Norman Invasions (30 page)

Such a crime then, or one very similar, had actually occurred.

I do not know how many times I read that brief account. I suppose each time I hoped it would say something different, or that I would find some exonerating clue there, in those few marks, which would prove to me my innocence.

I photocopied the item, put it in my pocket, and walked about, for a very long time.

My mind was in tumult.

I fear I was not thinking clearly.

Another seeming memory intruded itself, a figure thrusting a bundle of rolled clothing into a dumpster, and hurrying away.

I returned home.

The next morning I planned to report myself in to the police. It might be a different crime, of course, or it might have been solved, unbeknownst to me. Still, it was important to consult with the authorities. If I was a murderer, I did not want to risk being at large. I might kill again.

I did not sleep much that night, but fell asleep in the early morning.

I suddenly awoke in a sweat, shivering, sitting up in bed. I hurried to my coat and jerked forth the copy of the tabloid item from my pocket. I rushed then to the calendar, and my date book, on which I register appointments, and such. I again scrutinized the tabloid item. The date was in late August, and the crime had occurred the previous day, being mentioned in the next day's paper. I examined the calendar, the date book, a copy of the program's conference which I had attended, and in which I had participated. I had lectured, I had been on two panels, I had attended the banquet, I had sat with colleagues and acquaintances. I had been photographed. I had even signed some copies of the program. I had been at the university, in New Jersey, that weekend. The crime had occurred in New York City while I had been at the conference.

I fell beside the bed, clutching the sheets, and then rolled over and pounded on the floor with my fists, and cried out wildly, and then, fearfully, gasping, laughing, half choking with emotion, rose up and checked the dates again, and again. I was not there. I could not have been guilty of that crime.

But perhaps there had been another?

Momentarily I again felt sick.

But then I stood up, and readied myself for the day.

I had a good breakfast. I went down to the local subway station, and took the first uptown train. I came out of the subway and made my way to the nearest police station. I had taken with me as much documentation as to my whereabouts on the day of the crime as was convenient, and more could be provided, and it could all be checked.

It was that morning that I met the inspector.

Briefly he confirmed that the crime had occurred as recorded in the tabloid, and found the police file, with its numerous details, forensic and otherwise, which he kept closed on his desk.

He eyed me askance, and I did not blame him in the least.

In his response to my inquiry he informed me that the crime was still open on their books, that it had not been solved, and that there were no clues available which had been helpful. No authentic leads had been discovered. This, it seems, is not unoften the case with crimes of this nature. There had been perhaps an obvious motive, that of robbery, but there seemed no way to connect the crime with any particular individual. The victim was a small-time money lender with no obvious enemies, more than such a fellow would normally accrue in the course of his business, had no known connections to organized crime, had lived alone, had no criminal record, and was regarded as eccentric, and irascible. His neighbors knew little about him. They had not noted strangers in the building at the time of the murder. His records, if he had kept them, were missing, along with other materials, some furniture, lamps, and such, apparently removed from the flat between the discovery of the body, by a cleaning woman, and the arrival of the police. This, too, I gather, is not that unusual.

“I suppose you have some interest in this case, or evidence?” suggested the inspector.

I gathered he had things he would rather be doing.

“Perhaps,” I said. “I do not know.”

“I don't understand,” he said.

“It is hard to explain,” I said.

“You felt compelled to come here?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“I see,” he said, wearily.

“I don't understand,” I said.

He opened the file, without showing it to me.

“You have come to confess,” he said.

“What?” I said.

“Let's get this over with,” he said.

“Get what over with?” I asked.

“You don't look to me like a fellow who would even know the victim, and certainly not like one who would kill him.”

“I don't understand,” I said.

“But we have to get this over with,” he said. “Regulations. Twice a day we have people like you come in and confess to crimes. They may think they did it. Who knows? They may want to suffer. They may want to feel important. They may want publicity. They may want to be in the newspapers, on the evening news, impress people who think they are only unimportant, worthless, scrounging clowns, things like that.”

“I don't think you understand,” I said.

He glanced at the file, and drew a picture from it.

“Do you recognize this man?” he asked.

“No,” I said.

“He is the victim,” said the officer.

“No, he isn't,” I said. “That is not the victim, at least not the one I am thinking of. That is not him.”

“You're sure?”

“Certainly,” I said.

“That's a retired police officer,” said the inspector. “That means we have to go a little further.”

“Further?”

“How did you last see the body?” asked the inspector.

I described it, how it lay, the blood, and such.

“He was stabbed in the throat,” said the officer.

The fact that the man had knifed had been in the paper. The nature of the wound had not been reported.

“Not at all,” I said. “He was stabbed frontally, between the ribs, on the left side, toward the heart.”

The inspector looked up, surprised.

“Who told you that?” he asked.

“I remembered it,” I said.

The inspector now looked distinctly interested.

“In a sense,” I said.

“A sense?”

“Yes.”

I was now convinced that the crime in question was identical with that which I seemed to remember.

He then asked me to describe the room, the nature of the theft, a number of details.

I doubtless did so, to his satisfaction. It was interesting to see how alert he became, and how his attitude changed considerably, from one of boredom, even mild annoyance, to one of close attention.

“I didn't do it,” I mentioned, thinking it appropriate to put that in. He seemed, for good reasons, doubtless, to be moving swiftly to plausible conclusions, however invalidly derived.

“Only the murderer could know these things,” he said.

“I know them,” I said, “and I am not the murderer.”

“Then who is the murderer,” he asked.

“I don't know,” I said.

“You can account for your whereabouts on the day of the murder?” he asked.

“Certainly,” I said, “and in incontrovertible detail.”

I then did so.

At the inspector's invitation I remained in the station, and willingly, until well into the afternoon.

“Am I under arrest, due to suspicion, or reasonable cause, or such?” I inquired.

“If necessary,” he said.

“That won't be necessary,” I said.

About two P.M. I left the station, he having by that time, I gathered, confirmed, however reluctantly, by a number of phone calls, and such, my asseverations pertaining to my whereabouts on the day of the murder. He was a nice fellow, but I gather that this outcome was not entirely welcome to him. I assured him I would remain in town, and, if not, would keep him apprised of my whereabouts, and expected to be available, if he wanted to speak with me further about these matters. I also gathered that if the circumstances surrounding this matter had been a bit different, and less conclusive, I would have been placed in custody, and held on a charge of murder. I think that is what I would have done in his place. It seemed the rational thing to do.

He did request a set of fingerprints before I took my leave, I suppose as a routine matter. In any event I was pleased to oblige him.

That night, before retiring, I recalled where the knife had been placed. This may have been because of the business of the fingerprints. A slit had been made in a garbage bag in a trash container at the subway station closest to my apartment, indeed, a station from which I normally took the train to work. The knife had been inserted through this slit, so that it would lie in the bottom of the container. As the bags are commonly pulled out, and quickly, efficiently, casually, replaced, the knife might indefinitely lie there undetected. I felt that I myself would have concealed such a weapon differently. I found this conviction reassuring, as it suggested to me, strongly, that the memory could not be mine, though I found myself forced to entertain it. In this memory I felt a certain haste to discard the weapon, and a sense of revulsion pertaining to it. It seemed in the memory that the weapon must be discarded, but that it had been disposed of with some, but inadequate, circumspection. I had the sense that mental disturbance was clearly involved in this. It must be discarded! I was not clear on the date of this memory, and these things were, at best, fragmentary. It did seem possible to me, however, that this memory, if it were veridical, might supply the police with the clue, or lead, which they were missing. I knew it was the murder weapon, and it seemed not implausible that it might bear fingerprints.

I called the inspector in the morning, and told him about this, and he met me at the station within the hour, and we located and examined the container.

It contained the knife, of course.

It would be sent to the police laboratory to be tested for fingerprints.

I trusted they would not prove to be mine.

Unfortunately for the investigation the knife bore few, if any prints. It had apparently been hastily rubbed, perhaps on a sleeve or the side of a coat. A print or two was blurred, or smudged, but there was nothing there which could be clearly read. Some particles of dried blood on the knife, however, under laboratory analysis, yielded a DNA print, so to speak, and this agreed with that of the victim. The murder weapon had been found.

“You know too much about this case,” said the inspector.

“A great deal more than I care to know, I assure you,” I said.

“If you are not the murderer, or a witness to the murder, how do you know these things?” asked the inspector.

“I do not know how I know,” I said, “or even if I know. Perhaps I don't know. But I seem to. I sense that I know. But perhaps some weird sort of coincidence is involved here.”

“Someone told you these things, perhaps in a bar, in great detail?” he asked.

“No,” I said.

“Tell me about him,” he said.

“There was no one,” I said. “No one told me these things.”

“He may have been the murderer,” he said.

“No one told me,” I said. “It is the memories, the memories.”

“You must be the murderer,” he said.

“I was afraid of that,” I said. “But I don't see how it could be.”

“Nor do I,” he said. “The two assistant district attorneys I have spoken to don't either. It is odd. We have an abundance of apparent evidence, almost overwhelmingly so, against you, but no case.”

“I would like to be of help,” I said.

“Do you have other memories of this sort?” he asked.

“Alien memories, memories not mine?”

“Yes.”

I told him about the successive, almost obsessive, seemingly guilt-ridden recollections which I had experienced, the matter of the clothing rolled and discarded in the dumpster, but in what dumpster I had no idea, and it was now doubtless long gone, and reminded him of the incident of the knife.

“Try to remember other things,” he said. “Something might help us.”

I had not been read rights, and was not under arrest. I supposed he was fishing, so to speak, and was wondering if I might not, somehow, perhaps in overconfidence or arrogance, inadvertently implicate myself.

But I did want to cooperate.

This was as important to me, I was sure, or more so, than it was to him.

I closed my eyes, but had no sense as to how one might go about trying to remember something which, presumably, had never happened to one. Suppose, for example, one asks you to recollect what you did on a given day in some city you have never visited. There is just nothing there. One supposes the mind might play some sort of tricks on one, but, presumably, there is simply, in actuality, nothing there to remember.

“Nothing,” I said. “They are not my memories. They are someone else's memories. Perhaps he could bring them to mind, whoever owns them, but I cannot. I experience them, but I do not own them. They aren't mine.”

“Thank you for your time, and effort,” he said.

“I should go?”

“You may go,” he said.

“What about the case?” I asked.

He closed the folder. He looked across the desk at me. “It is another one,” he said, “but an odd one. Another miss, another loss, another unsolved crime.”

She gasped, and looked up at me, wildly.

“There,” I said, “it is done.” I drew away from her.

Her eyes were open, widely.

“You understand now,” I said, “what can be done to you.”

I had not taken time with her. What did it matter?

She looked at me, reproachfully, bitterly, hatred in her eyes.

“Apparently you received great pleasure,” she said.

“It is what you are for,” I said.

“I see,” she said.

“It was not so terrible, was it?” I asked.

She bit her lip, and turned her head away.

“On your belly,” I said, “hands at your sides.”

I turned her to her belly and adjusted her hands, and then knelt across her body.

“You may now be collared,” I said.

“Should I not have been collared first?” she asked.

“In your case,” I said, “I thought it best that you be collared second, in order that it be after you are taught what can be done to you, and what you henceforth are going to be for.”

She gasped with bitterness, and tears dampened the furs on which I had put her.

She was absolutely helpless, and knew herself so.

She sobbed as I brushed her hair forward, exposing the back of her neck.

The small hairs there were attractive. I have always found them so.

“Please, do not!” she said.

I put the collar about her throat.

“Please, no!” she said.

“Listen to the click,” I said.

“Please, no! Please, no!” she said.

I then closed the collar.

“Did you hear it?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said.

I did not think it likely she would forget that sound.

She could not reach the collar, as I knelt across her body, pinning her arms to her sides.

Perhaps I should have collared her first. But she had displeased me, long ago, at a song drama, so the collar had been secondarily applied.

Surely she knew she had displeased me, and had intended to do so.

Doubtless, from time to time, she had recalled the incident, perhaps with pleasure.

It had happened some months ago.

Doubtless it had later slipped her mind.

But I had remembered.

Doubtless she thought the matter forgotten.

But it had not been forgotten.

I had not forgotten.

I had waited.

I had ruminated often on the incident, recalling details. I remembered her carriage, the attitude of her body, the tilt of her head, the tone of her voice, the words, the flash of her eyes, dark and bright, over the veil.

I had been irritated.

I had stepped back, surveying her, the sweetness of the shoulders, the hint of the turn of a pleasant hip, inside the robes.

How furious she had been.

I stayed the small gloved hand, catching her wrist, holding it just a bit, just long enough that she would know herself held, helplessly, and then released it.

She turned away, angrily, and moved down the tier.

How angry she was.

How insolent she was.

I wondered if she might be of interest, as a woman might be of interest to a man.

I sensed her intelligence was quite high.

Excellent.

Does one not prize high intelligence in any animal?

She had moved away, well.

I wondered if she knew that.

I suspect they do.

Does the tabuk doe not take her leave from the inquisitive buck thusly, darting away, inviting pursuit?

Certainly I had speculated on the likelihood of acceptable lineaments there, hoping that they might be of a certain quality; it is difficult to tell such things, given those absurd, voluminous, pompous, preposterous folds and layers of the Robes of Concealment. Who is to know if what is hidden is dross, or a treasure, perhaps fit even for the block. It is different with the collar girls, dressed for the pleasure of men. Little speculation is needed there. How lovely they are, so humiliatingly revealed, so uncompromisingly exhibited, so deliciously exposed, so feminine, so helpless, so vital, so alive, so at one's mercy, so perfect, so owned. How they stir the blood! It is different, too, with the females of the world, Earth, to which I have been twice. They are ready slave stock, presenting themselves beautifully and excitingly, I wondered if they realized that, for a man's consideration, slave stock whose garmentures leave little to a fellow's imagination. It is little wonder that the slave routes to and from Earth are well plied, by professionals, by hunters, and merchants.

The orchards are unguarded, and luscious fruit hangs in view, to be assessed, and selected, as one pleases.

It is almost like a slave shelf, in a common market.

It is not hard to fill one's basket.

I looked at her.

I was not disappointed.

Suitably trained, she might prove, indeed, a treasure, or bauble, if you like, yes, fit even for the block. I was pleased. I do not find the women of my world, though obviously more civilized and modest, more refined and informed, more worthy and noble, incidentally, at all inferior in beauty and excitements to the lovely barbarians from Earth, bid upon so heatedly, from the polluted slave world, brought suitably, as the game they are, the selected, plucked fruit, to our markets. To be sure, that is to be expected, as they are all of the same species.

I recalled the incident in virtue of which, unbeknownst to her, she had been marked for my claiming.

One wonders, sometimes, why women should act so.

Do they wish to be taken in hand, and taught they are females?

Is this what they long for?

Is it that without which they know themselves incomplete?

Are they never content, truly, except at our feet?

She rose to her knees, on the furs, beside me, as I lay on an elbow, regarding her, and she put her small hands on the collar. She felt it, she pulled at it. It encircled her neck closely, but not tightly.

“Who are you?” she said.

“Do you not remember?” I said. “In the month of Hesius, a song drama, a contretemps in the tiers?”

“You!” she said.

“Yes,” I said.

“For that,” she said, seizing the collar, looking at me, “this?”

“Yes,” I said.

She struggled with the collar.

“Do not hurt yourself,” I warned her.

She looked at me, angrily, her small fingers hooked on the flat, narrow, gleaming band.

Surely she, given her background, not being a naive female of Earth, fresh to her new condition, so alien to her former life, should well understand the futility of such efforts, the obduracy of such devices, the sturdiness of the small locks, the perfection and security with which they are designed to encircle and clasp the throats of their fair occupants.

“It is on you,” I said. “Doubtless your own girls wore them.”

“Yes,” she said, angrily.

“But you never thought to wear one yourself.”

“No,” she said.

“It is not uncomfortable,” I said. “One does not wish the girls to be in the least bit uncomfortable.”

“You are thoughtful,” she said, bitterly.

“As you were with yours,” I said.

She jerked at the collar.

“In time,” I said, “you will not even think about it, or seldom, no more than the rings you once wore.”

Such things had been removed from her, of course. They had some value.

If she wore such things in the future, they would not be hers, but would be worn by the permission and indulgence of another.

To be sure, I doubted that she would be soon granted adornments, save, of course, the collar, and perhaps earrings, which have a special significance here.

“But it is there!” she hissed.

“Certainly,” I said.

“And locked!”

“Would you rather have had something heavier, and riveted about your neck?”

“No!” she said.

“Or something even heavier, shaped by a smith about your neck, hammered shut?”

“No, no,” she said.

“Such could be easily arranged,” I said.

“I am sure of it,” she said.

“Your hair is much before your face,” I said. “Lift your hands, and, with both hands, brush it back, behind your shoulders.”

She looked at me, angrily.

“I would see the collar on your neck,” I said.

“Good” I said. “Keep your hands as they are. Yes. It is very pretty.”

She was an extremely attractive woman, and the collar, of course, much enhances the beauty of a woman. This is doubtless in part a matter of simple aesthetics, contrasts, and such, but I think the meaning is even more important, what it proclaims about that which is within it, what it makes clear about the woman about whose throat it is locked.

“May I lower my arms?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“What you did to me!” she said.

“You will not forget the sensations,” I said. “You will be more and more curious about them, what they were like. You will remember them. Do you remember them accurately? You will find yourself hoping for their repetition. You will dream of yourself as you were. Your belly will grow uneasy. You will hope to be remembered. You will hope to be summoned, to be washed, and perfumed, and such, to be brought before me.”

“Never,” she cried, “never!” But her eyes belied her words.

“In time,” I said, “you will long for such things. In time, you will come on your knees, or belly, and beg for them.”

“Never!” she said.

Let her first uses, I thought, be cursory, that she may learn what she is, and what may be done to her, when and as others wish.

There would be time later, if one wished, for one's amusement, to spend a morning, or an afternoon, with her, to have her writhing and begging for another touch, even the gentlest, the least, of such.

“I pride myself on my frigidity,” she said.

“You are not frigid,” I said.

“You, or another,” she said, “will never light the slave fires in my belly!”

“They have already been lit,” I informed her. “In a week, that will be quite clear to you.”

“I will never be so helpless,” she said. “I will never so belong to men!”

“You already do,” I said.

“No!” she said.

“You may now report to the kitchen master, to be put to work,” I said.

“‘Kitchen'?” she sobbed. “I—to the kitchen? I—to work?”

“A man waits outside,” I said. “He will blindfold you and take you to the kitchen.”

The house was complex. There was no need that she understand its passages, and such.

She moved from the furs, to the side, to the tiles and stood, unsteadily, wavering.

“Do you wish to be whipped?” I asked.

“No!” she said.

“Get out,” I said.

She stood there.

“Do you obey?” I asked.

“Yes,” she wept, “I obey!”

“You obey, what?” I inquired.

“I obey,” she said, “—
Master
!”

She then turned about, and scurried, weeping, barefoot, from the chamber.

I smiled to myself, for she knew little of herself. She would eventually be fulfilled in her heart, to become what she was.

I thought, in a time, and not in too a long a time, I would get a good price for her.

I would have her ears pierced.

She would be made a pierced-ear girl.

She had displeased me.

In time she would grow accustomed to that, even pleased. Too, that should improve her price somewhat. Men expect much from a pierced-ear girl.

To the male belongs the female.

It is so deemed by nature.

In the tiers, she had not recognized my caste. But then one does not always wear one's robes publicly.