The Return of the Black Widowers

by Isaac Asimov

  "No," said Nemerson brusquely. "It's been threatening all day, but it hasn't rained. I should think it would have, after I lost my umbrella—or mislaid it—or something."

  Drake cleared his throat. "If you'll look at your fist, Gary, you'll find your umbrella."

  Nemerson stared down at the umbrella and shook it aggrievedly. "This isn't it. I just bought it as an emergency measure on my way here." And he placed it in the umbrella stand where several other Black Widower umbrellas of varying vintage were standing.

  Henry said, "May I serve you something to drink, sir?"

  Nemerson looked at Henry absently. "A little white wine."

  He hadn't yet finished it when Henry announced that dinner was being served.

  Gonzalo managed to find a seat next to Nemerson. "Do you know Isaac Asimov?" he asked.

  "Certainly," said Nemerson. "He's a big name in our field."

  "What kind of guy is he? Manny considers him a monster of vanity and arrogance."

  Nemerson relaxed into a smile. "He always says things like that. Actually, Rubin and Asimov are good friends. They'd give each other anything they have—except a good word. The trouble with Asimov is he's passé."

  "Passé?"

  "Absolutely. He still writes the same stuff he wrote forty years ago. He doesn't know any better. It keeps him popular with the younger readers and I suppose that's all he cares about."

  Drake said, "I read science fiction now and then, and I consider Asimov a fair writer—though not as good as Clarke, of course. But I'll tell you what I find a bit annoying about science fiction." He coughed at this point, looked at his half-finished cigarette, muttered, "I've got to cut down on these," and stubbed it out. "What I don't like is the antiscientific conventions it makes use of."

  Nemerson said coldly, "What anti-scientific conventions are you talking about?"

  Drake shrugged, reached for another cigarette, and stopped himself. "Time-travel, faster-than-light velocities, antigravity, telepathy, and so on. Those things are included routinely in four-fifths of the stories that are written, and all are impossible. How many science-fictional characters have slipped through a space warp, for instance, and found themselves in a different universe? Quite impossible."

  Nemerson said, "The skill of the science-fiction writer lies in making all these impossibilities seem plausible. He deals, after all, with the consequences of technological change—the human consequences, not with the change itself. Who cares if a particular change isn't likely if the consequences are interesting?"

  "Besides," put in Halsted, "every form of literature has its conventions. In the mystery field, how likely is it that an amateur sleuth will bump into a mysterious murder wherever he goes? Or that a private eye can consume a gallon of scotch every day and be knocked out by a blow on the head every other day without pickling his liver and scrambling his brain?"

  Trumbull added acidly, "And romance writers find all the heroes handsome and all the heroines beautiful and no one ever has a wart or burps at an embarrassing moment."

  Avalon said, "Conventions are the behavioral shortcuts of a culture."

  Nemerson said, "And what makes a space warp so impossible, anyway? I could swear I've just experienced one."

  But Rubin was trumpeting over his shrimp scampi, "What makes all you nonwriter types such experts on literature? Why don't you wait for the grilling and talk to Nemerson instead of to each other? I've given up expecting you to listen to me." By the time the coffee was served and Henry had placed the brandy bottles on the sideboard, the Black Widowers were in their customary state of benign repletion and even Rubin was almost benevolent as he rattled his spoon against the water glass and said, "Roger, will you do the honors and grill our guest?"

  "Wait—I want to ask a question!" said Mario.

  "Later," thundered Rubin. "Go ahead, Roger."

  "Very well," said Halsted in his quiet voice, as he licked the last of his coupe aux marrons off his spoon. "How do you justify your existence, Gary?"

  "By being a science-fiction writer," said Nemerson with a snap.

  "You consider that important, do you?"

  "Yes, I do," said Nemerson, offering no details.

  Halsted asked for none. He said, "And how long have you been writing science fiction?"

  "I made my first sale five years ago."

  "A novel?"

  "No, my first novel is now in press, and I've got a contract, for a second one. Till now, my appearances have been in the magazines."

  "Do they pay much?"

  "No, but I get along."

  Again there were no details, and Halsted asked for none. "Are you married, Gary?"

  "No." An internal struggle seemed to twist Nemerson's facial expression. Then he said, "I've been contemplating it."

  "When?"

  "When my novel is published and does reasonably well. Then I can justify the economic risk of marriage—I think."

  "You think?"

  "Well, it's a serious step."

  "How long have you known the young lady?"

  "Three years."

  "I take it you love her?"

  "Why else would I be contemplating marriage?" "I ask because you seemed uncertain about the matter."

  Nemerson nodded. "Right now I am uncertain. I'm annoyed with her at the moment."

  "Why?"

  "I mistrust her sense of humor."

  Mario Gonzalo brought his fist down on the table and his expression was dark. "I'm tired of this soap opera that Roger is running. I have a question, and I'm going to ask it. You said you just experienced a space warp, Gary. When and how did you experience it?"

  Nemerson looked honestly surprised. "A space warp?"

  There was a general stir about the table. Avalon said, "What's this about a space warp, Mario? What are you talking about?"

  Gonzalo said, "Gary said it when the rest of you were blatting your heads off, but I'm next to him and I heard him. He said he experienced a space warp, or thought he did. I heard him say that."

  Nemerson's face cleared up. "Yes, I did, come to think of it. And that's exactly what I'm talking about right now—about mistrusting Marilyn's sense of humor. —Marilyn is my fiancée."

  "What's she got to do with a space warp?" demanded Gonzalo.

  Nemerson said, "Space warp was just an expression because Mr. Drake—uh, Jim—brought it up. Actually, I was thinking about my umbrella, the one I lost." He made a wild, outward gesture. "The hell with it. I don't want to talk about my umbrella. Ask me about science fiction."

  "No," said Gonzalo, "you don't set the rules on questions, Gary. We do, and you have to answer. That's the condition of the dinner. Manny, you're the host and he's your guest. Tell him."

  Rubin pursed his lips, then said, "It goes against the grain to have to agree with Mario, but I'm afraid he's right, Gary. If he wants to hear about the umbrella, you'll have to tell him about it."

  "The space warp," said Gonzalo. "That's what I'm after."

  "As a matter of fact," said Trumbull, his forehead corrugating, "I'm rather interested in hearing about this combination of umbrella and space warp myself."

  Nemerson sighed. "It's something that's of interest only to me, really. I have—or had—an umbrella. It was a folding umbrella that was so small it could fit comfortably in my overcoat pocket, but opened to a considerable spread and could withstand a brisk wind. It was an ideal umbrella. I'd owned it for years, and now I've lost it. I doubt that I'll ever be able to replace it with one as satisfactory and I'm very upset about it."

  Avalon said, "I imagine everyone here has lost various umbrellas in his life. You go out with one and take a taxi. By the time you get to where you're going, the sun is coming out from behind the clouds, so you forget you have an umbrella and you leave it behind in the taxi."

  "Or," Drake said, "you put it in an umbrella stand, and the rain starts coming down hard and some idiot who didn't bring one of his own calmly appropriates yours."

  "That's not how
it happened," said Nemerson. "I didn't leave it in a taxi and I didn't have it stolen out of an umbrella stand. Nothing like that. I lost it in Marilyn's apartment."

  "Your fiancée’s apartment?"

  "Yes."

  Gonzalo said, in annoyance, "Where's the space warp? I want to hear about that. Tell the whole story, Gary."

  Nemerson frowned. "What's to tell? You re making an epic out of a cameo. But all right. Here's the way it goes. Marilyn was having a day off—she works as an administrator at a hospital— and I thought I d drop over to her apartment in the afternoon and spend some quiet time with her before coming to this appointment. I suppose you don't expect me to give you the details of the conversation or of anything else we did."

  "No, no," said Rubin, "it's understood we don't try to break down the walls of decent privacy. Stick to the umbrella."

  "Well, as you know, it's been threatening rain all day, so I took my umbrella. Ordinarily I'd put it in the pocket of my overcoat or raincoat and then forget about it till it actually rained. If it didn't rain, it would stay in the pocket safely. However, it's been a steamy,

  sticky day and wearing a coat of any kind, even a thin raincoat, would be ridiculous, so I carried the umbrella—in my hand."

  "Where else would you carry it?" asked Drake mildly.

  Nemerson said, "Listen, when I say I carried it in my hand I mean I held it there and never let go. I'm always conscious of the risk of loss—of anything, not just my umbrella. I'm always fanning my pockets to make sure my wallet and keys are in place."

  "I do, too," broke in Rubin. "When you live in New York—"

  "So I hold onto my umbrella. I don't put it down in a taxi or a bus. Marilyn hates the fuss I make over it. Actually, she hates my being systematic and orderly and says I miss the joy of life

  by

  not being more easygoing."

  "And does that bother you?" asked Halsted.

  "Absolutely. I'm a writer, and I intend to set the world on fire. I'm serious and compulsive about my work and I don't believe you can divide yourself into antagonistic pieces. If I'm going to hard-drive my writing and do it with order and method, I've got to do it in all aspects of my life."

  Rubin said, "You won't be as prolific as Asimov whatever you do, and he's an extrovert of the extroverts. You should see him when any female approaches within half a mile of him."

  "I don't intend to model myself on Asimov," said Nemerson. "He may be prolific and he's been helpful to me, but I recognize him as a trivial man, and I intend to be an important one. — Anyway, I arrived at Marilyn's place this afternoon holding my umbrella. It was still in its folded state, bone-dry since it hadn't rained. Since I had no pocket to slip it into, I put it on her kitchen table—it's porcelain-topped and would in no way be damaged by the umbrella. What's more, the umbrella was black, so it stood out unmistakably. When I left, I'd pass the table on the way to the door and couldn't miss it.

  "Marilyn made her usual dumb cracks about it. She prides herself on having a sense of humor and claims I don't have one, but my writing is well known for its sardonic aspects so I pay no attention to what she says. —In that respect, at least.

  "And, as a matter of fact, we had a pleasant afternoon. Making allowance for her penchant for inappropriate remarks of the kind she calls humorous, she's highly intelligent, interesting, and a warm and affectionate person."

  Trumbull broke in. "But what does she see in you, then? I mean, you're the kind of intense, driving person she wouldn't be able to endure."

  Nemerson eyed him hostilely and said, "I like to think I have some good points that she values. —Anyway, eventually it was time to leave. Manny had made it plain I was expected to be on time, and I intended to be. There was the umbrella on the kitchen table right where I'd put it and I was about to leave, when Marilyn suggested I help myself to a nice cold beer before going out into the steam. I looked at my watch and decided I had time for one beer if I didn't waste time over it. It was a nice thought, but it disrupted my attention to my umbrella.

  "After the beer, Marilyn walked me to the elevator, just ten yards down the corridor. We kissed, and I turned away, but even before the elevator arrived I turned back to her and said, 'I forgot my umbrella.'

  "I guess I looked perturbed because she said, 'Well, don't throw a fit, no one's stolen it.'

  "Back we went to her apartment. I knew quite well I'd left it on the kitchen table. I'd seen it there when I stopped for the beer and I could have sworn I'd picked it up, but I must have been mistaken—I certainly didn't have it with me. But it wasn't on the kitchen table, either.

  "That was a terrible blow. I'd seen it there not ten minutes earlier. The breath just went out of me. Marilyn said, 'It must be somewhere.'

  "I said, 'I put it right here.'

  "She said, 'I know, but you must have picked it up and put it somewhere else without thinking.'

  "That seemed possible, so we went over her apartment. It isn't a large one. She has a living room, with an alcove serving as a bedroom, plus a bathroom, a small kitchen near the front door, and two sizable closets. It's all simply furnished and there aren't many places where the umbrella wouldn't have stood out easily. And I looked everywhere. I even moved the couch to look behind it and under it, moved all the cushions on the couch and the two chairs, looked on all the shelves of both closets, moving things to make sure it hadn't fallen behind. I went through the bathroom and the kitchen, poked into all the corners. I spent half an hour on it, which made me late here, and I tell you frankly I was in such a rage I almost didn't come at all.

  "The point is, it was nowhere, absolutely nowhere, yet I'd seen it on the kitchen table not long before I left.

  "Marilyn was no help. She's the one who said, finally, T guess it must have dropped through one of those space warps you write about.' She may have thought that was funny, but I didn't think so. Anyway, I bought a cheap umbrella at the corner store, got a taxi, and here I am. And that's the story of my umbrella and the space warp."

  There was a short pause after Nemerson had done speaking and then Trumbull said, "I would suggest an easy solution. You left the apartment with the umbrella and dropped it in the corridor on your way to the elevator. You didn't notice, and someone came along, spied a poor orphan umbrella, and adopted it out of the kindness ol his heart."

  "No," said Nemerson savagely. "In the first place, I didn't drop any umbrella, and if I had it would have made a noise. In the second, I said there was only a ten-yard stretch between Marilyn's apartment door and the elevator bank. It's a straight ten-yard stretch and there was no one else in the corridor when we went to the elevator or when we returned. We would, without fail, have seen anyone who passed.

  "And if you think that I would be so lost in a passionate kiss at the elevator that I'd remain unaware of someone's approach, think again. Quite the reverse, I don't intend to be caught in such an interlude and I keep my eyes open. And on the way back to the apartment, I scanned the corridor floor and there was nothing there. A black folding umbrella would have stood out—the corridor's well lit, the carpeting is pale blue, and there are no crannies into which it could have rolled, even if it could roll, which it couldn't."

  "You know," said Avalon, attempting to make his baritone voice soothing, "all of us have undoubtedly lost items in our own offices that seem to have dropped through a space warp. I once had a thin pamphlet I used regularly for the reference information it contained. I was using it once on my desk when it disappeared. I ransacked my office as you ransacked your fiancée’s apartment before I, too, had to give up. And then one day, two years afterward, I pulled a reference book from the shelf—one that I rarely used. It fell open and there, nestled among its pages, was my long-lost pamphlet. I'd mindlessly used it as a bookmark in the reference book, and when I cleared the reference book off my desk and put it in its place on the shelf I unwittingly carried off the pamphlet with it. If I'd never used the reference book again, I'd never have found the pamphlet, and it
s disappearance would have remained a mystery to this day."

  Nemerson said, "Fine, but my umbrella wasn't a small piece of cardboard that could find its way into all sorts of random places. It was a compact black cylinder ten inches long or so, and about two inches thick. —You know what I think? I think it was something Marilyn arranged."

  "How?" asked Gonzalo.

  "How do I know how? She gave it to a neighbor to hold for her, or she threw it out the window. What's the difference how? The point is that if she did this as her idea of something funny, then I won't take it. And I won't take her if that's her idea of a joke. Life with her would be unbearable if I had to watch out forever for this sort of thing."

  Halsted said, "Aren't you being a bit unreasonable, Gary? You say yourself you saw the umbrella on the kitchen table not ten minutes before you left. What could she have done in those last ten minutes? Dashed to the window? Run out the door to a neighbor's? Surely you'd have noticed any such thing if it had happened."

  Nemerson was silent.

  Drake said, "Roger's making a good point, Gary. Did you notice your fiancée doing anything unusual in the ten minutes between your last seeing the umbrella and your leaving the apartment?"

  "No," said Nemerson reluctantly, "I didn't. But that doesn't mean she didn't do something. I wasn't watching her lynx-eyed. She might have done something none of us has thought of. She must have done something—unless there really is such a thing as a space warp."

  Henry cleared his throat. "Mr. Nemerson, may I have your permission to ask you a few questions?"

  Nemerson s face lifted in clear antagonism and Rubin said hastily, "It's all right, Gary. Henry is a member of the Black Widowers."

  "The waiter?" said Nemerson, astonished.

  "An esteemed member," said Rubin firmly.

  "If that's the case," said Nemerson, "go ahead and ask, waiter."

  Henry said, "Thank you, sir. My first question is this. Is your fiancée eating out tonight?"

  Nemerson looked confused. "Eating out?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "I'm not sure. No, of course I'm sure. She was complaining about my going out. You see, I couldn't have brought her with me, as I most certainly would have tried to do ordinarily, because Manny told me this was a strictly stag organization."