by Ellen Datlow
It’s hard to believe, but she never budged an inch from that crazy line. I mustn’t make a pass at her in the office, because our work was very important and she loved it and there mustn’t be any distractions. And I couldn’t see her anywhere else, because if I tried to, I’d never snap another picture of her—and all this with more money coming in all the time and me never so stupid as to think my photography had anything to do with it.
Of course I wouldn’t have been human if I hadn’t made more passes. But they always got the wet-rag treatment and there weren’t any more smiles.
I changed. I went sort of crazy and light-headed—only sometimes I felt my head was going to burst. And I started to talk to her all the time. About myself.
It was like being in a constant delirium that never interfered with business. I didn’t pay attention to the dizzy feeling. It seemed natural.
I’d walk around and for a moment the reflector would look like a sheet of white-hot steel, or the shadows would seem like armies of moths, or the camera would be a big black coal car. But the next instant they’d come all right again.
I think sometimes I was scared to death of her. She’d seem the strangest, horriblest person in the world. But other times …
And I talked. It didn’t matter what I was doings—lighting her, posing her, fussing with props, snapping my pix—or where she was—on the platform, behind the screen, relaxing with a magazine—I kept up a steady gab.
I told her everything I knew about myself. I told her about my first girl. I told her about my brother Bob’s bicycle. I told her about running away on a freight and the licking Pa gave me when I came home. I told her about shipping to South America and the blue sky at night. I told her about Betty. I told her about my mother dying of cancer. I told her about being beaten up in a fight in an alley behind a bar. I told her about Mildred. I told her about the first picture I ever sold. I told her how Chicago looked from a sailboat. I told her about the longest drunk I was ever on. I told her about Marsh-Mason. I told her about Gwen. I told her about how I met Papa Munsch. I told her about hunting her. I told her about how I felt now.
She never paid the slightest attention to what I said. I couldn’t even tell if she heard me.
It was when we were getting our first nibble from national advertisers that I decided to follow her when she went home.
Wait, I can place it better than that. Something you’ll remember from the out-of-town papers—those maybe-murders I mentioned. I think there were six.
I say “maybe” because the police could never be sure they weren’t heart attacks. But there’s bound to be suspicion when heart attacks happen to people whose hearts have been okay, and always at night when they’re alone and away from home and there’s a question of what they were doing.
The six deaths created one of those “mystery poisoner” scares. And afterward there was a feeling that they hadn’t really stopped, but were being continued in a less suspicious way.
That’s one of the things that scares me now.
But at that time my only feeling was relief that I’d decided to follow her.
I made her work until dark one afternoon. I didn’t need any excuses, we were snowed under with orders. I waited until the street door slammed, then I ran down. I was wearing rubber-soled shoes. I’d slipped on a dark coat she’d never seen me in, and a dark hat.
I stood in the doorway until I spotted her. She was walking by Ardleigh Park toward the heart of town. It was one of those warm fall nights. I followed her on the other side of the street. My idea for tonight was just to find out where she lived. That would give me a hold on her.
She stopped in front of a display window of Everly’s department store, standing back from the glow. She stood there looking in.
I remembered we’d done a big photograph of her for Everly’s, to make a flat model for a lingerie display. That was what she was looking at.
At the time it seemed all right to me that she should adore herself, if that was what she was doing.
When people passed she’d turn away a little or drift back farther into the shadows.
Then a man came by alone. I couldn’t see his face very well, but he looked middle-aged. He stopped and stood looking in the window.
She came out of the shadows and stepped up beside him.
How would you boys feel if you were looking at a poster of the Girl and suddenly she was there beside you, her arm linked with yours?
This fellow’s reaction showed plain as day. A crazy dream had come to life for him.
They talked for a moment. Then he waved a taxi to the curb. They got in and drove off.
I got drunk that night. It was almost as if she’d known I was following her and had picked that way to hurt me. Maybe she had. Maybe this was the finish.
But the next morning she turned up at the usual time and I was back in the delirium, only now with some new angles added.
That night when I followed her she picked a spot under a street lamp, opposite one of the Munsch Girl billboards.
Now it frightens me to think of her lurking that way.
After about twenty minutes a convertible slowed down going past her, backed up, swung in to the curb.
I was closer this time. I got a good look at the fellow’s face. He was a little younger, about my age.
Next morning the same face looked up at me from the front page of the paper. The convertible had been found parked on a side street. He had been in it. As in the other maybe-murders, the cause of death was uncertain.
All kinds of thoughts were spinning in my head that day, but there were only two things I knew for sure. That I’d got the first real offer from a national advertiser, and that I was going to take the Girl’s arm and walk down the stairs with her when we quit work.
She didn’t seem surprised. “You know what you’re doing?” she said.
“I know.”
She smiled. “I was wondering when you’d get around to it.” I began to feel good. I was kissing everything good-bye, but I had my arm around hers.
It was another of those warm fall evenings. We cut across into Ardleigh Park. It was dark there, but all around the sky was a sallow pink from the advertising signs.
We walked for a long time in the park. She didn’t say anything and she didn’t look at me, but I could see her lips twitching and after a while her hand tightened on my arm.
We stopped. We’d been walking across the grass. She dropped down and pulled me after her. She put her hands on my shoulders. I was looking down at her face. It was the faintest sallow pink from the glow in the sky. The hungry eyes were dark smudges.
I was fumbling with her blouse. She took my hand away, not like she had in the studio. “I don’t want that,” she said.
First I’ll tell you what I did afterward. Then I’ll tell you why I did it. Then I’ll tell you what she said.
What I did was run away. I don’t remember all of that because I was dizzy, and the pink sky was swinging against the dark trees. But after a while I staggered into the lights of the street. The next day I closed up the studio. The telephone was ringing when I locked the door and there were unopened letters on the floor. I never saw the Girl again in the flesh, if that’s the right word.
I did it because I didn’t want to die. I didn’t want the life drawn out of me. There are vampires and vampires, and the ones that suck blood aren’t the worst. If it hadn’t been for the warning of those dizzy flashes, and Papa Munsch and the face in the morning paper, I’d have gone the way the others did. But I realized what I was up against while there was still time to tear myself away. I realized that wherever she came from, whatever shaped her, she’s the quintessence of the horror behind the bright billboard. She’s the smile that tricks you into throwing away your money and your life. She’s the eyes that lead you on and on, and then show you death. She’s the creature you give everything for and never really get. She’s the being that takes everything you’ve got and gives nothing in return. When you yearn toward her face on
the billboards, remember that. She’s the lure. She’s the bait. She’s the Girl.
And this is what she said, “I want you. I want your high spots. I want everything that’s made you happy and everything that’s hurt you bad. I want your first girl. I want that shiny bicycle. I want that licking. I want that pinhole camera. I want Betty’s legs. I want the blue sky filled with stars. I want your mother’s death. I want your blood on the cobblestones. I want Mildred’s mouth. I want the first picture you sold. I want the lights of Chicago. I want the gin. I want Gwen’s hands. I want your wanting me. I want your life. Feed me, baby, feed me.”
I originally wrote “The Girl with the Hungry Eyes” for the first issue of a magazine Donald Wollheim was trying to publish. That project didn’t work out but instead, the story was published in Avon’s original anthology, called The Girl with the Hungry Eyes (1949), edited by Wollheim. Marshall McLuhan quoted from the story in his early (and negatively reviewed) book on advertising, The Mechanical Bride. I later wrote a story called “The Mechanical Bride” as a kind of joke, in response.
Fritz Leiber
THE JANFIA TREE
Tanith Lee
Vampirism is a recurring theme in Lee’s work. In this graceful, ambiguous tale, a woman with no hope invokes a dark god who may or may not exist, just to conquer her own indifference to life. Vampires often mesmerize their victims with their gaze. In a neat little twist the Janfia tree gives off a seductive, overpowering fragrance as a lure.
After eight years of what is termed “bad luck,” it becomes a way of life. One is no longer anything so dramatic as unhappy. One achieves a sort of state of what can only be described as de-happiness. One expects nothing, not even, actually, the worst. A certain relaxation follows, a certain equilibrium. Not flawless, of course. There are still moments of rage and misery. It is very hard to give up hope, that last evil let loose from Pandora’s box of horrors. And it is always, in fact, after a bout of hope, springing without cause, perishing not necessarily at any fresh blow but merely from the absence of anything to sustain it, that there comes a revulsion of the senses. A wish, not exactly for death, but for the torturer at least to step out of the shadows, to reveal himself, and his plans. And to this end one issues invitations, generally very trivial ones, a door forgetfully unlocked, a stoplight driven through. Tempting fate, they call it.
“Well, you do look tired,” said Isabella, who had met me in her car, in the town, in the white dust that veiled and covered everything.
I agreed that perhaps I did look tired.
“I’m so sorry about—” said Isabella. She checked herself, thankfully, on my thanks. “I expect you’ve had enough of all that. And this other thing.
That’s not for a while, is it?” “Not until next month.” “That gives you time to take a break at least.” “Yes.”
It was a very minor medical matter to which she referred. Any one of millions would have been glad, I was sure, to exchange their intolerable suffering for something twice as bad. For me, it filled the quota quite adequately. I had not been sleeping very well. Isabella’s offer of the villa had seemed, not like an escape, since that was impossible, yet like an island. But I wished she would talk about something else. Mind-reading, “Look at the olives, aren’t they splendid?” she said, as we hurtled up the road. I looked at the olives through the blinding sun and dust. “And there it is, you see? Straight up there in the sky.”
The villa rose, as she said, in the hard sky above; on a crest of gilded rock curtained with cypress and pine. The building was alabaster in the sun, and, like alabaster, had a pinkish inner glow where the light exchanged itself with the shade. Below, the waves of the olives washed down to the road, shaking to silver as the breeze ruffled them. It was all very beautiful, but one comes in time to regard mortal glamours rather as the Cathars regarded them, snares of the devil to hide the blemishes beneath, to make us love a world which will defile and betray us.
The car sped up the road and arrived on a driveway in a flaming jungle of bougainvillaea and rhododendrons.
Isabella led me between the stalks of the veranda, into the villa, with all the pride of money and goodwill. She pointed out to me, on a long immediate tour, every excellence, and showed me the views, which were exceptional, from every window and balcony.
“Marta’s away down the hill at the moment, but she’ll be back quite soon. She says she goes to visit her aunt, but I suspect it’s a lover. But she’s a dulcet girl. You can see how nicely she keeps everything here. With the woman who cooks, that’s just about all, except for the gardeners, but they won’t be coming again for a week. So no one will bother you.”
“That does sound good.”
“Save myself of course,” she added. “I shall keep an eye on you. And tomorrow, remember, we want you across for dinner. Down there, beyond those pines, we’re just over that spectacular ridge. Less than half a mile. Indeed, if you want to you can send us morse signals after dark from the second bathroom window. Isn’t that fun. So near, so far.” “Isabella, you’re really too kind to me.”
“Nonsense,” she said. “Who else would be, you pessimistic old sausage.” And she took me into her arms, and to my horror I shed tears, but not many. Isabella, wiping her own eyes, said it had done me good. But she was quite wrong.
Marta arrived as we were having drinks at the east end of the veranda. She was a pretty, sunlit creature, who looked about fourteen and was probably eighteen or so. She greeted me politely, rising from the bath of her liaison. I felt nothing very special about her, or that. Though I am often envious of the stamina, youth, and health of others, I have never wanted to be any of them.
“Definitely, a lover,” said Isabella, when the girl was gone. “My God, do you remember what it was like at her age. All those clandestine fumblings in gray city places.”
If that had been true for her, it had not been true of me, but I smiled.
“But here,” she said, “in all this honey heat, these scents and flowers. Heaven on earth—arcadia. Well, at least I’m here with good old Alec. And he hands me quite a few surprises, he’s quite the boy now and then.”
“I’ve been meaning to ask you,” I said, “that flowering tree along there, what is it?”
I had not been meaning to ask, had only just noticed the particular tree. But I was afraid of flirtatious sexual revelations. I had been denied in love-desire too long, and celibate too long, to find such a thing comfortable. But Isabella, full of intrigued interest in her own possessions, got up at once and went with me to inspect the tree.
It stood high in a white and terracotta urn, its stem and head in silhouette against a golden noon. There was a soft pervasive scent which, as I drew closer, I realized had lightly filled all the veranda like a bowl with water.
“Oh yes, the fragrance,” she said. “It gets headier later in the day, and at night it’s almost overpowering. Now what is it?” She fingered dark glossy leaves and found a tiny slender bloom, of a somber white. “This will open after sunset,” she said. “Oh lord, what is the name?” She stared at me and her face cleared, glad to give me another gift. “Janfia,” she said. “Now I can tell you all about it. Janfia—it’s supposed to be from the French, Janvier.” It was a shame to discourage her.
“January. Why? Does it start to bloom then?”
“Well perhaps it’s supposed to, although it doesn’t. No. It’s something to do with January, though.”
“Janus, maybe,” I said, “two-faced god of doorways. You always plant it by a doorway or an opening into a house? A guardian tree.” I had almost said, a tree for good luck.
“That might be it. But I don’t think it’s protective. No, now isn’t there some story. … I do hope I can recall it. It’s like the legend of the myrtle—or is it the basil? You know the one, with a spirit living in the tree.”
“That’s the myrtle. Venus, or a nymph, coming out for dalliance at night, hiding in the branches by day. The basil is a severed head. The basil grows from
the mouth of the head and tells the young girl her brothers have murdered her lover, whose decapitum is in the pot.”
“Yum, yum,” said Isabella. “Well Alec will know about the Janfia. I’ll get him to tell you when you come to dinner tomorrow.”
I smiled again. Alec and I made great efforts to get along with each other, for Isabella’s sake. We both found it difficult. He did not like me, and I, reciprocating, had come to dislike him in turn. Now our only bond, aside from Isabella, was natural sympathy at the irritation endured in the presence of the other.
As I said good-bye to Isabella, I was already wondering how I could get out of the dinner.
I spent the rest of the afternoon unpacking and organizing myself for my stay, swimming all the while in amber light, pausing frequently to gaze out across the pines, the sea of olive groves. A little orange church rose in the distance, and a sprawling farm with Roman roofs. The town was already well-lost in purple shadow. I began, from the sheer charm of it, to have moments of pleasure. I had dreaded their advent, but received them mutely. It was all right, it was all right to feel this mindless animal sweetness. It did not interfere with the other things, the darkness, the sword hanging by a thread. I had accepted that, that it was above me, then why trouble with it.
But I began to feel well, I began to feel all the chances were not gone. I risked red wine and ate my supper greedily, enjoying being waited on.
During the night, not thinking to sleep in the strange bed, I slept a long while. When I woke once, there was an extraordinary floating presence in the bedroom. It was the perfume of the Janfia tree, entering the open shutters from the veranda below. It must stand directly beneath my window. Mine was the open way it had been placed to favor. How deep and strangely clear was the scent.
When I woke in the morning, the scent had gone, and my stomach was full of knots of pain and ghastly nausea. The long journey, the heat, the rich food, the wine. Nevertheless, it gave me my excuse to avoid the unwanted dinner with Isabella and Alec.
