Death in Florence

by George Alec Effinger

  * * *

  U Kalicha, the tavern where the Utopia 3 center was located, was a special place with a special history. It was the site of a tavern that had been the favorite of one of Czechoslovakia's best-known fictional characters. Joseph Schweik had been invented by Jaroslav Hasek in his novel The Good Soldier Schweik. Schweik was good-natured, unbearably good-natured. He was also either very, very stupid or very clever. Schweik was bullied and ordered around by an assortment of hardnosed types—police, military, civilian tough guys. He survived by trying too hard to please them all, by carrying their orders to the most absurd extremes, by smiling and co-operating and actually accomplishing nothing.

  Here, in the tavern where Schweik's adventures began, S. Norman Moore waited. There was a young woman behind the counter, her back turned. A bell had tinkled a welcome when Moore came in, but it had not aroused the woman's curiosity. Moore waited, rocking back and forth, looking at the signs and lettering on the walls. He could not read Czech, and the lack of vowels in many words puzzled him. He wondered how the Czechs had gotten along without them. He wished there had been more English in Prague, but he felt that was the price he had to pay for solitude.

  "Hello," said the woman, when she turned around. "My name is Donna. What can I do for you?"

  "Hello. My name is Moore. S. Norman Moore. You may remember me. I've been in a couple of dozen times in the last few months."

  "Ah, yes," said the woman. "I do recall your face. Can I get you a beer?"

  "Yes," said Moore, "thank you. That will be very nice."

  "Here you are." She put a mug of warm beer in front of him, took a rag and wiped the counter, and then turned her back again.

  Moore drank a mouthful of the beer. He enjoyed it very much. He waited for the woman to come back, but she didn't seem in much of a hurry. "Excuse me," he said finally.

  She looked over her shoulder. "Another beer?"

  "No," said Moore, "I wanted to talk to you about Dr. Waters."

  "Oh, him. I'm sorry. I thought you just came in to get a beer."

  "Not at all. I have all the beer I need all over the city."

  "Yes," said the Utopia 3 representative, "I suppose you do. I guess so. What about this Dr. Waters now?"

  "I saw his sign in the cemetery. I wondered if you could tell me what it means."

  The woman came nearer. She reached under the counter and brought up a thick notebook. It had a green cover with Utopia 3's concentric circles. "It's simple," she said. "He wants to get from you your option on part of the project."

  "Oh. Staefler mentioned that once. I didn't know what he was talking about."

  The woman's eyebrows drew together when Moore mentioned Staefler's name. "Staefler?" she asked. "Bo Staefler? The one with the kid?"

  "Yes," said Moore. "Why?"

  "He's on our list, that's all. He's on this list. He's so far refused to comply with Dr. Waters's request."

  "Staefler's not the co-operative sort."

  "You know him well?"

  Moore was put on his guard by her manner. He didn't know why, but he felt threatened. "No," he said, "not really. Just well enough to get in a fight with now and then."

  "Have you ever had physical relations with him?"

  Moore blushed. He stammered, but he couldn't say anything.

  "Is that a yes?" asked the woman, frowning.

  "It's a no," said Moore. "It's a shocked and disgusted no."

  "Fine," she said. "And you say you fight with him? You don't advocate his views or behavior?"

  "I detest him all the way around."

  "Great. Wonderful. Then I guess we won't have any trouble with you."

  "None at all. I'm a model prisoner."

  The woman frowned again. "What do you mean by that?" she asked.

  "Nothing, really. A joke."

  "Drink your beer and get out."

  Moore hesitated. "I'm sorry," he said. "It was only one small slip of the tongue. I really didn't mean it."

  "Your subconscious meant it. And I can't throw your subconscious out without the rest of you going along, too."

  "My subconscious apologizes. It really likes you very much. The rest of me does, also."

  She shook her head. "I've lived long enough to know what that means. The rest of you."

  Moore blushed again. "Are you doing anything for dinner tonight?"

  "Dinner?" she asked. "I was going to have a Sara Lee cake and a bottle of Barq's. It's my birthday."

  "Congratulations. Maybe we could do something to celebrate."

  "You're persistent, aren't you? Lonely for female companionship?" Moore didn't reply.

  "You have to answer," said the woman. "Are you or aren't you?"

  "I am," he said in a low voice.

  "Sure," she said. She shook her head. "That's an infraction, you know. That's a definite sign. It's very meaningful. It's a lot of trouble for you."

  Moore smiled. "It's something I've learned to live with."

  "You don't understand. It means you have to go back to the lodge. You've shown yourself to be unworthy."

  Moore felt his face flush. "What?" he cried. "How? Unworthy? I'm the one who goes around telling everybody else how great Utopia 3 is. I'm the one who's worthy around here."

  The woman gave him a sharp look. "You better watch yourself, Mr. Moore," she said. "Where is your gentleness? Where is your love?"

  "All right," he said. "I'm sorry."

  "That's better. We can forget the episode."

  "That's very decent of you," said Moore. "Thank you."

  "Not at all," she said. "I have gentleness and love myself, you know."

  "I suspected as much. Maybe this evening we could do something together?"

  The woman sighed. "There's nothing to do," she said.

  * * *

  On the way back to his house, Moore thought about what the woman had said. He remembered that Staefler had once warned him against asking for anything at the Utopia 3 office. Moore realized that he had left the office before the woman asked if he accepted Dr. Waters's offer. Option? Moore couldn't imagine what that meant. Rather than go back again, he decided that he would wait until dinner to ask the woman what he had to do.

  At one end of Vaclavske Namesti was a huge, heroic statue of Wenceslaus, Good King Wenceslaus, the square's namesake. On the base of the statue someone had pasted a large poster. It said:

  Hello to you all. My name is Sandor Courane, and I have a vision. Someday, as I see it, all of this will be yours. It will be yours in a true sense, unlike the petty and dishonest thing it is now. Of course I realize that I'm talking to people who believe in the work of Dr. Waters. Let me say right here that I have the profoundest respect for him. But that respect is not the kind of regard one has for a splendid humanitarian. It is the kind of thing one felt for Heinrich Himmler, say, or maybe Fu Manchu. It is loathing bordering on hatred. There, I've said it. I've got it out in the open. I've admitted that I hate Dr. Bertram Waters. Naturally, you will want to know why. It's only fair that I tell you my reasons. I would be very grateful if you would permit me to outline my views.

  Quite some months ago I first became aware that Dr. Waters was up to more than he would have the world believe. It isn't just a charitable interest he has in Utopia 3. Just ask any of the utopiates who have experienced the bewildering and seemingly arbitrary cruelty served up by his representatives. Have you had to go back to the orientation lodge? What was the reason? Think about it now. Did you really do anything which you felt endangered the cause of world peace? What did you ask for? American bathroom tissue? English language comic books? A new tape of a contemporary "rock music" group? Are these things really counterrevolutionary? No? Then you agree with me! Fine! Wonderful! Let us join hands, then, in a struggle against the serpent in this Garden of Eden, a serpent who wears the guise of Creator, better to deceive you.

  Now I hear you ask, "How can I help?" There is no simple answer to that. For now, merely live as you have been living. Keep your eyes
and ears open, keep your mind active and ready to consider all sides of this question in an unprejudiced manner, and look for my next message. Already I have been joined by a number of your neighbors here in wonderful Utopia 3. I'll be getting in touch with you again, with more reasons why you must enlist in the movement to kick the villain out. Until then, this is Sandor Courane saying, "Good luck, and may God bless!"

  The poster made Moore uncomfortable. He hated intrigues, and he hated the feeling that there was more going on than he knew about. His basic feeling was that he didn't want to hear from either Waters or Courane. He was working as hard as he could to mold himself according to the ideals of Dr. Waters and the Utopia 3 experiment. Whether or not Courane was correct, whether or not Dr. Waters cared, Moore believed in the concepts, and he was determined to make it work, if only for himself.

  After he went home and changed clothes, he went out to choose an automobile. He was to meet the woman from the Utopia 3 office—Donna, she said her name was, thought Moore—at a small restaurant in a part of the city he was not familiar with. He picked a cream-colored Skoda and drove across town. Fifteen minutes later, while he was tuning the car's radio, Moore saw another car following him. "Who's that, now?" he thought. He didn't want to meet anyone else. Then he'd almost certainly have to play host, bring the utopiate along to dinner, be convivial as well as gentle and loving, show the utopiate around the city, give him or her a keg of beer and some radishes. He really didn't want to. He stepped down on the accelerator.

  The automobile trailing him sped up, also. "Hell," thought Moore. He slowed down again. The stranger passed him, and he saw that it was a woman driving. Could it be Eileen Brant? Moore let his breath out in a gasp. He realized that the car in front of him had slowed almost to a stop. Moore stamped on the brake pedal, but the car screeched forward. With a crunch of bending steel, Moore's Skoda smacked into the rear of the other car.

  He saw the door open and the woman get out. It was Donna, from the Utopia 3 office. She was very angry. Moore felt cold.

  "I don't believe it!" she screamed. "One other moving vehicle in a radius of a hundred miles, and you manage to hit it! Get out of that car."

  "I'm sorry, Donna," said Moore. "It was just an accident."

  "I know, I know. I was there."

  "Well, forget about it. We'll leave these cars here, find another one, and go eat."

  She was still glaring at him. "I can't, you numbskull. Now we have to go back to the office. I've got to report this. Now you're really in trouble."

  "I have to go back to the lodge?"

  She snorted. "If you're lucky."

  "I'm sorry," said Moore. "I'm sorry about spoiling your birthday."

  * * *

  READ AND SIGN THE FOLLOWING STATEMENT, AND RETURN THIS FORM IMMEDIATELY TO THE UTOPIA 3 ORIENTATION LODGE:

  I understand the regulations governing my behavior in Utopia 3, and I have accepted these rules according to the principles and doctrines of Utopia 3 and its founder, Dr. Bertram Waters. Among these principles is the belief that wanton violence and destruction is unacceptable. I testify that to the best of my knowledge, the accident described on this form was neither "wanton," nor so great in effect as to warrant the term "destruction," except in the most modest of interpretations, IF THIS IS NOT THE CASE, PLEASE ATTACH FORM #10/783A, REPORT OF ACCIDENTAL OR WILLFUL GROSS DESTRUCTION OF PERSONS AND/OR PROPERTY. I understand that this accident has somewhat compromised my status within Utopia 3, and that during the period of investigation I will behave in the most humble, circumspect, even servile manner possible. I will be more than happy to receive whatever crumbs of mercy my peers in Utopia 3 choose to give me. I do hereby swear or affirm that all testimony on this form, in addition to all verbal testimony gathered at the scene of the accident or in subsequent interviews, is as complete and accurate as possible.

  * * *

  For the journey back to the orientation lodge, Moore chose a battered Volkswagen. He didn't want to create a bad impression by arriving in a shiny luxurious car. He looked through a bookstore until he found a road atlas and mapped his route from Prague to the lodge, by way of Nuremberg, Stuttgart, and Strasbourg. He decided to take his time and drive safely; he would take four days to get to his destination. He was worried. He didn't have any idea of what to expect when he got to the lodge. For a moment he considered taking a detour to Venice, where he could talk with Staefler and find out what was going on. But he didn't really want to see Staefler again, and he didn't dare compound his crime by arriving late.

  The farther west he drove, the better the radio reception became. Moore realized that he had not heard anything of what had been going on outside Utopia 3 for almost a year. Maybe at the orientation lodge there would be old newspapers and back issues of magazines so he could catch up with world events. It was the middle of July. He had been living blindly for months. He didn't know who had won the Academy Awards. He didn't know which baseball teams were in first place that summer. He hadn't heard anything of the spectacular scandals which must have taken place, or of the tragic deaths of notable persons. He wondered how his favorite comic strip characters were getting along without him. These thoughts troubled him, because in a real sense they were contrary to the teachings of Dr. Waters. Still, his experience at the Utopia 3 office and Courane's poster made him feel that the thoughts were at least semilegitimate. Surely Dr. Waters didn't expect his utopiates to stifle their powers of perception and reason. An element of doubt was beneficial. Even the most dedicated and faithful supporters of the Church confessed their occasional doubts, and their faith was made stronger.

  Moore made a conscious effort to overcome his suspicions. He had no hard evidence to support them, and they couldn't do anything but upset him. He had to be ready to think and behave rationally when he got to the lodge, and there was no place for idle speculations like Courane's. Moore needed calmness, and that was one quality that Bo Staefler could not supply. Moore associated Sandor Courane with Staefler in his mind, and so dismissed both of them for the time being. He could return to contemplate them some other time, when he felt more like wild-eyed fighting in the streets.

  * * *

  At the lodge Moore's big brother, Gerhardt Vollring, took charge of him again. "I'm a little disappointed," said Vollring, after Moore had taken his tests. "I mean, I really thought we wouldn't be seeing you back here again. I thought surely you were going to co-operate."

  "I am," said Moore. "I'm shocked that nobody else thinks so."

  Vollring stood up. "Come on, Norman, let's take a walk." They left the lodge and walked toward the path leading into the forest and the camping sites. "The reason you're here is because you've gone against one of the few necessary rules that govern this program. You do realize that there have to be rules, don't you? Of course. You're reasonable. Eventually all these rules will disappear, when everyone involved with Utopia 3 becomes completely integrated. The quasi-governmental structure will just wither away on its own. There will be no more need for it, and it will just plain go away."

  "Sure, sure, I know all that. But all I did was bump into the back end of another car."

  Vollring was chewing thoughtfully on a twig. He threw it away and frowned. "What you did, Norman, was damage property and endanger the well-being, even the life of another person. Now, we told you that everything in Utopia 3 is yours to do with as you please, because we're expecting your own internal controls to prevent you from harming anyone in any way. Harming property can be a way of hurting someone else, too, you know. Burn a library, and no one will ever again read its books."

  "A lousy traffic violation. A crummy fender-bender accident."

  "A crime, Norman. A small, microscopic crime. But a crime, nevertheless."

  "Well, I'm sorry." Norman was hurt and becoming sullen.

  "I know. I hope you are. I hope you won't let it happen again. I would hate to see you back here again. Next time is expulsion, you know."

  "Expulsion?"

  "Next
time," said Vollring, "for anything. Anything."

  "Can I go now?"

  Vollring sighed. "I suppose you want to get back to your own affairs. Your test scores were high, of course, so Myra will let you go back whenever you like. Before you do, though, I'd like to talk to you about your options."

  Moore was bewildered. He didn't understand the need for the project's tough stand. He felt like a criminal. He wondered if Staefler had had to go through the same thing. He resented being thrown into the same category with Staefler, being with him an almost-outlaw. "All right," he said. "Okay. What's this about options? Donna mentioned them in Prague, and then I was so busy running into her car that she never explained."

  They paused on the grassy trail. Vollring took a folded envelope from the hip pocket of his denim jeans. "Well," he said in a cheerful voice, "let's see if we can clear this up quickly."

  "I'd appreciate it," said Moore. "I'd hate to waste any more of Leo here. I'd rather get out and going. Back to Prague. Prague is really very Leo, probably the most Leo city in all of Utopia 3."

  Vollring frowned. "Leo?" he said. "I didn't know you were interested in astrology."

  "I didn't, either," said Moore. "That's odd."

  "Forget it. Let's go over this briefly, and then you can be on your way. Basically, as I see it, Dr. Waters has realized that each one of you utopiates has chosen a town or city as a kind of home base, and that each one of you has targeted a particular area as your favorite. He is seeking your promise that you won't enter certain other areas, certain areas you likely wouldn't visit, anyway. In return, he is prepared to offer you many things which even you, with all the resources of Utopia 3, can't obtain."

  "Is that moral?" asked Moore.

  "Ha, ha," said Vollring. There was a tense silence.

  "What things?" asked Moore finally.

  "For you, Norman, a variety of foods. Things you can't get out of cans and boxes. You like eating well, and Dr. Waters sympathizes with your problem. You can have a dozen packages of Patio frozen tacos in Prague next week. Ice cream. Fresh meat, any kind you want you name it. Turkey pot pies, just like you had at home when you were a kid. How about it?"