Time and the Riddle: Thirty-One Zen Stories (34 page)

At that point, neither the extent of our holdings nor the amount of our profits could be further concealed. I say we (the Chairman deferred modestly) but of course it was our predecessors who faced these problems. Our cash balance was larger than that of the United States Treasury, our industrial potential greater than that of any major power. Believe me, without planned intent or purpose, this Board of Directors suddenly found itself the dominant force on earth. At that point, it became desperately necessary for us to explain what we represented.

A new member from Australia rose and asked, “How long was that, Mr. Chairman, if I may inquire, after the visit of Mr. Kovac to Dr. Frederick?”

The Chairman nodded. “It was the year Dr. Frederick died—twenty-two years after the treatment began. By then, five types of cancer had already surrendered their secret to science. But there was not yet any cure for Mr. Kovac's disease.”

“And all the. time, the treatment had remained secret?”

“All the time,” the Chairman nodded.

You see (he went on), at that time, the Board felt that the people of Earth had reached a moment of crisis and decision. A moment, I say, for the power was only momentarily in the hands of this Board. We had no armies, navies or air-fleets—all we had were a major portion of the tools of production. We knew we had not prevented war but simply staved it off. This was a Board of Directors for management, not for power, and any day the installations and plants we owned and controlled could have been torn from our grasp. That was when our very thoughtful and wise predecessors decided to embark on a vast, global propaganda campaign to convince the world that we represented a secret Parliament of the wisest and best forces of mankind—that we were in effect a Board of Directors for the complex of mankind.

And in this we succeeded, for the television stations, the newspapers, the radio, the film and the theatre—all these were ours. And in that brief, fortunate moment, we launched our attack. We used the weapons of Steve Kovac—let us be honest and admit that. We acted as he would have acted, but out of different motives entirely.

We bought and bribed and framed. We infiltrated the parliaments of all mankind. We bought the military commanders. We dissolved the armies and navies in the name of super-weapons, and then we destroyed the super-weapons in the name of mankind. Where leaders could not be bought or bribed, we brought them into our Board. And above all, we bought control—control of every manufacturing, farming or mining unit of any consequence upon the face of the earth.

It took the Board of Directors twenty-nine years more to accomplish this; and at the end of that twenty-nine years, our earth was a single complex or production for use and happiness—and if I may say so, for mankind. A semblance of national structure remained, but it was even then as ritualistic and limited as any commonwealth among the old states of the United States. Wars, armies, navies, atom bombs—all of these were only ugly memories. The era of reason and sanity began, the era of production for use and life under the single legal code of man. Thus, we have become creatures of law, equal under the law, and abiding by the law. This Board of Directors was never a government, nor is it now: It is what it proposes to be, a group management for the holding company.

Only today, the holding company and the means of mankind are inseparable. Thereby, our very great responsibility.

The Chairman of the Board wiped his face and took a few more sips of water. A new member from the United States rose and said,

“But Mr. Chairman, the cure for all types of cancer was discovered sixty-two years ago.”

“So it was,” the Chairman agreed.

“Then, Steve Kovac—” The new member paused. She was a beautiful, sensitive woman in her middle thirties, a physicist of note and talent, and also an accomplished musician.

“You see, my dear,” the Chairman said, lapsing into a most informal mode of address, pardonable only because of his years and dignity, “it faced us. When we make a law for mankind and submit to it, we must honor it. Sixty-two years ago, Steve Kovac owned the world and all its wealth and industry, a dictator beyond the dream of any dictator, a tyrant above all tyrants, a king and an emperor to dwarf all other kings and emperors—”

As he spoke, two of the older members left the meeting room. Minutes later, they returned, wheeling into the room and up to the podium a rectangular object, five feet high, seven feet long and three feet wide, the whole of it covered with a white cloth. They left it there and returned to their seats.

“—yes, he owned the world. Think of it—for the first time in history, a just peace governed the nations of mankind. Cities were being rebuilt, deserts turned into gardens, jungles cleared, poverty and crime a thing of the past. Man was standing erect, flexing his muscles, reaching out to the planets and the stars—and all of this belonged to a single savage, merciless, despotic paranoid, Steve Kovac. Then, as now, my dear associates, this Board of Directors was faced with the problem of the man to whom we owed our existence, the man who all unwittingly unified mankind and ushered in the new age of man—yes, the man who gave us the right and authority to hold and manage, the man whose property we manage. Then as now, we were faced with Steve Kovac!”

Almost theatrical in his conclusion and gestures, the Chairman of the Board stepped down from the podium and with one motion swept the cloth aside. The entire Board fixed their eyes on the cabinet where, under a glass cover, in a cold beyond all concept of cold, a man lay sleeping in what was neither life nor death, but a subjective pause in the passage of time. He was a handsome man, big and broad, ruddy of face and with a fine mane of white hair. He seemed to sleep lightly, expectantly, confidently—as if he were dreaming hungrily but pleasantly of what he would awaken to.

“Steve Kovac,” the Chairman said. “So he sleeps, from year to year, no difference, no changes. So he appeared to our predecessors sixty-two years ago, when they first had the means to cure him and the obligation to awaken him. They committed the first of sixty-two crimes; they took no action in the face of a promise, a duty, a legality and an almost sacred obligation. Can we understand them? Can we forgive them? Can we forgive the Board that voted this same decision again and again? Above all, can we forgive ourselves if we stain our honor, break the law, and ignore our own inheritance of an obligation?

“I am not here to argue the question. It is never argued. The facts are presented, and then we vote. Therefore, will all those in favor of awakening Mr. Kovac raise their right hands?”

The Chairman of the Board waited. Long moments became minutes, but no hands were raised. The two older members covered the cold, cold box and wheeled it out. The Chairman of the Board took a sip of water, and announced,

“We will now have the reading of the agenda.”

13
The Talent of Harvey

H
arvey Kepplemen never knew that he had a talent for anything, until one Sunday morning at breakfast he plucked a crisp water roll right out of the air.

It balanced the universe; it steadied the order of things. Man is man, and particularly in this age of equality, when uniformity has become both a passion and a religion, it would be unconscionable that a decent human being of forty years should have no talent at all. Yet Harvey Kepplemen was so obviously and forthrightly an untalented man—until this morning—that the label was pinned on him descriptively. As one says, He is short, She is fat, He is handsome, so they would say of Harvey: Nothing there. No talent. No verve. Pale. Colorless. No bent. No aptitude. He was a quiet, soft-spoken person of middle height, with middling looks and brown eyes and brown hair that was thinning in a moderately even manner, and he had passable teeth with good fillings and clean fingernails, and he was an accountant with an income of eighteen thousand dollars a year.

Just that. He was not given to anger, moods, or depression, and if any observer had cared to observe him, he would have said that Harvey was a cheerful enough person; except that one never noticed whether he was cheerful or not. Suzie was his wife. Suzie's mother once put the question to her. “Is Harvey always so cheerful?” Suzie's mother wanted to know.

“Cheerful? I never think of Harvey as being cheerful.”

Neither did anyone else, but that was because no one ever gave any serious thought to Harvey. Perhaps if there had been children, they might have had opinions concerning their father; but it was a childless marriage. Not an unhappy one, not a very happy one. Simply childless.

Nevertheless, Suzie was quite content. Small, dark, reasonably attractive, she accepted Harvey. Neither of them was rebellious. Life was just the way it was. Sunday morning was just the way it was. They slept late but not too late. They had brunch at precisely eleven o'clock. Suzie prepared toast, two eggs for each of them, three slices of crisp bacon for each of them, orange juice to begin and coffee to finish. She also set out two jars of jam, imported marmalade, which Harvey liked, and grape jelly, which she liked.

On this Sunday morning, Harvey thought that he would have liked a crisp roll.

“Really?” Suzie said. “I never knew that you liked rolls particularly. You do like toast.”

“Oh, yes,” Harvey agreed. “I do like toast.”

“I mean, we always have toast.”

“I have toast for lunch, too,” Harvey agreed.

“I could have bought rolls.”

“I don't think so, because I guess I was thinking about the kind of rolls we had when I was a kid. They were light and crisp, and they were two for a nickel. Can you imagine paying only a nickel for two rolls?”

“No. Really, I can't.”

“Well, no more light, crisp water rolls, two for a nickel.” Harvey sighed. “Wouldn't it be nice if I could just reach up like this and pluck one out of the air?”

And then Harvey reached up and plucked a crisp, brown water roll right out of the air, and sat there, arm frozen into position, mouth open, staring at the water roll; then he lowered his arm slowly and placed the roll on the table in front of him and continued to stare at it.

“That's very clever, Harvey,” Suzie said. “Is it a surprise for me? I think you did it perfectly.”

“Did what?”

“You plucked the roll right out of the air.” Suzie picked up the roll. “It's warm—really, you are clever, Harvey.” She broke it open and tasted it. “So good! Where did you buy it, Harvey?”

“What?”

“The roll. I hope you bought another one.”

“What roll?”

“This one.”

“Where did it come from?”

“Harvey, you just plucked it right out of the air. Do you remember the magician who entertained at Lucy Gordon's party? He did it with white doves. But I think you did it just as nicely with the roll, and it's such a surprise, because I can imagine how much you practiced.”

“I didn't practice.”

“Harvey!”

“Did I really take that roll out of the air?”

“You did, Mr. Magician,” Suzie said proudly. She had a delicious feeling of pride, a very new feeling. While she had never been ashamed of Harvey before, she had certainly never been proud of him.

“I don't know how I did it.”

“Oh, Harvey, stop putting me on. I am terribly impressed. Really I am.”

Harvey reached out, broke off a piece of the roll, and tasted it. It was quite good, fresh, straightforward, honest bread, precisely like the two-for-a-nickel rolls he had eaten as a child.

“Put some butter on it,” Suzie suggested.

Harvey buttered his piece and then topped it with marmalade. He licked his lips with appreciation. Suzie poured him another cup of coffee.

Harvey finished the roll—Suzie refusing any more than a taste—and then he shook his head thoughtfully. “Damned funny,” he said. “I just reached up and took it out of the air.”

“Oh, Harvey.”

“That's what I did. That's exactly what I did.”

“Your eggs are getting cold,” Suzie reminded him.

He shook his head. “No—it couldn't have happened that way. Then where did it come from?”

“Do you want me to put them back in the pan?”

“Listen, Suzie. Now just listen to me. I got to thinking about these rolls I ate when I was a kid, and I said to myself, wouldn't it be nice to have one right now, and wouldn't it be nice just to reach up and pick it out of the air—like this.” And suiting his action to the thought, he plucked another roll out of the air and dropped it on the table like a hot coal.

“See what I mean?”

Suzie clapped her hands. “Wonderful! Beautiful! I was staring right at you and I never saw you do it.”

Harvey picked up the second roll. “I didn't do it,” he said bleakly. “I haven't been practicing sleight of hand. You know me, Suzie. I can't do the simplest card trick.”

“That's what makes it so wonderful—because you had all these hidden qualities and you brought them out.”

“No—no. Remember how it is when we play poker, Suzie, and it's my deal, and it's the big laugh of the evening when I try it and the cards are all over the table. You don't unlearn something like that.”

Suzie's eyes widened, and for the first time she realized that her husband was sitting at the table in a T-shirt, with no sleeves and no equipment other than two cold eggs and three strips of bacon.

“Harvey, you mean—”

“I mean,” he said. “Yes.”

“But from where? Gettleson's Bakery is four blocks away.”

“They don't make water rolls at Gettleson's Bakery.”

They sat in silence then and stared at each other.

“Maybe it's something you have a talent for,” Suzie said finally.

More silence.

“Do you suppose it's only rolls?” Suzie said. “I mean just rolls? Suppose you tried a Danish?”

“I don't like Danish,” Harvey answered miserably.