Woman on the Edge of Time

The rooms of the children’s house glittered and footsteps echoed down the stairways, laughter and shrieking flew out of every crevice. Adults and children in their flimsies played a game of catch with floating objects that moved in slow-motion S’s. In a room full of tools and devices Luciente addressed a machine. “Produce the flimsy ordered by Red Star.”

Out of the slot a garment slowly protruded, like a paper towel feeding itself from a roll. Luciente grabbed it and shook it out. “Here! Put it on.”

“Here?” She glanced at the busy hall.

“I’ll turn my back,” Luciente said with exaggerated patience, and shrugged to the walls.

The garment was a jiggling thing made of small bubbles, weightless and loosely bound together so that they swayed and bounced and gathered the light as she moved. The garment lay lightly upon her shoulders but did not touch her body elsewhere. She felt very naked under it.

“That’s clever.” Luciente eyed the flimsy, circling her. “Marvelous the way it shivers and moves. You backed into luck.”

“It isn’t … transparent?”

“Transparent? Hardly at all. Come!”

In the fooder many of the panes had been removed so the breeze off the river could blow through the dining room, where small groups still sat picking at the remains of the meal, gossiping and smoking and drinking. One table was singing together in a foreign language, beating time on the tabletop.

“What did you have?” she asked with the passion for food of the institutionalized.

“Would you like leftovers? Of course. I’ll set up a plate.”

A cold cucumber soup flavored with mint. Slices of a dark rich meat not familiar to her in a sauce tasting of port, dollops of a root vegetable like yams but less sweet and more nutty—maybe squash? Luciente had told her they bred squashes here. A salad of greens with egg-garlic dressing. Something rubbery, pickled, hot as chili with a strange musky taste. Young chewy red wine.

“Remember, this won’t nourish you,” Luciente said mournfully, stealing a taste from her plate. “The bread is gone. We bake it fresh daily. Was a graham fruit bread and every bit was gobbled.”

“Who cooks? What is this meat?” she asked between bites.

“Roast goose. We take turns. Hawk—the person who was Innocente, remember?—and I spit-roasted the geese. By rotation every night we have a chef and four assistants.”

“Who cleans up?”

“Mechanically done. Nobody wants to wash dishes.”

“In my time neither. Does it really work?”

“Better than people, more patient. For washing dishes, we are willing to spend precious energy.”

“Couldn’t a machine cook too?”

“Fasure. But not inventively. To be a chef is like mothering: you must volunteer, you must feel called. Myself, I have no gift and only help in the kitchen. But Bee is a chef and at the next feast, person will make the menu and direct—the feast of July nineteenth, date of Seneca Equal Rights Convention, beginning women’s movement. Myself, I play Harriet Tubman. I say a great speech—Ain’t I a woman?—that I give just before I lead the slaves to revolt and sack the Pentagon, a large machine producing radiation on the Potomac—a military industrial machine?”

“Oh, is that how it happened?” she said. “In what century was that battle?”

“Grasp, that’s the essence of it. History gets telescoped a little. The kids get restless if the ritual runs too long. They like best the part where they sack the Pentagon. Everybody joins in and then at the bottom are little honey cakes with quotes from revolutionary women baked in them and stories of their lives, so you can have your cake and eat it too. Then we all go party.”

“That’s only two weeks away. Do you have a big holiday every two weeks?”

“We have around eighteen regular holidays, maybe another ten little ones, and then the feasts when we win or lose a decision and when we break production norms. We like holidays—a time to remember heroines and heros, to loose tensions, to have a good time, to praise the history that leads to us—”

“Like Harriet Tubman sacking the Pentagon?”

“Zo, that does body vital ideas in the struggle … . The history you people celebrate—all kings and presidents and Columbus discovered a conveniently empty country already discovered by a lot of people who happened to be living here—was just as legendary … . Did you enjoy the food?”

“You eat well here anyhow.”

“Very important! Enough food, good food, nourishing food. We care a lot that all have that. Nobody born now anyplace on the whole world, Connie, is born to less in any areas we control. Theystill have the space platforms, the moon, and Antarctica. Myself, my favorite holiday in the whole year is Thanks-making. Then we fast for twenty-four hours and go around asking forgiveness from everyone we have offended in the year past. It comes right at the end of fall harvest, when all our crops are in except a few root crops we winter over, and the greenhouse stuff. Then we feast and go around the fooder breaking bread together, eating slowly and for hours. Wine and turkey and—oh, it takes another day to sleep it off!”