He lay mostly on his back, the wall holding his shoulders and his head up a little painfully, the position not made better by the weight of Rita on his chest. Both were naked. Rita – engineer, designer, inventor – was a sensual woman; he often wondered when she was away if she did the same things with other men, but the thought went nowhere and he lived with the possibility of it and never asked. He said, “Are you asleep?”
She moved her head; he felt the movement, knew what she mean: No. She was a handsome, big woman, discreet in the sounds of her orgasms, noisy when angry. She had been back for two days, days and nights filled with sex, food, laughter. Now, he could feel that she was ready to be serious.
She said, “I’m finishing a five-year placement. In two months. I have to put in an application for the next five soon.”
“I want you on the reenacmtent team.”
He felt her head move again in that negative swing. But she was silent. He was frowning into the darkness; he tried shifting his weight, her weight; she started to move but he held her where she was,, feeling her hair against his throat, her body on his. She said, “I want to have a baby. I can have the next five-year unit to bear and raise a child. You, too.”
“Rita, I can’t–!
“Yes, you can!” She raised her head off his chest, then swung her whole body off him but kept contact, a breast against his arm, leg against leg. “You know you can.”
“I could, if I didn’t have the reenactment.”
“A child is more important than your reeneactment.”
“Well, in a sense, yes…”
“In a sense, my ass, Ganesh! You know a child is more important. It’s Important to me! I’ve put it off – we’ve put it off !— and it can’t be put off any more. In another five I’ll be too old.”
“The prep for the reenactment we estimate at three years. I’ll be on the move all the time – the freighters will be built on Moonbase, the artificial buildings on Mars –”
“A child is more important.” He started to say something and she said in a louder voice, “Ganesh, I want a baby!”
“Rita, the reenactment may be the most important thing that happens to any of us this century. People are—”
“I don’t care about people! Some cocked-up fantasy about what earth used to be, and you don’t know zip about it, anyway.”
“We know a lot. We’ve all the archaeology; we have the Founders’ Pensays – there are the old discs, what they called movies –”
“That’s all just made-up shit.”
“Rita! It’s scientific fact.”
“Tell me what it smelled like.”
“What – earth?”
“You’re going to do three days. The first day is New York. Tell me what the streets smelled like.”
“All three days will be New York.”
“Why? That’s a thoroughly stupid idea.”
“New York was the greatest city in the world!”
“By what standard? There were bigger cities all over earth, everybody knows that because of the radiation persistence, and if you go by that standard you’ll have to pick the isthmus between North Arica and the so-called Middle East because that got the most nuclear bombs to keep the millions trying to get out of Africa from getting out! Every ‘nation’ on the globe was dropping nukes there! Do your three days about that! It got so hot that for a century people couldn’t even walk there! Reenact that!”
“Rita, what’s wrong? This isn’t like you.”
“It’s not only like me, it is me.” She sat up, legs under her, making distance between them. “Look, Ganesh.” Her voice was lower pitched now. “I know there’s a lot of excitement about your reenactment idea. But you’re making it…personal. That isn’t like us. We don’t do things for personal reasons. Fame, admiration, being known – yes, that’s very-earth like. But it isn’t outlander. Be honest – there are probably a thousand people who could run this reenactment as well as you can.”
He was hurt. In fact, insulted. Almost as he felt that, he felt remorse for feeling it; of course she was right. And was she right about his wanting admiration? He remembered his feeling when all the lights had blinked at the Colloquium. And had that been pride? Ego? All the things they were taught from the first days of school that were unworthy?
She said, “We need a child, Ganesh. We need to move on together – a child that is both of ours.”
But he couldn’t let it go, because the idea was his. He said, “What have you got against New York?”
“Nothing – except that New York was a center of “finance,” meaning “money”, which was one of the things that the Century of War was fought over: greed. But from what I hear so far, your reenactment’s going to be like a big party. Am I wrong? If t’s to be a party, that’s not what earth was. Earth was suffering and death and the cruelest kind of unfairness, of hatreds and artificial divisions. Look at the black-skinned people in your New York.”
“I know, Rita, I know all that. We’re trying that work it out.”
“Why not some place like Mumbai? Or Tokyo?”
“Mumbai!
“You know why you’re so shocked? Because that was not Europe. Nor was Tokyo Europe. You say New York and you mean Europe. You say Earth and you mean Europe – white skin, ‘democracy’ – what a joke that was – great art, and what good is art when you come down to it?”
“Rita, what the sunfuck are you saying?”
“I want a baby!”
“Well then, have a fucking baby! I’ll be here!”
“No you won’t. You’ll be in ‘New York’.” She got off the bed. “This is either-or, Ganesh. Like a decision tree. Make up your mind. I haven’t been using birth control since I got home. I hope I’m already pregnant.” She padded on bare feet into the darkness of the apartment. Ganesh stared into the same darkness, the void, she left behind.
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