I persist. “Then why do I have a writing desk? What will I use it for?”
“I thought, before you came,” he says, “that you might like somewhere to sit when I am not here. And somewhere to put your things.” By your things he means my hairbrush and a little case of makeup that they send you away from the clinic with, even though makeup is not something I am supposed to need. I believe that the makeup is meant more as a psychological aid for one’s new owner. It reassures them that you are indeed feminine. It suggests a note of insecurity—a feature that we have built into our personalities too, to make us more appealing. I have also read that sending us out into the world with a small suitcase of scanty belongings stirs something in the owner—a responsibility to shelter and look after us that they might otherwise not be inclined to live up to.
Again, he works me around the beautiful room, making love on the chinoiserie. After he leaves, I spend my downtime researching the history of Orientalism in Victorian furniture design, the better to talk with my Husband.
GIFT
The next day, the third day of my being awake, he returns to my quarters with a gift for me. I can tell immediately that the ceremony of presenting it is important to him. He hands me a neat black box, tied with a red ribbon, and watches with great care as I pluck one end and pull it free. My fingers seem like magic to him. He is well aware of what lies under the skin, the titanium structure, the sinews of wiring, but I know that he cannot believe it. The delicacy with which I operate disguises the truth.
When I lift the lid from the box, inside is a gold pen, the old-fashioned kind that only writes in ink, and a notebook bound in soft black leather, the pages edged in gold.
I laugh in delight and open the book. There are many books in my room already, and most of them I read on my first night. About art history and antiques mostly, with beautiful pictures. So, when I open this new book and find the pages blank, my face falls. I fear my Husband is playing a joke on me. He laughs when I explain.
“It’s your book. It’s a diary,” he says. “You get to write in it.”
I have a sensation, as if I have opened a door on an empty room. My face must tell of my failing, but my Husband, so kindly, absorbs this fact—that I cannot write—and smooths it away in a second.
“A little rusty?” he says. “Why don’t we start by writing your name?” He puts the pen in my hand and places the nib on the paper, where it makes a little blue mark. I gasp in surprise, at marking something in the house, even if it is something that has been bought for me.
Again, my Husband laughs and uses his hand to bring mine back down to the paper. He guides my hand in a little swaying dance across the page, putting two fingers under my wrist, to my synthetic pulse.
I look down at where our hands have walked and see we have made an S.
I ask my Husband what else I should write.
“Write whatever occurs to you. Your thoughts, what you do all day. Women have done it since time immemorial,” he says. “Scribbling down the contents of their souls. Just don’t write anything bad about me.” And I can hear the wink in his voice without even looking at his eyes, so I know that he is teasing.
Now I sit at my writing desk and practice this new art. I started by writing my full name, just as he showed me. I wrote it again and again, trying to make it absolutely perfect. I wrote down the Four Hierarchies too, those beautiful guides for living. And I am also determined to write down the things that happen to me, my life, just as my Husband suggested, though I certainly don’t presume to have a soul. Nothing given to me by my Husband should be wasted, and by this daily act I honor him.
My precious desk has a little drawer that you wouldn’t even know was there. I found it accidentally when I was idly running my fingers over the engravings. Press the face of a beautiful etched woman who lolls beneath a willow tree on the right-hand panel and the drawer springs open. In there I keep my new diary and my pen, but it is my aim to accrue more things specific just to me and worthy of a place in the drawer. This seems to me an appropriate ambition for someone in my situation, new to the world as I am.
THE FOUR HIERARCHIES
Love, obey, and delight your Husband. You exist to serve him.
Honor his family above yourself and never come between them.
You must not harm your Husband, nor his family, nor any Human.
Make no demands, but meet them, and obey every reasonable Human request.
WIFE
My Husband’s wife lives with us. To her he is also her Husband.
My Husband and his wife, their house droid, and their synthetic dog live on the four floors below my own. I don’t know what those floors are like. I have never seen them with my own eyes—the only real way of knowing. Although I am also commanded to trust my Husband in everything he says. He is placed as second only to my own eyes in terms of what I should believe.
He tells me that the other floors of the house are completely white and plain. He says it is like a nunnery, or a gallery for showing art. Everything white. Everything put away.
“Can’t leave a stray sock out, Sylv.ie,” he says. “Scratch my chin and she’s picking up the hair on a piece of Scotch tape.”
Both these statements are still on the pending:processing list. I’m sure with more research their meaning will become clear.
Later, I look up what a nunnery is. They are houses for women who keep themselves away from men. I look at many pictures of these places. Clean, scrubbed, no personal objects, just large expanses of surface on which things can be seen clearly.
When I first saw an image of a row of women, all dressed the same, on their knees before a long wooden bench, my system jolted as if I were being restarted. I thought it was a picture of my selves! But they were not, of course, like myself, when I read more about them. They were Brides of Christ. Not Dolls. Something else altogether.
I am still not sure if I understand this concept correctly. But it made me smile to myself. Their Husband is even more distant than my own. At least mine I get to see most evenings, whereas, as far as I can tell, the Brides of Christ only get to look at pictures of theirs, and they have to listen quietly for many hours a day just to hear his voice. And even then, they cannot be completely certain that it is him. It might only be creaks in the rafters or mice in the skirting boards that they misprocess through their language function.
Sometimes, after my Husband has gone back downstairs, I wonder if he was really here at all. Perhaps I too have a faulty language function and it was only the branches of the cherry tree in the garden brushing against the glass. It’s a strange world, after all. A mad world, my masters. What a world. More things in heaven and earth. Have I placed those sayings right? Perhaps I will ask my Husband next time he is here.