One

by David Karp

  No, no, Emma wouldn’t.

  “But she did. There’s the proof—signed in your own blood.”

  Oh, my God.

  “She’s a passionate woman—she couldn’t wait for desires to mount in a placid, pale grub like you. She tore her clothes off to be naked for her lover.”

  No, no.

  “She was eager for it. Don’t be a fool. You never satisfied her. Perhaps there was more than one lover. A woman as lusty as Emma Burden could use more lovers.”

  I trust her. It’s not true.

  “Think back, Burden. Weren’t there times when she wanted more of you, more than you could give? Didn’t she retreat into the darkness, still hungry, her body straining, a deep sense of being cheated filling her?”

  I don’t know. I don’t know.

  “After all, Burden, you’re not a passionate man. You couldn’t hope to satisfy her. Be realistic.”

  It was my fault, not hers.

  “She’s probably with her lover now. Emma has smooth, warm thighs, doesn’t she, Burden? Her lover probably knows more about them than you. He probably knows her body as intimately as a—”

  Stop! Stop! In the name of God, stop!

  “Man is an instrument of woman’s will, Burden. Emma married you for comfort, for security, for prestige. She probably never expected you to excite her, to fulfill her. She found that elsewhere. Face up to it, Burden—you’re only half a man as far as Emma Burden is concerned.”

  No, no, she’s happy, she’s content.

  “Happy with your position, with the home you’ve provided for her, with the attention you’ve given her, with the security you’ve furnished. But when her body demands a man she seeks him out, hungry for him, aching for him—not caring whether he’s diseased or brutal or stupid. Do you think he respects her? Cares about her? Do you think she wants any of those pointless, weak little things from him? She can have that pap from her husband. From her lover she wants the darkness, the flesh, the pain, the excruciating light of completion. He may spit on her, beat her, humiliate her, but she will twitch with desire, hunger for the final depravity, the deepest instincts of her womanhood reaching, clinging, desiring—”

  Won’t you please stop? Please, please, please?

  “You’re not quite the hero you imagine yourself, Burden, are you? Not quite the complete man, the perfect man, after all. You can’t arouse a woman, satisfy a woman. Your wife pities you when she thinks of you at all.”

  What do you want of me?

  “Stop lying to yourself, stop taking on airs. A man who can’t fulfill the primary functions of manhood has no right to assume he has any importance. Your sons—are they really your sons? Do they look like you? Perhaps they are another man’s sons. You can never be sure. She’s found joy in other men’s arms, a joy you could never give her. Perhaps your sons are born of that joy—that pure white-hot joy you could never give her.”

  I don’t know any more. I don’t know.

  “You know nothing, Burden. That’s the secret of your life. You have always been uncertain—of yourself, of your skills, of your manhood. How can you pretend to be something when you know that you are nothing? You’re less of a man than the brute who enjoys your wife. You’re less of a man than Doctor Middleton who speaks his mind—who voices his heresy. You conceal yourself, you’re afraid of it—you are sly and slippery and nauseating. You’re a spy—a State spy. Do you really think no one at the college knows it?”

  But surely they don’t.

  “They do. They all know and they have contempt for you as Emma has contempt for you. What’s happening now in your own home? This minute? Is Emma with her lover? Is—”

  The voice went on, vicious and insinuating, detailing the scene in the bedroom, in the darkness. It was Lark’s voice. At the far end of the room Doctor Wright drew back into the darkness, his face pale, his hands shaking. Doctor Emmerich crossed over to the political analyst, who watched Lark leaning over Burden’s supine form, talking, talking.

  “What’s the matter, Doctor?” Emmerich asked softly.

  “When is he going to stop?” Wright said, feeling cold sweat on his face.

  “It’s part of the personality readjustment,” Emmerich said blandly, glancing over his shoulder. Doctor Wright unexpectedly put his hands to his ears, his small, weak eyes seeming to bulge into the thick lenses of his glasses.

  “It makes me sick,” Wright gagged, “they’ll drive him out of his mind.”

  “Nonsense,” Emmerich replied, turning around to watch the group clustered about the examining table and Burden’s drugged body.

  ii

  It was early in the afternoon of Monday, the nineteenth of October, when Burden awoke. It was an awakening with a shudder since it instantly recalled the words of the doctor who had administered the specific.

  Burden shrank back against the bed, his head throbbing, his bones aching, his mind endlessly running a circular track, exhausted, feeble, tortured, but forced to keep to the track. It wasn’t true, it couldn’t be true. It was merely an obscene error—the worst they had committed thus far. He had had dreams—he knew what the dreams were—tangled, shadowy pale figures quivering under the awful tensions of desire, mindless, seeking only the touch, the kiss, the bite, the pain, and the completion of pain. One of the figures had been Emma. Or had it?

  Burden passed his hand over his mouth in shame and shock and felt the dry heat of his lips and the stubble on his chin and over his upper lip. No, he shook his head weakly, he would never believe it. Dreams were not things to be trusted. The doctor was wrong, the examination of his blood was an error, names had been mixed, slides mislabeled. In God’s name, how could such errors continue? Or had it been an error? Burden’s pale blue eyes searched the room vacantly. Had they lied to him? Deliberately? But why? What reason could they have for such a lie? What purpose did it serve? He shook his head exhaustedly and forced himself upright. He could not think in bed. The aching of his bones and muscles dragged at him as though he were wading through water waist-deep. It sapped his strength, sucked at his resistance. It was the whole business of being in bed, in a hospital, that kept him from thinking clearly. First it was the sedative, and then the grippe, and now this—if it really existed.

  Burden forced himself out of bed. He was no invalid, they would not make him an invalid. What were they trying to do to him? Lark had told him it was to disabuse him of his heresies. Burden shook his head at the confusion in his mind. He could not pick up the string that held the beads. First things first, he told himself firmly. If he tried to consider all of it at once it would merely compound the confusion, paralyze him with its contradictions.

  He huddled on the couch although the room was not cold, and wondered where they had put his bathrobe. The slight rattle of the window made him turn his head. All he could see was hard, flat light. It might be any sort of day outside—cold, sharp, raw, mild, bright, dull. He had no way of telling. The wall opposite his window began to depress him. He longed for a view of open spaces. It was impossible to think inside this room. If only for an hour he could get outside. He had to speak to Lark about it.

  To begin with, he thought grimly, Emma was not unfaithful. That was false. He knew it as certainly as he could watch the level of water rise in a glass under an opened tap. Whatever his dreams, whatever the diagnosis suggested, Emma was not the disordered, pale, frantic figure in his dreams. And he could answer as certainly that he had never been false to Emma. That meant the diagnosis was wrong. But how wrong? An administrative error? A clerical mistake? Or a deliberate error? But if it was a deliberate error, what was its purpose? To confuse him? Would that help them rid him of his heresies? How? What purpose did it serve to make him think that his wife had been unfaithful? Was it intended to shake his beliefs in things he held sacred? Was this the beginning of a succession of such attempts to shake his faith in everything he believed? If that was the reason behind the deliberate lie, did it follow that if he lost his beliefs he would lose his her
esies? Or was it something even more basic? Did they have to sweep his mind clean before they could attempt to rid him of his heresies?

  Burden’s jaw tightened; his hands opened and closed just once, and then remained closed. Lark would arrive shortly, Burden knew, and this time he would find out the truth. Perhaps Lark had nothing to do with this part of the treatment. It was quite possible that his purging was a matter of concern for several departments and that each would be trying its own methods. If that were the case then it suggested an over-all direction. But who was responsible for such direction? Lark? Burden could not believe that. And yet Lark had a formidable mind. It was possible he made all the decisions. But if he did, would he be on such intimate terms with his subject? Burden rather felt that the head of such a project would stay aloof from any particular phase of it, watching all the activities, weighing all the results. Lark would not fit as the head under such circumstances. It would be someone higher, someone more important—Lark’s superior, or perhaps someone even several stations above that. Burden wondered how important he really was to the Department. Lark had taken a very serious view of heresy. He remembered the illustrations Lark had given him—the platoon lieutenant, the clerk in government service. But how serious was it, after all? The fact of the matter was, it was a fiction. A platoon commander did not alter the course of a war, a clerk in government service did not alter the affairs of a nation. War and politics were too huge to turn on such minor pivots. Perhaps a thousand platoon commanders, a thousand clerks made a difference—but not one. Curious, Burden’s eyes narrowed at the thought, how much stress Lark placed on the dangers of an individual. He did not say the individual was important—he said the individual’s disobedience or attitude was important only in so far as it differed from the attitudes of all. It seemed a remarkable twist of reasoning to ignore the importance of an individual except when he deviated. It was as though Lark had no concept of the individual unless he did wrong—held heresies.

  Burden halted that line of thought and forced himself back to the consideration of the first question. Had the doctor committed a deliberate error? Had they lied to him? That question had to be answered before he could reason any further.

  Lark arrived at four in the afternoon, looking pale, rumpled, his pale eyes tinged with red fatigue, a smile on his face. As usual, he brought his chair over to the couch where Burden sat.

  “I’m glad to see you looking so well-prepared for our chat,” Lark said.

  “Did you know that last night I was taken to the clinic and told that I was suffering from syphilis?”

  Lark hesitated for a moment. “Yes,” he answered softly.

  “Do you know what that news has suggested to me?” Burden asked calmly, his eyes fixed on Lark.

  “I wouldn’t go into the morality of it,” Lark said, “if you were thinking of that. After all, the flesh is a mysterious envelope. I don’t think it’s worth-while to explore what a man will do, or what a woman will do under certain circumstances. Don’t let it disturb you too much, Professor. It’s a disease like any other, and it can be cured.”

  “It’s more than a disease, Mr. Lark,” Burden said carefully. “Some people consider it a moral judgment. Almost any married man would consider it a revelation of a secret. Since I have been faithful to my wife it can mean only one thing.”

  “Professor Burden, I don’t want you to be upset about this. I’m sorry the doctor informed you of the condition. Actually, there was no need to. You could have been treated and left here at the end of the week completely cured. Of course, as a matter of public health, your wife will be contacted by public health authorities and given the same examination and treatment. She will, of course, have to be told. And whatever other sexual contacts she’s made will also have to be found.” Lark paused. “I’m sorry if this is painful for you. You may believe me when I tell you that I have formed no derogatory opinion of your wife because of this.”

  “Neither have I,” Burden said slowly.

  “Good,” Lark said, nodding agreeably but soberly, “I’m glad to hear that. When I first discovered what had happened last night I was disturbed to think that it would upset you—prevent us from going on with our most important work.”

  “Mr. Lark,” Burden said, bracing himself, “I believe my wife has been faithful to me. I know I have been faithful to her. That means the diagnosis of syphilis was in error. The question I want to ask you is this: Why did they lie to me?”

  15

  Lark hardly paused before answering. “That’s a surprising conclusion, Professor Burden. Why should anyone lie to you about anything? Especially about something that carries such grave moral implications?”

  “I don’t know, Mr. Lark. That is what I am asking you. I know they lied. But why?”

  “Well,” Lark shrugged his shoulders, “perhaps they didn’t. Perhaps there was some error in the labs.”

  Burden shook his head. “No, Mr. Lark, I don’t think there was. I think we once discussed my feeling more sophisticated than people who ran the government. And I think you showed me the fallacy of such thinking. Well, I’ve rid myself of that heresy, Mr. Lark. I think the doctors, the laboratory assistants, and the administrative workers of this Department are capable enough to avoid such errors. So I will not accept error as an answer. The only other answer is deliberate falsehood. Why was it necessary?”

  “Professor Burden, you manage to be flattering and insulting at the same time.” Lark smiled wryly. “On the one hand you credit us with infallibility, only to prove that we are damned as liars. Couldn’t the truth be simpler and less flattering to ourselves—that a mistake was made somewhere?”

  “Let me ask you another question—”

  Lark nodded soberly, waiting.

  “Evidently purging me of heresy is a matter of some importance with the Department. And since it is, I suppose quite a few branches of the Department are in on this project. And if that is the case there must be some over-all direction, some person in charge of all phases of the operation. Is there such a person?”

  “No,” Lark said softly.

  “You mean to tell me that there is no one person in charge of this project? That you allow everyone and anyone to do with me what he will?”

  “Professor Burden—what is it you really want to know?”

  “Was I lied to deliberately?”

  “But you say it was a lie. Would you believe me if I said it was not a lie?”

  “I know it was a lie,” Burden said softly, determinedly.

  “Let’s set the matter aside for a moment,” Lark said quietly, “and pick up the question of the over-all authority. You are quite right. I am not the only person involved in this matter of purging you of your heresies. It is a co-operative enterprise. Why should you assume there is some one in charge of the entire enterprise?”

  “It seems to me that an elementary sense of organization would suggest that when a number of people or agencies are engaged in working on some one thing there be a supervisor over all the workers.”

  “And your elementary sense of organization tells you that there’s someone sitting in an office somewhere reading reports on you, criticizing techniques, making value judgments, issuing orders on your treatment?” Lark noted Burden’s grave, steady look. He smiled. “Well, you’re wrong. Actually there is no such person. What you call the over-all authority is a book—a manual. You see, the Department is the society in microcosm. We deal with you—each division—in accordance with certain regulations and rules printed in black and white in a manual. Each division has a specific function to perform according to the manual and only that part of the manual which concerns the work of that particular division is in the possession of that division. I don’t know how I can best explain it, but it is as if a man were performing some tiny function in the manufacture of a very delicate and complex apparatus. Of course he knows what the finished product should look like, and he probably knows, generally speaking, its function. But he does not know the in
terrelation of all the parts or the particular relationship his own small contribution has to the other parts or they to his.”

  “That’s monstrous,” Burden said, genuinely shocked and amazed. “You mean I’m dealt with as if I were a machine—like any other?”

  “It shouldn’t shock you,” Lark said, pleased at his own improvisation and its success in touching Burden so deeply. Burden’s sense of individualism had sprung up like a tongue of fire, naked, glowing, gorgeous in its anarchy. “The manual is extremely complex and the product of many years of experience and the efforts of many sophisticated and intuitive minds. I’ve never seen a complete copy of the manual myself, but I should imagine it would be huge—laid on its side it might be three or four feet thick. Our own section is three hundred pages long of fine type and it isn’t a bit discursive. It’s all quite to the point.”

  “There are others like me?”

  “Of course,” Lark said blandly. “You didn’t think you were unique, did you?”

  “Does the manual call for lying about a woman’s fidelity?” Burden asked, angry now and bitter that he should be treated in accordance with the instructions in a manual.

  “I have no idea what the medical division’s section of the manual calls for. It’s quite possible all this is misleading you and you actually do have a social disease. Or else we have made an error.”

  “I don’t believe it is an error. I believe it was a deliberate lie. And if that’s what your damned omniscient handbook calls for—it isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on!” Burden was aware that the final epithet was weak, and was angry with himself for not finding words strong enough to match his indignation. He watched Lark, still feeling the shock at the thought that Lark’s intimacy and friendship were probably nothing more than the treatment advised in the manual for heretics. For all he knew, Lark’s arguments were taken bodily from the manual, carefully worded arguments designed to meet any situation. Burden looked at Lark with new eyes. This was the man who had once said that he and Conger were of the same intellectual level. Perhaps it was true. Perhaps this was a dull-witted man, as literal, as fanatic, as thick-skinned as Conger or Julian Richard. Burden looked at Lark more carefully. He had accepted this man as a friend, as an equal. Was he either?