Грег Иган - Teranesia

Late that night, she’d snuck into Prabir’s room. When they’d finally stopped laughing — with their faces pressed into pillows and hands to muffle the sound — Madhusree had turned to him and pleaded solemnly, ‘Get me out of here. Or I’ll go mad.’

Prabir had replied, ‘That’s what I do best.’

He’d found a job the following weekend. But after six months working three nights a week filling vending machines — telling Amita he was studying with friends — he’d finally accepted what he’d known all along: part-time work would never be enough. A week before he graduated from high school, he’d smooth-talked his way into an interview at the bank, and demonstrated on his own notepad that he had all the skills required for a software development position they’d advertised. When the personnel manager conceded his technical abilities but started raising other hurdles, Prabir pointed out that his lack of tertiary qualifications would save them a third of the salary.

He’d gone straight from the interview to a real estate agent, and whispered the news to Madhusree that night by the light of the TV.

‘We’re heading south.’

Felix arrived just after eleven. As he entered the apartment he explained warily, ‘I just wondered how you were taking the news.’

‘You knew she was leaving tonight?’

‘Yeah. She thought she had to tell me, because I loaned her some money.’

Felix waited for a response. Prabir recoiled with mock indignation. ‘Traitor!’ He shook his head, smiling abashedly. ‘No, I’m OK. I’m just sorry I screwed you both around so much.’

They sat in the kitchen. Felix said, ‘She’s going to be independent soon. She’ll have money of her own. A place of her own.’

Prabir was wounded. ‘You think that’s what this was all about? You think I get some kick out of holding the purse strings, telling her what she can and can’t do?’

Felix groaned, misunderstood. ‘ No . I just wanted to know what your plans were. Because once she’s supporting herself, you’re going to be free to do anything you want. Quit the bank. Travel, study.’

‘Oh yeah? I’m not that rich.’

Felix shrugged. ‘I’ll help you.’

Prabir was embarrassed. ‘I’m not that poor, either.’ He mused, ‘If I can hang on at the bank until she graduates, that’ll be ten years. I’ll have access to part of my pension fund.’ He shivered, suddenly aware of the fact that he was babbling on about money while Madhusree was flying straight for the one place on Earth he’d sworn to keep her away from. ‘It’s strange. I didn’t think I’d be so calm. But she’s really not in any danger, is she?’

‘None at all.’

‘Ceram, Ambon, Kai Besar … they’re just islands like any other now.’

‘Safer than Mururoa.’

Prabir said, ‘Did I ever tell you about the time she debated the theory of evolution with a Texan creationist minister on the net, and he publicly admitted that she’d changed his mind?’

Felix smiled and shook his head stoically. ‘No. Go on, tell me.’

‘He was a brave man, actually. He got excommunicated, or whatever it is they do to lapsed creationists.’

‘I believe the technical term is “lynching”.’

They sat talking until four a.m. When they staggered into bed, Felix was asleep within seconds. Prabir stared blearily at the open door of his room; even with the apartment to themselves he felt exposed, but he was too cold to get up and close it.

He dreamt that his father was standing in the doorway, looking in. Prabir couldn’t see his face in the darkness, and struggled to decide whether his stare was reproachful. Everything he knew about Rajendra suggested that he wouldn’t have been angry, but Prabir was still ashamed that he’d let his father stumble upon him like this, without warning.

But as the silhouette in the doorway took on more detail, Prabir realised that his father was oblivious to Felix. There were more important things on his mind. Rajendra was holding an infant in his arms, rag-doll limp. He was rocking her back and forth, weeping inconsolably with grief.

Prabir lay in the bath so long that he ran out of room to add hot water. He climbed out, shivering, and pulled the plug.

As the bath refilled, he picked up the paper knife, closed his eyes, rehearsed the strokes. He’d deliberately avoided testing the blade on his skin; the only part of the knife he’d touched was the plastic handle. Anyone who could stick a kebab skewer through his cheeks ought to be able to lull the relevant part of his brain into believing that there was no real threat from a couple of scrapes with this toy.

He stepped into the bath again, scalding his legs, swearing irritably. He didn’t want to feel any discomfort at all now; he wanted to die as pleasantly as possible. But every kind of potentially lethal legal pharmaceutical he could imagine getting his hands on came with a dose-limiting enzyme, and he couldn’t bring himself to buy street drugs that would turn him into a stranger as he went. Drain cleaner was even less attractive, and he didn’t trust himself to have the courage to jump from a bridge.

He lay down in the bath, submerged up to his chin. He went over the message to Felix and Madhusree one more time; it was sitting in his notepad in the kitchen, waiting to be sent, but Prabir knew it by heart. He was happy with the wording, he decided. Neither of them were idiots: they’d understand his reasons, and they wouldn’t blame themselves.

He’d done what he’d set out to do: he’d carried her to safety. He was proud of that. But it wouldn’t do either of them much good if he kept on going through the motions for another fifty years, just because it was the only thing that felt worthwhile to him.

He’d very nearly kept her from joining the expedition, which would have ruined her whole career. Two days after she’d left, he’d almost followed her, which would have humiliated her in front of all her colleagues. And though he knew that she’d be safe, there was nothing he could do, nothing he could tell himself, to banish the feeling that he was standing idly by while she walked across a minefield.

There was only one way to cut the knot.

Prabir dragged the blade across his left wrist. He barely felt it pierce the skin; he opened his eyes to check the extent of the wound.

A red plume, already wider than his hand, was spreading through the water. The dark core looked almost solid, like some tightly packed blood-rich membrane uncoiling from the space beneath his skin. For several long seconds he lay motionless and watched the plume growing, observing the effect of his heartbeat on the flow, following the tongues of fluid at the edges as they diffused into the water.

Then he declaimed loudly, to remove all doubt, ‘I don’t want to do this. I’m not going to do this.’

He scrambled to his feet and reached for a towel. The wound was even more shocking when it hit the air, spraying blood down over his chest and legs. He wrapped it in the towel, almost slipping on the floor of the bath, his paralysis turning to panic.

He stumbled out of the bathroom. It was only a cut, a paper-thin slit . There had to be something he could do to stop the bleeding. Tie a tourniquet . But where, exactly? And how tight? If he got it wrong, he could still bleed to death. Or lose his arm.

He knelt in front of the TV. ‘Search: emergency first aid.’

The entire screen was filled instantly with tiny icons; there must have been thirty thousand of them. It looked like a garden of mutated red crosses, stylised flowers in some toy-world evolution program. Prabir swayed on his knees, appalled but mesmerised, trying to think what to do next. Help me, Baba .