Schismatrix plus - Bruce Sterling [105]
"Well enough to know that the wife of Abelard Lindsay has been defamed. Your late husband is regarded there as a Preservationist martyr. They portray you as a Mechanist collaborator, driving Lindsay into exile and death."
"How terrible." Her eyes filled with tears; she stood up in agitation.
"I'm very sorry. May I use your biomonitor?"
"Tears don't alarm me, madam," Lindsay said gently. "I am not a Zen Sero-tonist."
"My husband," she said. "He was such a bright boy; we thought we'd done well when we scholarshipped him to the Shapers. I never understood what they did to him, but it was horrible. I tried to make our marriage work, but he was so clever, so smooth and plausible, that he could twist anything I said or did to serve some other purpose. He terrified the others. They swore he would rip our world apart. We should never have sent him to the Shapers."
"I'm sure it seemed a wise decision at the time," Lindsay said. "The Republic was already in the Mechanist orbit, and they wanted to redress the balance."
"Then they shouldn't have done it to my cousin's son. There were plenty of plebes to send out, people like Constantine." She put one wrinkled knuckle to her lips. "I'm sorry. That's aristocratic prejudice. Forgive me, Auditor, I'm distraught."
"I understand," Lindsay said. "To those our age, old memories can come with unexpected force. I'm very sorry, madam. You have been treated unjustly."
"Thank you, sir." She accepted a tissue from the household servo. "Your sympathy touches me deeply." She dabbed at her eyes with precise, birdlike movements. "I almost feel that I know you."
"A trick of memory," Lindsay said. "I was married once to a woman much like you."
A slow Look passed between them. A great deal was said, below the level of words. The truth surfaced briefly, was acknowledged, and then vanished beneath the necessity for subterfuge.
"This wife," she said. Her face was flushed. "She did not accompany you on your journey here."
"Marriage in Dembowska is a different situation," Lindsay said.
"I was married here. A five-year contract marriage. Polygamous. It expired last year."
"You are currently unattached?"
She nodded. Lindsay gestured about the room with a whir of his right arm. "Myself as well. You can see the state of my domestic affairs. My career has made my life rather arid."
She smiled tentatively.
"Would you be interested in the management of my household? An Assistant Auditorship would pay rather better than your current position, I think."
"I'm sure it would."
"Shall we say, a six-month probationary period against a five-year joint management contract, standard terms, monogamous? I can have my office print out a contract by tomorrow morning."
"This is quite sudden."
"Nonsense, Alexandrina. At our age, if we put things off, we never accomplish anything. What's five years to us? We have reached the age of discretion."
"May I have that drink?" she said. "It's bad for my maintenance program, but I think I need it." She looked at him nervously, a ghost of strained intimacy waking behind her eyes.
He looked at her smooth paper skin, the brittle precision of her hair. He realized that his gesture of atonement would add another rote to his life, a new form of routine. He restrained a sigh. "I look to you to set our sexuality clause."
SHIMMERS UNION