Woman on the Edge of Time - Marge Piercy [145]
“Show me the rest of your apartment, okay?”
“The rest?” Gildina looked blank. “You mean the cleano?”
The bathroom was bigger than it would have been in her time, with more devices: devices for cleaning shoes and what was probably like dry cleaning. There was no tub, but a shower with many hard sprays of water that would hit different places on the body, and a meter to time the amount of water. The shower had a disinfectant light as well plus nozzles for shooting out hot air. The toilet was big and fancy but still a toilet. Over the washbowl hung a device for drying hair instantly. But the bathroom lacked a window.
Around the other side of the mirror along the bed, the walls were of nubbly stuff and the carpeting thick and green like imitation grass. Here she finally saw a window. They were at ground level, looking out on a lake with fancy skidboats scooting to and fro and lots of people in glowing metallic swimsuits sunbathing and climbing in and out of the water.
“There’s a lake in Manhattan now? I mean besides in Central Park?”
“What’s with you? You talk like a dud from the Rough-lands. Look, it’s a picture. We got five of them.” She pressed a switch and the scene changed to a mountain with skiers and superfast snowbuggies skimming across the snow and hovercraft hanging in the brilliant air. Gildina flicked the switch again and a bunch of men dressed in Roman tunics began chasing a lot of women around and pulling their clothes off. She flicked again: hand-to-hand sword combat in medieval costumes, with bloody hands flying off. The last scene was a herd of zebras grazing, while some lions stalked, but something was wrong and it was very speeded up and jerky. “That one’s broke.” She changed back to the lake.
“Can you make it so we can look out? I’d love to see what New York looks like now.”
“What’s with you? Out where?”
“Isn’t that a window?”
“What’s that?”
“So you can look out Glass.”
“Like a viewing port? There’s one in the lounge. And from the sun plaza you can look around. There’s glass on all sides. At first it made me terribly dizzy—I wanted to hold on. All that space. But I didn’t let on. I didn’t want them spitting about me being a dud and never saw the sun before. Of course I’d never been in the sun. It scared me but I just made out like I been in the sun every day. I had a tan from my last re-op, so how could they tell anyhow?”
“We used to have windows, everybody did. It was just glass so light could come in.”
“Light? How? From outside? Oh, I guess when you get up high enough. This is just the hundred twenty-sixth floor. But even up on the sun plaza what’s to see except the sun and you can only look straight at that for a while before you begin to see funny spots—maybe five or ten minutes. The sky’s nice when you get used to it—it’s that gorgeous pale gray color. Once in a while some real weather clouds. I can ride into them, really—they give me a boost. But if you gape too much, flacks think you’re lower. You have to pretend to take it for granite.”
“Can’t you see the city?”
“You can make out some other towers in this plex. But you can’t see down or any farther. How could you? It’s thick. It’s air. How could you see through air?”
“Where’s your kitchen?”
“Huh?”
“Where you cook food?”
“Cook it?” Gildina led her to a corner by the outside door, which looked like a bank vault’s. There was nothing in the corner she could identify as a refrigerator or a stove. A drawer opened automatically when a button was pressed, to dispense transparent packets Gildina demonstrated for her. She opened one with a hiss of inrushing air that seemed slowly to soak through the mass inside. She was surprised to see it begin steaming.
At Gildina’s invitation she tasted the food on a thin shiny plate. The food was heavily spiced but ultimately tasteless and gummy. “What is it?”
“Vito-goodies ham dinner.”
“This is supposed to be ham?”
“What’s ham? That’s the name of the flavor.”
“But it doesn’t taste anything like ham.”
“Ham?” Gildina made a face of incomprehension.