I Used To Be Darker: INTRODUCTION OF POLITICO

Ertika, Pahel.

"I used to be darker, see. Do you see, Ertika? Then, I started staying indoors and reading about the Party. Kauben Wrinfida says I look much better. She says the Party really is doing me good."

Ertika yawns absentmindedly. She feels vaguely disturbed by her friend's words, like something inside her is dislodged a little but she cannot reach inside her heart and place exactly what is wrong.

"I really liked your colour, Pahel. You looked like my mother when she was younger and everyone said she was pretty."

Pahel squirms at the compliment, both pleased and annoyed. She has always been slightly under the shadow of Ertika's goodness, Ertika's selflessness, Ertika's studiousness without her even trying. She hates the thought that Ertika is so politically correct without even meaning to be.

She, the child of exiled rightists, she must try so hard to erase her father and mother's harmful legacy and prove her devotion to the Party. Ertika was born into a family of Party officials, and her mother had been the first Minister of Welfare, her father the cousin of General Truyhok. Pahel's parents were rightists, who had studied in America and become bourgeoisie in their ideology. They had tried to overthrow the State, Kauben Wrinfida had told Pahel. General Malistan had exiled them and she became a ward of the state, in Kauben Wrinfida's orphanage.

"Ertika!" Pahel reprimands her.

"Whaatt?" Ertika replies, her hands playing with the clear water in the pond, in the public park.

They are in the Party members' section of the city, where everything is clean and well-ordered. Outside, where Pahel lives with the rest of the orphans, on the outskirts of the city bordering the labour camps, it is a world away from the paradise here. She sees the rightists, political prisoners, toiling away with sickles and hoes even though the State owns many machines, many modern tools.

"Kauben Wrinfida says we shouldn't talk about appearances. It is bourgeoisie ideology. She says-"

Ertika bursts out laughing.

"Yes, I know. But it isn't like that. When I say you're pretty, I don't think about whether the West is telling me to focus only on the bourgeoisie appearance. I don't care. I'm just saying you're pretty. When you're darker. Come, let's swim. You can save your lectures for mother. She loves them."

Pahel wants to argue but she cannot think of the appropriate words to fight against Ertika's insistence. She can think of them much later, when she is lying in her crowded room, on her bottom bunk, the noisy orphans annoying a witty response out of her.

But her friend is right. Sometimes, it is tiring to be so devoted. She smiles.

She pulls Ertika into the pond, and they swim in the clear aqua water. It is easy to forget the day, wonderfully.

But someone else has not forgotten. And someone else is watching, very, very closely. From a window, the names Ertika and Pahel are noted.

"This is a good ending," a voice whispers.
"Oh, but it has merely started."