She was human, I'd stake my soul—alive, normal, healthy. I'd stake my life—
woman, my body ...
But she was two and a half centuries old, which made M'Cwyie Methusala's grandma. It flattered me to think of their repeated complimenting of my skills, as linguist, as poet. These superior beings!
But what did she mean "there is no such need for them now?" Why the near-hysteria? Why all those funny looks I'd been getting from M'Cwyie?
I suddenly knew I was close to something important, besides a beautiful girl.
"Tell me," I said, in my Casual Voice, "did it have anything to do with 'the plague that does not kill,' of which Tamur wrote."
"Yes," she replied, "the children born after the Rains could have no children of their own, and—"
"And what?" I was leaning forward, memory set at "record."
"—and the men had no desire to get any."
I sagged backward against the bedpost. Racial sterility, masculine impotence, following phenomenal weather. Had some vagabond cloud of radioactive junk from God knows where penetrated their weak atmosphere one day? One day long before Shiaparelli saw the canals, mythical as my dragon, before those "canals" had given rise to some correct guesses for all the wrong reasons, had Braxa been alive, dancing, here—damned in the womb since blind Milton had written of another paradise, equally lost?
I found a cigarette. Good thing I had thought to bring ashtrays. Mars had never had a tobacco industry either. Or booze. The ascetics I had met in India had been Dionysiac compared to this.
"What is that tube of fire?"
"A cigarette. Want one?"
"Yes, please."
She sat beside me, and I lighted it for her.
"It irritates the nose."
"Yes. Draw some into your lungs, hold it there, and exhale." A moment passed.
"Ooh," she said.
A pause, then, "Is it sacred?"
"No, it's nicotine," I answered, "a very ersatz form of divinity."
Another pause.
"Please don't ask me to translate 'ersatz.' "
"I won't. I get this feeling sometimes when I dance."
"It will pass in a moment."
"Tell me your poem now."
An idea hit me.
"Wait a minute," I said; "I may have something better."
I got up and rummaged through my notebooks, then I returned and sat beside her.
"These are the first three chapters of the Book of Ecclesiastes," I explained. "It is very similar to your own sacred books."
I started reading.
I got through eleven verses before she cried out, "Please don't read that! Tell me one of yours!"
I stopped and tossed the notebook onto a nearby table. She was shaking, not as she had quivered that day she danced as the wind, but with the jitter of unshed tears.
She held her cigarette awkwardly, like a pencil. Clumsily, I put my arm about her shoulders.
"He is so sad," she said, "like all the others."
So I twisted my mind like a bright ribbon, folded it, and tied the crazy Christinas knots I love so well. From German to Martian, with love, I did an impromptu paraphrasal of a poem about a Spanish dancer. I thought it would please her. I was right.
"Ooh," she said again. "Did you write that?"
"No, it's by a better man than I."
"I don't believe you. You wrote it."
"No, a man named Rilke did."
"But you brought it across to my language. Light another match, so I can see how she danced.
I did.
"The fires of forever," she mused, "and she stamped them out, 'with small, firm feet.' I wish I could dance like that."
"You're better than any Gypsy," I laughed, blowing it out.
"No, I'm not. I couldn't do that."
Her cigarette was burning down, so I removed it from her fingers and put it out, along with my own.
"Do you want me to dance for you?"
"No," I said. "Go to bed."
She smiled, and before I realized it, had unclasped the fold of red at her shoulder.
And everything fell away.