Real Girls Don't Rust Page 6

  After speaking with me for a few minutes about my accident and some odd pains I’ve had lately, Dr. Job asks me to take the examination chair. Stacey takes my cane from my hand and Papa tenses. I know this because his own chair scratches along the floor. I smile in his direction—just a little indication that I am all right. That I’m not frightened.

  “Lean your head back, Miss Webster, and I’ll apply the anaesthetic directly.” I grip the armrests as my eyelids are held open.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  When Dr. Job speaks, his words are uttered with the monotony of concentration. His breathing, so lifelike and real, is even. Each intake and exhalation is timed perfectly. “Just a cocaine-salt solution, Miss Webster. Do hold still for a moment.”

  I flinch as the drops of liquid meet my sightless eyes. Somewhere in the room, Stacey squeaks.

  “There.”

  Taking my handkerchief, I dab at the cold drops that run down my cheeks. It really hasn’t been as bad as I’d expected. Papa clears his throat.

  After some more questions, and allowing the numbing properties of the alkaline to take effect, the doctor once again approaches. He explains that he will check my intraocular pressure with an applanation tonometer. “A tubular copper device with a glass-plate end that I will press against your corneas,” he describes.

  At this, Stacey’s sharp intake of breath is audible to more than just me. Papa shifts his chair yet again. Perhaps the two of them have more in common than they think.

  I sit back and wait for the devilish device to touch my eyes, and try not to think about the quick, but ghoulish, procedure. Instead I focus on thoughts of my mother. She’d never known that my vision was lost. A sensitive woman, she’d grown up with Stacey’s mother and witnessed the cruelty imposed on The Ω, and the golem community. Being an Alpha, she’d defied her own family’s wishes by consorting with Ωs. She’d told me she never once regretted her decisions. Thinking about my long friendship with Stacey, I’m glad of that.

  “Very well done, Miss Webster. You may sit up now.”

  “It’s over?”

  “All over. I need to shine this light into your eyes to examine them again, but it won’t harm you. I shall…oh.” Dr. Job’s voice has lost its calm and reassuring tone. There is uncertainty where it shouldn’t be.

  “Is something wrong?”

  I feel the doctor’s presence hovering over me for longer than I would have anticipated. The seconds tick by. Every now and again he clears his throat, and I wonder with a little trepidation just what he is so interested in. After a few more moments, a hand pats my shoulder. “Would you step out with Miss Allan? I just need to speak with your father. It shan’t take long.”

  Stacey leads me out of the office. “My, that was awful, Lissie. I couldn’t look. I couldn’t!” She grips my arm fiercely and breathes the rain-scented air. “I watched the doctor the whole time.”

  “He sounds youngish,” I say.

  “He is. Sort of. His hair’s the most shocking shade of red. I suppose he was named after it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Stacey laughs. “The nameplate on his door said Dr. Redman Job. Redman, red hair.”

  “And did he look…capable?”

  Stacey’s voice rises slightly. “Oh, yes. Most capable. Most capable indeed. Did he not seem so to you? For myself, I saw a very bright and authentic lifelight.”

  “I’m sure he is capable; I didn’t feel a thing, honestly. And what do you mean about his lifelight? They’re all the same.”

  Stacey hesitates a moment before answering. “I disagree. I think each golem has a unique lifelight, just as we each have a soul. With modern advancements, maybe they aren’t as different from us as we think. In any case, what do you suppose they’re discussing?” she asks.

  The pain and nagging discomfort I’ve been experiencing lately comes to mind. “Oh, it’s probably nothing at all. I daresay it’s to congratulate Papa on having such a fearless daughter.”

  Stacey and I amble up and down the small area. The rain mists cool against my face in spite of the returning sunshine. Stacey insists that we not get our hair wet. She’s spent the previous evening curling hers and doesn’t want to ruin her perfect ringlets, so we return arm-in-arm to the vestibule.

  My father’s powerful footfalls echo behind us. After stopping briefly at reception, he finds us outside. Without saying a word, we are on our way back to his carriage. A loud hiss and whir precede the turbines awakening, and as I lean back against the upholstered backrest, I listen for Papa’s breathing. Even when he plays at being unaffected and proud, it’s I alone who discern his deeper thoughts, and it’s his breathing that gives them away.

  When Stacey is safely back with her family, Papa turns to me. “Lissie, Dr. Job tells me that the intraocular pressure is fine.” He is, of course, talking about my eyes. His peculiar personal pronoun omission indicates his discomfort. An old conversation enters my mind. Lissie…Mother is gone…

  “I’m pleased to hear it.”

  Papa grips my hand in his. “But that is not all. There’s something else.”

  “Oh?” My heart rate accelerates just as the carriage does. The winding roads home churn my stomach.

  “The doctor’s detected something behind your right eye, a growth. Chances are high it’s a tumor. I don’t tell you this to frighten you, but because I know you possess the strength and maturity to understand that you have been dealt no greater a blow than that which may be borne.”

  “A tumor? Perhaps he’s mistak—”

  Papa gives my hand a squeeze. “There is no mistaking a clinical golem’s diagnosis. You will need another examination, of course, but it’s likely that surgery is imminent. One does not question one’s fate, Lissie. You must be thankful that it was discovered by mere chance. So many people find out too late.”

  There. The truth is out. Although I tremble, I lift my quivering chin and buoy myself with hopes that whatever procedure I require will be quick. And painless. After opening my mouth to speak, I close it again when the threat of a sob becomes too much to hold back. Horrifying images of an eye-patched oddity come to mind. It terrifies me to think of myself as a frightful aberration. I clear my throat and try again, this time in a timid voice that doesn’t seem my own, and pray silently that I can compose myself for my father’s sake. “I understand.”

  “Don’t cry, my love.” Papa’s hand brushes a tear from my cheek. “You mustn’t be frightened. Why, a bio-golem surgeon is the best kind. There’s absolutely no margin for error.”

  “Yes, Papa.”

  “Lissie, the type of surgery…the eye…the eye will need…” Papa’s usually steady voice hitches. “Enucleation is absolutely necessary.”

  I don’t remember the rest of the ride home. Somehow I recall the distant sound of a light, windswept rainfall, but it might have been my own tears and shallow breaths. The terror that reached into my chest and splayed its icy fingers around my living heart baits me even as I sleep later that night. Horrific dreams accost me until I awake in a sweat. I make up my mind that, in order to overcome the fear, I will need to face it. I am not sure how I’ll do that, but I trust that, as Papa says, I have the strength within me.

  Red sky at night, seafarers’ delight,

  Red sky in morning, seafarers’ warning.

  —Ancient forecasting lore

  Waking from the chloroform-induced sleep, I reach out and grasp at the sheets, but they aren’t like the smooth sheets I am used to at home. Ah. Surgery. The tight band I feel ringing my forehead is simply a linen bandage. Busy noises, clanging sounds of purpose and clamor, assault my ears from all directions. But something closer takes precedence. Something still and reliable as clockwork. A clockwork heart.

  “The surgery was a complete success.”

  My chin quivers to hear this, even though it spells out my health. My poor, sightless eyes have been nothing but a hindrance, but to let one go, to take away something so utterly human rend
s my heart.

  As if hearing my thoughts, Dr. Job speaks. “Please take heart, Miss Webster—”

  “Lissie.” At fifteen, I ought to be spoken to as a young lady and not a child, but Stacey isn’t here to monitor me now.

  “All right. Miss Lissie.”

  I laugh in spite of myself. “Just Lissie.”

  Dr. Job laughs too. “Take heart, Just Lissie. I’ve done this before, and I know it was a necessity in your situation. It is, however, incumbent upon me to mention that I met with your father several times before the surgery.” His tone becomes more serious. “With his approval, I enlisted you as a candidate for a state of the art procedure. Lissie, you have just undergone this procedure. Do you understand?”

  “What was the procedure?”

  “The fitting of a mechanical right eye. Its components, both electronic and refractory, are such that after many years’ work, researchers have granted it effective for human implantation. The Dysart Official has passed it. It might seem drastic, but these are dangerous times we live in. Sight is everything. Lissie, you will see again with that eye.”

  For a time I’m too stunned to speak. Then, slowly, his words sink in. “Is it like your eyes?”

  “Yes and no. The human eye, and your implant, is a thing of wonder; my vision is based on science and serviceable perception. While the function of yours will be similar to mine in nature, the sight is entirely real. You will see again. Free and simple sight is a particularly liberating type of gift. I hope you realize that.” Here he pauses to think a moment. “Not everyone is as fortunate to have such liberation, though it’s deserved by all.”

  The humanity in Dr. Job’s tone moves me. If his words had failed to make an impression, his care and concern would have imparted just as much meaning. The Ω, who had pioneered the bio-golems before the Alpha acquisition, are capable of much more than I’d ever thought. This thrills me and scares me in equal parts.

  “I will see?”

  “You will.” Dr. Job is smiling as he speaks. I can hear it.

  “My father didn’t inform me.”

  “Cheer up. I suggested it not be mentioned in case the eyepiece couldn’t be fitted, that is all.”

  Papa perhaps thinks otherwise. Likening his daughter to a golem can’t have been easy for him. I’m sure, however, that at least outwardly there will be no telltale sign. Or reminder.

  I decide that I like Dr. Job. He isn’t at all like the automatic golem at reception, or the other nameless, faceless ones we encounter in service roles all over Dysart City. I’ve always been taught that they are below The Α and not exactly above The Ω, but rather somewhere hovering in the middle. Nonentities, Papa once said. There, but not there. Constructed of the dust of the earth and the very modernest of technologies, golems provide one certainty.

  No one is entirely sure just how real they are.

  …his speech did honey passage yield,

  Like a red morn, that ever yet betoken’d

  Wrack to the seaman…woe unto the birds…

  This ill presage advisedly she marketh:

  Even as the wind is hush’d before it raineth,

  Or as the wolf doth grin before he barketh…

  —William Shakespeare

  I cry once the bandages are removed. In the space of a few minutes, I’ve gone from being a young girl who thought she was grown up to a whimpering child.

  Stacey sits by my side. She is the stability I lack, and I bow my head in thanks that I have her with me, that I’m not alone.

  “Is it so very bad?” she asks.

  It pains me to frighten her, but the assault of my weakest sense is confounding and invasive. It is frightening and alarmingly personal.

  “The light is like nothing you can imagine. It pains me so that I cannot see anything but the harshest rays of the sun. Stacey, what have they done?” As I speak, I hastily take the end of the soft linen bandage and re-wind its lengths around my face to cover up the room’s gaslight that blinds me anew.

  Uttering what soothing words she can, Stacey backs away from me. I hear her telling someone outside of my room that I’ve replaced the bandages, and, in a whisper, that I am likely to become hysterical.

  Papa’s heavy footsteps, and those of another, approach the bed. “My love, it is to be expected. You can do this. Stacey, will you turn down the gas? It’s much too bright in here.”

  Discerning—rather than seeing—that the light is lowered, I timidly unwind the linen bandage, layer by layer.

  “Oh. Oh, my.” Too stunned to feel anything, I glance around the darkened room. Everything begins to focus softly. The wooden floor gleams in the low light. Its rich-hued honey coloring wants closer inspection. Scrambling to the floor, I drag my fingers over the smooth grain and stare, wide-eyed, as my fingertips dip in the imperfections and rise over the knots and nodes. I am seeing, and hearing, and touching, and smelling the clinical scents all at the same time. Without sparing another second, I raise my hands up and turn them over to inspect my palms, then the backs of my hands. Reaching down, I lift the uppermost layer of my new skirt. Stacey was right; this dress is pretty. Stacey. Breathing in a deep breath, I steel myself and begin to turn.

  “Lissie.” Papa crosses the room in two strides. He wraps his arms around me, but I pull back to look into his eyes. My memory has stood in good stead. The father who greets me so tenderly is the one I’ve seen in my mind’s eye all this time. His dark hair has lightened to gray around the temples, and where his skin was once smooth there are now creases and lines. His smile, though, is the thing I most clearly remember.

  When he lets me go, I fly to Stacey. She wears a huge grin across her face and nearly knocks me off my feet. “What do you think?” she asks. “How do I look?”

  “Wonderful, just as I knew you would.” Her smile is more impish than angelic. Her green eyes sparkle with life and light. Little things stand out. I’ve never thought to contemplate a blush across one’s cheek, for example. Or freckles scattered haphazardly over a nose. These things become Stacey, and I scold myself for not having guessed they were there. She wears a stunning cameo brooch at her neck and earrings that glint each time she moves her head.

  “How does it look?” Dr. Job, the man who has made this possible, speaks from behind me. As I haven’t encountered a bio-golem this closely for a number of years, I’ve forgotten what to expect. It comes as something of a surprise when I’m able to identify Dr. Job by his hair alone, and not the static demeanor I’ve been expecting. Fiery red, Stacey has said of his hair. And she’s right.

  Dressed in a high-collared shirt and a pinstriped waistcoat that complements his trousers, Dr. Job looks…human. Dysart’s artisan-scientists have succeeded in paving the way for the world’s most human-like golems, it seems. But is this a good thing? If so, where will it end? Maybe it won’t. Maybe our future is destined to be reborn as an automatic playground of lifelights and generated perfection. A spotted cravat is knotted under the doctor’s chin, which he lifts with an air of inbuilt pride. His hair is unlike anything I’ve seen, even before the blindness. I stare until Stacey demurely clears her throat.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  Dr. Job smiles. “I said, how does it look? Is the world as you remember it?”

  Unable to respond, I nod. His eyes, I note, are an indefinable color—something that rests comfortably between the rich hues of a Dysart sunrise and the earthiness of the oak wall panelling. His skin is a radiant umber. Friendly, intelligent, real. All these qualities pour forth from the doctor across the room, from the doctor who is constructed of iron and brass and clay compound. He is, I think sadly, a man of the earth—not for it.

  “I want to see myself,” I say next.

  Reaching for a handheld mirror in a supply drawer, Dr. Job grips it in his palm and slowly approaches. He trains his gaze on my face in expectation. Or is it apprehension?

  As I take the mirror, I breathe deeply. Three pairs of eyes watch my every move as I raise the mirror cl
oser to my face.

  It’s funny, I think, the way a deep-rooted perception of self can so easily be shattered. An image of how I’ll look has connected itself so thoroughly to my mind’s eye that the disconnect, the reality, is just too much. The mirror, as it slips from my hand, sails to the floor beneath me in one sweeping motion. The sound it makes as it slices the air, with its thick-bodied presence, is similar to a sound I heard once before. Standing on the rocky edge of the scrub surrounding the promontory, the surety of the crashing waves was rocked by a new sound, something I’d never heard before. Loud and cruel. A shot fired, rending the air of peace, its echo…and the impact of the bullet’s target. These things coupled with the sudden stop of motion—of wings halted mid-flight—and then the downward spiral of a small body falling to earth… these things are what I think of as the mirror falls.

  My eyes close as the mirror makes impact with the floor.

  The glass shatters. Each minute shard skitters across the wooden boards long before I hear the final clank of the handle as it bounces once and then comes to rest. Only then do I open my eyes.

  This sky where we live is no place to lose your wings…

  —Hafiz

  The shiny brass lens case and thick brown strap around my head contrast against my wan face and dull hair. In those few moments of reflection I’d felt like a golem—part girl, part machine. Stooping to pick up the larger shards of glass, I apologize quickly. Dr. Job, Papa, and Stacey join me, but it’s Papa who takes the sharp pieces from my hands. As he does so, I catch a look passing between Stacey and the doctor. It remains nameless for some time, but before long I attribute it to an inner understanding she must share with him. For, I realize, they are bonded by the knowledge that neither one of them will ever fully take their rightful place within the society as equals.

  I sit down on the edge of the bed and try to pretend that I haven’t dropped the mirror. A cleaner is called in to see to the floor, and as she automatically goes about her task, I study her movements. I wonder if, deep down, she’s capable of a different sort of understanding. Of emotion. Of fear. Of love.