The Bradbury Report (28 page)

“He must be hungry,” she said

“Are you hungry?” she said to Alan.

This time he quite distinctly nodded his head.

“Progress,” I said.

“He's hungry.”

“Do we have food?”

“We don't,” she said. “The refrigerator's empty. We need to get some things.”

“I'll go.”

“I think that probably would be best,” she said.

On our time-killing drive around the neighborhood earlier that afternoon, we'd seen a small market not too far from the apartment.

“What should I get?”

“Oh, you know. The essentials. Bread and milk and eggs and butter. Olive oil. Get some fruit and vegetables. Maybe some pasta and sauce. Tea, coffee. I don't know. Some boneless chicken breasts. Get whatever you want. Whatever looks good.”

“Okay,” I said. “But I'm not much for shopping. I warn you.”

“Get something.”

“I'll take the car.”

“Of course,” she said. “Oh, and get some paper towels and napkins and a couple of sponges. And some toilet paper.”

“Okay,” I said. “I'll be back.”

“Please,” she said. “And maybe some cereal. Something you like. For breakfast. Some juice.”

“You'll be all right?”

“We'll be fine. Don't take
too
long, though.”

“I'll be quick as I can.” I looked at Alan, standing behind her. He was smiling. “Anna, do you want me to stay?”

“No. Just get going. And bring me back some magazines.”

“What kind?”

“I don't care. Any kind. You choose. Something to read. And something for dessert. Crackers. Cookies. Some ice cream. Chocolate chocolate-chip. We like that.”

“Anything else?”

“Ha ha,” she said. “Do you need a list? Or can you remember?”

“I'll be lucky to remember where we live.”

The green car was still out in front of the apartment, and I was able to find the market without much trouble. I'm sure I forgot to pick up half the things Anna asked for. I do know I brought back the chocolate chocolate-chip ice cream, because that night at dinner Anna gave Alan a bowl of it for dessert, and then he expected it with every meal, even breakfast. When he didn't get it, when we were out of stock, he could be unpleasant and vulgar. As was, in those early days, his wont.

I had a dark moment in the grocery store that afternoon. It would not be the last of such moments. I was in the middle of some aisle or another, my cart full of stuff. I looked at the cart, looked at the stuff, and I couldn't remember having taken any of it off the shelves. I didn't know what it was: all the stuff in the cart was to me unrecognizable. If, in fact, there were tomatoes in there, I could not have told you what they were. My heart began to race, and I experienced shortness of breath. Or I imagined my heart was racing, my breath coming short. I was hypervigilantly aware of my body and how it was working. I heard
ringing in my ears. I thought I might be stroking—I still had all the medical lingo—but there was no pain, no real discomfort. I was overswept by dread. I wanted to flee. The cart. The store. The city. The country. What was I doing there? I was shopping for groceries on a Monday afternoon in Ottawa. Who could believe it? There were groceries in a cart, and I couldn't have named them. What did I think I was doing? Who did I think I was? These were all real questions. I wanted to get in the green car and drive, without stopping, back to New Hampshire. I knew where I lived. Seven hours, I'd be home. What I didn't want, more than anything else in the world, to do, was to go back to that apartment, in which Anna and the clone were waiting.

I didn't flee. I stood by my cart, unheroically, and waited, without knowing I was waiting, for the paroxysm to subside. Which it did. I wheeled my cart—it was helpful to have something to hold on to, to lean on—to the checkout lane and paid for the groceries in cash. When I was outside, I took a few deep breaths in the late-afternoon air. It was still hot and muggy. I'd finished with five bags of groceries. I was surprised by how much I'd bought. I loaded the bags into the trunk of the green car, then I drove back to Friel Street. I parked the car in front of our building and made three trips up the stairs, resting between trips, leaving the bags outside the apartment door. When I'd got it all up, I knocked on the door. Three short raps—I was not feeling at all ironic—as the Tall Man had done. There was no answer, and I could hear no movement within. I knocked again, three times, waited, then tried the knob. The door was unlocked. I picked up two of the grocery bags and went inside. Anna was seated at the far end of the couch, the clone sprawled its length, his head in her lap. She was stroking his hair. She touched her index finger to her lips, then smiled at me. The clone was asleep.
La Pietà
, I thought, feeling suddenly aggrieved. I brought in the rest of the bags, as quietly as I could.

Anna stayed on the couch with Alan's head in her lap. I put the groceries away. We didn't speak. Neither of us, though perhaps for different reasons, wanted him to wake up.

There was not much left of the afternoon. Alan slept, while Anna watched him. She may have dozed, too. I unpacked my clothes in the bedroom. Alan woke up. Anna made dinner. While she was in the kitchen, I gave Alan as wide a berth as the apartment permitted. I don't remember what we had for dinner. Alan's manners at table were better than I'd have thought. He was proficient with a knife and fork. He chewed with his mouth closed, sat up reasonably straight, did not make inordinate noise with his cutlery, and kept his napkin on his lap when it wasn't in use. He ate earnestly, and as much as there was to eat, including two bowls of the ice cream for dessert.

I did the dishes after dinner, and Alan spent a long time in the bathroom. He was in there long enough with the door locked that Anna got worried and knocked to see if he was all right. We watched some TV, the three of us. I sat in the wing chair, Alan and Anna sat on the couch. I don't remember what we watched—something anodyne—but, from all appearances, it was Alan's first time with television. He was very interested in whatever was on, and upset when, after a couple of hours, we turned it off.

Anna got ready for bed first. Alan stood outside the bathroom door while she was in there, and I watched from the other end of the hall to see that he didn't do anything untoward. When Anna came out of the bathroom, in her nightgown and robe, Alan went in. This ad hoc procedure—Anna first, then Alan, then me—was to become, because Alan would have it no other way, codified. Anna and I stood in the hallway.

“Long day,” I said.

“Yeah.”

“And weird.”

“Pretty weird,” she said.

“What do we do tomorrow?”

“We start.”

“Start what?”

“We start working with him.”

“That's what you do,” I said. “What do I do?”

“You help.”

“I'm not sure I'll be any use.”

“Then you'll stay out of the way.”

Anna enjoyed, and took very seriously, her role as Alan's teacher. But she was pulled two ways about the project. For his sake, for her sense of herself as well, she wanted him steadily to prosper under her charge. And he did. At the same time, she found her group's plans for Alan, the ways they intended to use him once he'd become articulate, literate, presentable, so odious, so cruel, that no small part of her wanted to slow his pace, impede his progress, keep him useless as long as she could. It was more knotted even than that. She believed, without doubt, that Alan could be a determinative factor in the effort to subvert the government's cloning program. She had equal faith in the ultimate importance of that effort. Teaching Alan, she thought, was a chance for her to participate in something of major, transformative significance. She had found herself—she spoke about it as a function of providence—if not at the front, then at the very heart of a revolution. She was not, herself, interested in power, not at all, but, despite what was a principled commitment to ordinariness, to life lived as plainsong, Anna was at heart a revolutionary. Long may she . . . what? Reign? No. Live. I didn't buy into the idea that Alan, or Anna, or her group would be able to effect any substantive change in government policy or practice, and I wanted no part of
this
revolution, or any other.

Alan came out of the bathroom. He was still wearing his clothes.

“Hold still,” Anna said. She took the baseball cap off his head.

He went into the bedroom, our bedroom, and closed the door. Anna waited a bit, then knocked—expecting, and getting, no response—and went in. I stood outside the room. Alan was in the bed farthest from the door. He was under the covers. Anna sat down on the side of his bed. She put her hand on his chest.

“Let me say good night to you,” she said. “I hope you sleep well. I want you to have sweet dreams. Things will seem better to you in the morning. Less strange. So go to sleep. And don't worry. If you
need me, I'm next door.” She turned off the lamp on the nightstand between the beds. “Good night now. Rest well.” She came out of the room and closed the door behind her.

“You think it'll work?” I said.

“Do I think
what
will work?

“Do you think he'll sleep?”

“I hope so,” she said.

“Me, too,” I said. “Do you feel at all like talking?”

“I don't know. Not much. Do you?”

“I wouldn't mind.”

“Okay,” she said. “Let's go in the living room.”

We talked for about an hour. We talked about Alan. We talked about his response to her—I expressed my concern—and about his response to me. We were both concerned about that. I didn't tell her about what had happened to me in the grocery store, but I did worry out loud about my health.

“So you know,” I said. “At some point, I'm going to have to find a doctor. A cardiologist.”

“Fine,” she said.

“I was supposed to go back to my doctor after seven weeks. To assess the damage.”

“It hasn't been seven weeks,” she said. “It's barely been two.”

“Is that true?” I said. “Jesus. I guess that's true. I need to do it, though. Will you help me remember?”

“You're worried.”

“Yes,” I said. “Wouldn't you be?”

“I would.”

We talked about the Tall Man. I complained about the green car. We talked about the next day. While we were talking, so far as we knew, Alan was in bed, asleep.

“Did you notice,” I said, “that his hair was parted on the right?”

“No,” she said. “What about it?”

“I part mine on the left. That seems to be the way it wants to go. Do you find that odd?”

“I don't know,” she said. “It hardly seems to matter.”

“No, I know,” I said.

We said good night, and Anna went into her bedroom. I washed up, then checked the door of the apartment to see that it was locked. I turned off the lights; I left the bathroom light on, and closed the bathroom door most of the way, so the hall was not completely dark. I opened the bedroom door. I could see Alan in bed. He appeared to be sleeping. I undressed as quietly as I could and got into bed. As soon as I'd drawn the covers around me, Alan sat up.

“What's the matter?” I said. I sat up, too.

He did not respond. He got up off his bed. I could see that he had not taken off his pants.

I got out of bed. “What's the matter?” I said. “Are you okay?”

He crossed the room to the door. He turned down the hall, away from the bathroom. I went with him. He stopped in front of Anna's door. He put his hand on the doorknob.

“Hey,” I said. “Where are you going, Sport?”

He opened her door.

I took hold of his arm, just above the elbow.

This was the first time I had touched my clone. What was it like for me to touch flesh that was of my flesh? The most radical consanguinity? When we were in New Hampshire, Anna spoke to me about what it was like for her to touch her children. She said it was reassuring. She said it was like forgiveness, like coming home after being away a long time, having done your best. I felt nothing of the sort. His arm was hard and thick, and I felt only the baleful power beneath my hand.

“What are you doing?” I said.

He wheeled on me, ripping his arm from my grip. He scowled. I swear he bared his teeth. Then, clear as day, he said, “Ass fuck!”

(These were the only words he was to speak that first day. We were to discover that his stock of the language of sexual, especially homosexual, depravity was abundant.)

He raised his fist to hit me. I cowered and covered my face.

Anna opened her door.

“Stop it, you two,” she said. “Just stop it. What's going on?”

He lowered his fist.

“You get back into bed,” she said to Alan. “Right now. And you,” she said to me, “go sleep in my room.”

“Where will you sleep?” I said.

“In there.”

“Absolutely not. He's wild. I won't let you do it.”

Alan stood there watching us.

“Go to bed,” Anna said to him.

He obeyed.

“What the hell was going on?” she said.

“He was about to hit me.”

“Why? What did you do?”

“I tried to stop him going into your room.”

“Why did you do that?”

“I didn't know what he was up to.”

“I told him if he needed me,” she said.

“I wasn't sure what he had in mind.”