• • •
Art could see that it was getting to her, and he did what he could to help. He came up to her apartment every morning with breakfast, like room service. Often he had cooked it himself, and always it was good. As he came in, platter held aloft, he called up jazz on her Al to serve as the soundtrack of their morning together— not just Nadia’s beloved Louis, though he sought out odd recordings by Satch to amuse her, things like “Give Peace a Chance” or “Stardust Memories”— but also later styles of jazz that she had never liked before, because they were so frenetic; but that seemed to be the tempo of these days. Whatever the reason, Charlie Parker now skittered and zoomed around most impressively, she thought, and Charles Mingus made his big band sound like Duke Ellington’s on pandorph, which was just what Ellington and all the rest of swing needed, in her opinion— very funny, lovely music. And best of all, on many mornings Art called up Clifford Brown, a discovery Art had made during his investigations on her behalf, one he was very proud of, and advocated constantly to her as the logical successor to Armstrong— a vibrant trumpet sound joyous and positive and melodic like Satch, and also brilliantly fast and clever and difficult— like Parker, only happy. It was the perfect soundtrack for these wild times, driving and intense but as positive as one could be.
So Art would bring in breakfasts, singing “All of Me” in a pretty good voice, and with Satchmo’s basic insight that American song lyrics could only be treated as silly jokes: “All of me, why not take all of me, Can’t you see, I’m no good without you.” And call up some music, and sit with his back to the window; and the mornings were fun.
But no matter how well the days began, the council was eating her life. Nadia got more and more sick of it— the bickering, negotiating, compromising, conciliating— the dealing with people, minute after minute. She was beginning to hate it.
Art saw this, of course, and began to look worried. And one day after work he brought over Ursula and Vlad. The four of them had dinner together in her apartment, Art cooking. Nadia enjoyed her old friends’ company; they were in town on business, but getting them over for dinner there had been Art’s idea, and a good one. He was a sweet man, Nadia thought as she watched him moving about the kitchen. Canny diplomat as guileless simpleton, or vice versa. Like a benign Frank. Or a mix of Frank’s skill and Arkady’s happiness. She laughed at herself, always thinking of people in terms of the First Hundred— as if everyone was somehow a recombination of the traits of that original family. It was a bad habit of hers.
Vlad and Art were talking about Ann. Sax had apparently called Vlad from the shuttle rocket on its return to Mars, shaken by a conversation with Ann. He was wondering if Vlad and Ursula would consider offering Ann the same brain plasticity treatment that they had given him after his stroke.
“Ann would never do it,” Ursula said.
“I’m glad she won’t,” Vlad said. “That would be too much. Her brain wasn’t injured. We don’t know what that treatment would do in a healthy brain. And you should only undertake what you can understand, unless you are desperate.”
“Maybe Ann is desperate,” Nadia said.
“No. Sax is desperate.” Vlad smiled briefly. “He wants a different Ann before he gets back.”
Ursula said to him, “You didn’t want Sax to try that treatment either.”
“It’s true. I wouldn’t have done it to myself. But Sax is a bold man. An impulsive man.” Now Vlad looked at Nadia: “We should stick to things like your finger, Nadia. Now that we can fix.”
Surprised, Nadia said, “What’s wrong with it?”
They laughed at her. “The one that’s missing!” Ursula said. “We could grow it back, if you wanted.”
“Ka,” Nadia exclaimed. She sat back, looked at her thin left hand, the stump of the missing little finger. “Well. I don’t need it, really.”
They laughed again. “You could have fooled us,” Ursula said. “You’re always complaining about it when you’re working.”
“I am?”
They all nodded.
“It’ll help your swimming,” Ursula said.
“I don’t swim much anymore.”
“Maybe you stopped because of your hand.”
Nadia stared at it again. “Ka. I don’t know what to say. Are you sure it will work?”
“It might grow into an entire other hand,” Art suggested. “Then into another Nadia. You’ll be a Siamese twin.”
Nadia pushed him sideways in his chair. Ursula was shaking her head. “No no. We’ve done it for some other amputees already, and a great number of experimental animals. Hands, arms, legs. We learned it from frogs. Quite wonderful, really. The cells differentiate just like the first time the finger grew.”