The Bradbury Report

by Steven Polansky

  “How do you think it is for him?”

  “We are your friends,” I said to Alan. Then, to Anna: “Should I come closer?”

  “You’d better not,” she said.

  For Anna, it must have been confusing to see us, Alan and me, come together in space and time (the universe did not explode): a version of the young man she’d known, looking just the way she’d known him; and the young man she’d known, an old man, looking so much different. Watching her with Alan that afternoon, I must have thought seeing him would have waked in her a memory of what she felt for me back in graduate school. I do remember thinking she might prefer Alan to me. She might have permitted herself to think—she was in for more sadness, if so—that, unlike me, he would not choose another woman over her. That she need not compete for his favor or affection. That Alan was a version of me not susceptible of wooing. However unconsciously, she might have seen in him a safer, denatured, at-one-remove way to experience at least some form of the intimacy she was denied back in Iowa, forty-five years ago. Cavalier, the way I posit myself at the epicenter of her thoughts and feelings.

  Anna put an index finger to her breast. “My name is Anna,” she said to Alan. ‘Anna. I’m sure I told you this. When you stayed with me.” She pointed to herself again. “Can you say, ‘Anna’?”

  Anna held for his response. She waited what seemed to me a long time. Good pedagogy.

  “That’s okay,” she said, when it became clear he would keep mum. “You don’t have to speak. When you’re ready.” She pointed to me. “That’s Ray. Ray is my friend. Your friend, too.”

  You’d have expected her next to point to him and say his name, his new name, but she didn’t.

  “When you stayed with me,” she said, “you were in Iowa. That’s where I live. It’s far from here. In another country, called America. You’ve traveled a great distance.” She stood up. “Here,” she said, “come here with me.” She took his hand and bid him stand.

  This was the first time I’d seen Alan on his feet. He was bigger than I expected. His forearms were ropy with muscles and veins, his neck was thick. Standing still—this would be true of him always—he was awkward, ill at ease, as if he didn’t know how to distribute his weight evenly. In motion he was easy and loose, athletic.

  (I was never easy, or loose, or athletic. Except for baseball, and bowling, I was not even marginally good at sports. My father, who was almost always encouraging, told me I ran like Groucho Marx. I didn’t know what that meant. Later, a gym teacher told me I ran as if I had nails in the bottom of my feet. A middle-school football coach told me I had no heart. Alan looked like he would be good at anything he tried.)

  She led him to the window on the right side of the wing chair. “Look out there,” she said. Alan looked out the window with her. “This is Ottawa. You’re in Ottawa now. Ottawa is a city in a country called Canada. It’s a good place. You’ll be safe here. We’ll be with you now.”

  It was impossible to tell how much, if anything, he understood.

  Standing at the window, she said, “Down there, that’s a garden. Those two people live here. They are growing vegetables. Tomatoes. Beans. Carrots. Squash. Good things to eat.”

  He continued to look out the window, shifting his weight from side to side. “Did you work in a garden, I wonder?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “You eat vegetables, I know,” she said. She touched his arm. “What is your name?” she said. “Will you tell me your name?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Were you given a name?”

  Again, he did not speak.

  “What shall we call you, then?” She said this hopefully, then looked to me for help. I shrugged my shoulders. She smiled at him, gave his arm a squeeze. “Don’t worry, kiddo. We’ll come up with something.”

  She left him at the window, and moved towards me. “I can’t bear the way I’m talking. I sound so condescending. No wonder he won’t answer. It’s beneath him.”

  “You think?” I said.

  “Absolutely,” she said.

  “Well, you’re doing better than I could.”

  “But what next? He’s here. We’re here. What do we do? How do we start? How do we spend the next five minutes? The next hour?”

  “You got me,” I said, though how to pass the time had latterly emerged as the most salient question in my life.

  “Would you like to see your room?” she said to Alan. “Let’s see your room.” Alan stayed where he was, his back to us. “Come on, you,” she said. “I’ll show you where you sleep. Let’s go see your bed.”

  Still, he didn’t move.

  “Why don’t we put your clothes away,” she said. “Shall we? Do you have any clothes?” He did not budge. “Well, I’m going to see your bedroom.” She crossed the living room and started down the hall.

  Alan turned away from the window. He looked unhappy.

  “Wait,” I said to Anna. “Do you think I should be alone with him?”

  “I had hoped he’d follow me,” she said from the hallway.

  “He hasn’t,” I said.

  She came back into the room. “Come on.” She implored him.

  “Go,” I said to him. “Scoot.”

  He paid no attention to me.

  “Please,” she said. “Please come with me.”

  I was not convinced there was any correlation between the way she asked and his compliance, but he did, then, go with her. Though I was not in his way, he managed, as he passed, to ram me with his shoulder. It was as if I’d been hit in the chest with a medicine ball. I caved in. The breath rushed out of me and I stumbled backwards. By the time I was able to say, “Hey. Watch it,” he was out of the room.

  I went over to the window. There were two women in the brick-walled garden below, bending together over a single plot. They looked to be about the same age, somewhere in their late sixties, early seven-ties, and might have been sisters. One of the women had on a broad-brimmed straw hat; the other wore a red visor. They were in shorts and T-shirts and both wore gardening gloves. I watched them while Anna and Alan were in the bedroom he and I were to share, which, at that moment, was a forbidding prospect. One among many. The two women looked happy and peaceful. I wanted to open the window and call to them. I wanted to tell them what was going on up here. I’d never liked gardening—too many bugs, too much dirt. I’d left it to Sara, who was inspired. But I wanted to be down in the garden with those two old, happy sisters, engaged in unexceptional activity, passing the time in the midafternoon sun, with the bugs and the Canadian dirt.

  Anna came back into the room, with Alan right behind her. He seemed pleased. She was carrying a brown paper grocery bag, crumpled at the top. “These are all his clothes,” she said. “He needs everything. He needs underwear, socks, shirts, and trousers. He’s got nothing. I can’t believe it. What were they thinking?”

  “He can wear some of my clothes for the time being,” I said.

  “If they fit,” she said. “It will be autumn soon. He’ll need warm things.”

  “We’ll be okay,” I said.

  “We’ll have to take him shopping.”

  “Not right now,” I said.

  She laughed. “No. Not right now.”

  (We’d take him shopping a week later. Foolishly. Apart from a brief midnight walk around Friel Street to give him some air, it was the first time he’d been out of the apartment. In that week’s time he demonstrated that, when he wanted to, he could speak, at least a little. He was willing to say Anna’s name. He would not speak my name, nor would he speak directly to me. When he was hungry, he’d ask for food. He’d say, “I’m hungry,” or “I want food,” or “Give me food,” or “I want to eat.” He had no trouble with pronouns, never confused I and you, or me and you, the way, Anna told me, little children often do. He’d say, “I’m tired,” when he was sleepy, and, to Anna, “Good night,” before he went to bed. He’d say, “I have to piss,” and “I have to shit.” Anna begged him to substitute
“pee” for “piss,” and “poop” for “shit,” but he wouldn’t. Sometime during that first week he discovered TV, then asked for it constantly. “I want TV,” he’d repeat, loudly, and we had to turn it on to shut him up. When he was sick of being in the apartment—those first few weeks, not without reason, we were reluctant to let him out, and we’d find him pacing the perimeter—he’d say, “I want to go out.”

  We went on a Monday morning, choosing a day and time when we figured the stores wouldn’t be busy. We drove out to a mall in a western suburb. We’d forgotten to account for the back-to-school shoppers, and the department store, a three-story megalith on one end of the mall, was crowded with mothers and their children. I watched to see how Alan would react to the mother-child relationship, which was so multifariously on display, but he seemed unstruck by it. He had no interest in the kids, but he was embarrassingly interested in the women, especially the young mothers, and spent a lot of the time gaping at them in what looked like a broad parody of amazement. Anna had to keep tugging at him to get him to close his mouth and move on. After brushing too close by a young blonde woman with large breasts—she might still have been nursing the toddler clinging to her leg—Alan leaned over and said something in Anna’s ear. Whatever he said—she wouldn’t repeat it—upset her, and made her angry.

  After that, Anna took charge. She summarily gathered some socks and undershorts—I insisted he have boxers—and a pair of pajamas, then grabbed some shirts and slacks for him to try on. Also a woolen V-neck sweater. None of the stuff she chose, save for the sweater, was to my taste—it was all voguish and cheaply made—but he was indifferent, as, by now, was she. We located the bank of men’s fitting rooms. Though we would have been happy to get him off the floor, we were afraid to send him into one of those curtained stalls by himself. That I would go in with him was not an option. That past week I’d had to sleep out on the couch, because he’d refused to let me in the bedroom. Nor would he let me see him unless he was fully dressed. He slept in his underwear—he shunned the pajamas Anna bought for him—and even after he agreed to let me sleep in the room, I had to wait until he was in his bed, and under the covers, before I could enter. Anna, who had lost heart, decided we would just pay for the clothes and take our chances. Except for the slacks, which, though wearable, were half an inch too short and snug in the crotch, the clothes fit him okay.)

  “He must be hungry,” she said

  “Are you hungry?” she said to Alan.

  This time he quite distinctly nodded his head.

  “Progress,” I said.

  “He’s hungry.”

  “Do we have food?”

  “We don’t,” she said. “The refrigerator’s empty. We need to get some things.”

  “I’ll go.”

  “I think that probably would be best,” she said.

  On our time-killing drive around the neighborhood earlier that afternoon, we’d seen a small market not too far from the apartment.

  “What should I get?”

  “Oh, you know. The essentials. Bread and milk and eggs and butter. Olive oil. Get some fruit and vegetables. Maybe some pasta and sauce. Tea, coffee. I don’t know. Some boneless chicken breasts. Get whatever you want. Whatever looks good.”

  “Okay,” I said. “But I’m not much for shopping. I warn you.”

  “Get something.”

  “I’ll take the car.”

  “Of course,” she said. “Oh, and get some paper towels and napkins and a couple of sponges. And some toilet paper.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll be back.”

  “Please,” she said. “And maybe some cereal. Something you like. For breakfast. Some juice.”

  “You’ll be all right?”

  “We’ll be fine. Don’t take too long, though.”

  “I’ll be quick as I can.” I looked at Alan, standing behind her. He was smiling. “Anna, do you want me to stay?”

  “No. Just get going. And bring me back some magazines.”

  “What kind?”

  “I don’t care. Any kind. You choose. Something to read. And something for dessert. Crackers. Cookies. Some ice cream. Chocolate chocolate-chip. We like that.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Ha ha,” she said. “Do you need a list? Or can you remember?”

  “I’ll be lucky to remember where we live.”

  The green car was still out in front of the apartment, and I was able to find the market without much trouble. I’m sure I forgot to pick up half the things Anna asked for. I do know I brought back the chocolate chocolate-chip ice cream, because that night at dinner Anna gave Alan a bowl of it for dessert, and then he expected it with every meal, even breakfast. When he didn’t get it, when we were out of stock, he could be unpleasant and vulgar. As was, in those early days, his wont.

  I had a dark moment in the grocery store that afternoon. It would not be the last of such moments. I was in the middle of some aisle or another, my cart full of stuff. I looked at the cart, looked at the stuff, and I couldn’t remember having taken any of it off the shelves. I didn’t know what it was: all the stuff in the cart was to me unrecognizable. If, in fact, there were tomatoes in there, I could not have told you what they were. My heart began to race, and I experienced shortness of breath. Or I imagined my heart was racing, my breath coming short. I was hypervigilantly aware of my body and how it was working. I heard ringing in my ears. I thought I might be stroking—I still had all the medical lingo—but there was no pain, no real discomfort. I was overswept by dread. I wanted to flee. The cart. The store. The city. The country. What was I doing there? I was shopping for groceries on a Monday afternoon in Ottawa. Who could believe it? There were groceries in a cart, and I couldn’t have named them. What did I think I was doing? Who did I think I was? These were all real questions. I wanted to get in the green car and drive, without stopping, back to New Hampshire. I knew where I lived. Seven hours, I’d be home. What I didn’t want, more than anything else in the world, to do, was to go back to that apartment, in which Anna and the clone were waiting.

  I didn’t flee. I stood by my cart, unheroically, and waited, without knowing I was waiting, for the paroxysm to subside. Which it did. I wheeled my cart—it was helpful to have something to hold on to, to lean on—to the checkout lane and paid for the groceries in cash. When I was outside, I took a few deep breaths in the late-afternoon air. It was still hot and muggy. I’d finished with five bags of groceries. I was surprised by how much I’d bought. I loaded the bags into the trunk of the green car, then I drove back to Friel Street. I parked the car in front of our building and made three trips up the stairs, resting between trips, leaving the bags outside the apartment door. When I’d got it all up, I knocked on the door. Three short raps—I was not feeling at all ironic—as the Tall Man had done. There was no answer, and I could hear no movement within. I knocked again, three times, waited, then tried the knob. The door was unlocked. I picked up two of the grocery bags and went inside. Anna was seated at the far end of the couch, the clone sprawled its length, his head in her lap. She was stroking his hair. She touched her index finger to her lips, then smiled at me. The clone was asleep. La Pietà, I thought, feeling suddenly aggrieved. I brought in the rest of the bags, as quietly as I could.

  Anna stayed on the couch with Alan’s head in her lap. I put the groceries away. We didn’t speak. Neither of us, though perhaps for different reasons, wanted him to wake up.

  There was not much left of the afternoon. Alan slept, while Anna watched him. She may have dozed, too. I unpacked my clothes in the bedroom. Alan woke up. Anna made dinner. While she was in the kitchen, I gave Alan as wide a berth as the apartment permitted. I don’t remember what we had for dinner. Alan’s manners at table were better than I’d have thought. He was proficient with a knife and fork. He chewed with his mouth closed, sat up reasonably straight, did not make inordinate noise with his cutlery, and kept his napkin on his lap when it wasn’t in use. He ate earnestly, and as much as ther
e was to eat, including two bowls of the ice cream for dessert.

  I did the dishes after dinner, and Alan spent a long time in the bathroom. He was in there long enough with the door locked that Anna got worried and knocked to see if he was all right. We watched some TV, the three of us. I sat in the wing chair, Alan and Anna sat on the couch. I don’t remember what we watched—something anodyne—but, from all appearances, it was Alan’s first time with television. He was very interested in whatever was on, and upset when, after a couple of hours, we turned it off.

  Anna got ready for bed first. Alan stood outside the bathroom door while she was in there, and I watched from the other end of the hall to see that he didn’t do anything untoward. When Anna came out of the bathroom, in her nightgown and robe, Alan went in. This ad hoc procedure—Anna first, then Alan, then me—was to become, because Alan would have it no other way, codified. Anna and I stood in the hallway.

  “Long day,” I said.

  “Yeah.”

  “And weird.”

  “Pretty weird,” she said.

  “What do we do tomorrow?”

  “We start.”

  “Start what?”

  “We start working with him.”

  “That’s what you do,” I said. “What do I do?”

  “You help.”

  “I’m not sure I’ll be any use.”

  “Then you’ll stay out of the way.”

  Anna enjoyed, and took very seriously, her role as Alan’s teacher. But she was pulled two ways about the project. For his sake, for her sense of herself as well, she wanted him steadily to prosper under her charge. And he did. At the same time, she found her group’s plans for Alan, the ways they intended to use him once he’d become articulate, literate, presentable, so odious, so cruel, that no small part of her wanted to slow his pace, impede his progress, keep him useless as long as she could. It was more knotted even than that. She believed, without doubt, that Alan could be a determinative factor in the effort to subvert the government’s cloning program. She had equal faith in the ultimate importance of that effort. Teaching Alan, she thought, was a chance for her to participate in something of major, transformative significance. She had found herself—she spoke about it as a function of providence—if not at the front, then at the very heart of a revolution. She was not, herself, interested in power, not at all, but, despite what was a principled commitment to ordinariness, to life lived as plainsong, Anna was at heart a revolutionary. Long may she . . . what? Reign? No. Live. I didn’t buy into the idea that Alan, or Anna, or her group would be able to effect any substantive change in government policy or practice, and I wanted no part of this revolution, or any other.