Her list of annoyances was
undoubtedly considerable. And there was no way to tell what was included. He
couldn’t help thinking of Koko’s song in
The Mikado:
… But it really doesn’t
matter whom you put upon the
list,
For
they’d none of ‘em be missed—they’d none of ‘em be
missed!
Not an encouraging thought. Whatever
thing, object, or event had at any time in her fifty-odd years stirred the
smooth surface of her vapid enjoyment was gently eased out of existence. He
could guess a few. Garbage men who rattled cans. Door-to-door salesmen. Bills
and tax forms of all lands. Crying babies (perhaps
all
babies). Drunks.
Filth. Poverty. Suffering in general.
It was a wonder anything was left.
“What’s
the matter?” Silky asked sympathetically.
“Don’t you feel
well?”
“It’s the smog,” he told
her. “It always makes me a
little
ill.”
“What,”
Silky inquired, “is smog? What a funny word.”
For a long time there was no
conversation; Hamilton simply sat and tried vainly to hang onto his reason.
“Would you like to stop
somewhere along the way?” Silky asked sympathetically. “For a glass
of lemonade?”
“Will you shut up!”
Hamilton shouted.
Blinking, Silky shot him a mute
glance of fear.
“Sorry.” Slumped over,
Hamilton fumbled for a labored apology. “New job—tough going.”
“I can imagine.”
“You can?” He couldn’t
keep the icy cynicism out of
his voice.
“By the way—you were going to tell me. What’s
your racket, these
days?”
“Same
thing.”
“And what the heck is
that?”
“I’m still working at the Safe
Harbor.”
A measure of confidence returned to
Hamilton. Some things, at least, endured. There was still a Safe Harbor. Some
small segment of reality carried over for him to hang his assurance on.
“Let’s go there,” he said greedily.
“A couple of beers, before we
go home.”
When they reached Belmont, Silky
parked across the street from the bar. Critically, Hamilton sat inspecting it.
At a distance, the bar wasn’t particularly changed. A trifle cleaner, perhaps.
More spick and span. The nautical element was intensified; the allusions to
alcohol seemed to have subtly diminished. In fact, he had trouble reading the
Golden
Glow
sign. The bright red letters seemed to fuse together into a
nondescript blur. If he didn’t already know what the sign read …
“Jack,”
Silky said, in a soft, troubled voice, “I wish you
could tell me
what it is.”
“What what is?”
“I—can’t say.” She smiled
hesitantly up at him. “I feel
so sort
of
odd.
I seem to have a lot of mixed-up memories
running around
loose in my head; nothing I can put my finger on, just a bunch of vague
impressions.”
“About
what?”
“About you and me.”
“Oh.” He nodded.
“That. And McFeyffe?”
“Charley, too. And Billy Laws.
It seems like it happened a long time ago. But it couldn’t, could it? Didn’t I
just meet you?” She pressed her slender fingers achingly to her temples;
idly, he noticed that she wore no nail polish. “It’s so darn
confusing.”
“I wish I could help you.”
And he meant it. “But I’ve been a little perplexed the last few days,
myself.”
Is everything all right? I feel as
if I’m just about to step through the pavement. You know
…
as if, when I put my foot down, it’ll
sink on through.” She laughed nervously. “It must be time to find
myself another ana
lyst.”
“Another?
You mean you’ve got one now?”
“Of course.” She turned
anxiously toward him. “That’s what I mean. You say things like that and it
makes me feel so uncertain. You shouldn’t ask me things like that, Jack; it
isn’t right. It—hurts too much.”
“I’m sorry,” he said
awkwardly. “It isn’t your fault; no point needling you.”
“My fault? About what?”
“Let it go.” Pushing the
car door open, he stepped down onto the dark sidewalk. “Let’s get inside
and have
our beers.”
Safe Harbor had undergone an
internal metamorphosis. Small square tables, draped with starched, white
cotton cloths, were neatly spaced here and there. A candle burned and dripped
on each table. On the walls hung a series of Currier and Ives prints. A few
middle-aged couples sat quietly eating tossed green salad.
“It’s nicer in the back,”
Silky said, leading the way among the tables. Soon they were sitting in the
dark shadows of a rear booth, menus open in front of them.
The beer, when it came, was about
the best beer he had ever tried. Examining the menu, he discovered that it was
the real McCoy: genuine German bock beer, the kind he could seldom locate. For
the first time since entering this world, he began to feel optimistic, even
cheerful.
“Here’s a rat down your
shirt,” he said to Silky, lift
ing his
mug.
Smiling, Silky did the same. It’s
good to be sitting
here with you
again,” she told him, sipping.
“Sure
is.”
Fussing
with her drink, Silky asked, “Do you recom
mend any particular
analyst? I’ve tried hundreds … I’m always going on to the next one in line.
Trying to find the best. Everybody has one he recommends.”
“Not me,” Hamilton said.
“Really? How eccentric.”
She gazed past him at the Currier and Ives print on the wall behind the table;
it showed a New England winter in 1845. “I guess I’ll go over to the MMHA
and see their consultant. They usu
ally can
help.”
“What’s
the MMHA?”
“The Mobilized Mental Hygiene
Association. Aren’t
you a member?
Everybody’s a member.”
“I’m a marginal
character.”
From her purse, Silky got out her
membership card and showed it to him. “They handle all your mental health
problems. It’s wonderful … an analysis any hour of the day or night.”
“Regular
medicine, too?”
“You
mean psychosomatics?”
“I
suppose so.”
“They take care of that, too.
And they have a twenty-
four hour dietetics
service.”
Hamilton groaned.
“(Tetragrammaton) was better.”
“(Tetragrammaton)?”
Silky was suddenly floundering.
“Do I know that name? What’s it
mean? I have a land of vague impression that—” Sadly, she shook her head.
“I just can’t fix it”
“Tell
me about dietetics.”
“Well, they take care of your
diet”
“So I gathered.”
“The correct food is very
important. Right now I’m
living on molasses
and cottage cheese.”
“Give
me sirloin steak,” Hamilton said feelingly.
Shocked,
Silky gazed at him with horror. “Steak? Ani
mal flesh?”
“You
bet. And plenty of it. Smothered in onions, with
baked potato, green
peas, and hot black coffee.”
Horror
turned to revulsion. “Oh,
Jack!”
“What’s
wrong?”
“You’re
a—
savage.”
Leaning across the table toward the
girl, Hamilton said: “What do you say we get the heck out of here? Let’s
go park on some back road and have sexual
intercourse.”
The girl’s face showed only puzzled
indifference. “I
don’t
understand.”
Hamilton sagged. “Forget
it”
“But—”
“Forget it!” Moodily, he
gulped down the remains of his beer. “Come on, let’s go home and have
dinner. Marsha’s probably wondering what happened to us.”
X
Marsha
greeted them with relief as they filed into the
bright little living room. “Just in
time,” she told Hamil
ton, standing on tiptoe to kiss him. In her
apron and
print dress she was a pretty, slender
shape, warm and fragrant. “Go wash and sit down.”
“Can
I help with anything?” Silky asked politely.
“Not
a thing. Jack, take her coat.”
“That’s
all right,” Silky said, “I’ll just toss it in the bedroom.” She
trotted off, leaving them briefly alone.
“This
is the damndest thing,” Hamilton said, following his wife into the
kitchen.
“You mean her?”
“Yeah.”
“When
did you meet her?”
“Last
week. Friend of McFeyffe’s.”
“She’s
cute.” Bending down, Marsha lifted a steaming casserole from the oven.
“So sweet and fresh.”
“Darling,
she’s a whore.”
“Oh.”
Marsha blinked. “Really? She doesn’t look like
a—what you said.”
“Of
course she doesn’t. They don’t have them here.”
Marsha
brightened. “Then she isn’t. She can’t be.”
Exasperated,
Hamilton blocked her way, as she started into the living room with the
casserole. “She is. In the real world she’s a barfly, a professional
pick-up hanging around bars soliciting men and drinks.”
“Oh,
really,” Marsha said, unconvinced. “I don’t believe it. We had a
long talk over the phone. She’s a waitress or something. She’s a charming
child.”
“Darling,
when her apparatus was intact—” He broke off, as Silky reappeared, pert
and wholesome-looking in her school girl’s outfit.
“I’m
surprised at you,” Marsha said to her husband, as she skipped back into
the kitchen. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”
Lamely, he
shambled off. “The hell with it.” Picking up the evening Oakland
Tribune,
he threw himself down on the couch, opposite Silky, and began scanning the
headlines.
Feinberg Announces New Discovery
Heralding Permanent Asthma Cure!
The article, on page one, showed a picture of a smil
ing, plump, balding, white-clad doctor, straight from a
mouthwash ad. The article told about his
world-shaking discovery. Column one, page one.
Column
two, page one, was a lengthy article on recent archeological discoveries in
the Middle East. Pots, dishes, and vases had been unearthed; an entire Iron Age
city had been located. Mankind watched with bated breath.
A kind of
morbid curiosity overcame him. What had become of the Cold War with Russia? For
that matter, what had become of Russia? Rapidly, he scanned the remaining
pages. What he discovered made the hackles of his neck rise.
Russia, as
a category, had been abolished. It was just too painfully unpleasant. Millions
of men and women,
millions of square miles
of land—gone. What was there, instead? A barren plain? A misty emptiness? A
vast pit?
In a
sense, there was no front section to the newspaper
…
It began with section two: the women’s world. Fashions,
social events, marriages and engage
ments,
cultural activities, games. The comic section? Part
of it was there—and
part of it wasn’t. The fun-loving joke comics remained, the kiddies’ humor
strips. But the detective, tough-guy, and girlie strips were absent. Not that
it mattered, much. Except that the peculiar expanse of bare white newsprint
seemed somehow un
satisfying.
That was
probably what northern Asia looked like, now. A kind of titanic strip of blank
newsprint, where
once millions of lives had
been lived, for better or worse.
Worse—as far as an overweight,
middle-aged woman named Edith Pritchet was concerned. Russia bothered her; like
a buzzing gnat, it made her life unpleasant.
Come to
think of it, he hadn’t seen any flies or gnats. Or spiders. Or pests of any
kind. By the time Mrs.
Pritchet was done,
this was going to be a mighty pleasant
world to live in
…
if anything remained.
“Doesn’t
it bother you?” he said suddenly to Silky. “That there isn’t any
Russia?”
“Any what?” Silky asked, looking up from her maga
zine.
“Forget it.” Throwing down his newspaper, he plodded
moodily out of the living room and into the kitchen.
“That’s the part I can’t stand,” he said to his wife.
“What’s that, darling?”
“They don’t care!”
Gently,
Marsha pointed out, “There never was any
Russia.
So how can they care?”
“But
they should care. If Mrs. Pritchet abolished
writing,
they wouldn’t care. They wouldn’t miss it—they
wouldn’t notice it was
gone.”
“If
they didn’t notice it,” Marsha said thoughtfully, “then what does it
matter?”
He hadn’t
thought about that. While the two women set the dinner table he did so.
“It’s worse,” he told Marsha. “That’s the worst part of it.
Edith Pritchet tampers with their world—she remakes their lives and they
don’t even notice. It’s terrible.”
“Why?” Marsha flared up. “Maybe it’s not so
terrible.”
Lowering her voice, she nodded
toward Silky. “Is that terrible? Was she so much better before?”
“That’s not the point. The point is—” He followed an
grily after her. “Now it’s not Silky. It’s somebody
else. A wax dummy Mrs. Pritchet made up to take Silky’s
place.”