FSF, July 2008

by Spilogale Authors

  It was a terrible thing to say, but Grace refused to be blamed. “Don't say that. It makes me think you don't love me."

  "I adore you,” he said miserably, and he knew right then, as well as he knew anything, that Robert No. 2 had said the same. And he knew how he had touched her, and kissed her, and fucked her. And he knew how she had fucked him. And the look on her face afterwards, the softness, the flush, the radiance, he knew that too, and how she had floated around the house, disturbing nothing, as if in a dream.

  "Don't be jealous, Robert. When I'm with him, it just reminds me what a good man you are. It makes me love you more than ever.” Suddenly, there were tears in her eyes. “As if I could."

  Dear God, thought Robert, what had he wrought? He was helpless before her. As his soft little mushroom began to stir, he realized it was pointless to be jealous. If he wanted Grace to himself, he had to make himself available. Either that or get rid of the competition. Would it be called murder or suicide, he wondered, if one killed one's duplicate? Or perhaps, he thought, brightening, it would simply be seen as a very late—and eminently reasonable—abortion.

  * * * *

  As much as he possibly could, Robert steered clear of his rival, and when he couldn't, when they passed on the stairs or in a hall, he ignored him. As a strategy for improved relations, this was not well-conceived. Eventually, he realized its futility and, swallowing his pride, he went to No. 2 to talk things out.

  Two received him coolly. He'd been ill-treated; no one, least of all a Robert, liked to be ignored. He did, however, understand the reasons. He knew about jealousy and possessiveness and how they fed on each other and grew until they drove out all else, turning a man into a slave, thwarting love and kindness, poisoning the mind and heart. They were a sign, he believed, of insecurity, a lack, not a surfeit, of love. He suggested, somewhat cryptically, that Robert expand his thinking, look beyond Grace and learn to love himself more. With that he excused himself, leaving much unanswered and unsaid.

  It was a troubling conversation, which Robert tried to parse in the days that followed. Two had made no concessions. Notably, he had not agreed to stop seeing Grace. Rather, he had put the burden on Robert, who, it must be said, did not bear it well. He remained jealous, though to his credit he tried to keep it to himself. He was about as successful as most jealous men were, and Grace had the fortune of being the principal beneficiary of his triumph.

  She was in the kitchen one evening, sifting through their latest argument, when Robert No. 3 entered the room. The two of them often made dinner together. It was something they shared, the pleasure of giving pleasure, in this case, the pleasure of preparing and serving food.

  Tonight she was making a chicken and vegetable casserole, and No.3 grabbed a paring knife and joined in. He asked about her day, and eventually the conversation turned to their living situation. The Robert Wars, as 3 liked to call them. He wondered what, if anything, Grace was going to do.

  "I know you've talked to them,” he said.

  "Till I'm blue."

  "Any progress?"

  She sighed. “What's that?"

  "Have you thought of moving out?"

  "Why would I do that?"

  "To take a break. Get away."

  "I don't want to move."

  "Of course not. But look how miserable you are."

  She was. “It shows?"

  "Like a news report."

  "They're acting like children."

  "Like brats."

  "Like apes."

  No. 3 smiled. “Maybe if they would just beat their chests and bellow. Get it over with."

  "They do."

  "Brutes,” he said, sounding faintly amused.

  "If they would only do it outside. Then at least I wouldn't have to watch. Now that would be progress."

  "Like I said, a little separation...."

  He was dicing a carrot, each cut measured and precise. Fussy almost. Like Robert, Grace thought, with his cut-up cardboard project models, built to perfection. Like and unlike.

  "You do trigger them,” he said.

  "Do I?"

  "Well I know I don't."

  "They trigger themselves."

  "Bang bang."

  "They do."

  "Men in close quarters. What can you do? It's either love or hate."

  Some hair had come loose and fallen into her face, and she pushed it back, tucking it behind an ear. Almost immediately it worked its way free, and again she pushed it back, and then again, as though soothed by—indeed, as if dependent on—the repetition.

  "What was it like before?” No. 3 asked.

  "Before? What do you mean?"

  "Before we arrived. What was it like then?"

  "That was ages ago."

  "Were you happy?"

  "Sure."

  "Lonely?"

  She thought about it. “It's hard to remember."

  She wasn't being evasive. For No. 3 too, and also for Róbert, the past was often vague and difficult to recall. In real time the three of them had only been alive a short while; in a sense, they were infants. New experiences piled up and quickly overshadowed older ones. “Now” was sharp; “then” went in and out of focus. As if time itself was unstable and couldn't settle down.

  "Maybe I was. Sometimes. A little. But I managed. It was okay. Things usually are."

  "So you wouldn't mind if it was like that again?"

  "Like what?"

  "Living with Robert."

  "I do live with him.” She glanced at 3. Something wasn't being said. “What's this about?” Tick tick tick, and then she got it. “You're the one who wants to move out."

  "I want to do what's best for you."

  "It's not."

  "Then forgive me."

  "Or for Robert."

  "Are you sure?"

  She wasn't. “Have you talked about this with No. 2?"

  A smile flickered across his face at her use of that name. It was no mere slip of the tongue. He knew how her mind worked, being an echo of that mind. She was upset, and in response was establishing, or attempting to establish, her position in the pecking order, her place.

  "Róbert,” he said, gently correcting her, “agrees. Both of us want to do what's best for you. It is, after all, why we're here."

  He stopped what he was doing and turned to her, his big brown eyes soft and round. “I worry that we're a burden on you, Grace. That we're taking up too much of you. Interfering somehow. Getting in the way."

  "The way of what?"

  "Your happiness. What else?"

  The words were right, but something didn't ring true. She frowned, and No. 3 was quick to respond. “Now look what I've done. I've given you wrinkles."

  He kissed his fingers and transferred the kiss to her forehead. In a solicitous voice he said, “You and Robert had another fight, didn't you?"

  "We talked, if that's what you mean."

  "Jealousy is such a blight."

  "It's stupid."

  Three sighed. “It is. And we are. Stupid. Men, I mean. We get jealous so easily. It seems to run in our blood. Jealousy and hurt and vindictiveness. I wish I'd been born a woman. Like you, Grace. I wish I'd been born like you."

  She felt that he was making fun of her. “I'm sorry you're not happy with the job I did."

  "It never occurred to you to make me female?"

  "Not once."

  "I would have still been Robert. Or as close to him, or nearly as close, as I am now. And I do feel close to him. I truly do. I know how much it hurts him when he fights with you. And when he knows that you've been with Róbert. It's a terrible feeling when the one you love loves someone else."

  "He gave me Róbert. It was his idea. And I don't love someone else. There is no someone else. I love Robert. I love all of you."

  "So much love. It's your gift, Grace. A woman's gift."

  She glared at him. “What makes you say that?"

  "It's something I read. Men have a different muscle. It's why we wor
ship you. Why we can't get enough. Why we have to run away."

  "Is that what you want to do?"

  "Not what I want. What I read."

  "Not very nice."

  "I agree. Personally, I have the utmost respect for women. I have the utmost respect for you, Grace.” He returned to his dicing, then paused and gave her a peck on the cheek. “I'm sorry for what I said. I didn't mean it. You did a fabulous job with me. I wouldn't be here, and I certainly wouldn't be the man I am, if it wasn't for you."

  "Or Robert."

  "Both of you. I owe my life to you. And four ... what can I say? Four is just a brilliant number."

  It was another jab. “Four was unplanned."

  "Planning's overrated. Sometimes it's best to leave things to chance. Just think if there'd been only three of us."

  Just then Róbert entered the kitchen. No. 3 looked up instantly, a smile on his face, and it struck Grace how often this happened, that he looked up smiling, especially with Róbert. This time the smile was returned, and Grace felt the hairs on her neck stand up. They were looking at each other in just the way she looked at Robert when she was full of love for him. The way he sometimes looked at her.

  "What's for dinner?” Róbert asked.

  She and No. 3 started to reply simultaneously. Both halted, then Grace untied her apron and laid it on the counter. Three was wrong to think that men had the market on jealousy. She was amazed at herself, to feel such a thing. She hadn't thought herself capable. Then again, it wasn't so surprising, considering who had made her. Barring the stab of it, and the way it constricted her chest and filled her mind with the most wild, improbable, and terrible thoughts, it was a lot like love. She wanted to scratch somebody's eyes out.

  "Vegetables,” she told Róbert. “And chicken. Your favorite meal. Cooked by your favorite cook."

  "Cooks,” he said.

  "Whatever."

  She told No. 3 she'd think about what he'd said. She seemed to recall Robert's extolling the virtues of the triangle, explaining how it was the strongest, most reliable, sturdiest shape. Retreating upstairs, she pondered this, concluding that he would have thought differently—and in in all likelihood would never have made such a claim—had he been forced to build with humans.

  * * * *

  Meanwhile, across town, Robert was supervising a crew of humans, who were earning his lasting respect for the incredibly difficult job they were doing. The shell of the museum, two hundred feet in diameter and three hundred and fifty feet tall, was in place, and into it the crew was lowering the Domome, all in one piece. There was a modest breeze, which sang through the taut cables of the five mammoth cranes and added a note of urgency to the procedure. Though nominally in charge, Robert was completely dependent on the skill of the crane operators, and he stood at a safe distance, watching anxiously. It would have been far easier for the house to have been disassembled, trucked in, and reassembled, but its Pakki-flex sheath might not have survived intact. Furthermore, there were no openings in the shell big enough for anything but the smallest section of the house to fit through. Robert had envisioned (and designed) an enclosure that, save for an entrance and an exit door, was one continuous and inviolate envelope, immutable as it were, in contrast to (and comment on) the house itself, whose Pakki-flex dome and walls mutated seemingly at will. It was cylindrical in shape and constructed of hundreds of panels of glass, each of which spanned the full height of the museum. They were staggered in front and behind one another and joined by a perpendicular glass weld, and each curved ever so slightly outward, so that the mouth of the cylinder gently spread as it rose, like a fountain. The glass was lightly frosted, denser in some parts than others, which gave it the appearance of dappled foam. It was thick and impenetrable, except of course to light. Or possibly a heavy object, such as a swinging building, which the crane operators were doing their utmost to control. The obvious alternative—to build the museum around the house—had been the subject of intense debate and ultimately opposed by the project's structural engineers, although now Robert wished he'd been more insistent. On the other hand, it was a remarkable thing to see, his house being slowly swallowed by the great maw of glass.

  Finally it was down, or nearly down, hovering a foot or two above its elevated concrete pallet, previously poured, while the ground crew awaited Robert's instructions to position it. When that task was done, the front door of the house aligned with the museum's entrance door—giving what he hoped would be a diorama-like, keyhole effect—it was quitting time, and the workers fled, leaving Robert alone.

  The sun was sinking, and its long light poured through the western curve of the museum, passing through the glass on the opposite wall but also reflecting off it. The upper reaches of the museum, already a buttery gold, blazed brighter, as if from a newfound source of light. From where he stood it seemed that the sun, in addition to setting, was rising. There could have been two or even three suns in the sky. Gradually, the light thickened, until the whole interior of the museum—now a deep, rich honey color—glowed. It was almost palpable. Robert, who had conceived, designed, and even, to a certain degree, foreseen these effects, had not foreseen how striking they would be. Nor how moved he would feel. It was as though he were immersed in radiance, bathed and baptized by a power, a benevolence, beyond what he knew. For an instant he felt a shift—a dilation—in consciousness. This creation of his was grounded in reality and at the same time suggested a higher reality, a greater, loftier one. The way a person could be at a particular time and place, a particular moment, in his life, and then, triggered by the least of things—a sound, a scent, a random thought—be somewhere else entirely. There were worlds upon worlds, worlds within worlds ... wasn't this what architecture, at its best, hinted at?

  He entered the Domome, which was shielded but not exempt from the light show overhead. He had the sense of being underwater. The light appeared to ripple as it fell across the floor. Shadows shifted, edges softened, doors and windows seemed to have double lives. He made a full transit of the house, beginning in the main wing, moving quickly through the living quarters and ending in the dome room. Like all the others, it was empty. The air was slightly stale, and as the sound of his footsteps died, he glanced at the dome, half-expecting it to respond to his presence, to quiver, shrink, pucker, collapse. But it was motionless, as graceful and flawless as the day it was created. There was no hint of its history, though in his own mind it was painfully clear. After the ill-fated dinner party, reported at excruciating length by a sensation-hungry, gleeful press, the humiliated owners had slapped him with a high profile and crippling lawsuit. Recalling that difficult time, he wondered for perhaps the hundredth time just how wise it was to refer to it intentionally, to make it, indeed, the centerpiece of this endeavor. Julian liked to say that success was built on failure, and in the lab, the marketplace of ideas, this, no doubt, was true. But in the marketplace of taste? Of art? Better perhaps, certainly more realistic, to view failure as a chance for success, an opportunity but no guarantee. People had to be ready. Things had to fall into place. Luck was involved.

  Much, he believed, depended on the Domome itself, which presently, being uninhabited, was inert. They were interviewing prospective residents, and now that the house was in place, they could start to screen them actively. Only some would be able to trigger the Pakki-flex, and a far fewer would have the emotional makeup and temperament to be on more or less permanent display. Many sought attention without knowing the price of attention. Some became bloated with it, some nervous, some depressed and withdrawn. The optimal candidate had to be stable, and steady under pressure. Outgoing, communicable and enthusiastic. Intelligence, while not critical, was a definite plus.

  So far the prospects were not good, and as he left the Domome and then the museum, he tried to imagine who would possibly welcome such a job. Julian had suggested he design someone for the purpose, but Robert, who had designed everything else, felt that would be extreme. Already the project bordered on the gran
diose.

  He reached his car as the sun was about to disappear. The museum shone like a ruby and seemed indeed to be emerging from the ground, just as he had first imagined it, a jewel in the process of extrusion, of birth, from Mother Earth. It seemed made of man and nature both, of man's nature, his best and truest aspirations, and Robert felt a chill. He had achieved something here. There was no denying it. Something of note. Would it stand the test of time? That was out of his hands. But at this moment—this hour, this day—it stood a more important and stringent test: his own. He felt an odd mixture of humility and elation, and he wanted to share it with someone, and that someone was Grace.

  But Grace in all likelihood was home. And he didn't want to go home. With the veiled affronts he was certain to encounter there, the cloak and dagger looks, the various and sundry assaults on his equanimity and peace of mind, home was the last place he wanted to go.

  For the second time in as many weeks he became conscious of his missing eye. No. 2, who liked to hover just past the edge of his vision on that side, as if to emphasize his disability, had made a joke about it. Something clever and seemingly harmless, such that even Grace had smiled. He didn't like No. 2. He hadn't from the start. He found him self-serving, aggressive, egotistical and pompous. When he thought of 2, he thought of something low to the ground. When he looked at him, he saw a lesser man.

  On the face of things this was absurd. Except for the eye, the two of them were the same, in every conceivable way. He had told Grace, before being cuckolded, that he felt awkward around 2, uneasy, that he didn't feel himself. This was true enough (and more now than ever), but the deeper truth was that he felt himself in the extreme, himself magnified, caricatured, stripped and exposed.

  He got in his car and drove around aimlessly, ending up, as he so often did these days, at his office. He called Grace, who didn't pick up, and was left with a recording of her cheerful, fluted voice, which under the circumstances sounded derisive and mocking. He read through the applications of a dozen new candidates, a grueling and arid experience, then got out his blanket and pillow. The futon stared at him like the cold eye of a fish on ice. Daybreak was a lifetime away. The night promised to be a long one.