Solitaire, page 4
It was full dark now; still early, but the black sky and full moon and the phosphorescent surf had the feeling of late night, remote and slightly out of tune. It reminded her of a day she had come unexpectedly upon Donatella in one of the corporate offices, and the dislocating instant before her mother recognized her. The night world looked on her with the same blankness she had seen in her mother's eyes.
“It'll start getting cold soon,” she told Snow. “Can you feel it coming on? I hated being cold when I was little. I didn't understand how other people could bear it. Then I figured out that they couldn't—that's why they put on a hundred layers of clothes and drank hot soup all the time. And I don't like being bundled up, I can't move with so many layers under my arms, and anything tight around my neck makes me feel like I can't breathe. So now being cold is really a choice to not wrap myself up like something that's been rolled in too much dough.
“But I didn't know that when I was little. I just spent months being angry with the weather and with my parents for making me go out in it.” She shook her head, remembering.
Snow smiled and passed her the bottle. “I can picture it. Grumpy little Jackal.”
“Grumpy little Ren. Jackal came later.”
“You didn't have the name, but you were still the person who hated being cold.”
Jackal considered this. “Okay,” she answered finally. “But it did make a difference about the name. In February after I turned twelve, when it was decided that our web names would be nature-based, my mother started dragging in all the books and holomovies she could find. We went to the zoo and the arboretum seven times that month so that I could make an informed decision.”
“Your mother likes to have a plan,” Snow said dryly.
“You have no idea. She researched nature symbology in world religions. She dug up information on the way that various animals are regarded culturally by the member countries of the Earth Government Permanent Council. She said that it was important that my name be a symbol that everyone in the world could relate to, could draw some measure of hope from. She even got one of the Jungians from Educational Games to talk to her about the iconic roles of elements and weather descriptives in the unconscious.”
“She's got the determination gene.”
“She's got it twice. So eventually she drew up a shortlist of names, ranked in order of maximum cross-cultural positive impact combined with religious inferences of leadership, strength, and wisdom. Stop laughing.”
“I can't. Really, I can't…here, take this before I spill any more.” Jackal smiled and drank.
Snow said, “I guess Mouse wasn't at the top of the list.”
“Nope.”
“Emu.”
Jackal shook her head.
“Swamp thing.”
“If my mother had her way, you'd be calling me Elephant.”
Snow gave a delighted hoot, and Jackal began to giggle helplessly. They ended up on their backs in the sand, heads together, their laughter bubbling up toward the sky. Jackal imagined the vapor of their breath adding a layer to the moon-bright cirrus trails overhead, their merriment carried in the belly of a cloud until it rained down in some far-off spot. Today of all days, I can't believe I'm laughing, she thought. Bless Snow.
“Where are those sandwiches?” she demanded. “I'm starving. Hey, don't drink all the wine.”
“So what was wrong with Elephant?”
“You mean apart from the fact that my mother wanted it so bad?”
Snow crooked her head. “Was that it?”
Jackal thought about it around another mouthful. “I suppose it was a little. It wasn't so much that I would have said no to anything she came up with.… It was more that all her choices seemed so wrong for me. She kept saying ‘Oh, they're only my ideas, little one, you make your own choice.’ But it was so clear even then that she wanted me to choose to be an elephant or an eagle or an oak. And I just wanted a name, you know? I didn't want to wear a word like some kind of world responsibility around my neck for the rest of my life. And it was winter, and I was tired of being cold, and I didn't know what I was, only what I wasn't. I sure wasn't anything on her list. So I finally sorted out all the books that described warm-weather climates and fauna, and opened them at random. One of them said that jackals were related to wolves and ran in packs and were scavengers, and it said—I'll never forget this—it said ‘The jackal's cry is even more terrifying than that of the hyena.’ And I thought, that's what I want. I want to run with my web and be wild, survive anywhere, and I want everyone to get out of the way when I yell.”
“Well,” Snow said finally.
“I was only twelve.”
“A rebel.”
“I was just mad at everything.” She was getting a crick in her neck; she stretched hard and felt cool air seep into the spaces where her clothes pulled back from her wrists and ankles.
“What do you think a rebel is?” Snow said matter-of-factly. And then, dismissively, surprising Jackal, “Your mother has no imagination. But there's your answer, anyway. You picked a name because it meant something you wanted to be, not something you were. It suits you because you grew into it. Maybe you'd be different if you were Elephant.” She unwrapped a sandwich, examined it a moment; then folded back a corner of the bread and began to pick out and nibble bits of corned beef. “Everyone would expect you to be wise and thoughtful. Deliberate. Have thick legs.” Snow was piked, Jackal realized, and then saw the second bottle standing in the dead-soldier position in a carefully built dome of sand next to Snow's right knee. “So,” she continued, “are you like that jackal in the book?”
“I don't know. I guess I won't know for a while.… Have you ever seen someone who looked like they grew into exactly the right face for them? That's what I want. I don't think I have it yet.”
“So what does the right face of a Hope look like? Jackal, what's the—oh, here, let me help. Poor baby. I'm right here. Take this, wipe your mouth. Damn all cheap wine. Let's get you home.”
She could feel Snow's drunken worry as she drove, trying to watch Jackal and keep on the road at the same time. Jackal felt dizzy, and when she closed her eyes she saw Tiger, Chao, her mother.…
“Stop the car,” she said thickly, and Snow made a little sound and wobbled the car to the side of the road. Jackal opened her door and leaned her head out. When she was done, she wiped her mouth on the hem of her tunic even though the cloth was gritty with sand. The cool air on her face did not make her any less drunk, but it steadied her. She put her mother and Tiger and the rest of it back into its particular box inside her, clamped the lid tight. She was so tired.
“Take me home,” she said. “I'm sorry I hit Tiger and I don't want to feel bad, I want to go home and have mad sex and then just hold onto you, you're the only good thing in the whole fucking world right now.”
“Okay, honey.” Snow leaned over and kissed Jackal on the side of the mouth, said pragmatically, “But you'll have to brush your teeth first,” and put the car into gear. Jackal leaned back. The night sky above her was clear now: all that joy gone, sobbed up into the clouds that the cold winds of Ko had blown to shreds. Winter was coming.
3
SHE DID NOT WANT TO FACE THE DAY. SHE HATED mornings, especially the bright, cheerful ones that bustled in before a person was ready; but the insistent hand on her hip would not let her fall back into unconsciousness.
“Jackal. Jackal, wake up.”
She found herself facedown, so tangled in her sheet that she could barely move. Her favorite woven blanket, worn from long use, was wrapped around her. Her feet and calves were rough with bits of sand, and her throat felt as if she'd eaten a handful.
“How are you?” Snow asked gently.
Jackal thought about it. “Not so bad,” she said finally, a little surprised.
“That's good.” Snow stroked her head.
“Can I have just another hour? I didn't get enough sleep.”
A wicked smile from Snow. “No one to blame but yourself.”
“And you,” Jackal said, smiling back. She loved sex with Snow, the two-step of safety and free-fall, the immediacy and intensity of their bodies straining and sweaty, hips and bellies and breasts against each other. It made Jackal feel bigger than herself, larger in the world. Her body was sore, but her heart was not as bruised as it had been.
She watched Snow move to the wide window at the east end of the room and open it to a sky like gossamer over the South China Sea, sheets of green-gray clouds lit by stripes of sunlight. A slow, warm breeze brought salt and seabird voices into the room. Jackal loved her window, and the terrace that looked over the sea toward Hong Kong and Kowloon beyond. The entire apartment block curved long and low around this part of the island coast, full of light and space, wood and stone, water and wind, built especially for her web because she was the Hope; like her parents' house close by on the other side of the greenbelt, nestled in the dunes, also beautiful, a special growing-up place for the special child of Ko.
Snow said, “It's after nine. You'll be late for Neill if we don't hurry.”
That brought Jackal out of bed in spite of her aches and the need for more sleep. She still remembered the first time she had been punished in school: little Ren, hair windblown straight out from her head, breathless from running but still late, made to stand in front of the class while Mr. Tirani instructed the other children to tell her, one at a time, “It's wrong to keep others waiting.” Then she was required to apologize, and thank her classmates for their help. Afterwards, he took her aside and dried her tears, saying, “You have a very big responsibility, Ren, even though you're still a little girl. But we will all help you be equal to it.”
Now Tirani was one of the people that stepped out of her way when she passed by; but it was still a lesson well learned. So she rooted through her closet until she found loose khaki trousers and an oversized shirt in burgundy and deep blue, then carried the clothes into the small square living room and dug a clean pair of underwear out of the basket pushed against a wall. She pulled scuffed brown boots with worn heels from under the big chair that was almost identical to the one in Chao's office. These days she liked clothes she could move in without pinching a breast or turning an ankle, that could be pushed up over her elbows or crumpled and stuffed into a carrybag. She followed fashion but never caught up with it—now who had first said that? Someone in the web: was it Bat, or maybe Tiger? No, she didn't want to think about Tiger, his bright blood and the shock on his face.
“Where's my other sock?”
Snow shrugged. Jackal began turning over the chair cushions.
“Get another pair.”
“I want these, they go with my shirt.” A part of her was surprised to find herself sounding so ordinary, as if nothing much had happened, as if she had not yesterday taken a long step closer to a dangerous edge.
“What's that on the bookshelf? No, the other one.”
She put the two socks together just to make sure they matched, and then dressed in a storm of flapping sleeves and a boot that tried to get away and had to be chased across the room. Snow stayed against a wall and watched in amusement as Jackal hunted it down. The boot was dirty, but there was no time to polish it. Maybe no one would notice. Ah, she remembered the fashion remark now: it was Mist, in one of her look-down-her-nose moments. And what kind of a stupid name is Mist, anyway, Jackal thought for the thousand-and-first time. She was sure that Mist would end up in a public-relations job that involved many dinners with competitively dressed people, while the rest of her department did whatever actual work there might be. And Mist would probably come to Jackal for favors, fixes, confident that whatever she asked would be done.
And so it would be. Jackal sighed. Mist was a web mate, and it didn't matter if she was also profoundly irritating. “Say, do you think Mist is the most annoying person in the whole world, or just this part of it?” she asked Snow as she pulled on her second boot.
“I think Mist will be less annoying after breakfast. Bring an apple.”
It was a good omen that they found seats together on the bus. She really did feel a little better, as if she'd sicked up some of the poison inside her along with the wine. She still hated the vulnerability and the secrecy; it was almost unthinkable not to share this with Snow, if no one else. But she couldn't risk making Snow a target for Ko. If it came right down to it, she'd give up her mother in a heartbeat to protect Snow. Oddly, the realization made her feel more grounded than she had for a while. She knew what she had to do. She had her priorities. She ate her apple and cautiously allowed herself to feel a bit more cheerful.
Snow was somewhere in her own head, doubtless thinking elegant, complex thoughts. Jackal nudged her with an elbow. “Who's the smartest?” she asked, smacking the words around the last bite of apple.
“This month, I think it's Bat.” Snow smiled back. “But you're pretty smart.”
“Who's the most likely to succeed?” It was a new question, and she could see the moment of surprise before Snow answered, in a gentler voice, “You are, Jackal. Everyone knows that.” Snow took the apple core out of Jackal's hand and dropped it carelessly into her own pocket, and then she leaned in to kiss Jackal. “You'll be a great Hope,” she said quietly. “The things you do will shape the world. You are smart and stubborn and brave. Forget about Tiger. Oh, don't look at me like that, I've seen how he rides you. He's an asshole. You're the Hope. Now here's your stop. Go do Hope stuff and I'll see you later.”
“You know,” Jackal said after a moment, “you just astonish me. Bless you twice. Oh, hell,” she added as her stop slid by. She scrambled out of her seat, calling to the driver to wait, and by the time she'd collected herself out on the sidewalk, the bus was purring away and she could only wave after it and hope that Snow saw. If she could have put her heart on a stick, she would have given it to Snow right there in the aisle. But no, she thought, I'll need it if I'm going to do the right things, if I'm going to be a good Hope. I can still be a good Hope. I just have to work a little harder and be a little braver. And I can. I can.
Jackal was the youngest person by at least ten years in Neill's workshop, the only one who didn't have to juggle a full-time job schedule to keep up with classes. Everyone else was a serious runner on the Ko management track, people chosen for perceived long-distance stamina rather than sprinting ability. The company's strategy, Jackal had come to understand, was to offer power to people who were experienced enough to make quick decisions out of confidence in their own reference points, rather than rashness or received wisdom. Youth was almost never an advantage at Ko.
She remembered having this macroscopic realization: it was the first time she had been able to articulate an original perception about the company, about business strategy in general, rather than parroting back the theories of her teachers. Khofi Andabe had grinned with pleasure at their weekly review session. “Good for you, Fraulein Schakal,” he said, leaning back far enough in his chair to make it creak in distress. It was his game to name her in the dozen languages that he knew—at their first meeting, when Jackal began her training in earnest at the age of thirteen, he had leaned across his office desk with his square face resting on his big fists and said, “Eh bien, Jackal,” except that he pronounced it zhaKAL. “Zhakal,” he had said again. “An unexpected naming, to be sure.” Then he had smiled and she had liked him. The years of working together had brought her from liking to trust, and now Andabe was almost like a part of her own web. His approval mattered; she enjoyed making him grin.
Good work, he had said almost a year ago about her new understanding, and the next week had entered her into Neill's workshop series in activity management.
“Khofi, no,” she gasped when he told her.
“And why not?”
“I'm not ready.”
“Nonsense. I am to say when you are ready, and I have said. Neill has agreed. It is arranged.” He wiped his hands against each other and then spread them as if this would show her that the thing was done.
“It's too advanced.” God, her mother had only just been through it herself two years ago, after how many years of building an experience base and a track record of successful smaller projects. She'll be pissed, Jackal thought in passing.
Khofi said, “You are ready for this training. It is necessary. You will need to know these things as the Hope of Ko.”
“Why?”
“You will understand when you have completed the series, when you have these skills.”
“You're supposed to be my advisor. How come you won't ever tell me why I'm supposed to be learning these things? Maybe all the other Hopes are studying macroengineering or combinatorial mathematics or zero-gee furniture design.”
“I doubt this, Zhakal.”
“Well, then, you know more about it than I do.”
Andabe delivered his sigh of disappointment and dismay, a labored, breathy whistle through a pursed bottom lip. It didn't impress her anymore, and she was exasperated enough to tell him so.
