Plum Rains

by Andromeda Romano-Lax

  The morning passed as all mornings preparing for once-in-a-lifetime celebrations do: the clock unsprung, and people rushing into rooms and leaving them again, forgetting what they were looking for in the first place. Sayoko was exhausted and pretending not to be, Itou-san was anxious and pretending not to be, Hiro was determined to be of assistance and was most often helpful and occasionally in the way, asking too many questions. He also kept putting on and taking off his scarf, both wanting to wear it and concerned it was too casual for the occasion, until Itou finally took it away from him.

  Angelica appreciated Hiro’s presence, always willing to take orders, never offended. She accepted food deliveries at the door, heated this and refrigerated that, greeted early-arriving photographers and moved lamps and small furnishings at their request, assigned extra hired help to the gift table, went in search of family photos and heirlooms that had been put away the night before but were now asked after by the early-arriving reporters, who wanted all the details and color that could be provided.

  When Junichi showed up at the door, after the first media guests but before Itou’s work colleagues and other guests, he was the very last person Angelica expected to see.

  “Shouldn’t you be with your wife?”

  “She’s home now, with her mother.”

  “But don’t they both want you there?”

  “Her mother already blames me.”

  “How could she?”

  “For not sending her back to the clinic in Sweden. Now they tell us she should’ve been on twenty-four-hour watch. Before they said she was doing perfectly well . . .”

  With guests milling around behind them, Angelica touched Junichi’s hand as discreetly as she could.

  “Her father hates me for not insisting on adoption after the fourth miscarriage.”

  Angelica paused. “Is that still an option? You said it might be—before . . .”

  He looked down. “It makes me sick even to think about it.”

  She knew this wasn’t the time. He’d come around. But she was at a loss for how to lend hope. “It might work for you.”

  He looked up, newly exasperated. “I can’t bear the thought of my wife bleeding to death while in some backwards country a woman who doesn’t even want a baby is healthy but oblivious. Like a farm animal.”

  “A farm animal,” she repeated, chest tight. “You can’t blame people who live in countries that happen to be less chemically spoiled.”

  “I blame them for their ingratitude.”

  Angelica did not speak.

  “I didn’t come to discuss Yuki,” Junichi said. “Did you tell Itou about Hiro yet? Did you give him a good shock?”

  Shock. Yes, that was the word. Never mind about Hiro and Itou for the moment. But what was Junichi thinking, standing so close to her and saying Itou’s name out loud when others could easily hear?

  Angelica touched a table runner next to them and pretended to be suddenly concerned about a stain or dust. She whisked it off and headed, with purpose, to the balcony, knowing Junichi would follow.

  On the narrow, seldom-used balcony, shielded from the gathering guests’ view, Junichi paced, one hand in his pocket, the other hand lifted to his lips, the red end of a cigarette already burning.

  “You can’t smoke,” she said, flapping her hand at the first gray spiral, forcing it to disperse. “Itou-san doesn’t allow it anywhere. Put it out now. Please.”

  “You’re so worried what Itou-san will think. He isn’t your friend and soon he won’t be your employer. You haven’t come up with any proof that Hiro is a danger?”

  “Proof,” she said. “You mean lies.”

  He leaned forward to peer through the door at the latest arrivals. “Watanabe and Mitsue. Numbers two and three. Mitsue is retiring. I didn’t think he’d come. That’s the one Itou is supposed to replace.”

  “You don’t care whether I keep my job,” she said. “You only want Hiro to be declared a bad product so Itou will be judged harshly for favoring the model’s import.”

  “Hiro’s not a simple import, he’s a joint venture.” Junichi was antsy, forgetting to smoke the cigarette in his hand, and scanning the crowd as if watching for other key players, perhaps his allies, to appear. Angelica had no doubt that he had been conspiring with others at METI, leaking them information about Hiro, prodding or being prodded into whatever would come next. “He’s an illegal joint venture. You wouldn’t understand.”

  Angelica put her shoulders back and tried to stand taller. “Hiro isn’t precisely illegal. Anyway, regional agreements can be broken.”

  “You’ve finally started reading now?”

  She didn’t need to prove anything to him, but yes, she had finally started searching and reading: The 2015 Musk-Hawking letter, warning that superhuman AI could provide innumerable benefits but might destroy the human race if safeguards weren’t implemented, published when she was at her first nursing job and too busy to follow most international news; the ten-year anniversary letter, more pessimistic, an indictment of incautious researchers and profit-frenzied designers. The South Korean Sexbot ban of 2025. The U.S.-E.U. AI Accord of 2026, immediately undone by the final dissolution of the EU itself. The patchwork of regional agreements that followed, subject to complex interpretation, difficult to enforce, only a stopgap and yet vital: the Pause.

  “I know enough.”

  Through the closed glass balcony door, they heard the clap of hands as another of Itou’s colleagues called everyone to attention. The room had filled nearly to capacity, with guests still filing in, in neat order. The hour had struck. Through a gap in the blinds, Angelica watched.

  Now Itou was moving to the front of the room to give a welcome speech. Sayoko was seated in a large plush chair that had been drawn up to the front of the room, her less photogenic wheelchair and walker banished from sight. When a camera flashed, Sayoko winced, her narrow shoulders shrugged up around her ears, the special vest she’d worn for the day boxy and mannish on her slender frame. While Itou spoke with his eyes cast down, the humble son receiving his guests and extolling the virtues of his mother, Sayoko glanced around furtively.

  Angelica said, “We should go in.” But she didn’t want to slide the door open while Itou was speaking. The trick was to enter quietly and take their places at the back of the room. About forty people were now crowded into the main living area, some standing, some using the rented folding chairs.

  “He didn’t notice you were missing, Anji,” Junichi whispered. “You’re dispensable. That’s the only true thing in this shitty world. We’re all easily replaced.”

  The sight of someone new arriving, visible through the glass, made Junichi tense. “Otaka-san. Good.”

  “You’re not in your right mind, Junichi. Whatever you’re planning won’t solve your problems, or mine.”

  Angelica started to move forward but Junichi grabbed her elbow.

  “Please,” she said. “You should be at home comforting your wife, not sabotaging Itou.” She broke free from his grasp and went to the door.

  He stepped in front of her. “My wife is the reason I’m here. She could still try to end her life. She needs a child, Angelica.” His eyes were wild, but he was telling the truth. “In my current position, I can’t promise her expert care or even a foreign adoption. I can’t promise her anything. Try to understand.”

  Angelica had now seen Junichi at his worst. But she also believed him. He was acting abhorrently, but he was not acting selfishly. The situation had taken an essential part of him—his driven nature, his insistence on finding solutions instead of accepting what destiny intended—and amplified it to the point of distortion. She had seen what her own desperation could do. You started out wanting to help, to protect, and you ended up controlling, deceiving and destroying.

  Angelica softened her approach. “Maybe you can’t help Yuki. Maybe you weren’t
even meant to be together. I know you think you love her. But—”

  “You wouldn’t say that if you’d known us when we married. It was only after the baby craziness that things changed. Five years of talking about nothing else. Five years of seeing her miserable. I used to live for Yuki.” He choked on his next words. “And she used to live for me.”

  Angelica reached a hand toward his arm. A moment earlier, she couldn’t stand to be near him. And now she wished they could start over as friends, or at least forgive each other. She had never known the real Junichi. She had only met the shadow Junichi, railing against forces beyond his control.

  “I have to tell you something,” she whispered. “Junichi, please.”

  But he’d had enough now. He moved away from her touch. He started to open the sliding door. If she didn’t say it now she might never say it.

  “Junichi. I’m pregnant.”

  By the way he kept moving, she had to assume he hadn’t heard.

  In the living room, Itou introduced Minister Otaka and then Hiro, who came forward with head bowed. People were still clapping and cameras flashing when Angelica stepped inside, head down, and followed the wall to the back of the room, just behind Junichi.

  In the embarrassment of her late entrance, she missed the moment when Hiro positioned himself between Itou and Sayoko, but when she heard the low, sweet note, she looked up, first puzzled, then incredulous. A woman in front of her exclaimed in an appreciative whisper: “Waaaa.”

  Hiro played the one drawn-out note on the clarinet, a note so long Angelica thought it was all he was prepared to do. It was an adequate display, showing the capacity of his bellowed artificial lungs, the neat design of his simple mouth. Then he progressed from the first long note to the next ones, moving his agile fingers. He raised and lowered his arms as he played. A demonstration. All right, the body language of the crowd seemed to communicate politely, as one would expect at a child’s Suzuki recital or in a high-tech robotics showroom. This year’s model, with a few new features. But he certainly wasn’t the first automaton to play a musical instrument.

  “Very good,” Itou said, to Hiro and the crowd.

  Angelica was distracted by the argument with Junichi, with his emotional outburst followed by her confession and the question of whether or not he had heard and what would happen next. She struggled to shift her attention to Hiro’s spectacle, but something was happening. Something in the room was changing.

  The first moments of music had been well received, but Hiro was not satisfied. He blew harder: a raw, wild note more fitting for a dark basement club than an elegant reception. Glances were exchanged in the audience. Many seemed to think it was a mistake, tarnishing the success of the first attempt.

  Then the note stepped up, and down and up again, ever higher, in shorter intervals. The melody, elaborated with trills, took shape and Hiro coaxed it further, his body language registering impatience and longing until he’d gotten into the groove of his playing.

  Itou’s face lit up. He laughed once, spontaneously, almost aggressively. Really?

  And then his expression changed, no less than the quality of Hiro’s playing had changed, as Itou recognized the composer and the song—and the fact that Hiro was not following the song, exactly. He was improvising, not by following any external cues but through his own dynamic inspiration. Yes, really. In-puro-bi-ze-shon.

  Angelica was as struck by Itou’s expressions as by the music itself. He nodded with deeper approval, detecting that Hiro was on the trail of something, heading in a new direction, one that might not be entirely pleasing. Or might be. The uncertainty made the musical experiment electric. Itou’s gaze, which had been fixed upon Hiro, wandered up and over the heads of the guests, toward the ceiling, all the better to block out distractions, to examine what he was hearing.

  Angelica did not know jazz, but she could tell Hiro’s performance was unexpected. Half of the room was silent while the other half had put aside all propriety and was whispering or shushing someone for whispering. Phones had come out of pockets and were being held over heads, filming now.

  Itou furrowed his brow, trying and failing to contain his emotions. Perhaps Hiro’s skilled performance would only serve to remind him what he hadn’t managed to achieve, giving him a taste of the anguish of replacement that Angelica had felt. Perhaps he’d even turn against the robot because of it.

  Once that would have been a victory.

  No longer.

  Angelica glanced at Sayoko—self-possessed, pleased but not particularly animated—and then back at Itou, who had now lost his composure entirely. Angelica looked away, but it was too late. It was something in her programming, to cry upon seeing another person cry—something in all of our programming. From the quick chorus of surprised female voices in the front, Angelica knew that the rest of the room had noticed Itou’s loss of control, too. Several of the women began to sniffle.

  When Hiro finished, there was applause from the third of the room that had been willing to set their phones down. The others were still filming.

  Itou turned aside, pulled a handkerchief from his suit pocket, wiped his face, and turned back again. “So.”

  The crowd chuckled at his loss for words.

  He cleared his throat and tried again. “When Hiro asked if he could publicly present a surprise birthday gift to Sayoko, I said, Yes, why not? He asked permission to use my clarinet, but I had no idea of his full capacities. It seems—”

  “Excuse me,” Hiro interrupted. “Excuse me, Itou-san.”

  Itou laughed at Hiro’s temerity and the audience responded appreciatively. Angelica noticed a woman reporter turn to her colleague, sharing a half smile as she whispered, “It must be staged.”

  At the front of the room, Itou said to Hiro, “You have something more to add?”

  “That was not the gift for Sayoko-san. She is not a fan of the clarinet, Itou-san. You are.”

  The crowd laughed again, relieved that the mood had shifted to humor.

  A whispered conversation took place in front of Angelica, between two men. “What did they use to call it? The old Turing test? To tell human from machine? With my eyes closed, I was fooled.”

  “With my eyes open, I was fooled.”

  The men were shushed by an elegantly dressed woman sitting next to them.

  Itou said, louder, trying to quell the whispers and bring the attention back to the front of the room, “You have another song for my mother?”

  “With apologies, I have something else.”

  Hiro bowed. He turned and walked a few steps, retrieved the gift for Sayoko and placed it tenderly in her lap, bowing again. She looked up at the crowd, her lips drawn thin and tight, her breath shallow, her smile unconvincing, except for that moment when she glanced again at Hiro and warmed a little. She took a deep breath and settled back in the chair, eyes looking down at the thing in her lap. Unlike Itou, she was not moved by any of these circus antics, and she was not inclined to enjoy surprises.

  Hiro held his open fingers out toward her, the rounded metal tips curling inward with impatience as if to say, Come on. Open it.

  The item was as big as a platter and unevenly shaped. Sayoko began to unwrap the patterned gift cloth and when she had trouble with a knot, Hiro reached forward and released it for her, allowing the cloth to drop open across her narrow lap.

  Her audible gasp quieted the last of the conversations in the room.

  Hiro offered to lift the mechanical object from the cloth and raise it for her to inspect better. She resisted, hand to the cloth, as if to cover it up. Her actions only made the crowd lean forward in their chairs. The standing photographers became more alert, elbows up and cameras ready.

  Itou took a step closer to his mother. “Is something wrong?”

  Sayoko turned her head sharply to one side. Angelica thought she was shrinking away from the fri
ghtening object itself, but then she realized that Sayoko was only trying to hide her face.

  “Yes, I know what it is. It’s not a gift. It already belonged to me.”

  “But I polished it, and I fixed it,” Hiro said. “It moves again.”

  Itou took a step forward, to explain to the audience. “It’s only a family heirloom. There’s no problem.”

  When Hiro lifted the mechanical crab into the air, winding a mechanism underneath its carapace, and demonstrated how its eight copper-colored legs could move, just a few centimeters front or back, Itou looked relieved. All eyes were tracking the strange clockwork object, well over a hundred years old.

  “A gift to my mother,” Itou explained with false heartiness to the crowd. “It is an early mechanical toy she was given as a child.”

  This focus on the crab brought the eyes and the camera away from his mother, whom Itou was attempting to shield with his body. But Angelica could make out the tremor of her feet, which didn’t quite reach the floor, the shudder moving up her legs and taking over her thin body. Over the light clicking of the crab’s legs, the entire room could hear Sayoko’s sobs.

  Bending at her side, Hiro tried to soothe her. “I knew it would help you remember.”

  “The problem is not what I remember,” she said. “It’s what I can’t forget.”

  Angelica remembered Sayoko’s story from the night before: how she had believed that if only she talked to the clockwork crab, if she believed in it and was loyal to it, it would become her secret friend. It would protect her. Sayoko had been waiting her whole life for the day non-life would become life, a vessel for spirit, no less strange or unbelievable than the grandfather tree which Daisuke had worshipped. Hiro had been tailor-made for Sayoko, but Sayoko had also been tailor-made for Hiro.

  But the crowd didn’t need to understand that. They needed only to appreciate that this event was emotional, as any centenary birthday might be. Angelica looked to Itou, wishing he would give some signal that the guests should rise and leave. But no, there were still more ritual gifts, more speeches. Angelica knew they were pushing Sayoko too far.