Spice Pogrom

by Connie Willis

  He rubbed his hand across his forehead. He did look tired. Chris remembered what she had felt like when she came up on the shuttle. Everyone had kept telling her how lucky she was not to be nauseated, but she hadn’t felt lucky. She’d felt bone-tired, so weary she had burst into tears at the thought of getting through customs, even in the zero gravity of Sony’s axis.

  “As a matter of fact, I still feel like hell,” he said.

  “It’s shuttle-lag,” Chris said. “Aspirin helps. And vitamin A.” She didn’t say he should be glad he wasn’t the kind to get nauseated. “And you should get some sleep.”

  “Sleep,” he said, leaning against the piano. “You wouldn’t know of any good hotels, would you?”

  She shook her head. “There’s only one hotel on Sony, and it’s full of Eahrohhs. So’s everything else. There are over four hundred of them, you know.”

  “Four hundred,” he said, looking at Ohghhifoehnnahigrheeh, who had gotten the handlebars and the front wheel turned around so the bike wouldn’t budge. Hutchins helped him straighten it out. “Where are they putting them all?”

  “All over. The officials, the headmen or chiefs or whatever you call them, and all the translators are staying at NASA. They’re negotiating a treaty. They’re going to give us a space program.”

  “Are they?” Hutchins said with an odd note in his voice. “What about the rest of them?”

  “They put them anyplace there was room. Vacant apartments, extra rooms. It wasn’t so bad when it was just the aliens, but now that all these sightseers have come up…”

  “They’re living on the stairs,” Hutchins said. “What about that? Do you think your landlord would rent me a step or two?”

  She bit her lip. “No. He lets as many extra people sleep on the stairs at night as the fire regulations will permit—he sells them ‘overnight leases’—but he’d already sold out by nine this morning.”

  Mr. Ohghhifoehnnahigrheeh had gotten the handlebars of the bike wedged in the screen of his bedroom door and was struggling with it. “Want Hutchins stay,” he said.

  If she threw Hutchins out and then Mr. Ohghhi… he got angry or refused to cooperate, Stewart would be furious. He had told her explicitly to do whatever he wanted, and what he wanted was for Mr. Hutchins to stay. While she was on the phone, she had decided to insist that Stewart come home with her after lunch and talk to him about all these things he was buying. She could ask Stewart what to do then, and he could find Mr. Hutchins an apartment.

  “All right,” she said. Ohghhifoehnnahigrheeh got the handlebars unstuck and disappeared into his room with the bicycle.

  “All right, what?” Hutchins said.

  “You can stay here tonight and look for a room tomorrow.”

  “I love you,” he said.

  “Mr. Nagisha said you’re violating your lease by taking my curling iron away from me,” Bets said.

  “It’s in the living room. On the couch. But if I catch you with it in the bathroom one more time, I’m flushing it down the o-benjo,” Chris said. Bets flounced off, stamping her feet so the ruffles on her petticoat showed.

  “I’m only letting you stay because Mr. Ohghhi… he wants you to, and I don’t want to upset him. Negotiations are at a very delicate stage. Tomorrow when I have lunch with my fiancé, I’ll ask him about it, but I’m sure he’ll want you to find another place to stay.”

  “Do you have any vitamin A?” Hutchins said.

  “In the bathroom.” Chris pointed at the door. It was shut. “Bets, you come out of there. You are not allowed to have electrical appliances in there.”

  Bets slid the door open. “I was brushing my teeth,” she said indignantly, holding up a pink toothbrush shaped like a bunny.

  “I’ll bet.” She got Hutchins aspirin and vitamin-A packets and herded Bets out of her apartment. “I’ll get you a bathroom schedule and the apartment rules,” she said.

  Mr. Nagisha’s cousins were squatting around a hibachi in the middle of the landing, cooking something vile smelling. Chris stepped over them and started down the steps. She wondered how Mr. Nagisha would take the news that Mr. Ohghhi .… her alien had sublet half of his room to Mr. Hutchins. Probably not very well, unless he could think of a way to make money off the deal. Mr. Nagisha had welcomed him with open arms since NASA had agreed to pay the equivalent of a six months’ lease.

  Even at that, he had insisted on rent based on changing property values, which were soaring with the sudden influx of people. He was going to make a killing.

  Molly was sitting on the steps above the landing reading Variety. “Have you seen Mr. Nagisha?” Chris said.

  “My mother’th talking to him about how you took the curling iron away from Berth. She thayth…”

  “Are they in the apartment? I need a copy of the bathroom schedule.” She pushed down past their trunks and almost stepped on the old man who had just moved in. He had a baseball cap that read “Blue Harvest” pulled down over his eyes and was snoring loudly. She took hold of the banister to make the last jump over Mr. Nagisha’s file drawers and lap terminal and knocked on his apartment door.

  Mr. Nagisha had rented his own apartment out to as many people as it would hold and taken up residence on the bottom steps, but he wasn’t in the apartment, even though half of Sony’s population appeared to be. He’d better not say anything to me about my alien subletting half of his room, Chris thought. She went back out to Mr. Nagisha’s terminal, entered Mr. Hutchins’s name under Ohghhifoehnnahigrheeh and asked for a revised schedule.

  “ ’Scuse me,” Charmaine said, putting down one high-heeled shoe next to the printer. “I gotta leave for work. My shift doesn’t start till nineteen, but I gotta walk on account of my makeup gets smeared on the bullet.”

  “I can imagine,” Chris said. She tore off the printout and stood up. Charmaine was wearing a pink smock that stood out stiffly from her body and made her look much younger than she had in the hall. She had her hair done in an elaborate topknot. “You’d better take an umbrella. It might rain.”

  “I thought on the L-5’s it was only supposed to rain at night after everybody’d gone to bed.”

  “It is, but the sprinklers are set to come on when a given area gets overheated, and with all these people, they’ve been coming on at funny times. Mr. Ohghhi…,” she said, and glanced guiltily at her hand as if Hutchins were watching her, “foehnnahigrheeh and I got caught in the ginza yesterday.” He hadn’t been the least bit dismayed. He had gone into the nearest department store and bought five dozen oiled-paper umbrellas. “Why don’t you ask Mr. .… my alien to loan you an umbrella? He’s got more than enough.”

  “Gee, thanks,” Charmaine said, and started up the stairs.

  “He doesn’t speak English very well. Just say ‘umbrella’ and act it out.” She went through the motions of opening an umbrella and holding it above her head. “Better yet, ask Mr. Hutchins to ask him. He doesn’t seem to have any trouble communicating with him.”

  “I bet he wouldn’t have trouble communicating with anybody,” Charmaine said, and clattered on up the stairs in her spike heels.

  Chris printed out copies of the bathroom schedules and the apartment rules, tore them off, and started back up the stairs.

  “He loaned me a red one to go with my fans,” Charmaine said, twirling it as she came down the stairs. “I love it. I might use it in my single. Can I ask you something about this guy Hutchins? Is he your boyfriend?”

  “No,” Chris said. “I’m engaged.”

  “I knew it,” Charmaine said. “The cute ones are always already taken. Even when the ratio of guys to women is as good as it is right now on Sony. Especially the tall cute ones.”

  “I’m not engaged to Mr. Hutchins. I don’t even know him. NASA requisitioned half of my apartment for Mr. Ohghhi… my alien, and he sublet half of it to Mr. Hutchins.”

  “Oh,” she said, opening and closing the umbrella.

  “The little kids told me he was moving in with you, so I f
igured he was your boyfriend.”

  “He is not my boyfriend. He is not my anything.”

  “So you wouldn’t be mad if I put the moves on him, then? I mean, I’m here to try to find a husband, but I wouldn’t want to steal your boyfriend or anything.” She snapped the umbrella open and put it over her shoulder. “Is he a lawyer?”

  “I don’t know,” Chris said, and frowned. Come to think of it, he hadn’t said a word about what he did for a living or why he was on Sony.

  “I hope not. They always try to make marriage into a real-estate deal or something.” She sighed. “My old boyfriend down on earth was a lawyer, and gee, you woulda thought I was a condo or something. Well, I gotta go. See you at the show.” She flounced out, twirling the umbrella.

  Chris started back up the stairs, maneuvering between rolled-up bedding and a stack of dishes from the deli next door. The old man was sitting up, watching Charmaine’s exit with a dazed expression. Mr. Nagisha’s cousins were watching, too, and eating fried fish. Molly and Bets were leaning over the landing railing, their chins resting on their arms.

  “I told you thyee was a thlut,” Molly said. “Did you thee those fanth on her ath?”

  “At least she’s really in show business,” Chris said. “Unlike some people I could name.”

  She went back into the apartment. Hutchins was in the hall, leaning against the door of her room with the aspirin packet still in his hand as if he were too tired to take it.

  “Mr. Hutchins,” she said, “I’m afraid this isn’t going to work. I know Mr. Ohghhi… he told you you could stay, but…”

  “But you’ve been talking to Hedda and Louella, and they’ve been busily spreading the news that you have a live-in lover. Are you sure they’re not forty-year-old circus midgets?”

  “No,” Chris said, feeling sorry for him all over again. He had leaned his head against the wall as if it hurt, and even though he was smiling at her, it looked like it took an effort.

  “Am I supposed to ache all over?”

  “Yes. Did you take the vitamin A?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” She handed him the printouts. “These are the bathroom schedules. Everyone gets an initial two minutes in the morning using this schedule, which begins at five o’clock. At six-fifteen the second rotation begins, which allows you an additional five minutes. If you miss your turn, you automatically go to the end of the schedule. There’s soap, and water for brushing your teeth in the bathroom. You get your shower water from the tank in the basement. You’re allowed sixteen ounces.”

  “No electrical appliances in the bathroom,” he said wearily.

  “The apartment rules are on the other sheet. You’ll feel better as soon as the aspirin starts working. I’ll make you a cup of tea and you can lie down.” She started past him into the living room, but he put his arm up with surprising speed.

  “It’s a great idea, but it won’t work,” he said.

  “Why not? Did Mr. Ohghhi… my alien buy another piano while I was downstairs?”

  “Worse,” he said. “He wants us all to go out on the town. ‘I want to drink sake and see a sutorippu,’ was the way he put it.” He handed Chris a card that said, “Luigi’s Tempura Pizzeria and Sutorippu. Topless. Bottomless. Continuous shows.”

  She looked at him suspiciously. “Are you sure you’re not the one who wants to see the sutorippu’?” she said. “Mr. Ohghhifoehnn…” She stopped and read from her hand, determined not to let him intimidate her.

  “… ahigrheeh doesn’t know enough English to say a sentence that long.”

  “How do you know?” he said. “You’re so busy worrying about how to pronounce his name that you don’t even listen to him.”

  “Well, you definitely shouldn’t go,” she said to change the subject. “This Luigi’s place is down in Shitamachi, on the equator. You’re shuttlelagged enough as it is. The last thing you need is full gravity.”

  “I’m doing okay. Your vitamin A must be working. And anyway, we don’t have any choice in the matter. Your boyfriend said we had to do whatever Okee wanted, and what he wants is to watch a strip show.”

  Ohghhifoehnnahigrheeh slid open the door to his room. He had combed down his wispy hair and put a pink tie on over his long orange coat. “Topless,” he said happily. “Bottomless. Continuous shows.”

  They took the bullet. It was jammed. Chris spent the trip wedged between a large bearded man and a middle-aged woman who looked like she was the kind who did get nauseated on the shuttle. Ohghhifoehnnahigrheeh had bought a large paper kite on the platform when Chris wasn’t looking, and he and Hutchins were holding it above their heads so it wouldn’t get crushed.

  The bullet got progressively more crowded as they got closer to the ginza and Shitamachi. In the crush to get off at their stop, Ohghhifoehnnahigrheeh’s kite got torn and Chris lost her shoe. Hutchins dived into the tangle of legs as the doors were closing and rescued it.

  “Thank you, Mr. Hutchins,” Chris said, leaning against a pillar to put it back on.

  “Now you’re mispronouncing my name,” he said, with a grin that looked like he was feeling better. “It’s Pete.”

  Luigi’s Tempura Pizzeria was about the size of Chris’s hall, if you took out the piano, only with such low ceilings that Hutchins had to duck. It was nearly as crowded as the bullet had been. There was no sign of a stage that Chris could see, and the tables were too small to dance on.

  The waiter led them through the mob to a tiny table, pulled it out from the wall so Chris could sit down, and then shoved it back in place, pinning her firmly between Hutchins and Ohghhifoehnnahigrheeh. The waiter handed them menus that were bigger than the table and then stood there, holding a hand terminal and a stylus and looking impatient.

  “In the tempura pizza, is it just the tomato sauce that’s deep-fried in batter?” Hutchins asked. “Or do you dip in the whole pizza?”

  “Have eat?” Chris asked Ohghhifoehnnahigrheeh, pointing to the pictures on the menu. “Fish? Rice?” Ohghhifoehnnahigrheeh smiled blankly at her and nodded. “Eat?” She picked up a pair of chopsticks and pantomimed eating. “Have eat?”

  “What are you going to have, Okee?” Hutchins interrupted. “The sashimi lasagna looks good. I don’t know about the linguini with eel sauce.”

  “Why do you talk to him like that?” Chris whispered. “You know Mr. Ohghhi…”—she consulted her hand,—“foehnnahigrheeh only speaks a few words of English.”

  Hutchins took hold of her hand and looked at the palm. “Why do you have his name written on your hand?” he whispered back.

  She tried to pull her hand away. “Stewart says the Eahrohhs are very sensitive about how their names are pronounced.”

  “Is Stewart the guy on the phone, the one you’re engaged to?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he tell you to talk to Okee like he’s deaf and feebleminded, too? ‘Have eat? Fish? Rice?’ ”

  “Mr. Ohghhi…” She tried to look at her hand, but Hutchins folded it firmly shut.

  “Okee speaks better English than Charmaine. He’s only talking that ridiculous pidgin to you because you’ve got him intimidated with all this correct pronunciation stuff. He’s afraid if he talks to you, he’ll mispronounce something, so he doesn’t say anything. If you’d quit worrying about how to pronounce his name, and just talk to him…”

  “Your order, sigñor?” the waiter said. “Go ahead,” Hutchins said. “Ask him what he’d like to have for dinner.” His hand was still firmly closed over hers. The waiter tapped the stylus on his hand terminal. “Mr Ohghhi…,” she said.

  “Okeefenokee,” Hutchins said. “Like the swamp.” “Okeefenokee,” she said timidly, “what would you like to have for dinner?”

  Mr. Ohghhifoehnnahigrheeh’s smile straightened out into an expression Chris hadn’t seen before. His cheek knobs seemed to grow more orange, and two lines formed above his nose. “I’ll have the sushi and spaghetti,” he said. “And you do have any sake? Majori? Good. I�
�d like a bottle. And three cups.” Chris stared at him.

  “And you, sigñorina?” the waiter said.

  “She’ll have the sushi and spaghetti,” Hutchins said.

  “ ’Scuse me,” Charmaine said, brushing past the waiter. She was wearing another hapi coat, made of a glittery fabric you could see through. “They told me you guys were here,” she said, “and I would’ve come right over only on the way down here some guy pinched me. I had to do one of my fans all over again.”

  “We’ll all have the sushi and spaghetti,” Hutchins said, “and bring another sake cup.”

  “Oh, gee, no, not for me,” she said, bending over the table to talk to Hutchins. “I’m on at nineteen o’clock. Right after Omiko and Her Orbiting Colonies.” She leaned over farther.

  “Great,” Hutchins said.

  “Would you like to sit down?” Chris said.

  “I can’t. On account of my fans.” She looked around the room. “This is a great place to work. Three guys have proposed to me already.”

  “Charmaine came up here to find a husband,” Chris told Hutchins.

  “Yeah,” Charmaine said. She leaned over Hutchins. “I wanted to go someplace romantic, someplace where guys wouldn’t treat me like I was a piece of real estate. I guess you think that’s kind of a crazy reason, huh? But I’ve met some people whose reasons are even crazier. Did you know that sweet old guy who lives above me on the steps came up because he’d always wanted to meet an alien? And this weird guy I met tonight told me he came up because he figures these arrows guys are going to kill us all, and he wants to get it over with. No offense, Mr. Fenokee,” she said, turning to lean over Okee. His face twisted up in an unfathomable expression.