This Perfect Day

They lay talking and caressing each other for a while, and then Snowflake tried to rouse him again—"Nothing ventured, nothing gained," she said—but everything she did proved unavailing. She left around twelve or so. "Sunday at eleven," she said by the door. "Congratulations."

Saturday evening in the lounge Chip met a member named Mary KK whose boyfriend had been transferred to Can earlier in the week. The birth-year part of her nameber was 38, making her twenty-four.

They went to a pre-Marxmas sing in Equality Park. As they sat waiting for the amphitheater to fill, Chip looked at Mary closely. Her chin was sharp but otherwise she was normal: tan skin, upslanted brown eyes, clipped black hair, yellow coveralls on her slim spare frame. One of her toenails, half covered by sandal strap, was discolored a bluish purple. She sat smiling, watching the opposite side of the amphitheater.

"Where are you from?" he asked her.

"Rus," she said.

"What's your classification?"

"One-forty B."

"What's that?"

"Ophthalmologic technician."

"What do you do?"

She turned to him. "I attach lenses," she said. "In the children's section."

"Do you enjoy it?"

"Of course." She looked uncertainly at him. "Why are you asking me so many questions?" she asked. "And why are you looking at me so—as if you've never seen a member before?"

"I've never seen you before," he said. "I want to know you."

"I'm no different from any other member," she said. "There's nothing unusual about me."

"Your chin is a little sharper than normal."

She drew back, looking hurt and confused.

"I didn't mean to hurt you," he said. "I just meant to point out that there is something unusual about you, even if it isn't something important."

She looked searchingly at him, then looked away, at the opposite side of the amphitheater again. She shook her head. "I don't understand you," she said.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I was sick until last Tuesday, But my adviser took me to Medicenter Main and they fixed me up fine. I'm getting better now. Don't worry."

"Well that's good," she said. After a moment she turned and smiled cheerfully at him. "I forgive you," she said.

"Thank you," he said, suddenly feeling sad for her.

She looked away again. "I hope we sing 'The Freeing of the Masses,'" she said.

"We will," he said.

"I love it," she said, and smiling, began to hum it.

He kept looking at her, trying to do so in a normal-seeming way. What she had said was true: she was no different from any other member. What did a sharp chin or a discolored toenail signify? She was exactly the same as every Mary and Anna and Peace and Yin who had ever been his girlfriend: humble and good, helpful and hard-working. Yet she made him feel sad. Why? And could all the others have done so, had he looked at them as closely as he was looking at her, had he listened as closely to what they said?

He looked at the members on the other side of him, at the scores in the tiers below, the scores in the tiers above. They were all like Mary KK, all smiling and ready to sing their favorite Marxmas songs, and all saddening; everyone in the amphitheater, the hundreds, the thousands, the tens of thousands. Their faces lined the mammoth bowl like tan beads strung away in immeasurable close-laid ovals.

Spotlights struck the gold cross and red sickle at the bowl's center. Four familiar trumpet notes blasted, and everybody sang: One mighty Family, A single perfect breed, Free of all selfishness, Aggressiveness and greed; Each member giving all he has to give And get-ting all he needs to live!

But they weren't a mighty Family, he thought. They were a weak Family, a saddening and pitiable one, dulled by chemicals and dehumanized by bracelets. It was Uni that was mighty.

One mighty Family, A single noble race, Sending its sons and daughters Bravely into space...

He sang the words automatically, thinking that Lilac had been right: reduced treatments brought new unhappiness.

Sunday night at eleven he met Snowflake between the buildings on Lower Christ Plaza. He held her and kissed her gratefully, glad of her sexuality and humor and pale skin and bitter tobacco taste—all the things that were she and nobody else, "Christ and Wei, I'm glad to see you," he said.

She gave him a tighter hug and smiled happily at him. "It gets to be a shut-off being with normals, doesn't it?" she said.

"And how," he said. "I wanted to kick the soccer team instead of the ball this morning."

She laughed.

He had been depressed since the sing; now he felt released and happy and taller. "I found a girlfriend," he said, "and guess what; I fucked her without the least bit of trouble."

"Hate."

"Not as extensively or as satisfyingly as we did, but with no trouble at all, not twenty-four hours later."

"I can live without the details."

He grinned and ran his hands down her sides and clasped her hipbones. "I think I might even manage to do it again tonight," he said, teasing her with his thumbs.

"Your ego is growing by leaps and bounds."

"My everything is."