Living Next Door to the God of Love

by Justina Robson

  I was almost ready to call Greg, then I remembered what we were doing here.

  “Nice here,” Damien said.

  “Yeah,” I said. It was, if you weren’t sick.

  Skuld seemed more than tired of it. She flipped up a piece of the roof with her foot, and I climbed down the hatch, followed by Damien. He’d only just cleared the space when the Valkyrie jumped down and the entire line shook with her impact. I realized this was her place.

  It was a very small space for such a big person but she knew it so well she’d developed a small-human way of moving.

  I sat down in the corner of the car where a pile of blankets had been folded and stacked. Damien sat beside me, pixielike, legs crossed and arms around them to minimize himself. There was no heating and I kept my winter clothing on. Valkyrie offered me another ration drink but I couldn’t face it.

  “You okay?” Damien asked me.

  “I can’t stand this waiting and not knowing. I feel awful.”

  “Time for me to go see them now, find out what’s happening then,” he said.

  I lay down and was able to rest and look out towards the sea, where I thought Engine House was. The Valkyrie seemed content not to talk. She cleaned her armour and refuelled her jet packs. I saw Damien walk across the high wire to Aelf 2 and go inside.

  I took Greg’s Abacand out of my glove and opened it up quietly. I didn’t know why he’d given it to me and it had been on my mind all the way here. The machine came on and showed me a letter Greg had left for me. I was glad of it, no matter what it was going to say. Anything not to have to feel my way through how selfish, useless and hurt I was and how terrified that Jalaeka was going to go under and that Greg was going to die.

  Francie—I’ve been working as much as I can on the changes in Anadyr Park. Remember when we first moved in here? We thought it was so fabulous. If it hadn’t been for you, I might never have looked up and seen that ceiling. It was prettier in those days. Now it seems like another world, where everyone was happier. I was jealous when you found Jalaeka. I agreed with Katy, and thought he was just what you didn’t need, but what I’ve got to say now comes out of feelings that are the reverse of that.

  The timing and extremity of the shifts in the Engine activity coincide with two things which were more or less simultaneous: the release of the paper on Metropolis (official story-line) and when Theo found where you were. I think it’s all down to Jalaeka’s reaction to that, although I didn’t believe it to begin with because I discounted him—Stuffies don’t influence the Engine. He wasn’t one though, was he?

  The other night, when Jalaeka and I got talking, I think I understood for the first time what he really means when he says he’s your boyfriend and my friend. He’s your god. We often say things like this in conversation, but because he is what he is it has a different meaning. Jalaeka is bound to carry out your wishes, and mine. He does have a choice about what he does or doesn’t do—I mean, he could refuse point-blank like anyone—but not about what he wants to do. Do you understand the difference? We made him. We are still making him. Us and all the others. Even though he says he chose them. They made him to do that. They made him into Fantasy Friend, who never lets you down. Catch-22.

  Never mind about the underlying Stuff. I can’t begin to guess what it really intended for him and Theo, and I can’t start down that road because it’ll take me off topic. I wanted to say—we’re still doing it. You and me are pushing him to be a certain kind of person and a certain kind of entity. He’s no more free with us than he was the first time out, when Chayne saw him and made him into what she wished existed. It doesn’t matter how selfless the wish seems, he’s stuck with it. He kept trying to explain this to me, I think, but I never got it until now—I was never sentenced to become Unity until now, probably that’s why.

  Freedom never really mattered because I always thought I was free. I was Unevolved and pure line, I was doing what I wanted to do, I got to study and be a big noise in Unity contact and it was all great. Of course none of us are free in the pure sense of the word. We have to deal with each other, negotiate for everything. We do have the power to choose what influences to accept and what to deny.

  Maybe that’s all he did, in choosing us. He’s just more literally altered than we are. But the more I think about it the more I’m sure that it’s more than that. He’s Stuff, and he’s altered Stuff at that. I think we’ve pushed this situation. I think we made him and we made Theo too, and Unity let us run with it, and this is what we came up with.

  But here’s the bottom line—I like him. I don’t want him to be the stooge in some massive war that exists to salve my ego, or yours. I think he should get the chance to be free of our problems, and that means I have to release him from whatever hold I’ve got over him—a weird idea. It hurts to think that it’s possible he was only my friend because I made him so, but there it is. How much more true this must feel for you I can only try to imagine.

  But here’s another thing you have to think about, because I know you think about these issues a great deal. If you were to free him—and I’m certain that his primary control is you—it’s possible that he would stay as he is, but it’s also possible he’d become quite different.

  We are all the result of our history as well as our genetics and memetic lenses. His memes are whatever he has right now, but his history may not be expressed in his current form because he’s bound not to express it. I mean that there are things in his past we don’t or can’t know about which might influence him now if only we weren’t in the way. Judging by what we made him into, and the people we’ve seen through Theo—I believe that history represents a considerable risk. Whatever else he is, he has that world-destroying potential you can’t deny.

  And I’ve been very glad that he loves you, perhaps in a way that ordinary humans frequently fail to do. Love like that is hard to handle, especially on the receiving end. And I know you probably can’t think about maybe having to give it up.

  Think about it very carefully, Francie, if you think you want to let him go. Remember that he is Stuff. If you wish it, he can be free, and if you wish it, then he can remain as he is. I’m just not sure that if he stays tied to us, he will be able to survive Unity, because we never do, but I don’t know. In my final addition tonight, I decided, weakly I suppose, that I didn’t want to be responsible for limiting his chances. So for my part, and if it’s worth anything or makes any difference, I wished him free of me.

  Of course, I can hear you saying—but what if it was us who gave him those chances? Isn’t this just another layer of illusion?

  I have no answer.

  See you soon, I hope. With love, G. x

  Holy shit.

  I closed my eyes and tried to connect with Jalaeka. There was a sickening sensation of falling that made me jerk, then a savage pain in my right shoulder. I felt him turn me away, neatly, and send me back. Not now.

  Then what now? Behind me I could hear the clicking, methodical noises of the Valkyrie’s hard work.

  “Want some music?” she asked me. “One thing those pointy-eared freaks in the Aelf are good for.”

  “Whatever you like,” I said, trying to sound normal. “I’m going to try to get some sleep. I was up late.”

  “I’ll keep it to myself then,” she said.

  The wind buffeted the car and swung and swung us. I closed my eyes again and looked back, into the things about him I’d been avoiding.

  Afternoon in Koker. On one of the long streets that led back to the riverside there was a bar, roofed with trellises of green vine. Jalaeka and Intana sat beneath it. He watched the merciless sunlight cut through the tiny gaps, slicing the shade into hard-edged pieces all over them.

  She leant back in her chair, pushing it onto the back legs as she searched for a servant to call and slumped, with a minimal grace both clumsy and charming at once. She snapped her fingers as soon as a girl with a tray appeared and ordered cold beer for both of them. The girl gawped at them. Th
ey were often mobbed on public appearances. She was clearly thinking about selling her news.

  “It’s a liability coming out with you, the service is always appalling. Tcha-tcha!” Intana clapped both hands smartly and ushered the girl off before turning back and letting the chair legs thump down to the paving. “What’re you looking at?”

  “You.”

  “Well don’t, not like that, it’s inscrutable, not allowed.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “And don’t say that either. It’s like we don’t even know each other.”

  “Sorry, I mean . . . well, sorry.” He smiled, half at her and half with affection for her.

  In the few moments he had taken to absorb all of himself in watching her he had felt a fleeting tremor, like the sensation of absolute safety and warmth that comes with the recollection of a happy childhood memory, the feeling of home.

  “Jalaeka”—she leant forward, thumped both arms down on the table and stared at him with widened eyes—“you’ve got to stop this terrible habit of apologizing. You’re always walking around and acting like everything’s your personal fault. It’s not good. Not at all. Now, drink some beer and be more . . . definite.”

  He nodded and his smile faded, at least inside. He felt chastened, humble and also a fool. He should tell her what was on his mind, wanted her to understand. He wondered how to put it all, and where to begin, thinking maybe there wasn’t so much to say only that it was risky to say it, but just then the girl ran back with the beer and he had to wait until she’d gone. Guests at other tables were looking over at them. Intana waved. They looked away.

  “Tell me,” she said, “before you drive me crazy.”

  He took a drink, rubbed his knee, smiled, stopped, looked down, looked up again, to both sides, back to her. “I feel like I only exist to please and when someone isn’t pleased then it’s my fault. At the same time”—he paused, winced, shrugged—“I feel very distant, as though I’m not there and what happens doesn’t matter because whether I’m there or not doesn’t matter. Does that make any sense to you?”

  “Perfectly.”

  “It’s like I don’t have any feelings—no, that I do, but they can’t make me do things. I don’t do what they tell me to. I can’t. I do what the other person . . . what their feelings tell me to . . .”

  “You have other people’s feelings?” She scowled, raised one brow.

  “Sort of, I don’t know, I suppose so. Perhaps it just seems that way. I think I don’t know whose are whose anymore. D’you feel that way?”

  “All the time.”

  “Like if you knew what you were doing, you’d hate yourself so much you’d have to do something about it, so you deliberately don’t know, then it gets so you don’t know even when you want to?” This was better. He was not such a fool as he had imagined.

  She was nodding, tasting her beer. “Every day.”

  “Just checking.” He could smile again now.

  “You’re so messed up,” she said, shaking her head, “but I like you.”

  He raised his glass to her. “You too.” It was the best thing in the world to be with her then. The relief made him feel bubbled inside, as though joy was rising in tiny spheres through his blood.

  They drank with slow measure until the day cooled, then walked back along the canal towpath where long avenues of trees cast welcome shade. Intana trailed her fingers among the tips of the long grasses that surged up from the bank. Feathery seedpods burst at her touch, scattering puffs of brown into the still air. She pressed her lips together, composing herself.

  “Don’t put up with it.” She caught a stem between her thumb and forefinger and stripped it of unripe seeds so they made a little bouquet between her nails. “Don’t start putting up with it.”

  “With what?”

  She shook her head, flicked green specks away and looked round at him. “I know what happened last night. You and that Orcryan fighter with the knife. Lots more money lets them hurt you, as long as it doesn’t last. Did she arrange it? I mean, did Kya know?”

  “She says not.”

  “She says not? Oh, then she must be right.” They had to go single file and duck beneath a low bridge. At the other side she rounded on him. “I don’t know what you see in her.” Her voice was low and had lost its airiness, become tight-knit. “But you’d better get over it because your mind is going.” She glared at him.

  He glanced away with shame at the greened water.

  She shrugged and shook her head, started to walk again, muttering to herself. He knew he’d let her down.

  He caught her up and tried to take hold of her hand but she snatched it away and folded her arms. “Are you sleeping with her?”

  “What?”

  “You heard.”

  “No!” He took hold of her arm above the elbow and made her stop and face him. Her look was cold. “What makes you say that?” he said.

  “Because of the stupid”—she jerked her arm free—“dopey way you always make excuses for her, the way you look at her, the way you lie about what happened to you as though it was nothing. So why do you make out like it wasn’t down to her? I just want to understand, that’s all. Why? Because it looks strange to me. And don’t”—she let her arms drop, her shoulders fell back, head on one side—“start asking about my problems to change the subject. You’ve never been a fool before, not like me. For you this whipped-cur act is all new.”

  He took a sharp breath, timed for a scathing response, but abruptly had no idea what he was going to say with it. Her accusation rang with justice. In fact it gave words to what he had been unable to say to himself. Hearing them was painful and on his side the cuts muttered to life under their dressing, stinging and pulsing as though they too gasped for air.

  “Because,” he said, trying to position himself to prevent her leaving him, feeling that it was imminent, as though she had already gone and he was cold, “she’s damaged and it’s not her fault she’s like this. And because she has your life in her hands.” He wanted to use the trick of hearing thoughts he’d discovered, to find out what she felt as he said this, to be sure.

  Intana didn’t move, not so much as an eyelash, but the frank expression became cynical on her face. She glanced to heaven, smiled her insincere smile, looked at her feet. She shook her head. A blond curl bobbed at the side of her neck. He was afraid in case she was angry, could not tell what she was feeling and that in itself was strange . . . he could try to guess . . .

  She would not look at him. She gazed past him, squinting.

  “Talk to me,” he said. Suddenly he felt clumsy, didn’t know what to do with his limbs. He moved his weight to one foot, then the other. But he didn’t need to be a mind reader to tell what conclusion she’d come to: she was the hostage—his suffering was her fault.

  “Fuck off, Jay,” she said rapidly and without inflection. In the same movement she turned and started walking again. Her arms were crossed tightly, holding each other as she increased her pace.

  He followed her, exasperated at her wrong logic. “Anna!”

  A flurry of tiny moths rose from the long grass as she walked through it and she brushed them away from her too quickly, breaking some of them in the folds of the long dress where they left little smudges of dark dust. She stopped to flick at them and he caught hold of her hands.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said quickly, head down. “It doesn’t matter, so let’s not talk about it anymore. You think what you want. Why not?” Across the unruffled water a bright red cardinal flew, chattering. They both watched it disappear into the bushes on the far side.

  “I don’t care about her,” he said. The heat bore down on the back of his neck like a physical weight. In his hands hers were lax, pliable. “I’ll do what you said.”

  This time she met his eyes. Her careful face had gone. “You’re going to leave?” she said. She took a deep breath, raised her eyebrows and shrugged all in one movement. “Well . . . I take it back then.” Her voice wa
s unravelling. She bit her lips together and her eyes narrowed with wrinkling like a smile. “Aren’t you just full of surprises?”

  He didn’t know what to say now. Obviously everything he had already said was not what she wanted. He shook his head violently, tipping it back to get the heavy hair away from his face but it clung with perspiration against his neck. Another couple came walking towards them along the tree-lined avenue. They vanished for a moment beneath the dark span of another road bridge and reappeared, holding hands. He reached out for Intana’s hand and began walking also, towards the others.

  Between their palms a small slick of sweat was pooling. Intana was trying to free her hand. Her skin slipped against his but he held on.

  A feeling—love or excitement, like being unbalanced on the edge of a long drop, fear but also anticipation—was making him think of stupid things. He kissed her ear. “Come with me.”

  “Where are we going to go?” Her voice was muffled against his shoulder.

  “I don’t know.” He did pull back now to look at her. One of her brows—the right—was raised as though she would take whatever he said with a pinch of salt. “Away.”

  She shook her head, mouth twisted into a wry shape. “I can’t go,” she said, then her face lost its certitude. It fell piecemeal into a formless uncertainty, lips slack, eyes brightening with a diamond brightness that swelled at the edges, glittered.

  His heart imploded and, in collapsing, left a gap that dragged at his chest and pulled his head down. He kissed her. His lips slid on a soft waxy fat of fuchsia. He felt giddy and aching. Her lips firmed under his. He thought he was going to faint. She moved away then, rather sharply. The glittering was gone. She scrutinized his face and he felt her finger rub with quick, impersonal strokes over his mouth. She wiped the lipstick on the underside of her belt.

  “Why not?”

  “I just can’t. Don’t ask me again.”

  He watched her walk away into the brilliant light.