Time Pressure

by Spider Robinson

  “The story must explain my unfamiliarity with local customs,” Rachel added.

  Snaker and I both shook our heads. “People on the North Mountain are used to newcomers being unsophisticated,” I said, “not knowing how to feed a fire or feed chickens or plant a garden or do anything useful. City people are expected to be ignorant. Their faux pas are politely ignored. Anything weird you do, folks’ll just chalk it up to you being from civilization.”

  “Then we must explain why I am ignorant of the ways of the city.”

  “Naw. Nobody’ll ask you about them. A city background is treated like a mildly embarrassing disease; folks just pretend not to notice until it’s clear that you’ve been cured. If anybody does ask you about life where you come from, just say, ‘I came here to forget about the city,’ and they’ll nod and mark you down as a sensible young lady. But nobody’ll be really interested.”

  “I think you’re a writer, Rachel,” Snaker said. “You’re doing a book on the Back-to-the-Land movement, or alternative lifestyles, or the rural experience or some such. It’s innocuous enough; it’ll get you into people’s living rooms and get them to open up to you.”

  “Open up? Hell, she’ll be a celebrity, Snake. Remember how popular you were until folks got it straight that you weren’t going to write up their memoirs for them? If it’s oral histories you want, Rachel, people around here’ll talk your ears off, hippies and locals alike.”

  “Where’s she from, Sam?” Snaker asked. “She’s dark enough to be African or Far Eastern, but that accent feels more like European to me.”

  “I’d buy Polynesian raised and educated in Europe. Say, Switzerland. Do you know anything about contemporary Switzerland, Rachel?”

  She blinked. “I have some data in ROM. Enough, I think, to deal with surface-level inquiries.”

  “You won’t have to pass a quiz. And nobody on this Mountain knows diddly about Polynesia. Come to think, I don’t. So you were adopted by a Swiss couple who took you home with them to live. You were going to grad school at S.U.N.Y. Stony Brook, studying…let me see, what discipline do we not have any refugees from around here? Studying sociology, and you dropped out to travel and write a book.”

  “Why the Stony Brook part?” Snaker asked.

  “Well, college student explains the excellent English, the hand-me-down wardrobe, and general weirdness—and Stony Brook is good because I went there, and nobody else on this Mountain has ever been near it. Somebody back there who used to know me told Rachel that there were still a few hippies around up here in Nova Scotia; that’s why she came here to research her book. The point is, Rachel, that your cover story doesn’t have to have a great deal of definition. The vaguer you are, the more you’ll ring true. Lots of people around here are vague about their backgrounds, for one reason or another. Far more important than where you’re from is what you’re like.”

  As I was speaking, I got one last item from a “closet” carton and noticed my old portable cassette recorder at the bottom of the box. A piece of cheese, with one of those built-in cardioid mikes, but it was adequate for spoken-word, ideal for oral history. I wondered if Rachel could use it. Come to think of it, how did she plan to preserve her data? What media would survive centuries of burial? Written notes on acid-free paper in sealed atmosphere? Shorthand acid-etched on steel plates? Supershielded computer tapes? Or could she simply store information in her—

  —I tabled the matter. She was speaking:

  “What exactly do you mean, Sam?” Rachel asked.

  “Nothing that need worry you. Whether you’ve got manners— and yours’re good enough to pass. Whether you’re comfortable to be around—and you are. Whether you pull your share of the load—and I’m sure you will. Whether your word is good—and I’m certain yours is.”

  “Thank you, Sam,” she said soberly. “Your trust warms me as much as your lovemaking.” She actually blushed. “A great deal.”

  “Here,” I said gruffly, and gave her the clothes. “Try these on for fit and then we’ll go downstairs. The decor up here is deafening.”

  “For you too?” she asked. Here relief and surprise were evident, but I’m damned if I know where. She still had the vocal and facial expressiveness of a female Vulcan.

  “Hell, yes. I don’t own the place; I just live here while the owner’s away. The only way I’d feel okay about revising his decor would be if I were to materially improve the house in the process—say, by properly insulating this upstairs and finishing the walls. So far, I haven’t minded the decor quite that much.”

  She began to dress. It is always a fascinating process to watch. With her, it was riveting. I was a little surprised at how little trouble she had with twentieth-century fastenings like zippers and buttons. She picked things up quickly; she was alert all the time.

  “When does the owner return?”

  “For longer than a few weeks? Never. Only he hasn’t figured that out yet.” She raised one eyebrow, so precisely like Star Trek’s Mister Spock that I had to suppress a giggle, and I saw Snaker doing the same thing. “Joel’s an American hippie with rich parents. He fell in love with this place hitchhiking through, and Dad cabled him the money to buy it. He plans to move up here and ‘fix it up’ in a couple of years, and he lets me stay here to keep a fire in the place. What he hasn’t thought through is that he has at least two drug busts on his record, plus political busts, plus time on the U.S. welfare rolls. He’ll never get Landed status. The buyer actually warned him, but Joel’s an optimist—”

  I’d told this story to several people, I was telling it on automatic pilot—and then all of a sudden I heard the words coming out of my mouth, and froze. Snaker got it too, and looked skyward and frowned at the same time.

  “What is ‘Landed Status’?” Rachel asked innocently.

  “Thundering shit!” I said, smacking myself in the forehead with my palm. “Papers!”

  “That does complicate things,” Snaker agreed mournfully. “What’ll we tell Whynot and Boucher?”

  “What is wrong?” she asked.

  “Rachel, there are three kinds of people living in Canada. Citizens, Landed Immigrants, and Visitors on temporary visas. The last two kinds need paper ID. Other than for academic purposes or special circumstances, a visitor can stay a maximum of three months, usually much less—and how much is entirely at the whim of the officer on duty at the border crossing you use. A Landed Immigrant, like Snaker and me, can live here indefinitely without relinquishing his original citizenship, and can do everything a citizen can do except vote. It’s hard to get that status, gets harder every year, and because a lot of people want to live here on the Mountain without that much formality, the Department of Manpower and Immigration sends a couple of runners through here regular, looking for people who’ve overstayed their visa. When they find ’em, they very politely and firmly deport ’em. Considering the line of work they’re in, Boucher and Whynot are nice guys, but they’re very good at what they do. And we can’t get you a visa or Landed status, and we can’t pass you off as a citizen.”

  “Shit, Sam, with her color and accent she hasn’t got a chance,” Snaker said.

  She was fully dressed now. I’d been preoccupied enough to miss some of the best parts. Damn. “Couldn’t I simply avoid them?” she asked. “There are acres of forest outside. I could avoid even infrared detection methods—”

  “Rachel, weird as it may sound, the country is the last place to hide effectively. It is said that if a man farts on the North Mountain, noses wrinkle across the Valley on the South Mountain. You savvy the expression, ‘jungle drums’?” She nodded. “Snaker’s right: with your beauty, let alone your exotic colouring, you’ll be known up and down the whole damn Valley in a week. And once they know you exist, Boucher and Whynot’ll find you if they have to get out bloodhounds.”

  “I can beat bloodhounds too—”

  “It’s the wrong way to go, Rachel. You can’t do your work as a fugitive. That puts us under severe time pressure
. We’ve got to have some kind of paperwork for you by the time the Bobbsey Twins make their next circuit through the area. When was their last pass, Snake?”

  “Around Thaw, if I remember right.” Thaw, a brief, inexplicable week of good weather, came each year around the end of January, first week of February. “Not much action for them this time of year, but I’d look to see them again in a month or two, when things start warming up again some. Around Solstice. On the other hand, they love surprises; they could pop in later this afternoon.”

  “What do we do, Snake?” Getting somebody Landed in those days was easy, old hat: simply arrange a bogus marriage to a citizen or Landed Immigrant. It didn’t even have to be a good fake; like I said, Whynot and Boucher were easygoing guys. But then citizenship papers for some country of origin were essential.

  “We’re going to need fake papers,” he said. “Tricky. I’m not entirely sure how to go about it. I’ve got a friend in Ottawa I could call—but one thing’s for sure: if we can do it at all, it’ll be fucking A expensive.”

  I frowned and nodded. That was certainly a serious problem, all right—

  “That’s not a serious problem,” Rachel said.

  We stared at her.

  “It was foreseen that it might be useful for me to have local money. My ROM includes certain useful data. Given investment capital and lead time, I can generate whatever funds we need.”

  We said nothing, continued to stare.

  She looked mildly embarrassed. “I’m sorry, Sam. Of course you assumed I was destitute. I will pay for the food I eat. Do you want me to pay rent?”

  “No, no! I’m not paying Joel a dime, why should you? I’m just kicking myself for being stupid, that’s all. Naturally you’d have provided for a simple thing like unlimited funding. Silly of me.”

  “You’re sure you don’t want some money? Really, Sam, it’ll be no extra trouble for me—”

  This conversation was turning surreal. “Rachel, I have enough money to feed my bad habits; more than that is a nuisance. Thanks anyway. But even with plenty of cash, getting you forged papers isn’t going to be easy.”

  Snaker nodded, frowning. “One of the few really backward things about Canada: its civil servants are astonishingly hard to bribe. It can be done, but you need luck and the same kind of tact it takes to negotiate with a Black Panther for his sister’s maidenhead. And you said you need lead time to get a bankroll, and the Immigration boys are due in a month or two—I say we’ve got a time pressure problem.”

  To my surprise, Rachel refused to be dismayed. “Don’t worry, my First Friends. From what you say, this can be dealt with. I am confident that it will not be a problem.”

  I didn’t entirely share her confidence, but I didn’t see any point in depressing her by debating the matter, and I was distracted by her honorific. “‘First Friends.’ I like that.”

  “Me too,” Snaker said.

  “You are my First Friends,” she said. “Every other friend I have, I will not meet for years to come.”

  “Far out,” Snaker said. “I’m proud to be a First Friend of yours.”

  I mimed clicking my heels and bowed. “And I’m honoured to be First Lover. Shall we get out of this pyramid burial chamber?”

  We went downstairs. Snaker and I gave Rachel her first lesson in North Mountain survival—the care and feeding of woodstoves. That killed half an hour, even though I’m quite sure she had grasped the essentials within the first few minutes. Anybody who lives with a woodstove can, and will, talk your ear off on the subject, and no two of them completely agree on technique. She listened with polite attention, and probably immense patience. Then she reached out and shut the damper on the Ashley, which I had failed to close after shutting up the stove again, and correctly adjusted the mechanical thermostat, and Snaker and I shut up.

  “Can we go outside, please, Sam?” she asked.

  “Oh, hell, of course. I should have expected claustrophobia from someone who’s comfortable naked in blizzard.”

  “It’s not claustrophobia as I understand that term,” she said. “It’s just that I’ve been in your ficton for nearly a day, and all I’ve seen are a few seconds of nighttime forest and the inside of your home.”

  “I understand perfectly. But let’s get you dressed for outdoors, just in case anybody happens to drive by.” Spare pea coat, scarf, hat and mittens were no problem, but I had to duck back upstairs for enough socks to make my spare boots stay on her.

  She watched carefully the whole airlock-like procedure of exiting through the back woodshed. Open hook-and-eye, shoulder inner door open against spring tension, step into shed, let door close, seal with wooden turnbuckle, stand clear of outer door, spin its turnbuckle open, let wind blow door open, step outside, yank door shut and secure with hook-and-eye latch.

  “Sam,” she said, “your home cannot be locked while you are away.”

  “Of course not,” I said absently. “Suppose somebody came by while I was out. How would they get inside?” I was distracted, and dismayed, by the sight of my woodshed. Snaker had told me, but I had forgotten.

  “It’s only the one side,” he said sympathetically.

  Sure enough, the near side of the roof was intact. But even from here I could see that the far side was completely gone, torn free and blown clear. Four cords of drying firewood, representing endless hours of labour, were open to the next snow or rain that came along. “Snake,” I said sadly, “tell me it didn’t land where I think it did.”

  “Well, actually,” he said brightly, “you got away lucky there. It only demolished the half of the shitter that you weren’t using.”

  “God’s teeth.” At some point in its twisted history, Heartbreak Hotel had been what it still looked vaguely like, a little red schoolhouse, and so it had a divided four-holer outhouse, two for the boys, two for the girls. (My custom was to use one side at a time and seal up the other, rotating yearly; it kept down the aroma, and provided splendid fertilizer for the garden and the dope patch.) Snaker was right, I’d had a lucky break. Exposed firewood had to be dealt with soon, but a sheltered place to shit is a necessity. (Especially when company comes to stay; it’s easier to share a toothbrush than a thundermug.) But I didn’t feel lucky.

  My pal sought to distract me. “I see it was a Gable roof.”

  I regarded him suspiciously. “I sense danger. What prompts this observation, Mr. Bones?”

  He shrugged. “Gone with the wind.”

  I fell down laughing. So did he. We needed a good laugh. “Only to windward,” I managed. “Looks fine over here on the Vivien Leigh side,” and we were off again.

  I realized that we must have left Rachel far behind, and looked around to apologize—and found that she had left us far behind. She was nowhere in sight; her footprints led around the house. Snaker and I sobered quickly and followed her tracks, worried about God knows what.

  We found her at once—

  —transfixed, banjaxed, struck dumb and frozen in her tracks—

  —by the sight of the Bay of Fundy…

  Perhaps I felt more true kinship with Rachel in that moment than I had while we were making love. Until now she had been always a little off-beat, a little alien, a stranger in a strange land. But this we shared. For the first time I felt that I truly empathized with her, understood what she was feeling. I remembered my own first sight of the Bay, coming from a city background—and how much more overpopulated must her world be than mine?

  The first thing that had surprised me about nature, when first I made its acquaintance, was how big it was. I learned this first with my eyes, and then, almost at once, with my ears, and finally with the surface of my skin. In the city, where I grew up, my visual and auditory autopilots had a scan range of a couple of hundred meters at most. Visual stimuli farther away than that tended to be filtered out, unless they met certain alarm parameters. Similarly, my ears were usually presented with such a plethora of nearby stimuli that a gunshot over on the next block might have
gone unheard.

  Then I came to Parsons’ Cove, and stood on the shore of the Bay of Fundy. Suddenly half of my universe was sky, more sky than I had known existed. In one direction an infinite series of trees climbed the gentle slope of the North Mountain; in the other, my eye had to leap fifty kilometers to the far shore of New Brunswick. If I stood still and listened, I could clearly hear living things kilometers away. My world expanded to encompass a larger hemisphere—all of it beautiful.

  It blindsided me. I have not recovered yet. Perhaps I never will.

  Snaker and I looked at each other and shared a wordless communication and smiled. The best part of that first glorious and terrifying moment when you fall in love with the Fundy Shore is that it will never really wear off. Even constant exposure doesn’t build much tolerance. Remarkably sane people live along that Shore. It’s really hard to generate an anger or fear or other craziness that will survive an hour of looking at the Bay, at all that immense sky and majestic water—and sunset on the Bay has been known to alleviate clinical psychosis.

  Suddenly I was startled to realize how soon sunset was going to be.

  “Jesus, Snaker, look at the sun!” I whispered, trying not to distract Rachel.

  “Well, I’ll be prepped for surgery. Where the hell did the time go?” he answered as quietly.

  I replayed the day in my mind, oddly disturbed. The three of us had adjourned to my bedroom just after noon; I’d noted the time. Flatter myself and assume the sex had lasted half an hour; add an hour for chatter, half an hour for Snaker and me to argue about stove lore. It should be two o’clock—three at the outside. But the sun said it was five or later.

  To city folk, this may seem trivial. But if you’ve ever lived without electricity, you know how you get pretty good at keeping track of how much working light is left, just like you get good at keeping track of which stoves were fed how long ago. A malfunction in one of those internal clocks can be serious business. (It’s ironic to recall that when I first came to the Mountain, I thought country folk were less time-bound than city folk because they seldom checked a wristwatch or clock before doing something.)