The Ninth Wave

by Eugene Burdick

  Georgia was waiting for him in a parking area behind the house. It was very hot and bright and the sun was reflected off the white concrete. She was leaning against the garage, dozing; with the sun full on her face. She opened her eyes as Mike drove in.

  She led him around the house along the side of a large kidney-shaped swimming pool. An old and very thin man was lying beside the pool in a pair of shorts. He had a shrunken, pot-bellied body and his flesh was very white and wrinkled. He had a beard that reached almost to the middle of his chest. He lay there, sweating and ancient, his eyes closed against the sun, his nose hawklike.

  "That's Grandfather Blenner," Georgia said. "He's a very orthodox Jew. He wants us to eat kosher, but nobody else in the house wants to. It's a long battle. Sometimes we have separate china services for dairy and meat foods and then someone wants sour cream and the servants mix the plates up and Grandfather won't eat off of them. Once he ate for a week from paper plates because he said that washing dishes together in an electric dishwasher mixed the plates."

  They went into the huge colonial style house. They walked through french doors into a library. On a leather couch two girls and a boy, all about twelve years old, were seated. They were wearing Levi's and saddle shoes. Across from them was a small dark man who was teaching them an opening move in chess.

  "Now this is the Capablanca opening," the small man said in an intense theatrical voice. He moved a pawn and looked up with startled eyes. "What would you do now?"

  The children stared intently at the board.

  Georgia led Mike up to the second floor of the house. She stopped at the head of the stairs.

  "You won't let him upset you?" she asked. In the dimness of the hall she looked intently at Mike, bent forward slightly to see his face.

  "For Christ's sake," Mike said.

  "All right, I'm sorry," Georgia said. "He upsets some people; that's all. I'm sorry."

  She opened a door and went in. The room was dim. Venetian blinds covered one side of the wall and through the ivory-colored slats horizontal lines of brilliant sunshine cut into the grayness of the room. A large man with a very white face was sitting up in the middle of a Hollywood bed. His head did not move, but his eyes looked at them, rotating like marbles sunk in suet. On a table beside the bed was an array of medicine bottles. A bottle of yellow and red capsules had spilled over the table and onto the rug. In the midst of the medicine bottles was a plate with a half-empty bottle of Pabst beer, a glass with dried beer scum on it and a plate with the remains of a ham sandwich.

  "Hello, you're Freesmith," the man said. "I'm Blenner. Morrie Blenner."

  He put out his hand and Mike took it. The hand was soft and puffy and the middle finger was squeezed tightly by a thick band of gold.

  "That's right. I'm Freesmith," Mike said. "How did you know?"

  "I've heard you described," Morrie said. He looked up at Mike, almost shyly. "I told Father to see you. I know a lot about you."

  Georgia sat down in a chair by the head of the bed, but Mike remained standing. Georgia looked intently at Mike, trying to read his reactions.

  "Are you sick?" Mike asked flatly.

  Morrie's head moved for the first time. He looked up sharply at Mike and then over at Georgia. Georgia smiled rigidly and then looked quickly at Mike. Morrie began to laugh. His lips pulled away from his large white teeth, and at first, for a short moment, his laugh had the pure trilling quality that Mike remembered when Mr. Blenner laughed. Then Morrie was laughing so hard that he was soundless. He was almost convulsive. He slowly turned red and then with an act of will he pulled his lips back over his teeth and cut off the laugh, He pointed a white finger at Mike.

  "You're the first person who's asked me that in ten years," he said. "Everyone else is afraid to. They just come in and stand around and try to be cheerful. Nobody else has asked me if I'm sick. That's funny."

  "All right, nobody else has asked you," Mike said. "But are you sick?"

  "It's really something of a mystery," Morrie said. "Wait just a second."

  He fumbled in the bed covers and brought up a stethoscope. He fixed the earpieces in his ears and then pulled back his pajamas. His chest was hairless and his breasts were white and protruding, like those of a young girl. He pushed the diaphragm of the stethoscope against the flesh and winced. Georgia watched him move the diaphragm, her face strained.

  "It's cold at first," he said and smiled at Mike.

  He probed. with the stethoscope, his face expectant and then he relaxed against the pillows.

  "Now I've found my heart. At first it's very faint, but then it gets more solid. Go ahead, take the earplugs and listen."

  "No, I don't want to listen. You tell me what you hear," Mike said.

  "You've heard the old story about medical school students," Morrie said. "How they develop the symptoms of whatever disease they're studying. They all think they've got syphilis when they're studying that and hypertension when they're studying that. The symptoms change with each disease they study. Well, I was like that. Except that I kept having the symptoms of one affliction, even when we stopped studying it,"

  "What was it?''I Mike asked.

  "Systolic splash," Morris said. "A leakage of the valves of the heart. It is characterized by a tiny gush of blood that leaks during the systolic pulse of the heart. Eventually the valves get weaker and weaker and finally the blood just rushes through and the heart fails. With the stethoscope you can hear the tiny splashing sound the blood makes as it leaks through the valve. In medical school they described it. I listened to my own heart and could hear it; exactly what they described. A throb, an easing of pressure and then a tiny faraway splash of blood . . . barely audible."

  He opened his eyes wide and turned his head up at Mike. Georgia turned and looked up at Mike also. Her face was expectant,

  "Trouble was that nobody else could hear it. All the professors tried to catch it. None of them could hear it. But I could. Every time I used the stethoscope I could hear it."

  "Can you hear it now?" Mike said.

  Morrie looked shyly at Mike.

  "Yes, I can hear it now," he said. "The only cure for systolic splash is complete rest. So I came home and decided to rest. I got in bed and I'll stay here until I die or the systolic splash disappears. It's as simple as that."

  "You'll stay here until you die," Mike said. He reached over and took one earplug out of Morrie's ear so that Morrie could hear him distinctly. "It's simple. Everyone tells you that you don't have systolic splash. You listen and hear it. Obviously you're only going to accept the evidence of your own ears. And you'll hear the sound of the splash the rest of your life."

  "You're pretty logical and clever, Mr. Freesmith," Morrie said. There was no irony in his voice. "You're probably right. After a while a person gets some very weird notions. For example, at medical school they tell you that the heart is a firm strong piece of muscle. If I want to reassure myself I can open a medical book and look at the diagram of a heart. But sitting here, listening to my heart, I know that it's a big quivering bag full of blood. It is covered with a thin glistening layer of material. Oh, damn is it thin. I can feel the blood pushing against it, trying to burst out. And it's much bigger than they told me in medical school. It almost fills your whole chest. A huge delicate bag that squeezes softly and sends the blood out through all the arteries. And almost anything can break the bag of your heart, I don't want to do anything that will injure my heart . . . Nothing, understand? Really, nothing."

  Mike looked at Georgia. She was watching him. She was tense, waiting for judgment. Then she smiled at something she saw in his face. They looked down at the huge sprawling loose body in the bed. Mike knew they were thinking the same thing: of how long it had been since the body had been used, how the muscles must have become shrunken and thin and encased in fat. They thought of how carefully the body moved, anxious not to disturb the rhythm of the big pulsing membrane of blood that rested in the chest. The long careful thought-out a
voidance of strain and effort. And the eating of ham sandwiches and beer and potato chips and chopped chicken liver and rich spicy foods that had gone into the production of the soft rich fat.

  Then Morrie looked up at them and smiled and Mike felt that he knew exactly what they were thinking.

  "I know what would get you out of bed," Mike said and he laughed. "If the Blenner family went absolutely broke, if you couldn't afford this house and twenty-four-hour a day nurse service and expensive doctors, then it would be simple. You'd have to get out of bed and start to work."

  Morrie laughed. His face wrinkled with delight.

  "You're very right, Freesmith," he said~ "If we went broke I'd have to get out of bed. But we aren't going broke. Not even close to it." He swung open a low cabinet beside his bed. It held a row of files. "There are the key files on all the Blenner enterprises. Right there. I keep an eye on them. I watch everything. For example, the matter Father discussed with you was my idea. I worked it up; did all the research, everything."

  "Did you tell him to see me?"

  "Yes."

  "Why?"

  "It's really very simple. I came to the conclusion that the only sure investment in the future would be something which was supported by the government. I decided on agricultural land. It was a long complicated analysis and I won't bore you with the details. But once that was decided then the problem was to find some person who could do something about the political picture, could make sure that politics wouldn't endanger the investment. That called for a person who knew something about politics, could exercise enough control and still wasn't committed to someone else or to a political party. It narrowed down to you. You've got a candidate, you're not committed to a political party and you're not in politics for political reasons."

  "Why do you think I'm interested in politics?" Mike asked.

  "I don't know. It doesn't matter. I just had to be sure you weren't committed already. I don't care what else is involved. We just had to make sure we didn't have a reformer or do-gooder or fanatic in the political end of the job."

  "You're a pretty logical person yourself, Mr. Blenner," Mike said.

  "Thank you," Morrie said. He smiled at Mike and Georgia laughed with pleasure.

  "What do you think about the farm land we looked over?" Mike said. "Georgia has told you all about it."

  "You did very well," Morrie said and his voice lost the shy, half-playful quality and became crisp. His body shifted, the fat rolled under the sheets and somehow he was sitting erect. "I was worried at first because you didn't take along an expert, but you were right. I've had everything checked out. That desert land down around Rasor is the best. It's cheap and they say it will grow almost anything if you can get water into it."

  "That's the land we liked the best," Georgia said excitedly. "There's nothing there now, Morrie. Not a thing. Just a strip of road and some cactus. With water . . . "

  "Can we get the water in?" Morrie broke in and said.

  "That depends on a lot of things," Mike said.

  "But the most important thing is whether or not Cromwell becomes governor," Morrie said. There was no question in his voice.

  "That's right."

  "You can manage that," Mottie said. "The thing you need most is money. We'll give you that." He hesitated and then looked squarely at Mike. "Maybe you'd show Georgia the political side of it some day? How you see the campaign, the people, the issues . . . all of that. Then she could tell me." Mike shrugged.

  "Whenever she wants," he said. "It's not very complicated. I'm not running it like an ordinary campaign. I can explain it to her in an afternoon."

  Morrie nodded and suddenly his face looked bored. He picked up the stethoscope and put the plugs in his ear. He probed his chest with the diaphragm, his mouth opened expectantly. Mike and Georgia stood up and left the room.

  "I've never heard anyone talk to him like that before," she said when they were in the hallway. "I was scared for a minute, but he liked you."

  "What were you scared of?"

  "I'm not sure. That he'd have an attack or something. Maybe that his heart couldn't stand it."

  Mike laughed.

  "He could stand that and a lot more," he said. There's nothing wrong with his heart."

  Georgia looked at him and then away. She did not speak until they were out in the sun again.

  "Would you like to drive down to the beach and have a drink?" she said. "Sometimes I take a thermos of martinis and go down to Santa Monica or up toward Malibu."

  "O.K. Let's go," Mike said.

  When they went by the swimming pool, the old man turned slowly over onto his belly without opening his eyes. He left a perfect outline of his body in sweat on the warm concrete.

  They drove out Wilshire and the sleekness of the boulevard ended when they got to Santa Monica. The chinchilla ranches, the clothing stores, the hamburger stands, the enchilada restaurants began. Then suddenly they were at the Palisades and the city ended. The road cut down the face of the Palisades in a sharp slanting angle and all they could see was the Pacific and the sky and the long black strip of the Coast Highway.

  They drove for ten miles along the coast and then Georgia told him to stop. He parked by a big rock that reached across the beach and into the water. Steps had been cut down the side of the rock and they walked down and out onto the sand. The sand was clean and tidewashed. There was a thin crisp layer of sand across the surface and their feet broke through into the cooler sand beneath. They put a blanket beside the rock and sat down. Mike opened the thermos and poured out two cups of martinis.

  Behind them they could still hear the shrill whine of tires on the highway, but all they could see was the ocean and sand. Far out to sea a couple of freighters were moving sluggishly. Close to shore a fishing boat was motionless; behind the boat a round saclike shadow floated in the water and the net was held up by an ellipse of cork floats. In the sky two jet planes were moving. They were visible as two tiny triangles at the point of a long, perfect, growing vapor trail.

  "You don't spend much time with your wife," Georgia said. "Does she mind?"

  "I don't think so," Mike said. "She never says anything about it. She's busy with the two kids, clubs, clothes . . . that sort of thing."

  Mike's voice was not apologetic or protective. He looked at her curiously; as if she had mentioned a subject he had never thought of.

  "I like the beach here," Georgia said suddenly. "Part of the reasbn I like it is because you look out and see the big ocean and the sky, yet just behind you, just a few yards away, is the city. Here the beach means something; it's a boundary; a limit. Once I saw the beach up at Big Sur. It was all lonely and desolate. I didn't like it. Here the beach is exciting."

  Mike leaned back against the rock. It was getting dark and the sand was cooling. The fishing boat pulled in its net and he thought that he could see the silvery bodies of the fish pour over the side. The two jets had moved to the edge of the sky and just at the line of blackness they seemed to come together; to merge into one heavy and beautiful-vapor trail. The waves came higher on the beach, began to break around the base of the rock.

  They sat quietly, not talking, and when they heard the voice it came as a surprise.

  "Whatcha doing buddy, trying to pecker the girl?" the voice said. It was a mocking voice, very loud and firm.

  Mike pulled his head back and sat up. Four boys were standing in a semicircle behind them. They were all about twenty years old, but the one that spoke was older than the others. He was wearing a soft yellow flannel jacket and gabardine pants. The cuffs were tucked into shiny black Wellington boots. The boy's hair was cut long on the sides and brushed back so that his head looked long and lean, like an Indian's. His hair was very short on top. He had strong hands and muscular shoulders.

  "I asked you, mister, if you were trying to pecker this poor girl here in daylight," the boy said. The other boys smiled.

  One of them was swinging a toy baseball bat in his hand. It was abo
ut twenty inches long and it hung from his wrist by a silver chain.

  "He could be arrested for exhibitionism," another boy said. He pronounced the word slowly; with elegance.

  Mike looked at them. The boys all looked the same, black hair, Wellington boots, flannel jackets. "Imagine being arrested for exhibitionism and sent up to City Hall. It's not worth it, mister. You should're taken the babe to a motel. Here, maybe I can loan you the money?"

  The boy reached in his pocket and jerked his hand around and his eyes opened in mock surprise. The other boys laughed. The boy took his hand out and it was empty.

  "What do you want?" Mike asked. "If you don't want anything, shove off."

  "Oh, gee, mister, don't scare us like that," the boy in the yellow jacket said. "We're friendly boys. Just rat-rat-racketing along in our car . . . taking a look at places like this to keep an eye on public morals. Just cruising, that's all we're doing."