She cocked her head slyly and smiled. "Say, Captain Hansard, I'm glad
you're here."
"The feeling is mutual, Mrs. Panofsky. I'd rather be having a steak dinner
with you than with "A" Company."
"We'll have some fun together, Captain."
"But some food first?"
"Mmm." Bridgetta Panofsky leaned forward through Howard Johnson's Formica
tabletop and, apropos of nothing, she laid a gloved hand on Nathan Hansard's
throat and slowly, deliberately, and a little insistently kissed his lips.
"Hey, you're married, remember?"
Her laughter was too self-assured to be due to embarrassment. "Such an
old-fashioned
pickle
," she commented, as she stood to leave. "But I
rather like that."
Jesus Christ, Hansard thought to himself. He thought it with such force
that he wasn't quite sure he had not said it aloud. For Hansard's moral
sense was too finely formed to tolerate a double standard. The notion
of adultery with another man's wife was as noxious to him as, years
before, his own wife's adultery had been. In any case, moral sense
notwithstanding, he had scarcely had an opportunity yet to be tempted;
nor was he, given that opportunity, in condition to respond to it.
Perhaps this was what she had in mind when Bridgetta said to him,
as they left the restaurant, "First thing, we'll get some chicken broth
into your belly, and then maybe some soft-boiled eggs. But no steaks --
not for a day or so. Do you like curries? Bernie makes very good curries."
"Don't know. Never had curry."
"Lord, you
are
a military man! I've always liked men in uniform, but
Bernie doesn't feel that way at all. Oh, now you've started blushing
again. Really, you don't have the blood to waste on blushing, Captain."
"You'll have to excuse me," Hansard said stiffly.
"No, no," Bridgetta said, with an abrupt shift of mood, "you'll have
to excuse
me
. You see, if the truth be told, Captain, if you could
see what I'm feeling tonight, you'd see . . ." She broke off for a while,
then continued, shaking her head as though in anger for her own awkwardness.
"I'm afraid, that's all. And when a person is afraid -- why, then she reaches
out. You know? Will you hold my hand at least? Like that. Thank you."
After they had walked on a way he asked, "What are you afraid of?"
"Why, what is anybody afraid of, Captain?"
"I don't know."
"Of dying, certainly."
NINE
PANOFSKY
"You'll have to admit," Bridie said, "that he's smart."
"Smart, smart, what is smart?" asked Panofsky. "A rat that runs a maze
is smart. I'm smart. President Madigan is smart."
"And that he's polite and respectful," Jet added.
"At the moment, that is only a part of being smart," snapped the other
Panofsky. "You might as well say that because he's good-looking -- "
"He does have an honest face," said Bridget firmly.
"Because he doesn't often smile," said the first Panofsky.
"He was humorous enough with
me
, love," Jet argued. "You forget at times
how much you throw most people off balance. Captain Hansard didn't know what
to make of you last night."
"Goulash or shishkebab, eh?"
"That's being perfectly unfair," Bridget objected in her loftiest tone.
"You heard everything the good captain said at Howard Johnson's over
Jet's little transmitter. Not only is he not a
cannibal
, he's also the
last of the Puritans -- by the looks of it." The other two Bridgettas
nodded their heads in glum confirmation.
"But there's no need to write him off
yet
," Jet said, rallying. "He just
needs to get his strength back."
"I think you're missing Bridget's point," Bridie said. "In
her gentle way she was suggesting that you went after
him too quickly. Why, the poor man must suppose that
he's escaped from a den of cannibals into a nest of
vampires."
"Girls, girls," said both Panofskys together. Then the one who wore the
knitted skull cap (possession of which gave its wearer priority at such
times) continued: "I have no desire to engage in a debate on the merits
of different strategies of seduction. I only wish to counsel you not to
set your hearts too much on keeping him. Remember, he is in the Army; and
while you're admiring the uniform, watch out for the iron heel. Perhaps
Bridie is right about going slow with him. He's survived this long only
by having a too-rigid character. If it cracks there's no telling what
will come out from the old shell. But I'm certain I'd rather not find
out. Do you agree with me, Bernard?"
"Entirely, Bernard."
"Then to your posts -- and may the best woman win."
"Did you sleep well, Captain?"
"Very well, thank you." Hansard sat up from the mattress on which he had
spent the night. "How do you do it?"
"The mattress, you mean? Bernie has to take all the credit for provisioning
us. In fact, you have Bernie to thank for this too. It's his breakfast,
but he thought you'd appreciate it more."
Bridget held out the tray she was carrying. It held a plate of three
fried eggs, other plates of bacon and toast, a pint glass of orange
juice, a silver scallop-dish of jam, and an antique coffee server from
the Plaza Hotel. Steam rose from the spout of the server.
"After you've eaten I'll have some water ready for you to shave with,
unless you'd rather let your beard grow out."
"Amazing," said Hansard, oblivious for the first few moments of anything
but the breakfast. After one egg, however, he looked up. "You're a
different color today," he observed. For
this
Bridgetta's hair was
not red but flaxen-blond and braided into a tight crown about her head,
Irish-peasant-style.
"I'm a different girl altogether. It was Jet who rescued you yesterday.
She's the beauty of the family. I'm Bridget -- I take care of household
things. And you've still to meet Bridie, the intellectual one."
"But aren't you all the same person? I mean, you speak as though the others
were your older sisters."
"In a sense they are. It's important, if only for our self-concept, that
we should be able to tell each other apart. So we try, by division of labor,
to split the old single Bridgetta-identity into three. The youngest always
has to be Bridget, because obviously that's the least fun."
"The youngest?"
"The one to have come out of the manmitter most recently is the youngest.
You understand how it works, don't you? It's sort of like an echo.
Well, the echo that's me has only been here a week. Jet, who was Bridget
before I came, has been here four months now. And Bridie has been around
from the very start, two years ago. You can always tell which of us is
which because I'm blond and wear an apron; Jet is a redhead and dresses
alamode, and Bridie is a sort of ashy brunette and has a moldy old lab
coat. It's remarkable how easily clothes can dictate one's behavior."
"And your husband, are there more than one of him?"
"Two. But we thought we'd only confront you with one of each of us last
night to keep things simple. Bernard is always just Bernard. He doesn't
bother to differentiate between his two selves the way we do. In any case,
there's very little that could threaten
his
self-concept. Tell me,
Captain, do you like me better as a blonde or as a redhead?"
Hansard shook his head, as though to clear away cobwebs. "For a moment
there you really did have me believing you were a different person than
the girl I met last night, but when you said that I knew better."
"Excuse me, Captain, it's not always easy to remember to keep in character
as a drudge. Even Cinderella has moments, when her sisters are away. . . .
You ate all that so fast! Do you want more?"
"Not now."
"Then, if you please, come with me. Bernard wants to have a word with you."
It was like following a teacher to the principal's office. Hansard wondered
what he could possibly have done wrong already.
"I can't tell you how much I appreciate your hospitality, Doctor Pan- "
"Then don't make the attempt, Mr. Hansard. You will excuse me if I do not
employ your proper title, but for me it would be a pejorative form.
My experiences with the American military, and before that with the
military establishments of East Germany and the Third Reich, have been,
on the whole, unhappy experiences. You may use the same informality
in addressing me. In America I have always felt that that 'Doctor' of
yours also has a pejorative sense when it refers to someone outside the
medical profession. Dr. Strangelove, for instance, or Dr. Frankenstein."
"I'll try and remember that, sir. I certainly didn't intend any disrespect."
"How old are you, Mr. Hansard?"
"Thirty-eight."
"Married?"
"Divorced."
"So much the better. You are just the right age for my Bridgetta.
She is twenty-seven."
"Just the right age for your Bridgetta for
what
, sir?"
"For what!" The two Panofskys laughed in chorus. Then, pointing at his
double, the Panofsky wearing the skull cap said: "Do you not see those
wispy gray hairs? That shrunken chest? Do you not realize that that old
man is paralyzed from the waist down?"
"Nonsense, Bernard!" said the double.
"Please to remember, Bernard," said Panofsky, laying his hand on the
skull cap, "that I have the floor. And allow me a little poetic license
in stating my case. Where was I? From the waist down, yes. Do you not
see me here before you in a wheel chair? And you ask ' For what?'
Are you naďve, my good Captain?"
"It's not that exactly," Hansard mumbled, shifting his gaze uneasily
from one Panofsky to the other.
"Or, perhaps, though you're willing enough to go out and kill people
or to push the button that will destroy the world, you have too fine a
moral sense to think of a little hanky-panky?"
"It may surprise you to learn that some of us military men do have a
moral sense --
Doctor
."
"Ah, he's got you there, Bernard," said the Panofsky without the cap.
"Dead to rights."
"If you have an objection, Mr. Hansard, please to state it."
"Much as I admire your wife's fine qualities -- "
"My wives, rather. There are presently three women meriting the
distinction."
"Lovely as all three are, they are your wives, sir. And I don't believe
in, uh, promiscuity. Not with another man's wedded wife."
"Really, Captain?" Both old gentlemen leaned forward in their wheel chairs.
"Excuse me, but is that your sincere objection?"
"I might have others, but I wouldn't know of them yet. The one I stated is
sufficient in itself to be a basis for decision. Why should you question
my sincerity?"
"Ask him if he's a Catholic, Bernard," said the Panofsky without the cap.
"Bernard, if you want to take over this discussion, I will give you my cap.
As it happens I was about to ask him just that question. Well, Captain?"
"No, sir. I was raised a Methodist, but it's been a few years since I've
been in any kind of church at all."
Both Panofskys sighed. "The reason we asked," the first explained, "is that
it's so unusual today to find a young man of your convictions. Even within
the church. We are both Catholics, you see, though that becomes a
problematical statement at the present time. Are we in fact
two
? But
that's all theology, and I won't go into that now. As for these scruples
of yours, I think they can be cleared up easily. You see, our marriage
is of a rather fictitious quality. Bridgetta is my wife in -- what is
that nice euphemism, Bernard?"
"In name only."
"Ah, yes! My wife in name only. Further, we were wed in a civil ceremony
instead of before a priest. We married each other with the clear
understanding that there were to be no children. Even had we had such
an intention, it is highly doubtful, considering my age, that it could
have been accomplished. In the eyes of Holy Mother Church such a marriage
is no marriage at all. If we had access to the machinery of canon law,
an annulment could be obtained with ease. But after all, an annulment
is only a formality, a statement that says that what does not exist has
never happened.
"Consider, if you prefer, that Bridgetta is my daughter rather than my
wife. That is more usual in these cases, isn't it -- that the wise old
scientist, or the evil old scientist, as the case may be, should have a
lovely daughter to give to the hero? And I've never heard it to happen
that the hero refuses her."
"What was the point in having married her at all, if what you say is so?"
"My civil marriage to Bridgetta, whom, you must understand, I dearly love,
is a mariage de convenance. I need an heir, someone who can inherit from me;
for I have earned, from the government and through patent contracts,
a fantabulous amount of money -- "
"Fantabulous -- how vulgar!" observed the double quietly.
"Yes, but how
American
! And so I married Bridgetta, who had been my
laboratory assistant, so that she might inherit from me. Otherwise it
would go to the government, for whom I have no great love. Then, too,
someone must carry on my legal battles in the courts after I'm dead -- "
"Against the Emergency Allocations Act, you know."
" I'm telling this, Bernard. And finally I need someone to talk to in
this gloomy prison besides the secret service guards and brainwashed
lab technicians they assign to me. I'm not allowed to hold private
conversations with my colleagues from the university any more, because
they're afraid I'll leak their secret weapon . . . which I invented! In
just such a manner as this was Prometheus dealt with for giving man the
gift of fire."
"Now, Bernard, don't overexcite yourself. Better give me the cap for a
while now, and I'll straighten out matters with the captain. I think we
can come to an understanding that will satisfy everyone -- "
But before this happy accord could be reached, they were interrupted by
Bridgetta -- a fourth version, with black hair -- who entered through the
door at the farther end of the room. Bridget, Jet, and Bridie followed
closely after.
"She's going through," Bridie announced. And indeed it was so, for the
new, black-haired Bridgetta walked on relentlessly toward and then through
her husband, who seemed not at all perplexed by the experience.
"That was Bridgetta-Sub-One, of course," his double explained to Hansard.
"Otherwise, you know, she wouldn't go around the house opening doors
instead of, like any proper ghost, walking through them. Bridgetta Sub-One
is leaving for Paris.