Voices from the Street

by Philip Kindred Dick

  There it was. His flesh turned cold as he heard her words. Because it was as if he were speaking, as if a portion of him were saying it. A terrible image of him had sprung out; there it sat, across from him, slim and smiling. Succubus—a male demon in female form. Yes, it was she. And it was himself, too.

  His dread grew . . . but he could not end the fascination. She said it aloud; but that portion of him that believed those things was afraid. It couldn’t speak out: it was too weak. It didn’t dare. In spite of himself, he still admired her.

  “You know,” he said hoarsely, “you’re vicious. Like a hawk, a bird of prey. I sit here listening because I can’t help it . . . because something in me responds.”

  “I know,” Marsha said evenly. “You do respond.”

  “And I know it’s wrong. I know it’s the vicious part of me, the part that wants to be strong and cruel. Like you—without feeling. Indifferent to others. To suffering and weakness. Contemptuous of weakness.”

  “You just don’t want to hear,” Marsha disagreed. “You’re afraid. It’s fear that makes you resist.”

  “No,” Hadley answered. “No, it’s conscience.”

  For a time Marsha reflected. “Once,” she said finally, “there was a little boy who stood in a parade and watched the king pass. The king had no clothes on. Everybody knew it, everybody saw it, everybody experienced it, but nobody could bring himself to say it aloud, because they had been taught it was a terrible thing to say. But the little boy went ahead and said it. And finally everybody had to say it, because they always knew it was true. They always said it privately. All those people standing there watching the king go by naked, and nobody said anything. Do you think it was better to say nothing? Do you think if a truth is unpleasant it shouldn’t be said?”

  “Is it a truth?”

  “Tell me what you say. Not just you . . . everybody, in the privacy of their homes and offices. What do you say about the Jews?”

  “We’re depraved, too. All of us, a little.”

  “There’s a thing called folklore. You know what that is? A body of knowledge evolved by the collective mind of the people. The wisdom of the race. Their highest wisdom . . .”

  Hadley sat silent and horrified. But this personification of his shadow-self hypnotized him; the words she said cut all the way down inside him. The shameful depths were out in the open; she made no secret of what she was, how she felt. No guilt. No sense of sin.

  “You’re a strange person,” he said, troubled. “You’re like one of those—what do you call them? Telepathies.”

  She didn’t laugh. “Yes, we have a rapport. The racial unconscious links the two of us. You think of yourself as a unique entity; you think you’re cut off, alone. Separate and terribly isolated.”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re not. Only the external shell is unique . . . Deep inside you’re part of a collective entity. Haven’t you ever felt that? Haven’t you felt that this separation is artificial? That you shouldn’t be cut off?”

  He nodded.

  “There’s so much ignorance,” Marsha said. “Jung had to go out of the West, all the way to China, to get what he wanted. I’ll lend you some of his works sometime. Modern Man in Search of a Soul. Have you read that? He worked with classical Chinese verse; he studied Buddhism. The Tap. Brahminism . . . He’s a great scholar, one of the really great men of our times. He went back into the Middle Ages . . . the alchemists.”

  Hadley didn’t know what to say. “What you’re telling me sounds so—” He didn’t know that, either. “What the hell does it mean?”

  “Don’t you feel you understand it? Not verbally, maybe. Don’t you feel it makes sense?”

  “I don’t know.” He was completely confused. “I’ve had a lot on my mind the last few weeks. Pete being born, this business with Beckheim. And I haven’t felt good. I think there’s something wrong with me. Fergesson wants me to go see his family doctor, but what the hell—I’ve seen so damn many doctors in my life. And none of them ever did me any good.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with your body,” Marsha said. “You’re physically sound. You’re very well made, in fact.”

  “What is it, then?”

  “Your soul.”

  Nobody had ever told him he had a soul. He felt like bursting out laughing. What was that? Where was it? Maybe he had lost it; maybe it was already gone. Maybe somebody had stolen his soul. Maybe he had sold it or lent it and forgotten about it. Maybe people weren’t born with souls anymore. But the word wasn’t empty; he responded to it. It flattered him, as if in some way he were responsible for having one. Or having a soul was unique: an achievement. He felt as if she saw something in him nobody else saw. Something they had overlooked.

  He grinned. “Words like soul, heaven, devil. They don’t mean anything anymore.”

  “Beckheim uses them.”

  “I know.” He twisted. “But there it seemed all right. Like in church—everybody listening, the auditorium, a big man like that. But here, in broad daylight.” He indicated the shelves of fruits, dried tubers, jars of vegetable juices. “It’s—unreal. It’s like trying to watch a movie in broad daylight . . . You can still see the images on the screen, but they’re not convincing.”

  “You mean, the illusion is gone.”

  “I guess so.”

  “Perhaps soul isn’t an exact word. It’s hard to find exact words for spiritual things. All right, Stuart Hadley. We will use any word you want.” Her cold gray eyes danced. “What would you prefer?”

  “I wouldn’t prefer anything. I don’t feel well. My head hurts and my stomach’s upset.” He examined his wristwatch. “And I’m going to have to get back to the shop.”

  “I’ve done all this?”

  “No . . . I always feel sick. There’s always something wrong with me.” He tried to express himself. “I’ve been sick all my life.”

  Marsha nodded. “I know.”

  “What do you mean? How do you know?” He was infuriated; his core of rage boiled out. “You don’t know anything about me! You just met me!”

  “Everybody is sick. You can’t live here without being sick. Don’t you see—Beckheim’s right. We’ve got to have a rebirth. It can’t go on this way, dirty and corrupt and venal. There has to be a spiritual return . . . We’ve dropped down on all fours like animals. We wallow and chase after thrills . . . We’re beasts! We’ve just got to go back; it was clean and simple, before. It’s all gotten complicated and mechanical and bright—” She pointed through the window of the Health Food Store, at the big neon sign of the Bank of America Building. “Like that. Money and gaudy signs. Commercialism, filthy factories . . . We have to get back to the soil. We need roots—we have to find the land again. Rediscover the simple old ways.”

  Hadley responded. But he was frightened. “But all this hate—you hate the Jews.”

  “We hate venality and greed. We hate corruption. Is that bad?” Her voice remained calm, thin. “We hate rich plutocrats who grind down the people and make them robots. Slaves in factories. The machine is destroying man. The Communist ideal: every man the same . . . ground down to a common denominator. The brutal, bestial factory worker, covered with soot and grime. Like an ape in the forest.”

  Hadley asked: “Does Beckheim feel this way? All these things—Succubus. Is this what Beckheim stands for?”

  “Beckheim,” she said quietly, “is a Negro. But the forces of resurgence are working through him. We’ve watched for some kind of spiritual upsurge . . . Beckheim is an involuntary prophet. He isn’t aware. He thinks like a primitive . . . He is a primitive. He has naive categories of thought, like a child. Heaven, Hell, Armageddon, salvation. But he has integrity.” She raised her voice. “He speaks for all of us. The pure child, the guileless fool come to save us. Parsifal . . . you see?”

  Hadley didn’t answer. He finished his plate and pushed it aside. As he began on the banana cream pudding he said: “What does Beckheim think of your magazine?”


  Marsha frowned. “He’s interested.” She sounded vague. “He may finance it.”

  “Is that why—”

  “We’ve been discussing it from time to time. The matter comes up . . . There’s a great deal we don’t agree on.” She smiled. “He’s a powerful man, Stuart Hadley. He’s a great man . . . more than a man. He’s a force.”

  Hadley said: “It must be an experience to meet him.”

  “It is.” She sounded as if she meant it. “It’s like sitting down in the same room with God.” She finished her orange juice. “I’ll wait until you have a chance to read over the magazine. You may want to ask me about different parts of it.”

  “Maybe.” He was noncommittal. Suddenly he demanded: “What do you care if I read it? What’s it matter to you?”

  Marsha met his furious gaze calmly. “I think you have the potentialities to comprehend it. We’ve all been living under a fog. Like the gods . . . withered and old, because of a curse. The gold has tainted us . . . We can’t stand up straight and be ourselves. Be young and strong. We can’t see things as they really are.” With a rush of excitement, hollow cheeks bright red, she exclaimed: “Stuart Hadley, you have so much to learn! There’s so much ahead of you, so many things to throw off! Like a cicada coming out of its old shell. Like a grub coming out of its cocoon and turning into a butterfly. Don’t you see—all these years have been marking time for you, suspended time . . . in the cocoon. You’ve been waiting—don’t you feel that?”

  “Yes,” he said slowly. “But I didn’t think anything would come.” He continued: “I didn’t have much hope.”

  “You should have! There’s so much to the world—it’s big and full of things. There’s a fundamental core of vitality; the world’s full of energy and excitement. Once you cut through and get down all the way, strike the bedrock that’s down there, under all the lies . . .” She pushed back her chair and abruptly got to her feet. Matter-of-factly she said: “What night will you be free? I’ll pick you up and we’ll drive up the coast, along the ocean highway to San Francisco.”

  “Why?” he demanded, astonished.

  “So you can meet Theodore Beckheim.”

  Hadley could say nothing.

  “He’s staying with me,” Marsha continued, “while he recuperates from his heart attack. I want you to meet him before he leaves.”

  She walked rapidly out of the store without looking back. A trim, boyish shape, sharp chin up, rusty hair a corona around her bleak skull. In a moment she was gone.

  Dazed, Hadley continued eating his banana pudding, an empty reflex of raising and lowering his spoon. Marsha had disappeared. An empty orange-juice glass was all that remained; she had gone as suddenly as she had come.

  He wondered, fearfully, what night he would be free. To meet Theodore Beckheim . . . He was overwhelmed. For that, he would do almost anything. Put up with anything. The avid hunger grew . . . to meet Theodore Beckheim. To speak to him, be with him. Touch him. Talk to him face-to-face.

  Thursday? Ellen was taking Pete over to her family’s house. But how was he supposed to get in touch with her?

  Obviously, he didn’t have to. At the realization he felt a shudder of dread. The ominous specter, the fascinating but dangerous presence against which his physical system was already moving to protect itself, would see to that. Marsha Frazier would get in touch with him.

  Wednesday morning when Stuart Hadley came out of the TV demonstration room with the polish rag and bottle in his hands he discovered the telephone lying off its hook. He watched it intently as he carried the polish rag and bottle past the front counter, to the combinations in the window. Nobody was using the phone; nobody was in sight. An uneasy, foreboding sensation moved through him; he sensed an invisible presence waiting silently, patiently, at the other end of the line. Waiting for him.

  “What’s this?” he said to Jack White when White came up from downstairs. “You on the phone?”

  “Oh,” White said, blithely remembering. “It’s for you. I forgot; some dame calling.”

  Chilled, Hadley lifted the receiver to his ear. The hum of the wire was the only sound: the dame had hung up.

  “How long ago was that?” Hadley asked as he hung it up. “Was it Ellen?”

  “It was maybe fifteen minutes ago,” White said, “and it wasn’t your wife. I’m sorry, Stumblebum. I went downstairs looking for you and I got to talking to Olsen.” He straightened his hand-painted silk necktie, a tall, slim man in a gray double-breasted suit, small mustache, shoes neatly shined. “My fault.”

  An hour later she phoned back. This time Hadley got it. With a quake of dismay he recognized the calm, dispassionate voice as soon as she asked: “May I speak to Mister Hadley, please?”

  “It’s me,” he answered, with reluctance. His distaste surprised him; did he dislike her that much? Deep in him the aversion to the woman was growing. More and more he sensed the unwholesomeness in her, the frigid malgrowth, as if she were reptilian, snakelike. But she was his only link with Beckheim; and he had to reach the big black man. “Where are you calling from?” he demanded.

  “San Francisco. I called before, but the man—whoever he was—never came back. I debated for a while . . . It occurred to me you were trying to pull out of this. But then I decided it was probably an accident . . . You couldn’t be certain it was me.”

  “It was an accident,” Hadley said huskily.

  “What night are you free?”

  “Thursday. Ellen’s taking Pete over to her family’s. Like I said, I’m not expected to go along. Her family never liked me very well.” His voice was monotonous; if he expected to meet Beckheim he would have to put some life into it. “So we can get together—right?”

  Silence for a moment. He could imagine her: hollow-eyed bony face, gazing straight ahead, pale lips slightly parted, analyzing his words, the tone of his voice. Reading into them first this and then that; trying to decide how he felt. It would be quite an accomplishment . . . His emotions were a tangled mess. And Marsha probably sensed that; she seemed to know what was going on inside him.

  “All right,” she agreed. “You get off at six?”

  “A little after. I have to count the money and reset the register tape. Turn things off, close up the store. Say, about six fifteen.”

  “I’ll come by with the car. Stuart?”

  “What?”

  “Bring some of your work.”

  For a moment he couldn’t imagine what she meant. Then he realized that she was talking about his paintings. “Okay,” he said; he couldn’t help responding. Then he sensed how difficult it would be to get them out of the house. “I mean—”

  “I’ll see you at six fifteen,” Marsha interrupted coolly. “Good-bye, darling . . . I have to scoot.” She hung up.

  Sweating and apprehensive, he turned to wait on two elderly women who stood grimly at the counter, a cloth-mesh shopping bag between them. Obviously, Marsha had something built up. Elaborate plans made without his knowledge or consent. “Can I help you?” he asked automatically, reaching for the shopping bag. He could see the square outlines of a little old Scottie radio wedged in the bag. “Troubles?” he asked absently. There was no telling what she was up to; she might do anything. But he did want to meet Beckheim. It would be worth it, for that. Anything would be worth doing, to meet Theodore Beckheim. “What sort of troubles?” he asked the old ladies. “What does your radio do?”

  In many ways it was a mistake—and he knew it. But in spite of his foreboding, his sense of squandering his life and intimate world and personality, he got the pictures from the closet on Thursday morning. It was eight ten; Ellen was still in bed asleep. He let her sleep. Making his own breakfast, washing and shaving rapidly, very quietly, he finished dressing, grabbed on his coat and hat, and tiptoed to the bedroom door.

  Ellen lay sprawled out in the middle of the bed, brown hair tumbled over the pillow and sheets, one arm extended limply. He could hear her breathing: the low, harsh panting of deep sleep. F
rom the closet he got the dusty package that was his collection of pictures, the brown bundle tied up with heavy wrapping twine. He carried it out of the apartment, set it down in the hall while he locked the door after him, and then hurried off with it to the store.

  The pictures stayed downstairs in the service department, stuck upright among the overstock television combinations and spin dryers, until Thursday night.

  At four o’clock business began to die. Blazing hot July sunlight shimmered off the sidewalk and into the store; the television screens shrank to gray squares of unconvincing shadow. Cars muttered along in unbroken rows. Fergesson took off in his Pontiac to deliver a radio-phonograph he had sold to a lifelong friend. At five thirty Olsen drove up in the store truck and came struggling in, loaded down with radio chassis.

  While Hadley was showing a Zenith table-model seventeen-inch TV to a young couple, Marsha entered the store. He was aware of her without turning around; the unique flow of her slim shape through the doorway told him she had arrived. He glanced at his wristwatch. It was a quarter to six: she was going to be hanging around for half an hour.

  At the end of the counter, Marsha took up a silent, watchful station. Like a permanent fixture, she stood with her arms folded, purse resting beside the tube checker, leaning slightly against the cash register. Her lean body bent on an angle, she contemplated the back of Hadley’s neck and the young couple buying the Zenith TV: all three of them could feel her eyes.

  “We’ll have to think it over,” the young man said, grinning nervously. “A lot of money for these days.” His wife tugged urgently at his arm. “We’ll be back—we just have to give this some thought . . . You know.”