Chapter Twenty
I am troubled tonight with a curious pain;
It is not of the flesh, it is not of the brain,
Nor yet of a heart that is breaking:
But down still deeper, and out of sight—
In the place where the soul and the body unite—
There lies the seat of the aching.
-Ella Wheeler Wilcox, "Misalliance"
Before the elevator doors had even closed on them - and ignoring the gasps of Effie Trinket - Peeta began stripping off his costume - a coat of yellow feathers over a transparent yellow bodysuit. He left on only the pale yellow briefs.
"I never - I never!" exclaimed Effie, fanning herself with her gloved hands.
He didn't have much of an audience - not counting whoever happened to glance up as the clear-glass car started shooting up the atrium of the building - just Effie, Thalia, a heavyset man with spiky eyebrows named Cassius, and a thin, pale woman with graying hair whose name Peeta hadn't yet been told. "I - am - a grown man, not a puppet," he said, frowning at Effie.
"That look is a tribute to your district!" she retorted. "And a much more colorful one than you usually get - trust me!"
"'Canaries in the coal mine,'" Peeta said, wrinkling his nose. "Yeah, I understood the reference. You do know that canaries are harbingers of death, right?"
"I think they are very clever-looking birds."
Peeta closed his eyes and went silent. This was a mistake - arguing with Effie gave him a reason not to remember that he was almost naked. For the rest of the ride to the top floor of the Tribute Center, he stood with his arms self-consciously over his chest, while Thalia started chewing her bright yellow fingernails and the three Capitol passengers looked around at the glass walls.
Over the week he had been a "guest" of the Capitol, Peeta had made it a point to not be impressed by anything. Effie, a frequent visitor to his hospital room where his leg was reset and mended, and the scars of his torture somehow magically erased by a series of chemical peels, had been extraordinarily polite to him. Granted, she spoke to him as if he were a child - that was her training, after all - gushingly introducing him to extravagant meals and odd-looking people with an excitement she clearly expected him to share. True: the meals had been exceptional. The showers amazing. The luxurious setting of the Remake Center - the large windows and plush chairs - had been dazzling. But he was not a child to be overwhelmed by these things. All of these things - and more - he had seen on Capitol television programs for his entire life. They did not impress him - they had been designed to fill him with envy, so he knew only to despise them.
He really felt for the kids who usually came here - starving, most of them, wide-eyed and frightened. They must be absolutely overwhelmed with the sensation of this place. Its bright and loud aura made the real world - the dirt and the sweat and the hunger of it all - seem very faint.
All that said, when they reached the suite on the 12th floor - their home for the next week - Peeta found himself swallowing hard. The rooms were enormous - everything looked expensive, anyway: sleek couches, polished wood tables, beaded chandeliers. He had just taken in the sitting and dining rooms when he was ushered down a hallway to a bedroom - his own room: larger by twice than the house he lived in in 12. A bed the size of an orgy faced a wall of open windows. A large dresser was filled with clothes. The bathroom held an enormous inlaid bathtub as well as a huge shower stall. An Avox - they were everywhere here, victims of a particularly heinous form of Capitol punishment - demonstrated the impressive number of knobs and nozzles that operated it, and Peeta showered, washing away the day, the week, trying to imagine himself back in District 12, standing in the Meadow, in the middle of a spring rain.
"Look at me - decent again," he announced upon his return to the sitting room, but only Thalia was in sight. She stood at a large sliding-glass door staring outside. He joined her - smiling as she half-turned to him. Then, he tested the handle of the door and surprised himself by finding it unlocked. The door slid open onto the evening air and he stepped out onto a wide balcony. Thalia followed, her eyes widening.
An impressive vista - the towers of the Capitol, slender glass and solid concrete. The setting sun - disappearing behind the jagged mountains that formed the Capitol's west wall - cast a mellow red light over the city, a hazy blanket that softened all the angles, softened the view. It looked more like a painting than a real place. Peeta slid the door closed.
"I see they fixed you up," said Thalia.
She had a husky voice, making her sound older than she was. He looked at her closely - the flat affect of her voice was not unlike Melly's, though they were quite different in appearance. Her dark, short hair had been arranged into tight curls for the parade; her large gray eyes looked even bigger and darker than normal. She had changed, but she had not yet washed off her makeup.
"Yes, somewhat surprising, considering I thought I was coming here to be executed."
"You are," she said. "But they get to keep up their appearances - no one escapes the Reaping. What happened in Twelve?"
Peeta considered lying; she was most likely on her way to her death, and why burden her with the equally-likely loss of people she had loved? On the other hand, the destruction of Twelve needed to be told far and wide; so he explained.
"Wow," is all she said.
He glanced inside - it looked like the table was being set for dinner. "So, I guess they got Cassius to replace Haymitch as a mentor: he does a fair impression; I've caught him drinking from a flask more than once. That lady - is she your mentor?"
"Yeah - Nona. You're not going to believe this: she used to be married to Cray."
Peeta swayed. "What?"
Thalia laughed shortly. "That's right - I used to sleep with my mentor's husband on a regular basis."
"OK, very funny. That can't be. That's too much of a coincidence."
Thalia looked at him. "Oh, it's funny all right. And very true - she asked me all about him. She'll probably ask you, too." She turned abruptly, slid open the door and walked back inside.
Peeta waited a moment before following her.
That there was some talk around the dinner table, Peeta was vaguely aware - he was aware of a light chatter flittering about. But it was a buzz in his ears, like the food was dust in his mouth. He tried to be discrete about it, but he could not stop himself from looking at Nona. She was surprisingly normal - a standout among her compatriots. She wore a modest mauve dress and held her small, angular frame in an upright manner. Her gray hair was styled gracefully, framing her face with neat and respectable waves. It was impossible to connect her in any way to the appetites and all-around cruelty of Cray. Oh, he knew appearances can be deceiving ….
"So, my dears," said Effie suddenly, her voice rising, startling him out of his thoughts. "Tomorrow morning you and your mentors will meet at breakfast and discuss strategy. It is so unusual - but I have to say a bit refreshing - to do this without Haymitch, but we will plow forward! After breakfast, you will begin your three days of training -."
"We know," said Peeta wearily. "I've been watching the Hunger Games for twenty years. I know the routine, Effie."
"Young man," she said sharply, sounding for all the universe like one of his least-favorite teachers, "we are here to help you. Did you not notice that you two are at a distinct advantage over most of the other tributes? What a sorry collection they are! You have a real opportunity to win, but that will only happen if you heed our advice."
Peeta looked at her with an expression of extreme disbelief. "Effie - you were there. You saw what was going on in Twelve. How can you possibly think I give a shit about these Games?"
She waved her hand at him. "A mere disturbance - soon put right. I know you have been in the hospital, but it was all over the news. Everything is just fine in Twelve, now."
Yeah, for the carrion, thought Peeta grimly.
He refused to watch the tribute parade, feigning exhaustion. He went to his room to lie down and wonder - not for the first time - what had been the outcome of the battle in which he had been caught. By the emptiness of the field outside the fence, it looked like all of the people who had fled had made it to the safety of the trees. And he had heard Katniss - she had been too uncomfortably close to the action. Alive - but too close. He could only hope that she had managed to flee under cover of the woods, which would have provided some shielding from the hovercraft, at least. It seemed like long odds to him - but he refused to believe her to be dead. He had believed it before, without proof, and he never would again.
In the morning, Peeta woke up to find himself curled in a ball on one side of the enormous bed. He had fallen asleep in his clothes, so he just rolled out of bed and walked out the door.
He paused at the sight of Nona, sitting alone at the dining table, sipping either coffee or tea and thoughtfully reading a newspaper. His reaction to her surprised him - he had been sarcastic and easy with Cray, a man with real power over him and his life. But this fragile-seeming woman terrified him for some reason.
He nodded at her as he crossed over to the sideboard and started shoveling breakfast onto a plate. He had not eaten much last night, so he was now starving - and here was all this food laid out before him: mountains of scrambled eggs, stacks of bacon, bread, butter, jellies, honey - some slivers of smoked fish and smoked ham, pastries of every description - filled with fruit, cheese and chocolate. It was about a month's worth of breakfast back home, though one would be lucky to have access to much besides the eggs, and bread. He took a little bit of almost everything.
Back at the table, he found himself being stared at. He licked his lips and fixed his eyes on his plate, feeling very surprised at himself. He was rarely at a loss for words.
"I understand you knew my husband," she said quietly.
He licked his lips. "What do you mean?" he asked hoarsely. "I - I've never been to the Capitol before."
She could hear the smile crease her face. "I was married - once upon a time - to Cray Tetra, who was sent to your District as a Peacekeeper."
He tried to look startled at his pile of scrambled eggs. "Well, then - yeah. I guess I did know your husband. He was kind of a big deal in Twelve."
"Not in a good way, I presume."
He looked up then, his irritation growing stronger than his alarm. "I don't know what you know about the districts, ma'am, but Peacekeepers aren't assigned there to make friends."
She shrugged. "I don't know. Cray wasn't a big one for law enforcement."
And then he understood his own terror. This woman - this woman, at last - might know the secrets about Cray that Melly had taken to the grave, or even the ones she didn't know. He wasn't entirely sure he wanted to know them. And he didn't want to hear them from his wife. It was all too - intimate. "No," he said. "But then - law enforcement is secondary to most of them, in my experience. They are the enforcers of a vast and impossibly corrupt system of power. Laws only apply when they prop that system up."
She laughed. "You probably think you are very clever, but you are not the first person to figure that out - not by thousands of young men over thousands of years. In fact, it was once your kind who were automatically at the top of the system."
"What do you mean? My kind?"
"Nothing," she said. "Old history - it wouldn't mean anything to you to hear it now. You're very spunky though - and fair - for someone from your District. We always have an overwhelming impression of - dirt. You know, dust; coal dust."
Peeta bit his tongue. Oh, he knew exactly what she meant by that. Exactly. If she thought there weren't gradations of society in District 12 - if she thought he was ignorant of classism and racism … well, she was just a silly old fool, isolated and insulated like all of her kind. He just couldn't tell whether her remark was an endorsement, a critique - or just decidedly neutral.
"So - what do you want to know about Cray? Did you watch him die on TV?"
Now, she looked surprised - surprised, but not shocked, as if it was his bluntness, not his news, that startled her. "Not live," she said. "But yes. He seemed upset with you."
"We were not friends."
"Why would you be?"
"He fucked my wife," he pressed on, now determined to shatter her ludicrous composure.
Her mouth twitched. "He's done worse."
"Oh, yeah, I know - I got off easy," he said. "A lot of fathers and mothers in District 12 can't say the same."
She shook her head. "As long as -." But she stopped at the look on his face; he felt a fury at her he had rarely felt ever before. "Look," she said. "I am not accountable for the man. He was banished to Twelve fifteen years ago. My divorce was final before he stepped off the train. I envy you that he seemed so outrageous to you; the Capitol has a different view."
"Regarding …?"
"Regarding the age of consent. Our young men and women are more - sophisticated, worldly. It's a benefit of living here."
"Then why was he banished to Twelve, if not for that?"
There was a long silence. Peeta, looking at her, realized that she was frustrated that she had somehow lost control of the conversation; she wanted him to talk - she did not want to answer questions.
She was spared an answer by the arrival of Cassius, and then Thalia. He kept his eyes on her, and now she was the one to avoid his gaze. I have a week, he thought - a week to get the answer from her. To what end - to what purpose now - was information about Cray? It no longer mattered. But he was determined to know before he died.
Effie was very excited when she met them at the elevator later that morning. "Guess what?" she said, as the doors swooshed open.
They got into the elevator car and began the descent. "What?" asked Peeta, looking down into Effie's pale, gleeful smile.
"After training today, you will be permitted to go to a dinner party! It's Senator Tullo's opening week party for the Games! Usually only mentors are invited, but a special case has been made for some of the tributes this year!"
Thalia looked up in interest. "Really?"
"Yes! I suppose it is because you are not underaged as most tributes are: you will be accompanied by security, of course, but I will also be nearby as someone you are comfortable with! Isn't that amazing?"
The emphasis on age struck Peeta as curious, considering his recent conversation with Nona, but then Effie was careless with words. He wondered if Nona would be there and whether that worked in his favor or not - having never been to a "dinner party" in his life, he could not even begin to imagine the logistics.
The elevator descended down past the lobby level of the training center and opened on an enormous open room divided into "stations." Station 1 - blade training. Station 2 - projectiles. Station 3 - simulator sessions. Etc. Already, several other people were down here, clustered near Station 1. Effie pushed them both out of the elevator with a "good luck!" and then disappeared behind them.
Peeta glanced down at Thalia and wondered what she was thinking. They were dressed similarly in black sweats and a white t-shirt, but she had saved a yellow headband from her costume of last night and it was sitting in her dark curls - looser than last night, but still very attractive and deliberate. She had put on makeup - not much, a little eyeliner, a little lipstick, but enough to look like she had put an effort into how she looked today. Not knowing her, Peeta wondered: was this a deliberate attempt to make herself appealing to her fellow tributes, potential allies, or to the Gamemakers (hanging out in the balconies above them, watching the proceedings); or was it just her way of feeling good about herself? He tried not to remember that she had been, in Twelve, essentially a prostitute - he knew better than to judge Cray's girls that way - but it was difficult not to wonder.
They walked over to Station 1 together and found themselves surrounded by a motley collection of fellow tributes. They had been cleaned up since their reaping, but honestly, so many of them were older and out of shape. He imagined that they had been in prison for petty crimes brought on by the same desperation that filled District Twelve: petty theft, trespassing, public intoxication (some of them were clearly drug-addicts, their large watery eyes framed by gaunt, ravaged faces). A handful of them, though, were intimidating enough: the male tribute from District 4 was not that much older than them; his head was shaved and he had a tattoo on his left arm - not colorful and elaborate like a Capitol tattoo, but a small black skull that seemed like a crude drawing but was the more sinister for that, somehow. But it was something in his face - some indefinable look in his green eyes - that worried Peeta. He seemed - mean. He already had a couple of hangers-on: both the District 7 tributes stood slightly behind him, on either side, watching everyone else.
Then there was the woman from District 9. She was older, but tough and muscular. She immediately introduced herself by explaining that she had been scheduled to hang for killing her husband and step-daughter, so this was definitely all fun and games for her.
And the man from District 1 - older, silver-haired, and possibly mad. As introductions went around, he made everyone jump by periodically spouting out random strings of profanities.
A young man walked into this assembly warily - Peeta saw him give an upward glance to the balconies as if to say 'are you kidding me?' - and introduced himself as Achilles, the head trainer. He recited a list of rules - no attacking each other, no attacking the staff, no lingering at a single station longer than two hours. Once he was done, the majority of the tributes clustered around the blade and projectile stations. Peeta headed as far away from the crowd as he could get, lighting on a camouflage station that attracted him with its cans of paints.
He was not alone for long. He had waved off the station trainer who offered to teach him camouflaging techniques, and had just started painting his own bare arms with paint when a tall man joined him. He looked up into the face of an elderly, but very muscular, man, who was missing half his left arm and two of his front teeth. Peeta squinted up at him. "Aren't you Chaff - from District 11?"
The man smiled. "One and the same."
"You're a Victor, aren't you?"
"That's right."
"What on earth are you doing here?"
"A little worm told me this was the place to be," said the older man, in very deliberate-sounding tones, though it was impossible for Peeta to tell what he meant by it. Chaff glanced upward toward the Gamemakers. "By which I mean a worm of a Head Peacekeeper. Threw me in jail for insurrection right before the Reaping - trumped up charges. He's always wanted to be rid of me." Chaff chuckled hoarsely and Peeta began to wonder if he was right in the head.
"I think a lot of us ended up here that way," replied Peeta, glancing around. "I suppose if you are going to empty the prisons, you'd want to make sure the more problematic ones were heading to the Games."
"What can you mean?" gasped Chaff in what was clearly mock horror. "It's a lottery system - totally random!" And he laughed to himself again.
Peeta watched him, smiling, until he had settled himself. "Of course," he said. "What was I thinking?"
"Sorry not to see Haymitch here," said Chaff. "It was the one compensation - coming here every year. That man's a riot."
"Well," said Peeta, amused at this thought. "The Reaping didn't go quite right in District Twelve this year."
Chaff gripped Peeta's arm suddenly, wet paint and all. "So, I've heard."
"What?"
"The same glitches might soon be evident in Eleven."
Chaff walked abruptly away, his fingers smeared with the yellow paint from Peeta's arm. Peeta gaped after him, but was also cognizant of all the eyes and potential ears in the room, and let him go without calling after him with a demand for a further explanation. Capitol crackdown, Peeta wondered, or the spreading rebellion?
He visualized Katniss in her dark armor, shouting "revolution! revolution!" from the sky and thought: my girl.