He made love to her that night as if she were still the inexperienced girl he had known in Lincoln. For the first time in her life, she pretended to a response she did not feel.
Iris put down the marble and closed the drawer, then set her bag on the bed. Chen had set his bag in the same spot while packing his things.
He had moved out of the room a year after she had come to Island Two. She should have realized that he would leave her, but she had not seen into his heart for some time. He had been away at the Bat during much of the year; during his time on the Island, except when they were in bed, they occupied themselves with Benzi and with talk about their son. Benzi had warmed toward them both, but it was Ismail’s family he turned to most often for companionship, and Iris had to remind herself to set aside some time for her son.
She did not talk to Chen about her work, much of which he could not understand in any case. He had become what he was when she first met him, a man of few words.
“I have news for you,” she said as they sat by their screen eating a light supper. Chen had returned from his shift that day, and she had not had time to speak to him earlier. “There’s a larger room in this building we can have now, if we want it. It’s just down this hall, so Benzi can keep the room he has, but there’ll be space for him in the new one so he can stay there with me while you’re away. You know how he feels about this one — it’s so small he thinks that he’s in my way when he stays.”
“Isn’t he?”
“Isn’t he what?”
“In your way.” Chen poked at his food with his fingers.
“Of course he isn’t. I’ll admit I haven’t done as much for him as I should, but I’ve had to prove myself to my team. First Marc would pick at my models or dismiss my suggestions, and now he’s actually starting to ask me for my opinion. I suppose that’s good, but it means more work for me. Anyway, Benzi had his own schoolwork to do, and he and Ismail always seem to have somewhere to go with their friends.”
“You don’t often ask Benzi to stay here with you.”
She set down a morsel of meat and wiped her fingers on her napkin. “Did Benzi say that?”
“He mentioned it.”
That surprised her. She had thought Benzi preferred his own room and only stayed with her out of a sense of obligation. “I didn’t think — well, you’ve seen the other room. It’s Gerda Toland’s, but she’s moving to Island Nine, so she and her daughter will —”
“Is that what you want?” Chen asked.
“Don’t you?”
“Fei-lin told me there’s a free room over in the workers’ quarters now.”
Iris sipped her tea. “Don’t tell me you’d rather live there.”
“I’m a worker. Maybe my place is there.”
“Well, I’m not. I’d rather stay here, and it’s better for Benzi too. He’s made friends here, and I’d rather not uproot him again, even if we will still be on the same Island.” They might, she knew, have moved to one of the residences shared by other workers and specialists who also had bonds, but Benzi would have been uprooted all the same, and she had not had time to make arrangements to move. “What is it, Chen? Do you feel out of place here? I don’t see why you should. You get along with the people here, you’ve even done carvings for a few.”
“It’d be better for me to be there.”
“It wouldn’t be better for me.”
Chen pushed his plate away. “I’m not asking you to come with me. The room is too small for two people anyway. It’s smaller than this one, and there’d be no place for Benzi.”
She stared at him, not knowing what to say. She probed her feelings, surprised to realize how hurt she felt. “I see,” she said finally. “Things haven’t worked out for us.”
“Be honest, Iris. I know why you haven’t said we should separate. You didn’t want to be in a battle with me that would keep you from concentrating on your work. I’ve seen how you look when you’re discussing something with your friends I can’t understand, and you feel you have to cut it short to be with me. You came here to give everything to this Project. I came here to do that also. If I thought staying would help you, I’d stay, but I won’t be a burden and have you feeling years from now that I kept you from doing what you might do. I’ll still be a father to Benzi, and he’ll see me as much as he does now. We tried. Maybe I didn’t deserve to win you back.”
“That’s ridiculous.” She twisted her napkin in her hands. “And do you want to sever our bond too?”
“Would you break it?”
“No,” she said forcefully. She longed to tell him that she still loved him in her way, that she was sorry her love wasn’t stronger, that her bond with him was somehow connected to her bond with the Project and that to break it might mean that the Project had cost them too much. “I couldn’t break it,” she continued. “I couldn’t hurt you that way.”
He gazed at her intently. “I’m glad you said that, Iris. It means I can still hope.”
“Perhaps,” she replied, feeling dishonest as she spoke the word.
“I can pack tomorrow. I don’t have much to move. We should tell Benzi — he has to be told that this doesn’t have anything to do with him.”
She had almost forgotten about that. She covered her eyes. “Oh, Chen.”
“If you want, I’ll tell him.”
“No. He should hear it from both of us.”
“He’s probably in his room now. I’ll fetch him.”
The door closed behind Chen. What would she do if Benzi cried? He rarely did, but she never knew how to handle him when he seemed unhappy; she could only pat him and tell him his unhappiness would pass.
The door opened as Chen led Benzi into the room, then seated him on the bed. “Chen said you have to tell me something,” Benzi said.
Iris steadied herself. Benzi’s face was calm, almost indifferent. “We wanted to tell you,” she said, “that your father’s going to move out of this room and live in the workers’ quarters instead. Most of his friends are there, as you know, and you see how small this room is, so he’s decided to move there, but I’ll still be living here.”
“Do I have to move too?” the boy asked.
“Oh, no,” Chen said; his smile seemed forced. “You’ll still be with Ismail, and your mother here. Nothing’s going to change for you. I’ll still come to see you during my time off. You’ll see me just as much.”
“You’re away a lot now,” Benzi said.
“Yes.”
“Then why do you want to move?”
Chen seemed at a loss. “We told you,” Iris said. “This room is really too small for us, and —”
Benzi shook his head. “It isn’t the room.”
Iris swallowed. “You’re right, son. It isn’t just the room. You’re old enough to understand. Sometimes, a man and a woman are together for a while, and then it’s time for them to go their different ways. They love each other for a time, and then that passes, but they can still be friends and have their memories. You saw how it was in Lincoln, with the men your grandmother loved — well, this is the same.”
The boy blinked. “You’re bondmates. That makes it different.”
“Sometimes it does, but sometimes it doesn’t work out that way. Anyway, Chen and I will still have our bond, and that means he’ll always be important to me. And we want you to know that this won’t change anything for you. We both still love you just as much, and we always will.”
“Maybe you won’t,” Benzi said; he sounded oddly composed.
Chen put his arm around his son. “Of course we will.”
Benzi sighed. His composure was unsettling; Iris wondered why she had thought he might cry. “You’re being very grown-up about this,” she said lightly.
The little boy fidgeted. “Guess I’m not surprised. You don’t act like Ismail’s parents. They laugh and shout and like each other.”
“We like each other too,” Iris said.
“If you did, Chen wouldn’t be moving.” Ben
zi slid off the bed. “Can I go?”
She knew she should say more to her son, but she could not find the words. “Yes, of course,” she said at last. “Good night, Benzi.”
“Good night.” As the door opened, he turned toward them again. “Guess you shouldn’ta had a bond.”
“Yes, we should have,” Chen replied. “Our bond gave us you.”
Benzi’s mouth twisted. The door closed behind him.
Iris had eventually convinced herself that it was better that she and Chen had parted as they did, without arguments, harsh words, and useless weeping. But she had been unprepared for the hollow, empty feeling that still occasionally rose up within her when she was alone in this room.
She could not reproach herself; that was what Iris’s Counselor had told her. She had not broken her bond with Chen and had kept on reasonably friendly terms with him, and that was the important thing. Iris had kept her promise to Chen, in her own way, and Chen had known that Iris’s people rarely took bondmates. The Counselor’s words had been soothing and reasonable.
Yet, even now, Iris felt that she had failed that the wound would never heal. Chen had claimed a part of her soul; he had awakened feelings in her that now had no outlet. If she could have found another man who would evoke the same strong feelings, she might have healed, but the men she had known on the Islands were colleagues or friends or bed partners and no more, and she feared risking yet another wound to her soul.
She glanced toward her shelf. A carving of Benzi sat there; Chen had made it when Benzi was ten and had caught his son’s distant, dreamy gaze, for Benzi had often seemed to be staring past what was in front of his eyes to a place only he could see.
After Chen had moved to the workers’ residence, Iris made a resolution. She would not allow barriers to rise between her and her son as they had between her and Chen. She could tell herself that her failure with Chen was as much his fault as hers; she could recall the times when he had seemed about to speak of whatever was troubling him only to keep silent in the end. Benzi, however, was only a child; it was up to her to strengthen their bond.
For a while, she kept her resolve. She set aside evenings for Benzi, and arranged to dine often with him and his young friends. She asked about his schoolwork and tutored him in a few subjects; she spoke to his teachers and made sure that they were encouraging him properly. She listened to Benzi’s talk of his activities even when she was longing for solitude to do her own work. Whenever Chen was on the Island, she made sure that the boy always had time alone with his father, but also arranged for them to have moments together as a family.
In spite of her efforts, she saw that he still turned more readily to others with his childish problems. Had she stayed in Lincoln, others in her household would have shared in his care, and here, there were the men and women who were his nurses and teachers. She could not be everything to him, and she would be useless to the Project if she gave her work short shrift in order to be with Benzi. Marc Lissi, who had once been so condescending, was coming to rely on her more; she could not let Marc down.
It came to her now that she could remember nearly all of the occasions when Benzi had shared some of his deepest thoughts and feelings with her, because there had been so few of them. One such time had been when Benzi was eight, when she had already begun to break her promise to herself.
That day, Benzi had returned from the northern Bat. He had been there with other children for a few days to visit their parents and see what work they did there. It was Benzi’s first trip to the Bat, and when he came to Iris’s room, she could see how anxious he was to talk to her about it.
“I hope you enjoyed your trip,” she said.
“Oh, I did. Chen showed me the docks.”
“You’ll have to tell me all about it. I really do want to hear.” She forced herself to smile. “Trouble is, I’ll have to hear about it some other time, maybe tomorrow. You see, I have a meeting tonight with my team, and I have to be there. I know I promised we’d have supper together when you got back, but this meeting came up, and you see how it is. Maybe Ismail —”
“He’s over at his brother’s.”
“Well, then maybe you should just have a small supper and go to bed early. You’re probably tired anyway.”
Benzi’s eyes narrowed a little. “Is it that important?”
“The meeting? Yes, it is. You see, the crosswinds moving to the north have shifted a bit, and — well, let me put it this way. My team has some questions about my projections, and I have to be there to answer their questions.”
“Can’t they see if you’re right already?”
“Benzi, if you were given a problem in school, and you knew your answer was the right one, but your teachers all said you were wrong, it wouldn’t be enough to hope they found out you were right by themselves. You’d have to convince them. That’s what I have to do tonight. This change in the wind patterns, according to my models, is likely to persist for some time — at least that’s my conclusion. The trouble is, the others on my team, especially Marc, aren’t so sure, so he’s going to talk to them, and then he’ll probably want to see me alone.”
“What if you’re wrong?” Benzi asked.
“If I am, then they’ll have to show me my mistake. That’s why we have teams, so we can check each other.”
“I don’t know why you have to go now,” Benzi said. “Last month, you were late for my birthday, even though you promised, and before, you said we were going to Anwara on a trip, and we didn’t.”
She was surprised; he had been, she thought, unaffected by those broken promises before. “Benzi, that can’t be helped sometimes. Things come up, and plans have to be canceled.”
“You knew about this. You knew for days. Why couldn’t you do that other stuff before? Why can’t you wait until tomorrow?”
“Because Marc wants to see me tonight.”
“You could have told him!”
She went to the bed and sat down next to him. “Benzi, stop it. This whining isn’t like you. My work for the Project is important, you know that.” He looked as though he did not believe her. “Son, you know I’d rather stay here with you, but I can’t.” She touched his shoulder; he pushed her hand away.
“No, you don’t,” he said in a low voice. “You just do stuff with me because you think you’re supposed to. You try to act happy, but you really don’t care. You do it with Chen too. He didn’t want to move out — you let him.”
“Did he tell you that?”
Benzi shook his head. “But I can tell.”
So this was what all her efforts to be a good parent had meant to him. Iris stood up. “I have to go. If you want to sit here and sulk, go ahead. If you’re in a better mood tomorrow, I’ll be happy to hear all about your trip.”
Benzi had told her all about the trip the next evening. She had been relieved when he hadn’t mentioned their little dispute. He did not protest when other promises were broken.
Another memory came to Iris. Her son’s arms were around her shoulders. The unusual gesture of affection was so surprising that she was not sure how to respond.
She shut off her screen, then turned around in her chair and looked up at her son. At ten, he was still short, but he was growing; she had to lift her chin a bit higher to gaze into his eyes.
She stood up; his head reached nearly to her shoulders. His brow was furrowed with worry.
“What is it, Benzi?”
“I don’t want to bother you.”
“I’m not doing anything that can’t wait.”
They sat down on cushions; he reached for her hand, surprising her again. “Iris,” he said, “do you love me?”
She almost laughed. “What a question. Of course I do. You’re my son. I love you very much.”
“I think you like what you do more.”
“Now, Benzi, that isn’t true. I love it as much as you perhaps, no more and no less, but in a different way. I know it keeps me busy, but that doesn’t mean I’m not concerne
d about you.” She paused, hoping that he was not about to reveal some hidden resentment. “Why do you think I do my work? What I do is going to make it possible for you to be a settler someday. Our analyses — not just ours, of course, but ours are important — will help in determining the best sites for the first settlements and the place where you’ll live on the surface.”
“Would you still love me if I wanted something else?”
She released his hand. “Why, Benzi. What else would you do?”
“I don’t know.”
“Of course you don’t. You’re too young to know. I thought you were doing well in school. Is there something I haven’t been told?”
The boy shook his head.
“Then you shouldn’t worry about it. I knew what I wanted when I was your age, and you should be glad you don’t have the problems I had. You’ll be able to be a specialist and do something wonderful for the Project, maybe more than I’ve done. I’ll be so proud of you then.”
“But what if I don’t want that? Would you be mad at me then?”
“Benzi, you shouldn’t say such things. You don’t know what you want. You won’t feel this way when you have real work of your own to do. You probably think that schoolwork doesn’t contribute anything to the Project, but it’s preparing you for it. You’ll see how silly your worries are when you’re older.” She had gone on to speak of her sacrifices and Chen’s and of the opportunities the Project offered. She had never answered her son’s question.
Benzi had not revealed such notions to her again. It was he who began to cancel plans they had made for time together and who cut their visits short. He had not even come to Iris himself to tell her that he was leaving school to become an apprentice; he had sent Ismail to give her the news.
Now, it was Iris who pleaded with her son while he endured her with obvious impatience. She had pressed him to continue his studies, and he had refused to respond. Even while knowing that her words would have little effect, she could not stop herself from uttering them, could not give up hoping that he would come to see things her way. If she stopped pressing home her points, she might have to admit that she had lost him after all, yet her angry words only increased the distance between them.
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