by Bob Leman
"That was when I began to add a touch of cream of tartar and a hint of iodine to my omelettes, a droplet of soya sauce and a squirt of a certain brand of hair tonic to my meat loaf. And for each year I have been on the diet, my apparent age has decreased by a decade. I look and feel like a man of thirty. And anyone can do the same thing. You can, Mrs. Moswell.”
She didn’t quite laugh. "And how did you happen to discover this miraculous substance, Mr. Smeed?”
"Well, you see we knew in advance of the existence of provin, and we worked by trial and error —worked for a long time—to see if it could be ‘manufactured’ by us.”
She refilled my cup before speaking again. She reminded me of Miss Beiderbeck, my ninth-grade English teacher. She said, "You say we Mr. Smeed. Do you have associates?”
Easy now, I told myself. Tread carefully here. This has to be done just right. Aloud I said, "Just my wife. Actually she's the one who made the tests, who learned how to get provin into our food. My only contribution has been to spread the word as well as I can —and I haven't done too well at it. Publicity is expensive. What I’m hoping for is to prove my claim to someone with enough money to finance a program to give this information to the whole world.”
"No doubt. But just how did your wife happen to know about this ‘provin’ Mr. Smeed, so that she was moved to make her tests?”
I took a deep breath before I replied. We were near the point where she might decide that I was a dangerous lunatic. I said, "She'd lived all her life on food containing provin. Then suddenly she found herself without it. She knew she would begin to age unless a means of obtaining it could be found, and she began to experiment. It took years. By the time she found it we were married, and I was able to benefit because I ate what she did. You see the results.”
Mrs. Moswell’s expression was hard to read. "She had lived all her life on food containing provin, you say. May I take it then that she has lived a long life?”
“She has.”
“How old is she, Mr. Smeed?” Now. This was where the balance tipped. “Four hundred and eighteen years old, Mrs. Moswell,” I said.
She drank tea and stared soberly at me. I felt reasonably certain that I had handled her right, that she would feel compelled to question me further, but it was still possible that she would only laugh and ask me to leave. Then she spoke, and I felt shaky with relief. She asked, “But if your wife was brought up on this magic substance, it must have been given her by her parents. That might mean that they’re still alive and even older than she is, mightn’t it?”
"It's very likely.”
“Where are they, then? Why hasn’t anybody heard about this long-lived family?”
“Mrs. Moswell,” I said firmly, “Im selling this book for two dollars. By buying a copy and using it you can easily prove or disprove what I’m saying. Why not buy a copy? Then I won’t have to take any more of your time.”
“Oh, no, Mr. Smeed,” she said, just as firmly. “Im quite interested in hearing about this. Now tell me, where do your wife's parents live? In some mysterious and inaccessible place? Tibet or Antarctica?” She was baiting me, much as she might have baited a grandson who evinced an irrational affection for the Beatles. I said, as seriously as possible, “Mrs. Moswell, if you have the time to listen, I'll be glad to tell you what I know about it. And if it’s hard to believe, keep in mind how little we know about our universe. Remember how many important increases in human knowledge were almost lost because hidebound men and institutions refused to accept new concepts. Imagine how many discoveries are lost, perhaps forever, because the discoverer could not get a hearing. Suppose there had not been a Galileo to prove the theory of Copernicus, or that Copernicus had not left a record of his idea. Well, you asked about my wife’s origins. Please hear me out.
"I want you to visualize the world as it might have been if provin had been a part of man’s existence since the beginning of man. I want you to accept the idea that at some time far in the past provin became a part of the world. It may have dropped upon the earth in a meteorite, or swished through the atmosphere in a comet’s tail, or simply have been a part of the creation. However, it came about, provin is there. It is in every green thing that grows, and in the herbivores who eat the greenery and in the flesh-eaters who eat them. Fish, flesh, fowl, insect, microbe—all have their trace of provin.
“Where provin exists, life is long. Each creature has developed through the ages in such a way that it need not produce so many young as to feed dangerously off other life. You will find cockroaches doing their scavenging, but they do not flood the world with cockroaches; the sourdocks grow between the corn rows and absorb nourishment from the soil, but there are not so many sourdocks that they starve the com; the weasel kills the rabbit and sucks the egg, but there are not too many weasels. Nature strikes its balance.
“Now in that world of sparse population there developed, as you might imagine, a society that is wholly rigid and stratified, somewhat like the society of Egypt five thousand years ago, if Egypt had enjoyed what we call ‘progress’ of course in the provin world it began much longer ago than five thousand years, and they didn’t have our problems of breeding and food.
“Society in the provin world is scientifically advanced and totally controlled. It is like a single family, most of whose members are clever and inventive, but all of whom are totally committed to the fathers principles, which are so ancient and fixed that they have become simple, necessary conditions of life. Deviation from the mores of the family is probably an act of insanity, and is most certainly criminal.
“Let us imagine that such a criminal exists in the provin world. And let us suppose that all the knowledge accumulated in ten centuries of the life of a gifted mathematician has been used to create a doorway to a parallel world, but a parallel world without provin. Suppose further that an explorer is sent to the parallel world, and that this explorer is the black sheep, the individualist, and that the parallel world is our earth.
“Do you see, Mrs. Moswell? This explorer from a world that is wholly and rigidly controlled comes to our earth and becomes enamoured of our slipshod, easygoing manner, our clogged, teeming populace, and our contumacious and contrary ways. In the mind of this explorer awaken the ideas of freedom and individuality, concepts which have no words in the provin world. And she likes it so well that she decides to stay here. .
“She is now, in provin world thinking, an insane criminal. She must be brought back and cured of her aberration. The hunters are sent, and the explorer becomes a quarry. She hides, living in poverty, hunted and frightened, always conscious of pursuit. She evades them for a great many years, but she is in a world without provin, and without provin she must age and die. She begins her experiments. These are successful eventually, and she has her provin. She can, at long last, settle down to a long and happy life.
“But she has, perhaps unfortunately, acquired a husband. The man is an impractical idealist, convinced that it is his duty to give provin to the world. And he works to spread the word, instead of sensibly settling down to use his limitless span of years to arrange a comfortable life. The poor fool hasn't been too successful at it, but he’s making an honest effort to give mankind something good that it hasn’t had before.”
The last sentence came out very loud, and seemed to be echoing between the rows of ancestral portraits. Mrs. Moswell had shrunk into her chair, as if frightened by my violence, and her eyes never left me. It was clearly time to wrap it up. I took the book off the coffee table.
She said in a small voice, “Mr. Smeed, I'll buy one of your books. Did you say two dollars?”
Hooked, by God! Now for the gaff. I cleared my throat and Said, “Mrs. Moswell, the book is a fake. I’ve been lying to you. There’s no way to get provin here. It has to come from its own world. The book is a sort of confidence game.” That was the speech to finish it. I stood and turned toward the door to make a dignified exit. I spoiled it by stumbling. I don’t usually drink very much.
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br /> “Don’t go, Ripley,” she said. “There’s something else I’d like to ask you about. Would you stay a few minutes longer?"
“Of course, Mrs. Moswell.”
“Ripley, you puzzle me. Do you believe in your provin or don’t you? You sounded quite sincere a moment ago.”
“Oh, I believe in it. In fact, I know it exists. I know because I used to be old and now I’m young. But I won’t swindle you by selling you the book. Provin can’t be made here. The only way to get it is to eat food from the provin world. Food concentrates provin. Meat especially. A little slice of beef from one of their animals is worth decades of life.
“But the book is simply a pack of nonsense. Odd additions to your breakfast are not going to increase your lifespan. I dreamed up the book after Mirva began to feed me on provin-world supplies. I’ve always made my living by minor swindling. For thirty years I sold astrology books and health foods and patent medicines, and when I found a real miracle, I based a little confidence game on it, hoping to make money. It’s been a total failure. But provin does exist. Nobody knows that better than Mirva and I do. If I were back in the carnival and had a platform, I’d show you an authentic four-hundred year old woman. But it takes real provin to produce one.” Once again I headed, a little unsteadily, for the door.
A strange voice behind me said coldly, “Stop, Mr. Smeed!” I spun around.
Mrs. Moswell was pointing a gun at my belly. She had changed. She still had the Queen Mary dress and hair, but the woman was different. This was not an old lady, but a strong young woman. The lines were gone from the face, and the unsteady movements of old age were replaced by a lithe suppleness. A superb actress was revealing her natural self. Her pose left no doubt that she would use the gun if she saw the need. I tried to say something, but only a strangled noise came out.
“Smeed,” she said in the new, cold voice, “did Mirva really believe she wouldn’t be caught and brought home? She never had a chance, of course. I’ve been hunting her for quite a long time, and I’d have found her in any case, but it’s like her to have made it easy for me by selecting a threadbare petty thief to share her life in this anthill. Your greed for a few dollars has led me to her more quickly than I’d hoped—and by accident. She really is crazy, you know. Crazy enough to fit into this crawling dungheap of yours. She must be taken back and made an example of.”
The words were from a bad melodrama, but the gun was very real and present. She twitched it, not enough to spoil her aim if she saw a need to shoot, but enough to underline her words as she said, “All right, Smeed, we’ll take my car to wherever Mirva is waiting for you. You can drive, can’t you?”
I swallowed and said that I could.
“Yes. You will drive carefully, and you will remember that this gun is pointed at you. Let us go.”
We went. She sat silently beside me as the big car hissed along the wet streets. I was still stunned, partly because of the rum, but mainly because of the situation in which I found myself. The woman was overpowering. Her cold arrogance, her confident assumption of superiority, and the sheer weight of her personality seemed to have reduced me to a worm. I drove along the quiet streets to our apartment without even attempting to confuse the route or stall for time. I was docile as a lamb, driving carefully, trying to organize my thoughts and never quite succeeding.
We whispered to a stop in front of the apartment house. I methodically switched off, set the brake, and removed the key. The whole thing seemed unreal, hallucinatory. I was almost able to watch myself from the outside.
“Which apartment?” she asked. It was the first time she had spoken since we had left her house.
“Ick,” I said. I hawked and tried again. “Second floor.” It was still a squeak.
I climbed the stairs numbly, lifting my feet and setting them down as though they were made of pottery. She now had the gun pointed at the small of my back.
When we came to the door of the apartment, I couldn't ring the bell. My finger stopped about three inches away and hung there shaking. She reached around me and pushed the button. I heard the bell, and then I heard Mirva's footsteps.
I wanted to make some kind of a noise. I couldn't. And then there was Mirva's voice, from behind the door: “Who is it?”
My voice came back. “It’s me, dearest youngster.” I waited.
The key turned and the door swung open. Mrs. Moswell's hand swept back and pushed me helplessly across the hall. Then she charged in through the doorway, while I staggered about, trying to regain my balance. Just as I recovered and plunged toward the door, I heard a crunching blow, and as I burst through, I saw Mrs. Moswell, her head a red ruin, collapse to the floor.
And then Mirva was in my arms, shaking and sobbing, but short of hysteria. The baseball bat was still in her hand. It was red and wet around the trademark.
“It’s a woman,” she said. She made a noise like a hiccup. “I thought they'd send a man. When I heard you give the code I thought it would be a man.” She was shivering.
“Easy,” I said. “Easy, baby. Its over now. We've waited a long time, but it's all over. We have it. Look. There it is.”
Mirva's breathing slowed. “There it is,” she repeated. We looked at the body of Mrs. Moswell. We stood there for a long time.
“Well,” she said briskly after a while, “we'd better get busy, hadn't we? We have quite a lot to do. Why don't you get rid of the car while I go to work here?”
I brushed a strand of white hair from her cheek and kissed her. I said, jubilantly, “I'll be back in twenty minutes. Sit down and have a drink while I’m gone. There's no hurry now.” She smiled.
I left the car in an alley a dozen blocks away and walked home with a springy step. We were in the clear. I hadn't, forgotten to pick up the satchel, and the copy of the book I had shown to Mrs. Moswell was safe in my pocket. I pulled it out and hefted it affectionately. The rain slicked its cover, and a streetlight picked out the cheap gold print of the title: Eat Your Way to Longer Life.
Industrial Complex
(The Magazine of Fantasy and S.F., May 1977)
Stanley Scott, forty-three. Small-appliance s repairman. Married, two children. Works hard, pays his taxes.
Is insane.
Or thinks he is. Thinks he’s going crazy, anyhow. He believes impossible things. For example:
He knows that Dorothy Barr, of Dorothy’s Kard Shoppe next door to his premises in the undesirable end of the shopping center, is keeping a watchful eye on him, is clocking his comings and goings and photographing everybody who enters his shop. In the wall she has installed a listening device that enables her to hear everything that goes on in the Appliance Clinic. She has, he believes, a tap on his phone.
He has told himself sometimes that this is preposterous, that he has been friendly with Dorothy Barr since she opened her shop ten years ago, that this mild and hard working little widow is perhaps the least likely person in the state to be- a spy. But then he will see her peering through her window when he arrives at work in the morning, and he knows her for what she has become. Behind the rimless glasses her eyes are flat and empty, windows into some fathomless sink of evil. Even when she smiles, even when she waves, he can see through the mousy facade to the malice and wickedness behind. He trembles when he sees her eyes.
He knows the word “paranoia,” knew it before it became a fad word. He has looked it up in several reference books, reading at first with sick fear, and then with despair and horror. He was insane or going insane, there was no doubt about it. All the symptoms were there.
Except that when Dorothy Barr waved her good morning to him, he had only to look into her eyes to know with absolute certainty that he was not crazy at all, that Dorothy was in truth something other than what she had always seemed to be. And that, whatever she was, she was watching him with, a cold reptilian patience, and making reports on him to persons (persons?) unknown.
Perhaps not altogether unknown, either. It was almost certain that their headquarters
— or, more likely, their local operations center — was out at Consolidated Pipe and Tube. He did not know yet what they were up to out there, but it couldn’t be doubted that they’d rank above Dorothy. When the mill was completed it would be the largest employer in town. Dorothy Barr was pretty small potatoes compared with that. But it remained an unanswered question whether the construction of the enormous plant was directed solely at him or if he was merely some sort of obstacle in the way of whatever the real purpose of the plant turned out to be.
He had, as it happened, known about the plant before he knew about Dorothy Barr. The smug story in the Chronicle two years ago had alerted him: “WALLBORO TO BE SITE OF MILL EMPLOYING 3000. Consolidated Pipe and Tube Corporation has completed negotiations for the purchase of a twenty-acre tract in southern Wall Township, and will immediately commence construction of a $500,000,000 steel-fabricating plant which is expected to employ between 2,500 and 3,000 workers, it was announced today by G.G. Scranton, President of Consolidated.” There was a picture of Scranton shaking hands with the president of the Chamber of Commerce.
“Stanley!” his wife said. “What’s the matter?” His face was contorted and his breathing was loud. He thrust the paper at her, pointing a finger at the headline.
“What about it?” she said. He had no answer. Something—the names, perhaps, or Scranton’s face—had loosed a frenzy of fear within him, a flood of unreasoning and total terror. He did not know what he was afraid of, but he knew somehow- that something, some horror beyond words, lay somewhere in wait.
“Drink your coffee,” his wife said. “Why don’t you lie down? Is your stomach upset? Oh, what’s the matter?”