The Mammoth Book of Best New Science Fiction: 23rd Annual Collection (61 page)

Later, when Cindy and her friends are giggling over milkshakes and Linda feels as if her feet are falling off, a man comes in and takes the corner table. He orders sandwiches and coffee, and later he orders a cake and more coffee. He’s an odd little man. He seems to be paying attention to everything. He’s dressed quite well. His hair is slicked back and his clothes are clean. She wonders if he’s a detective, because he keeps looking out of the window, but if so he seems to pay just as much attention to the inside, and to Linda herself. She remembers what Joan said, and wants to laugh but can’t. He’s a strange man and she can’t figure him out.

She doesn’t have to stay late and close up, and the man follows her out when she leaves. There’s something about him that makes her think of the law way before romance. “You’re Linda,” he says, outside. She’s scared, because he could be anybody, but they are in the street under a street light, there are people passing, and the occasional car.

“Yes,” she admits, her heart hammering. “What do you want?”

“You’re not a Bundt?”

“No. They’re my employers, that’s all,” she says, disassociating herself from them as fast as she can, though they have been good to her. Immediately she has visions of them being arrested. Where would she find another job?

“Do you know where the Bundts come from?”

“Germany,” she says, confidently. Bundt’s German Bakery, it says, right above their heads.

“When?”

“Before I was born. Why aren’t you asking them these questions?”

“It was 1933.”

“Before I was born,” Linda says, feeling more confident and taking a step away.

“Have you seen any evidence that they are Jews?”

She stops, confused. “Jews? They’re German. Germans hate Jews.”

“Many Jews left Germany in 1933 when Hitler came to power,” the man says, though he can’t be much older than Linda. “If the Bundts were Jews, and hiding their identity, then if you denounced them – ”

He stops, but Linda has caught up with him now. If she denounced them she would be given their property. The business, the apartment above it, their savings. “But they’re not, I’ve never – they serve bacon!” she blurts.

“You’ve never seen any evidence?” he asks, sadly. “A pity. It could be a nice business for you. You’re not Jewish?”

“Welsh,” she says. “My grandfather was a minister.”

“I thought not, with that lovely blonde hair.” It’s more washed out than it should be, but her hair is the dishwater blonde it always has been, the same as Joan’s, the same as their mother.

“I might have some evidence,” he says, slowly. “But any evidence I had would be from before they came here, from Germany. Some evidence that they were still Jews, if you’d seen anything, would be enough to settle it. The court would deport them back to Germany and award us their business. You could run it, I’m sure you could. You seem to be doing most of the work already.”

“I just serve,” she says, automatically. Then, “What sort of thing would I have noticed? If they were Jewish, I mean.”

Temptation settles over her like a film of grease and hope begins to burn in her heart for the first time in a long time.

In the Line (3)

If you’re black you’re invisible, even in the soup line. The others are shrinking away from me, I can’t deny it. They wouldn’t give us guns to fight even when the Japanese were shelling the beaches up and down the California coast. I left there then and came East, much good it did me. If I’d known how invisible I’d be here, I’d have stayed right there in Los Angeles. Nobody there ever chased after me and made me run, nobody there threatened to string me up, and I had a job that made a little money. I never thought I’d be standing in this line, because when I get to the head of it I know they’ll separate me out. Nobody knows what happens to us then, they take us off somewhere and we don’t come back, but I’m desperate, and what I say is, wherever it is they got to feed us, don’t they? Well, don’t they?

In the Papers (5)

ANOTHER FACTORY CLOSING

PEACE TALKS IN LONDON AS JAPAN AND
THE REICH DIVIDE UP RUSSIA

Will there be a buffer state of “Scythia” to divide the two great powers?

BATTLE IN THE APPALACHIANS: NATIONAL
GUARD REINFORCEMENTS SENT IN

President says it is necessary to keep the country together

OWNERS GUN DOWN STRIKERS IN ALABAMA

Sixty people were hospitalized in Birmingham today after

ESCAPE TO OTHER WORLDS WITH SCIENCE FICTION

New titles by Frederik Pohl and Alice Davey

THREE LEAVES OF ALOE

Rand B. Lee

Rand B. Lee has become a regular at
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction
, with a number of sales there in recent years, and has also sold stories to
Asimov’s Science Fiction, Amazing
, and elsewhere. His father was Manfred B. Lee, the co-creator of the detective Ellery Queen and author of many of the novels about him; Lee himself is the author of the gardening book
Pleasures of the Cottage Garden
and is at work on a novel. He lives in northern New Mexico.

In the quiet but powerful story that follows, he shows us a mother in a near-future world faced with a choice that I fear all too many of us may actually find ourselves faced with one of these days, uncomfortably soon.

A
MRIT CHAUDHURY! KINDLY
report to the supervisor’s office. Amrit Chaudhury!”

Amrit looked up from her workstation and sighed in frustration. Around her rose the chatter of a hundred women’s voices, the ring of telephones, the clatter of fax lines. She was a small young woman with a heart-shaped face and large, intelligent black eyes perpetually clouded with worry. She had been laboring on the telephones at Mumbai-Astra Telecom, Ltd. for the better part of a year, and this day, which had not gone well thus far, was looking to become much worse.

“Amrit?” The undersupervisor, fat Shraddha Singh, was looming over her. “Madame needs a word,” she said. “At once, please.”

“What is it this time?” asked Amrit. Her tone held more spice than was perhaps prudent, and the undersupervisor raised an eyebrow. “I’m sorry! It’s just these Americans.” She pulled off her headset and let it fall with a clatter on her desktop. “They’re so suspicious. And they hate parting with their money so. I can be as sweet and as polite as one can wish, but it avails nothing. Three-quarters of the time they hang up before I’ve finished saying, ‘Hello, Mister Wayne, my name is Maggie Jones.’ ” She punched log-off to indicate an excused break, and pushed back her chair. At least, she thought, they have proper chairs here. The last place she had worked there had been only inverted oilcans to sit upon.

“ ‘Maggie Jones.’ ” Singh grunted in amusement. The women’s eyes met, and both fell simultaneously into a fit of giggles.

“ ‘Maggie Jones!’ ” cried Amrit helplessly.

“ ‘Bobbi Grant!’ ” chortled the undersupervisor, similarly irrigated.

“ ‘Jane West!’ ” Amrit put her left hand over her heart and fanned her right hand weakly. “I mean to say, it isn’t as though they can’t tell by our voices that we’re Not From Around These Parts.” She spoke this last in an exaggerated American accent, which set them both off afresh.

“Amrit Chaudhury! To the supervisor’s office at once!”

The women sobered quickly, and followed each other down the main work-aisle toward management offices. “Madame sounds angry,” said Amrit. “Do you know what this is about?”

“Your daughter, I think,” said Mrs Singh, puffing to keep up with the younger woman’s quick strides. Amrit stopped dead and threw her a terrified look. “No, no! She’s fine, she’s fine! It’s just the school. I overheard Madame talking. A fight with one of the other girls, which I gather your Meera won rather spectacularly. They have ‘concerns’ which they wish to express to you, that’s all.”

“Not again!” groaned Amrit, and doubled her pace, adjusting her sari as she ran. When she reached the door of the supervisor’s office, she knocked timidly, then opened the door a crack and stuck in her head.

“It’s Amrit, Madame. You called for me?”

“It’s about time. Come in, come in! Don’t hang about in the hall.” Amrit entered quickly, shutting the door behind her, and stood with her back to it. Whenever she was called into Madame’s office she felt as though she were nine years old and back in school, facing the headmistress. Madame Kattungal had steel-gray hair, a prominent caste mark, and deceptively grandmotherly features. Today she was wearing a Western business suit, and when Amrit entered, she was just slamming down the phone. “You took long enough, girl. This is Mister Mehta, whom I believe” – this last heavily weighted with sarcasm – “you know.”

“Well, Mrs Chaudhury! We meet again!” Vice-Principal Mehta’s lean figure rose from its chair near Madame’s desk and, smiling broadly, extended a hand. Amrit shook it gingerly. “I am so terribly sorry to trouble you at your place of work, but I thought it expeditious to come here directly rather than summon you to the school. Is there a spot where we might chat in private?” This last he addressed to the supervisor.

Amrit said hurriedly, “How is my daughter, Vice-Principal?” Aside from the lavatory, they were standing in the only private room available in the large, barn-like structure that made up the main headquarters of Mumbai-Astra, Limited. And Amrit had no desire to be alone with Mehta. She had several times been forced to endure his caresses in return for his leniency with her daughter Meera, and she had vowed to immolate herself rather than endure them again.

Madame gazed upon the thin man expectantly. He shrugged. “Very well. Meera quarreled with one of the upper form girls this morning. The other girl started it, I believe – some altercation over a cell phone of which your daughter was in possession. The quarrel escalated into fisticuffs. Your daughter possesses an admirable right hook, Mrs Chaudhury. Perhaps the school ought to consider instituting a girls’ boxing team so as to make better use of her talents.”

“I’m so sorry, Vice-Principal Mehta,” said Amrit. “I’ve told and told Meera that fighting is not acceptable behavior. I can’t think what’s come over her.” She added, “Will the other girl be all right?”

“Oh, right as rain,” said Mehta cheerfully, “save for a loose tooth.” Amrit groaned. “The cell phone, however, is unsalvageable.” He drew it from the pocket of his suit jacket and handed it over to her. Amrit groaned again. It was her Mumbai-Astra phone. All the employees were issued one so that they could be on call at a moment’s notice to fill in gaps in the phone banks as they arose, and it had been missing for three days.

“Is it your habit to permit your daughter the use of your company phone, Amrit?” Madame asked with asperity.

“No, Madame.”

“A replacement will be issued immediately. Its cost will of course be deducted from your wages.”

“Naturally, Madame. And I’m sorry. It won’t happen again, I promise.”

“That’s as may be.” As if they were linked telepathically, at that moment Undersupervisor Singh knocked on the door, opened it, and looked at Madame inquiringly. “Ah, there you are, Singh. Issue Mrs Chaudhury a new phone, charged against her weekly.” With a sympathetic glance at Amrit, the fat woman nodded and withdrew. “Will there be anything else, Mister Mehta? Amrit must return to her post.”

“I’m afraid so, Madame Kattungal. You see,” said the Vice-Principal, “at the Gupta Academy we have a policy, borrowed from the Americans, of ‘Three strikes and you are out.’ This is the fourth occasion upon which your daughter Meera has demonstrated an inability to coexist on cordial terms with her fellow students. Our normal course of action – and one which we are for many reasons loath to pursue except in times of dire necessity – would be to expel Meera forthwith, for mastering one’s temper is a skill crucial to the workings of a civilized society (as I am sure you will agree).”

“Expel her?” gasped Amrit. “Oh, no, Vice-Principal!” She had worked so hard to get her into the school, despite opposition from Meera’s paternal grandmother, who felt that too much education was bad for a girl, leading to late night parties, pierced eyelids, heroin addiction, and prostitution. “Is there nothing that can be done?” She opened her eyes as wide as she could and gave him a look so beseeching it might have melted the heart of a stone Buddha.

“Well, perhaps,” said Mehta, eyeing her back, stroking his bearded chin. “Perhaps we can discuss, ah, terms. But until such time as we come to some further understanding, the Academy will consider keeping Meera on only if you consent to have her outfitted with a nannychip.”

“A nannychip?” Madame Kattungal had been sitting silent during this interchange, impatient to have them out of her office so she might return to her appallingly busy schedule. But this last had startled her to fresh attention. “Is Meera Chaudhury such a menace to your scholastic society, then, Vice-Principal? I was under the impression that nannychips were most commonly used among potentially violent prison populations.”

“You surprise me, Madame Kattungal,” Mehta replied jovially. “I had assumed, considering your place of employ, that you would be more conversant in what the Americans are so fond of describing as the ‘cutting edge’ technologies. There are many types of nannychip nowadays. We are speaking here not of electronic lobotomization, but of the temporary outfitting of the girl with an aggression-inhibiting nannychip to ensure her cooperativeness over a predetermined and limited period, as a method of bringing home to her the importance of learning proper skills of social interaction. We’ve done it before with problem students, and the experiment has been met with much success, particularly in Germany.” He winked at the appalled women, then. “A much more humane method, you will agree, than caning, to which we were forced to resort in former days. And I assure you that Mrs Chaudhury’s willingness to cooperate will go far in assisting the Board in envisioning a long-term future for Meera at the Academy.”

“Never,” said Amrit. She walked up to the Vice-Principal and stood so close to him that he was forced to take a step backward. “I will never consent to such a procedure. It is monstrous. It is inhumane. Why, you admitted yourself it was the other girl’s fault!”

“Four times now it has been the fault of the other girl,” said Mehta placidly. “Four times, Mrs Chaudhury. If your Meera does not learn to master her temper, her prospects for success in this altercation-ridden world look bleak indeed.”

“What of the other girl? What of her prospects for success? Will she, too, be outfitted with a nannychip to curb her excesses of aggression?” Amrit heard her voice rise. She knew her face was red and her fists were balled, and that everyone in the outer office could hear her, but she did not care.

“That is a matter for the Board to decide,” said Vice-Principal Mehta. “I see that you are upset. Take time to think over the matter before you make a final decision we might all regret. Now if you will excuse me; I have another appointment. I came here only as a courtesy.” He attempted to step around Amrit, but she blocked his way.

“Where is she? Where is my daughter now?”

“Mrs Chaudhury, calm yourself.” The supervisor had risen. Her quiet voice cut through Amrit’s mind-whirl. Tossing her head, she stepped aside to let the Vice-Principal pass. Mehta bowed to Mrs Singh and paused, his hand on the office doorknob.

“I apologize again for having interrupted you ladies’ workday. Mrs Chaudhury’s daughter should by now have arrived at their place of residence. I instructed the Assistant Vice-Principal to shepherd her safely home. And I am afraid that is where she must stay until such time as other arrangements can be agreed upon.” He smiled again at Amrit. “If you change your mind about the chip, do ring me up, Mrs Chaudhury. That ought not to be difficult for you to do, now that you have your cell phone back.” And with that he closed the door behind him.

When Amrit got home that night to the apartment she shared with the elder Mrs Chaudhury (her late husband’s mother), Amrit’s paternal uncle Saavit, his far-too-young-of-a-wife Gloria, their six-year-old son Dakota, Dakota’s pregnant and gender-inappropriately named rat-shrew Ganesa, and Amrit’s criminal progeny Meera, Amrit was in no mood for compromise. She marched right past her mother-in-law’s squawking complaints; through Uncle Saavit’s cloud of in-the-process-of-being-hurriedly-extinguished cigar-smoke (Gloria was still crosstown, at the Internet cafe where she worked long hours); pushed open without knocking the door to Meera’s little room (not much more than a converted closet, really); tore the earphones off the head of the closed-eyed, finger-tapping, unread-schoolbook-open-before-her fourteen-year-old, and said, “Meera. Put on your coat. We’re going out.”

“Ma!”

“Now.”

And then reversed the process, this time with Meera in tow (earphone-less, eyes now fully open, shrugging into her Adidas knock-off, still wearing her school uniform underneath), past Ganesa (who waffled her nose at them as they went by), past Dakota (who was plugged into his M-box and wouldn’t have noticed an atomic bomb if it had exploded under his nose), past Uncle Saavit (who had once been a professional boxer but now was huffing, “What is the fire alarm now, Amrit?”), past the elder Mrs Chaudhury, whose complaint-squawking had not slowed one monosyllable either in Hindi or English, and out the apartment door again, nearly slamming it shut on Meera’s braid.

“Ma! Where are we going?”

“You’ll see.”

And then down the six flights to the busy Mumbai street, where Amrit stopped to get her bearings. Around them, cars honked, bicyclists careered, motorized rickshaws put-putted, chapati sellers waved fragrant pancakes and called out to passersby, signs advertising Microsoft computers, Toshiba implants, and permanent waves (“Be mistaken for a film star!”) blinked on and off, and skinny pickpockets trailed camera-festooned Brazilian tourists. In the far distance, she could hear the rumble from the Mahim Railway Station. “This way,” she said.