Free Mating by Norman Rush

about going with someone who’s a good mimic, because they aren’t necessarily the kindest, as in my case. Ah, do you have a daughter, then? And I said No, I mean when I do, someday. And then he said So it wouldn’t be a good idea for two mimics to marry, would it? Even through his carotene I could tell he was blushing. I was touched. We both were.
    I remember I was sitting on the back of his legs, resting, when I decided it was time to shorten the game. My Martin Wade fantasies were fading. I decided to be a little reckless.
    You’re unique, he was saying, apropos his having come to the conviction that I could tell people’s nationality at a distance at a glance. Recently there had been a couple of lucky shots in the dark doing that. And then, at a tea the day before, he had asked what the nationality was of a rather Syrian-looking woman who was new in town and new to me. I’d said Oh, British, flooring him. But it had been easy because I’d overheard her say arvacado for avocado earlier, unbeknownst to him.
    You’re unique, he said. No woman in my life has done for me half what you have, and yet you’ve asked nothing. Please, what can I do for you?
    Really nothing. I enjoyed this. Nothing, unless you wanted to satisfy my curiosity about something.
    Anything. What?
    I don’t know. Tell me something I’m not supposed to know.
    He got tense instantly. I said Now don’t do that and ruin our work. Let’s drop it.
    But what did I mean?
    I began kneading him while I vamped. I said I know this will seem perverse to you. But in a way—and I understand it has to be this way, don’t think I don’t—in a way there’s something in you I can’t reach and never will and probably it can’t be helped, but it’s a hindrance, really. I know how involuted this sounds. But you are obviously some kind of spy or operative, which is all right, but you are. I happen to know about it. But of course life puts us in the position where you have to deny this to my face, so feel free. But you know what I am and I can’t know what you are, which I accept, because your mission is to playact the commercial attaché for me and what is resulting is false consciousness, inevitably.
    He got very upset. We had to talk. I had to get off him and we both had to dress and talk properly. He wanted a drink.
    We sat at the kitchen table after he had washed his face twice and made me look around to see if perchance there were any cigarettes about.
    He didn’t immediately deny being a spy but took a line which I didn’t honor with a reply. He wanted to know where on earth I had gotten such an idea, and from whom.
    Then he did deny it, to which I said Fine, but I know otherwise for a fact, and you might consider admitting something just for the sake of our relationship.
    How did I mean? Did I mean he couldn’t see me, all this couldn’t continue, if he didn’t confirm what I was saying?
    Then we circled around my assertion that of course I was not saying anything like that and of course we could go on, however imperfectly. And then of course I invited him to reassure himself any way he liked that there was nothing clandestine going on with me, no tape recorders or surveillance cameras, which he dismissed curtly, saying I know who you are.
    Then it was theme and variations, theme being tell me what I am, then: I’m an anthropologist, I have a hobby which is related and which is putting together an understanding of the real world and trying to live in it. He should consider it a quirk.
    Somehow I knew it was no longer touch and go. He continued looking stricken for a while, then said Well, suppose I were to go along with you and we carry on together and I endorse this fairytale that I am whatever you like: what would you be expecting then?
    We could do that, I said. It would be up to you. This is symbolicanyway. You could tell me something I’m not supposed to know, and it could be anything. It’s a token of something. Let’s forget it. There