Four for Tomorrow Part 26

"Yes. That's it! Exactly."

She laughed. It was the first time I had heard laughter in Tirellian. It sounded like a violinist striking his high strings with the bow, in short little chops. It was not an 194.

altogether pleasant thing to hear, especially because she laughed too long.

When she had finished she moved closer.

"I remember, now," she said. "We used to have such rules. Half a Process ago, when I was a child, we had such rules. But"-she looked as if she were ready to laugh again-"there is no need for them now."

My mind moved like a tape recorder played a triple speed.

Half a Process! HalfaProcessa-ProcessaProcess! No!

Yes! Half a Process was two hundred-forty-three years, roughly speaking!

-Time enough to leam the 2224 dances of Locar.

-Time enough to grow old, if you were human.

-Earth-style human, I mean.

I looked at her again, pale as the white queen in an ivory chess set.

She was human, I'd stake my soul-alive, normal, healthy. I'd stake my life-woman, my body . . .

But she was two and a half centuries old, which made 147 M'Cwyie Methusala's grandma. It flattered me to think of their repeated complimenting of my skills, as linguist, as poet. These superior beings But what did she mean "there is no such need for them now"? Why the near-hysteria? Why all those funny looks I'd been getting from M'Cwyie?

I suddenly knew I was close to something important, besides a beautiful girl.

"Tell me," I said, in my Casual Voice, "did it have anything to do with 'the plague that does not kill,' of which Tamur wrote?"

"Yes," she replied, "the children born after the Rains could have no children of their own, and-"

"And what?" I was leaning forward, memory set at "record."

"-and the men had no desire to get any."

195.

I sagged backward against the bedpost. Racial sterility, masculine impotence, following phenomenal weather.

Had some vagabond cloud of radioactive junk from G.o.d knows where penetrated their weak atmosphere one day? One day long before Shiaparelli saw the ca.n.a.ls, mythical as my dragon, before those "ca.n.a.ls" had given rise to some correct guesses for all the wrong reasons, had Braxa been alive, dancing, here-d.a.m.ned in the womb since blind Milton had written of another para- dise, equally lost?

I found a cigarette. Good thing I had thought to bring ashtrays. Mars had never had a tobacco industry either.

Or booze. The ascetics I had met in India had been Dionysiac compared to this.

'What is that tube of fire?"

"A cigarette. Want one?"

"Yes, please."

She sat beside me, and I lighted it for her.

"It irritates the nose."

"Yes. Draw some into your lungs, hold it there, and exhale."

A moment paused.

"Ooh," she said.

A pause, then, "Is it sacred?"

"No, it's nicotine," I answered, "a very ersatz form of divinity."

Another pause.

148 "Please don't ask me to translate 'ersatz.'"

"I won't. I get this feeling sometimes when I dance."

"It will pa.s.s in a moment."

"Tell me your poem now."

An idea hit me.

"Wait a minute," I said; "I may have something better."

I got up and rummaged through my notebooks, then I returned and sat beside her.

"These are the first three chapters of the Book of Ec- 196.

clesiastes," I explained. "It is very similar to your own sacred books."

I started reading.

I got through eleven verses before she cried out, "Please don't read that! Tell me one of yours!"

I stopped and tossed the notebook onto a nearby table. She was shaking, not as she had quivered that day she danced as the wind, but with the jitter of unshed tears. She held her cigarette awkwardly, like a pencil.

Clumsily, I put my arm about her shoulders.

"He is so sad," she said, "like all the others."

So I twisted my mind like a bright ribbon, folded it, and tied the crazy Christmas knots I love so well. From German to Martian, with love, I did an impromptu paraphrasal of a poem about a Spanish dancer. I thought it would please her. I was right.

"Ooh," she said again. "Did you write that?"

"No, it's by a better man than I."

"I don't believe you. You wrote it."

"No, a man named Rilke did."

"But you brought it across to my language. Light an- other match, so I can see how she danced."

I did.

"The fires of forever," she mused, "and she stamped them out, 'with small, firm feet.' I wish I could dance like that."

"You're better than any Gypsy," I laughed, blowing it out.

"No, I'm not. I couldn't do that."

"Do you want me to dance for you?"

149 Her cigarette was burning down, so I removed it from her fingers and put it out, along with my own.

"No," I said. "Go to bed."

She smiled, and before I realized it, had unclasped the fold of red at her shoulder.

And everything fell away.

197.

And I swallowed, with some difficulty.

"All right," she said.

So I kissed her, as the breath of fallen cloth extin- guished the lamp.

Ill The days were like Sh.e.l.ley's leaves: yellow, red, brown, whipped in bright gusts by the west wind. They swirled past me with the rattle of microfilm. Almost all the books were recorded now. It would take scholars yeais to get through them, to properly a.s.sess their value. Mars was locked in my desk.

Ecclesiastes, abandoned and returned to a dozen times, was almost i eady to speak in the High Temple.

I whistled when I wasn't in the Temple. I wrote reams of poetry I would have been ashamed of before. Eve- nings I would walk with Braxa, across the dunes or up into the mountains. Sometimes she would dance for me, and I would read something long, and in dactylic hexa- meter. She still thought I was Rilke, and I almost kidded myself into believing it. Here I was, staying at the Castle Duino, writing his Elegies.

. . . It is strange to inhabit the Earth no more, to use no longer customs scarce acquired, .

nor interpret roses . . .'

No! Never interpret roses! Don't. Smell themsniff, Kane!), pick them, enjoy them. Live in the moment.

Hold to it tightly. But charge not the G.o.ds to explain. So fast the leaves go by, are blown . . .

And no one ever noticed us. Or card.

Laura. Laura and Braxa. They rhyme, you Icnow, with a bit of a clash. Tall, cool, and blonde was sheI hate 198.

blondes!), and Daddy had turned me inside out, like a pocket, and I thought she could fill me again. But the big, beat world-slinger, with Judas-beard and dog-trust in his eyes, on, he had been a fine decoration at her parties.

And that was all.

How the machine cursed me in the Temple! It blas- phemed Malann and Gallinger. And the wild west wind 150 went by and something was not far behind.

The last days were upon us.

A day went by and I did not see Braxa, and a night.

And a second. A third.

I was half-mad. I hadn't realized how close we had become, how important she had been. With the dumb a.s.surance of presence, I had fought against questioning roses.

I had to ask. I didn't want to, but I had no choice.

"Where is she, M'Cwyie? Where is Braxa?"

"She is gone," she said, "Where?"

"I do not know."

I looked at those devil-bird eyes. Anathema maranatha rose to my lips.

"I must know."

She looked through me.

"She has left us. She is gone. Up into the hills, I sup- pose. Or the desert. It does not matter. What does any- thing matter? The dance draws to a close. The Temple will soon be empty."

"Why? Why did she leave?"

"I do not know."

"I must see her again. We lift off in a matter of days."

"I am sorry, Gallinger."

"So am I," I said, and slammed shut a book without saying "m'narra."

I stood up.

199.

"I will find her."