Stanislaw Lem - Return from the Stars

“Yes. Why?”

“He had gone to the four ammoniated moons of Jupiter. When he returned and set down on the training field, and got out of the rocket, laden with trophies like a Christmas tree, he tripped and broke his leg. So watch out. I’m telling you.”

“I’ll try. Damned cold, this water. I’m coming out.”

“Quite right. You could catch a cold. I didn’t have one for ten years. The moment I landed on Luna I started coughing.”

“Because it was so dry there,” I said with a serious expression. Olaf laughed and splashed water in my face, jumping in a meter away.

“Dry, exactly,” he said, surfacing. “A good way to put it. Dry, but not too cozy.”

“Ole, I’m going.”

“OK. We’ll see each other at breakfast? Or would you prefer not to?”

“Of course we will.”

I ran upstairs, drying myself on the way. At the door I held my breath. I peered in carefully. She was still sleeping. I took advantage of this and quickly changed. I had time to shave, too, in the bathroom.

I stuck my head into the room — I thought that she had said something. When I approached the bed on tiptoe, she opened her eyes.

“Did I sleep here?”

“Yes. Yes, Eri.”

“I had the feeling that someone…”

“Yes, Eri, I was here.”

She stared at me, as though gradually it was all coming back to her. First, her eyes widened a little — with surprise? — then she closed them, opened them again, then furtively, very quickly, though even so I noticed, she looked under the blanket — and her face turned pink.

I cleared my throat.

“You probably want to go to your own room, right? Perhaps I should leave, or…”

“No,” she said. “I have my robe.”

She pulled it tightly around herself, sat up on the bed.

“So… it’s real, then?” she said quietly, as if parting with something.

I was silent.

She got up, walked across the room, came back.

She lifted her eyes to my face; in them was a question, uncertainty, and something else that I could not define.

“Mr. Bregg…”

“My name is Hal. My first name.”

“Mr… Hal, I…”

“Yes?”

“I really don’t know… I would like… Seon…”

“What?”

“Well… he…”

She could not or did not wish to say “my husband.” Which?

“He will be back the day after tomorrow.”

“And?”

“What is going to happen?”

I swallowed.

“Should I have a talk with him?” I asked.

“What do you mean?”

Now it was my turn to look at her with surprise, not understanding.

“Yesterday you said…”

I waited.

“That you… would take me away.”

“Yes “

“And he?”

“Then I shouldn’t talk to him?” I asked, feeling stupid.

“Talk? You want to do it yourself?”

“Who else?”

“It has to be… the end?”

Something was choking me; I cleared my throat.

“Really, there’s no other way.”

“I thought it would be… a mesk.”

“A what?”

“You don’t know?”

“I understand nothing. No. I don’t know. What is that?” I said, feeling an ominous chill. Again I had hit upon one of those sudden blanks, a mire of misunderstanding.

“It is like this. A man… a woman… if someone meets a person… if he wants, for a certain period of time… You really know nothing about this?”

“Wait, Eri. I don’t know, but I think I’m beginning to. Is it something provisional, a kind of temporary suspension, an episode?”

“No,” she said, and her eyes grew round. “You don’t know what it is… I don’t exactly know how it works myself,” she admitted. “I’ve only heard about it. I thought that that was why you…”

“Eri, I’m completely in the dark. Damned if I understand any of this. Does it have… ? In any case, it is connected in some way with marriage, right?”

“Well, yes. You go to an office, and there, I’m not exactly sure, but anyway, after that it’s… it’s…”

“It’s what?”

“Independent. So that nothing can be said. No one. Including him…”

“So it is, after all… it is a kind of legalization — well, hell! — a legalization of infidelity?”

“No. Yes. That is, it is not infidelity then — no one speaks of it like that. I know what that means; I learned about it. There is no infidelity because, well, because after all Seon and I are only for a year.”

“Wha-a-at?” I said, because I thought that I was not hearing correctly. “And what does that mean, for a year? Marriage for a year? For one year? Why?”

“It is a trial.”

“Ye gods and little fishes! A trial. And what is a mesk? A notification for the following year?”

“I don’t know what you mean. It is… it means that if the couple separates after a year, well, then the other arrangement becomes binding. Like a wedding.”

“The mesk?”

“Yes.”

“And if not, then what?”

“Then nothing. It has no significance.”

“Aha, I think I see now. No. No mesk. Till death do us part. You know what that means?”

“I do. Mr. Bregg?”

“Yes.”

“I’m completing my graduate studies in archeology this year…”

“I understand. You’re letting me know that by taking you for an idiot I’m only making an idiot of myself.”

She smiled.

“You put it too strongly.”

“Yes. I’m sorry. Well, Eri, may I talk to him?”

“About what?”

My jaw fell. Here we go again, I thought.

“Well, what do you, for Christ’s…” I bit my tongue. “About us.”

“But that just isn’t done.”

“It isn’t? Ah. Well, all right. And what is done?”

“One goes through the separation procedure. But, Mr. Bregg, really… I… can’t do it this way.”

“And in what way can you?”

She gave a helpless shrug.

“Does this mean we are back where we began yesterday evening?” I asked. “Don’t be angry with me, Eri, for speaking like this, I am doubly handicapped, you see. I’m not familiar with all the formalities, customs, with what should be done and what shouldn’t, even on a daily basis, so when it comes to things like…”

“No, I know. I know. But he and I… I… Seon…”

“I understand,” I said. “Look here. Let’s sit down.”

“I think better when I stand.”

“Please. Listen, Eri. I know what I should do. I should take you, as I said, and go away somewhere — and I don’t know how I have this certainty. Perhaps it only comes from my boundless stupidity. But it seems to me that eventually you could be happy with me. Yes. At the same time I — observe — am the type who… well, in a word, I don’t want to do that. To force you. Thus the whole responsibility for my decision — let’s call it that — falls on you. In other words, to make me be a swine not from the right side, but only from the left. Yes. I see that clearly. Very clearly. So now tell me just one thing — what do you prefer?”

“The right.”

“What?”

“The right side of the swine.”

I began to laugh. Perhaps a little hysterically.

“My God. Yes. Good. Then I can talk to him? Afterward. That is, I would come back here alone…”

“No.”

“It isn’t done like that? Perhaps not, but I feel I ought to, Eri.”

“No. I… please, please. Really. No!”

Suddenly tears fell from her eyes. I put my arms around her.

“Eri! No. It’s no, then. I’ll do whatever you want, but don’t cry. I beg you. Because… don’t cry. Stop, all right? But then… cry if you… I don’t…”

“I didn’t know that it could be… so…” she sobbed.

I carried her around the room.