Future Crimes Part 49

She ignored it as long as she could before picking up the telephone.

"Olympia?" her sister asked.

"You sound so far away."

"Only mentally. I was watching--" "Don't tell me. Let me guess. The King and I or Casablanca, which is it? Don't you ever get tired of that stuff? I mean, it's all right in its place, but you take it too seriously. I think that's why you couldn't make it with a real man like Hoff. Sometimes I think you just married him because you wanted your last name to be Hoffman."

There was no need to say anything, Pia thought.

Nothing short of a firing squad could stop Mira once she started on her favorite topic, and the truth was that one of the reasons she had married Hoff was because she wanted to be Olympia Hoffman.

"I remember those nightmares you were having when you met Hoff," Mira went on.

"You began to believe that Dr. Coppelius was going to come for you so that he could chop you into little pieces.. .."

Pia stopped listening to her sister. She didn't want to think about the dreams ever again, and especially not tonight when she was dancing Coppetia at Liz's farewell party. It had all begun after she'd danced the role at several parties in a row, night after night the same dream.

Dr. Coppelius searching for her. Wanting to destroy her so that he could shape another, more obedient, doll. And then she'd met Max Hoffman. She hadn't even liked him very much but she'd kept thinking about Offenbach's Hoffmann and wondering what might have happened to Coppelia if he'd succeeded in spiriting her away. Dr. Coppetiust might never have found her.. ..

"Pia? Are you listening to me?"

She tuned back in.

"I'm listening, Mira."

"If you're having those dreams again, I'll come over- You're not supposed to be alone today anyway."

"I'm not alone." Pia said nothing about the dreams.

They had never really stopped, but it didn't seem to matter anymore.

They were as much a part of her life as getting up in the morning.

"You mean you have someone with you?" Mira's relief was apparent. Her voice rose several decibels.

"I'm so glad. I won't disturb you. - . ," The telephone light went out, and Pia smiled. Mira would be happy for a while, believing her sister was following orders. It made her so uncomfortable to think that she was related to someone who habitually questioned Their wisdom.

Changing her position slightly, Pia returned to the world she preferred. Eventually she would have to think about Their reality but not now. Not while she had an hour of solitude left.

The figure in the trenchcoat became a dot on the rain-soaked Casablanca runway and Pia started to cry.

For a while, she let her tears flow freely. Then, wondering how she'd have made it through the years without Bogart's help, she replaced her worn Casablanca ca.s.sette in her collection and took out The King and I.

The catharsis was over, and she needed Anna.

Fingering the ca.s.sette lovingly, Pia thought about what it must have been like to play Anna at that premiere performance sixty years ago.

She balanced the ca.s.sette on high. Delicately. Like a gla.s.s of champagne.

Taking the hem of her skirt in her other hand, she waltzed around her small living room until, out of breath, she fell abruptly back onto the sofa. Dammit, she thought. If she could afford a holograph machine, she'd know what it felt like to be a woman like Anna.

Proud. Magnificently proud. Unafraid even of the King of Siam.

If she couldn't have a holograph machine, Pia told herself, the least she could do was to keep expanding her collection. The party tonight was her one shot at acquiring a complete Valentine collection. Liz would have no need of antiquated musicals where she was going, or of anything else for that matter. Besides, it would be her last chance to see her mentor before she was taken away.

Poor Liz, Pia thought. So what if she was turning sixty tonight. She was healthy and happy and deserved to stay. At forty, Pia still had twenty years to think about where it was They took you. To a better world, They said.

Pia remained unconvinced. As far as she was concerned, Liz would cease to exist. Like all of the others They had sent away since the new system began. Her parents; her friends' parents; her neighbors.

She had tried to believe there was a place where they gathered, that if she only knew where to go, she could see them all again. Alive.

Smiling. For a while, she'd even agreed with Mira that they'd undergone some magical process and were living forever like the heroes and heroines in her ca.s.sette world.

Her sister had kept right on believing, but for Pia the delusion had been short-lived. If she could only see one of Them, one of the lawmakers, she thought, she'd learn the truth about the old people--and about so many other things. Truth was something you could read in people's eyes, like fear and love. If Their way was the only one that precluded chaos, why wouldn't They show themselves? How could she trust edicts from rulers who told her they were the creators and orderers of her universe, yet refused to walk at her side? She couldn't. Nor could she believe in Their messengers--those strangers who blindly enforced Their rules and carried that aura of familiarity that comforted her into doing Their bidding.

Reluctantly, Pia packed her costume and dressed for the party. She chose her clothes carefully and made herself up with great attention to detail, hoping that seeing the finished product would lighten her mood.

It did, but only temporarily. Once she was at the party, her depression returned. It was triggered by the sure knowledge that she was going to lose out on the Valentine collection. At least three other people in the room wanted those ca.s.settes, and they were all better qualified than she. The first two requirements were no problem: she was there, and she wanted it.

Coveted it. Probably more than the others did. Her problem lay in the third regulation; her acceptance level of Them and Their system. It was down again.

Way down. She had measured it on Liz's machine.

"Are you all right?" Liz asked. She put her arms around Pia and hugged her.

"I'll be okay," Pia said, wondering at the lack of fear in her friend's eyes.

"You're the one.. .."

"They're going to love me there," Liz said.

"Look at me, Pia. I've lost thirty pounds." She executed a graceful pirouette, her face as expectant as Coppelia come to life in the toy shop and her body as fragile again as the young woman who'd first taught Pia the role.

That was when two strangers appeared. As they moved closer to her, she saw that one of them was Jim. That Jim. The one in the courthouse, on the bus, and probably on the street d.o.g.g.i.ng her trail. He looked different, better, in his formal evening attire.

If he recognized her, he did not show it. She watched him move easily toward Liz and turned her attention to the other stranger, who was pa.s.sing among the guests like a dancer floating lightly across thin ice.

Spallanzini come to claim his creation, Pia thought, not realizing until the tall, slender figure came closer that it was a woman. She wore a black jumpsuit, and her dark hair was drawn tightly into a dancer's bun.

Her face was pale, translucent, as if her skin had never touched the sun.

Because the light was dim, it took Pia a while to realize that the woman's careful progress was inspired by the enormous crystal bowl of cut fruit that she was carrying, balancing its fragility as if she held a slice of a rainbow.

Drawn to her, Pia took a step toward the stranger.

Before she had time to say anything, the woman placed her gift on a table and turned around to face Pia.

"And to whom do you belong?" she said, using the standard greeting.

Pia began the required response but stopped. Saying "To Them" had always been as natural as breathing.

Now the words stuck in her throat.

"What's your name?" the woman continued as if the traditional exchange had been completed. She looked fragile up close, like a piece of Dresden china.

Pia looked across the room at Liz, glowing with her regained delicacy of motion.

"Your name?" the woman asked again.

Suddenly she knew who the woman was. Why she was there. With the knowledge came an urgent need to do something, anything, that was an act of defiance against Them.

"Would you believe me if I told you my name was Liz?" Pia said, "You're too young to be Liz."

"Have you come to take her away? Are you one of Them?"

"I'm a messenger."

"Is she going to die?"

The woman's expression didn't change.

"There's no need to be afraid for her," she said.

"As long as she obeys the rules--" "All of her needs will be satisfied," Pia said, finis.h.i.+ng the litany. The words fit comfortably.

"Satisfy my needs. Take me. Look at her. Her spirit is young.

Mine's not."

"I can't take you."