She pressed her lips together. “Jacob Dawes, this is our first conversation in years and you’re going to insult my intelligence five minutes into it?”
I couldn’t help a sad, half-smile. “OK, you’re right. I’m sorry.” I paused. “There’s nothing I want to talk about.”
She looked at me again as if I was a half-wit. “Obviously,” she drawled.
And then she just sat there, waiting. Finally I couldn’t help a short laugh. She continued to watch, and wait. I wasn’t going to get out of this short of forcibly removing her from my room. And as much as I didn’t want to admit it, there were so many horrible things inside of me that were begging for a release. I hadn’t mentioned Pete even once in a year. I wanted to talk about him so badly it hurt. Just to say his name and have someone else hear it. I sat back down and looked at the tablet in my hands.
“It’s not the same,” I said. She said nothing even though I paused for a long time. I looked up at her and waved the tablet. “Reading like this. Pete collects books.” His name burned my throat. “There’s something about reading that way. It’s a total experience, the feel of the pages, the sounds, and smells, the weight of it in your hand. It’s almost a misnomer to call this reading when compared to that.”
She said nothing, but her face had softened. She was looking at me now, not with impatience, but with sympathy. My eyes were burning and I looked away.
Finally I breathed, “Oh, Kirti. I miss him. I miss him so much sometimes I don’t know if I can stand it any longer.”
“Yes,” she said finally.
I looked at her now, stunned. “Is this what it was like for you?”
She looked thoughtful. “Everyone’s different. It hurt a lot, and for a long time. But, well, I don’t know. Maybe I didn’t have the same burden of guilt. Or maybe it was like something you alluded to, that we were trying to make our relationship something that it wasn’t supposed to be. We were good as friends, even as something of a brother and sister. Maybe it really was just that. I don’t know. It hurt a lot that you chose him and not me. But I don’t think I was ever like this,” she gestured to me. “Not a year later, at any rate.”
I leaned my head back against the chair and closed my eyes. “What am I going to do?”
“Go on.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Only because you’ve decided it is.”
I looked at her and then away again. “You don’t understand.”
“I understand perfectly. You’ve lost what feels like everything. And you’ve convinced yourself it’s all your fault and therefore you have to punish yourself and never let yourself be happy again.”
“It is all my fault.”
“Is that what he would say?”
I froze in shock at the question and the stab of pain in my chest. “That doesn’t matter.” I jerked my hands apart when I realized I was twisting the ring.
“Oh? His opinion doesn’t matter to you? Is that the way it was?”
“No! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to yell. It’s not like that. It’s just that Pete’s too forgiving.”
“Or maybe he’s reasonable and you’re not. He has a reputation of being intelligent and fair. Are all those people wrong and only you are right?”
“You don’t understand.”
“No,” she said, with only a touch of sarcasm. “I’m sure I don’t.”
I gave her an apologetic look. Even though I couldn’t make myself agree with her, I could still hear myself being stupid.
“Have you asked yourself,” she continued after a long silence, “what he would want for you? Would he want you to be miserable like this?”
And that was what did it. I sank down over my knees, buried my face in my hands and sobbed. I cried and cried. At some point I became aware of her on her knees beside me, smoothing back my hair, mumbling quiet, nonsense words of comfort.
I cried until I couldn’t cry anymore. At some point, exhausted from the excess of emotion, I realized Kirti was trying to pull me upright, so I let her. She helped me into my bedroom, out of my clothes, and into bed. Then she sat on the edge of the bed, rubbing my back until I cried myself to sleep.
-
Kirti was the impetus for what changed in my life after that. I made an effort. I didn’t cease to feel numb, hollow, in pain, but I learned to live in spite of it.
Besides Kirti, my work was my other savior. While I’d tried to bury myself in mindless pursuits, deny myself the joy of the science and discovery as I denied myself everything else, I did not succeed. I could not make my brain work differently than it did. So it was not a month after Kirti confronted me that I approached Dr. Bartel with an idea for a new project.
It was obvious that he wanted to reject me on principle, but the scientist in him won out over more petty resentments. I was not only allowed to run my own project but to take Sean as my assistant. In my work I found more peace than anywhere else. It was logical and reasonable, never complicated by emotion or circumstance. It was the antithesis, the antidote even, to the miseries and complexities of human relationships.
And so, having committed myself to science again, I buried myself in my work. Dr. Okoro would join me when he could and I spent a great deal of time with Sean of necessity. I tried to do as Kirti had asked. I tried to “live” rather than merely exist. If it was less than what I’d had before, that was as it should be. I couldn’t, I shouldn’t, have happiness again like I’d had with Pete. I accepted that, and the short straw I’d drawn, and made a new life for myself.
-
One morning, after a raucous night in my room with Kirti and Chuck, I woke to find Kirti in my bed. I searched my memory frantically, trying to remember how it had happened. It was difficult through the haze of the hangover, but I could conjure up some scenes: Chuck leaving, Kirti still there, talking, laughing, moving closer. Was that her sitting on my lap? And even foggier scenes of nudity, my bed, release.
I was in a panic. One of the very few good things I’d salvaged from the wreck of my life was my relationship with Kirti. To lose it now would be too much to bear. I could only hope she would forgive me; that we could move past this. As I lay there, frozen in horror and indecision, she woke. She smiled at me, wincing, no doubt from a hangover of her own, then leaned over and kissed me. She grinned impishly, retrieved her clothes, and left the room with one last mischievous smile in my direction.
I was completely and totally baffled. I went to breakfast without the slightest idea of what to expect from the day and my future with her. When she sat beside me, grimacing a bit from the noise and an obvious headache, she gave me a sympathetic look. So I tried a smile and she returned to nursing her coffee. But other than those acknowledgements of a shared hangover, she never spoke of or even alluded to the events of the night before. I was more than happy to pretend that it hadn’t happened.
But a month or so later, I woke beside her again, this time in her room. There had been alcohol involved that night as well, but not as much as before.
The third time it almost happened, a few weeks after, there was no alcohol at all.
And it didn’t happen. Not that we didn’t try. I lay there, on my back, staring at the ceiling.
“It happens to—”
“If you say it happens to everyone,” I said, “I think I’m going to walk out.”
“It’s your room.”
“I know.”
I knew the expression on her face, even without looking. It would have scared me before.
“I don’t care, Jake. Next time, then. It’s no big deal.” She was quiet for a long time. I was about to get up and spare myself the rest of the embarrassing scene.
“Is it because of him?”
“No.” The response was so automatic it startled me.
“Because that would be OK. I’d understand. Anyone would.”
‘That’s not it.”
“OK.” She didn’t need to tell me she didn’t believe me. It permeated her tone. I came
up on my elbow.
“Whatever it is, no matter what, it’s not him. OK? It’s not him. Never him.”
She nodded once and closed her eyes.
“You tired?” she said.
“No,” I whispered as I lay down beside her again.
She made a soft sound of disbelief but was soon breathing the deep, calm cadence of the clean conscience.
I lay awake a long time after that, trying not to think of the last woman I’d been with when I was horribly sober.
-
The next time, when she made a determined effort to seduce me in the wee hours of the morning, not allowing me to go back to my own room, it happened as we both meant for it to. And she smiled at me. Both satisfaction and relief. And I smiled at her too. Relief and some lessening of the fear that bound my gut.
But not all of the fear. Never that.
-
We didn’t speak of what we were doing. Not that we pretended it wasn’t happening, this developing arrangement between us; she simply treated it as if it were something that required no discussion. Everyone breathes, no one pretends otherwise, but who talks about it in depth, or analyzes the whys and wherefores, or plans for the future of the activity? This was something born, not of passion or eternal devotion, but of normal desires, and trust. In the absence of any emotional partnering for either of us, we had this; each other. She knew my heart belonged to another. But he was lost to me. And we were both still young, vital, and human. This was a way to help each other, and ourselves, and avoid all the messy complications of casual affairs in such a closed community. Any confusion or resentments over the nature of our relationship had passed. And this was the reward for that.
It was good being with Kirti. We weren’t a couple in any real sense of the word. I would simply find myself in her bed, or her in mine, every few weeks or so. When it happened, it happened; when it didn’t, it didn’t. And usually, on those mornings, we would enjoy a quiet, companionable breakfast together, talking; being friends.
fg32
It was on one such morning, two full years after my return to the IIC, that I saw it. When I read it in the morning announcements the blood drained from my face; I was cold and ill. I set down the tablet and stared into space, too full of conflicting emotions to name any one or two now. Kirti looked up at me and gasped.
“Jake! What’s wrong?”
I looked down at the tablet, meaning to give her an explanation but no words would come. She picked it up and scanned the page.
“Oh,” she said quietly. “Did you think he wouldn’t come? He said last time that he would.”
I shook my head. “I…I don’t know. I guess so. I…It’s a year overdue, I thought maybe he’d decided…” I put my face in my hands. “I was trying not to think about it at all.” I tried to smile but from her grimace, I guessed I hadn’t succeeded.
“I’m so sorry, Jake. You know, you probably don’t have to participate in the ceremonies if you don’t want to. I’m sure Director Harris will excuse you.”
“Well, he’ll have to do something. Taken literally, the terms of my Resettlement both forbid me leaving and forbid me to be here when Pete comes.” Somehow it was still difficult to say his name. “So my feelings on the matter may be the least of my worries.”
She looked concerned now. “Surely someone would have thought of that and made some arrangements.”
“No doubt,” I agreed. “They’re nothing if not thorough at the palace.” I stood and kissed her forehead. “I’m going to talk to Director Harris. I’m sure he’s got all the answers.”
I entered the lobby outside the director’s office full of foreboding. No matter what he said now, this was going to be very bad in one way or the other. The functionary, Jason, told me to go right in, that the director was expecting me. I knocked and entered the office.
He looked up at me from his seat at the desk and smiled, “Jacob, thank you for coming. You saved me the trouble of sending for you. I told Jason that you’d probably be here this morning. I owe you an apology.” He stood and approached me. “I intended to tell you of the emperor’s visit myself, but Mr. Gorkachev put it in the announcements sooner than I expected. I’m sorry you had to find out that way.”
Here in this room, so layered with memories of antagonistic encounters with Director Kagawa, Director Harris’s perpetual kindness was always shocking, no matter how much I should have expected it. “You don’t owe me an apology, sir.”
“Nevertheless, I do feel badly that I didn’t make the time to tell you myself. I suppose you’re here now to find out what accommodations have been made for you?” He returned to the desk and picked up a tablet.
“Yes, sir. I imagine I’ve been instructed to leave campus for the day?”
He grimaced, re-taking his seat behind the desk.
“No,” he said, examining the tablet. “No, in fact, this specifies that there is no waiver of that restriction and reiterates the penalty for violation.”
“Oh,” I said. I wasn’t surprised. What I’d said had been purely wishful thinking. Of course I wouldn’t be allowed to leave.
“I’ll just read the relevant portion of this,” he continued. “With regard to Jacob Dawes, currently Resettled at your facility, the following provisions have been made:
“Mr. Dawes is permitted to participate in the ceremonies as any other resident of the facility. He is, under no circumstances, to attempt to draw attention to himself in any way either verbally, physically, or by any specific action on his own part or conducted for him by another person. He must not come within fifty feet of Emperor Rikhart IV at any time unless His Excellence puts himself in such proximity to Mr. Dawes and an attempt on Mr. Dawes’s part to maintain the acceptable distance would draw attention to himself.
“No exception has been made to any other terms of Mr. Dawes’s Resettlement. Restrictions on contacting or communicating with His Excellence in any manner remain in place. The planned visit of Emperor Rikhart IV in no way lifts the requirement that Mr. Dawes remain, for the rest of his natural life, on the campus of the Imperial Intellectual Complex.
“Any infractions on Mr. Dawes’s part will result in immediate removal from the facility and reinstatement of the original sentence of death by beheading.”
He looked up at me, seeming embarrassed, or expecting I felt that way. “It gives a contact at the palace for any questions we have about any of the arrangements. If you have any questions or concerns, I will most certainly take them up for you. I know this will be unpleasant for you, Jacob. We’ll just do our best to make it no more unpleasant than necessary.”
I nodded, too conflicted to know what to say. On the one had there was relief, even a surge of excitement in knowing that Pete was coming and that I would see him, hear him. But at the same time, my stomach was in knots that multiplied with each restriction placed on me.
It wasn’t embarrassment, as Director Harris seemed to expect. No, it was anger at the insult of being more than marginalized, of being made to disappear. They were making me a nameless, faceless part of the crowd that would watch Pete come and would watch him go as any of hundreds of crowds had and hundreds more would. He’d be right there but every attempt was being made to make it so that I wasn’t. Not physically, no that was the insult in it. I would be required to be there physically. I’d simply be disregarded, of no consequence, immaterial.
“Jacob,” he continued tentatively, as if reluctant to pull me from my thoughts, “it has occurred to me that there was no specific requirement for you to be in the group, simply that you’re permitted to be, and you mustn’t distinguish yourself from the crowd in any way. You could hardly be accused of doing that if you didn’t join the group at all. If you were to keep to your room or a lab for the day, you could avoid the whole matter without having to leave the grounds.”
I watched his expressive, kind face for a long moment. I wasn’t considering his offer at all. It was impossible to think that Pete would be here, with the restrict
ion of being near him lifted, and that I would avoid seeing him. If the price of that was that I had to accept the humiliating position of being made invisible, so be it. To see him in person, to hear his voice, to watch him for hours, the play of his expressions, his quirks of movement and habit…even the thought filled me with helpless longing. No, I wouldn’t stay away.
I delayed answering the director because I knew that the decision I’d already made was the wrong one; that I should decide to hide away because it was safer for both of us. But I couldn’t bring myself to even consider doing what I knew was the right thing to do.
“Thank you, sir. I appreciate the offer, but I don’t think that’s necessary. You’re right, this will be uncomfortable, but I’ll be fine.”
He nodded soberly. “I understand. It’s up to you, of course. I want to help in any way I can. You just let me know what you need and we’ll work this out, OK?”
I couldn’t begin to express my gratitude to this man. How could I ever say how much his empathy meant to me in that moment? “Thank you, sir. Truly, thank you for everything.” I reached out and shook his hand and I think, from my manner and my expression, the pressure of my hand on his, I think he heard what I couldn’t say. He smiled and squeezed my hand before letting go.
“Anytime, Jacob. Anytime.”
I left the room calmer than I had entered it and didn’t even stop myself when I realized I was rubbing the ring again. There was still a horrible jumble of emotions knotting up my gut, but I felt stronger and the stirrings of hope that this was, in fact, not going to be the death of me in one way or another.
-
I was on my way to the lab when a servant passing in the hall informed me of a mandatory meeting of the entire physics department that had started ten minutes earlier. I hadn’t read past the first announcement in the morning bulletin and had missed the part about the meeting. I hurried to the main physics hall. Unfortunately the doors into the room were opposite where Dr. Bartel stood addressing the assembled scientists. When I entered, he turned and waited, watching me as I found a seat. Sean had saved one for me and I slid into it.
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