This Perfect Day

Their bodies changed. Lilac's bled for a few days, which the Newmans assured them was natural in untreated women, and it grew more rounded and supple as her hair grew longer. Chip's body hardened and strengthened from his work in the mine. His beard grew out black and straight, and he trimmed it once a week with the Newmans' scissors. They had been given names by a clerk at the Immigration Bureau. Chip was named Eiko Newmark, and Lilac, Grace Newbridge. Later, when they married—with no application to Uni, but with forms and a fee and vows to "God"—Lilac's name was changed to Grace Newmark. They still called themselves Chip and Lilac, however. They got used to handling coins and dealing with shopkeepers, and to traveling on Pollensa's rundown overcrowded monorail. They learned how to sidestep natives and avoid offending them; they memorized the Vow of Loyalty and saluted Liberty's red-and-yellow flag. They knocked on doors before opening them, said Wednesday instead of Woodsday, March instead of Marx. They reminded themselves that fight and hate were acceptable words but fuck was a "dirty" one.

Hassan Newman drank a great deal of whiskey. Soon after coming home from his job—in the island's largest furniture factory—he would be playing loud games with Gigi, his daughter, and fumbling his way through the room's dividing curtain with a bottle clutched in his three-fingered saw-damaged hand. "Come on, you sad steelies," he would say, "where the hate are your glasses? Come on, have a little cheer." Chip and Lilac drank with him a few times, but they found that whiskey made them confused and clumsy and they usually declined his offer. "Come on," he said one evening. "I know I'm the landlord, but I'm not exactly a lunky, am I? Or what is it? Do you think I'll expect you to receep—to reciprocate? I know you like to watch the pennies."

"It's not that," Chip said.

"Then what is it?" Hassan asked. He swayed and steadied himself.

Chip didn't say anything for a moment, and then he said, "Well, what's the point in getting away from treatments if you're going to dull yourself with whiskey? You might as well be back in the Family."

"Oh," Hassan said. "Oh sure, I get you." He looked angrily at them, a broad, curly-bearded, bloodshot-eyed man. "Just wait," he said. "Wait till you've been here a little longer. Just wait till you've been here a little longer, that's all." He turned around and groped his way through the curtain, and they heard him muttering, and his wife, Ria, speaking placatingly.

Almost everyone in the building seemed to drink as much whiskey as Hassan did. Loud voices, happy or angry, sounded through the walls at all hours of the night. The elevator and the hallways smelled of whiskey, and of fish, and of sweet perfumes that people used against the whiskey and fish smells.

Most evenings, after they had finished whatever cleaning had to be done, Chip and Lilac either went up to the roof for some fresh air or sat at their table reading the Immigrant or books they had found on the monorail or borrowed from a small collection at Immigrants' Assistance. Sometimes they watched TV with the Newmans—plays about foolish misunderstandings in native families, with frequent stops for announcements about different makes of cigarettes and disinfectants. Occasionally there were speeches by General Costanza or the head of the Church, Pope Clement— disquieting speeches about shortages of food and space and resources, for which immigrants alone weren't to be blamed. Hassan, belligerent with whiskey, usually switched them off before they were over; Liberty TV, unlike the Family's, could be switched on and off at one's choosing.

One day in the mine, toward the end of the fifteen-minute lunch break, Chip went over to the automatic loader and began examining it, wondering whether it was in fact unrepairable or whether some part of it that couldn't be replaced might not be by-passed or substituted for in some way. The native in charge of the crew came over and asked him what he was doing. Chip told him, taking care to speak respectfully, but the native got angry. "You fucking steelies all think you're so God-damned smart!" he said, and put his hand on his gun handle. "Get over there where you belong and stay there!" he said. "Try to figure out a way to eat less food if you've got to have something to think about!"

All natives weren't quite that bad. The owner of their building took a liking to Chip and Lilac and promised to let them have a room for five dollars a week as soon as one became available. "You're not like some of these others," he said.

"Drinking, walking around the hallways stark naked—I'd rather take a few cents less and have your kind."

Chip, looking at him, said, "There are reasons why immigrants drink, you know."

"I know, I know," the owner said. "I'm the first one to say it; it's terrible the way we treat you. But still and all, do you drink? Do you walk around stark naked?"