Beggars In Spain

by Nancy Kress

  Six pairs of eyes stared at the glass in Carol’s hand.

  “Come on,” she said. “Who wants to drink up?” Her voice was jaunty, theatrically hard. “It was difficult enough to get this.”

  “How did you get it?” said Richard, the group member—except for Tony—with the least influential family contacts, the least money. “In a drinkable form like that?”

  “Jennifer got it,” Carol said, and five sets of eyes shifted to Jennifer Sharifi, who two weeks into her visit with Carol’s family was confusing them all. She was the American-born daughter of a Hollywood movie star and an Arab prince who had wanted to found a Sleepless dynasty. The movie star was an aging drug addict; the prince, who had taken his fortune out of oil and put it into Y-energy when Kenzo Yagai was still licensing his first patents, was dead. Jennifer Sharifi was richer than Leisha would someday be, and infinitely more sophisticated about procuring things. The glass held interleukin-1, an immune-system booster, one of many substances which as a side effect induced the brain to swift and deep sleep.

  Leisha stared at the glass. A warm feeling crept through her lower belly, not unlike the feeling when she and Richard made love. She caught Jennifer watching her, and flushed.

  Jennifer disturbed her. Not for the obvious reasons she disturbed Tony and Richard and Jack: the long black hair, the tall, slim body in shorts and halter. Jennifer didn’t laugh. Leisha had never met a Sleepless who didn’t laugh, nor one who said so little, with such deliberate casualness. Leisha found herself speculating on what Jennifer Sharifi wasn’t saying. It was an odd sensation to feel toward another Sleepless.

  Tony said to Carol, “Give it to me!”

  Carol handed him the glass. “Remember, you only need a little sip.”

  Tony raised the glass to his mouth, stopped, and looked at them over the rim from his fierce eyes. He drank.

  Carol took back the glass. They all watched Tony. Within a minute he lay on the rough ground; within two, his eyes closed in sleep.

  It wasn’t like seeing parents sleep, siblings, friends. It was Tony. They looked away, avoided each other’s eyes. Leisha felt the warmth between her legs tug and tingle, faintly obscene. She didn’t look at Jennifer.

  When it was Leisha’s turn, she drank slowly, then passed the glass to Richard. Her head turned heavy, as if it were being stuffed with damp rags. The trees at the edge of the clearing blurred. The portable lamp blurred, too. It wasn’t bright and clean anymore but squishy, blobby; if she touched it, it would smear. Then darkness swooped over her brain, taking it away: taking away her mind. “Daddy!” She tried to call, to clutch for him, but then the darkness obliterated her.

  Afterward, they all had headaches. Dragging themselves back through the woods in the thin morning light was torture, compounded by an odd shame. They didn’t touch each other. Leisha walked as far away from Richard as she could.

  Jennifer was the only one who spoke. “So now we know,” she said, and her voice held a strange satisfaction.

  It was a whole day before the throbbing left the base of Leisha’s skull, or the nausea her stomach. She sat alone in her room, waiting for the misery to pass, and despite the heat, her whole body shivered.

  There had not even been any dreams.

  “I WANT YOU TO COME WITH ME TONIGHT,” LEISHA SAID, for the tenth or twelfth time. “We both leave for college in just two days; this is the last chance. I really want you to meet Richard.”

  Alice lay on her stomach across her bed. Her hair, brown and lusterless, fell around her face. She wore an expensive yellow jumpsuit, silk by Ann Patterson, which rucked up around her knees.

  “Why? What do you care if I meet Richard or not?”

  “Because you’re my sister,” Leisha said. She knew better than to say “my twin.” Nothing got Alice angry faster.

  “I don’t want to.” The next moment Alice’s face changed. “Oh, I’m sorry, Leisha—I didn’t mean to sound so snotty. But…but I don’t want to.”

  “It won’t be all of them. Just Richard. And just for an hour or so. Then you can come back here and pack for Northwestern.”

  “I’m not going to Northwestern.”

  Leisha stared at her.

  Alice said, “I’m pregnant.”

  Leisha sat on the bed. Alice rolled onto her back, brushed the hair out of her eyes, and laughed. Leisha’s ears closed against the sound. “Look at you,” Alice said. “You’d think it was you who was pregnant. But you never would be, would you, Leisha? Not until it was the proper time. Not you.”

  “How?” Leisha said. “We both had our caps put in…”

  “I had the cap removed,” Alice said.

  “You wanted to get pregnant?”

  “Damn flash I did. And there’s not a thing Daddy can do about it. Except, of course, cut off all credit completely, but I don’t think he’ll do that, do you?” She laughed again. “Even to me?”

  “But Alice…why? Not just to anger Daddy!”

  “No,” Alice said. “Although you would think of that, wouldn’t you? Because I want something to love. Something of my own. Something that has nothing to do with this house.”

  Leisha thought of herself and Alice running through the conservatory, years ago, her and Alice, darting in and out of the sunlight. “It hasn’t been so bad growing up in this house.”

  “Leisha, you’re stupid. I don’t know how anyone so smart can be so stupid. Get out of my room! Get out!”

  “But Alice—a baby—”

  “Get out!” Alice shrieked. “Go to Harvard! Go be successful! Just get out!”

  Leisha jerked off the bed. “Gladly! You’re irrational, Alice. You don’t think ahead, you don’t plan, a baby—” But she could never sustain anger. It dribbled away, leaving her mind empty. She looked at Alice, who suddenly put out her arms. Leisha went into them.

  “You’re the baby,” Alice said wonderingly. “You are. You’re so…I don’t know what. You’re a baby.”

  Leisha said nothing. Alice’s arms felt warm, felt whole, felt like two children running in and out of sunlight. “I’ll help you, Alice. If Daddy won’t.”

  Alice abruptly pushed her away. “I don’t need your help.”

  Alice stood. Leisha rubbed her empty arms, fingertips scraping across opposite elbows. Alice kicked the empty, open trunk in which she was supposed to pack for Northwestern, and then abruptly smiled a smile that made Leisha look away. She braced herself for more abuse. But what Alice said, very softly, was, “Have a good time at Harvard.”

  5

  SHE LOVED IT.

  From the first sight of Massachusetts Hall, older than the United States by a half century, Leisha felt something that had been missing in Chicago: Age. Roots. Tradition. She touched the bricks of Widener Library, the glass cases in the Peabody Museum, as if they were the grail. She had never been particularly sensitive to myth or drama; the anguish of Juliet seemed to her artificial, that of Willy Loman merely wasteful. Only King Arthur, struggling to create a better social order, had interested her. But now, walking under the huge autumn trees, she suddenly caught a glimpse of a force that could span generations, fortunes left to endow learning and achievement the benefactors would never see, individual effort spanning and shaping centuries to come. She stopped, and looked at the sky through the leaves, at the buildings solid with purpose. At such moments she thought of Camden, bending the will of an entire genetic research institute to create her in the image he wanted.

  Within a month, she had forgotten all such mega-musings.

  The work load was incredible, even for her. The Sauley School had encouraged individual exploration at her own pace; Harvard knew what it wanted from her, at its pace. In the past twenty years, under the academic leadership of a man who in his youth had watched Japanese economic domination with dismay, Harvard had become the controversial leader of a return to hard-edged learning of facts, theories, applications, problem-solving, and intellectual efficiency. The school accepted one of every 200 applicants fr
om around the world. The daughter of England’s prime minister had flunked out her first year and been sent home.

  Leisha had a single room in a new dormitory, the dorm because she had spent so many years isolated in Chicago and was hungry for people, the single so she would not disturb anyone else when she worked all night. Her second day a boy from down the hall sauntered in and perched on the edge of her desk.

  “So you’re Leisha Camden.”

  “Yes.”

  “Sixteen years old.”

  “Almost seventeen.”

  “Going to out-perform us all, I understand, without even trying.”

  Leisha’s smile faded. The boy stared at her from under lowered downy brows. He was smiling, his eyes sharp. From Richard and Tony and the others Leisha had learned to recognize the anger that presents itself as contempt.

  “Yes,” Leisha said coolly, “I am.”

  “Are you sure? With your pretty little-girl hair and your mutant little-girl brain?”

  “Oh, leave her alone, Hannaway,” said another voice. A tall blond boy, so thin his ribs looked like ripples in brown sand, stood in jeans and bare feet, drying his wet hair. “Don’t you ever get tired of walking around being an asshole?”

  “Do you?” Hannaway said. He heaved himself off the desk and started toward the door. The blond moved out of his way. Leisha moved into it.

  “The reason I’m going to do better than you,” she said evenly, “is because I have certain advantages you don’t. Including sleeplessness. And then after I out-perform you, I’ll be glad to help you study for your tests so that you can pass, too.”

  The blond, drying his ears, laughed. But Hannaway stood still, and into his eyes came an expression that made Leisha back away. He pushed past her and stormed out.

  “Nice going, Camden,” the blond said. “He deserved that.”

  “But I meant it,” Leisha said. “I will help him study.”

  The blond lowered his towel and stared. “You did, didn’t you? You meant it.”

  “Yes! Why does everybody keep questioning that?”

  “Well,” the boy said, “I don’t. You can help me if I get into trouble.” Suddenly he smiled. “But I won’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m just as good at anything as you are, Leisha Camden.”

  She studied him. “You’re not one of us. Not Sleepless.”

  “Don’t have to be. I know what I can do. Do, be, create, trade.”

  She said, delighted, “You’re a Yagaiist!”

  “Of course.” He held out his hand. “Stewart Sutter. How about a fishburger in the Yard?”

  “Great,” Leisha said. They walked out together, talking excitedly. When people stared at her, she tried not to notice. She was here. At Harvard. With space ahead of her, time, to learn, and with people like Stewart Sutter who accepted and challenged her.

  All the hours he was awake.

  SHE BECAME TOTALLY ABSORBED IN HER CLASS WORK. Roger Camden drove up once, walking the campus with her, listening, smiling. He was more at home than Leisha would have expected: he knew Stewart Sutter’s father and Kate Addams’s grandfather. They talked about Harvard, business, Harvard, the Yagai Economics Institute, Harvard. “How’s Alice?” Leisha asked once, but Camden said he didn’t know; she had moved out and did not want to see him. He made her an allowance through his attorney. While he said this, his face remained serene.

  Leisha went to the Homecoming Ball with Stewart, who was also majoring in pre-law but was two years ahead of Leisha. She took a weekend trip to Paris with Kate Addams and two other girlfriends, taking the Concorde III. She had a fight with Stewart over whether the metaphor of superconductivity could apply to Yagaiism, a stupid fight they both knew was stupid but had anyway, and afterward they became lovers. After the fumbling sexual explorations with Richard, Stewart was deft, experienced, smiling faintly as he taught her how to have an orgasm both by herself and with him. Leisha was dazzled. “It’s so joyful,” she said, and Stewart looked at her with a tenderness she knew was part disturbance but didn’t know why.

  At midsemester she had the highest grades in the freshman class. She got every answer right on every single question on her midterms. She and Stewart went out for a beer to celebrate, and when they came back Leisha’s room had been destroyed. The computer was smashed, the data banks wiped, hard-copies and books smoldered in a metal wastebasket. Her clothes were ripped to pieces, her desk and bureau hacked apart. The only thing untouched, pristine, was the bed.

  Stewart said, “There’s no way this could have been done in silence. Everyone on the floor—hell, on the floor below—had to know. Someone will talk to the police.” No one did. Leisha sat on the edge of the bed, dazed, and looked at the remnants of her Homecoming gown. The next day Dave Hannaway gave her a long, wide smile.

  Camden flew east, taut with rage. He rented her an apartment in Cambridge with E-lock security and a bodyguard named Toshio. After he left, Leisha fired the bodyguard but kept the apartment. It gave her and Stewart more privacy, which they used to endlessly discuss the situation. It was Leisha who argued that it was an aberration, an immaturity.

  “There have always been haters, Stewart. Hate Jews, hate Blacks, hate immigrants, hate Yagaiists who have more initiative and dignity than you do. I’m just the latest object of hatred. It’s not new, it’s not remarkable. It doesn’t mean any basic kind of schism between the Sleepless and Sleepers.”

  Stewart sat up in bed and reached for the sandwiches on the night stand. “Doesn’t it? Leisha, you’re a different kind of person entirely. More evolutionarily fit, not only to survive but to prevail. Those other objects of hatred you cite—they were all powerless in their societies. They occupied inferior positions. You on the other hand—all three Sleepless in Harvard Law are on the Law Review. All of them. Kevin Baker, your oldest, has already founded a successful bio-interface software firm and is making money, a lot of it. Every Sleepless is making superb grades, none have psychological problems, all are healthy, and most of you aren’t even adults yet. How much hatred do you think you’re going to encounter once you hit the high-stakes world of finance and business and scarce endowed chairs and national politics?”

  “Give me a sandwich,” Leisha said. “Here’s my evidence you’re wrong: you yourself. Kenzo Yagai. Kate Addams. Professor Lane. My father. Every Sleeper who inhabits the world of fair trade and mutually beneficial contracts. And that’s most of you, or at least most of you who are worth considering. You believe that competition among the most capable leads to the most beneficial trades for everyone, strong and weak. Sleepless are making real and concrete contributions to society, in a lot of fields. That has to outweigh the discomfort we cause. We’re valuable to you. You know that.”

  Stewart brushed crumbs off the sheets. “Yes. I do. Yagaiists do.”

  “Yagaiists run the business and financial and academic worlds. Or they will. In a meritocracy, they should. You underestimate the majority of people, Stew. Ethics aren’t confined to the ones out front.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Stewart said. “Because, you know, I’m in love with you.”

  Leisha put down her sandwich.

  “Joy,” Stewart mumbled into her breasts, “you are joy.”

  When Leisha went home for Thanksgiving, she told Richard about Stewart. He listened tight-lipped.

  “A Sleeper.”

  “A person,” Leisha said. “A good, intelligent, achieving person!”

  “Do you know what your good intelligent achieving Sleepers have done, Leisha? Jeanine has been barred from Olympic skating. ‘Genetic alteration, analogous to steroid abuse to create an unsportsmanlike advantage.’ Chris Devereaux has left Stanford. They trashed his laboratory, destroyed two years’ work in memory-formation proteins. Kevin Baker’s software company is fighting a nasty advertising campaign, all underground of course, about kids using software designed by nonhuman minds. Corruption, mental slavery, satanic influences: the whole bag of wi
tch-hunt tricks. Wake up, Leisha!”

  They both heard his words. Minutes dragged by. Richard stood like a boxer, forward on the balls of his feet, teeth clenched. Finally he said, very quietly, “Do you love him?”

  “Yes,” Leisha said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Your choice,” Richard said coldly. “What do you do while he’s asleep? Watch?”

  “You make it sound like a perversion!”

  Richard said nothing. Leisha drew a deep breath. She spoke rapidly but calmly, a controlled rush: “While Stewart is asleep I work. The same as you do. Richard—don’t do this. I didn’t mean to hurt you. And I don’t want to lose the group. I believe the Sleepers are the same species as we are. Are you going to punish me for that? Are you going to add to the hatred? Are you going to tell me that I can’t belong to a wider world that includes all honest, worthwhile people whether they sleep or not? Are you going to tell me that the most important division is by genetics and not by economic spirituality? Are you going to force me into an artificial choice, us or them?”

  Richard picked up a bracelet. Leisha recognized it; she had given it to him in the summer. His voice was quiet. “No. It’s not a choice.” He played with the gold links a minute, then looked at her. “Not yet.”

  BY SPRING BREAK, CAMDEN WALKED MORE SLOWLY. He took medicine for his blood pressure, his heart. He and Susan, he told Leisha, were getting a divorce. “She changed, Leisha, after I married her. You saw that. She was independent and productive and happy, and then after a few years she stopped all that and became a shrew. A whining shrew.” He shook his head in genuine bewilderment. “You saw the change.”

  Leisha had. A memory came to her: Susan leading her and Alice in “games” that were actually controlled cerebral-performance tests, Susan’s braids dancing around her sparkling eyes. Alice had loved Susan then, as much as Leisha had.

  “Dad, I want Alice’s address.”

  “I told you up at Harvard, I don’t have it,” Camden said. He shifted in his chair, the impatient gesture of a body that never expected to wear out. In January Kenzo Yagai had died of pancreatic cancer; Camden had taken the news hard. “I make her allowance through an attorney. By her choice.”