Triptych (17 page)

Yet here is Gwen’s scar, white and clean, starting just above her eyebrow and arching back along her scalp, hidden by the swept-sideways way that she has styled her hair.

He only sees it because she has become exasperated with her hair hanging in her eyes as she tries to write, and has secured it to the side with, of all things, a little silver paperclip.

It serves to remind him again of just how terribly naked these creatures are.

Poor colouring for camouflage; fragile, thin skin; fat, slow limbs; reproductive organs open to any attack; no easy method of seeing or hearing behind them. How had they become the dominant species of this planet?

The development of speech and opposable digits, Kalp supposes, just as it was among his people.

Kalp watches Gwen fiddle with her hair for a moment, patting it down over the scar, smoothing it out to hide the pale line, then frustratedly shoving it back behind her ear or into the paperclip in an effort to get it out of the way of her sightline. She repeats the process several times before Kalp realizes that the first part of the three-step dance of tucking, untucking, and patting of hair, is unconscious. She is constantly trying to hide her deformity and does not even know she is doing so.

Kalp wonders how she got the scar.

It is thin and clean, as if it could have come from a blade or a very particular fall. He hopes one day Gwen will trust him enough to tell him.

The other distraction of the day is that Kalp’s new desk has still not come in.

He does not want to make a nuisance of himself, but he cannot concentrate on his work for the pain that spreads all down his back. Surely, he must not be the only one of his people who is suffering the ill effects of human-style beds, but to whom could he complain? They are lucky enough that have been given hospitality; to ask more will invite ill feelings.

Yet he cannot even take his mind off the pain long enough to consider that Basil and Gwen are both now wearing shirts that are tight across their chests and expose the bare skin of their arms. The weather has changed and it is growing ever warmer and more humid. In an effort to leak less, they have opted to wear less clothing. Practical, from a logistics point of view, but ever so distracting.

Or, it would be, if Kalp could manage to sit up straight.

He is seriously considering requesting a pain blocking medication. Kalp was informed upon his entry to the Institute that medicines based on his own people’s dwindling supply of pharmaceuticals had been created in mass quantities and were available for his consumption. He only need request them. He has not yet, but he thinks that if he can take a muscle relaxer, then he may just be able to unwind enough to keep the tension from returning, and concentrate on his duties.

He is wary of the medicine, however. Not because he seriously believes that the humans would poison him intentionally, but that they may do so accidentally. There is still much about the other that each species does not understand — as Kalp had already proved with his verbal errors and Gwen and Basil had proved with their casual touching.

Mistakes do happen.

“Your back’s hurting again, innit?” Basil asks, putting a vessel of tea down beside Kalp’s arm. The engineering schematics are now artfully marked all over with rings of moisture stains, but they do not impede Kalp’s ability to read them, nor Gwen’s to translate, nor Basil’s to build, so no one minds. Kalp notes that this tea smells of flora — another herbal blend that Basil has decided Kalp should test.

He has, apparently, wagered money with Gwen on whether Kalp will indeed begin to drink tea by the week’s end, and is doing his best to keep from losing. So far, Kalp has yet to find a blend of the beverage appealing to his palate. They are all too sweet, which Basil finds a hilarious notion, because Gwen calls them all too bitter.

Kalp performs the head bob of affirmation. “The cots,” he says, choosing his words carefully, not wanting to sound ungrateful, “are not as we usually sleep.”

“How do you usually sleep?” Gwen asks, abandoning her notepad. She is always as eager as he is to set aside the drudgery of their prescribed tasks to converse about cultural differences and similarities. Her fingers are stained with ink, as they always are. At first Kalp found this unintentional habit slightly revolting, dirty, but now that he understands that it is the inevitable side effect of her scholarship, he finds it rather endearing.

“At home, we built nests.” The stick and mud berths of the flying animals are also called “nests” in English, and Kalp sees their confusion. “Not as birds do. We like soft things. Many many pillows, pushed together and confined by walls. Piles of soft blankets. We sleep curled up.”

“Mm,” Gwen says. “Sounds heavenly.”

“Sounds like a recipe for high chiropractic bills,” Basil shoots back. “Humans need firm spine support.”

“We are more…fluid,” Kalp explains, struggling over a suitable adjective. The only ones he knows that are close to the appropriate descriptors are used to describe the flow of water, and he is not liquid. “Your cots are too firm. It is like…” He trails off, failing to find a suitable simile.

“Like if we slept on the floor,” Gwen says. “It’s too hard.”

“Yes. And narrow.”

“Narrow?” Basil repeats. “Waitaminute — hard and narrow, and you said ‘cots,’ yeah?”

Gwen catches on to Basil’s line of logic, but Kalp still does not know the workings of their minds well enough to guess what they are thinking. “Kalp, where are they putting you up?”

Kalp is surprised by this question. “You do not know?”

Both humans shake their heads from side to side, the gesture for the negative.

“In the Sleeping Place,” Kalp says.

“Sleeping Place?”

“A large building, on the same base as the military. There is a large room with a high ceiling and many cots lined up, and cleaning cubicles in the common bathing room.”

“You’re in the
barracks?
” Gwen says, aghast. Kalp does not know this term, but he assumes it is the English word for where he is living. “That’s awful!”

“Gwen, maybe they want to make sure that nobody disturbs them — ”

“Or maybe they want to keep them under surveillance!” Gwen’s blood has rushed up to her face, pressing against the underside of her skin. Kalp knows this expression, though he’s never seen it in person before. This is “fury.”

“Gwen you don’t know — ” Basil begins, hands held out, palms up. It is shockingly similar to Kalp’s own people’s gesture of pleading.

“The hell I don’t!” she snaps back, cutting off his words. “They said that they were living in all due comfort! I was expecting motels at the least. Something with mattresses!”

“I have meals,” Kalp insists. “I have clothing and access to clean water, and a place on which to sleep. What more do I need?”

“Comfort!” Gwen yells. Her rage washes against Kalp’s skin and he fights the urge to curl up and deafen as much of his body as he can, protect it against her wild heartbeat and furious, grating tone. But he knows that she does not direct her anger at him, so he sits still and lets the emotion run its course. “A semblance of home! They at least owe you privacy!”

“Perhaps for monetary reasons —”

“Bullshit! It’s the U.N.! They have the cash!”

Basil now has his hands on Gwen’s shoulders. He is staring intently into her eyes. “Gwen,” he says, and his voice is firm but soothing. “Calm down.”

“I will not ‘calm down’! This is an outrage! This is — ”

“ — look at Kalp.”

Gwen stops and looks at him. Kalp is doing his utmost best to endure the screaming volume of her displeasure, but it hurts his skin and he has doubled himself over, finger pads digging into the bottom of the chair, ears flattened against the back of his neck.

The room blessedly silent, Kalp ventures a look back up.

Gwen is leaking again.

Water is running out of her eyes. She looks very angry still, but also contrite. “I’m sorry,” she says.

“No apologies,” Kalp starts, uncurling himself muscle by muscle, skin still ringing from the loudness of her fury. “We agreed.”

“No, no, really,” Gwen insists. “I shouldn’t have lost my temper and I shouldn’t have hurt you. It was very irresponsible of me.” She bends her wet face down and performs The Apology. It is messy and moist and hasty and amateurish and the most amazing thing Kalp has ever seen. This human angry not because of him, but
for
him, and apologizing for it anyway.

“I am okay,” Kalp insists. “There is no lasting effect. Except…that you are leaking on me.”

Gwen trills, a soft little chuckle and turns out of the comforting embrace to fetch Kleenex from the multicoloured box on her desk. She mops at her face. Basil stands in place and fidgets, digging at the mechanical grease under his fingernails, and waits. It is a small relief to note that it seems that males all over the universe, no matter what species, have no idea what to do with an upset female. Kalp feels just as agitated as Basil, and they share an ironic look.

Finally, Gwen turns back around. The cosmetic paint that she often wears around her eyes is smudged under her lids and her face is red in patches and Kalp thinks that she is very beautiful, for a human. Perhaps it is the way her cheeks are flushed, or the way her eyes glimmer with leftover salt water, or the way biting her lips has made them redder, plumper.

Kalp knows it is not just himself, because Basil is staring transfixed as well.

Gwen slaps her palms together, rubs them briskly, and then retrieves her light animal-hide coat from the back of her chair. She swings it over her shoulder, thrusting her arms into the sleeves with determination. It is a signal of intended departure.

“Uh,” Basil says, snapping to attention. “Where we going?”

“To get Kalp’s things,” Gwen says.

Kalp stands up now, too. “I beg your pardon?”

“We,” she says, gesturing with a single finger between Basil and herself, “have a spare bedroom. You,” and here she points at Kalp, though he was sure he had been taught that indicating a person with a single digit was disrespectful, “require somewhere better to live than a drafty, noisy, barrack.”

Basil looks alarmed. “Can we talk about this?” He reaches out, grabs Gwen’s arm in a manner that is not as affectionate as Kalp is accustomed to, and drags her out of what Basil assumes is earshot.

It is not, not quite — Kalp can still make out the low patter, the mood of the tone, if not the actual words themselves. But Basil is speaking too rapidly for Kalp to understand what he is saying, even if he could hear complete phrases, decipher them.

The stabbing shock that accompanies the apparent need for this discussion is distracting Kalp anyway. It is clear now that Basil and Gwen never initially intended for Kalp to join their household. His assumptions about their relationship were erroneous, and for reasons that Kalp does not wish to explore, it hurts.

Gwen seems to win the skirmish. Basil dons his own outer wear and they all three depart the office. For the first time when they reach the parking lot, Kalp turns to the right to follow Gwen and Basil to their conveyance, instead of left to the place where the bus picks him up and drops him off every day.

Basil’s automobile is not as shiny and clean as the ones Kalp has seen on the television, but it will be the first one that Kalp has ever entered and he is excited for the opportunity all the same. He focuses on the sensations of the trip rather than the motivations for it, because he is nervous enough as it is, without considering that his whole life is changing again. And that maybe, ensconced in their household, Gwen and Basil will still come to care for him as strongly as he hopes.

When they arrive at the military compound shortly thereafter, they each flash their identification cards to the soldier at the gate, and are let in with a smile and a wave. Kalp directs them to the correct building. Basil goes in one direction to speak to the human in charge of residence arrangements — to “harangue,” Gwen calls it, and Kalp guesses the definition of the word when he hears Basil’s raised voice echoing across the open spaces between the low concrete buildings of the base — and Kalp takes Gwen in the opposite direction and shows her into the Sleeping Place. It is neat and tidy, just the way they all leave it each morning, but Gwen looks distressed all the same.

“Where do you sleep?” she asks.

Kalp leads her to a bed almost exactly in the middle of the room. It is indistinguishable from the others, except that there are a pair of shoes peeking out from under the sheet that hangs down to cut the draft under the cots.

“This is it?” she asks. “Not very luxurious.”

Kalp has a trunk under the cot. There is clothing in it, all labelled carefully on the inside with the English version of his written name. He has enough, and the cleaners whose duties it is to attend to the bathing rooms and commodes and floors take them away for laundry once a week. His sheets are fresh and clean, and the meals they provide are nutritious and hot. He is tempted to say again that, despite the discomfort of the cot, all of his basic needs are being met and he is content.

But Kalp can see what Gwen is upset about — his basic needs should not
just
be met, he should be comfortable. But this is a planet where a small percentage of the population owns a large percentage of the land and wealth. Changes are coming to make certain that everyone’s level of life is elevated from “survival” to “enjoyment,” but the process is slow, even Kalp knows that. He is grateful to have been given as much as he has, especially when there are so many others with less.

Basil storms in, head held high in triumph, and drops down onto Kalp’s cot with a smug grin. He immediately jumps back up. “God, this is where you sleep? It’s…awful. These sheets are awful, the mattress is awful, it’s…this is just — ”

“Awful?” Kalp supplies.

“Awful,” Basil agrees. “Let’s get out of here, eh?”

Gwen and Basil share the weight of Kalp’s trunk between them, and Kalp is left to gather up his shoes and a small box of the only things he managed to bring with him when he’d fled — a rendered image of his Aglunates, another of his three parents, a neck accessory that he happened to have had on that morning, and a small wooden toy that is half finished, that he’d had in his pockets, meant to have been a gift for the child that he and Maru and Trus had been trying so hard to produce.