by Tanith Lee
I rather liked Leo. He didn’t seem to resent my presence in the apartment, and even flirted with me: “My goodness, why isn’t she a boy?” I never knew if it was tact or ignorance that kept him from commenting on my state.
Clovis, though, became restless, and went out a lot, leaving Leo in possession but unhappily unpossessed.
I was trying by then to think what I was going to do with the rest of my empty life. A labor card would be out of the question, my mother had seen to that, reestablishing my credit rating, even if I wouldn’t use it. So I couldn’t hope for legal work, even if I could do anything. And I couldn’t go on living off Clovis—I didn’t want to do Chloe’s trick and stay there ten months. But then, I didn’t know what I wanted, or rather, I wanted nothing at all.
“The way you now look,” said Clovis, “you could model.”
But there are models by the hundred and my strange face would never fit, even if my body now did.
“Why don’t you write something again, this time commercial?”
“I’d have to pay for the first printing.”
“I’d give you the money.”
So I did try to write, a couple of stories, but nothing would come. The characters were always the same, people I know—Clovis, Demeta, Egyptia. And I could never get past the first page. Forty or so first pages. I didn’t try to write about Silver. I’d said all there was I could say, and it hadn’t been enough.
Involved in myself, I didn’t take any notice of the inevitable trend in the Clovis-Leo situation. Then one afternoon Clovis stalked in glittering with the rain which had replaced the snow. He flung his nineteenth-century coat at the closet, which caught it, and announced: “This morning I got a hideous rambling letter from Egyptia. Someone took her up to a tomb in the desert on the pretext she looked like some princess out of antiquity. And as they stood there on the moonlit sand, next to a handy sphinx, a slender ghost is supposed to have flitted by.”
“You don’t believe in ghosts?” said Leo.
“Do you?”
“I’m superstitious. Most actors are. Yes, I believe in them. My theatre over on Star is supposed to be haunted. If you’d come and be my Hamlet there, you might see the haunt—”
“You give me a good idea,” said Clovis. “We can hold a seance here.”
Leo laughed. “Here? You’re joking.”
“Am I?”
Clovis produced the seance table and the glass and the plastic cards with letters and numbers up to ten.
“Well, it’s supposed to be bad luck, isn’t it?”
“Lucky for some,” said Clovis.
He began to set out the cards.
“I think I’d rather go for a walk,” said Leo.
“Fine. Jane and I will have the seance without you.”
“Oh.”
“Won’t we, Jane?” Clovis didn’t look at me. Part of me wanted to say: “Do your own dirty work,” but it was less complicated to say, however listlessly, “All right.”
“Jane doesn’t like the idea either,” said Leo.
“Yes she does. She adores the idea. Don’t you, Jane?”
“Yes, Clovis.”
“Doesn’t sound like it.”
“Dear me,” said Clovis, “are you having a migraine attack in the ears, now?”
Clovis sat cross-legged on the rug. A little dull pain went through and through me. I thought of the seance with Austin directly after I had seen Silver for the very first time.
“Jane,” said Clovis, “do come here and show Leo there’s really nothing to be afraid of.”
I got up and went over, and sat down. I looked at the cut-glass goblet. Leo had moved to the window. Clovis said to me, extra quietly, “Don’t ask me why, but push a bit, will you?”
“What do you mean?”
“I did say don’t—”
“Oh, hell,” said Leo. “All right.” He came over and sat down with us, running his hand over Clovis’s hair as he did so, and I saw Clovis wince.
We all put one finger on the glass. Inside me, the pain swelled on a long slow chord. But I had no urge to do anything about it, for there was nothing to be done. My eyes unfocused. I seemed to retreat inside myself, somewhere distant. I ignored the tiny voice which cried: If only this were the first time again. If only I could go back.
“Jesus Christ,” said Clovis, far away, but in a tone of abject awe, “it’s moving.”
No, I really couldn’t stay with Clovis anymore. I really couldn’t take any more of this sort of thing, this game. His dishonesty, this fear of his of being loved, of loving—
The glass moved steadily and strongly.
“It’s spelling something,” said Leo.
You fool. It’s spelling Leo, get lost.
“J.,” said Leo, “A.—Jane it’s for you—”
“Special delivery,” said Clovis. His voice cracked. He was overdoing it.
“I.,” said Leo. “I.? And N.” There was a pause and then the glass moved again. “Same thing all over,” said Leo. “J.A.I.N. A spirit that can’t spell. Damn. It’s getting stronger. There’s something really here, Clovis.”
“I know,” Clovis said. He cleared his throat. “And it wants Jane. Jane? Wake up. You’ve got a caller. There it is again. Jain. Who spells your name that way?”
I blinked. The room came back, hurtfully bright with rainy light and sharp with other lives.
“What? What do you mean?”
“Who spells Jane J.A.I.N.?”
“No one.”
The glass moved.
“It’s going somewhere else,” said Leo, the faithful commentator, as though he were broadcasting for a performance where the visual had blacked out and everything must be described. “Y.O….U.”
“You,” said Clovis.
“I don’t exactly—” said Leo.
“I do,” said Clovis. “Jane says no one spells her name with an I., and it said: You do.”
“I don’t,” said Leo.
“Oh for God’s sake,” said Clovis. “She does.”
“This is turning into farce,” said Leo.
“J.A.I.N.” said Clovis. The glass flew. “T.H.E.S.O.U.N.D.O.F.R.A.I.N.F.A.L.L.I.N.G.S.I.L.K.E.N.G.R.A.I.N.P.A.L.E.C.H.A.I.N.—this is gibberish—the sound of rain falling? Silk? Grain? Wholewheat bloody bread—”
The glass stopped under our fingers.
I shut my eyes.
“Clovis,” I said, “when did you go through my things and read my manuscript?”
“With your writing, reading any manuscript of yours would be unlikely.”
I opened my eyes and made myself look at him. His face was terribly white, unlike Leo’s, which was flushed and excited.
“Clovis, why are you doing this? Is it spite? Or are you trying to help in some stupid tactless—”
The glass moved. I saw Clovis’s face drain even whiter; he stared back at it as if it had loudly spoken to him.
“It isn’t me,” he said.
“It’s you.”
“It says,” said Leo, “The idea is—the idea is for me—for me to—A.M.U.S.—”
“Amuse you,” said Clovis, anticipating.
The glass shot across the table.
“T.H.A.N.K.—Thanks,” said Leo, disbelievingly. “Clovis, have you rigged this table?”
“Not recently,” said Clovis. He took his hand away from the glass, and lay down full length on the rug. “We know who it is. Don’t we, Jane?”
“Jane, don’t leave me alone with this thing,” said Leo, as I moved my own hand away.
“You can take your hand off, too, Leo,” I said. “It can go on moving without any help.” I was angry. The first emotion I’d felt for centuries. “There’s a magnet in the glass and wires in the table. And you can set up a program.”
&n
bsp; Clovis gave a croaking laugh.
“How would a program know when to say “Thank you” so sarcastically?” he said. “Jane, you think too much.”
The glass spun under Leo’s hand.
“C.,” he said, “O.—” and presently: “Cogito ergo—I think, therefore I am—no. What’s this? Cogito ergo oops!” Leo laughed. “How true.” He lifted his hand gingerly from the glass. The glass raced around the table. Leo watched it admiringly. I watched with hard lumps of fury in my mind and heart. “P.R.O.O.F.,” said Leo. “Proof—for—Jain. S.O.N.G. Song.”
I turned away, and Leo read out to me painstakingly, letter by letter, and then word by word, and with pride: “Inside the pillar of white fire,
“Staring God in the face,
“Liking his courtesy and grace,
“Afraid of his knowing eyes.
“ ‘Who told you I was unkind?’
“God, you’re so very burning bright
“I don’t want to fight—
“I’d be a fool to fight—
“ ‘Then put the pistol down
“ ‘And put up the sword.’
“I never said a word,
“I did as I was told.
“And when the stars turned cold
“He warmed me with his smile.”
The glass stopped.
“Mmm,” said Leo. “Do I know it?”
“No,” I said. “Nobody knows it. He—he knew it, I said it over to him. But I never wrote it down. I thought of it in Musicord-Ectrica, the night we came out and stood in the snow and the news visual about E.M. came on—I told him the words. He never forgot any lyric. He was programmed not to forget. But I forgot. Until now. I never wrote it down. Not in the manuscript. Not anywhere. Clovis, how did you know?”
“It isn’t me, Jane,” Clovis said, lying on the floor, his stone white face turned up to the ceiling.
The glass moved. I leaned toward it.
“Are you here?” I said. “How can you be here?”
JAIN, the glass said. I waited as it spelled out letters.
“I’m part of you,” I said, what the glass had spelled for me. “But—” I said. “A ghost, a soul—”
Surprise, he said to me, through the glass.
“Where are you?” I said.
You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.
Leo was sitting back, staring at me, then at Clovis.
“I don’t want to live without you,” I said. My voice was desolate and small. I didn’t even know if I credited what was happening, but by now I couldn’t stop myself. “Silver, I don’t want to live here alone.”
You’ll see me again, the glass said. We’ve been together on several previous occasions. Must mean something.
“Silver—Silver—”
I care about leaving you, but there isn’t much choice.
“When will I—when will I see you again?”
Oh, no, lady. You’re trying to get me to predict your own death.
“But—”
I love you. You’re beautiful. Stay beautiful and live my life for me.
“Don’t go—”
It doesn’t matter, Jain, Jaen, Jane. There’s all of time, as you know it, as it really is. What’s a lifetime to that?
“I shan’t still believe this when you go.”
Try. Try hard.
“You speak just the way you did when—”
How else would you recognize me.
“Silver, will this ever happen again?”
No.
“Silver—”
I love you. I’ll see you again. Don’t ever be afraid.
The glass stopped.
“Wait,” I said.
The glass didn’t move.
I reached and touched it, and it didn’t move.
It didn’t move any more.
“My God,” said Leo.
I sat still, and the others began to move about. Clovis got up. He went to the drinks dispenser. Clovis and Leo were drinking, and Clovis brought me one of the drinks and put it down on the table, and his hand shook. Before I knew what I’d do, I caught his shaking hand.
“Let go, Jane,” he said.
“Tell me first.”
“I can’t. Let go.”
I let go of him.
“Who the hell was it?” asked Leo.
“A friend of ours,” Clovis said. I began to cry, but vaguely. I’d thought I’d never cry again, but this was only a sort of reflex. “Jane,” said Clovis, “look at the glass. The seance glass. Inside, where the magnet was.”
I picked up the glass and peered into it, rubbing the tears out of my eyes. There was no magnet. There wasn’t even the chip missing—it was another glass.
“Austin,” said Clovis, “burst in here one evening, picked up the table and hurled it at me. I ducked and the table hit the wall. As for the glass, I thought he’d try to eat it. We had a lovely uninhibited time as he ranted about fake seances and liars (both of which he’d known about for days; clearly he is a fermenter rather than a creature of impulse), and sobbed and threatened to throw me or himself out of the window. I told him which of these two alternatives I’d prefer, whereupon he decided I’d make an interesting pattern on the street. He left hurriedly when I reminded him about my policode and suggested I might just have pressed it already. The rigged wiring in the table was tom out, and the glass was in twenty-eight separate pieces…or was it twenty-nine? It isn’t likely I’d have asked Jason for a replacement after we all went off him in such a big way. I planned to work the glass myself, this time. But I didn’t get a look-in. I don’t think this drink is helping me at all.”
“Then it was real.”
“Disgustingly so. Unless you did it by willpower and telekinesis.”
“Cogito ergo oops,” said Leo ironically.
Clovis half turned to him. “Leo. It’s been great fun, but I’d really be happier if you packed your bag and left.”
“You what?” Leo asked, surprised.
“Get out,” said Clovis. “We are through.”
“Charming,” said Leo. “Decided to go straight, darling?”
“Only straight to the bathroom,” said Clovis with the utmost elegance, “where I am about to be as sick as a dog. Unless you want to come along and hold my head, I suggest you seek the exit.”
And Clovis strode out and the door of the mahogany bathroom banged and there came the dim plash of aesthetic aquatic concealment.
Leo and I stared at each other.
“Does he mean it?” Leo said. And hastily, accustomed to Clovis: “About leaving.”
“Yes,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
Leo swore violently, downed his drink and went toward the main bedroom for his things.
“I suppose,” he called, hurling shirts, “that was the ghost of a lover.”
“Yes, Leo.”
“Bloody hell,” said Leo.
Something dissolved inside me. I managed to wait until he left before I began, very gently, very calmly, to giggle.
* * *
—
Live my life for me, my lover said. Not easy. No, it won’t be easy. It’s difficult, even so soon, to keep hold of that event, that instant when it seemed he was there and he spoke to me. A spirit. How can a robot have a soul? I never asked him that, or at least, he didn’t answer. Or did he answer? We’ve met before, we’ll meet again. If the soul exists, why shouldn’t it evolve inside a metal body? Just as it does inside a body made of flesh. And if souls do come back and back, maybe one day we’ll all be so full of spare parts and Rejuvinex, and whatever else, metallic or chemical, they’ve invented, that we’ll all be kindred to robots, and a metallic body will be the only place a soul can choose to go.
Small wonder he didn’t check
out on E.M.’s vile machines.
Oh, my love, my love with a soul, my love who’s alive, and out there—somewhere—my love who isn’t and never will be dead. So death for me, in the end, will be like catching a flyer. Floating away, and when I reach the platform, he’ll…be there?
But if it’s true, how extra hard it will be to live this silly life all the way through.
Yet I have to, don’t I? His life in mine.
I already went back to the slum. I went into a few places we’d been, and people asked me where he was, and I didn’t know what to say anymore, and from my face, many of them guessed. And they pressed my arm, or their eyes grew big with tears for me, for him. He wasn’t a robot, after all, so I don’t have to tell them that. Let them mourn him properly. Until the book comes out and they learn the truth in a flash of paper lightning. And then they’ll laugh at me, or hate me, or perhaps something else. And there may be riots in the streets. Or someone may assassinate me. But I’m not doing it to earn my death.
I met one of the street musicians Silver had played with, guitar and piano, in a loft. When he had my version of the news—I say, truthfully, Someone killed him—the young man took both my hands and said: “Do you need money?” And I said: “I’d rather earn it than take it.” And he said he remembered I sang, and come and sing with them at their pitches, and if we got any coins, they’d share. So I did, and we did, and they did.
Odd to sing with others, and not with him. Odd to try out my new songs with them, and not with him. Odd to come home to these grey rooms on Pine, and lie alone and unsleeping. Grey rooms, one day soon I may paint your ceilings blue and crimson, and carpet your floors with rainbows. And I may buy a cat, and train it to walk with me on a lead like a little fur dog. But not quite yet. Not till my heart settles like the broken girders, the tremor-shifted bricks, into the new slots of my days and nights.
