Fictions

by Nancy Kress

  Here is a really superior addition to the body of fantasy work about strange little stores, in this case a shop that sells explanations. Nancy Kress’s most recent books are two fantasy novels published by Bluejay Books: THE GOLDEN GROVE and THE WHITE PIPES (coming in early 1985).

  The first time Harkavy passed the new storefront on Frazier Street, he didn’t notice it. He strode rapidly, arms pumping, long-jawed face scowling so fiercely that an Airedale set to bark at him thought the better of it and slunk away into the shadows. He was furious, was Professor Harkavy, too furious to notice a new shop in an old storefront, dusty despite its newness, identified by a hand-lettered sign propped against a drooping ficus benjamina.

  The second time around the block, and still furious. Blocks! Stones! Worse than senseless things! It hadn’t been this bad when he had been a student—no, it had not. His peers in those dim past days had studied for exam questions. Or at least thought about exam questions. Or at least—the very last (pump, pump) been conscious while answering exam questions. But this lot! Intellectually dead! He, Harkavy, was probably in violation of the vice code—he was practicing pedagogic necrophilia.

  The cleverness of this phrase slowed him down—actually, it was pretty neat. He would have to remember it for later, for the faculty dining room. Morton, from Anthro, would love it. Harkavy stopped pumping and stopped scowling, and noticed the storefront and its hand-lettered sign:

  EXPLANATIONS, INC.

  WE EXPLAIN ANYTHING

  GRAND OPENING TODAY

  Harkavy snorted. Explain anything, indeed! The presumption, the intellectual arrogance—and the ficus benjamina had mealybug. Harkavy could see it through the window, the ghostly white fibers just beginning to spread across the undersides of the plant’s droopy leaves. Harkavy snorted again and, because, pushed open the door and entered the shop. Because he boiled with furious energy; because associate professors without the Ph.D. taught the dumbest classes; because his own plants, in orderly rows of terra-cotta pots that let roots breathe, never developed parasitic diseases. Because. How was that for an explanation?

  The shop was tiny, dim, and faded, the walls a dingy beige and the floor covered with gritty linoleum. The only furnishings were a cracked brown leather chair and a counter, also brown, across the back. On the wall behind the counter hung a large placard:

  *Management does not handle questions of existence or nonexistence.

  *If a phenomenon does exist or an event did happen, we can explain it.

  *Both procedural and causal explanations available.

  *Not responsible for any consequences of imparting explanations.

  *Discounts for senior citizens. Valid ID required.

  Before Harkavy had finished reading this, the single door behind the counter opened and closed and a man stood waiting courteously, a dim, thin man in a brown suit and gray expression. He was much shorter than Harkavy. Because of this, and because of the silly placard, and because Harkavy’s fury had passed beyond simple frustration into that wide, free place where recklessness seems not only permissible but required, Harkavy lit into the inoffensive stranger, who deserved it for being so inoffensive.

  “Explanation—explanation! You’re interested in explanations? I am a college teacher—last night I gave my students an examination; this morning I have so-called ‘explanations’ swirling around my ears. Not explanations swirling out of thin air—no, no! Explanations coming out of five weeks of careful lectures on British poetry, of meticulously chosen readings, of class discussions nursed along like intensive-care patients. And what do I read this morning? I’ll tell you what I read this morning. I read this morning, in response to a simple question to explain the term ‘carpe diem’—do you know what that means? It means ‘seize the day.’ That’s all—just seize the day, as in do it now, tra la la. And what explanations do I get of ‘carpe diem’ ? I get ‘sees the day’: s-e-e-s. I get ‘cease the day’: c-e-a-s-e, that one undoubtedly from an apocalyptic religious. And I get ‘sneeze the dead.’ Sneeze the dead poetry! A whole undiscovered school of viral lyricism! What goes through a student’s mind when he writes ‘this is a sneeze the dead poem’ ? What? Can you explain that?”

  The small man said, “Would you like to see a contract?” Taken aback, Harkavy said, “A what?”

  “A contract,” the man said patiently. “We never begin an explanation without both a contract and a completed job sheet. We would, for instance, need to know the student’s name and, preferably, university ID number.”

  Harkavy stared. “You’re serious.”

  “Very,” the man said quietly. He did something with his hand under the counter, and a single sheet of paper rose upward through a slot Harkavy had not noticed. A little dazed, and also a little sulky that the man had ignored all his fine reckless hyperbole, Harkavy picked up the paper and read it.

  I,______hereby, hire the services of Explanations, Inc., to provide explanation(s) for the question(s) specified below. I agree to definition of each key term, and testify that each definition was agreed upon by me and a representative of Explanations, Inc., to our mutual satisfaction. Explanations, Inc., agrees to deliver either a causal or a procedural explanation (circle one) for each question, at no more than a maximum of 10% above estimated cost.

  (date) _______ (signature) _______

  There was also a paragraph granting permission for the signer’s name and explanation to be used for advertising purposes.

  The corners of Harkavy’s mouth quirked unpleasantly. “Advertising?”

  “That portion of our operation is not quite functional.”

  “I’ll bet,” Harkavy said.

  “This is merely a branch office,” the man said.

  A great weariness, inevitable after the glow of fury, settled over Harkavy. Charlatans, intellectual poseurs, or unreasoning dolts. Nowhere were there left powerful and honest minds actually striving for rational clarity. He, Harkavy, was a Diogenes with a cerebral lamp, and all he found was darkness, darkness. Morton from Anthro had the right idea: expect no spark of rationality, and you can never be disappointed. Anticipate fallacy, expect meaninglessness, presume fraud. “Fraud,” Harkavy said.

  “Certainly not,” the small gray man said, not without dignity. The dignity, so unmerited, rekindled Harkavy’s anger.

  “All right, then—I’ll bite. I’ll pay for an ‘explanation.’ Why not? I always pay anyway—you don’t think the students are the ones pained when I pass 40 percent of them because department guidelines discourage flunking more than 60 percent? I’ll buy one of your fraudulent little explanations—why not, if meaning is dead, then no real explanations are possible anyway!”

  “Your reasoning is circular,” the man said dispassionately. “What specifically would you like explained?”

  Harkavy cast about for something extravagant yet absurd, the perfect example to illustrate the ironic depths of his disillusionment. He didn’t find it. The brown and gray little man took a fresh contract from the slot, Harkavy having crumpled the first one in his fist.

  “Yes, Professor?”

  “How do you know I’m a professor?”

  “You have said so. What would you like explained?” Ironic depths still eluded Harkavy. But unmasking fraud—he could manage a question to unmask fraud. “Explain what happened to Amelia Earhart, the aviatrix who disa—”

  “I recognize Miss Earhart’s name,” the man said. He smiled faintly, his first hint of expression. “As it happens, we are having a special today on Amelia Earhart.”

  “A—”

  “Twenty dollars. Thirty if you wish to request a causal as well as procedural explanation. Both to include documented proof, of course.”

  Harkavy requested both. Together he and the small man, who gave his name as Stone, defined terms, made out a job sheet, signed a contract. Herkavy paid the thirty dollars. As he wrote out the check—a little surprised that such an outfit would accept a check; checks can be traced—his anger began to give way to amuseme
nt. What a story to tell Morton! It was almost worth the thirty dollars; Morton would love it. He, Harkavy, would become in the telling a wistfully gallant figure, hoping against hope for intellectual value, knowing better all the time. A single-combat idealist who was almost—but not quite—missing in the existential action. Morton would love it.

  A pang of genuine wistfulness, unexpected as heartburn, shot through him.

  Still, he whistled on the walk home, and once there he tore into the rest of the examinations with something close to good humor, not even slowing down when a student explained that Alexander Pope, now deceased, had once been the illegitimate son of a Catholic pontiff. When he had finished the exams, Harkavy got himself a cold beer and the morning Times, which he hadn’t yet seen. The bottom half of page one displayed the photograph of a young woman with badly cut hair and a pretty face, dressed in a flight jacket.

  AMELIA EARHART FINALLY FOUND

  REMAINS REVEALED ON SAIPAN

  The article was quite long, and very thorough. Politicians, medical doctors, anthropologists, and Navy personnel were all quoted extensively. They detailed exactly what had happened to Amelia Earhart.

  “You tricked me,” Harkavy said.

  “Certainly not,” said Stone. “As a matter of fact, I have your completed explanation right here.”

  “With documentation from the New York Times?”

  “Just so.”

  “You had this information before I even signed this ridiculous contract!”

  “Mr. Harkavy, I am a businessman. You offered to buy certain information; I possessed that information. Had Explanations, Inc., been required to obtain information it did not already possess, the price of your explanation would have been much higher. You call yourself a rational man; surely you can see that this is so.”

  Harkavy’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t like being made a fool of.”

  “No one does,” Stone said mildly.

  Harkavy drummed his fingers on the counter. It was no longer brown; between yesterday afternoon and this morning the counter had been painted a rich, deep blue. With paint bought with his thirty dollars?

  He studied Stone. The little man gazed back at him from eyes so steady, so serene, that Harkavy felt bile rise in his throat. It was so shameless. At the very least the charlatan could show some shame. A flicker of the eyes, a looking away—and he, Harkavy, would be satisfied. No more than that, merely a silent admission that it had been possible, once, to believe the world genuinely explicable, and that this was a shoddy exploitation of that springtime belief. . . just a flicker of the eyes, a so slight bending of the head . . . Stone neither flickered nor bent.

  “All right,” Harkavy said quietly, “then, let’s just see how you do when you don’t already possess the information.”

  “Certainly,” Stone said. He moved his hand under the counter, and a fresh contract arose from the slot. “What would you liked explained?”

  Harkavy did not even think. “Explain about Amy. Amy, my wife—explain why she left me. A causal explanation.” Stone’s hands held still over the paper. He raised his gaze to Harkavy’s, and his voice grew softer. “Mr. Harkavy. Sometimes one asks for explanations one does not really want.” Harkavy laughed unpleasantly. “Too difficult for you? Not the same as taking on a question already documented in the Times? Just so, Stone?”

  Stone didn’t answer. He gazed down at the newly blue counter, at something Stone couldn’t see. When he finally spoke, it was still in that soft voice, gentle as mist. “Let us define our terms, Mr. Harkavy. Your ex-wife’s name?”

  “Amy Loughton Harkavy. Quality control supervisor at Lunell Products. Social security number 090-40-0333. There, Stone—name, rank, and serial number; just what is allowed in any war. The rest is up to you. Explain away. Go ahead—if you can.”

  “We can,” Stone said, but his voice told nothing.

  Explanations, Inc., had stipulated six weeks to complete its labors. By the second day, Harkavy was cursing himself for a fool. To let his outrage get the better of him like that! To be bested by a fly-by-night bunko game! It wasn’t the money, it was the humiliation . . . no, by God, the humiliation was theirs. To pervert the mind’s sacred ability to explain into a hootchy-kootch come-on for suckers . . . although, actually, when you looked at it, it was pretty funny. Grim, but funny. He would tell Morton; Morton would absolutely roar. It was really very funny.

  He didn’t tell Morton.

  The second week, Harkavy strolled past the storefront to see if it was still there. Somewhat to his surprise, it was, although the ficus benjamina with mealybug no longer stood in the window. It had been replaced by three pots of unbloomed passiflora with the greenest leaves Harkavy had ever seen. By the counter a woman stood talking to Stone, who held what looked like a contract in his hands.

  Unaccountably perturbed, Harkavy left. He did not go back.

  Occasionally, during the course of the six weeks, Harkavy thought of his contract, the thought popping into his mind while he lectured or shaved or chaired yet another committee meeting—and when it did, he scowled fiercely. People began to regard him as a little eccentric. (“Since the break-up, you know, poor fellow. . . .”) Harkavy didn’t notice.

  “Your wife left you,” Stone said neutrally, “because she could no longer tolerate life with ‘a man who insists on being right 93 percent of the time.’ The phrase is hers. Your documentation, Mr. Harkavy.” He pushed it across the counter and looked somewhere else.

  There was a tape recorder. Amy’s voice, recalling incidents, discussing motives, explaining—to whom? Friend? Priest? Imposter? The other voice never answered. But Harkavy would have recognized Amy’s voice anywhere, slightly nasal breathiness with those captivating musical inflections: “He could never apologize when he was wrong. Only if he was right; because then, you see, it wasn’t threatening. He used to do this thing, if I solved some household problem we’d been discussing, he’d smile and say ‘I’m glad I thought of that!’ I can’t tell you how crazy it made me!”

  There was a psychologist’s report, fully notarized with shiny seals, recounting the psychologist’s post-divorce therapy sessions with one Ms. Amy Loughton. The therapist stated that Ms. Loughton’s initiation of divorce had been a positive desire to free herself from a destructive marital situation with a husband who could feel successful only if his judgment was acknowledged to be superior to that of everyone around him. Ms. Loughton’s post-divorce adjustment was described as successful.

  Finally, there was a note from Amy herself, on the stationery Harkavy had given her on her last birthday: “. . . because he wants what nobody can have! He wants everything in the whole damn world to make sense!”

  Stone still did not look at Harkavy. Harkavy sputtered, “You son of a bitch, you could end up in Leavenworth for this! Breaking into medical files, tampering with the U.S. mails—”

  “Certainly not,” Stone said coldly. “Look again.” Harkavy looked again. The note from Amy was addressed to Schariar Galt Stone.

  “How—”

  “The balance of your bill is now due, Mr. Harkavy.” Harkavy paid it. The chair of cracked brown leather had been replaced with one of rich purple velvet. Harkavy sat down on it and stared ahead, unseeing.

  Stone said quietly, “Mrs. Harkavy was wrong in one particular.”

  “Ms. Loughton,” Harkavy said, jerking his chin upward. “She prefers to be called Ms. Loughton.”

  “Ms. Loughton was wrong in one particular. The world does make sense. It is rational.”

  “You son of a bitch. How did you get these documents?”

  “Revealing our operational methods is not part of your contract, Mr. Harkavy.”

  “If I went to the police with these stolen files—”

  “They are not stolen,” Stone said. “The police would find no grounds for criminal charges. None at all. We can, in fact, explain everything.”

  Harkavy went back. A week later, ten days—he was not exactly sure. After the first
return, he went every day, striding over from the university with his head up and his arms pumping, acutely aware of the hollowness of all this vigor. Once in the tiny shop, he sat slumped in the glowing purple chair. A slump was all he could manage; the place turned all his vigor outside in, and it centrifuged to his eyes, which never blinked. Harkavy, a tweed-jacketed Argus, watched.

  A blue-haired woman wanted an explanation of the UFO she had sighted above her barn. Another woman asked for a procedural explanation of how her apartment had been robbed, but she left when she found out the fee would be more than the value of the possessions stolen. An elderly man, thin and with the ascetic face of a figure on a stained-glass window, requested a true explanation of the birth of Christ. After he had received it, he left looking thoughtful, and his hand trembled. Who were all these people, where had they come from? A few looked vaguely familiar to Harkavy, like people he might have passed in the supermarket. A middle-aged man, long hair thinning and facial muscles rigidly controlled, wanted to know exactly why his son had joined the Marines. A young boy asked for the causes of the War of Jenkins’ Ear. Harvey blinked.

  “Homework,” Stone said after the boy had left. It was the first time he had spoken to Harkavy.

  “So now you’re in the homework business,” Harkavy said, with feeble scorn. He knew the scorn was feeble because it could not warm him. He was always cold now. “Homework, too, can be explained.”

  “I should think it would be beneath your notice. There can’t be much profit in children’s homework.”

  “You would be surprised where we find profit.”

  “I just bet I would,” Harkavy said. “You’ve had at least two customers this week storm out of here without paying you.”

  “They will be billed. In addition, the corporation has figured standard parameters for the allowance for bad debts. The cost is unfortunately passed on to the customer.”

  “All according to the Gospel of Business Management,” Harkavy sneered. Stone regarded him thoughtfully. The little man had discarded his brown suit; he wore a coat the deep purple-blue of a twilight sky, cut full enough so that sometimes, in some lights, it looked like a cape. It was not a cape.