26

Pain in its purest form.

This turn of phrase, with its surgical precision, is what Silvana would use to diagnose the shock Celia is suffering from if she were to take her as an object of study, if she were to consider her symptoms and go on to catalog them as part of her collection of samples. She came prepared to explain Xis’ death to her, tactfully, very tactfully, massaging her tender body’s neuralgic points in order to reduce the impact of her words. And then she would accompany her throughout the grieving process; she’s been working on it all night. The girl needs help to work through things: to receive the information, digest it, and eject it. Three stages that a hundred years ago took months, and that nowadays, in the rare cases that they do occur, are over in a matter of hours.

However, upon entering the bedroom and seeing Celia lying prostrate on the bed, still wearing yesterday’s clothes, with the saddest expression she’s ever seen and her eyes half closed, blank, not even registering her entrance, Silvana’s legs give out and she has to sit down. Near the head of the bed the girl’s robot doesn’t take its eyes off her.

Knocked down onto the chair, she perceives Lu’s pout, and it’s not difficult to imagine why she’s wearing it: the professional is failing her. As she struggles to pull herself together, she realizes someone must have told the girl what happened to Xis, it’s the only way she can account for this drastic mood change. And that someone is unlikely to be the robot, too inclined to follow orders, so it must have been the stuck-up woman standing before her, who, even still, manages to look at Silvana with disdain. She doesn’t know why she hates her more: because she ignored her advice or because of the pain she’s inflicted on the little girl.

“Why did you have to tell her?” she whispers out of the corner of her mouth so Celia doesn’t hear her.

“You have no idea how difficult she can be. She pestered ROBbie until his alarms went off and ROBul was forced to wake me up … at three in the morning! I authorized him to tell her everything, yes, so what? You would have told her this morning anyway, right?”

“Of course, but … “It’s not worth the effort of trying to get her to understand the difference. “How did she react then? Did she cry?”

“I don’t know, when I got up she was like this. I think we should tell the clinic. She was frozen for such a long time, poor thing, maybe it’s normal for her to become lethargic from time to time. They should have warned me though.”

There’s not much to gain from talking to this airhead, Silvana thinks, while she instinctively turns toward Celia, unable to figure out whether or not the girl has heard all this nonsense. Reluctantly, she admits to herself that even the robot would provide more information, although, at the moment, she won’t even think about lowering herself to speak with it; she’ll keep that as a last resort.

“Could you leave us alone? I’d like to do the massage the same as every day.”

Lu’s face doesn’t hide her satisfaction that, even when she wasn’t expecting it, the professional has taken on the problem, and she dutifully leaves, followed by ROBbie. If it weren’t Celia lying on the bed, Silvana would quickly have made it clear that since they ignored her instructions, she can’t make any guarantees.

Celia’s body, lax, doesn’t move even a millimeter as Silvana approaches: her knees are slightly bent, her hand dangling over the side of the bed, almost touching the floor, and her eyes are just as absent as before, despite the fact that, for a moment, she had convinced herself they were following her. She sits down next to her feet and strokes them softly, taking extreme care not to annoy her. There’s no reaction, either for or against. She knows full well that she must be patient and wait for the stimulus to make its way through, breaking down barriers and rebuilding ruined bridges.

She keeps going and going, until she notices that the feet give themselves over to her and, when she looks up, so do the girl’s eyes. The stabbing pain is so intense that it smothers everything else, so much so that she’s certain she’ll never forget this moment. Silence, she’s better off focusing on physical contact, she wouldn’t want words to impede their understanding, fragile as it is. Without losing visual contact, Silvana’s dexterous hands work their way up Celia’s scrunched up legs until they pass her hips and, traversing the profile of her thorax, they ride up over her back and finally take control of the base of her neck. She can feel that the ball of muscles is stiff with tension, so, extremely carefully, she devotes herself to unknotting it and relaxing them one by one, conscious that it’s a delicate situation, and it’ll be even more delicate when she stops and it’s time to talk. It won’t be her who precipitates the massage coming to an end.

It’s been a while since Celia lost touch with the person she was before and, freed from the deep well of thought, she has been transformed into just gazing eyes and skin. No more. The sight of a friendly face infuses her with bodily well-being, and she’s no longer herself, but a cadence, a coming and going of waves that rock her and lift her and turn her into a spark at the mercy of the current. Until, all of a sudden, pampered by the magnetic blue eyes that are so close to her, she sits up and surprises Silvana with an even more intense embrace than yesterday’s at CraftER. And also wetter, because the tears she’s been holding in all night burst out with all the force of a great storm.

It’s like time has stopped, as neither of them makes any attempt to untangle herself from the other. And once again it’s Celia who, when she stops sobbing, whispers to Silvana while still holding her:

“I want to die and be with my parents”—before her voice breaks because the tears have returned.

“Don’t speak, sweetie, and you’ll start feeling better, you’ll see.” She hugs her even harder against her chest, but when she detects resistance, she separates herself a bit and finds a cry of despair in Celia’s eyes.

“You want me to shut up too?”

“Of course not, you know I love it when you tell me what’s going on. I just thought that today it would hurt you.”

“You know, don’t you? You all know but ROBbie had to tell me.” She looks away, like she’s withdrawing her trust.

Silvana takes her hand, she needs to maintain contact.

“What exactly did it tell you?”

“Are you afraid of telling me more than I already know?” Her belligerence has dried her tears.

“It’s not that …”—she chooses her words carefully—“but I would prefer that they hadn’t told you anything.”

“And then what? Would you have taken me out of school so I wouldn’t find out?”

“No, no and no!” She’s practically shouting, holding onto her shoulders. “I want what’s best for you, you know that right?” She gently shakes her and tries determinedly to look into her eyes.

“It’s my fault Xis died.” Silvana has prepared so much for this moment, but now she can’t even breathe. “I should have jumped off after her … what am I doing here? Suffering and ruining everything. I would’ve been better off if the tumor had killed me.”

Silence falls heavy as a rock between them, and Celia doesn’t receive the soothing response she yearns for, that she needs, that she would beg on her knees for if it would help … and Silvana’s not capable of giving it to her. Now it’s her who’s been transplanted into another century and here massages won’t help. It takes her an eternity to react, and in the end, the words come out reluctant and forced:

“Your mother … What would she do? What would she say?” Her eyes are shining, and an emptiness has opened up inside her, a new space that’s devouring her. “How would she make you feel better?”

Celia’s hand automatically heads for her pocket and takes out the ring. She’d been so distraught that it hadn’t even occurred to her to use it, and now she’s looking at it as if it were an apparition, so absorbed that Silvana’s question makes her jump:

“Was that your mother’s?” The silence makes her think it was. “Put it on, it’ll give you strength, she always knew how to make you feel strong.”

Celia’s brusque movement catches her unawares.

“It’s too big for me, you put it on …”—she thinks it over for a moment—“and then talk to me.”

Her words are as transparent as her back muscles, Silvana thinks, while her shaking finger welcomes the treasure offered up to it; even though she’s from another century, she’s still a little girl. This thought calms her a bit and, nervously touching the ring that for years rubbed up against a skin that Celia loved so much, she searches for inspiration about how to talk to her in the way she expects.

“You know I’m very fond of you.” Her voice resounds with a solemnity she would prefer to avoid. “I’m not like your mother, I don’t have the same type of brain, and I haven’t lived through the same experiences. I’m from another age, I have a different way of doing things than hers … and yours.” She’s getting tied up in knots, she should be more direct. “But if you guide me and help me, I’ll try to make it so you can speak to me like you would to her.”

There’s no physical contact between them, only visual and, incredibly, Silvana doesn’t miss it. The electricity coming from Celia’s sad, yet hopeful eyes is enough, as it prickles through her whole body, all the way to the very deepest parts.

“I already told you: it’s my fault Xis died. I persuaded her to escape, she was really scared, and when she needed me most …” Enormous tears, slower and steadier than those that came before, slide down her cheeks.

“Calm down, my love, it’s not your fault.” Silvana’s hand can no longer resist trying to dry the undryable, and the ring makes its way across Celia’s face in a long caress.

“I must have fallen asleep … she was so anxious, and I … I could have tried to hold on to her, or talk to her …”

“Don’t torture yourself anymore: the cause of this sickness is part of her, not you. It’s that damned education the pro-technos get: without their ROBs they feel completely lost, helpless. A child from the ComU would never have thrown herself off.”

“I should have known. I never should have separated her from ROBix. And I took her up there … how awful.” She starts blinking rapidly in an attempt to hold back the tears. “And her mother … I understand why she treated me that way. What am I going to do now?”

“Don’t worry, Sus Cal’Vin won’t do or say anything, it’s not in her interest.”

“What do you mean?”

“She made it very clear she wanted silence. And, if no one makes a claim, the POLis won’t investigate. Case closed.”

“So nothing’s going to happen? No one cares how she died?”

“Look, it was an accident, that’s all.”

“But, if it weren’t for me, Xis would still be alive. She saw the danger: she told me I was from another century and I had no idea how things work. I didn’t listen to her and she was totally right: I have no business being here, I’d have been better off dying when my parents did.”

“It hurts me to hear you say that … Can you imagine how your mother would have felt? She wanted you to live. She knew you were a great person and you would do great things. Didn’t you tell me that’s what she wrote in her letter?”

“Yes, but everything I’ve done has been bad.”

“Not at all. You’ve been good for Lu, for me and, it seems, at CraftER they’re over the moon about your contribution to the project.” She’s said this as a last resort, conscious that it’s a powerful weapon, though she never could have imagined how powerful: Celia’s face is transformed in an instant.

“Who told you that?”

“Leo took me home last night, remember?” Now she really has her, all the girl’s attention is focused on what she’s saying. “He’s extremely interested in taking some more recordings from you—he’s convinced he’ll never find anyone more creative.”

“Really? But you don’t like the project.”

“I didn’t like it, no, but when he explained it to me I started to see it differently … or maybe it’s this ring that gives me a different point of view. I’m sure your mother would be very proud of you for taking part in it.”

“My dad more. He would be so excited to go into CraftER and see all the machines. Things would be so different if he were here!” Another blast of homesickness fills her eyes with water once again. “And you, would you want to go there with me?”

“If Lu doesn’t mind …”

Lu, another problem. Celia finds it impossible to talk to her, she’s afraid she’ll make her go back to school.

“Please, please,” she begs insistently, “let me go to the ComU every morning, we can do the sessions there at least until the CraftER interview.”

And then … what then?, Silvana can’t help asking herself, conscious of the danger it would pose to the girl to live only looking forward to one day and one time. She knows she’s thinking too far ahead, but what choice does she have aside from letting Celia cling to a hope that, before she’s even thought about it, has already taken hold inside of her as well.

Discussing how she’ll suggest it to Lu, the time continues to plod on steadily, with neither shocks nor risks: nothing more than jumping from stone to stone to avoid the vertiginous nature of the deep hollows. It’s only when it’s time to go and confront her adoptive mother that Celia wavers, about to fall back into darkness. But Silvana has already claimed the territory that she now treads with relative confidence:

“Here, keep hold of this extraordinary ring,” she says, handing it over cautiously as if it were made of glass, “but you’ll have to lend it to me again, okay? For a little while in each session … so we can have a conversation like today’s. I’ve got a lot to learn, about you, about myself … and about her,” she concludes, reverently observing the ring that’s already slipped into Celia’s pocket.