comfort in a certain memory of her that, in other circumstances, I would be hesitant to mention but that, tonight, it seems neglectful not to recall with the deepest gratitude: her, kneeling upon our bed, the Christmas Eve of the first year of our marriage, wearing the robe I brought back west for her from Cleveland, wind howling outside, and yet there in our home all was close and warm.

And then, I write (I Whisper), you were generous enough to allow that garment to fall away, and in the firelight I beheld a sight that inspired in me a feeling of awe the likes of which no western vista could ever hope to rival.

During all of this, Mrs. U. makes no move to unburden herself but is only training upon me the most rapt attention.

Which emboldens me somewhat.

Every man (I Whisper) is born with a certain store of desire. It is a treasure he has been bequeathed, that he must spend wisely over the course of his life. One moves through the world, finding objects on which to expend it. Blessed is he who finds a worthy object, shaped by God, provided fortuitously unto him, that elicits his longing so strongly that all else briefly recedes and he becomes pure desire. Then, wonder of wonders: that which he desires, embodied, may become pure desire herself, desiring him. Here is what I wish to say, dearest one, trapped as I am on this desolate, godless hillside, surrounded by demons who wish to destroy me: because I have known such a moment with you (the firelight playing across the walls; the dog asleep against the door; the bed shifting beneath us, as if making approving commentary in its own unique language), I may die now, if I must die, knowing I have truly lived.

Mrs. U. stands, approaches, drops her bathrobe.

Is naked before me.

“Praise me,” she whispers.

I do.

I do so.

I praise her. Her legs, hips, waist, breasts, neck, hair, eyes. I praise it all. I am not a captain from Minnesota, I say. I am me, I am Jeremy, one of your Speakers. And I adore you. She blinks twice, startled, but does not look away. I tell her that, Pinioned here, I am able, by a process of listening with focused attention, to know, at any given time, what portion of Main Living Area she is occupying and what she is doing there; that is, in what work she is engaged. She does so much for the household. She is always improving something, arranging something, putting into play something that will cause life to be easier and better for Mr. U. and adult son Mike. Their lives are made better by her, through her care, though they seem oblivious to, and only rarely acknowledge, this. I want her to know that I, who have had ample time (four years, two months) to objectively observe her, find her wonderful, glorious, thoroughly lovable.

When I have finished, she steps forward, kisses me.

“I’m so lonely here,” she says.

“I know,” I say, risking Penalty.

She kisses me again, with more push, more lingering, a slight motion of biting.

There comes a sound from Main Living Area.

She redons her bathrobe, rearranges Podium, shuts all down, goes swiftly away.

Craig emits a long, low whistle.

Lauren makes a tsk-tsk sound.

The Singers emit a series of quick chromatic bursts, as if to inquire: Gosh, in what sort of home do we find ourselves?

But I can hardly sleep for the joy of it all.

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