The Best of Robert Bloch

  Leo was dead again.

  He lay there on the huge couch, his pallor almost phosphorescent in the gathering twilight. And his eyes were closed and his ears were closed and his very heart seemed closed until I bent down and blended the warmth of my lips with his own.

  "Dorothy!"

  "Sleeping Beauty, in reverse!" I exclaimed, triumphantly, rumpling his hair. "What's the matter, darling? Tired after your rehearsal? I don't blame you, considering—"

  It was still light enough for me to recognize his frown.

  "Did I—startle you?" It was a B-movie line, but this was, to me, a B-movie situation. The brilliant young pianist, torn between love and a career, interrupted in his pursuit of art by the sweet young thing. He frowns, rises, takes her by the shoulders as the camera pans in close and says—

  "Dorothy, there's something you and I must talk about."

  I was right. Here it comes, I told myself. The lecture about how art comes first, love and work don't mix—and after last night, too! I suppose I pouted. I make a very pretty pout, on occasion. But I waited, prepared to hear him out.

  And he said, "Dorothy, what do you know about Solar Science?"

  "I've never heard of it."

  "That's not surprising. It's not a popular system; nothing in para-psychology has gained general acceptance. But it works, you know. It works. Perhaps I'd better explain from the beginning, so you'll understand."

  So he explained from the beginning, and I did my best to understand. He must have talked for over an hour, but what I got out of it boils down to just a little.

  It was his mother, really, who got interested in Solar Science. Apparently the basis of the concept was similar to yoga or some of these new mental health systems. She'd been experimenting for about a year before her death—and during the past four years, since her passing, Leo had worked on it alone. The trance was part of the system. Briefly, as near as I could make out, it consisted of concentration—"but effortless effort of concentration, that's important"—on one's inner self, in order to establish "complete self-awareness." According to Solar Science one can become perfectly and utterly aware of one's entire being, and "communicate" with the organs of the body, the cells, the very atomic and molecular structure. Because everything, down to the very molecules, possesses a vibration-frequency and is therefore alive. And the personality, as an integrated unit, achieves full harmony only when complete communication is established.

  Leo practiced four hours a day with Mr. Steinway. And he devoted at least two hours a day to Solar Science and "self-awareness." It had done wonders for him, done wonders for his playing. For relaxation, for renewal, for serenity, it was the ultimate answer. And it led to an extension of awareness. But he'd talk about that some other time.

  What did I think?

  I honestly didn't know. Like everyone else, I'd heard a lot, and listened to very little, about telepathy and extra-sensory perception and teleportation and such things. And I'd always associated these matters with the comic-strip idea of scientists and psychologists and outright charlatans and gullible old women given to wearing long ropes of wooden beads which they twisted nervously during séances.

  It was something different to hear Leo talk about it, to feel the intensity of his conviction, to hear him say—with a belief that burned—that this meditation was all that had preserved his sanity in the years after his mother died.

  So I told him I understood, and I'd never interfere with his scheme of living, and all I wanted was to be with him and be for him whenever and wherever there was a place for me in his life. And, at the time, I believed it.

  I believed it even though I could only see him for an hour or so, each evening, before his Boston concert. I got a few TV leads during the week—Harry arranged some auditions, but the client postponed his decision until the first of the month—and that helped to pass the time.

  Then I flew up to Boston for the concert, and Leo was magnificent, and we came back together with nary a thought or a word about Solar Science or anything except the two of us.

  But on Sunday morning, we were three again. Mr. Steinway arrived.

  I dashed over to my own apartment and came running back after lunch. Central Park shimmered in the sunlight, and I admit I shared something of its radiance.

  Until I was in the apartment, and heard Mr. Steinway rumbling and growling and purring and screeching and cachinnating, and I hurried in to Leo and the piano stopped.

  He frowned. It seemed I was developing quite a talent for making an unexpected entrance.

  "I didn't expect you so soon," he said. "I was just practicing something new."

  "So I heard. What's the rest of it?"

  "Never mind, now. Did you want to go out this afternoon?" He said it just as if he didn't see the new shoes, the suit, the hat I'd bought from Mr. John just to surprise him.

  "No. Honestly, darling, I didn't mean to interrupt. Go on with your playing."

  Leo shook his head. He stared down at Mr. Steinway.

  "Does it bother you to have me around when you practice?"

  Leo didn't look up.

  "I'll go away."

  "Please," he said. "It isn't me. But I'm afraid that Mr. Steinway doesn't—respond to you properly."

  That tore it. That ripped it to shreds. "Now wait a minute," I said, coolly (if white-hot rage is cool). "Are we doing a scene from Harvey, now? Is this some more of your Solar Science, and am I to infer that Mr. Steinway is alive? I admit I'm not very bright, not overly perceptive, and I couldn't be expected to share your sensitive reactions. So I've never noticed that Mr. Steinway had an existence of his own. As a matter of fact, to me, it's just another piano. And its legs don't begin to compare with my own."

  "Dorothy, please—"

  "Dorothy doesn't please! Dorothy isn't going to say one more word in the presence of your—your—incubus, or whatever it is! So. Mr. Steinway doesn't respond to me properly, is that it? Well, you tell Mr. Steinway for me that he can go plumb to—"

  Somehow he got me out of the apartment, into the sunlight, into the park, into his arms. And it was peaceful there, and his voice was soft, and far away the birds made a song that hurt me in my throat.

  ". . . so you weren't far wrong at that, darling," Leo told me. "I know it's hard to believe for anyone who hasn't studied Solar Science or ultrakinetic phenomena. But Mr. Steinway is alive in a way. I can communicate with him, and he can communicate with me."

  "You talk to it? It talks to you?"

  His laughter was reassuring, and I desperately wanted to be reassured, now. "Of course not. I'm talking about vibrationary communication. Look at it this way, darling. I don't want to sound like a lecturer—but this is science, not imagination.

  "Did you ever stop to think what makes a piano? It's a highly complicated arrangement of substances and materials—thousands of tiny, carefully calculated operations go into the construction of a truly fine instrument. In a way, the result is comparable to the creation of an artificial being; a musical robot. To begin with, there's a dozen different kinds of wood, of various ages and conditions. There're special finishes, and felt, gut, animal matter, varnish, metal, ivory—a combination of elements infinitely complex. And each has its own vibrationary rate, which in turn forms part of the greater vibrationary rate of the whole. These vibrations can be sensed, contacted, and understood."

  I listened, because I wanted to find sense and sanity and serenity somewhere in it all. I wanted to believe, because this was Leo talking.

  "Now, one thing more, and that's the crux of the matter. When vibration occurs, as it does in all being, electronic structure is disturbed. There's an action sequence—and a record of that action is made on the cellular structure.

  "Now if you record many messages on a single piece of tape at different speeds, you'd have to play them back at these speeds in order to understand the message as a whole. Inability to do so would keep you from knowing or comprehending these messages. That's what ordinarily bars our com
munication with non-human life forms and gives us the impression that they have neither thought nor sentience.

  "Since we humans use the development of the human brain as criterion, we aren't aware of the intelligence of other life forms. We don't know how intelligent they are because we, most of us, don't realize that rocks and trees and everything in the material universe can 'think' or 'record' or 'communicate' at its own level.

  "That's what Solar Science has taught me—and it has given me the method of entering into communication with such forms. Naturally it isn't simple. But from self-awareness I have slowly proceeded into a more general awareness of vibrationary rates. It's only logical that Mr. Steinway, so much a part of my life and a part of me, would be a logical subject for an experiment in communication. I've made that experiment and succeeded, at least partially. I can share communication with Mr. Steinway; and it's not all one-way, I assure you. You remember what the Bible said about 'sermons in stones'—it's literally true."

  Of course he said more than that, and less, and in different words. But I got the idea. I got the idea only too well. Leo wasn't altogether rational.

  "It's really a functional entity, too, darling," he was saying. "Mr. Steinway has a personality all his own. And it's a growing one, thanks to my ability to communicate with him in turn. When I practice, Mr. Steinway practices. When I play, Mr. Steinway plays. In a sense, Mr. Steinway does the actual playing and I'm really only the mechanism that starts the operation. It may sound incredible to you, Dorothy, but I'm not fooling when I say there are things Mr. Steinway refuses to play. There are concert halls he doesn't like, certain tuning practices he refuses to respond to or adjust to. He's a temperamental artist, believe me, but he's a great one! And I respect his individuality and his talent.

  "Give me a chance, darling—a chance to communicate with him until he understands you and your place in our lives. I can override his jealousy; after all, isn't it natural that he'd be jealous? Let me attune our vibrations, until he senses the reality of your presence as I sense it. Please, try not to think of me as crazy. It's not hallucination. Believe me."

  I stood up. "All right, Leo. I believe you. But the rest is up to you. I shan't be seeing you again until—until you've made some arrangements."

  My high heels clip-clip-clipped up the path. He didn't try to follow me. A cloud covered the sun, wrapped it in a ragged cloth, torn and dirty. Torn and dirty—

  I went to Harry, of course. After all, he was Leo's agent and he'd know. But he didn't know. I found that out at once, and I cut myself off before I said too much. As far as Harry was concerned, Leo was perfectly normal.

  "Except, of course, you may be thinking of that business with his mother. The old lady's death hit him pretty hard: you know what show business moms are like. She ran the whole shooting-match for years, and when she kicked off like that, he kind of went haywire for a while. But he's all right now. A good man, Leo. A comer. Thinking of a European flier next season—they think Solomon is such hot stuff. Wait until they hear Leo."

  That's what I got out of Harry, and it wasn't much. Or was it?

  It was enough to set me thinking, as I walked home—thinking about little Leo Weinstein, the boy prodigy, and his adoring mother. She watched over him, shielded him, saw to it that he practiced and rehearsed, regulated the details of his life so he came to depend upon her utterly. And then, when he made his debut like a good boy, she gave him Mr. Steinway.

  Leo had cracked up, a bit, when she died. I could imagine that very easily. He had cracked up until he turned to the mother's gift for support. Mr. Steinway had taken over. Mr. Steinway was more than a piano, but not in the way Leo said. In reality, Mr. Steinway had become a surrogate for the mother. An extension of the Oedipus-situation, wasn't that what they called it?

  Everything was falling into a pattern, now. Leo, lying on the couch and looking as though he were dead—returning, in fantasy, to the womb. Leo "communicating" with the vibrations of inanimate objects—trying to maintain contact with his mother beyond the grave.

  That was it, that must be it, and I knew no way of fighting the situation. Silver cord from the mother or silver chord from the piano—it formed a Gordian knot either way, I was weaponless.

  I arrived at my apartment and my decision simultaneously. Leo was out of my life. Except—

  He was waiting for me in the hall.

  Oh, it's easy to be logical, and reason matters out coldly, and decide on a sensible course of action. Until somebody holds you in his arms, and you have the feeling that you belong there and he promises you that things will be different from now on, he understands, he can't live without you. He said all the tried and true things, the trite and true things, the right and true things. And all that had gone before faded away with the daylight, and the stars came out and spread their splendor . . .

  I must be very exact now. It's important that I be exact. I want to tell just how it was the next afternoon when I walked around to his apartment.

  The door was open and I came in, and it was like coming home. Until I saw that the sliding doors to the other room were closed, until I started towards them, until I heard the music. Leo—and Mr. Steinway—were playing again.

  I called it "music," but it wasn't that any more than the sudden anguished scream thrust from a human throat is normal communication. All I can say is that the piano was playing and the sound came to me as vibrations, and for the first time I understood something of what Leo had meant.

  For I heard, and understood that I heard, the shrill trumpeting of elephants, the deep groaning of boughs in the night wind, the crash of toppling timber, the slow rumble of ore filling a furnace, the hideous hissing of molten metal, the screech of steel, the agonized whine of sandpaper, the tormented thrum of twisted strings. The voices that were not voices spoke, the inanimate was animate, and Mr. Steinway was alive.

  Until I slid the doors open, and the sound suddenly ceased, and I saw Mr. Steinway sitting there alone.

  Yes, he was alone, and I saw it as surely as I saw Leo slumped in the chair on the far side of the room, with the look of death on his face.

  He couldn't have stopped in time and run across the room to that chair—any more than he could have composed that atonal allegro Mr. Steinway played.

  Then I shook Leo, and he came alive again, and I was crying in his arms and telling him what I'd heard, and hearing him say, "It's happened, you can see that now, can't you? Mr. Steinway exists—he communicates directly—he's an integrated personality. Communication is a two-way affair, after all. And he can tap my energy, take what he needs from me to function. When I let go, he takes over. Don't you see?"

  I saw. And I tried to keep the fear from my eyes, tried to banish it from my voice, when I spoke to him. "Come into the other room, Leo. Now. Hurry, and don't ask questions."

  I didn't want questions, because I didn't want to tell him that I was afraid to talk in Mr. Steinway's presence. Because Mr. Steinway could hear, and he was jealous.

  I didn't want Mr. Steinway to hear when I told Leo, "You've got to get rid of it. I don't care if it's alive or if we're both crazy. The important thing is to get rid of it, now. Get away from it. Together."

  He nodded, but I didn't want nods.

  "Listen to me, Leo! This is the only time I'll ask it, and your only chance to answer. Will you come away with me now, today? I mean it—pack a suitcase. Meet me at my apartment in half an hour. I'll phone Harry, tell him something, anything. We haven't time for anything more. I know we haven't time."

  Leo looked at me, and his face started to go dead, and I took a deep breath, waiting for the sound to start again from the room beyond—but his eyes met mine, and then the color came back to his face and he smiled at me, with me, and he said, "I'll see you in twenty minutes. With suitcases."

  I went down the stairs swiftly, and I knew I had perfect control. I had perfect control out on the street, too, until I heard the vibrations of my own high heels. And the sound of tires on the pav
ement, and the singing of the telephone wires in the wind, and the snick of traffic-lights, and the creaking of an awning, and then came the sense of the sounds under the sounds and I heard the voice of the city. There's agony in asphalt and a slow melancholy in concrete, and wood is tortured when it splinters, and the vibrations of a piece of cloth twisted into clothing weaves terror from a threnody of thread. And all around me I felt the waves, the endless waves, beating in and pulsing over, pouring out their life.

  Nothing looked different, and everything was changed. For the world was alive. For the first time, everything in the world came alive, and I sensed the straggle to survive. And the steps in my hallway were alive, and the banister was a long brown serpent, and it hurt the key to be twisted in the lock, and the bed sagged and the springs complained when I put down the suitcase and crashed my protesting clothes into its confines. And the mirror was a silver shimmer of torment, and the lipstick was being bruised by my lips, and I could never, never eat food again.

  But I did what I had to do, and I glanced at my watch and tried to hear only the ticking, not the cries of coils and the moan of metal; tried to see only the time and not the hands that turned in ceaseless supplication.

  Twenty minutes.

  Only, now, forty minutes had passed. And I hadn't even phoned Harry yet (the black mouthpiece, the Bakelite corroding, the wires nailed to the crosses of telephone poles) and I couldn't phone because Leo wasn't here.

  To go down again into the street was more than flesh could bear, but the need was stronger then the needs of flesh. And I went out into the seething symphony where all sound was vibration and all vibration was life, and I came to Leo's apartment and everything was dark.

  Everything was dark except Mr. Steinway's teeth, gleaming like the tusks of elephants in forests of ebony and teak. Leo couldn't have moved Mr. Steinway from the inner room to the outer room. And he hated Chopin. He wouldn't sit there in the dark playing the Funeral March . . .