Up the Walls of the World

by James Tiptree

  The morning’s results are very bad.

  As he is debating lunch, or more accurately ritalin-and-lunch, his phone rings.

  “What? I can’t hear you.”

  An almost unrecognizable weak whisper.

  “Miss Omali? What’s wrong?”

  “I didn’t get … prescriptions … filled yet. I … need them.”

  “The headache? When did it return?”

  “Last … night.”

  “Have you taken anything for it?”

  “Seconal … two … no good. Vomiting so …”

  “No, Seconal won’t help. Don’t take anything else. I’ll get something to you at once. Give me your address.” As soon as he says it he’s horrified. She may live fifty miles away, maybe in some dangerous black place no one will deliver to.

  The whisper is directing him to the Woodland City complex right on the Beltway.

  He has checked his pocket kit and is down in the parking garage before he realizes he intends to bring it to her himself.

  It takes two drugstores to get what he wants, drugs which he no longer dares to keep on hand. Woodland City turns out to be about as exotic as the Congressional Library. Twenty-five minutes from her call he is striding down a long motel-elegant corridor, looking for Number 721. The doors are wood-painted steel.

  At his second knock 721 opens a crack and stops with a chain-rattle.

  “Miss Omali? It’s Doctor Dann.”

  A thin black hand comes out the crack, pale palm up.

  “… Thank you.”

  “Won’t you let me in, please?”

  “… No.” The hand remains, trembling faintly. He can hear her breathe.

  Suspicion flares in him. What’s in there? Is she alone? Is this some ploy, is he a fool? The hand waits. He hears a retching catch in her breath. Maybe she’s afraid to let a strange man in.

  “Miss Omali, I’m a doctor. I have here a controlled narcotic. I cannot and will not hand it over like this. If you’re, ah, worried, I’ll be gald to wait while you telephone a friend to come.”

  Oh God, he thinks, what if it’s a man friend? But suddenly a woman is right behind him, calling, “Marge?”

  It’s the golden-skinned woman from the car, grocery bags in her arms, staring at him suspiciously under a wild afro.

  “Marge,” she calls again. “I’m back. What’s going on?”

  Vague sound from behind the door—and then it slams, the chain rattles, and the door swings wide open. Inside is an empty confusion of blowing white gauzy stuff. An inner door closes.

  The woman walks past him into the windy room, looking at him hostilely. Dann looks back, hoping that his grey hair, the plain unfashionable grey suit on his tall frame, will identify him as harmless. The June wind is blowing long white and grey curtains into the room like cloudy flames. Dann explains himself. “I gather you’re a friend of hers?”

  “Yes. Where’s the medicine?”

  Dann brings out the packet, stands there holding it while a toilet flushes offstage. Then the inner door opens and she is holding the door-jamb, peering at him with a wet white towel held to her forehead.

  Her long robe is plain grey silk, crumpled and sweat-stained. What he can see of her face is barely recognizable, grey and wizened with pain. The lower lip is twisted down, the beautiful eyelids are squeezed to slits. The towel’s water runs down her neck unheeded. She is holding herself like one enduring a beating; it hurts him to look. He rips open the packet.

  “This is in suppository form so you won’t lose it by vomiting. You know how to use them?”

  “Yes.”

  “Take two. This one is to stop the pain and this one will control the nausea.”

  She clasps them in a grey shaking palm. “How … long?”

  “About thirty minutes, you’ll start to feel relief.” As detachedly as he can, he adds, “Try to place them far up so the spasms won’t dislodge it.”

  She vanishes, leaving the door ajar. Through it he can see another white-grey room. Her bedroom. Disregarding her friend’s hard stare he walks in. More white gauzy stuff but the windows are closed. Plain white sheets, twisted and sodden. A white basin among the wet pillows. On the bedstand is the Seconal bottle bright red amid the whiteness. He picks it up. Nearly full and the date over a year old. Okay. He opens the night-table drawer, finds nothing more.

  The woman has followed him in and is straightening the bedclothes, watching him mockingly.

  “You finished?”

  “Yes.” He walks back to the windy living room. “I’m going to wait until the medication takes effect.” In fact he has had no such ridiculous intention. He sits down firmly in a white tweed chair. “What I’ve given Miss Omali is quite strong. I want to be sure she’s all right. She appears to be alone here.”

  The woman smiles at last, appearing instantly quite different.

  “Oh, I understand.” The tone is sarcastic but friendlier. She puts the bags down and closes the windows: the drapes fall limp. As she puts milk away in a corner icebox Dann notices that she is conventionally pretty, despite a minor dermatitis. “Yeah, Marge is too alone.”

  The bathroom door opens, a voice whispers, “Samantha?”

  “Get her to lie down flat,” Dann says.

  The woman Samantha goes in, closing the door. Dann sits stiffly in the white chair, remembering how he had once sat in the apartment of a minor Asian dictator during his military service. The man had been troubled by agonizing hemorrhoids and his aides had been very trigger-happy. Dann had never heard of any of them again.

  Samantha comes back through picking up her groceries. “I live down the hall. How come you make house calls?”

  “I was just leaving for the day. We try to keep the staff-healthy.”

  She seems to get some message, looks at him more cordially.

  “I’m glad somebody cares. I’ll be back later,” she says in final warning and goes out.

  Left alone in the now-quiet room, Dann looks about. It’s sparely elegant, shades of white, severe fabrics; it would have been chillingly bleak if it had not been hers. None of the cryptic African art he had expected. He knows he is being a fool, the woman is perfectly healthy aside from more dehydration. Will he be missed at the office? Friday, not much on. No matter. No matter, too, that he has missed his, ah, lunch…. A fool.

  He picks up a grey periodical, The Journal of Applied Computer Science, and sits trying to puzzle out what an algorithm is.

  When he hears retching from the bedroom he taps and goes in. She is lying hooped around the basin like a sick crane, producing nothing but phlegm. Her eyes meet his, sick and defiant. He makes an effort to project his good grey doctor image. It is extraordinary to see her lying down. In her bed.

  Afterwards he takes the basin from her, rinses it and brings it back, fills the water glass on her bedstand.

  “Try to drink some even if it doesn’t stay down.”

  Her chin makes a regal, uncaring gesture; she sinks back onto the wet pillows. He goes out to wait again. He is being an incredible jackass, a lunatic. He doesn’t care. He picks up a paperback at random. The Sufi, by one Idries Shaw. He puts it down, unable to care for ancient wisdom. The clean, spartan room awakens some hurt in him. A poem by someone—Aiken? The scene was pain and nothing but pain. What else, when chaos turns all forces inwards to shape a single leaf?

  He doesn’t know about the leaf, only about the pain. The carefully neutral colors she lives in, the bare forms, her controlled quietness, all speak to him of one who fears to awake uncontrollable pain. It doesn’t occur to him that anyone could miss this. He is a crazy, aging man who has missed his lunch.

  When he looks in on her again there is a wondrous change. Her face is smoothing out, beauty flowing back. Chemical miracle. The eyelids are still clenched, but she exudes awareness. Daringly he sits on the plain bedroom chair to watch. She doesn’t protest.

  When her throat moves he holds a fresh glass of water to her.

  “Try.�
��

  She takes it, her hooded eyes studying him from remote lands. The water stays down. He is absurdly happy. How long since he has had a bed patient? How long since he has sat by a woman’s bed. Don’t ask. Never ask…. For the first time in how long he feels no need of his own chemical miracle. A sensation he identifies fearfully as life is creeping into him. It doesn’t hurt yet. Don’t trust it. Don’t think about it, it will go away. Unreality, that’s the key, as Noah would say.

  His gaze has been resting on her half-shut eyes, a quiet, impersonal communion. Quite suddenly the last wrinkles smooth out, the dark gaze opens wide. She takes a deep breath, relaxing, smiling in wonder. He smiles back. To his pleasure, her eyes look into his. An instant of simple joy.

  “It’s really gone.” She moves her head experimentally, sighs, licks her dry lips, still gazing at him like a child. Her hand gropes out for the water glass. He sees he has stupidly put it too far away, and moves to hand it to her.

  As his hand nears it he freezes.

  The water glass is moving. In an instant it slides nearly six inches toward her across the table top.

  His hand jerks high away from the uncanny thing, he makes a sound. The glass stops, is nothing but an ordinary water glass again.

  He stands staring down at it, frightened to death. So this is how it starts—Oh Christ, Oh Christ. One too many chemicals in my abused cortex. Slowly he picks up the glass and gives it to her.

  As she drinks, a wild idea occurs to his terrified mind. Impossible, of course, but he can’t help asking.

  “You aren’t, ah, are you one of Doctor Catledge’s subjects, too?”

  “No!”

  Harsh, disdainful negative; all rapport fled. Of course she’s not, of course people can’t move things. The only thing that moved was a potential difference across a deranged synapse in his own brain. But it was so real, so mundane. A glass simply sliding. It will happen again. How long will he be able to control it?

  He stares into his brain-damaged future hearing her say coldly, “I don’t know what you mean.” Her eyes are bright with opiate animation. “I don’t want anything to do with that. Nothing at all. Do you understand?”

  The extraordinary anger of her voice penetrates his fright. Did something really happen, something more than himself? She’s afraid. Of what?

  “Oh, God damn, God damn it,” she whispers, fumbling for the basin. The water comes back up.

  Dann takes it away, his mind whirling with impossibilities. When he brings it back he says carefully, “Miss Omali. Please. I don’t know how to say this. I thought I saw—something move. I have reason to be concerned about myself. My, well, my sanity. Forgive me, I know how this sounds. But by any chance did you see—did you see it too?”

  “No. You must be crazy. I don’t know what you mean.” She turns her head away, eyes closed. Her lips are trembling very slightly.

  He sits down, weak with the excitement swelling in his chest. She knows. Something really happened. It wasn’t me. Oh, God, oh God, it wasn’t me. But how? What?

  The long frail body lies silent under the sheet, the pure profile still but for that imperceptible tension-tremor. She can do something, he thinks. She moved that glass. What did Noah call it, telekinesis? Doesn’t exist, except for Poltergeist nonsense in disturbed children. Statistical ambiguities with dice. Nothing like this, a glass of water sliding. Miss Omali, magician. The anger, the denial have convinced him entirely. She wants to hide it, not to be a “subject.” He understands that entirely, too.

  “I won’t tell,” he says gently. “I didn’t see a thing.”

  Her face snaps around to him, closed and haughty.

  “You’re out of your mind. You can go now, I’m quite all right. Thanks for the stuff.”

  The rebuff hurts him more than he thought possible. Foolish Doctor Dann. Sighing, he gets up and collects his kit. The lovely moment is gone for good. Better so; what business has he with joy?

  “Remember to keep drinking all the liquids you can. I’ll have your lab report Tuesday.”

  Cold nod.

  As he turns to go the phone rings. Oddly, she doesn’t seem to have a bedroom extension.

  “Shall I get it?”

  Another nod. When he picks it up a man’s voice says loudly, “Omali? Why weren’t you in the office today?”

  It’s Kendall Kirk.

  Dismayed, Dann stares at her through the doorway, saying, “Kirk? Kirk? This is Doctor Dann speaking. Do you have a message for Miss Omali?”

  She shows no reaction, certainly no pleasure.

  “What?” Kirk says thickly. He sounds a trifle drunk. “Who’re you? Where’s Omali?”

  “It’s Doctor Dann from your office, Kirk. Miss Omali has just had an, ah, neurovascular attack. I was called in.”

  The dark profile on the pillows seems to relax slightly. Is he handling this right?

  “Oh, is she sick?”

  “Yes. She’s under medication, she can’t get up.”

  “Well, when’s she coming in? The computer’s fucked up.”

  “Monday at the earliest, depending on whether or not she’s fit. We’re waiting for the lab report Tuesday.”

  “Oh. Well, tell her there’s a wad of stuff to run.”

  “You can tell her when you see her. She’s not well enough now.”

  “Oh. You coming back?”

  “Probably not, Kirk. I have an outside patient to see.” Kirk hangs up.

  Reluctantly, Dann turns to go. “Goodbye again. Please call me if you need me, I’m leaving my number here.”

  “Goodbye.”

  Just as he’s closing the door he hears her call huskily, “Wait.”

  The speed with which he’s back by her bedside appalls him. She studies him, frowning up from under her hand.

  “Oh hell. I wish I could tell about people.”

  “We all wish that.” Tentatively he smiles.

  Unsmiling, she finally says in a very low voice, “You’re not crazy. Don’t tell anyone or I’ll magic you.”

  Too astounded to grasp anything, Dann says “I won’t. I promise.” And sits down weak-legged.

  “It’s your business, isn’t it, to tell Doctor Catledge?”

  “No. Friend Noah’s project means nothing to me. In fact, I don’t believe in it—that is, I didn’t.”

  She gazes at him distrustfully, hopefully, the great brown eyes inhumanly beautiful.

  “I won’t ever do anything you don’t want me to—ever,” he says like a schoolboy. It’s true.

  She smiles slightly. The eyes change, she leans back. “Thank you.”

  They are allies. But he knows even now that he is not allying himself with anything like joy.

  “Your friend Samantha said she’d stop by. Will she make you some dinner?”

  “She’s so good to me. With five kids, too.” The drug is animating her face, making her talkative. He should go. Instead, he brings another glass of water and hands it to her, unaware that his face speaks tenderness.

  “I believe I’ve seen her drive you home.”

  She nods, holding the glass in incredibly delicate long dark fingers. “She works in the photo lab on the third floor. She’s been a good friend to me … but we don’t have much in common. She’s a woman.”

  Pain is in the room again. To divert her he asks the first idiot thing in his head.

  “You prefer men friends?”

  “No.”

  He chuckles, father to child. “Well, that doesn’t leave much, does it? Whom do you have something in common with, if I might ask?”

  “Computers,” she says unexpectedly, and actually laughs aloud. The sound is coldly merry.

  “I don’t know much about computers. What are they like, as friends?”

  She chuckles again, not so harshly.

  “They’re cool.”

  She means it, he realizes. Not slang—cool. Cold, lifeless, not capable of causing pain. How well he knows it.

  “Have you always liked�
��?” He stops with his mouth open. He has no telepathic abilities, none whatever, but the pain in the room would fell an ox. Carefully, quietly, he says to his hurt child, “I like cool things too. I have some different ones.”

  Silence, pain controlled to stillness. He can’t bear it.

  “Maybe someday you’d like to see some of mine,” he plunges on.

  “You could probably see them from the roof here, if this place has a sun deck. We could take Samantha too.”

  The distraction works. “What do you mean?”

  “Stars. The stars.” He smiles. He has done more smiling in the past ten minutes than in years. Insane. Delighted, he sees her diverted, puzzled face open. Friendship trembles between them.

  “Now you have to rest. The drugs are making you feel energetic but you’ll feel sleepy soon. Sleep. If you still have any pain in four hours, take one more set of these. If it doesn’t go then, call me. No matter what time.”

  “You’re going to see your outside patient,” she says, dreamily now.

  “There isn’t any outside patient.” He smiles. “I don’t see anyone anymore.”

  He closes her door very gently, sealing away her beauty, his moment of life. Out, back to his unreal world. Samantha passes him in the hall.

  She does not call him that night. She does not call all the dreary weekend. Of course not, he tells himself. Migraines pass.

  Monday morning be finds that she has returned to work. The computer room stays shut. Everything is back to normal. At lunchtime he experiments with a new form of hydromorphone, and calls the lab to expedite her blood analysis report. It’s ready; all factors normal there too.

  Toward closing time he catches one glimpse of her over Noah Catledge’s shoulder. Does something silent fly between them? He can’t tell.