Relatives

by George Alec Effinger

  “It is a strange dialect, spoken by the black people beyond the desert and the mountains. It is called Swahili.”

  “Black people?” asked Ernst. “How interesting. I have only heard stories. They actually exist?”

  “Yes, akkei,” said Ieneth.

  “And how did she learn the tongue? And you, also, for that matter?” Ieneth closed her eyes, fluttering her painted lashes, and smiled.

  Ernst turned to Ua. “What is this called in your language?” he said, pointing to her foot. Ieneth translated, and Ua replied.

  “Mguu,” she said.

  “And this?” said Ernst, pointing to her ankle.

  “Kifundo cha mguu,”

  “What is this?”

  “Jicho.” Eye.

  “How do you say ‘mouth’?”

  “Kinywa.”

  Ernst sipped his drink nervously, although he labored to seem casual and urbane. “This?” he asked.

  “Mkono.” Arm.

  “This?” Ernst’s fingers lingered on her breast, feeling the rough material of the brassiere beneath the cotton blouse.

  Ua blushed. “Kifua,” she whispered.

  “She is indeed very lovely,” Ernst said.

  “And worthy of reward for her, ah, agent?” asked Ieneth.

  “Certainly,” said Ernst absently, as he moved his hand down past Ua’s stomach, stopping at the seductive curve of her pudendum. “Now, my love, what could this be?”

  Ua said nothing, staring at the table. She blushed fiercely while she played with the base of her wineglass.

  “Ask her what the word for this is,” he said. Ieneth did so.

  “Mkunga” Ua said at last, removing Ernst’s hand.

  Ieneth laughed stridently, clapping her hands. Tears ran down her cheeks as she rose from her seat. “Ah, the ‘cosmopolitan tastes!’ ” she said.

  “What is so amusing?” asked Ernst.

  ” ‘Mkunga’!” said Ieneth. ” ‘Mkunga’ is the word for ‘eel.’ Oh, enjoy your hour, akkei! You and ‘she’ will have much to discuss!’ ” And she went out of the café, laughing as she walked away from Ernst’s disconcerted and savage glare.

  CHAPTER 7

  “Maybe you ought to stop, now,” said Mike the bartender. “I think I want to close up soon. We’re all going to have to be up early.”

  “One more,” said Ernest. “One more beer won’t hurt me. Anyway, what’s going to happen to all that beer? The building will cave in on it tomorrow night. It won’t be any good to anybody. We might as well drink it up.”

  “If I have to go,” said Suzy, “I might as well go with a hangover.”

  “All right,” said Mike. “One more. But it’s almost two o’clock.”

  There were only the three of them left in the bar. They sat together, drinking the beer, thinking, not saying very much. Everyone else had gone home, hoping a few hours of rest would prepare them for the morning.

  “Why don’t I open up some of the good stuff, then?” asked Mike. “I hate to see all that private stock go to waste.”

  “We can’t drink everything,” said Ernest.

  “I don’t want to get sick or pass out,” said Suzy. “Or maybe I do.”

  “You could sleep through the whole thing that way,” said Ernest.

  “A pleasant way to meet your Maker,” said Mike.

  They were silent once again. Suzy seemed particularly nervous; Ernest wondered where she would spend the night. He wished that she could come home with him. More than likely she would break a longstanding custom and go with Mike. She certainly wasn’t worried about losing a paying customer tonight, and she looked in need of a sympathetic friend.

  “Well, that’s about it,” said Mike.

  “What did you have in mind?” asked Ernest.

  “Oh, just about everything,” said Mike.

  “You know what I wish?” asked Suzy. “I wish they’d tell me what’s going to happen and when. Maybe they will tomorrow night. It makes me think it’ll be messy and ugly, instead of a nice, clean wipe-out.”

  “Doctors do that,” said Ernest. “Right before they do something that hurts. They won’t ever say where or when, though.”

  “It’s humane,” said Mike.

  “No, it’s not,” said Suzy.

  “I want to go home,” said Mike. “Come on. Let me turn off the lights and lock up.” He laughed. “I don’t know why. In case, maybe.” He followed Ernest and Suzy out of the bar and closed the front door. They said goodbye to each other; Ernest turned and walked toward his building. He didn’t look back to see whether Suzy went home with Mike.

  “This may well be the last night of my life,” thought Ernest. He looked upward; the sky was still covered by low-hanging clouds. “I ought to be bidding everything farewell. Say goodbye to the stars. Say goodbye to the moon. Say goodbye to the beer.”

  There were few lights shining. The modapt buildings were all dark, locked, closed up for the remaining hours of life. No cars passed him on the street. He heard nothing but his own noise and the dead, abandoned sounds of wind, broken glass, aluminum cans rattling along the sidewalk, newspaper sheets gusting and rustling. There was nowhere to go now but back home, back home to Gretchen, back to bed and sleep and a bad awakening. It had taken him several hours, but at last he admitted that he was terrified. He was even more frightened than Gretchen; as usual, he had tried to push the trouble out of his mind, but this particular problem wouldn’t be pushed. Now, after his few desperate encounters, there wasn’t the smallest shred of anything to disguise his fear. He stopped suddenly on the sidewalk. There was no one to help him through this crisis. He leaned against a building and vomited.

  He walked on, awkwardly, with his hands folded in front of him. “God,” he thought, “I suppose you’re getting a lot of people praying all of a sudden. A lot of people like me, who haven’t been praying very much. I’m not going to tell you what I want. You know what. And I’m not going to promise that I’ll be any better, because you know what I’m like. But I’m sorry. I’m real sorry.” He was crying. He felt a tear dangling on the tip of his nose. The tickle irritated him; he swiped it off angrily. “This is goddamn stupid,” he said aloud. “Yeah, if I get out of this alive, I’ll build a goddamn cathedral right here on this spot.”

  He remembered Eileen, the secretary from the Jennings Corporation. He wondered what she was doing, how she was reacting to the situation. “She’s probably home now,” thought Ernest, “asleep in bed, dressed in a long flannel nightgown with blue flowers on it. She probably set her alarm for seven-thirty, giving herself half an hour to get up, brush her teeth, eat a bowl of cereal, and get out. She’ll hunt for her token like she was getting a new floor lamp at Abraham & Straus. If she finds a token booth, she’ll probably think it’s too crowded, and go off to look for another one.

  “Eileen, it just wasn’t right, thank God. The whole time I was trying to get your skirt off, I knew doggone well it was a bad idea. You would have started coming by the subassembly area on strange, make-believe errands. You would have touched me on the arm or the neck all the time. You would have given me horrible secret smiles. You would have called me at home every day, hanging up quickly if Gretchen answered. And you would always, always be on the verge of laughing or crying, and I can’t stand it when you do either. You see, Eileen, there are two sides to every story. At least a disaster can save you from your own crazy genitals.” That was the farewell to Eileen.

  “If I had only spent the time better. If I had only listened, I might not be in this lousy thing. Instead of messing around with that secretary, I should have been working on Sokol’s notebook. The blue plastic key to the universe. Damned Sokol probably has the location of every New York token station written down in scribbly red ink. Probably knew it all weeks ago. But he wouldn’t tell me. I never listened to him, and he knew it. I never believed him; who would? It sounded stupid, to tell the truth. But now both me and Old Man Jennings are in the same boat, and Sokol’s standing on the
windswept shore, safe and sound, waving to us with a big secure grin on his face, the bastard. I could have invited him over for a beer. I could have helped him find a slot for his modapt. No, I had to be the company idiot. All right, Sokol, you bastard. You and that Italian wife of yours can sit out the fires and the winds, playing canasta, mixed doubles, with the other nice couples in the bunker. You earned it. I wish I could figure out why.” That was the farewell to Sokol.

  Ernest stood outside the front door to his building. He tottered there, looking up drunkenly at the rows of small, louvered windows. There were no lights, no sounds, only a familiar smell of old garbage. “Welcome home,” he muttered. He opened the front door and went through the small foyer. He paused outside the door to Brenda Vaurigny’s modapt. He raised his fist to knock, hesitated, then let his hand fall.

  “Good night, fuser, whatever your name is,” he thought. “We had a good time, didn’t we? I brightened your day. I brought a tiny ray of sunshine into your otherwise drab life. I showed you that, even at your worst, with your outside as disheveled and confused as your inside, somebody can want you, as long as he’s got a wife like mine and all the cheap lays are home worrying about what to wear tomorrow. It’s people like you, whatever your name was, that saved my sanity. I owe you a lot. And I hope, while we’re all doing our dying trick tomorrow, that you’ll remember me and smile. I wonder what it’s like to think that I’m the last person you’ll ever do it with. It’s weird enough that you’re the last for me.” That was the farewell to Brenda the fuser.

  Ernest staggered to the elevator; it was waiting on the ground floor. “Hooray,” he said. It shuddered on its way up to his floor. “Terrific,” he thought. “The cable will snap right now. I won’t even have to wait until the morning. I wonder how old this thing is.” The door slid open slowly, and he stepped out. He stared for a moment at Leonard Vladieki’s door.

  “You know something, Lance, old buddy?” he thought. “You’re probably sleeping better than anybody in this city. In the world. We’re all going out tomorrow, just the way we came into this life. Crying. Screaming. With red, twisted-up faces and confused expressions. And we won’t know a damn thing more than we did then. You were right, Lance, old pal. So was everybody else. Everybody was right all along about everything. The hell with it.” And that was the farewell to Vladieki.

  It was dark in Ernest’s modapt. It was well after three o’clock. Ernest closed the door quietly. He sat wearily in a chair, his head lolling back, his mouth open, his eyes closed. He had a terrible headache and he was still nauseous. He stood up and looked around. Nothing had changed. He sighed and went to the telephone.

  He punched his father’s number and got the same recorded message as before. He kept trying; after about fifteen minutes, he heard the preliminary clicks and pops that meant he was getting through to the town in western Pennsylvania where Steve Weinraub, his father, still lived. “Hello?” said Mr. Weinraub, at last.

  “Hello, Dad?” said Ernest. “Sorry to call you so late. The lines have been busy all night.”

  “I can imagine. How are you?”

  “All right.” There was a long, uncomfortable silence. “You heard the news, I guess,” said Ernest.

  “Yes, that’s all that’s been on the television today. I don’t suppose they’ll have one of those token stations here in this dumb town.”

  “I don’t know,” said Ernest. “From what they said, it sounded like they’re spreading them out pretty well. There might be one fairly close by. You’ll have a better shot at a token than I will. I have to compete with thirty million people.”

  “You’ll do all right,” said Mr. Weinraub. “Look, though, if you have any trouble, and if I manage to get one, I could send…”

  “That’s silly, Dad. Don’t worry about that. I mean, there may not even be time.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “What about Grandpa Ernst?”

  “I’m worried about him, Ernie. He’s—what?—seventy-five, now. I don’t know if he can get around any more. He might not even be aware of the situation.”

  “Maybe that’s a good thing.”

  “Yes. Well, look, when this is all over, give me a call and let me know that you and Gretchen and the baby are all right. If you can make a call. I don’t know if the phones will work.”

  “Everything will be O.K., Dad. Don’t worry.”

  “You’re probably right. Well, thanks for thinking about me. All the best of luck to you, and may God bless.”

  Ernest said goodbye and hung up. That was the farewell to his father.

  “Ernie?” It was Gretchen’s sleepy, drugged voice.

  “Yeah, it’s me. Go to sleep.”

  “Is everything all right?”

  “Fine. I’m coming to bed now.”

  “Ernie, what are we going to do?”

  “Simple,” said Ernest. “Tomorrow morning I’ll get up, and you’ll take the baby, and we’ll find one of those booths. There’s bound to be crowds around them. They can’t stay hidden long, can they? There’s nothing we can do now.”

  “Ernie,” said Gretchen, “I can’t go. You know I can’t go. I’m pregnant.”

  “Yeah,” he said, staring at her in the dark room. “Yeah, among other things.”

  “No, really. I can’t go out and fight those crowds tomorrow. You do it. You can tell them. Tell them I’m in no shape to go out of the house. And we have a baby, too. They can’t expect me to go out like this, and with a baby, yet. They’re not that cruel.”

  “Weren’t you listening? I can’t get your token for you. Didn’t you hear what the Representative said? You have to get your own. They won’t let me bring you one. You have to come with me tomorrow.”

  “Oh, Ernie,” said Gretchen, crying. “Ernie, I can’t! I just can’t! I don’t want this! I…”

  “Here,” said Ernest, “take this. Go back to sleep.”

  “Will you ask them to give you three?”

  “No. You’re coming with me.”

  “No, Ernie, no!”

  “You just want to wake up tomorrow, and have everything taken care of for you, right? But it won’t be. You have to go out there and get you own damn token. Because I’m getting mine, and if you don’t want to bother, well, I’m sorry.”

  “But you’ll try? Ask them for three?”

  “All right, I’ll ask them. For two. I’ll take the baby with me.”

  “Ernie, no! You can’t take Stevie out there with all those people. Leave him home with me tomorrow, please? You can’t take my baby!”

  “Go back to sleep. We’ll talk about it in the morning.”

  That was the farewell to Gretchen. It was the farewell to everyone, and Ernest was grateful.

  Meantime D

  A note had been left in Weintraub’s mailbox requiring him to meet with his field director, Herr Elsenbach, at his earliest convenience. For Weintraub, this was good news. The early part of 1920 had been very much like the previous months of his stay in Ostamerika. To a certain degree, he was happy; he was glad that he had the opportunity to live a somewhat relaxed life, without any of the onerous political responsibilities he had been prepared to accept. Evidently the Party was content to move slowly, to lay out the ground work of his still-secret mission in a meticulous manner. Nevertheless, Weintraub was growing impatient; he hurried uptown to the Party’s headquarters.

  “Good day,” said Elsenbach warmly when Weintraub arrived. “You received the message, eh? Sit down. Your time of liberty is coming shortly to an end. Does that disappoint you? No?”

  “Not at all,” said Weintraub. “I feel a little guilty, as a matter of fact. I don’t feel that I’ve adequately repaid the Party’s trust.”

  Elsenbach grunted. “There is no purpose in hurrying things. Always the young want to speed. It is a reason the Jerman nation did so poorly while its defenses held off the Allies.”

  “It is by no means the only reason,” thought Weintraub. But he said nothing.

&nb
sp; “So,” said Elsenbach. “We have a good file on your activities, of course. I’m sure you will not be surprised to learn that. You may be interested in certain of our findings, naturally.”

  Weintraub was curious, but still he kept his silence.

  “You are frequently in the company of a Herr Rudolf Ketteler, nicht wahr?” Weintraub nodded. “It is with him that you attended several sports matches last year, and again this spring. He is a member of the Party, although he has kept his affiliation secret from you at my orders. He is our chief informant concerning your behavior. No, no,” said Elsenbach with a laugh, “do not be worried. We are very pleased with what he has reported. Another of your associates has been Fräulein Gretchen Kämmer. She, likewise, is one of our senior operatives in Ostamerika. You have escorted her on many occasions, and your relationship has grown into a very romantic and satisfying attachment. This is no doubt against your original intentions, but quite what the Party had hoped. You will see that your friends have not been chosen by you with precisely the accidental fortune you might have believed.”

  “I do not question anything,” said Weintraub, although he felt a bit resentful of the Party’s manipulation.

  “I am not sure that I believe that statement completely,” said Elsenbach. “But, as it is without importance, we shall move on. Here, at last, are your orders, an outline of your future here in Ostamerika, a scenario of your role within the Party. Study it well. You will work closely with Fräulein Kämmer. She has had much experience along these lines, and will act as your guide and supervisor in my absence.”

  “I understand.”

  “Have you any questions, then?” asked Elsenbach.

  Weintraub wondered whether Gretchen had meant the things she had said to him in their more private moments, or if everything had been planned by the Party. “I have no questions,” he said.

  “Then I will merely say that Fräulein Kämmer has confided in me the great love she feels for you. This will make your entire operation a good deal simpler. She shall pose as your wife. I wish you both the best of luck, and may God bless.”