The Year's Best Science Fiction--Thirty-Fourth Annual Collection

by Gardner Dozois

  He never quite got, dear Juan Emmanuel, that Colinas DO have sex, some of them at least, but not just with one person. He drove Zena mad, long after the marriage was over, long after she began to turn her back every time she saw him coming. Why did you want to be with me all the time?

  “You will come to love me,” he responded. “You are my woman.” The Colinas have no word for wife or husband or spouse. No one marries.

  Poor Juan Emmanuel Medrano. He lived outside the walls on the tiny strip of beach still writing his wife long poems. She moved to a village on the other side of the island. Go home, the Colinas advised him. But Juan Emmanuel couldn’t. He loved the place; I believe him when he says he loved Zena. How could you not believe him—look at all he gave up. He became a pathetic figure; forbidden the entire island except for what became the Precinct. He told stories for visitors, set up a hotel, waited out the winter season, and wrote a lexicon and grammar of the Colinas language, which is still the best we have. Hollywood made a movie about him starring Humphrey Bogart—he mans the artillery that sink the British gunboats. Irony alert: of course those women needed a man to defend them. Ingrid Bergman won an Oscar for playing Zena. In the Foreign House, they still sing that song. Play it for me, Sam.

  * * *

  That night La Señora invited me to dinner. The room was no bigger than any of the others, a two-chamber hollow in the rock. The walls were covered with beautiful paintings. One of the few things they import from us is oil-based pigments. La Señora explained who had painted what—lots of portraits and bowls of fruit, not great art, but all of it colorful and fun.

  They had the money to import something else. Four of the women scurried out and came back laboring under a huge canvas. My breath caught and I sputtered with recognition as if the Queen of England had just walked in—it was one of Monet’s giant water lily paintings. I remembered the scandal in France when it had been sold.

  It is like us, one of them said, and left it leaning against the wall.

  The room had no TV; there was no computer. I asked Luminosa why not. She said they had tried our movies but they were all full of murder or marriage. “We like the cartoons for kids. But in Wall-E two robots get married. Why would robots get married? A doll of a cowgirl and a doll of a spaceman get married. Even things get married.” She shook her head.

  The girls started to run in with elaborate clothes. They hauled me to my feet and took off my old khaki. I felt fat and sagging like I needed a scaffolding to hold me up. They pulled over my head a gelabia with black applique. Then a kind of red velvet cape that made me feel like Red Riding Hood. They started swapping clothes, too—butterfly saris, shawls of black lace, Kevlar body armor. Their laughter bounded off the rock and straight into my head.

  The Colinas don’t own anything.

  * * *

  My days began to be the same. I asked to be taken up onto the plateau again. I especially wanted to see the container port and the factories. Finally Luminosa said that it was policy not to allow anyone to see their factories.

  Luminosa insisted on taking over one of the implants herself, asking me to guide her, and then—without asking me—signaled Evie to try. That was clever of her—I wanted Evie to do well. “Sí, sí, esa es la manera de hacerlo!”

  Evie and I would walk back to the Foreign House, long after the bell, long after the tourists cleared.

  About a week in.

  We’re walking through dusk and candlelight and all those lovely sounds and I’m holding her hand. But tonight for some reason, fireworks. Tourists are lining the high walls of the Custom House, applauding and raising glasses of champagne.

  We’re looking up and Evie says, You write me yes when you go home.

  “Yes yes OK yes.”

  We have Sky-pee.

  And I chuckle. “You use Skype? And Facebook?”

  Sky-pee yes. No Facebook No Twits.

  “Why not?”

  Sky-pee one person, one person. She holds up two fingers.

  I can’t think of a way to say Just you and me in her language. I manage We talk much and she giggles and shakes her head, which means yes, but still feels like no to me.

  That night I go to bed in the Foreign House and it’s like my very bones are humming, and I see her and I see me. I see me taking one half of my DNA and putting it into her egg. I see us having a child together. I’ll carry it if they say we can’t, that the child might lose parthenogenesis. And she and I will live together with our child in one of those towns, next to forests of oranges, mangoes, and quince, and I’ll keep helping their babies to be born.

  I felt elated the whole of the next day; I could feel my face make nice shapes; I could see me sparking laughter in other people. That night I asked Evie if she wanted to see my room—that’s allowed, she is a Colina, she can go anywhere. The room made her giggle. She ran into the bathroom and flicked the lights, flushed the toilet and turned on the TV—and great, yes, it was CSI and they were cutting up a corpse—but for some reason that seemed to be the funniest thing she’d ever seen and she flung herself onto the bed and bounced up and down on it.

  Too ripe. Couldn’t sleep here.

  She stretched out and I couldn’t help giving her a kiss. I hugged her and rolled her back and forth, back and forth. She wasn’t laughing but looked both troubled and awed, so I kissed her again, open-mouthed this time, and I felt her chest rise up in response.

  I would never force myself on anyone. But there are Colinas who want sex. They are not arrested or mocked, but they are regarded as being different. A holdover from the days of change those 1,700 years ago. We didn’t do anything adventurous that first night but I couldn’t stop myself saying, “I love you.” She slipped away and gave a wave with just the tips of her fingers. I watched from my window as she walked through the Plaza at 11.30 pm.

  The next day, Evie looked merry. I thought I had made her happy. She stood up straighter and her eyes looked that bit narrower, as if she had learned something new. She snatched things from people and wagged her hips as if to mock them. Her friends laughed louder or gaped in a caricature of open-mouthed shock, pretending (it seemed to me) to be scandalized. One of the elders came in and clapped her hands and said something outraged and schoolmarmish. I couldn’t help but smile and shake my head. The older woman glared at me. What am I, then, a ringleader? A bad influence? I dipped my chin, crumpled my lips, and laughed. Evie caught my look, laughed and clapped her hands. OK, I am a bad influence, what are you going to do about it?

  That night, long after bedtime, we went for a walk in the Precinct, listening to small waves rolling pebbles back into the water. Out to sea all those floating hotels, container ships, or private yachts. Ciudad was silent now and dark, and Evie’s eyes were wide, thrilled but also scared. She insisted we go into a bar.

  Immediately two women strode up, wanting to talk. One of them pinned us to the table by saying she’d buy us some drinks. The other squared off with me and asked us outright—how did we meet? How did I know her? They asked her questions about how the Colinas got pregnant and had to be told several times. Twice I explained that Colinas did not form relationships with each other as we understood it. Evie sipped her whisky and hated it, her lips turning down, her nose wrinkling. The two women laughed and one said, “You drink it like this,” and knocked the shot back down in one.

  The questions didn’t stop, of her, of me. What are the houses like inside? What do you mean they don’t own anything—they’ve sewn up the world market in all kinds of things. Other couples shuffled closer, stood in a huddle trying to hear, desperate to actually meet a Colina. Do you go to school? What music do you like? Have you heard of a singer called Mariah Carey?

  I said we had to be away. One of them said no, stay, the next round’s on me. I was worried but Evie seemed to like it. The bar was playing Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” and before I knew it, one of the women had made off with my girlfriend. The woman danced like Will Smith making fun of old bl
ack men—was she really doing the boogaloo? Evie tried to dance then shook her head, stepped back, and just watched.

  “No—come on, you’re supposed to join in!”

  I got worried. I got mad. I strode up to both of them and said in Colina, Bedtime. Sleep now.

  Evie smiled and did a head-wobble that I thought meant yes, because it was indeed time to go.

  “Spiriting her away, are you?”

  As I bundled her off, I told them over my shoulder that Evie had to be up at four and all the other Colinas would be in bed. The woman turned sideways and rumpled her lip at me—I know what you’re up to.

  I felt guilty and sore, like I’d overdone a workout in the gym, and my heart felt bigger, swollen with misgiving because I was beginning to see that what I wanted would not be possible. I asked Evie to come to my room, and she nodded her head up and down exaggeratedly like a child, which meant no. But I reacted like she’d said yes and pulled her with me. She started to giggle and also to shake, but I got her into the room and hugged her and said, “Stay with me.”

  We rolled on the bed again and this time I traced her nipples with my tongue down to her joybox and kissed her there. She had a clitoris (though people say they don’t) and kissing it had the usual effect. She did not kiss me back—but I thought, give it time. The ache inside was gone: she was mine. More or less fully clothed, I slept. When I woke up again about two, she was gone.

  The next day at the clinic she whispered, “I don’t see you again.” I felt like I just swallowed a barium meal, my throat and esophagus coated all the way to my nauseous stomach.

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry if we went too far.”

  I thought I knew what the trouble was. Again, no words in Colina. “My intentions are strictly honorable,” I said in English as a joke and mimed a chuckle. I couldn’t find a light, jokey way to say it even in Spanish.

  I told her, Not that thing only. Good thing. I had no way to say, “It’s not just the sex, I want to be your partner.” She sighed and looked back at me glumly and seemed to shrink.

  I had to say it in Spanish. “I … want … to … marry … you.” I hammered each word like a nail.

  She stared blankly, eyes on the floor, and then abruptly streamed out through the archway.

  I thought I was in love; I thought this was it; I thought we’d have a child; I thought I’d live here—I saw it all in front of me, a beautiful new life. And I’d lost it. I hated myself for having sex. I held my head in my hands and paced and called myself stupid. Why why ruin everything for sex, when what I wanted was a wife? I had completely misunderstood the problem.

  In the morning, full of determination, I went to the Civil Palace to see La Señora Luminosa and declare myself. It was still dark, but the stars seemed to make a promise. I could hear the waves and seagulls and slippered feet. It was early even for them. I knew what I was going to do and felt solemn, determined, even brave.

  In the Palace, Luminosa was lighting candles, her face a bit puffy from having just woken up. Another elder shuffled forward and yawned.

  “I’ve done a terrible thing,” I said. “I … Evie and me…”

  “She was in your room and you had sex. Not so terrible.” She didn’t even look at me.

  “No. You don’t understand. I didn’t force myself on her or anything. But I’m not sure she was ready for it.”

  Luminosa said Evie’s Colina name in surprise. “Eouvwetzixityl? If she didn’t want it, it wouldn’t happen.” The old woman looked amused. “She was curious, I think. And I believe she likes it.” Luminosa stood up and looked straight at me, a half-smile on her face. “So have you confessed enough?”

  “I want you to know, I wasn’t just toying with her, or exploiting her.”

  “You couldn’t.”

  “I want to marry her.”

  Both women stopped, looked at each other, and then started to laugh. The elder made a kind of squawk, covered her mouth, and had to turn her back. Luminosa groaned, “Oh no!”

  “I … I … I … could live here. I … we … we could have a child. You know, me contribute to the gene pool.” That was my attempt to join in with what I thought was a robust and hearty reaction.

  Luminosa shook her head. “Women do this, too?”

  “We fall in love, yes.”

  The elder woman howled with laughter and ran off, calling out names.

  Luminosa sighed. “You can’t marry. We have no such category in law. And there is no question of you being able to stay and live with us. It was in your contract.”

  I began to feel cold, but with sweat along my hairline. “Well, well, I think we ought to hear from Evie.”

  “We will.” She went back to lighting candles. I began to hear from outside cries and shouts, doors slamming and the usual morning sounds of running feet, perhaps with more laughter than usual.

  The Colinas gawped at me feverishly, eyes glistening. They chattered and roared with laughter. Evie strode in, her back rigid, eyes wide, hands clasped in front of her like a choirboy trying to make the toilet in time.

  Luminosa said, her voice going brassy, Foreigner wants to do Medrano with you.

  Bouquets of faces crammed through the doorway, and they all roared with laughter. Evie looked mortified and also weary at the same time. At that moment, my only concern was for her.

  Why do this? she asked me. You want me inside you like a baby! I remember that phrase because it was so strange. But she had no word for ownership. She couldn’t say: Why do you want to own me? Both hands were curled into claws of frustration. She spun on her heel and pushed her way through the throng.

  I began to realize just how big a catastrophe this was.

  They would tell me to leave; they would tell SingleHelix the reason why. It’s part of our ethos never to proposition the single women we help all over the world. I would have to leave the company, maybe the country: Santo Domingo has very few jobs in the field.

  “Start today’s clinic,” advised Luminosa.

  Evie did not visit that day or the next. No one said much else about it, though some of the students’ jaws swelled with suppressed laughter. How you have baby with Evie she has baby coming? one of them asked. Why Evie want three babies? Each time one of them asked a question like that there was shrill, speeded-up laughter as if flowers had learned how to chuckle.

  Nobody asked me to climb the hill again or to eat with them. When the evening bell tolled, I had to vacate the Plaza. I went to the Foreign House and waited in that downstairs bar, pacing, clutching a gin, staring out at the Plaza. It looked empty but rang with laughter and that made me wonder if they were telling jokes about me. I hoped Evie would come. I waited long after 9 pm when all was still and dark, thinking that she might slip away when she thought nobody could see. Finally the barista said I should get some sleep, as she folded the big iron shutters and slipped bolts into the floor.

  Two days later I was asked to attend a breakfast in the Palace. I knew what it was about. There were nuts and fruit and cheese. The elders thanked me for a job well done. They said they were particularly pleased by my teaching and all the efforts I had made to fit in, and to show interest in and respect for their culture. I was to receive a ten-thousand-dollar bonus.

  “And don’t worry—we have said not a thing about Evie to your … your … owners.” Luminosa’s smile was like the Mona Lisa’s.

  I spent another night pacing in the bar, listening to that sound of laughter, singing, prayer—nightmarish. It wasn’t just losing Evie. I was losing that sound, I was losing a country. I couldn’t believe that I would have to go back to Santo Domingo and the Agora Mall, with its McDonald’s and its Apple Store and its pharmacy that sold ultraviolet toothbrush sterilizers for fifty bucks. The world felt like an apple withering with age.

  That night was fireworks again and the hotel’s doors were open, and I glanced about me as the sky boomed and battered and kept blossoming out like flowers, and I gathered myself up, darted around the black cloth partiti
ons that separated us from the Plaza. And I ran. I pounded across the pavement, imagining that I was being chased. I ran past the bougainvillea front of what had been my clinic, up the main steps, and then along each of the terraces, as if in panic, looking through each open archway, checking rooms full of flickering light and surprised faces. No Evie, no Luminosa, room after room.

  Finally I found Luminosa sitting on the floor playing poker with three others. I collapsed at their feet and sobbed, “Please let me stay. Please. I’ll be good. I’ll stay away from Evie. She won’t ever see me again. Send me out to a town on the plateau. Send me to the north. I can help sell machines. I speak the language. Only let me stay, please, please let me stay.” I kept it up until even I couldn’t make sense of what I was saying. All that time, Luminosa stroked my hair and hugged me. Finally I calmed down, and, exhausted, I let myself be led away.

  But I didn’t leave.

  Now I work in the Precinct for the Disney Corporation in their big hotel at the end of the strip. Classy, with facades made of the local sandstone, vast interiors with polished marble floors and lots of locked doors. I speak Spanish, English, and of course Colina, and I have a charming little story to tell of how I came here and fell in love with the place, only I don’t mention that I am not allowed back in. The guests sit rapt with attention. “Oh, I would love to see inside one of their homes.” And I correct them with pained tolerance. “Oh, that is the thing. They don’t have homes. They really don’t own anything.”

  On fireworks nights I get to stand on the wall and look out over the Plaza with its steps and songs and chants and running feet and those lights darting about like fireflies, and I always marvel how it is that you almost never see them.

  Or I sit in my room at the Buena Vista Hotel where the broadband is amazing and I see every episode of Mad Folk and Game of Thrones. Evie never answers my calls on Skype. Sometimes I crunch along the beach after even the Precinct has gone to bed, except for the odd drunken tourist, sometimes men looking shaken, miserable, fists bunched. They teach me, those men, the cost of desire.