by Mildred Ames
Michaela nodded toward the hall. “First door to your left.”
Anna hurried out, paused before the bathroom door, and listened. When she heard the clink of china, she felt satisfied that Michaela was indeed in the kitchen, so she went on to hunt for the communications room. Because there were only two other doors, one belonging to a bedroom, she found what she was looking for quickly. Inside the room she directed the INAFT machine to give her the information she wanted, then pushed the hard copy button. Hurry, hurry, she silently pleaded. What if Michaela should catch her? Then with second thoughts, chided herself for her nervousness. What difference would it make if Michaela did catch her? There was no law that said you couldn’t use someone else’s machine.
She needn’t have concerned herself. In seconds, printed sheets spilled out of the machine just as she had suspected they would. But there was no time to read them. She snatched them up, hurried back to the living room, and quickly dropped the papers into the carryall she’d left on the floor. She couldn’t bring herself to leave the bag unattended now, so she took it with her to the dining area, where she planned to pretend she was absorbed in Michaela’s collection.
When she had made her way around the screen, just as Michaela had said, she found a display cabinet filled with numerous small boxes. In spite of all she had on her mind she was instantly drawn to them. Each, she discovered, was different. Some were decorated with glittering gems, some with colored glass, some with seed pearls. Others were fashioned of highly polished woods, many parqueted. There were mosaics, hand-painted scenics, all sorts of metals, more kinds of boxes and decorations than Anna could take in at a glance.
She moved closer to the cabinet, experiencing the same feeling that came over her whenever she saw something she wanted.
Michaela was still making noises in the kitchen. If I asked her for a box, Anna thought, she’d never give it to me. Collectors seldom parted with anything they’d saved.
Anna tried the glass door. Locked. She might have known. As she turned away from the cabinet, she noticed a lone box sitting on the table next to a dust cloth. Michaela must have overlooked it when she returned the others to the case. Anna picked up the box and studied it, admiring the iridescent mother-of-pearl that decorated the top and sides. Chances were that Michaela would never even miss it. Anna thrust it into her carryall, then hurriedly tiptoed back to the living room to sit on the couch.
Soon Michaela came in with a tray. She set it on the table in front of the couch, then sat down beside Anna. “Did you see my collection?”
Anna stared her straight in the eye. “I’m really not very interested in boxes.”
Apparently Michaela was unconcerned, because she shrugged and immediately changed the subject. “I’ve fixed us some toast.” She pointed to a tiny china bowl. “I hope you like marmalade. This is homemade -- a very special present from one of the teachers at the conservatory.”
Anna glanced sharply at the woman. Graham Hart had made a batch only a few months before because they’d had an extra allotment of sugar. Anna would have bet anything that the marmalade had come from him.
Michaela handed Anna a plate with toast on it. “How about some tea?”
“I don’t like tea.”
“Oh, dear, there isn’t another thing in the house.”
“I don’t need anything.” Anna glanced doubtfully at the toast. The bread looked better than any the stores were selling since the wheat crops had grown smaller, but she didn’t trust this woman. The stuff could be poisoned.
Michaela said, “Tell me, Anna, do you enjoy music?”
The question surprised Anna. She had never given it any thought. With two musicians in the family she’d been exposed to music always, supposed everyone was. It was just something you learned to live with, put up with. She found herself saying, “I guess I don’t think of it one way or the other.”
“What do you think of one way or the other?”
All Anna wanted was to get out of the place, but she made herself answer patiently. “I like math better than anything.”
Michaela nodded as if she had anticipated that answer. “That reminds me of something Debussy says. He says that music is the arithmetic of sounds as optics is the geometry of light.”
What’s that got to do with anything? Anna thought. She said, “That’s very interesting.”
“Yes, I thought so.”
Anna stared down at her toast. It had to be safe to eat. After all, poison would be too easy to detect and trace. And she was most curious about that marmalade. She reached for the spreader on the tray and helped herself from the china bowl. When she had a good sampling on her bread, she took a bite. Ah, ha! Lemon. The kind Graham Hart had made. Now she knew she was right.
As she mulled over that annoying idea, she was aware that Michaela was pleasantly chatting away. Anna began to notice that as the woman’s head moved, her shiny jet earrings swung and bobbed and almost seemed to flash with hidden light. Although Anna wasn’t taking in a word Michaela said, she found her eyes glued to the dancing earrings. How they glittered. For a moment they seemed like prisms, throwing dappled light all over the room, bouncing, whirling around her, making her dizzy. Then a stab of pain hit her between the eyes and traveled on into her brain, while outside her head thousands of tons of something unyielding was trying to crush her skull.
Anna thrust her plate of unfinished toast onto the table, grabbed her carryall, and shot to her feet. “I’ve got to go. I’m getting a terrible headache.”
Without waiting for leave, Anna dashed out the door. As she ran across the park toward her own apartment, she was certain Michaela’s green eyes were following her.
9
Anna, grateful that no one else was home yet, hurried to her bedroom, tossed her carryall on the bed, then flopped down and stretched out beside it. Her head pounded so badly she could think of nothing else. She even lacked the strength to get up and take the medication that sometimes relieved her. Instead, she placed her hands, which were very cold, on her brow. That seemed to help. She closed her eyes. After a time, the pounding let up slightly. She thought again about getting up for her medication, but continued to lie there until she eventually drifted into sleep.
When she awoke, she was surprised to find she had slept for several hours. Although she’d had no real lunch she wasn’t hungry. Her head felt much better, though, with only a dull ache left at the back of her neck. She rolled over and bumped something solid. Her carryall. She grabbed it eagerly and fished through to take out her prizes -- the papers that would tell who Anna Zimmerman was, as well as the pretty little box.
The box she placed beside her for later examination. She dug out her bed pillow from beneath the spread and propped it behind her. Although it was only mid-afternoon, the sky had darkened, looking as if rain threatened. Anna had to turn on her bedside lamp to see. Then she settled back to read about Anna Zimmerman.
When she had finally finished, she felt almost as frustrated as before. If the woman had only found the secret for creating the replicator she was working on, there would have been volumes of biographical material about her. As it was, most of the articles concerned her work. Only one had any information on her life, an obituary from a science journal.
Anna Zimmerman was forty-six years old when she died. She had been born during the Second World War in Berlin of a Jewish mother and an Aryan father. Both her parents had died in the gas chambers of a concentration camp. Anna Zimmerman had somehow escaped their fate and had been raised by a friend of her mother’s. As a young woman her brilliant mind had won her scholarships to the University of Berlin and later, in this country, to the University of California at Berkeley, where she took her doctorate. After, she worked for government research and development laboratories. She had never married and had left no survivors.
Perhaps that was another reason for choosing to clone her, Anna thought. She had no relatives to object. But it certainly doesn’t help me. Now there never would be anyo
ne with whom she could feel she belonged, no one to ask, “Did Anna Zimmerman have bad headaches like mine?” She thought of all the other Anna Zimmermans. They had to be relatives of some sort. Maybe she belonged with them. Then she remembered how she had felt, looking at her doppleganger, and how the girl had reacted to her. No, they would never be comfortable together. Then why did she always feel that she was looking for some missing part of herself? Lately, with her new knowledge, the feeling had grown even stronger.
Anna got up and went to the window. A dense fog had settled over the park. She could not see Michaela’s apartment or anything else now. She might have been staring at a gray wall. Although her window was closed, she imagined she could feel the chill steal inside. She shivered. Suddenly, for no real reason, she was frightened. She could see nothing, and yet she felt there was something out there in the fog, in the mist, waiting for her, threatening her. That made no sense at all, yet she was certain it was true.
Was it creeping into the room now, touching her skin with icy fingers? She shrank away, eyes still fastened on the gray beyond the window. At the same time, she could hear music. She listened hard. Nothing. Then again she heard it, heard it inside her head, the same tune that had come from Michaela’s apartment that night. But that couldn’t be. How could she possibly remember it? Yet, remember it she did, and it was throbbing through her skull now worse than any headache. She had to escape from that sound, get out of that room.
She backed away from the window, farther and farther, until she finally reached the door and jerked it open to stumble through and slam it behind her. Then she tore down the hall to Rowan’s room and flung open his door. As the sound of his violin died, she was aware that the music in her head had vanished, too.
He frowned at her. “Maybe I’d better start locking my door.”
Anna’s lips trembled as she said, “Rowan, I’m afraid.”
“Now, Anna, leave me alone. Can’t you see I’m -- ” He broke off to stare at her quizzically. “What’s the matter with you?”
She took the words as an invitation to enter his room, which she’d always considered forbidden territory. Inside, she felt safer. “I’m scared, Rowan.” He lowered his violin and stared at her skeptically. “I can’t believe it -- not you. What are you scared of?”
“It’s that woman. She’s trying to drive me out of my mind.”
“What woman?”
“That Michaela Dupont.”
“What do you mean, trying to drive you out of your mind? What did she do?”
“She didn’t do anything -- not openly. Well, yes, she did -- she flashed her earrings around until they made all kinds of fluttery lights, and I got a headache.”
Rowan shook his head, a look of total disbelief on his face. “I never heard anything so insane. You always get headaches. Why blame this one on her?”
“Because she wanted me to have one. I know she did.”
“Anna, you’re crazy. She’s one of the nicest people I’ve ever met, not to mention the best music history teacher we’ve had at the conservatory. Why would you imagine something like that about her?”
“I can’t explain it. I just know she’s trying to do something to me, and I don’t know what it is, and I’m scared.”
“Anna, you’ve got to be imagining all this. Flashing earrings, for God’s sake!”
In the safety of Rowan’s room, Anna was almost tempted to believe he was right. Perhaps her headache had distorted her reasoning. She felt better now, but not enough better to forget her fears entirely. “If I have to go to her house next Saturday, will you go with me, Rowan?”
“Anna, I have orchestra practice on Saturdays. You know that.”
“Please, Rowan.”
“Don’t be silly. Nothing’s going to happen to you.”
“Rowan, I’m begging you. Please go with me. I’m so scared.”
She thought she caught a glimmer of something like pity in his eyes. Then he sighed impatiently. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I can’t go with you, but as soon as practice is over, I’ll head for Michaela’s. You won’t have been there much more than a half hour. She surely won’t have done you in in that length of time.”
He didn’t believe her, but Anna didn’t care. “You can’t come earlier?”
“No, I can’t. Now stop pestering me.”
Anna nodded, resigned that she had gotten as much from him as he was likely to give. “I guess I can tell her you’re coming. That should help if she’s planning anything.”
“Oh, no -- not that again! Anna, if you don’t get out of my room right now, I swear I’ll throw something at you.”
“All right, all right. I’m going.” She left, feeling calmer. Rowan was undoubtedly right. She was letting her imagination play strange tricks on her. Which wasn’t at all like her. It was just that the headaches she suffered often made her half-crazy. That was what had happened today. Her headache had started it, making her dream up all sorts of stupid pictures that had nothing to do with anything real.
Anna decided to spend the rest of the afternoon in the communications room, working on a project for school. She grew so involved that by the time Sarah Hart called her for dinner, her headache had disappeared, and she had almost forgotten her earlier fright. Now she couldn’t believe she had acted so irrationally.
Dinner consisted of soybeans, cooked and flavored like Boston baked beans, a small canned ham, coleslaw from a cabbage that had matured in the hydroponic roof garden, and a dark, sweet bread Graham Hart had made earlier and frozen.
The atmosphere was strained, Sarah and Graham Hart exchanging only a few polite words, long heavy silences between. Anna watched them sullenly. At one point Graham stabbed a piece of ham with his fork, held it up, and said, “I suppose we have Anna to thank for this.”
His wife lowered her eyes and said nothing.
Then, sounding almost apologetic, he added, “I wasn’t complaining.” He turned to Anna and changed the subject. “Well, did you learn anything at Michaela’s today?”
Anna scowled. “A little, Mr. Hart. But not anything about music.” She watched with satisfaction as three pairs of eyes darted to her.
Graham Hart gave a self-conscious laugh. “What’s this Mr. Hart business?”
“I have to call you something,” Anna said.
“Anna, please don’t make things worse,” Sarah Hart said.
Graham Hart looked thoroughly confused. “Why can’t you call me what you’ve always called me?”
“That wouldn’t seem right. After all, you’re Rowan’s dad, not mine.”
“Do you have to remind me?” he asked irritably. Anna said nothing.
“Besides, what difference does that make? If we’d adopted you, you’d have called me Dad, wouldn’t you?”
“I suppose so, Mr. Hart.”
Rowan put in, “Just call him Graham.”
“Rowan, you keep out of this,” his father said. “She’ll do no such thing! She’ll call me Dad, just the way she always has. You hear that, Anna?”
“Yes, Dad,” Anna said demurely.
“And no sarcasm!”
“No, Mr. -- ”
“Dad, Dad, Dad!” His face went florid now.
“Yes, Dad.” Anna, pleased with herself, glanced at Sarah Hart and shrugged as if she couldn’t understand what Dad was getting so excited about.
“And what did you mean a few minutes ago when you said you’d learned something at Michaela’s, but not about music?”
“I’m not sure you’d want me to say.”
“Go ahead -- say.”
“I meant I’d found out something interesting.”
“Like what?”
“Like you gave her a jar of our marmalade.”
Sarah Hart said, “Graham, you never told me that.”
“Why should I tell anyone I gave away a jar of marmalade?”
Anna said, “The least you could have done was ask me.”
He looked bewildered. “What have you g
ot to say about it?”
“Nothing that anyone would listen to, I suppose. But I should have plenty to say about it. After all, if it wasn’t for me, we wouldn’t have things like marmalade.”
“I don’t believe this,” he muttered.
Sarah Hart said, “What’s going on between you and that woman, giving her our food when food is so scarce?”
Graham Hart, mouth hanging open, pushed back his chair and got up. He swallowed and in a very controlled voice said, “I have had just about enough. I am now going into my bedroom, which is soundproof, where,” his voice rose to a shriek, “I will scream my head off, take the Lord’s name in vain, and a few other things!” So saying, with great dignity, he left the table.
10
By the time Anna was ready for bed, she had completely convinced herself that the disturbing experience of the afternoon had been nothing more than a flight of fancy. If she had had the good sense to take her medication, she would never have behaved so ridiculously. Just imagine, fearing her own bedroom!
She glanced around it now. Nothing but the same old solid, sensible furniture she knew so well, a single bed that doubled as a couch, a big oak desk that had once belonged to Graham Hart, a no-nonsense chest of drawers, a straight chair, an easy chair covered in the same plaid as the bedspread and draperies, and a television screen hung high on the wall so that you could lie in bed and watch the mindless shows that lulled you to sleep. Everything about the room was functional, which suited Anna just fine. You see, she chided herself, nothing strange here, nothing scary.
She got into her pajamas, then made herself glance out the window to assure herself there was nothing there but the safe familiar world. Although the fog was not as dense now, it seemed to shift around the park, obscuring streetlamps, yet, now and then, allowing the more distant lights to break through, one here, one there, sending out rays that blurred in the mist. Was that a light from Michaela’s apartment? Anna wondered. No, it must come from one of the other buildings. Now it’s gone. But there’s a new light. Michaela’s? Too far to the left. The lights appeared and vanished, appeared and vanished, like some kind of eerie fireworks glimpsed through a heavy veil.
