Braden muttered something in the nature of a contemptuous vulgarity as Gewinner followed Violet and her assistants out of the room.
It was amazing how Mother Pearce acted as if nothing surprising or irregular had happened. She turned to Dr. Peters and started a conversation about the sad condition of her flower garden.
Last fall, she said, my chrysanthemums withered almost as soon as they bloomed and now my rhododendron and azaleas have turned their toes up to the daisies, but my daisies are as dead as my roses. Of course I know it’s the fumes from The Project, and I realize of course that, after all, it’s a small sacrifice for anyone to make for anything as big and important to all the world as The Project. Don’t you think so. Dr. Peters?
Dr. Peters agreed with her completely. He said that he hadn’t had a real bunch of flowers on his altar in such a long time he couldn’t remember how long. Then Father Acheson chimed in.
Eastern doesn’t seem the same without lilies.
Braden had sat in irritable silence during this exchange of remarks about the flower situation. Now he spoke up strongly.
In my personal opinion, said Braden, it is time and past time for all people in this country, including civilians in no way connected directly or indirectly with government service, to stop thinking about their lilies and daisies and to start thinking about the many grave problems confronting the country all over the world today and getting no better tomorrow in my personal opinion.
Hear, hear, said Dr. Peters, and the other clergyman at the table said. Yes, indeed, while nodding his head in vigorous affirmation.
Braden continued his extemporaneous speech, expressing himself in such uninhibited language that Mother Pearce tried once or twice to catch his eye with an admonitory glance, the effect of which was so totally useless that her eloquent younger son went on expressing himself more forcefully than before.
Everyone knows, said Braden, that before we put Stew Hammersmith in the White House, that house was occupied by a long succession of fools, one fool after another, a continual daisy chain of pussyfooting old fools without a realistic idea of a progressive nature in the whole goddamn lot of them. They were just there sitting while the reds and the blacks and the yellows were pulling fantastic stunts right out from under our feet, but now, in my personal opinion, we’ve finally got us a crackerjack man up there who can think as realistic as me or you about the many grave problems confronting this country all over the world today and worse tomorrow. And I’m not saying that as a personal opinion, although this crackerjack man is my personal buddy that flies his own plane down here for consultations with me whenever I give him a signal. No, I just happen to know that we’ve finally got us a man with a head as well as a butt in the White House that can play the big-time game of political power as good or better than he can play golf or shoot craps, and I’m not shitting you, brother.
Interspersed with Braden’s speech were a good many idiomatic expressions which are censored out of this transcription of it, since they were only put in to emphasize his points. When he stopped for a moment to take a look at his watch. Mother Pearce got in a word or two.
Oh, son, she interjected. I’m glad you brought up Stew because my incoming mail this morning included a wire from Mag saying that she and Babe were flying down here with Stew when Stew flies down here this weekend. I thought you’d like to know that wonderful piece of news. Isn’t that wonderful news?
Yeah, wonderful, good, but. Mama, I wish you’d let me talk for a change. Will you let me talk for a change?
Talk, son, said Mother Pearce, you go right on and talk, but I just thought that you’d like to know that Babe is expecting to do “Babe’s Stomp” with you this weekend and Babe and Mag will be in the castle with us.
Wonderful, good, said Braden, and I’m also pleased to know that General Olds and his staff are going to make the scene, too. I guess we all know I’m giving away no secret when I give you my personal opinion that that old war horse has lost his balls in confronting the moral obligations of this country all over the world, and I don’t mean the balls in his golf bag. What I mean is, he’s a goddamn pacifist fool that favors us reaching some understanding in Wah Sing Mink and Krek Cow Walla, but after this top-level conference this weekend at The Project, two and two is going to be added together and if old Olds don’t know what they add up to, why, by my liver and lights, sitting here at this table, he’d better say four is the sum of two plus two unless he wants to admit that he never learned to count past three in his life.
Son, said Mother Pearce, I want to ask you two favors. Don’t use excitable language and save out some time for some fun with the ladies while they’re down here. I’m going to throw another terrific clambake at the Diamond Brite and an Indian chief is coming to wrestle an alligator but I know Babe won’t take her eyes off the door till you come through it.
Yeah, she’s a red-blooded girl, but right now let me get back to what I was saying.
What he was saying went on for another half-hour while the cherries jubilee and coffee were served and the finger bowls set in position around the table.
Mother Pearce got up first. She rose from her seat with a graceful, sweeping movement and said to the gentlemen. Will you gentlemen excuse us?
She had apparently forgotten that Violet had already gone, which isn’t a matter of much surprise since she had counted out Violet to begin with, and it surely caused her no grief that Gewinner had taken a fast count too. Now she swept out, a regal figure as she strode from the dining hall toward the library, where she would soon be served a little postprandial drink, in the nature of brandy.
Violet, on her way out! Gewinner, on his way out!
That’s what she thought to herself as she paraded as if before cheering throngs into the room of a thousand books never opened. It was generally a quiet room but this evening the glass doors on to the conservatory were open and at one end of the conservatory was a large aviary of parakeets and lovebirds and canaries, all of which were now in a state of excitement and making a great commotion. Mrs. Pearce supposed they had heard her approaching and were expressing their delight. She paid the birds two calls a day, one after breakfast and another before dinner, and she would sit with them for a while, talking baby talk and making kissing sounds at them. They always responded to her visits with much chatter and flurry but this evening, hearing her approach, they were downright delirious.
Yes, they do adore me, she remarked to herself. I’ll go in there and pay them a little call to settle them down for the night. So she went on through the library into the conservatory. The first thing she noticed there was that the air was quite chilly—and no wonder, the glass doors onto the garden were wide open. Now who did that? she asked herself crossly as she went to close the doors, but before she could close them, wings flapped over her head and a pigeon flew out. What was that, a pigeon? she asked out loud, and to her surprise she was answered by Gewinner whose presence in the conservatory she hadn’t noticed till then. He was standing among the tall ferns by the aviary.
Yes, that was a pigeon. Mother, he said, that was a carrier pigeon that delivered a message to me from a young lady named Gladys who works over at the drive-in. It seems she has something like what they call aliappening planned for the evening and the pigeon brought me an invitation to it.
Well, why don’t you go? urged his mother, secretly meaning why don’t you go and stay gone. She was tired of the mocking nonsense that Gewinner talked to her, the few times he talked at all to her. She’d better get him off on his travels again, yes, at all costs. But what the devil was this? she exclaimed to herself, as Violet appeared in the library, looking as sober as if she’d never heard of a martin that wasn’t a bird, and dressed as if for travel and carrying a flight bag.
Why, Violet, said Mother Pearce, are you going too?
Violet gave her only the slightest of glances, and spoke past her to Gewinner.
I took a couple of bennies. I’m all straightened out for the clambake.
br />
Good, our invitations just came from the haw-haw drive-in. Everything’s A-OK, and timed to the dot and the dash, so there’s not a moment to lose.
What shit is this? thought Mother Pearce, almost out loud, but they’d gone rushing past her, out the open doors to the garden and the garage.
Well, I swan, perhaps they’re eloping together, wouldn’t that be something too good to believe!
Your brandy, madam.
Oh, thank you, Joseph, she replied to the butler’s announcement, and then she added. Close the doors to the garden. Parakeets and lovebirds catch pneumonia and wake up dead overnight. Good night, birdies, sleep tight, she crooned to the aviary as she went to her brandy—that she would drink to the providential way that everything seemed to be going in the long sweet and mellow autumn of her existence.
At about the time that Violet and Gewinner left the Pearce mansion the Laughing Boy Drive-in received from The Project an order for a quart container of coffee and a dozen barbecue sandwiches, this order to be delivered by Billy himself and not just delivered to a guard at the gates but brought by Billy personally to the Golden Room in the administration building, an order so extraordinary that Billy tingled all over with elation, there being no way to explain it except as a giant step up in The Project world in reward for his dedication.
There was a problem, though. He had sent everyone home that evening but the new girl, Gladys; they were alone at the drive-in.
How fast can you knock out a dozen barbecue sandwiches? he asked her.
To his amazement, she smiled bewitchingly at him and said. They’re ready already!
One more problem: no locomotion, no wheels. His car had stalled on his way to the drive-in that morning and was still on the critical list at the Always Jolly Garage.
In no time flat Gladys had the quart of famously good coffee ready in a container and the barbecued sandwiches, steaming hot, in a glazed paper package.
Gladys, you’re incredible, said Billy. Now get me a taxi.
Oh, that’s not necessary, said Gladys. Mrs. Braden Pearce has just driven up outside.
Sure enough, she had. And Billy was so excited and elated he hardly noticed that Gewinner was in the car too, and in the driver’s seat.
Come on, let’s go, Billy, no hard feelings, Gewinner called out.
This was the sort of appeal to simple good fellowship between two men that Billy never resisted.
Wonderful! Coming, he shouted. They fairly jumped in the car and Billy hardly even noticed that Gladys had jumped in with him. What a carhop! She had her hand on his knee and the fingers were creeping up from there to a higher position. Gewinner gunned the car and off it sped toward The Project.
Just before they got there, Billy said to Gladys, Do you hear something ticking?
Gladys said. Ticking, ticking?
Gewinner said. The engine needs a checkup.
Violet said. Tomorrow.
And the hand of Gladys was making such intimate advances that Billy pushed it reluctantly away and said. Wait till we—
Here we are, said Gewinner. And yes they were, they had now arrived at the main gate of The Project and were being accosted by sentries and barking dogs.
Violet leaned over Gewinner and shouted. I’m Mrs. Braden Pearce, my husband is expecting us, let us in!
The sentries seemed distracted by some kind of electric signal going beep-beep, more and more emphatically, from various parts of the grounds. One of the sentries waved the car along, but Billy had scrambled out with the sandwiches and quart container of coffee and was allowed to proceed on his innocent mission as the car sped on with Gewinner, Violet and Gladys.
Billy was aware that something must be going mighty wrong in the grounds of The Project. The electronic sound had become one continual scream and lights had started flashing and changing in color as Billy advanced on his errand. The lights flashed yellow, then red, then a lurid purplish color that seemed to penetrate all the vacant spaces of the sky and the areas between the concrete buildings and fortifications. Now people were running around and shouting at each other so hysterically that Billy couldn’t make out what they were shouting. But Billy had the temperament of the perfect soldier and he knew that all he had to do was to follow out his instructions, which were to come to the administration building of The Project with this quart container of drive-in coffee. This he was doing and this he would go on doing no matter what happened. Nothing would stop him, not if all hell broke loose…but it sure did look like something had gone really wrong at The Project. He thought maybe he might ask somebody, but nobody was moving at a slow enough pace to be asked a question, so Billy just went on with his errand. Then a silence fell…broken almost immediately by a great voice that sounded like a recording. The voice announced: Our system has detected the approach of—
That was all Billy heard of the announcement, for his attention was caught again by a sound of ticking, and since he was now alone, no one for several yards around him, he heard it much more clearly…and, for gosh sakes, it seemed to be coming from—
He opened the lid of the coffee container and reached his hand into the scalding brown liquid and drew out the metal cube that was now, obviously, the source of the ticking sound, and held the cube in front of his astonished baby-blue eyes for a second or two before—
Well, before it went off, and everything went off with it…
Yes, everything went off with it except the getaway spaceship which fortunately rose from its pad just long enough before the big boom at The Project to be in weightless ozone by the time of that far-reaching event. The ship bearing Gewinner, Gladys and Violet was called the Ark of Space—a reassuring touch of romanticism—and its destination is still secret to its passengers three and may still be secret to them for a long time to come.
It doesn’t matter. They’re so far away now that their watches are timed by light-years. In weightless ozone the concern with time is steadily left behind. Sometimes Gewinner strays from the cabin to the pilots’ compartment, which is occupied by three astronauts in the full glitter of youth. They are amused by Gewinner’s visits. Stories are swapped back and forth between Gewinner and the radiant young navigator, stories about the knightly quest as both have known it in their different ways. Sometimes a flock of stars will go past like fireflies in a child’s twilight, and for a moment or two the Ark of Space will be flooded with light that makes Gewinner smile and say. It’s bedtime— meaning it’s morning.
And once, and once only, the communication system picked up a rhapsodic music, something like what the Good Gray Poet of Paumanok must have had in mind when he shouted, “Thou Vast Rondure, Swimming in Space.” This music was interrupted and silenced by a voice so mighty that it made the ship tremble. Gewinner, at that moment, was in the pilots’ compartment, and still having little command of their language, he didn’t know, couldn’t guess, what the mighty voice was saying, so he inquired of his closest friend, the radiant young navigator, what was the message, what was the shouting about?
The navigator said. Oh, many things that don’t concern you particularly, but one thing that does, you’ve at last and at least been cleared for landing with us—of course for a term of probation.
Ah, good, said Gewinner, to whom the possibility that he might not be accepted had never occurred.
But what, he asked, what about this?
He touched his white silk scarf which had made so many festivals of nights on the planet Earth, far behind them.
Will this be admitted with me?
Why certainly, yes, of course, the young navigator assured him. It will be accepted and highly valued as a historical item in our Museum of Sad Enchantments in Galaxies Drifting Away.
Gewinner was about to dispute this disposition of his scarf, when the junior pilot sprang up, smiling and stretching, and yelled out. Champagne! Celebration!
Then all laughed and sang and joked together and offered toast after toast to each other and to the felicity waiting for them whe
n they eventually reach the spot marked X on the chart of time without end.
1965 (Published 1966)
A Recluse and His Guest
The tall and angular person—man or woman?—had come into town not by the road (which the winter had made nearly impassable for months) but northward through the Midnight Forest, which was still more impassable.
“I understand that you came here through the forest.”
“That I did.”
“You weren’t afraid of being attacked by wolves?”
“No, because, you see, I had smeared my leather wrappings with an oil that is repellent to wolves. They smell this oil and go in other directions without looking back.”
“You were coming from—”
“Vladnik.”
“Oh, from Vladnik. That explains why you—”
“Couldn’t come by the road but had to struggle through the Midnight Forest, losing my way several times. Oh, I doubt that ever in my travels I’ve had a worse time of it.”
“Why did you leave Vladnik?”
“In Vladnik I was the guest of a tradesman who suddenly found it inconvenient for me to stay with him any longer.”
(This is part of a conversation that the woman had with someone a few weeks after she arrived in the icy seaport of Staad.)
The woman had eyes the color of the ice in the harbor and her hair, close-cropped, was so fair that it seemed to be gray.
An earlier conversation that she had with a baker—he gave her a loaf of bread—should not be omitted.
“Do you know of a man in Staad, I mean a man who’s not married, of course, who might take me in for a while?”
“Well, now, I don’t know,” said the baker. “No, I don’t know of any, unless you’d stay with a recluse.”
“I never turn back,” said the woman, “and before me in Staad, what is there but the ice in the harbor?”
“This recluse is not much different from the ice in the harbor.”
“Thank you for the bread. I was very hungry. Now would you please tell me how I can find the house of this recluse?”