‘Try?’
‘We won’t make it through till dawn. Let’s fry a few eggs, drink some wine, go to bed early. But lie on top your covers with your clothes on. You shall want your clothes, swiftly, I imagine.’
We ate almost in silence. We drank wine. We listened to the new hours striking from the new brass clocks everywhere in the new house.
At ten, Nora sent me up to my room.
‘Don’t be afraid,’ she called to me on the landing. ‘The house means us no harm. It simply fears we may hurt it. I shall read in the library. When you are ready to leave, no matter what hour, come for me.’
‘I shall sleep snug as a bug,’ I said.
‘Shall you?’ said Nora.
And I went up to my new bed and lay in the dark smoking, feeling neither afraid nor smug, calmly waiting for any sort of happening at all.
I did not sleep at midnight.
I was awake at one.
At three, my eyes were still wide.
The house did not creak, sigh, or murmur. It waited, as I waited, timing its breath to mine.
At three-thirty in the morning the door to my room slowly opened.
There was simply a motion of dark upon dark. I felt the wind draught over my hands and face.
I sat up slowly in the dark.
Five minutes passed. My heart slowed its beating.
And then far away below, I heard the front door open.
Again, not a creak or whisper. Just the click and shadowing change of wind motioning the corridors.
I got up and went out into the hall.
From the top of the stairwell I saw what I expected: the front door open. Moonlight flooded the new parqueting and shone upon the new grandfather’s clock which ticked with a fresh oiled bright sound.
I went down and out the front door.
‘There you are,’ said Nora, standing down by my car in the drive.
I went to her.
‘You didn’t hear a thing,’ she said, ‘and yet you heard something, right?’
‘Right.’
‘Are you ready to leave now, Charles?’
I looked up at the house. ‘Almost.’
‘You know now, don’t you, it is all over? You feel it, surely, that it is the dawn come up on a new morning? And, feel my heart, my soul beating pale and mossy within my heart, my blood so black, Charlie, you have felt it often beating under your own body, you know how old I am. You know how full of dungeons and racks and late afternoons and blue hours of French twilight I am. Well…’
Nora looked at the house.
‘Last night, as I lay in bed at two in the morning. I heard the front door drift open. I knew that the whole house had simply leant itself ajar to let the latch free and glide the door wide. I went to the top of the stairs. And, looking down. I saw the creek of moonlight laid out fresh in the hall. And the house so much as said, Here is the way you go, tread the cream, walk the milky new path out of this and away, go, old one, go with your darkness. You are with child. The sour-gum ghost is in your stomach. It will never be born. And because you cannot drop it, one day it will be your death. What are you waiting for?
‘Well, Charles. I was afraid to go down and shut that door. And I knew it was true, I would never sleep again. So, I went down and out.
‘I have a dark old sinful place in Geneva. I’ll go there to live. But you are younger and fresher, Charlie, so I want this place to be yours.’
‘Not so young.’
‘Younger than I.’
‘Not so fresh. It wants me to go, too, Nora. The door to my room just now. It opened, too.’
‘Oh, Charlie,’ breathed Nora, and touched my cheek. ‘Oh, Charles,’ and then, softly, ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be. We’ll go together.’
Nora opened the car door.
‘Let me drive. I must drive now, very fast, all the way to Dublin. Do you mind?’
‘No. But what about your luggage?’
‘What’s in there, the house can have. Where are you going?’
I stopped walking. ‘I must shut the front door.’
‘No,’ said Nora. ‘Leave it open.’
‘But…people will come in.’
Nora laughed quietly. ‘Yes. But only good people. So that’s all right, isn’t it?’
I finally nodded. ‘Yes. That’s all right.’
I came back to stand by my car, reluctant to leave. Clouds were gathering. It was beginning to snow. Great gentle white leaflets fell down out of the moonlit sky as harmlessly soft as the gossip of angels.
We got in and slammed the car doors. Nora gunned the motor.
‘Ready?’ she said.
‘Ready.’
‘Charlie?’ said Nora. ‘When we get to Dublin, will you sleep with me, I mean sleep, the next few days? I shall need someone the next days. Will you?’
‘Of course.’
‘I wish,’ she said. And tears filled her eyes. ‘Oh God, how I wish I could burn myself down and start over. Burn myself down so I could go up to the house now and go in and live forever like a dairy maid full of berries and cream. Oh but hell. What’s the use of talk like that?’
‘Drive, Nora,’ I said, gently.
And she drummed the motor and we ran out of the valley, along the lake, with gravel buckshotting out behind, and up the hills and through the deep snow forest, and by the time we reached the last rise, Nora’s tears were shaken away, she did not look back, and we drove at seventy through the dense falling and thicker night toward a darker horizon and a cold stone city, and all the way, never once letting go, in silence I held one of her hands.
Tomorrow’s Child
He did not want to be the father of a small Blue Pyramid. Peter Horn hadn’t planned it that way at all. Neither he nor his wife imagined that such a thing could happen to them. They had talked quietly for days about the birth of their coming child, they had eaten normal foods, slept a great deal, taken in a few shows, and, when it was time for her to fly in the helicopter to the hospital, her husband held her and kissed her.
‘Honey, you’ll be home in six hours,’ he said. ‘These new birthmechanisms do everything but father the child for you.’
She remembered an old-time song—‘No, no, they can’t take that away from me!’—and sang it, and they laughed as the helicopter lifted them over the green way from country to city.
The doctor, a quiet gentleman named Wolcott, was very confident. Polly Ann, the wife, was made ready for the task ahead and the father was put, as usual, out in the waiting room where he could suck on cigarettes or take highballs from a convenient mixer. He was feeling pretty good. This was the first baby, but there was not a thing to worry about. Polly Ann was in good hands.
Dr Wolcott came into the waiting room an hour later. He looked like a man who has seen death. Peter Horn, on his third highball, did not move. His hand tightened on the glass and he whispered:
‘She’s dead.’
‘No,’ said Wolcott, quietly. ‘No, no, she’s fine. It’s the baby.’
‘The baby’s dead, then.’
‘The baby’s alive, too, but—drink the rest of that drink and come along after me. Something’s happened.’
Yes, indeed, something had happened. The ‘something’ that had happened had brought the entire hospital out into the corridors. People were going and coming from one room to another. As Peter Horn was led through a hallway where attendants in white uniforms were standing around peering into each other’s faces and whispering, he became quite ill.
‘Hey, looky looky! The child of Peter Horn! Incredible!’
They entered a small clean room. There was a crowd in the room, looking down at a low table. There was something on the table.
A small Blue Pyramid.
‘Why’ve you brought me here?’ said Horn, turning to the doctor.
The small Blue Pyramid moved. It began to cry.
Peter Horn pushed forward and looked down wildly. He was very white and he was breathing rapid
ly. ‘You don’t mean that’s it?’
The doctor named Wolcott nodded.
The Blue Pyramid had six blue snakelike appendages and three eyes that blinked from the tips of projecting structures.
Horn didn’t move.
‘It weighs seven pounds, eight ounces,’ someone said.
Horn thought to himself, They’re kidding me. This is some joke. Charlie Ruscoll is behind all this. He’ll pop in a door any moment and cry ‘April Fool!’ and everybody’ll laugh. That’s not my child. Oh, horrible! They’re kidding me.
Horn stood there, and the sweat rolled down his face.
‘Get me away from here,’ Horn turned and his hands were opening and closing without purpose, his eyes were flickering.
Wolcott held his elbow, talking calmly. ‘This is your child. Understand that, Mr Horn.’
‘No. No, it’s not.’ His mind wouldn’t touch the thing. ‘It’s a nightmare. Destroy it!’
‘You can’t kill a human being.’
‘Human?’ Horn blinked tears. ‘That’s not human! That’s a crime against God!’
The doctor went on, quickly. ‘We’ve examined this—child—and we’ve decided that it is not a mutant, a result of gene destruction or rearrangement. It’s not a freak. Nor is it sick. Please listen to everything I say to you.’
Horn stared at the wall, his eyes wide and sick. He swayed. The doctor talked distantly, with assurance.
‘The child was somehow affected by the birth pressure. There was a dimensional disstructure caused by the simultaneous short-circuitings and malfunctionings of the new birth and hypnosis machines. Well, anyway,’ the doctor ended lamely, ‘your baby was born into—another dimension.’
Horn did not even nod. He stood there, waiting.
Dr Wolcott made it emphatic. ‘Your child is alive, well, and happy. It is lying there, on the table. But because it was born into another dimension it has a shape alien to us. Our eyes, adjusted to a three-dimensional concept, cannot recognize it as a baby. But it is. Underneath that camouflage, the strange pyramidal shape and appendages, it is your child.’
Horn closed his mouth and shut his eyes. ‘Can I have a drink?’
‘Certainly.’ A drink was thrust into Horn’s hands.
‘Now, let me just sit down, sit down somewhere a moment.’ Horn sank wearily into a chair. It was coming clear. Everything shifted slowly into place. It was his child, no matter what. He shuddered. No matter how horrible it looked, it was his first child.
At last he looked up and tried to see the doctor. ‘What’ll we tell Polly?’ His voice was hardly a whisper.
‘We’ll work that out this morning, as soon as you feel up to it.’
‘What happens after that? Is there any way to—change it back?’
‘We’ll try. That is, if you give us permission to try. After all, it’s your child. You can do anything with him you want to do.’
‘Him?’ Horn laughed ironically, shutting his eyes. ‘How do you know it’s a him?’ He sank down into darkness. His ears roared.
Wolcott was visibly upset. ‘Why, we—that is—well, we don’t know, for sure.’
Horn drank more of his drink. ‘What if you can’t change him back?’
‘I realize what a shock it is to you, Mr Horn. If you can’t bear to look upon the child, we’ll be glad to raise him here, at the Institute, for you.’
Horn thought it over. ‘Thanks. But he still belongs to me and Polly. I’ll give him a home. Raise him like I’d raise any kid. Give him a normal home life. Try to learn to love him. Treat him right.’ His lips were numb, he couldn’t think.
‘You realize what a job you’re taking on, Mr Horn? This child can’t be allowed to have normal playmates; why, they’d pester it to death in no time. You know how children are. If you decide to raise the child at home, his life will be strictly regimented, he must never be seen by anyone. Is that clear?’
‘Yes. Yes, it’s clear, Doc. Doc, is he all right mentally?’
‘Yes. We’ve tested his reactions. He’s a fine healthy child as far as nervous response and such things go.’
‘I just wanted to be sure. Now, the only problem is Polly.’
Wolcott frowned. ‘I confess that one has me stumped. You know it is pretty hard on a woman to hear that her child has been born dead. But this, telling a woman she’s given birth to something not recognizable as human. It’s not as clean as death. There’s too much chance for shock. And yet I must tell her the truth. A doctor gets nowhere by lying to his patient.’
Horn put his glass down. ‘I don’t want to lose Polly, too. I’d be prepared now, if you destroyed the child, to take it. But I don’t want Polly killed by the shock of this whole thing.’
‘I think we may be able to change the child back. That’s the point which makes me hesitate. If I thought the case was hopeless I’d make out a certificate of euthanasia immediately. But it’s at least worth a chance.’
Horn was very tired. He was shivering quietly, deeply. ‘All right, Doctor. It needs food, milk, and love until you can fix it up. It’s had a raw deal so far, no reason for it to go on getting a raw deal. When will we tell Polly?’
‘Tomorrow afternoon, when she wakes up.’
Horn got up and walked to the table which was warmed by a soft illumination from overhead. The Blue Pyramid sat upon the table as Horn held out his hand.
‘Hello, Baby,’ said Horn.
The Blue Pyramid looked up at Horn with three bright blue eyes. It shifted a tiny blue tendril, touching Horn’s fingers with it.
Horn shivered.
‘Hello, Baby.’
The doctor produced a special feeding bottle.
‘This is woman’s milk. Here we go.’
Baby looked upward through clearing mists. Baby saw the shapes moving over him and knew them to be friendly. Baby was newborn, but already alert, strangely alert. Baby was aware.
There were moving objects above and around Baby. Six cubes of a gray-white color, bending down. Six cubes with hexagonal appendages and three eyes to each cube. Then there were two other cubes coming from a distance over a crystalline plateau. One of the cubes was white. It had three eyes, too. There was something about this White Cube that Baby liked. There was an attraction. Some relation. There was an odor to the White Cube that reminded Baby of itself.
Shrill sounds came from the six bending-down Gray-White Cubes. Sounds of curiosity and wonder. It was like a kind of piccolo music, all playing at once.
Now the two newly arrived cubes, the White Cube and the Gray Cube, were whistling. After a while the White Cube extended one of its hexagonal appendages to touch Baby. Baby responded by putting out one of its tendrils from its pyramidal body. Baby liked the White Cube. Baby liked. Baby was hungry. Baby liked. Maybe the White Cube would give it food…
The Gray Cube produced a pink globe for Baby. Baby was now to be fed. Good. Good. Baby accepted food eagerly.
Food was good. All the Gray-White Cubes drifted away, leaving only the nice White Cube standing over Baby looking down and whistling over and over. Over and over.
They told Polly the next day. Not everything. Just enough. Just a hint. They told her the baby was not well, in a certain way. They talked slowly, and in ever-tightening circles, in upon Polly. Then Dr Wolcott gave a long lecture on the birth-mechanisms, how they helped a woman in her labor, and how, this time, they short-circuited. There was another man of scientific means present and he gave her a dry little talk on dimensions, holding up his fingers, so! one, two, three, and four. Still another man talked of energy and matter. Another spoke of underprivileged children.
Polly finally sat up in bed and said, ‘What’s all the talk for? What’s wrong with my baby that you should all be talking so long?’
Wolcott told her.
‘Of course, you can wait a week and see it,’ he said. ‘Or you can sign over guardianship of the child to the Institute.’
‘There’s only one thing I want to know,’ said Polly.
Dr Wolcott raised his brows.
‘Did I make the child that way?’ asked Polly.
‘You most certainly did not!’
‘The child isn’t a monster, genetically?’ asked Polly.
‘The child was thrust into another continuum. Otherwise, it is perfectly normal.’
Polly’s tight, lined mouth relaxed. She said, simply, ‘Then, bring me my baby. I want to see him. Please. Now.’
They brought the ‘child.’
The Horns left the hospital the next day. Polly walked out on her own two good legs, with Peter Horn following her, looking at her in quiet amazement.
They did not have the baby with them. That would come later. Horn helped his wife into their helicopter and sat beside her. He lifted the ship, whirring, into the warm air.
‘You’re a wonder,’ he said.
‘Am I?’ she said, lighting a cigarette.
‘You are. You didn’t cry. You didn’t do anything.’
‘He’s not so bad, you know,’ she said. ‘Once you get to know him. I can even—hold him in my arms. He’s warm and he cries and he even needs his triangular diapers.’ Here she laughed. He noticed a nervous tremor in the laugh, however. ‘No, I didn’t cry, Pete, because that’s my baby. Or he will be. He isn’t dead. I thank God for that. He’s—I don’t know how to explain—still unborn. I like to think he hasn’t been born yet. We’re waiting for him to show up. I have confidence in Dr Wolcott. Haven’t you?’
‘You’re right. You’re right.’ He reached over and held her hand. ‘You know something? You’re a peach.’
‘I can hold on,’ she said, sitting there looking ahead as the green country swung under them. ‘As long as I know something good will happen. I won’t let it hurt or shock me. I’ll wait six months, and then maybe I’ll kill myself.’
‘Polly!’
She looked at him as if he’d just come in. ‘Pete, I’m sorry. But this sort of thing doesn’t happen. Once it’s over and the baby is finally “born” I’ll forget it so quick it’ll never have occurred. But if the doctor can’t help us, then a mind can’t take it, a mind can only tell the body to climb out on a roof and jump.’