The Y Chromosome

by Leona Gom

  The corridor branched out to circle a large rotunda, and he took the hallway to his right. His ankle began to hurt, and he wondered if he might have twisted it as he fled from the classroom. But he could see his apartment section ahead, one more corner and he would be at his own door. He felt exhausted now, wanting only to get inside and drop onto his bed.

  But in front of his door sat Mitchell-Star. She saw him as soon as he turned the corner, and she leaped to her feet.

  “There you are!” she said loudly. “I was so worried — what happened to you, anyway? Did you get sick or something? Why did you —”

  He reached her then, and grabbed her arm. He felt like clapping his hand over her mouth.

  “Stop shouting, will you?” he said.

  She pulled back from him, hurt. “Well, I’m sorry,” she said. “I just came by to give you your books. You left them in the room.” She pushed them at this chest and let go; he had to grab at them as they fell. She turned abruptly and started to walk away.

  “Don’t go,” he said, ashamed, to the back of her head with its independent leaps of hair that always made her look as if she had fallen asleep against a bush. “Please.”

  She stopped, turned around. He could see the relief on her face.

  “Come in,” he said, not wanting her to but knowing he had to ask.

  She came over to him as he unlocked the door, laid her hand on his shoulder. He tried not to pull away from her touch. “Really,” she said, “are you okay?

  He attached a smile to his lips and pushed the door open for her. “Yes, I’m fine.”

  She came in, dropped herself into a chair in the centreroom. She had been in his apartment twice before, but still her presence made him nervous, made him look furtively around for something that might give him away. He knew he should offer her a glass of juice, a piece of fruit, something, but he hoped his inhospitality might persuade her to leave.

  She reached over to pick up a book lying on a side table. As she leaned forward he noticed she hadn’t bothered doing up half the small buttons that ran up the side of her shirt. She began flipping through the book. “You read this?”

  “Not yet.”

  She set it down. “If you’re feeling sick, you know, you should see a doctor —”

  “I’m not sick,” he said, exasperated. “Sometimes I just get a little … claustrophobic.” It was true, after all. “Most of us from the farms are like that.”

  “I thought it must be something like that,” she said. “That’s what I told the teacher.”

  “What?”

  “The teacher. I guess she’d seen us come in together, and after the class she asked me if you were all right.”

  “And what did you say?” His voice sounded high-pitched and shrill.

  “I said you were probably okay. I said you were from one of the north farms and maybe were still not used to things here.”

  He sank down into a chair. He pressed his hands onto his thighs to keep them from trembling. “And what did she say?”

  “I don’t know, just that she hoped nothing was wrong. She was concerned about you. I thought it was rather nice.” She was watching him curiously.

  He felt too numb to answer. If the teacher hadn’t been suspicious when she asked about him, then Mitchell-Star’s answer could have made her so, jarred loose that memory of two summers ago, a figure fleeing across the meadow from her predatory eyes.

  Mitchell-Star had said something else, but he didn’t reply, only sat there, staring blindly across the room. When next she spoke, he realized she was at the door, leaving, and he made himself concentrate on what she was saying. He nodded, not caring what he was agreeing to.

  She looked at him doubtfully. “You better be okay. You better not be getting depression or anything.”

  “I’m okay, really. I’ve just been working too hard. That Sociology study. You know.” He gave her his best reassuring smile, behind which his teeth were clenched so tight he thought they might break.

  • • •

  FOR THE NEXT FEW days he lived in constant fear, unable to concentrate on his studies, barely able to eat or sleep, waiting for the moment he would see her come striding toward him, her black teacher’s-robe flying behind her like a net in which to capture him, pointing and saying, “You! I know what you are!” He remembered how Johnson-Dene on the farm insisted he had broken First Law when he had let himself be seen naked with Shaw-Ellen and that his punishment should be denying him his hard-won right to leave. If it hadn’t been for Shaw-Ellen saying that going into the forest had been her idea, and Highlands saying he had the right to make love outside, that it wasn’t his carelessness that caused the strangers to come, and to such an unlikely spot, perhaps Johnson-Dene would have convinced them to reverse their position. And perhaps she would have been right to do so — if he hadn’t been seen then he wouldn’t be in danger now. His head was thick with recrimination and anxiety.

  But he forced himself to go, as usual, to his classes, and by the end of the week his fears had subsided; he began to feel foolish for letting himself become so alarmed. The teacher knew enough about him to find him if she was intending to; the fact she hadn’t by now must mean that he was safe.

  And of course it was then that she came to the door.

  He thought it must be Mitchell-Star, coming to walk with him to his literature class, and he didn’t even bother to check the scanner-image beside the door before he opened it. And there she was, only a few steps away from him, wearing her teacher’s-robe and smiling down at him. He held the door frame so tightly he could feel his nails biting into the wood.

  Stay calm, he whispered frantically to himself; stay calm.

  “Hello,” she said cheerfully. “You might not remember me, but I’m Delacour, the History teacher. I think you came to my class a few weeks ago?”

  He couldn’t look at her, her calculated smile, her intense eyes that moved up and down his body and then fixed on his face like a hot light that made his cheeks burn. He only nodded, looking down at her long, thin fingers that were rubbing a pleat into the black teacher’s-robe.

  “I wondered if you might be ill,” she said, “the way you had to leave the class so suddenly.”

  “No, I’m all right.” He tried to make himself sound confident, convincing. “I’m sorry I left like that. I just felt a bit claustrophobic.”

  “Ah, yes. I spoke to your friend. She said you were from one of the northern farms. I can imagine being here is something of an adjustment for you.”

  He nodded again, watching her fingers move, over and over, pressing a fold into the cloth. Her nails were cut so short no white at all showed.

  “I’m getting used to it.”

  “I’m sure you are. This is your second term here, isn’t it?”

  So she’d checked his records. “Yes.”

  “Ah. And are you enjoying it? University?”

  He made himself raise his eyes and look at her, because he knew somehow she wouldn’t leave until he did so, until she had willed him into it. He looked into her sharp blue eyes, eyes that dominated her other thin features — her nose that narrowed so precariously at the bridge that she must have trouble breathing, her small mouth, her chin that sharpened itself into a curve of bone over which the skin seemed stretched too tightly, like cloth held in sewing hoops.

  He smiled. “Oh, yes,” he said. “It’s very rewarding. I’m learning a lot.” He made himself lean his forearm against the door frame, trying to appear casual, but his hand dangling in front of his left cheek looked suddenly ridiculous.

  “Good,” she murmured. “Good.” Her eyes slid away from his face, moved over his shoulder to scan the room behind him, then snapped up to his face again, quickly, as though to catch some unguarded expression there. “Well, then,” she said, releasing her robe from her fingers and smoothing her hands firmly over it,
“I guess I’ll go.” And she turned abruptly and began to walk away.

  He couldn’t believe it was over, that easily. Watching her back, he almost laughed out loud.

  Then, as though the idea had just come to her, she turned and said, “Look, why don’t you come to my apartment tomorrow for supper? My mate, Bowden, sometimes likes to cook for us, and someone’s just given us some fresh vegetables — a pumpkin, I think, she wants to make a pie — so why don’t you come? It must be lonely for you here, so far from home —”

  “No, really —” He could hear fear in his voice and struggled to control it. “I don’t want to make extra work for you —”

  “It’s no extra work. We’d like to have you.”

  “I have to finish my reading for Sociology —”

  “You have to eat. We wouldn’t keep you long. You can spare an hour.”

  Desperately he thought of other excuses, tried to invent some Isolist custom that might forbid him from accepting, but everything that came to his mind seemed implausible. He only stood there staring at her.

  “Well, then,” she said, making one hand lightly into a fist and snapping the other over it, like a lid, “you’ll come. We’re in Hospital unit. Red, South, 240. About seven o’clock.”

  “All right.” It felt as though she’d reached in and pulled the words from his throat.

  Tomorrow, he thought numbly. Red, South, 240. About seven o’clock. Between now and then what could he do; how could he escape?

  • • •

  HE KNEW HE HAD NO choice but to go, of course; if he didn’t she would only be more suspicious. He wished he’d asked if he could bring Mitchell-Star; he was sure she would have liked to come and it would have given him some protection, another layer of normalcy he could wear.

  The whole day for him was an agony of waiting. In his classes he didn’t hear a word, distractedly drawing geometric designs in his notebook. Back in his apartment he sat staring at the time-chip, watching the minutes flick by. He remembered suddenly, and with a fierce longing, the sundial his mother had built for him behind their house. He picked up the trousers with the torn seam he had been meaning to mend, but his sweaty fingers kept pulling and knotting the thread, so finally he gave up and threw the pants across the side table. He twirled the needle between his fingers, bounced his thumb lightly on the sharp tip until he pricked himself. He sat looking at the tiny bead of blood for several moments before he went to wash it off.

  At six o’clock he began to get ready. He’d saved his shower allotment from the morning, so he took it now, and then he shaved with particular care. He changed his mind several times about what to wear and at last chose a dark overshirt that fell to mid-thigh and a loose pair of cotton pants. It was what he felt safest in, what he had worn almost every day when he first came here. He tied a lacy blue ribbon around his upper left arm, a fashion he had learned to mimic, but then he took it off, thinking it looked too deliberate.

  He could already smell his own sweat; and he almost moaned with the frustration of it. He thought perhaps he should wash himself quickly again in the sink, but by now it was six-thirty and he would still have to find Delacour’s apartment; Red, South was a long way from here. So he clapped his arms to his sides and, with a last look around his apartment, at the two cheerful painted clouds floating on his north wall, he stepped into the hallway.

  He stayed inside the building, where at least there were maps periodically to guide him, but even so he got confused, winding up in the big southern sector of Commercial before he would ask someone for help. It was after seven already. He tried to follow the directions he’d been given — left at the weaving shop, left again at the rotunda, past the Kindercare — he wondered how he would ever be able to find his way back to his own apartment.

  Finally he found the red section and took the south arrow although it felt to him like west, and then it was just a matter of following the numbers to 240. It was past seven-thirty by now, he saw by the time-chips in the walls. He could feel scoops of sweat on his shirt, could feel it running down his stomach and thighs — he wanted to stop at a bathroom to clean himself, but it would only make him later, so he pulled at his shirt as he walked to let the air circulate and continued on, following the numbers — 238, 239, 240.

  He stood outside the door. He couldn’t remember ever dreading anything so much. He took several deep breaths, pushed the damp hair from his eyes, and knocked.

  It was the other one who answered, Delacour’s mate. He recognized her from the farm, by her thick red hair that fell in loose spirals to her shoulders. She smiled at him warmly, and in her round face and eyes with wrinkles in thin fans at the corners he read none of the greedy curiosity he had seen in Delacour. But perhaps he was misjudging her — perhaps this was all part of a plan to disarm him — he would have to be just as careful of her as of Delacour. Still, he felt oddly relieved to see her, to know he would not have to be alone with Delacour.

  “Come in,” she said. She stood aside to let him enter. He could see Delacour in the kitchen, stirring something on the stove.

  “Hello,” she said, waving the spoon at him. Something green dripped from it onto the heatcircle, and a coil of grey smoke leaped up. “We were beginning to wonder if you were coming.”

  “I got lost,” Daniel said. “I’m sorry. I got over into Commercial somehow, and —”

  “Commercial!” Delacour exclaimed. “Good heavens, you were lost.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “It’s all right,” Delacour’s mate said, touching his arm lightly. He tried not to flinch. “We weren’t ready to eat at seven, anyway.”

  It was a good thing, then, he thought, that he’d come late; it would be one less half hour of discomfort.

  “My name is Bowden, by the way,” the red-haired person said. He took the hand she held out to him, remembering too late that perhaps he should have performed the Isolist ritual of greeting. He hoped they would think he was simply adapting to the ways of the city.

  Bowden took him to the small table that folded out from the counter and seated him so that he was facing into the centreroom. He was amazed at how luxurious it seemed, even though it was only about twice the size of his own centreroom. There were soft lights inset into and behind the walls, thickly padded blue arm-chairs placed at intersecting angles to each other, a bookcase reaching to the ceiling on one wall filled with books and files and vidspools and long grey boxlike shapes he couldn’t identify that might have been either functional or decorative. Music was coming from two different corners of the room, although he saw nothing there that could be producing it, and the lights appeared to be reflecting on something that was casting dazzling patterns on the walls.

  Delacour had said something to him, he realized suddenly, and he jerked his attention back to her. She was looking at him, waiting for an answer.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I was admiring your centreroom. It’s more beautiful than any room I’ve seen before.” It sounded too ingenuous, like foolish flattery, but Delacour gave a little deprecating laugh he thought meant he had said the right thing.

  “It is comfortable,” she said.

  “Delacour made the water-reflector,” Bowden said. “I’ve never seen one I like as much. I think she should stop teaching and make them to sell.”

  Delacour poured the contents of the pot she was stirring into a shallow bowl and set it on the table. “Making one was challenging. Making two would be boring.”

  “It’s beautiful,” he said. They must be talking about whatever was casting the patterns on the walls.

  Delacour and Bowden sat down, one on each side of him, and started passing him the plates of food. The table was small, not really built to seat more than two, and he pressed himself back in his chair, keeping his knees together and his legs tucked under.

  Bowden began to explain what the various foods were, but wh
ile he recognized the names of the vegetables and grains and cheeses, he was unfamiliar with the dishes themselves, the sauces and spices that made the peas taste tangy, the cheese curds so rich and strangely sweet.

  “And the wine!” Delacour exclaimed, reaching for it behind her. “We mustn’t forget the wine.” As she leaned back, her leg brushed his under the table; he pulled quickly away. It was just an accident, he told himself, but his thigh muscles contracted so much they ached.

  “You don’t have to have any if you’d rather not,” Bowden said.

  “I’ve never had wine before,” Daniel said. It wasn’t true; he had had some, once, when Highlands brought a flask back with her from Fairview, but he decided it might be wiser to play the innocent.

  “Never had wine!” Delacour said, filling his glass to the rim. “What deprivation!” She put her fork down and lifted her glass, and since he saw Bowden do the same he realized he was expected to do so now as well. He lifted his glass, almost spilling it, and took a sip. It tasted sweet, not unpleasant.

  Delacour emptied her glass in, it seemed, one swallow and poured herself another. Daniel took another sip, larger this time, hoping he wasn’t expected to drain his glass so readily. Wine was an intoxicant; he would have to be careful.

  “So,” Delacour said, picking up her fork again and stirring it vigorously through her asparagus dish. “You’re from one of the Isolist farms, are you?”

  “That’s right.” Daniel set his wine glass down, willing his hand not to tremble. His other hand clenched in his lap.

  “I thought you people liked to keep to yourselves. How come you’re here, in the city, at University?”

  “We have certain restrictions about visitors and strangers coming to see us, but there aren’t any strong ones about us going Outside. I’m not the first from the farms to have come here. Our leaders have always valued education.” Did he sound convincing? He quickly looped it through his mind again — it sounded believable, and it was, after all, basically true.