Angry Young Spaceman (25 page)

“
But I like the Octavian speech,”
I said.

“
All right,
” she said amicably. “
One of my students said that you were her favourite teacher
.” She opened the box. Inside was a cloth that she proceeded to clean the desks with.

“Really?” I said. “Why?”

“
She says you are gentle and funny
.” She rubbed the cloth against a block in the box, and went back to the desk.

“That’s nice,” I said, failing to keep a smile from my lips.

“
Because you don’t punish the students, you are very popular.
”

I smiled even wider. To distract myself, I looked in the box for another cloth. It was very gratifying to hear that — that my popularity came out of a deliberate stance rather than the fact of me being an entertaining oddity.

“I surprise you don’t punish,” Jinya said, rubbing her cloth on the block. “Because on the moviedisk, you hit, hit, hit.” She was facing the board, so I couldn’t see her expression.

“I don’t like to hit kids,” I said. “Because they are defenceless.”

She looked at me, cloth in hand. “No defence? I see.” She went back to her cleaning. “Is good reason why.”

I rubbed my cloth on the block, and started to clean a desk full of love notes to various mediastars.

She stopped cleaning for a second. “Sam, what plans do you have on weekend?”

Matthew had told me about an offworlder Halloween party. I was planning to go as a Comet Pirate. I even had the laser cutlass. “There is an offworlder party I am going to.”

She looked disappointed. “Oh.”

I erased a poor drawing of a saucer from the desk. “Why do you ask?”

“Because Saturday is a special romantic day for Octavian youth. There is a pop song. You know? Is famous.”

I shook my head.

“
The time is now/ to harvest your dreams...
” she sang, then giggled.

I shook my head, smiling.

She bobbed her head, “
Because tomorrow, tomorrow/ all lies dead
.”

“I like that song,” I said, because I did. “But I’ve never heard of it. Is it Intergalactic Cool Youth?”

She shook her head. “No, no. Is twenty years old? About.”

“So it’s a special romantic day because of the pop song?” I said.

“Right!” she said with a big smile. “Is too bad—”

“My plans are not important,” I said shamelessly.

“Oh?” she said.

“I will stay in Plangyo this weekend.”

“Oh, good!” she said.

I went back to my desk cleaning. I looked at her sometimes, when her eyes were on her work. Her smile matched mine: a goofy one that died sometimes, only to spring up again.

We cleaned desks for a few minutes. “
I love Jinya,
” I said.

“What?” she said, looking at me, silver eyes wide.

“Someone wrote it on the desk,” I said. “I was just reading it.”

“Where?” she said, coming over.

“Oh, I erased it,” I said. “Sorry. Some crazy student.”

“Yes,” she said, going back. “Crazy boy.”

***

I left the door open a crack, in case the wallen came back, calling behind me to activate the droid. I heard his vacuum powering up before I had walked out of earshot.

I checked the time. It was late, much later than we’d planned.

“I’m sorry,” Jinya had said on the vidphone. “My teachers wanted to go out to celebrate the Special Romantic Day. They did not have men.” She had laughed merrily at this unfortunate situation.

“I think the restaurant might be closed, now,” I had said, a little peeved.

“Maybe we can go to your apartment and drink all night,” she had said.

My peevishness left me, stunned from my head.

“Is OK?” she had asked.

“Is great!” I had replied.

I strolled light-headedly through the neighbourhood made blue by the faintly glowing night. A wallen rustled through someone’s garbage, and I peered at it to see if it was the one I knew. This one looked bigger, but I wasn’t sure. While I had been kind of disappointed that the wallen I had met left so suddenly, I was in such a good mood now that I was sure that it would be back in my apartment by the time I was. Hopefully the droid wouldn’t scare it off...

I arrived at the tree. I imagined telling my friends back home that I met someone under a tree. Lisa popped into mind.

LISA: Like a place called Tree? A bar?

ME: No, a
tree
tree.

LISA: You mean a tree like an actual plant?

ME: Yeah. They’re really hard to grow in Octavia’s atmosphere, so it’s kind of like a craft. For ages I wondered why this old guy was always under it, then I saw him trimming it. He pulled himself up the trunk and shook the branches one by one. I also realized then that the tree looked a lot like an Octavian, upside down.

LISA: —

I cut Lisa off in my mind before she had the chance to say something rude or obnoxious. I looked towards the old man’s house and, seeing no lights on, sat on the flat part of the coral where he usually perched. I smiled a little at my audacity. The roots of the tree actually went into the coral and I traced the lip of the entry point where wood penetrated stone, slid inside the...

When I realized it was turning me on I stopped touching it.

I started humming what I remembered of the Special Romantic Song. Then I cursed myself for not learning it — that would have been something to do when I was waiting for her to call. Of course, I wasn’t thinking the thoughts of a lover then. I had been worried she had stood me up, that I had turned down a night of Matthew’s sometimes appalling but always entertaining antics to sit at home.

“Sam?” Jinya said, her gently waving silhouette a little way down the road.

I got up.

“Oh! I didn’t know it was you!” she said. “Because you sit down. I thought maybe it was Octavian man.”

She was wearing a tan shift. “Your clothes remind me of the beach on Venus,” I said, a little embarrassed by the flowery language.

She looked surprised. “Strange?”

“No, lovely.”

We set off. “That is my favourite tree,” she said as we left.

I thought of the root and the coral. “Me too.”

A tip of her tentacle slipped into the space between my thumb and forefinger. “Not a tree on Earth?” she said.

“There’s no such thing as an Earth tree.” The tip of her tentacle slid away, and I didn’t know if it was because I didn’t squeeze it in time or if she never intended for it to be there at all. I bit the side of my cheek. “Only on old Earth moviedisks.”

“No more?” she said, seeming overly concerned. “Too bad.”

I shrugged, thinking about the planet of trees we had visited on our orientation, the heat and the constant prickling and the uneven ground.

“Do you want to buy some beer?”

She nodded enthusiastically and we made our way towards the store. I checked my pocket for beeds, and it felt like I had one or two of the big ten-beed beeds so I relaxed.

The store was empty except for an unhappy looking woman who barely glanced our way. I wondered what hopes she had had for the Special Romantic Day.

“Snacks,” said Jinya, and I nodded and left her to it.

There were a lot of beer bladders hanging there but not a lot of selection. They did, however, have a few outrageously priced Earth-style bottles which I was nowhere near nostalgic enough to buy. I scooped a couple of big bladders of a brand I thought I remembered favourably and brought them to the counter. Jinya put a small pile of snacks on the counter.

The woman started ringing them up and looking us over. I couldn’t see how this could look anything but bad — beer, night-time, Special Romantic Day, a horny offworlder — but Jinya looked entirely composed and relaxed.

“Is that enough?” I asked, kind of joking — it was a lot of beer.

She looked at it and answered seriously. “Is good.”

We grabbed a few bags each and left. I watched the counter girl go back to her magazine, and was struck again by her misery.

“She is sad,” I said.

“Yes,” Jinya said. “No man. Too bad.” She laughed again. “My teachers ask me, ‘Where do you go Jinya?’ ‘I go to meet a friend,’ I said.”

We were walking down the last stretch and I realized that instead of passing us, the saucer behind us was slowing. I turned around and my stomach twisted quickly as I recognized the twined snakes of the police crest. The dome shucked down.

“Hello!” the fat policeman said, waving his tentacles. “How are you Sam!”

I got a smile out of my emergency reserves and slapped it on my face quick. “Hi!”

He looked at Jinya for a second too long. He looked back at me, and I noticed his eyes were swimming a little, maybe with the stress of thinking of more English phrases. “How are you?” he repeated. He looked at the beer bladders.

“Great!” I said, feeling my smile ready to give out. In my anxiety, I almost started speaking in Octavian, but I had a sudden fear that he would tell someone official that I was fluent.

Another saucer approached. He looked at it, then at us. “Criminals, maybe,” he blurted, then he sealed the dome and flew away.

“He is not a good English speaker,” was Jinya’s only comment.

I looked around as we neared my apartment and was happy to find the area deserted. My droid was still cleaning away around the open door — everything else was clean, I suppose, so the dirtiest air was coming in from outside.

“Is dangerous, to leave your door open,” she said, as I shut the door behind me.

Yes,
I thought to myself,
criminals.
I looked around for the wallen. “I was hoping my friend the wallen would visit.”

She laughed at this. “The wallen is your friend?” she said.

“Yes,” I said stubbornly, giving up the search. “Last week he did not come to visit. I miss him.”

She put the bag on the table. “He escaped. Wallens are trekerous.”

“What?”

“Trekerous.” She looked at my puzzled face. “Not good friends.”

“Treacherous.”

“Right! In Octavia, many years ago...” she began.

“I know the history,” I said.

“Yes. A wallen eats food and then goes away. Not good friend.”

Well, it might have something to do with the fact that you eat them
, I thought. I looked at Jinya’s calm face, and felt suddenly unsure. What the hell did I know? Maybe they
were
bad friends. Maybe hitting kids
did
make them learn better.

Jinya was setting out the bladders and the snacks, I was happy to see, on the ground instead of at the table. I hunkered down, thinking hard.

“
I think teaching English makes everyone the same
.
It’s bad.
”

Jinya tore the top off of a red package festooned with English phrases like “good and delicious!” and “snack!” on it. Golden spirals floated out. “
We need to know English to do business well. English is important to the Octavian economy.
”

“
I know
,” I said, desperately hoping to get beyond the party line, “
But people like Earth movies, and food, and style too much. It makes a danger to Octavian culture.
”

She nodded, tweaking open a bladder. “
Octavian culture is important. But modern ideas are good too, like
jetatag
for women.
”

“Jetatag?” I repeated.

“Equality,” she said.

That gave me a bit of perspective on why she found it appealing. “
One reason I came here was because I wanted to see a different culture. But I am helping make your culture the same as ours. It’s very boring.
”

She laughed. “You are right.” She took a pull from the bladder. “You speak Octavian too much. You are bad English teacher.”

“Thank you,” I said, getting into my beer, again wondering if she was using me for my tongue.

She hit me, giggling. “Is not good. Is... insult!”

Her giggling was a warm rain, melting my suspicions and leaving me pure and clean.

“
Where did you learn ‘culture’?
” she asked. “Difficult word.”

“
Octavian newsfeed
,” I said, feeling a little proud. I’d gotten to the point where I was learning by context.

“Your Octavian is much better,” she said, seriously. “Great.”

I thought back to my conversation with 9/3 and wondered how great she would think it would be if it meant that Octavia lost its cultural protection because of it. “Maybe.
Tell me about your parents.
”

“My parents?” she said, a little thrown off by my shift in conversation. “They are very good.” Although we weren’t finished our “good and delicious” snack, she opened up another that bragged about having pickles from Jukwong. “My mother’s very funny. Very hilarious! She is very loud. My father is too quiet. Strange, you think?”

“Interesting, I think.
On Octavia, it is strange, but it wouldn’t be strange on Earth.
”

“Yes, I know. Very different. On Earth, women sex women? Is true?”

I nodded. “Yes. Everyone sexes everyone,” I said, liking the new verb. “My mother’s lover was a woman. Jane. They broke up. My mother is loud too, but she is not hilarious.”

“My mother sing songs in the morning. Too loud!” She curled two tentacles and guarded her earholes with them. “‘Mom, we’re sleep!’ She says ‘La La La!’”

I smiled. I didn’t know if my mother could sing. Jane could, though, and the thought made me sad. I watched Jinya hook a few rings on her tentacle and raise them to her lips. She was humming, and making a light popping sound with her suction cups to accompany it. She saw me looking and looked down at the snacks.

“I eat too many snacks. When I study, too too many. Sometimes I stay up all night and just... tea... snacks... read... make jokes. You know?”

I knew.

“Sam, we should stay up... all the night. OK?”

I nodded, because her silver eyes made it immeasurably appealing.

And I almost made it. Hours later, after she had told me of her dad’s pearl diving accident and I had described pug as best I could, we had come to the end of the beer and the snacks... but not the night.