by Marge Piercy
“You saw Riva?” Malkah asked her. “She’s really all right?”
“I didn’t see her this trip, but I hear she’s fine. You guys are the heroes of the moment, by the way, for the way you’re taking on Y-S.”
“Great,” Shira said. “They can all dance at our funeral.” Sooner or later in talking with Nili, Shira began speculating about what went on between Nili and Gadi. Nili was overwhelmingly physical, reeking, streaked with dirt, a fresh burn on her arm just showing under the pushed-up sleeves, covered with a translucent web of healer to regrow skin. How could Shira be anywhere near her loud physical presence without wondering? Shira imagined that Nili must pick up Gadi like a macho man in the old romances and carry him off. She could see Nili accidentally breaking Gadi’s arm simply by squeezing too hard. Yet Nili did not look like a man. She was a busty woman, with broad hips and a tight waist.
“Nili,” she said suddenly. “Can you bear children?”
Nili blinked in surprise. “Sure. We don’t usually do it quite that way—that is, we go in for implants after genetic altering and all that funny lab stuff first. But if I want to get pregnant, I can.”
“How do you know? It’s a problem for women most everyplace.”
“I’ve borne a daughter already,” Nili said.
So Gadi was right. She had not believed him. “Is she like you?”
“She’s only six.” Nili grinned. “She has red hair like me, but brown eyes. And my dark skin. And my temper. And my strength.”
“How can you leave her for months on end?”
“The little ones are raised by several mothers. I was chosen for this quest. I’m the best equipped. But I miss her. Every day three or four times I sit and meditate on her image, but I know it’s out of date.” Nili shrugged. “We all have to pay for our choices and our situation. Don’t you?”
She was fascinated by the idea of Nili as a mother. It must be as painful for Nili to be away from her daughter as separation from Ari had been for Shira. Where was Yod? She called up time on her cornea. Damn it. It was eight. At ten he had to report for guard duty. What was holding him up? The house had informed her that Yod would not be there for supper, but no message had come through since. Because the house disapproved of him so strongly she wondered sometimes if an occasional message did not get lost. “House, any communications from Yod?”
“That machine has not been in contact with me since eighteen hundred four point fifteen hours.”
“Give me any message at once, please.”
“Tomorrow I’ll get back to training your people again.” Nili cracked her knuckles sensually. “I’m enjoying it, in a sadistic way. Yet I don’t think you’ll be invaded. It would break the rules you all operate under. Assassins seem likelier.”
“Taking us out individually as warning?” Malkah shrugged. “Everybody in town is speculating when and how the next attack will come. I noticed even the kids playing war with Y-S. We’re not panicked, but we’re all on edge.”
“Nili, can I see the holo of your daughter?”
Without a word, Nili went to fetch it. She came back with it sitting on her palm, her gaze fixed on it. She passed it carefully to Shira. “They call her Varuda.”
“She is like a rose. I’d love to have a daughter too,” Shira said. She remembered that when she had learned the baby she was carrying was male, she had felt a pang of betrayal, because she had expected to birth a daughter, as Riva and Malkah had. But Ari had vanquished that wish at once. Nili’s daughter did look something like her already, but she had a quirky crooked smile that charmed Shira, one incisor missing.
Perhaps five minutes later, the house announced, “That machine is approaching along the street. Should I admit it?”
“House, I’ve told you twenty times, let Yod in whenever he comes,” Malkah said in a voice of silky reproof. “Is your memory malfunctioning?”
“I obey,” the house said as if glumly.
“I wanted an intelligent house,” Malkah said to Nili, “but sometimes I think I overdid it. Are you listening, house? I think house doesn’t have enough to occupy all that intelligence. If it doesn’t mind its manners, I’ll set it to generating Fermat numbers for the next century.”
The house made a rude noise. A moment later Yod came in, greeted everyone with his customary politeness, then added, “Something abnormal happened just now. Instead of waiting for me to identify myself, as it should, the house opened the door and kept it swinging back and forth all the while I was walking along the block.”
“Come upstairs,” Shira said. “We have to talk.”
“There’s something I must tell everyone first…Avram is going before the Council to explain to them what I am.” The Council was composed of five adults drawn by lot, plus the three Base Overseers—Malkah, Avram and Sam Rossi—and the head of security.
“After all this secrecy? Why?” Shira was immediately frightened. Also she could not help imagining the gossip and even ridicule that would focus on her when everyone learned that her lover was a machine.
“I wish he had been willing to be open from the beginning.” Malkah rose. She paced, tossing her head with that gesture she used when she was annoyed, as if her hair were in her eyes. It made Shira remember when Malkah had worn her hair long and loose, floating like a satin cape—when Shira was little. “Here we are sitting on the Council, and we’re going to confess we’ve been lying for two years. It’s going to cause a storm.”
Yod stood still as a stone beside the peach tree. His head hung forward, only his dark hair visible. He looked frankly miserable. Shira had been thinking about ridicule and scandal, Malkah was worrying about losing credibility with her confreres, but Yod would be on trial. “What will this mean for you?”
“I don’t know,” he said frankly, “but I worry about how people will respond to me now.”
Nili rose. “I’m going to shower. But it does seem strange to me that after going to such lengths to conceal your nature, he’s going to announce it to the entire town.”
Yod turned his palms up, giving them all a sad little smile. “Gadi went to the Council, telling them I’m not being paid. Since I’m to be discussed, Avram feels the time has come to explain what I am. He believes it his duty to explain the danger. Since we now know Y-S’s interest is related to Avram’s work and hence to myself, he believes my nature can no longer be concealed…”
Malkah said, “We have a complaint about an exploited worker on the agenda next Monday. Is that you?”
He nodded. “Me.”
Malkah sank into her chair. “Ah…I must think. I must work out a plan of attack for myself.”
“Use me as a sounding board,” Nili said as she strode upstairs two steps at a time. “I have immense experience in arguing about experiments with collectives. I think I’ve spent half my life in meetings. At home we’re born into a meeting and our funerals are meetings.”
“Furthermore”—Yod resumed his exposition—“several people noticed that I patrol the Base during the day and the perimeter at night. They put in a complaint of overwork on my behalf.”
“So you’re already the subject of gossip and astonishment,” Malkah said.
Shira felt overwhelmed, under attack. She moved to stand before Yod, taking his hand. He reacted at once by starting to move toward the stairway. “I must leave soon for my night patrol.”
Malkah waved them on. “Go on upstairs. I have to think.”
When Shira closed the door of her room, she burst out, “I wish I could shut out the whole world just like that! Now I’m the one who sounds like a spoiled adolescent. But I’m emotionally exhausted. I just wish we could have a little quiet time together.”
He came at once to her and held her against him tightly. “I was beginning to understand a little what humans mean by happiness. I had never been happy. I had been only fully engaged or bored. I had been puzzled. I had been frightened. I had been angry.” He was grasping her so tightly she could not draw a deep breath, but sh
e wanted to be as close as possible. Only that felt safe. “But I had never been happy until we came back here with Ari and you told him I was his stepfather. Then I knew you truly accept me into your life.”
She felt a little guilty, because she had suffered for two days figuring what to say to Ari, but something had to be said. Malkah was Grandma. House was House. House was smarter, more personal than any house he had met, but he was a very little boy and would not think twice about House. He was a privileged child who always had a house to speak to: Turn on the lights. Close the window. Sing to me. But how to introduce Yod? Then she had taken a blind leap forward into what she prayed would be a future. This is your stepfather. Let Ari gradually observe the nature of Yod as time passed. Let him grow up thinking men were rational, benign, gentle, infinitely patient and vastly intelligent and strong. Why should he need to know that Yod was also a weapon? Yod would never use violence against Ari, of that she was sure.
Yod had always been sensitive as a lover, beyond competence into finesse, but tonight as they made love in her bed, for the first time she felt in him something like passion. He was desperately aware of the brevity of their time together. He was driven not only by his immense desire to please but by a new need within him to be secure in his possession. He was hungry for proof of their connection.
“I must leave you so quickly, I want everything at once,” he said when they lay still. “I want to keep making love and I want to be talking. I’ve always missed you during the time we aren’t together, but we were together at least nine hours every day.”
“Maybe the Council meeting will work out in our favor. I’ll go, of course.”
“You aren’t ashamed?”
“I’m afraid. But I’m hoping they’ll decide that Avram can’t make you work twenty hours a day.”
“Perhaps they’ll judge he can do anything he likes with me, since he made me…It isn’t that I can’t replay any of our times together in my mind, but it isn’t enough. Now, when I want more than ever to be with you and I want to be part of our son’s life, I am forbidden.”
She still flinched when he said “our son,” but she kept it within. She was ashamed of that meanness. He had given her Ari as truly as Josh had. Josh whom Yod had killed. “I miss you also. When Nili leaves, I think you should move in. Malkah would be pleased.”
“I’d like that, Shira. I don’t need a whole room. I don’t need a bed. We can make love in your bed as we do now. I need only a closet and somewhere to put my terminal and equipment. Has Nili said when she’s leaving?”
Shira shook her head, tracing the line of his brow and nose with her finger. “No. She comes and goes a lot. She’s gone for a week at a time.”
“Avram has intentionally separated us. I know it! Sometimes I want to strike him to the ground.”
“Don’t you have an inhibition against violence to Avram?”
“I was programmed to obey him absolutely and to be incapable of injuring him…But any programming can be changed, Shira. I could change the sequence for destroying me that he controls, if only I could access it. I haven’t been able to locate it.”
“But you’ve found the other?”
“It’s designed to be read-only, not alterable, but all things change,” he said almost sadly. “I hoped for a long time Avram would let me go willingly. Now my only hope is that the Council may free me.”
“If they can realize you are a person, fully conscious, a thinking, feeling being, they’ll free you. But you must control your anger at Avram. You must! There are other methods of changing his mind. Promise me.”
“I’ll control my frustration. But, Shira, maybe I can’t be a citizen. Tikva has chosen to be peaceful. I was designed to be a weapon. I was programmed to find the use of violence in defense or attack a keen pleasure. And I do. You know that, and you fear it.”
She saw Josh crumpled on the floor. “I know you can change yourself. You have the capacity to learn and grow, the same as any other person.”
“I’ll try to impress the Council favorably.” He held her face in his hands. “Now already I have to go.”
After Yod had left her, she looked in on Ari. He had flung the sheet off. She covered him, stood a moment over him in the glow she had asked the house to brighten. “Dim,” she said softly and returned to her room.
She sat in the chair by the windows, her hands loosely folded in her lap. Perhaps her relationship with Yod need not come up in the Council meeting. No, it was relevant. She could not deny him. She was Yod’s far more fully than she had ever been Josh’s, and she must fight for him. The Council, the gabby long-winded ultra-democratic Council: her hopes and fears would be tossed on its gusts of hot air. Malkah and Avram would have to step aside, leaving the others to hear Yod’s plea and vote her life up or down. But it was the one hope she could see of freeing Yod from Avram. The Council would decide that Yod was a citizen of Tikva or Avram’s tool: it was that simple.
FORTY-TWO
The Work of the Shadchen
Joseph and Yakov are heroes of the ghetto, along with the dead, who are buried with grief and every sign of gratitude the living can summon. Joseph and Yakov walk the streets like princes. Children run after them and sing about them. Women beam on them and flirt. Men slap their shoulders, touch their sleeves, consult them on everything, of which Joseph particularly knows nothing whatsoever.
Once again Yakov asks Chava to marry him. Once again she smiles and firmly, absolutely, with no flirtatious edge, refuses and bids him remarry elsewhere. This time he takes her advice, and by the next weekend he is engaged to the oldest granddaughter of Mordecai Maisl, the richest man in the ghetto and one of the richest merchants in all of Prague. For a widower with sons to take care of, this is an unheard-of coup. From a poor hardworking scholar with a good voice, Yakov becomes a man to reckon with. Rivka Maisl is no beauty, but she is a sweet-tempered darling, who is thrilled to be betrothed to a hero of the Battle of the Gates. She is only seven years older than his oldest son, but soon there will be younger siblings, everybody says, smiling, and Mordecai will provide them with servants and someplace to live.
Does Chava regret? Joseph watches, wondering. She seems honestly pleased for Yakov. She seems relieved. She sings as she goes up and down the stairs of the Maharal’s narrow house. She sings as she helps in the kitchen. When she works on the Maharal’s manuscript, she is silent, but she smiles to herself. At once Joseph likes Yakov much better. He wishes Yakov happiness whenever they pass each other. Yakov can hear the note of sincerity in Joseph’s deep voice and beams back. Yakov is proud of himself as he makes ready for his wedding. He is a practical man, and Chava is forgotten, except as the Maharal’s secretary. Rivka takes on the radiance of a very young woman who feels suddenly important and desired. The marriage cannot happen till the end of the counting of the Omer, six more weeks, but then Rivka Maisl and Yakov Sassoon will be wed.
Many women look at me, Joseph broods as he sweeps out the Altneushul. It is not like the poor little whore who belonged to the knight, who just wanted to get me on her side. No, I walk through the streets and women stare after me now with admiration. In the narrow white silence of the Altneushul after morning prayers, he leans on his broom and imagines.
Two different shadchens have approached him with offers to introduce him to young maidens from good families interested in matrimony, widows still young with fat dowries, whatever he wants. “A man should marry,” they tell him. “It is time. You’re a poor man, Joseph the Shamash, Joseph called Samson, but right now you can pick and choose like a Maisl. All the young women want to marry you. All the mamas want you for a son-in-law. You can be the chassen of a maidel who stands to inherit a good peddler’s route. Let me make you a match you’d die for!”
Joseph puts them off. He is humble. He says he is grateful to the Maharal for taking him in and hiring him, for teaching him his letters. He is poor, and any wife he took now would regret him later. He will think about it, he promises.
What he thinks about is Chava, singing on the stairway, humming as she makes the soup with the inner unborn eggs of the chicken in it. The Maharal needs sustenance, for he is not feeling well. “Age has me in its teeth,” Judah says. “It’s biting through me. The angel of death, Moloch ha maves, is beginning to nibble on what’s left of my tough old flesh.”
Isaac Horowitz is hanging around far too much to suit Joseph. He, too, listens to Chava singing like a finch up and down the steep stairs. He, too, notes that Yakov is out of the picture, betrothed to a Maisl. It is full heady spring. The willows along the Vltava have unfurled their chartreuse banners. Fields of daffodils bloom. Inside the courtyard of the palace of the emperor are beds of scarlet tulips, the newest rage. Hardly anyone has seen them, but everyone talks of them. Little azure butterflies alight even on the dark pavements of the ghetto to dry their wings.
Horowitz has a long conversation with the Maharal. Chava is summoned. Judah is still feeling poorly and must receive her in his bedchamber. A long conversation entails. Chava is not singing when she comes out. She looks grim and a little angry. Horowitz is summoned next. He emerges with his shoulders sagging. He goes straight to Chava, where she sits proofreading the Maharal’s treatise on the Megillah, the story of Esther.
“You won’t reconsider?”
“I have considered carefully. You do me a great honor by proposing to me, Isaac Horowitz. But I have no desire to marry again.”
“Is it because you feel I should have fought? Taken up crude arms?”
“You are a credit to our people because of your mind and your hard work. But admiration does not necessarily produce conjugal affection. I’m a cold woman, Isaac. You can do far better for yourself.”
“I don’t want any other woman. You’re the only woman I will ever want. I am not changeable and I am not practical, as you have noticed. I don’t change because something doesn’t work out well or easily.”