We were a particular case, all right.
I sat down and regarded Essie. Her nose was still somewhat swollen, but it did not seem to trouble her. Still, “Maybe you ought to go to bed,” I suggested.
She looked at me with tolerant affection. “For a bloodied nose, Robin? How very foolish you are. Or do you have some more interesting project in mind?”
It is a true tribute to my dear wife that as soon as she brought the subject up, my damaged day and my damaged colon to the contrary notwithstanding, I did indeed have something in mind. After twenty-five years you would think that even sex would begin to get boring. My data-retrieval friend Albert had told me about studies of laboratory animals that proved that that was inevitable. Male rats were left with their mates and their frequency of intercourse measured. There was a steady decline over time. Boredom. Then they took away the old mates and introduced new ones. The rats perked up and went to it with a will. So this was established scientific fact-for rats-but I guess that I am not, at least in that sense, a rat. In fact, I was enjoying myself quite a lot when, without warning, someone shoved a dagger right into my belly.
I couldn’t help it. I yelled.
Essie pushed me away. She sat up swiftly, calling for Albert in Russian. Obediently his hologram sprang into life. He squinted toward me and nodded. “Yes,” he said, “please, Mrs. Broadhead, place Robin’s wrist against the dispenser on the bedside table.”
I was bent double, hugging myself against the pain. For a moment I thought I was going to vomit, but what was in my gut was too bad to be expelled so easily. “Do something!” cried Essie, frantically pulling me to her bare breast as she pressed my arm against the table.
“I am already doing it, Mrs. Broadhead,” said Albert, and as a matter of fact I could appreciate the sudden sense of numbness as the injection needle force-sprayed something into my arm. The pain receded and became bearable. “You are not to be unduly alarmed, Robin,” Albert said kindly, “nor you, Mrs. Broadhead. I have been anticipating this sudden ischemic pain for some hours. It is only a symptom.”
“Damn arrogant program,” cried Essie, who had written him, “symptom of what?”
“Of the beginning of the final rejection process, Mrs. Broadhead. It is not yet critical, especially as I am already administering medication along with the analgesia. Still, I propose surgery tomorrow.”
I was feeling better enough already to sit up on the edge of the bed. I traced with my toe the design of arrows pointing toward Mecca that had been worked into the rug for long-gone big-spending oil magnates and said, “What about tissue match?”
“That has been arranged, Robin.”
I let go of my stomach experimentally. It didn’t explode. “I have a lot of appointments tomorrow,” I pointed out.
Essie, who had been rocking me gently, let go and sighed. “Obstinate maul Why put oft? Could have had transplant weeks ago and all this nonsense not necessary.”
“I didn’t want to,” I explained, “and anyway, Albert said there was time.”
“Was time! Oh, of course, was time. Is that reason to use time all up with fiddling and faddling until, oh, sorry, suddenly unexpected event takes place and time is all gone and you die? Like you warm and alive, Robin, not Here After program!”
I nuzzled her with my nose and chin. “Sick man! Get away from me!” she snarled, but did not draw away. “Huh! You feel better now.”
“Quite a lot better.”
“Good enough to talk sensibly and make appointment with hospital?” I blew in her ear. “Essie,” I said, “I positively will, but not right this minute, because, if I remember correctly, you and I have some unfinished business. Not Albert, though. So you will please turn yourself off, old friend.”
“Certainly, Robin.” He grinned and disappeared. But Essie held me off, staring into my face for a long time before she shook her head.
“You Robin,” she said. “You want me to write you as Here After program?”
“Not a bit,” I said, “and actually, right now that’s not what I want to discuss.”
“Discuss!” she scoffed. “Ha, I know how you discuss… . All I wanted to say is, if I do write you, Robin, you bet in some ways I write you much different!”
It had been quite a day. It was not surprising that I didn’t remember certain unimportant details. My secretary program remembered, of course, and so I got a hint when the service door to the butler’s pantry opened and a procession of room-service waiters came in with dinner. Not for two. For four.
“Oh, my God,” said Essie, striking her forehead with the back of her hand. “Your poor friend with face like frog, Robin, you have invited for dinner! And look at you! Bare feet! Sitting in underwear! Nekulturny indeed, Robin. Go and dress at once!”
I stood up, because there was no use arguing, but I argued anyway. “If I’m in my underwear, what about you?”
She gave me a scathing look. Actually, she wasn’t in her underwear; she was wearing one of those Chinese things slit up the side. It looked as much like a dress as it did a nightgown, and she used it interchangeably for both.
“In case of Nobel laureate,” she said reprovingly, “what one wears is defining what is proper. Also have showered and you have not, so do so, for you smell of sexual activity-and, oh, my God,” she added, cocking an ear to sounds at the door, “I think are here already!”
I headed for the bathroom as she went for the door, and lingered long enough to hear sounds of argument. The least expert of the room-service waiters was listening, too, a frown on his face and his hand reaching unconsciously toward the bulge under his armpit. I sighed, and left it to them, and headed for the bathroom.
Actually, it wasn’t a bathroom. All by itself it was a bath suite. The tub was big enough for two persons. Maybe for three or four, but I hadn’t been thinking in any numbers higher than two-though it did make me wonder just what those Arab tourists had liked doing in their baths~ There was concealed lighting in the tub itself, statuary surrounding it that poured out hot water or cold, a deep pile rug throughout. All the vulgar little things like toilets were in decorous little cubicles of their own. It was fancy, but it was nice. “Albert,” I called, pulling a blouse over my head, and he answered:
“Yes, Robin?”
There was no video in the bath, just his voice. I said, “I kind of like this. See if you can get me plans for putting one like this into the place at Tappan Sea.”
“Certainly, Robin,” he said, “but meanwhile, may I remind you that your guests are waiting?”
“You may, because you just did.”
“And also, Robin, you are not to overexert yourself. The medication I gave you will be of purely temporary value, unless-“
“Turn yourself off,” I ordered, and entered the main reception salon to greet my guests. A table had been set with crystal and china, candles were burning, wine was in a cooler, and the waiters were standing politely at attention. Even the one with the bulge under his arm. “Sorry I kept you waiting, Audee,” I said, beaming at them, “but it’s been a hard day.”
“Have told them,” said Essie, passing a plate to the young Oriental girl. “Was necessary, as stupid policeman at door considered them likely terrorists, too.”
“I tried to explain,” grumbled Walthers, “but he didn’t speak any English. Mrs. Broadhead had to sort him out. It’s a good thing you speak Dutch.”
She shrugged graciously. “Speak Deutsch, speak Dutch. Is same thing, provided one speaks loud. Also,” she said informatively, “is only a state of mind. Tell me, Captain Walthers. You go to speak language, other person does not understand. What do you think?”
“Well, I think I haven’t said it right.”
“Hal Exactly. But I, I think he has not understood it right. This is basic rule for speaking foreign language.”
I rubbed my belly. “Let’s eat,” I said, and led the way to the table. But I had not failed to notice the look Essie gave me, so I exerted myself to be sociable. “Well, we’re a sad-looking lot,” I said genially, making note of the cast on Walthers’ wrist, the bruise on Yee-xing’s face, Essie’s still puffy nose. “Been punching each other out, have you?”
As it turned out, that was not tactful, since Walthers promptly informed me that indeed they had, under the influence of the terrorists’ TPT. So we talked about the terrorists for a while. And then we talked about the sad condition the human race had got itself into. It was not a cheerful conversation, especially as Essie decided to get philosophical.