Kornbluth, Mary (Ed)

by [Anth] Science Fiction Showcase [v1. 0] [epub]

  He turned slowly. With surprise, and with a surprising sense of relief, he saw that the cheers were not, after all, for him.

  They were for Dr. Barkun Kris.

  Kris was standing in the middle of the bloc of mind sculptors, bowing to the audience. The sculptors nearest him were shaking his hand one after the other. More grasped at it as he made his way to the aisle, and walked forward to the podium. When he mounted the rostrum and took the composer’s limp hand, the cheering became delirious.

  Kris lifted his arm. The cheering died instantly to an intent hush.

  “Thank you,” he said clearly. “Ladies and gentlemen, before we take leave of Dr. Strauss, let us again tell him what a privilege it has been for us to hear this fresh example of his mastery. I am sure no farewell could be more fitting.”

  The ovation lasted five minutes, and would have gone another five if Kris had not cut it off.

  “Dr. Strauss,” he said, “in a moment, when I speak a certain formulation to you, you will realize that your name is Jerom Bosch, born in our century and with a life in it all your own. The superimposed memories which have made you assume the mask, the persona, of a great composer will be gone. I tell you this so that you may understand why these people here share your applause with me.”

  A wave of assenting sound. ‘The art of mind sculpture—the creation of artificial personalities for aesthetic enjoyment—may never reach such a pinnacle again. For you should understand that as Jerom Bosch you had no talent for music at all; indeed, we searched a long time to find a man who was utterly unable to carry even the simplest tune. Yet we were able to impose upon such unpromising material not only the personality, but the genius, of a great composer. That genius belongs entirely to you—to the persona that thinks of itself as Richard Strauss. None of the credit goes to the man who volunteered for the sculpture. That is your triumph, and we salute you for it.”

  Now the ovation could no longer be contained. Strauss, with a crooked smile, watched Dr. Kris bow. This mind sculpturing was a suitably sophisticated kind of cruelty for this age; but the impulse, of course, had always existed. It was the same impulse that had made Rembrandt and Leonardo turn cadavers into art works.

  It deserved a suitably sophisticated payment under the lex talionis: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth—and a failure for a failure.

  No, he need not tell Dr. Kris that the “Strauss” he had created was as empty of genius as a hollow gourd. The joke would always be on the sculptor, who was incapable of hearing the hollowness of the music now preserved on the 3-V tapes.

  But for an instant a surge of revolt poured through his blood stream. I am I, he thought. I am Richard Strauss until I die, and will never be Jerom Bosch, who was utterly unable to carry even the simplest tune. His hand, still holding the baton, came sharply up, though whether to deliver or to ward off a blow he could not tell.

  He let it fall again, and instead, at last, bowed—not to the audience, but to Dr. Kris. He was sorry for nothing, as Kris turned to him to say the word that would plunge him back into oblivion, except that he would now have no chance to set that poem to music.

  <>

  * * * *

  the cold green eye

  jack williamson

  “Kansas?” the boy looked hard at his teacher. “Where is Kansas?”

  “I do not know.” The withered old monk shrugged vaguely. “The spring caravan will carry you down out of our mountains. A foreign machine called a railway train will take you to a city named Calcutta. The lawyers there will arrange for your journey to Kansas.”

  “But I love our valley.” Tommy glanced out at the bamboo plumes nodding above the old stone walls of the monastery garden and the snowy Himalayas towering beyond. He turned quickly back to catch the old man’s leathery hand. “Why must I be sent away?”

  “A matter of money and the law.”

  “I don’t understand the law,” Tommy said. “But please, can’t I stay? That’s all I want - to be here with the monks of Mahavira, and play with the village children, and study my lessons with you.”

  “We used to hope that you might remain with us to become another holy man.” Old Chandra Sha smiled wistfully behind the cloth that covered his mouth to protect the life of the air from injury by his breath. “We have written letters about your unusual aptitudes, but the lawyers in Calcutta show little regard for the ancient arts, and those in Kansas show none at all. You are to go.”

  “But I don’t need money,” Tommy protested. “My friends in the village will give me rice, and I can sleep in the courtyard here,”

  “I think there is too much money, burdening souls with evil karma,” the lean old man broke in softly. “Your father was a famous traveler, who gathered dangerous riches. Since the wheel has turned for him, others desire his fortune. I think perhaps that is why the lawyers sent for you.”

  A fly came buzzing around his dried-up face, and he paused to wave it very gently away.

  “But your mother’s sister lives in that place named Kansas,” he went on. “It is arranged for you to go to her. She is your own race and blood, and she wants you in her home—”

  “No! She never even saw me,” Tommy whispered bitterly. “She couldn’t really want me. Must I go?”

  “It is to be.” Chandra Sha nodded firmly. “Your people are ignorant about the true principles of matter and the soul, but their own peculiar laws require obedience. The caravan leaves tomorrow.”

  Tommy wanted not to weep, but he was only ten. He clung sobbing to the thin old Jain.

  “But we have instructed you well,” the holy man murmured, trying to comfort him. “Your feet are already on the pathway to nirvana, and I will give you a copy of the secret book of Rishabha to guide and guard you on your way.”

  Tommy went down out of the mountains with the caravan. He was bewildered and afraid, and the motion of the railway cars made him ill, but the lawyers in Calcutta were kind enough. They bought him new garments, and took him to a cinema, and put him on a great strange machine called an airplane. At last he came to Kansas and his Aunt Agatha Grimm.

  He rode from the depot to her home in a jolting farm truck, peering out at the strange sun-flooded flatness of the land and a monstrous orange-painted machine called a combine that grazed like the golden bull of Rishabha through the ripe wheat.

  The hired man stopped the truck beside a huge wooden house that stood like a fort in the middle of the endless land, and Tommy’s aunt came out to greet him with a moist kiss. A plump, pink-skinned blonde, with a sweat-beaded face. He was used to darker women, and she seemed incredibly fair.

  “So you’re Lizzie’s boy?” She and her sister had come from Alabama, and soft accents still echoed in her voice. “Gracious, honey, what’s the matter?”

  Tommy had run to meet her eagerly, but he couldn’t help shrinking back when he saw her eyes. The left was warm and brown and kind as old Chandra Sha’s. But the right eye was different, a frosty, bluish green; it seemed to look straight through him.

  “Well, child, can’t you talk?”

  He gulped and squirmed, trying to think of words to say in English. But he couldn’t think at all. Somehow, the green eye froze him.

  “Nothing,” he muttered at last. “Just... nothing.”

  “Lizzie’s boy would be a little odd.” She smiled, too sweetly. “Brought up by jabbering heathens! But this is going to be your home, you know. Come on inside, and let me clean you up.”

  The hired man brought the carved teakwood chest the monks had given him, and they went into the big house. The smell of it was strange and stale. The windows were closed, with blinds drawn down. Tommy stood blinking at the queer heavy furniture and dusty bric-a-brac crammed into the dim cave of the living room, until he heard a fly buzzing at the screen door behind him. He turned and without thinking to help it escape.

  “Wait, honey.” His aunt caught his arm, and seated him firmly on the teakwood chest. “I’ll kill it!”

  She sn
atched a swatter from the high oak mantel and stalked the fly through the gloomy jungle of antimacassared chairs and fussy little tables to a darkened window. The swatter fell with a vicious thwack.

  “Got him!” she said. “I won’t endure flies.”

  “But, Aunt Agatha!” The English words were coming back, though his thoughts were still in the easy vernacular the monks had taught him. His shy, hesitant voice was shocked. “They, too, are alive.”

  The brown eye, as well as the green, peered sharply at him. His aunt sat down suddenly, gasping as if she needed fresh air. He wanted to open the windows, but he was afraid to move.

  “Thomas, honey, you’re upsetting me terribly.” Her pale fat hands fluttered nervously. “But I guess you didn’t know that I’m not well at all. Of course I love children as much as anybody, but I really don’t know if I can endure you in the house. I always said myself that you’d be better off in some nice orphanage.”

  Or back with the monks, Tommy told himself unhappily. He could not help thinking that she looked as tough and strong as a mountain pony, but he decided not to mention that.

  “But sick as I am, I’m taking you in.” Her moist, swollen lips tried to smile. “Because you’re Lizzie’s boy. It’s my duty, and the legal papers are all signed. But the judge gave me full control of you, and your estate, till you come of age. Just keep that in mind.”

  Tommy nodded miserably and huddled smaller on the chest.

  “I’m giving you a decent home, and you ought to be grateful.” A faint indignation began to edge her voice. “I never approved when Lizzie ran away to marry a good-for-nothing explorer - not even if his long-winded books did make him rich. Served her right when they got killed trying to climb them foreign mountains! I guess she never had a thought for me - her wandering like a gypsy queen through all of them wicked heathen countries, and never sending me a penny. A lot she cared if her own born sister had to drudge away like a common hired girl!”

  Sudden tears shone in the one brown eye, but the other remained dry and hard as glass.

  “But what I can’t forgive is all she did to you.” Aunt Agatha snuffled and dabbed at her fat, pink nose. “Carrying you to all those outlandish foreign places, and letting you associate with all sorts of nasty natives. The lawyers said you’ve had no decent religious training, and I guess you’ve picked up goodness knows what superstitious notions. But I’ll see you get a proper education.”

  “Thank you very much!” Tommy sat up hopefully. “I want to learn. Chandra Sha was teaching me Sanskrit and Arabic. I can speak Swahili and Urdu, and I’m studying the secret book of Rishabha—”

  “Heathen idolatry!” The green eye and the brown widened in alarm. “Wicked nonsense you’ll soon forget, here in Kansas. Simple reading and writing and arithmetic will do for the like of you, and a Christian Sunday school.”

  “But Rishabha was the first Thirtankara,” Tommy protested timidly. “The greatest of the saints. The first to find nirvana.”

  “You little infidel!” Aunt Agatha’s round pink face turned red. “But you won’t find - whatever you call it. Not here in Kansas! Now bring your things up to your room.”

  * * * *

  Staggering with the teakwood chest, he followed her up to a narrow attic room. It was hot as an oven, and it had a choking antiseptic smell. The dismal, purple-flowered wallpaper was faded and water-stained. At the tiny window, a discouraged fly hummed feebly.

  Aunt Agatha went after it.

  “Don’t!” Tommy dropped the chest and caught at her swatter. “Please, may I just open the window and let it go?”

  “Gracious, child! What on earth?”

  “Don’t you know about flies?” A sudden determination steadied his shy voice. “They, too, have souls. It is wrong to kill them.”

  “Honey child, are you touched?”

  “All life is akin, through the Cycle of Birth,” he told her desperately. “The holy Jains taught me that. As the wheel of life turns, our souls go from one form to another - until each is purged of every karma, so that it can rise to nirvana.”

  She stood motionless, with the swatter lifted, frozen with astonishment.

  “When you kill a fly,” he said, “you are loading your own soul with bad karma. And, besides, you may be injuring a friend.”

  ‘Well, I never!” The swatter fell out of her shocked hand. Tommy picked it up and gave it back to her, politely. “Such wicked heathen foolery! We’ll pray to help you find the truth.”

  Tommy shuddered, as she crushed the weary fly.

  “Now unpack your box,” she commanded. “I’ll have no filthy idols here.”

  “Please,” he protested unhappily. “These things are my own.”

  The green eye was still relentless, but the brown one began to cry. Tears ran down her smooth sweet face, and her heavy bosom quaked.

  “Tommy! How can you be so mulish? When I’m only trying to take your poor dead mother’s place, and me such an invalid!”

  “I’m sorry,” he told her. “I hope your health improves. And I’ll show you everything.”

  The worn key hung on a string around his neck. He unlocked the chest, but she found no idols. His clothing she took to be laundered, lifting each piece gingerly with two fingers as if it had been steeped in corruption. She sniffed at a fragrant packet of dried herbs, and seized it to be burned.

  Finally, she bent to peer at the remaining odds and ends - at the brushes and paints his mother had given him when she left him with the monks; there were a few splotched watercolors he had tried to make of the monastery and the holy men and his village friends; the broken watch the mountaineers had found beside his father’s body; a thick painted cylinder.

  “That?” She pointed at his picture of a shy brown child. “Who’s that?”

  “Mira Bai. My friend.” He covered the picture quickly with another, to hide it from that cold green eye. “She lived in my own village. She was my teacher’s niece, and we used to study together. But her legs were withered and she was never strong. It was last year before the rains were ended that the wheel turned for her.”

  “What wheel?” Aunt Agatha sniffed. “Do you mean she’s dead?”

  “The soul never dies,” Tommy answered firmly. “It always returns in a new body, until it escapes to nirvana. Mira Bai has a stronger body now, because she was good. I don’t know where she is - maybe Kansas! But someday I’ll find her, with the science of Rishabha.”

  “You poor little fool!” Aunt Agatha stirred his small treasures with the swatter handle, and jabbed at the painted cylinder. “What’s that contraption?”

  “Just - just a book.”

  Very carefully, he slipped it out of the round wooden case and unrolled a little of the long parchment strip. It was very old, yellowed and cracked and faded. The mild brown eye squinted in a puzzled way at the dim strange characters. He wondered how much the green one saw.

  “That filthy scribbling? That’s no book.”

  “It is older than printing,” he told her. “It is written with the secret wisdom of the Thirtankara Rishabha. It tells how souls may be guarded through their transmigrations and helped upward toward nirvana.”

  “Heathen lies!” She reached for it angrily. “I ought to burn it.”

  “No!” He hugged it in his skinny arms. “Please don’t! Because it is so powerful. I need it to aid my father and mother in their new lives. I need it to know Mira Bai when I find her again. And I think you need it too, Aunt Agatha, to purge your own soul of the eight kinds of karma—”

  “What?” The brown eye widened with shock and the green one narrowed angrily. “I’ll have you know that I’m a decent Christian, safe in the heart of God. Now, put that filthy scrawl away and wash yourself up. I guess that’s something your verminous monks forgot to teach you.”

  “Please! The holy men are very clean.”

  “Now you’re trying to aggravate me, poorly as I am.” She snuffled and her brown eye wept again. “I’m going to teach you a
respectable religion, and I don’t need any nasty foreign scribblings to help me whip the sin out of you.”

  She was very sweet about it, and she always cried when she was forced to beat him. The exertion was really too much for her poor heart. She did it only for dear Lizzie’s sake, and he ought to realize that the punishment was far more painful to her than to him.

  She tried to teach him her religion, but Tommy clung to the wisdom of the kind old monks of Mahavira. She tried to wash the East out of him, with pounds of harsh yellow soap, until his sunburnt skin had faded to a sickly pallor. She prayed and cried over him for endless hours, while he knelt with numb bare knees on cruel bare floors. She threatened to whip him again, and she did.