Native Tongue (38 page)

“Day before yesterday.”

“Pretty short time, isn’t it?”

“Laser surgery heals quickly.”

Body-parl again, MEDICAL OPINIONS, YET, FROM THIS USED-UP OLD PIECE . . . HELL OF A NERVE SHE’S GOT. Nazareth ignored it.

“You think you’re well enough to leave? Then by all means, leave.” The senior man in the pack leaned across her, jolting the bed; she would have gasped with pain except that she would have endured
any
pain rather than show weakness in front of these elegant specimens. He punched the DISCHARGE stud in the bedside computer, and when the questionmark came up he punched in ANY TIME TODAY.

“There you are,” he said, and off they went, telling her over their collective shoulders that if she had any other questions she could ask the nurses. And Nazareth knew that to be true. She could certainly ask the nurses questions. They wouldn’t answer them if it could possibly be avoided, but she was free to ask. It made no difference to her anyway, now that she had permission to leave.

* * *

The message went through to Clara’s wrist computer, and Clara went straight to Nazareth’s husband. It was luck that Aaron was still in the house; she caught him just leaving, and impatient to be on his way.

“She wants what?” he asked her crossly. “Do speak up, Clara.”

“She’s being discharged today, Aaron,” said Clara. “And she doesn’t want to come back here. Now that she is most assuredly and officially barren . . . she wants to go straight to Barren House from the hospital. For good.”

Aaron stopped then, his attention captured at last. “Isn’t that a little unusual?” he asked. “Irregular?”

“If you say so, Aaron.”

“You know very well what I mean,” Aaron snapped. “Wouldn’t the usual thing be for her to come back here and spend a few weeks lounging about indulging herself and
then
move over to Barren House?”

Clara could have told him of many women who had come back from illness or surgery and taken up their lives beside their husbands just as before, and who had remained honored in the Household until they were widowed because their husbands wanted them to remain. But she didn’t bother. Aaron was not capable of feeling as much affection for any human being as he felt for one of the dogs; and he was not capable of feeling
any
affection for a woman. Had he thought of his mother as anything more than part of the furniture? she wondered. Probably not. There were men like him everywhere, men who felt toward women the kind of ugly prejudice that had once been attached to racial differences . . . but Aaron was unquestionably the worst example she had ever known. It would be a waste of time to try to break through what Aaron felt toward the females of his species, and she had no time to waste.

“It’s up to you,” she told him. “And to Thomas, of course.”

“Hunnnh.” He stood there, scowling at her as if she had brought great trouble and worry upon him through sheer incompetence.

“What’s the procedure?” he demanded, finally. “Do I have to put it to Thomas formally, or what?”

“I’d recommend that, Aaron,” said Clara, carefully looking at the floor. Or what!

“Is he here?”

“He’s still in his office, I believe.”

“
Damn
, what a nuisance!”

“You can deal with it whenever it’s convenient for you,” said Clara coldly. “I’ll notify Nazareth to wait until you have time to attend to the matter.”

“Never mind,” he said. “I might as well get it settled, and then I’ll give you a message for Nazareth on my way out. Keep yourself within reach, would you?”

“Certainly.”

“I’ll get back to you, then.”

He turned and took the stairs down to the lower floors two at a time, while Clara watched him with the perfect hatred of long practice.

“So she’s to be discharged today?”

“So Clara tells me.”

“Isn’t that awfully quick?”

Aaron shrugged and smiled. “You know how she is. If she sets her mind to something, that’s the end of it.”

“Very like her mother.”

“No doubt.”

“And she wants to go straight to Barren House from the hospital rather than coming home?”

“Yes . . . wants the women to send her things on ahead. I suppose she’ll want her books sent, but I won’t permit that. She doesn’t need them with her, and I’m used to having them here.”

“Of course,” agreed Thomas. “Well . . . what do you want to do about this?”

“I say we should let her have her way,” said Aaron carelessly. “Why force her to come here if she’d rather not? She’s been through quite an ordeal . . . first the illness, then all that lasering and mauling about . . . if it would make her happy to go on to Barren House, why not let her?”

“You don’t mind, Aaron? Are you sure?”

The two men looked at each other, and knew they were thinking the same thing. IF SHE COMES BACK HERE, EVEN IF SHE SAYS NOTHING AT ALL ABOUT IT, SHE’LL BE A CONSTANT REPROACH. THE WOMEN WILL LOOK AT HER, AND THEY’LL LOOK AT US AND THEIR EYES WILL SAY “YOU STINGY CHEAP BASTARDS” EVEN IF THEY KEEP THEIR MOUTHS SHUT. THE WOMEN THINK WE SHOULD HAVE AUTHORIZED THE BREAST REGENERATIONS FOR HER . . . THEY WILL FIND A WAY TO CONSTANTLY REMIND US THAT THAT IS HOW THEY FEEL.

“I wouldn’t want to stand in her way at a time like this,” said
Aaron solemnly. “It would be unkind, and unreasonable. I think—unless you have strong objections—that she should be humored in this. After all, she can still come here to see the children as often as she wishes . . . and her services continue to be available to the Household as always. Why cause her unnecessary distress?”

“You’re very logical about it,” Thomas observed. “I’m glad to see that.”

The room was quiet, both of them thinking, and then Aaron decided that there would be no better time than this moment, while Thomas was apparently pleased with him.

“Thomas,” he said, “Nazareth and I haven’t been very . . . happy . . . together.”

“Well . . . she was always odd. It’s not difficult to understand.”

“Do you suppose under the circumstances that—” Aaron stopped, judiciously, as if the words were difficult for him to use.

“Well? That what?”

“How would you perceive the prospect of a divorce for us, Thomas? For Nazareth and me?”

The older man frowned, and his body went rigid; he made Aaron wait. And then he said, “We don’t approve of divorce, Adiness.”

“I’m aware of that, sir. I don’t approve of it myself, nor does my family.”

“It was all that divorcing and musical beds that damn near wrecked this country in the twentieth century,” Thomas stated with considerable fervor. “We’ve been a long time coming out of that, a long time returning life to its right and natural form. . . . I’m not sure I care to contribute to holding back the progress of that change.”

Aaron spoke cautiously; it wouldn’t do to give Thomas the idea that he wasn’t for the American Way and the Sanctity of the Home and all the rest of it. Hell, he’d been to Homeroom, just like everybody else: he knew the drill.

“There is no
law
against divorce,” he pointed out.

“No. But it is mightily disapproved of. Ordinarily the public disapproves of it
very
strongly unless the woman in question has been institutionalized for life, or is a flagrant adultress . . . lord knows the closest poor Nazareth ever came to adultery was that idiot caper whispering into Jordan Shannontry’s ear. I’m afraid that’s not flagrant enough. I don’t think a divorce could be managed without a lot of public outcry . . . especially not in the present circumstances.”

“Sir, is this a matter of your own personal convictions, or is it a question to be settled on the basis of public reaction?”

“I do
not
approve of divorce!” Thomas snapped. “Where my personal opinions are concerned, a contract is a contract—and the marriage contract is as valid and binding as any other. Divorce, except in the most extreme cases, is nothing more than self-indulgence. This nation is under severe enough strain from the shocks of contact with the Alien civilizations, and the drive to settle the space colonies and bring them up to a decent living standard . . . it is
crucially
important that we preserve our cultural fabric and set it well above our personal convenience.”

Thomas was going to turn him down, Aaron thought. For the sake of the effing public and its little pointy heads. And the fact that Aaron would be condemned to spend the rest of his life with a woman so mutilated that no decent man could look at her without revulsion was not going to sway him. It was bitter, and he was not ready to accept it. Not quite yet.

“Well, sir,” he said, “I will of course abide by your decision. But I think you should know that I don’t think I could force myself to share your daughter’s bed now . . . not as she is now. And a man needs sexual release if he is to be useful to his Household . . . I’m certain that you know that as well as I do, Thomas.”

Ah. Thomas felt that, and he narrowed his eyes to consider its implications. This was a new factor in the equation. He was quite certain that no one in the Household, not even Rachel, suspected his relationship with Michaela Landry. He had been discreet to such a degree that he had almost suspected himself of a mild paranoia on the subject, and he knew there was no question about being able to trust Michaela. But Aaron had always been crafty, sly, given to meddling when he thought there was advantage for him . . . If he
did
suspect, and saw himself denied “sexual release” while Thomas dallied outside Rachel’s bed, he could make a lot of trouble and make it safely. However stodgy the American public of 2205 might be about divorce, it wasn’t a patch on their feelings about adultery. It was done, of course. In moderation, and with taste. But to be caught at it was unforgivable. How much did Adiness know?

The dark handsome eyes looked back at him, guileless and open—much too guileless and open for his tastes—and Thomas knew he could not be sure. What had he said? That he was certain Thomas knew of a man’s needs for sexual release as well as he did? No, he could not be sure.

The decision made, Thomas didn’t dawdle.

“Do you think,” he asked, “that you could do this with
extreme
delicacy?”

“Of course, Thomas.”

“And with the utmost degree of courtesy?”

“What do you mean, sir?”

“I mean that,
for a change
, you would treat Nazareth as if you valued her. I mean that you would speak to her courteously in public, that you would no longer make her the source of your reputation for clever conversation and delightful jokes—oh, I’m not a total fool, Adiness, however much I may refrain from meddling in the marital arrangements of others! And I mean that when you encountered Nazareth by chance before others you would defer to her as to a lady for whom you felt respect. I will not have it said that we first allowed her to be mutilated to such an extent that she was no longer acceptable to you, and then kicked her out of the Household brutally as a divorced woman, with no excuse but our economies! Surely you are capable of understanding that.”

“Indeed, sir—I understand precisely what you mean. And you can count on me.”

“I have your word as a gentleman?”

“Absolutely.”

Thomas steepled his fingers then, and peered at Aaron over the top of them.”

“In that case,” he said, “perhaps it would not be an entirely unacceptable idea. There’s a young girl in our dorms . . . her name is Perpetua. Have you noticed her, Aaron?”

He had. She was lovely. Thick brown hair, huge brown eyes, a body lush and promising, and a gentle manner that roused him every time she moved or spoke. Aaron had indeed noticed Perpetua, as had every other man in the Household.

“I may have,” he said.

“In about a year, Perpetua will be sixteen. And needing a husband. I’d like to keep her here, Aaron.”

“I see.”

“You would have been divorced a respectable length of time by her sixteenth birthday, or very soon thereafter . . . and Perpetua would make you a good wife. It would be a suitable alliance, in every sense of the word.”

The old fox, Aaron thought. He was going to make a trade of it. Aaron Adiness, at stud again for Chornyak Household—or no divorce. But he thought he could find considerable consolation in being sentenced to serve as stud for Perpetua. It would be the intervening year that would be difficult.

Thomas knew that, too.

“You would have to be
quaintly
beyond reproach during your year as a bachelor,” he said, measuring the words out. “Move into the bachelor rooms, be there in your bachelor bed every night without exception . . . I will not have it said that you divorced Nazareth simply to marry Perpetua.”

“It will be said no matter what I do, sir.”

“It’s one thing to have it said because people have small twisted minds; it’s quite another to have it said because you provide an excuse to say it.”

“You want my word again.”

“Indeed I do.”

A year of total celibacy . . . the prospect dismayed Aaron more than he had thought it would. But life with Nazareth meant permanent celibacy broken only by the occasional quick flutter on the sly. . . . They would watch his every move, if he remained married to Nazareth; he’d be fortunate if he could find himself some draggled trollop once a year. Aaron shuddered; there were worse things than a year of monkhood.