by Max Ehrlich
He turned suddenly to Carol. "Can I send a telegram out of New York?"
She shook her head. "The telegraph offices closed two weeks ago, David."
Then the only way to reach the Coast was by phone. The instrument lay on its cradle now, a black and shiny demon, grinning at him. The operator hadn't called him back. He yanked the phone up in a sweaty hand and tried again.
"I'm sorry, sir," the operator said. "All circuits to California are busy. I'll call you when we have one clear."
There was a faint note of irony in the operator's voice. She gave the impression that he'd be lucky if they phoned him back by morning. David frantically tried to explain that it was vital, an emergency.
She was sympathetic, she was sorry, but there was nothing she could do. What with the evacuation, with every relative trying to call every other relative, with most of the circuits already given over to the Army, there was nothing she could do.
She could only keep trying.
David slammed down the receiver.
"Sit down, darling," Carol said soothingly. "Sit down. Try not to worry for a while, David. Whatever it is, I'm sure everything will be all right."
She didn't know about the meeting, she didn't know on what kind of hook he was impaled. And he couldn't tell her. But she sat there, looking up at him and holding a fresh drink toward him.
He took the drink, had another. And another. Then he went to the phone and tried to get Palomar again.
The operator was very sorry. The circuits were still busy, and there was no way of telling when they would be free. There was no point in David's calling every ten minutes; she would call him when the lines were open again.
And finally David thought, The hell with it, the hell with everything. There's nothing I can do except wait.
And if worst comes to worst, if I hear nothing from Palomar, I'll go to that meeting anyway, no matter what Francis said. I've got to go!
But as he talked to Carol, as they sat close together, as the liquor began to take hold, he recalled Francis's voice before it had been cut off on the long lines, how it had shook and trembled, as though he were terrified, and the fear that something had happened to the Old Man nagged David like the throbbing of an exposed nerve.
He tried to forget it for a while. He asked Carol about the city, about New York, what it had been like living there in the last few months. Her face sobered, and she was suddenly afraid. He could see it in the quick brightness of her eyes, in the drawn, taut look of her face, in the sudden trembling of her fingers as she deliberately crushed her cigarette in the ash tray.
Finally she took a deep breath and then she started to talk, as though she'd been dying to talk to someone about it for a long time, to get it off her chest. The words came tumbling out in quick, rambling sentences, and as she went on they came faster and faster, as though she were determined not to leave any space between them, not to give the incipient hysteria a loophole in which to creep in and take possession.
"Of course it's like a bad dream, David. You wouldn't believe it -- living here in the city now, I mean. It's simply fantastic. Even so, you can get used to it after a while, in a way. When Mother was alive -- well, I remember what she used to say, 'You can get used to hanging, if you hang long enough.' I don't know. Anyway, it's not so bad during the day, really it isn't. It's the nights. Without the lights, the streets simply pitch-black -- well, it's pretty nerve-racking. There've been all kinds of holdups and muggings. It's not that the authorities are trying to black the city out -- that wouldn't do any good against those guided missiles or whatever they call them. It's just because they haven't enough men to run the power plants. That's why the subways and the els aren't running either, even if they had the men to run them. And food -- David, you just can't imagine. You have to walk blocks before you can find a place that has anything to sell, and when you buy it, you pay fantastic prices. It's all black market, of course. People want to make money fast and get out before it's too late -- and you pay ten times what food is really worth. Five dollars for a pound of butter, David. You can't get it for less anywhere, if you're lucky enough to find it. But if it's an apartment you want, that's different. They're just giving them away. A penthouse on Park Avenue -- you can have it for the asking. It's ridiculous, David. There are just thousands of empty apartments going begging. People just left with what they could carry in a suitcase -- left their furniture and everything behind. There aren't more than a few thousand people left in town, so you can imagine.
"Of course nothing makes sense any more. But I forget, there's the heating problem. Lucky for me this building is fairly new, and we have individual heating units for each apartment. The people left in the old buildings with a central heating system didn't get any heat, and so they simply moved to one of the new buildings -- just like that. As for getting around the town -- well, you know something about that, David, you already know how hard it is. The only way is a taxi -- if you can find one. The drivers have thrown away their meters, and they charge you what they think you can afford, and of course they think you're all millionaires.
"And oh, the network studios -- not to mention the Telecast Building -- they're all madhouses now. You have to show your pass and wear a badge and go through the third degree at least five times, and show them your handbag to prove you haven't got an infernal machine in it, before you can get in to broadcast. It's insane, of course, but everyone's on edge; it's what they call Security. I know you think I'm mad to stay here, David, but we were asked to volunteer, at least until they set up new short-wave transmission studios in the Middle West. It won't be for much longer, darling, just another week, they say, and "
She had averted her face from him ever since she started to talk. Now she stopped as he gently took her chin and turned her face up toward his.
Her eyes were blurred with tears, and they were scared, and suddenly she was in his arms.
"David! Oh, David, David!"
She was a terrified child, clinging to him, shaking violently in his arms, crying his name hysterically over and over. He held her tight, comforting her, soothing her, murmuring to her, pressing his lips against her cheek so that they became sticky with her tears.
It's all been building up in her, thought David; it's been building up for days and weeks.
Finally Carol drew away and wiped her eyes. "I'm sorry, darling. I'm sorry."
"Sorry for what?"
"For blowing up like that." She sat down and said faintly, a little ashamed, "I made up my mind I wouldn't cry, I wouldn't break down, I wouldn't get hysterical, like so many of the others. Now -- look what happened!"
"You had it coming," said David. "Anybody would in a setup like this." He lit a cigarette and gave it to her. "But that's all over with now. You're going back to the Coast with me tomorrow."
She shook her head. "But, David, I can't."
"You're going back with me, and that's that!" he insisted. "I've got a plane reservation back tomorrow afternoon and a super-high priority in my pocket. I'll get another seat for you on that priority if I have to tear down the airport."
She tried to reason with him. "David, David, you don't understand. We promised to stay on the job; it's supposed to be important. The Department of Information says our broadcasts are getting through -- to Europe. The people over there are hearing them, David, in spite of the Russians, in spite of everything "
"To hell with all that," he said roughly. "It's too late for that boring-from-within propaganda stuff. They're all whistling in the wind. The blowoff'll come any hour now, and it won't be a question of propaganda, but of a lot of other weapons a million times more lethal. You've done enough, Carol; you've been here long enough, longer than anyone has a right to ask. After all, you haven't been drafted, you're just a volunteer "
"That part of it doesn't matter, David." She was looking at him steadily, and it irritated him. He took the expression in her eyes as accusation and blazed at her.
"All right, all right, maybe I'm not
a great patriot. Maybe I've no right to talk, sitting up on my nice, safe, remote mountaintop back at Palomar. But maybe I've got some information you don't know about, Carol. And I'm just not patriotic enough to let them murder my own fiancee." He walked about in a rage. "The damned fools! The crazy idiots running this government, and the Soviet government, and the others. If somebody could persuade these morons in striped pants to look upstairs for a minute and take a good long look at the stars, they'd find out that this infected speck of dust they call the earth isn't big enough to fight about, isn't worth the trouble "
"David," she said gently. "You don't have to make a speech."
He looked at her, and suddenly he felt awkward and foolish, like an adolescent kid on a high school platform. I'm a little drunk, he thought, that's it, I'm a little drunk, and shooting off my mouth like a street-corner reformer.
Get off the soapbox, Hughes, get back to earth.
"Carol," he said, "all I know is that you're inviting suicide every minute you stay here. You've got to come back with me tomorrow."
She shook her head, and he knew it was final. "David, David, believe me, I'm not trying to be noble or anything like that. But I've got to do what I'm doing! I've got to go through with it!" She pulled him down to the couch with her and pressed her cheek against his. "Darling, darling, please, let's not quarrel. Not now."
She clung to him, and to David the room became a kind of blur, like a background out of focus, a hazy cubicle hemming them in. He was drunk now, drunk with the whisky, drunk with the feel and the scent of her, drunk with the warmth of her body against his, the perfume of her hair, the caress of her lips on his ear.
"David, will we really be married soon?"
"As soon as you get out to Palomar." He almost added "if."
She kissed the lobe of his ear again, his cheek, his throat, his mouth. He was afire with the feel of her, and he thought, I can't, Carol, I can't take any more of this. Carol, Carol, I can't take any more!
"What are we waiting for?" he whispered. "What are we waiting for?"
"No, David, no, darling, no."
She drew away from him, held him at arm's length, looked at him. It was perverse of her, he thought wildly, one of those baffling things women do without rhyme or reason. There was compassion in her eyes, but he resented it, he didn't want compassion now.
He could have fought it, tried to overwhelm her.
He could have shouted: "Now, now, or maybe it'll be never. Maybe there'll never be any tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow. Carol, for the love of God!"
But he didn't.
Instead he rose abruptly and glanced at his watch.
"Two-thirty," he said, almost too casually. "I'd better go."
Carol nodded.
He picked up his brief case, and the feel of the leather and the bulging papers within brought him back to his dilemma. He went to the phone again, dialed the operator.
"I'm sorry, sir," said the operator. "But the Army took over all long-line circuits ten minutes ago. They may be released by morning. I'll call you."
He hung up, and he thought, That's that. It's out of my hands, there's nothing I can do. Nothing, except -- wait for tomorrow.
He turned to Carol. "What was the name of that hotel again?"
"The Rutherford," she answered mechanically. "It's east of Fifth, on Fifty-sixth."
"The Rutherford," he repeated.
He waited for her to rise, to say something, to see him to the door. But she did not stir from the couch. Instead she lay there motionless, watching him, appraising him, measuring him. Something had come into her eyes. They were hard to read at the moment ; they said nothing, really, except that they expected him to do something, to make the next move.
The wail of a siren screamed up suddenly from the dark canyon outside. It tore the silence of the room with its shrieking din. Then it threaded away somewhere in the night, fading as fast as it had come.
They were apart now, out of each other's arms, and the Outside had come between them again. The realization was in her face, and he knew it was in his. The little island they had inhabited briefly and together had slipped into the dark sea, and they were both afraid and swimming for their lives again. The Fear, by some subtle osmosis, had penetrated through the walls; it was in the room again, a cold and oppressive shroud enveloping them both.
"Hope I can get a cab," he said.
His voice sounded strangely false. Still she said nothing, made no move to get up. He turned his back on her, acutely conscious that she was watching him intently as he walked toward the foyer. He picked up his coat and hat deliberately from the chair where she had left them, and turned to her.
"David," she whispered suddenly. "David -- don't go!"
He stood there transfixed, staring at her. Mechanically, unaware of what he was doing, he put his hat and coat down again. The blood rushed hotly to his face, his heart pounded, and he began to tremble violently.
"Carol . . ."
"Don't go out there, darling." Her voice was husky. "Don't go out there -- and leave me alone."
The morning light was streaming in the window when Carol said:
"David, I've got to get down to Radio City. We've got an early broadcast, and one of the announcers still has his car in town. He's picking me up on the corner, and if I don't meet him I'll never be able to get down to the studio."
He made a last try. "You won't change your mind about flying back with me this afternoon?"
"No, David," she said quietly. "I can't."
Then Carol thought of something, made a sad face. "I didn't realize it was so late. And, darling, I did want to make your breakfast. There isn't much food in the refrigerator, the times being what they are, but "
"Forget it," he said cheerfully. "I'll throw something together."
He turned on the small portable television set in the bedroom. A Negro girl at a piano came on with some wake-up-and-sing stuff. She was dressed as a maid and was obviously at her mistress's piano, her broom and mop leaning against the instrument.
The mistress came into the picture, and the Negro maid grimaced in alarm, as though caught poaching on her employer's time. But the woman of the house was very pleasant about it. She motioned the girl to stay at the piano; it was apparent that she would rather have music than have her house cleaned.
A moment later, the woman of the house, caught by the music, joined the girl in a duet. They laughed and swayed and made eyes to the rhythm of the song. There was a clock on the piano to give a visual picture of the time, and there was a face painted on its dial. The face grinned and grimaced, too, and had a wonderful time. Now and then it waved its hands jerkily, like an agitated and happy puppet.
It was pleasant stuff, early-morning stuff for the housewives, and David and Carol couldn't help smiling at it.
But then the scene was wiped out abruptly into a blank screen.
A surge of documentary news-of-the-day music came up, and a spinning globe of the world appeared. A streamer brightened and swept around it, and the legend announced:
NATIONAL NEWS
David's smile froze. He and Carol stood there, motionless, hypnotized, listening.
The announcer underplayed his news and made it effective. His words were measured and somber, and his voice was a steady monotone.
"Early reports from the Soviet Union indicate that the last-minute conference between Mr. Allison of the State Department and Foreign Minister Bakhanov has failed. There is a rumor that Allison has already left Russia by plane, and the tension is mounting hourly.
"Meanwhile, the Army has announced that Washington has been completely evacuated, the last government bureau moving out two days ago.
"The President, it is reported, is waiting a personal report from Allison at his secret headquarters somewhere underground. It is reported that he is resisting strong pressure from some of his advisers to take the initiative before it is too late. The health of the Chief Executive has given some concern. Since Congress st
ripped itself of power to declare war and gave the President authority as Commander in Chief to make whatever instantaneous decision necessary, the strain and responsibility have been overwhelming.
"Flashes of unexplained light were detected early this morning over Labrador. Observers at Hopedale and Northwest River are unable to account for the phenomena, except to say that they resembled the tails of illuminated rockets. . . .
"There are rumors that New York, Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and, in fact, every city of over five hundred thousand will be totally evacuated by Army order this week end. Emergency facilities have been set up in the hinterland for those without relatives or friends residing in "
"David, shut it off!" Carol's voice rose hysterically. "Shut it off!" He turned the switch and the picture dissolved to a tiny rectangle