“Come on.” They began to edge me toward the door, and one threw the rest of my clothes in the suitcase. Suddenly I was sure they must be secret police. I waited until we were downstairs in the hall, then shouted for help. Bert and seven or eight other Cove people appeared, and gathered round. I felt much relieved. My captors, however, didn’t seem at all abashed. I began to think I’d have to ask somebody to call Washington. One of the group took several of my friends aside and spoke to them out of my hearing. There was some argument, with glances in my direction, but then apparently agreement. “Will,” said Bert, “we think it’s all right for you to go with them.”
“What do you mean, all right?” I shouted. “I don’t want to go. Is this a free country or is it not? Somebody please get on the phone. This is going to mean a big diplomatic mess, do you all understand? I want to get hold of the State Department, or the White House if necessary. This is ridiculous!”
Bert came over and took me aside. “Look, Will,” he said, “we know you’ve been through a bad time since you saw Vera Allwen. Sitting up there in that room is not doing you any good at all. You could use a change for a few days. These people are friends, really. They want to take you to a really extraordinarily lovely place near here for a few days. I’ve been there myself when I’ve been in a difficult situation, and we all think it’s a good idea. I’d go with you now if I could, but tomorrow’s impossible. They’ve promised you can phone the Cove anytime you like, and I’ll come down tomorrow evening and see you.”
“What I could use right now is to get out of this fucking country!” I burst out. “And right now! Take me to the train station!”
“That’s where they’re taking you,” said Bert. “But it would be a defeat if you left Ecotopia in your present state of mind. These people know that too. Go on, Will, take our word for it. They’re not police, if that’s what you’re worried about. Somebody from the Cove could come with you if you feel that’s essential.”
This somehow relieved my mind. I was probably a lunatic to go, but I have learned to trust Bert, even about unusual things. Washington is a long way off, and I would feel bad about just retreating. Besides, my “captors” had begun to seem less forbidding as they talked with the people at the Cove. The thought hit me that even if they weren’t Ecotopian police, they might be from our C.I.A.: if our President really attaches importance to my mission, he might have made arrangements to ensure I stay here as long as needed to carry it out! God knows it was no secret at the Cove how depressed my Allwen visit had left me; and several people saw me get my suitcase from the hall closet….
They took me to the train and we sped off southward, but got off at the third stop. Then transferred to a minibus that headed east into the mountains. Soon it began winding along a small river, through country half forest and half grassland. We got out at the end of the route—in a spot that, as the sun sank lower, looked more like a resort than a community. A large low building with relaxed people strolling on its verandas lay to the right. Cabins with little porches were scattered all about, of a rough-board design.
“We’ll eat after a bit,” they told me, “but first we’ll go down to the baths.” Turns out this is a famous hot springs resort that has been rehabilitated by a Japanese commune. My captors seem to half-believe in its alleged restorative powers. We put our luggage in one of the cabins and headed down the hill. Nobody had said much all along—a resentful silence on my side, and who knows what on theirs. I looked around to study escape possibilities. It was all open country around the resort. Once out of sight I’d have a good chance of making it. The problems would be in getting away to start with, and making the six or eight miles back to the station through open farmland, hard to hide in. I’d have to do it at night.
Baths housed in beautiful but simple buildings. Each has a changing and sweating room. You leave your clothes and go in, naked, to the bath room, which has a tub about 12 feet square and maybe four feet deep. You wash with soap under a shower, then lower yourself, inch by inch, into the steaming hot water. It doesn’t smell foul, to my relief, though it does have a slightly unusual odor and a silky feel. We all sank into it gratefully, my captors smiling at me and making loud happy groans in the water. The tension dropped a bit. The tank is big enough that you can move around in it; has scratchy walls to rub your back against, and an underwater bench to sit on.
Besides us, there were a young couple, who sat in one corner with eyes closed, oblivious to us, and one old Japanese man, who ducked his head occasionally and then, coming up slowly, said “Aaaaaahh.” We stayed in about 15 minutes, then went out, wrapped ourselves in huge towels, and lay down to sweat. Sweating room has large windows through which I could see the dimming sky and trees moving gently. Made me doze a little. Even thought I might be able to sleep tonight.
The nonconversational behavior of my captors was still annoying, but I held to my resolve to let them start whatever they were going to start. My only request was to call the Cove, and this I was allowed to do right after supper. Bert, it turned out, couldn’t come until the second day, but it was reassuring to talk to him anyway, and he said he had already let Marissa know where I was. Then we settled down in big chairs in the main lounge. It had gotten fairly cool, so there was a fire, which felt good. Somebody produced a bottle of brandy in another corner of the room. Glasses were sent for, and we all lifted our drinks to the giver. Chess and domino and go games were in progress. This was all pleasant enough for a while, but I found my nervousness returning. My companions just seemed to be patiently waiting for something—or someone? They are the most silent Ecotopians I’ve yet met in this nation of blabbermouths.
Finally went back on my resolve. “All right,” I said, “let’s get on with it. What do you want from me? What’s this little game all about?”
“We don’t want anything from you,” said the devilish one who knew Ben. (His name is Ron.) “We’re just giving you the chance for a few days of change. You can do with it what you will.” “By whose authority?” I said. “Who are you, anyway?” “We can’t tell you that right now. But we’re friends. We will do you no harm. We wish you would treat us as friends. You remember that’s Marie, and this is Vince, and he’s Allan.”
“It’s not harm to keep me here against my will?” Nobody answered this; they just sat there and looked at me, a little uncomfortable perhaps, but unmoved. “Look,” I said, “I don’t know who you’re working for, but this caper is going to cause somebody a lot of trouble.”
“Why do you assume we’re working for somebody?” asked Marie. “It’s obvious,” I replied. “You’re committing an illegal act, for one thing. You’re dealing with a quasi-official visitor to the country, for another, whose welfare can’t be a matter of indifference to your government.”
“That’s true enough,” she said. “Well, how about telling us the current state of your welfare?” “I am sick of being held against my will. That’s the only part of my welfare that concerns you.” “No,” said Ron, “you’re wrong about that—it all concerns us.” He sounded almost hurt; the others nodded. I folded my arms staunchly, and would say no more. In a few minutes we all went off to the cabin. Ron and Marie went to sleep; Wince and Allan are sitting up, watching me write this diary entry.
(June 22) Hardly slept at all again last night. Being watched by them adds to the strain. About three o’clock they woke Ron and Marie up, to change shifts I guess, seeing I wasn’t going to sleep. By this time I was pretty jittery, so asked if I could go outside and walk around. Marie volunteered to accompany me. “We’ll stay in shouting distance,” she said.
We walked around awhile. She seemed to be in a friendly mood, put her arm through mine. Surprisingly sexual feeling flooded over me at this, but I resisted the temptation to make some kind of pass. Then she spoiled it by beginning to pry, like some miserable amateur psychologist: “Why don’t you open up and tell us what you’re thinking? It’s not human to try to keep it all inside!”
I pulled
away. “Why should I talk to you? Give me one earthly reason.” “Well, we’re here with you.” “I was aware of that. Now give me some good news.”
We walked on in silence around the courtyard of the resort. She took my hand and I suddenly realized this girl is probably only 20 or so. “All right,” I said, “I’ll tell you something. I want to go home, to get away from this country. Everything here upsets me. It isn’t real, it just isn’t real.”
“It’s real for us—you’re not letting it be real for you.” “Well, I’ve done my job here, as well as anybody could, but now it’s time to go.”
“Why do you think about it just as a job?” she asked. “It’s also been an adventure, if that’s what you mean.” “It’s still an adventure. Even if we’re the ones who’re keeping it going.” She grinned. We went back to the cabin. Ron greeted us with some curiosity, but I wouldn’t respond and Marie wouldn’t say much either. I must have dozed a couple of hours; it’s six a.m. now. I’ll get through the day somehow. Quivery—don’t dare drink any more coffee.
(June 22, evening) We took the baths morning and afternoon, and did some walking. I don’t know what they’re up to. Seem genuinely interested and curious about what I think of Ecotopia, what happened to me here, what I’m going to do next. After we sweated out the morning bath I felt like talking to them about it a little. It’s very hard, I find, to get my ideas and my feelings within range of each other, and I keep flying into a kind of flat, blind rage at the whole situation. I’ve gathered a lot of facts, many of them hard to accept rationally. I’ve gone through remarkable personal experiences. Does it all add up to good or evil? I honestly don’t know.
Some aspects of the country strike me as downright entrancing—the beauty of it, even the cities, which make such a contrast with the hellish way we live. Some aspects of life here reach me emotionally in ways I wouldn’t have believed just a few weeks ago—everything connected with Marissa, the horror of the ritual war games, the security of the hospital and the Cove. Other things are just mystifying, like their economic system. Over it all hangs a kind of feathery curtain of disbelief, which I keep wishing I could tear aside, or maybe duck under.
They listened to me talk, but don’t seem to find much to respond to. At one point Ron interjected impatiently, “Well, you’ve told us all this stuff about what you think. It’s interesting, but we really pretty much knew how you think. What are you feeling? And what are you going to do?”
“What do you mean? Go back to New York, of course.” But precisely as I said that a great twinge of pain throbbed through my head. “My God,” I said, “I have this awful headache.” I staggered over to the bed and lay down. Vince brought a cold cloth for my forehead. Paranoid fantasies: the baths must have screwed up my circulation or something! Never had anything like this happen before. They seemed pretty worried. Vince went to the office and found a doctor who was staying at the resort. She came in, checked me over, gave me the names of some tests I should have made when I get back to the city, but said the chances were 99 to one that it was psychological. Certainly not due to the baths.
By that time it was midafternoon. The headache subsided. We went down to the baths again. Ron, as if thinking it might make me feel better, suggested I file by phone, at their expense, one of the briefer stories I’ve got stockpiled. So I polished one up a little. Not one of my favorites; but it felt good to be working again. Toyed with the idea of tacking on a message to Max about my kidnapping. But decided it might risk some kind of international confrontation, and I don’t after all seem to be in any personal danger.
WORK AND PLAY AMONG
THE ECOTOPIANS
Gilroy Hot Springs, June 22. The more I have discovered about Ecotopian work habits, the more amazed I am that their system functions at all. It is not only that they have adopted a 20-hour week; you can’t even tell when an Ecotopian is working, and when he is at leisure. During an important discussion in a government office, suddenly everybody will decide to go to the sauna bath. It is true they have worked out informal arrangements whereby, as their phrase has it, they “cover” for each other—somebody stays behind to answer phones and handle visitors. And it is also true that even in the sauna our discussion continued, on a more personal level, which turned out to be quite delightful. But Ecotopian society offers so many opportunities for pleasures and distractions that it is hard to see how people maintain even their present levels of efficiency.
Things happen in their factories, warehouses, and stores which would be quite incredible to our managers and supervisors. I have seen a whole section close down without notice; somebody will bring out beer or marijuana, and a party will ensue, right there amid the crates and machines. Workers in Ecotopian enterprises do not have a normal worker’s attitude at all. Perhaps because of their part ownership of them, they seem to regard the plants as home, or at least as their own terrain. They must be intolerable to supervise: the slightest change in work plans is the occasion for a group discussion in which the supervisors (who are elected and thus in a weak position anyway) are given a good deal of sarcastic questioning, and in which their original plans are seldom accepted without change. The supervisors try to take this with good grace, of course, even claiming that the workers often come up with better ideas than they do; and they believe that Ecotopian output per person hour is remarkably high. It may be.
Incidentally, many rather intellectual people seem to be members of the ordinary factory and farm work force. Partly this seems to be due to the relative lack of opportunity for class differentiation in Ecotopia; partly it is due to a deliberate policy which requires students to alternate a year of work with each year of study. This is perhaps one of the most startling arrangements in the whole Ecotopian economy—for not only is the students’ education prolonged, but their ideological influence is responsible for many of the new policies that prevail in Ecotopian enterprises. (I was told, for example, that it was students who were originally behind the whole movement toward workers’ control.)
Ecotopians are adept at turning practically any situation toward pleasure, amusement, and often intimacy. At first I was surprised by the ease with which they strike up very personal conversations with casual strangers. I have now gotten used to this, indeed I usually enjoy it, especially where the lovely Ecotopian women are concerned. But I am still disconcerted when, after speaking with someone on the street in a loose and utterly unpressured way for perhaps ten minutes, he mentions that he is working and trots off. The distinction between work and non-work seems to be eroding away in Ecotopia, along with our whole concept of jobs as something separate from “real life.” Ecotopians, incredibly enough, enjoy their work.
* * *
Unemployment does not seem to worry Ecotopians in the slightest. There were many unemployed just before Independence, but the switch to a 20-hour week almost doubled the number of jobs—although some were eliminated because of ecological shutdowns and simplifications, and of course the average real income of most families dropped somewhat. Apparently in the transition period when an entirely new concept of living standards was evolving, the country’s money policy had to be managed with great flexibility to balance sudden inflationary or deflationary tendencies. But the result now seems to be that, while enterprises are not seriously short of member-workers, there is also no significant number of people involuntarily unemployed. In any case, because of the minimal-guaranteed income system and the core stores, periods of unemployment are not considered disasters or threats by individuals; they are usually put to use, and sometimes deliberately extended, for some kind of creative, educational or recreational purposes. Thus in Ecotopia friends who are unemployed (usually through the collapse of their previous enterprise) often band together and undertake studies that lead them into another enterprise of their own.
If it is sometimes hard to tell whether Ecotopians are working or playing, they are surprisingly generous with their time. I was told, for instance, that many workers in factories put in extr
a hours to fix machines that have broken down. They evidently regard the 20-hour week quota as applying to productive time only, and take the repair of machinery almost as a sideline responsibility. Or perhaps it is just that they enjoy tinkering: despite the de-emphasis of goods in Ecotopia, people seem to love fixing things. If a bicycle loses a chain or has a flat tire, its rider is soon surrounded by five people volunteering to help fix it. As they do during many casual social encounters, someone will bring out a marijuana cigarette and pass it around; people joke, touch each other, and take turns helping with the work.
The propensity of Ecotopians to touch one another is remarkable. To most Americans, it is offensive to be touched familiarly by a stranger, except under special circumstances, and even friends do not have a great deal of physical contact, which is reserved for lovers and children. The Ecotopians seem to have abandoned such proprieties, and are virtually indiscriminate in their contacts. Adults will pat children approvingly as they go by. Acquaintances routinely shake hands whenever they meet, even if they have seen each other a few hours before, with a novel arm-to-arm clasp. When people sit down to talk, they snuggle up to each other or interlace arms or legs quite intimately. And I have even seen a man in the street walk up to an attractive woman, say something to her with a smile, give her a hug or a stroke on the shoulder, and walk on; the woman continued on her way, with a friendly glance back.
To us, such behavior is a forbidden fantasy. The Ecotopians act out such fantasies all the time. They bathe and take steam baths together freely. Both men and women, not to mention children, stroll public streets arm in arm. Old friends who have not seen each other for some time customarily give each other a warm and extended embrace, and occasionally they even excuse themselves and go off to a private place, evidently for sexual purposes. Naked massage is a common group amusement.