‘Ah, those “agencies outside ourselves” … Yes…’
We sat silently for a while.
At last I said, ‘It is sometimes difficult for us to speak our minds. Perhaps it’s because I have reverence for you that I agree with what you say. Yet not only that… I have not found great pleasure in sex, with either men or women. Is that something lacking in me? I seem to have no – warmth? I love, but only platonically, I’m ashamed to admit.’
Tom put his large hand on mine.
‘You need feel no shame. We are brought up in a culture where those who seek solitude or chastity are made to think of themselves as unwell – fit subjects for new sciences like psychurgy and mentascopism – almost beyond the pale of society. It was not always so and it will not be so again. Once, men who sought solitude were revered. These matters are not necessarily genetic but a question of upbringing.’
After a pause, he said, ‘And your upbringing, Cang Hai. Where are you in Kissorian’s scheme of things – a later-born, I’d guess?’
‘No, Tom, dear. I am a dupe.’ Looking searchingly at him, I was surprised he did not immediately understand.
‘A dupe?’
‘A clone, to use the old-fashioned term. I know there’s a prejudice against dupes, but since our difference doesn’t show externally we are not persecuted. My counterpart lives in China, in Chengdu. We are sometimes in psychic touch with one another. But I do not believe that case affects my attitude to sexuality. As a matter of fact, I spend much time in communication with those archetypes of which you say someone spoke in the debate. I believe I am in touch with myself, though I’m vexed by mysterious inner promptings. Those promptings brought me to Mars – and to you.’
‘I am grateful, then, for those inner promptings,’ he said, giving me a grave smile. ‘So you are that rare creature, not born of direct sexual union…’
I told him I knew of at least a dozen other dupes with us on Mars.
With a sudden intuition, Tom asked if Kathi was also a dupe. I said it was not so; was he interested in her?
He chose to ignore this. Dropping his gaze, he said, ‘My destiny seems to be as an organiser. I’m doomed to be a talker, while in my heart of hearts, that remote place, I believe silence to be a greater thing.’
‘But not the silence, surely, that has prevailed on Mars for centuries?’
His face took on a ponderous expression I had observed previously. He stared down at the floor. ‘That’s true. That’s a dead silence. We shall have to cure it in the end … Life has to be the enemy of such tomb-like silence.’
Smiling apologetically, he dismissed me.
I regretted not telling him that Kathi did not find Mars’s silence a dead silence; she claimed that it could be heard if only we attuned ourselves to it. But she and I had no authority. After all, Tom was a famous and successful man, and who was I? Although I relished his attention, and his kindly looks, he had said nothing about his personal history since the evening on Spider Plant when he had spoken of his first love. Did he regret confiding in me? Could I bear any more of the same?
This is not intended to be a record of my personal feelings. Yet I must admit here that I often thought about that fortunate girl who, Torn had told me, was the youthful Tom’s first lover. I could imagine everything about her.
Even while I practised my breathing exercises – even then, I found myself thinking of her. And of young Tom. And of the two of them, locked together with rain bathing their naked bodies.
This is not really a record of history. I never told anyone this before. But unexpectedly I started thinking that Tom Jefferies did not care for me at all. I felt so bad. I secretly thought I was beautiful and my body was lovely, even if he never noticed, even if no one noticed. Except Jon, who thought I was cute.