Embassytown - China Mieville [120]
Cal waved his hand. Beside him, Ez was like a ventriloquist’s doll, existing only when he spoke, or was spoken through. Wyatt watched Ez like an anxious relative. I wondered how many Ariekene soldiers the god-drug would get, and whether the process of building that force would be violent. The natives in all the little villages left in the city, islands between zones of the deadly mindless, would try to obey, in various ways. They knew the Absurd were coming. The locals ruled or “ruled” or whatever by , those over which EzCal had given aegis, would surely provide most of the soldiers.
“… one main force of Ariekei to guard the city, stationed at all the weak points we have, and there’ll be a couple of … well, of special squads prepared,” Cal said, at the committee meeting. I couldn’t listen to this, these desperations disguised as strategy. I couldn’t look at anyone else in the room. There was nothing we had that could hold off the oncoming army. When we were dismissed I got my stuff together slowly, and after a moment realised it was only I, Ez and Cal left in the room. I don’t know how that happened. I wouldn’t rush. I couldn’t look at them. I was their enemy, and I had secrets that were mutinous.
Cal slouched, looking tired. He looked shrunken, far off by the wall. A moment’s illusion and the chair seemed to dwarf him like a throne would a boy-king. Ez stood like a surly courtier. They must be waiting to practice their necessary proclamations.
“Do you miss my brother, Avice?” Cal said.
“Do I …? Vin? I … Yes.” It was some way true. “Sometimes I do. Do you?”
Cal watched me from under his brow.
“Yes. I was angry with him. Before he died.” He paused. “I was angry with him before that, then worse after. Of course. But I miss him.”
I tried to work out if I could glean any advantage on any axis by keeping him talking, but I could think of nothing to say. “Please,” he said angrily, not to me. Ez looked up.
“I’ll …” Ez said, and walked out. It was the first word I’d heard him say for himself, for many days. Cal didn’t watch him go.
“Vin missed you,” he said.
“Did he?”
Whatever had happened to Cal, whatever he’d become, I was sure that he saw me as I saw him through a window of memories that included mornings, evenings together, nudity, of fucking, sometimes beautifully. What could I do but remember the last looks Vin had given me? I’d seen that need that could perhaps have been given another name, and that perhaps Cal resented. Because he thought his brother’s affections were a zero-sum, and that I’d stolen from him? Because he didn’t have it to give himself?
I, to my utmost shock, choked and had to close my eyes. A great big diffuse grief, not just for Vin, but some for him. I thought about the months I’d spent as CalVin’s lover. I tried to recall a time when both of them had moved with me at once. I could not. Had they both touched me at once, ever, or had it always been one, then some languid time later, as I’d imagined, assumed, the other? I looked at Cal. Had he merely tolerated his doppel’s desires, all that time?
I thought, Have you and I even been together?
“Waking without him. I don’t get used to it.” He spoke rapidly. “I’m not supposed to. Truth is there are times it’s not bad. The silence isn’t always unwelcome.” I looked away from his awful smile.
“Truth is, Avice, I can’t tell you if I miss him. That’s not true, I can tell you and I do, but it isn’t as clean a feeling as that. To have to say everything, like I do—or did … Well, it’s bad and it’s good and it’s bad. I’ve been to the retirement homes where cleaved are. Normal ones, not like Bren, making trouble. I don’t know, is that me now?