Oryx and Crake (MaddAddam 1)

"So I learned about life," said Oryx.

"Learned what?" said Jimmy. He shouldn't have had the pizza, and the weed they'd smoked on top of that. He was feeling a little sick.

"That everything has a price."

"Not everything. That can't be true. You can't buy time. You can't buy ..." He wanted to say love, but hesitated. It was too soppy.

"You can't buy it, but it has a price," said Oryx. "Everything has a price."

"Not me," said Jimmy, trying to joke. "I don't have a price."

Wrong, as usual.

Being in a movie, said Oryx, was doing what you were told. If they wanted you to smile then you had to smile, if they wanted you to cry you had to do that too. Whatever it was, you had to do it, and you did it because you were afraid not to. You did what they told you to do to the men who came, and then sometimes those men did things to you. That was movies.

"What sort of things?" said Jimmy.

"You know," said Oryx. "You saw. You have the picture of it."

"I only saw that one," said Jimmy. "Only the one, with you in."

"I bet you saw more with me in. You don't remember. I could look different, I could wear different clothes and wigs, I could be someone else, do other things."

"Like what else? What else did they make you do?"

"They were all the same, those movies," said Oryx. She'd washed her hands, she was painting her nails now, her delicate oval nails, so perfectly shaped. Peach-coloured, to match the flowered wrapper she was wearing. Not a smudge on her. Later on she would do her toes.

It was less boring for the children to make the movies than to do what they did the rest of the time, which was nothing much.

They watched cartoons on the old DVD in one of the rooms, mice and birds being chased around by other animals that could never catch them; or they brushed and braided one another's hair, or they ate and slept. Sometimes other people came to use the space, to make different kinds of movies. Grown-up women came, women with breasts, and grown-up men - actors. The children could watch them making those movies if they didn't get in the way. Though sometimes the actors objected because the little girls would giggle

at their penises - so big, and then sometimes, all of a sudden, so small - and then the children had to go back into their room.

They washed a lot - that was important. They took showers with a bucket. They were supposed to be pure-looking. On a bad day when there was no business they would get tired and restless, and then they would argue and fight. Sometimes they'd be given a toke or a drink to calm them down - beer, maybe - but no hard drugs, those would shrivel them up; and they weren't allowed to smoke. The man in charge - the big man, not the man with the camera - said they shouldn't smoke because it would make their teeth brown. They did smoke sometimes anyway, because the man with the camera might give them a cigarette to share.

The man with the camera was white, and his name was Jack. He was the one they mostly saw. He had hair like frayed rope and he smelled too strong, because he was a meat-eater. He ate so much meat! He didn't like fish. He didn't like rice either, but he liked noodles. Noodles with lots of meat.

Jack said that where he came from the movies were bigger and better, the best in the world. He kept saying he wanted to go home. He said it was only pure dumb chance he wasn't dead - that this fucking country hadn't killed him with its lousy food. He said he'd almost died from some disease he'd got from the water and the only thing that had saved him was getting really, really pissed, because alcohol killed germs. Then he had to explain to them about germs. The little girls laughed about the germs, because they didn't believe in them; but they believed about the disease, because they'd seen that happen. Spirits caused it, everyone knew that. Spirits and bad luck. Jack had not said the right prayers.

Jack said he would get sick more often from the rotten food and water, only he had a really strong stomach. He said you needed a strong stomach in this business. He said the videocam was antiqueroadshow junk and the lights were poor so no wonder everything looked like cheap shit. He said he wished he had a million dollars but he'd pissed all his money away. He said he couldn't hold on to money, it slid off him like water off a greased whore. "Don't be like me when you grow up," he would say. And the girls would laugh, because whatever else happened to them they would never be like him, a rope-haired clownish giant with a cock like a wrinkly old carrot.

Oryx said she had many chances to see that old carrot up close, because Jack wanted to do movie things with her when there were no movies. Then he would be sad and tell her he was sorry. That was puzzling.

"You did it for nothing?" said Jimmy. "I thought you said everything has a price." He didn't feel he'd won the argument about money, he wanted another turn.

Oryx paused, lifting the nail-polish brush. She looked at her hand. "I traded him," she said.

"Traded him for what?" said Jimmy. "What did that pathetic prick of a loser have to offer?"

"Why do you think he is bad?" said Oryx. "He never did anything with me that you don't do. Not nearly so many things!"

"I don't do them against your will," said Jimmy. "Anyway you're grown up now."

Oryx laughed. "What is my will?" she said. Then she must have seen his pained look, so she stopped laughing. "He taught me to read," she said quietly. "To speak English, and to read English words. Talking first, then reading, not so good at first, and I still don't talk so good but you always have to start somewhere, don't you think so, Jimmy?"

"You talk perfectly," said Jimmy.

"You don't need to tell lies to me. So that is how. It took a long time, but he was very patient. He had one book, I don't know where he got it but it was a book for children. It had a girl in it with long braids, and stockings - that was a hard word, stockings -- who jumped around and did whatever she liked. So this is what we read. It was a good trade, because, Jimmy, if I hadn't done it I couldn't be talking to you, no?"