The Speed of Dark

by Elizabeth Moon

  “I couldn’t help noticing,” she says. “Your friend was so upset. She’s a little… different, isn’t she?” She bares more teeth.

  I do not know what to say. I have to say something; other people in the line are now watching.

  “I don’t mean to be rude,” the woman says. The muscles around her eyes are tense. “It’s just… I noticed her way of speaking.”

  Emmy’s life is Emmy’s life. It is not this woman’s life; she has no right to know what is wrong with Emmy. If anything is wrong.

  “It must be hard for people like you,” the woman says. She turns her head, glancing at the people in the line who are watching us, and gives a little giggle. I do not know what she thinks is funny. I do not think any of this is funny. “Relationships are hard enough for the rest of us,” she says. Now she is not smiling. She has the same expression as Dr. Fornum has when she is explaining something she wants me to do. “It must be worse for you.”

  The man behind her has an odd expression on his face; I can’t tell if he agrees with her or not. I wish someone would tell her to be quiet. If I tell her to be quiet, that is rude.

  “I hope I haven’t upset you,” she says, in a higher voice, and her eyebrows lift. She is waiting for me to give the right answer.

  I think there is no right answer. “I don’t know you,” I say, keeping my voice very low and calm. I mean “I don’t know you and I do not want to talk about Emmy or Marjory or anything personal with someone I do not know.”

  Her face bunches up; I turn away quickly. From behind me I hear a huffed, “Well!” and behind that a man’s voice softly muttering, “Serves you right.” I think it is the man behind the woman, but I will not turn around and look. Ahead of me the line is down to two people; I look straight ahead without focusing on anything in particular, trying to hear the music again, but I can’t. All I can hear is noises.

  When I carry my groceries out, the sticky heat seems even worse than when I went in. I can smell everything: candy on discarded candy wrappers, fruit peels, gum, people’s deodorant and shampoo, the asphalt of the parking lot, exhaust from the buses. I set my groceries on the back of the car while I unlock it.

  “Hey,” someone says. I jump and turn. It is Don. I did not expect to see Don here. I did not expect to see Marjory here, either. I wonder if other people in the fencing group shop here. “Hi, fella,” he says. He is wearing a striped knit shirt and dark slacks. I have not seen him wear anything like this before; when he comes to fencing he wears either a T-shirt and jeans or a costume.

  “Hi, Don,” I say. I do not want to talk to Don even though he is a friend. It is too hot, and I need to get my groceries home and put them away. I pick up the first sack and put it in the backseat.

  “This where you shop?” he asks. It is a silly question when I am standing here with grocery sacks on my car. Does he think I stole them?

  “I come here on Tuesdays,” I say.

  He looks disapproving. Maybe he thinks Tuesdays are the wrong day for grocery shopping—but then why is he here? “Coming to fencing tomorrow?” he asks.

  “Yes,” I say. I put the other sack in the car, and close the back door.

  “Going to that tournament?” He is staring at me in a way that makes me want to look down or away.

  “Yes,” I say. “But I have to go home now.” Milk should be kept at a temperature of thirty-eight degrees F. or below. It is at least ninety degrees F. here in the parking lot, and the milk I bought will be warming up.

  “Have a real routine, don’t you?” he says.

  I do not know what a false routine would be. I wonder if this is like real heel.

  “Do the same thing every day?” he asks.

  “Not the same thing every day,” I say. “The same things on the same days.”

  “Oh, right,” he says. “Well, I’ll see you tomorrow, you regular guy, you.” He laughs. It is a strange laugh, not as if he were really enjoying it. I open the front door and get into my car; he does not say anything or walk off. When I start the engine, he shrugs, an abrupt twitch of the shoulders as if something had stung him.

  “Good-bye,” I say, being polite.

  “Yeah,” he says. “Bye.” He is still standing there as I drive off. In the rearview mirror I can see him standing in the same place until I am almost to the street. I turn right onto the street; when I glance back, he is gone.

  IT IS QUIETER IN MY APARTMENT THAN OUTSIDE, BUT IT IS NOT really quiet. Beneath me, the policeman Danny Bryce has the TV on, and I know that he is watching a game show with a studio audience. Above me, Mrs. Sanderson is dragging chairs to the table in her kitchenette; she does this every night. I can hear the ticking of my windup alarm and a faint hum from the booster power supply for my computer. It changes tone slightly as the power cycles. Outside noises still come in: the rattle of a commuter train, the whine of traffic, voices in the side yard.

  When I am upset it is harder to ignore the sounds. If I turn on my music, it will press down on top of them, but they will still be there, like toys shoved under a thick rug. I put my groceries away, wiping the beads of condensation off the milk carton, then turn on my music. Not too loud; I must not annoy my neighbors. The disk in the player is Mozart, which usually works. I can feel my tension letting go, bit by bit.

  I do not know why that woman would speak to me. She should not do that. The grocery store is neutral ground; she should not talk to strangers. I was safe until she noticed me. If Emmy hadn’t talked so loud, the woman would not have noticed. She said that. I do not like Emmy much anyway; I feel my neck getting hot when I think about what Emmy said and what that woman said.

  My parents said that I should not blame other people when they noticed that I was different. I should not blame Emmy. I should look at myself and think what happened.

  I do not want to do that. I did not do anything wrong. I need to go grocery shopping. I was there for the right reason. I was behaving appropriately. I did not talk to strangers or talk out loud to myself. I did not take up more space in the aisle than I should. Marjory is my friend; I was not wrong to talk to her and help her find the rice and aluminum foil.

  Emmy was wrong. Emmy talked too loud and that is why the woman noticed. But even so, that woman should have minded her own business. Even if Emmy talked too loud, it was not my fault.

  Chapter Six

  I NEED TO KNOW IF WHAT I FEEL IS WHAT NORMAL PEOPLE feel when they are in love. We had a few stories about people in love in school, in English classes, but the teachers always said those were unrealistic. I do not know the way they were unrealistic. I did not ask then, because I did not care. I thought it was silly. Mr. Neilson in Health said it was all hormones and not to do anything stupid. The way he described sexual intercourse made me wish I had nothing down there, like a plastic doll. I could not imagine having to put this into that. And the words for the body parts are ugly. Being pricked hurts; who would want to have a prick? I kept thinking of thorns. The others aren’t much better, and the official medical term, penis, sounds whiny. Teeny, weeny, meanie… penis. The words for the act itself are ugly, pounding words; they made me think of pain. The thought of that closeness, of having to breathe someone else’s breath, smelling her body up close… disgusting. The locker room was bad enough; I kept wanting to throw up.

  It was disgusting then. Now… the scent off Marjory’s hair, when she has been fencing, makes me want to get closer. Even though she uses a scented soap for her clothes, even though she uses a deodorant with a powdery sort of smell, there’s something… but the idea is still awful. I’ve seen pictures; I know what a woman’s body looks like. When I was in school, boys passed around little video clips of naked women dancing and men and women having sex. They always got hot and sweaty when they did this, and their voices sounded different, more like chimpanzee voices on nature programs. I wanted to see at first, because I didn’t know—my parents didn’t have things like that in the house—but it was kind of boring, and the women all looked a litt
le angry or frightened. I thought if they were enjoying it, they would look happy.

  I never wanted to make anyone look scared or angry. It does not feel good to be scared or angry. Scared people make mistakes. Angry people make mistakes. Mr. Neilson said it was normal to have sexual feelings, but he did not explain what they were, not in a way that I could understand. My body grew the same as other boys’ bodies; I remember how surprised I was when I found the first dark hairs growing on my crotch. Our teacher had told us about sperm and eggs and how things grew from seeds. When I saw those hairs I thought someone had planted the seeds for them, and I didn’t know how it happened. My mother explained it was puberty and told me not to do anything stupid.

  I could never be sure which kind of feeling they meant, a body feeling like hot and cold or a mind feeling like happy and sad. When I saw the pictures of naked girls I had a body feeling sometimes, but the only mind feeling I had was disgust.

  I have seen Marjory fencing and I know she enjoys it, but she is not smiling most of the time. They said a smiling face is a happy face. Maybe they were wrong? Maybe she would enjoy it?

  When I get to Tom and Lucia’s, Lucia tells me to go on out. She is doing something in the kitchen; I can hear the rattle of pans. I smell spices. No one else is here yet.

  Tom is sanding the nicks off one of his blades when I get to the backyard. I begin stretching. They are the only couple I know who have been married so long since my parents died, and since my parents are dead I cannot ask them what marriage is like.

  “Sometimes you and Lucia sound angry at each other,” I say, watching Tom’s face to see if he is going to be angry with me.

  “Married people argue sometimes,” Tom said. “It’s not easy to stay this close to someone for years.”

  “Does—” I cannot think how to say what I want to say. “If Lucia is angry at you… if you are angry at her… it means you are not loving each other?”

  Tom looks startled. Then he laughs, a tense laugh. “No, but it’s hard to explain, Lou. We love each other, and we love each other even when we’re angry. The love is behind the anger, like a wall behind a curtain or the land as a storm passes over it. The storm goes away, and the land is still there.”

  “If there is a storm,” I say, “sometimes there is a flood or a house gets blown away.”

  “Yes, and sometimes, if love isn’t strong enough or the anger is big enough, people do quit loving each other. But we aren’t.”

  I wonder how he can be so sure. Lucia has been angry so many times in the past three months. How can Tom know that she still loves him?

  “People sometimes have a bad time for a while,” Tom says, as if he knew what I was thinking. “Lucia’s been upset lately about a situation at work. When she found that you were being pressured to take the treatment, that also upset her.”

  I never thought about normal people having trouble at work. The only normal people I know have had the same jobs as long as I have known them. What kind of trouble do normal people have? They cannot have a Mr. Crenshaw asking them to take medicine they don’t want to take. What makes them angry at their work?

  “Lucia is angry because of her work and because of me?”

  “Partly, yes. A lot of things have hit her at once.”

  “It is not as comfortable when Lucia is angry,” I say.

  Tom makes a funny sound that is part laugh and part something else. “You can say that again,” he says. I know this does not mean that I should say what I said again, though it still seems like a silly thing to say instead of “I agree with you” or “You’re right.”

  “I thought about the tournament,” I say. “I decided—”

  Marjory comes out into the yard. She always goes through the house, though many people go through the side yard gate. I wonder what it would feel like if Marjory were angry with me the way Lucia gets angry with Tom or the way Tom and Lucia have been angry with Don. I have always been upset when people were angry with me, even people I didn’t like. I think it would be worse to have Marjory mad at me than even my parents.

  “You decided…” Tom does not quite ask. Then he glances up and sees Marjory. “Ah. Well?”

  “I would like to try,” I say. “If it is still all right.”

  “Oh,” Marjory says. “You’ve decided to enter the tournament, Lou? Good for you!”

  “It is very much all right,” Tom says. “But now you have to hear my standard number-one lecture. Go get your stuff, Marjory; Lou has to pay attention.”

  I wonder how many number lectures he has and why I need a number lecture to enter a fencing tournament. Marjory goes into the house, and then it is easier to listen to Tom.

  “First off, between now and then, you’ll practice as much as you can. Every day, if possible, until the last day. If you can’t come over here, at least do stretches, legwork, and point control at home.”

  I do not think I can come to Tom and Lucia’s every day. When would I do the laundry or the grocery shopping or clean my car? “How many should I do?”

  “Whatever you have time for without getting too sore,” Tom says. “Then, a week before, check all your equipment. You keep your equipment in good repair, but it’s still good to check it. We’ll go over it together. Do you have a spare blade?”

  “No… should I order one?”

  “Yes, if you can afford it. Otherwise, you can have one of mine.”

  “I can order one.” It is not in my budget, but I have enough right now.

  “Well, then. You want to have all your equipment checked out, have it clean and ready to pack. The day before, you don’t practice—you need to relax. Pack your gear, then go take a walk or something.”

  “Could I just stay home?”

  “You could, but it’s a good idea to get some exercise, just not overdo it. Eat a good supper; go to bed at your usual time.”

  I can understand what this plan will accomplish, but it will be hard to do what Tom wants and go to work and do the other things I must do. I do not have to watch TV or play games on the ’net with my friends, and I do not have to go to the Center on Saturday, even though I usually do.

  “It will be… you will have… fencing practice here other nights than Wednesday?”

  “For students entering the tournament, yes,” Tom says. “Come any day but Tuesday. That’s our special night.”

  I feel my face getting hot. I wonder what it would be like to have a special night. “I do my grocery shopping on Tuesday,” I say.

  Marjory, Lucia, and Max come out of the house. “Enough lecture,” Lucia says. “You’ll scare him off. Don’t forget the entry form.”

  “Entry form!” Tom smacks himself on the forehead. He does this whenever he forgets something. I do not know why. It does not help me remember when I try it. He goes into the house. I am through with my stretches now, but the others are just starting. Susan, Don, and Cindy come through the side gate. Don is carrying Susan’s blue bag; Cindy has a green one. Don goes inside to get his gear; Tom comes back out with a paper for me to fill out and sign.

  The first part is easy: my name, address, contact number, age, height, and weight. I do not know what to put in the space marked “persona.”

  “Ignore that,” Tom says. “It’s for people who like to play a part.”

  “In a play?” I ask.

  “No. All day, they pretend to be someone they’ve made up, from history. Well, from pretend history.”

  “It is another game?” I ask.

  “Yes, exactly. And people treat them as if they were their pretend person.”

  When I talked about pretend persons to my teachers, they got upset and made notes in my records. I would like to ask Tom if normal people do this often and if he does it, but I do not want to upset him.

  “For instance,” Tom says, “when I was younger I had a persona named Pierre Ferret—that’s spelled like the animal ferret—who was a spy for the evil cardinal.”

  “What is evil about a bird?” I ask.
/>   “The other kind of cardinal,” Tom says. “Didn’t you ever read The Three Musketeers?”

  “No,” I say. I never even heard of The Three Musketeers.

  “Oh, well, you’d love it,” he says. “But it would take too long to tell the story now—it’s just that there was a wicked cardinal and a foolish queen and an even more foolish young king and three brave musketeers who were the best swordsmen in the world except for D’Artagnan, so naturally half the group wanted to be the musketeers. I was young and wild, so I decided to be the cardinal’s spy.”

  I cannot imagine Tom as a spy. I cannot imagine Tom pretending to be someone named Pierre Ferret and people calling him that instead of Tom. It seems a lot of trouble if what he really wanted to do was fence.

  “And Lucia,” he goes on. “Lucia made a most excellent lady-in-waiting.”

  “Don’t even start,” Lucia says. She does not say what he is not supposed to start, but she is smiling. “I’m too old for that now,” she says.

  “So are we both,” Tom says. He does not sound like he means it. He sighs. “But you don’t need a persona, Lou, unless you want to be someone else for a day.”

  I do not want to be someone else. It is hard enough to be Lou.

  I skip all the blanks that concern the persona I do not have and read the Ritual Disclaimer at the bottom. That is what the bold print says, but I do not know exactly what it means. By signing it I agree that fencing is a dangerous sport and that any injuries I may suffer are not the fault of the tournament organizers and therefore I cannot sue them. I further agree to abide by the rules of the sport and the rulings of all referees, which will be final.

  I hand the signed form to Tom, who hands it to Lucia. She sighs and puts it in her needlework basket.

  THURSDAY EVENING I USUALLY WATCH TELEVISION, BUT I AM going to the tournament. Tom told me to practice every day I could. I change and drive over to Tom and Lucia’s. It feels very strange driving this way on a Thursday. I notice the color of the sky, of the leaves on the trees, more than I usually do. Tom takes me outside and tells me to start doing footwork exercises, then drills of specific parry/riposte combinations.