The Rainbow Cadenza: A Novel in Vistata Form

by J. Neil Schulman

  "Really?" How so?"

  "Years ago, before the War, I used to sneak into your lessons with my father, and watch you."

  "I wish you'd told me," Eleanor had said. "I rather thought you didn't know I was alive."

  "I was shy," Malcolm had said, and Vera had tried to imagine her confident and stern teacher as shy. "Regardless," he'd continued, "watching Vera play Apollo and Dionysus, I could have sworn that I was back thirty years or so, watching you play the piece. Not only does she look exactly as you did, she plays exactly as you did. The technique--the style--is identical.

  Vera had stopped packing up her console for a moment and begun listening more closely. They hadn't noticed.

  "It's a pity you couldn't keep up with your studies," Malcolm had said.

  Vera had watched her mother shrug wistfully. "It doesn't matter now. Vera will be playing for both of us. I'll be happy if after one of her concerts, someone congratulates me by mistake."

  Malcolm had laughed. "People will have trouble telling you apart, won't they? Remarkable, just remarkable. But the similarity of performing technique, I can't get over it. It's quite enough to have me start believing in genetic determinism."

  Vera clearly remembered feeling decidedly odd while that long ago conversation had gone on, and she hadn't felt any better about it when she'd asked the library computer, later that same evening, to explain "genetic determinism" to her.

  Possibly, Vera now thought, as she watched Joan play in the lawn dome, this had been the beginning of her doubts. Perhaps that had been the very first time she'd had the feeling that whatever she accomplished with her life would be claimed by her mother. But more than this, if in her most personal expression it was her mother's personality that was being expressed, then how could she have any existence of her own at all?

  Here, watching Joan in the lawn dome, Vera considered for the first time that it was this feeling of having no identity apart from her mother--no independent existence of her own--that had panicked her before her premiere at the pyradome. She thought back to that evening, when she was fifteen. Malcolm's prediction had come true: she had grown up to look so much like her mother that people were constantly mistaking one for the other, and it had struck her--backstage, brushing her hair before going into the Tiger Pit to warm up--that her mother's old wish might very well come true that night. Someone might congratulate her mother for having composed Fugue in Blue; in fact, she was sure someone would, if not that night, then some other night. It was with this thought that she had gone into the Tiger Pit to warm up.

  Thinking of herself objectively, for once, Vera considered the thought that to the adolescent girl she had been, caught in the middle of an adolescent's normal identity crisis compounded by her twinship to her mother, the formidable and pure laser light would seem to be real, and she merely spectral. Her sense of identitylessness had provided the cause of her panic, and the laser had provided the perfect embodiment of an object for her panic.

  There is a moment when light first illuminates a self- revelation of this kind. In this moment, either one can accept it--and use it as the basis for examining the basic patterns of one's life--or one can reject it, and invent for oneself an even deeper strategy for hiding such knowledge. Vera rejected it. To accept it would have entailed realizing for what a pale fear she had sacrificed the only self she had ever known, and to reclaim it, how much ground she would have to cover once again.

  The thought of working up through the laser repertoire for years, recapturing lost agility, to find herself back where she had been at fifteen, wearied her beyond her conception of endurance. She rejected this path, and with it--gratuitously -- the self-knowledge that had pressed it on her.

  She watched from the dark. She watched her little sister do seemingly effortlessly and so naturally what she knew she would never do again. But even as she watched, she fought back the realization that her discomfort had nothing to do with any compassion for Joan. She knew that there wasn't the slightest chance that Joan would fail at the laser for lack of self, but would not admit that this logically precluded sympathy.

  She had already seen Joan's singular personality shine through the laser into the dome. Joan had her own genetic pattern, a unique face, her own soul. She would never be confused with anybody else. She would never lose sight of herself.

  But she refused to identify the emotion this aroused in her. Even now, if Vera had allowed herself to know that what she felt for Joan was not compassion but jealousy, she might have laughed at herself for the very absurdity of her envy. If she had admitted the feeling so she could think about it, she might have averted the very destiny that she so much wished to disbelieve. But without this conscious thought, the inevitable logic of her unexamined choices would steer her course later that evening, when the consequences of her choices would long endure. Her fundamental choices now were to bring about--for herself and those she affected, but particularly Joan--just those sorts of destiny which only the possibility of free choice allowed.

  The sky had rid itself of rain clouds by five-thirty, when Mr. McIntosh left Vera in charge of Helix Vista while he flew Joan and the twins into the city. Two-year-old Zack was ready for bed, Mark had stayed home to play satellite chess with a boy in New Zealand, and Vera wanted to spend that night with her law discs.

  Mr. McIntosh found traffic through the inbound Hudson Corridor light that summer evening, and they made good time. Just before six, the Darrises' blue Astarte landed on the strip that divided the Vaginatown ghetto from Rainborough Park, and the twins remained locked in the limousine while Mr. McIntosh walked Joan to the Malcolm Institute for her lessons. When he returned five minutes later, after seeing Joan safely through the institute's courtyard into its lobby, Mr. McIntosh instructed the skymobile to fly the remaining three of them to a nearby fast-food emporium called Krock's AdventureWorld.

  AdventureWorld had become the regular Tuesday-night stop-over for Mr. McIntosh and the boys while Joan took her lesson. There was just the right kind of junk food the twins loved--tonight they each ordered a Big Krock and a Krock o' Fries--and there was an amusement arcade where the twins could compete against each other to their heart's content...and best of all, no girls were allowed. Krock's AdventureWorld was just about the twin's idea of heaven.

  AdventureWorld had its attractions for Mr. McIntosh as well. The arcade had its own staff patrons to keep watch over the boys, leaving Mr. McIntosh free, along with her tired parents and governors, to spend a quiet hour in the cannabistro. The maitre d' asked Mr. McIntosh whether he would be eating, and when he replied in the affirmative, he was seated in the nonsmoking section and offered a menu. Smoking was, of course, permitted in both the smoking and nonsmoking sections, but in the smoking section you had to smoke. Mr. McIntosh ordered a salad and soyaburger, and when his food arrived, he fell to.

  Twenty minutes later, Mr. McIntosh was sick. At first he did not know that what he was feeling was sick. It took a while to realize since, in his recollection, he had never been sick before. But he had seen a friend of his be sick once--a rare, fatal illness--and these odd and growingly unpleasant feelings seemed to match what his friend had described to him. Moreover, like his dying friend, he was sweating profusely. He was sick, all right.

  It was difficult to appreciate how this realization hit him. Physical pain he had known, injury he could deal with, but a feeling of sickness spontaneously coming out of nowhere--out of his sight or control--was something completely new to him. It was overwhelming. It frightened him. There were so few illnesses left--so many had been eliminated--that he thought this must be an incurable rarity like the one that had killed his friend. He was going to die, he was sure of it. What had begun as mere nausea was now amplified by panic; he lurched forward, knocking over his table, and he doubled over, throwing up on the floor.

  When he had finished, other customers were standing around him, staring openly in astonishment. Mr. McIntosh was as astonished as they were, and the knowledge that it wa
s he who had done this awful thing made his panic even worse. He heard somebody ask if there was a doctor in the restaurant. Mr. McIntosh began gasping for breath. The sour taste of vomit mixed with the sweet smell of cannabis smoke, and he felt suffocated. As he panic drove him to take one deep breath, then uncontrollably another, then another, then another, all feeling drained out of his arms and legs.

  He staggered a few feet and looked into a man's horrified face; then--thinking that this was his death--Mr. McIntosh passed out.

  It was, naturally, nothing of the sort. When he came to, a short while later, he was stretched out on the back seat of a skymobile, and a beautiful brunette woman was holding his wrist and looking at her watch. As he came fully awake, he noticed from vibration and movement that they were in flight.

  "Feeling better?" the woman asked.

  "A little," Mr. McIntosh said. "I think I'd feel even better if I sat up. Lying down in a moving skymobile makes me feel dizzy."

  She helped Mr. McIntosh sit up, then handed him a cup with some brown liquid in it. "Drink this," she said.

  He sipped it, and it turned out to be a cola drink. But it cleared out the sour taste from his mouth, and seemed to settle his stomach. He handed the empty cup back to her. "Thank you," he said. "Where are we going?"

  "Golden-Sky General Hospital. Unless--now that you're awake - you'd prefer another hospital. The restaurant manager said their insurance would cover the bill, wherever I took you."

  "And you are--?"

  "Dr. Natalie Shaw," she said. "I was having dinner in the cannabistro when you fainted."

  "Do you specialize in rare diseases, Doctor?" he asked. "Am I very sick?"

  She laughed. "As a matter of fact, I'm a specialist in andrecology. And from what I can tell-- having seen hundreds of cases like this when I interned at Golden Sky--the only thing wrong with you was upset stomach compounded by panic. You fainted from hyperventilation."

  "Then why take me to a hospital?"

  "For your protection, and the restaurant's. It's a complicated matter involving restaurant liabilities, insurance regulations, and--for that matter--medical ethics. I'd advise you to go, even though you don't have to if you'd rather not. If it was something in the food that upset you, I rather think you wouldn't have much of a legal case without some lab tests."

  "But you think I'll be okay anyway? Without the hospital?"

  "I'd say so. Though I should tell you that the Good Samaritan law relieves me of liability if my diagnosis is wrong. Though it isn't."

  "Then I'd better get back to AdventureWorld. I'm the governor for two boys I left in the arcade...Joanie!" The color drained from his face, and Dr. Shaw thought he might faint again. Mr. McIntosh checked his watch; it was already ten past seven.

  "Are you quite sure you're all right? Perhaps we'd better proceed to the hospital after all."

  "No, no, no," he said. "I've got to get back to Rainborough Park by seven-fifteen, before it gets dark!"

  "I'm afraid we'll never make it," she said, "even if we return using my medical emergency priority--which is technically illegal. It will take five minutes before we reach the next safe turnaround in this corridor, then another twenty-five minutes back."

  "Please," Mr. McIntosh said, "we've got to get back. And I've got to make some fast phone calls."

  "Please feel free to use my video," she said.

  Dr. Shaw ordered her limousine to reverse their course as soon as possible, and gained Mr. McIntosh's eternal gratitude by informing traffic control that she was still on emergency priority. Meanwhile, Mr. McIntosh got the phone code of the Malcolm Institute from Central Listings, and called it.

  He was told by the institute's computer that its offices were closed for the day, but that he could leave a message.

  The message he left was less than polite. Still, if Malcolm checked with the computer before he left...

  Immediately after, Mr. McIntosh phoned Helix Vista. The domestic computer answered and was reluctant to connect him to Vera until he said it was an emergency. A seemingly endless minute passed while he waited for Vera to come on; Dr. Shaw offered him more cola, which he accepted. Finally, Vera appeared on the limousine's phone. "Yes, Mac, what is it?"

  Vera looked annoyed with him even before he told her what was wrong. But when he explained, her face turned absolutely rigid.

  "I'll go after Joan," she told him. "You pick up the twins and get back here at once. I'll leave Mark in charge of Zack until your return."

  "You don't think she's in any real danger, do you?" Mr. McIntosh asked Vera anxiously.

  "For both your sakes, she'd better not be," Vera said, then switched off. But Mr. McIntosh wondered why Vera had seemed to wear a satisfied expression as she'd said it.

  Chapter 9

  "DEASIL, WIDDERSHINS, deasil, widdershins," Jack Malcolm said to Joan.

  Clockwise, counterclockwise, clockwise, counterclockwise, Joan played the swirling ring-a rosies around the dome.

  Jack Malcolm sat opposite her on the dual console in the beginner's dome, waving his hand back and forth. "Deasil, widdershins, deasil, widdershins," he repeated, increasing the pace slightly. "Building, always building--very good--now get ready to crescendo..."

  Joan dropped her eyes momentarily to the score--symbols scrolling past on her monitor--and again up to the dome. Mimicking the physics by which an ice skater builds up circular momentum with arms out, then raises them overhead, she collapsed the ring inward, spinning the red lissajous faster and faster and faster down to the rosy point the ended Fantasia in Seventh.

  Malcolm raised the glowing from his console. "Good, quite good."

  Joan asked, "Do you want to see the ring-around-the-rosy part again?"

  He shook his head. "But your segue between eenie-meenie- minie-moe and ink-a-bink-a-bottle-a-ink could use some smoothing out."

  "That's the hard part," she said.

  "If it's hard, it only means you have to work on it some more. I'll want to see it all smoothed out by Friday."

  "Okay."

  Malcolm glanced at a digital clock on his console; it read 7:21. "That's all for tonight," he said. He stood up in the Tiger Pit; from Joan's standpoint, he looked like a giant. "You'd better get going. We ran a bit late and Mr. McIntosh will be waiting for you."

  Joan ejected several silver-dollar-sized discs from her console--the scores she was working on--and slipped them into a pocket on the reddish-orange pinafore she was wearing. "G'night!" she told Malcolm.

  "Good night." He remained behind to power down the laser, while Joan skipped out to the central lobby.

  But for the first time, Mr. McIntosh was not waiting for her in the lobby. She thought that he must have decided, for once, to wait for her in the courtyard, and went out almost at once. It was for this reason that Jack Malcolm did not see Joan when he came out of the dome and, assuming she had left with her governor, walked past the lobby into his office. He did not even glance at his message indicator as he urgently proceeded into his private bathroom.

  The sun was just on the horizon when Joan left the Institute's lobby at seven twenty-two. It was the last of the day, but it was not yet night; official sunset this July 15 was seven twenty- five, GMT-plus-Five Standard Time. Joan noticed that the air was comfortably cool as she stepped into the courtyard, just before she concluded that Mr. McIntosh was not waiting for her out there either.

  To say that his not being where he was supposed to be was unprecendented would have been, from Joan's viewpoint, a vast understatement on the order of telling an astronomer that Halley's comet's not showing up this time around was unprecedented. Trying to suggest to her the possibility that Mr. McIntosh might only have been delayed would have fallen on her ears in about the same way as suggesting to an astronomer that Halley's comet might only have been delayed.

  She decided to sit down on the grass to contemplate the phenomenon, but got up immediately, finding that the grass was still wet following the afternoon's rain. But the wetness of the
grass stimulated a new thought: for some incomprehensible reason, could Mr. McIntosh be waiting for her outside the courtyard on the street? When she was faced with the impossible in the first place, almost anything in the second place seemed possible. She decided to step beyond the raised portcullis and have a look.

  Lights were coming on in the apartment houses across the street, but the street itself was deserted. Joan looked as far as she could in both directions, but particularly toward the landing strip. Mr. McIntosh was nowhere to be seen.

  Joan would have taken this opportunity to swear, if she'd known how. Instead, as she had seen her mother do in such outrageous situations as this, she put her hands on her hips and thrust her lower lip outward. She was wondering what to do next, and had just about decided to head back into the Institute, when the last rays of direct sunlight were blocked off by the apartment across the street, and the portcullis to the Institute's courtyard lowered to the ground.

  Joan knew nothing of photoelectric gates. For that matter, aside from her expertise on the lasegraphic console, she was completely innocent of technology. She viewed machinery, as children often do, animistically, but with experience to back up mythology: when she spoke to things, as often as not they talked back.

  So Joan thought merely that the gate had chosen a decidedly inconvenient time to drop, just when she wanted to go in again. "Gate, open up," she told the portcullis, sensibly; but it was an old piece of machinery, from long before the War, and it was not voice-actuated.