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"Thanks," says Toby. "Nice china."
"Dig in, sweetie. Pig in three forms: bacon, ham, and chops." It hadn't taken them long to backslide on the Gardener Vegivows, thinks Toby. Even Jelack Rebecca is having no problems with the pork. "Burdock root. Dandelion greens. Dog ribs on the side. If I keep it up with the animal protein I'm going to get even fatter than I am."
"You're not fat," says Toby. Though Rebecca has always been solid, even back when they'd worked together slinging meat at SecretBurgers, before they turned Gardener.
"I love you too," says Rebecca. "Okay, I'm not fat. Those glasses are real crystal, I'm enjoying it. Cost a mint, this stuff did once. Remember at the Gardeners? Vanity kills, Adam One used to tell us, so it was earthenware or die. Though I can see the day coming when we're not gonna be bothered with dishes anymore, we'll just eat with our hands."
"There is a place in even the purest and most dedicated life for simple elegance," says Toby. "As Adam One also used to tell us."
"Yeah, but sometimes that place is the trash can," says Rebecca. "I've got a whole stack of lap-sized linen table napkins, and I can't iron them because there's no iron, and that really bugs me!" She sits down, forks a piece of meat onto her plate.
"I'm glad you're not dead too," says Toby. "Any coffee?"
"Yeah, if you can ignore the burnt twigs and roots and crap. There's no caffeine in it, but I'm counting on the placebo effect. I see you brought a whole mob back with you last night. Those - what would you call them, anyway?"
"They're people," says Toby. Or I think they're people, she adds to herself. "They're Crakers. That's what the MaddAddam bunch calls them, and I guess they should know."
"They're definitely not like us," says Rebecca. "No way close. That little pisher Crake. Talk about fouling up the sandbox."
"They want to be near Jimmy," says Toby. "They carried him back here."
"Yeah, I heard that part," says Rebecca. "Tamaraw enlightened me. They should go back to - to wherever they live."
"They say they need to purr on him," says Toby. "On Jimmy."
"Excuse me? Do what on him?" says Rebecca with a small snort of laughter. "Is that one of their weird sex things?"
Toby sighs. "It's hard to explain," she says. "You have to see it."
Hammock
After breakfast Toby goes over to take a look at Jimmy. He's suspended between two trees in a makeshift hammock fashioned from duct tape and rope. Over his legs is a child's comforter with a pattern of cats playing fiddles, laughing puppies, dishes with faces on them holding hands with grinning spoons, and cows with bells around their necks jumping over moons that are leering at their udders. Just what you need when you're hallucinating, thinks Toby.
Three Crakers - two women and a man - are sitting beside Jimmy's hammock on chairs that may once have belonged with the dining table: dark wood, with retro lyre backs and yellow-and-brown-striped satiny upholstery. The Crakers look wrong on these chairs, but they also look pleased with themselves, as if they're doing something quietly adventurous. Their bodies gleam like gold-threaded spandex; huge pink kudzu moths are fluttering around their heads in living halos.
They're preternaturally beautiful, thinks Toby. Unlike us. We must seem subhuman to them, with our flapping extra skins, our aging faces, our warped bodies, too thin, too fat, too hairy, too knobbly. Perfection exacts a price, but it's the imperfect who pay it.
Each of the Crakers has one hand on Jimmy. They're purring; the hum gets louder as Toby walks over to them.
"Greetings, Oh Toby," says the taller of the two women. How do they know her name? They must have listened more carefully than she'd thought last night. And how should she reply? What are their own names, and is it polite to ask?
"Greetings," she says. "How is Snowman-the-Jimmy today?"
"He is growing stronger, Oh Toby," says the shorter woman. The others smile.
Jimmy does look somewhat better. He's pinker, he's cooler, and he's sound asleep. They've fixed him up: tidied his hair, cleaned his beard. On his head is a battered red baseball cap, on his wrist a round watch with a blank face. A pair of sunglasses with one eye missing is perched awkwardly on his nose.
"Maybe he'd be more comfortable without those things on him," says Toby, indicating the hat and the sunglasses.
"He must have those things," says the man. "Those are the things of Snowman-the-Jimmy."
"He needs them," says the shorter woman. "Crake says he must have them. See, here is the thing for listening to Crake." She lifts the arm with the watch on it.
"And he sees Crake with this," says the man, pointing to the sunglasses. "Only he." Toby wants to ask what the hat is for, but she refrains.
"Why have you moved him outside?" she asks.
"He did not like it in that dark place," says the man. "In there." He nods towards the house.
