I examined her shoulders, her hip under the close-fitting white dress, and her dangling naked feet. Leaning forward, I took hold of one of her ankles and ran my fingers over the sole of her foot.
The skin was soft, like that of a newborn child.
I knew then that it was not Rheya, and I was almost certain that she herself did not know it.
The bare foot wriggled and Rheya’s lips parted in silent laughter.
“Stop it,” she murmured.
Cautiously I withdrew my hand from under the cheek and stood up. Then I dressed quickly. She sat up and watched me.
“Where are your things?” I asked her. Immediately, I regretted my question.
“My things?”
“Don’t you have anything except that dress?”
From now on, I would pursue the game with my eyes open. I tried to appear unconcerned, indifferent, as though we had parted only yesterday, as though we had never parted.
She stood up. With a familiar gesture, she tugged at her skirt to smooth out the creases. My words had worried her, but she said nothing. For the first time, she examined the room with an enquiring, scrutinizing gaze. Then, puzzled, she replied:
“I don’t know.” She opened the locker door. “In here, perhaps?”
“No, there’s nothing but work-suits in there.”
I found an electric point by the basin and began to shave, careful not to take my eyes off her.
She went to and fro, rummaging everywhere. Eventually, she came up to me and said:
“Kris, I have the feeling that something’s happened . . . ”
She broke off. I unplugged the razor, and waited. “I have the feeling that I’ve forgotten something,” she went on, “that I’ve forgotten a lot of things. I can only remember you. I . . . I can’t remember anything else.”
I listened to her, forcing myself to look unconcerned.
“Have I . . . Have I been ill?” she asked.
“Yes . . . in a way. Yes, you’ve been slightly ill.”
“There you are then. That explains my lapses of memory.”
She had brightened up again. Never shall I be able to describe how I felt then. As I watched her moving about the room, now smiling, now serious, talkative one moment, silent the next, sitting down and then getting up again, my terror was gradually overcome by the conviction that it was the real Rheya there in the room with me, even though my reason told me that she seemed somehow stylized, reduced to certain characteristic expressions, gestures and movements.
Suddenly, she clung to me.
“What’s happening to us, Kris?” She pressed her fists against my chest. “Is everything all right? Is there something wrong?”
“Things couldn’t be better.”
She smiled wanly.
“When you answer me like that, it means things could hardly be worse.”
“What nonsense!” I said hurriedly. “Rheya, my darling, I must leave you. Wait here for me.” And, because I was becoming extremely hungry, I added: “Would you like something to eat?”
“To eat?” She shook her head. “No. Will I have to wait long for you?”
“Only an hour.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“You can’t come with me. I’ve got work to do.”
“I’m coming with you.”
She had changed. This was not Rheya at all; the real Rheya never imposed herself, would never have forced her presence on me.
“It’s impossible, my sweet.”
She looked me up and down. Then suddenly she seized my hand. And my hand lingered, moved up her warm, rounded arm. In spite of myself I was caressing her. My body recognized her body; my body desired her, my body was attracted towards hers beyond reason, beyond thought, beyond fear.
Desperately trying to remain calm, I repeated:
“Rheya, it’s out of the question. You must stay here.”
A single word echoed round the room:
“No.”
“Why?”
“I . . . I don’t know.” She looked around her, then, once more, raised her eyes to mine. “I can’t,” she whispered.
“But why?”
“I don’t know. I can’t. It’s as though . . . as though . . .”
She searched for the answer which, as she uttered it, seemed to come to her like a revelation. “It’s as though I mustn’t let you out of my sight.”
The resolute tone of her voice scarcely suggested an avowal of affection; it implied something quite different. With this realization, the manner in which I was embracing Rheya underwent an abrupt, though not immediately noticeable, change.
I was holding her in my arms and gazing into her eyes.
Imperceptibly, almost instinctively, I began to pull her hands together behind her back at the same time searching the room with my eyes: I needed something with which to tie her hands.
Suddenly she jerked her elbows together, and there followed a powerful recoil. I resisted for barely a second. Thrown backwards and almost lifted off my feet, even had I been an athlete I could not have freed myself. Rheya straightened up and dropped her arms to her sides. Her face, lit by an uncertain smile, had played no part in the struggle.
She was gazing at me with the same calm interest as when I had first awakened – as though she was utterly unmoved by my desperate ploy, as though she was quite unaware that anything had happened, and had not noticed my sudden panic. She stood before me, waiting – grave, passive, mildly surprised.
Leaving Rheya in the middle of the room, I went over to the washbasin. I was a prisoner, caught in an absurd trap from which at all costs I was determined to escape. I would have been incapable of putting into words the meaning of what had happened or what was going through my mind; but now I realized that my situation was identical with that of the other inhabitants of the Station, that everything I had experienced, discovered or guessed at was part of a single whole, terrifying and incomprehensible. Meanwhile, I was racking my brain to think up some ruse, to work out some means of escape. Without turning round, I could feel Rheya’s eyes following me. There was a medicine chest above the basin. Quickly I went through its contents, and found a bottle of sleeping pills. I shook out four tablets – the maximum dose – into a glass, and filled it with hot water. I made little effort to conceal my actions from Rheya. Why? I did not even bother to ask myself.
When the tablets had dissolved, I returned to Rheya, who was still standing in the same place.
“Are you angry with me?” she asked, in a low voice.
“No. Drink this.”
Unconsciously, I had known all along that she would obey me. She took the glass without a word and drank the scalding mixture in one gulp. Putting down the empty glass on a stool, I went and sat in a chair in the corner of the room.
Rheya joined me, squatting on the floor in her accustomed manner with her legs folded under her, and tossing back her hair. I was no longer under any illusion: this was not Rheya – and yet I recognized her every habitual gesture. Horror gripped me by the throat; and what was most horrible was that I must go on tricking her, pretending to take her for Rheya, while she herself sincerely believed that she was Rheya – of that I was certain, if one could be certain of anything any longer.
She was leaning against my knees, her hair brushing my hand. We remained thus for some while. From time to time, I glanced at my watch. Half-an-hour went by; the sleeping tablets should have started to work. Rheya murmured something:
“What did you say?”
There was no reply.
Although I attributed her silence to the onset of sleep, secretly I doubted the effectiveness of the pills. Once again, I did not ask myself why. Perhaps it was because my subterfuge seemed too simple.
Slowly her head slid across my knees, her dark hair falling over her face. Her breathing grew deeper and more regular; she was asleep. I stooped in order to lift her on to the bed. As I did so, her eyes opened; she put her arms round my neck and burst into shrill laughter.
I was dumbfounded. Rheya could hardly contain her mirth. With an expression that was at once ingenuous and sly, she observed me through half-closed eyelids. I sat down again, tense, stupefied, at a loss. With a final burst of laughter, she snuggled against my legs.
In an expressionless voice, I asked:
“Why are your laughing?”
Once again, a look of anxiety and surprise came over her face. It was clear that she wanted to give me an honest explanation. She sighed, and rubbed her nose like a child.
“I don’t know,” she said at last, with genuine puzzlement. “I’m behaving like an idiot, aren’t I? But so are you . . . you look idiotic, all stiff and pompous like . . . like Pelvis.”