Steven Brust - Agyar

I laughed in spite of myself. “Why? Because I am mad with jealousy, my dear. Simply mad. Can’t you tell?”

“Are you jealous, Jonathan?”

I sighed. “I’m not entirely certain. If so, it’s the first time. No, the second, actually. But the first was a long time ago, and about someone it wasn’t worth being jealous about. You are.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Guess.”

“Your friend-what was her name?”

“Laura.”

“You were jealous of her?”

“I think so. Actually, I think there was a time when she wanted me to be jealous, and I tried to oblige but I didn’t quite manage.”

“Why?”

“It was toward the end of our romance, and I think she wanted to end it with me leaving her instead of having to break it off.”

“She didn’t want to hurt you.”

“Maybe. Or she didn’t want to be annoyed. She was quite capable of taking the long way around if it would save her some annoyance.”

Susan looked sad. “I like to play games, Jonathan. But I don’t want you to ever think I’m playing games with your feelings. I’ll never do that, and I’ll be very sad if you ever think I am.”

“I don’t think you are, Susan.”

“Good. Then what are we going to do?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know if we have to do anything.”

“I don’t want you to be unhappy.”

“My happiness isn’t your responsibility.”

“I know that. But still-”

“Yes. I understand.”

“What did it feel like, when you were jealous?”

“It was ugly, but only slightly ugly.”

“What does this feel like?”

“It’s uglier.”

She walked up to me (actually, it was more like cross c to r) and put her hands on my shoulders. She looked directly into my eyes and said, “You don’t expect me to leave Jennifer, do you?”

I kept very careful control over myself and said, “No. I don’t expect you to, and I’m not asking you to.”

She remained where she was and said, “Well, then?”

“I don’t know.” I felt myself smile a little. “You are giving me a new experience, for which I thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” she said, and kissed my mouth lightly.

“However,” I said, “I’m not exactly certain what to do, or, for that matter, what I feel.”

“I know what I feel,” said Susan. “I love you.”

I was hit by a sudden, and mercifully brief, sense of vertigo. The heavens were uprooted and the world spun around me, and all I could think was, This is real. I did not make her do this, this is real. This is real.

Now that I think about it, the only other time in my life I’ve felt anything like that is when Young Don got me with the shotgun; there was the same onrush of significance in waves, and the same disorientation, and feeling of, Has my life been nothing but a preparation for this moment? I let the waves pass over me, not really caring if I drowned in them.

When I had regained my equilibrium and opened my eyes again, I found that she was still staring directly into them. I put my hands very lightly on her waist. “That,” I said, “is not one of the possibilities.”

Her eyes widened. “How not?” she said.

“It just isn’t.”

She took my hand and began leading me up the stairs. “I think I can prove you’re wrong,” she said.

“Yes,” I said. “You probably can.”

And she did, too.

Steven Brust

Agyar

An unsatisfying sort of day. I was feeling lazy at first, so I just sat around talking to Jim for a while. I asked him if he had ever married. He said, “Oh, yes. Had three children, too. The youngest was born a free man.”

“What ever became of them?”

“They moved away. They’re all dead now. We never saw much of them, except for the one who…” His voice trailed off and he looked troubled.

“Who what?” I said.

“Who was… different.”

“Retarded?”

“No.”

“Crippled?”

“It doesn’t matter. We kept her with us, and it was all right. But she couldn’t have gotten an education anyway, because she was a girl as well as a Negro, so it doesn’t matter. She was a sweet little girl, all her life.”

I looked at him for a while, wanting to ask him more about his family, but then I decided that perhaps I should not. He said, “You ever married?”

“I was engaged once.”

“Oh? What happened?”

“I met Kellem.”

“Oh. I wonder if she was ever married.”

“Yes, she was.”

“Really? What ever became of her husband?”

“Make a guess, Jim.”

He frowned. “You mean, she-”

“Right.”

“Oh.” He spent some time thinking about that, then looked at my chest again and said, “I wonder if that bothers her.”

I threw away a snappy answer and actually thought about it, wondering too, but I couldn’t make up my mind. How much of Laura did it explain? What happens when you’re driven to something by your animal needs and then come to regret it? I don’t know. I avoid that problem by never doing anything I’ll have cause to regret, but in her case-

Rubbish. What difference does it make? She is who she is, and how she got that way is none of my concern.

Still, it does give one to think.

Jim said, “You’ve been writing a great deal.”

“Yes,” I said. “It eases my mind.”

He frowned. “Sometimes when you say things, I don’t know if you’re being ironic.”

“Sometimes neither do I,” I said.

“Well?”

“Well what?”

“Why are you so involved in writing down everything that happens?”

I shrugged. It made me uncomfortable to talk about; I don’t know why. I said, “When it’s all done I’ll have it published and I’ll become a famous author.”

“Now,” he said, “you are being ironic.”

“Yes.”

“I had a friend who wrote a book once.”

“Oh?”

“He said it was more work than it was worth.”

“It probably is,” I said.

We drifted off onto other subjects that I don’t remember very well. After a while I became restless and left, making my way over to Susan’s, where I made certain that she was alone before I knocked on the door.

She was in a mood to go out, so I took her to a motion picture at one of those places with about nineteen screens under one roof. The picture was called Another 48 Hours, and it was an enjoyable film, if mindless. I thought the girl in the cage was quite attractive.

So did Susan.

After the movie we went back to her house and sat around for a while, just talking.

She said, “Jonathan, are you ever going to spend the night with me?”

I felt, I admit, a certain thrill at the question, along with worry that she might insist on an answer. I said, “I’m glad that you want me to.”

We were sitting on the couch, my arm about her shoulders. She moved a little closer to me. I said, “There will be a time to talk of the future, perhaps, but now isn’t it.”

“I hadn’t been speaking about the rest of our lives.”

“No. Nor am I encouraging you to. If we decide that we want to talk of such things, we always can. There is no need to just now, don’t you think?”

“I agree,” she said, which took care of the discussion of sleeping arrangements for the moment. I moved toward her, pressing her very gently back onto the couch. I was careful; she was so very, very sweet.

Sometime later I returned home to this faithful typewriting machine to pour out my confusions; or, at any rate, to recount the experiences of the day. Now they are recounted, and there is nothing to add.