“It’s all right, Nai,” Nicole said softly. “I understand. Remember, I’m a mother too.”
“I’m desperate, Nicole,” Nai continued. “I need your help. Nothing that has ever happened in my life, not even Kenji’s murder, has affected me like this situation. I am consumed by anxiety for my son. Even meditation does not give me any peace.”
Nai had divided the clothes into three piles. She put them into three washing machines and returned to Nicole’s side.
“Look,” she said, “I’ll be the first to admit that Galileo’s behavior has not been perfect. After the long sleep, when we were moved over here, he was very slow to become involved with the others. He would not participate in the classes Patrick, Ellie, Eponine, and I set up for the children, and when he did, he would not do any homework. Galileo was surly, difficult, and unpleasant to everyone except Maria.
“He never would talk to me about what he was feeling. The only thing he seemed to enjoy was going over to the recreation room for muscle-building exercises. He has, incidentally, become very proud of his physical strength.”
Nai paused for a moment. “Galileo is not a bad person, Nicole,” she said apologetically. “He is just confused. He went to sleep as a six-year-old and woke up at the age of twenty-one, with the body and desires of a young man.”
She stopped. Tears had formed in her eyes. “How could he have been expected to know how to act?” Nai said with difficulty. Nicole reached out with her arms, but Nai did not
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accept her offer. “I have tried, but I haven’t been able to help him,” Nai continued. “I don’t know what to do. And I’m afraid now it’s too late.”
Nicole recalled her own sleepless nights in New Eden when she had often wept out of frustration about Katie. “I understand, Nai,” she said softly. “I really do.”
“One time, only one time,” Nai said after a pause, “did I ever have a glimpse beneath that cold exterior Galileo wears so proudly. It was in the middle of the night after the business with Maria, when he returned from his session with Big Block. We were out in the corridor together, only the two of us, and he was wailing and beating on the wall. ‘I wasn’t going to hurt her, Mom, you must believe me,’ he yelled. ‘I love Maria. I just couldn’t stop myself.'”
“What happened with Galileo and Maria?” Nicole asked when Nai stopped again for a few seconds. “I haven’t heard the story.”
“Oh,” Nai said, surprised, “I was certain that someone would have told you about it by now.” She hesitated for a moment. “Max said at the time that Galileo had tried to rape Maria and that he might have succeeded if Benjy had not come back to the room and dragged him off the girl. Later Max admitted to me that he might have overreacted when he used the word ‘rape/ but that Galileo had definitely been ‘out of line.’
“My son told me that Maria had encouraged him, at least initially, and that they had dropped to the floor while kissing. She was still enthusiastically participating, according to Galileo, until he started pulling down her pants. That was when the struggle began.”
Nai tried to calm herself. “The rest of the story, no matter who tells it, is not very pleasant. . . . Galileo admits that he hit Maria several times after she started screaming and that he held her down and continued to pull off her pants. He had locked the door. Benjy broke it down with his shoulder and threw himself at Galileo with all his force. Because of the noise and the property damage, Big Block was there, as well as many onlookers.”
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There were more tears in Nai’s eyes. “It must have been horrible,” Nicole said.
“That night my life was shattered,” Nai said. “Everyone condemned Galileo. When Big Block put him on probation and returned Galileo to the family unit, Max, Patrick, and even Kepler, his own brother, thought the punishment was too light. And if I ever hinted that maybe, just maybe, beautiful little Maria might have been partially responsible for what occurred, I was told by everybody that I was ‘unbalanced’ and ‘blind to the facts.’
“Maria played “her part perfectly,” Nai continued, with undisguised acrimony in her voice. “She admitted later that she had willingly kissed Galileo—they had kissed twice before, she said—but insisted that she had started saying no before he pulled her down on the floor. Maria wept for an hour immediately after the incident. She could barely talk. All the men tried to comfort her, including Patrick. They were all convinced before she even said anything that Maria was blameless.”
Soft bells sounded, indicating that the washing cycle was complete. Nai rose slowly, walked over to the machines, and put the clothes in a pair of dryers.
“We all agreed that Maria should move next door with Max, Eponine, and Ellie,” Nai began again. “I thought that time would heal the wounds. I was wrong. Galileo was ostracized by everyone in the family, except for me. Kepler would not even speak to his brother. Patrick was civil, but distant. Galileo withdrew deeper into his shell, stopped attending classes altogether, and spent most of his waking hours by himself in the weight room.
“About five months ago I approached Maria and basically begged her to help Galileo. It was humiliating, Nicole,” Nai said, tears entering her eyes again. “There I was, an adult woman, pleading for favors from a teenage girl. I had first asked Patrick, Eponine, and then Ellie, each in turn, if they would talk to Maria for me. Only Ellie had made an effort to intercede, and she informed me, after her attempt, that the appeal would have to come directry from me.
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“Maria finally agreed to talk to Galileo,” Nai said bitterly, “but only after forcing me to listen to a harangue about how she still felt ‘violated’ by Galileo’s attack. She also stipulated both that a sincere, written apology from Galileo should precede the meeting and that I should be personally present during their discussion to preclude any unpleasantness.”
Nai shook her head. “Now, I ask you, Nicole,” she said, “how in the world could a sixteen-year-old girl who has been awake for only two years in her entire life have possibly become so sophisticated? Somebody—and my guess is Max and Eponine—had been counseling her on how to behave. Maria wanted to humiliate me and to make Galileo suffer as much as possible. She certainly succeeded.”
“I know it seems unlikely,” Nicole said, “but I have met people with incredible natural gifts who know intuitively at a very early age how to deal with any possible situation. Maria may be one of them.”
Nai ignored her comment. ‘The meeting went very well. Galileo cooperated. Maria accepted the apology that he wrote for her. For the next few weeks she seemed to go out of her way to include Galileo in whatever the young people were doing. But he was still a stranger in their group, an outsider. 1 could see it. And I suspect that he could too.
“Then one day in the cafeteria, while the five of them were sitting together—the rest of us had eaten early and had already returned to our rooms—a pair of iguanas sat down at the other end of their table. According to Kepler, the iguanas were purposely repulsive. They lowered their heads into their bowls, noisily sucking up those wriggling worms they love so much, and then stared at the girls, especially Maria, with their beady yellow eyes. Nikki made some comment about not being hungry anymore and Maria agreed with her.
“At that point Galileo rose from his seat, took a couple of steps toward the iguanas, and said “Shoo, go away,’ or something similar. When they didn’t move, he took another step in their direction. One of the iguanas jumped at him.
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Galileo grabbed that first iguana by the neck and shook it ferociously. It died of a broken neck. The second iguana also attacked, seizing Galileo’s forearm with its powerful teeth. Before the blockheads arrived to break up the fracas, Galileo had beaten the iguana to death against the top of the table.”
Nai seemed surprisingly calm as she finished the story. ‘They took Galileo away. Three hours later Big Block came to our rooms and informed us that Galileo would be permanently detained in another part of the spacecraft. When I asked why, the super blockhead told me the same thing that he has told me every time since when I have asked the question: ‘We have determined that your son’s behavior is not acceptable.'”
Another sequence of short bells announced that the drying cycle was complete. Nicole helped Nai fold the clothes on the long table. “I’m allowed to see him only two hours each day,” Nai said. “Although Galileo is too proud to complain, I can tell that he is suffering. The Council has listed Galileo as one of the five human beings being ‘retained’ without proper justification, but I do not know if their grievances are being seriously heard by the blockheads.”