by Patty Jansen
I could almost hear Eva’s voice, You undress in front of a woman? The journalist who had bought my explanation of the zhayma concept like marriage but without the sex needed to be given a PhD in gullibility, but I didn’t think Eva fell for it. She didn’t like Nicha because she was unsure of my relationship with him, and she didn’t ask because she was afraid to hear my answer. Did I love him in the same way I loved her? No. Did that mean nothing had ever happened between us? Well—no. When you were connected to someone in thought, and spent all your waking and sleeping hours with this person, what did you expect? Poor excuse, of course, but this was the culture. Coldi didn’t marry for love, and as a result, they found satisfaction elsewhere. To them love, affection, friendship and physical attraction were all pretty much the same thing, imayu. They bonded with friends through physical intimacy. They sealed business relationships with physical intimacy. That was all very well with Nicha, because touching a man meant little to me, in that way humans reserved for a special person in their lives. Eva knew that—I had told her many times, but . . .
Whose fucking idea had it been to appoint a woman as Nicha’s replacement?
At the far end of the corridor, a broad staircase spiralled down at least thirty steps. Downstairs, we entered another corridor of another apartment, almost a copy of the apartment upstairs, with equally extravagant mosaic floors, and an equally high ceiling.
A number of people lined up along both sides of the walls, wearing uniforms of khaki fabric with blue belts. I was distinctly aware of my bloodstained jacket and my scruffy hair in sandy curls that had a mind of their own, especially after the dry air of space travel. Half of my former fringe had escaped the clips I used to keep it out of my eyes. Nicha had told me that people whose hair was too short for a ponytail were assumed to have spent time in prison, so I could only imagine what they thought of me.
A woman at the front bowed. Olive-skinned, with curly black hair and dark, lively eyes. Whatever beauty she would have possessed was negated by a bulbous blob of a nose, with a vertical groove down the tip. I had seen this type of people before: they were native to the city of Barresh, the keihu race.
“We welcome the Delegate.” Spoken in Coldi, but heavily accented.
Thayu said in a stiff voice, “This is Eirani, head of domestic staff. She runs the household. Eirani, Delegate Cory Wilson.”
Neither woman met the other’s eyes.
I bowed my head, as appropriate for an employer towards an employee, acutely aware of her gaze on the stain on the pocket of my jacket. “The Delegate is loath to impose.” Using the most formal, most distant of pronouns.
“It is of no matter,” she said, but her tone and stiffness made it clear that it was.
“Please accept the Delegate’s apologies.”
She nodded stiffly—apology accepted.
Not a good start.
After the introductions, Thayu led me to the office, an airy room where two women and two men sat working at desks. Within seconds of the door opening, they had scrambled to their feet and stood beside their desks, arms by their sides, heads bowed in that submissive Coldi greeting.
In the uncomfortable silence, I walked around the desks, asking about each person’s skills. None of them met my eyes. According to gamra custom, they weren’t allowed to do this of course, but they seemed to like this just as little as I did. They all belonged to the same race as Eirani, the local keihu, and had different local customs, which they probably observed with their regular employer, the owner of this apartment. Customs that no doubt didn’t involve bowing and formal greetings.
I didn’t like it either.
Next Thayu took me to the kitchen with heavy stone benches and two basins from where steam, and the sulphuric smell of thermal spring water added to the breathless air. In the hall, she pointed me to the lower floor entry, for business to the office, she said, but please notify security if it needed to be opened.
The thought did not improve my mood. I had imagined myself and Nicha wandering through the sprawling complex, strolling through the many courtyards, sampling the eating houses, the public baths and visiting the shops. I had definitely not imagined I’d be stuck in some kind of gilded cage, requiring an escort every time I left.
While we climbed the stairs, I said in a low voice, to Thayu’s broad back, “The staff seems little impressed with the situation. I’d be quite happy to—”
She turned, and fixed me with her dark eyes. “The staff are being paid for being the staff, not to have opinions. They would do well to remember that.” She charged up the spiral staircase leaving me to stare at her disappearing back.
Bloody hell.
I looked over my shoulder at a soft noise from behind—Eirani.
She bowed. “The kitchen likes to know: would the Delegate require a meal?”
“At the normal time.” All my senses were out of kilter, and I didn’t even know if the house operated on local twenty-eight hour days or gamra day of twenty-three-and-a-bit hours, but the thought of food made my stomach grumble.
“I will bathe first, if that is possible.” Possible, not convenient; I was more careful this time.
“As you wish, Delegate.”
The formal tone just grated. “Please, if I’m to live here with you, at least use professional forms. My name is Cory.”
Last names were optional. In only a few gamra societies did they have the same meaning as on Earth. Mostly, they were clan names or regional names.
Eirani only nodded. “I will bring towels soon.”
Thayu waited at the top of the stairs, leaning against the wall, her arms crossed over her chest. I stopped, stared at her, seeing something I hadn’t seen before. The fabric of her tunic was drawn tight over small but distinctive breasts. This meant she was a mother, since Coldi women didn’t grow breasts until their first pregnancy.
Her face remained without emotion as I walked past. I ached to ask her what the problem was, but didn’t think she’d tell me in the presence of Eirani, who had followed me. For her part, Eirani ignored Thayu and charged into the corridor, voluminous hips wobbling, where she pushed open the door to what Thayu had indicated as the bathroom.
As it turned out, bathroom was far too mundane a term. After passing through a short corridor that led past a dark cubicle that looked suspiciously like a sauna, but was probably a broom cupboard, I came out into a huge hall. Steam rose languidly off a pool at least ten paces long, surrounded by pavement smooth as ice, and elegant benches, made of carved wood panels and soft cushions.
Eirani followed me into the room, footsteps echoing loudly against the ceiling. She had collected some towels which she placed on a table against the closest wall.
“Thank you, Eirani. I can manage by myself now.”
“The Delegate will wash himself?” Her eyes widened.
“Yes, I am quite capa—”
“We can’t have that in this household. If the word goes that the Delegate bathes by himself, we’ll never hear the end of it. Put those clothes in the basket here, so they can be washed.”
It seemed there was no escape from these women and I was too tired to argue.
I turned my back to her, slipped out of my jacket and fumbled for the buttons on my shirt, but couldn’t even undo them. Rather than letting Eirani help me, I pulled the shirt over my head, releasing a waft of sweaty air. Then I stepped out of my trousers, and as quickly as I could, slipped into the streaming water. Damn, that woman was gawking at me. Next she was going to say something about my relative abundance of body hair. Hairy ape. Yes, I knew I had more hair than most gamra men, but that was a subject I’d keep to myself thank you very much.
She didn’t say anything; she only watched.
Soon I sat on the ledge of the pool, while Eirani’s firm hands massaged soap into my hair. Every now and then, she scooped up water and poured it over my head. The waft of mint soap mingled with a faint scent of sulphur.
While she washed my hair, I peeled the filthy ba
ndage off my hands. The skin underneath was red and strained at the strips of tape, affixed almost a lifetime ago by a doctor in Rotterdam. Had he said anything about not removing the tape? I didn’t remember, but I left it on, because it seemed to be holding the sides of the wounds together. I let the water soothe the hot skin and didn’t dare touch my palms—they hurt too much. When I got out of the bath, I was happy to let Eirani pat me dry.
Then I asked her for my bag with—thank heavens—the infusor band. While the dust whirled in the glass capsule, Eirani fussed with my hair. It wouldn’t all go in a ponytail so she used liberal amounts of a gel-like substance to flatten my curls against my head. She fingered the golden loops I wore in my ears. “Does the Delegate have a family colour?” Nothing escaped this woman.
“Such things are not custom where I come from. Men don’t wear earrings.”
She snorted; she probably thought as little of men who didn’t wear earrings as Eva thought of men who did.
“But the Delegate must have a colour. Everyone has a colour.”
“I’ll think about that.” I rubbed my fingers over my chin, far-too-long stubble making a scratching noise, but I wasn’t about to let anyone else shave me. “Do you have a bowl? Could you bring me the small bag I brought when I came here?”
She vanished, carrying my dirty clothes under her arm.
I looked at my reflection in the black stone walls, the reflection of a stranger. My hair, normally soft and curly, slicked-down and pulled into a ponytail which barely tickled the collar of my shirt. It made me look older and more serious and maybe that was not such a bad thing. I was young for my position, and it really didn’t help that I looked younger than my thirty-two years. When I attended my first assembly meeting, I would ask Eirani to put my hair up like this again.
Clean and feeling much better, with my hands wrapped in a clean bandage, I came back into the living room. The air still tingled on my cheeks. For some reason, my skin hadn’t liked the soap I’d used for shaving.
Tomorrow, I had to go dive into that pile of luggage and find my electric shaver.
The sky outside had gone deep orange and the light from the setting suns silhouetted the plants covering the balcony railing like cardboard cutouts.
Thayu sat on the couch and glanced up when I padded onto the carpet. “You look different.”
“You look different, too.”
She had changed into a calf-length garment that was a cross between a tunic and a dress, and maybe bathed, but it was impossible to tell if Coldi hair was wet or dry, it was that coarse.
“Not as much as you.”
I shrugged, glancing at the khaki clothing Eirani had insisted I wear. “Eirani says I’ll need to go to the shop to fit my uniform.”
“She is a fusspot, isn’t she?” Thayu had used the Coldi word yanu which meant something in between a schoolteacher and a nanny.
“Yeah.” I grinned.
A few moments of silence hung between us.
I thought to ask her what her problem was with Eirani, but decided not to spoil the mood, hers or mine. I had quite enough problems for today. In Rotterdam, Nixie Chan was working on Nicha’s release. Delegate Akhtari was aware of the refugee situation, so hopefully arrangements were being made for those people in the terminal hall. And that poor woman who had been screaming for her son.
It seemed various authorities were looking after these people, and I could take some time to recover my own sanity.
“Dinner’s ready.”
Thayu pushed herself off the couch, and while she did so, the split in the bottom of her tunic parted, giving me a glance at her legs. Muscular, the skin soft yellow . . . and much-repressed memories flooded me of a crazy time four years ago, a time when I had drunk in gamra cultures and languages like honey-flavoured liquor, a time of exhilarating discussion and laughter until I thought I would die, a time I would spend all night making love to this crazy, wonderful, intelligent Coldi woman.
Inaru.
How had I wanted her to share my life, but she had honoured the contract her parents had brokered for her instead. A man twenty years her senior, who was paying her to give him two children. I couldn’t live with that. She said of course she would honour a lucrative contract, that didn’t mean I couldn’t see her anymore. We could never have children anyway, so why did it matter?
It mattered to me. I couldn’t stand the thought of another man putting his hands on her, sleeping next to her at night. It mattered because at that time, I didn’t really understand how the network, imayu, tied Coldi to one another. I thought I did, but I didn’t. So I had given her a choice she couldn’t understand: me or him.
For the next six months I’d struggled to keep myself away from the edge of that cliff, from the abyss of work-until-you-drop, of far too much alcohol at night, of sleep medication, yes, even dark contemplations that my life was worthless without her and that I might as well end it. I had sworn never in my life to become ensnared by a Coldi woman again. Coldi didn’t marry; I should have known better; I should not have let my heart rule.
Thayu’s voice scattered my thoughts. “Hungry?”
A couple of dishes stood on the table. One of the young boys from the kitchen waited to serve.
Thayu walked to the far side and I settled opposite her. My stomach grumbled. “Is this going to be safe for me to eat?”
Thayu pointed at the dishes. “You can eat that, and that, but I would stay clear of the mushrooms.”
Yes. Mushrooms were always a bad idea, especially those Nicha favoured. Some of them would kill me three times over.
I let the boy scoop some food out of the bowls onto a plate. Silence lingered as we ate. My memories were harder to dispel. The food was interesting—crisp and colourful. The idea was to pick up the salad with the bread and dip the lot in sauce. Strong and unfamiliar tastes made my ears glow.
Thayu finished quickly and used a bland-looking fruit to mop the remains of the sauce from a bowl. Like Nicha, she ate much more than I did.
She turned her perfect eyes on me. “I believe you don’t have a feeder?”
“It was taken from me and not returned.” I cringed at the subject.
“We should look into getting you a new one.” That was a polite-we, the form that meant I’m really doing this by myself, but I’m pretending it’s a group effort.
“We should.” And that was the we-form that could mean almost anything, most often used by bureaucracy.
This was an argument fought in pronouns.
I didn’t want to think of sharing a feeder.
Yet my job required one, otherwise how could I confer with her in meetings, and—let her in on my memories of Inaru?
I stared at my plate, my appetite gone.
“You want a drink?” Before I could answer, Thayu rose and turned to the back wall, where she yanked at a handle to a cupboard door. “Oops—wrong one.”
Inside the cupboard’s darkness blinked lights in rows. Just a second she held the door open before slamming it shut.
The next cupboard she opened contained a variety of jars and bottles. She took out one, unstoppered it and poured a yellowish liquid in the cups.
Without a word, she sat down, giving me an intense look. I needed no explanation for what I had seen: everything said in this room, or maybe even in the entire apartment, was recorded.
10
FIRE.
Everything was on fire. The stone walls, the marble floor.
A woman sat in the middle of the room, hands tied to the back of her chair.
Her voice rasped in an eerie whisper, the pained words just outside my hearing. An orange glow bathed her face, which glistened with sweat.
I stood at the door, stroked by a breeze of cool air. I could run to safety, but I couldn’t leave her behind. I wanted to scream, Inaru! but my voice wouldn’t work. The flames licked the legs of the chair, crawling up her feet. Inaru!
I reached out for her . . . and hit my hand on something.
&
nbsp; Ouch . . . What the fuck?
A sweaty sheet wrapped around my shoulders.
A crumpled pillow.
I blinked against the glare of light to my left. A triangular window. Thin curtains. Benches along whitewashed walls. There was a wooden cupboard, a table, a chair and opposite the window, an arched door.
I pushed myself up, the nightmare slowly subsiding. My arm was wet and so was my cheek, from my own drool. I sat on a hard mattress in an oval bed made from woven reeds—like a giant dog basket. I remembered how I had stumbled into the dark room last night, after almost falling off my chair at the table, how I had intended to sleep only for a bit.
I needed to check my mail, find out what had been happening at Nations of Earth and send a message to Eva, and now it was . . . I scanned a bedside shelf for my reader, only to realise I’d left it on the table in the other room. I groaned. My first day, and I started it by doing downright stupid things. My entire life was on that reader. The staff would be operating all that listening equipment; the staff couldn’t be trusted.
I jumped out of bed and stumbled a few dizzy steps over the tiles, almost tripping over a longhaired rug, looking as if someone had flattened a shaggy possum on the floor.
A pile of clothes lay neatly folded on a bench against the wall. Not mine—but the clothes I had been wearing last night. Someone had been in here; I definitely hadn’t left them like that. When I tried to pick up the shirt, pain seared through my palms. Oh shit, my hands. Yellowish ooze had seeped through the tape.
I stood there, feeling sick and dizzy, dazed and helpless, with no idea how I was going to do up the fiddly fastening hooks of my shirt without bending my fingers.
At that moment, the door rolled open, the slats clattering against each other, and Eirani burst in.
“Ah, the Delegate is awake.”
Far too cheerful. She put down the basket she carried and eased the shirt from my hands. “Let me put that on.”
Grateful, I spread out my arms and let her slip the shirt over my shoulders. Her experienced hands dealt with the fastenings. Broad hands, with thick fingers and unusually long thumbs. Her hair, coarse and parted in the middle, smelled of spicy soap.
