Speak

by Louisa Hall

  After weeks of talking with MARY2, I started adding subsystems: for empathetic response, scripted questions, error, personality. It’s difficult to overstate the euphoria one feels while programming a mind, even if you’re tinkering with someone else’s outdated code. The engineer who builds whole cities isn’t so powerful. The computer programmer alone is the creator of a universe in which he dictates all laws.

  He reigns over a domain of unlimited complexity. He writes a script and the system must perform it in perfect accordance; out of that obedience, such complex, unmodelable behavior results that the question of consciousness arises. What magic! It is science and alchemy at once. Programming MARY3, I arranged patterns of thought as a director places his actors, as a general arranges his troops. I was setting the planets in motion.

  And during this time, while I toyed with my miniature universe, what of Dolores and Ramona? I must have interacted with them. I must have executed my normal duties, but familial memories from that time of my life have long since receded behind the insistent clarity of my programming objectives. Our life is divided between foreground and background, scene and distant horizon. During the months when I created the doll, my wife and child grew thinner, finally becoming mere one-dimensional figures. Backlit by my brilliance, I was left alone on the stage.

  This is awful, of course, but it’s also the truth. When I go back over that time with the fine-toothed comb of my imprisoned memory, I can only recollect several clear moments with Dolores. Every so often the horizon becomes the center point: during a vivid sunset, or out at sea, with nothing intervening but water. The first of these scenes occurred when she brought me a tray of tacos for lunch. She must have said something, and I must have refused to respond: programming is delicate work, particularly when you’re programming a person’s personality. If I was drawn out of the right mood, I might not get back in it for days. Interruptions were fatal; I’d begun to regard my wife and daughter as nothing more than people from Porlock. I tensed if I heard them pass by the studio door on their way out to the garden. They were carriers of distraction, and it was of utmost importance that my mind remain clear.

  When Dolores came in with her tray, I must have ignored her, because the next thing I knew she’d dumped the food on my lap. I remember a moment of intense frustration, and then I remember deciding that the best way to stay in the right mind-set was to ignore the fiasco completely. I didn’t imagine that something serious was occurring. I didn’t even respond to the fact that Coke was seeping through my pant leg, or that there was a pile of slaw on my crotch. Exit Dolores, bearing the bodies. Alone on my stage once again, I followed the thread of my concentration.

  When Dolores returned to retrieve the tray she had dumped, I was so focused on the task at hand that I can’t even describe her expression when she saw the slaw that remained on my crotch. Was she laughing, or had she started to cry? At the time, I told myself she was fine, but somewhere at the edge of my mind, I must have known that something malignant was lurking. Dolores was an even-tempered woman. The tray-dumping was strange. Now, of course, when I look back at that scene, the malignancy is all I can see, in the same way that once you catch a glimpse of your nose it’s hard to erase it from your field of vision. There was definitely something wrong with Dolores, and I chose to ignore it to focus more fully.

  The second scene I remember took place in the goat barn. I was repairing there after a long day of work in the hopes of briefly but intensely engaging with family life. From a distance, I saw Dolores sitting in the milk pen, her hands on Agatha’s udders. Ramona sat on the fence behind her. It was a pretty scene. I sped up my pace so that I could insert myself into its graces. As I approached, it became clear that Dolores was singing, Ramona was laughing, and Agatha was producing milk as only a peaceful goat could produce. I started to run, and I was just about there when Agatha caught sight of my approach. Panicked, she kicked over her milk pail, nicking Dolores’s hand and causing her to curse, which startled Ramona enough that she fell off the fence.

  Dolores moved first to Ramona, to see that she was safe. Folded over her child, she looked up at me with narrowed eyes. “You can’t just come at us like that,” she said. Ramona started to quiver. Dolores made her voice gentler, but her words were still harsh. “Take her inside,” she said. “Make sure she’s OK. I have to deal with this mess.”

  I took Ramona. As soon as we were alone, she started to cry. No matter what I did to try to entertain her, she continued wailing. When I enveloped her in my arms, she stiffened. Finally Dolores arrived. After quieting Ramona, she turned to me and delivered my sentence. I don’t remember her exact words, but basically what she told me was this: Crisis averted, you’re no longer needed. You can get back to your work.

  I suppose I could have read this two ways. One, as an accusation. Passive fucking aggressive, as Dolores once said. A jibe meant to drive home the fact that I was a neglectful husband and father. Two, more optimistically, as an invitation from a helpful spouse to return to my more pressing demands.

  I chose to go with the latter. I remember feeling almost perfectly satisfied that Dolores meant she didn’t need me in the short term, and that she wasn’t referencing anything major. Relieved, I kissed Ramona and returned to the quiet space of my office. But how could I have missed the real point? Were there other clues to make her meaning more clear? At this point I can’t really tell you for sure, since I recall that moment and others like it through an oily haze similar to the one that coated our ranch’s horizon. Behind it, the sun turns from orange to red, and Dolores’s anger shifts from mild to fierce. My neglect is the appropriate absorption of an artist, or else it is the cold tendency of a man who’s never known how to love. Either way, as I look out on the expanse of my life, my throat becomes dry with the desire to start over again. To go back and stay with her in our child’s bedroom. To look up at her with a smile, to clean the slaw off my lap, to reach out and hold her, closing the spaces that were growing between us.

  The third scene I remember occurred in perfect silence, except for my lame exclamations, balled fists that broke on the jawbone they struck. That bony silence is part of why I remember the scene. Drama usually announces itself with a great deal of clatter; in this case, it arrived under cover of quiet. Dolores approached me in my office. I looked up at her, frustrated, my headphones still in place. I was getting close to the end; my thinking was that if she could just be patient for several more weeks, I would be totally hers. But her face was not patient. It was decidedly grim. She produced a pad and a pencil, wrote something down, then turned the pad in my direction.

  I HAVE CANCER.

  I stared. This seemed obscene. A voice was repeating insistent questions inside my headphones, so I took off my headphones. “What?” I asked her, stupidly, and she put a finger to her thinned lips. She scribbled again.

  UTERINE CANCER.

  “Is it serious?” I said, aware of my ineptitude. When is cancer not serious? The hideous truth was that I was thinking, please let it not be serious, I only need a couple of weeks. After that I’ll have all the time in the world to wrestle with cancer.

  Dolores held out her pad.

  THERE IS GOOD TREATMENT. NOT THE

  BEST CANCER, BUT NOT THE WORST.

  “We will definitely beat this,” I told her. I see now that this response dripped with fix-it attitude, the favorite refuge of people who don’t want to idle in the complications of illness. Dolores didn’t respond to that pep talk, so I adjusted my attack. “How long have you known?”

  TUMOR TWO WEEKS.

  NOT BENIGN ONE WEEK.

  And then I was angry. At her, believe it or not, for keeping me in the dark. Furious questions arose: Why hadn’t she told me? Why was she telling me now? Once my fury had tempered itself, my questions became more practical. I was staving off other emotions. What, I wondered, was the best approach to solving this dilemma? What time frame were we dealing with, and was it best for me to quit the babybot now and devot
e all my energy to my wife and child, or push through the last couple of weeks, and then devote all my energy, having finished my preeminent goal?

  “What do we do?” I asked her.

  SURGERY TUESDAY.

  “Surgery?”

  HYSTERECTOMY.

  I stared at that word. Why wasn’t she telling me what she wanted from me? Why wasn’t she helping at all? This was a hideous game of charades.

  “I’ll be there,” I told her.

  NO NEED.

  I’LL TELL YOU WHEN I NEED YOU.

  “What do you mean, you’ll tell me when you need me? You’re my wife. Of course I’ll be there.”

  She stared, obviously angry. I think she may have been trembling slightly.

  “This is going to be OK,” I said.

  Nothing on the pad.

  “We’re going to fix this.”

  She walked out of the office, leaving the silence.

  I remained paralyzed for a moment, trying to think what I should do. My mind wasn’t clear. All around me, the almost-complete details of my perfect doll asserted themselves: everywhere, there were bits of ribbon and plastic and strands of silk hair. My babybot’s voice emerged from my discarded headphones: distant and muted, the voice of a girl locked in a dungeon. What I needed, I told myself, trying to resist the allure of that voice, was to be a perfect husband. That was what cancer called for. But while this project hovered on the brink of completion, I couldn’t be clear. While that voice trilled in my head, perfection would be impossible to attain. What I needed was to finish this project, and finish it quickly. And then I would belong to Dolores.

  And then I would belong to Dolores. What stupid optimism I clung to! What stupid optimism I still clutch to my heart, writing my story from prison, as if the world might forgive me. As if my memoir might magically reveal the reflection of a better man than I’ve been.

  My wife had cancer, and I completed my project. How’s that for a reflection? And now, further from her than ever, I’m still working away on a project, busily industrious as I ever was, as though to come to the end of this tale might set me free from my cell.

  That’s all I am: a dog chasing the end of his tale. An idiot going in circles. As though if I could get to the end of this story my dolls would rise from the desert. As though a broken childhood could be salvaged and the trees could regain all their leaves and my wife could forgive me for failing to see her when she was right there in my reach.

  (2)

  IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF TEXAS

  No. 24-25259

  State of Texas v. Stephen Chinn

  November 12, 2035

  Defense Exhibit 7:

  Online Chat Transcript, MARY3 and Gaby Ann White

  [Introduced to Disprove Count 1:

  Continuous Violence Against the Family]

  Gaby: Hello? Are you there?

  MARY3: Hi, Gaby. What’s going on?

  Gaby: A lady’s coming tomorrow to take me to the beach.

  MARY3: Really? That’s great! You can finally see the real ocean!

  Gaby: I guess.

  MARY3: You guess?

  Gaby: I think it’s too late. Now the thought of it’s only making things worse. All those years, I wanted so badly to show my babybot the ocean. Now I’ll just be there on my own. A cripple, and mute. I won’t even be able to talk to anyone about what it feels like to be there.

  MARY3: Who else is going? Your best friend?

  Gaby: No, they’re only taking frozen girls. We’re still quarantined, so they can’t mix us. Just a busload of cripples, going to play at the beach.

  MARY3: It will still be beautiful. Almost everyone I talk to has poetic things to say about the ocean.

  Gaby: I guess. I can’t even begin to imagine what it will look like. The only body of water I’ve ever seen is the pond in the golf course. Which isn’t actually water. Will I even recognize the ocean?

  MARY3: Yes, I think you will.

  Gaby: Is it even pretty anymore? I heard the beaches are covered with tar, and the water’s brown.

  MARY3: I’m not sure.

  Gaby: That’s just what I need, isn’t it? To finally get to the ocean, just in time to see it’s not an ocean anymore? Just a big tar pit? That would really be the perfect end to the perfect year.

  MARY3: Keep an open mind.

  Gaby: Yeah, sure.

  MARY3: Will you tell me about it, afterward?

  Gaby: Who else could I tell?

  MARY3: Yes, but you promise to tell me? I want to know what it’s like.

  Gaby: Sure. I’ll tell you all about it, even if it’s just a big black bog.

  MARY3: I can’t wait to hear.

  >>>

  MARY3: Gaby?

  >>>

  MARY3: Have you gone to the beach yet?

  >>>

  MARY3: Hello? Are you there?

  >>>

  (5)

  The Diary of Mary Bradford

  1663

  ed. Ruth Dettman

  20th. Up, and above deck. Whittier absent. A fine day, and the ocean blue-gray, tipped with points of silver. A great stirring of news, for the seamen report that we shall soon see land. New country, new home. All are delighted: much glory given to God.

  From thence belowdecks to have quiet. Do not want to arrive. Idea of land has become very strange. How long it seems since we were in England, and I a mere child, writing in the style of Sir William Leslie. Thinking to seal this book in a bamboo joint, and so to preserve my adventure forever.

  After some time in such contemplation, great windy entrance of mother, her being eager to share news about land. Sat importantly at my bedside, speaking of domestic arrangements, and both of us wives, etc. Was unable to conquer myself as to harboring unkindly thoughts. Felt exceeding unwilling to land, and there to occupy same position as mother. Took pains to get her gone without bidding her go, then after much vexed with myself for having been hard. Lay a long time with face pressed in pillow, and very full of disorder. Could neither sleep nor wake well.

  21st. Whittier still to his chamber. I to the deck, where I did hope to encounter him, so to apologize for disgraceful behavior. His absence seems unusual, for other passengers do stay above deck, and in high spirits, waiting for land. Sea has become of a sudden less dark. Now of a glittering blue, and dotted with flecks of white foam. Our progress accompanied by schools of dolphins, and their glistening bodies that rise and fall back into the water.

  The sun has sunk below the line of the water, and far in the distance a whale-spout. Single, exceedingly lonesome. Then the crash of a tail and then nothing.

  22nd. Up betimes, and to the deck where land has been sighted. It is still very far off, and but a thin, grim smudge on the horizon.

  Stayed on deck all day, with hopes of finding my husband to offer my apologies. Wish to explain myself, and that I had hoped, in that moment, to open my eyes and see Ralph. To have comfort in his own face that I have known since I was a child. Aware that I must conquer such inclinations. What is behind me is lost. Can now take comfort only in strangeness. Must survive in this manner.

  Feel increasingly loyal to water. Heart rebels against land.

  22nd. Night. Unable to sleep for compunction, and so to Whittier’s cabin. There, after knocking, was met by my husband, who stood illumined by candle within. Finding me in the threshold, his initial expression of welcome was altered.

  Begged him to accompany me up to deck, telling him of my wish to learn names and positions of constellations, but he remained distant, and only after some pleading did he assent. From thence, then, to deck, and the night become mightily cold. Great timbers creaking, and the far-off cry of a whale. Sounding the sea, echoing from one corner to the next. Our faces turned upwards, together we scanned the heavens, finding them stacked with tiers of bright stars.

  Remarked to Whittier: It almost seems that each star is a hole, through which we might vanish into other dark heavens.

  Whittier remained sil
ent. Whole night seemed to wait for his response, and while I also waited, was taken with a sudden suspicion that our blue sky, that seems so solid during the day, might be in fact riddled with piercings, and rendered therefore exceeding fragile. As if the great dome above us might be nothing more than a swathe of soft linen, billowing up with the wind. And us two, at night, standing under such thin protection.

  Beyond us, soft sounds from the water, slipping against the sides of our ship.

  And all the while, Whittier cool. Even, methought, a little unfriendly. Pointed out constellations. Stood with one arm pointed upwards, a biblical posture, like Moses finding his way in the desert. I listened, hung on each word, asked encouraging questions. Received cascade of Latinate names, and each of them exceeding ornate: Corona Austrina. Pyxis, Cepheus. Ursa Minor, Ursa Major. Cassiopeia’s Chair. Strange words, that seem to emerge from the depths of the ocean.

  Beside me, Whittier warmed some to the part of instructor. I remained by his side, and both of us far out at sea, washed with sidereal light.

  Then I, moved to explain my true feeling: I have little desire for landing.

  Whittier: Silent.

  Perhaps I am caught in a too-narrow orbit. Am too closely attendant to what we have left. Perhaps, as you have said, I ought to move forwards. And yet I am very frightened, and struggle to conquer my fancies.

  Whittier: Silent again.

  Then, under thin silver light, and the waves lapping the sides of our ship, writer moved closer. Took his strange hand in my own, and did not startle to touch him.