“The other fellow dies
In place of me.
So here I’ll pull the trigger;
Here, I’ll drop the bomb.”
This was one of the poet’s few ventures into free verse . . .
“I thought you should know.”
“Fuck it,” said Jim.
“What?”
“I said thanks a lot. For telling me, for waking me. I overslept.” Jim shook the hand set. “It’s just like we’re in bed together,” he said to it from a distance.
He heard a click and a buzz as Marta rang off.
After dressing hastily, Jim hurried down to the room occupied by the woman with the heart condition. He apologized to her rather abjectly for having failed to keep their morning appointment. He went to other rooms, next, to reorganize his schedule for the day. That done, he descended to Noel Resnick’s office. By now it was well after eleven o’clock.
“What’s this I hear about Weinberger being cured?” he demanded accusingly as soon as he was inside the office. Accusation seemed to be the best policy. It was not Jim’s fault that the man was cured. Nor was it Resnick’s fault either, but Jim hoped that Resnick would overlook that detail, since it was he who had authorised the thermogram.
For once Resnick was alone. He was staring at a print of a human body in the form of a multicoloured mosaic.
Resnick promptly stood up, as though some invisible cord linked him to the door so that when this closed behind the visitor Resnick was jerked erect and his mouth tugged open to let his words flow easily.
‘We’re all puppets,’ thought Jim: ‘dolls in Death’s puppet theatre. And Death is the director of the show — according to Nathan.’
On this occasion it seemed as if the Master would have to climb bodily on to his desk before he could get his tongue untied.
But Resnick triumphed.
“Been keeping your ear to the ground, eh Jim? Even while you were sound asleep... I guess that means you must have been sleeping on the floor! ” He tapped the heat profile, like an acupuncturist jabbing needles. “Well, it’s true. He certainly seems to be cured. The plot thickens!”
“What plot?” asked Jim.
Resnick ignored the question.
“It doesn’t make a fart of difference to the final outcome of Weinberger’s stay in this House,” he went on. “But needless to say we can do without miracles of this sort. They breed a wholly false attitude to death. Eleventh hour reprieve, that kind of nonsense. If one word of this —”
Jim placed his own hands squarely on Resnick’s desk, as though magically to paralyse the man — to control what he could say.
“Listen, Noel, let’s cut a lot of corners right away. This ‘cure’ of Weinberger’s has to be hysterical — at the same time as it’s a physical fact. I’ll take your word for it being a fact. So it’s psychosomatic. Okay, that proves how deeply my therapy affected him. He’s burnt out the cancer in himself with all that violent, hostile energy he was storing up. Now it’s gone — like lightning rushing down a conductor to earth itself.”
“Gone? Have you seen him this m-m-m-morning?”
Ah yes, the man did stutter. Jim pressed the desk harder, and pressed his point home.
“The next thing is, he’ll adjust — because he knows that he killed a man. So there’s no way out for him, is there? He’ll come to terms and make his peace. But he couldn’t do that as long as he believed that an actual hostile ‘Death’ was gnawing at his vitals. That’s all changed now. There’s only good death for Nathan now. He’ll calm down.” Jim was lying; he utterly doubted it. “If we play it that way, and I certainly shall, he’ll see the natural logic. When he appears in public in a few weeks’ time it’ll be to . . . commemorate Norman Harper, who was in a sense his very own lightning conductor. No man could have done more for another man than Norman did, unwittingly, for him. But Weinberger should never have been allowed to get the way he did. It ought to have been spotted. I’m not criticising Mary-Ann, or this House —”
“B-b-but you are.”
Jim shook his head. “We all pull together. When we quit pulling, we retire to make way.”
“We sure do.”
“I shall see my client now to pick up the threads — I don’t doubt that quite a few got severed during all the panic this morning. I don’t want Weinberger interfered with again.”
Amazingly, Resnick nodded. He had swallowed this huge distortion — this shucking off of the blame on to him. Why? It must be because neither his ‘operator’ Alice, nor his minion Mary-Ann, was present. Resnick must really feel quite vulnerable. Even his tongue could betray him under stress. There was nothing more disconcerting than a giant of a man whose very words let him down.
And Resnick was definitely under stress. Jim had never wholly understood all the hidden strains and tensions which bound the various groups in society together: the Houses, the Peace Offices, the Census Bureau, the Re-Education Bureau — not forgetting such rich though numerically minor forces as the freezer freaks, or the disenfranchised religious groups which still clung on here and there. But he had his suspicions that society did not cohere as smoothly as it seemed to on the surface. He visualized society as a geodesic dome. A kick delivered to one part of it did no visible damage to that part. But the corresponding part one hundred and eighty degrees removed would be buckled. Norman Harper’s murder — and now, Weinberger’s spurious ‘resurrection’ — were two such almighty kicks, one overt, one as yet covert. The question was, if the kick was delivered here in well-adjusted, unblemished Egremont, what exactly would buckle, and where? Alternatively, what kicks was Resnick presently buckling under? If the Sino-Soviet War had been the huge kick from elsewhere on this globe which had propelled this land into the great Reappraisal of Death and the Restructuring, how national and even global might these events in Egremont turn out to be?
Weinberger had raved about ‘beneficiaries of murder and accident’ and about how the very best defence against Death would be a hydrogen bomb . . . Had Weinberger’s imaginary creature, Death, gotten hungry for souls because too many souls had escaped it in a flash during the lightning Chinese-Russian war so many years ago? In that case Death must be like some sort of intelligent yeast or bacteria culture which was now trying to ensure its food supply by influencing men’s minds . . . And Weinberger would be forced to feed himself to it. So must everyone who couldn’t arrange a fatal accident for themselves, an accident about which they knew nothing in advance.
‘That’s sheer insanity,’ thought Jim.
Removing his hands from Resnick’s desk, he left quickly before Resnick could recover his poise.
“You haven’t helped much,’’ said Jim wryly to Weinberger.
Though Weinberger was still very gaunt, he looked remarkably perky.
“I can’t believe you’ve had so little sleep.’’
“Oh, I never took much sleep in the old days. Even as a kid, I was evil to my parents. I could manage on three hours a night. I’m no cat where sleep’s concerned.”
Jim noted this admission. The cycle of sleep and wakefulness was one of those balanced, complementary cycles (like day and night) which planted in the growing child the idea that there was a life beyond death; that death was not in fact the end. But if Weinberger had only ever taken brief holidays from wakefulness, how had these fantasies about ‘Death’ ever got planted in him? Ah ... In Nathan’s case the equation did not involve life and death at all. It consisted of peaceful death — versus violent death. Yes, that was it: violence versus peace. Weinberger’s mind had known very little peace, because it was hardly ever switched off. So he couldn’t stomach the idea of dying peacefully. Somehow he had to avoid a good death. But how? By forcing the House to surprise him into death? That mustn’t happen . . .
At least Weinberger could not kill himself by surprise. That was one consolation, and indeed the watchful camera eye in his room was utterly irrelevant.
But more important than Weinberger’s state of
mind, more important than the lightning remission of his cancer, more important even than the political consequences, was . . . Death: the moth, the bat, which Jim now knew that he had seen. Jim’s own dream had confirmed this in a way which he found curiously convincing. He had been keeping the thought of that creature under mental wraps ever since Marta’s phone call.
Now he twitched those wraps aside, and immediately Weinberger seemed to sense that he had — as though the man had a nose for the pheromone of death, and Jim had just released a molecule of it.
“You’ll help me catch it, won’t you, Jim?’’
Jim nodded.
“Do you suppose that two people can fit on to that waterbed of yours?” he asked, by way of answer.
“When?’’
“Tonight.’’
“Who’ll monitor us?’’
“Not Sally Costello — the last time freaked her out. I don’t really think we want witnesses now, do we? I can rig up something to switch the Faraday Cage on once we’re inside. Your gizmo for powering up worked perfectly well on its own. We’ll ignore the medi-sensors. As for the gilded key, that was a bit of indulgence on your part, wasn’t it?”
“Who’ll stimulate us? Who’ll revive us when Death arrives?”
“I think we want to play this differently, the second time round. If we simply trap that thing, it’s going to hurt us a hell of a lot. We must follow it instead. We have to find out where it comes from.”
“But we’ll be shut up in a glass box in this world — the ordinary world.”
“When I was in Gracchus,” said Jim, “my friend Mike Mullen — the one who died — was doing work on out-of-the-body experiences, as well as the death-trance.’’
“He was working on the astral plane?” Weinberger laughed. “That plane was grounded years ago. Unfit to fly. No wings.”
“Well, Mike made it fly. Just towards the end, he said he flew — and he proved it to my satisfaction. Astral projection takes place in the ordinary world, though. It’s like a sort of dream that let’s you see what’s happening miles away. Mike really wanted to ‘fly’ in the death-trance state too.”
“To Heaven and back?”
“Whatever Heaven might be! Look at it this way. If there’s a ‘soul’ that survives death —”
“Then it has to survive somewhere.”
“Right. Mike recorded a hypno-tape for entering the out-of-the- body state. But he needed to get acquainted with the death-trance first — the oceanic unity state. First know your tides, before you raise the sails.”
“And he drowned.”
“He drowned.”
“The way you drowned.”
“And no one revived him. I kept that hypno-tape of his. Because Mike and I were this close. Because that was all that survived of him, for me. If we use Mike’s tape when we’re heading in to death- trance, we stand a damn good chance of conducting an out-of-the- body journey during that death-mimicry state. While we’re both playing possum. If only I’d been more interested in it at the time! But it was all oceanic unity for me — that’s the sad thing. I guess I wanted to drown, not swim.”
“Or fly.”
“Like two flying fish! We’ll do it too — we’ll take off. I owe it to Mike.”
“How about owing it to me?”
“Nathan, I’m giving you ... my inheritance from Mike, an inheritance I didn’t properly appreciate till now. I couldn’t do more for anyone. I’m going to loot some conditioners from the pharmacy. We’ll listen to that tape, as we sink deep down.” “Tonight?”
“Tonight.”
So, instead of dinner with buxom Marta Bettijohn followed (perhaps) by equally delicious love-making, Jim was now committed — quite absurdly and unsexually — to go to bed with Nathan Weinberger!
He stood up.
“I intend to catch the Beadway along to your fine Mall now, Nathan. I’m going to lunch at your well-spoken-of Three Spires. And I shall drink a whole bottle of wine. All on my own.”
It was a poor guide who spoke of the outside world to a dying man. But Weinberger was no longer dying — except in the official sense. And Weinberger would soon be going outside, with Jim — outside of the ordinary world, though the doors of the House still shut him in.
“Wine will make you sleepy.”
“That’s the general idea. I’ll get my sleeping done this afternoon. Tonight — who knows? Maybe our bodies will get some rest while the soul goes hunting butterflies and chasing after bats, but I’m not counting on it.,,
“Uh, shall we electrify the cage tonight?”
“Yes. Till we know more, I reckon we should vary our procedure as little as possible.”
Weinberger’s right hand twitched.
“We don’t want Death trapped in with us ... Ah — but nor do we want it scooting off before we’re ready to give chase! Yes, we’ll electrify. We’ll panic Death, then let it run for home. We’ll need a time switch to cut the power automatically, once we’ve baited the beast.”
“Right. Though I can’t say I relish the idea of hurting or scaring anything.”
“It was you who mentioned a hunt. A butterfly hunt.” Weinberger stuck his index finger out like a pin and stabbed it into the palm of his right hand, skewering an imaginary captive.
“I’ll be going now.”
“Run along,” said Weinberger graciously. “Zto/i appetit.”
Jim failed to detect any hint of envy.
FOURTEEN
Jim hovered in the doorway of The Montresor’, looking for a waiter to show him to a table. Immediately his eye was caught by a streak of yellow against the mullioned windows overlooking the Mall: it was Ananda in his mustard robes. Ananda’s companion was Marta Bettijohn.
Jim drew back momentarily, reviewing his decision to try the French restaurant in the Three Spires complex — a decision which he realized had been induced by Weinberger’s parting remark. However, Marta waved him over with a cheery smile.
“You’ll join us, of course?” The’invitation sounded perfectly genuine. Ananda, for his part, nodded tolerantly.
As Jim hesitated, Marta clapped her hands.
“Well, well, well — the lone gourmet! And here was me believing you were going to take the virginity of this place with me. And now you are going to, after all!”
With a rueful grin, Jim sat down. He felt somewhat trapped — though happy enough in his captivity.
What, he wondered, was Ananda doing here? He had understood that the slight, swarthy, shaven-headed man was an ascetic — a self-denier.
“Do you often eat here?” he asked him idly.
“Do you suppose it’s out of keeping? Ah, Mr Todhunter, shall I tell you my faith, my creed?” Ananda waited. It was not merely a rhetorical question.
“Why not?” invited Jim.
“I believe in nothing — in absolute Nothing. So it doesn’t matter if I enjoy a rich meal — so long as I don’t yearn for a repetition of the same. Which, indeed, could never be a satisfying repetition. This will pass, as will I.”
“You’ll still enjoy the meal, though?”
“Let’s hope so,” said Marta brightly, looking up from the engraved menu card.
“Denying the self does not involve punishing the self, Jim. That is to give the self too much credit, too much importance.”
“Sure.”
“Nor do I score good karma points by self-denial. In what ledger are they recorded? In none.” Ananda leaned closer to Jim. “The fact that I don’t appear to resent your ‘butting in’ doesn’t imply that this was not a private tete-a-tete, just a little while ago. Where better than a French venue for a tete-a-tetel But that situation has vanished now. It has gone away. Another situation exists.” Ananda perched in his chair, looking like a chaperone.
Jim laughed nervously. “At least we’re being honest.”
“Because lies are stupid. Lies always pass away too, into the truth.”
For a moment this sounded to Jim like a veiled warning that his p
lanned intrigue of the coming night was already known to Ananda. And to Marta. And to everyone . . .
As Jim watched Marta browsing nonchalantly through the printed cuisine, he understood all at once that Ananda must sometimes go to bed with Marta — and that this implied no bonds, no ties, no obligations of any sort, quite unlike the sticky web of Noel Resnick’s relationship with Alice Huron and Mary-Ann Sczepanski. Ananda had actually detached himself from life, in the midst of life. So Marta could never be hurt by him. Whereas Jim would . . . chase her; he would prick the balloon of her security and contentment, just as he had tried to do in the dream.
Jim visualized Alice Huron, in the chalet, bestriding Mary-Ann who in turn rode Resnick to climax. He imagined Alice using MaryAnn as an inverted dildo, a sexual servomechanism with which to master the Master, while Alice herself enjoyed the slighter body of the woman. He saw Alice whipping Mary-Ann while she bestrode her, because Mary-Ann had failed to see through Weinberger to his rebellious heart, and so he had killed Alice’s treasure. Yes, that was true, Jim decided; and he warmed to Ananda and Marta as a couple who co-existed without such sticky bonds.
“I guess I’ll try the Tournedos bouquetiere,” announced Marta as the waiter arrived. She looked as though Ananda had said nothing out of the ordinary.
“Moules a la provengale” ordered Ananda, without consulting his menu.
“I’ll try the Tournedos too,” said Jim. To the wine waiter who hovered nearby, he added, “And a litre of Rouge Maison.”
Marta glanced at him curiously, but asked nothing. Nor did she look set to say anything about her earlier telephone call, or the case of Weinberger. She and Ananda understood etiquette — they practised it perfectly in their own relationship.
Outside, sunshine flooded through the crystalline roof of the Mall upon saguaro cacti and branching tree euphorbias. A fountain danced, its plashing silenced by the windows.
Jim chewed a last artichoke heart, forked a piece of steak fat neatly to one side, and wondered what Weinberger would be eating off a tray, locked in his room. Eating? Just eating? He would probably be devouring now that he was cured. The imbalance between their eating circumstances did not bother Jim particularly. Both would pass, as Ananda would put it. Besides, Weinberger owed this meal to Jim. He refilled his glass.
Watson, Ian - Novel 10 Page 9