Too bad, he thought, unclipping the form and placing it at the bottom ofthepHe, checking to see where his next call was. It was usually the husbands who snuffed it first, and rare was the young bride who missed the old bastard. But this . . .
He shrugged and turned away. It was as they said: Life was cheap, flesh plentiful. The old man would get over his loss. Why, with a new young wife in his bed he would have forgotten aU about this one in three months!
He dosed the door, nodding to himself, thinking of the evening ahead. Shit, maybe he'd call and tell his wife he was working late. Maybe he'd go see that woman down on Chang Un Avenue who had been so good to him last week after her husband had passed on. A woman had her needs, after all, and his wife . . .
He snorted, then walked on. His wife could hang herself for aU the good she was. Her and her two good-for-nothing brothers. Why, if it wasn't for him, they'd all be eating air!
Families . . . they were nothing but trouble. He saw plenty in his line of work - why, he made twenty, often as many as thirty, calls a day and always it was the same: those who survived either loved too much or too littie. The lucky ones were the dead. They, at least, could sleep easy.
At the corner of the alleyway he tore off the completed slips and, walking on a bit, posted them through the Oven Man's door, then carried on towards the crossway. That too could be said for the dead - they helped keep the living lit and warm. He chuckled, amused by the thought, elbowing his way through the crowd by the transit station, then stepped inside.
Here's to the dead, he thought, giving an imaginary toast as the doors of the northbound transit hissed shut and the carriage began to slide along the rails. And to young Chang Kuan Ts'ai, he added soberly, for being no bother to anyone . . .
Vflem stood by the door, cradling his son, a proud paternal grin lighting his features. Bara stared at him from where she lay in her bed, trying to share his happiness, but there was nothing. She kept trying to find something in herself- some trace of the love, the deep-rooted affection she had felt for her first two sons - but there was nothing, only that strange coldness, that sense of wrongness bordering upon aversion that gripped her every time she looked at her new-born son.
"We'll call him Josef," Vilem said, nodding decisively. "Josef ... like his great-grandfather. Josef Horacek. It's a good name, neh? A strong name for a strong littie boy!"
She nodded, but all she felt was a numbness. A name. . . why, she'd not even considered a name . . .
"You want to hold him again?" Vilem asked, offering the child to her.
"No ... wo ... you hold him a while longer. Get him to sleep forme, won't you?"
She rolled over, onto her side, uncomfortable to be lying like that, but not wanting to see Vilem with the child. Not wanting to see him smile the way he did when he looked at the boy, or hear him laugh the way he laughed.
Why couldn't the child have died? she found herself thinking, and felt guilt slice through her.
Maybe it would pass. Maybe it was just the circumstances -the shock of giving birth there in the alleyway between the stalls. Yes, maybe that was it. Maybe if she slept it would all be all right.
There was a noise, a gentle snuffling from the child, like the inarticulate mumbling of a drunk. At the sound of it she felt a shiver flash down her spine; felt her whole body go cold, her nerves tingle with aversion.
I hate him, she realised with a shock. My own son . . .
She could hear VUem pacing back and forth, cooing softly to the child.
What was wrong with her? What in the gods' names was wrong with her? Was she HI? Was that it? She dosed her eyes, trying to shut it all out, to forget and start anew, but it wouldn't go away.
Josef. . Josef Horacek. It was a good name - as Vilem said, a strong name -yet for some reason the mere thought of it made her shudder convulsively and curl up tightly into a ball, hugging her empty stomach.
Dead. He should have been born dead.
Maybe. But it was too late now. He had escaped. He had kicked and fought his way out into the world. And no one -neither she nor all the gods - could put him back inside.
The crates were stacked to one side of the courtyard where the two delivery men had left them. Beside them, on a trestle table by the gate, were the blue undercopies of the delivery notes. There were fourteen of them this morning - nine adults and five children. It was less than usual. Even so, it would still take him a good while to burn them all, and there were two more lots to come before the day was out.
The Oven Man slurped down the remains of his soup, set the bowl aside, then stood, yawning and stretching his arms. He might as well get these done now, then he could log them in the book and get a few hours of shut-eye before the next delivery.
He was a big, severe-looking man in his forties, his chest broad, his upper arms heavily muscled from years of doing what he did. His name was Yao, like that of the legendary monarch -Cho Yao, in full - but so few called him that these days that he had almost forgotten it himself. Those that didn't shun him -those who, through their calling, had to deal with him - called him Lu Nan Jen, "Oven Man". The rest. . . well, the rest had littie to say. They merely stared at him sightlessly, grinning their eternal grins.
He went across and began, hauling the first of the crates from the top of the nearest stack. The crates were shaped like narrow baths, with two long ridges moulded into the base so that they could be slid onto the runners. They were made of semi-opaque ice - the same lightweight superplastic from which the great City itself had once been made - back before the war with the White T'ang. A thin seal of toughened plastic covered the top of each, allowing a dear view of the occupant.
The first was an old woman, Mu Too according to the printed label. Her body was shrivelled and tiny like a child's, her face puckered into an expression of surprise, as if Death had crept up on her from behind. He set her down before the oven door, then took the gloves from the hook on the side and slipped them on.
As he pulled back the heavy door, light spitted into the room. He had stacked and lit the furnace an hour earlier and the heat from it was fierce. With a practised ease, he lifted the crate and swung it onto the parallel tracks, giving it a gentle, almost tender shove. There was a brief darkening of the light and then a sudden flare. He shouldered the door dosed and, wiping his brow, turned to get another crate.
Turned. . . and stopped. There was a sound. A whimpering. He frowned, certain he'd made a mistake, then heard it again, dear and unmistakable.
"Kuan Yin . . ." he muttered, then hurried across, beginning to search through the crates.
It took only a few moments to find where the noise had come from. It was a child, a newborn. He shook his head, astonished. In all his years . . .
He looked about him, then went through to the kitchen, emerging a moment later with a knife. He wouldn't be able to cut through the toughened ice itself, but it was just possible that he might prise it loose along the edge where it had been heat-bonded. He slid the knife back and forth, then felt the plastic give with a sigh, wrinkling back as if it were consumed by flames, leaving only the label.