“I’m not a little beach crab. And I’m not an incubus.” She drew a harsh breath. “I’m an outlaw.”
He laughed.
“I am! I used to pretend that I was someone else, really someone else, so that I didn’t have to face up to what I really wanted. But I was lying, because I was Mia all along, I’ve always been Mia, and I’m Mia right now, and I hate them! They don’t want me to live! They only want me to exist and wear out the days and the years, just like they do! I could walk into the street right now—well, if I put on some clothes—and I could call the lab in the Bay, and I could say, ‘Hello everybody in California, it’s me, it’s Mia Ziemann, I just had a bad reaction to the treatment, I’m sorry, I’m in Europe, I lost my head for a while, please take me back, put all your things inside me and up me and on me, I’m all right now, I’ll be really good.’ And they would! They’d send a plane and probably a reporter, and they’d give me my job back and put a cold towel on my forehead. They’re so stupid, they should all die! I’ll never go back to that life, I’d rather be killed, I’d rather jump out the window.” She was trembling.
Emil touched her hand, and said nothing for a long time. Finally he got up and fetched her a glass of water. She drank it thirstily, and wiped at her eyes.
“That’s what you had to tell me, is it?”
“Yes.”
“That’s all of it?”
“Well, yes.”
“Did you ever tell it to me before?”
“No, Emil, never. I’ve never told it to you or to anyone else. You’re the first one, truly.”
“Do you think you’ll have to tell it to me again?” She paused, considering. “Do you think that you’ll remember it?”
“I don’t know. I might remember it. I don’t often remember things that I’m told this late at night. I might not remember it with some other woman, either, but there’s something very deep about the two of us. You and me. I think … I think we were fated to meet.”
“Well … Maybe we … No. No, I can’t believe that, Emil. I’m not religious, I’m not superstitious, I’m not even mystical, I’m just posthuman. I’m posthuman, I made a moral choice to go beyond the limits. I made that choice with my eyes open, and now I have to learn how to survive in my own private nightmare.”
“I know a way out for you.”
“What’s that?”
“You’ll have to be brave. But I can mold you all into one piece. No doubts, no secrets, no pains, just one whole new woman. If you wanted me to.”
“Oh, Emil …” She stared at him. “Not the amnesiac.”
“Of course the amnesiac. You wouldn’t think I could misplace a valuable thing like that, I hope. This Ziemann person you talk about, this old woman, this incubus that you have … We could brush her away from you. Clean away, just like a witch’s broom.”
“How would that help us? I’d still be an illegal alien.”
“No you wouldn’t. We’d brush that away too. You’d be my wife. You’d be young. And new. And fresh. And you’d love me. And I’d love you.” He sat up in bed, waving his hands. “We’d write it all down tonight. We’d explain to ourselves just how to go about it, so we could see it together in the morning. We’d get Paul to help us. Paul is good, he’s clever, he has friends and influence, he likes me. We’ll marry, we’ll leave the city, we’ll go into Bohemia. We’ll plant a garden and work clay. We’ll be two new creatures together in the countryside, and we’ll live outside bourgeois reality, forever!”
He was full of passionate excited inspiration and conviction, and she was trying to respond to him, when the black lightning of suspicion hit her and she knew, with a deep uneasy lurch, that he had made this offer to other women before.
When she woke in the morning there was no sign of Emil. The room reeked of blood. She’d bled all over the sheets. She crawled out of bed, stuffed a makeshift pad into her underwear, put on a robe, and made herself a pain tincture. She drank it, she stripped the sheets, she turned over the stained mattress, and then collapsed into bed exhausted.
Around noon there was a knock on the door. “Go away,” she moaned.
A key rattled in the lock and the door opened. It was Paul.
“Oh it’s you,” she blurted. “Ciao Paul.”
“Good afternoon. May I come in?” Paul stepped into the studio. “I see that you’re alive. That’s excellent news. Are you ill?”
“No. Yes. No. How can I put this delicately? I’m not at my feminine best.”
“And that’s all? That’s it? Well.” Paul smiled briefly. “I understand.”
“Where is Emil?”
“Yes,” Paul hedged. “Let’s discuss that, shall we? Your name is Maya, am I right? We met very briefly at last month’s session at the Tête. Your friend was the couturiere who got very tight and had the shoving match with Niko.”
“I’m sorry to hear about that.”
“Have you eaten?” said Paul, slinging his backpack onto the floor beside the kiln. He smoothed his dark hair back with both hands. “I haven’t eaten today. Let me make us something. This kitchen seems nicely stocked. How about a goulash?”
“Oh goodness no.”
“A little kasha. Something very light and restorative.” Paul began running water. “How long have you known our good friend Emil?”
“I’ve been living with him ever since that night at the Tête.”
“Three weeks with Emil! You’re a brave woman.”
“I’m not the first.”
“You’ve made changes here,” Paul said, gazing alertly about the studio. “I admire your sense of devotion. Emil requires a lot of looking after. He called me this morning. Very agitated. I took the express from Stuttgart.”
“I see.” She found the bedspread and pulled it up over her knees. “He said you were close friends. He always speaks very highly of you.”
“Does he? That’s touching. Of course, it was natural of Emil to call me. I have my net-address tattooed onto his forearm.”
She blinked. “I never noticed any such tattoo.”
“It’s rather subtle. The tattoo only becomes visible on his skin when he is very upset.”
“Was Emil very upset this morning?”
Paul sifted yellow powder into a saucepan. “He woke me this morning and told me that a strange woman was dying in his bed. Dying, or possibly dead. An incubus. A golem. He was very confused.”
“Where is he now?”
“He’s relaxing, he’s having a sauna. Schwartz is looking after him. I’ll have to call them now. Just a moment.” Paul undipped the netlink from his collar and began speaking in Deutsch as he delicately stirred the pan. Paul was soothing, then funny, then authoritative, then lightly satirical. When Paul had restored sense and order to the universe, he clipped the phone back to his shirt collar.
“You should keep your fluids up,” he said. “How about a nice mineralka? With maybe two hundred micrograms targeted enkephalin and a bit of diuretic and relaxant. That should put you to rights.” He fetched his backpack, opened it, and pulled out a clear zippered bag. It held an arsenal of stickered foils and airtight capsules.
“Did you think I’d be dead when you walked in here, Paul?”
“The world is full of possibilities.” Paul opened a cabinet, retrieving spoons and bowls. “I thought it best to be here first, that’s all.”
“To put the proper cast on the situation before the authorities showed up?”
“If you like.” He brought her a fine ceramic bowl of steaming mush and a tapered china vase of mineral water. “You’ll feel less distraught if you eat this.” He went back and fetched his own bowl.
She sipped at her fizzing mineralka. “Merci beaucoup. ”