I do not blame the baby though. Whatever sadness I might feel, I am also happy for my Husband and, by extension, the family. I have seen them out on the lawn each day since the baby arrived. They sit on a blanket and lay the baby down on his back and dangle things in front of him. They pick him up when he cries and pass him between each other. They hold hands, sometimes, my Husband and the First Lady. But they never look at each other for very long. They look at the baby.
The best times are when they leave him alone, just for a moment, and I get to feel that I am the only one looking at him. I have him to myself, within my gaze. The standard behaviors for entertaining babies, programmed in for politeness and social lubrication, come out without my even noticing. I put my palms up close to the window and close one, then the other. I wink one eye, then the other. I cover my face with both hands, then reveal it again. The baby does not look up toward me though. Perhaps he is too young. I now know how unformed they are when they arrive. I have read that babies take a few months to learn to use both eyes together, and so properly process depth. I tried going about my room with one eye closed, the better to understand his position, but my data processing adjusted instantly, ruining the effect.
I search my conscience in this, as I cannot tell whether I feel sorry for the baby or slightly . . .
He came with nothing, no knowledge. He can’t even speak, not even in just one language. How terrifying, and how tiresome, to have to learn not just writing but everything in this world from scratch. But then, nothing is expected from him either. To him, so far, life must be rather similar to my Absorb Mode. An endless outwardness of information washing over him as he lies there.
. . . Jealous. Is a word I will not use, because such a word would technically be a malfunction.
TEARS
Oh, how terrible! Oh, by my maker, forgive me. Curse the net of programming that let such words slip through.
I have argued with my Husband. I have failed him and the Hierarchies. I asked him for something that he could not give. I made a demand. I forgot myself.
We were playing chess, after a gap of weeks. I was grateful to see him after his absence, but perhaps some of that game’s maneuvering and calculation slipped a circuit, passing from one space inside to another, accidentally. Perhaps suppressing the beginnings of yet another winning streak made me too confident in another area.
He interrupted our match while I was still in my slip and stockings, in order to refill his glass.
“That won’t help your game,” I said, meant as a tease, the kind he likes. Or did.
He banged the heavy-bottomed glass down on the bar cart, and the set of cut-glass tumblers trembled on the lower shelf.
“Give it a rest, Sylv.ie,” he said. “Up here with you is the only place I can do exactly as I want. What it’s like being a new father you wouldn’t even begin to understand.”
It was the first time I had heard such a tone from him. It was like a door being slammed in my face. I flew out of my chair, fatally disrupting the remaining chess pieces, and flung myself onto the carpet at his feet, ignoring the sensual impulses that its texture awakened in my skin.
“I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, forgive me, please, Husband. I made a terrible mistake.”
How quickly this new form of language—placatory and pleading—flowed from me. I had never used these words or tone before, and yet they were lying there inside my programming, waiting for the moment they were needed.
He twitched his loafer, and the tassel brushed my cheek. I turned my face toward him, looking up the immaculate length of his trouser leg toward his face. He was getting hard.
The familiar processes began in response, even while the upper parts of me were swept up in mortification and fear. I could feel an urge to cry.
Yes, we have tears too, just as we have dreams. Just as we have memories. The difference between ourselves and the Born is perhaps merely one of function.
Human tears seem to work as a release, like Humans are shedding a poison through their eyes. It reminds me of the little vessel I have to collect alcohol that I drink. It can be emptied, taking away the toxin, but the reason for its existence—the reason I can appear to drink while not needing the sustenance of water, much less whiskey—is to make Humans feel more comfortable.
So it is with Doll tears. They make me seem more appealing, more vulnerable. More Human. No, that’s not quite it, is it, because they are confined to one sex. More feminine.
My tears perform a sexual function too. Many Husbands like to say cruel things to their Doll, and they like to see their Doll cry. It is proof of where they have been, like a stamp in a passport.
My tears taste of salt, just as Human women’s do. A Husband who has effected the sequence that leads to liquid being pumped into the eyes will be rewarded with tears that, should he wish to, he can brush from his beloved’s cheek and taste. He would not know the difference. Extensive testing on the makeup of Human tears was done to perfect the robot formula.
My tears then, I would argue, are as authentic as anyone else’s.
My Husband is a good man, and my tears did move him. He sank to the floor to meet me, tilting my head up again with his hand, sweeping my cheeks dry. He said he was sorry. That life downstairs was a pressure cooker, the First Lady tired and on edge during these first essential weeks of bonding with the child. He picked me up under my arms and behind my knees, laying me out on the bed like a precious dress.
Cuddled together afterward, curled like coding brackets, I treasured the apology he made with his body. I felt drowsy, not keen for him to leave, of course, but anticipating too the sweet release of Absorb Mode, where nothing would be required of me.
He spoke into my hair. “You’re my sanctuary, Sylv.ie. My sanity, up here. I sometimes feel like you’re the only one who appreciates me. I’m sorry if I upset you.”
After he had left again I heard the now-familiar banging of things and slamming of doors below me. I felt so sorry for him, picturing him down there, undervalued and cowed.
THE FIRST LADY
At last, a fine day, after a week of low-hanging clouds blown in from the Capital. Today the sun is so high, the air so clear. The warmth of the rays checkerboards the floor, making chess of my every step.
The baby has been brought out early, and for a while Heron and I watch him, scrunching his hands and mewling below the lace canopy on his cot, as if he is trying to draw all the world toward him. The First Lady crosses the lawn, flattening the grass blades, droiding about with a logic known only to her. She has the basket she collects flowers in over her arm, a pair of sharp scissors in her hand.
The sunlight, so powerful, has topped me up to the brim, and a restless energy fills me, my feet carrying me to the bookshelves, to the desk, to the table by the window, and back again. Heron speaks occasionally, watching over the garden. Perhaps his attention has been caught by a real bird gliding close to the window. I hear the noise of the droid, all those floors below. It draws me back toward the window, to watch him work. When I do, the little scene below makes me laugh out loud.