She was silent.
“Why don’t you answer?”
“Because you don’t understand a thing. I don’t know how to tell you. It’s nothing, you know…”
“Aha. It’s nothing,” I repeated. I couldn’t sit any longer. I got up. I nearly leapt, forgetting myself. She flinched.
“Sorry,” I muttered and began to pace. Behind the glass a park stretched out in the morning sunlight; along an alley, among trees with pale pink leaves, walked three youths in shirts that gleamed like armor.
“Are there still marriages?”
“Naturally.”
“I don’t understand! Explain this to me. Tell me. You see a man who appeals to you, and without knowing him, right away…”
“But what is there to tell?” she said reluctantly. “Is it really true that in your day, back then, a girl couldn’t let a man into her room?”
“She could, of course, and even with that purpose, but… not five minutes after seeing him…”
“How many minutes, then?”
I looked at her. She was quite serious. Well, yes, how was she to know? I shrugged.
“It wasn’t a matter of time only. First she had to… see something in him, get to know him, like him; first they went out together…”
“Wait,” she said. “It seems that you don’t understand a thing. After all, I gave you brit.”
“What brit? Ah, the milk? What of it?”
“What do you mean, what of it? Was there… no brit?”
She began to laugh; she was convulsed with laughter. Then suddenly she broke off, looked at me, and reddened terribly.
“So you thought… you thought that I… no!”
I sat down. My fingers were unsteady; I wanted to hold something in them. I pulled a cigarette from my pocket and lit it. She opened her eyes.
“What is that?”
“A cigarette. What — you don’t smoke?”
“It’s the first time I ever saw one… So that’s what a cigarette looks like. How can you inhale the smoke like that? No, wait — the other thing is more important. Brit is not milk. I don’t know what’s in it, but to a stranger one always gives brit.”
’To a man?”
“Yes.”
“What does it do, then?”
“What it does is make him behave, make him have to. You know… maybe some biologist can explain it to you.”
“To hell with the biologist. Does this mean that a man to whom you’ve given brit can’t do anything?”
“Naturally.”
“What if he doesn’t want to drink?”
“How could he not want to?”
Here all understanding ended.
“But you can’t force him to drink,” I continued patiently.
“A madman might not drink,” she said slowly, “but I never heard of such a thing, never…”
“Is this some kind of custom?”
“I don’t know what to tell you. Is it a custom that you don’t go around naked?”
“Aha. Well, in a sense — yes. But you can undress on the beach.”
“Completely?” she asked with sudden interest.
“No. A bathing suit… But there were groups of people in my day, they were called nudists…”
“I know. No, that’s something else. I thought that you all…”
“No. So this drinking is like wearing clothes? Just as necessary?”
“Yes. When there are… two of you.”
“Well, and afterward?”
“What afterward?”
“The next time?”
This conversation was idiotic and I felt terrible, but I had to find out.
“Later? It varies. To some… you always give brit.”
“The rejected suitor,” I blurted out.
“What does that mean?”
“No, nothing. And if a girl visits a man, what then?”
“Then he drinks it at his place.”
She looked at me almost with pity. But I was stubborn.
“And when he doesn’t have any?”
“Any brit? How could he not have it?”
“Well, he ran out. Or… he could always lie.”
She began to laugh.
“But that’s… you think that I keep all these bottles here, in my apartment?”
“You don’t? Where, then?”
“Where they come from, I don’t know. In your day, was there tap water?”
“There was,” I said glumly. There might not have been. Sure! I could have climbed into the rocket straight from the forest. I was furious for a moment, but I calmed down; it was not, after all, her fault.
“There, you see — did you know in which direction the water flowed before it… ?”
“I understand, no need to go on. All right. So it’s a kind of safety measure? Very strange!”
“I don’t think so,” she said. “What do you have there, the white thing under your sweater?”
“A shirt.”
“What is that?”
“You never saw a shirt? Sort of, well, clothing. Made of nylon.”
I rolled up my sleeve and showed her.
“Interesting,” she said.
“It’s a custom,” I said, at a loss. Actually, they had told me at Adapt to stop dressing in the style of a hundred years ago; I didn’t want to. I had to admit, however, that she was right; brit was for me what a shirt was for her. In the final analysis, no one had forced people to wear shirts, but they all had. Evidently, it was the same with brit.
“How long does brit work?” I asked.
She blushed a little.
“You’re in such a hurry. You still know nothing.”
“I didn’t say anything wrong,” I defended myself. “I only wanted to know… Why are you looking at me like that? What’s the matter with you? Nais!”
She got up slowly. She stood behind the armchair.
“How long ago, did you say? A hundred and twenty years?”
“A hundred and twenty-seven. What about it?”
“And were you… betrizated?”
“What is that?”
“You weren’t?”
“I don’t even know what it means. Nais… girl, what’s the matter with you?”
“No, you weren’t,” she whispered. “If you had been, you would know.”
I started toward her. She raised her hands.
“Keep away. No! No! I beg you!”
She retreated to the wall.
“But you yourself said that brit… I’m sitting now. You see, I’m sitting. Calm yourself. Tell me what it is, this
