“Oh!” Mrs. Chriswell said. “Have you seen my hat?”
The young man smiled and pointed down the hill. Mrs. Chriswell was surprised to see her hat being passed from hand to hand among three other tall young men in uniform. They were laughing at it, and she didn’t much blame them. They were standing beside a low, silvery aircraft of some unusual design. Mrs. Chriswell studied it a moment, but really she knew nothing about such things. The sun glinted on it, and she realized this was what she had thought was water. The young man beside her touched her arm. She turned toward him and saw that he had put a rather lovely little metal hat on his head. He offered her one with grave courtesy. Mrs. Chriswell smiled up at him and nodded. The young man fitted the hat carefully, adjusting various little ornamental knobs on its top.
“Now we can talk,” he said. “Do you hear well?”
“My dear boy,” Mrs. Chriswell said, “of course I do. I’m not so old as all that.” She found a smooth stone and sat down to chat. This was much nicer than bird-watching, or even crochet.
The tall young man grinned and signaled excitedly to his companions. They, too, put on little metal hats and came bounding up the hill. Still laughing, they deposited the cartwheel in Mrs. Chriswell’s lap. She patted the stone by way of invitation, and the youngest-looking one of the four dropped down beside her.
“What is your name, Mother?” he asked.
“Ida Chriswell,” she said. “What’s yours?”
“My name is Jord,” the boy said.
Mrs. Chriswell patted his hand. “That’s a nice, unusual name.” The boy grabbed Mrs. Chriswell’s hand and rubbed it against the smoothness of his cheek.
“You are like my mother’s mother,” the boy explained, “whom I have not seen in too long.” The other young men laughed, and the boy looked abashed and stealthily wiped at a tear that slid down his nose.
Mrs. Chriswell frowned warningly at the laughter and handed him her clean pocket handkerchief, scented with lavender. Jord turned it over and over in his hands and then tentatively sniffed at it.
“It’s all right,” Mrs. Chriswell said. “Use it. I have another.” But Jord only breathed more deeply of the faint perfume in its folds.
“This is only the thinnest thread of melody,” he said, “but, Mother Ida, it is very like one note from the Harmony Hills of home!” He passed the handkerchief all around the circle, and the young men sniffed at it and smiled.
Mrs. Chriswell tried to remember if she had ever read of the Harmony Hills, but Mr. Chriswell had always told her she was lamentably weak in geography, and she supposed that this was one of her blank spots, like where on earth was Timbuktu? Or the Hellandgone people were always talking about? But it was rude not to make some comment. Wars shifted people about such a lot, and these boys must be homesick and weary of being strangers, longing to talk of home. She was proud of herself for realizing that they were strangers. But there was something . . . Hard to say, really. The way they had bounded up the hill? Mountain people, perhaps, to whom hills were mere springboards to heights beyond.
“Tell me about your hills,” she said.
“Wait,” Jord said. “I will show you.” He glanced at his leader as if for approval. The young man who had fitted her hat nodded. Jord drew a fingernail across the breast of his uniform. Mrs. Chriswell was surprised to see a pocket opening where no pocket had been before. Really, the Air Force did amazing things with its uniforms, though, frankly, Mrs. Chriswell thought the cut of these a bit extreme.
Carefully, Jord lifted out a packet of gossamer material. He gently pressed the center of the packet, and it blossomed out into voluminous clouds of featherweight threads held together loosely in a weave like a giant spider web. To Mrs. Chriswell’s eyes, the mesh of threads was the color of fog and almost as insubstantial.
“Do not be afraid,” Jord said softly, stepping closer to her. “Bend your head, close your eyes, and you shall hear the Harmony Hills of home.”
There was one quick-drawn breath of almost fear, but before she shut her eyes Mrs. Chriswell saw the love in Jord’s, and in that moment she knew how rarely she had seen this look, anywhere . . . any time. If Jord had asked it of her, it was all right. She closed her eyes and bowed her head, and in that attitude of prayer she felt a soft weightlessness descend upon her. It was as if twilight had come down to drape itself around her shoulders. And then the music began. Behind the darkness of her eyes it rose in majesty and power, in colors she had never seen, never guessed. It blossomed like flowers—giant forests of them. Their scents were intoxicating and filled her with joy. She could not tell if the blending perfumes made the music or if the music itself created the flowers and the perfumes that poured forth from them. She did not care. She wanted only to go on listening forever to all this color. It seemed odd to be listening to color, perhaps, but after all, she told herself, it would seem just as odd to me to see it.
She sat blinking at the circle of young men. The music was finished. Jord was putting away the gossamer threads in the secret pocket and laughing aloud at her astonishment.
“Did you like it, Mother Ida?” He dropped down beside her again and patted her wrinkled face, still pink with excitement.
“Oh, Jord,” she said, “how lovely . . . Tell me . . .”
But the leader was calling them to order. “I’m sorry, Mother Ida, we must hurry about our business. Will you answer some questions? It is very important.”
“Of course,” Mrs. Chriswell said. She was still feeling a bit dazed. “If I can . . . If it’s like the quizzes on the radio, though, I’m not very good at it.”
The young man shook his head. “We have been instructed,” he said, “to investigate and report on the true conditions of this . . . of the world.” He pointed at the aircraft glittering in the sunlight. “We have—traveled all around in that slow machine, and our observations have been accurate . . .” He hesitated, drew a deep breath, and continued, “ . . . and perhaps we shall be forced to give an unfavorable report, but this depends a great deal on the outcome of our talk with you. We are glad you stumbled upon us. We were about to set out on a foray to secure some individual for questioning. It is our last task.” He smiled. “And Jord, here, will not be sorry. He is sick for home and loved ones.” He sighed, and all the other young men echoed the sigh.
“Every night,” Mrs. Chriswell said, “I pray for peace on earth. I cannot bear to think of boys like you fighting and dying, and the folks at home waiting and waiting . . .” She glanced around at their listening faces. “And I’ll tell you something else,” she said. “I find I can’t really hate anybody, even the enemy.” Around the circle, the young men nodded at one another. “Now ask me your questions.” She fumbled in her purse for her crochet work and found it.
Beside her, Jord exclaimed with pleasure at the sight of the half-finished doily. Mrs. Chriswell warmed to him even more.
The tall young man began his grave questioning. They were very simple questions, and Mrs. Chriswell answered them without hesitation. Did she believe in God? Did she believe in the dignity of Man? Did she truly abhor war? Did she believe that Man was capable of love for his neighbor? The questions went on and on, and Mrs. Chriswell crocheted while she gave her answers.
At last, when the young man had quite run out of questions and Mrs. Chriswell had finished the doily, Jord broke the sun-lazy silence that had fallen upon them.
“May I have it, Mother?” He pointed to the doily. Mrs. Chriswell bestowed it upon him with great pleasure, and Jord, like a very small boy, stuffed it greedily into another secret pocket. He pointed at her purse.
“May I look, Mother?”
Mrs. Chriswell indulgently passed him her purse. He opened it and poured the litter of contents on the ground between them. The snapshots of Mrs. Chriswell’s grandchildren stared up at him. Jord smiled at the pretty little-girl faces. He groped in the chest pocket and drew out snapshots of his own. “These,” he told Mrs. Chriswell proudly, “are my little sisters. Are t
hey not like these little girls of yours? Let us exchange, because soon I will be at home with them and there will be no need for pictures.”
Mrs. Chriswell would have given Jord the entire contents of the purse if he had asked for them. She took the snapshots he offered and looked with pleasure at the sweet-faced children. Jord still stirred at the pile of things from Mrs. Chriswell’s purse. By the time she was ready to leave, he had talked her out of three illustrated recipes torn from magazines, some swatches of material, and two pieces of peppermint candy.
The young leader helped Mrs. Chriswell remove the pretty little hat when she indicated he should. She would have liked to keep it, but she didn’t believe Clara would approve. She clapped the straw monstrosity on her head, kissed Jord’s cheek, waved good-by to the rest, and groped her way around the berry bushes. She had to grope because her eyes were tear-filled: all the young men had saluted her so grandly as she turned to go.
Clara’s usually sedate household was in an uproar when Mrs. Chriswell returned. All the radios in the house were blaring. Even Clara sat huddled over the one in the library. Mrs. Chriswell heard a boy in the street crying “extra, extra,” and the upstairs maid almost knocked her down getting out the front door to buy one. Mrs. Chriswell, sleepy and somewhat sunburned, supposed it was something about the awful war.
She was just turning up the stairs to her room when the snooty nursemaid came rushing down, to disappear kitchenwards with another newspaper in hand. Good, the children were alone. She’d stop in to see them. Suddenly she heard the raised voices from the back of the house. The cook was yelling at somebody, “I tell you, I saw it! I took out some garbage and there it was, right over me!” Mrs. Chriswell lingered at the foot of the stairway, puzzled by all the confusion. The housemaid came rushing in with the Extra edition. Mrs. Chriswell quietly reached out and took it.
“Thank you, Nadine,” she said. The housemaid was still staring at her as she climbed the stairs.
Edna and Evelyn were sitting on the nursery floor, a candy box between them, and shrieking at each other when their grandmother opened the door. They were cramming candy into their mouths between shrieks. Their faces and pinafores were smeared with chocolate. Edna suddenly yanked Evelyn’s hair, hard. “Pig!” she shouted. “You got three more than I did!”
“Children! Children! Not fighting?” Mrs. Chriswell was delighted. Here was something she could cope with. She led them firmly to the bathroom and washed their faces. “Change your frocks,” she said, “and I’ll tell you my adventure.”
There were only hissing accusals and whispered countercharges behind her as she turned her back on the children to scan the newspaper. Grandmothers, she told herself, have a calming effect on children. The headlines leaped up at her.
“FLYING SAUCERS APPEAR OVER CITY.” “Mysterious Broadcast Interrupts Programs on All Wave Lengths.” “Unknown Woman Saves World Say Men from Space.” “ONE SANE HUMAN FOUND ON EARTH, TOTAL DESTRUCTION OF WORLD AVERTED.” “Useful, Busy Females Hope of Future.” “Cooking, Needlework, Home, and Religious Interests Sway Space Judges.” Every column of the paper was crowded with the same unintelligible nonsense. Mrs. Chriswell folded it neatly, deposited it on a table, and turned to tie her granddaughters’ sashes and tell her adventure.
“. . . And then he gave me some lovely photographs. In color, he said . . . Good little girls, just like Edna and Evelyn. Would you like to see them?”
Edna made a rude noise with her mouth pursed. Evelyn’s face grew saintlike in retaliation. “Yes, show us,” she said.
Mrs. Chriswell passed them the snapshots, and the children drew close together for a moment, before Evelyn dropped the pictures as if they were blazing. She stared hard at her grandmother while Edna made a gagging noise.
“Green!” Edna gurgled. “Gaaaa . . . green skins!”
“Grandmother!” Evelyn was tearful. “Those children are frog-colored!”
Mrs. Chriswell bent over to pick up the pictures. “Now, now, children,” she murmured absently. “We don’t worry about the color of people’s skins. Red . . . yellow . . . black . . . we’re all God’s children. Asia or Africa, make no difference . . .” But before she could finish her thought, the nursemaid loomed disapprovingly in the doorway. Mrs. Chriswell hurried out to her own room, while some tiny worry nagged at her mind. “Red, yellow, black, white,” she murmured over and over, “and brown . . . but green . . .?” Geography had always been her weak point. Green . . . Now where on earth . . .?
THE WAVERIES
Fredric Brown
Definitions from school-abridged Webster-Hamlin Dictionary, 2088 edition:
wavery (WA-ver-T) n. a vader—slang
vader (VA-der) n. inorgan of the class Radio
inorgan (m-OR-gan) n. noncorporeal ens, a vader radio (RA-dT-oh, ra-DE-oh) n.
1. Class of inorgans.
2. Etheric frequency between light and electricity.
3. (obsolete) Method of communication used up to 1971.
The opening guns of invasion were not at all loud, although they were heard by many people. George Bailey was one of the many; I choose George Bailey because he was the only one who came within a googol of light-years of guessing what they were.
George Bailey was drunk, and under the circumstances one can’t blame him. He was listening to radio advertisements of the most verbose and annoying kind. Not because he wanted to listen to them, but because he’d been told to listen by his boss, J. R. McGee, of the MID network.
George Bailey wrote advertising for the radio. The only thing he hated worse than advertising was radio. And here, on his own time in the late evening, he was listening to fulsome and saccharine drippings on a rival network, at J. R. McGee’s suggestion—which George very rightly took for an order.
“Bailey, you should be more familiar with what others are doing. Particularly those of our own accounts which use several networks. I’d suggest that—”
One doesn’t quarrel with suggestions and keep a hundred-and-fifty-dollar-a-week job. But one can drink whisky sours while listening. One George Bailey did.
Also, one could play gin rummy with Maisie Hetterman, a cute little redheaded typist from the studio. One could do no more than that, but Maisie was worth just looking at across a card table. It was Maisie’s apartment and Maisie’s radio, but George had brought the liquor.
“—only the best tobaccos,” said the radio, “go dit-dit-dit—the nation’s favorite cigarettes—”
George glanced at the radio. “Marconi,” he said.
He meant Morse, naturally, but the whisky sours had muddled him a bit, so he was nearer right than most people who heard that dit-dit-dit. It was Marconi, in a way; in, as it turned out, a very peculiar way. “Marconi?” asked Maisie.
George Bailey, who hated to talk while a radio was going, leaned over and switched it off.
“I mean Morse,” he said. “Morse, as in Boy Scouts or the Signal Corps. I used to be a Boy Scout once.”
“You don’t look it.”
George sighed. “Somebody going to catch hell,” he said, “broadcasting code on that wave length.”
“What did it mean?”
“Mean? Oh, you mean what did it mean. Uh . . . S, letter S. Dit-dit-dit. SOS is dit-dit-dit, dah-dah-dah, dit-dit-dit.”
“O is dah-dah-dah?”
George grinned. “Say it again, Maisie. I like it. I think ’oo is dah-dah-dah, too.”
“George! Maybe it’s really an SOS message. Turn it back on, please.” He turned it back on. The tobacco ad was still going. “—gentlemen of the most . . . dit-dit-dit . . . ing taste prefer the finer taste of Golden Harvest . . . dit-dit-dit . . . arettes. In the new package that keeps them . . . dit-dit-dit . . . and ultrafresh—”
“It’s just S-S-S-S,” said George. “Like a teakettle. Or maybe somebody s-s-stutters. But the Golden Harvest people are going to raise—Say—”
“What, George?”
“Maybe it’s deliberate, an advertising gag
like L.S.M.F.T. used to be. Just a minute till I—”
He reached over and turned the dial of the radio a bit to the right, then a bit to the left, and an incredulous look came over his face. He turned the dial to the extreme right, as far as it would go. There wasn’t any station there—not even the hum of a carrier wave.
“Dit-dit-dit,” said the radio, “—dit-dit-dit.”
George turned it to the other end of the dial. “Dit-dit-ditsaid the radio.
He switched it off and stared at Maisie, without even seeing her, which was hard to do.
“Something wrong, George?”
“I hope so,” said George Bailey. “I certainly hope so.”
He started to reach for another drink, then changed his mind. He had a sudden hunch that something big was happening, and wanted to sober up to appreciate it.
He didn’t have the faintest idea how big it was.
“George, what do you mean?”
“I don’t know. But Maisie, let’s take a run down to the studio, huh? There ought to be some excitement.”
April 5, 1947; that was the night the waveries came.
It was a gay night, except for radio technicians. New York was at its best and gayest, and the main stem, which is Broadway, running high, wide, and expensive. The streets were full of uniforms, mostly uniforms of men already demobilized, due to recent reduction in the armies of occupation—so recently demobilized that they hadn’t taken time to buy civvies. Discharge pay burning in their pockets, they wanted Broadway and they took Broadway; or Broadway took them. Fresh shiploads of them daily.
The gaiety was hectic, but it was a surface gaiety, even greater than that of the boom years of 1928 and ’29. Workers dead weary from overtime in the reconverted factories trying to supply the peak demand for automobiles and radios and jukeboxes and pinball games left the factories for a hasty meal, then went out in their automobiles—with car radios blaring—and spent their overtime pay in the jukeboxes and pinball machines. Which, of course, increased the demand for those commodities, which increased the overtime of the factories, which increased the overtime pay, which increased the spending and the demand and—Well, you see what I mean.
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