“This is the kind of thing they would confiscate. You should hide it,” he said.
“Oh.”
“Are you from here?” he said, and that sounded abrupt too.
“No.” The certainty of her answer wavered in the air. “Are you?”
“I come from a village far away to the north, up in the Ice.”
She said, “I come from somewhere else too.”
“Have you been in the city long?”
“I — Awhile. As long as we’ve been married, anyway. A couple of years, anyway. We married when I became pregnant. Are you married?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have children?”
His mouth was dry. “Yes. May I have something to drink?”
“OK.” She stood and got him a glass of water and brought it back. She sat down and said, after a moment, “How many?”
“What?”
“Children.”
“None,” he shook his head.
“Oh,” she said, “I thought you just said you had children.”
“No, not at all.”
“I thought you did.”
“How old is your daughter?”
“Two.”
“Did you tell me that before?”
“I said we got married when I became pregnant.”
“What’s her name?” he asked, although he knew what her name was.
“Polly.”
He drank his water. “I hope I wasn’t interrupting anything. I can go.”
“Gann was just taking Polly for a walk.”
“I hope it’s not a problem, my coming here.”
“No. I’m glad you came.” It immediately sounded to both of them like a strange thing to say. They were moved by it, and uncomfortable. “Have we ever met before?” she asked.
“At the archives,” he nodded, “about three weeks ago.”
“Yes, of course,” she laughed. “I mean, did we ever meet before then?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Do you want to have children?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Because we were talking about children.”
“Tedi wants to have children.”
“Does that mean you want to have children?”
“Uh.” He took another drink of water. “I promised.”
“You promised?”
“Tedi. My wife.”
“That you would have children?”
“Yes.”
“Because she wants it?”
“Yes.”
She looked toward the front door. “You should be sure about what you want,” she said resolutely.
“Maybe you’re never sure what you want,” he said. “When I got married I thought, No one’s ever sure until they do it. If you wait until you’re sure, you never do it.” He realized he had just made his marriage sound less like a capitulation and more like a grand gamble.
“Are you sure now?”
“No.”
“But more sure than you were.”
“No.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean — Well, it’s strange to be having this conversation.”
“I should probably go.”
“I’m sorry.”
“What for?”
“I think I said the wrong thing.”
“No. I came by to say I’m sorry about the other day.”
“We’re both sorry a lot.”
“Well, let’s agree not to be sorry anymore.”
“All right,” she laughed.
The altar alert came on.
They were both startled by it. “Is it that late?” she said.
“I forgot about it,” he said. “Most of the time I’m working in the archives and I just hear it in the distance.”
“I guess all the priests don’t have to run into their little rooms like the rest of us,” she smiled.
“No,” he agreed. She got up from the couch and walked over to the back wall and opened the altar-room door. “Your husband and child?” he said.
“Who knows,” she said. She stood in the open doorway. “You can come in if you want.”
He got up and went over to the room, and she closed the door behind them.
In the dark he felt, with a lurch, what he thought was a spider’s web brushing his face. But it was a string, which Sally pulled to turn on the light overhead. This altar room was even smaller than most. On the floor against one wall was a mattress. There was a pillow. There was a little pink horse with a saddle and long green hair, and children’s books in the corner. There were a couple of other books that didn’t appear the sort Primacy approved; Sally retrieved them quickly as though to hide them from view, though there wasn’t anywhere to hide them. There was also a half-drunk bottle of wine, which she now regarded with mortification. She glanced at Etcher.
“Let’s drink some wine,” he said.
“Really?” she said. They sat on the mattress. She handed him the bottle. An altar was in the corner. It was a very unorthodox altar, like the jewelry Etcher had seen in the front room, filled with primitive icons and forbidden fetishes he didn’t recognize. In the center of the altar was a black wooden box with a rose carved on the top. Etcher had been studying the altar awhile when she said, “Probably not what the Church has in mind.”
“It’s not your regulation altar,” Etcher admitted. He took a long drink from the bottle. It was the first drink he’d had in several weeks, and he found very satisfactory all the possibilities that washed into his mind with the wine. He realized he’d been sitting there staring at the altar for some time when he said, “We forgot to hide the jewelry.”
“It’s just jewelry,” Sally said, somewhat defensively.
For the first time in a long time, the tide of wine brought the possibilities into Etcher’s mind rather than taking them out. “I’m not the Church,” he said to her.
“What?”
He offered her the bottle and she took a drink. “I’m not a priest. I don’t care about the books,” he said, nodding at the books she had tried to hide. “I don’t care about the wine. I buy my own from a bootlegger.” He waved it all away. “Don’t care about the altar either,” he said, amazed at what the one drink had done to his head. “Do the cops come out to Redemption?”
“Every once in a while you hear of someone put on report or taken in. No one seems to know if it’s an official Church zone or not.”
“That’s because the Church doesn’t know if it’s an official Church zone. According to the Church everything’s theoretically an official Church zone.” Etcher took the bottle back from her. “They’re of two minds. The first is that it’s easier to keep things under control if they try to control the zone, and the second is that it’s easier to keep things under control if they leave the zone alone.” He looked at the door. “I gather your husband doesn’t take it too seriously.”
“The only thing Gann takes seriously is Gann.”
“Will he be back soon?” Etcher asked, still looking at the door.
“I don’t know. He may have gone to the theater.”
“Where’s the theater?”
“In the Arboretum.”
“He took your daughter to the Arboretum?” The slush of the wine in his head was settling just enough for him to take another drink. “Is that a good idea?”
“It’s a good idea if Gann thinks it’s a good idea.” She said, “I don’t mind the searches. I don’t mind the seclusion from everything. Gann never comes in. Sometimes I bring Polly.” She smiled and held up the pink horse with the green hair.
He said, “I like the box.”
“What?”
“The box.” He reached over toward the black wooden box in the altar, then drew back.
“It’s all right,” she said, handing him the box, “you can look at it.” He held the box and opened it; it was empty. “I haven’t figured out what to put inside.”
He ran his fingers over the rose carved on top. “It’s very beautiful,” he said. It was voluptuous in its blackness. At that moment he could smell her next to him; he adjusted his glasses. “Where did you get it?”