The Mammoth Book of SF Stories by Women (29 page)

But sunset is the time for your questions, not mine. Our respective speeds mesh for such short periods, no wonder Angkaar programmed me to be laconic. It was also in accord with his project, my nature, the title inscribed on my pedestal and that I have never read. I had never seen myself, either. I don’t know if that was my creator’s intention.
He told me what I was, and I have in memory everything there is to know about sphinxes, but he never held out a mirror to me during my learning period, and I find in myself no desire to see my countenance.

When I did see myself, however …

The painter arrived in the morning and he revolved as I did, for I saw him each time I opened my eyes or looked back from the limits of the Park, the far stretches
of the city or the heights of the sky. I knew him: I had seen him several times with Angkaar. First at my unveiling. (Memories: Angkaar had hidden me under an opaque thermosensitive glaze, the fading light of the sunset dissolved its chemical bounds as I was awakened.)

Then I saw the painter on strolls through the Park with a rapidly weakening Angkaar, the last few times in an electric wheelchair.
Angkaar loved to go to the Park during his last weeks, no doubt because it showed several works of his. “There will be others”, he had cryptically told the media on the eve of my unveiling. No one had understood then. Neither had I.

He used to come at sunset, of course. He stopped in front of me. He listened to the questions people asked. He never asked
any. For a long time I believed it was
because he already knew all the answers. I now know it was because he didn’t. The painter (was he already a painter then? Perhaps) never asked anything either. He just held Angkaar’s hand, or his arm, later the back of the wheelchair. He was the younger man, hardly past his thirties, very dark, very slender, with the anxious expression of one who always expects to be rejected. Angkaar was very pleasant
with him, though, or was it merely indifference? They never entered my perceptual circle. Alex. His name was Alex. And one day Alex came back alone. At sunset. He stayed before me, just outside the circle, for a long time, looking hard at me with an expression I didn’t understand (later, I learned that it was hatred). Then he said: “He’s dead.” Since it was not a question, there was no answer.
He stayed there until the Park lights came up, then he turned away abruptly and was gone.

I saw him again two years later; he had an easel and a canvas – there was a revival of archaic techniques at that time; the Park was full of would-be landscape painters. He always arrived when the sun was rising in the east, always went when the sun slid down through the trees in the west: he wanted no words
between us. He was doing sketches. After four days, he vanished. A week later he came back. He waited for the last painters to pack up and leave, then he took his canvas – a big thing almost a square meter wide – and he came up to me. With faltering steps, almost. Stopped just inside the circle. Placed the canvas so that I could see it. He was afraid. He was hurt.

It was a hyperrealist kind of
painting, with every color shifted to shades of red. The winged silhouette was chained to the pedestal, supine, but with the torso rearing up. The left wing was dangling, broken. The right wing was half-unfolded. Blood had dripped from the shoulder to the left breast, was dripping from the parted lips. The head was slightly tilted to one side, as though the embroidered headdress was too heavy, or
as though the rage that had caused the creature to tear at her own flesh had exhausted itself. The face was that of an ageless woman, with great, slanted amber eyes, a short, slightly hooked nose, wide, high cheekbones.

After a while, Alex asked: “Who is it?”

I heard myself answer: “Yourself.”

He stiffened, then seemed to crumple. Without a word, he
turned away and left with his canvas. I availed
myself of the absence of other questioners to ponder the complex feeling that had filled me at the sight of the picture. Despite my answer to Alex’s question, I had immediately assumed, through logical processing, that it was my image. Or at least an approximate likeness, since I have no broken wing. It was not really me … and it was me nevertheless. Why was I so
sure
of it, beyond all logic?
Angkaar had never shown me any pictures corresponding to the purely verbal description present in my memory. A creature with the body of a lion, the wings of an eagle, but a human face and torso, and female. Lion, eagle, woman, I had already seen them, separately. But not their fusion.
Sphinx.
Do words correspond to some vast pool of intangible but eternal images, which I would have accessed?
That was a curiously pleasant idea. The other component of my feeling, then, was it also pleasure? Alex’s painting was appalling, full of both cruelty and despair. But at the same time … beautiful. Did that mean I was beautiful? Or merely that Alex saw me thus, in spite of his pain, or perhaps because of it? Then what I felt was not pleasure, it was curiosity. And yet, indeed, pleasure of a sort:
to discover questions I had never asked myself yet. Not who I was, but how you saw me: who I was, what I was, for you.

And this strange idea, also new to me, that perhaps you never saw me at all, really. That I was your mirror.

I believed I knew what you thought of me, though, what you felt in front of me. I heard you; I still do when you talk while passing by me, or stopping, when our times
are in synch. That’s how I completed the education provided by Angkaar. At first you were admiring, the more secretly pleased for being officially shocked. Then, just after artefacts were outlawed, you took to censoring me in a more or less sincere tone; there were a few protests, even; far less fierce than at the beginning of bio-sculpture about sixty years ago: no one tried to blow me up; not even
one graffiti. There were doubts as to the exact nature of my programmation, I gather: Angkaar was known for not being very tolerant of vandals; perhaps he had seen to my defensive capacities. On the other hand, you seem not to have much energy left to waste in symbolic gestures anymore; you apparently exhausted it in building dams and new cities that would protect you against the rising oceans
– but the tides go on nibbling at them as if the sea did not care. No one even tried to shoot me from a distance. Perhaps they thought I was bullet-proof. There were only some protesters with placards: STOP THE SACRILEGE.

You kept on coming to see me, actually, because I was the one and only talking artefact that was semi-mobile, but also because I was the oldest artefact known to be still «functioning»
(you never say «living»): five years, an amazing longevity. Then, later, the Sleeper in Blue walked into the Park and turned to stone on her bench, and Angkaar’s statement became clear: there
were
others. Among you, artefacts, perfectly humanoid ones that you never even suspected were not human: inorganic matter could go on existing much longer than official scientists had let on. You came to
see me in bigger crowds, then – perhaps reassured by my honestly non-human appearance, and my so limited mobility. And you asked me questions, the questions you didn’t ask in the beginning because I was too new.

But since the functioning of artefacts had briefly came back into fashion, I expected you to ask them. I had studied enough inner traces of Angkaar in myself, made enough correlations
with what I had learned from you without your knowledge. I know that you fear death, that time is still for you an unresolved enigma. “What walks on four legs in the morning, on two at noon and on three in the evening?” someone asked me once, thinking he was clever. I heard myself answer: “An animal victimized by civilization.” I chalked that one up to Angkaar’s opinion about humanity; he’d chosen
to turn the legend on itself, which was telling enough in itself. He’d taught me Oedipus’s answer to the Greek Sphinx, of course; perhaps, at that time, humans had more answers.

Someone enters my field of vision. I know her: she walked by a moment ago, in full sunlight. She is not one of the regulars. Neither is she a tourist. I can see her much better now – paradoxically, when I go fast and
you are slow, I see you for too long and in too much detail; I can’t get a good impression of you. Self-confidence, strength, a supple gait, an athletic build despite the aristocratic, cheetah-like slenderness. Beautiful, you’d say. Perhaps too self-composed? She doesn’t enter the circle. She doesn’t really stop in front of me, she merely slows down for a few seconds, she looks at me, turning her
head toward me as she walks by,
thoughtful, then she is gone, without asking me anything. Green eyes, golden skin, short light hair: one more human, one more image, one more mystery. The Park is emptying. My time is over. The shadows are almost touching me. No one asked me a question today.

You asked me once; after much dithering; talking circles around the word «death»; which would have been
acknowledging my being alive; asked me whether I knew when I was to end, and why. And in my equally convoluted way; because of my programming then; not of any discomfort; I made you understand; yes, I know I am limited in time; yes, the artorganic matter of my body ages at an accelerated rate; a little faster by day; a little slower by night. “Do you know how you will end?” you asked then; I waited
with interest for my answer: did I know? Had Angkaar given me that knowledge? I’d heard you before; talking about his previous biosculptures; he had never been at pain; to give them a spectacular ending. Protracted fireworks? Lightning-fast sublimation? The Sleeper in Blue had not yet come; to stop forever on her bench; at that time; I didn’t know; I could have added that: metamorphosis; into a
real statue. I heard myself say: “All comes in time to those who are prepared”; you seemed disappointed; I could understand: a mere variant; on a tired old proverb; really, Angkaar! Only later did I understand; its appropriateness; come to think of it; you die so badly; most of you; surprised, furious, or reluctant; no insistence on esthetics.

Angkaar killed himself, too; he didn’t wait; for
mechanical progress; to rob him of his death.

But my death; he devised it; and I know nothing of it.

At last I understood; the tone of your comments among yourselves; when you talked about it; near me; you wondered; if I hated him; if I was scared. You never dared; ask me; you were too afraid; of my answer. I would say no, however; I don’t hate Angkaar; and I am not afraid; to end – to die?
– because he programmed me so? – certainly – but I understand – that limitation – as a kindness on his part – are you so happy – to know how you are mortal?

But it is not yet – time – for my questions – no time for yours – either – the sky darkens – our times go out of synch – you walk faster – in the alleys – and I without light – without the sun – I
almost – stop – slowed down – metabolism
– I am digesting – my feast of the day past – really immobile – now – evening birds – sing higher notes – in the sky – the stars explode – sudden dust – close to the trees – a diffuse light – time for me – to blink – and the moon bursts out – from the clouds – tonight – she sails through – their jagged outlines – blue and silver – lightning – shadows – running on the ground – and you run too – the
night-time regulars – different from – those of the day – searching – one another – always a surprise – the pattern – of your nocturnal – paths – suddenly revealed – to me – through speed – I see you – searching – without knowing – one another – the precise – frantic dance – of your signals – coming up – to one another – you talk – very little – what do you say? – I can’t hear – but the ritual –
always the same – a few words – a gesture – very important – body-language – arms – folded or dangling – hands – in the pockets – or raked through hair – contacts – furtive – eyes averted – then you go – together – in the bushes – or outside the Park – for the night – a night – you burn – your whole life – in one night – you are – so afraid – I know –

No one – now – hour of the cats – in the
grasses – quick – slithering – careful – between the trees – birds of prey – lethal flight – silent – and soon – nothing at all – the solitary hour – the solitary minute – the moon – is gone – I think – I still perceive – glacial – thoughts – stretched – over a million – years –

And now – muted pulse – of light – in the sky – other birds – singing together – in the fading – darkness – slower
and lower – they sing – for the sun is growing; like a luminous mushroom; the tide of shadows is turning; little by little, the molten glass of my thoughts, becomes fluid again, dawn has come.

Dawn is here, the time for questions: my own. There is no one, usually, to listen to them: the night-time regulars have left the Park, the daytime regulars have not arrived yet. Only the birds, an errant
cat or dog, the leaves, whispering. I am alone, usually, to taste this instant when I live at the world’s speed – on my pedestal still, but it doesn’t matter. I look at the sun rising above the trees. I feel the energy coursing through my veins, my cells and synapses, speeding up; I stretch and I yawn, I stand up and sit down, rituals of my own. And I think of all the questions I would try to ask,
if there were anyone to share my dawn.

And today there is someone. A woman. The young woman of yesterday’s sunset. Here she is, back in my dawn. She takes one of the chairs lining the lawns, hoists it in one movement upon her shoulder – those are metal chairs, and very heavy – and she comes to me. She is young, I’d say in her twenties. She puts the chair down near my pedestal, she sits, facing
east. Legs a-stretch, arms folded. She looks at the sun glimmering through the top of the trees. Very calm. Inhumanly, I’d say. My occasional visitors never are so calm. She knows I am going to talk to her, though. No, she’s
waiting
for me to talk to her.

I am not so sure I want to, suddenly – to ask her questions, since at dawn I can, for lack of questions to
answer,
which is for sunset. Only
during the slow days can I talk normally, without being a prisoner of my matrices of questions and answers. Angkaar told no one; he wanted me to have a measure of freedom. But usually it makes you too uneasy, and finally I desisted. I am a statue, after all: why would you want to talk to a statue as you would a normal person? There are not enough slow days, anyhow.