This Perfect Day

"What an idea," he said.

"It's possible, isn't it?" She was leaning toward him, hands on the table, her large eyes questioning, her cheeks flushed to a rosier darkness.

He looked at her. "What does King think?" he asked. She drew back a bit and he said, "As if I can't guess."

She was angry suddenly, fierce-eyed. "You were terrible to him last night!" she said.

"Terrible? I was? To him?"

"Yes!" She whirled from the table. "You questioned him as if you were—How could you even think he would know about Uni killing us and not tell us?"

"I still think he knew."

She faced him angrily. "He didn't!" she said. "He doesn't keep secrets from me!"

"What are you, his adviser?"

"Yes!" she said. "That's exactly what I am, in case you want to know."

"You're not," he said.

"I am."

"Christ and Wei," he said. "You really are? You're an adviser? That's the last classification I would have thought of.

How old are you?"

"Twenty-four."

"And you're his?"

She nodded.

He laughed. "I decided that you worked in the gardens," he said. "You smell of flowers, do you know that? You really do."

"I wear perfume," she said.

"You wear it?"

"The perfume of flowers, in a liquid. King made it for me."

He stared at her. "Parfum!" he said, slapping the open book before him. "I thought it was some kind of germicide; she put it in her bath. Of course!" He groped among the lists, took up his pen, crossed out and wrote. "Stupid," he said.

"Parfum equals perfume. Flowers in a liquid. How did he do that?"

"Don't accuse him of deceiving us."

"All right, I won't." He put the pen down.

"Everything we've got," she said, "we owe to him."

'What is it though?" he said. "Nothing—unless we use it to try for more. And he doesn't seem to want us to."

"He's more sensible than we are."

He looked at her, standing a few meters away from him before the mass of relics. "What would you do," he asked, "if we somehow found that there is a city of incurables?"

Her eyes stayed on his. "Get to it," she said.

"And live on plants and animals?"

"If necessary." She glanced at the book, moved her head toward it. "Victor and Caroline seem to have enjoyed their dinner."

He smiled and said, "You really are a pre-U woman, aren't you?"

She said nothing.

"Would you let me see your breasts?" he asked.

"What for?" she said.

"I'm curious, that's all."

She pulled open the top of her coveralls and held the two sides apart. Her breasts were rose-brown soft-looking cones that stirred with her breathing, taut on their upper surfaces and rounded below. Their tips, blunt and pink, seemed to contract and grow darker as he looked at them. He felt oddly aroused, as if he were being caressed.

"They're nice," he said.

"I know they are," she said, closing her coveralls and pressing the closure. "That's something else I owe King. I used to think I was the ugliest member in the entire Family."

"You?"

"Until he convinced me I wasn't."

"All right," he said, "you owe King very much. We all do. What have you come to me for?"

"I told you," she said. "To learn that language."

"Cloth," he said, getting up. "You want me to start looking for places the Family isn't using, for signs that your 'city' exists. Because I'll do it and he won't; because I'm not 'sensible,' or old, or content to make fun of TV."

She started for the door but he caught her by the shoulder and pushed her around. "Stay here!" he said. She looked fright-enedly at him and he took hold of her jaw and kissed her mouth; clamped her head in both his hands and pushed his tongue against her shut teeth. She pressed at his chest and wrenched her head. He thought she would stop, give in and take the kiss, but she didn't; she kept struggling with increasing vigor, and finally he let go and she pushed away from him.

"That's-that's terrible!' she said. "Forcing me! That's-I've never been held that way!"

"I love you," he said.

"Look at me, I'm shaking," she said. "Wei Li Chun, is that how you love, by becoming an animal? That's awful!"

"A human," he said, "like you."

"No," she said. "I wouldn't hurt anyone, hold anyone that way!" She held her jaw and moved it.

"How do you think incurables kiss?" he said.

"Like humans, not like animals."

"I'm sorry," he said. "I love you."

"Good," she said. "I love you too—the way I love Leopard and Snowflake and Sparrow."

"That's not what I mean," he said.

"But it's what I mean," she said, looking at him. She went sideways to the doorway and said, "Don't do that again.

That's terrible!"

"Do you want the lists?" he asked.

She looked as if she was going to say no, hesitated, and then said, "Yes. That's what I came for."

He turned and gathered the lists on the table, folded them together, and took Pere Goriot from the stack of books. She came over and he gave them to her.

"I didn't mean to hurt you," he said.

"All right," she said. "Just don't do it again."

"I'll look for places the Family isn't using," he said. "I'll go over the maps at the MFA and see if—"

"I've done that," she said.

"Carefully?"

"As carefully as I could."