by Leona Gom
A tour group wearing badges saying “LosAngels Hospital” passed them on the right, and Bowden felt a little nudge of pride, as she always did, to see people from so far south here to tour Hospital. Leth Hospital was the second largest on the continent. Of course, some people were coming just as tourists, too, to see the Kostash labs.
They entered University. Bowden felt out of place here, intimidated by the rooms full of books and vidspools, by the students, by the ideas she chose long ago not to pursue. The place smelled faintly dusty and stale, and she realized she was expecting it to smell like Hospital, with its priority-one air control. She felt her pace slowing, and twice Delacour had to stop and wait for her to catch up. By the time they came to the History branch, Bowden felt utterly lost in the chaos of hallways.
The walls in the corridor they had just entered were painted a bright orange, and she knew this was a coding of some kind, probably for a subcategory of History. In apparently random collage-clusters on the walls were pinned notices by students: meetings, intellectual arguments, sketches, poems, advertisements, unashamedly personal confessions or appeals for advice. Certainly these seemed more interesting to Bowden than the computyped info-notes put up by the teachers on the display boards around the busier intersections they had passed. But perhaps if she saw such student notices every day, as Delacour did, she would walk past them, too, without a glance.
Then Delacour was slowing down, and people were greeting her, sometimes pausing to ask about meetings or research projects or just to make conversation. Bowden knew she had met some of these people at the monthly gatherings, but she couldn’t remember their names, so she stood beside Delacour with a vacant smile on her face, and nobody bothered her. She found it interesting to watch Delacour’s colleagues talk to her — it was something Bowden had gotten good at in her own work, hearing what people were saying by not listening to the words themselves. She heard respect in their voices now, sycophancy sometimes, and sometimes a trace of fear. It didn’t surprise her. If she worked with Delacour she could imagine feeling all these things about her.
As they got closer to the department centre, people seemed to be moving faster, buzzing around the hive with their pollen of papers and books. One large person about Bowden’s age, who walked by means of throwing herself from side to side, huffed her way toward them.
“Delacour,” she said, not smiling. “Archive sent over more spools for you.”
Delacour groaned. “I can’t keep up with what I have already.”
The person nodded her several chins. “Do less,” she said, nodding again at her words. “Do less.” She flicked her eyes at Bowden, ran them like a scanner down her body, up again to her face. “Bowden,” she said. Then she lurched on past down the hall.
“Who was that?” Bowden whispered, alarmed. “How does she know me?”
“She’s the centre coordinator. You met her once. One of the gatherings. She has a rather formidable memory.”
“She’s the coordinator, and she wants you to do less?”
Delacour laughed dismissively. “I don’t expect she means it.”
They turned a corner, and Bowden recognized the library centre where Delacour worked. It wasn’t a large room, and more than half of it was filled with shelf-rows of books and vidspools. Three of the walls were stacked to the ceiling with them, and the fourth was lined with small computer screens and fiche-readers. One corner of this wall held Delacour’s desk, around which about a dozen people were sitting, some on the floor, in a loose semicircle. By the way they looked up and cut their conversation to trailing murmurs Bowden knew they must be Delacour’s students. She glanced at Delacour, saw her face eager, excited.
Bowden walked to the back of the group, trying to appear inconspicuous, and sat down in one of the few vacant chairs. No one paid her any attention.
“All right, then,” Delacour said, striding to the front, her teacher’s-robe belling out behind her. “Male compensation theory today. Your presentation, isn’t it, Hythe?” She smiled at someone near the front, who stood up, turned casually, and, propping an elbow on one of the shelf-rows, began to talk, without notes, in a fragmented and jumpy but almost bored way. Bowden didn’t listen to what she was saying; she could only stare at her. She was beautiful — flawless skin the colour of almonds, large blue eyes with brows arching smoothly above them, blonde hair done in the fashionable four braids and attached with a red clip to the shoulder of a white cotton shift so thin it was almost transparent. She made Bowden feel old and foolish in her heavy sweater, and Bowden wished Delacour had told her to dress more appropriately.
“— the revisionist-structuralists. Redundancy anticipation. If the male-defining phallus had really been pride-stimulus, it would not have been so determinedly hidden. Photographs. Film. Art. We are commonly depicted naked. Not males. The phallus: obviously an attribute of shame. Furthermore —” She tapped the forefinger of her right hand on that of her left. Bowden noticed she had a tiny and delicate transfer-tattoo on the back of her right hand. “Transvestism. On one hand, males dressing secretly in clothing of people. Or ‘fe-males,’ as we were called then. Other hand: identifying with fe-males of other species by choosing dowdy dress. Basic confusion-compensation. Then —” she tapped her forefinger again “— popularization of male-childbirth technology. Early twenty-first century. Self-repudiation.”
She smiled languidly at Delacour, who nodded in apparent agreement and encouragement. “Challenge?” Hythe asked, gazing around the group. Bowden hunched down in her seat.
“But if the male was envious of us and felt inferior,” asked someone, “how do you explain their oppression of us, their war-making and aggression?”
Hythe shrugged. “Antithesis-compensation. When one cannot emulate, one emphasizes difference. Elevate deficiency to superiority.”
“There was a saying before the Change,” Delacour said, propping her foot up on a chair behind Hythe. “‘To make a virtue of necessity.’”
Hythe turned, gave her a smile that almost seemed patronizing. “I suppose so. But more like another old saying, ‘If you can’t join them, beat them.’”
Bowden sat up. The phrase was wrong, she was sure of it. It was supposed to be the other way around. Eagerly she looked at Delacour, waiting for her correction, but Delacour only smiled vaguely and nodded. Surely she must know, Bowden thought — why didn’t she say so?
“Challenge?” Hythe said again, looking around the room and opening her hands in front of her as though she were holding a globe of air.
For one alarming moment Bowden felt her mouth opening and the words shaping in her throat, and then she sank back in her seat. She had never spoken out in a class, had always been the one to sit in the back and hope to go unnoticed. And this was Delacour’s class, and she only a visitor, and her point, after all, was a very trivial one. She looked down at her hands.
No one spoke, and the room was silent except for the person beside Bowden who was writing something down, her pencil sounding as though its lead were made of gritty sand.
“Well,” Delacour said finally, “let’s have a short break, and then we can discuss the application of this approach in the Adam Markov journal. Hythe, thank you.”
She put her hand on Hythe’s shoulder, and something in Bowden went cold, afraid.
The students got up and, in little groups of twos and threes, left the room, talking excitedly to each other. Bowden had no idea if it was about the presentation or not. She was still watching Delacour and Hythe, who stood at the front of the room, close to each other, talking in low voices.
Slowly she got up and approached them. She saw that Hythe’s braids, although obviously done with considerable care, were tied with pieces of string. Just the sort of touch Delacour might think was charming.
“Hythe, this is my mate, Bowden,” Delacour said, putting her hand on Bowden’s shoulder, in exactly the same way she had pu
t it on Hythe’s, the thumb dropping forward and nesting under her collarbone, “Bowden, this is Hythe.”
“I’m happy to meet you,” Hythe said.
Bowden nodded, her throat dry. “Hello,” she said.
“How did you like Hythe’s presentation?” Delacour asked. Her hand was still on Bowden’s shoulder. It didn’t feel reassuring; it felt only like pressure.
“It was … very interesting.” She tried desperately to think of something less banal to say. “Was it your own research?”
Hythe stared at her with her beautiful large eyes, and her perfectly arched eyebrows arched even higher. She laughed. “Oh, of course not. I was just the presenter. It’s basically a revisionist-essentialist position.”
Bowden could feel a blush, an absurd betraying blush, pressing at her cheeks, and she looked at the floor, nodded stupidly at her feet. She saw Hythe wasn’t wearing shoes, another current fashion, and it made her feel even worse.
Delacour took her hand from Bowden’s shoulder. “Well, the essentialists approach it a bit differently, you know.”
“Only in respect to antithesis-compensation —”
Bowden stopped listening. She stood there like the child in the classroom who hadn’t known the right answer, who would have to stand there until Teacher dismissed her.
Some of the other students were coming back into the room, taking their seats.
“I think I’ll go home,” Bowden said. She’d interrupted something Hythe was saying.
“Don’t you want to stay for the second half?” Delacour asked.
Bowden fixed her gaze on the shelf of vidspools behind Delacour’s left ear. Delacour’s face separated into two, transparent. “I’ve got things to do at home.”
“All right. I’ll see you later then.”
Bowden nodded. Then she made herself look at Hythe, that calm, confident face with the smile ornamenting her lips, and she said, “I’m happy to have met you.” She turned, not waiting for an answer, and walked out of the room. She had to ask twice for directions out of the building.
• • •
WHEN DELACOUR CAME HOME, Bowden was washing the floor in the hallway between their sleeprooms. Delacour set her things on the entranceway table and walked over to her.
“Why are you doing that? I washed the floors just last week.”
“I felt like doing something physical,” Bowden said. She squeezed the sponge out, her hand turning into a hard red knot. She ran the sponge along the curled board that became part of the wall, and was childishly pleased to see it come away grey with dirt.
“Are you hungry?” Delacour asked. “We could go down now and eat.”
“You go if you want to. I had some fruit when I came home.”
Delacour sat down on the floor and took hold of Bowden’s hand as it moved toward her on the wallboard. Water drizzled out of the sponge from the pressure of their clenched fingers.
“What’s the matter?” Delacour said.
“Nothing’s the matter.”
Delacour pulled the sponge from Bowden’s hand and tossed it in the bucket. “Tell me,” she said.
Bowden sat back on her heels and pushed the hair from her eyes with the back of her hand. Her face felt greasy and damp with sweat. “You and that student,” she said.
“Hythe? Whatever do you mean?” She sounded convincingly bewildered.
“I could see there was something between you. Is that why you wanted me to come to class with you? So I could see? So she could humiliate me in front of you?”
Delacour leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes. “Bowden, Bowden,” she said softly.
Bowden could feel the impotent tears pushing at her eyes. She stood up, but Delacour remained where she was, leaning against the wall, her legs pulled up slightly and her forearms draped on her knees, her hands dangling loose and relaxed as though she had disconnected the tendons. Her choosing to remain on the floor gave her even more authority somehow, and as Bowden looked down at her she felt clumsy and irresolute.
“I asked you to come to the class,” Delacour said, her eyes turned up to Bowden, “because I really thought you’d find it interesting. Hythe is my best student, and I thought she’d give an entertaining presentation. I was actually rather disappointed.” She sighed. “And the class didn’t seem very well prepared to challenge. Compensation theory can be amusing to discuss.”
“I’ve never even heard of it before,” Bowden said. She walked into the centreroom and dropped down so hard into the armchair at the entrance to the hallway that it sent a wince of pain up her spine. The upholstery sighed at the sudden weight. I’m sick of this arguing, she thought. Still she heard her voice ask, “And Hythe? Won’t you admit you’re attracted to her?”
Delacour lifted her hands, capped them carefully over her knees. “She’s lovely. Of course I’m attracted to her.”
The admission took Bowden by surprise. “And is that all?” Her voice wobbled, like that of someone ill pressing Doctor for the cruelest diagnosis. “Have you made love with her?”
“For heaven’s sake,” Delacour cried, her composure snapping. “Why are you going on like this?” She got to her feet. “You agreed you didn’t want a monogamy-bond.”
“I know.” Bowden sank back in her chair. It was true, she told herself miserably. She was being jealous and possessive, everything she had promised herself she would not be. Why was she behaving like this, she, Bowden, the one everyone at work said was so tranquil she would smile through an earthquake? It was true she had dismissed, cavalierly and even laughing a little, the idea of a monogamy-bond when she and Delacour had first met; she had, after all, had one with Enilda, with whom she had lived for five years, and it had been no deterrent to her leaving Bowden for someone else. But still — knowing Delacour made love to others pressed in her some primal pain, and again and again she would berate herself: She is all I desire; why am I not enough for her?
“If you want our promises made legal,” Delacour said, “well, you know the law. We can have a child.”
“A child?” The word stuttered from Bowden’s lips in an astonished laugh. “Delacour. We agreed — I’m too old. And you — you’d make a terrible mother. You told me so yourself. A baby might entertain you at first, and then you’d leave her for me to raise.”
Delacour’s brows pulled themselves straight and tense on her face, scooping a small trench on the bridge of her nose into which Bowden had the sudden absurd desire to lay her finger. And then Delacour laughed. “Of course you’re right,” she said. She dropped her hand on Bowden’s head, sifted her fingers through her hair, lifting, dropping, like a winnower. Bowden could feel her scalp shiver, could feel the tightness in her shoulders ease. She reached up, took Delacour’s other hand and pressed it to her cheek.
“I wish our holiday began tomorrow,” Delacour sighed. “August is so far away.”
“It’ll be worth waiting for,” Bowden said. But she wasn’t really convinced. They — or rather Delacour — had planned a rather ambitious camping trip. Still, Bowden had been pleased that Delacour would want to spend so much time with her, so she had readily agreed. And it would be nice, she assured herself — it was what they needed.
Outside, it began to rain, a warm summer rain smelling of settling dust and wet leaves. They watched it, soft as feathers, brush against the west windows that looked out over the deepcoulee, watched it push in through the screen and darken the clay pot full of parsley sitting on the sill.
“Let’s make love,” Bowden said.
“Yes.”
They went into Delacour’s sleeproom and got undressed and lay down on the bed. They stroked each other in the places they knew the other liked, kissed breasts and lips and the soft insides of knees and elbows, ran their fingers down the delicate beads of vertebrae. There was a gentleness to them that ground down the edges of
their passion, but Bowden didn’t care; it made her remember the caring there was between them.
Delacour got up first and went into the bathroom; Bowden could hear her running the shower, although they had used up their quota this morning and she would have to be content with tepid water. Bowden got up, too, at last, and dressed, and went into the hallway, where she picked up the bucket and sponge and put them away. Then she sat down on the sofa in the centreroom and opened the book on geriatrics she had been reading. She knew two of the other helpers wanted to discuss it with her tomorrow, but she couldn’t concentrate, her eyes like binoculars out of focus, set for the distance between her and the door to the bathroom. But when Delacour opened the door Bowden quickly pulled her eyes down to the book, turning a page with apparent thoughtfulness. She realized two of the pages, printed on thin and often-recycled paper, had stuck together, but she didn’t go back and separate them.
“I’m going out,” Delacour said. She was wearing her white pants with the red embroidery, a project she had begun with enthusiasm, but as soon as she had mastered the intricate stitching she tired of it, and Bowden had hired someone at Hospital to finish it for her. “I have some work to do at the library centre.”
“It’s so late,” Bowden said, looking at the time-chip in the wall. It was past six. “I thought you wanted to go for supper.”
“I’ll get something on the way. You said you weren’t hungry.”
“I am now a bit.”
Delacour fidgeted, scratching at her upper arm. Her nails were so short they didn’t dent the skin, but the pressure of her fingers left four red rows. “I really can’t come. I have to get this done.”
