Spice Pogrom

by Connie Willis

  He was looking at her with that thoughtful expression he had had the night before. She could hear his heart beating in her pinioned arms. “Because he asked for a room with high ceilings. Do you know what else the word for ‘high’ means in Japanese? It means losing your temper, howling, roaring, growing older, and excelling. Take your pick. I don’t know what he wants with that room, and neither does that team of Japanese linguists, but it has something to do with the negotiations that are so delicate right now, and with the space program they’re negotiating for. If it’s a space program. The word for ‘space’ also means harmony, leisure, room, or eye. The Eahrohhs could be offering us a new kind of glasses or some time off or a way to beat the house on Vegas Two.” He stopped and looked across at her. “Chris…,” he said.

  He’s going to hear what I’m thinking, she thought, and took a frightened step back.

  “Quit shoving,” the lady with the shopping bag said.

  “You heard her,” Hutchins said, grinning. He pulled her back against him. “Quit shoving.”

  “I’m letting you stay,” she said, keeping her head averted, “but it’s only because of Mr. Okeefenokee. You said you’d asked Charmaine if you could bunk with her. I think maybe that would be a good idea.”

  (I don’t want to sleep with Charmaine,) Hutchins said in her ear. (I want to sleep with you.)

  She was so surprised she lifted her head, but he wasn’t looking at her. He was watching the station markers through the bullet doors.

  Did you know you subvocalize when you’re upset? she thought, feeling oddly pleased.

  “What?” Hutchins said.

  “Get out of the way,” the lady with the shopping bag said. “This is my stop.”

  “I said, this is the stop for Mitsukoshi’s,” Chris said.

  Charmaine was still at the makeup counter. “What do you think of this?” she said, holding up a bright-pink” lipstick. “It’s called Passion Pink. I’m working up a new single called ‘Cherry Blossom Time.’ ”

  “Where’s Mr. Okeefenokee?” Chris said. “Up in Furniture,” she said, trying out the pink lipstick on a space above the bodice of her strapless dress. “He said he wanted to buy a bed.”

  “I’d better go get him,” Hutchins said. “I’ll come with you,” Chris said. “Can I have my shoes back first?” Charmaine said. She reached into a shopping bag and pulled out a box. “Mr. Fenokee bought you a new pair.”

  “I’ll catch up with you,” Chris said, and leaned against the makeup counter to take off the red heels. “Thanks for loaning them to me,” she said, handing them back to Charmaine by the straps.

  “I didn’t have any choice in the matter,” she said, pushing out her chest and looking at it in the mirror. “Hutchins practically knocked me over getting them off. I thought you said you didn’t like him.”

  “I didn’t,” Chris said. “I mean, I don’t. I mean, I’m engaged to Stewart and…” She hastily opened the shoe box. “Oh, good,” she said brightly. “They’re flats. I don’t know how you wear such high heels.”

  “I was trying on green eye makeup, you know, for my fans, and I asked Hutchins what he thought of Jade Royal.” She pulled the bodice of her dress down farther and drew a wide line of rose-colored lipstick on the exposed area. “And he said it was fine, but I could tell he wasn’t really listening because he had this kind of faraway look on his face, and I mean, gee, most guys want to help me put the makeup on, and then all of a sudden he says, ‘What size shoes do you wear? Give me your shoes. Chris needs them,’ and takes off.”

  She pulled the bodice down still farther and tried a bright-coral lipstick. Chris wondered how far down the greens had gotten. “And I turned to Mr. Fenokee and said, ‘How does he know Chris needs my shoes?’ and you know what he said?”

  Chris ducked her head so Charmaine couldn’t see her face and put on her new shoes. “Maybe I’d better go see where Mr. Okeefenokee is,” she said. “He’s probably buying a dining-room set.”

  “He said you and Hutchins are getting married today and asked me what kinds of things people needed for a honeymoon,” Charmaine said. “Only he pronounced it ‘hahnahmoon.’ ”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “Gee, you know, just the basics. Champagne and a black lace nightie and a bed. And diamonds. I figured diamonds are a girl’s best friend.”

  “A bed?” Chris said. “Oh, no, I told him there wasn’t any space in my apartment. I’ve got to go stop him.”

  She left as abruptly as Hutchins apparently had and took the escalator up to Furniture. Halfway up, she met Hutchins and Mr. Okeefenokee on their way down. “Did he buy anything?” she shouted after them.

  (No,) Hutchins said in her ear. (I caught him just in time. He was looking at a washer and dryer. Meet us at the foot of the escalator.)

  Chris ran the rest of the way up to Furniture, wondering if she should check with the clerk to see whether Mr. Okeefenokee had bought a bed that Hutchins didn’t know about.

  (I’m going to have you take Okee home, if that’s all right,) Hutchins said, sounding as if he were on the step above her. (I’m already late to my interview. It’s already sixteen o’clock. Why don’t you and Okee just stay here and shop and then meet me at Luigi’s for dinner? That way you won’t have to go home.)

  (I don’t think that’s a good idea,) Chris said. (Mr. Okeefenokee could buy the whole store by supper-time.)

  There wasn’t any answer, and when Chris arrived at the bottom of the escalator, Hutchins was already gone. Mr. Okeefenokee was at the lingerie counter being handed a large white box. He stuffed it in a bulging shopping bag. Chris took him back over to the makeup counter. “I’m taking Mr. Okeefenokee home before he buys anything else,” Chris told Charmaine. “He has no business being in a place like this.”

  “Gee, I know,” Charmaine said, wiping lipstick off her bosom. “I told Hutchins you’d said he wasn’t supposed to go shopping, but he said you wouldn’t care if he bought a few souvenirs.”

  “He said what?” Chris said.

  “I need twenty of the Prom Night Pink and fifteen of the Tokyo Rose,” Charmaine said to the salesgirl. “Gee, you wouldn’t believe how much makeup a person goes through. We ran into him up on the axis this morning, and—”

  “What were you doing up on the axis?”

  “Mr. Fenokee wanted to go see some of the other arrows guys, I guess he was homesick or something, and you said to let him do anything he wanted as long as it wasn’t shopping, and so I took him up there and we ran into Hutchins.”

  “What was he doing on the axis?”

  “I don’t know. He was coming out of the NASA building. So anyway he suggested we all go shopping and…”

  “When was this?”

  “Gee, I don’t know. Around twelve.” She turned back to the salesgirl. “I hope this pink is right. You know how lipstick always looks a different color when you try it on your hand than on your lips? Well, I have the same problem with my fans.”

  “Charmaine,” Chris said carefully, “do you happen to know of any job openings at Luigi’s?”

  “Gee, no. That old guy who lives on the stairs asked me that this morning, and I had to tell him Luigi isn’t even taking applications, he’s had so many people come in.

  “Can you bring Okee home?” Chris said rapidly. “I’ve got to…” She couldn’t even think of what excuse to give her. “I have to go,” she repeated lamely! I have to follow Hutchins and see why he’s been lying to me, she thought, and was infinitely glad Charmaine wasn’t wearing a subvocalizer.

  “Sure,” Charmaine said, and asked to see the eyeliners.

  Chris had no idea where Hutchins was going except that it wasn’t Luigi’s and that he would probably have to take the bullet to get there. If he had to wait for the bullet, she might have a chance of catching up with him and following him. She took off her subvocalizer and put her hand up to her ear, trying to hear any stray thought he might have about where he was going.

 
Maybe she should use the subvocalizer and just ask him, she thought. She could make up some excuse about needing to go with him to Luigi’s. And he would make up an excuse about why she couldn’t, the way he had made up the interview with Luigi. Anyway, it was too risky. She might pause, the way she had with Charmaine, unable to think of an excuse, and the truth would come tumbling out because she was upset. She might say, “I need to go with you because that’s not where you’re going and what were you doing up at the axis this morning and why did you lie to me?” She stuck the subvocalizer in her pocket.

  He was still on the bullet platform, though just barely. He was getting on the bullet, and she saw with a sinking feeling that it wasn’t the one for Shitamachi. She got on at the farthest door down from him, glad she was wearing flats. She huddled down behind a young woman with a headdress like the one Charmaine wore and watched him through the red-and-black-lacquered chopsticks until he got off.

  He looked worried and almost as tired as he had the night before, and she would have felt sorry for him all over again, but his shirt collar was open, and she could see that he wasn’t wearing his subvocalizer either.

  The young woman got off when he did, and Chris followed her onto the platform and then ducked behind a pillar. She didn’t need to see him to know where he was going. This was her stop. Maybe he’s still shuttle-lagged, she thought, and he didn’t get enough sleep last night with Okee snoring and Molly and Bets and everything, and he’s come home to take a nap. But if that was true, why had he taken his subvocalizer off? And why had he lied about the job interview?

  She gave him a ten-minute head start and then followed him into her apartment building. She opened the door quietly, afraid that Molly and Bets might have waylaid him with the Sugarplum Fairy, but he was nowhere to be seen, and the little girls were sitting halfway up the stairs talking to a redheaded man with a chip recorder.

  They had changed out of their tutus and into navy-sailor dresses and white patent-leather shoes. “I’ve been in show biz since I was two,” Bets was saying in her clear childish voice. “I’m four and a half now.”

  The old man in the baseball cap had fallen asleep playing solitaire. The cards were still on the step above him, and the young woman with the chopsticks in her hair was leaning over, picking them up. When she leaned over, she looked a lot like Charmaine.

  “Hi,” she said. She put the cards in a neat stack and laid them next to the old man. “I’m Omiko. I just moved in with Charmaine, and I was wondering if I could use your bathroom.”

  Chris glanced warily up at the door. “We blew a fuse,” she said. “Mr. Hutchins is fixing it, but it’ll probably be an hour. Why don’t you ask Mr. Nagisha if you can use his bathroom?”

  “Would you pleathe be quiet!” Molly said from the landing. “We’re being interviewed.”

  Chris went on up the stairs past Molly and Bets. “I danthed in the road thyow of Annie Two,” Molly said to the redheaded man and then dropped to a stage whisper as Chris went past. “That’th her!”

  “The woman who rents the apartment?” he said.

  “Yes,” Bets said, and whispered something Chris couldn’t hear.

  In the hall Charmaine’s lawyer was standing by his printer, watching it chug out copies of something. “Tell Okee I’ll have these ready for him by tonight.”

  “All right,” Chris said, not really listening to him. She inserted her key in the door, thinking, please let him be taking a nap. But he wasn’t in the hammock or the hall, and the door to the bathroom was open. So was the door to Mr. Okeefenokee’s room. A key was still in the lock. She pulled it out, put it in her pocket, and went in.

  Mr. Okeefenokee had bought a bed. Though he must not have bought it today, Chris thought, because there wouldn’t have been time to deliver it, let alone get it in here and pile all those things on it.

  The bento-bako boxes were stacked on the foot of the bed next to a tangle of paper umbrellas and a set of encyclopedias. The rest of the bed was piled to the ceiling with boxes that appeared to be microwave ovens.

  She came around the end of the bed into a narrow aisle formed by stacks of boxes that went clear to the ceiling. One of the boxes read, “One gross dental floss.” Hutchins’s bicycle was propped against the boxes. Next to it was a baby buggy with a Christmas tree in it. She couldn’t see the piano anywhere, but there were four accordions sitting in the middle of the aisle.

  Against the back wall was a trampoline propped on its side with six pairs of roller skates and a wind sock hanging from it. Hutchins was kneeling in front of the trampoline, digging in a box full of Styrofoam packing. He lifted out a lava lamp and looked at it.

  “How did you get in here?” Chris said.

  He laid the lava lamp back in the box and stood up. “Okee gave me his key,” he said. “I thought you were going shopping.”

  “I thought you had a job interview at Luigi’s,” Chris said steadily.

  “I did, but I called Luigi and told him I’d be a little late. Okee wanted me to check on whether he’d bought a Japanese-English dictionary or not. He couldn’t remember. It’s no wonder with all the junk he’s got in here. At least we know what he wanted the high ceilings for. You don’t see a dictionary anywhere, do you?”

  “There aren’t any job openings at Luigi’s,” Chris said. “Charmaine told me he’s not even taking applications.” He stopped pretending to look for the dictionary. “She also told me she saw you on the axis this morning.”

  “Chris,” he said.

  She backed away from him into the Christmas tree. The balls rattled. “You’re a spy, aren’t you?”

  He looked genuinely astonished. “A spy? Of course I’m not a spy.”

  “Then what are you doing in here? And why did you lie to me about the job interview?”

  “All right,” he said. “I didn’t have a job interview. I went up to NASA to get my subvocalizer checked. I wanted to know what made it tick.”

  “Because you’re a spy,” Chris said, still backing. “I’m calling Stewart.”

  “No!” he said, and then in a calmer and even more unsettling tone, “No. You aren’t calling anybody. As soon as NASA works out a deal with the Japanese, they’re taking Okee down to Houston. I’ve got maybe two days to figure out what he means by ‘space program’ before the NASA people start demanding that he deliver a space program he doesn’t know anything about. I don’t have time to mess with your idiot fiancé.”

  “He’s not an idiot,” Chris said, feeling behind her back for something she could hit him with. Her hand closed on a golf club.

  “Oh, isn’t he? He’s engaged to you, for God’s sake, and he doesn’t even exercise his option. He puts you on hold and goes off and leaves you barefoot in the ginza and lets strange men sleep in your room. If I were engaged to you, I’d… I’m not a spy. I’m a linguist.”

  Chris’s grip tightened on the golf club. “I don’t believe you,” she said. “Stewart said the American linguistics team was at NASA, talking to the Eahrohhs’ leaders.”

  “Okee’s the leader.”

  She let go of the golf club, and the whole bag of clubs went over and spilled out. “But Stewart said he was just a passenger.”

  “The Eahrohhs told the Japanese linguistics team that Okee was noru hito. That means passenger. It also means proclaiming one. That means he’s the one who’s supposed to deliver the space program, only I don’t think he’s got one. Do you remember what you said to Okee when I moved in? You said, ‘There isn’t any space.’ ”

  “Oh, no,” Chris said. “And he only understands one meaning of a word.”

  “The first one he hears. But those idiots over at NASA think that if an alien who has known our language less than two weeks says space program, he has to mean astronauts, rockets, and zero-gravity bathrooms. It never even crosses their minds that ‘space’ also means a vacuum, that ‘program’ also means a series of musical numbers. Okee could be giving us radio, for God’s sake.”

  “What
are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to do what I’ve been doing for the last two days—try to figure out what the hell he means by ‘space program.’ He can’t pronounce ‘honeymoon’ right. What if he can’t pronounce ‘space program’ either? What if he’s offering us a spice program and NASA’s going to find itself with eighty tons of cinnamon? What if it’s a spaze program, whatever the hell that is? Or a space pogrom? We’ve got to find out before he goes down to Houston. That’s why I was in here. I thought maybe he was keeping some machine in here or secret plans or something, but all he’s got is a swing set and a gross of Girl Scout flashlights. I don’t know. Maybe he’s a smug-gler.”

  “What about the subvocalizers?” Chris said. “You said you tried to find out what made them work.”

  “Nothing,” Hutchins said. He pulled his out of his pocket and looked at it. “It’s two pieces of metal with five millimeters of air between them, not even vacuum, just air.” He put the subvocalizer back on. “All they could tell me over at NASA was that it does what it’s supposed to.” “It does what it’s supposed to,” Chris said. She thought about him taking it off so he could come over here without being followed, about talking to her at lunch with it. “Your giving me the subvocalizer, that was all a setup, wasn’t it, so you could make sure I didn’t tell Stewart about you?”

  “I couldn’t risk your moving me out. I needed to be where I could talk to Okee.”

  “Did you really come up on the shuttle yesterday, or was that part of the act, too?”

  “It wasn’t an act. I was supposed to come up with the rest of the team, but I’d heard how much trouble the Japanese team was having communicating with the Eahrohhs. I figured it was because everybody was trying so hard to get the names pronounced right and learn the language that it made the Eahrohhs nervous. So I thought if I could come up here incognito—”

  “Like Spielberg,” Chris said bitterly.

  “ ’Scuse me,” Charmaine’s cheery voice floated up from downstairs.

  “They’re home!” Hutchins said. “We can’t let him find us in here!” He dashed back into the aisle of boxes. Chris scrambled to pick up the bento-bako boxes and stack them on the bed again. Hutchins jammed the golf clubs back into the bag and came to help her.