by Leona Gom
“We’re not,” Shawna said carefully.
In the afternoon Bowden felt foolish over the way she had behaved, but she decided if she tried to apologize it might seem even more odd. Whatever would they say if she told them the truth? She could imagine their incredulous faces.
Late in the afternoon Wayne sidled up to her, wearing her sly expression that meant she had some outrageous gossip to deliver, and said, in her shouting whisper, “Do you know what Ellis-Tom said about the dark people?”
“I don’t care,” Bowden snapped.
Wayne stepped back, tears beginning at her eyes.
Bowden turned, went into the bathroom, and sat there for a long time, taking deep and careful breaths. When she came out she told Wayne she was sorry, that she had been worrying about something but that worrying was pointless and she was going to stop.
And by the end of the week she had convinced herself that things might not be as terrible as she had feared. The males had been in the north for a long time, after all, and hadn’t made trouble. They were isolated, separate from the rest of the world. And she had met Daniel, too — he hardly seemed like something malevolent, an instrument of disaster. And Delacour was as shrewd a person as she had ever met; surely she could not be so easily deceived. Perhaps, after all, it was possible that things could simply go on as they were.
It was Delacour who seemed to grow more and more uneasy, and several times in the next week she came to Bowden as though she wanted to tell her something, but each time when Bowden pressed her she turned away, irritated. She stopped caring about how she dressed, and sometimes, startled, Bowden would recognize in her the look of patients on her ward who, although wearing their own clothes, still looked as though someone else had dressed them, looked as though they had not participated in the process, their minds absent, elsewhere.
Once Bowden awoke at night thinking she heard Delacour cry out, but when she went to her she seemed to be asleep, her hand on the pillow twitching with dream. Bowden looked down for a long time at her, lying on the bed as though someone had thrown her there, and she was filled with a sudden sadness and longing. What she really understood about Delacour, perhaps for the first time, was that nothing Delacour did made her happy. Bowden reached over, pulled the quilt up over the hand on the pillow.
• • •
BOWDEN RECOGNIZED THE PERSON at the door immediately — her tallness, the scar on her cheek, the greying brown hair that began high up on her forehead, something about the way she stood reminding her of Daniel.
“Hello,” the person said, not smiling. “I’ve come to see Delacour. Is she here?”
“No, no, she’s at work,” Bowden faltered. “But come in, please.”
Highlands stepped into the room, her eyes sweeping around it as though she were checking to see if Delacour might be there after all, camouflaged behind a piece of furniture.
“You’re Highlands, aren’t you?” Bowden’s voice was unsteady. “I met you at the farm. When Delacour and I were up there. And got lost.”
Highlands looked at her, her eyes cold, evaluating her. “Yes,” she said. “I remember.” She looked back into the room. “May I sit down?” she asked. “I’m a bit tired.”
“Yes, of course —”
Highlands dropped herself onto the sofa, sighed. “It’s a long trip, you see.” She rubbed at her right eye, scooped at its corner with a grey-stained fingernail. The creases of her knuckles were engraved with earth. A farmer’s hands, Bowden thought, with a pull of remembrance, the hands of her mothers.
“Are you hungry? I’ll get you something to eat. Or to drink. Some water, juice —”
“I’m all right.” She straightened her shoulders, reached up and pulled tight the barrette that was holding her hair at the back of her neck, then folded her hands politely in her lap. “I’d just like to talk to Delacour. When will she be back?”
“Half an hour, maybe. Not long.”
“Then I’ll wait. If you don’t mind.”
“No, that’s fine —” Bowden was so uncomfortable she wanted to turn and run. Why had she invited her in? Why hadn’t she just told her to come back later, when Delacour would be home? She knew why Highlands must be here. Did she want to try somehow to buy Delacour’s silence? Or was it something more sinister — how far would she go to protect her farm’s secret?
“I know why you’re here. It’s about Daniel, isn’t it? Delacour told me. That he’s a male —” She listened to her tumbling words in dismay, unable to stop them. She stood there helplessly, guilty and afraid, as though everything were her fault. She began wiping at the kitchen counter, brushing away invisible crumbs.
“So you know.” She felt Highlands’s eyes snap her into focus. “Well.”
Bowden dropped into the chair opposite her. “We won’t tell any-one else,” she pleaded. “You don’t need to worry. Delacour had no right to interfere in your lives.”
“And the pregnancy? Will she stop it?”
Bowden stared at her. The pregnancy. What was she talking about?
“So you don’t know about that,” Highlands said drily, a grim smile for the first time nudging her lips. “Well.”
“I don’t know what you mean. Delacour’s not pregnant.”
“Yes, she is. From Daniel.”
“From —” And suddenly she understood.
“It’s an old-fashioned method,” Highlands said, “but unfortunately it’s fairly effective. I assumed you knew what had happened.”
“No, no….”
But she knew it was true. It explained so much; that was what Delacour must have been wanting to tell her. She felt suddenly dizzy, faint. The room around her shivered into unreality; edges of tables flared into jagged outline; colours leaped at her from books and ornaments and seat cushions; the hallway to the sleeprooms compressed into a narrow tunnel.
She took a deep breath. She must be calm; too much was at stake.
“I want her to stop it,” Highlands said. “She has no right to do this.”
Bowden nodded. “Of course she’ll stop it. I’m sure she intends to.”
“I don’t think she does. She told Daniel she wants to have the child.”
“But — No, no, she couldn’t. It would be — it would be unthinkable. It could be a male, couldn’t it? She wouldn’t —”
Highlands smiled thinly. “Perhaps you’ll help me convince her.”
“Yes, of course I will.”
Her thoughts flapped in her head like frantic trapped birds. How could Delacour want to keep the pregnancy, risk bearing a male — what could she possibly be thinking of, to take such a chance? It was hard enough to know that Daniel and his father existed, on the farms, but this, this would bring males back, to the rest of the world —
Highlands reached up and pushed again at her barrette, which was dropping loosely at the nape of her neck. Her tugging only made her fine hair bunch up, so, annoyed, she pulled the barrette out entirely and set it on the end table. Her hair, thin and greying, dropped itself on her shoulders as though relieved. Aware of Bowden’s staring at her, she said, her voice for the first time easing, conversational, “Silly thing. At home I use binder twine. But for the city, well, I thought I should try to be a bit less rural.”
Bowden pulled her lips back in what she hoped resembled a smile. “It’s fashionable now. To use string.” She forced herself to talk, as though they were two ordinary people, meeting to discuss a work schedule, a meal plan, mutual friends.
“How is this room heated?” Highlands asked. She shrugged off her cloth coat and let it squash up between her back and the sofa. Bowden noticed that the lining was worn through in places, sewn up in others with a variety of colours of thread.
“You’re too warm,” she said. “I’m sorry. We can’t control the heat here — it’s all done from Residential Central. This time of day they tur
n it up a little. Especially if it’s been sunny. Because of the sun-savers, you see. It would be wasted otherwise.” She was babbling. She realized she should have offered to hang up Highlands’s coat, but it was too late now to mention it.
“On the farm we use sunsavers, too, but they’re rather primitive ones. We still have to rely on wood.”
Bowden nodded, her mind empty of any response. When she glanced at the time-chip she saw that only a few minutes had passed since she’d sat down. She looked at the door, willing Delacour to step through it yet terrified of that moment. Pregnant. Of course Delacour would have to stop it. There was no other choice. She simply needed to be told how. That must be why she had waited, out of confusion, uncertainty, Delacour and her dislike of Hospital, waiting for Bowden to understand and arrange it.
“We have to convince her,” Highlands said, watching her.
“Yes,” Bowden said. “I know.” She leaned her head against the back of her chair, looked up at the ceiling the colour of pale summer clouds, and waited for Delacour to come home.
When they heard the door open they both jumped to their feet. Bowden caught a glimpse of Highlands’s strained face, her eyes fixed on the door.
Delacour was several steps into the room before she saw Highlands. The arm holding two books to her chest slowly lowered until the books slid down to her fingers, which clamped on them reflexively at the last moment to keep them from falling.
“Hello,” Highlands said, her voice the cold, careful one she had first brought into the apartment. “I’m Highlands, from the farms. Do you remember me?”
Delacour’s face was pale, an odd, mottled colour. She sat down, so abruptly Bowden was afraid she was going to faint. Of course, she thought, if she’s pregnant it’s no wonder she feels ill.
“Yes,” Delacour said. “I remember you.”
Highlands sat down, too. For a moment they only looked at each other, hard, opaque gazes. Delacour’s dropped first. She sighed, straightened the two books, and nested them tidily in her lap.
“How’s Daniel?” she asked.
It was not what Bowden had expected her to say. But Delacour had made love with him, she reminded herself — she must still have some feelings for him.
“He’s all right,” Highlands said.
“I feel —” Delacour lifted the cover of the book in her lap with her thumb, let it drop closed “— sorry about the way I treated him. I wasn’t very fair.”
“No,” Highlands said. “You weren’t.”
“I hope he’s not being blamed. Or punished. It wasn’t his fault.”
“It hasn’t been easy for him. He was our cleverest, our most promising. I’d hoped he would become … that he would be able to take on more responsibility. Now it’s hard for anyone to trust him again.”
Delacour kept looking down at her books, her thumb rubbing the edge of the cover. Highlands’s words seemed to press her back farther and farther into her seat.
For Bowden the waiting was unbearable, their inching toward the real subject. She was still standing, her muscles feeling so tensed they might not even allow her to sit down.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were pregnant?” she asked abruptly.
Delacour didn’t look at her. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I should have. I was going to.”
Highlands leaned forward, lowered her head a little, then raised it again, as though trying to prod Delacour into looking up. She didn’t. “Daniel tells me,” Highlands said, “that you don’t want to stop it.”
“That’s impossible,” Bowden said. “Of course you have to stop it.”
Delacour didn’t answer. She ran the corner of one of the book covers under her thumbnail so hard it made Bowden wince.
“You don’t have the right to do this,” Highlands said. “You have no right to use Daniel like that. You have no right to his child.”
And then Delacour looked up. “He wanted it, too,” she said. “I didn’t force him.”
“You threatened to tell his secret if he didn’t do what you wanted.”
“Only the first time. The other times were his choice as much as mine.”
“That’s not the question now, in any case. This goes beyond what was your choice, or his.”
Highlands stood up, so tall her head brushed the lamp hanging from the ceiling, and walked over to them. Bowden took a step back. Even Delacour looked up with alarm in her eyes. But to Bowden’s surprise Highlands only crouched down in front of Delacour, and set her callused hands on Delacour’s knees, which Delacour instinctively pulled together.
“Listen to me,” Highlands said quietly. “The males have just wanted to live their lives out in peace on the farms. They’re not to blame for who they are. If you allow this pregnancy, and the child is male, can’t you see what would happen? The world would know — it would cause chaos. They’d hunt us out, try to destroy us, or put Daniel and his father and the child in a cage somewhere, like animals — is that what you want?”
“No,” Delacour said, her voice soft, too, but no longer defensive, the voice that made Bowden lift her hand, unconsciously, in warning to Highlands, because it was the voice of Delacour when she was determined to win, at all costs, to have her way. “Of course not.” She leaned forward a little, until her face was only centimetres from Highlands. “But you’re imagining the worst. Perhaps all that would happen is that the male becomes integrated again into the world —”
Highlands drew back. “You want the world to go back to how it was before the Change?”
“It doesn’t have to be the way it was. You say yourself that Daniel and his father are no threat. Daniel said his father is the most kind and gentle one on his farm. There’s no reason the male shouldn’t be able to exist again, openly. Think of it — how exciting it would be!”
“And you want to be the one to make that decision.”
“It will happen anyway, sometime. Why not now? Why not this way?”
“It’s wrong,” Highlands said. “It’s dangerous. We know what they’re capable of.”
Delacour waved her hand dismissively. “Things are different now. We won’t let them repeat history’s mistakes.”
“We can’t take that chance.”
Delacour stood up, so abruptly that Highlands rocked back on her heels and planted a hand quickly behind her on the floor to keep herself from falling backward. Delacour began to pace the room, throwing out her arms in extravagant gestures the way she would do when she was lecturing. “I’ve studied history. I teach history. I know what it was like before the Change. But what caused the problems were overpopulation, poor political structures, class conflicts, resource shortages, pollution — males were trapped into them just as we were. But now, we don’t have those pressures; we’d be bringing them into an entirely different system.”
“Which they might dominate and corrupt again.”
“Or which they might contribute to and strengthen. Our world is hardly perfect now. People are still starving. Consensus doesn’t always work. We’re not all nice, nurturing people; we’re greedy and ambitious, too, just like they were —”
“We don’t make war. We don’t kill each other.”
“It’s all in what we’re taught. Males were taught to kill. If we taught each other to make war and kill, we’d do it, too.”
Highlands got up from the floor and took the seat Delacour had vacated. She picked up Delacour’s two books and arranged them neatly on her lap, the way Delacour had done. “No,” she said. “There’s … a difference in the male. I’m not sure if it’s something that can just be educated away. It’s there in them already as children. As it’s there in the male animals — the bulls, the rams, the stallions, the stags —”
“Animals,” Delacour said. “Animals can’t reason, can’t learn from history.”
“And suppose the males do learn from history.
They would begin to see the time before the Change as a time when they had power. It might start to seem desirable.”
Delacour frowned. Bowden knew she was annoyed to have her own argument turned and, more skilfully than she might have expected, used against her.
“On the farms,” Highlands continued, “the males have always been in a limited, controlled world; we have rules and laws. But Outside — no, it’s too dangerous to think of returning them to a larger society.”
“It’s their society, too. We know the risks. We’d be careful. We’re not children who need to be protected from what’s been a part of us.”
“It’s not up to you to decide.”
“Is it up to you?” Delacour pointed at her.
Highlands hesitated. Finally she said, “It’s been the decision of the farms. Of all of us. Not just mine.”
“Is it fair for you to keep them to yourselves, like pets, making them hide themselves from the world?”
“It’s not like that.” Highlands said stiffly.
“Besides, if Daniel and his father are the only males left, perhaps I’m carrying their only male descendent — don’t you want even one to survive?”
She didn’t answer, and Delacour, in a sudden triumph, exclaimed, “Or are there others? How do we know there aren’t? Perhaps you’re a male.”
Highlands stood up. The light from the window caught the scar on her cheek, a white welt. Bowden stared at her, fascinated, unable to move.
“I’m not a male,” she said.
She began to unbutton her shirt. When she reached the last button, she took the shirt off, slowly, laid it across a chair, and then pulled down her denims, letting them and her underclothes puddle thickly around her ankles. She stood for several moments in front of them, waiting for their eyes to fall, and even then she made no move for her clothes.
“You didn’t need to do that,” Bowden said. She felt a sudden clarity in her thinking, and a welling up of anger against Delacour as she had never felt it before.
She picked up Highlands’s shirt, handed it to her.