The John Varley Reader

by John Varley

  “Jules, Julia,” he muttered.

  “What was that?” Joule’s brow wrinkled slightly. “Did you come here for mothering? Things going badly?”

  Leo slumped down and contemplated his folded hands.

  “I don’t know. I guess I’m depressed. How long has it been now? Five months? I’ve learned a lot, but I’m not sure just what it is. I feel like I’ve grown. I see the world . . . well, I see things differently, yes. But I’m still basically the same person.”

  “In the sense that you’re the same person at thirty-three as you were at ten?”

  Leo squirmed. “Okay. Yeah, I’ve changed. But it’s not any kind of reversal. Nothing turned topsy-turvy. It’s an expansion. It’s not a new viewpoint. It’s like filling something up, moving out into unused spaces. Becoming . . .” His hands groped in the air, then fell back into his lap. “It’s like a completion.”

  Joule smiled. “And you’re disappointed? What more could you ask?”

  Leo didn’t want to get into that just yet. “Listen to this, and see if you agree. I always saw male and female—whatever that is, and I don’t know if the two really exist other than physically and don’t think it’s important anyway . . . I saw those qualities as separate. Later, I thought of them like Siamese twins in everybody’s head. But the twins were usually fighting, trying to cut each other off. One would beat the other down, maim it, throw it in a cell, and never feed it, but they were always connected and the beaten-down one would make the winner pay for the victory.

  “So I wanted to try and patch things up between them. I thought I’d just introduce them to each other and try to referee, but they got along a lot better than I expected. In fact, they turned into one whole person, and found they could be very happy together. I can’t tell them apart anymore. Does that make any sense?”

  Joule moved over to sit beside him.

  “It’s a good analogy, in its way. I feel something like that, but I don’t think about it anymore. So what’s the problem? You just told me you feel whole now.”

  Leo’s face controlled. “Yes. I do. And if I am, what does that make Jules?” He began to cry, and Joule let him get it out, just holding his hand. She thought he’d better face it alone, this time. When he had calmed down, she began to speak quietly.

  “Leo, Jules is happy as he is. I think he could be much happier, but there’s no way for us to show him that without having him do something he fears so much. It’s possible that he will do it someday, after more time to get used to it. And it’s possible that he’ll hate it and run screaming back to his manhood. Sometimes the maimed twin can’t be rehabilitated.”

  She sighed heavily, and got up to pace the room.

  “There’s going to be a lot of this in the coming years,” she said. “A lot of broken hearts. We’re not really very much like them, you know. We get along better. We’re not angels, but we may be the most civilized, considerate group the race has yet produced. There are fools and bastards among us, just like the one-sexers, but I think we tend to be a little less foolish, and a little less cruel. I think changing is here to stay.

  “And what you’ve got to realize is that you’re lucky. And so is Jules. It could have been much worse. I know of several broken homes just among my own friends. There’s going to be many more before society has assimilated this. But your love for Jules and his for you has held you together. He’s made a tremendous adjustment, maybe as big as the one you made. He likes you. In either sex. Okay, so you don’t make love to him as Leo. You may never reach that point.”

  “We did. Last night.” Leo shifted on the couch. “I . . . I got mad. I told him if he wanted to see Cleo, he had to learn to relate to me, because I’m me, dammit.”

  “I think that might have been a mistake.”

  Leo looked away from her. “I’m starting to think so, too.”

  “But I think the two of you can patch it up, if there’s any damage. You’ve come through a lot together.”

  “I didn’t mean to force anything on him. I just got mad.”

  “And maybe you should have. It might have been just the thing. You’ll have to wait and see.”

  Leo wiped his eyes and stood up.

  “Thanks, Harr . . . Sorry. Joule. You’ve helped me. I . . . uh, I may not be seeing you as often for a while.”

  “I understand. Let’s stay friends, okay?” She kissed him, and he hurried away.

  She was sitting on a pillow facing the door when he came home from work, her legs crossed, elbows resting on her knee with a dopestick in her hand. She smiled at him.

  “Well, you’re home early. What happened?”

  “I stayed home from work.” She nearly choked, trying not to laugh. He threw his coat to the closet and hurried into the kitchen. She heard something being stirred, then the sound of glass shattering. He burst through the doorway.

  “Cleo!”

  “Darling, you look so handsome with your mouth hanging open.”

  He shut it, but still seemed unable to move. She went to him, feeling tingling excitement in her loins like the return of an old friend. She put her arms around him, and he nearly crushed her. She loved it.

  He drew back slightly and couldn’t seem to get enough of her face, his eyes roaming every detail.

  “How long will you stay this way?” he asked. “Do you have any idea?”

  “I don’t know. Why?”

  He smiled, a little sheepishly. “I hope you won’t take this wrong. I’m so happy to see you. Maybe I shouldn’t say it . . . but no, I think I’d better. I like Leo. I think I’ll miss him, a little.”

  She nodded. “I’m not hurt. How could I be?” She drew away and led him to a pillow. “Sit down, Jules. We have to have a talk.” His knees gave way under him and he sat, looking up expectantly.

  “Leo isn’t gone, and don’t you ever think that for a minute. He’s right here.” She thumped her chest and looked at him defiantly. “He’ll always be here. He’ll never go away.”

  “I’m sorry, Cleo, I—”

  “No, don’t talk yet. It was my own fault, but I didn’t know any better. I never should have called myself Leo. It gave you an easy out. You didn’t have to face Cleo being a male. I’m changing all that. My name is Nile. N-i-l-e. I won’t answer to anything else.”

  “All right. It’s a nice name.”

  “I thought of calling myself Lion. For Leo the lion. But I decided to be who I always was, the queen of the Nile, Cleopatra. For old time’s sake.”

  He said nothing, but his eyes showed his appreciation.

  “What you have to understand is that they’re both gone, in a sense. You’ll never be with Cleo again. I look like her now. I resemble her inside, too, like an adult resembles the child. I have a tremendous amount in common with what she was. But I’m not her.”

  He nodded. She sat beside him and took his hand.

  “Jules, this isn’t going to be easy. There are things I want to do, people I want to meet. We’re not going to be able to share the same friends. We could drift apart because of it. I’m going to have to fight resentment because you’ll be holding me back. You won’t let me explore your female side like I want to. You’re going to resent me because I’ll be trying to force you into something you think is wrong for you. But I want to try and make it work.”

  He let out his breath. “God, Cl . . . Nile. I’ve never been so scared in my life. I thought you were leading up to leaving me.”

  She squeezed his hand. “Not if I can help it. I want each of us to try and accept the other as they are. For me, that includes being male whenever I feel like it. It’s all the same to me, but I know it’s going to be hard for you.”

  They embraced, and Jules wiped his tears on her shoulder, then faced her again.

  “I’ll do anything and everything in my power, up to—”

  She put her finger to her lips. “I know. I accept you that way. But I’ll keep trying to convince you.”

  INTRODUCTION TO “Just Another Perf
ect Day”

  The next two stories are linked, in a way, but to explain the link here would tell you more than you should know about this one. So my comments about both stories will follow.

  JUST ANOTHER PERFECT DAY

  DON’T WORRY. Everything is under control.

  I know how you’re feeling. You wake up alone in a strange room, you get up, you look around, you soon discover that both doors are locked from the outside. It’s enough to unsettle anybody, especially when you try and try and try to recall how you got here and you just can’t do it.

  But beyond that . . . there’s this feeling. I know you’re feeling it right now. I know a lot of things—and I’ll reveal them all as we go along.

  One of the things I know it this:

  If you will sit down, put this message back on the table where you found it, and take slow, deep breaths while counting to one hundred, you’ll feel a lot better.

  I promise you will.

  Do that now.

  See what I mean? You do feel a lot better.

  That feeling won’t last for long, I’m sorry to say.

  I wish there was an easier way to do this, but there isn’t, and believe me, many ways have been tried. So here we go:

  This is not 1986.

  You are not twenty-five years old.

  The date is

  June

  12

  2008

  A lot of things have happened in

  twenty-two

  years, and I’ll tell you all you need to know about that in good time.

  For now . . . Don’t Worry.

  Slow, deep breaths. Close your eyes. Count to a hundred.

  You’ll feel better.

  I promise.

  If you’ll get up now, you’ll find that the bathroom door will open. There’s a mirror in there. Take a look in it, get to know the

  forty-seven

  -year old who will be in there, looking back at you . . .

  And Don’t Worry.

  Take deep breaths, and so forth.

  I’ll tell you more when you get back.

  Well.

  I know how rough that was. I know you’re trembling. I know you’re feeling confusion, fear, anger . . . a thousand emotions.

  And I know you have a thousand questions. They will all be answered, every one of them, at the proper time.

  Here are some ground rules.

  I will never lie to you. You can’t imagine how much care and anguish has gone into the composition of this letter. For now, you must take my word that things will be revealed to you in the most useful order, and in the easiest way that can be devised. You must appreciate that not all your questions can be answered at once. It may be harder for you to accept that some questions cannot be answered at all until a proper background has been prepared. These answers would mean nothing to you at this point.

  You would like someone—anyone—to be with you right now, so you could ask these questions. That has been tried, and the results were needlessly chaotic and confusing. Trust me; this is the best way.

  Any why should you trust me? For a very good reason.

  I am you. You wrote—in a manner of speaking—every word in this letter, to help yourself through this agonizing moment.

  Deep breaths, please.

  Stay seated; it helps a little.

  And Don’t Worry.

  So now we’re past bombshell #2. There are more to come, but they will be easier to take, simply because your capacity to be surprised is just about at its peak right now. A certain numbness will set in. You should be thankful for that.

  And now, back to your questions.

  Top of the list: What happened?

  Briefly (and it must be brief—more on that later):

  In 1989 you had an accident. It involved a motorcycle which you don’t remember owning because you didn’t buy it until 1988, and a city bus. You had a difference of opinion concerning the right of way, and the bus won.

  Feel your scalp with your fingertips. Don’t be queasy; it healed long ago—as much as it’s going to. Under those great knots of scar tissue are the useless results of the labors of the best neurosurgeons in the country. In the end, they just had to scoop out a lot of gray matter and close you back up, shaking their heads sagely and opining that you would probably feel right at home under glass on a salad bar.

  But you fooled them. You woke up, and there was much rejoicing, even though you couldn’t remember anything after the summer of ’86. You were conscious a few hours, long enough for the doctors to determine that your intelligence didn’t seem to be impaired. You could talk, read, speak, see, hear. Then you went back to sleep.

  The next day you woke up, and couldn’t remember anything after the summer of ’86. No one was too worried. They told you again what had happened. You were awake most of the day, and again you fell asleep.

  The next day you woke up, and couldn’t remember anything after the summer of ’86. Some consternation was expressed.

  The next day you woke up, and couldn’t remember anything after the summer of ’86. Professorial heads were scratched, seven-syllable Latin words intoned, and deep mumbles were mumbled.

  The next day you woke up, and couldn’t remember anything after the summer of ’86.

  And the next day

  And the next day

  And the day after that.

  This morning you woke up and couldn’t remember anything after the summer of ’86, and I know this is getting old, but I had to make the point in this way, because it is

  2008

  and we’ve begun to think a pattern is established.

  No, no, don’t breathe deeply, don’t count to one hundred, face this one head on. It’ll be good for you.

  Back under control?

  I knew you could do it.

  What you have is called Progressive Narco-Catalepti-Amnesiac Syndrome (PNCAS, or Pinkus in conversation), and you should be proud of yourself, because they made up the term to describe your condition and at least a half dozen papers have been written proving it can’t happen. What seems to happen, in spite of the papers, is that you store and retrieve memories just fine as long as you have a continuous thread of consciousness. But the sleep center somehow activates an erase mechanism in your head, so that all you experienced during the day is lost to you when you wake up again. The old memories are intact and vivid; the new ones are ephemeral, like they were recorded on a continuous tape loop.

  Most amnesias of this type behave rather differently. Retrograde amnesia is seen fairly frequently, whereby you gradually lose even the old memories and become as an infant. And progressive amnesias are well known, but those poor people can’t remember what happened to them as little as five minutes ago. Try to imagine what life would be like in those circumstances before you start crying in your beer.

  Yeah, great, I hear you whine. And what’s so great about this?

  Well, nothing, at first glance. I’ll certainly be the last one to argue about that. My own reawakening is too fresh in my mind, having happened only fifteen hours ago. And, in a sense, I will soon be dead, snatched back from this mayfly existence by the greedy arms of Morpheus. When I sleep tonight, most of what I feel makes me me will vanish. I will awake, an older and less wise man, to confusion, will read this letter, will breathe deeply, count to one hundred, stare into the mirror at a stranger. I will be you.

  And yet, now, as I scan rapidly through this letter for the second time today (I said I wrote it, but only in a sense; it was written by a thousand mayflies), they are asking me if there is anything I wish to change. If I want a change, Marian will see that it is made. Is there anything I would like to do differently tomorrow? Is there something I want to tell you, my successor in this body, to beware of, to disbelieve? Are there any warnings I would issue?

  The answer is no.

  I will let this letter stand, in its entirety.

  There are things still for you to learn that will convince you, against all common sens
e, that you have a wonderful life/day ahead of you.

  But you need a rest. You need time to think.

  Do this for me. Go back to the date. Mark out the last number and write in the next. If it’s a new month, change that, too.

  Now you will find the other door will open. Please go into the next room, where you will find breakfast, and an envelope containing the next part of this letter.

  Don’t open it yet. Eat your breakfast.

  Think it over.

  But don’t take too long. Your time is short, and you won’t want to waste it.

  That was refreshing, wasn’t it?

  It shouldn’t surprise you that all your favorite breakfast foods were on the table. You eat the same meal every morning, and never get tired of it.

  And I’m sorry if that statement took some of the pleasure out of the meal, but it is necessary for me to keep reminding you of your circumstances, to prevent a cycle of denial getting started.

  Here is the thing you must bear in mind.

  Today is the rest of your life.

  Because that life will be so short, it is essential that you waste none of it. In this letter I have sometimes stated the obvious, written out conclusions you have already reached—in a sense, wasted your time. Each time it was done—and each time it will yet be done in the rest of this letter—was for a purpose. Points must be driven home, sometimes brutally, sometimes repetitiously. I promise you this sort of thing will be kept to an absolute minimum.

  So here come a few paragraphs that might be a waste of time, but really aren’t, as they dispose neatly of several thousand of the most burning questions in your mind. The questions can be summed up as “What has happened in twenty years?”

  The answer is: You don’t care.

  You can’t afford to care. Even a brief synopsis of recent events would take hours to read, and would be the sheerest foolishness. You don’t care who the President is. The price of gasoline doesn’t concern you, nor does the victor in the ’98 World Series. Why learn this trivia when you would only have to relearn it tomorrow?