Bradbury, Ray - SSC 07 (46 page)

 
          
 
"I don't know," she said.

 
          
 
"We'll go back to town maybe next year,
or the year after, or the year after that," he said, calmly. "Now—I'm
warm. How about taking a swim?"

 
          
 
They turned their backs to the valley. Arm in
arm they walked silently down a path of clear-running spring water.

 
          
 
Five years later a rocket fell out of the sky.
It lay steaming in the valley. Men leaped out of it, shouting.

 
          
 
"We won the war on Earth! We're here to
rescue you! Hey!" But the American-built town of cottages, peach trees,
and theaters was silent. They found a flimsy rocket frame rusting in an empty
shop.

 
          
 
The rocket men searched the hills. The captain
established headquarters in an abandoned bar. His lieutenant came back to
report.

 
          
 
"The town's empty, but we found native
life in the hills, sir. Dark people. Yellow eyes. Martians. Very friendly. We
talked a bit, not much. They learn English fast. I'm sure our relations will be
most friendly with them, sir."

 
          
 
"Dark, eh?" mused the captain.
"How many?"

 
          
 
"Six, eight hundred, I'd say, living in
those marble ruins in the hills, sir. Tall, healthy. Beautiful women."

 
          
 
"Did they tell you what became of the men
and women who built this Earth-settlement, Lieutenant?"

 
          
 
"They hadn't the foggiest notion of what
happened to this town or its people."

 
          
 
"Strange. You think those Martians killed
them?"

 
          
 
"They look surprisingly peaceful. Chances
are a plague did this town in, sir."

 
          
 
"Perhaps. I suppose this is one of those
mysteries we'll never solve. One of those mysteries you read about."

 
          
 
The captain looked at the room, the dusty
windows, the blue mountains rising beyond, the canals moving in the light, and
he heard the soft wind in the air. He shivered. Then, recovering, he tapped a
large fresh map he had thumbtacked to the top of an empty table.

 
          
 
"Lots to be done. Lieutenant." His
voice droned on and quietly on as the sun sank behind the blue hills. "New
settlements. Mining sites, minerals to be looked for. Bacteriological specimens
taken. The work, all the work. And the old records were lost. We'll have a job
of remapping to do, renaming the mountains and rivers and such. Calls for a
little imagination.

 
          
 
"What do you think of naming those
mountains the
Lincoln
Mountains
,
this canal the
Washington
Canal
,
those hills—we can name those hills for you.
Lieutenant.
Diplomacy.
And you, for a favor, might name a town for
me.
Polishing the apple.
And why not make this the
Einsteui
Valley
, and further over . . . are
you listening, Lieutenant?"

 
          
 
The lieutenant snapped his gaze from the blue
color and the quiet mist of the hills far beyond the town.

 
          
 
"What? Oh, yes, sir!"

 
          
 
In the town square the queue had formed at
five in the morning while cocks were crowing far out in the rimed country and
there were no fires. All about, among the ruined buildings, bits of mist had
clung at first, but now with the new light of
seven
o'clock
it was beginning to disperse. Down the road, in twos and
threes, more people were gathering in for the day of marketing, the day of
festival.

 
          
 
The small boy stood immediately behind two men
who had been talking loudly in the clear air, and all of the sounds they made
seemed twice as loud because of the cold. The small boy stomped his feet and
blew on his red, chapped hands, and looked up at the soiled gunny-sack clothing
of the men and down the long line of men and women ahead.

 
          
 
"Here, boy, what're you doing out so
early?" said the man behind him.

 
          
 
"Got my place in line, I have," said
the boy.

 
          
 
"Whyn't you run off, give your place to
someone who appreciates?"

 
          
 
"Leave the boy alone," said the man
ahead, suddenly turning.

 
          
 
"I was joking." The man behind put
his hand on the boy's head. The boy shook it away coldly. "I just thought
it strange, a boy out of bed so early."

 
          
 
"This boy's an appreciator of arts, I'll
have you know," said the boy's defender, a man named Grigsby. "What's
your name, lad?"

 
          
 
"Tom."

 
          
 
"Tom here is going to spit clean and
true, right, Tom?"

 
          
 
"I sure am!"

 
          
 
Laughter passed down the line.

 
          
 
A man was selling cracked cups of hot coffee
up ahead. Tom looked and saw the little hot fire and the brew bubbling in a
rusty pan. It wasn't really coffee. It was made from some berry that grew on
the meadowlands beyond town, and it sold a penny a cup to warm their stomachs;
but not many were buying, not many had the wealth.

 
          
 
Tom stared ahead to the place where the line
ended, beyond a bombed-out stone wall.

 
          
 
"They say she smiles," said the boy.

 
          
 
"Aye, she does," said Grigsby.

 
          
 
"They say she's made of oil and
canvas."

 
          
 
"True. And that's what makes me think
she's not the original one. The original, now, I've heard, was painted on wood
a long time ago."

 
          
 
"They say she's four centuries old."

 
          
 
"Maybe more. No one knows what year this
is, to be sure."

 
          
 
"It's 2061!"

 
          
 
"That's what they say, boy, yes. Liars.
Could be 3000 or 5000, for all we know. Things were in a fearful mess there for
a while. All we got now is bits and pieces."

 
          
 
They shuffled along the cold stones of the
street.

 
          
 
"How much longer before we see her?"
asked Tom uneasily.

 
          
 
"Just a few more minutes. They got her
set up with four brass poles and velvet rope, all fancy, to keep folks back.
Now mind, no rocks, Tom; they don't allow rocks thrown at her."

 
          
 
"Yes, sir."

 
          
 
The sun rose higher in the heavens, bringing
heat which made the men shed their grimy coats and greasy hats.

 
          
 
"Why're we all here in line?" asked
Tom at last. "Why're we all here to spit?"

 
          
 
Grigsby did not glance down at him, but judged
the sun. "Well, Tom, there's lots of reasons." He reached absently
for a pocket that was long gone, for a cigarette that wasn't there. Tom had
seen the gesture a million times. "Tom, it has to do with hate. Hate for
everything in the Past. I ask you, Tom, how did we get in such a state, cities
all junk, roads like jigsaws from bombs, and half the cornfields glowing with
radioactivity at night? Ain't that a lousy stew, I ask you?"

 
          
 
"Yes, sir, I guess so."

 
          
 
"It's this way, Tom. You hate whatever it
was that got you all knocked down and ruined. That's human nature. Unthinking,
maybe, but human nature anyway."

 
          
 
"There's hardly nobody or nothing we
don't hate," said Tom.

 
          
 
"Right! The whole blooming kaboodle of
them people in the Past who run the world. So here we are on a Thursday morning
with our guts plastered to our spines, cold, live in caves and such, don't
smoke, don't drink, don't nothing except have our festivals, Tom, our
festivals."

 
          
 
And Tom thought of the festivals in the past
few years. The year they tore up all the books in the square and burned them
and everyone was drunk and laughing. And the festival of science a month ago
when they dragged in the last motorcar and picked lots and each lucky man who
won was allowed one smash of a sledge hammer at the car.

 
          
 
"Do I remember that, Tom? Do I remember?
Why, I got to smash the front window, the window, you hear? My God, it made a
lovely sound! Crash!"

 
          
 
Tom could hear the glass fall in glittering
heaps.

 
          
 
"And Bill Henderson, he got to bash the
engine. Oh, he did a smart job of it, with great efficiency. Wham!

 
          
 
"But best of all," recalled Grigsby,
"there was the time they smashed a factory that was still trying to turn
out airplanes.

 
          
 
"Lord, did we feel good blowing it
up!" said Grigsby. "And then we found that newspaper plant and the
munitions depot and exploded them together. Do you understand, Tom?"

 
          
 
Tom puzzled over it. "I guess."

 
          
 
It was high noon. Now the odors of the ruined
city stank on the hot air and things crawled among the tumbled buildings.

 
          
 
"Won't it ever come back, mister?"

 
          
 
"What, civilization? Nobody wants it. Not
me!"

 
          
 
"I could stand a bit of it," said
the man behind another man. "There were a few spots of beauty in it."

 
          
 
"Don't worry your heads," shouted
Grigsby. "There's no room for that, either."

 
          
 
"Ah," said the man behind the man.
"Someone'll come along someday with imagination and patch it up. Mark my
words. Someone with a heart."

 
          
 
"No," said Grigsby.

 
          
 
"I say yes. Someone with a soul for
pretty things. Might give us back a kind of limited sort of civilization, the
kind we could live in in peace."

 
          
 
"First thing you know there's war!"

 
          
 
"But maybe next time it'd be different."

 
          
 
At last they stood in the main square. A man
on horseback was riding from the distance into the town. He had a piece of
paper in his hand. In the center of the square was the roped-off area. Tom,
Grigsby, and the others were collecting their spittle and moving forward—moving
forward prepared and ready, eyes wide. Tom felt his heart beating very strongly
and excitedly, and the earth was hot under his bare feet.

 
          
 
"Here we go, Tom, let fly!"

 
          
 
Four policemen stood at the comers of the
roped area, four men with bits of yellow twine on their wrists to show their
authority over other men. They were there to prevent rocks being hurled.

 
          
 
"This way," said Grigsby at the last
moment, "everyone feels he's had his chance at her, you see, Tom? Go on, now!"

 
          
 
Tom Stood before the painting and looked at it
for a long time.

 
          
 
"Tom, spit!"

 
          
 
His mouth was dry.

 
          
 
"Get on, Tom! Move!"

 
          
 
"But," said Tom, slowly, "she's
beautiful!"

 
          
 
"Here, I'll spit for you!" Grigsby
spat and the missile flew in the sunlight. The woman in the portrait smiled
serenely, secretly, at Tom, and he looked back at her, his heart beating, a
kind of music in his ears.

 
          
 
"She's beautiful," he said.

 
          
 
"Now get on, before the police—"

 
          
 
"Attention!"

 
          
 
The line fell silent. One moment they were
berating Tom for not moving forward, now they were turning to the man on
horseback.

 
          
 
"What do they call it, sir?" asked
Tom, quietly.

 
          
 
"The picture? Mona Lisa, Tom, I think.
Yes, the Mona Lisa"

 
          
 
"I have an announcement," said the
man on horseback. "The authorities have decreed that as of high noon today
the portrait in the square is to be given over into the hands of the populace
there, so they may participate in the destruction of—"

 
          
 
Tom hadn't even time to scream before the
crowd bore him, shouting and pummeling about, stampeding toward the portrait.
There was a sharp ripping sound. The police ran to escape. The crowd was in
full cry, their hands hke so many hungry birds pecking away at the portrait.
Tom felt himself thrust almost through the broken thing. Reaching out in blind
imitation of the others, he snatched a scrap of oily canvas, yanked, felt the
canvas give, then fell, was kicked, sent rolling to the outer rim of the mob.
Bloody, his clothing torn, he watched old women chew pieces of canvas, men
break the frame, kick the ragged cloth, and rip it into confetti.

 
          
 
Only Tom stood apart, silent in the moving
square. He looked down at his hand. It clutched the piece of canvas close to
his chest, hidden.

 
          
 
"Hey there, Tom!" cried Grigsby.

 
          
 
Without a word, sobbing, Tom ran. He ran out
and down the bomb-pitted road, into a field, across a shallow stream, not
looking back, his hand clenched tightly, tucked under his coat.

 
          
 
At sunset he reached the small village and
passed on through. By
nine o'clock
he
came to the ruined farm dwelling. Around back, in the half silo, in the part
that still remained upright, tented over, he heard the sounds of sleeping, the
family—his mother, father, and brother. He slipped quickly, silently, through
the small door and lay down, panting.

 
          
 
"Tom?" called his mother in the
dark.

 
          
 
"Yes."

 
          
 
"Where've you been?" snapped his
father, "I'll beat you in the morning."

 
          
 
Someone kicked him. His brother, who had been
left behind to work their little patch of ground.