“Why not?” she said with a shrug. “If I don’t believe in what I grew up with and I don’t believe in this, either, where’s the difference?”
That was perfectly logical. Part of Reuven wished he could see things the same way. Part of him was relieved he hadn’t got intimately involved with Jane. And part of him-a bigger part-wished he had. He said, “Good luck to you.”
When he said no more, she nodded as if he’d passed a test, or perhaps as if he’d failed one. She found another question for him: “What will your father say when be finds out about this?”
“I don’t know,” he answered. “I’ll find out when he gets home tonight. But I don’t see how I can do it. And even if I don’t finish here, I know more about medicine than anyone who just went to a human university.”
Jane nodded again, then hugged him and kissed him, which had to drive every male student in the class wild with envy. “I’ll miss you,” she said. “I’ll miss you a lot. We might have-” Now she shook her head. “Oh, what’s the use?”
“None,” Reuven said. “None at all.” He left the lecture hall, he left the cube of a building that housed the medical college named for his father, and he left the razor-wire perimeter around the building.
One of the Lizard sentries at the perimeter said, “It is not time for you Tosevites to be leaving your classes.”
“Oh, yes, it is,” Reuven answered in the language of the Race. “It is time for me; in fact, it is past time for me.” The sentry started to say something to that, then shrugged and waved Reuven out into the world beyond the perimeter-the real world, he thought as he headed home.
His mother exclaimed in surprise when he walked in. “What are you doing here?” she demanded. “You should be in class.” He laughed a little at how much she sounded like the Lizard. But then he explained. His mother’s face got longer and longer as she listened. After he finished, she let out a long sigh. “You did the right thing.”
“I hope so.” He went into the kitchen, took a bottle of plum brandy off a pantry shelf, and poured himself a good dose. He didn’t usually do that in the middle of the day, but it wasn’t a usual day, either.
“Your father will be proud of you,” Rivka Russie said.
“I hope so,” Reuven repeated. He hefted the bottle of slivovitz. His father wouldn’t be proud of him if he drank himself blind, which was what he felt like doing. Instead, with a sigh, he put the bottle away.
The twins also exclaimed when they got home from their school and discovered Reuven there ahead of them. He made his explanations all over again. Judith and Esther’s faces grew unwontedly serious by the time he was through.
And he explained one more time when, his father came home. “No, you can’t do that,” Moishe Russie said gravely. “Or you could, but I’m glad you didn’t. Till we see what else we can arrange, how would you like to help me in my practice?”
“Thank you, Father!” Reuven let out a long sigh of relief. “That would be very good.” As good as staying at the college? He didn’t know. He had his doubts, in fact. But it would do.
10
“Dammit, I want another chance at him!” Monique Dutourd said in a savage whisper as she examined tomatoes in the greengrocer’s.
“Not right now,” Lucie answered, choosing one for herself. “If things change, then yes, certainly. But we don’t want to draw too much heat from the Nazis down on our heads, not for a bit.”
“Easy for you to say. You don’t have to sleep with him.” Monique knew she sounded bitter. Why not? She damn well was.
“No, I’m sleeping with your brother.” Lucie’s voice made the prospect sound extraordinarily nasty, even though she and Pierre Dutourd were both on the dumpy side. “And getting the Lizards to do things isn’t so easy, whether you know it or not. They were very unhappy when they rubbed out that fishmonger.”
“Not half so unhappy as I was,” Monique said mournfully. “I had my hopes up-and then the miserable fool started shooting too soon. And I’m still stuck with Kuhn.”
Lucie shrugged. “If you want to put arsenic in his wine, I won’t tell you not to do it, but you’re liable to get caught. The advantage of the Lizards is, if they do the job, you get away scot free.”
“So do you. So does Pierre.” Monique put a tomato into her string bag. “The only reason Kuhn started bothering me was to get at Pierre-and I didn’t even know Pierre was alive then.”
“Only an American would expect life to be fair all the time,” Lucie said. “It isn’t as though the Boches gave us no trouble.”
That was undoubtedly true. It didn’t make Monique feel any better. It didn’t keep Dieter Kuhn out of her bedroom, either. “Maybe I will put arsenic in his wine,” she said. “And after they arrest me for it and start working me over, I’ll tell them it was your idea.”
“They already want to get their hands on me,” Lucie said with a shrug. “Giving them one more reason isn’t so much of a much.”
Monique was tempted to throw a tomato at her. But if she angered Lucie, her own brother might stop having anything to do with her. What would she do then? Stay an SS man’s unwilling mistress till the end of time? That was intolerable. “I want to get away!” she cried, loud enough to make the greengrocer look up from what he was reading-a girlie magazine, by the cover.
“Well, then, why don’t you?” Lucie said. “If you stay in your flat and let the Nazi come over whenever he chooses and do whatever he wants, why do you think you deserve anything in the way of sympathy?”
Again, Monique felt like hitting her. “What am I supposed to do, sneak out of my flat, throw away my position at the university, and sell drugs with you in Porte d’Aix?” Without waiting for an answer, she took her vegetables up to the shopkeeper. He gave her an unhappy look; totting up what she owed made him put down the magazine. She paid, got her change, and went out into the warm air of late summer. The sun didn’t stand so high in the sky as it had a couple of months before. Autumn was coming, and then winter, though winter in Marseille wasn’t the savage beast it was farther north.
Monique was swinging aboard her bicycle when Lucie came out, too. Her brother’s mistress said, “If you want to disappear, Pierre and I can arrange it. It’s easier than you think, as a matter of fact. And if it gets that German out of your hair and out of your bed, why not?”
“You must be crazy,” Monique said. “I’ve spent my whole life training to be a Roman historian. Now that I finally am, I can’t just throw that over.”
“If you say so, dearie,” Lucie answered. “But I’m damned if see why not.” She got on her own bicycle and pedaled away.
With a muttered curse, Monique rode back to her own block of flats. No bloodstains remained to show where the luckless fish seller had been gunned down instead of Sturmbannfuhrer Dieter Kuhn, but she saw them in her mind’s eye. But I’m damned if I can see why it wasn’t him. The words gnawed at her as she went upstairs.
They gnawed even more after Kuhn paid her a visit that evening. As usual, he enjoyed himself and she didn’t. “I wish you would leave me alone,” she said wearily as he was getting dressed to leave again.
He smiled at her-a smile both sated and something else, something less pleasant. “I know you do. That is one of the things that keeps me coming back, sweetheart. Bonne nuit.” He turned on his heel and walked out, jackboots thumping on her carpet.
After he was gone, she got up, cleaned herself off-the bidet didn’t seem nearly enough-put on a robe, and tried to read some Latin. None of her inscriptions seemed to mean anything. She fought them for a while, then sighed, scowled, and gave up and went to bed.
She slept late the next morning: it was Sunday. Church bells clanged as she made her morning coffee. Along with a croissant and strawberry jam, it made a good breakfast. She lit a cigarette and sucked in harsh smoke.
A flat full of books, a university position where promotion would be slow if it ever came at all, a German lover she loathed. This is what I’ve made of my life?
she thought, and the notion was far harsher than the smoke.
She didn’t want to go back into the bedroom even to dress; it reminded her too much of Dieter Kuhn’s odious presence. As soon as she had dressed, she left and manhandled her bicycle down the stairs. She couldn’t stand staying cooped up in there, wrestling with a dead language and with dead hopes. Off she rode, away from her troubles, away from Marseille, up into the hills back of the city that rose steeply from the Mediterranean Sea.
The Germans had placed antiaircraft-missile batteries in those hills. Otherwise, though, she had a surprisingly easy time escaping from civilization. Presently, she pulled off a dirt track and sat down on a flat yellow stone. Somewhere a long way off, a dog barked. Skippers flitted from dandelion to thistle to clover. If only I didn’t have to go home, Monique thought.
Here and there in the hills, men scratched out a living from little farms. Others herded sheep and goats. One of them is bound to be looking for a wife. Monique laughed at herself. Not going home was one thing. Spending the rest of her life as a peasant woman was something else again. Next to that, even Dieter Kuhn looked less appalling… didn’t he?
Monique didn’t have to think about the German now. She didn’t have to think about anything. She could lean back on the stone and close her eyes and let the sunshine turn the inside of her eyelids red. She wasn’t free. She knew she wasn’t, but she could pretend to be, at least for a little while.
A bee buzzing round her head made her open her eyes. Another bicyclist was coming up the dirt track toward her. She frowned. Company was the last thing she wanted right now. Then she recognized the man on the bicycle. She stood up. “How did you find me?” she demanded angrily.
Her brother smiled as he stopped. “There are ways.”
“Such as?” Monique said, hands on hips. Pierre’s smile got wider and more annoying. She thought for a moment. Then she got angry for another reason. “You put some miserable Lizard toy on my bicycle!”
“Would I do such a thing?” Her brother’s amiability was revoltingly smug.
“Of course you would,” Monique answered. She looked at the bicycle that had betrayed her. “Now-did the Germans do the same thing? Will that dog of a Kuhn come pedaling up the road ten minutes from now?” If anything, she would have expected the SS man to get out from Marseille faster than her brother. However much she despised Dieter Kuhn, he was in far better shape than Pierre.
“I don’t think so.” Pierre still sounded smug. “I would know if they had.”
“Would you?” Monique didn’t trust anyone any more. I wonder why, she thought. “Remember, the Nazis are starting to be able to listen to your talk on the telephone, even though you didn’t think they could do that. So are you sure the gadgets you have from the Lizards areas good as they say?”
To her surprise, her brother looked thoughtful. “Am I sure? No, I’m not sure. But I have a pretty good notion with this one.”
Monique tossed her head. No matter how good a notion he had, she didn’t particularly want him around. She didn’t want anyone around. Why else would she have come all the way out here? “All right, then,” she said grudgingly. “What do you want? You must want something.”
“I should resent that,” Pierre said. Monique shrugged, as if telling him to go ahead. He laughed, annoying her further, and went on, “There you have me.”
“Say your say, then, and leave me what’s left of the day. Monday morning, I have to be a scholar again.”
Pierre clicked his tongue between his teeth. “And Monday night, very likely, you will have another visit from the fellow you love so well.”
She spent the next minute or so cursing him. One of the main reasons she’d come up here was to forget about Dieter Kuhn for a little while. It didn’t seem she could even do that.
Her brother waited till she ran down, then said, “If you want to be rid of him for good, you really should come down to the Porte d’Aix. He won’t bother you there, I promise you that, and you might be very useful to me.”
“I don’t care whether I’m useful to you or not,” Monique flared. “All I want is to be left alone. I haven’t had much luck with that, and it’s your fault.”
He bowed, more than a little scornfully. “No doubt you are right. Do you care about whether the Boche comes to your bedroom tomorrow night?”
“Damn you,” Monique said. If it weren’t for Kuhn-and it wouldn’t have been for Kuhn except for Pierre… “All I want is to be left alone.” She’d already said that. Saying it again underlined it in her own mind.
Saying it again did nothing for Pierre, though. “You can’t have that. It might be nice if you could, but you can’t. You can have the Nazi up your twat, or you can have the Porte d’Aix. Which will it be?”
Monique looked around for a rock. There by her feet lay a good one, just the size of her hand. If she bounced it off her brother’s head, she might shut him up for good. It wasn’t so simple. It couldn’t be so simple. If she stayed where she was, that didn’t just mean Kuhn. It meant her classes, her research, her friends at the university-not that she’d had time for them lately. And her research had gone to hell; she’d thought that the night before. As for her classes, Kuhn had got to know her through them. So what did that leave her?
Nothing, which was exactly what her life had become. How could it be worse, down there in the Porte d’Aix? One word and she’d find out how it could be worse. The past couple of years had taught her such things were always possible.
“Porte d’Aix,” she said wearily. If it was worse, it was worse, that was all. At least she’d escape Dieter Kuhn.
Pierre beamed. “Oh, good. I won’t have to tell my friends to put all that stuff back into your flat.” She glared furiously. He kept right on beaming. “Little sister of mine, I knew you would see sense when someone pointed it out to you.”
“Did you?” Monique said. Her brother nodded. She asked another question: “Did I?” Pierre couldn’t answer that one. Neither could she. But she’d find out.
Nesseref bustled about, making sure everything in her apartment was just the way she wanted it to be. She didn’t have guests all that often, and these would be special. She’d even borrowed a couple of chairs for the occasion.
She swung an eye turret toward Orbit. The tsiongi wasn’t too happy about being on a leash inside the apartment. Maybe she’d be able to let him off later on. But maybe she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t know for a bit, and didn’t feel like taking chances: very much a shuttlecraft pilot’s view of the world.
When the knock came, she knew at once who it had to be: no male or female of the Race would have knocked so high on the door. Few males or females would have knocked at all; most would have used the hisser set into the wall by the door frame. But using the hisser required a fingerclaw, and her guests had none.
She opened the door. “I greet you, Mordechai Anielewicz,” she said. “Come in. And this is your hatchling?”
“I greet you, Nesseref,” the Tosevite said. “Yes, this is my hatchling. His name is Heinrich.” He said something to the younger Big Ugly in their own language.
“I greet you, superior female,” Heinrich Anielewicz said in the language of the Race. “I learn your speech in school.”
He didn’t speak very well, even for a Big Ugly. But she could understand him. As she did with Mordechai Anielewicz’s use of the Race’s written language, she made allowances. Speaking as if to a youngster of her own species, she said, “I greet you, Heinrich Anielewicz. I am glad you are learning my speech. I think it will be useful for you later in life.”
“I also think so,” Heinrich said, whether because he really did or because that was an easy way to answer, Nesseref did not know. Then the gaze of the small Big Ugly-he was just about Nesseref’s size-fell on Orbit. “What is that?” he asked. “It is not a beffel.”
Nesseref laughed. Orbit would have been insulted had he understood. “No, he is not a beffel,” the shuttlecraft pilot agreed. “He is called a
tsiongi.”
“May I…” Heinrich cast about for a way to say what he wanted; he plainly didn’t have much in the way of vocabulary. But he managed: “May I be friends with it?” Without waiting for a reply, he started toward the tsiongi.
“Be careful,” Nesseref said, to him and to Mordechai Anielewicz as well. “I do not know how the tsiongi will react to Tosevites coming up to him. None of your species has ever done that before.”
Mordechai Anielewicz followed his hatchling, ready to snatch him back from danger. The younger Big Ugly, rather to Nesseref’s surprise, did what a male or female of the Race might have done: he stretched out a hand toward the tsiongi to let the beast smell him. Orbit’s tongue shot out and brushed his fleshy little fingers. The tsiongi let out a discontented hiss and deliberately turned away.
Although Nesseref didn’t know all she might have about how Tosevites reacted, she would have bet that Heinrich Anielewicz was discontented, too. Mordechai Anielewicz spoke to his hatchling in their own language. Then he returned to the language of the Race for Nesseref’s benefit: “I told him this animal might smell on him the odor of the beffel we have at home. Some of our own animals do not like the smell that others have, either.”
“Ah? Is that a truth? How interesting.” Nesseref saw no reason why things like that shouldn’t be so, but that they might be hadn’t occurred to her. “In some ways, then, life on Tosev 3 and life on Home are not so very different.” She turned her eye turrets toward Heinrich Anielewicz. “And how did you get a beffel of your own?”
“I find it in the street,” he answered. Then he started speaking his own language.
Mordechai translated: “He says he gave it something to eat and it followed him home. He says he likes it very much. And you know how the beffel helped save us when the fire started.”
“Yes, I know that. You wrote of it,” Nesseref said. “What I find hard to imagine is having a fire starting in a building where males and females of your species live.”
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