The Golden Space (10 page)

“Josepha?”

She cleared her throat. “We’re down here talking,” Josepha began, “while the children are upstairs under guard. I don’t know whether any of them actually feels fear or not, but they’ll certainly acquire a good imitation of it if we go on this way. They’ll learn to distrust and fear almost everyone if they haven’t already. And if they turn into alienated adults, as some fear they will, we’ll have ourselves to blame, not the madman who shot poor Nenum. This exile will only make it worse for them. The only way we can help them is by returning to some semblance of normal life, here in our homes, as soon as possible.”

“A pretty set of sentiments,” Li Hua muttered. “But how do we keep the same thing from happening again?”

“Don’t you see?” Josepha focused first on Kaveri, then turned toward Amarisa, hoping for support. “Don’t you realize how many people will feel sympathy for us now? Distrust is one thing, murder quite another. If we communicate openly with others, we can win their trust.”

“We tried that,” Edwin said from across the room, “and you see what happened. My advice is to have the biologists tell everyone to leave us alone and let them know what might happen if they don’t. They’re the ones with power.”

“You’re wrong,” Josepha answered. “They don’t believe they have much power. Ask Merripen if you don’t believe me. And even if they did, that would be no solution; it would only create more hostility.” She glanced around. Amarisa, Kaveri, and Dawud were nodding their heads in agreement.

“Li Hua has suggested a specific course of action,” Edwin went on. “You have offered only vague possibilities. Give us a course of action. What exactly would you have us do?”

It was a fair question. She did not know how to reply.

Then Chane spoke. “It’s obvious,” he said in his deep voice. “First, we must invite people to live here if they wish. I’m talking about welcoming them, not the sort of halfhearted tolerance of outsiders we have now. Second, some of us must leave the village for short periods to communicate with others, propagandize them, if you will. I have spoken to many people over the holo, but such a measure does not have the impact of personal, face-to-face communication.”

“And who will go?” Lulee Bernard called out, looking like a small, auburn-haired, serious child herself. “Isn’t it more important that we stay with our children?”

“Perhaps it is,” Chane replied, “although I don’t know how much good that’ll do them if they have no place in our world.”

Several parents nodded their heads, murmuring. “It might be dangerous for the ones who leave,” Edwin objected. “Have you thought of that? You can’t be protected as well, if at all.”

“It’s a risk we’ll have to take,” Chane responded. Josepha saw fear in his eyes. “We have little time to spare, for once,” he continued. “If we hadn’t all grown so slow to act, we would have seen the wisdom of this course a long time ago. Since I brought this up, I’ll volunteer my own services, if it’s all right with the rest of you.”

Josepha felt her muscles tighten. She could not look at Chane. He should have spoken with her before making such an offer. She could not object here in front of everyone and she could not stop him if he wanted to leave.

She thought: Warner was wrong. She was mistaken about Chane loving me, and now I can’t even ask her about it. Numbly she listened to the discussion go on, not really hearing any of it.

Josepha gave in; she had no choice. Chane had persuaded the villagers. He would be accompanied by Amarisa Drew and Timmi Akakse, a handsome Jamaican woman with a forceful voice and presence.

She wanted to argue with Chane, but she did not. Instead, she tried to act calmly, explaining to the children why he was leaving them for a bit. They did not seem disturbed, asking only why they could not go as well. She had replied lamely that their studies were more important. But later she heard Teno tell Ramli that the parents were afraid they might be harmed by someone.

Whenever Chane glanced at her, she smiled, perhaps too brightly and reassuringly. The night before he left, he held her in bed and looked directly into her eyes and she knew she had not fooled him at all. She waited for him to ask her how she really felt, hoping she could stem the flow of angry and resentful words that would pour from her, but he did not speak, possibly afraid of what she might say.

She waited until he was ready to leave the next morning, off to join
Timmi and Amarisa for a final session with Merripen before departure. Hating herself for speaking at
such an awkward time, she heard her words: “You’re leaving because of me.”

Chane pulled back as if he had been struck. “No,” he said finally, placing his hands on her shoulders. She wanted to twist away.

“Yes. First it was Warner and now this. You want to get away.”

“You’re wrong, Josepha, it has nothing to do with you. There’s more to it than you think.”

“It might be dangerous,” she said, wishing she could stop the pointless argument. He took his hands away and she waited for him to walk out the door.

“I won’t be gone that long. I wanted to bring you and the children along, but I know how hard it is for you to meet a lot of strangers. Anyway, you know we decided it just wasn’t fair to ask young children, however rational, to defend their existence before people they don’t even know.”

She was beaten. She forced herself to smile again, to exercise the patience she should have learned during her long life. “I guess I’m being unfair,” she murmured. “I’ll miss you, but …”

“I’ll be back before you know it.”

He was gone.

She went to the window and watched him stride across the courtyard.

IV

Teno was as tall as Josepha, Ramli somewhat taller. They had grown rapidly during the past years. They had retained their sexual ambiguity; slender bodies, slightly broad shoulders, a range of gestures that flowed from the delicate to the clumsy to the athletic. They were strangers.

They had not always been strangers. After Chane had left, Josepha had grown closer to them. She had taught them how to make pottery and how to sketch. She had been delighted when she found that they in turn were teaching these skills to the other children, though she was a bit disappointed with what they produced: accurate, photographically realistic drawings and simple, utilitarian plates and vases. She had found at first that as she spent more time with Teno and Ramli, she missed Chane less.

Chane’s first trip should have lasted two months. It had stretched into almost half a year. Had he been returning to her alone, it would not have mattered. But the children grew, the life of the village went on. She had consulted him during his calls and the children had bantered pleasantly with his image, but Josepha had made the day-to-day decisions. Chane had returned to people who got along perfectly well without him.

He, Amarisa, and Timmi stayed away from the village for longer and longer periods of time. Estranged from their families while apparently having some success on the outside, Josepha knew they found their absences easier to rationalize as time passed. Perhaps they were also telling themselves that there would be time enough to renew their relationships with their children and their lovers after they had succeeded in their outside tasks.

Josepha sat in her favorite chair knitting while Teno and Ramli sprawled on the living room rug, poring over printouts and diagrams. She thought of Chane. She missed him more now, alone in this house with two increasingly impenetrable strangers. The hours she kept filled with new projects, friends, even a new intellectual challenge—she had decided to learn something about microbiology, equipping herself with a microscope and slides—only seemed to make her loneliness worse when she was alone with her thoughts.

She knitted and ruminated, remembering two encounters, realizing again how poorly she had handled both.

One had been with Chane during his first visit home. They had gone sailing on the lake with the children, then enjoyed a quiet dinner by themselves. She had filled him in on the events during his absence. He had told her about some of the understanding people with whom he had spoken.

“Have you become involved with anyone else yet?” he asked her as they sipped their after-dinner brandy.

“Why should I?”

“I don’t expect you to deprive yourself simply because I’m away.”

“Oh, Chane.” She chuckled softly. “I’m used to being by myself, I used to like living that way, you know. You needn’t worry about me. I don’t need to be involved with another man.”

She looked down at the pale green yarn, remembering that comment. She had fancied that she was reassuring Chane. But she had made the remark because of a dimly felt resentment, sure he had not missed the children or her that much; knowing also, since he had not tried to hide it, that he had enjoyed a few casual sexual adventures while away. She had spoken and told herself self-righteously that she would ease him. She had succeeded only in telling him bluntly that she could live alone and be happy about it while at the same time making him feel guilty about his own perfectly natural sexual involvements. She had hurt him, as she had unconsciously intended.

The second encounter had been with Merripen. The biologist had taken to visiting her and the children while Chane was away. She had been sympathetic, knowing that Merripen had grown depressed about the project. He had come to feel that it had escaped his control and that he no longer had anything to say about future events. He was an obsolete functionary wandering about the village, not needed by the children, unnecessary to the parents who had taken matters into their own hands. She knew the visits cheered him up and had been glad of it. But then she had hurt Merripen, too.

He had come to her one night. The children were sleeping and she was alone. She offered him some wine but he refused it. Instead, he took her arm and led her to the sofa.

“Let me stay with you tonight, Josepha.”

She drew back, surprised. “I can’t, Merripen.”

“Why not?”

“Well … there is …”

“Don’t be silly. Chane’s not denying himself—why should you?”

“I can’t explain. It’s different for me.”

She had been foolish. Her needles clicked; the children chattered. It would have taken so little effort to give Merripen the human contact he had probably needed as much as the sex. And it would have been no sacrifice either; she had felt a sudden desire for the handsome biologist even as she refused him. Why did I do it? she asked herself silently, but she knew the answer. She did not want emotional risks. Merripen might have wanted a commitment of some kind; for sex alone he could easily have turned elsewhere.

She did not want things this way. She no longer wanted her self-imposed exile from life. She could not do anything about Merripen; she had turned him away for the last time. She wondered if it was too late to do anything about Chane.

Merripen, at least, had now found his way back into village life. All of the children sought him out. He was the only adult they did seek out. The rest of them, even Kelii, were ignored or tolerated.

It had started when the children were eleven. They were not overtly hostile or rebellious, simply more indifferent. Lulee spoke of not knowing where her child was much of the time; Edwin, even grumpier than usual, muttered about being told he didn’t know much; Gurit complained about being asked embarrassing questions and having her answers rejected out of hand.

The children were thirteen now. She watched them as they sat on the rug surveying their diagrams and charts. They were adolescents. She should have expected it. They kept to themselves, cultivating a flat, inexpressive manner of speech, wearing short, clipped hair and simple clothing. All of these new young people were austere in appearance, as if criticizing the more flamboyant and varied garb of their parents.

“What are you looking at so intently?” she asked the children. Neither replied. “What is it?” she said again.

Finally Teno looked up. The child’s short hair was curled at the ends, making the face seem almost pretty. “Ectogenesis chamber,” the young one remarked.

“More biology? Is that all you think about?” They were silent. Josepha imagined that Merripen must be gratified by this recent obsession. “Whatever for?”

“See how it works.”

“We have to use it someday,” Ramli added.

“I know, but you don’t seem to pay any attention to anything else,” she responded, trying to sound lighthearted. “You spend so little time on your art now, or history, and you used to enjoy those things.”

“This is more important,” Ramli said tersely.

“I didn’t say it wasn’t, I just said there are other things.”

They remained silent.

“You could at least reply.”

“Aren’t you supposed to see Gurit this afternoon?” Teno said blandly before turning back to the diagrams.

Josepha felt unaccountably depressed. Of course they were obsessed with biology; for all she knew, it was their substitute for the pair-bonding of normal adolescents. She did not know why they had not paired off; it might have little to do with their physiology. Having been raised together almost as siblings or relatives, the young people were following the pattern normal to such groups by not forming couples. Whether they would form such bonds outside the group remained to be seen.