Songmaster (33 page)

Josif woke up more from the smell than the sound. At least the smell was the first thing he was aware of, real food cooking in the kitchen instead of the bland smell of machine food. He looked at the clock. One in the morning. He had gone to bed three hours before, knowing Kyaren would not be home until late. But real food was cooking in the kitchen, and while they had real food often—one of the luxuries they indulged in on their newly expanded salaries—they always ate it together.

He then became aware of the voices. They were not loud. Kyaren’s voice he knew from the cadences. The other voice he did not know. It sounded like a woman. Inwardly Josif relaxed, got out of bed, put on a robe, and walked sleepily into the front room.

In the kitchen Kyaren was making a salad, while talking to a boy who looked to be about twelve or thirteen. Their backs were to him.

“Still, you handled them masterfully,” Kyaren was saying.

The boy shrugged. “I heard their songs and sang them back. It’s easy.”

“For you,” Kyaren said. “But then, you
were
singing.”

The boy laughed. To Josif the sound was received not so much by his ears as by his spine, tingling with the music of it. He knew now who the child was—the only person so young whose voice would have that kind of power to it. Ansset. Josif had never met him, had only seen pictures. But he did not want the boy to turn around. Instead he watched him from the back, the way his hair curled gently onto his neck, clinging with sweat from the heat of the kitchen; the way his chest sloped into his waist, which was lithe, and then did not flare at all as the lines of his body went smoothly down narrow hips to strong, well-shaped legs. His movement was graceful as he alternately leaned in to watch Kyaren’s hands working and leaned out to look at her face as they talked.

“Singing?” the boy was asking. “If that was singing, then a parrot speaks.”

“It was singing,” Kyaren said. “But then, I never had an ear.”

The Songhouse, of course. Josif knew from what Ferret had said that Kyaren came from the Songhouse. But they had never talked about it. It was clearly on the list of things that Josif may know, but that Kyaren was not able to discuss. It had not really occurred to Josif, not seriously, anyway, that Kyaren might know Ansset. It was like being from a city on Earth. Even being from Seattle, far from a large town, it always seemed absurd to him when people asked, “From Seattle? Why then, do you know my cousin?” The name never meant anything to him. But the Songhouse wasn’t so much a town as a school, was it? And Kyaren knew this boy. Who also happened to be the planet manager, and therefore the key to their advancement.

It occurred to Josif that Ansset might be helpful to them. But that thought was buried in far stronger thoughts and feelings. For then Ansset turned around and looked at him.

The pictures were poor imitations. Josif was not prepared for the eyes, which found his face as if Ansset had been looking for him for a long time; the lips that were parted just slightly, that hinted of smiles and passion; the translucence of the skin, which seemed smooth as marble yet deep and warm as soil in sunlight. Josif had been beautiful as a boy, but this child made him feel ugly by contrast. Josif’s hands longed just to touch his cheek—it could not be as perfect as it looked.

“Hi,” Ansset said.

Kyaren turned around, startled. When she saw it was Josif, she was relieved. “Oh, Josif. I thought you were asleep.”

“I was,” Josif said, surprised that he could speak.

“How long have you been standing there?”

It was Ansset who responded: “A few minutes. I heard him come in.”

“Why didn’t you say something?”

And again Ansset answered, though the question had been directed to Josif. “I knew he was no danger to us. He came from the bedroom. I assume he’s Josif, your friend.”

“Yes,” Kyaren said. Her tone sounded tentative. Josif realized that she had never mentioned him to Ansset—she was surprised that Ansset knew about him.

Apparently Ansset caught her hesitation, too. “Oh, Kyaren, you didn’t think they’d let me be friends with you without a security check, did you?” He sounded amused. “They’re so thorough. I’m sure they know exactly where I am right now, and what we’re doing.”

“Are they listening to us?” Kyaren asked, appalled.

“They aren’t allowed to,” Ansset said, “but they probably are. If not the locals, then the imperial snoops. No, don’t worry about it. They’re probably just monitoring heartbeats and the number of people present, that kind of thing. I’m allowed some privacy. I can insist on it, and I will.” His voice radiated calm. Both Josif and Kyaren visibly relaxed.

The salad was done, and Kyaren sprinkled hot mushrooms over the top of it.

“I didn’t expect real food,” Ansset said.

“We usually eat out of the machines,” Kyaren answered, and they spent a while during the meal talking about the virtues and dangers and expenses and inconveniences of eating real. Of course, in the palace Ansset had never tasted machine food; there are benefits to eating with the emperor.

Josif said little, however, and ate little. He tried to convince himself that it was because he was tired. Actually, however, his eyes were wide open and his attention never flagged. He watched both Kyaren and Ansset, but mostly Ansset, as his hands described graceful patterns in the air, as his eyes danced with delight at flavors, at wit, and sometimes at nothing at all, just sheer enjoyment of being where he was, doing what he was doing.

Ansset’s every word was love, and Josif’s silence answered him.

“Don’t you think so, Josif?” Kyaren asked, and Josif realized that he had not been listening to the conversation.

“I’m sorry,” Josif said. “I think I dozed off.”

“With your eyes wide open?” Kyaren laughed. She sounded tired.

Ansset looked carefully at Josif. Josif thought that the boy was trying to tell him something; trying to tell him that he knew Josif had lied, that Josif had not been dozing. “Why don’t you go to bed?” Ansset asked. “You’re tired.”

Josif nodded. “I will.”

“And I’d better leave, too,” Ansset said. “It was wonderful. Thank you.”

Ansset got up and went toward the door. Kyaren went with him, talking all the way. Josif, however, ignored courtesy and returned to the bedroom. It took no thought at all. He knew what he had to do. Ansset was obviously not just a casual friend, not just a superior officer in government. Kyaren would have him back, again and again. And so Josif started taking his clothing from the shelves and putting it in his duffel.

But he was tired, and soon sat down on the edge of the bed, holding the edges of his half-full duffel and wondering what good it would do. The thought of leaving Kyaren was terrifying. The thought of not leaving her was worse.

I have done this before, he thought. This has all happened before, and what good does it do?

He remembered Pyoter, and then it was impossible for him to get up, to finish packing, to leave. It was Pyoter he had first loved, who had taken Josif as a shy child of unusual beauty and shown him love and loving. Josif then discovered what he had not known about himself. That when he trusted, he held back nothing. That when he loved, he could not love anyone else. He and Pyoter had been everywhere together, done everything together. They had both said
we
so often that the word
I
came only with difficulty to their lips. Only a year apart in age, their friendship had been so boyish and exuberant that no one had thought there was anything sexual in it; but Josif also learned that he could not love without lovemaking, that it was a part of it, the center of the yearning. And so he and Pyoter had shared everything and it seemed it would go on forever.

Until Bant. Bant had known at once. Josif never knew what made the difference or why he changed. Just that one day everything had been the same; Bant a friend of sorts, but very distant, Pyoter the beginning and end of the world to him. And then the next day, it had all been changed. Pyoter was a stranger, and Bant, who had finally taken Josif to his bed, had completely replaced him.

It horrified Josif that he could change that quickly, that overnight his attitudes could change. He refused to think it might be just the sex; he reconstructed events and saw the seeds of the change months before, when Bant had first hired him as his secretary and they had begun their friendly banter in the office. Josif now remembered the touches, the smiles, the warmth; he had been changing all along, and only noticed it all at once.

He could not bear to be disloyal to Pyoter. He had tried, for weeks, to keep things the same between them. It was impossible. Pyoter wasn’t a fool, and Josif watched him getting more and more hurt as it became clearer and clearer that Josif no longer belonged to him as he had. And finally Pyoter said, “Why didn’t you just leave at once, instead of tearing me up bit by bit like this?”

This time, Josif thought, this time I
must
leave. Before I destroy Kyaren. Because this boy I cannot resist, and sooner or later the change will come, if he’s here often. Sooner or later it will not be Kyaren I come to with my thoughts and my feelings; or, even if the boy never becomes my friend, it will get to a point where I will be so obsessed by him, as I was obsessed by Bant, that I cannot bear to be with Kyaren anymore.

The duffel lay at his feet, half full. Why don’t I go? Josif asked himself. Why am I still here? I know what I have to do, I know why, it’s the way I am and the only way to stop myself is to stop everything, and yet here I sit and I haven’t packed and I’m not leaving and why not?

The answer stood in the door, her face surprised, uncomprehending.

“What are you doing?” Kyaren asked.

“Packing,” Josif answered, but he knew even then that he would not leave. He had never been able to leave Pyoter or Bant willingly; he would not be able to leave Kyaren either. I am not in control of myself, Josif realized. I gave myself to her, and I can’t just decide to take myself back.

“Why?” Kyaren asked, already hurt because she could not comprehend what he was doing.

If I stay, I’ll destroy her as I destroyed Pyoter.

“We’ll still be friends,” Josif answered.

“What brought this on? Why now, at three o’clock in the morning? What did I do?”

“Ansset,” Josif said.

She misunderstood. “How can you possibly be jealous of him? He’s only fifteen! They give them drugs in the Songhouse, he’s sterile, puberty is put off for years—he hardly even has a sex, Josif—”

“I’m not jealous of him,” Josif answered.

She stood regarding him for a while, and then realized what he meant.

“Still the old sixty-two percent, is it?” she asked.

“No,” he answered, “I just see the potential. I want to avoid it.”

“There is no potential,” she said.

“You don’t understand.”

“Damn right I don’t. You mean that all this time, I’ve just been filling your bed until you could find a beautiful boy to fill it?”

Maybe postponing it would have been better, Josif thought. Postponing is definitely better. I can’t do this tonight. Because Ansset is only potential, and Kyaren is real, Kyaren I love
now
, and I can’t bear the hurt and anger in her voice. “No,” he said softly, fervently. “Kyaren, you don’t understand. I didn’t
choose
you. I didn’t
choose
Bant. Things like this happen. They just happen, and I don’t have any control over it.”

“You mean that in just one evening you suddenly forget that you love me—”

“No!” he cried out, in agony. “No! Kyaren, I just know that it’s possible, it’s possible and I don’t want it to happen, don’t you see?”

“I don’t,” she said. “If you love me, you love me.”

Josif got up, walked to her, knocking over the duffel in the process. “Kyaren, I don’t want to leave you.”

“Then don’t.”

“It’s because I love you that I want to leave.”

“If you love me, you’ll stay,” she said.

He had known it, from the moment she appeared in the door. He couldn’t leave her. When the change came, it would come, and then it would be irreversible, and then he would leave because he loved someone else and there was something in him that made it impossible for him to love two people at once. But now the one person was Kyaren, and he could not leave her because she wanted him to stay.

“I’ll hurt you,” he said.

“You could not hurt me worse than leaving me now, for no reason.”

He wondered if she was right, or if it was easier for no reason than for the reason that there would be in the future. Surely it was. Surely it was easier to bear if you didn’t have to know who it was who took your lover’s heart from you. But maybe not; she was a woman, and Josif did not understand women. Maybe she was right, and it would be better this way.

“Besides, Josif, what makes you think Ansset would ever have you? He didn’t have two emperors, you know.”

She was right. She was right and he knew it and he went to the duffel and unpacked it and put the clothing away. “He never will,” Josif said. “I was a fool. I’m just tired.” And he undressed and got into the bed.

They made love in silence, and several times Kyaren seemed surprised by the force of his passion tonight. She did not realize that in spite of his best efforts he kept seeing the curls clinging to Ansset’s neck, the soft cheek that he had not touched except in his mind but that was all the softer because of that. He tried to take Ansset’s face out of his mind. And failed.

Kyaren sighed contentedly afterward, and kissed him. She thinks it’s all better now, Josif thought bitterly. She thinks she’s kept me. She would have kept me better if she had let me go now.

And when her breathing became heavy and regular, he leaned up on his arm and looked at her face, which she always turned away from him in sleep. He stroked her cheek softly; her mouth moved, almost like the sucking instinct of a baby.

“I warned you,” he said softly, so softly that perhaps the words did not even find voice. I warned you.