Honeymoon in Hell

by Fredric Brown

  “Well over forty thousand, sir. We’ve been working at classifying them, but we’re several thousand behind.”

  “And?”

  The presidential secretary said, “From every class— ministers, truck drivers, crackpots, business leaders, everybody. Offering every theory possible—but pretty much only one conclusion. No matter who they think instigated that broadcast or why, they want to disobey its command. Yesterday, I would say that nine-tenths of our population was resigned to war; well over half thought we ought to start it first. Today—well, there’s always a lunatic fringe; about one telegram out of four hundred thinks we should go to war. The others—well, I think that today a declaration of war would cause a revolution, Mr. President.”

  “Thank you, Walter.”

  The secretary turned at the doorway. “A report from the army recruiting corps—enlistments thus far today have been fifteen—throughout the entire country. An average day for the past month, up to noon, was about eight thousand. I’ll send in your sandwich, sir.”

  “Professor Winslow, I hope you will pardon my eating this sandwich while we talk. You are, I am told, professor of semantics at New York University, and the top man in your field?”

  Professor Winslow smiled deprecatingly. “You would hardly expect me to agree to that, Mr. President. I presume you wish to ask questions about last night’s—uh—broadcast?”

  “Exactly. What are your conclusions?”

  “The word ‘fight’ is hardly analyzable. Whether it was meant in fact or in reverse is a matter for the psychologists —and even they are having grave difficulty with it, until and unless they learn who gave that command.”

  The President nodded.

  “But, Mr. President, the rest of the broadcast, the phrase in another voice that preceded the command. ‘And now a word from our sponsor’—that is something which should give us something to work on, especially as we have studied it carefully in many languages, and worked out fully the connotation of every word,”

  “Your conclusion?”

  “Only this; that it was carefully worded, designed, to conceal the identity of the broadcaster or broadcasters. Quite successfully. We can draw no worth while conclusions.”

  “Dr. Abrams, has any correlating phenomenon been noticed at your or any other observatory?”

  “Nothing, Mr. President.” The little man with the gray goatee smiled quietly. “The stars are all in their courses. Nothing observable is amiss with the universe. I fear I can give you no help—except my personal opinion.”

  “Which is?”

  “That—regardless of the meaning, pro or con, of the command to fight—the opening phrase meant exactly what it said. That we are sponsored ”

  “By whom? God?”

  “I am an agnostic, Mr. President. But I do not rule out the possibility that man isn’t the highest natural being in the universe. It’s quite large, you know. Perhaps we’re an experiment conducted by someone—in another dimension, anywhere. Perhaps, generally speaking, we’re allowed to go our way for the sake of the experiment. But we almost went too far, this time, toward destroying ourselves and ending the experiment. And he didn’t want it ended. So—” He smiled gently. “—a word from our sponsor.”

  The President leaned forward across the desk, almost spilling his coffee. “But, if that is true, was the word meant?”

  “I think that whether it was meant—in the sense in which you mean the word ‘meant’—is irrelevant. If we have a sponsor, he must know what its effect will be, and that effect— whether it be war or peace—is what he wanted to achieve.” .

  stand for. Yet I wish to ask you what the opinion of the Communists here is of the broadcast of yesterday evening.” "There is no matter of opinion. We know what it is.”

  “Of your own knowledge, Mr. Baylor, or because Moscow has spoken?”

  “That is irrelevant. We are perfectly aware that the Capitalistic countries instigated that broadcast. And solely for the purpose of inciting us to start the war.”

  “And for what reason would we do that?”

  “Because you have something new. Something in electronics that enabled you to accomplish what you accomplished last night and that is undoubtedly a decisive weapon. However, because of the opinion of the rest of the world, you do hot dare to use it if you yourselves—as your warmongers have been demanding, as indeed you have been planning to do—start the war. You want us to start it and then, with world opinion on your side, you would be able to use your new weapon. However, we refuse to be propagandized.” “Thank you, Mr. Baylor. And may I ask you one question strictly off the record? Will you answer in the first person singular, not plural, your own personal, private opinion?”

  “You may.”

  “Do you, personally, really believe we instigated that broadcast?”

  “I—I do not know.”

  “The afternoon mail, Walter?”

  “Well over a hundred thousand letters, Mr. President. We have been able to do only random sampling. They seem to be about the same as the telegrams. General Wickersham is anxious to see you, sir. He thinks you should issue a proclamation to the army. Army morale is in a terrible state, he says, and he thinks a word from you—”

  The President smiled grimly. “What word, Walter? The only single word of importance I can think of has already been given—and hasn’t done army morale any good at all. Tell General Wickersham to wait; maybe I’ll be able to see him within a few days. Who’s next on the list?” “Professor Gresham of Harvard.”

  “His specialty?”

  “Philosophy and metaphysics.”

  The President sighed. “Send him in.”

  “You actually mean, Professor, that you have no opinions at all? You won’t even guess whether X is God, devil, extra-galactic superman, terrestrial scientist, Martian—?”

  “What good would a guess do, Mr. President? I am certain of only one thing—and that is that we will never know who or what X is. Mortal or immortal, terrestrial or extra-galactic, microcosmic or macrocosmic, four dimensional or twelve, he is sufficiently more clever than we to keep us from discovering his identity. And it is obviously necessary to his plan that we do not know.”

  “Why?”

  “It is obvious that he wants us to disobey that command, isn’t it? And who ever heard of men obeying a command unless they knew—or thought they knew—who gave it? If anybody ever learns who gave that command, he can decide whether to obey it or not. As long as he doesn't know, ifs psychologically almost impossible for him to obey it”

  The President nodded slowly. “I see what you mean. Men either obey or disobey commands—even commands they think come from God—according to their own will. But how can they obey an order, and still be men, when they don’t know for sure where the order came from?”

  He laughed. “And even the Commies don’t know for sure whether we Capitalists did it or not. And as long as they’re not sure—”

  “Did we?”

  The President said, “I’m beginning to wonder. Even though I know we didn’t, it doesn’t seem more unlikely than anything else.” He tilted back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. After a while he said softly, “Anyway, I don’t think there’s going to be a war. Either side would be mad to start it.”

  There wasn’t a war.

  RUSTLE OF WINGS

  Poker wasn’t exactly a religion with Gramp, but it was about the nearest thing he had to a religion for the first 50 or so years of his life. That’s about how old he was when I went to live with him and Gram. That was a long time ago, in a little Ohio town. I can date it pretty well, because it was just after President McKinley was assassinated. I don’t mean there was any connection between McKinley’s assassination and my going to live with Gram and Gramp; it just happened about the same time. I was about ten.

  Gram was a good woman and a Methodist and never touched a card, except occasionally to put away a deck that Gramp had left lying somewhere, and then she’d handle it gingerly, al
most as though it might explode. But she’d given up, years before, trying to reform Gramp out of his heathen ways; given up trying seriously, I mean. She hadn’t given up nagging him about it.

  If she had, Gramp would have missed the nagging, I guess; he was so used to it by then. I was too young, then, to realize what an odd couple they made—the village atheist and the president of the Methodist missionary society. To me, then, they were just Gramp and Gram, and there wasn’t anything strange about their loving and living together despite their differences.

  Maybe it wasn’t so strange after all. I mean, Gramp was a good man underneath the crust of his cynicism. He was one of the kindest men I ever knew, and one of the most generous. He got cantankerous only when it came to superstition or religion—he refused ever to distinguish between the two—and when it came to playing poker with his cronies, or, for that matter, when it came to playing poker with anyone, anywhere, any time.

  He was a good player, too; he won a little more often than he lost. He used to figure that about a tenth of his income came from playing poker; the other nine-tenths came from the truck farm he ran, just at the edge of town. In a manner of speaking, though, you might say he came out even, because Gram insisted on tithing—giving one tenth of their income to the Methodist church and missions.

  Maybe that fact helped Gram’s conscience in the matter of living with Gramp; anyway, I remember that she was always madder when he lost than when he won. How she got around his being an atheist I don’t know. Probably she never really believed him, even at his most dogmatic negative.

  I’d been with them about three years; I must have been about thirteen at the time of the big change. That was still a long time ago, but I’ll never forget the night the change started, the night I heard the rustle of leathery wings in the dining room. It was the night that the seed salesman ate with us, and later played poker with Gramp.

  His name—I won’t forget it—was Charley Bryce. He was a little man; I remember that he was just as tall as I was at the time, which wouldn’t have been more than an inch or two over five feet. He wouldn’t have weighed much over 100 pounds and he had short-cropped black hair that started rather low on his forehead but tapered off to a bald spot !! the size of a silver dollar farther back. I remember the bald spot well; I stood back of him for a while during the poker and recall thinking what a perfect fit that spot would be for one of the silver dollars—cartwheels, they were called— before him on the table. I don’t remember his face at all.

  I don’t recall the conversation during dinner. In all probability it was largely about seeds, because the salesman hadn’t I yet completed taking Gramp’s order. He’d called late in the 1 afternoon; Gramp had been in town at the broker’s with a load of truck, but Gram had expected him back any minute and had told the salesman to wait. But by the time Gramp " and the wagon came back it was so late that Gram had asked the salesman to stay and eat with us, and he had accepted.

  Gramp and Charley Bryce still sat at the table, I recall, while I helped Gram clear off the dishes, and Bryce had the order blank before him, finishing writing up Gramp’s order.

  It was after I’d carried the last load and came back to take care of the napkins that poker was mentioned for the first time; I don’t know which of the men mentioned it first. But Gramp was telling animatedly of a hand he’d held the last time he’d played, a few nights before. The stranger—possibly I forgot to say that Charley Bryce was a stranger; we’d never met him before and he must have been shifted to a different territory because we never saw him again—was listening with smiling interest. No, I don’t remember his face at all, but I remember that he smiled a lot.

  I picked up the napkins and rings so Gram could take up the tablecloth from under them. And while she was folding the cloth I put three napkins—hers and Gramp’s and mine—back into our respective napkin rings and put the salesman’s napkin with the laundry. Gram had that expression on her face again, the tight-lipped disapproving look she wore whenever cards were being played or discussed. And then Gramp asked, “Where are the cards, Ma?” Gram sniffed. “Wherever you put them, William,” she told him. So Gramp got the cards from the drawer in the sideboard where they were always kept, and got a big handful of silver out of his pocket and he and the stranger, Charley Bryce, started to play two-handed stud poker across a corner of the big square dining room table.

  I was out in the kitchen then, for a while, helping Gram with the dishes, and when I came back most of the silver was in front of Bryce, and Gramp had gone into his wallet and there was a pile of dollar bills in front of him instead of the cartwheels. Dollar bills were big in those days, not the little skimpy ones we have now.

  I stood there watching the game after I’d finished the dishes. I don’t remember any of the hands they held; I remember that money seesawed back and forth, though, without anybody getting more than ten or twenty dollars ahead or behind. And I remember the stranger looking at the clock after a while and saying he wanted to catch the 10 o’clock train and would it be all right to deal off at half-past 9, and Gramp saying sure.

  So they did, and at 9:30, it was Charley Bryce who was ahead. He counted off the money he himself had put into the game and there was a pile of silver cartwheels left, and he counted that, and I remember that he grinned. He said, “Thirteen dollars exactly. Thirteen pieces of silver.”

  “The devil,” said Gramp; it was one of his favorite expressions.

  And Gram sniffed. “Speak of the devil,” she said, “and you hear the rustle of his wings.”

  Charley Bryce laughed softly. He’d picked up the deck of cards again, and he riffled them softly, as softly as he had laughed, and asked, “Like this?”

  That was when I started to get scared.

  Gram just sniffed again, though. She said, “Yes, like that. And if you gentlemen will excuse me— And you, Johnny, you better not stay up much longer.”

  She went upstairs.

  The salesman chuckled and riffled the cards again. Louder, this time. I don’t know whether it was the rustling sound they made or the thirteen pieces of silver, exactly, or what, but I was scared. I wasn’t standing behind the salesman any more; I’d walked around the table. He saw my face and grinned at me. He said, “Son, you look like you believe in the devil, and think I’m him. Do you?”

  I said “No, sir,” but I must not have said it very convincingly. Gramp laughed out loud, and he wasn’t a man that laughed out loud very often.

  Gramp said, “I’m surprised at you, Johnny. Darned if you don’t sound like you do believe it!” And he was off laughing again.

  Charley Bryce looked at Gramp. There was a twinkle in his eye. He asked, “Don’t you believe it?”

  Gramp quit laughing. He said, “Cut it out, Charley. Giving the boy silly ideas.” He looked around to be sure Gram had left. “I don’t want him to grow up superstitious.”

  “Everybody’s superstitious, more or less,” Charley Bryce said.

  Gramp shook his head. “Not me.”

  Bryce said, “You don’t think you are, but if it came to a showdown, I’d bet you are.”

  Gramp frowned. “You’d bet what, and how?”

  The salesman riffled the deck of cards once more and then put them down. He picked up the stack of cartwheels and counted them again. He said, “I’ll bet thirteen dollars to your one dollar. Thirteen pieces of silver says you’d be afraid to prove you don’t believe in the devil.”

  Gramp had put away his folding money but he took his wallet out again and took a dollar bill out of it. He put the bill on the table between them. He said, “Charley Bryce, you’re covered.”

  Charley Bryce put the pile of silver dollars beside it, and took a fountain pen out of his pocket, the one Gramp had signed the seed order with. I remember the pen because it was one of the first fountain pens I’d ever seen and I’d been interested in it.

  Charley Bryce handed Gramp the fountain pen and took a clean seed order blank out of his pocket and put it on t
he table in front of Gramp, the unprinted side up.

  He said, “You write ‘For thirteen dollars I sell my soul,' and then sign it.”

  Gramp laughed and picked up the fountain pen. He started to write, fast, and then his hand moved slower and slower and he stopped; I couldn’t see how far he’d written.

  He looked across the table at Charley Bryce. He said, “What if—?” Then he looked down at the paper a while more and then at the money in the middle of the table; the fourteen dollars, one paper and thirteen silver.

  Then he grinned, but it was a kind of sick grin.

  He said, “Take the bet, Charley. You win, I guess.”

  That was all there was to it. The salesman chuckled and picked up the money, and Gramp walked with him to the railroad station.

  But Gramp wasn’t ever exactly the same after that. Oh, he kept on playing poker; he never did change about that. Not even after he started going to church with Gram every Sunday regularly, and even after he finally let them make him a vestryman he kept on playing cards, and Gram kept on nagging him about it. He taught me how to play, too, in spite of Gram.

  We never saw Charley Bryce again; he must have been transferred to a different route or changed jobs. And it wasn’t until the day of Gramp’s funeral in 1913 that I learned that Gram had heard the conversation and the bet that night; she’d been straightening things in the linen closet in the hall and hadn’t gone upstairs yet She told me on the way home from the funeral, ten years later.

  I asked her, I remember, whether she would have come in and stopped Gramp if he’d been going to sign, and she smiled. She said, “He wouldn’t have, Johnny. And it wouldn’t have mattered if he had. If there really is a devil, God wouldn’t let him wander around tempting people like that, in disguise.”

  “Would you have signed, Gram?” I asked her.

  “Thirteen dollars for writing something silly on a piece of paper, Johnny? Of course I would. Wouldn’t you?”

  I said, “I don’t know.” And it’s been a long time since then, but I still don’t,