She’d slowed her rush through the city now, and was cruising at
a walking pace up the stepped incline of the Rialto, the Music Mas-
43 ter striding elegantly beside her, his putty-colored trenchcoat Happing in the breeze. “DESFI,” he said, triggered by her glance, “the I)iatonic Elaboration of Static I larmony. Also known as the Major Chord with I)escending Bassline. Bach’s ‘Air on a G String,’ 1730. Procol Harum’s ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale,’ 1967.” If she made eye contact now, she’d hear his samples, directionless and at just the right volume. Then more about DESH, and more samples. She had him here for company, though, and not for a lecture. But lectures were all there was to him, aside from his iconics, which were about being blond and fine-boned and wearing clothes more beautifully than any human ever could. He knew everything there was to know about music, and nothing else at all. She didn’t know how long she’d been in Venice, this visit. It was still that minute-before-dawn that she liked best, because she kept it that way. “Do you know anything about Japanese music?” she asked.
“What sort, exactly7”
“What people listen to.”
“Popular music?”
“I guess so.”
He paused, turning, hands in his trouser pockets and the trench-coat swinging to reveal its lining.
“We could begin with a music called enka,” he said, “although I doubt you’d like it.” Software agents did that, learned what you liked. “The roots of contemporary Japanese pop came later, with the wholesale creation of something called ‘group sounds.’ That was a copy-cat phenomenon, flagrantly commercial. Extremely watereddown Western pop influences. Very bland and monotonous.”
“But do they really have singers who don’t exist?”
“The idol-singers,” he said, starting up the hump-backed incline of the bridge. “The idoru. Some of them are enormously popular.”
“Do people kill themselves over them?”
“I don’t know. They could do, I suppose.” 44 W~Uiam Gib~3on “l)o people marry them?”
“Not that I know of.”
“How about Rei loei? Wondering if that was how you proflounced it.
“I’m afraid I don’t know her,” he said, with the slight wince that came when you asked him about music that had come out since his own release. This always made Chia feel sorry for him, which she knew was ridiculous.
“Never mind,” she said, and closed her eyes.
She removed her glasses.
After Venice, the plane felt even more low-ceilinged and narrow, a claustrophobic tube packed with seats and people.
The blond was awake, watching her, looking a lot less like Ash-leigh Modine Carter now that she’d removed most of her makeup. Her face only inches away.
Then she smiled. It was a slow smile, modular, as though there were stages to it, each one governed by a separate shyness or hesitation.
“I like your computer,” she said. “It looks like it was made by Indians or something.”
Chia looked down at her Sandbenders. Turned off the red switch. “Coral,” she said. “These are turquoise. The ones that look like ivory are the inside of a kind of nut. Renewable.”
“The rest is silver?”
“Aluminum,” Chia said. “They melt old cans they dig up on the beach, cast it in sand molds. These panels are micarta. That’s linen with this resin in it.”
“I didn’t know Indians could make computers,” the woman said, reaching out to touch the curved edge of the Sandbenders. Her voice was hesitant, light, like a child’s. The nail on the finger that rested on her Sandbenders was bright red, the lacquer chipped through and ragged. A tremble, then the hand withdrew.
“I drank too much. And with tequila in them, too. ‘Vitamin T,’ Eddie calls it. I wasn’t bad, was I?” 45 1 Chia shook her head.
“1 can’t always remember, if In bad.”
“Do you know how much long it is to Tokyo?” Chia asked, all she could think of to say.
“Nine hours easy,” the blond sid, and sighed. “Subsonics just suck, don’t they? Eddie had me bo~ed on a super, in full business, but then he said something went wong with the ticket. Eddie gets all the tickets from this place in Os~a. We went on Air France once, first class, and your seat turns into abed and they tuck you in with a little quilt. And they have an open hr right there and they just leave the bottles out, and champagne and ust the best food.” The memory didn’t seem to cheer her up. “Aid they give you perfume and makeup in its own case, from Herm~. Real leather, too. Why are you going to Tokyo?”