I can’t mistake her tone. She’s reproaching me, she’s resentful!
“You didn’t make me like that, you mean! But perhaps you didn’t make me as much as you think!”
There we go, fighting. It can’t be true, I’m dreaming; fifteen years, and it’s as though I left last week!
“So you actually took the trouble to find out? If you’d taken a little more trouble, you’d have learned that artifacts are not necessarily sterile. True, the Institute buried the really pertinent data, but with a little effort … You didn’t even try, eh? So sure you were sterile! When I think of the pains I took to make you completely normal!”
I cool down. Suddenly, somewhere, I cross a threshold, and once over it I am incredulously calm. That’s Taïko. Not a goddess, not a monster. Just a woman set in her ways, with her limitations, her goodwill, her unawareness. I hear myself saying almost politely: “Still, I failed the navel test.”
Apparently she’s crossed a threshold of her own at the same time, in the same direction. She sighs: “I should have told you. When you were little. But I kept putting it off. And then it was too late, you were right in the middle of the terrible teens and I lost my temper. I couldn’t tell you just then, you can understand that! Well, yes, I should have, perhaps it would have calmed you down. I was so furious when you left. I expected a phone call, a letter. I said to myself, at least the Institute can’t find out about her. And in fact they know nothing. The Kerens medic called me. A nice person, actually. He never said anything. You were a brilliant student that disappeared without a trace. They offered me their sympathy, you know, Kerens and the Institute. Afterward, I tried to have you found. Why didn’t you call me, you stubborn mule?”
I’m the one being accused, can you beat that? I stare hard at her. And all of a sudden it’s too much. I burst out laughing. So does she.
We’re still the same, after all this time.
“But you came, anyway. None too soon, either.”
After that, a long silence. Embarrassed, pensive? She is pensive. “You ought to try. Having children. There’s no guarantee you’ll succeed, but it’s highly probable. Have you really never tried?”
Does she realize what she’s saying?
“What, there’s never been anyone?”
Rick, the first, yes. And a few others, initially as a challenge, just to see, and after that because it didn’t really matter what I was, thanks to Brutus. But still! I retort that knowing you’re an artifact doesn’t exactly make for harmonious relations with normal humans.
“Normal humans! I can’t believe my ears! You were born, the fact that it was in the lab down there doesn’t change anything. You grew up, you made mistakes and you’ll make more. You think, you feel, you choose. What more do you want? You’re a normal human being, like all the other so-called artifacts.”
Oh yes. Like the Walker and the Sleeper, I suppose? I grit my teeth. She looks me in the eye, impatient: “Well, what’s the matter?” Doesn’t even let me try to speak. “There may have been stupid or crazy biosculptors, but that’s another matter. Of course some artifacts were very limited. The Institute made sure of it by suppressing the necessary data, all Permahlion’s research. They made him practically an outlaw, fifty years ago, and after that they did everything to discourage artorganics. But it didn’t keep us from carrying on.”
I can’t understand what she is saying. She must see it, and it gives her fresh cause for annoyance. “Well, what do you think, that you’re the only one in the world? There are hundreds of you, silly! Just because the original human race is doomed to disappear sooner or later doesn’t mean that all life must end. It was all right for the Eschatoï to think that way, not for you!”
And suddenly, quietly, sadly, “You really thought I was a monster, didn’t you?”
What can I say? I subside onto the sofa and she sits down as well, not too near, slowly, sparing her knees. Yes, she’s old, really old. When she becomes animated, the expression in her eyes, her way of talking, her leap-frog sentences are there; but when she’s quiet it all flickers out. I look away. After the silence, all I can find to say is, “You made others? Like me?”
The answer is straightforward, almost absentminded: “No. I could have made others, probably, but for me, one baby was already a lot.”
“You made me … a baby?”
“I wanted you to be as normal as possible. There’s nothing to prevent artorganic matter growing as slowly as organic matter. Actually, it’s the best way. The personality develops along with it. I wasn’t in a hurry.”
“But you never made others … in the usual way?”
A sad-amused smile: “Come on, Manou. I was sterile, of course. Or rather, my karyotype was so damaged that it was unthinkable to try to have children in the usual way, as you put it.”
“And I can.”
“Theoretically.”
“After working fifteen years in the contaminated Zones.”
“Oh, but you’re a lot more resistant than we are. The beauty of artorganics is that one can improve on nature. That’s the danger as well. But in the long run, it means I was able to give you a chance to adapt better than we could to the world you’d be dealing with. Do you remember? You were never sick when you were little.”
And I still heal very quickly. Oh yes, the medic in the Kerens Center pointed that out. That was a constant factor in artifacts. Not a proof, however; there had been a fairly widespread mutation of this kind about a hundred years earlier. “It is from studying this phenomenon, among others, that artorganic matter ended up being created. There are still instances of it among normal humans.” It was a parallelism, he emphasized, not a proof. But an indication which, combined with others, added to the certainty of my being an artifact.
“I’m telling you”—she’s still adamant—“you should try to have children.”
She’s really determined to know whether or not her experiment has worked, is that it?
“Thirty-two is a bit late, don’t you think?”
“A bit late? You’re in your prime!”
“For how long?”
I’m standing up, fists clenched. I wasn’t aware of getting up, wasn’t aware of shaking. If she notices it, she gives no sign. She shrugs: “I don’t know.” And before I can react she smiles the old sarcastic smile: “At least as long as I, in any case. Longer, if I’ve been successful. But for exactly how long, I don’t know.”
She looks straight at me, screwing her eyes a little. Suddenly no longer old and tired, she’s ageless; so very gently sad, so very wise: “You thought I could tell you. That’s why you came.”
“You made me, you should know!”
“Someone made me, too. Not in the same way, but someone made me. And I don’t know when I’m going to die either.” The small, ironic smile comes back. “I’m beginning to have an inkling, mind you.” The smile disappears. “But I’m not certain, I don’t know the date. That’s what being human is like, too. Haven’t you learned anything in fifteen years? The only way to be sure is to kill yourself, which you didn’t. So keep on. You’ll still live long enough to forget lots of things and learn them all over again.”
And she looks at the old watch that slides around her birdlike wrist. “Two hours before your train. Would you like something to eat?”
“Are you in a hurry to see me leave?”
“For our first time it would be better not to try our luck too far.”
“You really think I’ll come back?”
Gently she says: “I hope you’ll come back.” Again the sarcastic smile: “With a belly this big.”
I shake my head; I can’t take any more of this; she’s right. I rise to get my bag near the door. “I think I’ll walk back to the station.”
Still, she goes with me onto the terrace and we walk down to the beach together. As we pass one of the statues, she puts a hand on the grey, shapeless stone. “It was his house, Permahlion’s. He brought the statues here himself. He liked to scuba-dive when
he was young. I was his very last pupil, you know. He made the first artorganic humans, but he didn’t call them artifacts. It killed him, what was done to them after him.”
As always when the sun finally breaks through the clouds, it gets hot quickly. As I shrug off my jacket, I see her looking at me; she barely reaches my shoulder. It must be a long time since she was in the sun, she’s so pale.
I scan the distance for something else to look at. A few hundred years from the beach there seem to be shapes jumping in the waves. Dolphins? Swimmers? An arm above the water, like a sign …
She shades her eyes. “No, they’re Permahlion’s mermaids. I call them ‘mermaids,’ anyway. I don’t know why, but they’ve been coming here for several seasons. They don’t talk and they’re very shy.” At my stupefied silence, she remarks acidly: “Don’t tell me you have something against humanoïd artifacts?”
No, of course not, but …
She brushes off my questions, her hands spread in front of her: “I’ll look for everything there is about them in the lab. You’ll be able to see it. If you ever come back.” A cloud seems to pass over her rapidly and she fades again. “I’m tired, my daughter. The sun isn’t good for me these days. I’m going to lie down for a bit.”
And she goes, just like that, without another word or gesture, a tiny figure stumbling a little in the sand. I want to watch her go, and I can’t watch her go, as though it were the last time, perhaps because it is the last time, and “my daughter” has lodged itself in my chest somewhere; it grows, pushing my ribs, and the pressure becomes so strong that I shed my clothes and dive into the green, warm water to swim towards the sea creatures. My first burst of energy exhausted, I turn on my back and look towards the house. The tiny silhouette has stopped on the terrace. I wave an arm, I shout, “I’ll come back, Mother!” I laugh, and my tears mingle with the sea.
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Thanks are due to Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, for taking on this project and adding their expertise and that special VanderMeer touch to its creation. I’d also like to thank all of the people in my life who have taught me something about feminism, in particular: my mother, Kat, and Berianne.
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Sisters of the Revolution Page 44