Black Alice

by Thomas M. ; Sladek Disch; Sladek Disch

  'Yes?'

  'If she loves me.'

  'Of course she does, Alice. She loves you very much. What makes you wonder about it, though?'

  'Weil, I've been home a week now and every time I go to her room she's got something else wrong with her and doesn't want to see me. The only question she had to ask about school was if I'd had the same desk she'd written her name on thirty-five years ago. When I told her all the furniture was new, she started to cry.'

  Miss Godwin bit her lower lip, then, with conscious effort, smiled. 'Do you remember last year, Alice, when we went to the zoo and I explained about all the different kinds of love in the world? How the mother-bear will cuff her children about to show the way she loves them, how the eagle's children never see their mother at all, because she's always hunting for their food and is only home at mealtimes

  'Like Daddy,' Alice interjected, smiling.

  'Some love is very loud and noisy like a cage of monkeys, and other love hides away like a crab in the sand, afraid to show itself. We can never just walk up to somebody and say— love me the way I want to be loved. We have to wait for them to do it in their own way at their own time.'

  Alice sighed. 'I suppose so ...'

  'Now, your father—he certainly pays attention to you, doesn't he?'

  'Yes, sometimes. Although it's funny about Daddy. He's very nice to me and all, but sometimes I get the impression that he doesn't know who I am. He's like one of those people at the Museum, the ones who see a statue and walk around it and finally turn and ask someone else: "What do you think it means?"'

  'And no wonder, Alice! It's been nine long months since he's had a good look at you. You're inches taller and kilowatts brighter, and you must seem like an entirely new girl to him. You do to me.'

  'Really? I mean, do you really think I've improved?''

  'Now, that's fishing. You know the rule about fishing for compliments. Tell me the capital of Arizona.'

  Alice closed her eyes and tried to remember the pictures she'd made up to make it easier to remember that one by. Ariz were the first four letters of Arizona, which was almost the same as arising. And who was the bird La Fontaine had mentioned? The bird that arose out of his own ashes every thousand years?

  'Phenix!'Alice proclaimed triumphantly. The capital of Arizona is Phenix!'

  'And Arkansas?' 'Little Rock.'

  And Geography was the capital of Dullness. If only there were some way to make it really interesting, the. way math and science were interesting. Bored but not unhappily (because it was nice after all, to be home, with intelligent people to talk to), she recited state capitals and stared at her arms, first one way and then another, to see if she'd started to tan. No, it was hopeless. She was still as pale as ...

  A white rose.

  Across from Alice, putting her pallor to shame. Miss Godwin was a veritable festival of colours in her orchid-and-green floral-print, Speckles of sunshine filtering through the willow branches brought out bright tints of copper in the dark skin of her face and arms, and behind her a border of young marigolds echoed the same ruddy tone.

  A few yards up the garden path stood the house itself—-Alice's house. A simple white wood box of two and a half stories, it had a quiet middle-of-the middle-class air about it. The Raleigh house and the others spaced out along Gwynn River Falls Drive had known a brief moment of glory half a century before when the patrician element of Baltimore had made their country homes there, but now the suburbs were encroaching, the patricians had decayed or moved out, the fabulous gardens were being divided into lots, and the carriage houses were being rented as homes.

  Just a few feet on the other side of the Drive was Gwynn River Falls, now little more than a marsh, due to the unrelenting dryness of recent years. It was June, but the screen of willows along the shore had a Septemberish look, and the sweet corn in the fields on the other side of the river was scant and unpromising. At the further end of this field a car had stopped on the dusty county road. The man in the driver's seat was looking across the river at the houses along Gwynn Falls River Drive through high-powered Japanese binoculars.

  'It's too open,' he said to his companion, a tall Negro youth masked in sunglasses. 'And there's too much traffic on the highway.'

  'Ain't that what I said all along?' the Negro commented.

  'Well, it wasn't my idea either, you know.' The man in the driver's seat lowered his binoculars to reveal eyes as vividly green as the leaves of the cornplants.

  'Don't sweat it,' said the Negro. 'Let's split.'

  Jason Duquesne was behind the library curtains watching the cars go by on Boston Street and trying to ignore the monumental awfulness of the development just across the street. A copper-coloured Buick stopped for the signal, and only a few cars behind it was Miss Godwin's Saab. Jason waved out of the open window, and Alice threw him a kiss.

  When the butler entered the library to announce their visit. Jason was decorously installed at his desk, pretending to read Miss Godwin's twenty-four-page report.

  'Show Miss Godwin into the library, and tell my niece that we'll join her in the parlour in just a while. Oh—and James...?'

  'Sir?'

  'Tell my niece that a certain book with a peppermint drop on it may be of interest to her in the meantime.'

  Miss Godwin was wearing a fluffy pink dress, a wide-brimmed pink hat, and an unconvincing, but still sweet, pink smile. Jason had never been able to put her at her ease when they were alone together, although when Alice was with them all her constraint disappeared. As though the woman were only comfortable with children.

  It had been just the opposite with Mrs. Buckler, Alice's governess of two years before. Jason had got on splendid with her. They had discussed Alice's progress in her studies, her health, her character, and Mrs. Buckler had seemed to be the most sensible, refined, and conscientious of women. The old hypocrite had taken Jason in for almost a year, and the consequences had been disastrous. When Mrs. Buckler had not been entirely indifferent to her eight-year-old charge, she had been nasty, devising subtle cruelties that would make Alice appear to be in the wrong. The girl had retreated more and more into a private world of pretence and fantasy to escape the treacheries of her governess—a retreat that would inevitably have led to out-and-out psychosis, if it had not been for Jason's tardy awakening to his niece's condition and Mrs. Buckler's true character. He could still remember that Christmas morning two years ago when he had paid a surprise visit to the Raleigh home and found Alice sitting alone beneath the gigantic, tinsel-decked evergreen and 'giving away' all her gifts to Dinah, who would, ungratefully, break them up or tear them to pieces. The psychiatrist in New York who'd examined her had said it was a very close thing, a matter of only months perhaps. How, Jason had always wondered, could her parents have seen her playing and talking with 'Dinah' every day and never suspected?

  Yes, all things considered, Miss Godwin was an improvement. If only she had been a little less ... Negro-like ... Jason would have been more comfortable with her, but he hadn't been able to bring up the subject with Dr. Wirth at the clinic in New York, and it had not seemed to make any difference to Alice, who was used to dealing with Negroes on terms of equality, since Dinah, when she had not been simply a cat, had been a coloured girl. So, despite a certain residual uneasiness, Jason could not help but be grateful to the Negress for what she'd done.

  'Are you feeling well, Mr. Duquesne?'

  'Oh dear, have I been sitting here woolgathering? Excuse me. Yes, thank you, I'm quite fine, though I may add that from a meteorological point-of-view, there may be general cause for anxietal behaviour, eh? Due to the inspissation of the liquid element. Wouldn't you say so?'

  'I beg your pardon?' The fashion-show smile was definitely slipping away.

  'I was just trying to demonstrate, Miss Godwin, the way in which language sometimes interferes with the normal processes of communication. I refer especially to this latest, and least comprehensible, report on my niece's condition. Twenty-four
pages written in the obscurest dialect of Sociology.' Jason flicked through the report. 'What am I to make of 'approach to group-response orientation"? Or—and this is my favourite— "redirection of sublimed and non-sublimed anxietal behaviour"? I am told you understand your work, Miss Godwin, but I assure you no one else ever will at this rate. You make the cure sound worse than the disease. A machine would not describe another machine so coldly as you describe Alice in these pages.'

  'Mister Duquesne!'

  'Oh, now I've done it. Forgive me. I don't mean to be curmudgeonly, but I've been sitting here all afternoon inventing bon mots. But if you would just take back this report and translate it into English for me, I'd be grateful. You see, I understand that "verbal behaviour" means speech; and I think "affective projection" is daydreaming, but for most of the rest of it I'm really at a loss. A single page of conclusions is enough, just something to let me know if she's better, and what danger there is of her falling back into the unfortunate condition from which you've rescued her. I give you credit for that, Miss Godwin, but when you write your reports, just tell in an old-fashioned way whether Alice is a good girl and whether she will grow up to be worthy of her fortune and her name.'

  'You will have such a report tomorrow, sir. In the meantime, let me assure you that Alice is much better. St. Arnobia's has done her a world of good. Only the most exceptional and unlikely circumstances could precipitate a return to ... her former condition. I think Alice is strong enough at this point to stand up to even another Mrs. Buckler, though God forbid she should have to. And I had thought, sir, that I'd said as much in Section Eight, the summary.'

  Jason cradled his forehead in his fingers, avoiding the governess' eyes. 'Excuse me, Miss Godwin, I've not only been unfair to you, but dishonest as well. No doubt you've seen through me all this while. It wasn't your report that upset me; it was something else entirely. Perhaps you're a good enough psychologist—or fortune-teller—to be able to tell me what that was, eh?' Jason smiled a crooked, self-mocking smile.

  'Perhaps I can. Would it be that you've had another fight with Alice's father?'

  'Bravo! Yes, he's been around trying to weasel more money out of the trust. The way those two vultures circle around that child's inheritance! I used not to worry about it so much, but since this whole Buckler affair, I'm afraid that their attitude will poison her character, drive her back into the old fantasies.'

  Then let me assure you, Mr. Duquesne, that it simply isn't the case. Alice has—what shall I say that isn't jargon?— adjusted beautifully. I've been particularly attentive of her relationship with her parents, and though it is not ideal, Alice's character will probably be strengthened by it in the long run. She's stopped living in daydreams and started living in the world of ideas. She is learning things at an incredible pace and has a logical sense that astounds me more each day, even knowing her I.Q. I don't know if I should say this—but she may already be brighter than her parents.'

  'Ha! That's no very great distinction, is it? I've never yet lost an argument to Roderick—and as for my sister Delphinia ... well, we always used to be charitable and say she inherited the family looks. As for Alice ...'

  'As for Alice,' Miss Godwin broke in, T suspect she's growing terribly impatient with us. Why discuss my report, when the subject of it—or' (with an arch smile) 'should I say Exhibit A?—is waiting for us in the next room?'

  'All right,' Jason agreed, chuckling, 'let's examine the evidence.' He walked behind her to the parlour, where James was about to lay the tea.

  'Dear, dear Uncle Jason,' Alice trilled, coming forward exactly as Miss Boyd had coached her to, with her right hand slightly lifted for her uncle to press to his lips. 'How delightful to see you again!' But at the last moment all her etiquette deserted her, and she found herself disgracefully clinging to the old man's neck and kissing his face all over. Then, a moment later, she was as calm as one of the Fates, sitting beside Jason on the settee.

  'You've grown, my dear, I'm delighted to say. I have to stoop far less this year to kiss you. But you still look exactly like Alice in Wonderland.'

  And indeed, she might have stepped right out of a Tenniel illustration with her navy-blue dress and contrasting apron, her knee-length stockings and patent-leather pumps. A clear case of Nature imitating Art.

  I must thank you, Uncle, for letting me look at your book.' She nodded at a battered-up edition of Just-So Stories on the (able before them. 'As you know, Kipling is one of my favourite authors. And it seems to be very old.'

  'It's a first edition, Alice, and it's yours. That is, if you'll pour the tea and do a good job of it.'

  'A first edition! Of Kipling! Really? Oh, Uncle!'

  After she had gathered her etiquette about her again and tea was over, Uncle Jason paid Alice the supreme compliment of challenging her to a game of chess. He offered her a two-rook handicap, which she loftily refused.

  'Excuse us, Miss Godwin,' Jason explained, 'but it's been nine months since I've had a go at this young lady, and I suspect she's been polishing up her endgame in the meanwhile.' Miss Godwin appeared to be quite content with her copy of Realites.

  For the sake of probability, Jason usually trounced Alice, but today Alice played particularly well. She took his queen, without his quite intending she should, and later, when she made her most masterly move (and he could tell from the glint in her eye that she knew it was brilliant) he threw up his hands in mock despair. 'The Defence concedes.'

  Chapter 4

  She was still not tanned! Three weeks of holiday were gone, and she was not a bit darker than the day she'd left St. Arnobia's. The problem was that she didn't have the patience to lie around on a beach doing nothing. Maybe only very dull people could get suntans.

  'Miss Godwin, why can't I get brown?'

  'Hm? Oh, yes.' The governess was writing in her black leather notebook, the cup of coffee on the breakfast-nook table before her forgotten and cold. Alice noticed that her governess had put just enough cream in her coffee to make it the same shade as her skin.

  'Do you think I could get brown, if I drank coffee instead of milk?'

  'What? No, the food we eat has little to do with the colour we are.'

  Alice giggled. 'Oh, Miss Godwin, you haven't been listening to me at all, or you'd know I was teasing. Are you writing another report on me? You'll have to give me a very high score for stupidity for asking that last question.'

  Miss Godwin continued to make out the report, imper-turbed. Alice's father came into the breakfast nook wearing a blue seersucker suit from a few years ago that had become a little tight about the waist. His face was puffy from lack of sleep, and he'd forgotten to put on a tie.

  Miss Godwin and Alice greeted him, and he replied with a growl from deep in his chest. Emmie brought him a carafe of hot coffee and poured the first cup. After moistening his lips, he could speak. 'God—that sun. Turn it off!'

  Miss Godwin reached over to the cord and twitched the Venetian blinds shut. Roderick essayed a smile and felt tentatively to see if his toupee was in place. It was. His smile became more assured.

  'My, you're up early today, Daddy,' Alice observed over the edge of her milk glass. This was the first time all summer that they'd had breakfast together.

  He nodded, sipping at the hot coffee, then asked, still gruffly: 'Why are you so dressed up? Is this a holiday, or someone's birthday?'

  Alice was delighted that he'd noticed her dress. It was cut

  exactly like Miss Godwin's, with a full skirt flaring out from the hips, except that Alice's was turquoise while Miss Godwin's was canary yellow. Miss Godwin also lacked a puffy bow on her derriere. Alice's loose blonde curls were caught up in a ponytail by a smaller bow of the same material. 'Do you like it? It's for art class, though I do have to wear a smock over it when I paint. I always have art class on Saturday at the Museum.' 'Oh, really?'

  When it appeared that her father had nothing further to say, she re-opened the book beside her breakfast plate and began readin
g to herself. It was bad manners to read at the table, but both Miss Godwin and her father seemed too preoccupied with their own bad manners to care. After a few moments she giggled.

  'A funny story?' Roderick asked, in a manful effort to appear human, despite the hour.

  'Sort of, Daddy. It's a math problem.'

  'Math? Oh—arithmetic, you mean. Yes, I remember the stories in my old arithmetic book. A giving part of his apples to B, and B never having as many as C, and so on. Very distressing situations. They never amused me'

  'We have a new way of teaching math now, Mr. Raleigh,' Miss Godwin said. 'The children are taught logical constructs instead of the old, tedious number-juggling. The new math teaches them to think and, just incidentally, it's much livelier. For teachers as well, I might add.'

  'Is that so?' Though Roderick was clearly more interested in his coffee than in the new mathematics, Alice began talking in a rush to explain it all to him, ignoring her governess's warning glances.

  'Oh yes, Daddy, it's fascinating. Look at this problem I was just reading—it's about parents and their children,' She read aloud from the book: 'There are more adults than boys, more boys than girls, more girls than families. If no family has less than three children, how few families are there be?'

  His weary lids lifted to show more of the reddened whites of his eyes. 'Is that what you're studying?'

  'Mm-hmm. How many, Daddy? Do you know the answer? Think!'

  He rubbed his hand over his face and scratched his moustache, mumbling about parents and their children. 'Shall I read the problem again, or do you give up?'

  'Now now, babydoll. Your Daddy's a very tired man this morning, and he's a little slow on his mental feet.'

  'Drink your milk, mademoiselle,' Miss Godwin said brusquely. 'You have to be at art class by nine.'

  Alice gulped down her milk in one long swallow, then began explaining the problem while there was still time. 'Daddy, listen—there are more adults than boys, and more boys...'