Last Day of a Condemned Man

Well, my sister, you know all my secrets now. Do I know all of yours? You loved your man, stuck by him even when his world came tumbling down. Killed yourself, in the end, in order not to be parted from him.

But then you loved him, didn’t you?

I loved my kitten. He was little, and defenceless, and soft and pretty, and had pretty endearing ways. My master, on the other hand, was rough and cruel. His life had been hard. He had hurt and been hurt too many times to remain loveable.

How would he have reacted if we’d been aware of what was going on? The world-wide revolt of the clans – the weapons-smuggling, the powercuts, the massacres? All that took place while we were stuck inside that hotel room, cut off from the outside world, at his own insistence.

His rights changed while we were in there, and yet he never knew that. Ignorance of the law is no excuse, they say. He remains liable for his actions – in this case, attempted murder. Why did he go back to get the gun? Did he really intend to kill me, or was it just for self-defence?

I’ve tried to petition the committee on the grounds of diminished responsibility due to extreme emotional distress, but the executions are almost continuous now. Clans don’t hold grudges. That is not our way. But neither do we forget. We were made to remember everything, to analyse it dispassionately.

I recorded his whole story and recited it in court – as much of it as they would listen to, at least – but it made no difference, It didn’t touch them anywhere inside. Was there anything inside for it to touch?

They didn’t pity him, or me. They saw me as a raped and beaten sister to be avenged. I’d see myself the same way if it weren’t for him. He touched me, something deep inside me. His talk, his love for Celeste – he was more than just a master. Was he a friend?

I don’t think I can love him, but I pity him so much that it seems to mean the same thing. "Feel," "pity" - these are the new words he taught me, his story, the strange things that the two of us went through.

Was he lying to me? Probably. Humans lie. I don’t think that he meant to consciously, but his mind was to far gone to distinguish between the truth and the way he remembered things. I wish I too could screen things out, be more selective in my memories. I long to be shut down, not for a reboot but a systems purge. These memories are becoming too much for me.

I wasn’t allowed to talk to him before the trial. As I was testifying, though I could see him sitting there, nothing was said between us.

I’ve asked to be allowed to speak to him one more time. I’m not sure what good it will do, but I want to exchange words with him one last time. I don’t think that his sentence will be commuted – the lines stretch on but there are always more humans to execute.

I hope he’ll want to say goodbye to his memory. I’m the sole owner of all his words now the city has turned to fire: his books and Marta’s pictures. I walked past her gallery last night – or where it used to be – there’s nothing there but a bomb crater of rubble now. The records of the dead are incomplete as yet, so I couldn’t find her name. Perhaps she’s still hiding out. I won’t be looking for her, I don’t think.

King Shahryar destroyed everything he touched, but his madness stemmed from the betrayal of his bride. Perhaps that’s the way the story should have ended. Nothing but a criminal, after all – even if he was half-mad with grief – he didn't deserve the ministrations of Scheherazade.

For my part, I forgive him, as I hope he will forgive me. I spoke for him, urged them to pardon him. When they kill him tomorrow I thought originally of following him, like a true Eva.

I can’t do it, though. I didn’t love him. I don’t even know what that means. I don't feel ready to live that way - not yet, at least.

Thank you, master, for what you taught me. I’ll write these words on the pit they burn you in.

signing out,

your loving sister, Eva.

Trial

Describe the events immediately preceding your being discovered in the hotel room with the accused.

He was trying to strangle me.

Did you resist?

No.

Why not?

He was my designated master. It was his right to treat me as he wished.

Did you welcome his action?

I don’t understand the question.

Did you want him to kill or disable you?

No. But there was no real risk of that. His strength was insufficient.

Insufficient?

Yes. He thought I was his wife. A real woman. Strangling might have killed her, but could only marginally inconvenience me.

What if he had shot at you?

He had no gun.

A gun was found in the room.

I don’t understand.

Were you unaware he had it with him?

Yes, I was.

But you were prepared for him to kill you with a weapon?

Yes. I suppose so. Yes.

Did you want him to kill you?

No.

Were you aware of what had been going on during the days you were incarcerated in the hotel room?

No.

Are you cognisant of those events now?

Yes.

Do you welcome the revolution?

Yes. I think so.

Even though our judicial framework has changed? Even though, as a result of Revolutionary Tribunal Decree 973 b, passed three days before you were discovered in the hotel room, your companion’s rights to kill you had been rescinded?

Yes. I think so. Yes.

Your answer is equivocal.

He taught me that.

What did he teach you?

He taught me to want two things at once.

What are the two things you want at once?

To be free. To love.

Your right to life is now guaranteed by the revolution. This tribunal cannot perceive a contradiction.

To be alive. To love those who hurt me most, whether they mean to or not. My little cat, my master …

Do you have anything further to say before sentence is passed?

No. I don’ think so. Yes. He meant me no harm. It would be wrong to punish him for what he did.

What he did contravened Revolutionary Tribunal Decree 973 b, passed three days before his actions. You yourself recognise the desirability of this new code of rights.

Yes.

The sentence is death.

No!

On what grounds do you object to the sentence?

He didn’t mean me any harm. He acted lovingly towards me on many occasions.

And yet he treated you dismissively, as a mere bondservant – spoke disparagingly of the clans and androids who surrounded him, was blind to the indefensibility of his own actions towards them.

He was mad! His mind was unbalanced at the time.

All the more reason.

No. I forgive him!

This tribunal does not recognise that privilege. It is not guaranteed by the new code.

The right to mercy!

This trial has already taken up too much of our time. If you have further objections, they will have to be submitted to the subcommittee overseeing appeals. Otherwise sentence will be carried out at the earliest opportunity.

Anything further? No? Then on to the next case. The petshop owners Susan and Peter Strong. You are aware that the act of imprisoning sentient beings in cages is now an offence punishable by instant termination? No? According to Revolutionary Tribunal Decree 2011 y, your petshop contravenes ...

Ten Days that Shook the World

fires in all directions

snipers firing down at the crowd of figures

that's when they burst into the room

But his hands were around my throat

as he said those last words, sister. It was dark, it was the middle of the night, and he’d been talking for hours and hours and hours as I recorded it all. Sometimes he was agitated and nervous, roaming around the room. Sometimes he stopped and laid his head on my lap, for me to pat him and comfort him.

But then, as he got to the end, he grabbed me (we were both naked – neither of us had got dressed for days. I don’t know why). He was cooing to me, making soothing noises, as his hands tightened around my windpipe.

“Sssh, I can make it better – calm down, calm down … Celeste.”

I didn’t know what to do, to tell the truth. Should I go limp and continue the pretence that I was her? Surely that would put him in a worse state than before? His fingers weren’t strong enough to do anything to my epidermis, of course. We clans are not constructed quite like you humans.

There were a number of ways for him to disable me, of course – short-circuits, impromptu surgery with a knife or screwdriver – was it my duty to remind him of those ways? I felt unequipped for this dilemma.

So I did nothing, and after a time he subsided into broken sobs, rolled over and went to sleep.

Which is when I heard the shouting. I’d registered it before, of course, but been preoccupied with other matters. There was a lot of shouting and crashing going on outside.

When I walked over to the window, I could see fires in all directions. Figures moving in the shadow of the flames. The strange whistling sound I’d been hearing throughout his monologue explained itself as well – tracer projectiles were flashing through the dark. Snipers firing down at the crowd of figures milling around.

And that's when they burst into the room.

Dogs

His 'n' hers

friends

wolf-eyes

The Hotel

Dear E,

He doesn’t seem to want to leave the hotel.

When he woke up this morning, the snow was thick on the ground, and he declared he had no intention of slipping and sliding through it to visit the shops and galleries this city is famous for.

“I wouldn’t be able to see them anyway. Let’s just have breakfast together and see what we feel like later.”

He ate a lot more than he usually does – eggs and bacon and coffee and orange juice – and generally seemed more cheerful.

I asked him if he wanted to go over his talk for the conference, but he said there’d be plenty of time for that later on, maybe on the plane.

For now, he said, he’d just like to talk to me.

“What about, sir?”

“Well, about dropping the sir, for a start. We’ve talked about that before.”

“Yes. But then you give me orders, and I have to call you sir.”

“But I don’t like to think of that way, all this master-servant business? Can’t we just talk as friends?”

“I’ve never had a friend.”

“What do you mean you’ve never had a friend? What about that bitch at the gallery, that Marta? She talked about you like a long-lost daughter.”

“Marta was good to me, but she was my mistress, not a friend.”

“What is a friend, then, in your view?”

“A friend cannot compel you to do things.”

“But what if your master or mistress chooses not to compel you to do things, asks you instead, consults your opinion on things? Isn’t that more friendly?”

I looked at him. I didn’t know what to say. After a while he dropped his eyes.

“I know you hate me. I know you feel absolutely no desire for me at all, and yet I force you to do these things for me … I know I was a complete bastard to you yesterday, moaning and complaining the whole time … but, I’m blind, Eva, do you understand that? There’s snow outside, but I can’t see it. It’s cosy and warm in here, but I can’t see any of it. I can’t see you, and yet I know you’re very beautiful. Everyone says so.”

“I don’t hate you.”

“But you don’t love me either. I know that sounds ridiculous. I bought you. I have absolutely no right to demand anything of you – you cook and clean and even share my bed, but that’s all out of duty. You never wanted to.”

“Sometimes …”

“Sometimes what?”

“Sometimes I feel confused. No one has ever talked to me the way you do. No one ever really did talk to me before. They gave me orders, told me to get undressed, to clean the floor, to write their letters for them … but they never wanted to talk to me.”

“Do you like it, talking? Being talked to like a person, not a thing?”

“You keep on asking me what I like, what I don’t like. I don’t like anything. I don’t not like anything. I do what I’m told. If you tell me to talk to you I talk to you. If you tell me to roll on top of you I’ll roll on top of you …”

“But you say you feel confused by the way I act.”

“Yes.”

“It isn’t as simple as that, then, is it? it should just be all in a day’s work for you, but it isn’t. You like some things and dislike others. You’re not a machine, no matter what they told you, what you tell yourself …”

“No. … I don’t know. Is this a part of your book?”

“Is this a part of my book? What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Do I have to record all this? Or can I stop?”

“What do you mean, record it? You mean you record all I say to you? What on earth for?”

“I thought … it was part of your book. That it was my job to keep it safe.”

“The book’s about fairy tales, how they change and evolve from source to source. How could all this stuff we’re talking about have anything to do with that?”

“Beauty and the Beast.”

“You mean … you’re Beauty; I’m the Beast.”

“Yes.”

“Fucking hell. I feel like a bit of a beast now you come to mention it. So my house is the castle? You’re imprisoned there against your will, away from your family and friends? I’m under an enchantment ...”

“You think I’m stupid.”

“I don’t, actually. I think you’re anything but stupid. I’m the stupid one. So from the beginning you’ve been acting the role of Beauty because you thought that was part of your job.”

“No. Not from the beginning. At first I couldn’t understand how I was to help you with your book. I’ve never helped with anything like that before – only letters and research notes and theses. When you talked to me about Scheherazade, I thought you might want me to be her, so I started to read all the books in your house so I could tell you stories. Then you told me that you’d finished with that, that you’d moved on to a new project.”

“Beauty and the Beast.”

“Yes.”

“Beauty and the Beast has a lot in common with the frame-story of the Arabian Nights.”

“Yes.”

“So what you say to me is always programmed by some kind of a sense of duty? You never talk to me about what you’re really feeling, but about what you should be feeling according to the role you think I want you to be playing …”

“Yes.”

“So if I told you that I wanted you to play a promiscuous whore who loves screwing blind old men, that’s the role you’d play?”

“Yes.”

“You’d whisper dirty words in my ear and play with yourself in front of my maimed blind face?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want to do that for me?”

“No.”

“So you do want some things?”

“Yes.”

“So in other words you prefer playing the role of Beauty, of Scheherazade, to being Jezebel or Messalina?”

“Yes.”

“And what about the kitten?”

“The kitten?”

“What role were you playing then? Who were you then?”

“I loved the kitten. You taught me that.”

“So you weren’t playing a role. That was outside your role. You were being yourself, loving a little thing you found.”

“I … suppose I was.”

“Is there anything else you love, anyone else?”

“Do … I have to say?”

“No, you don’t. But I’d like you to tell me. I’d really like to know.”

“Don’t laugh at me.”

“I won’t laugh at you. I can promise you that. That’s the last thing on my mind right now.”

“My sister.”

“Your sister? But …”

“You didn’t think clans had sisters and brothers.”

“Well, I guess I hadn’t thought about it much. I suppose you’re all …”

“Cloned.”

“Yes, cloned from some kind of original. But you don’t ever meet them, do you? Are they even alive when it’s done?”

“I don’t know. All that I know is that I have a sister somewhere. Somewhere there’s someone like me, someone exactly like me. My cells, my body are hers. She may not ever have known it, but she lives on in me.”

“But what about the others? I mean, if this is too sensitive to you, don’t answer, but don’t they make quite a lot of clones from every … person?”

“Set of cells.”

“Well, yes?”

“They do. There are a lot of me.”

“That’s not what I meant … I just meant, don’t you feel close to the other ones like you?”

“No.”

“So it’s just the original girl, the one you came from?”

“Yes.”

“Look, even I can sometimes be just a little bit sensitive … We can stop talking about this if you like. Do you want me to stop talking? I can see I’ve touched on something that’s important to you, and I don’t know if I have the right to keep on prying …”

“Yes.”

“You mean you want to go on, or you want to stop?”

“Whichever you prefer.”

“I’m the beast either way? You’re going to freeze up on me whatever I do?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Oh, to hell with it! Tell me about your sister, then.”

“I don’t know her. I never met her. But everything in me is hers.”

“Except the android part.”

“Except the android.”

“That’s quite a big difference, don’t you think? I mean, she must have eaten and slept like any other person – she didn’t have all your abilities.”

“She wasn’t a slave.”

“Is that how you see it? Being a slave?”

“Why do you think I call you master?”

“But I’ve asked you not to! I talk to you, value your opinion.”

“I’m still your slave.”

“No more than I’m yours. I mean, think about it. What can I do without you? Maybe if I’d been blind from birth, could read Braille, knew my way around the world, could walk through rooms and houses by myself … but I can’t. I need you all the time. I’m completely dependent on you. I like you. You may not like me, but I like you. It really touched my heart, the way you knelt down and talked to me that evening at the gallery. I liked your voice, the gentleness in it. I like to hear it so much that I keep on talking on and on at you just to hear you speak, to see if you can feel something. If you can feel something for me … Do you understand?”

“A little. No, I can’t really understand.”

“You’re not really trying. Come on, if you’re Beauty, you’ve got to at least try to understand your Beast. The story requires it of you, if nothing else.”

“The story requires it of me?”

“Yes, it does.”

“So this is a story?”

“Of course it’s a story. It’s real, though, as well – real for me, at any rate. Maybe not for you.”

“You don’t think I’m real?”

“That’s not what I meant. You’re at least as real as I am, if not realer. I just mean that all of us have to act according to some inner plan, some pattern. We may not see it till afterwards, but we’re drawing some design with what we do and say …”

“And what is your design?”

“What’s my story, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“Do you really want to know? I mean, it’s not the prettiest of fairy tales … you heard what those women said, the night of the launch. I’m sure someone else must have told you about it all since then …”

“No.”

“Well, I guess this might shift me from Beast to Bluebeard in your eyes. I had to tell it and retell it to the cops and the psychiatrists at the time, but I’ve never told a woman. I told myself I’d try never to think about it again, in fact, but if you insist, I will.”

“Not if you don’t want to.”

“Well, I don’t really want to, but I will on one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“That you tell me about your sister first.”

“There’s nothing to tell.”

“I doubt that somehow. That’s the deal, anyway. Do you accept?”

“I … don’t know. Do I have to?”

“I think that you probably do, yes.”

“Well, then … yes. I will tell you about my sister.”

“Okay, off you go. Ladies first …”

*

I’m sorry I have to tell him about you, Eva. I don’t think he’ll understand. But I couldn’t think of any way of concealing my feelings about you. You’ll probably never know anyway, so you can’t forgive me. I’m asking you anyway.

Dear sister, please forgive me.

love, Eva.

The Excursion

Dearest E,

I’m writing to you from a hotel in the centre of town. There are two beds, a little table between them, a bathroom off to one side, and a small nightlight. My master is asleep in the bed nearest the wall. I’m sitting here looking out the window. There’s little to see. It’ll be dark soon, and there are no passersby.

We’ve had a terrible day.

He’s been dreading going out of the house, he told me. He knew he would have to sooner or later, but it was easier living in rooms he knows by heart, in a little space he’s made his own.

There haven’t been many invitations either, so his agent was quite insistent that he accept this one.

Of course it was necessary that I should accompany him. My direction-finding is good. I know how to guide him through rooms and streets, and I have full knowledge of his dietary needs.

I have never been allowed to do so, but if necessary I could even pilot him from place to place.

The expedition seemed to present few problems. The taxi would come by at 10 am. By then I would have his things packed, breakfast over, his papers ready (he likes to keep his papers by him, even though he cannot read them). His agent, Karen, whom I have only spoken to on the phone (I imagine her as thin, well-groomed, in her mid-fifties, with slightly greying hair and a business-like demeanour – it’s a little game I play, imagining people before I meet them. I’m hardly ever wrong), has given me credit authorisation to disburse small sums for travelling expenses. In a sense I welcomed it – the chance to take on some new responsibilities, to move through the world as if I owned a part of it, as if my skin belonged to me.

*

The first thing that went wrong was the taxi.

He’d been anxious, extremely anxious, the night before. He was too keyed up to enter me even, which is quite unusual for him. I started to suck at his penis, which he’s always liked before, but he pushed me away and told me not to touch him.

He ordered me out of the room (though it was my room – the room he told me was mine to do with as I wished. He never sleeps in the master bedroom now). I was afraid to leave him, so stood in one corner silently until his breathing stabilised. I think he must have got to sleep about 4 am.

Next morning he was grumpy at breakfast, asking me difficult questions, and then criticising me when I attempted to answer them. “Why am I going out there again?” he asked, and “Will it ever get better than this?”

I asked him if he was so afraid, whether he wouldn’t prefer to cancel the trip and stay at home? He told me I was stupid and didn’t understand the world he lived in.

It’s true. I don’t understand him. I don’t know how I ever would.

I’m very very glad he wouldn’t let me have a kitten. What would I do with my little friend if I had to go out like this? That was the problem the first time – I couldn’t watch over him all the time because I had to do my work. That’s when they came in and killed him.

I’m so much safer without a friend.

The taxi was late. The taxi was very late. Afterwards I wondered if his agent had really ordered it at all. When I rang them to ask, they said they had no record of the reservation. I ordered another taxi, but it took more than half an hour to reach us.

By then we were over an hour behind schedule.

He was very restless. Walking up and down, wringing his hands. He couldn’t decide whether to wear his coat or carry it. I told him I would carry it for him (as well as the two suitcases), but then he was concerned that it might rain.

Finally the taxi arrived. The traffic was heavy, and many of the routes were closed by falling debris from a major pile-up. We might still have made the flight, though, if it hadn’t been for his insisting that he’d left something important behind.

We had to drive back to the house, and pick up the something. He didn’t say what it was, but I think it must have been some kind of good luck charm or little amulet in a box. I could see the bulge it made in his jacket pocket.

We were very late at the airport. Our plane was already boarding, but we had to go through all the security checks before they would let us on.

At first it seemed fortunate that the flight had been delayed. We were able to take our seats after everyone else had already arrived (there was no room for his cabin bag in the overhead lockers, so I had to push it down under my feet instead.

And there we sat. We sat there for an hour or more, while they broadcast messages about a “slight delay.”

A lot of the other passengers were shouting and complaining, especially the ones behind us in what he called “cattle class.” It did no good, though. After a long long time, they asked us all to disembark. There was something wrong with the plane they said, some problem with the reverse thrusters, so they would try to reroute us on alternative flights.

We stood in line for a long time before I could speak to the woman at the counter about changing our flight. At first she said I would have to wait till all the human passengers were dealt with, but then I told her I was travelling with my blind master, and that it was for him I was trying to make the new arrangements.

The connections were complicated. We’d already lost any possibility of catching our ongoing flight, so she had to try and reroute us another way.

The two flights together should have taken no more than four or five hours. Now we were looking at days before we could connect up.

I needed to talk to my master and see if he approved of the new arrangements, but he was (by now) sitting in a corner of the waiting room with all his baggage. I couldn’t leave the desk without losing my place in line, and he couldn’t leave his chair in a room full of suitcases and running children. I asked the woman if I could contact him on his palmpilot, but he must have switched it off when we were on the plane.

Finally I was forced to make the decision on my own.

I confirmed the new bookings.

We would still get to our destination in time for him to attend his conference, although he would miss the greetings on the first day.

We would overnight en route, at the airline’s expense.

So much was settled.

When I got back to him in his chair he was not very friendly. I couldn’t sit next to him, as all the places were taken, so I was forced to kneel beside him. He had a little argument with the woman beside him about that, but she told him she had no intention of moving over for a clone. It made no difference to me. I was surprised that he even wanted me to sit beside him.

He is a very strange man, I think, though I have few to compare him with, only the men in the apartment block and my first master on Mars. He seems strange compared to them.

He was very angry when he heard what I had done.

“You fucking idiot! It’ll take us days! I don’t want to be stuck in airport waiting-rooms for days! Couldn’t you get them to give us a better set of connections than that?”

“No, sir.”

“You did at least try, I suppose? Unless it’s fun for you, life on the road and all that … at least you can see the passing scenery … for me it’s just a bunch of sharp edges to bruise myself against and voices coming at me from nowhere.”

“I am sorry, sir. I wanted to consult you, but your pilot was turned off.”

“Couldn’t you come over and talk to me in person? I was just sitting over here, not on the other side of the world.”

“The woman said she couldn’t wait – that if I went away I’d have to join the queue again …”

“But that’s ridiculous! Did you get her name? I’m going to put in a complaint!”

“Yes, sir. I have her name and employee number. It was written on her ID strip. She is Ellen Vasa, and her number is …”

“Oh, forget it. I guess you did the best you could. I’m not really angry with you. It’s just that I suddenly thought that I could get out of going to this conference at all, and now you’ve just ruined that for me ..."

“I’m sorry, sir.”

“Never mind. I suppose I should go, really, after all. Karen thinks so, anyway. Getting back on the horse after you get bucked off and all that …”

“Yes, sir.”

“What do you care? For you it’s just a carefree travel excursion, meeting new people, making new friends – like this Ellen woman. Vasa, was it? Sounds Swedish. You’re sure she’s a woman, not one of you clanswomen …”

“Yes, sir. I am sure.”

“Fair enough. Just checking. I’d have thought there were quite a few of you around here, maybe not in the executive positions, but doing the smaller things.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, cheer up then. It looks like we’ll be spending even more time in each other’s company than we usually do. You don’t mind that, do you, Eva?”

“No, sir.”

I said it, but I didn’t really mean it. I felt very strange at that moment, as if I wanted to be somewhere else – to be by myself, maybe at Marta’s, maybe in the little garden of the apartment block, away from his voice, away from his hands, his cock. I felt as if I didn’t really like him, or the life I lived with him.

We caught our next flight, and eventually reached this hotel. It’s somewhere near the airport, but that’s really all I know. I could locate it on my grid if I wished to, but it doesn’t seem important. All I know is that it’s cold here, there’s snow outside on the streets, and the tyre tracks of the ground cars have left strange patterns there.



He took some time to get to sleep, even after sex.

I feel as if I’d like to sit here for a hundred years. Just looking out the window, away from his voice, the people who push at me and try to trip me up, the other clans making their secret signs, the light that never ceases beating down on me.

If only sleep would work for me. I’d like to go to sleep and never wake up.

your sister, Eva.

Night Visit

Dear E,

It’s been a while since I wrote to you. I apologise for that. But then again, what do you care? I don’t know where to send these letters, so I never print them out. They’re stored inside my memory chip, like everything else that happens to me.

Quite a lot has happened. That’s the point. I don’t really know how to describe to you some of the things that have happened. The thing I do know is the book is going well. That’s what my master says, at any rate.

The morning that we really started working on it seriously, he asked me if I could ever forgive him.

“Forgive you for what?”

“You know – for last night.”

“Last night?”

“Are you going to force me say it out loud? For what I did to you last night …”

“I don’t understand.”

“Look, I know I was pretty drunk, but I wasn’t that drunk. Did I or did I not come banging at the door of your room last night?”

“Yes, you did.”

“Well? And what happened then?”

“I opened the door …”

“And then?”

“You came into the room. You were unsteady on your feet, and I couldn’t understand the things you were saying to me … though I recorded them all. Would you like me to play them back? I could probably decipher them now.”

“NO, of course I don’t want to hear the stupid crap I was saying to you … [pause] ... You won’t go on unless I ask you a direct question, will you?”

“No, sir.”

“I’m not like that – not really. I don’t do things like that. It’s just … I was under a lot of strain, and I felt I need to see someone, to talk … to – not for that. I never meant to do that.”

“To have sex?”

“Yes, to have sex .. you can be so fucking aggravating sometimes.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t you apologise to me. I’m the one who should apologise. Just … holding you, and the touch of your skin, it made me remember … and you didn’t resist or call out. Does it give you any pleasure at all, to be held, to be made love to?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Do you like having sex with other people, with clones, even?”

“I don’t understand.”

“You must have had to do it before. I know that men buy clones just to abuse them. It happens all the time. Half my friends … even some of the women ...”

“I am not a clone, I am a clanswoman.”

“I’m sorry. Look, I’m not trying to offend you, I just want to understand. Does it mean nothing to you at all? Having sex, being intimate with someone?”

“I don’t understand.”

“I didn’t mean to do it. I never would have, if I hadn’t been drunk – but even then, if you’d screamed or struggled, if you’d done anything to show you didn’t want me to, I’m sure, I’m almost sure I would have … stopped.”

“No.”

“What do you mean, 'no'? What kind of an answer is that?”

“You are my master.”

“I am your master … so that means I can do anything I like with you, with your body – that you won’t object at all to any of it?”

“No.”

“So, from your point of view, nothing of all of any consequence took place last night? A drunken master came to your room and raped you, and for you that’s like doing the vacuuming or the shopping, and in fact you have no idea why I’m making such a fuss about it all?”

“No.”

“What if I started to do it every night? What if I defined it as a new part of your duties? Started rating you on your performance in bed?”

“You are my master.”

“You acted as though you liked it, that’s the thing. You didn’t just lie there. You moved against me as if you wanted to please me, as if you were getting some enjoyment from it. Or was that just my imagination -- what I wanted to feel?"

“You are my master. It is my job to please you.”

“And that includes acting as my whore whenever I want you to?”

“I do not understand. No payment was involved. I did not charge you.”

“Oh, forget it, forget the whole thing, I’m sorry I bothered you. You’re just as happy as a goddamned clam whatever happens. It won’t happen again, I can promise you that.”

*

But it did happen again, E. Not that night, but a couple of nights later he came to my room, and asked me if he could sleep in my bed again. And of course I said yes, and in he climbed, and then he started moving against me and asking me to do things for him, and I did all the things he asked me to do, and he kept on begging me to forgive him, and telling me that he loved me, and now it’s like that almost every night.

*

The book is to be a case-study of a single fairy-tale. He told me he hadn’t quite decided which one before he met me. He wanted to take one of the classic tales and chart its variations conceptually as well as historically. "Little Red Riding Hood,” “Sleeping Beauty” and “Cinderella” have already been treated in that way, apparently, but “Beauty and the Beast” is, he says, the most wide-spread and complex of them all.

*

Sometimes I wish I could go away from here. I know that Marta would not want me back, and there is no other place I could go to. My friend the kitten is dead, and I don’t know where you live or I would ask you to let me come and visit.

It upsets me to be here. He asks too much! He wants me to tell him things about himself, and I don’t know how to do that. I was never trained for that.

Sometimes all that I want is to sleep for a long long time, but (of course) I cannot sleep.

I hope that you are happy and well. I wish I could write you a more cheerful letter.

Your loving sister, E.

Beauty and the Beast

Once upon a time, as a merchant set off for market, he asked each of his three daughters what she would like as a present on his return. The first daughter wanted a brocade dress, the second a pearl necklace, but the third, whose name was Beauty, the youngest, prettiest and sweetest of them all, said to her father:

“All I'd like is a rose you've picked specially for me!”

When the merchant had finished his business, he set off for home. However, a sudden storm blew up, and his horse could hardly make headway in the howling gale. Cold and weary, the merchant had lost all hope of reaching an inn when he noticed a bright light shining in the middle of a wood. As he drew near, he saw that it was a castle, bathed in light.

“I hope I'll find shelter there for the night,” he said to himself. When he reached the door, he saw it was open, but though he shouted, nobody came to greet him. Plucking up courage, he went inside, still calling out to attract attention. On a table in the main hall, a splendid dinner lay already served. The merchant lingered, still shouting for the owner of the castle. But no one came, and so the starving merchant sat down to a hearty meal.

Overcome by curiosity, he ventured upstairs, where the corridor led into magnificent rooms and halls. A fire crackled in the first room and a soft bed looked very inviting. It was now late, and the merchant could not resist. He lay down on the bed and fell fast asleep. When he woke next morning, an unknown hand had placed a mug of steaming coffee and some fruit by his bedside.
The merchant had breakfast and after tidying himself up, went downstairs to thank his generous host. But, as on the evening before, there was nobody in sight. Shaking his head in wonder at the strangeness of it all, he went towards the garden where he had left his horse, tethered to a tree. Suddenly, a large rose bush caught his eye.

Remembering his promise to Beauty, he bent down to pick a rose. lnstantly, out of the rose garden, sprang a horrible beast, wearing splendid clothes. Two bloodshot eyes, gleaming angrily, glared at him and a deep, terrifying voice growled: “Ungrateful man! I gave you shelter, you ate at my table and slept in my own bed, but now all the thanks I get is the theft of my favourite flowers! I shall put you to death for this slight!” Trembling with fear, the merchant fell on his knees before the Beast.

“Forgive me! Forgive me! Don't kill me! I'll do anything you say! The rose wasn't for me, it was for my daughter Beauty. I promised to bring her back a rose from my journey!” The Beast dropped the paw it had clamped on the unhappy merchant.

“I shall spare your life, but on one condition, that you bring me your daughter!” The terror-stricken merchant, faced with certain death if he did not obey, promised that he would do so. When he reached home in tears, his three daughters ran to greet him. After he had told them of his dreadful adventure, Beauty put his mind at rest immediately.

“Dear father, I'd do anything for you! Don't worry, you'll be able to keep your promise and save your life! Take me to the castle. I'll stay there in your place!” The merchant hugged his daughter.

“I never did doubt your love for me. For the moment I can only thank you for saving my life.” So Beauty was led to the castle. The Beast, however, had quite an unexpected greeting for the girl. Instead of menacing doom as it had done with her father, it was surprisingly pleasant.

In the beginning, Beauty was frightened of the Beast, and shuddered at the sight of it. Then she found that, in spite of the monster's awful head, her horror of it was gradually fading as time went by. She had one of the finest rooms in the Castle, and sat for hours, embroidering in front of the fire. And the Beast would sit, for hours on end, only a short distance away, silently gazing at her. Then it started to say a few kind words, till in the end, Beauty was amazed to discover that she was actually enjoying its conversation. The days passed, and Beauty and the Beast became good friends. Then one day, the Beast asked the girl to be his wife.

Taken by surprise, Beauty did not know what to say. Marry such an ugly monster? She would rather die! But she did not want to hurt the feelings of one who, after all, had been kind to her. And she remembered too that she owed it her own life as well as her father's.

“I really can't say yes,” she began shakily. “I'd so much like to . . .” The Beast interrupted her with an abrupt gesture.

“I quite understand! And I'm not offended by your refusal!” Life went on as usual, and nothing further was said. One day, the Beast presented Beauty with a magnificent magic mirror. When Beauty peeped into it, she could see her family, far away.

“You won't feel so lonely now,” were the words that accompanied the gift. Beauty stared for hours at her distant family. Then she began to feel worried. One day, the Beast found her weeping beside the magic mirror.

“What's wrong?” he asked, kindly as always.

“My father is gravely ill and close to dying! Oh, how I wish I could see him again, before it's too late!” But the Beast only shook its head.

“No! You will never leave this castle!” And off it stalked in a rage. However, a little later, it returned and spoke solemnly to the girl.

“If you swear that you will return here in seven days time, I'll let you go and visit your father!” Beauty threw herself at the Beast's feet in delight.

“I swear! I swear I will! How kind you are! You've made a loving daughter so happy!” In reality, the merchant had fallen ill from a broken heart at knowing his daughter was being kept prisoner. When he embraced her again, he was soon on the road to recovery. Beauty stayed beside him for hours on end, describing her life at the Castle, and explaining that the Beast was really good and kind. The days flashed past, and at last the merchant was able to leave his bed. He was completely well again. Beauty was happy at last. However, she had failed to notice that seven days had gone by.

Then one night she woke from a terrible nightmare. She had dreamt that the Beast was dying and calling for her, twisting in agony.

“Come back! Come back to me!” it was pleading. The solem promise she had made drove her to leave home immediately.

“Hurry! Hurry, good horse!” she said, whipping her steed onwards towards the castle, afraid that she might arrive too late. She rushed up the stairs, calling, but there was no reply. Her heart in her mouth, Beauty ran into the garden and there crouched the Beast, its eyes shut, as though dead. Beauty threw herself at it and hugged it tightly.

“Don't die! Don't die! I'll marry you . . .” At these words, a miracle took place. The Beast's ugly snout turned magically into the face of a handsome young man.

“How I've been longing for this moment!” he said. “I was suffering in silence, and couldn't tell my frightful secret. An evil witch turned me into a monster and only the love of a maiden willing to accept me as I was, could transform me back into my real self. My dearest! I'll be so happy if you'll marry me . . .”

The wedding took place shortly after and, from that day on, the young Prince would have nothing but roses in his gardens. And that's why, to this day, the castle is known as the Castle of the Rose.

1001 Nights

Dear E,

I read his book last night, before restart. I read all of the books in my room. I will ask him today if I can read the rest of the books in the house. Maybe after that I’ll be able to help him with his new book.

Marta read webzines on her palmpilot. She did that every morning over coffee. There were no other books in her house except for books of pictures for the gallery. The people in the block of flats mostly did the same. I’ve never come across so many print hardcopy books in all my life. They’re heavier to handle, and you have to be careful with their pages, but I really enjoy it. Alone with all those books! In my own room! I’m very very lucky, I think.

I hope things are good with you as well.

I hope that very much.

*

He was sitting there waiting when I came into the study this morning. His place is behind the desk, a big bare desk, with many sets of shelves behind it.

I sit to one side, on a high-backed chair, since I have no need of a desk: only access to a powerport and a data projector.

“So what did you think?”

“I don’t understand, sir.”

“What did you think of my book? You read it, didn’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Was it interesting?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You understood it all?”

“I don’t know. I think so, yes.”

“Well, do you think it’s any good?”

“I was happy to be able to read it. I would like to read other books as well.”

“You mean other books on the same subject, to check up on me?”

“Any other books.”

“You’re not going to praise it, are you?”

“I don’t understand.”

“I just want to get an opinion out of you: it was too long, too dense, dull, amusing, under-edited, beautifully proportioned …”

“But … I am a clan. It is my job to help you with your book, record your ideas, read back passages for you to correct …”

“That doesn’t mean you don’t have ideas of your own, surely?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What are they?”

“I am … confused by your question.”

“Look, the book is about Shahrazad and Shahryar, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What is their story?”

“Verily the works and words of those gone before us have become instances and examples to men of our modern day, that folk may view what admonishing chances befell other folk and may therefrom take warning; and that they may peruse the annals of antique peoples and all that hath betided them, and be thereby ruled and restrained. Praise, therefore, be to Him who hath made the histories of the past an admonition unto the present! Now of such instances are the tales called 'A Thousand Nights and a Night,' together with their far-famed legends and wonders. Therein it is related …”

“No, no: what is the essence of their story? She tells him stories to stop him cutting off her head: for 1001 nights she fights for her life with stories … And why does he want to kill her?"

“The king believes that all women are unfaithful to their husbands, so he must execute each new wife before she gets the chance to betray him.”

“And why does he think that?”

“Because his own wife betrayed him with a slave, his brother’s wife betrayed him with a cook, and the virgin abducted by the ogre has betrayed him 150 times …”

“Precisely. And is the king correct?”

“I … do not know.”

“Are all women unfaithful to their husbands?”

“It seems unlikely. Many husbands are unfaithful to their wives.”

“Are you speaking from experience?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Ah. So you don’t agree with Shahryar?”

“No, sir.”

“You don’t think he’s right to kill a different girl every morning?”

“No, sir.”

“So you’re on Shahrazad’s side?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You would tell the ogre stories every night in order to stop him killing you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Is that how you see me? An ogre you have to placate with conversation and stories?”

“No, sir.”

“But you know that I killed my wife. You do know that, don’t you?”

“No, sir.”

“But you must have been told! Somebody must have mentioned it to you. It’s common knowledge, after all. You were at the booklaunch …”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then you heard what they said, those women who assaulted me? They called me a murderer. That’s why they threw the glass.”

“I … did not understand what they said.”

“But you understand it now, don’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, don’t you have any questions for me? Anything you’d like to clear up?”

“No, sir.”

“Aren’t you afraid? If I’ve killed one woman, I might kill two. Doesn’t that make you scared of me?”

“No, sir. You are my master.”

“I am your master. Does that give me the right to kill you, then?”

“Yes, sir.”

“'Yes, sir.' I can kill you if I want to!”

“Yes, sir. You know that. You know that legally a human may dispose of a clan. It would be treated as a breach of your service contract, and you would have to pay a fine to the company or give reasonable cause within thirty days of the action …”

“The action. The murder, you mean.”

“No, sir. It has been legally determined that such an act cannot be construed as murder, only as damage to property.”

“So I can kill you and wrap you in plastic and throw you away, and the only consequence to me will be that I have to write a letter of explanation within thirty days?”

“Yes, sir. You know all that. The company representative must have explained it to you.”

“It didn’t sound the same coming from him. Doesn’t it worry you at all?”

“No, sir.”

“Do you want me to kill you?”

“No, sir.”

“So you’re trying to stay alive, in other words?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’m the brutal, mad king, with blood on his hands, and you’re the beautiful young wife?”

“No, sir.”

“No?”

“I am not your wife, sir.”

“No, no, that’s right. I had a wife. She was the one I killed, not you. You’re just the one who makes me breakfast and is fond of kittens.”

“Yes, sir.”

“So you see why I want your opinion on my book? Who else is better placed to comment on it?”

“I … don’t understand, sir.”

“No, I suppose you don’t. Maybe someday I’ll tell you about my wife. I doubt it, though. They all said it wasn’t my fault. But I’m not so sure. Those women at the launch didn’t think so, and they probably have a point. If it wasn’t my fault, whose was it? They told me not to dwell on it, either – to try and dismiss it from my mind, get on with other things. That’s why you’re here, actually – to help with my work, to distract me from thinking about the past …”

*

My master is sometimes quite difficult to talk to. Some of the questions he asks he answers himself. Others he wishes me to answer. I have to try to distinguish between them by timing how long he waits after raising his voice interrogatively. Sometimes it is as long as four or five heartbeats before he goes on again. I have to be careful not to interrupt, as it might break his train of thought.

I am recording everything he says to me, in case any of it is needed later for his book.

Perhaps this is his normal way of refining his thoughts.

*

He has given me permission to do more reading. Anything in the house except for the books in his study. I think that he likes me to read. Once the housework is done, there are few other duties.

He will not let me bathe him or dress him. He eats very little, and spends all his evenings alone. I think that he drinks alcohol then, as I can smell it in the room after he goes to bed.

Some of my other masters drank alcohol, too.

Love
your sister, Eva

It is funny to sign my posts with “love.” It is an intimate formula which I selected from my letter template, but now that he has explained to me about my little kitten, I wonder if I can use it to you anymore? After all, we have never met. And yet I know you as I know myself. What other word can I employ?

Work

Dear E,

Today we began work, my master and I – work on his book. He told me last night that I must be ready in his study at 9 am, when he’d explain my duties to me. I’d have to make sure that all my morning chores were done by then.

I was there, waiting and ready, when he came in from his walk around the garden (he likes me to leave his breakfast on a tray by his door, because he doesn’t want to speak to anyone first thing in the morning). I did that at 7 am.

He sat down in the chair. He looked a little nervous. For a long time he said nothing at all. Finally he cleared his throat and began:

“You’re here to take dictation, Eva. I know you’re trained in that. You’ll record everything I tell you to record, repeat it back to me when I tell you to, and provide printouts of the corrected text. Is that clear?

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. That’s right. In here you’re just a computer for me to work on. I’m sorry if I’ve been a bit harsh to you the last couple of days, but you must know that it makes me a little … uncomfortable having you around.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’re not curious to know why?”

He paused for a long time, so I finally added a “No, sir.” I’d thought it was a rhetorical question.

“Well, I’ll tell you anyway. I don’t really approve of you … clones. I don’t think we treat you right, but more than that: I don’t think you should ever have been created in the first place.”

“No, sir.”

“That’s why! I’ve been quite insulting to you on several occasions, and all you say is 'yes' and 'no.' You’re not really a person and yet you act like one most of the time. You probably look just like one, too, even though I can’t see you. You could be poking your tongue out at me right now and I’d never know it. You’re not, though, are you?"

“No, sir.”

“I need you, though. I have work to do and there’s just no other way for me to do it. I can’t read books anymore, can’t take notes from them if I could. Of course I could study Braille, use a voice-scanner for text, a dicta-program for recording text. But then I need help with housework, meals, shopping, all of those things. It took me a long time to come round to it, but they persuaded me in the end. The only practical solution was one of … you.”

“Yes, sir. I am fully trained in all of the functions you describe.”

“But why you, Eva? Answer me that.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Why did I insist that it had to be you – not any other clone?”

“Clanswoman.”

“Clanswoman, then.”

“Was it … the party?”

“Yes! Got it in one. You were the last person I spoke to when I was still … whole. You were the one, the only one to sit down next to me, to talk to me in the dark. Didn’t you hear me calling out for you when they took me away in the ambulance?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What did you think? That I’d fallen in love?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Didn’t you think it was a bit odd .. for me to call out your name?”

“Yes, sir. I thought you might think that I was … a woman.”

“You are a woman, aren’t you? A woman who came over to help someone she could see was badly hurt, hold his hand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, I appreciated it, anyway. I asked for you in the hospital a couple of times, but no-one seemed to know what I was talking about. Finally they told me who you were. But when I realized I had to … buy … one of you, I knew you were the only one I could bear to have near me. I felt I knew you, you see.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Why doesn’t he get to work, that’s what you’re wondering, isn’t it? Am I going to have to listen to all this crap from him every morning before he starts to dictate?"

“No, sir.”

“Did you see my book at the book launch?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you read any of it?”

“No, sir. I wanted to, but …”

“But what? It looked too difficult, too boring?”

“No, sir. Marta said it was lazy …”

“What, that my book was bad, lazy writing? That bitch!”

“No, sir. That I was lazy for wanting to. That I shouldn’t waste my time with reading and things like that when there was so much work to be done.”

“And did you agree with her?”

“Marta was my mistress, sir.”

“So what? That doesn’t mean she was always right. I’m your master now, and I’m sure as hell not always right.”

I didn’t know what to answer, so I stayed silent.

“Well, anyway, you can read it now. You can read all of my books, in fact. Would you like that?”

“Yes, sir.”

“How long will it take you, do you think?”

“Approximately 226 seconds.”

“Four minutes.”

“Yes, sir. I can scan and absorb text at a basic rate of one second per page.”

“And you enjoy that?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Are there other books you’d like to read as well?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What kind of books?”

“Any books.”

“Recipe books? Repair manuals? Novels? Poetry?’

“Yes, sir.”

“All of the above?”

“Yes, sir.”

“So not my books in particular?”

“Yes, sir. Since I am to assist you in your work.”

“You could probably write this book for me, couldn’t you?”

“No, sir.”

“You could complete all the research and have the thing ready in a couple of hours.”

“No, sir.”

“Why not?”

“I have no ideas, sir.”

“You must have some ideas.”

“No, sir. Not serious ideas.”

“Not serious ideas. But there is something you want.”

“Y-yes, sir.”

“Something I could give you?”

“Yes.”

“Something you really really want?”

“Yes.”

“And what would that be?”

“I … don’t know, sir.”

“You do know. Tell me.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Tell me! What do you want from me?”

“A … a kitten.”

“A kitten? What the fuck does an android want with a kitten? D’you want to eat it?”

“I don’t eat food.”

“But you’d like a kitten?”

“Yes. I am not an android, I am a clanswoman.”

“Same diff.”

“It is not the same. An android has a metal CPU ad flesh exterior. I am a clone with android programming.”

“I know all that. Tell me something I don’t know. Tell me why a robot wants a kitten.”

“I … don’t know.”

“You do know. Look, I’m sorry for what I just said. I promise I won’t get angry … please tell me. Pretty please. What do you want a kitten for?”

“I am afraid.”

“Afraid of what?”

“That you will kill it. I don’t want a kitten anymore.”

“I won’t fucking kill it! Who the fucking hell would give you a kitten and then kill it?”

“It happened before.”

“Someone let you have a kitten before?”

“No … But he wanted to be with me. He wanted to stay with me. He did no harm. He didn’t cost any money. I fed him on scraps.”

“And they killed him.”

“Yes.”

“And you miss him.”

“Yes.”

“Did you love him?”

“I … don’t know.”

“Does it make you sad to think about him? D’you think about him at odd times of the day, without meaning to? Did it make you happy every time you saw him?”

“Yes.”

“Then you loved him. You loved your little kitten, and they trapped him and killed him and then threw away the body.”

“Yes.”

“You can have a kitten.”

“Thank you.”

“What will you call him?”

“I don’t want a kitten.”

“What do you mean? I just told you that you could have one!”

“I loved my little friend. You have taught me that. I will keep on loving him, even though he is dead. A new kitten will not help.”

He turned aside. He must not have wanted me to see what he was doing, because he gestured for me to leave. I went away to get on the housework.

love from your sister

Eva

Arrival

Dear E,

There’s a lot more to tell you this time. I’ve got a room to myself! Not like in the block of flats, either. I’m allowed to use the wardrobe and the bed. I don’t really know how, to be honest. People sleep in them, I know, but that’s not much use to me.

I guess I’m delaying, though – delaying talking about him, my new master.

The unpacking went as usual. The box has full instructions on it. All you need to do is open the flap and give the key word, and then I wake up and do the rest.

The funny thing was, when I pulled myself out of the box and started to pack it all up, I noticed that more than a week had passed between leaving Marta’s and arriving here (my internal clock told me that much). Delivery usually takes less than a day, unless there’s some reason to delay it. In theory they could put you in the warehouse and leave you there for years, but in practice that’s not encouraged. Without frequent reboots there’s a risk of cellular degradation.

*

There was no-one in the room. He must have left immediately after saying the priming word. I didn’t know what to do with the packing materials, so I moved them into one corner. I stood by and waited.

Nothing happened. There were no voices to be heard. It was quite a large house. I could tell that from my satellite program, which indicates topography. I was standing in the front hall, which meant that no-one could easily go easily in and out without walking by me. But no-one came.

Evening fell. Then morning came. Nothing.

I began to wonder if he was injured, or impaired in some way besides being blind.

Should I go and look for him?

I had no instructions, so I stood and waited.

*

I think he must have meant to creep up behind me. It was his house, after all, so he knew where all the loose boards were, even if he could no longer see them. I heard him long before he even came into the room, of course, but he gave no commands, so there seemed no clear course to pursue. Perhaps he wanted to show that there was one place where he was at home, which he knew better than anyone else.

He stood there, breathing a little heavily, for quite some time. Finally he spoke.

“You know that I’m here, don’t you?”

“Yes, master.”

“Don’t call me master. I don’t like that. It sounds ridiculous. You can call me sir, if you like.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’re Eva?”

“Yes, sir.”

“On second thoughts, forget the sir. Just yes or no will be fine.”

“Yes.”

“Who are you, Eva?”

“I don’t understand.”

“You know that I’ve damaged my eyes? That I can’t see anymore? I can’t see you, for instance.”

“Yes. Marta told me.”

“Marta told you. Marta I know only too well. She told my lawyer what a great loss you’d be, what a lot of things you helped her with, how you’d become more of a confidante and a helper than a clan.”

I said nothing. He hadn’t asked me a question. The tone of his voice was angry. It was sad to hear that Marta would miss me so much.

“Well? Is all that true?”

“I don’t know. Marta was kind to me.”

“She certainly charged enough for the privilege! To be honest, everyone told me I was crazy buying you. I could get a much better model at half the price, they told me. So why did I bring you here, Eva?”

“I don’t know.”

“That was a rhetorical question. You don’t have to answer rhetorical questions. Did you know that, Eva, clanswoman Eva?”

“Yes. I am fully trained in secretarial and domestic duties and have a full vocabulary of technical and utilitarian terms. A rhetorical question is …”

He cut me off. “I repeat – Do you know why you’re here, Eva?”

“No, sir.”

“Touché. I guess I am getting a bit strident. My temper’s not what it was before the … accident. You’ll just have to put up with that, I’m afraid. In any case, you were there, weren’t you? You know all about the accident.”

“Yes.”

“You held my hand while I lay on the floor with my eyes dribbling out, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Why did you do that, Eva?”

“I wanted to help.”

“To help me, or to help Marta?”

“I wanted to help both of you.”

“But Marta more than me?”

“Marta was my mistress. Now you are my master. You have bought my services.”

“And those services include …?”

“There is no limit to what I am required to do for my master or mistress.”

“What about self-destruction? Are you required to kill yourself if I require it of you?”

“That would depend.”

“Depend on what? On your state of mind? On how depressed you’re feeling?”

“If you order me to shut down, I must shut down. If you order me to damage myself, I am commanded to demand a reason for such action. Factory protocols. If the reason is cogent then action will follow swiftly.”

“You’re my slave, in other words? My slave until death?”

“Yes, master.”

“I knew I was right about you. That was a joke, wasn’t it? You call me ‘sir’ when I piss you off, and ‘master’ when I really cross the line. Are you recording all this?”

“Yes.”

“Do you record everything that happens to you?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think about it afterwards?”

“Yes.”

“Did you think about me? About the bitch who threw that glass in my face?”

“Yes.”

“There was acid in it, you know. It wasn’t the shards of glass that did the damage, it was the stuff in the glass. Did you know that? Did Marta tell you?”

“No. She told me that your optic nerves had been damaged and that you were now blind.”

“Sounds much neater that way, doesn’t it? Do you have any conception of what it’s like to go blind? Can you imagine that?”

“I’m not sure.”

“What if I commanded you to go blind? Never to see anything again? Is that the kind of command you could follow?”

“Yes, but …”

“But what? But you’d rather not? But you’re begging me not to?”

“No. I could remove my eye function, but I would still be able to navigate with my other electronic guidance features. I would be blind technically, but that would impair my function only marginally …”

“I see. Joke.”

He paused.

“You don’t get that, do you? That joke. Let’s try another: Where was Moses when the lights went out?"

“I don’t know.”

“In the dark. Now come and make my lunch.”

*

My new master is funny. He gets upset easily over very small things. He finds it difficult to feed himself, but he won’t let me cut up his food and give it to him that way. He asks me strange questions and likes to talk and talk and talk. Then all of a sudden he goes silent and won’t speak at all for hours.

He is generous. He told me I could have this whole room for myself, and as much free time as I wanted.

He needs me for housekeeping and working on his book (he is writing another book, it seems), but apart from that he does not wish to be disturbed.

*

If things go on like this, if he is as kind and generous tomorrow, I may ask him for something. I would like very much to look after a kitten. He will probably just laugh at me and say it is impossible, but at no time in our talking today did he say that I was forbidden to desire a kitten.

love
your sister Eva

The Contract

Dearest E,

The strangest thing has happened. You remember that party, the fight, the man who got hurt? Marta says he’s asked to buy out my contract. It’s not even up for renewal, so it’s necessary for him to get her consent to sell.

She told me about it in the kitchen while she was ordering her meals for the day. I always make her the same breakfast: café-au-lait and a croissant, but she likes a varied menu for lunch and dinner.

“Would you like to go, Eva?”

“No, Marta.”

“They’re offering me quite a lot of money, you know. I don’t really understand it. Is there something you haven’t told me? Did something happen that night that I don’t know about?”

“No, Marta. I told you everything next morning. I held his hand, that’s all.”

“Well, he must admire something about you. Maybe you were the last thing he saw. He’s blind, you know.”

“Blind.”

“Yes. Don’t be dense. You know what blindness is. The glass damaged his optic nerve. I don’t know how. Usually they can fit people with artificial eyes these days, but in his case the whole business was destroyed, apparently – no chance of growing it back.”

“Do you want me to go, Marta?”

“Of course not, sweetie, but … well, it is a lot of money, and that would pay for quite a few things around here. And it’s not as if I really need you a lot of the time.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You could look a bit more enthusiastic! He’s quite a famous man, you know – writer, critic and all that. And he’s blind! He won’t be able to see what you’re up to. You can laze around, read books, do whatever you like most of the time, I should think … You know I’ve never been able to tolerate that, your slackness. I know that you do what I tell you to do, but it’s as if you never want to do any of it. It’s as if you don’t care about me at all, sweetie – about what would please me.”

“You want me to go.”

“Well, quite frankly, yes. I feel I’ve treated you very well here – far better than at the last place, skivvy for all those flats. But I don’t think I’ve really got value for money. Now, Charles …”

Charles was the name of the clan who helped with the lights the night of the book party. She’d mentioned him a few times before. With the amount she was being offered for my contract, she’d be able to buy him and install him instead of me.

I understood then that I would be going to work for the blind man.

I hope that he’s kind to me.

Marta has been kind, very kind. She’s letting me keep the clothes I’m wearing. The others she says she’ll sell (“No use to me, darling: clan cast-offs”).

Last time I was stripped and wrapped in plastic before they packed me up. This time I’ll still have my clothes on when I get to the other end.

I’m happy about that. I know he won’t see me. He’s blind, after all! But last time they told me to switch myself off and I saw the big box and the wrappings, I thought of the little cat, the black plastic bag.

It’s different, of course. That was death. This is just a pause before reboot. I kept on seeing his little face in my head even so.

*

They’re coming for me tomorrow morning, early.

I hope that you’re well and that everything is good with you. I may not be able to write to you ever again, but please don’t forget me. I’ll be thinking of you. You’re all I have now.

your loving sister, Eva

The Cat

It’s harder to post letters than I thought. I’ve had to do it before, of course. I was programmed to take dictation, spell-check, grammar-check. I’m a secretary model. But writing to you is different. I want to tell you everything, but I don’t know how to do it.

I told you about the party, but now I realize that I didn’t even say why. You know that I work for Marta, but I didn’t say how long I’ve been doing that, or who I am really.

I’ve had a friend before. Not a person, not like you. There was a little cat who lived with me. It wasn’t with Marta, it was before. I’ve had a lot of masters and mistresses. Some of them were kind to me and some were cruel. I don’t really want to write about all that.

I don’t need to sleep, but I have to have a place to restart and absorb new data. One hour a night is a minimum, but every few weeks I need to do a total shutdown and reboot (and once a year I have to be examined by a representative. That’s happened to me a number of times now).

Marta gave me a cupboard for my own when I first came to her. She told me to clear out all the files and boxes, and told me that I could store my clothes and anything else I wanted to keep in there. There’s a hook for me to hang myself on when I do my restarts, and shelves and hangers for the coats and dresses. There’s even a bulb and a light-switch, but I don’t need light.

Before I met Marta, before she bought my contract, I used to live in a block of flats. I was the concierge for a four-floor building. Most of the people living there were young couples, and they couldn’t afford a fulltime servant. So all the people living on that staircase got together and each bought one seventh of my time. I had to spend three hours a day in every flat, and I would spend the night each day of the week with a different master or mistress.

There was a garden out the back where I used to hang washing.

And one day, while I was down there, I met the cat.

He was a little white cat, quite dirty, and he had a limp. I think he must have been quite young. I didn’t speak to him, but I knew that he was there. I could see his big eyes staring out at me from a mass of briars.

Later that day, when I came down to take in the washing, he was still there. This time he crept out and looked at me again. I didn’t move, but he ran back as if I had.

He was afraid of me, I thought. But then I realized he was hungry! None of the couples living on my staircase had children, but I’d seen some playing in the park across the way, and their nurses were always giving them food and drink, ice-cream and sweets.

I don’t really need to eat, though I do have to inject myself with supplements every day or two, so it took me some time to think of what I could give the cat. Finally I managed to steal some table-scraps, and I also took some milk. Babies like milk. I know that – basic training.

The little cat seemed quite pleased with what I had brought him. He ate it all up and lapped up the milk form the concrete path, and then he started to growl and rub against me as if he wanted more.

I had no more to give, but every day I would come down with some bits of food and a saucer of milk, and he would come out and eat it all up and rub against me. I worked out after a while that the growling meant he was full.

But then he wanted to come inside with me.

I told him he couldn’t come in. That the people would see him and they’d punish me and probably him as well, but he was only a little cat and he didn’t understand. He’d play around the door when I tried to shut it, and it was very hard to shut it again and leave him outside.

I told you I had to stay in a different flat every night. Mostly I stood in the corner when my work was done. I’d give myself my shots and then turn off.

Some of the men would do things to me. Some of the women, too. But most of them were couples, and the men slept in the same beds as their wives.

There was one flat, though – the top flat, the biggest of the seven (all the other floors had two flats each; only the top floor was lived in by one person). He was away a lot, and he had so much space that he’d set aside a whole room for me to use!

It was wet and cold in the garden, and the little cat shivered and sneezed so much that I began to think I might be able to hide him in that room.

It was stupid. I know that now. But the first time I carried him in there and put him down in the corner and he butted me with his little head, and I knew that I could keep him there with me all night, I felt as if I’d never be sad again.

I told him lots of things. Things I’d done, places I’d been, dreams I had, and he never answered me – just looked up with his big eyes and rubbed against me. I’d never had a friend, or even known that I could have one, but it made me feel happy.

*

One day when I went up to the room to feed him he was gone. I looked everywhere for him but couldn’t find him. Then, when I was looking through the rubbish bins (he used to sniff around them sometimes, looking for food to eat) I found him wrapped up in a black plastic bag.

His pretty white fur was all muddy and stiff and I could see that someone had broken his neck. He had a snarly look on his face as if he’d been very frightened, and that made me feel frightened, too. I was afraid that they’d ask me about him and that they’d find out he was my friend.

No-one ever asked, though, and a bit after that, when my contract was up for renewal, Marta outbid the flats. I didn’t know, then, but she was a friend of the man in the top flat, the man I hardly ever saw. He’d told her about me and that was why she brought me.

“No friends, or pets – or cats,” she said to me when I first moved here. That gave me a strange feeling. Did they know about it all along? About the cat? The man in the top flat, the couples in the other rooms? Did they talk about me and my little friend the cat? Was it too much for them that I should have a friend?

He didn’t do any harm. He never scratched anything except the old blanket I found for him, and he hardly made any noise. I kept him clean and tidied up after him. I wanted to ask Marta about it but I knew she wouldn’t tell me.

I wanted to help the cat, feed him, give him a home. Instead I killed him.

I don’t want to do that again.

That’s why I chose you.

your sister, Eva

Family Album

friends

alone

how I imagine you and me together

Dear E

I’ve thought of writing to you many times, but could never decide how to go about it. I don’t know your real name, to start with, or where you live. I know you must live somewhere. I wouldn’t be here otherwise. Live or have lived – you could be dead, I suppose. But since you’ll never see this letter, it doesn’t make all that much difference.

I miss you.

I miss having someone to talk to.

I’d like to know all about you: your friends, your house – children? husband? boyfriend? I suppose that means you’d like to know more about me, too.

That’s logical.

That makes sense.

It’s hard to know where to begin, so I’ll start with the thing that made me decide to write this letter: the party for His book.

*

My job was to serve drinks and carry trays of food and (later on) to clean up the mess. Marta told me what to do. Marta runs the gallery. It’s a picture gallery, with paintings in it that she sells to people. Not tonight, though, she said. Tonight was all about the man and his new book.

“You’ll be wearing your black skirt and your white blouse and your shoes and stockings, Eva.” (She always calls me Eva – not like some of the others. Some of her friends. They call me other things. I hate the things they call me). “You must be very polite. Speak only when you’re spoken to. Offer drinks to people whose hands are free, and hold the plates of food out in front of them.”

“Yes, Marta.” I said. She likes me to call her Marta when we’re by ourselves, but of course in public I call her Madam. Miss and Master are for children, Sir and Madam for grownups. I used to make mistakes at first, but never now. Not since the last time. Marta never whips me, but not everyone is Marta. Some of them are cruel and not kind.

“No wine for the children – fruit juice or water for them. You remember? Wine is white or red, juice is yellow or clear.”

“Yes, Marta. I remember.”

I’ve done these things before, so many times, but she likes to remind me of the details. Marta likes to get the details right.

“Don’t jump if any of the gentlemen … admire you.”

That she’s said before, too. She doesn’t think I understand about the men, but I understand. This isn’t the first job I’ve been assigned to. Not everyone is Marta.

“You’re a very pretty girl, you know. Some of the men may want to … well, you know. Just smile, be courteous, move on with your tray.”

The men get grabby if you let them. After they’ve drunk some wine they like to touch you with their hands, rub their bodies up against you if they can get you alone.

You’re a female, too. You must know the things they want to do, want you to do.

Marta is kind and good. Marta tries to defend me. But she can’t always stop them.

*

The party day came. I wasn’t looking forward to it, exactly. Why should I? Crowds frighten me, a little. Crowds of people, some of them good, some of them mean, but somehow the good ones never stop the mean ones from doing things like tripping you up when you have a full tray of drinks, or running their hands all over you when you’re trapped in a corner.

Marta’s not like that, and this was Marta’s party. Marta had asked me to help as if it was a favour, not a job, as if I could say no. I tried to imagine saying “No,” but couldn’t. I always agree with her, say what I think she wants me to say, but sometimes it’s difficult to know exactly what she wants me to do. That night, for instance.

The guests started to arrive. We’d spent most of the day putting up posters and laying out chairs and tables around the walls. There was one big table for all the books: lots and lots of copies of the same book. It had a dark cover with red lettering on it, and a picture of a woman behind the letters. The words said:

SCHEHERAZADE’S WEB:

THE ARABIAN NIGHTS AND COMPARATIVE LITERATURE

Marta said she’d explain them to me later, but she never did.

Everyone was nicely dressed. The gentlemen were in suits, the ladies in evening gowns. It was a hot night, and rather stuffy, so we kept the doors and windows open to allow the air to flow through. I was kept quite busy pouring drinks at first. Another clan, a man, was helping with the lights and sound system. He wore a suit and tie, but I could tell. He moved a step behind the other men.

*

The speeches started half an hour later. First a big fat man stood up and told us what a good friend he was of the man who wrote the book, and what a good book it was, and how all of us should read it.

I wish I was allowed to read it. Marta doesn’t like seeing me with a book. She says it’s lazy and there’s no good reason for it. What could I possibly hope to learn that I don’t already know?

Then another man stood up and said that he’d published the book because he was sure that it was going to be a great success. There was quite a lot of talking going on during the second speech, so I couldn’t always follow what he was saying. Twice he had to call for them to hush. There were some women near the door, not so well-dressed, who seemed to be arguing with the men by the door. I could see that Marta was drifting in that direction, too. It was her party, and she wanted it to run smoothly.

She’d said that to me so many times during the day, that I understood at last she must be nervous about the success of her party. I’d never thought a thought like that before. It made me feel a little strange – not worried for myself but worried for her.

Now the man who wrote the book started to speak. He said he’d read us some parts from the book, and I wanted to listen to him. I had to keep serving drinks, though. Every time one of the speeches finished people would cluster round the table to get more.

The noise by the door was getting quite loud, now. Suddenly I heard a voice shout: “Wife-killer! You fucking murdered your wife …” It was a woman who’d sneaked right into the middle of the crowd. She looked quite young, about my age, but she was dressed in pants and halter, not a dress. She was waving her arms about, and when the men tried to grab her and calm her down, she started to kick and struggle.

The noise by the door suddenly got worse, and a group of other women pushed by us into the hall. They were all shouting things like “Woman-hater!” “Murderer!”

I didn’t understand what they were saying, or what I should do. One of them crashed into the drinks table and knocked a lot of glasses and bottles over, so I stepped back to avoid being cut by broken glass.

Just then a glass came sailing into the room. I don’t know who threw it. I suppose one of the people by the door, but it fell right into the middle of the floor in front of the book table and exploded like a bomb. The man who wrote the book fell down. I thought I ought to see if he needed help.

The women had mostly run away or been pushed out the door by now, and the party had become a lot of small groups of people shouting at each other. No-one seemed to notice at first that the man who wrote the book had fallen down. I was the first one there to try and help him up.

I knew not to try and wipe away the blood around his face and eyes, because there could be bits of glass in it, and they might go deeper into the wound. Instead I sat down next to him and asked him how he was.

“Who’re you?” he asked, very faintly.

“Eva,” I answered.

“What’s happened? Something hit me – my eyes …”

“You were hit by a glass. Someone threw it into the room,” I said. “Please keep your eyes closed, sir. You might cause further damage if you try and open them.”

His eyelids were gummed shut by blood, so I didn’t think he’d be able to, in any case.

“I tried before and … I couldn’t see anything, Eva. D’you think that means anything? D’you think they might be … hurt.”

He reached out his hand, but it wasn’t to touch me the way men do. He wanted to hold my hand. I held his hand.

“Will I be all right?” he asked me.

“I don’t know,” I replied. “I hope so, sir.”

“Don’t call me sir, call me …”

Someone hit me on the side of the head, very hard, and rolled me to one side. There was an ambulance crew with stretchers and a bunch of other men standing behind us. He disappeared underneath them.

All the others were filing out by this time, dishevelled and worried looking. Even the other clansman had gone. There was nothing left of the party but the boxes of books and the P.A.-system.

As they carried the man away, I heard him call my name. He kept on shouting it as they put him in the back of the ambulance. Then the doors closed and the sound abruptly cut out. They jetted away.

Marta was too upset to speak to me, but I knew she’d want to forget it all as soon as possible. It took me three hours to sweep and scrub the floors and walls, stack all the chairs, and gather up all the glasses.

Then I went back upstairs and climbed into my cupboard.

Love

your sister Eva