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‘But why are we even talking about this? You’re going to get well, honey. We don’t have to think about any of this …’
She just needs a few minutes alone with Josie.’ ‘What I want more than anything else,’
Such a good transition, and also this whole section is super chaotic and i love it
‘Don’t worry. I’ll never let anything bad happen to you. I’ll talk to Mom. You go with Rick for now. Trust me.’
‘Sufficiently generous and liberal to be open to all students of high caliber, even some who haven’t benefited from genetic editing.’
‘Now consider this, Rick. Atlas Brookings believes there are many talented kids out there, just like you, who for reasons economic or otherwise never received the benefits of AGE. The college also believes society is currently making a grave error in not allowing those talents to come to full fruition. Unfortunately most other institutions don’t think this way. Which means we receive vastly more applications from people like yourself than we’re able to accommodate. We can weed out no-hopers, but after that, frankly, it becomes a lottery. Now Rick. You said just now you’re not seeking
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Parallels between Klara coming to the Sun for help
‘I’m going to answer this one for him, Vance. Yes, we are asking you for a favor. We know you have it within your gift. So we’re asking you to help us. I’ll rephrase that. I’m asking you. I’m asking you to help my boy have a fighting chance in this world.’ ‘Mum …’
Favoritism, like any other form of corruption, works best when it remains unacknowledged.
admit,’ Miss Helen said, ‘I behaved badly towards you, Vance. I accept that. But then I behaved badly towards myself, towards everybody. You mustn’t feel singled out. My awfulness was universally distributed.’
But I wasn’t just everybody. We’d been sharing a life for five years …’
‘Yes. And I do so want to apologize. Sometimes, Vance – and Rick too, I don’t mind saying this in front of you – I often wish I could line up all the people, everyone I’ve treated shabbily, have them all in a long line. Then I’d work my way along it, you know, the way a monarch might. One by one, shake each person’s hand, look each one in the eye and say, I’m so sorry, wasn’t I awful.’
HAHAHAHAHA
‘Fantastic. So now I have to stand in line. For the honor of receiving her majesty’s apology.’
‘Yes. You’re right. Since the days you knew me, I’ve become … fragile. So fragile that I’m liable to break into pieces in a puff of wind.
“I’m so wittle”
‘Another specific. No order, I’m working down the list randomly. That voicemail you left me in that hotel. In Portland, Oregon. You think that wasn’t hurtful?’ ‘It was very hurtful. It was a despicable message and I haven’t forgotten it. I … I hear it in my mind even now, it invades me when I least expect it. I have a quiet moment to myself, then there I am, in my mind, picking up the phone and leaving you that message all over again, except this time I change it. I edit it so that it’s not quite so awful. Because I never actually heard it myself, only heard myself saying it, I feel sometimes
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This feels like a cope
Miss Helen touched Rick’s arm to silence him. ‘Vance, I’m apologizing,’ she went on. ‘I’m pleading. I’m saying I behaved badly towards you and if you like, I’ll vow to you that I’ll punish myself and keep punishing myself until I’ve made it up to you.’
‘If you wish, Vance, we can arrange to meet again. Let’s say in two years’ time in this very place. Then you could check to see I’ve been keeping my promise. You could look me over and check that I’ve been punishing myself properly …’
I looked at Miss Helen, and thought about how she and Mr Vance had once been besotted and in love. And I wondered if there had been a time when Miss Helen and Mr Vance had been as gentle to one another as Josie and Rick were now. And if it was possible that one day, Josie and Rick too might show such unkindness to each other.
‘Excuse me,’ I said. ‘I don’t wish to create unwarranted hope. But from what I observed I believe Mr Vance will decide to help Rick.’
Right after thinking about Josie and Rick
She was about to go out again, and I didn’t wish to delay Rick and Miss Helen’s return to the reasonable hotel, but I said quietly: ‘It’s possible now we can hope.’ ‘What do you mean?’ ‘In the morning when the Sun returns. It’s possible for us to hope.’ ‘Okay. I guess that’s helpful, the way you’re always optimistic.’
‘Josie and I had a conversation earlier. It took some strange turns. I guess we were both tired. If she wakes up and says anything peculiar to you, don’t pay it too much attention.
‘I’d never let anything bad happen to you.’ Her breaths became longer and I thought she’d fallen asleep again. Then she said in a clearer voice: ‘Nothing’s changing.’
‘She was trying to … offer something, I guess. She said she could give up her job and stay with me the whole time. If I wanted that. She said she could become the one who was always with me. She’d do that if I really wanted it, she’d do it and let her job go, but I said, what would happen to Klara? And she was like, we wouldn’t need Klara any more because she would be with me the whole time. You could tell it wasn’t anything she’d thought through. But she kept asking, like I had to decide, so in the end I told her, look, Mom, this wouldn’t work. You don’t want to give up your job and I don’t
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‘Perhaps,’ I said eventually, ‘the Mother thought if she stayed with Josie all the time, Josie would be less lonely.’ ‘Who says I’m lonely?’ ‘If that were true, if Josie really would be less lonely with the Mother, then I’d happily go away.’ ‘But who says I’m lonely? I’m not lonely.’
‘Perhaps all humans are lonely. At least potentially.’
I left the window to stand by the wardrobe, from where I knew I’d see the first signs of the Sun’s return.
Klara often stands in weird places because she knows the Sun will be there. Much like a cat
Miss Helen had appeared to address this last question to the Mother, but the Mother seemed far away.
Very emotionally descriptive in plain language
Josie, on the other side of Rick from me, took Rick’s hand and entwined her fingers with his. She smiled at him encouragingly, but also, I thought, a little sadly. Rick returned the smile, and I wondered if they were exchanging secret messages just with their gazes.
The adults couldn’t see, but she tightened her grip on Rick’s hand, and once again smiled at him. He gazed back at Josie, then said:
even as I felt disappointment flood my mind, I was able to observe that this was not the same machine the Father and I had destroyed in the yard. Its body was a different shade of yellow, its dimensions a little greater – and its ability to create Pollution more than a match for the first Cootings Machine. ‘Just wait and see now, Helen,’ the Mother said. ‘Maybe there are other options for Rick anyway.’
Parallel conversations “another option”
And if Josie was in her semi-waking condition, the Mother would stand over the bed, repeating under her breath, ‘Josie, Josie, Josie,’ as though this were part of a song she was memorizing.
🥺🥺🥺
‘Josie’s never been this bad before,’ he said, looking down at the ground. ‘You kept saying there was reason to hope. You kept saying it like there was a special reason. So you had me hoping too.’ ‘I’m sorry. Perhaps Rick is angry. The truth is, I’ve been disappointed too. Even so, I believe there’s still reason for hope.’
‘Thank you. There’s one thing further. When I reach the barn, I’ll of course offer my apologies. It was my error, I underestimated my task. But I must also have something else, something extra with which to plead. This is why I must ask Rick now, even though it might be stealing privacy. You must tell me if the love between Rick and Josie is genuine, if it’s a true and lasting one. I must know this. Because if the answer is yes, then I’ll have something to bargain with, regardless of what occurred in the city. So please think carefully, Rick, and tell me the truth.’
‘I don’t need to think. Josie and I grew up together and we’re part of each other. And we’ve got our plan. So of course our love’s genuine and forever. And it won’t make any difference to us who’s been lifted and who hasn’t. That’s your answer, Klara, and there won’t be any other.’ ‘Thank you. Now I have something very special. So please, don’t forget. Meet me here again at seven fifteen. This very place where we’re standing.’
‘What goes on inside there?’ he asked, but before I could give any sort of response, he touched my shoulder kindly and said: ‘I’ll be waiting. Same place I was last time.’
Then he was gone, and I was alone, waiting for the Sun to reappear below the roof level and send his last rays to me through the barn. It occurred to me then not only that the Sun might be angry about my failure in the city, but also that this could well be my final chance to beg for his special help – and I thought about what it might mean for Josie if I failed. Fear entered my mind, but then I remembered his great kindness, and I walked without further hesitation towards Mr McBain’s barn.
What I actually saw was the Sun’s rays streaming by before me, following a near-horizontal trajectory, from the rear entrance to the front one. It was almost as if I were watching passing traffic in a busy street, and when I managed to throw my gaze over to the further side, I found it had been partitioned into numerous boxes of uneven dimensions.
The barn is like a temple, and this time of day, twilight, reminds me of Your Name
angry mother striding into the Open Plan shouting: ‘Danny’s right! You shouldn’t be here at all!’
Like the Father, she never knew about my agreement with the Sun,
This sounds hilarious
it occurred to me how very much the woman resembled Rosa.
Her memories are getting more unreliable
‘If you’re not seeking favoritism, then why am I sitting here in front of you now?’ and Miss Helen saying quickly, ‘We are asking him to exercise favoritism, of course we are.’
‘I know favoritism isn’t desirable. But if the Sun is making exceptions, surely the most deserving are young people who will love one another all their lives. Perhaps the Sun may ask, “How can we be sure? What can children know about genuine love?” But I’ve been observing them carefully, and I’m certain it’s true. They grew up together, and they’ve each become a part of the other. Rick told me this himself only today. I know I failed in the city, but please show your kindness once more and give your special help to Josie. Tomorrow, or perhaps the next day, please look in on her and give her
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the Sun himself, far from leaving, had come right within Mr McBain’s barn and installed himself, almost at floor level, between the front alcove and the barn’s front opening.
In any case, I could see reflected inside the glass rectangles – I estimated seven in all, propped up almost vertically – the Sun’s evening face.
I wasn’t looking at a single picture; that in fact there existed a different version of the Sun’s face on each of the glass surfaces, and what I might at first have taken for a unified image was in fact seven separate ones superimposed one over the other as my gaze penetrated from the first sheet through to the last.
his face on the outermost glass was forbidding and aloof, and the one immediately behind it was, if anything, even more unfriendly, the two beyond that were softer and kinder. There were three further sheets, and though it was hard to see much of them on account of their being further back, I couldn’t help estimating that these faces would have humorous and kind expressions.
the effect was of a single face, but with a variety of outlines and emotions.
Despite this agreement, each time Dr Ryan came, they would go into the Open Plan and go through the discussion all over again.
say ‘after breakfast’, though by then all household routines had become so disrupted there were no breakfasts, or any other meals, being taken at their usual times. That particular morning the sense of disorientation was made worse by the sky’s darkness, and Rick’s arrival was one of the few things to remind us it wasn’t still night.
‘I was wondering if right now you might be feeling like you’re the winner. Like maybe you’ve won.’
I’m asking you, Rick, if you feel like you’ve come out the winner. Josie took the gamble. Okay, I shook the dice for her, but it was always going to be her, not me, who won or lost.
But you, Rick, you played it safe. So that’s why I’m asking you. How does this feel to you just now? Do you really feel like a winner?’
