This Perfect Day

by Ira Levin

  Chip chuted the towel. “First time you’ve flown?”

  “No,” the boy said, opening his coveralls. “I’ve done it lots of times.” He sat down on one of the toilets.

  “See you inside,” Chip said, and went out.

  The plane was about a third filled, with more members filing in. He took the nearest empty aisle seat, checked his kit to make sure it was securely closed, and stowed it below.

  It would be the same at the other end. When everyone was leaving the plane he would go into the bathroom and put on the orange coveralls. He would be working at the sink when the members came aboard with the refill containers, and he would leave after they left. In the depot area, behind a crate or in a closet, he would get rid of the coveralls, the toeguards, and the wrench; and then he would false-touch out of the airport and walk to ’14509. It was eight kilometers east of ’510; he had checked on a map at the MFA that morning. With luck he would be there by midnight or half past.

  “Isn’t that odd,” the member next to him said.

  He turned to her.

  She was looking toward the back of the plane. “There’s no seat for that member,” she said.

  A member was walking slowly up the aisle, looking to one side and then the other. All the seats were taken. Members were looking about, trying to be of help to him.

  “There must be one,” Chip said, lifting himself in his seat and looking about. “Uni couldn’t have made a mistake.”

  “There isn’t,” the member next to him said. “Every seat is filled.”

  Conversation rose in the plane. There was indeed no seat for the member. A woman took a child onto her lap and called to him.

  The plane began moving and the TV screens went on, with a program about Afr’s geography and resources.

  He tried to pay attention to it, thinking there might be information in it that would be useful to him, but he couldn’t. If he were found and treated now, he would never get alive again. This time Uni would make certain that he would see no meaning in even a thousand leaves on a thousand wet stones.

  He got to ’14509 at twenty past midnight. He was wide awake, still on Usa time, with afternoon energy.

  First he went to the Pre-U, and then to the bike station on the plaza nearest building P51. He made two trips to the bike station, and one to P51’s dining hall and its supply center.

  At three o’clock he went into Lilac’s room. He looked at her by flashlight while she slept—looked at her cheek, her neck, her dark hand on the pillow—and then he went to the desk and tapped on the lamp.

  “Anna,” he said, standing at the foot of the bed. “Anna, you have to get up now.”

  She mumbled something.

  “You have to get up now, Anna,” he said. “Come on, get up.”

  She raised herself with a hand at her eyes, making little sounds of complaint. Sitting, she drew the hand away and peered at him; recognized him and frowned bewilderedly.

  “I want you to come for a ride with me,” he said. “A bike ride. You mustn’t talk loud and you mustn’t call for help.” He reached into his pocket and took out a gun. He held it the way it seemed meant to be held, with his first finger across the trigger, the rest of his hand holding the handle, and the front of it pointed at her face. “I’ll kill you if you don’t do what I tell you,” he said. “Don’t shout now, Anna.”

  3

  SHE STARED at the gun, and at him.

  “The generator’s weak,” he said, “but it made a hole a centimeter deep in the wall of the museum and it’ll make a deeper one in you. So you’d better obey me. I’m sorry to frighten you, but eventually you’ll understand why I’m doing it.”

  “This is terrible!” she said. “You’re still sick!”

  “Yes,” he said, “and I’ve gotten worse. So do as I say or the Family will lose two valuable members; first you, and then me.”

  “How can you do this, Li?” she said. “Can’t you see yourself—with a weapon in your hand, threatening me?”

  “Get up and get dressed,” he said.

  “Please, let me call—”

  “Get dressed,” he said. “Quickly!”

  “All right,” she said, turning aside the blanket. “All right, I’ll do exactly as you say.” She got up and opened her pajamas.

  He backed away, watching her, keeping the gun pointed at her.

  She took off her pajamas, let them fall, and turned to the shelf for a set of coveralls. He watched her breasts and the rest of her body, which in subtle ways—a fullness of the buttocks, a roundness of the thighs—was different too from the normal. How beautiful she was!

  She stepped into the coveralls and put her arms into the sleeves. “Li, I beg you,” she said, looking at him, “let’s go down to the medicenter and—”

  “Don’t talk,” he said.

  She closed the coveralls and put her feet into her sandals. “Why do you want to go bicycling?” she said. “It’s the middle of the night.”

  “Pack your kit,” he said.

  “My take-along?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Put in another set of cuvs and your first-aid kit and your clippers. And anything that’s important to you that you want to keep. Do you have a flashlight?”

  “What are you planning to do?” she asked.

  “Pack your kit,” he said.

  She packed her kit, and when she had closed it he took it and slung it on his shoulder. “We’re going to go around behind the building,” he said. “I’ve got two bikes there. We’re going to walk side by side and I’ll have the gun in my pocket. If we pass a member and you give any indication that anything’s wrong, I’ll kill you and the member, do you understand?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Do whatever I tell you. If I say stop and fix your sandal, stop and fix your sandal. We’re going to pass scanners without touching them. You’ve done that before; now you’re going to do it again.”

  “We’re not coming back here?” she said.

  “No. We’re going far away.”

  “Then there’s a snapshot I’d like to take.”

  “Get it,” he said. “I told you to take whatever you wanted to keep.”

  She went to the desk, opened the drawer, and rummaged in it. A snapshot of King? he wondered. No, King was part of her “sickness.” Probably one of her family. “It’s in here somewhere,” she said, sounding nervous, not right.

  He hurried to her and pushed her aside. Li RM gun 2 bicy was written on the bottom of the drawer. A pen was in her hand. “I’m trying to help you,” she said.

  He felt like hitting her but stopped himself; but stopping was wrong, she would know he wouldn’t hurt her; he hit her face with his open hand, stingingly hard. “Don’t try to trick me!” he said. “Don’t you realize how sick I am? You’ll be dead and maybe a dozen other members will be dead if you do something like this again!”

  She stared wide-eyed at him, trembling, her hand at her cheek.

  He was trembling too, knowing he had hurt her. He snatched the pen from her hand, made zigzags over what she had written, and covered it with papers and a nameber book. He threw the pen in the drawer and closed it, took her elbow and pushed her toward the door.

  They went out of her room and down the hallway, walking side by side. He kept his hand in his pocket, holding the gun. “Stop shaking,” he said. “I won’t hurt you if you do what I tell you.”

  They rode down escalators. Two members came toward them, riding up. “You and them,” he said. “And anyone else who comes along.”

  She said nothing.

  He smiled at the members. They smiled back. She nodded at them.

  “This is my second transfer this year,” he said to her.

  They rode down more escalators, and stepped onto the one leading to the lobby. Three members, two with telecomps, stood talking by the scanner at one of the doors. “No tricks now,” he said.

  They rode down, reflected at a distance in dark-outside glass. The members kept talking
. One of them put his telecomp on the floor.

  They stepped off the escalator. “Wait a minute, Anna,” he said. She stopped and faced him. “I’ve got an eyelash in my eye,” he said. “Do you have a tissue?”

  She reached into her pocket and shook her head.

  He found one under the gun and took it out and gave it to her. He stood facing the members and held his eye wide open, his other hand in his pocket again. She held the tissue to his eye. She was still trembling. “It’s only an eyelash,” he said. “Nothing to be nervous about.”

  Beyond her the member had picked up his telecomp and the three were shaking hands and kissing. The two with telecomps touched the scanner. Yes, it winked, yes. They went out. The third member came toward them, a man in his twenties.

  Chip moved Lilac’s hand away. “That’s it,” he said, blinking. “Thanks, sister.”

  “Can I be of help?” the member asked. “I’m a 101.”

  “No, thanks, it was just an eyelash,” Chip said. Lilac moved. Chip looked at her. She put the tissue in her pocket.

  The member, glancing at the kit, said, “Have a good trip.”

  “Thanks,” Chip said. “Good night.”

  “Good night,” the member said, smiling at them.

  “Good night,” Lilac said.

  They went toward the doors and saw in them the reflection of the member stepping onto an upgoing escalator. “I’m going to lean close to the scanner,” Chip said. “Touch the side of it, not the plate.”

  They went outside. “Please, Li,” Lilac said, “for the sake of the Family, let’s go back in and go up to the medicenter.”

  “Be quiet,” he said.

  They turned into the passageway between the building and the next one. The darkness grew deeper and he took out his flashlight.

  “What are you going to do to me?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” he said, “unless you try to trick me again.”

  “Then what do you want me for?” she asked.

  He didn’t answer.

  There was a scanner at the cross-passage behind the buildings. Lilac’s hand went up; Chip said, “No!” They passed it without touching, and Lilac made a distressed sound and said under her breath, “Terrible!”

  The bikes were leaning against the wall where he had left them. His blanket-wrapped kit was in the basket of one, with cakes and drink containers squeezed in with it. A blanket was draped over the basket of the other; he put Lilac’s kit down into it and closed the blanket around it, tucking it snugly. “Get on,” he said, holding the bike upright for her.

  She got on and held the handlebars.

  “We’ll go straight along between the buildings to the East Road,” he said. “Don’t turn or stop or gear up unless I tell you to.”

  He got astride the other bike. He pushed the flashlight down into the side of the basket, with the light shining out through the mesh at the pavement ahead.

  “All right, let’s go,” he said.

  They pedaled side by side down the straight passage that was all darkness except for columns of lesser darkness between buildings, and far above a narrow strip of stars, and far ahead the pale blue spark of a single walkway light.

  “Gear up a little,” he said.

  They rode faster.

  “When are you due for your next treatment?” he asked.

  She was silent, and then said, “Marx eighth.”

  Two weeks, he thought. Christ and Wei, why couldn’t it have been tomorrow or the next day? Well, it could have been worse; it could have been four weeks.

  “Will I be able to get it?” she asked.

  There was no point in disturbing her more than he had already. “Maybe,” he said. “We’ll see.”

  He had intended to go a short distance every day, during the free hour when cyclists would attract no attention. They would go from parkland to parkland, passing one city or perhaps two, and make their way by small steps to ’12082 on Afr’s north coast, the city nearest Majorca.

  That first day, though, in the parkland north of ’14509, he changed his mind. Finding a hiding place was harder than he expected; not until long after sunrise—around eight o’clock, he guessed—were they settled under a rock-ledge canopy fronted by a thicket of saplings whose gaps he had filled with cut branches. Soon after, they heard a copter’s hum; it passed and repassed above them while he pointed the gun at Lilac and she sat motionless, watching him, a half-eaten cake in her hands. At midday they heard branches cracking, leaves slashing, and a voice no more than twenty meters away. It spoke unintelligibly, in the slow flat way one addressed a telephone or a voice-input telecomp.

  Either Lilac’s desk-drawer message had been found or, more likely, Uni had put together his disappearance, her disappearance, and two missing bicycles. So he changed his mind and decided that having been looked for and missed, they would stay where they were all week and ride on Sunday. They would make a sixty- or seventy-kilometer hop—not directly to the north but to the northeast—then settle and hide for another week. Four or five Sundays would bring them in a curving path to ’12082, and each Sunday Lilac would be more herself and less Anna SG, more helpful or at least less anxious to see him “helped.”

  Now, though, she was Anna SG. He tied and gagged her with blanket strips and slept with the gun at his hand till the sun went down. In the middle of the night he tied and gagged her again, and carried away his bike. He came back in a few hours with cakes and drinks and two more blankets, towels and toilet paper, a “wristwatch” that had already stopped ticking, and two Français books. She was lying awake where he had left her, her eyes anxious and pitying. Held captive by a sick member, she suffered his abuses forgivingly. She was sorry for him.

  But in daylight she looked at him with revulsion. He touched his cheek and felt two days’ stubble. Smiling, slightly embarrassed, he said, “I haven’t had a treatment in almost a year.”

  She lowered her head and put a hand over her eyes. “You’ve made yourself into an animal,” she said.

  “That’s what we are, really,” he said. “Christ, Marx, Wood, and Wei made us into something dead and unnatural.”

  She turned away when he began to shave, but she glanced over her shoulder, glanced again, and then turned and watched distastefully. “Don’t you cut your skin?” she asked.

  “I did in the beginning,” he said, pressing taut his cheek and working the razor easily, watching it in the side of his flashlight propped on a stone. “I had to keep my hand at my face for days.”

  “Do you always use tea?” she asked.

  He laughed. “No,” he said. “It’s a substitute for water. Tonight I’m going to go looking for a pond or a stream.”

  “How often do you—do that?” she asked.

  “Every day,” he said. “I missed yesterday. It’s a nuisance, but it’s only for a few more weeks. At least I hope so.”

  “What do you mean?” she said.

  He said nothing, kept shaving.

  She turned away.

  He read one of the Français books, about the causes of a war that had lasted thirty years. Lilac slept, and then she sat on a blanket and looked at him and at the trees and at the sky.

  “Do you want me to teach you this language?” he asked.

  “What for?” she said.

  “Once you wanted to learn it,” he said. “Do you remember? I gave you lists of words.”

  “Yes,” she said, “I remember. I learned them, but I’ve forgotten them. I’m well now; what would I want to learn it now for?”

  He did calisthenics and made her do them too, so that they would be ready for Sunday’s long ride. She followed his directions unprotestingly.

  That night he found, not a stream, but a concrete-banked irrigation channel about two meters wide. He bathed in its slow-flowing water, then brought filled drink containers back to the hiding place and woke Lilac and untied her. He led her through the trees and stood and watched while she bathed. Her wet body glistened in the faint light
of the quarter moon.

  He helped her up onto the bank, handed her a towel, and stayed close to her while she dried herself. “Do you know why I’m doing this?” he asked her.

  She looked at him.

  “Because I love you,” he said.

  “Then let me go,” she said.

  He shook his head.

  “Then how can you say you love me?”

  “I do,” he said.

  She bent over and dried her legs. “Do you want me to get sick again?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Then you hate me,” she said, “you don’t love me.” She stood up straight.

  He took her arm, cool and moist, smooth. “Lilac,” he said.

  “Anna.”

  He tried to kiss her lips but she turned her head and drew away. He kissed her cheek.

  “Now point your gun at me and ‘rape’ me,” she said.

  “I won’t do that,” he said. He let go of her arm.

  “I don’t know why not,” she said, getting into her coveralls. She closed them fumblingly. “Please, Li,” she said, “let’s go back to the city. I’m sure you can be cured, because if you were really sick, incurably sick, you would ‘rape’ me. You’d be much less kind than you are.”

  “Come on,” he said, “let’s get back to the place.”

  “Please, Li—” she said.

  “Chip,” he said. “My name is Chip. Come on.” He jerked his head and they started through the trees.

  Toward the end of the week she took his pen and the book he wasn’t reading and drew pictures on the inside of the book’s cover—near-likenesses of Christ and Wei, groups of buildings, her left hand, and a row of shaded crosses and sickles. He looked to make sure she wasn’t writing messages that she would try to give to someone on Sunday.

  Later he drew a building and showed it to her.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “A building,” he said.

  “No it isn’t.”

  “It is,” he said. “They don’t all have to be blank and rectangular.”

  “What are the ovals?”

  “Windows.”

  “I’ve never seen a building like this one,” she said. “Not even in the Pre-U. Where is it?”

  “Nowhere,” he said. “I made it up.”