American Science Fiction

by Gary K. Wolfe

  “Do you want something?” Her voice, hoarse, was an unmistakable echo down the corridors of memory.

  I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. My mouth worked, I know, and I struggled to speak to her, to get something out, because in that moment I could see recognition in her eyes. This was not at all the way I wanted her to see me. Not standing there in front of her, dumbly, unable to make myself understood. But my tongue kept getting in the way, like a huge obstruction, and my mouth was dry.

  Finally, something came out. Not what I had intended (I had planned something soothing and encouraging, to take control of the situation and wipe out all the past and pain with a few words) but all that came out of my cracked throat was: “Maaa . . .”

  With all the things I had learned—in all the languages I had mastered—all I could say to her, standing on the porch staring at me, was, “Maaaa.” Like a dry-mouthed lamb at the udder.

  She wiped her forehead with the back of her arm and frowned at me, as if she could not see me clearly. I stepped forward, past the gate to the walk, and then toward the steps. She drew back.

  At first, I wasn’t sure whether or not she really recognized me, but then she gasped: “Charlie! . . .” She didn’t scream it or whisper it. She just gasped it as one might do coming out of a dream.

  “Ma . . .” I started up the steps. “It’s me . . .”

  My movement startled her, and she stepped backwards, kicking over the bucket of soapy water, and the dirty suds rushed down the steps. “What are you doing here?”

  “I just wanted to see you . . . talk to you . . .”

  Because my tongue kept getting in my way, my voice came out of my throat differently, with a thick whining tone, as I might have spoken a long time ago. “Don’t go away,” I begged. “Don’t run away from me.”

  But she had gone inside the vestibule and locked the door. A moment later I could see her peering at me from behind the sheer white curtain of the door window, her eyes terrified. Behind the window her lips moved soundlessly. “Go away! Leave me alone!”

  Why? Who was she to deny me this way? By what right did she turn away from me?

  “Let me in! I want to talk to you! Let me in!” I banged on the door against the glass so hard it cracked, and the crack spread a web that caught my skin for a moment and held it fast. She must have thought I was out of my mind and had come to harm her. She let go of the outer door and fled down the hallway that led into the apartment.

  I pushed again. The hook gave way and, unprepared for the sudden yielding, I fell into the vestibule, off balance. My hand was bleeding from the glass I had broken, and not knowing what else to do, I put my hand into my pocket to prevent the blood from staining her freshly scrubbed linoleum.

  I started in, past the stairs I had seen so often in my nightmares. I had often been pursued up that long, narrow staircase by demons who grabbed at my legs and pulled me down into the cellar below, while I tried to scream without voice, strangling on my tongue and gagging in silence. Like the silent boys at Warren.

  The people who lived on the second floor—our landlord and landlady, the Meyers—had always been kind to me. They gave me sweets and let me come to sit in their kitchen and play with their dog. I wanted to see them, but without being told I knew they were gone and dead and that strangers lived upstairs. That path was now closed to me forever.

  At the end of the hallway, the door through which Rose had fled was locked, and for a moment I stood—undecided.

  “Open the door.”

  The answer was the high-pitched yapping of a small dog. It took me by surprise.

  “All right,” I said. “I don’t intend to hurt you or anything, but I’ve come a long way, and I’m not leaving without talking to you. If you don’t open the door, I’m going to break it down.”

  I heard her saying: “Shhhh, Nappie . . . Here, into the bedroom you go.” A moment later I heard the click of the lock. The door opened and she stood there staring at me.

  “Ma,” I whispered, “I’m not going to do anything. I just want to talk to you. You’ve got to understand, I’m not the same as I was. I’ve changed. I’m normal now. Don’t you understand? I’m not retarded any more. I’m not a moron. I’m just like anyone else. I’m normal—just like you and Matt and Norma.”

  I tried to keep talking, babbling so she wouldn’t close the door. I tried to tell her the whole thing, all at once. “They changed me, performed an operation on me and made me different, the way you always wanted me to be. Didn’t you read about it in the newspapers? A new scientific experiment that changes your capacity for intelligence, and I’m the first one they tried it on. Can’t you understand? Why are you looking at me that way? I’m smart now, smarter than Norma, or Uncle Herman, or Matt. I know things even college professors don’t know. Talk to me! You can be proud of me now and tell all the neighbors. You don’t have to hide me in the cellar when company comes. Just talk to me. Tell me about things, the way it was when I was a little boy, that’s all I want. I won’t hurt you. I don’t hate you. But I’ve got to know about myself, to understand myself before it’s too late. Don’t you see, I can’t be a complete person unless I can understand myself, and you’re the only one in the world who can help me now. Let me come in and sit down for a little while.”

  It was the way I spoke rather than what I said that hypnotized her. She stood there in the doorway and stared at me. Without thinking, I pulled my bloody hand out of my pocket and clenched it in my pleading. When she saw it her expression softened.

  “You hurt yourself . . .” She didn’t necessarily feel sorry for me. It was the sort of thing she might have felt for a dog that had torn its paw, or a cat that had been gashed in a fight. It wasn’t because I was her Charlie, but in spite of it.

  “Come in and wash it. I’ve got some bandage and iodine.”

  I followed her to the cracked sink with the corrugated drainboard at which she had so often washed my face and hands after I came in from the back yard, or when I was ready to eat or go to sleep. She watched me roll up my sleeves. “You shouldn’t have broke the window. The landlord’s gonna be sore, and I don’t have enough money to pay for it.” Then, as if impatient with the way I was doing it, she took the soap from me and washed my hand. As she did it, she concentrated so hard that I kept silent, afraid of breaking the spell. Occasionally she clucked her tongue, or sighed, “Charlie, Charlie, always getting yourself into a mess. When are you going to learn to take care of yourself?” She was back twenty-five years earlier when I was her little Charlie and she was willing to fight for my place in the world.

  When the blood was washed off and she had dried my hands with paper toweling, she looked up into my face and her eyes went round with fright. “Oh, my God!” she gasped, and backed away.

  I started talking again, softly, persuasively to convince her that nothing was wrong and I meant no harm. But as I spoke I could tell her mind was wandering. She looked around vaguely, put her hand to her mouth and groaned as she looked at me again. “The house is such a mess,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting company. Look at those windows, and that woodwork over there.”

  “That’s all right, Ma. Don’t worry about it.”

  “I’ve got to wax those floors again. It’s got to be clean.” She noticed some fingermarks on the door and taking up her washrag she scrubbed them away. When she looked up and saw me watching her, she frowned. “Have you come about the electric bill?”

  Before I could say no, she wagged her finger, scolding, “I intend to send a check out the first of the month, but my husband is out of town on business. I told them all they don’t have to worry about the money, because my daughter gets paid this week, and we’ll be able to take care of all our bills. So there’s no need bothering me for money.”

  “Is she your only child? Don’t you have any other children?”

  She started, and then her eyes looked far
away. “I had a boy. So brilliant that all the other mothers were jealous of him. And they put the evil eye on him. They called it the I.Q. but it was the evil-I.Q. He would have been a great man, if not for that. He was really very bright—exceptional, they said. He could have been a genius . . .”

  She picked up a scrub brush. “Excuse me now. I’ve got to get things ready. My daughter has a young man coming for dinner, and I’ve got to get this place clean.” She got down on her knees and started to scrub the already shining floor. She didn’t look up again.

  She was muttering to herself now, and I sat down at the kitchen table. I would wait until she came out of it, until she recognized me and understood who I was. I couldn’t leave until she knew that I was her Charlie. Somebody had to understand.

  She had started humming sadly to herself, but she stopped, her rag poised midway between the bucket and the floor, as if suddenly aware of my presence behind her.

  She turned, her face tired and her eyes glistening, and cocked her head. “How could it be? I don’t understand. They told me you could never be changed.”

  “They performed an operation on me, and that changed me. I’m famous now. They’ve heard of me all over the world. I’m intelligent now, Mom. I can read and write, and I can—”

  “Thank God,” she whispered. “My prayers—all these years I thought He didn’t hear me, but He was listening all the time, just waiting His own good time to do His will.”

  She wiped her face in her apron, and when I put my arm around her, she wept freely on my shoulder. All the pain was washed away, and I was glad I had come.

  “I’ve got to tell everyone,” she said, smiling, “all those teachers at the school. Oh, wait till you see their faces when I tell them. And the neighbors. And Uncle Herman—I’ve got to tell Uncle Herman. He’ll be so pleased. And wait until your father comes home, and your sister! Oh, she’ll be so happy to see you. You have no idea.”

  She hugged me, talking excitedly, making plans for the new life we were going to have together. I hadn’t the heart to remind her that most of my childhood teachers were gone from this school, that the neighbors had long moved away, that Uncle Herman had died many years ago, and that my father had left her. The nightmare of all those years had been pain enough. I wanted to see her smiling and know I had been the one to make her happy. For the first time in my life, I had brought a smile to her lips.

  Then after a while, she paused thoughtfully as if remembering something. I had the feeling her mind was going to wander. “No!” I shouted, startling her back to reality, “Wait, Ma! There’s something else. Something I want you to have before I go.”

  “Go? You can’t go away now.”

  “I have to go, Ma. I have things to do. But I’ll write to you, and I’ll send you money.”

  “But when will you come back?”

  “I don’t know—yet. But before I go, I want you to have this.”

  “A magazine?”

  “Not exactly. It’s a scientific report I wrote. Very technical. Look, it’s called The Algernon-Gordon Effect. Something I discovered, and it’s named partly after me. I want you to keep a copy of the report so that you can show people that your son turned out to be more than a dummy after all.”

  She took it and looked at it in awe. “It’s . . . it’s your name. I knew it would happen. I always said it would happen someday. I tried everything I could. You were too young to remember, but I tried. I told them all that you’d go to college and become a professional man and make your mark in the world. They laughed, but I told them.”

  She smiled at me through tears, and then a moment later she wasn’t looking at me any more. She picked up her rag and began to wash the woodwork around the kitchen door, humming—more happily, I thought—as if in a dream.

  The dog started barking again. The front door opened and closed and a voice called: “Okay, Nappie. Okay, it’s me.” The dog was jumping excitedly against the bedroom door.

  I was furious at being trapped here. I didn’t want to see Norma. We had nothing to say to each other, and I didn’t want my visit spoiled. There was no back door. The only way would be to climb out the window into the back yard and go over the fence. But someone might mistake me for a burglar.

  As I heard her key in the door, I whispered to my mother—I don’t know why—“Norma’s home.” I touched her arm, but she didn’t hear me. She was too busy humming to herself as she washed the woodwork.

  The door opened. Norma saw me and frowned. She didn’t recognize me at first—it was dim, the lights hadn’t been turned on. Putting down the shopping bag she was carrying, she switched on the light. “Who are you? . . .” But before I could answer, her hand went over her mouth, and she slumped back against the door.

  “Charlie!” She said it the same way my mother had, gasping. And she looked the way my mother used to look—thin, sharp features, birdlike, pretty. “Charlie! My God, what a shock! You might have gotten in touch and warned me. You should have called. I don’t know what to say . . .” She looked at my mother, sitting on the floor near the sink. “Is she all right? You didn’t shock her or anything . . .”

  “She came out of it for a while. We had a little talk.”

  “I’m glad. She doesn’t remember much these days. It’s old age—senility. Dr. Portman wants me to put her into a nursing home, but I can’t do it. I can’t stand to think of her in one of those institutions.” She opened the bedroom door to let the dog out, and when he jumped and whined joyously, she picked him up and hugged him. “I just can’t do that to my own mother.” Then she smiled at me uncertainly. “Well, what a surprise. I never dreamed. Let me look at you. I never would have recognized you. I’d have passed you by in the street. So different.” She sighed. “I’m glad to see you, Charlie.”

  “Are you? I didn’t think you’d want to see me again.”

  “Oh, Charlie!” She took my hands in hers. “Don’t say that. I am glad to see you. I’ve been expecting you. I didn’t know when, but I knew someday you’d come back. Ever since I read that you had run away in Chicago.” She pulled back to look up at me. “You don’t know how I’ve thought about you and wondered where you were and what you were doing. Until that professor came here last—when was it? last March? just seven months ago?—I had no idea you were still alive. She told me you died in Warren. I believed it all these years. When they told me you were alive and they needed you for the experiment, I didn’t know what to do. Professor . . . Nemur?—is that his name?—wouldn’t let me see you. He was afraid to upset you before the operation. But when I saw in the papers that it worked and you had become a genius—oh, my!—you don’t know what it felt like to read about that.

  “I told all the people in my office, and the girls at my bridge club. I showed them your picture in the paper, and I told them you’d be coming back here to see us one day. And you have. You really have. You didn’t forget us.”

  She hugged me again. “Oh, Charlie. Charlie . . . it’s so wonderful to find all of a sudden I’ve got a big brother. You have no idea. Sit down—let me make you something to eat. You’ve got to tell me all about it and what your plans are. I . . . I don’t know where to start asking questions. I must sound ridiculous—like a girl who has just found out her brother is a hero, or a movie star, or something.”

  I was confused. I had not expected a greeting like this from Norma. It had never occurred to me that all these years alone with my mother might change her. And yet it was inevitable. She was no longer the spoiled brat of my memories. She had grown up, had become warm and sympathetic and affectionate.

  We talked. Ironic to sit there with my sister, the two of us talking about my mother—right there in the room with us—as if she wasn’t there. Whenever Norma would refer to their life together, I’d look to see if Rose was listening, but she was deep in her own world, as if she didn’t understand our language, as if none of it concerned her any more
. She drifted around the kitchen like a ghost, picking things up, putting things away, without ever getting in the way. It was frightening.

  I watched Norma feed her dog. “So you finally got him. Nappie—short for Napoleon, isn’t it?”

  She straightened up and frowned. “How did you know?”

  I explained about my memory: the time she had brought home her test paper hoping to get the dog, and how Matt had forbidden it. As I told it, the frown became deeper.

  “I don’t remember any of it. Oh, Charlie, was I so mean to you?”

  “There’s one memory I’m curious about. I’m not really sure if it’s a memory, or a dream, or if I just made it all up. It was the last time we played together as friends. We were in the basement, and we were playing a game with the lampshades on our heads, pretending we were Chinese coolies—jumping up and down on an old mattress. You were seven or eight, I think, and I was about thirteen. And, as I recall, you bounced off the mattress and hit your head against the wall. It wasn’t very hard—just a bump—but Mom and Dad came running down because you were screaming, and you said I was trying to kill you.

  “She blamed Matt for not watching me, for leaving us alone together, and she beat me with a strap until I was nearly unconscious. Do you remember it? Did it really happen that way?”

  Norma was fascinated by my description of the memory, as if it awakened sleeping images. “It’s all so vague. You know, I thought that was my dream. I remember us wearing the lampshades, and jumping up and down on the mattresses.” She stared out of the window. “I hated you because they fussed over you all the time. They never spanked you for not doing your homework right, or for not bringing home the best marks. You skipped classes most of the time and played games, and I had to go to the hard classes in school. Oh, how I hated you. In school the other children scribbled pictures on the blackboard, a boy with a duncecap on his head, and they wrote Norma’s Brother under it. And they scribbled things on the sidewalk in the schoolyard—Moron’s Sister and Dummy Gordon Family. And then one day when I wasn’t invited to Emily Raskin’s birthday party, I knew it was because of you. And when we were playing there in the basement with those lampshades on our heads, I had to get even.” She started to cry. “So I lied and said you hurt me. Oh, Charlie, what a fool I was—what a spoiled brat. I’m so ashamed—”