Various Fiction

by Robert Sheckley

  So, although he did not say a word about it, I could tell that he was upset this morning.

  One does not allude to what has not been verbalized, of course. Instead, I tried to think of a way of relieving my friend of pain while sparing him embarrassment.

  My efforts were clumsy. But Wolfing noted my concern (as my group-friend he couldn’t very well be unaware of it) and sought a means of putting me at my ease. But neither of us was particularly successful in our efforts. My grasp of the language has improved immeasurably since those naive early days when I thought that words meant what they said and nothing more; but I still often falter when it comes to innate subtleties, which resemble telepathy more than a spoken language.

  Wolfing was kind enough and brave enough to help me out of my dilemma. I do not know what it cost him in self-esteem, but at last he managed to say, “I have been in a state of considerable tension these last days.”

  “How many days?” I asked.

  “Three.”

  Therefore his tension dated from the festival of Sarameish. His face now was suffused with blood and he was biting his lip. The strain of having to give so direct a clue as that was telling on him. He looked as if he wanted to run out the door.

  I was not in much better shape. The clue might have been enough for any Kaldorian; but would it serve a thick-witted Earthman?

  I forced myself to be calm. The requirements of friendship were on me now, a heavy responsibility. I had to proceed by indirection and with utmost tact.

  “It was a most successful ceremony,” I said.

  “That much is certain,” Wolfing replied, his voice firm.

  “I thought that Doerniche was splendid in his contest with Discord.”

  “I thought so myself.”

  “And Grandinang—what a superlative clown he made!”

  “Our friend outdid himself,” said Wolfing.

  I was watching and listening avidly as he replied to me. Nothing I had mentioned so far had evoked in him a response congruent to his present state of mind.

  “I suppose you had to sit among strangers?” I went on.

  “Yes, that was my luck in the draw. But it did not matter. I was in excellent atunement with those around me.”

  “That was fortunate. . . . Did you see Eliaming? Our poor friend was seated nearly behind a pillar which partially blocked his view and must have impeded his catharsis. I consider that sort of thing a public disgrace.”

  “It’s not as bad as all that,” Wolfing said. “I talked to Eliaming afterward. He told me that his impaired visibility simply made him concentrate harder on the ceremony, with beneficial results.”

  “I am glad to hear that,” I said. “I was worried, as was Lanea.”

  “Was she indeed?” Wolfing asked. “She shouldn’t worry herself about such matters.”

  “But that is her pleasure!” I told him. “After all. we are a friendship-group! Lanea also hoped that Doerniche had not cut his fingers badly, and she hoped that Grandinang had not overexerted himself in his clown antics, and—”

  “Yes, go on,” Wolfing said.

  “And most particularly she worried about you.”

  “Did she? Are you sure about that?”

  “Of course!”

  “She has not spoken to me since Sarameish,” Wolfing said, and how he could not completely hide the wound in his voice!

  I was on surer ground now, and I was able to speak with more of a show of confidence. “That very fact shows her concern! You know the proverbial reticence of women and how quick they are to conceal what they feel most. Lanea’s love for you—”

  “Love? Did you say love? That must be a considerable exaggeration, though a kind one.”

  I was sure of my ground now and in full stride across it. “I would not overstate a matter like that,” I told him.

  “Love! I can scarcely believe it!”

  “Then you are the only man in Morei who does not know. Come, pull yourself together! Love is that natural and expected relationship whose beginning is always in the friendship-group. Surely you know that?”

  “I do,” Wolfing said hesitantly. “I know it in the abstract, at least. But one can never be certain of a particular individual beforehand. And frankly, I was afraid that you . . .”

  I laughed. “You saw me as Captain Smashing, the jealous, possessive barbarian of popular comedy! Or as some twistbrained alien from an evil planet—which perhaps I am! But I’m not quite that bad, my friend! The gentle obligations of the friendship-group are as sacred to me as to you!”

  Wolfing tried to protest that he had never had such thoughts and to reassure me as to the depth and fervor of his friendship. But I cut him off, accepting his emotion in advance. I was in a state of exhilaration, because for once I had directly intuited the situation and its requirements without having it spelled out for me. And that meant that I was beginning to realize my ambition of becoming like my adopted group and race, of merging with them and becoming indistinguishable from them.

  “Wolfing,” I said, “love is the most rarefied of the emotions; yet it must be taken palpably. Lanea is in the bedroom awaiting you. Take your love to her love, and take my love with you both!”

  The last speech loses something in the translation, but it was stylistically suitable to the occasion. And Lanea had mentioned Wolfing once or twice over the past days, in neutral tones that might well have concealed love.

  I fervently hoped that this was so. Wolfing was such an exceptional man and so handsome besides. And Lanea—how marvelous it would be for her, for all of us, if only she loved him.

  Wolfing gripped my shoulder hard. Beyond words, we exchanged d’bnai, that inexpressible sharing of total agreement that goes beyond the limits of language.

  He went into her bedroom and closed the door. I heard their muffled conversation, then silence, then a soft murmuring in which I could not distinguish one voice from another.

  That seemed a good moment to leave the house. Outside, it was a glorious spring day. I walked through nearby woodlands in a state of incoherent joy. When I returned home some hours later, Lanea and Wolfing greeted me at the door. They had prepared a mock pot roast for me, my favorite dish. I could have wept for pleasure.

  Mariska is plump and healthy and a little silly, much like her husband, Grandinang. Her skin is brown and tastes faintly of salt. She seems always to be in good spirits, also like Grandinang. She is like him in many other ways, too. Sometimes when I make love to her I can almost think that it is Grandinang beneath me.

  Her apartment is always in a mess, her clothes don’t fit properly, and I think that she doesn’t wash enough. For me, this simply gives her added appeal. I suppose that it is the contrast to Lanea, who is fastidious as a cat. (An Earth cat.) I have been with Mariska continuously for two days and nights. We make love often, though not as often as people on Earth do in books. And we eat a great deal, usually in bed, and prop ourselves up with pillows and watch shadow plays on the Kaldorian equivalent of television: complicated dramas about ancient kings and queens and courtiers who spend most of their time debating various points of conduct. If Salvador Dali had gone completely crazy and rewritten Lope de Vega, the result might have been comparable. I can’t figure out what the dramas are about—even the simple “Monsters of Contention” series involves assumptions that are quite beyond me. But it is pleasant to lie back against the pillows, sated and stuffed, and watch the intricate interplay of the shadows.

  I stay in touch with Lanea, of course. We speak on the telephone every few hours. Wolfing had to attend to family business after a mere night with her, which left them both quite distraught. I suggested that she try Doerniche, who I judged more suitable to her present mood than Eliaming or Grandinang. But there I was guilty of a faux pas: Doerniche, having symbolically conquered the God of Discord, is now invested with the God’s qualities. He is goernu—ritually unclean would be the nearest equivalent. He must abstain from all physical contact for a month, thus doing expiation
for us all. At the end of that time, a simple ceremony will divest him of Godhood and goernu.

  Surely I couldn’t be expected to know all of this. But Lanea became angry at me, since I had spoken aloud of something she could not have. And in retaliation she put my red statuette into the closet and told Grandinang what she had done, and they had quite a cruel little laugh over it. This, in turn, might have provoked me into doing something really rash, and there might have been bad feelings for several days, even a week. But Mariska was there, thank God, and she put the situation straight very quickly.

  Now that I think about it, it was all very much like a shadow-play, even to the solution.

  Anyhow, Lanea and I had our first quarrel. From start to finish it lasted almost an hour, and it shook us both up considerably. I think it helped us to understand the depth and power of our love, however, and that is good.

  Mariska and I are having such a marvelous time that I could almost envy Grandinang. Luckily, I am not forced to: since Mariska and I are in love, we are allowed by usage thirty days of unlimited access to each other. The only problem that this presents me with is Lanea, whom I love most dearly.

  I must stop here and clarify my use of the word “love.” There is no such word on Kaldor. On this planet, love is never expressed as a single (and therefore essentially simple) state of mind. Here love is recognized for what it is—the most complicated and exquisite of the emotions. There are about two hundred words in Kaldorian, all meaning love, each descriptive of a specific emotional state. Here they attempt to describe the infinite variety, the varying intensity, and the exquisite complications of that range of emotions which we on Earth lump together under the word “love.”

  No one here would use so vague a word as “love.” The emotion I feel for Mariska is termed mardradi and refers to an uncomplicated, essentially physical attachment with two or more nonsexual sharings, the whole thing exerting a specified amount of psychic force. Whereas for Lanea, I am in outrage, which refers to a profounder set of psycho-emotional states, both complex and exciting-complex, the semi-forbidden and therefore exciting taste for estrangement.

  I suppose that love is as complicated on Earth as it is on Kaldor. But here neither its practice nor its mention are taboo. Quite the contrary. Here one can play with that infinitely rich instrument that love is.

  In a sense, one must play. If Kaldor means anything, it means love.

  I can’t imagine why I stayed so long in that ridiculous Cape Cod cottage outside of Morei. I stayed of my own accord, so presumably I must have wanted it that way. It is so clear to me now that nobody lives outside the city except farmers, and nothing happens outside the city that makes any real difference.

  Lanea and I have been lucky enough to find an apartment in Churtii Square, one of the really good districts, and in an area of third-greatest population density. It is a fantastic apartment, large, light and airy, beautifully furnished. I would have to be rich to afford such an apartment on Earth. Here I simply have to be from Earth: The apartment and other things were given to me by the Council. They have declared me a Living Art Object—on the basis of my uniqueness, of course, certainly not my beauty. All I have to do is whatever I want to do; for whatever the Art Object does is Art.

  I haven’t had much chance to actually live in my new home, however. Last week was particularly chaotic. A day and night with Blesse, Wolfing’s wife, then two days and nights with Mariska, whose feeling for me has moved into a higher category—somewhat to my discomfiture. Then home, but Lanea was with Eliaming due to a fault in the flow chart. Fortuitously, Hystoman came over one night early. She is Eliaming’s wife, a tiny, dark, alert woman of great vivacity. This saved time but produced complications. We had to take our chart down to our flow-lawyer, lose an hour in his waiting room, and then sit around and twiddle our thumbs while he figured out the optimum sequences for the next week. And then, after Hystoman and I were at her home and just starting to relax, I remembered that we hadn’t figured in Mariska’s new category, which changes the temporality of the sequences and sometimes the sequences themselves. So Hystoman and I had to return to the flow-lawyer, and what with one thing and another we lost almost all of the day we had been trying to save. Luckily, Hystoman is a good sport and we were able to laugh about it.

  But the end of complications isn’t yet in sight. In four days Doerniche will be ritually cleansed and he and his wife Sara will rejoin our friendship-group. We all want them back, of course, but sometimes the sheer brute work of scheduling gets you down, even with expert help.

  I think there is a way out of this, however. I have applied for a new apartment. We will soon see how highly they think of their Living Art Object.

  The new apartment is really a fantasy beyond my wildest dreams. Fourteen rooms! Can you imagine that, fourteen rooms in the heart of a major city! And we are still on Churtii Square, which we had grown to like so much.

  My question is answered. They think pretty highly of their Art Object around here.

  This apartment is really the answer to our dreams. With all of us living here together—me, Grandinang, Wolfing, Eliaming, Doerniche, and our wives—we are able to do without clumsy flow-diagrams. We have changed our sexual practice to beriang—what might be termed “orgy” on Earth.

  It is not an orgy, however, not in the sense that the word is used on Earth. Here, quite frankly, beriang is not much more than a convenient way of doing what we are already doing. It saves the tedious shuffling back and forth between rooms and spares one the attendant embarrassment of absent-mindedly going to the wrong bedroom on the wrong night. The purpose of beriang is supra-sexual. It is a state of heightened sensuality when all of us sleep together in the same room. (We had the apartment remodeled to permit this). Questions of precedence are lost when warm bodies touch and mingle. Intercourse (though of utmost importance to us all) becomes secondary to the joy of all of us sleeping together in each other’s arms.

  Beriang is practiced more or less continually by about a third of the population, I am told. I must admit that it has its drawbacks, albeit minor ones. The cumulative sexual force generated by ten bodies making love together night after night is apt to cause dizziness and hardness of hearing in some people. Then, too, some individuals cannot bear to be together for so long a time. These people, with their lust for solitude, are considered alienated and are the objects of special pity. And finally there are the minor irritations, the tossing and turning, moaning, groaning, snoring, all of which interfere with sleep. (One of the biggest public health projects in Kaldor is the search for a universal cure for snoring.)

  One can always take advantage of the various empty bedrooms, of course, and upon occasion I have. But I don’t like to leave my friends; it is a little rude and uncaring, and a native Kaldorian feels that much more strongly than I do.

  Taken all in all, Beriang is a pleasurable activity and well worth accepting a few minor discomforts for. Beriang is the social state to which Kaldor officially aspires, for it exemplifies the utmost pinnacle in togetherness.

  Despite this, Lanea and I have taken to sneaking off by ourselves to the upstairs storeroom, of all places! There I have put a mattress on the floor and Lanea and I make love there.

  I do not know why we wish to be alone and away from all we hold dear. There is a little game that Lanea and I play with our toes. It is nothing to be ashamed of, but we have never done it in front of the others. Perhaps our desire to be alone comes down to that simple explanation.

  Eliaming and I have had our brief fling and now it is over. We care for each other still, and our friendship is unimpaired, but we no longer experience that urgent desire that informed our relationship and made it magical. I still consider him beautiful, but I am no longer driven to possess him.

  Lanea and I are back together again. For three weeks we were in nacoteth, which I can loosely define as a separation of brief duration, without loss of ourmge, the purpose of which is to increase one’s sensory range and understandin
g (hetti) and to use that to achieve a more complex and fulfilling love status with one’s partner.

  Lanea and I came to a very satisfactory hetti, and our feelings for each other have now moved into the chaardi class, which is a deepening and spiritualizing of what we felt for each other in oermge.

  We receive many compliments on this, as you can imagine. Fewer than 10 percent of the population achieve chaardi, and those who do become culture heroes. But, delightful as it is to excel, we have decided not to attempt further heightening of our relationship. One runs the risk in this, as in every skilled pursuit, of overspecialization, with attendant loss of contact with other vital currents of life. I think it is possible to overdo anything and that love on any higher level is auto-eroticism.

  Lanea has become a little irritated with me since I formed a doroman (complex male sexual group) with Eliaming, Grandinang and Doerniche. (Wolfing regretfully declined our invitation. He is spending a few days alone in the hospital, recuperating from overstrained nerves. The poor man found himself in multiple reciprocal ourmge last week with Hystoman, Sara, and Merieth—a member of a cognate friendship-group.) This afforded the rest of us considerable amusement, since it is one of the standard farcical situations of the local equivalent of the Commedia dell’Arte. But it was not amusing for my poor ardent Wolfing. Still, he will recover in time for the Feast of Passage.

  Lanea’s annoyance at my doroman grouping is quite explicable. She herself has been afflicted with hysterical frigidity. She tried various combinations, both male and male-female. Her doctor prescribed strangers, but this also gave no relief.

  It is not the first time that she has been taken with hysterical frigidity, and it is by no means an uncommon affliction on Kaldor. There are countless theories and a bewildering array of remedies. But most experts agree (as they often do on Earth) that time is the best cure.