Otherness

by David Brin

  Reiko had few illusions about the "commerce" that went on during such trips. Still, the Koreans were industrializing rapidly. Certainly there were many bona fide dealings, as well as junkets. Tetsuo's company had to be sending him for real business reasons, or why would he have invited her along? Reiko wondered if all those stories had been exaggerated after all.

  A contingent of foreigners awaited the opening of the gate with typical gaijin impatience, speaking loudly, staring impertinently. An orderly queue of Japanese formed behind the jostling Europeans and Americans.

  Reiko's sister, Yumi, held Yukiko up to wave good-bye to her parents. The little girl seemed confused and unhappy, but determined to behave well. Already Yukiko exhibited a sense of public propriety, and she did not shame them by crying. As Tetsuo led her down the crowded ramp, Reiko felt a pang of separation, but she knew Yukiko would be all right for a few days with her aunt. At worst their daughter would be spoiled by too much attention.

  On board, Reiko saw there were a few other married couples besides themselves, all seated toward the rear of the airplane. The women seemed less at ease than their husbands, and listened attentively as the stewardesses went over emergency procedures. Finally, the great machine hurtled down the runway and propelled itself into the sky.

  When the safety lights turned off, the cabin began to fill with cigarette smoke. Men got up and drifted forward toward the lounge. Soon there was heard, beyond the partition, the clinking of glasses and harsh laughter.

  Reiko discreetly observed the other women, sitting quietly with empty seats between them. Some gazed out upon the green mountains of Honshu as the plane gradually gained altitude. Others conversed together in low tones. A few just looked down at their hands.

  Reiko pondered. So many husbands could not be bringing their wives if their business in Seoul was only concupiscent pleasure. Could they?

  She realized she was staring and quickly lowered her eyes. Still, Reiko had noticed something; all the other wives aboard were young, like herself. She turned, intending to whisper this interesting observation to her husband, and blinked quickly when she found herself facing an empty seat.

  While she had been looking around, Tetsuo had quietly slipped away. Soon Reiko heard his familiar laughter coming from just beyond the partition.

  She looked down then, and found fascinating the texture and fine lines that traced the backs of her own hands.

  3.

  That evening, in their hotel room, Tetsuo told her why he had brought her along with him to Seoul. "It is time for us to have a son," he said matter-of-factly.

  Reiko nodded dutifully. "A son is to be hoped for."

  Tetsuo loved his daughter, of course, but he clearly wanted to have a boy in the family, and Reiko could hope for nothing better than to please him. And yet, had he not been the one insisting she buy birth-control devices weekly from the neighborhood Skin Lady, and use them so carefully?

  "We can afford to have only one more child," he went on, telling her what she already knew. "So we shall want to make certain the second is a boy."

  Only half-seriously, she suggested, "Shujin, I shall go to Mizuko Jizo Temple daily and burn incense."

  If she had hoped to draw a smile from him, Reiko was disappointed. Once upon a time he had been witty in his mockery of the ancient superstitions, and they had shared this delicious cynicism between them—she the daughter of a scientist and he the bright young businessman who had been to university in American. Now, though, Tetsuo nodded and seemed to accept her promise at face value.

  "Good. However, we shall supplement prayer with technology." From his jacket pocket he withdrew a slim brochure, which he handed to her. He left Reiko then to read the pamphlet in their small room while he went down to the bar to drink with friends.

  Reiko stared down at the bold type, glittering in stark romanji script.

  PAK JONG CLINIC

  GENDER-SELECTION SERVICE

  Seoul, Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangkok,

  Taipei, Mexico City, Cairo, Bombay

  Satisfaction Is Guaranteed

  A little while later she got undressed and went to bed. But lying there alone in the darkness, she found she could not sleep.

  4.

  They were actually quite kind at the Clinic. Nicer, at least, than Reiko had anticipated. In her mind she had pictured a stark, sterile-white hospital setting. It was reassuring, then, to sit in the pastel waiting room, with cranes and other symbols of good fortune traced out delicately upon the wall reliefs. Tetsuo remained behind when her name was called, but he did smile and offer her a nod of encouragement as the nurse bowed and ushered her into the examination room.

  The doctors were distant and professional, for which Reiko was grateful. They tapped and thumped and measured her temperature. When it came time to take various samples, there was only a little pain, and her modesty was protected by a screen across the middle of her body.

  Then she was returned to the waiting room. One of the doctors accompanying her bowed and told Tetsuo that she would be ready to conceive in three days' time. Tetsuo replied with a polite hiss of satisfaction and exchanged further bows with the doctor before they turned to leave together.

  During the next few days Reiko saw little of Tetsuo. He really did, it seemed, have business to do in Seoul—meetings and sales analyses. The Clinic provided a guide to show Reiko and a few other prospective mothers the sights, such as they were. They saw the Olympic Village, the war memorials, the great public museums. Only occasionally did some passerby glance sourly at them on hearing spoken Japanese. All in all, Reiko found the Koreans much nicer than she had been led to expect from the stories she had heard since childhood. But then, perhaps the Koreans she met felt the same way about her. It was all very interesting.

  Still, this was no second honeymoon. Not the resumption of bliss she had hoped for. When Tetsuo returned late to their hotel room the following two nights, she could tell that he had spent part of his day in close proximity to other women.

  Even the explanation offered by one of the other wives did not much ease Reiko's disappointment. "The clinic prefers to have some fresh semen to supplement the frozen samples they stored during our husbands' past visits," Mrs. Nakamura confided while they waited together on the third day. Reiko's head spun in confusion.

  "You—you mean he has been . . . donating for some time?"

  Mrs. Takebayashi nodded, confirming that Tetsuo had had this in mind for months, at least. On at least his last two trips to Seoul, he must have visited the Clinic to collect his seed for freezing. Or, more likely, he had used the kairaku house next door, which Reiko was now certain maintained a business relationship with the Pak Jong doctors.

  "I am sure the place is licensed and regularly inspected," Mrs. Nakamura added. And Reiko knew which establishment she meant. Reiko nearly bristled at the presumption that Tetsuo would ever think of patronizing an unlicensed house and so risk his family's health with some filthy gaijin disease.

  She restrained herself, knowing that part of her passion arose out of a sense of bitter disappointment. Somehow Reiko managed to see a bright side to it all. The donated material probably has to be prepared quickly. That is why he continued to use the pleasure house, even when I was here.

  She was well aware that she was rationalizing. But right at that moment rationalization was all that stood between Reiko and despair. When, a little while later, she had to endure intromission by cold glass and plastic, Reiko lay back and clasped her arms tightly across her breasts, dreaming of her first conception, which had come the natural way, with her hands and legs wrapped around a living, breathing, sighing man, her loving husband.

  5.

  Three weeks after they returned to Tokyo, it became apparent they had succeeded—at least so far as impregnation was concerned. Queasiness and vomiting confirmed the joyous news as surely as the stained blotter of the little home-test kit. As for whether the child-to-be was male, several more weeks would pass before anyone cou
ld tell. But Tetsuo was full of confidence and that made Reiko happy.

  Little Yukiko had reached the age where she attended preschool half of every day. Reiko would deliver her daughter to the playground entrance and watch all the children line up in their little uniforms, attentive to every phase of the carefully choreographed exercise activity. They seemed to be enjoying school, clapping together in time as the instructors led them through teaching rhymes. But who could actually tell what was best for a child?

  Reiko often wondered if they were doing the right thing, starting Yukiko's education so early, a full two years before the law required.

  "Doozo ohairi, kudasai!" the headmaster called to her little charges. The neat rows of four-year-olds filed indoors under an arched doorway decorated with origami flowers. It all felt so alien and remote from Reiko's own childhood.

  Modern times are very hard, she knew. And Tetsuo was determined to provide their children with the very best advantages to face such a competitive world. Yukiko was one of only ten little girls in her juku preschool class, all the rest being boys. It was commonly said to be a waste to bother much on a female's education. But Tetsuo believed their daughter should also have a head start, at least compared with other girls.

  Piping sounds of earnest recitation . . . Reiko remembered that examinations in only four more weeks would determine what kindergarten would accept little Yukiko for admission. And for boys the cycle of juku, of compressed learning and scrutiny, began even earlier, with some parents spending small fortunes on special "baby universities."

  A month ago there had been a news story about a six-year-old who took his own life in shame when he did not do well in an exam. . . . Reiko shuddered and turned away. She straightened her obi and looked downward as she hurried to the nearby station to catch the next train.

  It seemed there was no escaping rush hour anymore. Staggered work schedules only spread the chaos over the entire day. Reiko endured being packed into the car by white-gloved station proctors. Automatically, she raised invisible curtains of privacy around her body and self, ignoring the close pressure of strangers—women with shopping bags at their feet, many of the men hiding their eyes within lurid, animated magazines—until the train at last reached her stop and spilled her out onto a platform near Kaygo University.

  Smog and soot and noisy traffic had erased the semirural ambience she recalled from long ago. Reiko's earliest memories—from when she had been Yukiko's age—were of this ancient campus where she had grown up as a professor's daughter, playing quietly on the floor of a dusty study stacked high with aromatic books, the walls lined with fine works of makimono calligraphy. Unknown to her father, she used to concentrate and try to listen to his conversations with students and faculty and even gaijin visitors from foreign lands, certain in her childish belief that, over time, she would absorb it all and one day come into that world of his, to share his work, his pride, his accomplishments.

  When did I change my dreams? Reiko wondered.

  Usually, memories of such childish fantasies made her smile. But today, for some reason, the recollection only made her feel sad.

  I changed very early, she thought. And how can I be regretful, when I have everything?

  Still, it was ironic that her sister Yumi, so reticent as a child, had grown to become assertive and adept, while she, Reiko, could imagine no higher role, no greater honor, than to do her duty as a wife and mother.

  It would have been nice to stop and visit her father. But today there would not be time. Anyway, Yumi should be the first one told the news. Reiko hurried across the street to the great row of commercial establishments facing the university—the phalanx of industrial giants whose benign partnership had helped Kaygo to thrive. The guard at the side gate of Fugisuku Enterprises recognized her as a former employee and frequent visitor. He smiled and bowed, asking her merely to impress her chop upon a clipboard before she passed through.

  Reiko took the quickest route toward the Company Garden of Contemplation, a path taking her along a great glass wall. Beyond that barrier she could view one of the laboratories where Fugisuku manufactured the bioengineered products it was famous for worldwide.

  Thousands of white cages lined the walls of the vast chamber, each containing three or four tiny, pale hamsters, all cloned to be exactly alike. Automatic machines picked up cages and delivered them at precise intervals to long benches, where masked technicians in white coats worked with needles and flashing scalpels, all to an unheard but insistent tempo.

  Even through the glass Reiko caught the familiar, musty rodent aroma. She had worked here for some years, up until the time of her first pregnancy. Gaijin "liberalism" had penetrated that far, at least. Women no longer had to retire upon getting married. Frankly, though, Reiko did not miss the job all that much.

  The rear doors opened upon a walled setting of peace and serenity in the middle of sprawling Tokyo. Out in the garden, beside carefully tended dwarf trees and neatly raked beds of sand, a ceremony was nearing completion under a delicately carved tori spirit gate. Reiko folded her hands and waited politely as the priest chanted and many of the women of Fugisuku bowed to an altar swathed in incense. Unconsciously, she joined in the prayer.

  O Kami of little mammals, forgive us. Do not take revenge upon our children for what we do to you.

  The monthly ritual was intended to appease the spirits of the slaughtered hamsters, who gave their lives in such numbers for the good of the company and their common prosperity. Once upon a time the prayer gatherings had amused Reiko, but now she did not feel so sure. Did not all life strike a balance? The gaijin argued endlessly about the morality of man-kind's exploitation of animals. "Save the whales!" they cried. "Save the krill!" But why would the Westerners be so obsessed with preserving inferior animals unless they, too, feared the implacable retribution of karma?

  If animals did indeed possess kami, Fugisuku would certainly be haunted without the right protections. Barely after their eyes opened, the young hamsters were injected with viruses to stimulate production of antibodies and interferons. They were sacrificed by the thousands in order to produce just a few milligrams of precious refined molecules.

  With new life now taking form within her, Reiko was not of a mind to ignore any possible danger. She fervently added her own voice to the chant of propitiation.

  O angry spirits, stay away from my child.

  6.

  Later Reiko sat with Yumi in the garden, sharing lunch from a lacquered box she had brought along. Yumi reacted to her news with enthusiasm, speaking excitedly of all the preparations that must be made in order to welcome a new child into a home. At the same time, though, Reiko thought she felt an undercurrent of misgiving from her sister.

  Of course Yumi had suspected early on the true reason for the journey to Seoul. In many ways Reiko's younger sister was much more worldly. Still, Yumi would never rebuke her, or ever say anything to bring down her hopes. About Tetsuo she had only this to say:

  "When our family first met him, Father and the rest of us thought you might face problems from Tetsuo's unconventionality, his Western, liberal ideas. He has certainly been a surprise, then. Who ever would have expected, so few years later, that your husband would try so very hard to be perfectly Japanese?"

  Reiko blinked. Is that what Tetsuo is trying to do? she wondered. But no encouragement would force Yumi to say anything more.

  7.

  The next trip to Seoul was even briefer than the first, and taken on even shorter notice. Reiko barely had time to pack a satchel for Yukiko and deliver her to Yumi before they had to rush to the airport to catch the flight Tetsuo had arranged.

  Again the Pak Clinic doctors took samples just beyond the curtain of modesty. Reiko was well enough educated to understand much of what she overheard them saying.

  They spoke of tests . . . tests for potential genetic defects, for recessive color blindness, for the insidious trait of nearsightedness, for the correct sex chromosomes. When the implicatio
ns of their discussions sank in, Reiko's knees shook.

  They were holding court on whether the fetus—still so small that Reiko wasn't even showing yet—was to live or die.

  She'd heard that in parts of rural China they were drowning girl babies. Here, though, they were tested, discovered, and taken from the womb, before their first cry. Before their spirits could even form.

  Reiko was terrified they were about to tell her the fetus carried some unpalatable defect, such as femininity. So when they returned and bowed, smiling, with the good news, Reiko nearly fainted with relief. The very real attentiveness Tetsuo showed her afterward caused her to feel as if she had achieved some fine accomplishment and had made him very proud of her.