Interview
A 10. I stare at the two digits as they flicker across the screen. A one and a zero. 10 is good. But a 10 is just what Saylor got, and worse than the 11 the Gamemakers gave the girl with the shaved head from 2. Cassia is her name. I'm simultaneously annoyed and relieved that her rating remains the highest as the other tributes on the TV flare up and disappear one by one. She has an 11? Unfortunately, after I rejected their offer, I didn't waste any more thoughts on the career tributes in the gym and focused only on myself, so I haven't got the faintest idea where Cassia's high number comes from. Damn, damn, damn! Briefly, I consider asking Tic about the others' strengths in a quiet moment, but he is still shaken by his 4. I, on the other hand, am more surprised that he got a 4 at all - he has no stamina whatsoever, and I've heard him tell Porter that in his 15 minutes with the Gamemakers he tripped against a weapons rack and spilled a bunch of spears all over the floor. Accordingly, our mentors as well as our escort from the Capitol are probably holding back on comments about the scores. I still see an appreciative nod from Spud, though. I don't react because I find his manner repulsive and at the same time know that he wouldn't deny me sponsorship even if there were any resentment. He needs me just as much as I need him.
Secretly, I even wish I could give myself the same credit for getting a 10 from the Gamemakers as Spud does. However, a 10 was the least I had wanted to achieve - a 10 that would also be the best score in the round of all tributes. But I have been outdone, and in the same way my value among the sponsors has just dropped. All that's left is for me to get the interview to outdo all my opponents before the Games begin.
For our appointment with Caesar Flickerman and the cameras, Obethia once again puts me in a conspicuously inconspicuous outfit. This time it's a monochromatic light-colored jumpsuit with a wide back neckline that's dangerously tight, but shows off my figure well. I see - after innocence at the parade, it now offers sex appeal to the Capitol, though not too flashy. Sighing, I stroke the fabric that ends halfway up my thighs.
"When you sit next to Caesar, you cross your legs," Obethia says, holding out a pair of shoes to me. They are sandals with high heels, which I am supposed to wrap around my legs with the help of strings. In keeping with Obethia's color scheme, they shine gold. "And it's best to show yourself to the audience slightly from the side." She takes my shoulders and spins me around in front of the mirror so I can see what she means: at my ribs, the fabric ends so that the base of my breasts can be seen. I can't help but roll my eyes and for that I catch a slap with the hair band the stylist is currently holding. "You're supposed to please!"
"I'll make my words count."
"You can never neglect the look here!" she says gruffly. Then she steps around me and weaves the gold ribbon into my hair. Today I'm allowed to wear it open, though the prep team has placed it in such a way as not to conceal any preference of the clothing. Obethia also gives me a tight gold choker and some rings around my upper arm. "Done. Don't screw it up."
"What do you care if I die?"
"Nothing. But if you win, maybe I can have my job back after my parental leave."
I didn't expect this direct answer, but at least she is honest. So I nod and even thank her before it's time to go on stage.
Surprisingly, I take Obethia's posture tips to heart even before it's my turn to be interviewed. With my legs crossed and my back pressed through, I follow Angel as she floats up onto the stage and then howls all over Panem about her three beloved dogs. Whether these animals exist or not, I cannot say. I can't relate to her tears anyway - I don't know anyone in District 5 who keeps anything but farm animals. There's no need for pets, no money for pets. Moreover, in my opinion, with this statement Angel only volunteers to be the test subject of new dog-shaped muttations of the Gamemakers.
The boy from District 1, on the other hand, Saffyr, gives such a bad interview that Angel looks like an absolute tour de force. He constantly slips up and stutters around in the face of the cameras. He doesn't look Caesar Flickerman in the eye for a second. Cassia from 2 doesn't speak a word in the full three minutes except "I'm going to kill them all," the boy from her district, Romulus, talks about how his brother goaded him into volunteering and now he has to prove himself. The two from 3 are mediocre, though the boy with his pale skin and dry cough makes such a sickly impression on me that I would have preferred to send him home. But this is the Capitol - a place where even pregnant women are happily sent to their deaths. Who cares about a sick child?
Riva from 4 is next, and she's dressed so revealingly that I can literally feel the googly eyes of some Capitol dwellers in the front row. She looks incredibly good in the glittery see-through fabric that just barely covers her breasts in gauzy strips. I am briefly annoyed that I have to go on stage afterwards. Saylor, however, pulls it around, and after yelling some pugnacious slogans into the cameras with more volume than substance, Caesar Flickerman finally beckons me up on stage: "Ladies and gentlemen, join me in welcoming the Games' very own offspring, Alys Brunel from District 5!"
Smiling, I rise and climb the steps, careful not to wiggle my butt too little. I shake Caesar's hand, carefully manicured to match his hair in silver, then sit down across from him. "Hello, Caesar."
"Hello, Alys. I don't think we need to introduce you much at all today, right?"
"For better or worse," I say with a smile. "But I'm fluent in our language, and I could even answer you." At that, I nod over to Cassia and Saylor, who suddenly aren't so happy about their interviews. Caesar suppresses a surprised grin and movement also drives into the just silent audience.
"Well then, Alys. Since we're here together, we'd all love to hear what you have to say about why you're here today."
"Did I take a wrong turn on the way to the Hunger Games?" I put on an innocent face and lean forward.
Caesar laughs artificially, then pulls a small remote control from the breast pocket of his jacket. "I'd like to back up a little further," he says, and before I can let another line fly, he presses a button and the room darkens a little. I lift my head and see the close-up of me on the interview stage give way to another image. My face is transfixed as I realize what the Capitol is showing me and all of Panem. Porter had warned me just before my interview, and yet I am so ill-prepared that the anthem and blazing logo of the 50th Hunger Games hits me like a punch to the gut. What they're showing is footage from the second Quarter Quell, the year my mother died. My gaze darts over to the audience. Despite the spotlights, I can still make out the front row of the audience from up here. There's a woman with pink skin dabbing at her eyes, there's a sneering man with golden eyes, and as my heart slips further and further down my pants, I finally find Porter and Spud in the crowd. Their faces are similarly frozen as mine, but as our eyes meet, Porter clenches her hand into a fist and I detect a slight nod.
"Be strong!" her lips command silently, and for a moment I see my grandmother in her. I take a deep breath. She's right. My ticket out of these Hunger Games is to keep up the confident appearance with which I bravely began my interview. With the greatest effort, I curve the corners of my mouth upward and turn my gaze back to the screen.
I have seen some footage from past Hunger Games, but never this. Everything I know about my mother's death, and thus my birth, I have from stories. But here it is, on a giant screen, the film flickers across the stage and everyone stares up.
The 48 tributes of the anniversary are shown first, double the number to celebrate. They stand around the Cornucopia, the volcano that would erupt a few days later visible in the distance. Days that, for the most part, my mother would not live to see. The camera zooms in on the face of a girl with pale skin and a plethora of freckles. Her red hair is tied in a braid, her blue eyes watery. But the most striking thing about her is the bump under her jacket. Cut. Reaping in District 5. "Mirabella Brunel," resounds through the microphone, and people begin to cry as my 17-year-old pregnant mother breaks away from her peers. In her face, fear and surprise are fighting for the upper hand.
It's strange to see her like this, my own mother younger than me. It shakes me, but before the eyes of the Capitol I disguise it as an understanding laugh that they are showing me this film.
Another cut. Now a younger Caesar Flickerman prances across the screen, around him the same stage I'm digging my toes into. "A first!" the younger Caesar says, kissing my mother's hand. "And in such an exciting year as this! All these surprises, these Games are, after all, crowning themselves the most eventful in history before they've even started!" There is a sob from the audience on the screen, but around me people are sighing. To them, this is nothing more than a movie, a memory of an old TV show. Most of them here were probably spread out in the stands right here at the time, but the old feelings don't seem to come up. Cut back to the Cornucopia, around which the tributes are spread out on their platforms.
Suddenly, anger at the Capitol is up to the top of my head and lacing my throat. I knew they would show me the scenes, and yet I cannot understand who had such a cruel idea. I'm angry at myself for letting myself be blinded by the beautiful premises. That I blanked out my grandparents' stories and what I know about the Hunger Games. That this isn't just a game after all, which can be aligned in one's own favor with enough arrogance and charm. At this very moment, someone is standing somewhere, clearly trying to manipulate me, to throw me off my game. My hand clenches into a fist and I bury it deep in the barely-there folds of my jumpsuit to conceal the gesture of anger. I force myself to keep watching. Maybe it won't be so bad - I've heard the stories before, after all.
Cut. Briefly, we see the winning face of the boy who became the victor 19 years ago. Haymitch Abernathy from 12. A handsome boy, and with the same arrogant manner I am trying to portray in this very moment. I see his cool look in the film and instantly I mirror his expression. Too bad he seems to be a drunk today. Cut. My mother runs away as the bloodbath begins. Cut. My mother hides in a hedge and watches the faces in the sky. Cut. My mother's pain-distorted face as her contractions begin after a night of fear in the arena. I watch her struggling to move on, away from the poisonous plants of the arena. Her lips are pressed tightly together, but then a scream escapes her. And another. Cut. The career tributes listen up. Cut. My mother surrounded by nine teenagers, all her age, all volunteers to win these prestigious games.
I feel sick, so I try to see the footage through the eyes of a Capitol dweller. As entertainment. With no personal connection to it.
Meanwhile, the red-haired girl is lying on the floor, her hands held by two girls from District 1, the boys from 2 holding her legs. The leaders of the career group, by all appearances a girl from 4 and a boy from 1, are kneeling over Mirabella, who is now screaming louder and louder.
"Is the baby coming?" the girl sneers, and they all laugh. Turning to her allies, she continues, "Don't you think it's unfair that 5 has one more tribute than everyone else this year?"
Mirabella roars, whether in fear or pain is unclear.
"Let's bring fairness to the Games!" shouts the boy from 1, a tall fellow with broad shoulders, pulling out a knife. "You get to pick, 5, you or your baby?" Mirabella screams as the boy rips her shirt apart and puts his knife to her belly button. She whimpers and pleads, but he doesn't let up. After a few incomprehensible words, he makes the first cut into the baby bump. Blood emerges and the career tribute laughs as they slowly cut deeper and deeper into their victim. You can clearly see through the camera angle how the flesh is tearing apart and organs and the unborn baby can be seen underneath. The girl from District 5 screams, the crowd jeers, and then another voice mingles. The cry of a child.
"So, you or," the girl from 4 curiously holds up the bloody bundle in her hands and spins it around, "her?"
But Mirabella Brunel has fainted. A few moments later, her cannon sounds, then surprisingly, the voice of the Hunger Games commentator.
I know that voice, it's Claudius Templesmith. The Quarter Quell must have been his first or second year in the position. He sounds younger, hurried. Almost uncertain.
"The child is not a tribute!" he says, his voice rising a few octaves. "No harm shall come to him in this arena."
Cut. Propaganda footage showing a now squeaky clean child being handed over to a couple. The District 5 Justice Building can be seen in the background. Then the screen goes black.
For a while, no one speaks a word. I do hear tearful exclamations from the audience and I slowly relax my fingers. My tactic of mentally removing myself from the video footage worked until the moment my grandparents were seen. My mother's face may be foreign, the sight of myself as a baby triggered nothing in me, but that look at my significantly younger grandparents and the pain on their faces ... I'm shaking.
"Touching!", Caesar Flickerman finds his voice again. "Probably want to avenge your mother?"
"The volcano has already done that," I say faster than I can think. One of the few details I know about the second Quarter Quell: a volcanic eruption took out most of the career tributes. Rightly so, considering their ferocity. My comment clearly lightens the mood in the audience and now Caesar even smiles.
"Splendid! And your training score stems from where, Alys?"
"I showed them how to perform a proper c-section," I say truthfully, and laughs erupt from the crowd. Glancing briefly over to the stands, I see Porter smiling.
"I just have to ask!" Caesar winks at me conspiratorially as I look back at him. I can't help but raise an eyebrow. The audience responds with a murmur and Caesar lets a grin flicker across his face. "Just between you and me, are you expecting a child anytime soon?" There it is, the question I was counting on even more than the video footage.
I don't even have to force myself to smile, it just comes over me. This is all a TV show, so cruel and yet so silly, Caesar's hair, my outfit ... My smile isn't half as friendly as Caesar's - but it's honest all the same. "I think I'll be able to worry about things like that in a few years."
Caesar laughs. "So you're firmly assuming you'll win the Games?"
"Of course. My family may be unlucky enough to contribute two tributes, but no one is that unlucky to contribute two dead tributes, are they?" Now it's my turn to raise an eyebrow. Someone in the audience starts clapping and shortly after everyone joins in. I grin winningly.
"Now," Caesar professionally draws the attention of the room back to himself, "however, the gentlemen and ladies from Districts 2 and 4 have made the same point. You know you can't all win, right, Alys?"
"People can be wrong," I say firmly, turning my head toward the career tributes. "In this case, I guess it must be them, because I'm rarely wrong." Another smile and the crowd goes wild. I dare to clench my hands into fists and thrust them into the air. The cheers swell and even Caesar can't help it. There is sheer hatred in the eyes of the career tributes, but I give them a smile. At that moment, my head might as well have turned into a target, I realize. However, I have just secured not only the disfavor of my opponents in the arena, but more importantly, the admiration of the sponsors. Caesar taps his wrist where a large watch sits, and I speak my final prepared phrase before Tic is called to the stage: "To the first victor born in the Capitol!" One last smug smile, a wink, then it's over and I take my seat back in my chair.
Tic looks miserable as he walks past me with a stare and climbs the steps to Caesar. I watch him miss the presenter's hand as he shakes it. Caesar, however, seems similarly flustered; he doesn't even seem to notice. It takes half a minute for a conversation to develop between the two. Although Tic is followed by two or three more sympathetic or interesting tributes, I know that after my performance only half the audience is really listening.
I know I can win. And now they know it too.