Asimov's Science Fiction 12/01/10

by Dell Magazines

  The song wound to an end. I assured her I believed her and grabbed her by the waist. She didn’t move away. Instead, she placed her left hand on my shoulder and her right in my hand. We stood still for a whole minute until the band started playing again and we were free to dance.

  My town hangs from a cliff over a ravine, in the archipelago that was once the Iberian Peninsula, in the middle of the Great Sea.

  What little land we have, we need for planting, so the villagers carve houses from stone, using the silt as base for whitewash and walling themselves into the earth with brick and plaster. I love them: houses like wombs. No fear of escape. Sometimes, when the sea calls out to me so loud and deep that I falter, I dig into my house and feel as surrounded as if I were floating underwater. Nothing reaches me inside my cave, except the pull of moon on blood that never leaves a merman. And if that fails, there’s always wine.

  A week after the festival, I took my place in Severino’s tavern. All the men were here, fleeing their women and their religion for wine and tapas. I drank and peeled scales from my face, dropping them on the floor while the men looked away politely.

  I looked around at sun-scarred men, the visible heat, the card games. This is a fragment of Spain that exists outside of history. It was never like this, not even in the period that it supposedly imitates, the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. It was never this sad. My scales piled up, slight and luminescent, among the olive pits and cigarette butts. I was part of the cliché, but you, Mother, made it this way.

  You suffer humans to live so you can laugh and point. The merfolk could wish humans away with a flick from their collective tail, but instead they leave them these islands of dirt and inbreeding, make museums out of them, examples for the younger generations of mer who are eager to exploit resources that they can’t put back. Of course, there can be no industry in these prisons and the humans get extra points for going for the whole historical hogwash and keeping their old customs, their clothes, and their beliefs. For every seven years of continuity, the merfolk desalt a few crates of silt and throw it on the shore. Allow me to say, with my acquired Spanish irony, that by my calculations, you will have reconstructed the whole of the peninsula in another two thousand years.

  The Preserves are put to other uses. Where else could you send people like me? The sea is free; there are no prisons to send traitors. I was given a choice between my tail and my life and I chose my life. My tail was ripped down the middle, joints turned around and flippers lifted at a right angle to serve as feet. You may not agree with me, Mother. I know, for you, this is the ultimate embarrassment. But it was my choice to make.

  “Say something to me in mermaid,” Rosita whispered from behind the barred window of her house. To dance during the village festival was one thing, but addressing a man walking down her street was quite another, and she didn’t want her mother to hear her.

  “For one, we call ourselves merfolk. We aren’t all female,” I blurted. The old language sounded strange in the air. Without the blending power of water, the clicks were isolated, individual.

  Rosita giggled. “How shrill! Not like a man at all.” She blushed behind her fan, probably aware that she might have offended me. I smiled back; no hard feelings, Rosita.

  “Rosita, who are you talking to?” Rosa’s mother was nearing forty and sounded like an old woman.

  “Just talking to the vecina,” she said, and winked at me. I inched away: she’d told her mother she was talking to a neighbor girl, and it wouldn’t do for me to be caught in front of her house. Rosita fluttered her fan at me. I knew there was a fan language used by women to communicate with men behind their elders’ backs, but I didn’t know it. I never thought I’d have any use for it.

  Rosita shook her head at my ignorance: “Day after tomorrow at three o’clock beneath the big olive tree in Vicente’s plot,” she whispered. “I’ll bring my younger sister as chaperone.”

  I walked away, bewildered. Just like that, she’d decided that I would be courting her. I wasn’t sure how this had happened. I was twice Rosita’s age, although I doubted she realized it. To her, I must have looked no older than thirty: still marriageable for a man. I was hardly her best choice, though. She was pretty; she could take her pick from the dozen men her age scattered in the surrounding villages. These girls don’t date lightly; every boyfriend a girl has before marriage lowers her reputation. No decent woman dates more than two men before settling down.

  Rosita was throwing a card away, and she wouldn’t have done it if she hadn’t thought I was worth it.

  * * *

  That evening, I saw her again. She was standing in front of Severino’s tavern, looking uncomfortable. Her face lit up when she saw me approach.

  “Ah, thank God! I thought I was going to have to wait all day. Could you tell Don Severino that my father wants a measure of wine?”

  I nodded and stood there for a second, wanting to talk to her but not quite daring. The sun was setting and the evening was taking the worst out of the heat. No wonder she was reluctant to enter the tavern—women don’t do these things in the village and all the grandmothers had brought a chair out to their doorways, the better to chat and spy on the neighbors.

  The beads tinkled behind me, enclosing me in the male enclave of the tavern.

  “Pedro’s daughter, Rosita, wants some wine,” I informed Severino.

  The men smiled into their glasses. They had seen us dancing. I could pretend all I wanted, but they knew Rosita wasn’t just a casual acquaintance.

  “What do you want?” I heard Severino asking outside.

  Rosita answered in a whisper. Obviously, she knew all eyes were on her. I thought it was indelicate of her father to ask her to fetch him wine in these circumstances. Everyone’s eye was examining her behavior and trying to find fault. There’s little entertainment in a small village.

  “I’m not sure about this,” Severino said. Through the bead curtains, I saw him looking around at the square. His voice lowered: “I don’t want it said I give women alcohol.”

  “But my father asked me ...” Rosita mumbled. If she didn’t come back home with the wine, the townsfolk would think she’d been asking for it for herself and that Severino, honest man that he was, had refused for her own good. The two of them were making me uncomfortable.

  I could’ve gone out and offered to accompany her home with the wine. Severino wouldn’t have been able to argue with that arrangement, but it would be a public signal of a relationship and possibly humiliate Rosita further.

  “Aw, Severino, give the girl that wine,” said an old man sitting next to me.

  “The comadres are out!” Severino whispered. I felt for him: all those older women, watching to see what he did. Rosita stared at the ground.

  “You afraid of a bunch of old women?” the old man asked.

  That settled it. Severino puffed up his chest and went to fetch the wine. Gallantly, he helped Rosita hoist the amphora on her shoulder and ducked inside the tavern as she headed back home.

  Rosita had chosen a sandy day for our first date. The Sahara dropped its load on us and I stomped my way to the olive tree, burying my face in my arm and trying to see through the dust. The sky was red and it was even hotter than usual. I had an image of myself veering off the road, blinded by the dirt, and falling into the gorge. After that, I dragged my feet and ignored the sand that got under my scales and scraped my skin.

  She was only twenty minutes late. When I first saw her, I feared there had been a death in the family. She was dressed in black, a sinister madonna with a shawl draped around her head. Then I noticed the red chrysanthemum on her lapel and realized she was just wearing her winter coat, which looked black in this red light. If someone had died, color would have been banished from her attire and she wouldn’t have been allowed even that simple flower.

  Rosa nodded to me when she reached me under the tree. Two eyes, black olives, stared up at me through the grit.

  “Did you try my rem
edy?” she asked. She glanced at the little bundle beside her and I understood we couldn’t speak freely. I was surprised that the little girl didn’t complain about going out in the dust. But she took her job seriously, knowing that her sister’s honor depended on her credibility as a witness and on her ability to keep her mouth shut.

  I nodded. My scales had gotten better, although I doubted anything could heal my skin’s thirst for salt water. We stood in silence for a minute, not knowing what to say.

  “Let’s walk,” Rosa suggested.

  We roamed the dry fields with the little girl in tow.

  After half an hour, Rosa asked me to turn back toward the tree. Her sister skipped ahead and Rosa used the opportunity to squeeze my hand through the cloth of her shawl. Then she nodded to me and they left. The little girl bolted home, but Rosita walked sedately and I watched her go, wondering if her hips were swinging more than usual. The road, cliff, and gorge were invisible in the dust and Rosita, in her black clothes, seemed like a wobbling ghost.

  A week later, she was back at Severino’s door, fidgeting. Once Rosita’s father discovered he could send his daughter for wine, he didn’t see any reason to stop doing so.

  This time, however, we were dating publicly, so I hoisted the jar on my own shoulders and walked her back home.

  “Thank Virgencita you were there,” she said. She seemed upset. She’d probably been anticipating another fight with Severino.

  I mumbled something comforting. I had trouble understanding why they made such a fuss about young women and wine. I had a feeling there was a conspiracy to make a girl’s life so difficult that she wouldn’t be tempted to remain a spinster. Judging by the way Rosita clung to my arm, I guessed the message had sunk in.

  “Is it like this in the sea? Do the old women also say mean things about people, about girls?” Like everyone in town, Rosita blamed the old women for gossiping. I felt the widows were only the enforcers of a system that everyone supported.

  “No. Women do pretty much what they want. My mother, for example, is a dictator.”

  “What’s a dictator?”

  “It’s someone who has defeated all her political enemies and rules unchallenged. It’s a very hard position to attain because so many enemies have to be dealt with. Most politicians never aspire to anything higher than a democratically elected position.” I noticed her baffled look. “That means that their enemies agree not to attack them for a certain number of years and in exchange they’ll step down from power after their term is up.”

  Rosita nodded wisely. “The priest said something in school, about how the mer treat women better.”

  I laughed. The priest doubled as a schoolteacher and he was something of a Christian revolutionary.

  Rosita covered her mouth, noticing her slip. I calmed her down and told her she could be a dictator for all I cared. She assured me all she wanted was to dress up in colorful clothes from time to time. And for the old women to stop talking. I left the jar in front of her house and walked away.

  Our courtship lasted a reasonable time, neither more nor less. We were married in spring and we danced to torchlight until dawn.

  “When are we visiting your parents?” Rosita asked.

  I tumbled her back onto the bed. Those days, everything was for fun.

  “My mother would rip my heart out if she ever saw me again.” I answered, truthfully, but with a twinkle in my eye. With Rosita, I could laugh at the saddest things.

  After we’d finished making love, Rosita nestled against me and whispered in my ear: “Won’t she forgive you? After all, you’re married now.”

  I laughed. I knew the answer well, but I found her assumption revealing. In the culture where she’d been raised, the most anyone could aspire to was marriage. Rosita believed my mother would forgive whatever offense I’d committed once I brought home a wife. How could she not want to meet her daughter-in-law? Not to speak of the children we’d surely have. I was married now, and hence a man. Nothing I’d done before was more than a childhood prank.

  I was foolish. I laughed and didn’t explain to her how different my people are. Maybe her culture had finally gotten to me and it didn’t cross my mind to open my heart to my wife. You can’t spend your life in a misogynist society and not have it catch a little.

  Or maybe I simply didn’t want to dwell on what I’d lost, but I thought about you, Mother, and wondered what you would have thought of Rosita.

  Our marriage would not go down in history as the longest, but I doubt there were ever a happier couple of newlyweds. Rosita got pregnant almost immediately and it looked as though the harvest would be good.

  Then, just like that, hail came.

  You, people from the deep, do not understand weather. For you, bad weather is a slight annoyance, a disruptor of parties, a disperser of plankton. You swim deep, where the currents are constant and change is slow. Weather doesn’t threaten your survival. It doesn’t threaten the issue of your womb.

  Mother, these humans live hand-to-mouth. This is how y o u make them live. Losing one crop means hunger. Having a baby at the same time is a disaster. Her parents had four other unmarried daughters to feed: they could not help us out.

  Oddly enough, Rosita didn’t seem too worried. It went beyond the silly happiness of pregnancy. When we finally realized we had nothing, a busy hope overtook her. She put her marriage chest together and repacked her doilies. I asked her what was going on.

  “Your mother will have to take us in now. We’re family and we need help. I’m looking forward to living in the sea.”

  I’m not sure what she expected the sea to be like. I bet all she aspired to was a world in which she could go and buy wine without being stared at. When she saw my face, she laughed. The beauty had been sucked out of her, but the pretty still shone in her dainty bones, clearly visible after the famine.

  “Oh, come on! She won’t let her grandson starve, will she?”

  What was I to do? Tell her that there was no hope? Tell her that my own mother wouldn’t help me, would kill me if I dared wade into the sea?

  I completed my act of treason and told Rosita our secrets. I told her she could be changed to swim free in the sea. I told her she’d feel no more discomfort than I did above land. Our mouths were green from eating grass and the dust had crept into the house while Rosita was weak from hunger and pregnancy. It wasn’t a difficult decision to make. I didn’t, however, tell her all the truth.

  This is the story I want you to tell my child.

  I know you won’t like talking to him about dry land. I know you’ll hate me with each breath that delivers my story, but I also know you’ll say the words with feeling and conviction. You’ll follow my wishes to the letter, Mother, because this is the mer way. Even a traitor has rights and even a traitor’s story deserves to be heard. The condemned man has a right to a last meal; the merman has a right to his last words. I, being both and neither, go to my death on an empty stomach.

  Believe me, Mother, when I say that I don’t do this to punish you. You did what you had to do, just as I did what I was forced to do. You exiled me long ago. The reason has largely become a question of semantics. I’ll make this easier for you and reaffirm my heresy:

  You deny merfolk evolved from humans. I have proved you wrong. Merfolk were artificially geneered from humans to survive the climate cataclysm. The merfolk then devised a way to enhance the climate change, causing the water to rise, not six meters, as had been predicted, but over twenty, hence turning over control of the planet to the new species and killing thousands in the process. It’s not my fault the younger generation of merfolk agrees with me and is willing to make amends with Humanity.

  There. This confession should make things easier for you. The father for the son; that’s the deal. Please forgive me this last cruelty from the grave.

  “What do we do now?” Rosita asks when we reach the beach.

  “We wade into the water,” I tell her. “They’ll come out to meet us.”

&
nbsp; She has no fear of drowning. Truck with merfolk is men’s domain and women don’t go near the sea. I teach her to float and paddle. If you take poorly to her, I want to give her a shot at swimming back to shore.

  She’s so trusting, she learns fast.

  “You go ahead; I want you to be the first one my mother sees. If something happens just swim back. I might disappear suddenly, but don’t worry about me. There are guards at the border and they might take me down for questioning,” I lie.

  I realize I’ve frightened her. “Don’t worry, it’ll only be a few minutes. If anything happens, just paddle back and wait for me on the shore.”

  She nods. For a second, I resent her for trusting me, even though I am the one who is lying to her.

  There she goes. I chirp at her as she swims, engraving our story into her bones. The mer will tear me apart as soon as my scent spreads into the water. My body isn’t a good vehicle for this message, so I’m placing it in Rosita.

  The story of how we met goes into Rosa’s left foot. The story of how I’m leaving her, into her right. I’ve tried to do the tale justice, nipping the bone at a microscopic level. The bones in her toes, in particular, I find endearing, and I pay them special attention, weaving the story into filigrees that I’m certain you’ll appreciate. Think of me when you chirp at my bride and her bones sing back to you.

  So, this is my wife, Mother. Truth be told, I don’t know what I’m doing, sending her to you like this. Is this song in her bones like the sealed letters from the stories, telling you to kill the bearer? I think not. The merfolk have always been exacting, but never cruel. My bride is not what is wrong with her species and you know that genes do not determine behavior. Look at you; look at me. Who would think we were related?