“I know,” said Wang-mu.
“Yeah, right. I’m sure you’re so sympathetic with me and you know he’s wrong. Come on, Jane told us already that the two of you are — what was the bullshit phrase? — in love.”
“I wasn’t proud of what Peter did to you. It was a mistake. He makes them. He hurts my feelings sometimes, too. So do you. You did just now. I don’t know why. But sometimes I hurt other people, too. And sometimes I do terrible things because I’m so sure that I’m right. We’re all like that. We all have a little bit of varelse in us. And a little bit of raman.”
“Isn’t that the sweetest little well-balanced undergraduate-level philosophy of life,” said Quara.
“It’s the best I could come up with,” said Wang-mu. “I’m not educated like you.”
“And is that the make-her-feel-guilty technique?”
“Tell me, Quara, if you’re not really acting out your father’s role or trying to call him back or whatever the analysis was, why are you so angry at everybody all the time?”
Quara finally swiveled in her chair and looked Wang-mu in the face. Yes, she had been crying. “You really want to know why I’m so filled with irrational fury all the time?” The taunting hadn’t left her voice. “You really want to play shrink with me? Well try this one. What has me so completely pissed off is that all through my childhood, my older brother Quim was secretly molesting me, and now he’s a martyr and they’re going to make him a saint and nobody will ever know how evil he was and the terrible, terrible things he did to me.”
Wang-mu stood there horrified. Peter had told her about Quim. How he died. The kind of man he was. “Oh, Quara,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”
A look of complete disgust passed across Quara’s face. “You are so stupid. Quim never touched me, you stupid meddlesome little do-gooder. But you’re so eager to get some cheap explanation about why I’m such a bitch that you’ll believe any story that sounds halfway plausible. And right now you’re probably still wondering whether maybe my confession was true and I’m only denying it because I’m afraid of the repercussions or some dumb merda like that. Get this straight, girl. You do not know me. You will never know me. I don’t want you to know me. I don’t want any friends, and if I did want friends, I would not want Peter’s pet bimbo to do the honors. Can I possibly make myself clearer?”
In her life Wang-mu had been beaten by experts and vilified by champions. Quara was damn good at it by any standards, but not so good that Wang-mu couldn’t bear it without flinching. “I notice, though,” said Wang-mu, “that after your vile slander against the noblest member of your family, you couldn’t stand to leave me believing that it was true. So you do have loyalty to someone, even if he’s dead.”
“You just don’t take a hint, do you?” said Quara.
“And I notice that you still keep talking to me, even though you despise me and try to offend me.”
“If you were a fish, you’d be a remora, you just clamp on and suck for dear life, don’t you!”
“Because at any point you could just walk out of here and you wouldn’t have to hear my pathetic attempts at making friends with you,” said Wang-mu. “But you don’t go.”
“You are unbelievable,” said Quara. She unstrapped herself from her chair, got up, and went out the open door.
Wang-mu watched her go. Peter was right. Humans were still the most alien of alien species. Still the most dangerous, the most unreasonable, the least predictable.
Even so, Wang-mu dared to make a couple of predictions to herself.
First, she was confident that the research team would someday establish communications with the descoladores.
The second prediction was much more iffy. More like a hope. Maybe even just a wish. That someday Quara would tell Wang-mu the truth. That someday the hidden wound that Quara bore would be healed. That someday they might be friends.
But not today. There was no hurry. Wang-mu would try to help Quara because she was so obviously in need, and because the people who had been around her the longest were clearly too sick of her to help. But helping Quara was not the only thing or even the most important thing she had to accomplish. Marrying Peter and starting a life with him — that was a much higher priority. And getting something to eat, a drink of water, and a place to pee — those were the highest priorities of all at this precise moment in her life.