“Don’t you think,” she said, “that Runcible had it made as a publicity stunt? Like that Realtor over in Sausalito who says Drake landed there and not in Drake’s Bay, and that the plate of brass is a fake? It’s a way of advertising the area. Runcible will get more people in here, possibly quite a few more.”
He nodded.
“You can see his motives,” she said. “Almost everyone I’ve talked to says that. That a man like that would do just this sort of thing. It’s really pretty clever, don’t you think? It has brought him a lot of publicity…but I wouldn’t like that kind. Most of the papers hint that it’s a promotion stunt. They don’t say so, of course. Isn’t that because of the libel laws?”
Dombrosio said, “Sure. If they said it, he’d sue them for libel, and he’d get his publicity that way.”
“I really detest people like that,” Sherry said. “Brash and pushy. Oh, I’m not supposed to say that. It’s a shame he’s Jewish.”
“Yes,” Dombrosio said. “He gives a bad name to his race.”
“No, I mean we can’t really criticize him publicly because if we do it looks like anti-Semitism. So that gives him carte blanche to go on doing this sort of thing. Stirring up this awful publicity.”
“The kind of publicity he’s getting isn’t making him very happy.”
“But he must have known they’d discover it to be a hoax. He must have known he’d get this bad publicity after a while. After some scientists came in and examined it. And—” She took up the newspaper once more. “He deliberately called them in. As soon as possible.”
“Maybe any publicity will do,” Dombrosio said. But now he had a twinge of uneasiness. Runcible had gone out on a limb—but was he suffering? Had he lost by it? “He’s clinging to it,” he said to his wife.
“Yes,” Sherry said. “He’s still trying to push it as genuine. With no scientific backing whatsoever.”
“The simp,” he said, with anger.
Sherry said, “He wants more publicity.”
“No,” he said. “He just can’t admit he’s been taken.”
She stared at him. “Taken?” Her eyebrows, by degrees, rose. “You don’t think he had it faked himself? You mean he genuinely thought it was real? He was taken in?” Her quick brain had caught his choice of words; she studied him long and silently.
“Possibly,” he said, wishing now very much to drop the topic.
“Then someone else did it!” she said. “And poor Runcible is the victim. Oh, how fascinating.” She contemplated that, and then she laughed. “What a peculiar theory. What does that tell me about you?”
He eyed her.
Sherry said, “Let’s see. That possibly you can’t admit to yourself that you’re gullible. Do you see how you’ve projected your own problems onto Runcible? He’s become a symbol for you.”
At that point he managed to divert her; going into the kitchen he began searching in the refrigerator for something to eat, some dessert. She joined him, and together they got out a frozen pie.
Later, as they sat at the kitchen table eating, he thought over an idea that had been in his mind almost continually during the last week or so.
If he left Sherry, he could move into San Francisco, rent a room or apartment, and from there he could go to work without a car. He could get a job now, instead of having to wait the two months until he could get back his driving license.
Across from him, Sherry ate her pie, holding her fork with delicate grace. How pretty she is, he thought. Her face had that sweet look that had always attracted him; her eyes, so large and gray blue, had an innocent quality. The perfect American face, he thought. Unspoiled. Unmarked. And yet she was not represented accurately by her looks; she was not unspoiled.
It does not show, he thought. There’s no tip off. A well-bred and attractive woman who knows what she wants and pursues what she wants. She grew up calling the shots, he thought, and she doesn’t intend to stop. Marriage never meant knuckling down to some man.
I’d be a lot better off, he decided. If I left her. There’s no doubt of that. I could run my own life, again.
And yet—
He could not ignore the pride it gave him, the public pride of having a high-class wife. It raised him up a notch, too. She made him look better in the eyes of the world.
In his mind he saw, with anxiety, himself lacking Sherry; himself as an individual and not her husband. What would I be? Not more than now but less than now. Let’s look at it rationally, he thought. I’d lose. For instance, she can work; she can contribute to our income. That’s valuable, to have a wife who’s economically able. What if I had lost my job, couldn’t work, and she couldn’t work either?
That terrified him; he felt it throughout his body. Stuck out here in the country. Suppose she couldn’t drive the car. Really stuck, possibly to starve. There was no relief agency out here. No one to borrow from or complain to. No jobs, except that of a milker. Or a day laborer at the mill. And those required a car, too.
“Why are you looking at me that way?” Sherry said. “What are you thinking?”
He said, truthfully, “I’m thinking how nice it is to have a pretty wife.”
Smiling, she said with terrible perceptiveness, “And one who can work.”
That shocked him; he blinked rapidly and tried to recover. “Do you think I like this?” he demanded. “Christ, my pride. What do you think it does to me? It’s destroying me.”
“Oh,” she said, “it’s not so bad. It’s not destroying you; you like to think it is.”
“It is,” he repeated.
“You suffer some discomfort,” she said. “But it gives you time to mess around in your workshop. And you can go down to Donkey Hall and hang around in the evenings with the other donkeys. Remember, when you got home from Lausch Company, from the drive back from S.F. You were too tired to do anything but go to bed.”
He said, “I’ll be working again in two months.”
“Maybe,” she said.
With horror, he said, “You know I will be!”
“In two months, you’ll have your license. But what then? I’ll still need the car to get to my job. You’ll go in with me…” She pointed her finger at him, triumphantly. “You could do that now. Go in and look for a job. But you’re not. It’ll be the same, then.”
“You’ll be quitting,” he said feebly.
“No,” she said. “I’ll still be working. I like my job. I like Norm Lausch. He’s a good man to work for; he leaves you alone to do your job. And I’m getting to do more creative work and less public relations work all the time.”
He realized, then, that she told him almost nothing about her day at Lausch Company; she never discussed it, had not from the very start. And it had not even occurred to him to ask. The job was her sphere; she had taken it over, and he played no part in it, now. They had both accepted it; she had because she wanted it that way, and he—god knew. Why do I go along? he asked himself. What do I get out of it?
It came to him then that he had not gone along; that, in fact, she had compelled him. There was nothing voluntary about it. She had completely organized his feelings.
He said, “You’d have made a good executive in a big company.”
“I am an executive,” she said. “Am I barred because I’m a woman? Norm Lausch doesn’t think so.”
“You mean you’re bossing people around, there?” he said. He could not help considering it amusing. It was so presumptuous of her, almost irrational. Like a daydream. “You know,” he said, “I can tell you what your big defect is. Want to hear?”
“Oh god,” she said. “Another of your five hour orations.”
“You’re impatient,” he said. “You can’t wait. It’s like when you decide to rearrange all the things in the house; you have to do it then and there, right on the spot.”
“If I wait,” she said, “it might never get done.”
And we’re also objects, he thought. People are things which she moves around, rearranges t
o suit her. She drives out spontaneity in others because she can’t wait for them to feel what she wants them to feel; that which should come voluntarily she forces.
And she really doesn’t see the difference, he thought. It’s not wickedness but blindness. Her vision is just not good enough for her to distinguish. Just as long as the outward appearance is the same. As long as the people do move, do get rearranged…she can dispense with the mythical interior; the soul.
I have to leave her, he decided. And, sitting eating his pie, he pondered, as before, on the best way of doing it.
At his desk in his study, Runcible read over the letter that he had just typed. Spread out on all sides of him, and on the floor, were photographs, great glossy positives. Into a large-size manila envelope he put the letter and two of the photographs, and then, after sealing the envelope, he addressed it to the anthropology department of the University of Chicago.
Then he put a new sheet of paper into his typewriter and began a new letter. This one was to the anthropology department at Yale.
He had, at his right, a stack of photostats made from newspaper articles dealing with him and his finds. And, beside them, photostats of reference paragraphs from various scientific books which he had been able to buy or borrow. The books themselves had been stacked up in the corner of the room. Each book had markers hanging from it; he wanted to be able to get at the citations without hindrance.
After he had finished the letter to Yale he once more brought out his most important letter; he had written it but not mailed it. The letter was to L.S.B. Leakey.
While he sat reading it over he heard a knock at his door, the knock that his wife made. “I’m busy,” he said.
Through the door Janet said, “Michael Wharton is here.”
“Okay,” he said. He put the Leakey letter back in the drawer and turned his swivel chair around.
The door opened and the grammar school teacher appeared. He had a look on his face that was new to Runcible; his cheeks were puffy and his neck was bright red. His eyes seemed to be watering, and for an instant Runcible thought that the man must be undergoing an acute attack of hay fever.
Wharton, in a squeaky voice, said, “I’ve been talking to Doctor Freitas on the phone. About their discovery that it’s a hoax.”
Reaching out, Runcible took a cup of coffee from the window sill above his desk. He drank from it and said nothing.
“I know who did it,” Wharton said.
At that Runcible glanced up.
“Where did we find the first artifacts?” Wharton said loudly. “The arrowheads? You tell me.” He had taken on an almost hysterical manner; his adam’s apple bobbed up and down and his eyes shone.
“Down the hill,” Runcible said.
“On whose land?”
“Walter Dombrosio’s.”
Wharton said, “He did it. He can; he knows how. That’s his job. We were talking about Neanderthals, at the Hall. I know it.”
“I thought of that,” Runcible said. It had occurred to him a day or so ago, after he had talked to Bowman on the phone. “Listen,” he said to Wharton. “I want to find out something from you.” Going to the heap of books he got one and carried it to the grammar school teacher; seating himself on a leather footstool he opened the book on his lap. “They make casts of skulls,” he said. “I’ve been researching this. What they call break moulds.”
“Yes,” Wharton said, staring at him.
“Did you ever do anything along those lines? And if not, who has?”
Wharton said, “I’ve made break molds.”
“I have photographs,” Runcible said. “But I want to mail some casts to universities back east and possibly some in Europe. And I’m going to get all the evidence possible to the university at Tel Aviv. That’s Moshe Dyan’s university. Interesting; did you know he was the supreme military commander of the Israeli forces in the war against Egypt, the Sinai Campaign? And he’s one of the world’s foremost archeologists.” Closing the book he rose and carried it back to the stack. “There’s an example,” he said over his shoulder. “It’s possible to combine an interest in science—interest, hell! Authoritative knowledge. Dyan is a professional. A scholar…teacher. In the best tradition of Jewish culture. The Jews have always revered learning.”
“You have nothing to send to Tel Aviv University,” Wharton said. “Except some faked-up thing that Walter Dombrosio manufactured in the basement of Donkey Hall. He and Jack Vepp and Timmons. I wondered why they’ve been keeping me out of there.”
Runcible said. “Listen.” He pointed his finger at the grammar school teacher. “What would you do,” he said, “if you had a heart condition. And you went to a doctor—admittedly a good doctor, a specialist. And he told you that there was no technique known that could save you.”
To that, Wharton was silent.
“And he told you,” Runcible said, “that, say, you had six months. What would you do?”
Wharton made a gesture.
“I’ll tell you what you’d do,” Runcible said. “Or at least what you’d do if you had any sense. You’d go to another specialist, and another, and another, until you found one who could save you. That’s what you’d do.”
Presently, Wharton said, “Hypochondria.”
“Oh no,” Runcible said. “Not hypochondria. Not at all. Self-preservation.”
“Maybe so,” Wharton said.
“Is science sacred?” Runcible said. “Science is, maybe. But not a particular galoot who’s the employee of a particular university. Let me tell you something about that university.”
“Cal, you mean?” Wharton said.
“Yes. Cal.” He leaned back in his chair. “That’s the biggest university in the world.”
Wharton nodded.
“The most richly endowed. In what departments? In physics. Teller works for them. Lawrence. All the physical sciences. Chemistry. They have the Bevatron up there. Millions of dollars. It’s part of the national economy. The national research program.”
“Yes,” Wharton said.
“It’s a huge machine,” Runcible said. “Do you know what it turns out? Not knowledge. Not scholars. I’ll tell you what that place turns out. Technicians, with an eye on a fat salary at some big company, such as Westinghouse or General Dynamics. Do you think they give a damn about whether a bunch of stooped-over lunks roamed North America a hundred million years ago? Is that going to change the national economy? Is that going to provide cheap fuel for steamships, or possibly a new warhead on some missile to drop on Soviet Russia?”
Wharton said nothing.
“Maybe if I had sent them a box of some kind of dried algae,” Runcible said, “and asked if it was full of protein and could it be grown in Joe Doak’s bathtub, I might have got a decent answer and the courtesy of a thorough investigation.”
“The University of California did the radiation dating work on Leakey’s Oldowan skull,” Wharton said.
“Yes,” Runcible said. “But they know who Leakey is. He spent twenty-five years working in that gorge. Sure, they gave him the royal treatment. They know the difference between a skull coming to them from L.S.B. Leakey of Olduvai Gorge, Tanganyika, and Leo Runcible of Runcible Realty, Carquinez. Marin County, U.S.A.”
“Twenty-seven,” Wharton murmured.
“Pardon me?” Runcible said.
“Leakey worked the gorge twenty-seven years, not twenty-five.”
Runcible said, “When a man like Leakey sends in a skull, they have to look at it. When I send in a skull, they don’t have to. It’s as simple as that. A man doesn’t do what he wants but what he has to do. They can get away with short-shitting me, but not with Leakey; if they did that, they’d get shafted by every scientific authority in the world, and they know it.” He paused, and while he was thinking how to continue, Wharton said,
“How much money have you put into this, so far?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“You have an idea.”
Runcible
said, “A few dollars.”
“I’d say you’ve put in a hundred in phone calls alone.”
“More like two,” Runcible admitted.
“So you’ve probably put three hundred in all, including books, tools, phone calls, telegrams, photostating, and your time. How much time? All your time; you haven’t been doing any real estate work in two weeks.”
Runcible said nothing.
“You could bankrupt yourself with this,” Wharton said.
After a time Runcible said, “It brings in business.”
“Does it?”
“Eventually.”
“You’re not doing it to bring in business.”
With amusement, Runcible said, “Dyan learned the military terrain of the Middle East by scratching around with a shovel, digging for old buried idols.”
Wharton said, “You’re deluding yourself if you think you’re doing this for business purposes. That’s a rationalization. You’re exposing yourself to public ridicule.”
To himself, Runcible thought, He was a nice Jewish boy, but he had too much ambition. Aloud, he said, “What a way to spend Easter.”
“What?”
“You haven’t heard the new crop of jokes.” Standing, he put himself in the posture of Christ on the cross; he dangled his arms out and hung his head. “What a way to spend Easter,” he said. “I’ll tell you another.” Reseating himself, he said, “Would you mind crossing your legs? We have only three nails.”
Wharton, in spite of himself, laughed.
Sharing the man’s upsurge, Runcible said, “Here’s the one I like best. Drop that cross once more, and you’re out of the parade.”
At that, Wharton laughed until tears ran down his cheeks. He sank down in a chair and wiped at his face. Runcible, too, found himself unable to stop laughing; together, they laughed for a long time.
“Here’s another,” Runcible said, when he could speak again. “It’s longer. Takes place in the stable. It’s my Joseph joke. Do you know it?”
Wharton shook his head no.
“Mary’s there,” Runcible said. “In confinement. Joseph’s carrying stuff around, bales of straw. All of a sudden his foot slips and he says, ‘Jesus Christ!’” He paused, getting his joke ready. “And Mary says, ‘Say. You know, I like that much better than Irving.’”