Job: A Comedy

by Robert A. Heinlein

  "I washed an awful lot of dishes!"

  "Not here, you didn't. Here they might send for the police."

  We started walking.

  ****

  That was typical of the persecution we suffered in trying to get to Kansas. Yes, I said "persecution." If paranoia consists in believing that the world around you is a conspiracy against you, I had become paranoid. But it was either a "sane" paranoia (if you will pardon the Irishism), or I was suffering from delusions so monumental that I should be locked up and treated.

  Maybe so. If so, Margrethe was part of my delusions—an answer I could not accept. It could not be folie a deux; Margrethe was sane in any world.

  It was the middle of the day before we got anything to eat, and by then I was beginning to see ghosts where a healthy man would see only dust devils. My hat had gone where the woodbine twineth and the New Mexico sun on my head was not helping my state.

  A carload of men from a construction site picked us up and took us into Grants, and bought us lunch before they left us there. I may be certifiably insane but I am not stupid; we owe that ride and that meal to the fact that Margrethe in shorts indecently tight is a sight that attracts the attention of men. That gave me plenty to think about while I enjoyed (and I did enjoy it!) that lunch they bought us. But I kept my ruminations to myself.

  After they left us I said, "East?"

  "Yes, sir. But first I would like to check the public library. If there is one."

  "Oh, yes! Surely." Earlier, in the world of our friend Steve, the lack of any sort of air travel had caused me to suspect that Steve's world might be the world where Margrethe was born (and therefore the home of "Alec Graham" as well). In Gallup we had checked on this at the public library—I had looked up American history in an encyclopedia while Marga checked on Danish history. It took us each about five minutes to determine that Steve's world was not the world Marga was born in. I found that Bryan had been elected in 1896 but had died in office, succeeded by his vice president, Arthur Sewall—and that was all I needed to know; I then simply raced through presidents and wars I had never heard of.

  Margrethe had finished her line of investigation with her nose twitching with indignation. Once outside where we didn't have to whisper I asked her what was troubling her. "This isn't your world, dear; I made sure of that."

  "It certainly isn't!"

  "But we didn't have anything but a negative to go on. There may be many worlds that have no aeronautics of any sort."

  "I'm glad this isn't my world! Alec, in this world Denmark is part of Sweden. Isn't that terrible?"

  Truthfully I did not understand her upset. Both countries are Scandinavian, pretty much alike—or so it seemed to me. "I'm sorry, dear. I don't know much about such things." (I had been to Stockholm once, liked the place. It didn't seem a good time to tell her so.)

  "And that silly book says that Stockholm is the capital and that Carl Sixteenth is king. Alec, he isn't even royal! And now they tell me he's my king!"

  "But, sweetheart, he's not your king. This isn't even your world."

  "I know. Alec? If we have to settle here—if the world doesn't change again—couldn't I be naturalized?"

  "Why, yes. I suppose so."

  She sighed. "I don't want to be a Swede."

  I kept quiet. There were some things I couldn't help her with.

  ****

  So in Grants we again went to a public library to see what the latest changes had done to the world. Since we had seen no aeroplanos and no dirigibles, again it was possible that we were in Margrethe's world. This time I looked first under "Aeronautics"—did not find dirigibles but did find flying machines . . . invented by Dr. Alberto Santos-Dumont of Brazil early in this century—and I was bemused by the inventor's name, as, in my world, he had been a pioneer in dirigibles second only to Count von Zeppelin. Apparently the doctor's aerodynes were primitive compared with jet planes, or even aeroplanos; they seemed to be curiosities rather than commercial vehicles. I dropped it and turned to American history, checking first on William Jennings Bryan.

  I couldn't find him at all. Well, I had known that this was not my world.

  But Marga was all smiles, could hardly wait to get outside the no-talking area to tell me about it. "In this world Scandinavia is all one big country . . . and København is its capital!"

  "Well, good!"

  "Queen Margrethe's son Prince Frederik was crowned King Eric Gustav—no doubt to please the outlanders. But he is true Danish royalty and a Dane right down to his skull bone. This is as it should be!"

  I tried to show her that I was happy, too. Without a cent between us, with no idea where we would sleep that night, she was delighted as a child at Christmas . . . over an event that I could not see mattered at all.

  Two short rides got us into Albuquerque and I decided that it was prudent to stay there a bit—it's a big place—even if we had to throw ourselves on Salvation Army charity. But I quickly found a job as a dishwasher in the coffee shop of the local Holiday Inn and Margrethe went to work as a waitress in the same shop.

  We had been working there less than two hours when she came back to the scullery and slid something into my hip pocket while I was bent over a sink. "A present for you, dear!"

  I turned around. "Hi, Gorgeous." I checked my pocket—a safety razor of the travel sort—handle unscrews, and razor and handle and blades all fit into a waterproof case smaller than a pocket Testament, and intended to be carried in a pocket. "Steal it?"

  "Not quite. Tips. Got it at the lobby notions stand. Dear, at your first break I want you to shave."

  "Let me clue you, doll. You get hired for your looks. I get hired for my strong back, weak mind, and docile disposition. They don't care how I look."

  "But I do."

  "Your slightest wish is my command. Now get out of here; you're slowing up production."

  That night Margrethe explained why she had bought me a razor ahead of anything else. "Dear, it's not just because I like your face smooth and your hair short— although I do! These Loki tricks have kept on and each time we have to find work at once just to eat. You say that nobody cares how a dishwasher looks . . . but I say looking clean and neat helps in getting hired for any job, and can't possibly hurt.

  "But there is another reason. As a result of these changes, you've had to let your whiskers grow once, twice—I can count five times, once for over three days. Dearest, when you are freshly shaved, you stand tall and look happy. And that makes me happy."

  Margrethe made for me a sort of money belt—actually a cloth pocket and a piece of cloth tape—which she wanted me to wear in bed. "Dear, we've lost anything we didn't have on us whenever a shift took place. I want you to put your razor and our hard money into this when you undress for bed."

  "I don't think we can outwit Satan that easily."

  "Maybe not. We can try. We come through each change with the clothes we are wearing at the time and with whatever we have in our pockets. This seems to fit the rules."

  "Chaos does not have rules."

  "Perhaps this is not chaos. Alec, if you won't wear this to bed, do you mind if I do?"

  "Oh, I'll wear it. It won't stop Satan if he really wants to take it away from us. Nor does it really worry me. Once he dumped us mother naked into the Pacific and we pulled out of it—remember? What does worry me is— Marga, have you noticed that every time we have gone through a change we've been holding each other? At least holding hands?"

  "I've noticed."

  "Change happens in the blink of an eye. What happens if we're not together, holding each other? At least touching? Tell me."

  She kept quiet so long that I knew she did not intend to answer.

  "Uh huh," I said. "Me, too. But we can't be Siamese twins, touching all the time. We have to work. My darling, my life, Satan or Loki or whatever bad spirit is doing this to us, can separate us forever simply by picking any instant when we are not touching."

  "Alec."

  "Yes, my love?
"

  "Loki has been able to do this to us at any moment for a long time. It has not happened."

  "So it may happen the next second."

  "Yes. But it may not happen at all."

  ****

  We moved on, and suffered more changes. Margrethe's precautions did seem to work—although in one change they seemed to work almost too well; I barely missed a jail sentence for unlawful possession of silver coins. But a quick change (the quickest we had seen) got rid of the charge, the evidence, and the complaining witness. We found ourselves in a strange courtroom and were quickly evicted for lacking tickets entitling us to remain there.

  But the razor stayed with me; no cop or sheriff or marshal seemed to want to confiscate that.

  We were moving on by our usual method (my thumb and Margrethe's lovely legs; I had long since admitted to myself that I might as well enjoy the inevitable) and had been dropped in a pretty part of—Texas, it must have been—by a trucker who had turned north off 66 on a side road.

  We had come out of the desert into low green hills. It was a beautiful day but we were tired, hungry, sweaty, and dirty, for our persecutors—Satan or whoever—had outdone themselves: three changes in thirty-six hours.

  In one day I had had two dishwashing jobs in the same town at the same address . . . and had collected nothing. It is difficult to collect from The Lonesome Cowboy Steak House when it turns into Vivian's Grill in front of your eyes. The same was true three hours later when Vivian's Grill melted into a used-car lot. The only thing good about these shocks was that by great good fortune (or conspiracy?) Margrethe was with me each time—in one case she had come to get me and was waiting with me while my boss was figuring my time, in the other she had been working with me.

  The third change did us out of a night's lodging that had already been paid for iri kind by Margrethe's labor.

  So when that trucker dropped us, we were tired and hungry and dirty and my paranoia had reached a new high.

  We had been walking a few hundred yards when we came to a sweet little stream, a sight in Texas precious beyond all else.

  We stopped on the culvert bridging it. "Margrethe, how would you like to wade in that?"

  "Darling, I'm going to do more than wade in it, I'm going to bathe in it."

  "Hmm— Yes, go under the fence, along the stream about fifty, seventy-five yards, and I don't think anyone could see us from the road."

  "Sweetheart, they can line up and cheer if they want to; I'm going to have a bath. And— That water looks clean. Would it be safe to drink?"

  "The upstream side? Certainly. We've taken worse chances every day since the iceberg. Now if we had something to eat— Say, your hot fudge sundae. Or would you prefer scrambled eggs?" I held up the lower wire of the fence to let her crawl under.

  "Will you settle for an Oh Henry bar?"

  "Make that a Milky Way," I answered, "if I have my druthers."

  "I'm afraid you don't, dear. An Oh Henry bar is all there is." She held the wire for me.

  "Maybe we'd better stop talking about food we don't have," I said, and crawled under—straightened up and added, "I'm ready to eat raw skunk."

  "Food we do have, dear man. I have an Oh Henry in my tote."

  I stopped abruptly. "Woman, if you're joking, I'm going to beat you."

  "I'm not joking."

  "In Texas it is legal to correct a wife with a stick not thicker than one's thumb." I held up my thumb. "Do you see one about this size?"

  "I'll find one."

  "Where did you get a candy bar?"

  ''That roadside stop where Mr. Facelli treated us to coffee and doughnuts."

  Mr. Facelli had been our middle-of-the-night ride just before the truck that had just dropped us. Two small cake doughnuts each and the sugar and cream for coffee had been our only calories for twenty-four hours.

  "The beating can wait. Woman, if you stole it, tell me about it later. You really do have a real live Oh Henry? Or am I getting feverish?"

  "Alec, do you think I would steal a candy bar? I bought it from a coin machine while you and Mr. Facelli were in the men's room after we ate."

  "How? We don't have any money. Not from this « world."

  "Yes, Alec. But there was a dime in my tote, from two changes back. Of course it was not a good dime, strictly speaking. But I couldn't see any real harm if the machine would take it. And it did. But I put it out of sight before you two got back . . . because I didn't have three dimes and could not offer a candy bar to Mr. Facelli." She added anxiously, "Do you think I cheated? Using that dime?"

  "It's a technicality I won't go into ... as long as I get to share in the proceeds of the crime. And that makes me equally guilty. Uh ... eat first, or bathe first?"

  We ate first, a picnic banquet washed down by delicious creek water. Then we bathed, with much splashing and laughing—I remember it as one of the happiest times of my life. Margrethe had soap in her tote bag, too, and I supplied the towel, my shirt. First I wiped Margrethe with it, then I wiped me with it. The dry, warm air finished the job.

  What happened immediately after was inevitable. I had never in my life made love outdoors, much less in bright daylight. If anyone had asked me, I would have said that for me it would be a psychological impossibility; I would be too inhibited, too aware of the indecency involved.

  I am amazed and happy to say that, while keenly aware of the circumstances, I was untroubled at the time and quite able . . . perhaps because of Margrethe's bubbling, infectious enthusiasm.

  I have never slept naked on grass before, either. I think we slept about an hour.

  When we woke up, Margrethe insisted on shaving me. I could not shave myself very well as I had no mirror, but she could and did, with her usual efficiency. We stood knee-deep in the water; I worked up soapsuds with my hands and slathered my face. She shaved and I renewed the lather as needed.

  "There," she said at last, and gave me a sign-off kiss, "you'll do. Rinse off now and don't forget your ears. I'll find the towel. Your shirt." She climbed onto the bank while I leaned, far over and splashed water on my face.

  "Alec—"

  "I can't hear you; the water's running."

  "Please, dear!"

  I straightened up, wiped the water out of my eyes, looked around.

  Everything we owned was gone, everything but my razor.

  XVII

  Behold, I go forward, but he is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive him: On the left hand, where he doth work, but I cannot behold him: he hideth himself on the right hand, that I cannot see him.

  Job 23:8-10

  ****

  MARGRETHE SAID, "What did you do with the soap?"

  I took a deep breath, sighed it out. "Did I hear you correctly? You're asking what I did with the soap?"

  "What would you rather I said?"

  "Uh— I don't know. But not that. A miracle takes place . . . and you ask me about a bar of soap."

  "Alec, a miracle that takes place again and again and again is no longer a miracle; it's just a nuisance. Too many, too much. I want to scream or break into tears. So I asked about the soap."

  I had been halfway to hysteria myself when Mar-grethe's statement hit me like a dash of cold water. Margrethe? She who took icebergs and earthquakes in her stride, she who never whimpered in adversity . . . . she wanted to scream?

  "I'm sorry, dear. I had the soap in my hands when you were shaving me. I did not have it in my hands when I rinsed my face. I suppose I laid it on the bank. But I don't recall. Does it matter?"

  "Not really, I suppose. Although that cake of Camay, used just once, would be half our worldly goods if I could find it, this razor being the other half. You may have placed it on the bank, but I don't see it."

  "Then it's gone. Marga, we've got urgent things to worry about before we'll be dirty enough to need soap again. Food, clothing, shelter." I scrambled up onto the bank. "Shoes. We don't even have shoes. What do we do now? I'm stumped. If I had a wailing wall, I'd wail
."

  "Steady, dear, steady."

  "Is it all right if I just whimper a little?"

  She came close, put her arms around me, and kissed me. "Whimper all you want to, dear, whimper for both of us. Then let's decide what to do."

  I can't stay depressed with Margrethe's arms around me. "Do you have any ideas? I can't think of anything but picking our way back to the highway and trying to thumb a ride . . . which doesn't appeal to me in the state I'm in. Not even a fig leaf. Do you see a fig tree?"

  "Does Texas have fig trees?"

  "Texas has everything. What do we do now?"

  "We go back to the highway and start walking."

  "Barefooted? Why not stand still and wave our thumbs? We can't go far enough barefooted to matter. My feet are tender."

  "They'll toughen up. Alec, we must keep moving. For our morale, love. If we give up, we'll die. I know it."

  Ten minutes later we were moving slowly east on the highway. But it was not the highway we had left. This one was four lanes instead of two, with wide paved shoulders. The fence marking the right of way, instead of three strands of barbed wire, was chain-link steel as high as my head. We would have had a terrible time reaching the highway had it not been for the stream. By going back into the water and holding our breaths, we managed to slither under the fence. This left us sopping wet again (and no towel-shirt) but the warm air corrected that in a few minutes.

  There was much more traffic on this highway than there had been on the one we had left, both freight and what seemed to be passenger cars. And it was fast. How fast I could not guess, but it seemed at least twice as fast as any ground transportation I had ever seen. Perhaps as fast as transoceanic dirigibles.

  There were big vehicles that had to be freight movers but looked more like railroad boxcars than they looked like lorries. And even longer than boxcars. But as I stared I figured out that each one was at least three cars, articulated. I figured this out by attempting to count wheels. Sixteen per car? Six more on some sort of locomotive up front, for a total of fifty-four wheels. Was this possible?