The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (A Hunger Games Novel) (The Hunger Games)

Part 3 – The Peacekeeper

Coriolanus leaned his temple against the glass window, trying to absorb any bit of coolness it might have retained. The stifling train car had just cleared when a half dozen of his fellow recruits piled out at District 9. Alone at last. He’d been on the train for twenty-four hours without a moment of privacy. Forward motion was often interrupted by long, unexplained waits. With the fitful travel and the jabbering of the other enlistees, he hadn’t slept a wink. Instead he’d feigned sleep in an attempt to dissuade anyone from talking to him. Perhaps he could nap now, then awake from this nightmare that seemed, by its tenacity, to actually be his real life. He rubbed his scabby cheek with the stiff, scratchy cuff of his new Peacekeeper shirt, only reinforcing his hopelessness.

What an ugly place, he thought dully as the train chugged its way through District 9. The concrete buildings, flaking paint and misery, baked in the relentless afternoon sun. And how much uglier District 12 had the likelihood of being, with its additional coat of coal dust. He’d never really seen much of it, just the grainy coverage of the square on reaping day. It didn’t look fit for human habitation.

When he’d asked to be assigned there, the officer’s eyebrows had lifted in surprise. “Don’t hear that much,” he’d said, but stamped it through without further discussion. Apparently, not everyone had been following the Hunger Games, as he didn’t seem to know who Coriolanus was or make mention of Lucy Gray. All the better. At the moment, anonymity was a condition greatly to be desired. Much of the shame of his situation came from bearing his last name. He burned as he remembered his encounter with Dean Highbottom. . . .

“Do you hear that, Coriolanus? It’s the sound of Snow falling.”

How he hated Dean Highbottom. His bloated face floating above the evidence. The tip of his pen poking at the items on the lab table. “This napkin. Confirmed with your DNA. Used to illegally smuggle food from the dining hall into the arena. We picked it up as evidence from the crime scene after the bombing. Ran a routine check, and there you were.”

“You were starving her to death,” Coriolanus had said, his voice cracking.

“Rather standard procedure in the Hunger Games. But it wasn’t so much the feeding, which we overlooked for all the mentors, but the thieving from the Academy. Strictly forbidden,” said Dean Highbottom. “I was all for exposing you then, presenting you with another demerit, and disqualifying you from the Games, but Dr. Gaul felt you were of more use as a martyr for the cause of the wounded Capitol. So instead we had your recording bellowing out the anthem while you recuperated in the hospital.”

“Then why bring it up now?” Coriolanus asked.

“Only to establish a pattern of behavior.” The pen tapped the silver rose next. “Now, this compact. How many times did I see your mother pull it from her handbag to check her face? Your pretty, vapid mother, who’d somehow convinced herself that your father would give her freedom and love. Out of the frying pan and into the fire, as they say.”

“She wasn’t” was all Coriolanus managed. Vapid, he meant.

“Only her youth excused her, and, really, she seemed fated to be a child forever. Just the opposite of your girl, Lucy Gray. Sixteen going on thirty-five, and a hard thirty-five at that,” observed Dean Highbottom.

“She gave you the compact?” Coriolanus’s heart dropped at the thought.

“Oh, don’t blame her. The Peacekeepers had to wrestle her to the ground to get the thing. Naturally, we do a thorough search of the victors when they leave the arena.” The dean cocked his head and smiled. “So smart about how she poisoned Wovey and Reaper. Not really fair play, but what’s to be done? Sending her back to District Twelve seems punishment enough. She said the rat poison was all her idea, that the compact had just been a token.”

“It’s true,” said Coriolanus. “It was. A token of my affection. I don’t know anything about any poison.”

“Let’s say I believe you, which I don’t. But let’s say I do. What, then, am I to make of this?” Dean Highbottom lifted the handkerchief with the tip of the pen. “One of the lab assistants found it in the snake tank yesterday morning. Everyone was baffled at first, checking their pockets to see if their own hankies had gone astray, because who else had been near the mutts? One young fellow actually claimed it, saying his allergies had been particularly bad and that he’d misplaced his handkerchief only a few days before. But just as he was offering his resignation, someone noticed the initials. Not yours. Your father’s. So delicately stitched in the corner.”

CXS. Stitched in the same white thread as the border. Part of the border pattern, really, so unassuming that you’d have to look carefully for it, but irrefutably there. Coriolanus never bothered to examine his daily handkerchief; he just stuffed one in his pocket as he headed out. There would’ve been a slim chance of denying the charge if the middle name hadn’t been so distinctive. Xanthos. The only name Coriolanus even knew that began with an X, and the only person who carried it was his father. Crassus Xanthos Snow.

There was no need to ask about the DNA test, which Dean Highbottom had surely run, finding both his and Lucy Gray’s signature. “So why haven’t you made this public?”

“Oh, believe me, I was tempted. But the Academy, when expelling a student, has a tradition of offering them a lifeline,” the dean explained. “As an alternative to public disgrace, you may join the Peacekeepers by the end of the day.”

“But . . . why would I do that? I mean, why would I say I would do that? When I’ve just . . . won the Plinth Prize to the University?” he stammered.

“Who knows? Because you’re that kind of patriot? Because you believe learning to defend your country is a better education than a lot of book knowledge?” Dean Highbottom began laughing. “Because the Hunger Games changed you, and you’re going where you can best serve Panem? You’re a clever young man, Coriolanus. I’m sure you’ll think of something.”

“But . . . but I . . . ?” His head swam with posca and adrenaline. “Why? Why do you hate me so much?” he blurted out. “I thought you were my father’s friend!”

That sobered the dean. “I thought I was, too. Once. But it turned out I was only someone he liked because he could use them. Even now.”

“But he’s dead now! He’s been dead for years!” cried Coriolanus.

“He deserves to be, but he seems very much alive in you.” The dean made a shooing motion. “Better hurry. The office closes in twenty minutes. If you run, you can just make it.”

And so he’d run, not knowing what else to do. After he’d enlisted, he made straight for the Citadel, hoping to throw himself on Dr. Gaul’s mercy. He was denied entrance, even when he pleaded infected stitches. The Peacekeepers phoned down to the lab and were told to redirect him to the hospital. One of the guards took pity on him and agreed to try to get his final paper to Dr. Gaul. No promises. In the margin, he started to scribble a note begging for her to intercede but felt the pointlessness of the thing. He merely wrote Thank you. For what, he didn’t know, but he refused to let her feed on his desperation.

On the walk home, the congratulations from neighbors went like daggers to his heart, but the real agony began when he entered the apartment to the sounds of tin horns and cheers. Tigris and the Grandma’am had gotten out the party favors they used to celebrate the new year and had bought a bakery cake for the occasion. He attempted a weak smile, then burst into tears. And then he told them everything. When he finished, they both became very calm and still, like a pair of marble statues.

“When do you leave?” asked Tigris.

“Tomorrow morning,” he said.

“When will you be back?” asked the Grandma’am.

He couldn’t bear to say twenty years. She would never last that long. If he saw her again, it would be in the mausoleum. “I don’t know.”

She nodded that she understood, then drew herself up in her chair. “Remember, Coriolanus, that wherever you go, you will always be a Snow. No one can ever take that from you.”

He wondered if that wasn’t the problem. The impossibility of being a Snow in this postwar world. What it had driven him to do. But he only said, “I’ll try to one day be worthy of it.”

Tigris rose. “Come on, Coryo. I’ll help you pack.” He followed her to his room. She hadn’t cried. He knew she would try to hold in her tears until he left.

“Not much to pack. They said wear old clothes to throw out. They provide all our uniforms, hygiene, everything. I can only bring personal items that fit in this.” Coriolanus pulled a box, eight by twelve inches, about three inches deep, from his book bag. The cousins stared at it a long moment.

“What will you take?” asked Tigris. “You must make it count.”

Photographs of his mother holding him as a toddler, of his father in uniform, of Tigris and the Grandma’am, of a few of his friends. An old compass with a brass body, which had been his father’s. The disk of rose-scented powder that had once lived in his mother’s silver compact, wrapped carefully in his orange silk scarf. Three handkerchiefs. Stationery with the Snow family seal. His Academy ID. A ticket stub from a childhood circus, stamped with an image of the arena. A chip of marble from the rubble of a bombing. He felt for all the world like Ma Plinth, with her handful of District 2 memories in her kitchen.

Neither of them slept. They went up to the roof and stared out at the Capitol until the sun began to rise. “You were set up to fail,” said Tigris. “The Hunger Games are an unnatural, vicious punishment. How could a good person like you be expected to go along with them?”

“You mustn’t say that to anyone but me. It isn’t safe,” Coriolanus warned her.

“I know,” she said. “And that’s wrong, too.”

Coriolanus showered and dressed in a fraying pair of uniform pants, a threadbare T-shirt, and broken flip-flops, then drank a cup of tea in the kitchen. He kissed the Grandma’am good-bye and took one last look at his home before heading out.

In the hall, Tigris offered him an old sun hat and a pair of sunglasses that had been her father’s. “For the trip.”

Coriolanus recognized a disguise when he saw it and gratefully put them on, tucking his curls up under the hat. They remained silent as they walked through the largely deserted streets to the Recruitment Center. Then he turned to her, his voice raspy from emotion. “I’ve left you with everything to deal with. The apartment, the taxes, the Grandma’am. I’m so sorry. If you never forgive me, I’ll understand.”

“Nothing to forgive,” she said. “Write as soon as you can?”

They hugged so tightly he felt several stitches pop on his arm. Then he marched into the Center, where three hundred or so of the Capitol’s citizens milled around, waiting to embark on their new life. He felt a flicker of hope that he might fail his physical, then a flare of panic at the thought. What fate awaited him if he did? A public dressing-down? Prison? Dean Highbottom hadn’t said, but he imagined the worst. He passed easily and they even took out his stitches without comment. The buzz cut that separated him from his signature curls left him feeling naked but looking so altered that the few curious glances he’d been receiving stopped entirely. He changed into spanking-new fatigues and received a duffel bag filled with additional clothing, a hygiene kit, a water bottle, and a packet of meat-spread sandwiches for the train trip. Then he signed a stack of forms, one of which directed them to send half of his small paycheck to Tigris and the Grandma’am. That provided him a scrap of consolation.

Shorn, costumed, and vaccinated, Coriolanus joined a busload of recruits going to the train station. It was a mix of boys and girls from the Capitol, mostly recent graduates from secondary schools whose commencements fell earlier than the Academy’s. Burying himself in a corner of the station, he watched Capitol News, dreading a report on his predicament, but he saw only standard Saturday fare. Weather. Traffic rerouted for reconstruction. A recipe for summer vegetable salad. It was as if the Hunger Games had never happened.

I’m being erased, he thought. And to erase me, they must erase the Games.

Who knew of his disgrace? The faculty? His friends? No one had contacted him. Perhaps word had not yet gotten out. But it would. People would speculate. Rumors would fly. A version of the truth, twisted and juicy, would win the day. Oh, how Livia Cardew would gloat. Clemensia would get the Plinth Prize at graduation. In the month of summer break, they would wonder about him. A few might even miss him. Festus. Lysistrata, maybe. In September, his classmates would begin university. And he would slowly be forgotten.

To erase the Games would be to erase Lucy Gray as well. Where was she? Had she really been sent back home? Was she at this moment returning to District 12, locked in the stinking cattle car that had brought her to the Capitol? That’s what Dean Highbottom had indicated would happen, but the ultimate decision would be Dr. Gaul’s, and she might not be so forgiving about their cheating. Under her direction, Lucy Gray might be imprisoned, or killed, or turned into an Avox. Or, even worse, sentenced to a life of experimentation in Dr. Gaul’s lab of horrors.

Remembering he was on the train, Coriolanus shut his eyes, afraid tears might come. It would never do to be seen bawling like a baby, so he wrestled his emotions back under control. He calmed himself with the idea that returning Lucy Gray to District 12 might be the best strategy for the Capitol anyway. Perhaps, as time passed, Dr. Gaul might produce her again, especially if he was well out of the way. Have her come back and sing to kick off the Games. Her crimes, if there had been any, were minor compared to his. And the audience had loved her, hadn’t they? Perhaps her charms would save her once again.

Every so often the train would stop and vomit out more recruits, either at their designated district or for transfer to transports headed north or south or wherever they’d been assigned. Sometimes he stared out the windows at the dead cities they passed, now abandoned to the elements, and wondered what the world had been like when they’d all been in their glory. Back when this had been North America, not Panem. It must have been fine. A land full of Capitols. Such a waste . . .

Around midnight, the compartment door slid open and two girls bound for District 8 fell in with a half gallon of posca they’d somehow smuggled onto the train. Times being what they were, he spent the night helping them consume it and then awoke, a full day later, to find the train pulling into District 12 as a sultry Tuesday morning dawned.

Coriolanus stumbled onto the platform with a throbbing head and sandpaper mouth. Following orders, he and three other recruits formed a line and waited an hour for a Peacekeeper who didn’t look much older than them to lead them out of the station and through the gritty streets. The heat and humidity turned the air to some state halfway between a liquid and a gas, and he could not confirm if he was inhaling or exhaling. Moisture bathed his body with an unfamiliar sheen that defied wiping away. Sweat didn’t dry, only deepened. His nose ran freely, the snot already tinged black with coal dust. His socks squished in his stiff boots. After an hour’s trek down cinder and cracked-asphalt streets lined with hideous buildings, they arrived at the base that was to be his new home.

The security fence enclosing the base, as well as the armed Peacekeepers at the gate, made him feel less exposed. The recruits followed their guide through an assortment of nondescript gray buildings. At the barracks, the two girls peeled off while he and the only other new male recruit, a tall, rail-thin boy named Junius, were directed to a room lined with four sets of bunk beds and eight lockers. Two of the bunks were neatly made, and two of the remaining, placed near a smeared window that looked out on a dumpster, had stacks of bedding on them. The boys clumsily followed instructions for making them up, Coriolanus taking the top bunk in deference to Junius’s fear of heights. Then they were given the rest of the morning to shower, unpack, and review the Peacekeeper training manual before reporting to the mess for lunch at eleven.

Coriolanus stood in the shower, head back, gulping down the lukewarm water that flowed from the tap. He toweled off three times before he accepted the dampness of his skin as a perpetual state and dressed in clean fatigues. After unpacking his duffel and tucking his precious box on the top shelf of his locker, he climbed onto his bed and perused the Peacekeepers’ manual — or pretended to — to avoid conversation with Junius, a nervous fellow who needed reassurance that Coriolanus was ill-positioned to give. What he wanted to say was, Your life is over, young Junius; accept it. But that seemed likely to bring on more confidences that he lacked the energy to field. The sudden absence of responsibility in his life — to his studies, his family, his very future — had sapped his strength. Even the tiniest of tasks seemed daunting.

A few minutes before eleven, their bunkmates — a talkative, round-faced boy named Smiley and his diminutive buddy, Bug — collected them. The quartet headed to the mess hall, which held long tables lined with cracked plastic chairs.

“Tuesday means hash!” announced Smiley. Although he’d been a Peacekeeper for barely a week, he seemed not only to know but to revel in the routine. Coriolanus collected a slotted tray featuring something that resembled dog food studded with potatoes. Hunger and the enthusiasm of his comrades emboldened him, so he tried a bite and found the stuff quite edible, if heavily salted. He also received two canned pear halves and a big mug of milk. Not elegant, but filling. He realized that, as a Peacekeeper, he was unlikely to starve. In fact, he’d be guaranteed more consistent food than he’d had access to at home.

Smiley declared them all fast friends, and by the end of lunch, Coriolanus and Junius had been dubbed Gent and Beanpole respectively, one by way of table manners, the other because of his frame. Coriolanus welcomed the nickname, because the last thing he wanted to hear was the name Snow. None of his bunkmates commented on it, though, or made any mention of the Hunger Games. It turned out the enlisted only had access to one television in the rec room, and the reception proved so poor it was rarely on. If Beanpole had seen Coriolanus in the Capitol, he hadn’t made the connection between the Hunger Games mentor and the grunt beside him. Perhaps no one recognized him because no one expected him to be there. Or perhaps his celebrity had only extended to the Academy and a handful of unemployed in the Capitol who’d had time to follow the drama. Coriolanus relaxed enough to admit to a military father killed in the war, a grandmother and cousin back home, and school having ended the previous week.

To his surprise, he discovered that Smiley and Bug, as well as many of the other Peacekeepers, were not Capitol but district-born. “Oh, sure,” said Smiley. “Peacekeeping’s good work if you can get it. Better than mill work. Lots of food, and money enough to send back to my folks. Some people sneer at it, but I say the war’s history and a job’s a job.”

“So you don’t mind policing your own people?” Coriolanus couldn’t help asking.

“Oh, these aren’t my people. My people are in Eight. They don’t leave you where you’re born,” said Smiley with a shrug. “’Sides, you’re my family now, Gent.”

Coriolanus got introduced to more of his new family that afternoon when he was assigned to kitchen detail. Under the guidance of Cookie, an old soldier who’d lost his left ear in the war, he stripped to the waist and stood over a sink of steaming water for four hours, scrubbing pots and hosing off meal trays. Then he was allowed fifteen minutes to eat another round of hash before he spent the next few hours mopping the mess hall and hallways. He had about half an hour back in the room before lights went out at nine and he collapsed into bed in his undershorts.

By five the next morning, he was dressed and on the field to begin training in earnest. The first stage was designed to bring the new troops up to an acceptable level of fitness. He squatted and sprinted and drilled until his clothes were sodden and his heels blistered. Professor Sickle’s instruction served him well; she’d always insisted on rigorous exercise, and he’d been marching in formation since he was twelve. Beanpole, on the other hand, with his two left feet and concave chest, had the drill sergeant baiting and abusing him by turns. That night, as Coriolanus drifted off to sleep, he could hear the boy trying to stifle his sobs with his pillow.

Blocks of training, eating, cleaning, and sleeping made up his new life. He moved through them mechanically but with enough competence to avoid reproach. If he was lucky, he had a precious half hour to himself before lights-out at night. Not that he accomplished anything. It was all he could do to shower and climb into his bunk.

The thought of Lucy Gray tormented him, but it was tricky getting information about her. If he went around the base asking questions, someone might figure out his role in the Games, and he wanted to avoid that at all costs. The squad’s designated day off was Sunday, and their duties ended Saturday at five. As new recruits, they were confined to base until the following weekend. Then Coriolanus planned to go into town and surreptitiously ask the locals about Lucy Gray. Smiley said the Peacekeepers hung out at an old coal warehouse called the Hob, where you could purchase homemade liquor and maybe buy yourself some company. District 12 had a town square as well, the same one used for the reaping, with a smattering of small shops and tradespeople, but that was more active in the daytime.

Except for Beanpole, who pulled latrine duty for his shortcomings, his bunkmates headed to the rec room to play poker after Saturday’s dinner. Coriolanus lingered over his noodles and canned meat in the mess hall. Since Smiley was usually distracting them all with his prattle, it was the first time he had to really take stock of the other Peacekeepers. They ranged in age from late teens to one old man who looked to be the Grandma’am’s contemporary. Some chatted among themselves, but most sat silent and depressed, sucking down their noodles. Was he looking, he wondered, at his future?

Coriolanus opted to spend his evening in the barrack. Having left his last coins with his family, he would have no money for gambling, not even pocket change, until he was paid on the first of the month. More importantly, he had received a letter from Tigris that he wanted to read in private. He soaked in his solitude, free of the sight, sound, and smell of his comrades. All the together-ness overwhelmed him, used as he was to ending his days alone. He climbed onto his bunk and carefully opened his letter.

My dearest Coryo,

It’s Monday night now, and the apartment echoes with your absence. The Grandma’am doesn’t quite seem to know what’s going on, as twice today she asked when you’d be home and should we wait on dinner. Word of your situation has begun to spread. I went to see Pluribus, and he said he’d heard any number of rumors: that you’d followed Lucy Gray to Twelve out of love, that you’d gotten drunk celebrating and signed up on a dare, that you’d broken the rules and sent Lucy Gray gifts in the arena yourself, that you had some kind of falling out with Dean Highbottom. I tell people that you’re doing your duty to your country, just as your father did.

Festus, Persephone, and Lysistrata came by this evening, all very concerned about you, and Mrs. Plinth called to get your address. I think she means to write you.

Our apartment is officially going on the market now, thanks to some help from the Dolittles. Pluribus says that, if we can’t find a place immediately, he has a couple of spare rooms we can use above the club, and that maybe I can help out with the costumes if he reopens it. He’s also placed several pieces of our furniture with buyers. He’s been very kind and says to send his regards to you and Lucy Gray. Have you been able to see her? That’s the one sweet spot in all this madness.

I’m sorry this is so short, but it’s quite late, and I’ve so much to do. I just wanted to get something off to remind you how much you are loved and missed. I know how hard things must be, but don’t lose hope. It has sustained us through the darkest of times and will do so now. Please write and tell us of your life in 12. It may not seem ideal, but who knows where it may lead?

SLOT,
Tigris

Coriolanus buried his face in his hands. The Capitol making a mockery of the Snow name? The Grandma’am losing her mind? Their home a pair of shabby rooms above a nightclub, where Tigris stitched sequined unitards? Was this the fate of the magnificent Snow family?

And what of him, Coriolanus Snow, future president of Panem? His life, tragic and pointless, unspooled before him. He saw himself in twenty years’ time, grown stout and stupid, the breeding beaten out of him, his mind atrophied to the point where nothing but base, animal thoughts of hunger and sleep ever crossed it. Lucy Gray, having languished in Dr. Gaul’s lab, would be long dead, and his heart dead with her. Twenty wasted years, and then what? When his time had been served? Why, he’d just reenlist, because even then the humiliation would be too great. And what would await him in the Capitol if he did return? The Grandma’am passed on. Tigris, middle-aged but seeming older, sewing away in servitude, her kindness transformed to insipidity, her existence a joke to those she had to please to earn her keep. No, he’d never return. He’d stay on in 12 like that old man in the mess hall had, because this was his life. No partner, no children, no address but the barrack. The other Peacekeepers, his family. Smiley, Bug, Beanpole, his band of brothers. And he would never see anyone from home again. Never, ever again.

A terrible pain clutched his chest as a toxic wave of homesickness and despair swamped him. He felt sure he was having a heart attack but made no attempt to call for help, instead curling into a ball and pressing his face against the wall. Perhaps it was for the best. Because there was no out. Nowhere to run. No hope of rescue. No future that was not a living death. What did he have to look forward to? Hash? A weekly cup of gin? A promotion from dish washing to dish scraping? Wasn’t it better to die now, quickly, than to drag it out painfully for years?

Somewhere — it seemed very distant — he heard a door bang shut. Footsteps came down the hall, pausing for a minute and then continuing toward him. He gritted his teeth, willing his heart to stop at once, because the world and he had finished with each other and it was time to part ways. But the footsteps grew louder and came to a halt at his door. Was the person looking at him? Was it the patrol? Staring at him in this mortifying position? Lapping up his wretchedness? He waited for the laughter, the derision, and the latrine duty that was sure to follow.

Instead he heard a quiet voice say, “Is this bunk taken?” A quiet and familiar voice . . .

Coriolanus twisted around on the bed, his eyes flying open to confirm what his ears already knew. Standing in the doorway, looking oddly at home in a set of fatigues still creased from the package, stood Sejanus Plinth.