Cloned Lives

by Pamela Sargent

  Hidey stood there, looking first at Jim, then at Kira. She tried to relax and saw Jim attempting a strained smile.

  “Hello, Jim,” Hidey said quietly. “I haven’t seen you in quite a while. How’s the writing?”

  Jim seemed stunned for a moment. “He’s working on another novel,” she said quickly, and heard Jim echo her words: “I’m working on another novel.”

  Hidey took out a rumpled pack of cigarettes and lit one. “I really admire people who can write,” he went on. “All I’ve ever managed are papers for the journals, reports, that kind of thing, and I usually have to rewrite them and then have my computer correct my spelling.”

  For an instant Kira thought that her brother was going to create a scene. She watched his jaw muscles tighten, then relax. Jim shrugged. “It’s just a skill you have to learn, a craft,” he said. “It comes easier to some people than others.”

  “What’s the book about?”

  “I can’t explain it in a sentence.”

  “He hasn’t even shown it to me,” Kira interjected. Her voice sounded too high.

  “I’d like to talk to you, Jim, come over sometime, I’m usually free during lunch. Right now I have to go tape a lecture. I’ll call you later, Kira.”

  “Fine,” she managed to say. Hidey left, closing the door.

  They were alone again. Kira’s knees felt weak and she sat down, slouching in her seat. Jim gazed absently at the door, then turned back.

  “Does he know?” he asked as he sat down.

  “Know what?” she muttered, already sure of what Jim meant.

  “About us way back.”

  Her throat tightened. She was silent, answering him soundlessly with her eyes.

  “I wonder what he’d say.”

  She stood up slowly. She moved around the desk until she was standing over him. He started to rise and she quickly reached out, shoving him back into the chair.

  “If you say a word to him, just one word…” She was hovering over him. “I’ll find that book of yours and rip it to shreds, don’t think I won’t.” She did not care what she said now, wanting to frighten him and somehow gain the upper hand.

  He suddenly laughed. “Do you think I’d care? I’ve been thinking of tearing it up myself.” He chuckled softly. “You’d be freeing me, you know that? I wouldn’t have to sweat over it any more, I could start something else. A nice clean start, that’s what I need, You’d be doing me a favor. Tell you what, you throw out my book and I’ll have a little talk with Hidey and we’ll both be better off.”

  She grabbed his shoulders, digging through his worn blue shirt with her nails. “You make me sick sometimes.” He seized her wrists. She pulled away from him. “You accomplish nothing. You’re a parasite, living on Paul’s royalties, your share, and mine, and most of Al’s too, if you must know. You’ll probably get Ed’s share when he gets promoted next year and the only reason you don’t have Mike’s as well is that he’s too smart to get taken in by your bullshit.” A look of surprise passed over Jim’s face. “Oh, yes, and the only reason you weren’t smart enough to figure it out is that you’re too damn lazy to pay attention to little details like finances, you think it’s an endless stream you’ve got coming to you. You probably didn’t even think to ask the computer who was crediting the money to you.” She paced across the room. “And you live off us in other ways too, suddenly showing up and needing a job, some companionship, a place to live after you’ve spent your money on car rentals and travel to improve your mind. And you have nothing to show for it but one book you finished after you left school, I don’t know how. You’ve finished nothing, not school, not another book, nothing. And when the rest of us try to accomplish something, all you can do is come along and try to prevent us just because you want company in your misery. If Al weren’t on the moon, you would have been pestering him by now, I wouldn’t put it past you to scrape up the passage money and try.”

  She stopped and waited for his reply. He was gazing at the floor. At last he looked up and she forced herself to face him.

  He seemed oddly calm. “What I’m doing takes a little longer than what you’re doing. It’s a different sort of thing.”

  “What a rationalization!”

  “I won’t fight you if you want to kick me out, I can find another place.” She could not read his eyes, green pieces of glass flickering in the light. “None of you told me about the royalties, no one asked me if I minded taking the money. You sent it to me to buy me off, probably, or because it was easier than arguing about it. Don’t you think I had a right to know?”

  You’re twisting things now, as if we’re the ones at fault, not you.

  “Maybe you’re at fault,” he went on, as if picking up her thoughts. “I might have worked harder if I’d known. I could have applied for a writer’s grant.”

  “Oh, sure!” She began to laugh, and her laughter shattered against the walls, breaking into tiny sharp slivers. Don’t listen to him. She slumped into another chair. “Oh, sure.” The words trailed off.

  Hunched over in their chairs, they watched each other. Kira realized her shoulders were shaking. She was crying. Ashamed, yet unwilling to acknowledge the tears, she let them slide down her cheeks silently.

  “Kira,” Jim said. The word seemed a distant moan. “Let’s go home.” I’m sorry, he said without speaking.

  “Let’s go home,” she repeated.

  When they were small, things had been easier, in spite of the occasional torments of their classmates. There were Bill and Zuñi, arms to hold them, laps to crawl onto. There was Paul.

  Why are we different, why weren’t we made like other kids? I cried when Zuñi and Bill left, I thought they didn’t love us any more, but Zuñi said that wasn’t true, they loved us just as much but it was time to go; they had work to do and it was time for us to grow up. And I cried because I knew I wouldn’t see them any more, and I didn’t until Paul died.

  She and her brothers had been closer as children, communicating easily, often soundlessly, able almost to hear the whispers of each other’s thoughts. Paul had taught them chess, and they would often play with him to test their skill. It was more difficult playing with each other; often the games would end in stalemates unless one of them made an error. Team sports were better in some ways. After school, they would play basketball with some other children, anticipating each other’s moves. They were quicker then, unencumbered by the baggage of maturity. It was a happier time.

  The others resented us, forcing us together. We had no other friends. We sat together, wishing we were like other people.

  Kira had once hoped that they would eventually grow closer when they were older, but that it would not be an unthinking, defensive type of relationship, as it had been when they were young, but a mature relationship, that of people who would work together as a team. Instead, they grew more distant every year. Oddly enough, their similarities seemed to aid in driving them apart, as if each resented the part of himself he saw reflected in the others…

  It had grown dark outside. Part of Kira’s mind began to nag her as she sat on the porch in front of the house: finish your reading, start preparing finals for the students, call Hidey. The warm nighttime air was making her lethargic, unable to stir from the corner of the porch.

  A dark shape emerged from the front door and moved toward her. She squinted and saw that it was Carole. The girl had pulled her hair back and was wearing an old shirt that reached to the middle of her thighs. She had transformed herself from an Egyptian statue into a small child; her slow graceful movements appeared to be a mask for the underlying shyness and awkwardness.

  Carole sat down in a nearby chair and nodded at Kira.

  “Hello.”

  “You fought with Jim again,” Carole said. It was a simple statement, not a challenge.

  “I know,” Kira said. “We apologized. I don’t think it really settled anything.”

  “He had a bad day. Ellie was mad at him this afternoon, you know. They were
fighting about his book, I didn’t really understand all of it. Ellie said something about he was afraid to finish it, that he was worrying about what people would say, that he kept thinking about it while he wrote instead of concentrating. Then she said he was thinking he wouldn’t have anything left to write after he finished, so he really didn’t want to get it done. I don’t know. He’s trying as hard as he can.”

  “I haven’t seen the book.”

  “I read part of it. It seemed really good, but I’m not one for reading a lot, I don’t know that much about it. Ellie said he was indulging himself, whatever that means. I hope you’re not still mad at him.”

  “No, I guess I’m not.”

  Carole turned toward Kira. Her face was hidden in the darkness. “Jim needs somebody that cares about what he does, someone that encourages him. I don’t like to talk against anybody, but sometimes Ellie really makes him upset telling him things. He probably thinks you don’t like what he’s doing either. Ellie thinks he should stay here and work until he finishes the book, but I don’t know how he can if he thinks everybody’s upset with him.”

  “What do you think he should do?” Kira asked.

  “I don’t know. This may be a bad place for him, sometimes he just sits around and talks about stuff that happened when he was a kid. I don’t know if it’s good for him to do that, it makes him sad, and he’s sad so much of the time. I wish I could do something about it.”

  “I hate to say this, Carole, but sometimes he makes himself sad. It’s as if he doesn’t want to be content, that he’s supposed to be unhappy.”

  “Why should he do that? It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “It does in a way. He doesn’t write about what he knows, but what he feels. Read his first book and you’ll see. It was a little different when we were younger, but now…” Kira paused. Carole seemed puzzled. “I guess we’re all a bit melancholy, call it a family trait. Why did you come here with him?”

  “Why do you think? Because I love him. Ellie does too, in her own way, but maybe she pushes him around too much, maybe he isn’t ready for that. I know you care about him too, but he’s kind of afraid of you.”

  “No, he isn’t.”

  “He is, in a way.”

  “Oh, Carole,” Kira said in exasperation.

  “He says he’s afraid of what you’re doing.”

  “Oh, my work. Well, we’ve been arguing about that for a while.”

  “Not just that. He’s afraid of the way you feel about it.”

  Kira opened her mouth to explain something, then stopped. She did not know what she could say to Carole. It would probably be better not to argue with her at all.

  “He’s so unhappy,” Carole said quietly. “I wish he weren’t. I wish I could do something about it, but I guess I don’t know enough. I try to cheer him up, but I don’t really understand him sometimes.” The young woman seemed to be struggling with her words. “And Ellie tries, but she thinks a person can get rid of feeling depressed if he just wants to badly enough. Maybe you’re the only one that can really help him. You’re more like him, for one thing.”

  No, I can’t help him, we have nothing to say to each other now. He’s a mystery to me, too.

  “You may be expecting too much of me,” she said aloud, standing up. “Where’s

  Jim now?”

  “In his room.”

  Kira left the porch and went back inside. Ellie was in the living room reading a book. Kira climbed the stairs, walked down the hall and knocked on Jim’s door.

  “Come in.”

  She entered the room, and felt momentarily as if she had stepped into the past. Jim was hunched over his desk, writing. In the background she could hear the sound of Ed’s violin. Give me some help with this theme for Mr. Grey and I’ll explain the carbon cycle to you. Then Jim straightened at his desk and she was back to the present again. He was too thin, his clothes worn and rumpled. She thought she noticed some silvery hairs in his beard. For a second she saw how she must look to Jim; slightly thicker in the waist, her long brown hair confined in a bun on the back of her neck, her face more gaunt. I still think of myself as sixteen. She remembered a girl with short loose hair and good reflexes, clothed in a short tunic. The modestly dressed woman with tiny lines near the eyes from too much sunlight was a stranger.

  She sat down on the edge of Jim’s bed and tugged at her pale green slacks. “You came to see how my book was going, I suppose,” he muttered. She looked at the rough draft piled on either side of his typewriter. He had corrected a few pages and put them through his compositor; the clean pages lay next to her on the bed. But he was obviously not satisfied with them; he had already marked them up, crossing out entire paragraphs.

  “No,” she replied, “I came to see how you were. I guess if you kept asking me how I was doing, whether I was getting anything done or not, I’d get mad too. Right now I should be preparing for the end of the term, as well as getting some reading done.” She remembered the project and realized that was not anything to bring up at the moment. “Look, Jim, I won’t bother you about the book or anything else. You can stay here and take the time you need.”

  “I made a mistake coming here,” he said. “I should have thought about it. Too much has changed, and not enough has.” He rested his head on his hands. “I think I still care more about you than Ellie or Carole. Isn’t that ridiculous? An adolescent incident we’d both be better off forgetting.” She stared at him. “They’ll probably leave. Ellie’s thinking of going back to New York anyway. You could help me, Kira, I know you could. Maybe we could do some traveling, you haven’t really had a chance to see too much.”

  “I can’t, Jim.” She forced herself to speak more clearly. “I can’t. I have work to do. I’m in love with Hidey…”

  “Him!”

  “I am, I don’t know how it’ll turn out, but I’ll stay here to see. You’re trying to get me to make your decisions for you again. Don’t ask me to do that, it’s not fair.”

  He turned back to his typewriter. “Well, it was worth a try.” He sounded resigned and passive. Something had been taken out of him, or worn down, a spark or a passion. She might be making a mistake, she could not tell. Regrets, always regrets. No matter what she did, something would be wrong, something would be unresolved.

  “Don’t do anything suddenly,” she said, trying to be helpful. “Take some time to think things over. Carole and Ellie care a lot about you, don’t be too quick to leave them out of things.” Her words seemed empty formalities.

  She got up and left the room quietly, leaving Jim alone with his ghosts.

  She had driven off the automated highway and through the city streets to the apartment towers, parking the car underground and hurrying up to Hidey’s apartment in the elevator. The words were flowing from her lips as soon as Hidey opened his door, tripping over each other as she spoke them.

  They huddled together in his small bed as she finished what she had to say. He held her gently, smoothing back her hair.

  “Oh, Hidey, he’s so unhappy.”

  “I know.”

  “You aren’t disgusted by what we did once?”

  “I was a little startled, I have to admit, but there is a kind of logic to it. I can’t be disgusted by your actions, though, knowing the reasons for them. Jim needed you then, obviously.”

  “He says he needs me now.” She turned over on her back. “I came here because I want you to tell me what to do, just like Jim wanted me to decide things for him. And you can’t do that, I know. It would be easier if you just told me to go, or told me you loved me too much to let me go.”

  “I can’t do that, Kira. Look, you needed to talk and now you probably need to sleep.”

  She closed her eyes, trying to calm her mind. “He may,” she heard Hidey whisper, “make his own decision. It’s entirely possible, he has before. I can’t tell you what to do, or Jim either.”

  Kira sighed. Things could never be settled, never resolved, it seemed. Where are th
e victories, she wondered, where are the moments that make it all worthwhile? She drifted, her mind was floating, not quite conscious yet unable to rest. She lay suspended in that state, dimly aware of Hidey at her side.

  Kira began to catch up on her work, avoiding the house for the next two days. Occasionally she would call, prompted by guilt, but Jim was never home, or refusing to answer. She left messages, call the office, call Hidey’ s apartment.

  Jim did not call.

  She had not devoted much time to Hidey’s proposed project, and quickly remedied that situation. There was little doubt in her mind that the others would go along with it, in spite of their objections to certain details. She had sensed the atmosphere in the department, had overheard snatches of conversations in the halls, the lounge, and the laboratories. Hidey, in the minds of the others, was in a sense the department. People such as Ike Jefferson and Cesar Gomez had come to work here because of Hidey. They would allow Kurt to voice objections, perhaps agreeing with some of them, but in the end they would go along with Hidey. The meeting would become a formality.

  Kira shuffled the pages on her desk and considered the project. They would begin tests with animals, of course; if everything proceeded smoothly, they would then work with a human subject. She began to wonder if she would falter at that point. She would not be able to regard the cloned fetus with quite the same attitude as the others; she might see herself in the ectogenetic chamber, being readied for injection into Paul. It could have happened that way, given different circumstances; she and her brothers might never have existed except as serum in Paul’s veins.

  She shook her head. She was behaving like Jim, being fanciful. It was not the same thing at all. It’s not the same at all. And people now alive might never have existed if their parents had not made love at a particular time. She could not involve herself in such ex post facto considerations.

  She would have to go to the meeting in a few minutes. She doubted she would have much to say. She would wait for the others to speak before offering anything. Hidey had not spoken with her about the project; at first she had not wondered at that. But now she found herself worrying about it. Did Hidey have his own doubts? Or was he so obsessed that he was afraid to speak to her about it, afraid she would see that and join with Kurt against him? If that happened, Jonis would go along with her and probably Bert Ramsey as well. But Hidey isn’t like that. She would wait.