It was one of the statues they had put up later, After, after the Before that only my grandmother ever spoke of. Before, a statue of Justice would have stood tall, blindfolded but proud, weighing truth in her scales. But After, we understood more about who Justice was: depicted her covering her eyes, weeping, broken-scaled and curve-backed.
They named me for her, even though Pai said it was an ill-omened name.
I used to go down to the back field before Service, before the Reading of Law, when I was only little, and watch the statue. Had she moved? Had she wept? Was it rain or her tears?
Later, when I was older, we’d slip away to the back field, lie in the shadow of Justice and watch the ragged clouds. Before, people used to think there were pictures in the clouds, or omens, or even chemicals, to make you mad and force you to think like the rulers wanted you to.
She never spoke to me, Justice, not when I was little and not thereafter, stealing kisses between her mossy knees and watching the fenceline nervously. We weren’t supposed to go to the back fields, but everyone did. It was like a rite of passage: touch the barbed wire, feel the smoothness of the posts that teenagers had touched before, year on year. Way carved our names together there, running out of room for mine so it said Just. They called me that then, Just. It made me feel almost-enough. Like I was just something.
I could still see it there, my truncated name, when they came to take us. The fence lay in the track-churned grass, the smooth posts shattered.
Justice refused to watch, face in her hands, so I didn’t watch her vanishing behind me.