The Melancholy of Mechagirl

by Valente, Catherynne M.

  Clark was tall and shy, obsessed with cameras no less than any of his brothers. He wore striped shirts all the time, as if solid colors had never been invented. He kept reading Salinger even after the guy defected. Sometimes they held hands while they watched the movies. Mostly they didn’t. It was bad enough that they were fraternizing at all. Clark already drinking Kool Koffee every morning. Sugar, no cream. Clark was a quiet, bookish black boy who would be sent to the Front within a year.

  On the white sheet, they watched California melt.

  It hadn’t happened during the war. The Glass came after. This thing everyone did now was not called war. It was something else. Something that liquefied the earth out west and turned it into the Sea of Glass. On the sheet it looked like molten silver, rising and falling in something like waves. Turning the Grand Canyon into a soft grey whirlpool. Sylvie thought it was beautiful. Like something on the moon. In real life it had colors, and Sylvie dreamed of them. Red stone dissolving into an endless expanse of dark glass.

  “There are more Japanese people in Utah than in Japan now,” Clark whispered when the filmstrip rolled up into black and the filmmaker’s logo. Sylvie flinched as if he’d cut her.

  They didn’t talk about her Presentation. It sat whitely, fatly in their future. Once Clark kissed her. Sylvie cried afterward.

  “I’ll write you,” he said. “As long as I can write.”

  The growth index for their county was very healthy, and this was another reason Clark Baker should not have been holding her hand in the dark while men in ghostly astronaut suits probed the edges of the Glass on a clicking filmstrip. Every woman on the block had a new baby this year. They’d gotten a medal of achievement from President McCarthy in the spring. The Ladies’ Auxiliary graciously accepted the key to the city. She suspected her Father had a great deal to do with this. When she was little, he had come home one week in four. Now it was three days in thirty. His department kept him working hard. He’d be there for her Presentation, though. No Father missed his daughter’s debut.

  Sylvie thought about Clark while her mother slipped satin-covered buttons through tiny loops. Their faces doubled in the mirror. His dark brown hand on hers. The Sea of Glass turning their faces silver.

  “Mom,” Sylvie said. Her voice was very soft in the morning, as if she was afraid to wake herself up. “What if I don’t love my Husband? Isn’t that … something important?”

  Hannah sighed. Her mouth took a hard angle. “You’re young, darling. You don’t understand. What it was like before. We had to have them here all the time, every night. Never a moment when I wasn’t working my knees through for my husband. The one before your Father. The children before you. Do you think we got to choose then? It wasn’t about love. For some people, they could afford that. For me, well, my parents thought he was a very nice man. He had good prospects. I needed him. I could not work. I was a woman before the war, who would hire me? And to do what? Type or teach. Not to program punch-card machines. Not to crossbreed new strains of broccoli. Nothing that would occupy my mind. So I drowned my mind in children and in him and when the war came I was glad. He left and it was me going to work every morning, me deciding what happened to my money. So the war took them.” She waved her hand in front of her eyes. “War always does that. I know you don’t think so, but the program is the best part of a bad situation. A situation maybe so bad we cannot fix it. So you don’t love him. Why would you look for love with a man? How could a man ever understand you? He who gets the cake cannot be friends with the girl who gets the crumbs.” Sylvie’s mother blushed. She whispered: “My Rita, you know, Rita who comes for tea and bridge and neptunium testing. She is good to me. Someone will be good to you. You will have your Auxiliary, your work, your children. One week in four a man will tell you what to do—but listen to me when I say they have much better manners than they used to. They say please now. They are interested in your life. They are so good with the babies.” Hannah smoothed the lacy back of her daughter’s Presentation gown. “Someday, my girl, either we will all die out and nothing will be left, or things will go back to the old ways and you will have men taking your body and soul apart to label the parts that belong to them. Enjoy this world. Either way, it will be brief.”

  Sylvie turned her painted, perfected face to her mother’s. “Mom,” she whispered. Sylvie had practiced. So much, so often. She ordered the words in her head like dolls, hoped they were the right ones. Hoped they could stand up straight. “Watashi wa anata o shinjite īnā.” I wish I could believe you.

  Hannah’s dark eyes flew wide, and without a moment’s hesitation, she slapped her daughter across the cheek. It wasn’t hard, not meant to wound, certainly not to leave a mark on this day of all days, but it stung. Sylvie’s eyes watered.

  “Nidoto,” her mother pleaded. “Never, never again.”

  GIMBELS: YOUR OFFICIAL

  FATHER’S DAY HEADQUARTERS!

  PANORAMA SHOT of the Gimbels flagship store with two cute kiddos front and center. [Note to Casting: get us a boy and a girl, blonde, white, under ten, make sure the boy is taller than the girl. Put them in sailor suits, everyone likes that.] The kids wave at the camera. Little Linda Sue speaks up. [Note to Copy: Nope. The boy speaks first.] It’s a beautiful June here in New York City, the greatest city on earth! Jimmy throws his hands in the air and yells out: And that means FATHER’S DAY! Scene shift, kiddos are walking down a Gimbels aisle. We see toolboxes, ties, watches in a glass case, barbecue sets. Linda Sue picks up a watch and listens to it tick. Jimmy grabs a barbecue scraper and brandishes it. He says: Come on down with your Mom and make an afternoon of it at the Brand New Gimbels Automat! Hot, pre-screened food in an instant! Gee wow! [Note to Copy: Hey, Stone, this is a government sponsored ad. If Gimbels wants to hawk their shitty Manhattan Meals they’re going to have to actually pay for it. Have you ever tried one of those things? Tastes like a kick in the teeth.] Linda Sue: At Gimbels they have all the approved Father’s Day products. (Kids alternate lines) Mr. Fix-It! Businessman! Coach! Backyard Cowboy! Mr. Gimbel appears and selects a beautiful tie from the spring Priapus line. He hands it to Linda Sue and ruffles her hair. Mr Gimbel: Now, kids, don’t forget to register your gift with the Ladies’ Auxiliary. We wouldn’t want your Daddy to get two of the same gift! How embarrassing! That’s why Gimbels carries the complete Whole Father line, right next to the registration desk so your Father’s Day is a perfect one. Kids: Thanks, Mr. Gimbel!

  Mr. Gimbel spreads his arms wide and type stretches out between them in this year’s Father’s Day colors. [Note to Art Dept: It’s seashell and buttercup this year, right? Please see Marketing concerning the Color Campaign. Pink and blue are pre-war. We’re working with Gimbels to establish a White for Boys, Green for Girls tradition.]

  Gimbels: Your One Stop Shop for a One of a Kind Dad.

  Fade to white.

  FLASH BLINDNESS

  Martin wore the emerald green chevroned tie to his Announcement, even if it wasn’t strictly within the dress code. Everything else was right down the line: light grey suit, shaved clean if shaving was on the menu, a dab of musky Oil of Fecunditas behind each ear from your friends at Spotless Corp. Black shoes, black socks, Spotless lavender talcum, teeth brushed three times with Pure Spearmint Toothpaste (You’re Sure with Spearmint!). And his Father holding his hand, beaming with pride. Looking handsome and young as he always did.

  Of course, there was another boy holding his other hand.

  His name was Thomas. He had broad shoulders already, chocolate-colored hair and cool slate eyes that made him look terribly romantic. Martin tried not to let it bother him. He knew how the program worked. Where the other three weeks of the month took his Father. Obviously, there were other children, other wives, other homes. Other roasting chickens, other martinis. Other evening television shows on other channels. And that’s all Thomas was: another channel. When you weren’t watching a show, it just ceased to be. Clicked off. Fade to white. You couldn’t be jealous of the peop
le on those other channels. They had their own troubles and adventures, engrossing mysteries and stunning conclusions, cliffhangers and tune-in-next-weeks. It had nothing to do with Martin, or Rosemary, or Henry in his room. That was what it meant to be a Husband.

  The three of them sat together in the backseat of the sleek grey Cadillac. An older lady drove them. She wore a smart cap and had wiry white hair, but her cheeks were still pink and round. Martin tried to look at her as a Husband would, even though a woman her age would never marry. After all, Husbands didn’t get to choose. Martin’s future wives—four to start with, that was standard, but if he did well, who knew?—wouldn’t all be bombshells in pinup bathing suits. He had to practice looking at women, really seeing them, seeing what was good and true and gorgeous in them. The chauffeur had wonderful laugh lines around her eyes. Martin could tell they were laugh lines. And her eyes, when she looked in the rearview mirror, were a nice, cool green. She radioed to the dispatcher and her voice lilted along with a faint twinge of English accent. Martin could imagine her laughing with him, picking New Kale and telling jokes about the King. He imagined her naked, lying on a soft pink bed, soft like her pink cheeks. Her body would be the best kind of body: the kind that had borne children. Breasts that had nursed. Legs that had run after misbehaving little ones. He could love that body. The sudden hardness between his legs held no threat, only infinite love and acceptance, a Husband’s love.

  When I think about how good I could be, my heart stops, Martin thought as the space between his neighborhood and the city smeared by. The sun seared white through dead black trees. But somewhere deep in them there was a green wick. Martin knew it. He had a green wick too. I will remember every date. Every wife will be so special and I will love her and our children. I will make her martinis. I will roast the chicken so she doesn’t have to. When I am with one of them I will turn off all other channels in my mind. I can keep it straight and separate. I will study so hard, so that I know how to please. It will be my only vocation, to be devoted. And if they the women of Elm St. or Oak Lane or Birch Drive find love with each other when I am gone, I will be happy for them because there is never enough love. I will draw them happy and they will be happy. The world will be green again. Everything will be okay.

  It all seemed to happen very fast. Thomas and Martin and a dozen other boys listened to a quintet play Mendelssohn. The mayor gave a speech. They watched a recorded message from President McCarthy that had to be pretty old because he still sported a good head of hair. Finally, a minister stood up with a lovely New Tabernacle Bible in her one good hand. The other was shriveled, boneless, a black claw in her green vestments. The pages of the Bible shone with gilt. A ribbonmark hung down, and it was very red in the afternoon flares. She did not lay it on a lectern. She carried the weight in her hands and read from the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, which Martin already knew by heart. The minister’s maple-syrup contralto filled the vaults of Matthew House.

  “And when Mary had come to her fourteenth year, the high priest announced to all that the virgins who were reared in the Temple and who had reached the age of their womanhood should return to their own and be given in lawful marriage. When the High Priest went in to take counsel with God, a voice came forth from the oratory for all to hear, and it said that of all of the marriageable men of the House of David who had not yet taken a wife, each should bring a rod and lay it upon the altar, that one of the rods would burst into flower and upon it the Holy Ghost would come to rest in the form of a Dove, and that he to whom this rod belonged would be the one to whom the virgin Mary should be espoused. Joseph was among the men who came, and he placed his rod upon the altar, and straightaway it burst into bloom and a Dove came from Heaven and perched upon it, whereby it was manifest to all that Mary should become the wife of Joseph.”

  Martin’s eyes filled with tears. He felt a terrible light in his chest. For a moment he was sure everyone else would see it streaming out of him. But no, the minister gave him a white silk purse and directed him to a booth with a white velvet curtain. Inside, silence. Dim, dusty light. Martin opened the purse and pulled out the chalice—a plastic cup with measurements printed on it, just like Grud said. With it lay a few old photographs—women from before the war, with so much health in their faces Martin could hardly bear to look at them. Their skin was so clear. She’s dead, he thought. Statistically speaking, that woman with the black hair and heart-shaped face and polka-dotted bikini is dead. Vaporized in Seattle or Phoenix or Los Angeles. That was where they used to make pictures, in Los Angeles. This girl is dead.

  Martin couldn’t do it. This was about life. Everything, no matter how hard and strange, was toward life. He could not use a dead girl that way. Instead, he shut his eyes. He made his pictures, quick pencil lines glowing inside him. The chauffeur with her pink cheeks and white hair. The minister with kind voice and brown eyes and her shriveled hand, which was awful, but wasn’t she alive and good? Tammy, the girl from the Victory Brand Capsule Garden commercials in her star-spangled dress. A girl with red hair who lived two blocks over and was so pretty that looking at her was like getting punched in the chest. He drew in bold, bright lines the home he was going to make, bigger than himself, bigger than the war, as big as the world.

  Martin’s body convulsed with the tiny, private detonation of his soul. His vision blurred into a hot colorless flash.

  BLAST WIND

  Sylvie’s mother helped her into long white gloves. They sat together in a long pearl-colored Packard and did not speak. Sylvie had nothing to say. Let her mother be uncomfortable. A visceral purple sunset colored the western sky, even at two in the afternoon. Sylvie played the test in her head like a filmstrip. When it actually started happening to her, it felt no more real than a picture on a sheet.

  The mayor gave a speech. They watched a recorded message from President McCarthy’s pre-war daughter Tierney, a pioneer in the program, one of the first to volunteer. Our numbers have been depleted by the Germans, the Japanese, and now the Godless Russians. Of the American men still living only 12 percent are fertile. But we are not Communists. We cannot become profligate, wasteful, decadent.We must maintain our moral way of life. As little as possible should change from the world your mothers knew—at least on the surface. And with time, what appears on the surface will penetrate to the core, and all will be restored. We will not sacrifice our way of life.

  A minister with a withered arm read that Pseudo-Matthew passage Tierney had dredged up out of apocrypha to the apocrypha, about the rods and the flowers, and Sylvie had never felt it was one of the Gospel’s more subtle moments. The minister blessed them. They are flowers. They are waiting for the Dove.

  The doctors were women. One was Mrs. Drexler, who lived on their cul-de-sac and always made rum balls for the neighborhood Christmas cookie exchange. She was kind. She warmed up her fingers before she examined Sylvie. White gloves for her, white gloves for me, Sylvie thought, and suppressed a giggle. She turned her head to one side and focused on a stained-glass lamp with kingfishers on it, piercing their frosted breasts with their beaks. She went somewhere else in her mind until it was over. Not a happy place, just a place. Somewhere precise and clean without any Spotless Corp. products where Sylvie could test soil samples methodically. Rows of black vials, each labeled, dated, sealed.

  They took her blood. A butterfly of panic fluttered in her—will they know? Would the test show her mother, practicing her English until her accent came out clean as acid paper? Running from a red Utah sky even though there was no one left to shoot at her? Only half, white enough to pass, curling her hair like it would save her? Sylvie shut her eyes. She said her mother’s name three times in her mind. The secret, talismanic thing that only they together knew. Hidaka Hanako. Hidaka Hanako. Hidaka Hanako. Don’t be silly. Japan isn’t a virus they can see wiggling in your cells. Mom’s documents are flawless. No alarm will go off in the centrifuge.

  And none did.

  She whizzed through the intelligence exams—wha
t a joke. Calculate the drag energy of the blast wind given the following variables. Please. Other girls milled around her in their identical lace dresses. The flowers in their hair were different. Their sashes all red. Red on white, like first-aid kits floating through her peripheral vision. They went from medical to placement testing to screening. They nodded shyly to each other. In five years, Sylvie would know all their names. They would be her Auxiliary. They would play bridge. They would plan block parties. They would have telephone trees. Some of them would share a Husband with her, but she would never know which. That was what let the whole civilized fiction roll along. You never knew, you never asked. Men had a different surname every week. Only the Mrs. Drexlers of the neighborhood knew it all, the knots and snags of the vital genetics. Would she share with the frosted blonde who loved botany or the redheaded math genius who made her own cheese? Or maybe none of them. It all depended on the test. Some of these girls would score low in their academics or have some unexpressed, unpredictable trait revealed in the great forking family trees pruned by Mrs. Drexler and the rest of them. They would get Husbands in overalls, with limited allowances. They would live in houses with old paint and lead shielding instead of Gamma Glass. Some of them would knock their Presentation out of the park. They’d get Husbands in grey suits and silk ties, who went to offices in the city during the day, who gave them compression chamber diamonds for their birthdays. As little as possible should change.

  Results were quick these days. Every year faster. But not so quick that they did not have luncheon provided while the experts performed their tabulations. Chicken salad sandwiches—how the skinny ones gasped at the taste of mayonnaise! Assam tea, watercress, lemon curd and biscuits. An impossible fairy feast.