The Silver Metal Lover(56)

He struck the chord, and started to sing. I came in on the third word, and straight into a harmonic I’d sung so often, it was easy. As I did, I caught the faintest spray of approval from the crowd. It was good. Silver didn’t check, or even look at me. The crowd began to clap in time with the rhythm.

I heard our voices go up together, his voice, hers. They had the same colors as our hair, his fire, auburn, darker, richer. Mine transparent and pale, a blond chain of notes. Chain. Jain. A Jain voice. And it was beautiful.

When the song ended, the crowd stamped and yelled. And I knew they were yelling and stamping for me too. Coins fell. But the sounds were far away. I wanted it to go on. I wanted to sing again. But Silver shook his head at the crowd. It began to melt away. It seemed to go very quickly. I think I wanted to call it back.

Then a woman came pushing through. She handed Silver a mug of something which steamed, and had an alcoholic scent.

“That’ll keep out the cold,” she said. She saw me. “Well, if it isn’t Blondie. Got the jacket on, I see.” My topcoat was open; this was the woman from the clothing stall. “Didn’t know you were here, or I’d have brought a drop for you.”

“She can share mine,” said Silver, and handed me the mug.

I drank. It was coffine, but it had brandy in it.

“Nice jacket,” said the woman, letting the remnants of the crowd, and any who passed, know where it came from. Obligingly, I slipped off the fur, and let the peacocks shine forth on the market.

“Wonderful value,” I said, loud and clear. “And so warm—”

“A bit too warm,” said the woman. She touched my forehead. “Not too bad, but you ought to get home.”

“My mother used to do that,” I said.

“She ought to be in bed,” the woman said to Silver. She winked. I suddenly knew she and he weren’t in some sexual conspiracy. We all were in it, it included me. So I laughed.

Silver was fastening my fur jacket.

“I’m packing up for the night,” he said.

“I should think so,” she said, “you’ve made enough. But you’re good for business, I’ll say that. And I liked that song. That song about the rose. How does it—?”

He sang it to her as he thrust the money in a thick cloth bag.

“A rose by any other name would get the blame for being what it is—the color of a kiss, the shadow of a flame.”

It was an improvisation. I rested against the golden night, and I added in my own, my very own strange new voice, extending his melody: “A rose may earn another name, so call it love, so call it love I will. And love is like the sea, which changes constantly, and yet is still the same.”

The woman looked at me.

Silver said, “That verse is Jane’s verse.”

“Love is like the sea. I love him,” I said to the woman. The brandy filled my head and the fever my blood.

“Well, love off home,” she said, grinning at us.

We walked out of the market, and he had me under a fold of his cloak, as if I were literally under his wing.

“Are you all right?” he said.

“A mild and minor human disease,” I said. “It’s nothing.”

“Why did you come here?”

“I wanted to be with you.”

“Why did you sing?”

“Did I sing?”

His arm held me.

“You’ve got through some barrier in yourself.”

“I know. Isn’t it ridiculous.”


The walk home went in a moment. Or seemed to. As we went up the cement steps, Silver said, “We’ve got half the rent now. I think we can risk buying doughnuts for breakfast.”

We went into the apartment. I’d left the heater on, and ten candles burning, wasteful and dangerous. But it didn’t matter.

“I’m going to buy silver makeup,” I said. “And make my skin like yours. How silly that will be. Will it annoy you?”

“No.”

I sat on the couch and found I was lying on it. It was strange, I could feel my temperature actually going down. I was leveling, the way a flyer does as it approaches a platform. I knew I wasn’t ill, wouldn’t get ill. I knew everything, would be all right.

Silver’s cloak and the guitar were leaning together against the wall catching candle glints on wood and folds, the way they would in a painting or an artistic photograph. Silver was sitting next to me, looking at me intently.

“I am all right,” I said. “But how nice you care.”

“Don’t forget,” he said, “you’re all that stands between me and Egyptia’s robot storage.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I was subconsciously and consciously trying to drive you into feeling human.”

I thought he’d laugh. He didn’t. He looked down at my hand in his. The light seemed to darken, intensify, which perhaps was because some of the candles were burning out.

“I do feel human,” he said at last. “I’m supposed to feel human, in order to act in a human manner. But there are degrees. I know I’m a machine. A machine that behaves like a man, and partly feels like a man, but which doesn’t exactly emote like a man. Except that, probably very unfortunately, I have gained emotional reflexes where you’re concerned.”