He placed the squat, green bottle on the bureau top, and he kept glancing at it in aching indecision as he undressed and climbed into pajamas. It seemed to draw him with a dark fascination. He returned to it and held it up against the light.
He raked his lower lip through his teeth, frowning. Was it really an elixir of youth? Would it really make him young again, even if temporarily? The gnome-like man had insisted it would. But of course there was no such thing as an elixir of youth. It was an impossibility.
And yet if it weren’t—
Youth . . . . He had never actually known the full meaning of the word. Youth to him had been a crippled father dragging his way painfully over the floor. Youth had been a blurred, vaguely unpleasant treadmill existence of work by day and school by night. Youth had been parties and picnics he had never attended. Later, of course, had come success in his chosen profession. But with it had come the realization that life had passed him by. He had few friends, few pleasant memories to look back upon. He was too shy, too indrawn to cultivate people.
HE THOUGHT of this, and he thought again of the girl with the brown hair and the dark eyes. He remembered the way she walked, the way she held her head. He remembered each change of expression on her face. She had the dignity of a queen, and yet she was very feminine and sweet. And suddenly he wanted intensely to be young again. He wanted intensely to believe that the green bottle actually contained an elixir of youth.
A wave of recklessness abruptly swept over him. There was only one way to find out. To be sure.
Hands trembling, he tore at the wax stopper with his nails. He tilted the bottle up. He drank.
The elixir had a somewhat exotic spicy tang.
Afterward he stood very still, realizing what he had done. The walls of the room seemed to recede past him, into a vast distance. Silence closed around him, deep and cold.
Finally he went to bed.
In the morning Colvin rose at the same time as always, pulling up the window and beginning his setting up exercises. The events of the preceding night came back to him little by little, like fragments of some fantastic dream. But habit was strong. Busy with his morning routine, he did not try consciously to recall what had happened.
It was not until he had started shaving that full memory came. He looked into the bathroom mirror. The face that stared back at him was not the face he had grown accustomed to seeing in late years. It was a much younger face. Firm and smooth. The lines that had been deepening in it were gone. And when he looked for the gray in his dark hair, he found that it had gone, too.
The full significance of the thing struck him, then. The impact was almost electrical.
He was young again! As young as the girl with the dark eyes.
The elixir had worked. It had opened the door to a new world.
For a time Colvin wandered dazedly about the apartment. The thing that had happened to him was so tremendous he could not get accustomed to it all at once. He wanted to shout. He wanted to cry. Several times he rushed to a mirror to assure himself it was not just a dream.
A chance look at the clock brought him up short. It had grown late. He would be late to work.
Abruptly he shrugged. Work? No, he couldn’t go to work. With his appearance so completely altered, he would be nothing more than a stranger to the people at the construction firm. He would have to write a letter of resignation. Then, later, he could find another job.
Additional problems had to be settled. Among the most immediate, were those of moving to another apartment and of changing his account to a different bank. Letters would accomplish most of what, had to be done. Where letters would not suffice, he could, use simple subterfuges of one kind or another.
He spent the remainder of the morning writing and packing. Then he dressed and left the building, taking care that he was not seen. He had used a sudden illness as the explanation for his abrupt departure, and he did not want the sight of a mysterious young man to cast suspicion upon the maneuver.
Out on the street, with sunlight falling warmly op his face, he had an exhilarating sense of freedom, as though he had been released from a long imprisonment. He would have liked nothing better than simply to keep, walking while he reveled in the delightful knowledge of his rejuvenation. But the practical side of his nature asserted itself. Certain aspects of his new existence had still to be attended to.
Over a long-delayed breakfast he studied the advertising section of a newspaper. Small furnished apartments for rent were not numerous, but the luck that seemed to date from his meeting with that gnome-like man held good. He located a suitable apartment on his third try, and then arranged to have his belongings moved in.
Other details occupied him for the rest of the afternoon. He was careful, to watch the time. The approach of evening found him ready for his daily and hitherto one-sided rendezvous with the dark-eyed girl. He had promised himself it would be different now.
HE WAS surprised to find the restaurant crowded when he walked in. All the tables seemed to be taken. And as he glanced about, he saw the girl. She was one of the few persons present who were sitting alone.
He knew what he had to do, then. He did it without a moment’s hesitation.
He walked over to her table.
“Do you mind if I sit here?” he asked.
“Why . . . no.” She looked rather startled and hesitant, and somehow she seemed even lovelier than before.
Colvin smiled his thanks, hung up his hat and coat, and sat down. The girl had lowered her eyes back to her food. It was apparent that she was aware of him and had thrown up a barrier of reserve. He did not want to rush matters, to make her retreat still further. He kept his eyes from her, glancing with a quiet, impersonal interest about the room.
He was handed a menu by a waitress who had taken his orders many times before. She glanced at him in a vaguely puzzled way, but without recognition. Colvin, however, breathed more easily when she was gone.
He found that the girl was watching him. In a tone of casual interest, he asked:
“Is the place always as crowded as this?”
She shook her head, and her lips seemed to curve in a slight, shy smile. “They’re attending a convention at a hotel down the street.”
“You too?”
“No. I work near here.”
He liked the way she spoke. Her voice was low and soft. A frank straightforward voice, neither coy nor cold.
He made a few other remarks from time to time, always careful to keep up his pretense of merely casual interest. He did not trust himself to do more than that. He did not want the girl to suspect that he was deliberately arranging this. He did not want her to sense his eagerness. She was friendly enough, but uncertain, of him and wary.
Finally she rose to leave. She glanced at him for an instant as she reached for her purse and gloves. With an effort Colvin masked his disappointment at her going. He smiled briefly up at her and half rose from his chair. He hoped she would understand it as an acknowledgement of their exchange of a few friendly words.
She did. Her answering smile came quickly. It was as though she’d had it ready all along. Then her dark eyes fell, and she strode away.
It began like that. The conventioneers were still present at the restaurant on the two following nights, and he used that as an excuse to continue sitting at her table. Each time they spoke more easily and at greater length.
Colvin learned that her name was Doris Hendricks. She worked for a large advertising firm. And like himself, she lived alone, having come to the city from a distant suburb several months before. He was delighted by other points of similarity between them. They liked the same books, had the same interests, and they even shared indentical political beliefs.
On the fourth night, as she prepared to leave, Colvin spoke quickly to detain her. It was a crucial moment, for him, and he found it impossible to maintain his outward calm.
“I . . . I was wondering,” he said. “That is, if you aren’t doing anything this eveni
ng . . . .”
She said simply, “I haven’t any special plans.”
“Well . . . would you like to see a show?”
“I think that would be fine.” She smiled suddenly, a little breathlessly. Her dark eyes seemed to glow.
It was a perfect evening, just as Colvin had always imagined it would be. It was like a dream breathed to life and set to music. He could not recall the full details of it. There was just Doris, and everything else—the lights and the sounds, the color and movement—was just a frame for her. Doris laughing, Doris serious, Doris looking interested or surprised. This was all he wanted to remember.
HE SAW her each day after that. It seemed to him a natural thing to do, and in no way did Doris indicate that she regarded it otherwise. They would meet at the restaurant, or he would call for her at at the place where she lived. They attended movies or stage shows. They bowled or went dancing. On Sunday afternoons they visited a zoo or a museum.
Frequently, then, he would have dinner at her apartment, and they would spend the rest of the evening there. They shared a growing preference for this way of passing the time. Though limited by a ridiculously tiny kitchenette, Doris proved an excellent cook.
“I seldom bothered to fix anything for myself,” she said once. “It’s fun to have someone to cook for . . . . Someone like you, Peter.”
After the few dishes had been washed and put away, they would play gin rummy or checkers, or simply sit close together and listen to the radio, holding hands. They said little. They had reached a state of mutual trust and understanding beyond the need for words.
It was on one such evening that Colvin proposed.
“I wish we could always be together like this,” he said. “Just you and I, Doris. I wish we were married and had a place of our own.”
She lifted her head from his shoulder, her lips curving in a gentle smile. “Yes, Peter.”
He said tensely, “Doris, do you really want it that way? Will you marry me?”
“Yes,” she said. Her dark eyes were shining.
Later, returning to his apartment, he recalled what the gnome-like man had said about the effects of the elixir being only temporary. But just how temporary? A matter of months, or years? Suppose . . . suppose he married Doris and suddenly became old again?
It had been from that moment on that he developed his fear of mirrors.
In the days that had followed, the fear had grown, had become an obsession. Doris had sensed the change in him. Her bewilderment and concern had added to his distress.
And now, gazing at the squat, green bottle on the bureau top, he knew he would have to tell Doris what had happened to him. There was no other way out. He could not simply leave her. Nor could he marry her for a few stolen moments of happiness.
But later, when he appeared as usual at her apartment, he found that his resolve had weakened. Doris wore a new dress, and had made the unusual gesture of adding a touch of color to her lips. She had never seemed more appealing.
“Peter!” she said softly, smiling She came to him, lifting her face for his kiss.
He held her tightly, lingeringly knowing he might never hold her again. Then, with a little laugh she stepped away from him, performing a mock-curtsey as she indicated her dress.
“How do you like it, Peter? It’s brand, spanking new—or didn’t you notice?”
“I noticed,” he said. “You make it look beautiful.”
She stiffened in sudden dismay sniffing. “The pork chops! They’re burning!”
She turned in a whirl of skirts and hurried to the kichenette. She was very busy for several minutes. There was an energetic rattling of silverware and a clattering of dishes.
COLVIN listened to the sounds feeling the pain grow within him. He knew Doris was putting on an act, pretending a carefree attitude that she did not actually feel.
He wanted desperately to enter into the spirit of the thing, however artificial. He wanted desperately to reassure her, to recapture the trusting intimacy they had shared. But this problem was a dark, cold weight on his mind. He had to tell her of course. And he knew what her decision would be. How could he possibly expect her to marry a man who would suddenly and without warning turn old?
“Soup’s on!” Doris called. She grinned impishly as she brushed a curling tendril of brown hair from her forehead.
Her little pretense wore thin through the meal. And then, as they put away the dishes and seated themselves in the living room, the periods of strained silence between them grew longer.
It was Doris herself who suddenly brought the situation to a head.
“Peter, there’s something wrong. I know there is. We can’t go on like this. Whatever it is, we’ve got to settle it here and now.”
Colvin met her searching eyes, feeling tense and cold. This was it, he knew. He was oddly relieved that it had come so soon.
Doris touched his arm pleadingly. “What, is it, Peter? Why don’t you tell me?”
“All right,” he said. “I’ve been meaning to all along, but I just couldn’t work up the courage.” He took a deep breath, and the fear in him grew. “Doris, I’m not really a young man. That is, I look young, feel young—but I’m much older than you. I know it sounds crazy, and the explanation is even worse. But please listen, and don’t hate me too much.”
He told her everything. He told her of his chance meeting with the gnome-like man. He told her of the elixir and of what it had done. And finally he was finished.
He looked at her face, and then his eyes dropped in despair to his twisting hands. That sweet, familiar face. So cold, so impassive.
Doris said nothing. She stood up. Very quietly she went into her bed room.
Colvin stood up, too. Slowly and wearily. It was the end. He knew it it was the end. Amid a bitter, death-like silence, he turned to get his hat and coat.
“Wait, Peter.”
He swung around, dully surprised. Doris was back. She came across the living room, toward him, and her face was somehow strange.
“You thought you had fooled me, Peter,” she said. “But you were fooled, too.”
He stared at her, not knowing what she meant. And now she was smiling at him. A tender, suddenly tearful smile.
“Shall I show you something. Peter?” she asked. “Look.”
Her hand came from where she had been holding it, behind her back. In it was a bottle.
A squat, green bottle that had once been stoppered with wax . . .
Needle Me Not
THE LIGHT affixed to the rear of the head of the power sewing machine brought out the veins in clear detail on the thin bony hands. The machine was silent for the moment because Sam Ready, “Ladies and Gents Tailor—First Class Cleaning and Pressing Done”, was sewing the lining on a man’s jacket by hand. Sam liked handwork. He found pleasure and satisfaction in having a customer look at a garment and say, “Real custom work, eh, Sam?”
He heard the outside door open and narrowed his eyes against the glare of the reflected light of the sun pouring off the concrete of the pavement. He saw it was a man, but not until the man spoke did he recognize him.
“. . . Sam! . . . Hey, Sam!”
Sam’s heart sank. It was his brother-in-law, Paul Ryan, and when Ryan’s voice held that tone it meant trouble for Sam.
“Yes, Paul?” Sam’s head lowered and his fingers busied themselves again at the lining.
“The coat fit and the vest fit . . .”
“But the pants . . . They was too long.”
“Ain’t you never goin’ to learn, Sam?”
“I keep forgetting, Paul.”
“ ’Bout time you started remembering. This is 1965, Sam, not 1945. Nobody wears zoot suits any more.”
Sam tried a parry. “Maybe they’ll come back.”
The other brushed it aside. “Stop dreamin’. Did the horse come back, or even gas autos? This is a age of progress. We go forward not behind. You got to move the same way, Sam. But what’s the use? I told Rose, I warned h
er . . . Sam, you’re just an anarchism.”
Sam heard the garments drop to the far end of the work table to which the sewing machine was attached, then, a second later, the door slam. He gave a small sigh of relief. Then he finished the last few stitches, turned off the light, and looked up at the clock on the wall. Six. Time to go home. To his wife.
Once more a sigh heaved itself up from the depths of his soul.
To his wife, the female counterpart of what had just left . . . .
SAM READY opened the door, and shuddered. The odor which assailed his nostrils was unmistakeable. Corned beef-and-cabbage. Again. Now, as it had a thousand times past, the thought occurred to him. His wife was simply lazy. Corned beef-and-cabbage took very little imagination to prepare, and very little watching. The televiso soap-operas were on the screen from early morning until evening. The choice was obvious between being a good housekeeper and a soap-opera fan. Five nights a week, corned beef-and-cabbage . . . .
Her voice came to him; she had heard the soft opening of the door: “Go wash, Sam. Dinner’s ready.”
Later, he waited for her to bring the food to the table. His gorge rose at the thought of the heaping mound of meat and vegetable which would be placed before him, but managed, somehow, to swallow the small tide of nausea. When the dish was put before him he did not look at it.
“Where’s Paul?” he asked.
“You think he’s like you?” she replied.
He didn’t turn a hair at the words. He knew from the long years of listening to her how her mind worked, and these words were but the opening to greater things to follow.
She glowered at him from under her thick dark brows. “Supper can wait, Paul says, when it comes to making money.”
“What’s it this time, Rose?”
“Some man wants to borrow money and is giving Paul a diamond ring, three carats, for security.”
“Paul didn’t ask for his right arm . . . ?”
“Sam! That’s not the way to talk. Remember, please, that you are married to his sister.”
The 47th Golden Age of Science Fiction Page 19