“Convinced?”
“I guess I’ll have to be.—Oh, God!” he threw his cigarette in the fire and paced nervously up and down. Presently he stopped. “Look, is there any liquor here? Could I have a drink?”
“A drink—of what?”
“Whiskey, brandy, rum.—Anything with a jolt in it.”
“I think I can take care of you.” She disturbed Demeter again and returned presently holding a square bottle filled with an amber liquid. She poured him three fingers in a cup and added a small yellow pill.
“What’s that?”
“Jamaica rum surrogate and a mild sedative. Help yourself. I’ve got an idea.” She left him and went to the far end of the room where she seated herself on the couch and pulled out a small panel set in the wall. It appeared to be the front of a drawer. She lifted up a screen approximately a foot square and pressed a series of buttons below. Then she spoke: “Los Angeles Archives? Diana 160-398-400-48A speaking. I request search of Los Angeles and Coronado newspapers of July 12, 1939 for report of automobile accident involving Perry Nelson, naval officer. Expedited rate authorized. Bonus on thirty minutes. Report back. Thank you, clearing line.” She left the drawer out and returned to Perry. “We will have to wait a while. Do you mind if I open the view now?”
“Not at all. I’d like to see it.”
They seated themselves at the west end of the room where they had eaten and the shutters peeled back. It was late afternoon and the sun was nearing the shoulder of the mountain. Snow lay in the canyon and the thin amber sunlight streamed through the pines. They sat quietly and smoked. Diana poured herself a cup of surrogate, and sipped it. Presently a green light flashed from the open drawer and a single deep gong note sounded. Diana pressed a button nearby and spoke, “Diana 400-48 answering.”
“Archives reporting. Positive. Disposition request.”
“Televuestat Reno station with tube delivery, destination G610L-400-48, expedite rate throughout, bonus on ten minutes. Thank you. Clearing.”
“You mentioned Reno. Are we near there?”
“Yes, we are about thirty kilometers south of Lake Tahoe.”
“Tell me, is Reno still a divorce mill?”
“A divorce mill? Oh, no, Reno is not, as you call it, a divorce mill. There are no such things as divorces anymore.”
“There aren’t? What do a man and his wife do if they can’t get along together?”
“They don’t live together.”
“Rather awkward in case one of them should fall in love again, isn’t it?”
“No, you see—Good heavens, Perry, what a lot there is to teach you. I don’t know where to start. However, I’ll just plunge in and try to answer your questions. In the first place, there isn’t any legal contract to be broken, not in your sense of the word. There are domestic contracts but they don’t involve marriage in the religious or sexual aspects. And any of these contracts can be dealt with like any other secular contract.”
“But doesn’t that make a rather confusing situation, homes broken up, children around loose—what about children? Who supports them?”
“Why they support themselves on their heritage.”
“On their heritage? They can’t all be heirs.”
“But they are—Oh, it’s too confusing. I’ll have to get some histories for you and a code of customs. These things are all bound up in major changes in the economic and social structure. Let me ask you a question. In your day what was marriage?”
“Well, it was a civil contract between a man and a woman usually sealed by a religious ceremony.”
“And what did this contract stipulate?”
“It stipulated a lot of things not specifically mentioned, but under it the two lived together, she worked for him, more or less, and he supported her financially. They slept together and neither one was supposed to have love affairs with anybody else. If they had children they supported them until they were grown up.”
“And what were the objects of this arrangement?”
“Well, principally for the benefit of the children, I guess. The children were protected and given a name. Also women were protected and supported and looked out for when they were bearing children.”