A/N: I wrote the draft of this before Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes came out, so my take on the early years of the regime is very different.
Hi Grandma. I'm sending you this letter through Aunt Livia and Uncle Rafi. I know we haven't met, except when I was a baby, so I'll tell you about myself first. My name is Sooyen Blues, I'm almost eight years old, and I'm your only granddaughter. I like logic puzzles, reading, and playing soccer. My favourite thing to read about is history. I read your article in the Webcyclopedia. It was very interesting, but I don't understand why the Hunger Games happened. I asked my teacher, but he changed the topic. Mom and Dad told me to ask Uncle Aulus, Uncle Aulus told me to ask Uncle Lars, and Uncle Lars told me to ask Mom and Dad. I wanted to look it up on the Web, but everyone says people only write lies about the Hunger Games there, so I didn't. And the library has no books about it. So I decided to write to you. Why did the Hunger Games happen?
Donna remembered how, years ago, Lars had written to her with similar questions. He had been much older then, though - Sooyen had just started grade three. For a few seconds, Donna wondered how Livia and Dancer had reacted to their quasi-niece asking to send in a letter. Who had even told her that a clandestine mail network existed?
Sooyen hadn't thought to leave the other side of the paper blank. Donna squeezed in a reply at the bottom, addressed to Livia. What gave Sooyen the idea to write directly to me, and how did she figure out to send a letter through you? Tell her that her interest in the past is commendable, but she might have to wait a few years until she can read the books by Aurelius and Mallow, Bauble, etc. Given the quality of Sooyen's writing, Donna feared that day would come sooner rather than later. It was a good thing that even the average adult could not slog through the transcripts of the trial.
Reply written, Donna hid the paper in her bra and picked up a heavy book from the table. It was a bit funny that she would continue reading words written by a seven-year-old child, though the book she was holding at the moment had been written ninety-five years ago by a boy whose parents, who had been from Ten, had left him with a friend before being deported back. Zohrabi had spent his entire life separated from his younger sister, and the two had only reunited after the Rebellion. He had also kept a detailed diary for his entire life and had agreed to have it published after his death. Donna had read the introduction the previous day, but she hadn't had the willpower to continue.
She sat on her cot, reading the title on the spine and thinking about her granddaughter. The diary was being published under the title I Will Bear Witness to the Bitter End, an appropriate name for a five-tome publication spanning nearly a century that had been condensed from literally hundreds of various notebooks by a team of historians and Kyle Zohrabi himself in the last years preceding his death. When typed up, the entire diaries took up forty-four large tomes that now resided in various academic libraries.
Donna tapped her fingers on the cover, wondering why she was reading something like this. If not for Dr. Chu having been the one to hand it to her, she'd never have sought it out of her own volition. With a sigh, she opened the book and flipped through the introduction. The guards' searches were too perfunctory to notice a chocolate bar lying under the cot (Smith had checked), but keeping forbidden books around for too long was a bad idea. At any moment, the guards could go back to nightly checks and strip-searches. Somehow, this anticipation of something that could never come was worse than actually being woken up every night.
21.11.79 Dear diary, Mom and Gina left today. I live with Aunt Clo and Uncle Marius now. They got me a fake ID by saying mine was lost in the fighting. They told me to keep a diary, so I can say stuff here I can't say to anyone else. My name is Kyle Zohrabi, I'm nearly eight years old, and I have a three-year-old sister, Gina. She was deported today. Mom and Dad thought she was too little to be left in the Capitol. I don't want to live in the Capitol by myself, but Mom and Dad think I'll be safer here.
The writing style reminded Donna of Sooyen. In the introduction, Zohrabi had been praised to the skies as a meticulous chronicler from his first days as a diarist, but to Donna, he was just a scared child. When he had begun his diary, the First Rebellion had already been on the edge of defeat, having already been smashed in the Capitol and Two, and nearly so - in the inner Districts, and rumours about what would become the Hunger Games had been already flying. With an unexpected eye for detail from such a small child, Zohrabi described the military situation, as well as his own life. Donna felt ashamed as she read the diary, even though she firmly told herself it was crazy to be ashamed for something that had happened in the distant past.
I wish the Rebellion could win. Aunt Clo thinks that it was doomed from the moment it was put down in Two, but maybe it can happen again. Then, I'll go back to Old Bob's ranch and be with Mom and Dad and Gina. I think they left me behind and not Gina because I behaved badly last week. If I can go home, I swear I'll never be bad again.
Donna wiped unexpected tears from her face. When he had written those lines, Kyle Zohrabi couldn't have known that he'd never see his parents again and his sister would be in her late seventies when they were reunited.
"I don't know why you read that crap," Vartha said, looking through a potato. A mole-cricket had tunneled a hole through it. "How's it going to help you?"
Theodosius looked up from where he was digging with a spade. "It's interesting." It was warm but muddy, and he was covered with it from head to toe. So was Donna. Vartha was more careful. "He lived through the entire Games regime, and not only that, but he kept a diary. Historians are already pouncing on it."
"Exactly." Vartha tossed the potato into the wheelbarrow, staring at the potato patch as if it had personally offended him. "Historians. Why do you torture yourself by reading that stuff?" He bent down and delicately picked up another potato from the ground. He was harvesting the easily accessible ones, leaving Donna and Theodosius to dig through the mud to get at the rest.
"It's not torture," Donna said weakly. He was right, though. She'd never have read the book if not for Dr. Chu. "It's interesting." Why was she lying about it? It just made Vartha more annoyed.
Vartha threw the potato into the wheelbarrow. "I'm sure it's interesting. For historians." He sighed, propping his hands on his hips. "First the memoirs of the trial, then that stupid movie, then an academic book, and now another memoir. It's getting worse and worse." He spread out the pile of potatoes in the wheelbarrow. "It'll explode soon, mark my words, and I'd rather it happen sooner rather than later. I wouldn't want to be out there when it happens. Also, the wheelbarrow's full." He was unfortunately right about the explosion - nobody could deny that both left and right-wing populism was experiencing a meteoric rise because of the economic downturn, and that an explosion was imminent. Thinking about that infuriated Donna. Why was she in prison if the same things were happening again?
Climbing to his feet, Theodosius tried to rub the worst of the dirt from his hands. "You think it'll explode soon?"
"Li told me so yesterday, when we were mopping the corridor."
And if Li said so, that was probably what would happen. Ever since the incident with Yark, he had turned out to be the best political analyst Donna had ever known. She walked towards the wheelbarrow, the wheel of which was stuck in the mud. "Let's go?" she offered.
Donna took one handle, Theodosius - the other, and Vartha picked up the front. Together, they moved the wheelbarrow to the path, which was barely better in terms of muddiness. The three of them were all barefoot and had their trousers rolled up, and their feet were covered with mud to mid-calf. They walked towards the shed, occasionally pausing as Vartha had to hold up the front to get through a particularly muddy patch of ground. A rubber tire had been promised weeks ago, but they were still waiting for it.
At the shed, sacks and twine waited, as well as Hope. Perhaps she could be convinced to bag the potatoes. As they approached, they heard the conversation she was having with the guard, a young woman from Two with a pockmarked face. It appeared that the guard had made the mistake of asking Hope for relationship advice.
"Thirty centimetres?" the guard asked dubiously, trying to estimate with her hands how long that was. "Is that even possible?"
"I didn't ask him to whip out a ruler, but yes," Hope said, leaning against the wall casually, powerful arms crossed. She looked a solid twenty years younger than her eighty-two years.
The three of them stopped, lowering the wheelbarrow and stretching out their backs. "You're misremembering," Donna said, even though absolutely anything was plausible when Hope was involved. "Ten is more than enough. I can't even imagine thirty. How would that even work?"
"Thank you for the compliment," Theodosius muttered with a combination of sincerity and sarcasm.
"What?" Donna asked defensively, noticing his facial expression. "I can personally attest that quality is more important than quantity. I'm willing to bet that even a centimetre is enough, if you know what you're doing with it." Theodosius rolled his eyes, smiling slightly.
Vartha snorted. "Where were you when my first girlfriend made fun of me?" He scratched his chin with a dirty fingernail. "Maybe she should have hooked up with that man of yours," he said to Hope. "Though I don't think that's physically possible."
Hope shrugged. "Worked fine enough for me."
Either Hope was misremembering or the prostitute had lied. Or both. "I don't think that much can physically fit inside you," Donna said. "Or inside anyone, really." She paused. "Wait, what kind of sex did you have?" she asked.
The guard had started out pale, but was by now bright-red for some reason. Donna wondered what had possessed someone so inexperienced to ask Hope of all people for advice.
"What do you think? Last I heard, vaginas weren't thirty centimetres deep." Hope waved a dismissive hand. "Since you're here, though, could you three please explain the importance of consent to our guard here? Given that I'm not an expert at that and all." She didn't seem to be bothered by that, but then again, Hope was one of the most categorical when it came to rejecting guilt.
"What's the issue?" Vartha asked, turning to the guard.
Theodosius took a potato from the wheelbarrow. "Ms. Hope, could you please bag these potatoes while we dig up the rest?"
"Sounds like a plan."
"Alright, then," Donna said to Theodosius. "How about we two go back and continue harvesting the potatoes while you," she nodded at Vartha, "explain what you need?" Heavy rains were being forecasted for the next few days, and Theodosius was desperate to clear the potato patch as soon as possible.
Vartha didn't look too happy at the prospect of his marriage being overanalyzed by Hope, but he wanted to dig up potatoes even less, so he nodded. "Let's dump out the potatoes, then." He took the wheelbarrow by the handles and lifted it. A flood of potatoes tumbled onto the mud and grass, rolling all over the place cheerfully. He then took a few steps backwards and turned the wheelbarrow around. "Here you go."
Taking a handle each, Donna and Theodosius headed back to the potato patch as the guard began to complain about how her boyfriend didn't respect her. "So," Theodosius said, "how far are you along in the book?"
"I'm at the part where his aunt takes him to the cinema to watch the newsreels from the first Games." Donna had an intense suspicion that the widespread adoption of televisions and broadcasting technology just a few years after that had been caused specifically by McCollum's desire to force everyone to watch the Games. "What's interesting is how technology was different back then compared to the early television era before the Cataclysm. We had supercomputers, but it didn't enter anyone's mind to make them smaller, instead of more powerful, and so they remained locked up in laboratories. It's almost like everyone decided to do things differently than before out of spite."
Theodosius nodded. "I didn't even think about the technology. What Zohrabi went through - it's heartbreaking, honestly. Every year, he wondered if this would be the year someone he knew die on the screen." He ran a dirty hand through his dirty hair.
"Yeah." Donna looked at the ground, wondering why that had been the first thing to come to mind. "It's hard reading."
"Watching his writing style change is depressing," Theodosius said with a sigh. "It'll be strange to read what he wrote about what we experienced ourselves."
When she had been born, Zohrabi had already been middle-aged. "I wonder when he first found out about our existence. He probably just jotted down that there was a new Minister of Resources and left it at that."
At the potato patch, they lowered the wheelbarrow and ventured back into the mud. The sky overhead was extremely overcast, and the air was humid. "With how he was already analyzing political developments at the age of eight, he probably wrote an essay about what my appointment meant for Ten," Theodosius grumbled as he got on his knees and dug with a spade. "I don't even want to know what he thought about me."
"You think I do?" The mud was cold against her bare feet. Donna crouched in the dirt and dug through the ground, looking for potatoes that looked like clumps of mud themselves. "It pained him so much that he couldn't go to the March of the Disapproving. Even though he was just a child himself." For the first few years of the Games, Rebel-minded and simply outraged people in the Capitol had protested en masse. Every year, the crackdown had been harsher and harsher, until live fire had been used, killing nearly a hundred. After that, the first purge had followed. Donna wondered what Zohrabi had thought of it.
Vartha strolled back in, nearly slipping in the mud. "How did that go?" Donna asked.
"Guard nearly dropped dead after a few more of Hope's jokes. Otherwise, alright." He shrugged and reached for the shovel.
17.06.06 Dear diary, McCollum announced a new calendar, so that's what I'll be using from now on. I can't afford to let myself slip. My old ID expired and I got a new one, so it's highly unlikely I'll be caught, but it's still risky. Yesterday, I realized that I was talking to Aunt and Uncle in my accent. I'll have to stop that. Someone might overhear. Half the Capitol denounces the other half to the secret police, or that's what it feels like. A solitary protester against the Games was arrested just this morning, and nobody knows what happened to them. Their name is Alex Giannis. Or maybe 'was'.
I'm scared for my old friends. The Reaping is tomorrow, and we'll be watching it on television for the first time. The government subsidized it, but we'll still be paying it off for months. Aunt and Uncle don't want to watch, but there's rumours that the secret police will be going door-to-door to make sure everyone is watching. I'm not sure I believe that, but you never know with them, and in any case, I want to see Ten again.
Donna wondered how Zohrabi hadn't gone insane, having to constantly hide who he was. He could have suppressed his memories and pretended to have always been a Capitol citizen and nothing more, but instead, he stubbornly clung to his identity, writing in his diary every single day despite the consequences if it had been found. No wonder he had been so afraid of drawing suspicion.
So afraid - and yet still writing every single day. Most of the entries had been removed from the edition Donna was reading, but it was still clear that the past to him was something to remember. He wrote lengthy passages about his home, describing friends he hadn't seen in years in as much detail as the politicians he saw on the television every day. It made Donna feel awkward, that this boy could have held onto the past no matter how painful it was, while she just didn't think about the things she didn't want others to know.
At the end of the day, she had known more than she had ever let on. Donna forced that thought out of her head, not wanting to contemplate it, and continued reading.
I thought it would be prudent to inform you that Sooyen has gotten her hands on Zohrabi's diary, claiming that since the first part had been written by someone her age, that meant it was age-appropriate. The librarian, unfortunately, caved. One thing led to another, and I won't bore you with the entire story, but the issue is that your granddaughter now wants an explanation from you. What should I do?
Donna's first instinct was to tell Livia to tell Sooyen that she was too young for this, but that would most likely result in Sooyen pestering someone else or browsing the Web until she got answers, and who knew what sort of biases they would have. Mentally cursing whoever had made Sooyen so interested in history, Donna turned over the paper and penned a reply.
Hand the following to Sooyen in its entirety: Dear Sooyen, I know what you must be thinking of me right now. You can't believe that I could have ever been involved with the Hunger Games. There is one thing you can console yourself with - I was only ever an engineer. All I did was build the Arenas. I am not guilty of any of the deaths that occurred there, be they Tribute or worker. While I bear the responsibility for the children who died there, I'm sure you understand that it was really McCollum and then Snow who killed them, as he had been the one with the power to decide. And as for the forced labourers, and the dreadful things in the Districts - I knew nothing. I should have known, but I had been too absorbed by my own work. For that, too, I bear some measure of responsibility.
The reply did not take too long to arrive. A few days later, Tia handed her a scrap of paper.
Please explain to me how you can be responsible for something you had no idea was happening, Livia wrote.
Donna could only grit her teeth as she clutched the pen and carefully wrote the answer. I chose to be ignorant and let those horrors be carried out in my name. Legal and moral guilt are two different things.
As Donna folded up and hid the paper, she wondered what Dr. Chu would have thought of it. The psychologist would probably be disappointed - but then again, she couldn't always hover over Donna's shoulder, pushing her closer and closer to cracking with every single session.
"I hate this weather," Katz said for the tenth time that day. "This, on top of my heart trouble - it won't end well." She tapped her foot to the beat of the catchy pop song that was currently playing through the speakers. Donna didn't like it when they played new melodies. It reminded her that the world was moving on outside these walls.
"The squash is going to wash away, at this rate," Fourrer said anxiously. He crocheted slowly and carefully, making a sweater with mosaic stitch.
"It never washed away before, why will it now?" Theodosius sat astride the bench, trying to talk to everyone at once. "I'm more worried about the wind. Good thing we picked the trees clean before the rain hit."
Not only had it been raining for four days now, but it was also extremely windy. Not quite enough to break the relatively sturdy trees in the yard, but more than enough to knock off anything that had been attached to them. Donna could just barely hear the howling of the wind over the music. Most of them couldn't hear it at all. "We're going to be harvesting in a swamp," Donna predicted gloomily. "It was muddy enough before, but now we're going to be sinking to our knees."
"I can't believe this is my last harvest," said Aslanov, who was going to be released in January.
"We won't miss you," Hope quipped.
Aslanov shook his head. "That's not what I meant," he said, adjusting his grip on his yarn. "I never thought I'd make it to eighty-nine years. But I did. And all of my siblings are going to be there, waiting for me."
"And a horde of journalists, too," Donna predicted. After all, Aslanov would be the last of the former Peacekeepers to be released.
"I don't care if every journalist in the world lines up outside the gates," Aslanov said seriously. "I'm still counting down the days."
Li cut the yarn he was using and wrapped his just-made cord around his hand. "That's a good point. In the normal prison system, how many of us even are there?" The president's push to have the criminals of the old regime released had been quite successful, especially in the Capitol.
"Depends on where," Grass pointed out. "There are a few serving life sentences in a couple of the Districts."
Katz mock-shuddered. "Good thing I spent those months in Seven. I wouldn't have wanted to have been in Nine this entire time."
"Actually," Grass said, "you'd probably have been dead now, given the immediate post-Rebellion notions of justice. Which means that those alleged victims who pushed to have you tried by an IDC court actually saved your life. Serves them right!" she huffed.
"I wonder what it's like in the other Districts," Li mused. "I'm sure the company is worse." Given that he was currently embroiled in a fight with Gold for some reason, that said a lot, coming from him.
"Do you hear that?" Theodosius suddenly asked. Everyone shook their heads. A few seconds later, the music went quiet, and Donna could hear the whistling of the wind.
"I can hear it," she said.
"I can't," Katz grumbled. "Is the wind picking up again?" Donna and Theodosius nodded. "I hate this weather."
Even the gravel-strewn path was as muddy as anything. As Donna jogged around the path, splatters of mud covered her socks and calves. Despite the chill, she had rolled up her trouser legs, not wanting to have damp fabric constantly touching her skin. The vegetable beds were swamps, and even the grassy patches squished unpleasantly under everyone's feet.
Worse than that, was that half of one of the apple trees had broken off partially, and was threatening to topple the entire tree. They were taking turns at sawing apart the bits that had broken off. At the moment, four of the former Peacekeepers were standing around it, armed with saws. They were cutting the trunk into more manageable sections, leaving dealing with the smaller branches to those who weren't capable of sawing a trunk in half with a handsaw.
Once Donna was done with her jog, she went towards the wall and took off her shoes and socks. They were dirty, but not hopelessly so. The chill made her put on her shirt, which had been tied around her waist, but she rolled up her sleeves in a concession to the muddy work she would be doing. She walked towards the tree.
"I can take over now," she suggested to Stone. He snorted and handed over his saw, the handle of which was slightly warm to the touch.
"Go ahead."
Theodosius also drifted over, as did Li and Netter. Li took the saw from Gold, glaring daggers at him. "You are completely misinterpreting the situation!" he snapped.
"Sure I am," Gold said, going toe-to-toe with him despite being a head shorter and a decade older. "It's certainly not you who's twisting facts to suit his own interpretation." He spun on his heel, an easy task given that he was barefoot in the mud, and stomped off. Donna hoped she hadn't looked so stupid when fending off Salperin's accusations of sock theft the other month. How could he have been so hard-headed? His feet were so much bigger than hers, why would she have taken his socks on purpose? It was an accident!
Salperin was still glaring at her, clearly still choosing to not believe her.
Li rolled his eyes, crouched down, and effortlessly picked up a section of the tree trunk. He tossed it aside onto an empty vegetable bed. Feet sinking in the mud, Donna crouched down next to it with the saw and began to saw off small twigs first, tossing them into a pile. Theodosius joined her.
"What part are you at?" she asked. Her knee sank deeply into the mud as she leaned on it, and she shivered from the cold.
"I'm at where Ten wins the Games for the first time." He sawed off a thin branch with quick, easy motions. "If I had been half as philosophical at that age, I wouldn't have been here now."
Donna had also gotten to that part. Ten's success in the Ninth Games had led Zohrabi to write an entire essay on whether he was just glad that at least one of his fellows had survived or if he was becoming one of those Capitolites who cheered the Games. It was interesting that back then, few had shown any interest in the Games, but then again, they had lasted for an hour or so back then. No pomp and fuss to trick people into thinking that it was all a nice show, just fighting and dying.
While Best had told them all over and over about growing up back then, Donna had listened to his stories with a sceptical ear, especially as he had been born with the Games regime and had few memories of its earliest years. Zohrabi's book often proved him wrong - not like he admitted it, preferring to dig in his heels and say that Zohrabi must have gotten it wrong - but it sometimes proved him right, and then he was smug for days.
"It was really awkward to read about how he enjoyed watching the final battle because he knew that she would win," Donna said. She rotated the log slightly so as to not get the saw dirty when she cut off a stub of a branch that had been lying close to the ground. "It's like he internalized that nonsense about how the Districts were glad to compete in the Games."
Theodosius sat back on his heels. His knees were covered with mud. "I bet lots of District people cheered when one of theirs won," he said. "It probably felt like the victory of the entire District to them. Divide and rule." He leaned forward and grabbed a thick branch that had been stripped of all its twigs. "Smart."
"Divide and rule," Donna echoed him. "All of a sudden, the enemy is not the government, but the child who's the only thing stopping a child you know nothing about from coming home." Zohrabi had written about that at length. Only eighteen years old, the same age as the girl from Nine who had won that year, he had managed to untangle the entire situation. "It's interesting that back then, there were anti-Games leaflets everywhere. I think I only ever saw one in public three or four times, max."
Sawing slowly and patiently at the branch, Theodosius nodded. "McCollum knew things would explode if he pressed too tightly too fast. Look at how much effort he put into cultivating the myth of the loyal Two. Divide and rule again. He gave the Capitol lower classes just enough privileges so that they didn't go on strike over their terrible pay for fear of losing what they had, and used their discontent to make the upper classes consider them the real threat." He looked around, sighed, and got on his knees again to saw from a different angle. "The more I read, the more I understand logically why the Games happened, but the less sense they make to me."
Donna felt the same way after reading about how quickly everyone had gotten used to them. "Maybe the subconscious effect was enough," she speculated. "I remember when I was a child, some people told their kids that if they misbehaved, they'd go to the Games. And in the Districts, everyone knew that perhaps this would be the year someone they loved would be taken away from them." Only a handful of the guards had personally known someone who had died in the Games - the ones from Twelve, which had been smaller than the others to an absurd extent.
"That's not what I meant." With a heavy cracking sound, he broke off the branch, and Donna stood up to take it away. "I just can't wrap my head around how it even started. A group of people sat around a table and decided to take two children from each District, toss them into a walled-off field, and have them kill each other." He gestured at nothing in particular with the saw and wiped his face with a hand, making it dirtier. "Can you imagine it? Them sitting around a table, arguing about ages, about whether it would make sense to have small children fight grown men."
Donna shook her head and tossed the branch onto the pile. "My granddaughter wants to know how the Games could happen," she said softly, "and I have no idea how to answer her."
"Can't help you there," Theodosius replied with a weak smile. He fell silent as a guard approached. The short man from One stuck to the path, so while the soles of his shoes were dirty, the rest of him didn't have a speck of mud on it. He stopped close to them and they stood up, doffing their caps. Donna was acutely aware of her own dirt-covered inferiority. She was muddy from head to toe.
"Well," the guard said cheerfully, "I have good news for you. Extra laundry day today."
"Thank you," they replied in unison. The guard nodded and continued walking.
Donna crouched back down, feeling unpleasantly cold from the dirt and damp. She sawed at a branch with aching fingers, wishing the log hadn't been so covered with branches and already planning her laundry. What she wanted even more was a shower, but that would be tomorrow. For now, she'd have to settle for a spit-bath.
"So," Theodosius asked, likewise getting back on his knees, "what part are you at?"
A/N: Kyle Zohrabi's diary is, of course, a reference to Victor Klemperer. 'Ich will Zeugnis ablegen bis zum Letzen' (I will bear witness to the bitter end) is the title under which his 1933-1945 diaries were published in German; in English, they were broken up into 'I will bear witness' (1933-39) and 'To the bitter end' (1939-45). There is also 'The lesser evil' (1945-59). His older diaries (he began writing as a teenager) are not available in English. Victor Klemperer was a really interesting person. He was a philologist, a university professor, a German patriot, a decorated WW1 veteran, a writer, a friend, a husband, and, (most important of all, as I'm sure he'd have agreed), a cat owner. Unfortunately for Klemperer, he was also a Jew in Nazi Germany. Saved from deportation to the killing fields or death camps by his marriage to a non-Jew, his diaries offer valuable insight into life during those years and what it is like for someone to be a privileged and respected member of society and then to have that torn away in a matter of years.