“The manager’s house is full of things!” Carl said excitedly, unable to contain himself, now that he had got some response. “Nothing has been taken out. I didn’t get inside, but I know. I saw through some boards nailed over one of the windows. Everything’s there. All of it! They must be going to have their officers stay there.”
“Maybe we should go along,” Verne said. “It might be interesting.”
“Come on!” Carl cried. “I’ll lead the way!”
11
THE STATION MANAGER’S house was set apart from the rest of the buildings. It did not look like them at all. Once, it had been an old home in New England. The manager had noticed it during one of his business trips to the United States. He purchased it and had it shipped piece by piece all the way across the world, by boat, by pack train across mountains, finally assembled by workmen at the station. Now it stood, an old-fashioned American Colonial house, trim and white, its austere front rising up like some pale frosted cake, among refining plants and towering factory units and heaps of slag.
Around the house was a lawn and a border of flowers. At the edge of the lawn was a white picket fence and a tiny gate. Three trees, birch trees, grew at the side of the house. Under one was a bench, a plain wood bench.
Carl and Verne and Barbara stood at the fence, all of them a little awed.
“Just think,” Carl said. “We can open the gate and walk across the lawn and go inside the house.”
“If we can get the boards off,” Verne said. He fingered the crowbar.
“Let’s go,” Carl said. “I’m anxious to get inside.” He pushed the gate open.
“Don’t be in so much of a hurry.”
“I can’t help it.” Carl waited for them to catch up with him. “Just think—we could move in here, if we wanted to. We could move right in, live here for a whole week. Until they come. We could use his things, his kitchen, his chairs, his bed—”
“All right,” Barbara said.
Suddenly Carl stopped.
“What’s the matter?”
Carl looked around. “Maybe—”
“Maybe what?”
“You know, maybe this isn’t such a good idea.”
“Why not?”
“Well, maybe we shouldn’t break in this way, I—I don’t think we’re supposed to. That’s why they boarded it all up.”
“It was your idea.”
“I know.” Carl hung his head. “But now that we’re actually going to do it I’m not sure how I feel.”
“Come on,” Barbara said impatiently. “I’m kind of curious myself. I’d like to see how he lived. We heard so many different things.”
Carl hesitated, “Should we do it?”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. I guess I’m just letting my conditioned responses get the better of me. But it’s like breaking into a church. Where you’re not supposed to be. Like soldiers, the German Army during the war. Breaking in and sleeping in front of the altar, stealing things, breaking and tramping around.”
“The manager was no god of mine,” Verne said. They had come to the porch. Verne walked up the wide steps and tapped with the end of the crowbar on the boards that were nailed across the door, “This is going to be hard.”
“Then we’re really going in?” Carl asked. “I never realized how well I’d learned all the Company rules and taboos. I thought with everyone leaving—”
“They hang on,” Verne said. “Old superstitions.” He took Carl by the arm and turned him around. “Look. Do you see all that?” Carl was facing the great domain that was the land and property of the station. It lay stretched out before them, all the way to the foot of the mountains.
“See all that? Miles and miles of buildings and machinery, slag piles, pits, quarries. All deserted. No one there. No one at all. The buildings are empty. The factories, the miles of pits and excavations. You and I can do anything we want. We can go inside and wee-wee all over the floor, if we want. Rules and mores don’t mean a thing anymore. There’s no one here but us.”
“There’s nobody here to stop us,” Barbara said.
“There was nobody to stop the German soldiers. That was the whole point. They could do what they wanted.”
“But what does it matter?” Verne said. “The rules and codes were artificial. They were good only as long as they could be enforced. Now there’s no one to enforce them. So they don’t have any meaning. They were just conventions. Don’t confuse them with innate moral laws. They were just rules, nothing more. Man made. They came, now they’re gone again. The yuks will have their own rules.”
“I suppose so.”
“Well, forget about it. This was all your idea in the first place.” Verne hooked the crowbar behind the top board and began to pull. “Here we go.”
“Let me give you a hand.”
The two pulled together. After a while they had the boards off the door and stacked up on the porch railing.
“Now,” Verne said, pausing for breath. “Here comes the real question.” He tried the door handle. “Locked.”
“That’s bad,” Carl said.
“We’ll try the back. If it’s locked we’ll break it down.”
They went down the steps and around the side of the house. Along the path grew flowers and vegetables, plants of all kinds and descriptions, an amazing hodge-podge that stretched out in all directions. There were pansies, begonias, tulips, watermelon, carrots and rhubarb and orchids, all mixed in together without any order, planted wherever there seemed to be any space.
“How eclectic,” Carl said.
“It’s a mess,” Barbara murmured. “Look at them all growing together like that!”
They came to the back door. Verne and Carl tore the boards loose and stacked them up.
“Here goes,” Verne said. He tried the knob. The door was unlocked. He disappeared inside.
Carl turned to Barbara. “After you.”
“Thanks.” She went on in, Carl following excitedly behind. They were on the back porch where the laundry tubs were. Verne was not in sight.
“Where are you?” Carl called.
“I’m in here.” Verne was in the kitchen. Barbara and Carl came after him. And stopped short in amazement.
“Good lord,” Carl said.
The kitchen was filled with cooking equipment of all kinds. There was almost no space to walk. In one corner an immense gleaming stove jutted up from beside a refrigerator. Piled up on tables and on the floor were mixers, blenders, a waffle iron, an automatic toaster, countless white and silver shapes of all sizes and uses.
“A lot of this stuff hasn’t even been opened,” Verne said. “It’s still crated up.”
Along one side of the kitchen were packing crates and boards and nails and mounds of excelsior, wrapping paper and wire and heavy cord.
Carl picked up an object of chromium and steel, with an electric cord hanging from it. “What’s this?”
Barbara looked at the label. “It’s an electric egg dicer.”
Verne kicked at one of the crates. “God knows what might be in here. More egg dicers?”
“Probably a lot of different things.”
They left the kitchen and found themselves in the dining room. In the center of the room was a heavy oak table, covered with a fine-spun cloth. To one side was a cabinet with glass doors, mounted against the wall.
Barbara opened one of the doors. “Look at these.”
Verne came over arid stood beside her. The cabinet was filled with dishes. Old dishes, their edges encrusted with gold like spider webs. Barbara brought out a crystal bottle and stopper, holding it up to the light.
“These must be worth a million dollars,” she said.
“Hardly.” Verne took one of the plates down and turned it around. “Early American. It’s worth something. Maybe not that much, but a lot.” He replaced the plate.
Carl came to the door. “Come in here!”
“What is it?”
Carl disappeared
through a door. Verne shrugged. Barbara dosed the cabinet and they followed after Carl. They found themselves in the library. Carl was gaping up and around him, his mouth open.
“Look!” he said. “Do you see?”
Verne rubbed his jaw. “Could he read them all?”
“Could anybody read them all?” Barbara said.
Books ran along the walls of the library, around them on all sides, up over their heads, higher and higher, as far as the eye could see. It made them dizzy to look up; the ceiling seemed hazy and indistinct, and a long way off. Verne reached up and plucked a volume at random from the shelf above his head. He handed it to Carl.
“Look at it,” he murmured.
Carl opened the book. It was incredibly ancient, a medieval illuminated manuscript, the vellum yellow and cracking. He turned it around—it was heavy.
“Here, too,” Verne murmured. There were more crates, big wood packing crates, bound with wire twisted into knots. Wisps of straw stuck out at the ends of the crates. Some had been partly opened. Books were packed inside, brand new books that had never been taken out of their packing.
“We get all this,” Carl said, dazed.
“Not exactly. We get to use this, for a while. But not more than a little while. A week, maybe. Very little.”
“We won’t get very many of these read in a week,” Barbara said.
Carl pulled some more books down and opened them. He put them back and gazed up. Some trick of the colors made the walls seem to fall back, farther and farther, the higher he looked. The number of books seemed to be growing, increasing as he watched. As if he were looking down the wrong end of the telescope. Faster and faster the walls of books fell away from him, until it seemed as if all the books in the world, each volume and pamphlet, each novel, each collection of stories, essay, study, everything man had put down on paper were collected here in this old-fashioned New England house, in one room.
“It makes me dizzy,” Barbara said. “How do you get up to the top?”
“Some sort of ladder.” Verne wandered out of the room. Carl and Barbara followed him.
“What’s all this?” Carl asked. They had come into a workshop of some kind, filled with objects, machinery and models of some kind, specimens, exhibits, displays.
“A television set,” Barbara said.
There were specimens of the phonograph, the telephone, rows of electric lights through all their stages of development, a power-driven saw, even a flush toilet. Most of the objects were piled helter-skelter, on top of each other, stacked here and there without order or design. Some were still crated up, pushed off to one side, crammed together in packing boxes.
“Inventions,” Verne said. “Looks like Menlo Park.”
Dust was already beginning to settle over all the crates and exhibits. The three of them stood looking around glumly, none of them speaking for a time.
“Just think,” Carl said. “They spent years bringing all this stuff here and now it’s abandoned. It’s all left here, left behind. Forgotten.”
“Maybe the yuks can use them.”
“Probably burn them,” Verne murmured.
“What a depressing sight,” Carl said. “It gives me the creeps. Imagine what the people who invented and made all these things would say if they could see them lying here, piled on top of each other, no order, no meaning, completely abandoned.”
Barbara began to root through one of the heaps.
“What are you looking for?”
“I don’t know. Something I can use.”
“What do you want?”
Barbara straightened up. “I have nothing in mind. There ought to be something here we can use. Look at it all. Tons of things. Every kind of thing.”
“Let’s go,” Carl said. He moved toward the door.
“Don’t you want to fill your pockets?”
“No. It—it reminds me of when I was a kid. I had a room full of things. Microscope, stamp album, maps, model steam engine. Like this. Everything strewn all around. There’s something wrong with it.”
“Well, we can’t take anything back with us,” Verne said. “These things don’t really belong to us. But we could use them, during the time we have left.”
“There’s too many. Too much stuff. Let’s forget it. Let’s just let it go. It’s dusty in here.”
“It would make a nice bonfire. Especially all the books. What a blaze.”
“We could tear out the last page of each book,” Carl said. “Think of the power we three have. We could tear out the last pages, we could tinker with all this stuff so none of it would work. Then the yuks would never be able to use anything. Or understand anything. They’d give up. They’d finally have to throw this all way. What power we have.”
“They’ll probably throw it away anyhow,” Verne said. “This stuff doesn’t mean anything anymore. Except maybe as museum pieces. We have power over a lot of useless objects.”
They went back through the library, into the dining room, into the kitchen.
In the kitchen Verne halted. “There’s one thing I want to take a look at.”
“What’s that?”
“His phonograph records. I might find something good. It’s worth a try.”
Carl grinned. “So there’s something that isn’t just a museum piece.”
“I’m going outside,” Barbara said. “There’s too much dust in here.” She touched one of the half-opened crates. “Dust on them, and they’re not even opened yet. This stuff is already decaying, and it’s hardly been used.”
Carl pushed the back door open. “Come on. Let’s go.” He stood by the door and Barbara came toward him.
“I’ll see you later,” Verne said. He disappeared back into the dining room.
Barbara and Carl stepped outside, down the back stairs, onto the path. The air was warm and full of smells of flowers and grass.
Carl took a deep breath. “Smells good.”
Barbara bent down, examining a flower. “What’s this?”
Carl did not know. “Looks like some sort of rose. Only it’s so small.”
Barbara picked the flower. “Well? What’ll we do? Where’ll we go?”
“We could sit on the grass.”
Barbara smiled. “Could we?”
“Don’t you like to sit on the grass? When the sun’s warm, and the air’s full of smells. I’m tired of running all over the place. I’ve done enough exploring.”
“You were so excited about the manager’s house. Now you’re not interested in it at all.”
“I know. But there’s something depressing about it. All those things. All those books and inventions and plates and egg dicers. Everything, stacks and crates and heaps, all strewn around. All abandoned. I’d rather be outside.”
Barbara studied his face. “You change your mind fast.”
“There was something about it—”
“I know,” Barbara said. “All right. Let’s sit on the grass in the sun. I guess it won’t do any harm.”
“But is it wet?” Carl ran his hands through the grass. “Not any more. It’s all dried out.”
They sat down gingerly, stiff-backed. The grass was warm and dry under them.
Barbara sighed. “It makes me sleepy, the sun and the air.”
“How did you sleep last night?”
“All right.”
“It was certainly quiet last night. I never realized how many sounds and noises there were around here. The people, the machinery. Things coming and going. Trucks. But last night there was nothing. Only silence. It gave me a strange feeling. It was so—so unnatural. After so many years of hearing things it’s hard to get used to this. I wonder if we will get used to it, ever. It’s a big change for us. I wonder if this is one of those moments in history when people will look back, years later, and realize that the whole world hung in the balance. Civilization on trial. Like the fall of Rome. Or when they stopped the Turks at Vienna. Or when the Moors came up into Spain. Roland. Remember Roland? How they stopped
the Moors? Or Stalingrad. The end of Germany. History hanging in the balance.”
He glanced at Barbara. Barbara was gazing up at the sky. A few faint trails of mist had come up and were blowing slowly along, white streamers mixed with the blue.
“It’s getting cooler,” Barbara said.
“The fog.”
“We’ll sleep better tonight.”
Carl considered this proposition. “Do you suppose that if a person got less and less sleep each night—say he started with the full eight hours, and then he slept just under eight hours, then just a little less than that—that after a long enough time he could do without sleep completely? Somebody ought to experiment along those lines. It might turn out to be a major contribution to science.”
“I like to sleep,” Barbara said.
“There’s something to that, all right. We should never forget the positive value of sleep. You know, often we wish that things like death and sleep could be gotten rid of, but have you ever thought what it would be like to have to face the world all the time, not just three quarters of the time? Every hour of the day and night. During sleep the whole system is rejuvenated. Especially the brain. All the poisons that have accumulated during the waking hours are flushed out Carried off by the blood. And if there were no sleep the peasants would have to work twenty-four hours a day instead of twelve. And if there were no death there would never be any escape for them.”
“I suppose,” Barbara said indifferently. She leaned back, stretching herself out on the grass, her eyes closed.
“Is that comfortable?” Carl asked.
“The sun’s in my eyes. It looks all red.”
“That’s the blood in the capillaries of your eye lids. The sun is shining through them.”
“Anyhow it’s a beautiful red.”
“Blood, fresh blood, is an amazing color. But as soon as it strikes the air it darkens and looks unhealthy. On the other hand, blood that has been exhausted of air turns a dark purple. It’s blood coming from the lungs that’s so fresh and red looking. Blood in the veins.”
“Is that so.”
“I guess it’s not very important. Can I lay back down with you?”