|
So
that is why my the real Ryuu went to enormous trouble and expense
to commission the Nakamura Prosthetics Concern to make the robot
Ryuu into this arm. They had to work with Clarke to do it; it
was their first collaboration; they have started a whole sub-business
around that partnership, thanks to my son, who has been repeatedly
offered high-paying jobs by both of them. But he refuses them,
because he is almost a CFO at Gusto Tequila. The arm does not
speak--it has no mouth!--but I can feel it thinking, which is
almost as good and sometimes better than words. It obeys my commands,
it is an arm first after all, a built-in tool, but if I want to
I can let it act on its own. I do that a lot. It is much more
interesting than simply commanding it all the time. And now when
I do the dishes it feels like I have a helper, even though it
is my own arm it is not my arm, there is a different soul in it,
and when two souls wash dishes together it is easier and less
of a burden.
8.
I had read every word as Mr. Oono dictated. At first I fussed
over the arm, wanting to make sure it was up for the task, but
the arm didn’t need much of my help: unlike a human, the
hand could write from any angle with equal ability, and from its
perpendicular position to the notebook it was able to cover a
page with words without difficulty. The only thing I did for it
was flip pages, and whenever I forgot to it flipped for itself.
Its handwriting wasn’t particularly good, but it was better
than mine.
I knew he had finished when the prosthetic dropped the pen. That
broke the spell; I looked up from the notebook a little dazed,
having been suddenly transported out of the story and back into
my body. “Now for sake!” Mr. Oono said. His shirt
was still off and he did not reattach his arm. He went to the
refrigerator and pulled out two small green screw-cap bottles
of cold sake, the kind I’d always imagined was only for
export and that no actual Japanese drink. He handed them to me
and I opened both of them and handed one back to Mr. Oono. After
his story, I knew there was no way we’d be drinking from
cups--cups would have to be washed later--so I said, “Domo
arigato, Mr. Oono. Kampai,” and took a long pull. And he
laughed and asked, “Hiya! All the time you speak Japanese?”
We both laughed and drank. It was a clean and cucumbery sake,
surprisingly good.
Mr. Oono drank his like a champion and did not set his bottle
down on the kontastu until he had finished it. “Ah!”
he said. And then, touching his stomach, which was as round and
wrinkleless as a gorilla’s, he added, “Excuse me please.
I must go fill the bathroom.” I almost did a spit-take.
He stood lingering for a few seconds, smiling and making sure
I had recovered, and then picked up his shirt--but not his arm--and
went to use his nagging toilet.
It was almost as if I was on a date with his arm and he, playing
the chaperone, had decided to excuse himself to give us lovebirds
a few moments alone. I knelt and took a fortifying swig of sake
and touched it. The hair felt soft and real, but the skin, again,
felt shockingly wrong; it felt like the skin of a sea-mammal who
needed a tough and insulated hide to survive in harsh oceans.
Someone
began to unlock the front door. Maybe there was to be an interpreter--a
human interpreter--after all? A strange rush of guilt made me
finish my sake quickly. I put the bottle next to Mr. Oono’s
on the kontatsu, but then, worrying that it would leave a ring-stain,
moved it to the floor. Then I stood and straightened myself to
receive the new guest like someone who was supposed to be there.
Ryuu walked in, the real, soon-to-be-CFO Ryuu. I had no idea he
would be coming; I had prepared no questions for him. He was indeed
very tall, and had on a suit worth as much as the Blue Book value
of my car. When he saw me, he forgot about closing the door and
rushed over to me with an extended arm. “You must be Mr.
Warbing! It is an honor to meet you sir. I’m Mr. Oono’s
son. Please, call me Ryuu.”
For a fleeting, utterly unreasonable moment, I imagined that Mr.
Oono had not really gone to the bathroom, but had snuck out a
window and transformed himself into his son, that they were one
person in the same and that this was his last and greatest trick
of the day. The feeling lasted less than two thuds of my heart,
but it was real. But then, as I was shaking Ryuu’s right
hand, I remembered that the other Ryuu--the one that served as
Mr. Oono’s new arm--lay on the kontatsu behind me. This
Ryuu’s hand was organic, human, vulnerable in a way Mr.
Oono’s would never be again. Of course they weren’t
the same person. What a stupid thing to think.
But,
just to be sure, as I shook his hand I replied by saying “The
pleasure is all mine, Mr. Oono.”
**************
|
