“I feel like I don’t either, at the moment. Look. Park-Wu summons the Being, sends her off to Timmerman, not as a servant of Channing or Park-Wu herself, but as a genuine helper for Timmerman. Which means that Tunnel Light can’t hurt him. Or even let anyone else hurt him. She can only help. And yet, we know that Timmerman’s on the verge of exposing Channing. And there must be a reason why they chose a reconfigured Black Dust 7. I will not believe that that is just some accident.”
She held my hand. “I’ve gotten rusty at this, I’m afraid. In the old days I would have known better than to go to Timmerman without all the facts. That was stupid. I’m sorry.”
“I’m not doing any better,” I said. “You know, Alison, it’s a good thing you really didn’t just want to see me for help on this Timmerman thing. You would have gone away pretty fed up.”
She grinned at me. “I have to admit, I’m glad my hidden agenda was the one that got satisfied.” She stood up, still holding my hands. “Come on,” she said. “We’re probably as safe outside as in here.”
We stood in the doorway, where I winced at the sun, the noise of the traffic and people. Looking at Alison, I wished I could kiss her, starting at the eyebrows and working my way down. She said, “I’m just afraid things are coming to a head sooner than we know how to react. My guess is that Timmerman’s about ready to move.”
I said, “We could try to find out what he’s planning. What Channing’s involvement is.”
She shrugged. “Then all we’d know is what Timmerman knows. We need to find out what he doesn’t know. What Margaret-Lisa is going to do to him.”
“I wonder,” I said. Alison looked at me, waiting. “I wonder if Tunnel Light herself knows what she’s going to do.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, maybe I’m fixated on this switch idea, but if she’s really sincere—and you tell me she has no choice—then somehow she’s going to do something to him without knowing she’s doing it.”
“Like what?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe…maybe she’ll stop him if he veers away from what she considers important. She obviously doesn’t consider Channing of any significance. Maybe she’s somehow…programmed in some way, to force Timmerman away from banking and back to sex.”
Alison was frowning, trying to assess what I was suggesting. She looked delicious and I found myself wanting to force her away from banking. She said, “How would she force him? She can’t hurt him.”
“She could sabotage what he’s doing. That wouldn’t hurt him.”
She shook her head. “I still doubt it. Maybe I’m slightly fixated myself, but my understanding is that the compulsion to serve Timmerman would lead her to help him further his plans.”
“Even if it went against her plans?”
She tilted her head to the side, unconsciously causing her hair to fall slightly away from her face, into the sun. Straightening up, she said, “I’ll have to think about that. Maybe I can check on your idea about programming. Is it possible to dedicate a Bright Being in such a way that it reacts automatically to a specific situation?”
Feeling not very confident, I said, “And I’ll try to think about what exactly they might want to programme her to do.”
There was a pause, and then Alison said, “Would you like to come over tonight?” There was something very sweet about her hesitancy, her caution about any assumptions. I said, “Of course.”
She stroked my cheek. I closed my eyes and made some kind of purring noise. “How about dinner?” Alison said. “I’ll cook. My cooking doesn’t go much beyond roast chicken and yoghurt salad, but if you say nice things to me I’ll try for some potato pancakes.”
“I’ll start right now,” I said, and whispered suggestions of niceness in her ear. “How about eight?” I asked. “I think I need some time just to sit. Try to see whatever it is I’m not seeing.”
Alison quoted Adrienne Birth-of-Beauty, the Fifth Proposition from her Shout From the Skyscraper. “See what there is to see. Hear what there is to hear. Touch whatever you touch. Speak the thing you must speak.”
“If I knew what it was,” I said, “I’d be happy to speak it.”
But it wasn’t Alison or even Birth-of-Beauty who opened me to what was there. It was Joan Monteil.
When the bell rang, around four that afternoon, my first thought was that my government had returned, wanting to tell me I shouldn’t be hanging out in Teller Halls with Alison Birkett. But then I realized that the tube-faced people used their own keys, so I decided to ask over the intercom who it was. The usual indistinguishable scratchy voice came back. “It’s me. It’s Joan Monteil. Joan? You know. Ellen? Let me in. There’s so much…Let me in.”
Wishing I hadn’t answered, I buzzed her through. I didn’t want to face Joan right now. Every day since that first night with Alison I’d woken up thinking that I had to call Joan, tell her I couldn’t see her any more, tell her I was sorry if I’d hurt her. The usual. Words that sound like a lie even when they’re true. And every time other things came first. Timmerman was more urgent. Alison was more deserving.
The doorbell rang. And rang. And rang. Joan was pressing it over and over, like some enactment prayer buzzer summoning people back into their bodies. When I opened the door she came rushing in, full of cheer. “Ellen,” she said, in an odd breathy voice. “Oh, Ellen, it’s…it’s just so wonderful to see you.” There was something strange about the way she looked, too. It took me a moment to realize just what it was. She had on very heavy makeup, but it wasn’t like she’d put it on too thickly, it was more as if there were layers, as if she’d carefully done herself up, then decided she wasn’t satisfied and did it all over again, except without removing the earlier layer. And then again. Her hair had a kind of matted overstyled look, yet disorganized, as if there too she couldn’t seem to decide and just kept adding more and more gel, or spray, every time she decided to change it. As she talked, she moved around the apartment in a nervous dance, even pirouetting, with movements that tried to be graceful or provocative, but ended up as too abrupt, off balance. She had a habit of moving her fingers on her body, down her cheek, or along her thigh. She was dressed all in black, wearing stretch jeans and a T-shirt. I could only watch, confused and a little frightened. Now and then, she would come towards me, leaning forward, or putting out a hand to stroke my face. Without thinking, I pulled away from her.
“I dreamed about you,” she said. “It was so incredible. I was eating. Fruit. Or soup? And everything was hot. All over me. I just wanted to climb into it. Stir it with my breasts. Isn’t that great? Have you ever done that? Oh, you’ve done everything. I know. And you were in the dream. Part of the mirror. Did I tell you about the mirror? It was so dark, but you were breathing, I could hear you whisper to me, you were just whispering over and over and over, the same thing, how much you wanted me, and we could sink into the mirror. With the moon.” She came very close and began to move her fingernails across the top of my chest.
I lifted her hand away. “Listen, Joan,” I started, but she wasn’t listening.
“I took it down to NORA,” she said. “I thought they should have it. To match it. With all the others. I know there’s others, there has to be. All over. That’s what she said. How we all deserve it. But not you, of course. I mean, not you in other people’s dreams.” She giggled. “Of course, you deserve it. You more than anyone.” She was touching things, running her hand along a lamp pole, or sliding an eraser between her palms, or moving her finger along a picture frame and then touching her lips. It reminded me of something.