Anna To The Infinite Power

by Mildred Ames

  “I had to know sometime.”

  “But I wasn’t supposed to be the one to tell you, not then, not any time. Now I know why. Somehow I thought it would be better if it came from me. I guess I was wrong. I haven’t been able to make you feel at all good about yourself.”

  “Who was supposed to tell me -- a stranger?”

  “A trained person, I guess. Someone who would have known how to put it better than I seem to have done. I wish I could let you talk to someone like that now -- a psychologist, perhaps. But you do see why that’s impossible.” She stared anxiously at Anna.

  “Of course. I’d have to tell the person what the problem is. And the problem is that I’m a clone. But that’s supposed to be a secret. We aren’t supposed to talk about it.”

  “Maybe I should let them know that I went against their advice and told you. Maybe they could suggest something that would help.”

  The thought terrified Anna. She couldn’t conceive of herself talking to them. She was sure they were monsters, capable of nothing but diabolical solutions to any problem. “Oh, please don’t, Mom. I don’t want to talk to them -- or to anybody. I’m all right.”

  Sarah Hart sounded relieved as she said, “Then promise me you won’t do anything hasty, Anna -- I mean, about school. You’re too talented to waste yourself. Give yourself time to get over any anger or bitterness you feel. Everything will straighten itself out eventually -- you’ll see.”

  It hit Anna for the first time that she didn’t belong to herself any more than she belonged to the Harts. She belonged to them. And if she couldn’t fulfill the purpose for which she was intended, what then? What would they do with her? To her? She felt suddenly panicky. “Don’t worry, Mom,” she said trying to keep the sound of fear from her voice. “I won’t do anything about anything.”

  15

  May I come in, Rowan?” Anna asked.

  Startled, he glanced up from the violin he had just been tuning and over to the entrance to his room where Anna stood. He had not even heard her open the door. How long had she been standing there, listening to him practice? he wondered. “I didn’t think you were talking to me anymore,” he said.

  “That wasn’t it exactly. I mean, I didn’t want you to think that. I mean -- ” she hesitated, looking as if she couldn’t find the words to say what she did mean. “Well, anyhow, can I talk to you now?”

  He glanced down at his violin in a way he hoped suggested he had more important things to do. “Well, if you make it fast.” He simply did not know how to figure Anna. Just as he’d started feeling that she might, after all, be human, she had closed herself off from him. He resented that. God knows, he’d tried to be sympathetic, tried to understand her strange background, her nightmares, tried to help. Didn’t she trust him?

  She came into his room and perched stiffly on the edge of his studio couch. She looked different, he thought, yet he couldn’t quite decide in what way.

  “Did you make out all right in the second play-off recital?” she asked.

  He gave a casual shrug. “I think so.” He wasn’t about to tell her how he had sweated through that ordeal. After all, if she’d decided she couldn’t confide in him, why should he confide in her? He waited for her to comment. Instead, she sat staring into space, looking troubled. When he could no longer stand the silence, he said, “Well, what do you want to talk about?”

  The words seemed to bring her back to herself. She said simply, “I’m worried, Rowan.”

  “About what?”

  “About -- well, about school.”

  For God’s sake, why couldn’t she tell him what was bothering her without his having to pry it out of her? “What about school?”

  “It isn’t just school -- it’s -- well, something’s wrong with me. I just don’t seem to be interested in anything I’m studying anymore.”

  He still held his violin in the tuning position, making it plain that he was ready to return to work. “That figures. You’ve had a lot on your mind.”

  “But it’s more than that. I just don’t seem to be able to do the things I used to.”

  “Like what?”

  “Well, remember how I used to be able to figure math problems in my head?”

  Yes, of course, he remembered. Anna, the human computer. He nodded.

  “I can’t do it anymore. I’ve tried over and over. I’ve even written the problems down. Then I close my eyes and try to see the numbers with my mind. I can see them all right, but I can’t seem to channel them into the part of my brain that works them out and comes up with the answers.”

  “Can you work them out on paper?”

  “Sometimes. But it takes me forever, and I seem to be wrong more times than I’m right.”

  She looked so worried he began to forget he was annoyed with her. “You know what I think, Anna? I think you’re still upset over things. Learning who you were was shock enough, but then you had that dream about the concentration camp --”

  “It was more than a dream!”

  He fully believed she was right, but he was sure that the sooner she forgot, the better off she would be. “Well, whatever it was, it was traumatic. I think that what’s happened to you is like what happens to writers sometimes. They get a block, and they can’t write a word. But they get over it eventually. You will, too.”

  “I don’t know.” She sounded doubtful. “Ever since my teachers discovered how much my work has fallen off, I’ve had to take the same kinds of tests I took to get into the academy. They can’t seem to figure out what’s happening to me. On the tests, I don’t show any aptitude for the sciences at all.”

  “But, Anna, you wouldn’t if you have a block. Don’t you see? You don’t want to be Anna Zimmerman. You’ve said so yourself. So what do you do? Your mind erases everything about you that you know is like her.”

  “You make it all sound so reasonable, Rowan. What you don’t know is what the tests show I do have an aptitude for.”

  “What?”

  “Art. . . design. They never showed that the first time I took them.”

  Rowan absently placed his violin on his desk, taking a moment to mull over her words. At length he said, “You’ve always been so brilliant in math and science that that alone would probably have overshadowed any other talents you might have shown on tests. I’ll bet your art aptitude was just overlooked before.”

  “They say not. Besides, I’ve never done all that well in any of the art classes I’ve taken.”

  “But you’re not the same person that you were when you took the earlier tests, or even when you took those classes. People change. Their interests change. Maybe even their aptitudes. What’s wrong with that?”

  “Plenty, if I’m one of the people.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they wouldn’t like it.”

  “Oh, Anna -- He stared at her incredulously.

  “I mean it, Rowan.” She told him what Sarah Hart had said to her about the importance of the replicator.

  When she finished, he thought, what nonsense, making Anna feel responsible for the destiny of the whole world. “In the first place, there’s nothing that says that you or--” he almost said the other clones, “anyone else is going to uncover the secret for making a replicator. Personally, I doubt if anyone ever will. In the second place, whether you have a block or whether your interests have changed -- in either case, you won’t be much good to them. And in the third place, if you want to change your studies, what can they do about it?”

  “That’s just it -- I don’t know.”

  “Well, find out.”

  “Oh, Rowan, I’d be afraid.”

  “That’s silly, Anna. What do you think they’re going to say -- well, she obviously can’t fulfill our plans, so we’ll just have to do away with her?” Her quick intake of breath and the expression in her eyes told him that was exactly what she thought. Silly kid. All the same he wanted to bite off his tongue. “Anna, they would never--”

  “You don’t know, Rowan.�
�

  “Anna, don’t torture yourself with such thoughts. That’s stupid. If you want to change courses in school, why don’t you see what your adviser has to say about it?”

  She sighed bleakly. “Maybe I will. I’ll have to think about it.”

  As she started out of his room, Rowan’s eyes followed her. Yes, she did look different. She was getting taller and her blond hair was deepening into a gold that glinted with red lights. She was as slender as ever, but her figure was starting to develop a woman’s curves. She was suffering, he knew. Perhaps that was what made her expression so much softer.

  Strange, he had never before noticed that Anna was rather pretty.

  Anna’s Saturday piano lesson was just about over when Michaela said, “You know, I think you’re actually improving. I guess the exercises were a good idea.”

  Michaela’s words came as a surprise. Anna had met with her adviser that morning. Since then she’d been so preoccupied that she felt she had played badly. “You mean I won’t have to do exercises anymore?”

  “I mean nothing of the sort. If they’re helping, all the more reason to keep on with them.”

  Naturally, Anna thought. She was convinced now that suffering was natural to the human condition, yet how had she escaped it for all those years? It wasn’t until she’d found out she was a clone that it had begun. She glanced at Michaela and decided, no, she was wrong. It had started before that, had started the night when the music drifted across the park and into her room. Reverie. Curious that the woman had played the one piece that could have moved Anna in quite that way. What was even more curious was that the music box had played the same melody. Coincidence? It had to be. After all, it was she who had stolen the box. And yet...

  Anna no longer feared Michaela. In fact, she had come to admire the woman. Michaela seemed so strong, so sure of herself. She could see why Rowan found her attractive. Mom was the only holdout. “She’s really terribly overdone, don’t you think?” she had thrown out at the dinner table one night for whomever cared to pick up on the remark.

  “Overdone? Cooked too much?” Dad had asked innocently.

  “You know what I mean, Graham. Excessive. Just a little too much of everything, including perfume.” Of course, both Dad and Rowan had defended Michaela. Now as Anna stared at her, she thought a leotard and long dangling earrings became her. Then it occurred to Anna that the earrings were the same ones that had once triggered her migraine. Today they didn’t seem to bother her. In fact, she hadn’t had a headache in a long, long time. Don’t think about it, she told herself. Don’t invite trouble.

  “Something wrong, Anna?” Michaela asked.

  “No,” Anna said quickly. For the first time she felt a desire to confide in Michaela. That was out of the question, though. Which made Anna all the more thankful for Rowan. If she had to keep all her worries and fears to herself, she’d go crazy. Anna said, “You know, at first I thought you were so mean, making me play all those exercises and all. Then I got to thinking about it the other day, and I decided this must be more boring for you than for me. I wondered why you would do it. Dad said you wouldn’t even take pay.”

  “All the payment I want is to see you improve.”

  “I think I am improving.”

  “You know,” Michaela said with a smile, “I believe you are, too. In fact, while I still want you to continue with the exercises, I think you’re now ready for the enjoyable part -- full compositions.”

  Anna couldn’t believe it. “Really?”

  “Really.” Michaela quickly went through the pile of sheet music that always sat on top of the spinet, selected a Beethoven sonata, opened it, and said, “Ah, here we are, the third movement. Next week I expect you to be able to play this with your eyes closed.”

  At that point, the door buzzer sounded. Anna said, “That must be Rowan. He said he’d walk home with me.”

  “Then that’s it for today.”

  Michaela went to the door and opened it to Rowan. “Today I gave Anna permission to start playing full pieces,” she said after greeting him. “You might try helping her with the one I’ve given her. When she learns it, you could even try a duet.”

  “Duet?” he said. Anna thought he looked startled. “I never thought of anything like that, but if you think it will help --”

  “I do,” Michaela said firmly.

  When Anna joined Rowan outside, and they started across the park toward home, she said, “You don’t want to.”

  “Want to what?”

  “Play duets with me -- help me.”

  “Sure I do. In fact, I was just now thinking that maybe we-could try something this afternoon.” Then he changed the subject. “Did you have any trouble this morning?”

  Anna had already told him that she’d taken his advice and had made an appointment with her school adviser. “I guess you couldn’t really call it trouble.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Well, I saw my adviser. She agreed with me that I’m not doing well enough to continue with the program I’m in now. She said it would probably be wise to make some changes.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “She had my file in front of her when I went in. She’s new on the job this year, so I don’t think she’d ever seen it before. I could see that she looked puzzled. She kept staring at something on the paper. Finally she asked me who Dr. Henry Jelliff was.”

  “Dr. Henry Jelliff?”

  “Yes. I told her I didn’t know. She said, ‘He’s not your guardian?’ I said, ‘No.’ Then she asked me if I had any idea why he was to be notified of any change in my curriculum. Of course, I told her, no, but I knew very well he had to be someone involved in the experiment.”

  “I wonder if Mom knows who he is.”

  “Oh, don’t say anything to her, Rowan. I told her I wouldn’t do anything about school.”

  “But she’ll have to know sooner or later.”

  “Maybe not. I was kind of reading my file upside- down. I could make out Jelliff’s name. There was another note, too -- See Headmaster. I figured then that there was no way that they wouldn’t hear about what I was doing, so I told her I’d better think things over, that maybe I wouldn’t make any changes.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She said my grades were no longer academy level, so she had to advise a change of program, maybe even a change of schools. I think I talked her out of doing anything right away, though. I said I’d really like to give it another try.”

  “What good will that do?”

  “Maybe if I try hard, I can get my grades back up.”

  “What’s the point? You keep saying you don’t want to be a physicist.”

  “But maybe I do want to be one. Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’ve just run into a block. I bet if I just give it time, everything will come back to me.” Deep inside her, though, Anna knew that no matter what she said, what she was really trying to do was avoid a confrontation with them.

  Anna spent the afternoon trying to master a portion of the music Michaela had given her. Rowan selected the part and said she was to practice it until she could play it without looking at the notes. The task should have been easy because the sonata was one she had played long ago, but she seemed to demand more of herself now. Although it was a relief to play something other than exercises, she had a feeling she wasn’t even getting close to what Michaela would expect.

  At one point Rowan came into the room and she broke off, saying, “It’s not very good, is it?”

  “You just don’t seem to be getting the right feeling.” He thought about it for a moment. “Maybe I can help. I’ll be right back.” He left the room and returned in moments with his violin. He tuned the instrument, then glanced at the music. “I’m going to play the same passage. Close your eyes and listen.”

  Anna did as he said. The section was an especially fast one and he played it skillfully. When he finished, he said, “What did you see?”

  Anna opened
her eyes. “I didn’t see anything. I had my eyes closed.”

  “That’s not what I meant. I meant, what did you see in your mind.”

  “Nothing. What was I supposed to see?”

  Instead of answering her question, he said, “I saw horses -- wild, beautiful animals, free spirits, racing in the wind. Now close your eyes again and this time, as I play, try to form your own picture.” Anna, feeling tense, closed her eyes to once again listen to the same music. She had the feeling that Rowan was demanding something from her which, to him, was very important. Eager to please him, she took in the quick tempo and tried to form a picture in her head--anything. Even horses. Try to visualize horses, she told herself, running, leaping horses. Rowan’s horses. No, nothing would come.

  When Rowan stopped playing he said, “Well?”

  She shook her head. “Nothing. Unless you call lines and dots and squiggles something. I might as well say it before you do. If this is what it takes to be a decent musician, then I’m hopeless.” She expected him to be angry with her.

  Instead, he said patiently, “Look, Anna, you’re taking this too seriously. It’s only a sort of game.”

  “It is?”

  “Of course.”

  “Well, why didn’t you say so in the first place?”

  “I thought you realized. You don’t get bad marks if you fail or good marks if you succeed.”

  “All right. Let’s try again.” As he began the music she closed her eyes. He was trying to help her relax, she knew, and strangely enough the ploy was successful. She felt calmer now, not because he had said this was only a game, but because he had been patient with her when she’d expected anger. Now she concentrated on the sound. Lively. Animated. Gradually a picture unfolded in her head. “I see children -- a playground -- laughing, running children -- children holding hands, playing circle games, others on slides, on seesaws.” When the music died, she said, “That was all I could see.”

  “That was enough,” Rowan said, “but what did you feel?”

  “Feel?” Anna blinked and opened her eyes. “What do you mean?”