When she finished writing her pathetic little offering to an apparently illiterate God, Nancy folded the slip of paper in half and in half again. She waited for the plate to come around, and then she pushed her offering to the bottom of the dish, away from prying eyes.
I found myself wishing that I hadn’t looked. Even though I tried to be hardnosed about it, in fact this was the first time I had realized that human children could be slaves just as I was, forced into living a life that was unlivable. Despite myself, I was momentarily overwhelmed with compassion, with anger, with revulsion. I identified with her, not because she was a human, but because she was a victim of humans. Maybe Nancy didn’t have a plug in the back of her neck, but the result was the same. Her father could do anything he wanted to her, and her only recourse was to ask for forgiveness because she hated him so much.
When the collection bowl had moved on, I dropped down to the back of Nancy’s pew and patted her on the shoulder. She almost jumped through the balloon roof of the chapel. Then, seeing it was just the harmless monkey, she reached up and patted my hand, turning red in embarrassment at having been startled that way. I had no way of telling her I was sorry for startling her, and sorry she was a slave like me, except to give her my sad face and pat her again. She must have got some part of the message because she relaxed back into her hunching posture and let me sit on her shoulder and groom her hair for a few moments. Then her father noticed me. He began trying to get his wife’s attention so she could shoo me away. For Nancy’s sake I did nothing to cause her more trouble than she already had; I scampered away, playing the clown, and got back to Carol Jeanne just as the offertory was ending.
As I jumped across his pew, I noticed that Red had not put his own offering in the collection plate. Instead he was wadding up his slip of paper and putting it in the pocket of his pants as I passed by. I made a mental note to retrieve that slip of paper, if I could do it without Pink’s knowledge. I wanted to see what it was that Red had written and then had been unwilling to give.
The sermon was long and as useless as usual. Basically I thought of sermons as group therapy by an incompetent therapist who subscribed to a psychological theory invented by cows. I spent the time thinking about children and human families. Peter and Diana and Nancy had all had their lives screwed up by their parents. Burdens had been laid on them that they would carry for the rest of their lives. By comparison, Emmy and Lydia had normal, stable lives. I might think Red was an ass, but he was involved with his children and he didn’t beat them or have sex with them. Maybe that wasn’t cause for extraordinary praise but it was something, wasn’t it? And Carol Jeanne was no easy spouse to deal with, but he stayed with her, and she stayed with him even though he wasn’t close to being her intellectual equal and his mother was the queen of hell. Emmy and Lydia were brats, but they’d grow out of most of that, and their parents had given them a stable foundation. Even Mamie, in her smarmy, self-righteous way, had helped surround the children with love and security—they had no way of knowing that she only did it in order to maintain her image or get control over other people or make Carol Jeanne look like a bad mother. Compared to some other families, Carol Jeanne’s little household was downright healthy.
But then, even if Red had had a proclivity toward pedophilia or child torture, he couldn’t very well have indulged it, not with Pink dogging his steps. Nor could Carol Jeanne express her impatience or anger at her children or her husband all that readily with little old me on her shoulder. For obvious reasons I had never seen how they would behave without a witness present. Perhaps all families would be healthier if they had an enhanced animal as a slave to watch and record their every word and deed.
It was then that it occurred to me that Carol Jeanne had been sending me away regularly at work, declaring that what she was doing was just routine and giving me assignments that didn’t take me a fraction of the time I pretended to spend doing them. I had been resentful that she didn’t seem to want me near her as much, but grateful as well, since it gave me time to explore the computer system and work on my own projects. What never crossed my mind was the fact that maybe she was doing something that she didn’t want her witness to see.
In a way, that was flattering. Carol Jeanne knew that I would never—could never—disclose anything I saw her do without her consent. So if she was hiding something from me, it meant that she cared what I thought. I found myself, in the midst of a sermon on love and forgiveness of our neighbor’s shortcomings, feeling something like love and forgiveness toward Carol Jeanne, toward Red, toward their miserable bratty little daughters, and even, though I find it hard to write these words, toward Mamie. No wonder Marx called religion the opiate of the people. I was drugged to the gills that day.
At last church ended. We escaped the hordes of Mayflowerites and walked home in clumps. Although most of the family lingered to greet Red’s adoring fans, Carol Jeanne strode ahead of the others with me on her shoulder as if escaping the Protestant contagion she had been forced to endure. I perched on her shoulder, though, and watched the progress of the rest of the family behind us. Sure enough, Red stopped at a trashcan on the common and dropped something from his right pants pocket there.
Garbage wouldn’t be collected on a Sunday; I had the rest of the day to retrieve the promise that Red had made to God and then retracted. I might have been filled with charity toward all men, but I was still a sneaky little spy. You can’t fight your own nature.
Dinner was a silent affair, interrupted only by the prattle of the children. Carol Jeanne cooked spaghetti and meatballs as she frequently did after church, claiming it was an easy meal to cook. Mamie turned up her nose at the plebeian fare. Italian food was beneath Mamie’s station in life, which, I suspected, was one reason Carol Jeanne served it so often. But Mamie had no desire to help cook the family meals, and years ago Red had responded to her hints about hiring “some kitchen help” with a firm no that even Mamie understood was final. So Mamie heaped up the pasta on her plate and, while making a show of distaste, ate an ample share.
Visitors arrived as the meal ended. Mamie sprang up to hide the evidence of our Catholic menu, removing plates and mopping spaghetti sauce from the children’s faces as Carol Jeanne answered the knock. Penelope filled the doorway, her face plastered in smiles, with Dolores standing solemnly behind her.
“It’s just us,” said Penelope brightly. “You’ve been here nearly two months now, and we have to make one official visit every other month.”
“Get to make,” Dolores prompted.
“Of course. That’s what I said.”
Carol Jeanne frowned. “Penelope, you’ve been in this house a dozen times since we moved in.”
“Not with Dolores. Those were mayoral visits, and friendly visits.”
So apparently this was a hostile visit? I had no doubt.
“What she means,” said Dolores, “is that she and I are your family’s fellows.”
Ah—another word from the famous unread prospectus. Fellows were village visitors, and every family on the Ark got assigned a pair of them. Fellows supposedly looked after the needs and wants of each member of their chosen families, but I was confident that the real purpose was simply to make sure that nobody was able to be cut off socially from their village. Someone would come to their house at least six times a year.
The task of making the fellows assignments was just about the only official function of a village’s mayor; it was no coincidence that Penelope picked its most exalted citizens for her own route.
“We need to visit you at least bimonthly, just to see how you’re doing,” Penelope explained. “A visit doesn’t count unless Dolores and I are together. You’re assigned to both of us.”
Dolores stretched the bark of her face into a smile. I thought about the husband she had left on Earth, and wondered if he had retained any capacity for pleasure after years of marriage to this stolid tree of a woman. I hoped he was living it up.
“Aren’t you going to inv
ite us in?” Penelope wedged her foot between the door and its jamb so Carol Jeanne couldn’t shut her out without causing bodily injury.
“Sure we are.” Red’s booming voice startled me, and the women as well. “We’re always glad for company. Open the door and step aside, Sweetheart, so our visitors can come inside.”
The family gathered in the living room, unsure of what constituted an official fellows visit. Mamie poured coffee for each of the adults, making a show of telling Carol Jeanne she had served the coffee just the way Carol Jeanne liked it, even though Carol Jeanne and I both knew that she didn’t even drink coffee except when she was working late and needed the caffeine. Just one more effort to make it seem as though the whole household was centered around catering to Carol Jeanne’s every wish.
Apparently an official visit consisted of gossip. Penelope’s fanny hadn’t even warmed the sofa cushion before she told the family that Cyrus Morris was dating already. Odie Lee was barely cold in her grave (never mind that she’d been recycled), and Cyrus had already been seen three times with his executive assistant at work, a woman noted more for her feminine pulchritude than her professional accomplishments.
Carol Jeanne’s eyes glazed over and Red wore his professional nice-guy face, while Mamie, who really loved this stuff, tsk-tsked at the appropriate places, shaking her head in mournful delight. Penelope blessed her with a beatific smile before continuing her litany of rumors.
George Bowman, who was only familiar to me as a name on Mayflower’s roster, was having some trouble with alcohol. Another stranger, Etta Jenks, appeared to be sleeping with the itinerant handyman who served Mayflower and a half-dozen other villages. Dolores was certain of this. As Etta’s next-door neighbor, she had seen Franklin Jaymes go inside the house twice without his tool kit. And Liz and Warren Fisher were arguing again; their neighbors could barely sleep at night.
At this, Carol Jeanne could stand no more. “Why are you telling us all this?” she asked. “Liz is my friend, and we don’t even know the other people.”
Dolores didn’t miss a beat. “If you don’t know what others are struggling with, how can you pray for them? You do want to help, don’t you?”
“I want to help,” Mamie said fervently.
“We all want to help,” said Red, but he wasn’t speaking for Carol Jeanne.
“But isn’t there something else we do?” asked Mamie. “I want to be a friend to these people. I want to be a part of this village.”
Here was the perfect opening for Penelope to bring up Mamie’s refusal to work. As the mayor of Mayflower, surely she knew about the villagers’ dissatisfaction. Dolores must have expressed her contempt for drones to Penelope, since she had certainly spoken of it to her children. Penelope must have realized the best way Mamie could blend in with the Mayflowerites would be to get a job like everyone else. But Penelope had other fish to fry.
“Well…I do have a suggestion.”
Mamie beamed.
“The town desperately needs a new set of fellows. Odie Lee’s death left a big hole among the prayer partners, and we need someone extra special to take her route. As the mayor, I was hoping you and Carol Jeanne could take over her circuit.”
Mamie’s “Oh, yes!” was overlapped by Carol Jeanne’s equally fervent, “We couldn’t possibly. My work takes far too much time for me to accept an assignment like that.”
Red shot Carol Jeanne a look of disgust. Mamie’s lip quivered, and I thought she might burst into tears. Even little Emmy looked away diplomatically, but Penelope and Dolores only stared. Penelope apparently wasn’t used to having people tell her no.
“Well, of course you’ll have to think about it,” Penelope said. “We’ll get back to you in the next couple of days.”
Pointedly, Dolores added, “Everybody takes a fellows assignment.” If that were true, of course, then everybody would be visiting just one other household, and I knew that wasn’t the case. But Carol Jeanne didn’t bother to argue.
“I don’t need to think about it. My responsibilities to the Ark as a whole won’t allow my being distracted by local matters. I understand and respect the purpose of the fellows program, but I was told already that administrators at my level are exempted.”
“If they want to be,” said Red quietly.
Carol Jeanne stiffened at his disloyalty.
Penelope looked wounded. “Don’t you have time for our little village?”
“I’m afraid I don’t right now. Why don’t you find another companion for Mamie? I’m sure she’d enjoy being a fellow, since she’s a little lonely without anything else to do.”
I almost cheered—it was the first time I could remember Carol Jeanne actually being catty. “A little lonely” indeed. What a deft reminder that Mamie hadn’t been able to hold on to her mate, and that she was bored because she flatly refused to work.
Mamie glared, until she remembered herself and changed to an expression of patient suffering. Dolores smirked. Penelope’s eyes rounded. Finally Mamie ended the silence by saying, in her sweetest, meekest voice, “I’d be glad to serve as a fellow even without a companion, just so I can help the wonderful people of Mayflower.”
Mamie might have been a drone as far as employment was concerned, but now that she understood that fellowing meant pious gossip, she would be the queen of community service. She would fellow every family in the village if she were called to do so, loudly moaning about her heavy burden even as she relished the task and assiduously spread every scandal she heard or guessed or invented. If Odie Lee were still alive, Mamie could out-Odie her in glorious martyrdom. And it only sweetened the prize that Mamie would make Carol Jeanne look bad in comparison every time she made her rounds.
“You can be sure we’ll find a companion for you, since you’re so willing to serve,” said Penelope.
We endured the rest of the visit. Mamie, smug as a cat, vowed to pray for Mayflower’s sinners, and once again Dolores stretched her lips into a grim smile. Even with her husband gone, there was clearly a chance for Mamie to penetrate the inner social circle of Mayflower. Carol Jeanne’s chances were dimming moment by moment. By the time Mamie became a brahmin, Carol Jeanne would be untouchable.
It was only after Penelope was on her way that I realized she hadn’t broached the subject of drones, even though she would have been aware of the official complaint Red had filed immediately after the incident. Penelope should have commiserated, at least. Her silence told me that despite what she had said to Peter about causing Mamie’s divorce, she was secretly glad that he had sent the message with the animated bees.
The door had barely shut behind Penelope before Red and Mamie started in on Carol Jeanne.
“Are you deliberately trying to sabotage us here in Mayflower?” he asked.
Mamie chimed in. “If you’ve ruined my chances to be a prayer partner I’ll never forgive you. I’m bored stiff on this spaceship, and finally I had a chance for something to do.”
Carol Jeanne chose to answer Mamie rather than Red. “You could get a job.” Her voice was quiet, yet it reverberated in the silence that followed.
A tear came to Mamie’s eyes. “So you’re the one who goaded Stef about working,” she said. “You’re the one who made him feel that he needed a job more than he needed a loving home.”
Maybe Carol Jeanne would have said something nasty about Stef’s lack of a loving home, but Red didn’t give her a chance. “The hell with the job!” he thundered. “Nobody’s worried about the job except you, Carol Jeanne. I wouldn’t be surprised if you had Lovelock put that damned bee animation on the computer!”
Carol Jeanne could have answered him—she knew as well as I did who the source of the animation was. But she was so near tears that she couldn’t speak without crying. And rather than shame herself by showing such weakness in front of her husband and mother-in-law, she simply left the room.
I had no doubt that Mamie would now spread the rumor that Carol Jeanne was the one who had broken up her marriage by
her nasty insistence—including a vicious animation on the computer—that Stef had to get a job in order to be a real man. Mamie, the classic castrating female, was going to give Carol Jeanne the reputation that Mamie herself deserved.
We went to Carol Jeanne’s office, which wasn’t a public meeting place the way her bedroom seemed to be. I was glad of that, since it gave me a computer to use as my voice. Carol Jeanne sank into her chair and leaned her elbows on the counter. I slid the keyboard out to where I could use it. Her shoulders were heaving, so I knew she was crying though she made no sound. I was going to write her a message. I can’t remember now what it was I was going to say. Perhaps I was going to comfort her. Or reassure her that she was within her rights, so screw Penelope and Mayflower too. Or perhaps I had thought of some subtle inoffensive way to tell her that her neglect of the village was going to hurt her in the long run. This much I’m sure of: I still felt a great deal of love and responsibility toward Carol Jeanne, and so my message was going to be an assertion that I was on her side.
Whatever it was going to be, I didn’t get to write it. No sooner had I slid the keyboard to where I could reach it than Carol Jeanne reached out and slid it back under her own hands. There were tears still streaming down her face as she logged on, entered the mail program, and composed a note to Neeraj.
Lovelock Page 20