Player Piano (20 page)

The song was interrupted by a cry: “White’s going to win! Go, White!” It was Baer, yelling in the background. “So you think Blue’s going to win, do you, do you, eh? Win? Think Blue’s going to win, eh, eh? The White Team will trim you, trim you—aha, aha—trim the daylights out of the Blue Team.”

There was the sound of laughter and banter and scuffling, and Kroner picked up the Blue Team’s song where he’d left off:

Baer’s piercing voice cut through Kroner’s bass with the White Team’s song, to the tune of “Tramp, Tramp, Tramp”:

The scuffling grew louder, and the songs degenerated into panting laughter. There was a clatter in Paul’s receiver, a cry, a click, and then the dial tone.

Paul restored the receiver to its cradle with a limp hand. There was no quitting before the Meadows, he told himself glumly—no re-educating Anita and quitting in the few days remaining. The Meadows would have to be endured, and, worse luck, he would have to endure it as captain of the Blue Team.

His glance passed over the hairy tan chest, frank gray eyes, and keg-sized biceps of the man on the book jacket, and his thoughts slid easily, gratefully, into the fantasy of the new, good life ahead of him. Somewhere, outside of society, there was a place for a man—a man and wife—to live heartily and blamelessly,
naturally
, by hands and wits.

Paul studied his long, soft hands. Their only callus was on the large finger of his right hand. There, stained a dirty orange by cigarette tars, a tough hump had grown over the years, protecting his finger against the attrition of pen and pencil shafts. Skills—that was what the hands of the heroes in the novels had, skills. To date, Paul’s hands had learned to do little save grip a pen, pencil, toothbrush, hair brush, razor, knife, fork, spoon, cup, glass, faucet, doorknob, switch, handkerchief, towel, zipper, button, snap, bar of soap, book, comb, wife, or steering wheel.

He recalled his college days, and was sure he’d learned some sort of manual skill there. He’d learned to make mechanical drawings. That was when the lump on his finger had
begun to grow. What else? He’d learned to bounce a ball off several walls with skill, and to the consternation of most of his squash opponents. He’d been good enough to make the quarter-finals of the Regional Collegiate Squash Tournament two years in a row. He used to be able to do
that
with his hands.

What else?

Again uneasiness crept up on him—the fear that there was far too little of him to get along anywhere outside the system, to get along at all contentedly. He might go into some small business, such as the one he claimed to be in when he didn’t want to be recognized—wholesale groceries. But he would still be caught in the mesh of the economy and its concomitant hierarchy. The machines wouldn’t let him into that business, anyway, and even if they would, there’d be no less nonsense and posturing. Moreover, despite the fact that Paul was saying to hell with the whole system, he was aware that the relatively unskilled and dull business of buying and selling was beneath him. So to hell with it. The only thing worse would be complete idleness, which Paul could afford, but which, he was sure, was as amoral as what he was quitting.

Farming—now
there
was a magic word. Like so many words with little magic from the past still clinging to them, the word “farming” was a reminder of what rugged stock the present generation had come from, of how tough a thing a human being could be if he had to. The word had little meaning in the present. There were no longer farmers, but only agricultural engineers. In the rich Iroquois Valley in Ilium County, thousands of settlers had once made their living from the soil. Now Doctor Ormand van Curler managed the farming of the whole county with a hundred men and several million dollars’ worth of machinery.

Farming. Paul’s pulse quickened, and he daydreamed of living a century before—living in one of the many farm-houses now crumbling into their foundations over the valley.
He chose one farmhouse in particular for his fantasy, one close to the edge of town that he’d often admired. He suddenly realized that the farm, the little patch of the past,
wasn’t a
part of van Curler’s farm system. He was almost sure it wasn’t.

“Katharine,” he called excitedly, “get me the Ilium Real Estate Manager on the phone.”

“Ilium Real Estate Office. Doctor Pond speaking.” Pond’s speech was effeminate, lisping.

“Doctor Pond, this is Doctor Proteus at the Works.”

“Well! What can I do for
you
, Doctor Proteus?”

“You know that farmhouse out on King Street, just outside the city limits?”

“Mmmm. Just a moment.” Paul heard a machine shuffling through cards, and then a bell announced that the card had been found. “Yes, the Gottwald place. I have the card right here.”

“What’s being done with it?”

“A good question! What can be done with it? I wish I knew. It was a hobby with Gottwald, you know, keeping it just like an old-fashioned farm. When he died, the heirs wanted to get van Curler to take it over, but he said it wasn’t worth bothering with. Two hundred acres is all, and he’d have to cut down the windbreaks to connect it with other fields so he could farm it efficiently. Then the heirs found out that they couldn’t have sold it to the Farm System anyway. It’s in the deed that the place has to be kept old-fashioned.” He laughed bitterly. “So all old Gottwald left his heirs was a nice headache, a white elephant.”

“How much?”

“Are you serious? The thing’s a museum exhibit, Doctor. I mean, almost nothing mechanical on the place. Even if you could beat the restrictions in the deed, it’d cost you thousands to get it in shape.”

“How much?” The farm was looking better and better.

“Eighteen thousand, it says on the card.” Before Paul
could close the deal that instant, Pond added, “but you can get it for fifteen, I’m sure. How would twelve suit you?”

“Would five hundred hold it until I can look it over?”

“It’s been holding itself for almost fourteen years. Go on out and have a look, if you really feel you have to. After you’ve thrown up, there are some really nice things I’d like to show you.” The machine riffled through its cards again. “For instance, there’s a nice Georgian house on Griffin Boulevard. Electronic door openers, thermostatically controlled windows, radar range, electrostatic dust precipitators, ultrasonic clothes washer built in, forty-inch television screens in the master bedroom, guest room, living room, kitchen, and rumpus rooms, and twenty-inch screens in the maids’ rooms and the kiddies’ rooms, and—”

“Where can I get the key to the farm?”

“Oh,
that
thing. Well, to give you an idea of what you’re getting into, there is no lock. There’s a latchstring.”

“Latchstring?”

“Yes, latchstring. I had to go out myself to find out what the darn thing is. There’s a latch on the inside of the door, with a string tied to it. When you want to let somebody just walk in, you stick the little string through a hole in the door, so the string dangles outside. If you don’t want people walking in, you pull the string in through the hole. Ghastly?”

“I’ll survive somehow. Is the latchstring out?”

“There’s a caretaker there, detailed from the Reeks and Wrecks. I’ll call him and tell him to put it out. Confidentially, I’m sure they’ll take eight.”

T
HE LATCHSTRING AT
the Gottwald house was out for Doctor Paul Proteus.

He tugged at it, listened with satisfaction as the latch disengaged itself inside, and walked in. The living room was dimly lit through tiny-paned, dusty windows, and what light did get in died without reflection on dull, dark antique surfaces. The floor rose and fell like a springboard beneath Paul’s feet.

“The house breathes
with
you, like good underwear,” said a lisping voice from the shadows. Paul looked in the direction from which it had come. The man sucked on his cigarette, lighting his moon face with a pink glow. “Doctor Proteus?”

“Yes.”

“I’m Doctor Pond. Would you like me to turn on the lights?”

“Please, Doctor.”

“Well, there aren’t any. Kerosene lanterns throughout. Want to wash your hands or something?”

“Well, not—”

“Because, if you do, there’s a pump in the back yard, and an outhouse by the chicken coop. Would you like to see the termites, the dry rot, the hog pen, and the manure-spreader, or shall we go to see that Georgian on Griffin Boulevard?” He walked to where they could see each other. Doctor Pond was very young, fat, and earnest, and plainly distressed by his surroundings.

“You’re certainly eager to sell me the place,” said Paul, laughing. With each new inconvenience, the place became
more irresistible. It was a completely isolated backwater, cut off from the boiling rapids of history, society, and the economy. Timeless.

“I have a certain responsibility,” said Doctor Pond carefully. “An administrator without a certain awareness, above and beyond the
Manual
, is like a ship without a rudder.”

“He is?” said Paul absently. He was peering through a back window into the barnyard, and beyond that, through an opened barn door, where he could see the firm buff flank of a cow.

“Yes,” said Doctor Pond, “like a ship without a rudder. For example, while the
Manual
doesn’t tell me to do it, I make very sure that every man gets a house suited to his station on the ladder of life. The way a man lives can destroy or increase the stature of his job—can increase or decrease the stability and prestige of the entire system.”

“You say I can get this whole farm for eight?”

“Please, Doctor—you put me in an uncomfortable position. I was excited when you first called, because this place has been such a headache for so long. But then my conscience started to work on me, and, well, I simply can’t let you do it.”

“I’ll take it. Do the animals go with it?”

“Everything goes with it. That’s in Gottwald’s will and in the deed. It has to be kept just as it is and it must be farmed. See how impossible it is? Now, shall we go to Griffin Boulevard, where there’s just the right house for the Manager of the Ilium Works?” When he spoke the title, his voice sounded like a choir of French horns.

“I want this.”

“If you try to force me to sell it, I’ll quit.” Doctor Pond reddened. “My classification number may be twice what yours is, but I have a certain amount of integrity.”

The word, coming from Pond, struck Paul as ridiculous at first, and he started to smile about it. Then he saw how tense the man was, and realized that what Pond was talking
about was, by God, integrity. This pipsqueak of a man in a pipsqueak job had pipsqueak standards he was willing to lay his pipsqueak life down for. And Paul had a vision of civilization as a vast and faulty dike, with thousands of men like Doctor Pond in a rank stretching to the horizon, each man grimly stopping a leak with his finger.

“This would be a hobby, of course—a plaything,” Paul lied. “I’d go on living where I’m living now.”

Doctor Pond sighed and sank into a chair. “Oh—thank the Lord! Oh! You have no idea how much better I feel.” He laughed in nervous relief. “Of course, of course, of course. And you’d keep Mr. Haycox on?”

“Who is Mr. Haycox?”

“The Reek and Wreck who’s assigned to keep the place going. He’s under orders from the Reeks and Wrecks, but of course the Gottwald estate pays him. You’d have to do the same.”

“I’d like to meet him.”

“He’s an antique too.” He threw his hands over his head. “What a place. I think you’re mad, simply mad. But he who pays the piper calls the tune.”

“As long as he doesn’t threaten to disgrace the system.”

“Exactly! That’s almost good enough to carve over your mantel, but I doubt if the deed will let you.”

“How about, ‘After us the deluge,’ ” said Paul.

“Hmm?” Doctor Pond tried to make sense of the quotation, seemingly decided that it was some archaic, pleasant sentiment for those who understood poetry, and smiled. “That’s nice too.” Apparently the word “deluge” stuck in his mind. “Now, about the cellar here: it has an earth floor and
is
damp.” He leaned out of the back door, wrinkled his nose in the sweet, stringent odor of manure cooking in the sunlight, and shouted, “Mr. Haycox! Oh, Mr. Haycox!”

Paul had opened the back of a grandfather clock. “I’ll be damned,” he said under his breath. “Wooden works.” He checked his own watch, the shock-proof, waterproof, antimagnetic,
glow-in-the-dark, self-winding chronometer Anita had given him for Christmas, and found that the grandfather clock was off by about twelve minutes. Indulging an atavistic whim, he set his watch to correspond with the hands of the relic, which grated and creaked away the seconds, sounding like a wooden ship straining in a strong wind.

The house was certainly one of the oldest in the valley. The rough rafters were inches above Paul’s head, and the fireplace was sooted black, and there wasn’t a true right angle anywhere. The house seemed to have twisted and stretched on its foundations until it had found a position of comfort for all of its parts—like a sleeping dog.