Page 53 - Vol. VII #1

had wandered away to sulk, played the rest of the game by himself. Time for sibling shame later; anx- ious curiosity overcame Vijay.
“Can you reverse Fragile X Syndrome? All genetic deviations? What are you?”
They sighed. “Enzyme. Substrate.”
“What? You’re a catalyst? Like the CNO cycle of star nucleosynthesis? Or a fairytale? Are you Rumples- tiltskin? Am I The Fisherman’s Wife? I ask for too much and you take away everything? Poppies and bees. Right, too two-dimensional for you. This is crazy. I’m crazy. If I hadn’t contacted you about your grade, would any of this...but verb tenses are irrel- evant. If I ask or answer incorrectly—immorally— does the fabric of spacetime fray?”
They stood up, returned to the window, picked up the textbook and by all indications, intended to leave the office. Vijay panicked. A burst of energy rushed him to block the door. They paused.
“You chose to take my seminar,” Vijay rasped. “You chose me. Why? But I chose to contact you. Did I choose? Did you? All dimensionally-challenged, irrel- evant questions? I can’t even see the chessboard. Is there a chessboard? Yes, it’s been torture—if I could repair David? When he was born, the question was
a fantasy, an escape. Then, without hesitation, yes, but now? He’s five years old. He’s... David. But now, you? If can be then? Why not all the others? If you can teach us all how, what—but, David.”
Vijay stopped. His mouth was dry. His heart thudded. He was breathing too fast but he spoke slowly.
“It is not a moral question for me anymore. Yes. I would...do... anything...to save him...future suffer- ing. You know better than I how ignorant I am. But I know...that. It’s a reflex, like grabbing him back from a crash,” Vijay’s arm moved as if a marionette’s. He looked at it. “It’s a reflex.”
Then he couldn’t even manage the few steps back to his chair. He couldn’t breathe. His fingertips tingled. Hyperventilation. He sank to the floor. Panicked, he looked up into their eyes.
They looked down at him. “All right,” they soothed and then repeated, “Enzyme. Substrate.”
The words were a meaningless aphasic echo to Vi- jay. He felt the blissful memory of the first IV infu- sion of water administered in the hospital when he was fevered and dehydrated, the distraction from the agony of acute appendicitis. He was fifteen years
old. Relief. Unconsciousness. ~
“Bonjour, ca va?” Eve said.
She made her way towards Vijay across his backyard at the July 4th barbecue. She balanced a drink and a plate of food as a breeze threatened her straw sunhat.
The noise of colleagues’ children filled the wooden swing set/playhouse/climbing wall. Dhanya was be- ing pushed on one of the toddler swings.
“She is a lucky girl! Hey, did you ever change that grade?” Eve asked him.
Vijay was in mid-bite of a long hot dog. Puzzled, he frowned at Eve, but quickly grinned when he saw David catch a frisbee tossed to him by an older child. His son’s beauty and skill were obvious.
“I don’t know where he gets his athletic ability,” Vijay said.
His wife brought him a red, white, and blue cup of many-cubed iced tea.
“He gets his brains and looks from me,” Ruthie said.
“Oh, Eve you mean that odd duck,” Vijay said. “I had some food poisoning that day! Wound up in the hos- pital overnight.”
Ruthie grimaced. “It’s a blur. I don’t like to think about it.”
Vijay chugged his iced tea to reassure her and added, “I can’t remember it at all! About that grade, mais oui, copaine, with ‘their’ approval I changed it to an A+. Congruence is a beautiful thing. ‘They’ even asked
me for a recommendation for grad school. Easiest rec ever. Wrote itself.”
“In astronomy?” Eve asked.
“No. Biology. ‘They’re’ interested in genetic research.”
“Oh, yes, that was the pronoun-gender whiz-kid,” Ruthie said. “I remember ‘them’!”
But between you and us, really, no one ever does, any more than fish notice ocean or birds see the sky.
Bassen is the author of Summer of the Long Knives (Signal 8 Press), Lives of Crime & Other Stories (Texture Press), and Showfolk & Stories [Inkception Books]. Her first poetry collection What Suits a Nudist? was published by Clare Songbirds Publishing House. She is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships.
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