“Oh, she won’t stay mopey long,” Smith said. “Somebody will marry her within the year… she’s a lovely piece.”
“So she is,” Thomas agreed.
And he went home to wait for the contact from St. Syrus Household, which should come early tomorrow morning, if not sooner.
Chapter Six
The curious 20th century aberration in cultural science that led briefly to such bizarre phenomena as women practicing medicine, sitting as judges — even as a Supreme Court Justice, incomprehensible as that seems to us today — and filling male roles throughout society, can be rather easily explained. Men are by nature kind and considerate, and a charming woman’s eagerness to play at being a physician or a Congressman or a scientist can be both amusing and endearing; we can understand, looking back upon the period, how it must have seemed to 20th century men that there could be no harm in humoring the ladies. We know from the historical records, in particular the memoirs of great men of the time, how often the women’s antics provided them with occasions for laughter — very welcome in the otherwise serious business of their days. (There was, for example, the famous Equal Rights Amendment hoax so cleverly set up and maintained for so many years by members of Congress… we’ve all laughed heartily over that one, I’m sure.)
It may seem radical — I know I will be hearing from some of my more conservative colleagues — but I am inclined to feel that I might welcome a little of that same comic relief today. Life is such a grim business; a laugh now and then, especially if the source is a female sufficiently beautiful and shapely, would be almost worth the trouble of having her blundering about in Congress!
But unfortunately we cannot allow ourselves that sort of luxury. Our forefathers did not know — despite the clear statements of Darwin, Ellis, Feldeer, and many others on the subject — they did not have scientific proof of the inherent mental inferiority of women. Only with the publication of the superb research of Nobelists Edmund O. Haskyl and Jan Bryant-Netherland of M.I.T. in 1987 did we finally obtain the proof. And it is to our credit that we then moved so swiftly to set right the wrongs that we had, in our lamentable ignorance, inflicted. We saw then that the concept of female “equality” was not simply a kind of romantic notion — like the “Nobel Savage” fad of an earlier era — rather, it was a cruel and dangerous burden upon the females of our species, a burden under which they labored all innocent and unawares… the victims, it can only be said, of male ignorance.
There are some who criticize, saying that it should not have taken us four long years to provide our females with the Constitutional protection they so richly deserved and so desperately needed. But I feel that those who criticize are excessive in their judgments. It takes time to right wrongs — it always takes time. The more widespread the problem, the more time required to solve it. I think that a span of four years was a remarkable speedy resolution, and a matter for considerable pride — let us, gentlemen, lay those criticisms to rest for once and for all.
Michaela was more than satisfied with the post she’d found. Verdi Household was surrounded by old oaks and evergreens, tucked into the arm of a bend in the Mississippi just outside Hannibal, Missouri. It was nothing at all like Washington D.C., although she’d been warned to expect that its summer heat would make Washington’s seem almost pleasant in retrospect. The house would have been called a mansion if it had held an ordinary American family; for the throng of linguists it was adequate, but no more than that, and could not have been considered luxurious. As for the grounds, Michaela suspected that they might have been criticized if the public had known much about them, because the Verdis had a fondness for gardens and didn’t appear to have spared much expense in those behind the house. But out in the country like this, with a stretch of woods between them and the highway, no one was likely to know. Linguists didn’t have visitors because they didn’t have time; and they adamantly refused to allow members of the press on their grounds.
In spite of the crowding in the house, the Verdis had found a room with its own bath for Michaela, and a window overlooking the river. She was in the corner of the house on an upper floor, and to get down to the common rooms she had to go all the way around an outside corridor and across a walkway that went over the roof of the Interface. When she’d first arrived, that had worried her, and she’d gone immediately to the senior woman of the Household to express her concern.
“I’m concerned about my room, Mrs. Verdi,” she had said.
“But it’s such a nice room!”
“Oh, yes,” she said hastily, “the room itself is beautiful, and I am most grateful for it. But I can’t get to my patient in less than four minutes, Mrs. Verdi, and that’s alarming. I’ve clocked it by three different routes, and four minutes is absolutely the best I can do — it’s that bridge over the Interface that slows me down.”
“Oh, I see!” Sharon Verdi had said, the relief on her face telling Michaela a good deal about the shifting and crowding they must have done to give her the room she had. “Oh, that’s all right… really.”
“But four minutes! A great deal can happen in four minutes.”
For example, you can die in four minutes,” thought Michaela. It had not taken Ned Landry four minutes.
“My dear child,” the woman began, and Michaela guarded her face against any betrayal of how she despised the idea of being a linguist’s dear child, “I assure you it’s no problem. Great-grandfather Verdi has nothing serious wrong with him, you know; he’s just very old and weak. Until the last few months we’ve always been able to assign one of the girls to sit with him, taking turns… he just wants company.”
“But now you think he needs a nurse?”
“No,” Sharon Verdi laughed, “he still just needs company. But he has taken it into his head that he wants the same person all the time, you see, and there’s nobody we can spare on that basis. And so we need you, my dear — but you won’t have crises to deal with. Nothing that requires you to get to his room in ten seconds flat, or anything like that. One of these nights he will go to his just reward peacefully, in his sleep; he’s sound as a racehorse. And until then, I’m afraid that your major problem is not going to be rushing to emergencies, it’s going to be boredom. That man can barely sit up without a strong arm to help him, but there is nothing wrong with his voice, and he can talk any one of us into a coma. You’ll earn your salary, I promise — and want a raise.”
“Ah,” said Michaela. “I understand. Thank you, Mrs. Verdi.”
“You’re quite welcome… and don’t worry. Nothing he needs won’t wait five minutes, or fifteen for that matter. And if he ever should have a touch of something or other that makes you feel you really need to be closer, there’s a very comfortable couch in his room where we could put you up for a night or two.”
Michaela had nodded, satisfied. True, she would be taking the old man out of this world a bit more quickly than the Verdis anticipated; but while she was serving as his nurse, he would have the best care she could provide him, and no corners cut. She was an excellent nurse; she had no intention of lowering her standards. And she was awfully glad to be able to stay in the spacious corner room, where she could lean out like Rapunzel and watch the river.