Mockingbird

by Walter Tevis

  Then one afternoon I looked ahead of me and saw a road that wound its way across a field and down to the beach.

  I ran up to it and saw that it was of ancient cracked asphalt, in places overgrown with weeds, with its surface old and faded and crumbled, but still walkable. I began to follow it, away from the beach.

  I saw in the high weeds along the side of that decayed road something I had never seen before: a road sign. I had noticed them in films and read about them in books, but I had never seen one. It was of faded green and white Permoplastic, with its lettering almost obscured by dirt and vines; but when I pushed the vines away I could read it:

  MAUGRE

  CORPORATION LIMIT

  I looked at it for a long time. Something about the presence of this ancient thing, there in the weak sun of early spring, gave my body a sudden chill.

  I picked up Biff in my arms and walked quickly down the road and around a bend.

  And I saw spread out in front of me, half buried by trees and bushes, a cluster of Permoplastic houses—perhaps five hundred of them, filling a kind of shallow valley below me. The houses were set rather far from one another, with what once must have been parks and concrete streets between them. But there was no sign of human habitation. In what must have been the town’s center were two large buildings and a huge white obelisk.

  As I approached the town I began to push through rosebushes and honeysuckle, near-dead from winter, and I saw that the houses, perhaps once brightly colored, were all faded to a uniform bone white.

  I walked into Maugre with trepidation. Even Biff seemed nervous, and squirmed in my arms and clawed at the straps that held my backpack. Where the town began was a haphazard trail through the underbrush between the houses; I began to follow it. I could not tell if the houses had porches, since the fronts of them were so overgrown; on only a few of them were doors visible through the bushes and weeds and honeysuckles.

  I was heading toward the obelisk. It seemed to be the thing to do.

  One house I passed had fewer obstructions between me and its door and I set Biff down and pushed my way through the growth and came up to it, scratching myself several times on rosebushes as I did so. But I hardly noticed the scratches, the sensation of being in a dream or a hypnotic trance was so strong.

  I was able, after some tearing of weeds, to get the front door open and, with a kind of awe, step inside. I was in a big living room with nothing in it. Absolutely nothing. The light was dim from the mold-covered and dusty plastic windows.

  Opaque Permoplastic is the most tenacious—the most dead— material designed by man, and the entire room was merely a huge seamless hollow cube of it, all pink with rounded corners. There was no indication that anyone had ever lived there; but I knew that the nature of the material was such that the house could have been lived in for a hundred blues and have no signs—no scuff marks on the floor, handprints on the walls, smoke stains on the ceiling, no visible remnants of children playing or fighting or of where a favorite table had sat throughout the life of a family.

  For some reason I shouted, “Is anybody home?” It was a phrase I had learned from films.

  There was not even an echo. I thought sadly of those men in the film drinking from large glasses and laughing. Only the mockingbird sings at the edge of the woods. I left. Biff was waiting for me, and I picked her up in my arms.

  We headed for the obelisk. As we got closer the path became wider, easier to walk, and we came to the near-clearing of two big buildings and the obelisk more quickly than I had expected.

  The obelisk was whiter than the bone white of all the buildings. It was about sixty feet wide at its base and rose about two hundred feet into the air, resembling the Washington Monument that I had seen in so many books and films and that was all that remained of the city of Washington, D.C.

  There was a glass double door, only partly overgrown by blue morning glories, at the base of it, and as I walked around I saw that each of the four faces of the structure had a huge door. And on the fourth side I saw, up high and in large, raised letters, these words:

  PERFECT SAFETY SHELTER AND MALL

  ALL LIFE IS SAFE BELOW THIS SHIELD

  DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE: MAUGRE

  I read it over twice. Was the “shield” the obelisk itself? Or was it within the doors?

  I set Biff down and began trying the doors. The third one slid open with no effort.

  Inside was a lobby, lit by the light through the glass doors. Two broad staircases, descending, were on either side of me. Another, narrower staircase went up. I hesitated only a minute and then began to go down the stairs on my left. After six or seven steps down, just as it was beginning to get dim, a soft light began to come from the yellow walls on either side of me, and on one wall were written these words:

  CONCUSSION BARRIER LEVEL

  And then, six or eight steps further down, other soft lights came on and I saw these words on the wall, which at this level was of a different color—gray:

  RADIATION BARRIER LEVEL

  And when I came to the bottom of the staircase I found myself in a huge, long, wide hallway with glass chandeliers of soft pink that came on gently at my approach and signs on each side of me that glowed:

  SAFE ZONE. MALL

  And then, astonishingly, there began the sound of soft music, light and airy, of flutes and oboes; and, about fifty yards ahead of me, a great spray of water began to rise from a broad pool, and varicolored lights—blue and green and yellow—began to play over it and there came the sound of the water falling, the sound of the fountain.

  I walked toward the fountain, marveling. Biff jumped from my arms and ran ahead of me and, without hesitating, perched herself on the edge of the pool, put her head down, and began to drink.

  I came up slowly to her, bent down, cupped my hands with the cool, fresh water, raised it to my hot and dry face, and smelled it. It was clean and pure. I drank handfuls of it, and then washed my face in it.

  The pool’s sides were made of thousands of little squares of silver tiles, with white lines of mortar between them, and in the bottom of the pool, under the water, was a giant mosaic, in black and gray and white tiles, of a humpbacked whale with its back arched and its flukes spread.

  The water of the fountain jetted up from between a group of three dolphins, curved and vertical, carved in black. I had seen something like it in a picture book called The Fountains of Rome. I stood back and stared at it, at the silver rim of the pool, the great picture of the whale, the dolphins, the great upward jet of water, feeling fine spray from the water on my face and body, hearing the music of flutes, and the hairs on my arms and the hairs on the back of my neck seemed to raise themselves and a fine tingle, almost painful, spread through my body.

  It was like seeing the birds at the edge of the sea turning in flight, or a storm on the gray ocean, or the great ape Kong in his slow and graceful falling.

  Beyond the fountain the great hallway ended at the top of a “T,” with huge double doors going to the right and to the left. Over the doors to the left were the words:

  EMERGENCY QUARTERS

  CAPACITY 60,000

  and over the other door was simply:

  MALL

  This door opened automatically as I approached it and I found myself in another long, wide, tiled hallway. On either side of this were store entrances, far more of them than I had ever seen in my life. I have seen windows with merchandise displayed in them in New York and in the university where I live and teach; but I had never seen anything on a scale like this, and with such abundance.

  The nearest store to me was called Sears; in its huge, curved windows was an array of merchandise that was almost beyond belief. More than half of it consisted of things I did not recognize. Some of them I was familiar with. But there were colored balls and electronic devices and mysterious bright-colored things that could have been either weapons or toys, for all I knew.

  I slid the door open and walked inside, dazed. I was in a
part of the huge store that had clothing in it. All of it looked new, fresh, wrapped in some kind of clear plastic that must have kept it sealed for hundreds of years.

  My own clothes were worn and frayed, and I began to find myself new ones.

  And then, when I was trying to determine how to take the plastic covering off a blue jacket that seemed as though it would fit me, I happened to look at the tiled floor at my feet.

  There were muddy footprints all over the tile, and they looked fresh.

  I kneeled and reached out my hand and touched the mud. It was slightly damp.

  I found myself standing up and looking all around me. But I saw nothing but the racks upon racks of clothing and beyond them shelves of brightly colored goods of all descriptions—shelves after shelves as far as I could see. But nothing moved. Then I looked down at the floor again and saw that the footprints were everywhere—some fresh, some old. And they had been made by different-sized shoes and had different shapes.

  Biff had wandered off somewhere and I called for her, but she did not come. I began looking, walking down aisles with apprehension. What if the makers of the footprints were still about? But, then, what did I have to fear from another human being? Or from a robot, for that matter, since none had followed me from prison and there had been no sign of any Detector or anything else searching for me. Still, I was afraid—or “spooked,” as the Dictionary of American Slang would have it.

  I found Biff eventually, greedily eating from a box of dried beans that had been opened and left on a counter top alongside hundreds of similar but unopened boxes. Biff was purring mightily and I could hear her teeth crunching into the beans. I picked up one of the unopened boxes from next to her; she did not even bother to look up at me. The box—unlike food boxes I had known before—had writing on it:

  IRRADIATED AND STABILIZED PINTO BEANS

  SHELF LIFE SIX CENTURIES

  NO ADDITIVES

  There was a picture of a steaming plate of beans, with a slice of bacon on top of them, on the side of the box. But the beans Biff was still devoting her entire attention to looked dry, withered, and unappetizing. I reached into her box and took a small handful. Biff looked up at me and bared her teeth for a moment, but turned her attention back to the eating. I put one of the beans into my mouth and chewed it. It was not really bad, and I was hungry. I popped the rest of the handful into my mouth and, chewing, studied one of the sealed boxes, trying to determine how to get it open. There were directions at the top, about pressing a white dot and then pulling on a red tab, while twisting. I tried all the combinations I could think of, but the box wouldn’t open. By this time I had finished the beans I had, and Biff’s were all gone too. My appetite had been aroused and I was becoming furious with the apparently unopenable box. Here I was, the only man on earth able to read the directions for opening a box of beans, and it was no help.

  Then I remembered passing an aisle where various tools were displayed. I went to it. My anger and hunger had made me forget my former apprehensions and I strode over, walking firmly and loudly. I found a hatchet, much like the one in Wife Killer Loose, except that it was wrapped in plastic, and I could not get it open either.

  I was becoming furious, and the fury increased my appetite for those beans. I tried to bite into the plastic on the hatchet so that I could tear it; but it was too tough for my teeth. Then I saw a glass case holding some kind of small boxes, on another aisle, and went over there, raised the hatchet, brought it down, and crashed open the glass. Some jagged pieces were left in the frame of the case and I hooked a point of one on the plastic, and pulled. The plastic began to tear and, finally, I was able to twist it away from the hatchet.

  Then I went back to the beans and began to chop away at the top of the box until it tore open and the beans came spilling out. I set the hatchet down on the counter and began to eat.

  And it was while I was chewing my third mouthful that I heard a deep voice behind me saying, “What the hell are you doing, mister?”

  I spun around and saw two large people, a dark-bearded old man and a large woman, standing there staring at me. Each held a leash in one hand, with a large dog, and in the other hand each was carrying a long butcher knife. The dogs were staring at me as intently as the people were. The dogs were white—albinos, I think —and their eyes were pinkish.

  Beside me Biff had arched her back and was showing her teeth toward the dogs and I realized that it was probably not me but Biff beside me that they were staring at.

  The people were older than I, as well as larger. Their stares were well past the limits of Privacy, but more curious than hostile. But their knives were long and frightening.

  My mouth was still half full of the beans. I chewed a moment and then said, “I’m eating. I was hungry.”

  “What you’re eating,” the man said, “belongs to me.”

  The woman spoke up. “To us,” she said. “To the family.”

  Family. I had never heard anyone use that word, except in a film.

  The man ignored her. “Which town are you from, mister?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I’m from Ohio.”

  “He could be from Eubank,” the woman said. “He looks like he might be a Dempsey. They’re all kind of thin.”

  I managed to swallow the last of the beans in my mouth.

  “Or a Swisher,” the man said. “Out of Ocean City.”

  Suddenly Biff turned from the dogs and leapt across the counter she was standing on and ran—faster than I had ever seen her rundown the counter tops away from us. The dogs had turned to follow with their eyes, straining at their leashes. The man and woman ignored her.

  “Which of the seven towns do you come from?” the man said. “And why are you breaking the law by eating our food?”

  “And,” the woman said, “violating our sanctuary in here?”

  “I’ve never heard of the seven towns,” I said. “I’m a stranger, passing through. I was hungry and when I found this place I came in. I didn’t know it was a ... a sanctuary.”

  The woman stared at me. “You don’t know a church of the living God when you see one?”

  I looked around me, at the aisles covered with plastic-sealed merchandise, at the racks of colored clothing and electronic equipment and rifles and golf clubs and jackets.. “But this is no church,” I said. “This is a store.”

  They said nothing for quite a long while. One of the dogs, apparently tired of staring after the direction Biff had left in, settled itself down on the floor and yawned. The other began sniffing at the man’s feet.

  Then the man said, “That’s blasphemy. You’ve already blasphemed by eating holy food without permission.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I had no idea . . .”

  Abruptly he stepped forward and took me by the arm in what was an extremely strong grip and he held the point of his knife to my stomach. While he was doing this the woman, moving very quickly for her size, stepped over to the counter and took the hatchet I had been using. She had, I suppose, expected me to try defending myself with it.

  I was terrified and said nothing. The man put his knife in his belt, stepped behind me, brought my arms together behind my back, and told the woman to get him some rope. She went over to a counter several rows away where there was a large roll of Synlon cord and cut off a piece with her knife, leaving the hatchet there. She brought it to him and he tied my hands together. The dogs watched all this languidly. I was beginning to pass beyond fear into some sort of calmness. I had seen things of this sort on television, and I was beginning to feel that the situation was one that I was merely watching, as though there were no real danger to me. But my heart was pounding wildly and I could feel myself trembling. Yet somehow my mind had moved above this and I felt a calmness. I wondered what had become of But—and what would become of her.

  “What are you going to do?” I said.

  “I am going to fulfill the scripture,” he said. “He who blasphemes my holy place shall be cast into
the lake of fire that burneth forever.”

  “Jesus Christ!” I said. I don’t know why I said that. Possibly it was the Bible language that the man had used.

  “What did you say?” the woman said.

  “I said, ‘Jesus Christ.’”

  “Who told you that name?”

  “I learned it from the Bible,” I said. I did not mention Mary Lou, nor did I mention the man who, burning in immolation, had shouted the name of Jesus.

  “What Bible?” she said.

  “He’s lying,” the man said. And then to me, “Show me that Bible.”

  “I don’t have it anymore,” I said. “I had to leave it. . .”

  The man just stared at me.

  Then they took me out into the grand hallway of the Mall where the fountain was, past stores and restaurants and meditation parlors and a place with a sign that said:

  JANE’S

  PROSTITUTION

  As we passed a large shop with a sign that read: DISPENSARY, the man slowed down and said, “The way you’re shaking, mister, I guess you could use some help.” He pushed open the door of the shop and we came into a place with rows and rows of large sealed jars filled with pills of all sizes and shapes. He walked up to one that said “SOPORS: Non-addictive. Fertility-inhibiting” on it, reached into his pants pocket and took out a handful of old and faded credit cards, selected a blue card from the pack, and slipped it into the mechanical slot at the bottom of the jar on the counter.

  The glass jars were some kind of primitive dispenser—certainly not as sleek and quick as the store machinery I was accustomed to —such as in the place on Fifth Avenue where I had bought Mary Lou that yellow dress. It took it at least a minute of clicking over the card before returning it, and then a half minute before the metal door in the base opened and dispensed a handful of blue pills.

  The man scooped them up and said, “How many sopors you want, mister?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t use them,” I said.

  “You don’t use them? What in hell do you use?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “Not for a long time.”