Different Senses (38 page)

“When I looked last night, I
was.” She flushed and grinned while Yashi hit me on the back of my
head for being crude. “So, come on. Tell me about my niece.”

They were sincere in not
wanting me to leave. But lately I’d been thinking my lack of
relationships might have at least something to do with not having
my own place, and it was
possible
, if not very likely,
that I might have a slightly higher chance of persuading Shardul to
take a chance on me if I could invite him to my own home like a
grownup. He didn’t want to trust me on his own territory, and I
didn’t blame him for that. He deserved better than a hotel, and
anyway, I didn’t think of him as one-night-stand material in the
least. Having him over to my own apartment or house, making him
welcome on his own terms, would show serious intent. At least I
hoped it would.

But for now, Tara and Yashi
persuaded me house-hunting could wait another day and that a day at
the beach with my beloved, if noisy, nephews would do me good.
Which it would. Spending time with them always made me feel better
in myself. After the breach with my parents, I’d been pathetically
grateful for my brother and sister-in-law’s unstinting support.
They didn’t know what had caused the argument—I hadn’t wanted to
tell them what my mother had been up to, and I guessed she was too
ashamed to say—but it didn’t matter. That faith in my good
character meant more to me than any fortune could. I’d miss being
around such unconditional affection, but my niece would be welcomed
to a house as stress-free as her fond uncle could make for her. I
was already looking forward to babysitting duties.

Didn’t stop me making a list of
properties to poke around the following day, and, on a whim and not
expecting a positive response, I sent a message to Shardul,
inviting him to join me house-hunting.

Ten minutes later, I got
a response.
“Certainly. Lunch
is on you. Pick me up at nine.”

Hmmm. He must be bored.
Or perhaps he liked the idea of being able to look around
some
chuma
housing without anyone giving him a hard time about it. It
occurred to me some sellers might not appreciate me bringing him
along. All the more reason to do it then.

I made an effort to dress
respectably, even ostentatiously so, to reinforce my fiscal
credentials. Shardul seemed to have had the same idea, because he
was as soberly and conservatively dressed as I’d ever seen him.

“Is that what you wear to
court?” I asked as I gave him the once-over.

“Prison visits. So your
sister-in-law is pregnant?”

I gaped at him. “Okay, that’s
verging on the supernatural. How the hell did you work that
out?”

“You’re too cheerful to have
had a fight with your beloved brother, and since your love life is
a sorry thing, I can’t credit that you found a lover and need for a
love nest in the space of a single day. So, pregnant brother’s
wife.” He folded his arms and radiated smugness.

“I could have found a
lover.”

He clicked his tongue. “Please.
I’ve had to spend more than enough time listening to my female
relatives plotting to save you from your own pathetic existence, to
believe that. So where are we going, and did you consider that
taking me along might not be the most sensible thought you’ve ever
had?”

“Exdan Park, and yes. I want to
buy from someone of impeccable social sensibilities. If they can
cope with you, then I’ll consider their property.”

“And you had no one else to
ask.”

“And I had no one else to ask.
Except Jyoti, or Kirin, or Madan, or my assistants, or I could have
gone alone. It’s not too late to back out, you know.”

He leaned back in his seat and
smirked. “Wouldn’t miss this for the world.”

“You’re such an irritating
sod.”

“Indeed. Time’s getting away
from you, Javen.”

Exdan Park was a newish
middle-class development of apartments and managed gardens. I
wouldn’t have normally gone for something like that except the
price was reasonable and it was on the right side of the city for
Yashi’s home. As I drove through the ornate but useless gates,
Shardul peered around. “Nice, but there’s nowhere to keep
your
kolija
.”

“And there is at your
place?”

“What’s the point of living
with space if you’re not using it productively? The Seeker teaches
we should occupy no more land than we truly need.”

“
I don’t own any pets or
farm animals, and the last plant I grew was a weed in my granddad’s
garden when I was five. I don't think he had the heart to tell me
what it was. I don’t have
time
to garden.”

“You spend too little time on
activities which enrich your soul, Javen. You should meditate, or
paint. Learn to play music.”

“If I shag a musician, does
that count?”

“Depends. Would he play a tune
when you fuck him?”

“I’d like to find out.”

“
You have
no
chance
with Tushar. Zero.”

“Huh, says you.” I pulled up
into the guest parking spot and climbed out. “Did Jyoti tell you he
was a null?”

He stared at me over the roof
of my auto. “I haven’t spoken to her since the concert. Tushar?
She’s sure?”

“Neither of us can sense him.
She seemed sure. Why?”

“No reason. An interesting but
useless fact, that’s all.” But his suddenly disturbed emotions
didn’t back up his careless dismissal and I wondered what he hadn’t
told me.

I forgot about it with the
distraction of meeting the apartment’s owner, and being amused by
his attempt to show how much Shardul’s presence didn’t bother him.
Shardul, of course, poked him unmercifully while peering around the
place like he was a health inspector thinking of condemning it. I
introduced him as my legal adviser, which always made people
swallow hard.

“I don’t do conveyancing for
Kelons, you realise,” he said as we walked out.

“I know. I mean, if you wanted
the work, I’d be delighted but....”

He shook his head. “No money in
it. Don’t buy that apartment.”

“I wasn’t planning to. It’s all
corners. Why don’t you like it?”

“It’s shoddy. The tiling in the
bathroom is of low standard, and the paint’s peeling in areas where
there would be no traffic or damp to explain it. Indicates to me
the substance of the structure is likely of similar quality. If you
wanted it, I’d insist you obtained a survey.”

“I would do. You really do know
about everything, don’t you?”

“Yes. I’m very clever.” He
laughed as I rolled my eyes, which was why I did it. I loved his
laugh.

“I was thinking of a house,
actually, but the maintenance might be too much.”

“Then have a lodger. Or a
lover. Or a toyboy.”

“Toyboys are high maintenance
and tend to dislike repairs. Maybe student lodgers? Through the
Institute?”

“Your neighbours will hate you
twice over,” he said, no longer smiling. “Javen, you can’t blur the
lines between our two peoples like that in Hegal. I know you mean
well, but it’s my people who pay the price.”

“Not everyone thinks like
that.”

“More than you know. Many who
pretend tolerance, like your Kirin Nel, do so because we’re kept in
our place. Wait until we have a sizeable middle class and we try to
buy into estates like this. Or worse, actually succeed. Then it’ll
be ugly.”

“
Kirin doesn’t
pretend
tolerance,” I said, really annoyed. “He employs indigenous
people, he enjoys their company, and he’s even dated them. Which is
a lot more than a lot of us will do.”

“
None of those things
carry a risk to
him
, Javen. You’re the only Kelon
I know who’s put himself in harm’s way, literally or figuratively,
for us.”

I growled in frustration,
pleased at the compliment, but annoyed that Shardul’s odd prejudice
against my former lover made him dislike a man I knew to be as good
and tolerant as he appeared. Well, usually. His freak-out over my
empathy was hardly typical. “There are others. Look at Tanmay
Kly.”

“Yes, look at him. Died at
seventy, and for sixty-nine and a half of his years, he saw us as
nothing more than servants and curiosities. I don’t want to have to
wait for each of your people to be facing death before they realise
what they’ve done.”

“What about Yashi?”

He shook his head. “I don’t
know Yashi. He’s loyal to you, no doubt, but to those you’re loyal
to? Be thankful you may never find out the truth of that.”

I climbed into the auto,
sliding the door shut with a bang. “Why does every damn
conversation with you end up being about this?”

“Because I don’t have the
luxury of walking away from ‘this’. I assumed you understood that,
but if you don’t want to be burdened....” He made a zipping gesture
across his mouth. “So where’s the next place you want to use me as
an indicator of acceptable tolerance levels?”

“
Shardul, I
do
want to
be burdened. I want to understand as much as I can...but when you
attack Kirin, and Yashi, and people you don’t even know like my
grandfather, good decent folk, it’s hard to condemn them for racism
I’ve never heard them express.”

He turned to me. “Fish
aren’t to blame for the water they live in, but they get wet along
with the
quirnel
. You’d never have
realised Kirin had a problem with empathy if you hadn’t become an
empath. Many people don’t show their attitudes to us until they’re
forced to deal with us on our terms. If you don’t want to
acknowledge that side of them, then don’t have indigenous lodgers
in a Kelon neighbourhood. Otherwise you’re in for a nasty
shock.”

I clenched the drive stick in
my hand. “Okay. It was just a thought. I won’t go ahead with
it.”

“The thought is a worthy
one.”

I forced myself to calm down
and respond to his concession and the good will behind it. I didn’t
want to fight with him over this, and I did understand why he
couldn’t leave it aside for even an hour, but sometimes it drove me
crazy that even having Shardul as a friend was a political act. He
had to weigh up every consequence of that friendship, the risk or
otherwise of every place we were seen together, and so did every
one of my indigenous friends. It didn’t have to be this way, and
yet it was. Even when I was house-hunting.

“Let’s go.” I started the
engine. “I don't like these places anyway. Let’s look at a real
house.”

The next place was isolated
enough that the neighbours weren’t a problem, but the owner gave
Shardul such a look of pure disgust that I turned on my heel
without another word, and walked back to the auto. “Bad aura,” I
said, straight-faced.

“The kind you can’t pray away,”
he agreed.

As I was in no hurry, and the
exercise was just to find out what was available for the money I
had, I let Shardul choose the next three places to go. To tell the
truth, the excitement at the idea of having my own place had
already died, between what he’d said, and my facing the reality of
living away from Yashi, Tara and the boys. I loved their home, and
them. Walking around a bunch of strangers’ houses reminded me of
what I’d be losing, and the appeal of having a ‘love nest’ as
Shardul insisted on referring to it, was lost on me now.

“If this process makes you so
unhappy,” he said after we’d left the last property, both of us
wiping our hands on our trousers because the owner’s cleaning left
a lot to be desired, “why not build a house?”

I stopped dead. “I hadn’t even
thought about it. Isn’t that something for a family to do?”

“I don’t see why it should be.
You can afford it, and you have strongly defined tastes that you’re
unlikely to satisfy with these mediocre constructions.”

“You might have a point. But I
have no idea how to go about it.”

“I have a cousin—”

“Of course you do.”

He laughed. “Yes. She and her
husband build houses for our people. She’s got quite a flair for
design, though she’s not formally trained. Perhaps you could
consult her.”

“Let me buy you lunch and we
can talk about it.” The idea cheered me up a little. At least
building would mean I could avoid dealing with racist homeowners
with lousy taste and standards of hygiene.

Given my inclination, I’d
have taken Shardul to
Kerteze
’s but mindful of what
he’d said earlier, I asked him to choose where we ate. We ended up
at our usual because he liked to give his business to his people.
Suited me as the food was good and he could relax. No one paid me
any attention any more. I was just the crazy
chuma
Shardul-ji
tolerated for unknown reasons.

Since it was Shardul’s day off,
we could take our time, and even drink some of the Nihani fruit
beer I’d acquired a taste for. Shardul offered some ideas for what
I might want in a house and before long I had my reader out and
drawing sketches to remind me of what we talked about. “It looks
like Kly’s house in miniature,” he said after I finished one
drawing.

“I guess it does. I want a
house covered in plants.”

“Thought you knew nothing about
gardening?”

“Yeah, but plants just grow,
don’t they?”

He grinned and took a sip of
his beer. “Oh, my cousin will love you. Hope your wallet’s as large
as your ignorance.”

“Not everyone...oh. Hello,
Tushar, Sri Ursemin.”

Shardul turned. Tushar smiled,
but he shifted nervously from one foot to other. “Sorry to
interrupt. Javen...and Shardul, isn’t it?”