Woman on the Edge of Time

“When we die?” Barbarossa, a man with blue eyes and a red beard, raised his eyebrows at her. “We give back with the name we happen to have at that time.”

“Surnames. Look, my name is Consuelo Ramos. Connie for short. Consuelo is my Christian name, my first name. Ramos is my last name. When I was born I was called Consuelo Camacho. Ramos is the name of my second husband: therefore I am Consuelo Camacho Ramos.” She left out Álvarez, the name of her first husband, Martin, for simplicity.

They looked at each other, several adults and children consulting the kenners on their wrists. Finally Luciente said, “We have no equivalent.”

She felt blocked. “I suppose you have numbers. I guess you’re only called by first names because your real name—your identification—is the number you get at birth.”

“Why would we be numbered? We can tell each other apart.” The tall intense young person was staring at her. Jackrabbit, Luciente had said: therefore male. He had a lot of very curly light brown hair and he wore the sleeves of his pale blue work shirt rolled up to expose several bracelets of hand-worked silver and turquoise on each wiry arm.

“But the government. How are you identified?”

“When I was born, I was named Peony by my mothers—”

“Peony sounds like a girl’s name.”

“I don’t understand. It was the name chosen for me. When I came to naming, I took my own name. Never mind what that was. But when Luciente brought me down to earth after my highflying, I became Jackrabbit. You see. For my long legs and my big hunger and my big penis and my jumps through the grass of our common life. When Luciente and Bee have quite reformed me, I will change my name again, to Cat in the Sun.” He produced on his thin face a perfect imitation of Luciente’s orange cat squeezing its eyes shut. “But why have two names at one time? In our village we have only one Jackrabbit. When I visit someplace else, I’m Jackrabbit of Mattapoisett.”

“You change your name any time you want to?”

“If you do it too often, nobody remembers your name,” Barbarossa said solemnly in his schoolmaster’s manner. “Sometimes youths do that the first years after naming.”

The old brown-skinned … woman?—it confused Connie to be so unsure—introduced as Sojourner was giggling. “They’re always trying out fancy new labels every week till no one can call them anything but Hey you or Friend. It slows down by and by.”

“All right—you have those things on your wrist. Somewhere there’s a big computer. How does it recognize you?”

“My own memory annex is in my kenner,” Luciente said. “With transport of encyclopedia, you just call for what you want.”

“But what about the police? What about the government? How do they keep track of you if you keep changing names?”

Again a great buzz of confusion and kenner checking passed around the table, with half of them turning to each other instead.

“This is complicated!” The old woman Sojourner shook her head. “Government I think I grasp. Luciente can show you government, but nobody’s working there today.”

“Maybe next time. I will try to study up on this, but it’s very difficult,” Luciente moaned.

“We should all study to help Luci,” a child said.

“In the meantime, maybe you could ask something easier? You said something about the paintings?”

“It doesn’t matter. I just thought it was funny you put up the kids’ stuff. I mean everybody wants to look at their own kid’s pictures, but nobody wants to look at anybody else’s.”

A slight blond man, Morningstar, peered into her face with puzzlement. “But they’re all ours.”

“We change the panels all the time,” Jackrabbit said. “For instance, say I make one and later it stales on me. I make a new one. Or if everybody tires of one, we discuss and change. I did that whole big river namelon on the east, cause people wanted.”

Luciente put down her fork. “What’s wrong, Connie?”

“Connie’s worn out,” Jackrabbit said. “Strangers, every lug asking questions, holding the contact. You imagine there’s no energy drain in catching.”

Luciente put an arm around her. “You look gutted. Remember this food will not sustain.”

“Why not?” She felt thick with fatigue and the room swayed. “I can taste it.”

“As in dreams. You experience throughme … . We better go back.”

“Finish your lunch first.” The voices seemed to drift around her and her eyelids drooped.

“This exhaustion worries me. I must teach you exercises—”

“Not here. Can’t think. Too many people.”

“Come! Give me your arm. We’ll visit again. This is only a false spring, a January thaw of beginning. Back you go.”

She felt leaden, her feet wading through loose sand. As they shuffled out, Luciente looked worried. Standing at last on the stone walk, Connie mumbled, “Clothing. Must change.”