“But Radmila is your own clone. Radmila looks exactly like you do.”
Vera shifted in her chair in anguish. “That is not true! The fact that we’re genetically identical means nothing. We are very, very different. She’s a cheat, she’s evil, she’s wrong.”
There was no more “Radmila.” Once there had been a Radmila, and she and Radmila had been the same. They had been the great septet of caryatids: seven young women, superwomen, cherished and entirely special, designed and created for the single mighty purpose of averting the collapse of the world. They were meant to support and bear its every woe.
The world had collapsed and the caryatids were scattered all over: they were wrecked, shot, exposed, scattered and broken into pieces, their creator hunted and hounded like a monster… And in the place of beautiful Radmila, magical Radmila, that noble creature Vera had loved much better than herself, there was only the diseased and decadent “Mila Montalban.” A rich actress in Los Angeles. Mila Montalban took drugs and dressed like a prostitute.
“Vera, why do you say such cruel things? Your brother George—he suffered like you suffered, but he would never say such demeaning things about his sisters.”
Far from calming her, these words spurred instant, uncontrollable fury. “I hate Radmila! Radmila makes me sick! I wish that Radmila was dead! Bratislava died. Svetlana, Kosara, they died, too! I wish Radmila had died with them, she should have died! Running away from me, foreverthat was only a foul thing to do… “
“I know that you don’t really feel that way about your sisters.”
“They’re not my sisters, and of course I feel that way. They should never have existed, and never walked the Earth. They belong in the grave.”
“Your brother George is alive and he’s walking the Earth,” said Herbert calmly. “You talk to George sometimes, you’re not entirely isolated from your family. You don’t hate George in that profound way, do you?”