Грег Иган - Teranesia

He walked up to Madhusree and touched her arm.

‘Hi Maddy.’

She turned to him, and smiled impassively. ‘Hi.’

Her friends smiled too, but they appeared distinctly uncomfortable. Madhusree said, ‘This is Deborah, and Laila. This is my brother Prabir, who narrowly avoided becoming one of Seli’s stomach content samples.’ Prabir nodded in acknowledgement; they were all holding plates, it was too awkward to try to shake hands.

He said, ‘How’s the work going?’

‘Good, good,’ Madhusree replied smoothly. ‘We’ve gathered lots of data: behavioural, anatomical, DNA. No conclusions yet, but we’ve started posting it all on the net, so everyone can take a look for themselves.’

‘Yeah? I should tell Felix about that.’

Madhusree frowned. ‘Don’t you think he’d already know that he could follow everything from back in Toronto? I would have thought it would be obvious to anyone, how easy and convenient that would be.’

Prabir was impressed by her self-control. The message wasn’t exactly subtle, but she hadn’t let the slightest hint of anger spoil her innocent delivery: there was no flash in her eyes, no tension in her voice. He said, ‘I’m not sure. I’ll have to ask him.’

Madhusree glanced at her watch. ‘You could do that right now. It would be the perfect time to catch him.’

‘Yeah. Thanks. That’s a good idea.’

He nodded again to her friends, and turned away. As he hunted for a place where he could stand and finish his meal alone, he felt an overwhelming sense of relief. He’d done what he’d done, and she’d told him how she felt, and now that it was over it was insignificant. He’d no more seriously undermined her dignity than those embarrassing parents who’d turned up with forgotten boxed lunches and sent his sixth-grade classmates into paroxysms of humiliation. And unlike schoolchildren, most of her colleagues would surely sympathise with her, rather than ridicule her, for having to go through life with such a cross.

He could see now that she’d be safe here, his own close call notwithstanding; she had ten times as many people looking out for her. He’d leave in the morning with Grant; the sting of resentment would wear off in a day or two, and when they met again in Toronto she’d punch him in the shoulder and call him a shit and laugh without malice, and the whole thing would be transmuted into a joke forever.

‘Come out of the tent. I want to talk to you.’

Madhusree was standing over him in the darkness, prodding his chest with her foot.

Ojany shared the tent with two other postdocs, but they’d found some spare bedding, and agreed to let him stay for the night. The tents all had insect-proof groundsheets; though it was unbearably hot, Prabir wouldn’t have liked to have tried sleeping outside, tempting the ants.

‘What time is it?’ he whispered.

‘Just after two,’ she hissed. ‘Now come out of the tent.’

Prabir grinned up at her. ‘When they ask me back at work what I did on my vacation, do you think I should admit to having spent a night with three beautiful women on a tropical island?’

Madhusree was infuriated. ‘Don’t fuck me about! Just get up!’

‘All right. It might help if you take some of your weight off me.’

He followed her out, into the deserted centre of the camp.

She said, ‘How dare you! How dare you come here!’

Prabir had never seen her so enraged, but he was having trouble adjusting; in his mind it had all been resolved, she’d already punished him.

He said gently, ‘I’m sorry if I’ve embarrassed you. I just wanted to see for myself how you were. I wanted to see what it was really like here.’

Madhusree stared at him, almost weeping with frustration. ‘I don’t care if you embarrass me! Just how shallow do you think I am? What do you think I used to say to my friends at school? Do you think I renounced you every day? Do you think I made up pretend parents? I don’t give a fuck what anyone here thinks about either of us. If they don’t like my family, they can screw themselves.’

Prabir ran his hand through his hair, touched by her passionate declaration, but a great deal more afraid now.

He said haltingly, ‘What then? Treat me like an idiot. Spell it out.’

She wiped her eyes angrily. ‘All right. How’s this for a start? You couldn’t trust me to make this one decision , and live with it. You couldn’t trust me to look into the risks myself: the mines, the border skirmishes, the diseases, the wildlife. They’re not trivial. I never said they were trivial. But I’m nineteen years old. I’m not retarded. I had access to people who could give me good advice. But you still couldn’t trust my judgement.’

Prabir protested, ‘I never stopped you doing anything in your life! What have I ever done, before this? Did I interrogate your doped-up boyfriends? Did I stop you going to nightclubs when you were fourteen years old? Name one thing I did that showed I didn’t trust you.’

She bit her lip, breathing hard. Finally she said, ‘That’s all true, but it’s not good enough. You didn’t treat me like a child then. Why do you have to treat me like one now?’

‘I’m not treating you like a child. And you know why this is different.’

Madhusree’s face contorted with pain. ‘That’s the worst part! That’s the worst insult! Different for you, but not for me? You think it isn’t hard for me too, coming back to where they died? Just because I don’t remember them the way you do?’

She started sobbing drily. Prabir wanted to embrace her, but he was afraid he’d only anger her. He looked around helplessly. ‘I know you miss them too. I know that.’

‘I’m sick of having to go through you to reach them!’

That was unfair. He’d told her every detail of their lives that he’d remembered, and a few he’d invented to fill in the gaps. But what else could he have done? Offered her a ouija board?

He said, ‘I never wanted it to be like that. But if that’s how it felt to you, then I’m sorry.’

Madhusree shook her head wearily; she wasn’t forgiving him, but she didn’t have the energy to resolve the matter now. Prabir could see her putting aside all her grief and anger, steeling herself for something more pressing.

‘I made a promise in that note I left you,’ she said. ‘And I’ve kept it: I haven’t told anyone about the butterflies. But tomorrow, I’m going to the head of the expedition and explaining everything. Our parents’ work was important. What they did was important. Everyone should know about it.’

Prabir bowed his head. ‘All right. I have no problem with that. Just promise me you won’t go to the island yourself. Leave it to someone else. There must be plenty of work to be done right here.’

‘I have to go. I’ll check the huts for records while the others are gathering samples. And if I can find the remains, I’ll have them taken back to Calcutta for the proper ceremonies.’

He looked up at her, stunned. ‘ “Proper ceremonies” What the fuck does that mean?’

Madhusree said calmly, ‘Just because they weren’t religious, it doesn’t mean we have to leave them lying where they fell. Like animals.’

Prabir’s skin went cold. She was saying this just to wound him. The implication was that if he’d loved them enough, he would have done this himself long ago, instead of cowering on the other side of the world like a scared little boy for eighteen years. But it was all right now: an adult had come along, with the strength to do what needed to be done.

He turned away, unable to look at her.

She said, ‘It’s the right thing to do. You know that. I wanted to talk to you about it, but you just shut me out.’