“‘Back Home,’” Pearl said. I could hardly hear her over the nitrogen blowers. I began playing it, and Taber came in. He walked swiftly over to her and then stood quite still, and between my playing and the noise of the blowers, she did not hear him. He stood about half a meter from her, close enough to touch her but just out of reach if she had put her hand out to try to find him.
He took the cigar out of his mouth and bent down as if he were going to speak to her, and instead he pursed his lips and blew gently at her. I could almost see the smoke. At first she didn’t seem to notice, but then she shivered and drew her shinethread shawl closer about her.
He stopped and smiled at her a moment and then reached out and touched her with the tip of his cigar, lightly, on the shoulder, as if he intended to burn her, and then darted it back out of her reach. She swatted at the air, and he repeated the little pantomime again and again, until she stood and put her hands up helplessly against what she could not see. As she did so, he moved swiftly and silently to the door so that when she cried out, “Who is it? Who’s there?” he said in his slow drawl, “It’s me, Pearl. I’ve just come in. Did I frighten you?”
“No,” she said, and sat back down again. But when he took her hand, she flinched away from him as I’d thought she would from me. And all the while I had not missed a beat of the song.
“I just came over to see you for a minute,” Taber said, “and to hear your pianoboard player. He gets better every day, doesn’t he?”
Pearl didn’t answer. I saw in the mirror that her hands lay crossed in her lap again and didn’t move.
“Yes,” he said, and walked toward me, flicking imaginary ashes from his unlit cigar onto my hands. “Better and better,” he said softly. “I can almost see my face in you, Mirror.”
“What did you say?” Pearl said, frightened.
“I said I’d better go see Jewell a minute about some business and then get back next door. Jack found a new hydrogen tap today, a big one.”
He went back through the card room to the kitchen, and I sat at the pianoboard, watching in the mirror until I saw the kitchen door shut behind him.
“Tabar was in the room the whole time,” I said. “He was … doing things to you.”
“I know,” she said.
“You shouldn’t let him. You should stop him,” I said violently, and as soon as I said it I knew that she knew that I had not stopped him either. “He’s a very bad man,” I said.
“He has never locked me in,” she said after a minute. “He has never tied me up.”
“He has never known how before,” I said, and I knew it was true.
“He wants me to find out for him.”
She bent her head to her hands, which still lay crossed at the wrists, almost relaxed, showing nothing of what she was thinking. “And will you?” she said.
“I don’t know.”
“He’s trying to get you to copy him, isn’t he?” she said.
“Yes.”
“And you think it’s working?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I can’t tell when I’m copying. Do I sound like Taber?”
“No,” she said, so definitely that I was relieved. I had listened to myself with an anxious ear, hoping for Jewell’s shortened vowels and tapper slang, waiting in dread for the slow, lazy speech of Taber. I did not think I had heard either of them, but I had been afraid I wouldn’t know if I did.
“Do you know who I’m copying?” I said.
“You walk like Jewell,” she said, and smiled a little. “It makes her furious.”
It was the end of the shift before I realized that, like my uncle, she had not really answered what I had asked.
Jack’s new tap turned out to be so big that he needed a crew to help put up the compressors, and for several shifts hardly anyone was in the house, including Taber. Because business was so slack, Jewell even let some of the girls go over to the gaming house. Taber didn’t go near the tap, but he didn’t come over quite so often either, and when he did, he spent his time upstairs or with Carnie, talking to her in a low voice and clicking the speaker over and over again, as if he could not help himself. Then, once the compressors were set up and the sidon working, the men poured back into St. Pierre, and Taber was too busy to come over at all.
The one time he came, he found Pearl alone with me, he said, “It’s Taber, Pearl,” almost before I had banged a loud chord on the keys and said, “Taber’s here.” He did not have his cigar with him, or his sparker, and he did not even speak to me. Watching Pearl talk to him, her head gracefully turned away from him, her hands in her lap, I could almost believe that he would not succeed, that nothing could hurt her, safe in her blindness.
We were so busy that Jewell hardly spoke to me, but when she did, she told me sharply that if I had nothing better to do than copy her, I should tend bar, and set me to passing out the watered liquor she had brought out in honor of the new sidon. She did the boards for the week herself while I ran the body checks.
Pearl, naked under the scan, looked serene and unhurt. Carnie had sot-scars under her arms. I did not report her. If Jewell found out, she would send Carnie back to Solfatara, and I wanted Tabor to be working on Carnie, giving her sots and trying to get her to help him, because then I could believe he had given up on me. I did not dare believe that he had given up on Pearl, but I did not think that he and Carnie alone could hurt her, no matter what they did to her. Not without my help. Not so long as I was copying Jewell.
I told Pearl about Carnie. “I think she’s on sots,” I said. We were alone in the music room. Jewell was upstairs, trying to catch up the boards. Carnie was in the kitchen, taking her turn at supper. “I saw what looked like scars.”
“I know,” Pearl said, and I wondered if there was anything she did not see, in spite of her blindness.
“I think you should be careful. It’s Taber that’s giving them to her. He’s using her to hurt you. Don’t tell her anything.”
She said nothing, and after a minute I turned back to the pianoboard and waited for her to name a song.
“I was born in the happy house. My mother worked there. Did you know that?” she said quietly.
“No,” I said, keeping my hands spread across the keyboard, as though they could support me. I did not look at her.
“I have told myself all these years that as long as no one knew what happened, I was safe.”
“Doesn’t Jewell know?”
She shook her head. “Nobody knows. My mother told them he threatened her with the sot-razor, that there was nothing she could do.”
The nitrogen blowers kicked on just then, and I jumped at the sound and looked into the mirror. I could see the sidon in the mirror, and standing on its red murdered skin, Taber. Carnie had let him in through the kitchen and turned the blowers up, and now he stood between the noisy blowers, smiling and flicking imaginary ash onto the carpet beside Pearl’s chair. I took my hands off the keyboard and laid them in my lap. “Carnie’s in the kitchen,” I said. “I don’t know if the door’s shut.”
“There was a tapper who came to the house,” Pearl said. “He was a very bad man, but my mother loved him. She said she couldn’t help herself. I think that was true.” For a moment she looked directly into the mirror with her blind eyes, and I willed Taber to click the sparker that I knew he was fingering so that Pearl would hear it and withdraw into her cage, safe and silent.
“It was Christmas time,” she said, and the blowers kicked off. Into the silence she said, “I was ten years old, and Jewell gave me a little gold necklace with a pearl on it. She was only fourteen, but she was already working in the house. They had a tree in the music room and there were little lights on it, all different colors, strung on a string. Have you ever seen lights like that, red and green and gold all strung together?”
I thought of the strings of multicolored chemilooms I had seen from the spiraldown, the very first thing I had seen on Paylay. Nobody has told her, I thought, in all this time nobody
has told her, and at the thought of the vast cage of kindness built all around her, my hand jerked up and hit the edge of the keyboard. She heard the sound and looked up.
“Is Taber here?” she said, and my hand hovered above the keyboard.
“No, of course not,” I said, and my hand settled back in my lap like the spiraldown coming to rest on its moorings. “I’ll tell you when he comes.
“The tapper sent my mother a dress with lights on it, too, red and green and gold like the tree,” Pearl said. “When he came, he said, ‘You look like a Chrissmiss tree,’ and kissed her on the cheek. ‘What do you want for Chrissmiss?’ my mother said. ‘I will give you anything.’ I can remember her standing there in the lighted dress under the tree.” She stopped a minute, and when I looked in the mirror, she had turned her head so that she seemed to be looking straight at Taber. “He asked for me.”
“What did he do to you?” I said.
“I don’t remember,” she said. Her hands struggled and lay still, and I knew what he had done. He had locked her in, and she had never escaped. He had tied her hands together, and she had never gotten free. I looked down at my own hands, crossed at the wrists like hers and not even struggling.
“Didn’t anyone come to help you?” I said.
“The pianoboard player,” she said. “He beat the door down. He broke both his hands so he could not play anymore. He made my mother call the doctor. He told her he would kill her if she didn’t. When he tried to help me, I ran away from him. I didn’t want him to help me. I wanted to die. I ran and ran and ran, but I couldn’t see to get away.”
“Did he kill the tapper who blinded you?” I said.
“While he was trying to find me, my mother let the tapper out the back door. I ran and ran and then I fell down. The pianoboard player came and held me in his arms until the doctor came. I made him promise to kill the tapper. I made him promise to finish killing me,” she said, so softly I could hardly hear her. “But he didn’t.”
The blowers kicked on again, and I looked into the mirror, but Taber wasn’t there. Carnie had let him out the back way.
He did not come back for several shifts. When he did, it was to tell Jewell he was going to Solfatara. He told Pearl he would bring her a present and whispered to me, “What do you want for Christmas, Ruby? You’ve earned a present.”
While he was gone Jack hit another tap, almost on top of the first one, and Jewell locked up the liquor. The men didn’t want music. They wanted to talk about putting in a double, even a triple tap. I was grateful for that. I was not sure I could play with my hands tied.
Jewell told me to go meet Taber at the mooring, and then changed her mind. “I’m worried about those sotted fools out at Jick’s sidon. Doubletapping. They kidd blow the whole star. You’d bitter stay here and hilp me.”
Taber came before the shift. “I’ll bring you your present tonight, Pearl,” he said. “I know you’ll like it. Ruby helped me pick it out.” I watched the sudden twitching of Pearl’s hands, but my own didn’t even move.
Taber waited almost until the end of the shift, spending nearly half of it in the card room with Carnie leaning heavily over his shoulder. She had already gotten her present. Her eyes were bright from the sot-slice, and she stumbled once against him and nearly fell.
“Bring me a cigar, Ruby,” he shouted to me. “And look in the inside jacket pocket. I brought a present back for everybody.” Pearl was standing all alone in the middle of the music room, her hands in front of her. I didn’t look at her. I went straight upstairs to my room, got what I needed, and then went back down into the anteroom to where Taber’s tapper jacket was hanging, and got the cigar out of Taber’s pocket. His sparker was there, too.
The present was a flat package wrapped in red and green paper, and I took it and the cigar to Taber. He had come into the music room and was sitting in Pearl’s chair. Carnie was sitting on his lap with her arm around his neck.
“You didn’t bring the sparker, Ruby,” Taber said. I waited for him to tell me to go and get it. “Never mind,” he said. “Do you know what day this is?”
“I do,” Carnie said softly, and Taber slid his hand up to hold hers where it lay loosely on his shoulder.
“It’s Chrissmiss Day,” he said, pronouncing it with the Solfatara accent. He took his hand away from Carnie’s so he could lean back and puff on his cigar, and Carnie took her red, bruised hand in her other one and held it up to her bosom, her sot-bright eyes full of pain. “I said to myself we should have some Chrissmiss songs. Do you know any Chrissmiss songs, Ruby?”
“No,” I said.
“I didn’t think you would,” Taber said. “So I brought you a present.” He waved the cigar at me. “Go ahead. Open it.”
I pulled the red and green paper off and took out the hardcopies. There were a dozen Christmas songs. I knew them all.
“Pearl, you’ll sing a Chrissmiss song for me, won’t you?” Taber said.
“I don’t know any,” she said. She had not moved from where she stood.
“Of course you do,” Taber said. “They played them every Chrissmiss time in the happy houses on Solfatara. Come on. Ruby’ll play it for you.”
I sat down at the pianoboard, and Pearl came and stood beside me with her hand on the end of the keyboard. I stood the hardcopies up against the music rack and put my hands on the keyboard.
“He knows,” she said, so softly none of the men could have heard her. “You told him.”
“No, it’s a coincidence,” I said. “Maybe it is really Christmas time on Solfatara. Nobody keeps track of the year on Paylay. Maybe it is Christmas.”
“If you told him, if he knows how it happened, I am not safe anymore. He’ll be able to get in. He’ll be able to hurt me.” She took a staggering step away from the pianoboard as if she were going to run. I took hold of her wrist.
“I didn’t tell him,” I said. “I would never let him hurt you. But if you don’t sing the song, he’ll know there’s something wrong. I’ll play the first song through for you.” I let go of her wrist, and her hand went limp and relaxed on the end of the keyboard.
I played the song through and stopped. The version I knew didn’t have an introduction, so I spread the fingers of my right hand across the octave and a half of the opening chord and touched her hand with my left.
She flinched. She did not move her hand away or even make any movement the men, gathered around us now, could have seen. But a tremor went through her hand. I waited a moment, and then I touched her again, with all my fingers, hard, and started the song. She sang the song all the way through, and my hands, which had not been able to come down on a single chord of warning, were light and sure on the keyboard. When it was over, the men called for another, and I put it on the music rack and then sat, as she stood silent and still, unflinching, waiting for what was to come.
Taber looked up inquiringly, casually, and Jewell frowned and half-turned toward the door. Scorch banged through the thick inner door and stopped, trying to get his breath. He still had his lantern strapped to his forehead, and when he bent over trying to catch his breath in gasping hiccoughs, the strip where the hair had been burned off was as red as his face and starting to blister.
“One of the sidons blew, didn’t it?” Jewell said, and her scar slashed black as a fissure across her cheek. “Which one?”
Scorch still couldn’t speak. He nodded with his whole body, bent over double again, and tried to straighten. “It’s Jick,” he said. “He tried to tripletap, and the whole thing wint up.”
“Oh, my God,” Sapphire said, and ran into the kitchen.
“How bad is it?” Jewell said.
“Jick’s dead, and there are two burned bad—Paulsen and the tapper that came in with Taber last shift. I don’t know his name. They were right on top of it when it went, putting the comprissor on.”
The tappers had been in motion the whole time he spoke, putting on their jackets and going for their shoes. Taber heaved Carnie off his lap and
stood up. Sapphire came back from the kitchen dressed in pants and carrying the remedy case. Garnet put her shawl around Scorch’s shoulders and helped him into Pearl’s chair.
Taber said calmly, “Are there any other sidons close?” He looked unconcerned, almost amused, with Carnie leaning limply against him, but his left hand was clenched, the thumb moving up and down as if he were clicking the sparker.
“Mine,” Scorch said. “It didn’t kitch, but the comprissor caught fire and Jick’s clothes, and they’re still burning.” He looked up apologetically at Jewell. “I didn’t have nithing to put the fire out with. I dragged the ither two up onto my comprissor platform so they widdn’t cook.”
Pearl and I had not moved from the pianoboard. I looked at Taber in the mirror, waiting for him to say, “I’ll stay here, Jewell. I’ll take care of things here,” but he didn’t. He disengaged himself from Carnie. “I’ll go get the stretchers at the gaming house and meet you back here,” he said.
“Let me get your jacket for you,” I said, but he was already gone.
The tappers banged out the doors, Sapphire with them. Garnet ran upstairs. Jewell went into the anteroom to put her outside shoes on.
I stood up and went out into the anteroom. “Let me go with you,” I said.
“I want you ti stay here and take care of Pearl,” she said. She could not squeeze her bandaged foot into the shoe. She bent down and began unwinding the bandage.
“Garnet can stay. You’ll need help carrying the men back.”
She dropped the bandage onto the floor and jammed her foot into the shoe, wincing. “You din’t know the way. You kidd git lost and fall into a sidon. You’re safer here.” She tried the other shoe, stood up and jammed her bandaged foot into it, and sat back down to fix the straps.
“I’m not safe anywhere,” I said. “Please don’t leave me here. I’m afraid of what might happen.”
“Even if the sidons all go up, the fire won’t git this far.”
Year's Best Science Fiction 01 # 1984 Page 35