Choices (13 page)

I took Paolo’s advice, requesting an escort
of aides and walking into town to “pay” for my clothes by showing
off the cloak, the blue work dress, and the linen underwear
embroidered with the phases of the Eclipsian moons, each with its
own color scheme of gradated floss. The dressmaker’s shop was much
busier than when Edwige and I had ordered the clothes, and Madame
Leslie, while grateful for this overdue visit, appeared
preoccupied, anxious to attend to her many profitable commissions.
I left feeling absurdly virtuous, as if I had done a good deed. The
leather goods shop was also crowded, and the proprietor merely
bowed, thanked me for dropping by and, when it was clear I would
not be ordering anything else, returned to haggling with a customer
over a pair of riding boots.

When I returned to La Sapienza there was so
much unusual activity that my absence had hardly been noticed.
Aides were tying red ribbon around sheaves of evergreen branches
and hanging them on the walls, and putting little bunches of a
prickly-leafed plant over every doorway.

“What have you been up to that makes you look
so smug?” Matilda asked as she went in to dinner. She didn’t wait
to hear my answer, and I quickly took off my cloak and ran to
eat.

At the table the talk was of the upcoming
Midwinter festival. All of us would stay here at La Sapienza for
the entire holiday. The work had to go on, the signal station had
to be staffed, and for most people the journey home and back was
too far, the weather too risky at this time of year, to chance
it.

“We’ll have to make do with our own music,”
Alicia said, smiling ruefully. ‘Graven and gentry do not become
professional musicians, and there are no traveling bands whose
members are willing to risk the dangers inside a seminary for one
performance.

“Oh, it’s not too bad,” Paolo said. “You just
have to drink enough so that the lame rhythm and sour notes don’t
bother you.”

Music and dancing are treasured on Eclipsis.
Unlike Terra, where grating, vapid music is inescapable, beamed
into every workplace and public area, and leaking out of
everybody’s ear buds, music here is available only when there are
musicians to perform it. Someone who can play the guitar or flute
is welcomed into the poorest house like a saint offering salvation
or a billionaire trying to give away his fortune. At every major
festival, and every minor one, at weddings and on any occasion
where excuse can be found, there is dancing. Midwinter is second
only to Midsummer in the Eclipsian calendar. This would be a
blowout.

“We’ll just have the one night,” Tomasz said.
We could not disrupt our routine for the two weeks of festival
season enjoyed by the outside world. “At least it’s the longest
night of the year,” he added, smiling at Alicia.

That was nice
, I thought, a chance
for them to be together without the conflicting schedules of the
signal shifts and cell work. The older staff members had
volunteered to cover the signal scope for the evening into the next
morning, to give us younger people a complete holiday. The cells
would not work that day, or the next, and apart from the ceremony
marking the eclipses, we would forgo our regular prayers. We could
eat and drink and dance until dawn, and sleep late before resuming
the grueling schedule for another half a year.

When the day came, all work ceased before
dinner and we were allowed time to change into our good clothes.
Even though there was nobody to dress up for except each other, it
would help us to feel that a holiday had really come. My formal
gown was as revealing as anything I had worn on Terra, with a
slinky body-hugging shape, the front cut low and wide so that my
breasts were covered only by the sheer lace of the undergarment, a
silk sheath that also showed at the deliberately uneven hem. The
skirt was full and shorter than my work clothes—for dancing. I had
been surprised at the design when Madame Leslie had sketched it for
me, but Edwige had laughed in her hearty way and said it was modest
compared to what women had worn when she was young.

Downstairs, it was a relief to see that the
other women’s dresses were similar. The sexy gowns and the party
mood worked wonders of transformation on some of them, as if, like
actors in costume, they had assumed a character appropriate to the
clothes. Cassandra, freed from her everyday drab sullenness, was a
sultry, alluring beauty, while Matilda, tall and statuesque, could
have had a career as a model on Terra. Alicia would always be a
blandly pretty girl, and Raquel would probably look willowy and
elegant in anything. The others, who had seemed dour and elderly,
turned out to be attractive middle-aged women, fit from the years
of strenuous work, their bodies unmarked by childbearing or manual
labor. Edwige, the weight of responsibility thrown off for the
night, and in danger of spilling out of her ravishing scarlet gown,
looked disconcertingly young and enticing.

The men, smartened up in ruffled shirts and
skin-tight satin breeches, were a match for their glamorous
coworkers. Tomasz strutted with a cocky bounce in his step; Paolo,
showing off his long legs in high-heeled boots, was languidly
seductive; while Julian Vazquez, temporarily eased from his
arthritic stiffness, became a dapper and sophisticated older
man.

I tried not to stare, but since everyone was
staring at me, I felt justified. Once again I was conscious of a
reaction, of looks and thoughts. It was the holiday mood, more than
a simple change of clothes, that had turned all of us Cinderellas
into princes and princesses, and it allowed a freedom to express
all the inappropriate feelings that must be masked the rest of the
time. Desires, like bodies, need not be concealed on this one
night.

The dinner was sumptuous, lasting over two
hours, while we ate and talked, drank toasts, then ate and drank
some more. When the last plates were removed, instead of taking our
usual siesta, we sat in our places, too stuffed to move. Eventually
one of the women produced a case that held a wooden instrument with
taut strings and a bow to drag across them. Paolo went upstairs for
his pipe, which he blew into at one end, making notes by covering
different holes with his fingers, and Cassandra brought out another
stringed instrument, a lute, from behind the table. The lute had no
bow, but was played by plucking its strings with the fingers.
Terran music is all synthesized. I had never seen real instruments
being played except on the holonet, and I enjoyed watching almost
as much as listening. Slowly our musicians tuned their instruments
together, and the dancing began.

With only two men available for partners, we
did mostly group dances at first. The younger people laughed at me
for not knowing any of the steps, but it was friendly laughter, and
everyone was eager to teach me. We danced holding hands in a
circle, our inhibitions loosened by the drink and the physical
activity, stepping right and then left, moving into the center and
out again, clapping and whirling. When we separated into pairs, I
was handed over from Matilda to Tomasz, to Raquel, Julian and
Alicia, each one showing me a new combination of steps or a
different arrangement of hands, arms and feet. Edwige twirled me
around once, giggling every time our hips and breasts bumped.
Occasionally I was allowed to sit out a dance, but someone always
pulled me to my feet again for the next.

As one of the musicians took a break, the
music would change, becoming softer or slower. Finally, as the
three of them wanted to dance, not play, we began to sing. It was
easy to learn the words, hearing them in people’s heads; as in
learning the language, a telepath has a natural advantage. My voice
was too breathy from not having sung much before, but it was on key
and sweet.

Through the stupor of inebriation and
exercise, the relaxation of the barriers of thought, I became aware
of something odd. Couples were forming, first for dancing, then
for—sex. I was taken aback, even as I wondered how I could have
missed the underlying theme. The clothes, the abundance of alcohol,
the sense of release—what else could this be but a Dionysian
celebration? The four youngest, who at thirteen or fourteen were
not yet adults, had been banished to their rooms by now, but the
rest of us had stayed at the party, drinking and nibbling on
festival food, well into the night. The couples were of necessity
mostly two women, and the passionate feelings were everywhere, and
unambiguous. Edwige, large and graceful, walked upstairs with
Julian Vazquez, thin and agile, their arms around each other’s
waist, head inclined toward the other together in an intimate
whisper of
crypta
.

Not everyone had paired off. Paolo was still
dancing, swaying gently with Raquel to a tune only they could hear.
Tomasz and Alicia stood talking with Matilda and Cassandra. Tomasz
and Matilda did something that looked like bargaining or choosing,
like children playing “odds or evens.” Tomasz won the game,
whatever it was, and strolled casually over in my direction. With
the
crypta
coming in strong, aided by liquor and the
sexually-charged atmosphere, his thoughts were clear well before he
spoke.

“Amalie,” he said, bowing to me as on the
morning after my arrival, “would you honor me by sharing the last
dance, and your first Midwinter night?”

I was glad to be somewhat prepared. I knew
that I would have to turn him down very gently, that however
strange this invitation seemed to me, to him it was real and
refusal would hurt.

“Tomasz,” I said, stalling for time, “your
offer is most surprising.” My eyes flickered, despite all my
efforts to control them, in Alicia’s direction. She was staring
hard at me, but the hostility I expected wasn’t there. The emotion
was unreadable to me; only its intensity was unmistakable.

“Beautiful Amalie,” Tomasz said. He had taken
my stupid words as flirtatious assent, a signal for him to employ
some coaxing and flattery, with the inevitable result soon to
follow. “How can you be surprised? You must have seen how I look at
you.” He whispered into my ear, breathing on my neck—that damned
naked neck that had so aroused him before.

He was going to kiss me, to touch my neck,
the forbidden place that apparently was allowed to him on this
night. If I let him, I would be accepting him, at least for this
night. I liked him; he had always been friendly and kind, and I was
sure that should I go through with this folly, he would hate
himself for hurting Alicia. And I didn’t like him in this way. It
was typical of my late adolescence and new love, my first
connection of
crypta
. Absurd as it was at my age, I could
not imagine making love with anyone but Dominic.

I turned away in a discreet movement, so that
it was like an accident that Tomasz’ hand landed, not on my neck
but on my shoulder, his kiss died on the air. He opened his eyes
wide in shock. “I’m sorry,” I said. It was all I could think of. “I
am really very sorry.” It was true, no matter how poorly expressed.
The words were so inadequate, but there wasn’t a chance of lying,
not with all our emotions out in the open tonight.

For lack of an alternative, I had done the
right thing. Tomasz saw my face, my genuine unhappiness at causing
him pain, and he recovered admirably. He pulled himself up and out
of the slump produced by my rejection, gave a sad smile and
shrugged. “Don’t be sorry,” he said with his usual cheerfulness. “A
man can only try. It’s too soon, that’s all.” He touched my hand
lightly, and returned to the group he had left.

It wasn’t too soon
, I thought with
annoyance, but at least I had managed the difficult scene without
making an enemy. After tonight we would be back to normal, not
having to worry about these things.

Before I could decide whether to stay
downstairs or escape to bed, I was approached again. Matilda,
seeing Tomasz’s failure, gave him a quick, commiserative peck on
the cheek and stalked over to me. She was taller than Tomasz, and
in her flowing burgundy-colored gown she had a regal elegance.

Matilda said nothing at first, merely put a
long arm around my shoulders, careful to avoid the neck, and walked
me toward a window. It was a beautiful night, the moon reflecting
green, blue and purple light into our silver, shielded eyes. As the
subtle colors worked their magic in our minds she said, “You look
like Selene in the moonlight.” She said nothing else, gazing at me
with her narrow dark eyes, her wide mouth curved in an enigmatic
smile.

The words sounded so false, yet the feeling
behind them wasn’t. Like Tomasz, Matilda was stimulated by my
rounded little body, my red hair and silver eyelids. Most of all,
it was my exotic quality, the sense of inexperience and lack of
confidence I exuded in the unfamiliar surroundings, that made me
seem younger, more desirable. I looked up into Matilda’s strong
face.
If anyone looked like a moon goddess
, I thought,
she did: Artemis, a goddess of the hunt
.

This time I was taken off guard. It wasn’t as
though I had never made love with a woman, simply that the change
was too sudden. Only this morning we had all been living together
in our habitual sexless reserve. To find myself at an orgy by
evening was unreal, like a dream or a delusion. I had not thought
about what might go on at Eclipsian festivals, what people whose
lives were governed by an unforgiving, inflexible routine might
need twice a year to make the rest of the time supportable. Without
understanding the meaning of the words, I laughed and said,
“
You
look like the goddess—”

My words were cut off as Matilda tightened
her arm around me and pulled me into a kiss, a long,
tongue-in-throat exploration that left me gasping. Too late I
recognized that the words were a formula, part of the ritual of
this night, and that I had consented to Matilda’s offer as I had
not to Tomasz’s.