Doctor Guy Tillingford met him in his outer office. “Bright and early, I see,” he glowed, shaking hands. “Off to a good start.”
Relaxing considerably, Hamilton began removing his coat. EDA existed, and he still had a job. Tillingford, in this distorted realm, had hired him; that much carried over. One major problem was erased from his note pad of things to worry about.
“Darn decent of you to let me have a day off,” Hamilton said warily, as Tillingford led him down the hall to the labs. “I appreciated it.”
“How did you make out?” Tillingford inquired.
That was a stopper. In Silvester’s world, Tillingford had sent him to consult the Prophet of the Second Bab. The chances were slight that this also carried over … in fact, it was out of the question. Stalling, Hamilton said, “Not bad, considering. Of course, it’s a little out of my line.”
“Any difficulty in finding the place?”
“None at all.” Sweating, Hamilton wondered just what he had done, in this world. “It was—” he began. “It was darn nice of you. The first darn day, like that.”
“Think nothing of it. Just tell me one thing.” At the lab doorway, Tillingford halted briefly. “Who won?”
“W-won?”
“Did your entry take the prize?” Grinning, Tillingford slapped him warmly on the back. “By golly, I’ll bet it did. I can tell by the expression on your face.”
The portly Personnel Director came striding along the hall, a thick briefcase under his arm. “How’d he do?” he demanded, with a moist chuckle. Knowingly, he tapped Hamilton on the arm. “Got a little something to show us? A ribbon, maybe?”
“He’s holding back,” Tillingford confided. “Ernie, let’s give it a write-up in the office bulletin; wouldn’t the staff be interested?”
“You’re darn right,” the Personnel Director agreed. “I’ll make a note of that.” To Hamilton he said, “What did you tell us your cat’s name is?”
“What?” Hamilton faltered.
“Friday, when we were talking about it. Darned if I can remember. I want to get the spelling right for the office bulletin.”
In this universe, Hamilton had been given a day off— his first working day at the new job—to enter Ninny Numbcat in a pet show. Inwardly, he groaned. Mrs. Pritchet’s world, in some ways, was going to be more of a trial than Arthur Silvester’s.
After collecting all details about the pet show, the Personnel Director hurried off, leaving Hamilton and his boss standing face to face. The moment had come; it couldn’t be put off.
“Doctor,” Hamilton said grimly, taking the bit in his teeth, I have a confession to make. Friday, I was so dam excited about going to work for you that I—” He grinned pleadingly. “Well, frankly I don’t remember a darn thing we said. It’s all just a sort of vague blur in my mind.”
“I understand, my boy,” Tillingford said soothingly, giving him a paternal leer. “Don’t fret about it … plenty of opportunity to go over the details. I expect you’ll be here a good long time.”
“In fact,” Hamilton plunged on, “I don’t even remember what my job is. Isn’t that a laugh?”
They both had a good laugh over it.
“That’s certainly amusing, my boy,” Tillingford agreed finally, wiping tears of merriment from his eyes. “I thought I’d heard everything.”
“You suppose maybe—” Hamilton tried to make his voice sound light and casual. “Just a short briefer course, before you leave me off?”
“Well,” Tillingford said. Some of his humor faded; he gained a solemn, important expression, a look of serious thoughtfulness. A vacant, far-seeing glaze settled over his face; he was contemplating the overall picture. “I don’t think it ever does any harm to go over fundamentals. It’s important, I always say, to return to basic postulates, now and then. So we don’t get steered too far off our course.”
“Check,” Hamilton agreed, praying silently that whatever it was, he would be able to adjust to it. What in hell was Edith Pritchet’s conception of the function of a gigantic electronics research combine?
“EDA,” Tillingford began, “as you fully realize, is a major element in the national social structure. It has a vital task to fulfill. And it is fulfilling that task.”
“Absolutely,” Hamilton echoed.
“What we here at EDA are doing is more than a job. More, I dare say, than a mere economic venture. EDA was not founded with the idea of making money.”
“I follow you,” Hamilton assented.
“It would be a small and unworthy thing to boast of, that EDA is a financial success. Actually, it is. But that’s of no importance. Our task here—and it is a great and rewarding task—goes beyond any concept of profit and gain. This is especially so, in your case. You, as a young and idealistic beginner, are motivated by the same kind of zeal that prompted me, once. Now I’m old. I’ve done my work. Someday, perhaps not too far in the future, I will be laying down my burden, turning my load over to more eager, more energetic hands.”
His hand on Hamilton’s shoulder, Doctor Tillingford led him proudly into EDA’s vast network of research labs.
“Our purpose,” he intoned grandly, “is to turn the immense resources and talents of the electronics industry to the task of raising the cultural standards of the masses. To bring art to the great body of mankind.”
Violently, Hamilton yanked himself away. “Doctor Tillingford,” he shouted, “can you look me squarely in the eye and say that?”
Astonished, Tillingford stood opening and shutting his mouth. “Why, Jack—” he muttered. “What—”
“How can you stand here reciting all this nonsense? You’re an educated, intelligent man; you’re one of the world’s greatest research statisticians.” Waving his arms wildly, Hamilton roared at the bewildered old man, “Don’t you have a mind of your own? For God’s sake—try to remember who you are. Don’t let this happen to you!”
Backing away in dismay, Tillingford stuttered and clasped his hands timidly together. “Jack, my boy. What’s come over you?”
Hamilton shuddered. It was no use; he was wasting his time. Suddenly a desire to laugh overcame him. The situation was absurd beyond belief; he might as well conserve his anger. It was not poor Tillingford’s fault … Tillingford wasn’t any more to blame than the trouser-clad horse pulling the junk wagon.
“I’m sorry,” he said wearily. “I’m upset”
“Goodness,” Doctor Tillingford gasped, beginning to recover. “Would you mind if I sat down a moment? I have a heart condition … nothing serious, an odd complaint called paroxysmal tachycardia. Makes the old ticker run fast sometimes. Excuse me.” He ducked off into a side office; the door slammed shut and the sounds of medicine bottle being hurriedly opened and pills being taken filtered out into the hall.
Probably, he had lost his new job. Listlessly, Hamilton sank down on a hall bench and groped for his cigarettes. A fine start in his adjustment … he couldn’t have made a worse beginning.
Slowly, cautiously, the door of the side office opened. Doctor Tillingford, eyes wide and fearful, peeped hesitantly out “Jack,” he said faintly.
“What?” Hamilton muttered, not looking up.
“Jack,” Tillingford asked uncertainly, “you do want to bring culture to the masses, don’t you?”
Hamilton sighed. “Sure, Doctor.” Getting to his feet he turned to face the old man. “I love it. It’s the greatest thing invented.”
Relief flooded Tillingford’s face. “Thank heaven.” His confidence somewhat restored, he ventured out into the hall. “You believe you feel strong enough to begin work? I ah—don’t want to put too much of a strain on you.
A world composed of and inhabited by Edith Pritchets. He could envision it now: friendly, helpful, saccharine sweet. Doing, thinking, believing nothing but the beautiful and the good.
“You’re not going to fire me?” Hamilton demanded.
“Fire you?” Tillingford blinked. “What on earth for?”
/> “I grossly insulted you.”
Tillingford chuckled weakly. “Think nothing of it. My boy, your father was one of my dearest friends. Sometime I’ll have to tell you how furious we used to get at each other. Chip off the old block, eh, Jack?” Patting Hamilton cautiously on the shoulder, Doctor Tillingford conveyed him into the labs proper. Technicians and equipment stretched out in all directions; a humming, vibrant expanse of busily functioning electronic research projects.
“Doctor,” Hamilton said, without conviction, “can I ask you one question? Just for the record?”
“Why, of course, my boy. What is it?”
“Do you remember Somebody named (Tetragrammaton)?”
Doctor Tillingford looked puzzled. “What was that? (Tetragrammaton)? No, I don’t think so. Not that I can recall.”
“Thanks,” Hamilton said drearily. “I just wanted to make sure. I didn’t think you did.”
From a worktable, Doctor Tillingford picked up a copy of the Journal of Applied Sciences for November, 1959. There’s an article in here that’s circulating among our staff. It may interest you, although it’s somewhat old stuff, these days. An analysis of the writings of one of the really significant men of our century, Sigmund Freud.”
“Fine,” Hamilton said tonelessly. He was prepared for anything.
“As you realize, Sigmund Freud developed the psychoanalytic concept of sex as a sublimation of the artistic drive. He showed how the basic, fundamental human urge toward artistic creativity, if given no valid means of expression, is transformed and altered into its surrogate form: sexual activity.”
“Is that right?” Hamilton murmured, resigned.
“Freud showed that in the healthy, uninhibited human, there is no sexual drive and no curiosity or interest in sexuality. Contrary to traditional thought, sex is a wholly artificial preoccupation. When a man or woman is given a chance for decent, normal, artistic activity—painting, writing, music—the so-called sexual drive withers away. Sexual activity is the covert, hidden form under which the artistic talent operates when mechanistic society subjects the individual to unnatural inhibition.”
“Sure,” Hamilton said. I learned that in high school. Or something like it”
“Fortunately,” Tillingford continued, “the initial resistance to Freud’s monumental discovery has been overcome. Naturally, he met terrific opposition. But, happily, that’s all dying out. Nowadays you rarely find an educated person speaking of sex and sexuality. I use the terms merely in their clinical sense, to describe an abnormal clinical condition.”
Hopefully, Hamilton asked, “You say there’s some remnant of traditional thinking among the lower classes?”
“Well,” Tillingford conceded, “it will take time to reach everybody.” He brightened; enthusiasm returned. “And that’s our job, my boy. That’s the function of the electronics craft.”
“Craft,” Hamilton muttered.
“Not quite an art-form, I’m afraid. But not far from it. Our task, my boy, is to continue the search for the ultimate communication medium, the device which will leave no stone unturned. By which all living humans will be faced with civilization’s cultural and artistic heritage. You follow me?”
“I’m there already,” Hamilton answered. “I’ve had a high fidelity rig for years.”
“High fidelity?” Tillingford was delighted. “I didn’t realize you had an interest in music.”
“Only in sound.”
Ignoring him, Tillingford rushed on: Then you’ll have to join the company symphony orchestra. We’re challenging Colonel T. E. Edwards’ orchestra the early part of December. By golly, you’ll have a chance to play against your old company. What instrument do you play?”
“The uke.”
“Just a beginner, eh? What about your wife? Does she play?”
“The rebeck.”
Puzzled, Tillingford let the matter drop. “Well, we can discuss it later. I imagine you’re anxious to get to your work.”
At five-thirty that afternoon, Hamilton was permitted to lay down his schemata and put away the tools of his craft. Joining the other homeward-bound workers, he made his way gratefully from the plant, out onto the tree-lined gravel paths that led to the street.
He was just beginning to look around for the train station, when a familiar blue car drove up to the curb and came quietly to a halt beside him. Behind the wheel of his Ford coupe was Silky.
“I’ll be damned,” he said—or thought he said. Actually, it came out darned. “What are you doing here? I was about to start hunting you down.”
Smiling, Silky pushed open the car door for him. “I got your name and address from the registration tag.” She indicated the white slip on the steering column. “You were telling the truth, after all. What’s the ‘W.’ stand for?”
“Willibald.”
“You’re impossible.”
As he got warily in beside her, Hamilton observed, “It doesn’t tell where I work, though.”
“No,” Silky admitted. “I called your wife and she told me where I could find you.”
While Hamilton gazed at her in blank dismay, Silky shifted into low and gunned the car forward.
“You don’t mind if I drive, do you?” she asked wistfully. “I just love your little car … it’s so cute and neat, and easy to handle.”
“Drive it,” Hamilton said, still marveling. “You—called Marsha?
“We had a long heart-to-heart talk,” Silky informed him placidly.
“What about?”
“About you.”
“What about me?”
“What you like. What you do. Oh, everything about you. You know the way women talk.”
Reduced to impotent silence, Hamilton gazed sightlessly at El Camino Real and the streams of cars moving down the peninsula to the various suburban towns. Beside him, Silky drove happily, her small sharp face bright and contented. In this untarnished world, Silky had undergone a radical transformation. Her blond hair dangled down her back in two tight yellow braids. She wore a white middy blouse and a conservative dark blue skirt. On her feet were plain, unadorned loafers. She looked, in all respects, like a guileless young school girl. Make-up was lacking. Her coy, predatory expression was absent. And her figure, like Marsha’s, totally undeveloped.
“How’ve you been?” Hamilton inquired drily.
“Just fine.”
“Do you remember,” he asked carefully, “when I saw you last? You remember what was happening?”
“Of course,” Silky answered confidently. “You and I and Charley McFeyffe drove up to San Francisco.”
“What for?”
“Mr. McFeyffe wanted you to visit his church.”
“Did I?”
“I suppose so. You both disappeared inside.”
“Then what?”
“I have no idea. Then I fell asleep in the car.”
“You—didn’t see anything?”
“What like?”
It would have sounded odd to say, “Two grown men rising to Heaven on an umbrella. So he didn’t say it.
Instead, he asked, “Where are we going? Back to Belmont?”
“Of course. What else?”
“To my house?” Adjustment to this world was going to be a slow process. “You and I and Marsha—”
“Dinner’s all ready,” Silky told him. “Or will be, by the time we get there. Marsha phoned me at work, told me what she wanted from the store, and I picked it up.”
“At work?” Fascinated, he asked, “What, ah, line of business are you in?”
Silky glanced at him, perplexed. “Jack, you’re such a strange man.”
“Oh.”
Troubled, Silky continued to gaze at him until a muffled squeak of brakes ahead forced her to turn back to the highway.
“Honk,” Hamilton instructed her. A mammoth oil truck on their right was crowding into their lane.
“What?” Silky asked.
Annoyed, Hamilton reached over and tapped the horn. No
thing happened; no sound came out.
“Why did you do that?” Silky asked curiously, slowing down to allow the truck clearance ahead of her.
Relapsing back into meditation, Hamilton filed away another piece of datum in his storehouse of wisdom. In this world, the category car horn had been abolished. And, in the thick homeward bound traffic, there should have been a constant din.
In cleaning up the ills of the world, Edith Pritchet eradicated, not merely objects, but whole classes of objects. Probably, at some remote time and place, she had been annoyed by a honking car. Now, in her pleasant fantasy version of the world, such things didn’t exist. They simply weren’t.
Her list of annoyances was undoubtedly considerable. And there was no way to tell what was included. He couldn’t help thinking of Koko’s song in The Mikado:
… But it really doesn’t matter whom you put upon the
list,
For they’d none of ‘em be missed—they’d none of ‘em be missed!
Not an encouraging thought. Whatever thing, object, or event had at any time in her fifty-odd years stirred the smooth surface of her vapid enjoyment was gently eased out of existence. He could guess a few. Garbage men who rattled cans. Door-to-door salesmen. Bills and tax forms of all lands. Crying babies (perhaps all babies). Drunks. Filth. Poverty. Suffering in general.
It was a wonder anything was left.
“What’s the matter?” Silky asked sympathetically. “Don’t you feel well?”
“It’s the smog,” he told her. “It always makes me a little ill.”
“What,” Silky inquired, “is smog? What a funny word.”
For a long time there was no conversation; Hamilton simply sat and tried vainly to hang onto his reason.
“Would you like to stop somewhere along the way?” Silky asked sympathetically. “For a glass of lemonade?”
“Will you shut up!” Hamilton shouted.
Blinking, Silky shot him a mute glance of fear.
“Sorry.” Slumped over, Hamilton fumbled for a labored apology. “New job—tough going.”
“I can imagine.”
“You can?” He couldn’t keep the icy cynicism out of his voice. “By the way—you were going to tell me. What’s your racket, these days?”
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