Chapter 45

It was long past the final vestiges of sunset that she lay quietly with her head on his shoulder, their lovemaking at last spent. Her voice was soft.

"Darling, may I ask you something?"

He started abruptly. She giggled. "Don't worry, I'm not going to start calling you darling and ookey-pookey and all that in front of people, but we're all alone—boy are we alone!—so allow me an endearment or two."

"'Ookey-pookey?'" he muttered in amazement.

"Or sweetums!" she said gleefully. He shuddered. "Anyhow, may I ask a question?"

"Ask."

"Why do you talk so ... well, stilted?" She felt him stir. "That's not a criticism," she said hastily, "I don't mean it that way, I even think it's kind of cute. But the perfect grammar, the way you use words—you have a huge working vocabulary—I never hear you use contractions, you have to admit most people don't talk quite that way."

"'Cute, '" he murmured. "How sweetums."

She laughed, and sat up. "OK, but I'm serious. You know you talk differently. Why?"

"Well, I think I told you it was how I was brought up," he said. She waited. "Of course there is more," he continued finally. "My name should tell you my heritage—mixed African and Hispanic, but all with roots in what they call the dark continent for more than one reason. You hit a nerve earlier when you told me there are places on Earth where I might be called 'nigger' to my face."

"I'm sorry!" she exclaimed.

"Do not be," he said. "But I know it to be fact, because I have lived in such places and was in fact called that and other things I prefer not to recall. That is, until I attained some growth and fighting skills and it became known I was not exceedingly tolerant of personal invec­tive."

"You hit people?" she asked.

"When sufficiently provoked, quite hard and effectively," he replied.

"I've never hit anyone in anger in my life," she said wonderingly.

"Then my earnest wish for you is that you never find the need to do so," he said. "It is not my preferred method of conflict resolution. But life is not always so kind; there are times when I believe it is appropriate. Even looking back from what I hope is considerably greater maturity, I think some of those were such times. In any case, even after the name-calling ended I was quite aware that the cessation was only verbal; the thought, as you also said, persisted in the heads of many. That awareness made it ... difficult for me to relax completely around others."

"But aren't you relaxed with me?" she asked.

"My love, there is but a single part of my body that is not relaxed in your company, and even that has succumbed now," he said dryly.

"Carlos, you actually called me 'my love!' Am I really? Your love?"

It was too dark for her to see his smile, but she knew it was there. "Do not expect me to say such things often," he said. "Not often enough, I am sure. But yes, you are—and of that I am also sure."

She kissed him, long and lingeringly.

"I speak as I do with you now out of simple habit," he continued when she let him. "I am used to it, having done it most of my life; it has become natural to me. It is a strategy similar to that which has been adopted by many members of the culturally oppressed minorities that you named earlier, a mode of speech intentionally designed to emphasize one's own distinction."

"Oh," she said. "But isn't it the other way usually? American blacks calling each other nigger, Orientals speaking some kind of fake pidgin—"

"The effort there is to parody cultural and racial stereotypes, to protect oneself by beating the other fellow to the punch, as it were," he interrupted. "If I name myself nigger, a person of lighter complexion cannot effectively demean me by parroting my word. And blacks were traditionally deemed, in most Caucasian cultures, of lesser intelligence, so they chose to feed into that stereotype as well by purposely distorting the language—'I be, ' 'I ax you, ' and the like."

"'Purposely?' I never quite looked at it that way."

"Consider. Does an American black wear a 'max' to costume parties? Does he or she 'bax' in the sun? Perform a 'tax' when doing something? They can enunciate the phonetic combination perfectly well; 'I ax you' is merely an affectation. But although I grew up primarily in America, I was for the most part not gladly welcomed in the black community there. I have an Hispanic component; we moved quite often—my father too was in military service—so I had little opportunity to make lasting friends; and most of all I chose to pursue an education, which even today is perceived by some of my race as a betrayal, 'acting white' they call it. Nor for that matter did I seek out such welcome.