I chose euthanasia. At the age of forty-two, my Abuela had drunk and lived enough. Now it was my turn. Without her, it would be easier.
Though I didn’t know what would become of me. I always knew that a girl born in Barrio 13 doesn’t have many options for the future… but it’s harder after seeing everything you’re going to lose.
I continued to miss Ettu. I felt it was my fault everything had gone wrong and come to an end. By trying to turn him into a lover, something tangible, I had lost the closest thing to a father or a friend I’d ever had. I didn’t really understand why I’d done what I did, why he was what he was… but I didn’t care. I was ready to do anything if it would bring him back… To follow him on foot to the end of the world, to make his bed every time he finished enjoying his repulsive artists, even to stop asking him any more questions, ever.
In the hospital, while I was filling out the forms to have my Abuela cremated, I found out about the epidemic. And I started putting two and two together.
The magenta illness, the terrible venereal disease of Colossaurs, was wreaking havoc in the artist community. Some fifty of them had died, their flesh covered almost entirely with the purple sores that were the stigma of the disease. The Health Department of Planetary Security couldn’t understand the cause of the contagious outbreak that the disease seemed to be following and was adopting measures to fight the plague while searching desperately for the illness’s new vector. Because it seemed unlikely that it could have been transmitted by the usual means…
Even before I heard their names and saw their faces, I already knew who they were. In the final stages of the disease, their faces didn’t show much of that satisfaction I’d seen on them when they came downstairs from Ettu’s bedroom. But they did show the same disgust, and a horrible despair.
Naturally, they never told how they had acquired the disease. They just painted, worked, created like crazy, knowing the end was near. At least they got that much out of the price they’d paid Ettu for their lives and health. And then they died.
One day the package arrived. By Hyperspace Shipping, direct from Colossa. I knew who it was from long before I opened it, of course. But the contents truly surprised me.
A letter, on plain paper, written by hand. A thick, wobbly hand. It wasn’t very long.
Hi, Liya. How are you? They tell me you’re doing okay. Sorry about your Abuela. But without her, your life will probably be more… bearable. A lone wolf always gets ahead… And pardon me if I sound inhuman. Don’t forget what I am.
I’ve seen the news from Earth. I think you’ll have already figured out that I’m the vector they’re looking for. And that it won’t do much good for you inform them. Magenta illness is incurable… And anyway, by the time this letter is in your hands, nobody will be able to take any measures against me.
I carried the disease for years… without knowing it. Apparently, sterilization makes us Colossaurs more prone to developing it. It was as an asymptomatic carrier that I gave it to Moy. And not even all the money the two of us made could keep his flesh from being covered in magenta pustules and then dissolving. I killed him, Liya. Nobody but me, who loved him so much, killed him, one of the few people I really cared about in this life.
In his last days he wanted to have one of the few humans he valued by his side. A guy named Jowe… An artist. He told me to spare no expenses to get him there. Maybe you’ve heard of him. He was the other one who died in the Escape Tunnel, along with Friga, your mother, trying to leave the solar system unlawfully. Because the terrestrial government wouldn’t allow him to come to Ningando, where Moy waited for him to the end…
But I didn’t find out any of this until I got to Earth. When Moy died, and the first symptoms of the illness were already weakening me, I felt lonely and decided to look for this Jowe. Maybe he would look like Moy, and having our absent friend in common would serve as a bridge. All I wanted was a little affection during my final days, you understand?
But Jowe was dead, and the last person connected to him was your mother. I don’t know what kind of relationship they had, and I don’t care. When I found out that Friga had left a daughter behind, I set off to find you. You are, in a way, the only thing I have left.
At that time, I still hadn’t come up with my plan for revenge. The idea came to me while we were traveling the world, one night when I was thinking how sad it was that such a rich planet should also be so poor. Revenge. I had to take revenge for Moy. Revenge on whom? For what? How was it those artists’ fault that Earth was poor? you must be wondering. And I could answer you: no fault at all. Just that I was alone and furious, despised by my own people and not accepted by yours, about to die. Stupid reasons, don’t you think?
But they were guilty. Guilty of selling their art because they were hungry, of betraying the history of their world, of not seeing beauty. So my revenge, from a certain point of view, was simple justice.
In case you care to know, I didn’t act indiscriminately, either. Of all the needy artists who came to beg me for help, I only responded to the ones who had known Moy or Jowe. And not all of them, either. Only the ones who could barely remember them… Most of them miserable that they had achieved a degree of success they didn’t deserve. Ambitious sorts who really didn’t even need my modest financial help very much… but who were already so used to selling themselves that they approached me almost as a reflex action, having heard of easy money. Worse rats than the lowest social workers. The fact that they still lived and sometimes prospered, while Moy and Jowe had already fallen by the wayside, also condemned them.
The magenta illness is extraordinarily contagious. It was because of that, not because I didn’t find you attractive, that I never paid attention to your advances. I may have noticed your intentions before you were aware of them yourself. And I admit, there were times when I seriously considered the idea… But you weren’t guilty of anything. You were the only way for me to feel that everything I was doing wasn’t just irrational destruction and fierce revenge.
I hope you do well. I hope that when you pick your vocation you will listen to your heart’s desires, and not be looking for money or applause. And, even if you do choose to be an engineer or a flight attendant, I hope that art will be important to you some day. As it was for Moy, for Jowe, whom I never knew… and for me.
I hope you don’t hate me. That you can understand me, just a little bit at least. That you understand that, in my own way, I loved you like the children they wouldn’t let me have.
Remember me, Liya. But live your own life. Here, as a goodbye present, is a little something to help you. After all, Moy made me rich… and I had to pick an heir. That, by the way, might be the answer to why I needed you so much…
PS. You always treated me as male. The truth is that, although my race has seven sexes, I’m more like your mother and you than Jowe or Moy. But I liked it when you called me “him.” It made me feel like more of a… protector.
Wrapped in the letter was a small, oblong object. My platinum card.
That was six months ago.
Now I’m living in a small penthouse in New Sydney, studying hard for the aptitude test I have to take to get into the Baryshnikov School of Modern Dance. I have rhythm and flexibility, according to the private tutor I hired, but I need a lot more style. And I’ll need at least as much luck if I want to compete for one of the school’s coveted slots with the teenagers who’ve been going to dance school practically since they learned to walk. But I trust my luck. If I don’t make it this year, I’ll still have next year. And the next one, and the next. With his card, Ettu gave me all the time in the world.