The Lovers   ::   Фармер Филип Хосе

'

She walked acrossthe room (only a few steps to traverse the length of the chamber, reminding him of how many steps he could take when he was on the Preserve). She handed him a crumpled-up mass of tissue-thin garments and said, 'I don't think Olaf had them cleaned. It's not his fault, though. The deionizer isn't working. He left a note saying he called a technician. But you know how long it takes them to fix anything.'

'I'll fix it myself, when I get time,' he said. He sniffed at the nightclothes. 'Great Sigmen! How long has the cleaner been out?'

'Ever since you left,' she said.

'How that man does sweat!' Hal said. 'He must be in a perpetual state of terror. No wonder! Old Olvegssen scares me, too.'

Mary's face became red. 'I have prayed and prayed that you wouldn't curse,' she said. 'When are you going to quit that unreal habit? Don't you know? . . .'

'Yes,' he said, interrupting harshly, 'I know that every time I take the Forerunner's name in vain, I delay Timestop just that much more. So what?'

Mary stepped back from the loudness of his voice and the curl of his lip.

' "So what?" ' she repeated incredulously. 'Hal, you can't mean it?'

'No, of course I don't mean it!' he said, breathing heavily. 'Of course I don't! How could I? It's just that I get so mad at your continual reminding me of my faults.'

'The Forerunner himself said we must always remind our brother of his unrealities.'

'I'm not your brother. I'm your husband,' he said. Though there are plenty of times, such as now, when I wish I weren't.'

Mary lost the prim and reproving look, tears filled her eyes, and her lips and chin shook.

'For Sigmen's sake,' he said 'Don't cry.'

'How can I help it,' she sobbed, 'when my own husband, my own flesh and blood, united to me by the Real Sturch, heaps abuse on my head? And I have done notning to deserve it.'

'Nothing except turn me in to the gapt every chance you get,' he said. He turned away from her and pulled the bed down from the wall.

'I suppose the bedclothes will stink of Olaf and his fat wife, too,' he said.

He picked up a sheet, smelled it, and said, 'Augh!' He tore off the other sheets and threw them on the floor. With them went his nightclothes.

'To H with them! I'm sleeping in my clothes. You call yourself a wife? Why didn't you take our stuff to oul neighbor's and get them cleaned there?'

'You know why,' she said. 'We don't have the money to pay them for the use of their cleaner. If you'd get a higher M.R., then we could afford it.