by John Kessel
Carey looked down at his hands. “That’s his mother’s department,” he said, equally calm. “It’s not what I do.”
Mira slumped into her desk chair. Sometimes his fusion of privilege and passivity infuriated her, but she could see that under his ability to charm his friends, he discounted anything he had ever accomplished. “Why not? I know you love him. I think maybe he’s the only person you truly love.”
He looked up. “I know him better than Roz does. Better than any woman ever could. I was him.”
“So live with them. If any man could, you could. You’re all Greens.”
“And be ignored? Any new woman joins the family, she already has more authority than I have. Even the men who live with their kids don’t do the real work of a father.”
“The real work of a father? I don’t think anyone is looking for a patriarch around here.”
“I don’t want to be a patriarch. But a nice start would be if the Society acknowledged the connection between me and Val. I want the rights of a parent, and the responsibilities. I don’t know exactly what a father is supposed to be, but I want to be one. Give me the chance, I could redefine the term.”
Mira felt her anger drain away. “So why don’t you?”
“Why don’t I what?”
“Redefine fatherhood. Own your son. Take everything you are and have experienced and make a statement.”
“You’re kidding, right? I can’t do that.”
“Do you know how weak that sounds? You act like you have no choice.”
“You don’t know what it’s like to be a Green. My mother, my aunts, Roz—the dynamic there has no place for the kind of father I could be.”
“Then take Val away from that place.”
Carey looked at her skeptically. Watching him think about it, it occurred to her that, without intending to, she had said something that was going to change their lives.
CHAPTER
THREE
AS A GIRL AMESTRIS WAS fascinated by the story of Tahmineh, daughter of King Samangan. When the hero Rostam visited her father’s palace, Tahmineh, having heard tales of Rostam’s valor, was so consumed by desire that she would have no other man. After all were asleep she snuck into Rostam’s room and offered herself to him. They spent one exquisite, fateful night together, after which Rostam departed.
There was a lot more to this tale: a son unknown to his father, treacherous kings, a tragic ending. That was what everyone else saw in it. But that was not what captivated Amestris.
No woman Amestris knew growing up—her mother, her aunts, her sisters, other schoolgirls—seemed likely ever to behave like Tahmineh, to see what she desired and take it. It was not what Persepolis taught its women. Yet Tahmineh was praised, not condemned, for her boldness. Her mind and body, the Shahnameh said, were pure, and she seemed not to partake of earthly existence at all. Wasn’t she as heroic as Rostam, in her way? A woman possessed only by herself, who wanted only the best, and who when the opportunity presented itself would rather be immolated than take the safe path.
If you desire me, I am yours, and none
Shall see or hear of me from this day on;
Desire destroys my mind . . .
It had been three weeks since she had last gone clubbing, and desire was destroying Amestris’s mind, and so she found herself one evening in the corridors of Dorud. The crowds in Shiraz Concourse were sprinkled with foreign businessmen, tourists, and guest workers. Men vastly outnumbered women, and those women not accompanied by husband or brother were with women friends. Amestris was alone. Her beautifully tailored jilbab was form-fitting, with an elaborately embroidered neckline over a plain black bodice. Though her clothing could not in any technical way be said to be immodest, that would not be much defense if she ran into some self-appointed morality police. She might rely on its fine tailoring and obvious expense as evidence that she was not a person to be trifled with, but whenever things got particularly sticky she could always fall back on her last name.
Normally she would have confined herself to the clubs in the finest hotels; it was evidence of how nothing else would do that she was in this rough neighborhood. Rudabeh’s Garden catered to university students, political radicals, expats from other colonies and Mars, and the small multigendered community. At the door an augmented orang, in a child’s Persian, asked for her membership. Amestris held her wrist beneath the scanner and, satisfied, the doorman let her in.
As soon as she entered, she flipped the wimple back to her shoulders, showing its violet lining, and unclipped her jet-black hair. Among the patrons she recognized Katayoun, who handled civil water contracts for the colony. Ali Reza, who came from one of the oldest families in Persepolis and could not be said to have any job other than entertaining himself. A few others, friends and former lovers.
Amestris found a booth, among women dressed in tight saris, pants suits, skirts, and blouses. Both men and women gave evidence of every sort of cosmetic manipulation: Persepolis was the body mod capital of the moon.
She ordered a tea called Feral. The edges of her vision vibrated. In an alcove she shared the hookah with two women who chatted about vacationing on Earth, and a man who told of climbing Olympus Mons during his last trip to Mars. The man, Arsalan, claimed to be an engineer for an energy corporation.
After a while the women left, and Amestris and Arsalan settled into a more intimate conversation. He had high cheekbones and dark skin, very dark eyes. He said he was thirty-three years old, ten years her junior. He touched his finger to the back of her hand, traced a line there from her wrist to her index finger. The brush of his dry skin made her tingle. He leaned close. He reeked of cologne.
“I spent the last three days on the surface, calibrating a new solar collector on the basin wall. My eyes are tired of squinting, and looking at you is a balm.”
“If you had to squint, your suit must have lacked a sun shield.”
He paused to appraise her. “You’re right. That was not strictly true. But can you say you don’t like me looking at you?”
“I’d like better your being honest with me.”
“Honesty is essential to seduction. Once you can fake that, anything is possible.”
“We’ve yet to discover what is possible.”
“Something must be possible. At the very least, you want to be distracted.”
“That doesn’t sound very romantic.”
“I am very romantic. Will you marry me?”
Amestris laughed. “I don’t do sham marriages.”
“It’s as real as any marriage. More honest than most.”
She would shine him on. “And you’ll give me how much in dowry?”
“Let’s say we set a mahriyeh of one hundred rials.”
“Suppose, instead, I give you—three hundred.”
He drew back. “I am no gigolo.”
“And I am no whore. So perhaps we can find an arrangement that does not involve money. Give me something you genuinely value. I will give something I value to you. What do you have to give?”
Arsalan studied her. “I give you my genuine attention.”
Amestris rolled the mouthpiece of the hookah on the table. “That’s good. But can you make the world disappear? Can you give me that?”
“Not permanently. The world will come back again, inevitably.”
He looked momentarily sad, and that convinced her. He really was quite handsome, and after all, the tired version of manhood he had tried to present was only what most men in Persepolis thought they were supposed to offer. Some women even liked it.
“There is a hotel—” he began.
“I’ll select the place. Come with me.”
Outside, the sound of competing music still drifted from the clubs. An emaciated man in an exo suit begged for alms. Amestris gave him a rial. Arsalan’s fingers twined with hers.
As they passed the door of a tavern, shouts came from within and two men were thrown into the street. One, with long, fair hair, stumbled and fel
l, then bounced up, muttering something in English. When he started back inside, his companion grabbed him by the arm.
Arsalan put himself between them and Amestris. She steered Arsalan out of Dorud to the Hotel Gorbanifar. It was a residential hotel, not one of the ones, little more than brothels, that lined the bazaar in Dorud. In the spotless glare of the lobby, they made their arrangements with the clerk, Gabba, a man of middle years with an impressive black beard.
Amestris asked for a suite. When Arsalan tried to pay, she put her hand on his arm. She did not know whether he was wealthy or whether he had saved up for three months in the effort to impress, but she did not want him to pay for anything.
Their suite, lit by recessed amber lights, featured a divan, a low glass-topped table, a heated tub of scented water, a window with a view of earthrise over the Lunar Carpathians, and a very large bed. The carpet over the warmed stone floor was elaborately figured in flowers and trees.
As soon as the door closed behind them, they were in each other’s arms. Amestris kicked off her shoes and fell onto the divan. Arsalan kissed her lips, neck, ear. He pulled her to him. She pushed him back and lay on his chest, staring down into his face, but after a moment he rolled her onto her side, undid her belt and tugged the jilbab over her head. He kissed her breasts and belly. He talked to her, called her names. She tried to guide him, to little effect: He was impatient. But he was strong, and he was eager for her, and Amestris was able to lose herself for a few moments before he climaxed, gave a little moan, and lay heavily on her.
After some time he pulled himself up and poured them each a cup of wine. They lay together on the divan, the light from the crescent Earth painting their bodies. “Did I hurt you?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “You didn’t hurt me.”
“You are so lovely.”
She put down her cup and kissed him, slowly, brushing her lips against his. He seemed to think that was a signal. He lifted her up, carried her to the pool, and stepped in with her still in his arms.
Rose petals floated on the surface. The warm water undulated thickly, slowly, throwing off large drops as they moved. Arsalan was more patient this time. Trying to feel something, she wrapped her legs around him, felt his slick chest against her breasts. The water carried away most of the scent of his cologne. Her hand on his back, his breath on her forehead, her ear. As he moved against her, the water splashed into her face, and she closed her eyes. He took her wet hair in his hand and pulled her head back below the surface. She went with it—but he would not let her up. She struggled, and still he held her down. She kicked at him, used her fingernails on his back, found his face with her hand. Finally he released her. She sputtered, gasping for breath. He gave a low laugh and moved to kiss her neck.
She pushed him away. “Stop!”
He pulled back. “What?”
Amestris climbed out of the tub. The water streamed slowly from her, and then clung to her body, held by surface tension. It was a distinctly uncomfortable feeling, to be encased in a film of water. Gradually it slid down from her head, shoulders, chest. She felt sick. She took up a towel and covered herself. “You can’t use me that way.”
“You liked it.” He looked up at her, chest-deep in the water, and relaxed back against the wall of the tub, arms resting on the ledge.
He didn’t think anything had happened. She wrapped herself in the towel, picked up his jacket, and threw it at him. “Get dressed!”
He surged up to snatch the jacket as it floated through the air, holding it high to keep it from the water. “What is wrong with you?”
“Leave. I want you out of here.”
Slowly, Arsalan climbed out of the tub. She threw him a towel, then got onto the bed, pulling the duvet up around her. Earthlight cast his biceps in relief, showed his sloping, muscular shoulder, delicately painted his slender hips and legs. Whether he was born with it or engineered into it, he had a beautiful body. Sullenly, he took up his clothes and in short, violent motions, pulled them on.
At the door he turned. “Whore,” he spat, and walked out.
She lay on the bed, breathing deeply to calm her raging heart. Tears gathered in her eyes. For a long time she lay there. Why did she do this? So a night of sex might flood her brain with dopamine? She could find that at much less cost in a cup of tea.
She supposed she needed the physicality: Nothing else would do. Some command of her genes at the prospect of producing a child. Yet she had no desire for children. Was she so much an animal that nothing—her intellect, her culture—could overrule that impulse?
Or maybe it was the culture that made her this way, damaged her so that she gave herself to men who tried only to take her, not understanding that she could not be taken, only given? Idiot dream. Another sordid connection with some dangerous clown bearing a heroic name.
He was right: The world had not disappeared.
• • • • •
She was awakened by a woman who came to clean the room. Small, dark, a tight cap covering her hair, the woman turned the dawn light up on the pixwall. Silently she plucked a container from the caddy she carried and shook a cloud of nanobots into the tub. The bots drifted like dust to the water’s surface, then activated and disappeared, devouring organics. The woman took out a small net and began skimming sodden rose petals off the water.
Amestris’s pillow was damp from her wet hair. Her clothing lay scattered about, one shoe standing, the other lying in its side under the table. Her head throbbed. She tugged the duvet up to her neck. “What time is it?” she asked.
Her Aide whispered in her ear, Five twenty-two. Simultaneously the woman, not turning to her, said, “It’s five twenty-two, madam.”
“So early?”
“You may stay if you like. I need to clean the room.”
Amestris could object to being disturbed so early—had Arsalan spoken to Gabba on the way out? Maybe Gabba had sent the maid specifically to discomfit her—but Amestris did not have the spirit for it. She gathered up her clothing. On her hands and knees she fished the shoe out from under the table. The woman ignored her. Amestris dressed, left three coins for her on the bedside, and fled.
The concourses were empty now. In the main ways, people with early shifts were going to work, waiting for the train, opening shops and restaurants.
Wash the wine stain from your dervish cloak with tears,
For it is the season of piety, and the time for abstinence.
The few other passengers on the tram were servants on their way to work in her neighborhood. She recognized several, and had no doubt that they knew her. Across from her an interactive poster bore the alert face of Sirius, the investigative canine: “Dog Star!” it proclaimed. Amestris closed her eyes to keep it from talking to her, and rested her head against the back of her seat.
The tram ran along one of the primary concourses, then entered the tunnel that took them outside the city. Eventually it emerged into Nabiyev, the satellite community where her family had their primary residence. A few people got off with her. The neat little station was quiet. Amestris passed through the sliding door into her neighborhood.
Originally constructed by North American investors, Nabiyev began as four roofed artificial canyons that formed a square, into the sides of which had been carved dormitories, warehouses, and workshops. After being taken over by Persepolis fifty years ago, it had been reconstructed into an exclusive residential enclave. The central square of lunar rock had been blasted away and the area thereby opened turned into an elaborate park, with trees, flowers, intricate pathways, and reflecting pools. Pomegranates, figs, dwarf cherries, eucalyptus. The bees that hovered over the flocks of lavender produced some of the best honey in the colony. Water had been invested extravagantly. The roof shield could be set from complete transparency to any number of projected false skies, from earthlike blue to the traditional patterns of a Persian mosaic. From her childhood on, Amestris had daily escaped from her family to this park with her friends, giving the
slip to Mrs. Barnhardt, her indulgent and unreliable governess.
On the canyon walls, the utilitarian dormitories had been expanded into private residences fronted by a colonnade of pointed arches. Amestris hoped to sneak in through the servants’ entrance to her room without arousing her parents’ attention. Forty-three, yet she crept around like an adolescent. To quiet her step she removed her shoes. When she turned the corner near the alley to the servants’ entrance, she found herself face to face with their neighbor, Mr. Kalbasi.
“Ms. Eskander?” he said. He saw the shoes in her hand and looked down at her feet.
“Good morning, Mr. Kalbasi.” Kalbasi was a pious rug merchant, very proud of his fundraising for the Twelver mosque. Glad for the wimple that hid her shamefully tangled hair, Amestris bowed her head and slipped past him to the back door.
The cook, Farah, was in the kitchen, but she could be trusted not to say anything. Amestris crept to her room and took several hundred milligrams of a noötropic, drank a bulb of electrolyte, stripped, and took a shower. She untangled and braided her hair. The mirror showed dark circles under her eyes. She poked another two hundred milligrams of stimulants, dressed for work, and went down to breakfast. Her mother, her sister Fatima, and brother-in-law Kayvon were already there, seated on cushions around the low table. The room opened onto the courtyard with its eucalyptus and pool. Three sunning turtles were lined up on a log.
Her mother, stone silent, did not meet Amestris’s eyes. She poured tea for Fatima and Kayvon.
“Good morning, sister,” Kayvon said. Kayvon fancied himself a man of subtle wit, heir to the great Persian courtiers. Through his marriage to Fatima he hoped to whisper into the ear of their father and control the financial destiny of Persepolis. In reality, he was a sarcastic boor. Had he not produced a pair of sons by Fatima, Cyrus Eskander would not have tolerated his presence.
Amestris took orange juice and a slice of passion fruit. Her stomach could not tolerate anything more.