This Perfect Day

  “Oh,” she said. “Then it isn’t a building, not really. How can you draw things that aren’t real?”

  “I’m sick, remember?” he said.

  She gave the book back to him, not looking at his eyes. “Don’t joke about it,” she said.

  He hoped—well, didn’t hope, but thought it might possibly happen—that Saturday night, out of custom or desire or even only memberlike kindness, she would show a willingness for him to come close to her. She didn’t, though. She was the same as she had been every other night, sitting silently in the dusk with her arms around her knees, watching the band of purpling sky between the shifting black treetops and the black rock ledge overhead.

  “It’s Saturday night,” he said.

  “I know,” she said.

  They were silent for a few moments, and then she said, “I’m not going to be able to have my treatment, am I?”

  “No,” he said.

  “Then I might get pregnant,” she said. “I’m not supposed to have children and neither are you.”

  He wanted to tell her that they were going someplace where Uni’s decisions were meaningless, but it was too soon; she might become frightened and unmanageable. “Yes, I suppose you’re right,” he said.

  When he had tied her and covered her, he kissed her cheek. She lay in the darkness and said nothing, and he got up from his knees and went to his own blankets.

  Sunday’s ride went well. Early in the day a group of young members stopped them, but it was only to ask their help in repairing a broken drive chain, and Lilac sat on the grass away from the group while Chip did the job. By sundown they were in the parkland north of ’14266. They had gone about seventy-five kilometers.

  Again it was hard to find a hiding place, but the one Chip finally found—the broken walls of a pre-U or early-U building, roofed with a sagging mass of vines and creepers—was larger and more comfortable than the one they had used the week before. That same night, despite the day’s riding, he went into ’266 and brought back a three-day supply of cakes and drinks.

  Lilac grew irritable that week. “I want to clean my teeth,” she said, “and I want to take a shower. How long are we going to go on this way? Forever? You may enjoy living like an animal but I don’t; I’m a human being. And I can’t sleep with my hands and feet tied.”

  “You slept all right last week,” he said.

  “Well I can’t now!”

  “Then lie quietly and let me sleep,” he said.

  When she looked at him it was with annoyance, not with pity. She made disapproving sounds when he shaved and when he read; answered curtly or not at all when he spoke. She balked at doing calisthenics, and he had to take out the gun and threaten her.

  It was getting close to Marx eighth, her treatment day, he told himself, and this irritability, a natural resentment of captivity and discomfort, was a sign of the healthy Lilac who was buried in Anna SG. It ought to have pleased him, and when he thought about it, it did. But it was much harder to live with than the previous week’s sympathy and memberlike docility.

  She complained about insects and boredom. There was a rain night and she complained about the rain.

  One night Chip woke and heard her moving. He shone his flashlight at her. She had untied her wrists and was untying her ankles. He retied her and struck her.

  That Saturday night they didn’t speak to each other.

  On Sunday they rode again. Chip stayed close to her side and watched her carefully when members came toward them. He reminded her to smile, to nod, to answer greetings, to act as if nothing was wrong. She rode in grim silence, and he was afraid that despite the threat of the gun she might call out for help at any moment or stop and refuse to go on. “Not just you,” he said; “everyone in sight. I’ll kill them all, I swear I will.” She kept riding. She smiled and nodded resentfully. Chip’s gearshift jammed and they went only forty kilometers.

  Toward the end of the third week her irritation subsided. She sat frowning, picking at blades of grass, looking at her fingertips, turning her bracelet around and around her wrist. She looked at Chip curiously, as if he were someone strange whom she hadn’t seen before. She followed his instructions slowly, mechanically.

  He worked on his bike, letting her awaken in her own time.

  One evening in the fourth week she said, “Where are we going?”

  He looked at her for a moment—they were eating the day’s last cake—and said, “To an island called Majorca. In the Sea of Eternal Peace.”

  “‘Majorca’?” she said.

  “It’s an island of incurables,” he said. “There are seven others all over the world. More than seven, really, because some of them are groups. I found them on a map in the Pre-U, back in Ind. They were covered over and they’re not shown on MFA maps. I was going to tell you about them the day I was— ‘cured.’”

  She was silent, and then she said, “Did you tell King?”

  It was the first time she had mentioned him. Should he tell her that King hadn’t needed to be told, that he had known all along and withheld it from them? What for? King was dead; why diminish her memory of him? “Yes, I did,” he said. “He was amazed, and very excited. I don’t understand why he—did what he did. You know about it, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I know,” she said. She took a small bite of cake and ate it, not looking at him. “How do they live on this island?” she asked.

  “I have no idea,” he said. “It might be very rough, very primitive. Better than this, though.” He smiled. “Whatever it’s like,” he said, “it’s a free life. It might be highly civilized. The first incurables must have been the most independent and resourceful members.”

  “I’m not sure that I want to go there,” she said.

  “Just think about it,” he said. “In a few days you’ll be sure. You’re the one who had the idea that incurable colonies might exist, do you remember? You asked me to look for them.”

  She nodded. “I remember,” she said.

  Later in the week she took a new Français book that he had found and tried to read it. He sat beside her and translated it for her.

  That Sunday, while they were riding along, a member pedaled up on Chip’s left and stayed even with them. “Hi,” he said.

  “Hi,” Chip said.

  “I thought all the old bikes had been phased out,” he said.

  “So did I,” Chip said, “but these are what was there.”

  The member’s bike had a thinner frame and a thumb-knob gear control. “Back in ’935?” he asked.

  “No, ’939,” Chip said.

  “Oh,” the member said. He looked at their baskets, filled with their blanket-wrapped kits.

  “We’d better speed up, Li,” Lilac said. “The others are out of sight.”

  “They’ll wait for us,” Chip said. “They have to; we have the cakes and blankets.”

  The member smiled.

  “No, come on, let’s go faster,” Lilac said. “It’s not fair to make them wait around.”

  “All right,” Chip said, and to the member, “Have a good day.”

  “You too,” he said.

  They pedaled faster and pulled ahead.

  “Good for you,” Chip said. “He was just going to ask why we’re carrying so much.”

  Lilac said nothing.

  They went about eighty kilometers that day and reached the parkland northwest of ’12471, within another day’s ride of ’082. They found a fairly good hiding place, a triangular cleft between high rock spurs overhung with trees. Chip cut branches to close off the front of it.

  “You don’t have to tie me any more,” Lilac said. “I won’t run away and I won’t try to attract anyone. You can put the gun in your kit.”

  “You want to go?” Chip said. “To Majorca?”

  “Of course,” she said. “I’m anxious to. It’s what I’ve always wanted—when I’ve been myself, I mean.”

  “All right,” he said. He put the gun in his kit and that night he didn’t ti
e her.

  Her casual matter-of-factness didn’t seem right to him. Shouldn’t she have shown more enthusiasm? Yes, and gratitude too; that was what he had expected, he admitted to himself: gratitude, expressions of love. He lay awake listening to her soft slow breathing. Was she really asleep or was she only pretending? Could she be tricking him in some unimaginable way? He shone his flashlight at her. Her eyes were closed, her lips parted, her arms together under the blanket as if she were still tied.

  It was only Marx twentieth, he told himself. In another week or two she would show more feeling. He closed his eyes. When he woke she was picking stones and twigs from the ground. “Good morning,” she said pleasantly.

  They found a narrow trickle of stream nearby, and a green-fruited tree that he thought was an “olivier.” The fruit was bitter and strange-tasting. They both preferred cakes.

  She asked him how he had avoided his treatments, and he told her about the leaf and the wet stone and the bandages he had made. She was impressed. It was clever of him, she said.

  They went into ’12471 one night for cakes and drinks, towels, toilet paper, coveralls, new sandals; and to study, as well as they could by flashlight, the MFA map of the area.

  “What will we do when we get to ’082?” she asked the next morning.

  “Hide by the shore,” he said, “and watch every night for traders.”

  “Would they do that?” she asked. “Risk coming ashore?”

  “Yes,” he said, “I think they would, away from the city.”

  “But wouldn’t they be more likely to go to Eur? It’s nearer.”

  “We’ll just have to hope they come to Afr too,” he said. “And I want to get some things from the city for us to trade when we get there, things that they’re likely to put a value on. We’ll have to think about that.”

  “Is there any chance that we can find a boat?” she asked.

  “I don’t think so,” he said. “There aren’t any offshore islands, so there aren’t likely to be any powerboats around. Of course, there are always amusement-garden rowboats, but I can’t see us rowing two hundred and eighty kilometers; can you?”

  “It’s not impossible,” she said.

  “No,” he said, “if worse comes to worst. But I’m counting on traders, or maybe even some kind of organized rescue operation. Majorca has to defend itself, you see, because Uni knows about it; it knows about all the islands. So the members there might keep a lookout for newcomers, to increase their population, increase their strength.”

  “I suppose they might,” she said.

  There was another rain night, and they sat together with a blanket around them in the inmost narrow corner of their place, tight between the high rock spurs. He kissed her and tried to work open the top of her coveralls, but she stopped his hand with hers. “I know it doesn’t make sense,” she said, “but I still have a little of that only-on-Saturday-night feeling. Please? Could we wait till then?”

  “It doesn’t make sense,” he said.

  “I know,” she said, “but please? Could we wait?”

  After a moment he said, “Sure, if you want to.”

  “I do, Chip,” she said.

  They read, and decided on the best things to take from ’082 for trading. He checked over the bikes and she did calisthenics, did them longer and more purposefully than he did.

  On Saturday night he came back from the stream and she stood holding the gun, pointing it at him, her eyes narrowed hatingly. “He called me before he did it,” she said.

  He said, “What are you—” and “King!” she cried. “He called me! You lying, hating—” She squeezed the gun’s trigger. She squeezed it again, harder. She looked at the gun and looked at him.

  “There’s no generator,” he said.

  She looked at the gun and looked at him, drawing a deep breath through flaring nostrils.

  “Why the hate do you—” he said, and she swept back the gun and threw it at him; he raised his hands and it hit him in the chest, making pain and no air in him.

  “Go with you?” she said. “Fuck with you? After you killed him? Are you—are you fou, you green-eyed cochon, chien, batard!”

  He held his chest, found breath. “Didn’t kill him!” he said. “He killed himself, Lilac! Christ and—”

  “Because you lied to him! Lied about us! Told him we’d been—”

  “That was his idea; I told him it wasn’t true! I told him and he wouldn’t believe me!”

  “You admitted it,” she said. “He said he didn’t care, we deserved each other, and then he tapped off and—”

  “Lilac,” he said, “I swear by my love of the Family, I told him it wasn’t true!”

  “Then why did he kill himself?”

  “Because he knew!”

  “Because you told him!” she said, and turned and grabbed up her bike—its basket was packed—and rammed it against the branches piled at the place’s front.

  He ran and caught the back of the bike, held it with both hands. “You stay here!” he said.

  “Let go of it!” she said, turning.

  He took the bike at its middle, wrenched it away from her, and flung it aside. He grabbed her arm. She hit at him but he held her. “He knew about the islands!” he said. “The islands! He’d been near one, traded with the members! That’s how I know they come ashore!”

  She stared at him. “What are you talking about?” she said.

  “He’d had an assignment near one of the islands,” he said. “The Falklands, off Arg. And he’d met the members and traded with them. He hadn’t told us because he knew we would want to go, and he didn’t want to! That’s why he killed himself! He knew you were going to find out, from me, and he was ashamed of himself, and tired, and he wasn’t going to be ‘King’ any more.”

  “You’re lying to me the way you lied to him,” she said, and tore her arm free, her coveralls splitting at the shoulder.

  “That’s how he got the perfume and tobacco seeds,” he said.

  “I don’t want to hear you,” she said. “Or see you. I’m going by myself.” She went to her bike, picked up her kit and the blanket trailing from it.

  “Don’t be stupid,” he said.

  She righted the bike, dumped the kit in the basket, and jammed the blanket in on top of it. He went to her and held the bike’s seat and handlebar. “You’re not going alone,” he said.

  “Oh yes I am,” she said, her voice quavering. They held the bike between them. Her face was blurred in the growing darkness.

  “I’m not going to let you,” he said.

  “I’ll do what he did before I go with you.”

  “You listen to me, you—” he said. “I could have been on one of the islands half a year ago! I was on my way and I turned back, because I didn’t want to leave you dead and brainless!” He put his hand on her chest and pushed her hard, sent her back flat against rock wall and slung the bike rolling and bumping away. He went to her and held her arms against the rock. “I came all the way from Usa,” he said, “and I haven’t enjoyed this animal life any more than you have. I don’t give a fight whether you love me or hate me”—“I hate you,” she said— “you’re going to stay with me! The gun doesn’t work but other things do, like rocks and hands. You won’t have to kill yourself because—” Pain burst in his groin—her knee—and she was away from him and at the branches, a pale yellow shape, thrashing, pushing.

  He went and caught her by the arm, swung her around, and threw her shrieking to the ground. “Batard!” she shrieked. “You sick aggressive—” and he dived onto her and clapped his hand over her mouth, clamped it down as tight as he could. Her teeth caught the skin of his palm and bit it, bit it harder. Her legs kicked and her fisted hands hit his head. He got a knee on her thigh, a foot on her other ankle; caught her wrist, let her other hand hit him, her teeth go on biting. “Someone might be here!” he said. “It’s Saturday night! Do you want to get us both treated, you stupid garce?” She kept hitting him, biting his palm. br />
  The hitting slowed and stopped; her teeth parted, let go.

  She lay panting, watching him. “Garce!” he said. She tried to move the leg under his foot, but he bore down harder against it. He kept holding her wrist and covering her mouth. His palm felt as if she had bitten flesh out of it.

  Having her under him, having her subdued, with her legs held apart, suddenly excited him. He thought of tearing off her coveralls and “raping” her. Hadn’t she said they should wait till Saturday night? And maybe it would stop all the cloth about King, and her hating him; stop the fighting—that was what they had been doing, fighting—and the Français hate-names.

  She looked at him.

  He let go of her wrist and took her coveralls where they were split at the shoulder. He tore them down across her chest and she began hitting him again and straining her legs and biting his palm.

  He tore the coveralls away in stretching splitting pieces until her whole front was open, and then he felt her; felt her soft fluid breasts and her stomach’s smoothness, her mound with a few close-lying hairs on it, the moist lips below. Her hands hit his head and clutched at his hair; her teeth bit his palm. He kept feeling her with his other hand—breasts, stomach, mound, lips; stroking, rubbing, fingering, growing more excited—and then he opened his coveralls. Her leg wrenched out from under his foot and kicked. She rolled, trying to throw him off her, but he pressed her back down, held her thigh, and threw his leg over hers. He mounted squarely atop her, his feet on her ankles locking her legs bent outward around his knees. He ducked his loins and thrust himself at her; caught one of her hands and fingers of the other. “Stop,” he said, “stop,” and kept thrusting. She bucked and squirmed, bit deeper into his palm. He found himself partway inside her; pushed, and was all the way in. “Stop,” he said, “stop.” He moved his length slowly; let go of her hands and found her breasts beneath him. He caressed their softness, the stiffening nipples. She bit his hand and squirmed. “Stop,” he said, “stop it, Lilac.” He moved himself slowly in her, then faster and harder.

  He got up onto his knees and looked at her. She lay with one arm over her eyes and the other thrown back, her breasts rising and falling.