“Really? I had not noticed any diminution.”
“I mean as a fine art. There are still plenty of clumsy liars, approximately as many as there are mouths. Do you know the two most artistic ways to lie?”
“Perhaps I don’t but I would like to learn. Just two?”
“So far as I know. It’s not enough to be able to lie with a straight face; anybody with enough gall to raise on a busted flush can do that. The first way to lie artistically is to tell the truth—but not all of it. The second way involves telling the truth, too, but is harder: Tell the exact truth and maybe all of it . . but tell it so unconvincingly that your listener is sure you are lying.
“I must have been twelve, thirteen years old before I got that one down pat. Learned it from my maternal Grampaw; I take after him quite a lot. He was a mean old devil. Wouldn’t go inside a church or see a doctor—claimed that neither doctors nor preachers know what they pretend to know. At eighty-five he could crack nuts with his teeth and straight-arm a seventy-pound anvil by its horn. I left home about then and never saw him again. But the Families’ Records say that he was killed in the Battle of Britain during the bombing of London, which was some years after.”
“I know. He’s my ancestor, too, of course, and I’m named for him. Ira Johnson.” 3
J.F. 45th
“Why, sure enough, that was his name. I just called him ‘Gramp.’ ”
“Lazarus, this is exactly the sort of thing I want to get on record. Ira Johnson is not only your grandfather and my remote grandfather but also is ancestor to many million people here and elsewhere—yet save for the few words you have just told me about him, he has been only a name, a date of birth, and a date of death, nothing more. You’ve suddenly brought him alive again—a man, a unique human being. Colorful.”
Lazarus looked thoughtful. “I never thought of him as ‘colorful.’ Matter of fact, he was an unsavery old coot—not a ‘good influence’ for a growing boy by the standards of those times. Mmm, there was something about a young schoolmarm and him in the town my family had lived in, some scandal—‘scandal’ for those days, I mean—and I think that was why we moved. I never got the straight of it as the grownups wouldn’t talk about it in front of me.
“But I did learn a lot from him; he had more time to talk with me—or took more time—than my parents had. Some of it stuck. ‘Always cut the cards, Woodie,’ he would say. ‘You may lose anyhow—but not as often, nor as much. And when you do lose, smile.’ Things like that.”
“Can you remember any more of what he said?”
“Huh? After all these years? Of course not. Well, maybe. He had me out south of town teaching me to shoot. I was maybe ten and he was—oh, I don’t know; he always seemed ninety years older than God to me.4 He pinned up a target, put one in the black to show me it could be done, then handed me the rifle—little .22 single-shot, not good for much but targets and tin cans—‘All right, it’s loaded; do just what I did; get steady on it, relax and squeeze.’ So I did, and all I heard was a click—it didn’t fire.
“I said so, and started to open the breech. He slapped my hand away, took the rifle from me with his other hand—then clouted me a good one. ‘What did I tell you about hangfires, Woodie? Are you aching to walk around with one eye the rest of your life? Or merely trying to kill yourself? If the latter, I can show you several better ways.’
“Then he said, ‘Now watch closely’—and he opened the breech. Empty. So I said, ‘But, Gramp, you told me it was loaded.’ Shucks, Ira, I saw him load it—I thought.
J.F. 45th
“ ‘So I did, Woodie,’ he agreed. ‘And I lied to you. I went through the motions and palmed the cartridge. Now what did I tell you about loaded guns? Think hard and get it right . . or I’ll be forced to clout you again to shake up your brains and make ‘em work better.’
“I thought fast and got it right; Gramp had a heavy hand. ‘Never take anybody’s word about whether a gun is loaded.’
“‘Correct,’ he agreed, ‘Remember that all your life—and follow it!—or you won’t live long.’ 5
“Ira. I did remember that all my life—plus its application to analogous situations after such firearms went out of style—and it has indeed kept me alive several times.
“Then he had me load it myself, then said, ‘Woodie, I’ll bet you half a dollar—do you have half a dollar?’ I had considerably more, but I had bet with him before, so I admitted to only a quarter. ‘Okay,’ he said, ‘Make it two-bits; I never let a man bet on credit. Two-bits says you can’t hit the target, much less stay in the black.’
“Then he pocketed my two-bits and showed me what was wrong with what I had done. By the time he was ready to knock off I had the basics of how to make a gun do what I wanted it to do, and wanted to bet him again. He laughed at me and told me to be thankful the lesson was so cheap. Pass the salt, please.”
Weatheral did so. “Lazarus, if I could find a way to entice you into reminiscing about your grandfather—or about anything—I’m certain we could extract from such record endless things you have learned, important things—whether you choose to call them wisdom or not. In the last ten minutes you have stated half a dozen basic truths, or rules for living—call them what you will—apparently without trying.”
“Such as?”
“Oh, for example, that most people learn only by experience—”
“Correction. Most people won’t learn even by experience, Ira. Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.”
“There’s another one. And you made a couple of comments on the fine art of lying—three, really, as you also mentioned that a lie should never be too complicated. You said also that belief gets in the way of learning, and something about knowing a situation was the essential first step in coping with it.”
“I didn’t say that—although I could have said it.”
“I generalized something you did say. You said also that you never argued with the weather . . which I would generalize to mean: Don’t indulge in wishful thinking. Or as ‘Face up to the facts and act accordingly.’ Though I prefer the way you put it; it has more flavor. And ‘Always cut the cards.’ I haven’t played card games in many years, but I took that to mean: Never neglect any available means of maximizing one’s chances in a situation controlled by random events.”
“Hmm. Gramp would have said, ‘Stow the fancy talk, Sonny.’ ”
“So we’ll put it back into his words: ‘Always cut the cards . . and smile when you lose.’ If indeed that is not your own phrasing and simply attributed to him.”
“Oh, his all right. Well, I think it is. Damn it, Ira, after a long time it is hard to tell a real memory from a memory of a memory of a memory of a real memory. That’s what happens when you think about the past: You edit it and rearrange it, make it more tolerable—”
“That’s another one!”
“Oh, hush up. Son, I don’t want to reminisce about the past; it’s a sure sign of old age. Babies and young children live in the present, the ‘now.’ Mature adults tend to live in the future. Only the senile live in the past . . and that was the sign that made me realize that I had lived long enough, when I found I was spending more and more time thinking about the past . . less of it thinking about now—and not at all about the future.”
The old man sighed. “So I knew I had had it. The way to live a long time—oh, a thousand years or more—is something between the way a child does it and the way a mature man does it. Give the future enough thought to be ready for it—but don’t worry about it. Live each day as if you were to die next sunrise. Then face each sunrise as a fresh creation and live for it, joyously. And never think about the past. No regrets, ever.” Lazarus Long looked sad, then suddenly smiled and repeated, “ ‘No regrets.’ More wine, Ira?”
“Half a glass, thank you. Lazarus, if you are determined to die soon—your privilege, certainly!—what harm could there be in remembering the past now . . and getting those memories on record for the benefit of your d
escendants? It would be a much greater legacy than leaving your wealth to us.”
Lazarus’ eyebrows shot up. “Son, you are beginning to bore me.”
“Your pardon, sire. May I have permission to leave?”
“Oh, shut up and sit down. Finish your dinner. You remind me of—Well, there was this man on Novo Brasil who complied with the local custom of serial bigamy but was always careful to see that one of his wives was as utterly homely as the other was startlingly beautiful, so that—Ira, that dingus you have listening to us: Can it be keyed to pick out particular statements and arrange them as a separate memorandum?”
“Certainly, sir.”
“Good. There’s no point in telling how Ranch Master . . Silva?—yes, I think ‘Silva’ was his name, Dom Pedro Silva—how he coped with it when he found himself stuck with two beautiful wives at once, except to note that when a computer makes a mistake, it is even more stupidly stubborn about correcting it than a man is. But if I thought long and hard, I might be able to dig out those ‘gems of wisdom’ you think I have. Paste diamonds, that is. Then we wouldn’t have to load up the machine with dull stories about Dom Pedro and the like. A key word?”
“ ‘Wisdom’?”
“Go wash out your mouth with soap.”
“I will not. You stuck your chin into that one, Senior. ‘Common sense’?”
“Son, that phrase is self-contradictory. ‘Sense’ is never ‘common.’ Make the keying word ‘Notebook’—that’s all I have in mind, just a notebook to jot down things I’ve noticed and which might be important enough to place on record.”
“Fine! Shall I amend the programming now?”
“You can do it from here? I don’t want you to interrupt your dinner.”
“It’s a very flexible machine, Lazarus; the total complex is the one I use to govern this planet—to the mild extent that I do govern it.”
“In that case I feel sure you can hang an auxiliary printout in here, one triggered for the keying word. I might want to revise my sparkling gems of wisdom—meaning that extemporaneous remarks sound better when they aren’t extemporaneous—or why politicians have ghost writers.”
“ ‘Ghost writers’? My command of Classic English is less than perfect; I don’t recognize the idiom.”
“Ira, don’t tell me you write your own speeches.”
“But, Lazarus, I don’t make speeches. Never. I just give orders, and—very seldom—make written reports to the Trustees.”
“Congratulations. You can bet that there are ghost writers on Felicity. Or soon will be.”
“I’ll have that printout installed at once, sir. Roman alphabet and twentieth-century spelling? If you intend to use the language we’ve been talking?”
“Unless it would place too much strain on a poor innocent machine. If so, I can read it in phonetics. I think.”
“It is a very flexible machine, sir; it taught me to speak this language—and earlier, to read it.”
“Good, do it that way. But tell it not to correct my grammar. Human editors are difficult enough; I won’t accept such upstart behavior from a machine.”
“Yes, sir. If you will excuse me one moment—” The Chairman Pro Tem raised his voice slightly and shifted to the New Rome variant of Lingua Galacta. Then he spoke in the same language to the taller technician.
The auxiliary printout was installed before the table served them coffee.
After it was switched on, it whirred briefly. “What’s it doing?” asked Lazarus. “Checking its circuits?”
“No, sir—printing. I tried an experiment. The machine has considerable judgment within the limits of its programs and memoried experience. In adding the extra program I told it also to go back, review everything you have said to me, and attempt to select all statements that sounded like aphorisms. I’m not sure it can do this, as any definition of ‘aphorism’ it has in its permanents is certain to be quite abstract. But I have hopes. However, I told it firmly: No editing.”
“Well. ‘The astounding thing about a waltzing bear is not how gracefully it waltzes but that it waltzes at all.’ Not me, some other bloke; I’m quoting. Let’s see what it has.”
Weatheral gestured; the shorter technician hurried to the machine, pulled a copy for each of them, fetched them back.
Lazarus looked his copy over. “Mmmm . . yes. That next one isn’t true—just a wisecrack. Must reword the third one a little. Hey! It put a question mark after this one. What an impudent piece of junk; I checked that one out centuries before it was anything but unmined ore. Well, at least it didn’t try to revise it. Don’t recall saying that, but it’s true and I durned near got killed learning it.”
Lazarus looked up from the printout copy. “Okay, Son. If you want this stuff on record, I don’t mind. As long as I am allowed to check and revise it . . for I don’t want my words to be taken as Gospel unless I have a chance to winnow out the casual nonsense. Which I am just as capable of voicing as the next man.”
“Certainly, sir. Nothing will go into the records without your approval. Unless you choose to use that switch . . in which case any unedited remarks you have left behind I will have to try to edit myself. That’s the best I can do.”
“Trying to trap me, huh? Hmm—Ira, suppose I offer you a Scheherazade deal in reverse.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Js Scheherazade lost at last? Did Sir Richard Burton live in vain?”
“Oh, no, sir! I have read The Thousand Nights and a Night in the Burton original . . and her stories have come down through the centuries, changed again and again to make them understandable to new generations—but with, I think, the flavor retained. I simply do not understand what you are proposing.”
“I see. You told me that talking with me is the most important thing you have to do.”
“It is.”
“I wonder. If you mean that, then you will be here every day to keep me company—and chat. For I’m not going to bother babbling to your machine no matter how smart it is.”
“Lazarus, I will be not only honored but much pleased to be allowed to keep you company as long as you will let me.”
“We’ll see. When a man makes a sweeping statement, he often has mental reservations. I mean every day. Son, and all day. And you—not a deputy. Show up two hours after breakfast, say, and stay till I send you home. But any day you miss—Well, if it’s so urgent you just have to miss, phone your excuses and send over a pretty girl to visit me. One who speaks Classic English but has sense enough to listen instead—as an old fool will often talk to a pretty girl who just bats her lashes at him and looks impressed. If she pleases me, I might let her stay. Or I might be so petulant that I would send her away and use that switch you promised to have reinstalled. But I won’t suicide in the presence of a guest; that’s rude. Understand me?”
“I think I do,” Ira Weatheral answered slowly. “You’ll be both Scheherazade and King Shahryar, and I’ll be—no, that’s not right; I am the one who has to keep it going for a thousand nights—I mean ‘days’—and if I miss—but I won’t!—you are free to—”
“Don’t push an analogy too far,” Lazarus advised. “I’m simply calling your bluff. If my maunderings are as all-fired important to you as you claim, then you’ll show up and listen. You can skip once, or even twice, if the girl is pretty enough and knows how to tickle my vanity—of which I have plenty—just right. But if you skip too often, I’ll know you’re bored and the deal is off. I’m betting that your patience will wear out long before any thousand days and a day have passed—whereas I do know how to be patient, for year after year if necessary; that’s a prime reason I’m still alive. But you’re still a youngster; I’m betting I can outsit you.”
“I accept the bet. This girl—if I must be away some day—would you object if I sent one of my daughters? She’s very pretty.”
“Hunh? You sound like an Iskandrian slave factor auctioning his mother. Why your daughter? I don’t want to marry her, nor even to bed her; I si
mply want to be amused and flattered. Who told you she was pretty? If she really is your daughter, she probably looks like you.”
“Come off it, Lazarus; you can’t annoy me that easily. I admit to a father’s prejudice but I’ve seen the effect she has on others. She is quite young, less than eighty, and has been contractually married only once. But you specified a pretty girl who speaks your milk language. Scarce. But this one of my daughters shares my talent for languages and is much excited by your presence here—wants to meet you. I can stall off emergencies long enough for her to become letter-perfect in your language.”
Lazarus grinned and shrugged. “Suit yourself. Tell her not to bother with a chastity girdle; I don’t have the energy. But I’ll still win the bet. Probably without laying eyes on her; it won’t take you long to decide that I am an unbearable old bore. Which I am and have been almost as long as the Wandering Jew—a crashing bore if I ever met one—did I tell you I had met him?”
“No. And I don’t believe you have. He’s a myth.”
“A fat lot you know about it, Son. I have met him, he is authentic. Fought the Romans in 70 A.D. when Jerusalem was sacked. Fought in every Crusade—incited one of them. Redheaded of course; all of the natural long-lifers bear the mark of Gilgamesh. When I met him he was using the name Sandy Macdougal, that being a better handle for the time and place for his current trade, which was the long con, with a variant on the badger game.6 The latter involved—Look, Ira, if you don’t believe my stories, why are you going to so much trouble to get them on record?”
“Lazarus, if you think you can bore me to death—correction: to your death—why are you bothering to invent fictions to entertain me? Whatever your reasons, I’ll listen as carefully—and as long—as King Shahryar. As may be, my master computer is recording whatever you choose to say—without editing; I guaranteed that—but it has incorporated into it a most subtle truth analyzer quite capable of earmarking any fictions you include. Not that I care about historicity as long as you will talk . . . as it is clear to me that you automatically include your evaluations—those ‘gems of wisdom’—no matter what you say.”
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