Элинор Арнасон - The Very Best of the Best - 35 Years of the Year's Best Science Fiction

When the check came, Regina saw she had been charged for two teas.

“Sorry,” she said to the young man. “The other waiter said that I would be only charged for one of these…”

The young man shook his head. “You spilled the first one. You’re responsible. You pay.”

Regina began her protest. “Look, I’m happy to pay, but…”

“No, you look.” The young man spat back at her. “I don’t care what he said. You blanks think you can do anything you want. Spill a tea with your clumsy hands and not pay, forget to tip us because we won’t even recognize you next time. You pay for what you took, like anyone else. Like the real people here.”

Ilkay interrupted. “It’s no problem. We’ll pay. You can save the speech.”

Stunned by the young waiter’s hostility, Regina felt the pure, chemical haze of rage rising in her body. This was new—a feedback of violence that seemed embedded directly in the muscle and bone, a sudden awareness of her physical power, and a desire to use it so strong that it distorted thought. She wanted to smash a fist into the young waiter’s face. Or a chair.

Grasping Regina’s knee under the table to restrain her, Ilkay waved her palm over the check. “It’s done, and a regulation tip for you, as well.”

The young man shrugged. “I deserve more, putting up with you people every day.” He muttered something else as they got up to leave. Regina did not catch it, but Ilkay’s cheeks flushed.

As they were walking away, Regina turned and looked back at the terrace of the little café where they had met for countless years. The young waiter stood, arms crossed, watching them. As Regina caught his eye he turned his head and, keeping his eyes locked on hers, spat on the sidewalk.

Ilkay squeezed her hand. “Come on. We’ve got…”

Regina interrupted her. “What did he say, that last thing?”

“It’s not important.”

“Tell me.”

Ilkay smiled gently. “You’re going to have to get used to that male blank. You’ve never been in one before, have you?”

Regina shook her head. “No.”

“You need to ride on top of it, the way you would a horse. Don’t let its adrenaline surges and hormones get the better of you, or the feedback will distort your decision making. Cloud your thinking.”

Regina shook her head, as if to clear it. “Yeah, I can feel that. But what did he say?”

Ilkay tugged at her hand, and they walked in the direction of the Hagia Sophia. In this early hour, there was almost no one on the sidewalks and the squares. The figures that they saw, all locals going about their own business, drifted in a clinging mist that did not quite turn to rain. “I’ll tell you,” Ilkay said, “but only if you promise, then, to concentrate on me. On us, and our time here.”

Regina stopped walking, gathered herself. “Yes, of course. I’m sorry. I got carried away. It’s embarrassing.”

Ilkay punched her arm, playfully. “Well, don’t forget to add this to your simulation. You can bet those men on Sphacteria were feeling exactly the same adrenaline surges, and it was having the same distorting effect on their decision making.”

Regina grinned. “I was thinking the same thing. Always the analysts, the two of us.”

Ilkay pulled them along toward the Hagia Sophia’s entrance. Its heavily buttressed mass loomed. “He said, ‘why don’t you dead just stay dead?’”

Regina felt her teeth actually grit themselves. “I earned this. We both did. We’ve worked hard, both of us. We spent lifetimes sharpening our skill sets, making ourselves valuable, making real contributions to science. I’m not some trust-fund postmortem cruising around in a speedboat off Corsica. We competed fairly for our places in the highrises. We worked for this. And… who do they think keeps them safe? And who spends all their money here, pays for the maintenance of these places, keeps their restaurants open? And…” She trailed off helplessly.

“I know, I know,” said Ilkay. “Now forget about it, and let’s go visit a church that has stood for over two thousand years, and let the temporary things be temporary.”

The house Ilkay had rented for them, one of the ancient wooden homes along the Bosporus, was like a wedding cake fresh from a refrigerator—all white paint thick as frosting, china-fine detail, silken folds, and chilled from top to bottom. The heating system was apologetic but insufficient. They built a fire in the master bedroom’s fireplace, found wool blankets in a trunk, ordered a very late lunch, and clumsily explored the possibilities of their new configurations. Then, increasingly less clumsily.

By the time lunch was delivered, they were exhausted and starving. In near silence, wearing their blankets like woolen superhero capes, they spread fig jam on fresh bread and watched sleet spin down over the Bosporus and spatter slush against the windowpanes. Out on the roiling chop of the strait, a fisherman in a small rusty boat and black rubber rain gear determinedly attempted to extract some protein from the water. His huge black beard, run through with gray streaks, jutted from under his sou’wester, with seemingly only the axe blade of his nose between.

Regina dabbed at her mouth with a napkin. “It’s amazing to think that these people have lived in a nearly identical way for centuries. Technology changes some things, like maybe fish-locating sonar systems and nearly perfect weather forecasting—but for the fisherman who actually has to get the fish on the hook, in any weather that comes, not much has changed.”

“The physical things—the actual moving of matter around—are immutable,” agreed Ilkay. “As we have been experimenting with all morning.” She grinned, carefully applying fig jam. “And that’s why, I think, these weeks are so important. They remind us of the base—the essentials, the substance of life and the world. Not that what we do isn’t important. Not that who we are usually isn’t real…”

Regina finished the thought: “But it’s just so abstract. Immaterial. Not without consequence, but…”

“But without immediacy.” Ilkay interjected. Then, after a long pause… “Regina, I miss you terribly. All year. And I cram everything I can into these short few weeks. And every year, I am afraid.”

“Of what?”

“Afraid that next year, you will not be waiting for me at the café. These few weeks, always in winter… they are everything to me. They aren’t a vacation… they are the sum and total of everything of meaning in my life. It’s not that… it’s not that I don’t value my work, or think it saves lives. I haven’t lost faith in the project. We watch over a troubled world, in my highrise… a world cruel people are constantly trying to tear to pieces… but none of that work seems to matter nearly as much as the moment I see you again. Sometimes, I feel my work is eating away at who I am. It’s like watching a shadow underwater: you know it is just seaweed, this shadow, a harmless mass writhing in the current, nothing to worry about. But what if it is a shark? A shadow with teeth and volition? The more you stare at the shadow, straining to make out its outline, the more certain you become that it is a shark—until you convince even yourself. This constant watching—it eats away at your feeling of security. It eats away, I think, at your sanity. And I’ve been afraid to tell you, because I feel as if once it’s said, it will shatter all this… this causal sort of… easy feeling between us.”

Regina put an arm around her. Her thicker arms were increasingly feeling as if they were her own. She pulled Ilkay toward her. “This was never casual or easy for me, Ilkay. And I’ll always be at the café. Every single year.”