Dark Ararat - Brian Stableford [140]
That was when she turned around, and he knew that he’d won half of the half-battle that still remained to be won.
“You don’t know,” she spat at him. “Do you think I’m stupid? I understand that it wasn’t his fault that he forgot. I understand that it was just a side effect of the SusAn. Do you think I’m so stupid that I don’t know that?”
“That’s not what I mean,” Matthew shot back, lightning-fast. “That’s not what I mean at all. I really can see the whole picture. You and Bernal were together before you were frozen down. You were in love. When you were brought out again, separately, he was affected by the memory loss but you weren’t. You understood. I know you understood. And when you came here, he was with Lynn, and you understood that too. And then he was with Mary, and you understood that too. But what you didn’t understand was what it signified, what it meant that even when you were here, day after day and night after night, working with him side-by-side, he didn’t fall in love with you all over again.
“You thought it meant that he hadn’t been serious, couldn’t have been serious, that he was just filling in time, that it was just because you were there, available, when nobody else was. You thought it meant that he could never really have been interested in someone like you, that he had never really looked behind the scars. You could have forgiven him for forgetting, because that wasn’t his fault, but you couldn’t forgive him for not being able to do it all over again from scratch, for not being able to duplicate the same emotional chain from the square one of innocence. That’s why the rage built up—and that’s why the rage came out, in one careless, unaimed thrust of pure frustration that somehow found its way between his ribs and into his heart.
“I understand, Dulcie. I really do. But you’re wrong. You’re wrong about Bernal. You’re wrong about it not being serious, about it just filling in time, about it just being a matter of availability, of scratching an itch. He wasn’t like that. I knew him, Dulcie. I knew him as well as any man alive. He was always serious. He loved them all, Dulcie. Every last one. He couldn’t help himself. He was utterly and absolutely sincere. It never lasted long, but while it did, he was head over heels. He meant it, Dulcie. Whatever he said to you, he meant it all. He was an honest man. In that, and other things as well, he was totally and incorrigibly honest.
“The problem wasn’t that he forgot too much, but that he didn’t forget enough. At some level, he knew. He couldn’t bring it to the level of consciousness, but something in him knew. If he really had been back to square one, utterly innocent of any sense of having known you before, then he could and would have fallen again, head over heels. He did love you, Dulcie. He loved you as powerfully as he ever loved anyone, and as briefly. You have to believe me, Dulcie. I knew him. I’m the only one who did. I’m the only one who understands.
“I don’t know you at all, but I know how the people on Hope—Nita Brownell included—reacted when I lashed out and injured a man, and I think I can understand well enough how you felt when you realized that you’d lashed out, like exactly the kind of barbarian the crewpeople think we are and we’re so very desperate to think we’re not. And I know it wasn’t as mad or bad as it seemed, because I’m beginning to understand how the situation with the crew and the strangeness of the world are messing with our heads in spite of our IT. So yes, I do understand, well enough to know that it was an accountable accident, and that you have to forgive yourself, not just because we really do need you, but because it’s the right thing to do. If Bernal were here, he’d say exactly the same thing. Believe me, I know.”
Finally, inevitably, Matthew ran out of breath. But he hadn’t lost his audience. The fish was