Carola Dibbell - The Only Ones

I heard Rauden saying, very slow, “Look at Rini, I. Tell Rini what I said.”

So I looked at Rini, opened my mouth as small as I could, and told her, “Rauden will use my Life to make a child which will be yours.”

They both seemed stunned when I said that, like something hit them on the head.

Rini smiled so hard at me her whole head shook. She said very soft, “Did you think we meant to take your life away?”

I said, “I would be paid for it.”

Rini stopped smiling.

Finally Rauden moved. “Oh! Oh, I see what she means. She heard something someone said about the Life Industry. It’s not going to be your own life, Inez.”

Well, how it turned out, nobody knew whose life it is. But I didn’t know that. But I didn’t have to know. I just have to keep my mouthMa, you don’t even know what that means.ot mitochondriaon as closed as I could and let Rini say whatever she is going to say.

“You will not see or know this child,” and she went on stroking my hand. She leaned very, very close. “She will be my child.” And now she squeezed my hand very, very hard. “How do you feel about this?”

I got no idea how to answer that.

Now she raised her voice. “How do you feel about this? ”

Who knows? Who cares? Man! This is the worst intake I ever had.

She suddenly rose to her feet and began to pace. She wore sandals. She even is barefoot in them, even though it’s still a little chilly, even though not so cold as when I got here. Finally, she stopped pacing, spun around and now she took those big steps back to me and sat down and took my hand again. “Now, I am going to tell you something that you do not know. I once lived in Siliguri, India, with my loving husband and four daughters, until my husband died from second Wave Luzon and I took my four daughters to my cousin’s home in Toronto, Canada, where next Wave Luzon had already hit, though we did not know it till we landed. My daughters all died in one month. Four daughters. Now, you must tell me,” and tears just popped out of her eyes while she went on, “and you may judge me for this, but you must understand what it is like to lose my husband and then four daughters in one month.” Tears just kept rolling down her face. “I cannot bear to lose another child. I cannot bear to go through this if you will change your mind.”

So now what do I do? I don’t want Rini to cry, or anyone to cry. I had it with how much crying I saw since I been up here. But I don’t even know what she means. I looked at Rini Jaffur and said, “I would be paid on delivery. So if I change my mind, I don’t get anything.”

Rini got very quiet. I noticed at this point she was looking at Rauden. I don’t know why.

“We must tell her,” Rini said suddenly. “I know we said she did not need to know, but I have changed my mind. Come. I’m going to tell you something else, and you may judge me for this, but when I lost four daughters in a month, I was mad with grief. When my final daughter, Madhur, died, I reached out to my husband’s old schoolfellow, Parvi, who lived in Ithaca and knew rubes, because I dreamed of doing something with what was left of my last daughter that people tell me is unethical. Parvi sent me to this fellow here,” and she looks at Rauden, “a DVM who Parvi told me was so unethical he might do the work.”

I looked at Rauden too. He was rolling his eyes like Henry.

She just ignored him. “Do you know what I asked this rube to do?”

I didn’t know.

“To make a new child from what remained of my last one’s skin, and this child would be gene for gene Madhur’s living replica. Did Rauden tell you that?”

I heard him say that name. The gene for gene thing, maybe not.

“Did he say some would call it a crime against nature?”

“Rini, I don’t think this is absolutely necessary.”

“What if it is a crime against nature? What if nature committed a crime against me? Four daughters! One husband! I say, go bury two daughters who are so young they cannot even speak. Then tell me what is ethical!”

I shot a really fast look at Rauden. He shook his head.

“DoMa, you don’t even know what that means.ot mitochondriaon you know what this rube said? He said, to do what I had in mind, it is unethical. He said I am just asking a child to be born who will die like the rest from one Pandy or another.”

I was so surprised he cares if it’s ethical, I did look right at Rauden. Nobody else seemed to notice. They were looking at each other. Suddenly, they were both smiling. Rauden was saying, “She drove a hard bargain though.”

Rini explained, “I was mad with grief.”

Now it was like a song, where everyone knows the parts before they sing. Rauden went, “I asked her to consider something radically different. I said, Rini, it’s not what we discussed, but at least you will end up with a child who at least has a goddamn chance of staying alive.”

“At first I refused. This time it was me who said it was unethical.”

I remembered that.

“But then I changed my mind. And I will tell you why. You see, while we discussed all this by phone and message, I was in Sydney, Australia, and then in Vancouver, in quarantine, watching on TV, like everyone, the spread of Mumbai, which everyone says is a variant of that terrible Luzon virus that killed my family. I watched on the News the bodies of corpses, and some of them were tiny children, babies, and I will tell you, I tore my hair, I scratched my cheeks! Do you know why I did these things?”

I said as quiet as I could, “Mad with grief?”

I don’t know if she even heard. “It was because I thought,” now she pointed a finger straight up, “whatever I do, this terrible disease will kill whatever child I have! It is my Fate! My Fate to be the mother of a child who dies of it. As Luzon Third killed the original Madhur, so Mumbai would kill the new child I would make from Madhur’s skin, which would be gene for gene her living replica. It is my Fate that no child I will ever have will stay alive.

“And then I thought,” and she grabbed me, “what is Fate?”

She kept grabbing me, so I said I didn’t know. It turns out I was right!

Because Rini said, “Nobody knows! Fate is unknown. It is unknown until it happens. Then, when it happens, you say, that was Fate. Fate is what happened. So then I thought, if I change what happens, that will change my Fate. I will change my child’s Fate to someone else’s Fate, who would stay alive. If I was ready to be unethical with my own daughter’s skin, why not with someone else’s daughter’s skin?”

I forgot not to look at Rauden. I looked at him and asked, “The child won’t be her daughter?”

“No, no, no!” said Rauden. “She means you. You’re someone else’s daughter.”

Rini just went on, “I do not want a genius or a beauty star! She could be tall or short. Dark or fair. Smart or dim. All I want is one child who will stay alive. Is it so much to ask? So you must tell me,” she told me, “what do you think of that?”

I said, “Am I a Sylvain hardy?”

Rini went stiff. “Why bring this up now?”

I said, “Are their eggs subpar?”

Rauden started to laugh and laugh and Rini to weep and weep so hard I wished I never said anything. “You must tell her,” she gasped. “This is not some cow or pig or bird or treefrog. This is not tissue in a jar. This is for emergency contactot mitochondriaon a human being.”

“Yes. Well!” Rauden cleared his throat. “It’s not so much your,” cough, cough, “eggs we would be working with.”

I looked back and forth between them.

Rini wiped her eyes and told Rauden, “You must explain.”

Rauden ran his hands through his hair. He cleared his throat again. “Well! Normally — if anything can be called normal any more — when the reproductive product is mixed in a dish, male and female, the female product, well, the solo, the egg, contains,” he coughed, “genetic information. Genes! DNA! Like letters — A, C, G, T, which spell words — which tell the baby what it is. Through protein! The male solo too, sperm. Each gives half the genetic information, half the letters, the words. But we have something else in mind. We don’t use the male solo. We don’t use the sperm.” And he looked at me and waited, so I will have time to get what he said.