Echo Round His Bones

by Thomas Disch

  "I suppose I should introduce myself," she said.

  "I'm sorry. I seem to remember your face from somewhere, but I can't remember . . ."

  " But -- I was about to say -- I won't introduce myself, not quite yet at least. Not until you've told me something about yourself."

  With marvelous restraint Hansard pushed the remaining half of the candy bar aside. "My name is Nathan Hansard. I'm a captain in the United States Army, serial number -- "

  "Oh, for heaven's sake, this isn't a prisoner-of-war camp. Just tell me what's happened to you since you went through the manmitter."

  When Hansard had finished his narrative, she nodded her head approvingly, making the high-piled hair (which was a much healthier shade of red under the incandescent light) to tremble becomingly. "Very noble, Captain. Really very noble and brave, as you realize full-well without my saying so. I see now I was wrong not to have spoken to you yesterday."

  "Yesterday? Ah, now I do remember. You were looking at me from the other side of the reflecting pooi."

  She nodded, and went on: "But you can understand why we've had to be suspicious. Just because a man is good-looking is no guarantee he won't want to . . . put me in his cooking pot."

  Hansard smiled. Fortified by the candy bars, he was able to concentrate more of his attention on the personal graces of his benefactress. "I understand. In fact I have to confess that I wasn't without suspicions of my own when I was following you up Gove Street a little while ago. You look so . . . well-fed."

  "Ah, you have a smooth tongue, Captain. You'll surely turn my head with your flattery. Another candy bar?"

  "Not just now, thank you. And I must also thank you, I think, for saving my life. It was your radio, wasn't it, that turned them away?"

  "Yes. I had been waiting farther up Gove Street, hoping I could spot you before they did. I didn't know where else to look, but I was certain the transmitter would be your only source of water. But you got through the wall without my ever seeing you. When I heard the gunshots I had to assume you were already inside, and I turned on the radio full blast. Once one has become accustomed to the silences of this world, music takes on a rather dreadful intensity. Or rather, I suppose, we're able to hear it the way it was meant to be heard."

  "Well, again I must thank you. Thank you, Miss . . . ?"

  "Mrs."

  "Excuse me. With your gloves on, I couldn't tell."

  "But you can just call me Bridgetta. My husband calls me Jet, but I think that's vulgar. Of course, so does he -- that's why he uses it. He thinks it's American to be vulgar. He doesn't understand that vulgarity isn't fashionable any more. It's because he first arrived in the States in the late Sixties that -- "

  "I'm afraid . . . I'm afraid you'll have to speak a bit more slowly. My mind isn't as quick as it would be if it had a full stomach."

  "Excuse me. Panofsky."

  "Panofsky?" He was more than ever lost.

  "You asked my name, and that's what it is -- Mrs. Panofsky, Bridgetta Panofsky, wife of Bernard. You've perhaps heard of my husband?"

  "God damn," Hansard said. " God damn!"

  There were many celebrities of that year -- writers, actors, or criminals -- who might have entertained as high an estimate of their own notoriety and of whom Hansard would have been as unaware as we today perforce must be. But the name Panofsky was known to everyone. Literally, to all . "I've heard of him, yes," Hansard said.

  Bridgetta smiled coolly, allowing him time to reassemble his composure.

  "Then that's why -- " Hansard exclaimed, as he began to program himself with remembered data.

  "Yes," she said, "that's why we're like you -- sublimated ."

  "Eh? I'm afraid I never had time to read Freud."

  "Sublimated is only Bernie's word for being this way." Illustratively, she brushed her hand through a bouquet of plastic flowers that graced the Formica tabletop. "You see, the powers-that-be have let Bernie equip the homestead with transmitters so he can carry on his research there. Bernie can do just about anything, if he tells them it's for research. Except drive out the front door. The existence of the transmitters in Elba -- that's what we call the homestead -- is strictly . . . what's the favorite word now for very, very private?"

  "Priority-A."

  "Just so. And for once the whole rigmarole has worked to his advantage. Since no one knows we have transmitters, no one comes to bother us at Elba -- as they do in the State Department."

  "The State Department! I saw you there too -- almost a week ago. I'm sure it was you, except your hair was another color. And the man with you, in the wheelchair, that would have been Panofsky?"

  "Panofsky-Sub-One, if you saw him in the State Department."

  "Again, slowly?"

  "We use a numeral subscript to distinguish between our different levels of reality. For instance, there must be a Nathan Hansard on Mars now. He'd be Hansard-Sub-one, and you're Hansard-Sub-Two."

  "But if you know the State Department manmitter is watched, why do you use it?"

  "We only use it coming back from someplace, not going there. A week ago -- where would we have been coming from? Moscow, I think. Borominska was premiering in a revival of Tudor's Lilac Garden . Bernie insisted on being there."

  Hansard recalled now, from a long-ago article in Time , the fact that Panofsky was an ardent balletomane and made frequent -- and instantaneous -- excursions via manmitter to the world's ballet capitals throughout their seasons, these brief tours being the single concession that the government had agreed to make to Panofsky for the loss of his freedom. At any performance of significance, Panofsky was to be seen in the box of honor, or, at the intermission, outside his box, presiding regally over a strange mélange of secret service guards and ballet enthusiasts, always the dominating figure in such groups -- even in his wheelchair.

  "Tell me," she asked after a pause, "do you like me better as a redhead?"

  "It's hard to decide. There's something to be said on both sides of the question."

  She cocked her head slyly and smiled. "Say, Captain Hansard, I'm glad you're here."

  "The feeling is mutual, Mrs. Panofsky. I'd rather be having a steak dinner with you than with "A" Company."

  "We'll have some fun together, Captain."

  "But some food first?"

  "Mmm." Bridgetta Panofsky leaned forward through Howard Johnson's Formica tabletop and, apropos of nothing, she laid a gloved hand on Nathan Hansard's throat and slowly, deliberately, and a little insistently kissed his lips.

  "Hey, you're married, remember?"

  Her laughter was too self-assured to be due to embarrassment. "Such an old-fashioned pickle ," she commented, as she stood to leave. "But I rather like that."

  Jesus Christ, Hansard thought to himself. He thought it with such force that he wasn't quite sure he had not said it aloud. For Hansard's moral sense was too finely formed to tolerate a double standard. The notion of adultery with another man's wife was as noxious to him as, years before, his own wife's adultery had been. In any case, moral sense notwithstanding, he had scarcely had an opportunity yet to be tempted; nor was he, given that opportunity, in condition to respond to it.

  Perhaps this was what she had in mind when Bridgetta said to him, as they left the restaurant, "First thing, we'll get some chicken broth into your belly, and then maybe some soft-boiled eggs. But no steaks -- not for a day or so. Do you like curries? Bernie makes very good curries."

  "Don't know. Never had curry."

  "Lord, you are a military man! I've always liked men in uniform, but Bernie doesn't feel that way at all. Oh, now you've started blushing again. Really, you don't have the blood to waste on blushing, Captain."

  "You'll have to excuse me," Hansard said stiffly.

  "No, no," Bridgetta said, with an abrupt shift of mood, "you'll have to excuse me . You see, if the truth be told, Captain, if you could see what I'm feeling tonight, you'd see . . ." She broke off for a while, then continued, shaking her head as though in anger for
her own awkwardness. "I'm afraid, that's all. And when a person is afraid -- why, then she reaches out. You know? Will you hold my hand at least? Like that. Thank you."

  After they had walked on a way he asked, "What are you afraid of?"

  "Why, what is anybody afraid of, Captain?"

  "I don't know."

  "Of dying, certainly."

  NINE

  PANOFSKY

  "You'll have to admit," Bridie said, "that he's smart."

  "Smart, smart, what is smart?" asked Panofsky. "A rat that runs a maze is smart. I'm smart. President Madigan is smart."

  "And that he's polite and respectful," Jet added.

  "At the moment, that is only a part of being smart," snapped the other Panofsky. "You might as well say that because he's good-looking -- "

  "He does have an honest face," said Bridget firmly.

  "Because he doesn't often smile," said the first Panofsky.

  "He was humorous enough with me , love," Jet argued. "You forget at times how much you throw most people off balance. Captain Hansard didn't know what to make of you last night."

  "Goulash or shishkebab, eh?"

  "That's being perfectly unfair," Bridget objected in her loftiest tone. "You heard everything the good captain said at Howard Johnson's over Jet's little transmitter. Not only is he not a cannibal , he's also the last of the Puritans -- by the looks of it." The other two Bridgettas nodded their heads in glum confirmation.

  "But there's no need to write him off yet ," Jet said, rallying. "He just needs to get his strength back."

  "I think you're missing Bridget's point," Bridie said. "In her gentle way she was suggesting that you went after him too quickly. Why, the poor man must suppose that he's escaped from a den of cannibals into a nest of vampires."

  "Girls, girls," said both Panofskys together. Then the one who wore the knitted skull cap (possession of which gave its wearer priority at such times) continued: "I have no desire to engage in a debate on the merits of different strategies of seduction. I only wish to counsel you not to set your hearts too much on keeping him. Remember, he is in the Army; and while you're admiring the uniform, watch out for the iron heel. Perhaps Bridie is right about going slow with him. He's survived this long only by having a too-rigid character. If it cracks there's no telling what will come out from the old shell. But I'm certain I'd rather not find out. Do you agree with me, Bernard?"

  "Entirely, Bernard."

  "Then to your posts -- and may the best woman win."

  "Did you sleep well, Captain?"

  "Very well, thank you." Hansard sat up from the mattress on which he had spent the night. "How do you do it?"

  "The mattress, you mean? Bernie has to take all the credit for provisioning us. In fact, you have Bernie to thank for this too. It's his breakfast, but he thought you'd appreciate it more."

  Bridget held out the tray she was carrying. It held a plate of three fried eggs, other plates of bacon and toast, a pint glass of orange juice, a silver scallop-dish of jam, and an antique coffee server from the Plaza Hotel. Steam rose from the spout of the server.

  "After you've eaten I'll have some water ready for you to shave with, unless you'd rather let your beard grow out."

  "Amazing," said Hansard, oblivious for the first few moments of anything but the breakfast. After one egg, however, he looked up. "You're a different color today," he observed. For this Bridgetta's hair was not red but flaxen-blond and braided into a tight crown about her head, Irish-peasant-style.

  "I'm a different girl altogether. It was Jet who rescued you yesterday. She's the beauty of the family. I'm Bridget -- I take care of household things. And you've still to meet Bridie, the intellectual one."

  "But aren't you all the same person? I mean, you speak as though the others were your older sisters."

  "In a sense they are. It's important, if only for our self-concept, that we should be able to tell each other apart. So we try, by division of labor, to split the old single Bridgetta-identity into three. The youngest always has to be Bridget, because obviously that's the least fun."

  "The youngest?"

  "The one to have come out of the manmitter most recently is the youngest. You understand how it works, don't you? It's sort of like an echo. Well, the echo that's me has only been here a week. Jet, who was Bridget before I came, has been here four months now. And Bridie has been around from the very start, two years ago. You can always tell which of us is which because I'm blond and wear an apron; Jet is a redhead and dresses alamode, and Bridie is a sort of ashy brunette and has a moldy old lab coat. It's remarkable how easily clothes can dictate one's behavior."

  "And your husband, are there more than one of him?"

  "Two. But we thought we'd only confront you with one of each of us last night to keep things simple. Bernard is always just Bernard. He doesn't bother to differentiate between his two selves the way we do. In any case, there's very little that could threaten his self-concept. Tell me, Captain, do you like me better as a blonde or as a redhead?"

  Hansard shook his head, as though to clear away cobwebs. "For a moment there you really did have me believing you were a different person than the girl I met last night, but when you said that I knew better."

  "Excuse me, Captain, it's not always easy to remember to keep in character as a drudge. Even Cinderella has moments, when her sisters are away. . . . You ate all that so fast! Do you want more?"

  "Not now."

  "Then, if you please, come with me. Bernard wants to have a word with you." It was like following a teacher to the principal's office. Hansard wondered what he could possibly have done wrong already.

  "I can't tell you how much I appreciate your hospitality, Doctor Pan- "

  "Then don't make the attempt, Mr. Hansard. You will excuse me if I do not employ your proper title, but for me it would be a pejorative form. My experiences with the American military, and before that with the military establishments of East Germany and the Third Reich, have been, on the whole, unhappy experiences. You may use the same informality in addressing me. In America I have always felt that that 'Doctor' of yours also has a pejorative sense when it refers to someone outside the medical profession. Dr. Strangelove, for instance, or Dr. Frankenstein."

  "I'll try and remember that, sir. I certainly didn't intend any disrespect."

  "How old are you, Mr. Hansard?"

  "Thirty-eight."

  "Married?"

  "Divorced."

  "So much the better. You are just the right age for my Bridgetta. She is twenty-seven."

  "Just the right age for your Bridgetta for what , sir?"

  "For what!" The two Panofskys laughed in chorus. Then, pointing at his double, the Panofsky wearing the skull cap said: "Do you not see those wispy gray hairs? That shrunken chest? Do you not realize that that old man is paralyzed from the waist down?"

  "Nonsense, Bernard!" said the double.

  "Please to remember, Bernard," said Panofsky, laying his hand on the skull cap, "that I have the floor. And allow me a little poetic license in stating my case. Where was I? From the waist down, yes. Do you not see me here before you in a wheel chair? And you ask ' For what?' Are you naďve, my good Captain?"

  "It's not that exactly," Hansard mumbled, shifting his gaze uneasily from one Panofsky to the other.

  "Or, perhaps, though you're willing enough to go out and kill people or to push the button that will destroy the world, you have too fine a moral sense to think of a little hanky-panky?"

  "It may surprise you to learn that some of us military men do have a moral sense -- Doctor ."

  "Ah, he's got you there, Bernard," said the Panofsky without the cap. "Dead to rights."

  "If you have an objection, Mr. Hansard, please to state it."

  "Much as I admire your wife's fine qualities -- "

  "My wives, rather. There are presently three women meriting the distinction."

  "Lovely as all three are, they are your wives, sir. And I don't believe in, uh, prom
iscuity. Not with another man's wedded wife."

  "Really, Captain?" Both old gentlemen leaned forward in their wheel chairs. "Excuse me, but is that your sincere objection?"

  "I might have others, but I wouldn't know of them yet. The one I stated is sufficient in itself to be a basis for decision. Why should you question my sincerity?"

  "Ask him if he's a Catholic, Bernard," said the Panofsky without the cap.