Orbit 10 - [Anthology]

by Edited by Damon Knight

  “No burden,” Bruch said and rushed to offer unasked advice. “Any time you’re troubled call, Harvey, any time.”

  Monday brought a problem even more monstrous than Putz­man in the form of a remark from a middle-aged nightclub comic, Ben Herbie. This man had the bulging eyes and sag-heavy skin of a classic hyperthyroid, but his hectic behavior went even beyond endocrine excess. “Am I lucky, you bet your life,” he said, “am I lucky to see you, old cock. The rumors are flying around Sardi’s about your cures and Lieberraan’s and nobody can even talk to Lieberman’s nurse now!”

  “Lieberman?”

  “Dr. Vladimir Lieberman, the other head specialist pulling off so many miracle cures lately. Real guru stuff.”

  That dabbler in Jung and Adler! Bruch had always considered Lieberman definitely second-rate. But he couldn’t pursue the mat­ter now. A patient’s rights came first and this man needed help even more than his audiences. He then gently chided himself for so many unkind thoughts and launched into the interview.

  At noon Max phoned Grainger at the country place and asked if he were coming into town. “I don’t know, Max—late this week, I guess.”

  “Try today, Jack, after five thirty. Got to speak to you.”

  There was a long pause, then a sigh. “All right. Might as well.”

  For the rest of the afternoon Bruch felt guilty about pressuring Jack, when Lieberman’s sudden fame could have nothing to do with him. But as soon as he mentioned the other analyst late that afternoon, Grainger flushed and threw up his hands. “You were bound to find out—but I’m not ashamed.”

  “You mean you told him about Juno A concentrate?”

  “Of course. Gave him a supply, too. Three weeks ago and he’s had the same great results.” Grainger did seem a bit ashamed, though. “Okay, I know that from one angle it was a sneaky betrayal. But I only gave some to one other psychiatrist.”

  Bruch was appalled. “You mean there were two psychiatrists and others?”

  “Five chemists. They’ve all worked out great production angles in their labs.”

  “My God, what have you done!”

  “Nothing to worry about,” Grainger assured him. “Each man signed statements conceding our priority.”

  “Who’s worried about patent infringements? Juno A’s now loose in the world and we can’t ever pull it back.”

  “Who wants to pull it back?” Grainger shouted, angrily pacing about. “Who has the right to pull the greatest blessing in human history back?”

  “But-”

  “But hell, Max! I’ll admit I practiced some deceit, but only for all those who would have had to wait in needless agony while you played Hamlet!” He drew a deep breath. “And I did keep my word about self-dosing.”

  “Thanks for small blessings,” Bruch muttered.

  “Your pill’s worn off, Max. Maybe you should take another be­fore we continue.”

  “Double my sensitivity for the day? I’m not sure a psyche could absorb that much pain from other people. Don’t you understand yet, Jack? We’re cultivating an enormously risky virtue.”

  “No, I don’t - and you don’t either!”

  “I understand all right that one of our first successes relapsed yesterday.”

  “What?” Grainger’s eyes widened. “A serious relapse?”

  “Well, no. It ended quickly and there haven’t been others.”

  Jack bounced right back. “Then don’t surrender to neurotic panic, friend.”

  Max sadly watched him go to the door. “I’m still confident. But, Jack, it was a betrayal.”

  “Yep, a thoroughly honorable betrayal,” came his parting shot.

  For a long time Bruch sat behind his desk, staring at the door that had closed between them. A personal trust had been violated, and concentrated Juno A fraction could no longer be stopped. And yet the chances were overwhelming that history would vindicate Grainger, weren’t they?

  At twenty to nine the next morning Max took the pill, and as the subtle molecules spread benevolent warmth through him, he awaited the first of today’s eight new cases. Five minutes before the hour an uproar broke out in the reception room and over Mrs. Parker’s protests the door was thrown open. Mrs. Crofton, hair wildly disheveled, broke into the room. “I have to see you now!” she was screaming.

  The nurse waved toward a thin, small woman seated nearby. “Someone has an appointment.”

  Mrs. Crofton stood astride the doorsill and glared at the woman. “What do you know of this fraud? Cured, the mountebank said I was c-u-r-e-d!” The woman timidly started leaving.

  Mrs. Parker hurried after her. “No, Mrs. Hartzfeld, Dr. Bruch will be able to see you in a moment.”

  “No, I just realized I won’t need a consultation.”

  Mrs. Crofton considered him in vindictive triumph, then soft­ened and said, “I am so sorry, Dr. Bruch, but I do have to see you. Suddenly I’m unhappier than ever!”

  That had to be true; the wave of pain coming from her was fear­fully strong. He closed the door. Nodding, he listened to her go on, expressing nothing except her boundless admiration for him, and soon she was at ease. Thirty minutes later she left, promising never to bother him again. Max followed her out to tell Mrs. Parker to set the day’s schedule back a half hour, and saw with horror thatanother ex-patient was anxiously awaiting him. “Doc­tor,” the man started pleading, “just five minutes for God’s sake!”

  The abbreviated session turned out exactly like Mrs. Crofton’s, and all day long more of the first-cured came for desperately needed refreshers.

  Wednesday was equally bad. When, on Thursday afternoon, Putzman showed up still again, Bruch had to concede the awful truth: Juno A had created a mysterious new dependency addic­tion which could only be alleviated by the increasingly frequent attentions of a hypermaternal therapist.

  The telephone rang, and he shuddered at the threatening pleas he was about to hear, pleas for still more maternal supplies. In­stead it was Grainger, shouting more bad news: “Lieberman, two hours ago, murdered by a cured patient!”

  “Could you calm down, Jack, and explain what—”

  “I called and his housekeeper said a supposedly cured patient broke in this evening, demanding extra attention. She says patients have been pestering him all hours lately—you were abso­lutely right about Juno A being dangerous!—and this time he re­fused to see the man. I suppose Lieberman didn’t have an active dose in him and was sick and tired of the whole mess. Anyway the patient slashed Lieberman with a razor before he was knocked out with a paperweight. My friend died on the way to the hospital.”

  “Incredibly shocking!”

  “I’m afraid there’s more. Before I called Lieberman’s home I’d heard something strange on the radio. A guru-healer out in Cleveland was cut in pieces by three followers who said he’d be­trayed them, and police say a new pill-cult claiming total anxiety cures is spreading in northern Ohio.”

  “Which means a leak somewhere, possibly underworld synthe­sizing of Juno A.” He took a deep breath. “No, not a leak, a dam burst—all my cures have turned sour.”

  “And it’s my fault!”

  “I don’t know, Jack—chances are this would have happened eventually anyway.”

  “No consolation there! Max, I’ll have to go to the police.” He paused. “First, though, I’d like to see you and set our course.”

  “I’ll be here all evening.”

  Bruch descended to the ground level of his brownstone and, weighed down by despair, waited in an armchair. Once every ten minutes he would start to get up for a Juno A pill, then would sink back. This evening there should be nothing to keep them from the maximum objectivity possible.

  At ten when the front doorbell rang he rushed to the door. As he let Grainger in, he had a sensation of vague pleasure like the first distant sweetness of roses.

  “A bad scene,” Grainger smiled wearily, following him into the living room, “but it’s bound to get better, much better.”

/>   Suddenly, for no good reason at all, Bruch felt this was so. Everything was going to be all right. Then, as the sweet sensation in his chest became overpoweringly lovely, he realized what had happened. “You took Juno A,” he said, halfheartedly accusing.

  “About fifteen minutes ago, but only a half dose.” Jack sat down facing Max and stared at him. “After all the trouble I’ve caused, I owe you something.”

  “Oh, no, that’s all right.” Now he felt engulfed in waves of love, as it must have been when he rested his head on his mother’s breast, and with equal love in return he eased his mind of all its burdens, talking on and on, not knowing what he was saying, only that Jack understood it all, sympathized with it all, suffered it all as if the agony were his alone. Finally Max said, “I’m so much better now. I’ve been carrying so many people’s troubles on my shoulders and they’ve all slipped away somewhere!”

  He must have sat there in silence another hour before he shook his head and felt the usual world starting to come back. He could see Jack Grainger holding the other half of the pill in his hand. “No, please don’t,” he said. “This did me a lot of good, but no more. I could become addicted, too—the liberal, humanitarian heart can destroy as well as the sadistic one. But at least I now have an idea of what’s luring so many poor devils into this trap.”

  Jack nodded, putting the pill in his jacket pocket. “No, I won’t again. But I felt I owed you temporary escape from the horror. Want to go to the police now?”

  “Yes, but first we should get a few hours’ sleep, I’m afraid we’d sound too incoherent now.”

  Jack started upstairs to the bedroom he used next to the labora­tory. “I’ll set my alarm for five thirty.”

  After sitting in the dark awhile, Bruch went up to his office to glance over his notes before going to bed. But as he sat down be­hind the desk, the sleep of utter exhaustion overcame him even before he could turn on the reading lamp. Instantly and then over and over again he dreamed that his mind was open in all directions and each and every agony ever suffered in other minds was pour­ing through him. And then all those other minds were opening to the same range of total hell.

  The angry clangor of Grainger’s alarm came from a distance to shock him from the ceaseless round of torment into which he had been plunged. He was twisted like a paralyzed contortionist in his chair, left leg still asleep, right calf muscle stretching pain­fully.

  When the first foot-thud sounded above he swiveled his chair around in the darkness of the room and looked out at the cherry tree’s black silhouette, its branches desperately reaching for heaven through the first dirty smudges of a dawn that was some­where else. Even without a Juno A dose he could feel the strug­gling presence of that tree’s heart and a tear came down one cheek for this world in which all things created were sacrifices to each other.

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  * * * *

  George Alec Effinger

  LIVE, FROM BERCHTESGADEN

  “IN DUSSELDORF, as in certain other Rhinish Hauptstädten, there is a large, yellow-brick building very close to the railroad terminal. I am told that a great many good German Bürger make their periodic, Kaabic journey to this yellow institution; inside one is confronted by a bewildering array of charming and less charm­ing photos, blurrily enticing Kodachromes ofMädchen that may be rung up in the manner to which one has become accustomed.

  “It is sometimes difficult for the uninitiated to know how to re­act to this. Europe, by its very nature, is like this, in all ways and throughout its continental extent. The pure geographic propin­quity of nations lulls the tourist’s sense of culture. How easy it is to cross a border and find oneself immediately in an entirely differ­ent milieu of mores and folkways. It is necessary to change your ethics at the booth while you change your pounds sterling or kronor.

  “Do you have inhibitions? Lose them, or be unhappy, for sooner or later you will have one or another offended. No matter how grotesque the practice, how bestial the behavior, if you live Con­tinental long enough you will find the neighborhood where it is merelycomme il faut. For some, it is not the superficiality of ‘When in Rome . . .’ but a matter of survival.”

  * * * *

  “Mein Herr Doktor, how is it that she speaks so? What language is it?”

  “It is English she speaks, Frau Kämmer. She is delirious; often­times they will babble so in another language. But it is strange that she is so coherent. It is almost as if she recites.”

  “Aber, Herr Freischütz, my Gretchen knows no English. It cannot be English that she speaks.”

  * * * *

  “Far away now, beyond the political and other walls that we have built, beneath the impossible burden of years, look: Unter den Linden. Berlin! The mention of that brightest and most sophisticated of capitals did not always carry with it the indelible tinge of guilt, the subtlest pricks of fear. Unter den Linden: no other avenue in metropolitan Europe quite held the imagination of the literate world to such a degree; no other city’s showplace was ever so rich with the modish, the absolutedernier cri. The broad, shaded way runs from the former Royal Palace down to the Vopos at Checkpoint Charlie. As in any large city, the Unter den Linden of old was frequented by the ubiquitous Strassendirnen; but, whether or not it was merely the effect of the reflec­tion of old Berlin’s loveliness, these easier matches did not offend the grace and charm of the street. It was only after the war that Berlin learned shame.

  “This shame was not previously totally unknown. It was, however, unnecessary. Beginning with Carolus Magnus, or Charle­magne, the Germans began their expansion eastward - the notori­ousDrang nach Osten - late in the eighth century. To this day the land to the west of the River Elbe is known as the ‘old Germany,’ and the land east, the ‘new Germany.’ Thus, historical precedent has given way to shame; the shame is shared by those who know the old Germany, for these are immersed in the most ancient of traditions. The new Germany is comparatively younger, but no one, not the oldestWeisskopf, is able to remember the initial annexation. Whatever shame is felt, therefore, is hereditary in nature. It is false shame.”

  * * * *

  “Guten Nachmittag, Herr Doktor.”

  “Ja, und auch lhnen.”

  “Wie geht es lhnen?”

  “Sehr gut, danke. Ihre Tochter hat gut geschlafen. Wie geht’s lhnen?”

  “Ach, comme çi, comme ça. Pas mal.”

  * * * *

  “Where is Germany? Do you find Germany in the thousands of Volkswagens on the American highways? Is Germany to be found by searching amongst the sausages and waltzes andBuddenbrooks of the world? Where is Germany? What, now, is Germany?

  “Germany has tradedWeltschmerz for ethischer Fortschritt. The sensuousness of the Italians, the chauvinism of the French, the snobbery of the British, the unbridled passions of the Danish and the Swedes, the inscrutability of the Finnish, all these are as nothing compared to the sincerity of the German concern for morality. ‘May God punish the sinful French’ is a slogan for the masses; it is also, perhaps, an indication of the direction the Ger­manWeltanschauung has taken. It is no longer permissible to allow the nationalities of our continent to squander their precious energies in lustful abandon. It is time for a cleansing.

  “But does this mean, I hear you ask, does this mean that a new wave of Puritanism must o’ersweep us, one and all? No, I reply, for extremism does not fit in with our own and exquisitely Ger­man idea of Weltpolitik.

  “We cannot yet look for Germany in those isolated and expen­sive places in the sun. The specter of doom rises, and falls, and rises again: such is the natural course of events. It must rise once more like the Unterseeboot, to an economic and social periscope depth. There must be some effectual Curt Jurgens at the helm, and the tubes must be kept cleared for action. ‘Bearing zero five four, two thousand yards . . . Mark!’ This must be the watch­word. ‘Torpedos. . . Los!’ must be the countersign.”

  * * * *

  “What is she saying? Does she still go o
n in English?”

  “Yes, Nurse. But she becomes less coherent. What is this in­flammatory rhetoric? Such pseudo-poetry! Ah, such a strange coma.”

  “Herr Doktor,can nothing be done? She rambles on so; the other patients complain of the constant disturbance.”

  “Naja, then. Give her ein Glas Schnaps.”

  * * * *

  “There is no hiding this shame. It hides im Bahnhof, it lurks im Postamt, there is no peeling it from your shaking shoulders. ‘Ich bekenne mich die Anklage, “nicht schuldig.’“ How many of us stop our laughter when we buy soap, when we touch the lamp­shade? When the SS and the SA march away, whose minds do they take with them, even now? ‘Wenn wir fahren gegen England!’