STEFANO DONATI

THE LAST OF THE GLASS MENAGERIES


THAT NIGHT, HE TRIED TO tell his sister she was dying. He sat her on the Peanuts
bedspread she'd favored ever since leaving school, and he fetched the tattered
polar bear from her dresser. "Esther, you know how you're going to have a baby,
right?"

"Oh, yes." She nodded happily, over and over, spilling drool onto her sweater.
With a Kleenex he wiped it off. A reflex gesture, as instinctive as his anguish
whenever some smart teenager flung names at her.

"And do you know what that means?"

"It means I'll be a mommy." Her voice stretched so exuberantly on that last
word, he almost feared her vocal chords would snap.

"Dennis." A sweet whisper from behind him. He gazed up and found his wife Delia,
hair golden and perfect. She motioned him toward the door. "No sense making her
all terrified; let's wait until she starts getting weaker."

Dennis shuddered at the memory of Esther's words from that October morning: "Me
and Petey did more than kiss last night. Did better." Spoken with such joy,
she'd missed the horror on his and Delia's faces.

He tried now not to picture her death growing ever nearer. Sexdeath, pouncing on
her happy innocence, burrowing inside her.

"Need toys for baby," Esther said.

More drool. Out came the Kleenex, and he went to her. "The baby won't get here
right away, though, honey." Dennis stroked his sister's hair. You won't be dying
right away.

Suddenly afraid for her, afraid of tears, he rushed into the other bedroom.
Delia followed him, leaving Esther babbling merrily to Frosty the polar bear.

"Esther and Petey," he said. "I envy them. It's crazy."

"No. It's normal." Delia stood away from him, as if struggling to squelch her
own desire. Could it possibly be as intense as his? "Maybe we should cut off all
our hair. Get fat, take bad-breath pills. That's what the Bonsers did for each
other. Mary told me they haven't aroused each other in months."

"It wouldn't work. You could weigh two hundred, and I'd feel the same." He saw
her flattered blush, and his throat freed the next words. "Delia, there's
something I've never told you."

"Keeping secrets, huh?" Her eyes sparkled. "For shame."

"Sometimes, when I can't stop thinking what it would be like to make love with
you..."

"...You wish you'd never met me."

"Yes. Sometimes."

"Well, I feel the same way about you. I want to make love, too, you know." She
slid her palm beneath his, dangerously. The touch aroused him, frightened him.
He could almost see Sexdeath as a thinking captor, mocking all these yearnings,
daring him and Delia to dig themselves an early grave through just one night of
passion.

But he knew a thinking captor would forgive one lapse. Just one. Especially a
lapse by Esther.

"Delia, why did you ever consent to date me? Half the people on campus swore off
love completely."

"Finders, keepers."

Humming from the other room. Esther, soothing her beloved Frosty.

"Pop-Pius orchestrated everything," he said. "I'm sure of it. That dance at the
lodge: they must have guided Esther and Petey inside that washroom." He saw his
rage reflected in Delia's eyes as, wordlessly, helplessly, she nodded. Somebody
had to have body sex, after all; somebody had to produce the world's children.
And lacking restless martyrs, one could always persuade people like Esther and
Petey.

Obscene.

Bitterly, Dennis thought about his students, how more and more of them had to
labor over even the simplest of multiplication problems.

Saving the future, birth by birth.

Remember: retarded people can have bright children.

Clever Pop-Pius mottos, he conceded, but the cold, hard math ran through his
brain. A scant few bright children for every twenty dim ones.

Foot soldiers, he thought. Esther, and Petey, and everybody like them. Exploited
foot soldiers in the fight to keep humanity alive.

BRIDGEPORT FATHER, 30, IS THE LATEST TO BE DECLARED A MIRACLE

Dennis dared not hope. But he scrolled down the headline:

Two years ago, Allen and Miranda Simmons of Bridgeport defied the Sexdeath
virus. They bravely made love, and soon Miranda was pregnant. Over the next
several weeks, they arranged to make Allen's brother the adoptive father, and by
her second trimester Miranda already felt the swollen blotches of the virus on
her skin. She died five weeks after delivering her baby boy.

But Allen Simmons is still alive. And shows no symptoms whatsoever of the
Sexdeath virus. Yesterday, precisely one year after becoming a father, he was
officially declared a Miracle -- the sixth in Fairfield County this decade. He
has asked his brother to relinquish custodial rights, and

The clattering at the door persisted until Dennis answered.

"William Burnham," said the heavy, white-haired man. "From Population Pius. I'm
here to negotiate the reward for Esther Trossi's pregnancy."

"Go away. We don't want your blood money."

"What are you talking about?"

"We didn't mean for my sister to have body sex. Your people lured her into it."

Burnham acted properly offended. "That'd be a sort of murder. We always let the
participants and their families decide."

"She has Down's Syndrome. What the hell can she decide?"

"We're trying to save humanity."

"So I keep hearing. Use artificial insem."

"You don't follow the news too closely, do you, Mr. Trossi?"

"The bombings. Yes, I know. Well, my apologies to all the sperm banks, but the
terrorists do have a point. This virus is our chance to just die as a species,
and the world sure wouldn't miss us."

"People who worked in those labs were killed."

"A very few. But since the terrorists want Mother Earth saved and humanity dead,
or at least diminished, why do you think individual scientists should concern
them? You might not agree with them, Burnham, but don't quibble with their
logic."

"You're on their side."

"I'm on my sister's side."

"All right. Legally, what we're offering belongs to her. She'll bequeath it to
you. If you deny me access to her, you could go to jail."

Dennis glared, but finally went to fetch her from her bedroom, where some
ancient sitcom's laughtrack was making her giggle along. Her way of feeling a
part of things.

"Esther, honey, a man is here to talk with us."

A man. A woman. Never a Pop-Plus agent. Never a doctor. Nuances just confused
her. All these years, thought Dennis, and I still go back and forth from loving
her to wishing she'd never been born. Wishing I could just abandon her, the way
any sensible half-brother would.

In the dinette, Burnham grimaced at the sight of Esther propping Frosty on the
table. "Going to have a baby," she said.

Burnham jerked his massive body toward Dennis. "Only one? You don't plan to have
the embryo doubled?"

"We're not out to help you replenish the population."

"But the reward depends on that."

"The blood money, you mean. We'll manage without it."

How? On his and Delia's meager incomes, how? The delivery, the overnight care,
and then the years of adoptive parenting. Without this hideous "reward," they
could never pay for all of it.

Burnham sat forward, in full salesman mode. "My offer is five thousand for a
doubling. Fifteen thousand for a tripling. Either way, it should cover the cost
of parenting after Esther's gone."

"Where Esther gone? Where I go?" She slapped her glass of water to the floor.

Burnham stared at Dennis. "You haven't even explained it to her, have you?"
Before Dennis could answer, he said, "Don't bother. I'm used to this; let me."

No. Couldn't allow that. "Esther..."

From Dennis's mere tone, she looked forlornly up at him. Just like when Mr.
Halverfore found out who'd stained his rug or when no one came to her birthday
party or when their adoptive mother died.

While Dennis searched for the gentlest words, Burnham said, "One day, Esther,
when you fall asleep it'll be permanent."

"Pertamet?"

Dennis shook with fury. "Forever and ever," he said.

"But what for baby?" She began to shriek. "Not ever and ever for baby, Dennis?"

"Dee and I will take good care of it." He eyed Burnham. "With our own money."

Outside, Dennis felt a card thrust into his hand. "If you change your mind, just
beep me."

"Burnham, I teach math. You know what one of my students told me? That sometime
this spring, your people gave her family ten thousand marks to have body sex
with a classmate. Any classmate. It would have been forty thousand if she'd
gotten pregnant."

"Don't be jealous. She must be very smart, good genes."

"Not what I meant." Dennis dreamt of pummeling this guy's arrogance right out of
him. "You know what families know: that a teenager's lusts are boiling anyway,
and sometimes teenagers can be annoying, and besides they're just some niece or
nephew or adoptee. But conception or not, Burnham, body sex is fatal. Every
time, except for Miracles. So tell me: if I offered your relatives enough money,
would you have the guts?"

"I'd consider it."

"You'd consider it. What about the people like my sister? They can't consider
things. They don't know how."

"You never warned her, did you? You never even warned her away from sex."

"Only about a million times." Dennis cursed himself, and almost Delia, for
having made the diagrams so abstract. Red for poisoned sperm and blue for
poisoned eggs and black for when they came together. What could Esther
understand of that? She'd only nodded to please them, to make them proud of her.
All she'd grasped, if anything, was that their strange lectures embarrassed
them. Their stuttering, the fumbled crayons.

And they'd too easily convinced themselves that she'd absorbed their warnings.

He sent Burnham off and rushed back inside.

"Baby needs me," Esther kept saying, and he held her, unable to calm her, unable
to quite ask if she understood just what being asleep forever and ever meant.

THE ADOPTIVE PARENTS sat by the bed, the mother solemn and the father drained.
Dennis moved toward the near side, across from them. The mottling had reached
young Judy's face. She couldn't be weighing even eighty now.

"Mr. Trossi."

"How are you coping, Judy?"

"Not dead yet."

He wished for just one more correct solution or eagerly raised hand. Hardly his
best student in Algebra B, but the smartest to be lured into Sexdeath. And from
her love of Dixieland, and the copy of The Corn Is Green he'd once seen her
reading in the park, he could tell she'd shone bright in other ways. Before this
greedy couple had played on her need for their approval. Getting Sexdeath might
have won her that, if only she'd given them grandkids.

Leaning over her, he found himself almost glad she'd failed them; these monsters
didn't deserve grandkids.

"Everyone from school says hi."

"Why can't they visit me themselves!"

Always such directness. "Maybe they're afraid."

"It's 'cause I failed. No babies." Her eyes said Aren't I right? just as lightly
as when she used to murmur answers during the Math-a-thons. Her next words
caught on her throat before she finally pushed them out: "Rehearsals. Going
well?"

"The kids are trying."

Blankness. She did not catch the double meaning; even last week, she might have.
He sat with her, relieved that at least the adoptive parents did not attempt
small talk with him.

Soon she issued a moan that slowly twisted into a high-pitched scream. Just a
matter of days, now. The scream lasted impossibly long, and then came another.
Dennis felt his temples burn, but forced himself to stay and listen. Come autumn
he'd be here again, listening to Esther.

The parents didn't flinch. They were used to this by now. So were the staff,
judging by the absence of approaching footsteps.

Dennis cringed, thinking of stories he'd heard about the way new parents react
once their babies have emerged. How the brighter ones seem to glimpse the deaths
awaiting them, the graves anxious to be dug. Heaven, set to welcome them. At
least Esther would he spared that.

But when the blotches and the shrieks began, even having Frosty wouldn't help
her.

"Mr. Trossi, when is your sister going to die?"

Dennis stepped toward the stage. "Probably in two or three months, Neil." The
symptoms would be showing up soon. They'd have to. He couldn't dare hope
otherwise.

"They say she's a Miracle. What's that?"

It awed Dennis to think that years ago, such puzzled innocence had been the
domain of younger children. Keep adjusting downward, he thought. Just a bit more
each year.

"Neil, don't dwell on my sister. Please. Now, later I want you to work on your
enunciation..." Dennis caught himself. "The way you say things clearly or not
clearly. 'Pleurosis.' That's what the Gentleman Caller says. First he says 'blue
roses,' true, but then he says 'pleurosis.'"

"The Caller?"

"The part you're playing."

"Oh. Right."

"But for now, no dialogue. Neil, Karalynn, practice the dance. The one the
Caller and Laura do."

"Blecchh." The two of them together, racing to beat the other to a show of
disgust.

"Come on, now. Brownies later if you get this right."

Neil said, "My aunt says never ask anyone to dance."

Another neurotic adult, thought Dennis. So intent on sparing a favored child
from romance, from the slightest hint of anything that might lead to body sex.
But the danger almost added spark. How shriveled his own world would have been
if he had not, that winter morning freshman year, clumsily backed his tray into
Delia's, sending lettuce and tomatoes flying. When instead of yelling at him
she'd quietly helped him pick the food up, he knew his heart and life would
never be simple again.

But now he considered Esther. "I guess your aunt's right. So maybe to be safe,
just make sure neither of you enjoy this."

Neil and Karalynn both giggled, and timidly proceeded.

As Dennis watched, inhaling sawdust, he remembered how when he'd played this
role a high-school actor was still expected to learn his lines, not amble about
the stage with sheets of simplified, phonetically spelled dialogue. The memories
made Dennis nostalgic in ways he suspected even Tennessee Williams could not
have intended.

But all right. This might be the "Second Cast," but he would make their work
match that of the Honors actors good old Kenster had kept for himself. Elements
of it, anyway. "Very nice," he said, wincing. "Now, a tip about footwork..."

Neil brightened. "I forgot to tell you: my teacher said your sister's going to
live."

Which teacher? Which brazen, dreamy colleague? "Neil. Shush."

"Is that why they want to study her?"

He and Delia wouldn't let them. They'd both stand guard against intruders first.
No scary blood tests or geneprints or hours with some rude, condescending
researcher.

"Neil. Let's get back to the play."

But still no symptoms. Maybe Esther was a Miracle. Like Allen Simmons of
Bridgeport and the other lucky rarities. Maybe Heaven didn't want his sister
yet. Maybe it would let him keep her.

"Why Frosty? Shouldn't the baby have a different name?"

"Frosty. I like Frosty."

Frosty wouldn't do. Hey, you're the dumb lady who named her kid after her
stuffed animal. Frosty wouldn't do at all.

Dennis tried to ignore the stench. Did all newborns smell like this? "How about
Judy?" Judy; even with the funeral receding, he would not forget. "You like that
name, don't you? You like the name Judy." He knew if he told Esther enough times
that she liked something, eventually she would.

She nodded. "Judy's good. Hold her, Dennis. Hold her, Dee."

She lifted the baby, which only made the wailing louder. As Delia helped him
hold his niece gently yet securely, he forced himself to look at the eyes. The
eyes. Like saucers. A whole face like a tiny Esther's. Keep adjusting downward.

Delia started sobbing quietly. Eleven hours of labor, taking turns at clutching
Eather's hand. Eleven hours of labor, and not even a healthy child.

"Why crying, Dee? Why tears?"

Delia forced a smile. "I'm just happy for you, Esther."

"I'm happy you're happy. Pretty baby."

Dennis kissed the tears off Delia's eyelids, and guided her into the waiting
room, leaving Esther and little Judy to a pair of nurses.

"Dennis, when the symptoms start in on her, she'll be so afraid."

"Maybe they won't."

"She is not a Miracle. We can't be hoping yet."

"The symptoms would have shown up by now."

"Dennis, we can't prepare for both; for grief and joy." And then, as if her
words of caution had raised her own hopes, Delia said, "Even if she is a
Miracle, do you want reporters hounding her? Confusing the hell out of her?"

"No." He looked away. "I just don't want her to die."

He would not tell Esther about seeing her old boyfriend yesterday, stumbling in
the check-out line, blotches all across his face.

From behind the door, they heard the low, familiar drone of Esther humming, this
time to her newborn treasure, more wonderful even than Frosty.

Delia shook her head. "I just hope..."

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Delia. What?"

He caught the fear on her face. When she spun into a different topic, prattled
on about the baby, he knew she was just trying to protect him from some horrid
thought.

Maybe...

No.

Maybe Delia wanted Esther gone.

They moved back inside the nursery. Esther was rocking little Judy to sleep,
more calmly and successfully than Dennis had dreamt she could manage. He watched
over her, praying that if the baby suddenly annoyed her, the nurses could keep
her from throwing it at the wall. If they failed, they'd berate her. Judy might
be just one child instead of the customary two or three, but she was still the
precious future. Esther, at least until she could be pronounced a Miracle, was
just another dying mother.

FROM A BOOTH above the audience, Dennis controlled the lights for the premiere.
Two more months and still no signs. Even if she died tomorrow, he would savor
this: the sight of her in the seats below, the sound of her thirsty clapping.
Clapping that began a split second after most everyone else's.

In the lobby afterwards, she ran to him. "Good movie," she said, her head
bobbing up and down in happy spasms, making tiny Judy's face scrunch up. "Liked
it, liked a lot." She couldn't possibly have liked it; he'd glimpsed her
squirming, yawning from the First Act on. But she'd seen others praising him,
and she loved him.

Esther.

"I'm glad," he said, and hugged her, wondering all over again what kind of
person she'd have been without that extra chromosome. What hobbies would she
have had? What opinions on the larger world would she have shared with him?

She would need resilience, if ever that world did demand that she be studied
just like Allen Simmons and the rest.

He asked Delia to drive her and the baby home. Then he climbed atop one of the
lobby's chairs, and grew besieged with shouts of "Speecht" The cast stood beside
him. The Gentleman Caller, now Neil Megsburg again, practically hyper-ventilated
from all the attention.

When the applause began to surge, Dennis waved everyone to silence. "You're all
wondering if Eather's a Miracle. I don't know and you don't need to. Meaning, no
news crews, no science journalists, no buzz of any kind that might confuse her,
make her worry that she's done something awful. Please. Maybe she'll start
showing symptoms in an hour. Maybe never. But nobody's going to upset her."

His gathered friends all hushed, and slowly retreated toward the parking lot,
their cars, and home. Neil Megsburg and his aunt stayed behind, and walked with
him to his rusty sedan.

"The journalists will be here, Dennis. Can't stop that." The aunt's voice held a
touch of pity. "But we'll fend them off as best we can. And because you turned
down the Pop-Pius reward, we've formed a citizens coalition. Raised enough
pledges to pay for the care of both the baby and Esther, however long she
lives."

Dennis shut his eyes. They wouldn't be offering all this unless they wanted
something big in return.

"We'll also pay for a trip now and then. To an aquarium, a holo show, the zoo.
Esther likes the zoo, doesn't she, Dennis?" A hint of desperation had crept into
Ms. Megsburg's voice.

"The terms, please."

In this woman he saw at least a shred of shame, something the Pop-Plus people
never showed. "What we're thinking is, if your sister's a Miracle, maybe you
are, too. The incidence is much, much higher in relatives."

"But still negligible."

"It's higher. And you, you're smart. A smart, healthy man who doesn't die when
he has body sex -- you could have bucketfuls of normal children."

"Not with Delia. She's a different sort of Miracle."

"Not with Delia. With other women. Start with her; impregnate her; then
impregnate others."

This was the threat Delia had foreseen, back in the hospital.

They might not allow him to say no. Since they weren't him, they could ignore
how long the odds were. And ignore the prospect of his sister grieving. Delia
dying.

Maybe his father, his and Esther's, was still alive. If Miracles did run in the
family, then that hazy but looming memory might still be breathing. Nobody had
ever located him.

"Dennis, just think of all the women you could have."

"How does zero sound?"

"Selfish. There are already ten in town, smart women, who are willing to martyr
themselves for you. Improve the gene pool."

"By just a drop. I'm only one man."

"You'd be surprised. We looked it up. The record for paternity is held by this
ancient emperor from Morocco: Moulay Ismail the Bloodthirsty. Eight hundred and
eighty-eight kids. And that was before embryo doubling."

"Mr. Bloodthirsty was very unusual. And no doubt very tired. And probably had a
press agent who fudged on the numbers."

"You're a teacher; you see the trend. Oh, there'll always be terminal cases and
teenagers who think they're immortal and a few old, old men who suddenly get
noble. But more and more, it's the retarded people who get martyred, who get
coerced into sex. So what's ahead? Nobody wants to think about that, but I'll
tell you. Each generation gets more stupid -that's already started. And before
long the smart people will lose hope completely, and none of them at all will
make the Sacrifice. Why bother? Then someday the last of the retarded caregivers
is going to fail the last of the retarded children, and humanity will end."

"A lot of those retarded people will have smart children."

"A small minority. With not enough smart elders to sharpen their talents. Live
in a stupid world, and most people will become stupid."

No more great plays, no more call for Laura Wingfields. Or for the beauty of a
Bach cantata or a still-life painting. He did not want to see them die. By
putting mostly bright kids in the mix, he could help prevent it.

"If I really am a Miracle."

"Your sister is."

So far, he thought. So far.

"My sister also has Down's Syndrome. We're not the same."

"Maybe someday they'll isolate the virus, Dennis. Kill it, I don't know. But for
now you have to try this. Other bright Miracles do."

"Then you don't need me."

"We need all the smart genes we can get."

"So that people like Esther can be shoved back into the background? Get scorned
the way they used to be? What's unfolding is not all bad, Ms. Megsburg; with so
many people being retarded, I wouldn't expect a world war any time soon."

"Don't be glib."

"And don't tell me about obligations. Not until you've taken care of somebody
like Esther."

"I have; my nephew. Is it Esther you're worried about, or is it your life? I
mean, you might not be immune after all."

Might not? These people probably suspected Jesus also had a messiah sibling.

What would Delia think? Delia, pregnant with his first children, weakening and
semi-conscious. Dying. What would Delia think, picturing him with other women?

"Dennis, our offer stands: free medical care for your sister and her baby. Now,
these women are willing to make the Sacrifice. Are you?"

Making love to Delia. Taking those timid caresses further, even for just the
time before she died.

Delia, dead.

They'd have to decide together.

He moved to Neil, who stood shivering against his aunt's car trunk. "You made a
fantastic final Gentleman Caller," Dennis said. He doubted Neil grasped the full
meaning of "final." But "fantastic" was definitely understood.

"Thank...thank you, Mr. Trossi."

"The baby's asleep," Delia said, meeting him at the door. "And so is Esther.
Temporarily."

"I should get to bed myself." His words prompted only a tired nod and no unease.
They'd obviously not consulted her about their scheme.

Perhaps they suspected her of being more loyal to her boyfriend than to
humanity.

"Delia, when you looked so afraid in the hospital...now I know why. Guess what
Neil Megsburg's aunt suggested to me tonight."

"I can imagine."

So wise, this woman whom his soul had chosen anguish with.

"Well," he asked, "what do you think of the idea?"

"Did they promise they'd take care of Esther?"

"Don't let that sway you."

"Dennis. Did they?"

"Better than we could ourselves. But I don't like the idea of her putting
flowers on your grave. Or mine."

"Eventually, she'll forget me. Maybe even forget you."

Just as with our adoptive mom, thought Dennis. It's been years since Esther's
even asked about her.

It calmed him to think that if he failed, if Sexdeath did indeed poison him, his
sister would not miss him for long.

"Exactly how many women do they want you to kill?"

"Enough for eight hundred and eighty-nine kids, I think. That'd set the world's
record."

He didn't want the world's record. He only wanted Delia. And he could see her
wondering:

So many poets had extolled this poison. What did it taste like?

"Eight hundred and eighty-nine. Well, we'd better get you in training. Just
don't enjoy it with any of them."

He couldn't. Not with Delia gone.

"I'm a little scared," he said.

"I'm more than a little. I'll bet even before Sexdeath, 'the first time' was a
scary set of words."

"Maybe the thought of losing you will make me impotent."

"Then we'll just try again."

He wanted to. Oh, he wanted to. "Delia, are you absolutely sure the world's
worth it?"

She took his hand. "The world isn't why I want to do this."

"But if I am a Miracle..." The word sounded so pretentious when applied to him.
"If I am one, I'll have to grow old without you."

"I'll be waiting."

Waiting? Up there? He'd never known her to believe in --

"On Earth, of course, I'm not so patient." She pressed a hearty kiss upon him,
full and long.

Esther. They mustn't wake up Esther.

Soon, he and Delia might have to let the coalition watch them. Make sure he was
honoring the agreement.

But not tonight. Tonight was theirs alone. He slid his arm around her waist and
she played with his hair. They led each other into bed, and toward Heaven.