“Olly, do you believe that? Why?”
“The sun will enlarge and burn the earth to a crisp. We’ll have to venture into new worlds if the human race is to survive.”
“When?”
“What difference does that make?”
“When?”
Only one thing kept me going. Every Tuesday and Thursday I saw her pictures hanging on the wall behind Miss Luptik and my diabolical battery recharged. I saw the pale and beaten Miss Luptik sink into predictability, and I raged freshly.
Then, of course, there were the dreams. The poor gods, clinging to existence, were gasping for a hero. One even suggested that my cousin Marvin, who I saw on major holidays, might do a better job.
The thing that brought Marilyn Mayberry into contact again was the bell at Riverside Church.
From a Juilliard student who lived on my block, I learned that every Saturday at noon there is a concert in the church tower. High above the city, in a small glass room, a bellringer comes to play the carillon.
For ten cents, visitors are welcome to take the elevator up, walk two additional flights, stand on a landing enclosed by stone arches, and listen.
The main bell hangs in the tower’s center. It was designed to rouse spirits as far away as Teaneck, which is across the Hudson River.
When I heard about it, I conceived a scheme so basically rotten that I hesitate to give descriptions. My plan was to vibrate Marilyn Mayberry into submission. Thinking like the Old Testament, I believed that if she were exposed to total vibration over a sustained period of say five minutes from her arches to her scalp, her defenses would crash like the walls of Jericho.
It came to pass.
We went, innocently, to the church. We paid our dimes. We breached the tower.
At twelve, the bell began.
It boomed gobs of sound so rich and full that we did not hear them. They hit us. Up there, with the city on one side, the river on the other, we drowned in bongs. It was fearsome.
I had neglected to consider my own reaction to the massed decibels of Bach. Quasimodo would have lost his pants. Marilyn Mayberry started to cry, and despite myself, I joined her.
We held on to each other, shaking, while a tone-deaf pigeon watched. The bell went on and on. When a man and a woman vibrate so thoroughly, something changes between them.
When we came down, I knew from Marilyn’s expression that my conquest was no longer a matter of will-she, but when-will-she. It was time to think of time and place.
This can be a real problem for city youth. I have heard of a fellow who rented a safe-deposit box at Manufacturers-Hanover Trust for $6.60 per year so that he can take his girls to the little room where they let you count your money down near the vault.
A friend of my family was leaving for the mountains. It became my responsibility to water their plants. I asked Marilyn to come with me. She did, and she didn’t. In the shade of the window garden, she told me the story of a “fellow” she knew who had violated a woman’s confidence in a similar situation. I looked down at the African violets and lost the urge to cohabitation.
The gods chided me that night. I hardly recognized them. They were fatter, more confident, ready for deliverance. I warned them about premature optimism, but they laughed anyhow.
A poet I know was called back to Brooklyn due to some crisis. He had his own room in the Village. He asked me to look in on his sick cat. Would Marilyn come with me? She would, and she wouldn’t. Together we fed kidneys to the cat. Such grateful mewing could melt glaciers, but not Miss Mayberry. She allowed me a hand underneath her rayon blouse, but in back.
Still, the gods continued to celebrate. I warned them. They winked.
Marilyn had to baby-sit for her aunt. The baby, a formless bag of feces, slept in a lump. We sat on a soft couch, which was made up for the night since Marilyn was to stay over.
We lay side by side for two hours without movement like members of the Young Communist League on bivouac. I went home in a crouch.
Even then the gods cheered the minute I closed my eyes.
Like the prince with the horse, it took some time for me to get the message. Through the Western Union of sleep, it came to Oliver August that Marilyn Mayberry, not I, would pick the time and place. A girl who drew gods would certainly want to design the stage set for her own greatest moment.
I waited. Days passed.
A week following I got a letter from the draft board. They wanted to examine my body. I was no longer worried about the legions of Mao. I was worried about the legions of Mr. Rain, Mr. Sun, Mr. Corn, Mr. Buffalo, Mr. Forest, Mr. Fire, Mr. Death, Mr. Birth, Mr. Pain and Miss Moon.
The letter was a catalyst. I showed it to Marilyn Mayberry. She invited me out to dinner on the night before my physical.
We went to a French restaurant called the Fleur de Lys. Marilyn kept her eyes on me while eating snails, filet of sole, and an eclair. I ordered an artichoke. Peeling the leaves, revealing the heart, swallowing it in garlic butter, daubing with my napkin, I was the soul of seriousness.
After dinner, still on her allowance, we rode in a hansom cab through Central Park, then sat by the bird sanctuary lake on 59th Street watching a matted swan and talking about destiny until the police chased us.
During our hour on the park bench, Marilyn told me many things, but the one that especially impressed me was the revelation that she had planned her wedding at the age of ten.
She described it, down to the point where a line of waiters carry flaming Baked Alaska into the dining room while she squeezes her husband’s leg under the table.
Her apartment had been mentally furnished a year before first menstruation. She wanted white French Provincial. She was on her way. Her mother had bought her a hope chest the size of a cave, and since she was “weensy,” uncles, aunts, cousins, friends and acquaintances had been stocking it. With her head on my shoulder, Marilyn informed me that she was indeed a girl of property.
In a soft voice, she asked me about careers. I was ready for her questions.
“A man needs direction,” I said. “I have my goal. If I am fortunate enough to leave the Army in reasonably good condition, I’m going into corporation law. You may not think that a dramatic occupation, Marilyn. But that’s what I want. And it’s not only the money, which is substantial. The organization of business has always intrigued me. And, on the higher levels, a businessman can share his career with his woman.”
I looked up. The gods were sitting in a row on top of the Plaza Hotel just behind us. I saw them eating an antelope hock and generally carrying on. The vision nearly spoiled my speech.
Late, very late, Marilyn Mayberry and I went home.
She lived with her mother and brother in a solid apartment house on Lexington Avenue. Until that night, our farewells were said outside her door. I had never crossed her threshold. The brother, a teenager, slept in an alcove and was trained to bite the ankle of any stranger.
When we reached her apartment, I took her in my arms. She pushed me away. My temperature dropped sharply. I was confused, but not for long.
Marilyn beckoned. She led me to another door down the 1 corridor. And from her evening bag she produced a key with a new set of teeth.
“My sister Betty and her husband Irv live here,” she said. “They have darling twins, Jerome and Charlotte. I want you to see the babies.”
“It’s three-thirty,” I said.
“Betty and Irv don’t mind. The kids’ room is off the foyer. Come on. Nothing wakes them. Nothing.”
I went.
We unlocked the door, clicking as quietly as possible. Marilyn took off her shoes. Me too. Like burglars, we entered the dark apartment.
Feeling her way, Marilyn took me to a room. Inside, a nightlight burned between two cribs. Two nice-looking children scrunched under blankets, one pink, one blue.
“Sweet? Yes?”
“Yes.”
“Milk and cake?”
“If nobody minds.”
We tipto
ed again through darkness and found our way to the kitchen.
“Hush. Be a mouse.”
Marilyn turned on the fluorescent. It flickered, missed, ignited, blazed. There we were. But where?
That kitchen was like nothing I had ever seen. I enjoy the stamp of domesticity. But such a stamp.
The scene in brief: dirty dishes filled a table. Bottles of half-eaten baby food sat on the sink. Boxes of cereal, a bowl of fruit, wet towels, drippy Brillo pads, pans, a pile of chicken bones, and other testimonials to life lived covered every surface.
And the wash. The wash.
There was wash everyplace. Steel ribs on the ceiling were full of wash. A straw basket, of the modified Navaho type, was full of wash. A machine with its door open had a clump of wash hanging out, and a portable rack near the stove hung wash like a willow.
Food, dishes, bones, soap pads, the fantastic dangling wash came together in the brittle light. We stood in a tree house, engulfed in the foliage of an active marriage.
Marilyn grinned.
“Betty is such a slob,” she said.
At three-thirty-six, Eastern Daylight Time, we stood on blue linoleum. Dew from a turkish towel, or was it a diaper, fell on my forehead. Did Marilyn mistake it for a tear?
The drop ran down my nose, in business for itself, seeking the way to the universal ocean of human misery. And I saw a drop on Marilyn’s cheek take the same journey.
“Are you crying?” I said.
The fluorescents blazed onto the blue linoleum. Like bathers testing the water, we stood together and shivered. I heard the gods howl from behind a Sanforized house dress. Mostly I heard my heart. I looked at my wristwatch. The second hand flew.
“Why are you crying?” I said.
Marilyn shrugged. She played with my tie. I kissed her on the neck.
“Are you crying because this is Army Physical Eve?” I said. “Is that it?”
“I don’t know,” she said.
“Well stop, please,” I said. “You’re confusing me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I think we’d better say goodnight,” I said.
One of the gods coughed up phlegm.
“Here we are,” Marilyn said.
“Goodnight,” I said.
“No,” Marilyn said.
She opened two buttons of my shirt and slipped her hand in. Her hand was cool, a delicious temperature.
“I know how much you want to make love to me,” she said.
“Someday, dear,” I said. “Tomorrow we’ll find a place. I’ll rent a car. We’ll drive to a motel on a mountain.”
“I’ve known,” she said. “Don’t you think I’ve known?”
“I knew you knew,” I said.
“Take off your stupid jacket,” Marilyn said.
“It’s late as hell,” I said.
She took off my stupid jacket.
“I want to feel your chest against mine,” she said.
“Look, dear,” I said. “Your sister is inside. Your brother-in-law . . .”
Marilyn took off my shirt. First she worked on my cufflinks and dropped them into the little pocket, then she did the rest.
“No T shirt?” she said. “Unzip me.”
Marilyn turned around. I unzipped her. She pulled her dress over her head. Then she reached behind herself and unhooked her bra. I slipped the bra off her soft shoulders.
Her breasts tumbled out like children at recess. We pressed together. Marilyn kissed my ear. It occurred to me that Oliver August, the vengeful seducer, had never opened a single button.
“Make me naked,” Marilyn said.
I made her naked. In the Garden of Lux, in the oilcloth pool, she looked remarkably fine.
“Be naked with me.”
I was naked with her.
“Hold me.”
I held her. The cool sweetness of her hand was total. I think I moaned. My moan set the gods cheering. Marilyn heard music.
Oliver August and Marilyn Mayberry fitted beautifully together. Together, we marveled at the coincidence.
Standing, grasping, moving slowly, in time’s own kitchen, under an umbrella of laundry, we made love.
“Go away,” I yelled to the gods.
“Oh,” Marilyn said, hugging tighter.
“Not you,” I said. “Oh sweet, not you.”
We made too much noise.
Her sister, a light sleeper, was attuned to all city dangers. For years, with the acuteness of those suspicious of fire escapes (every exit is an entrance), she rested with an open ear. Our tender battle in the place where she cooked for her own was enough to wake her twice. Like Betty, Irving came awake clearheaded and primed for attack.
Have you ever covered private parts with a sopping bib?
Bravely, Marilyn stood with me. For some time, two couples stared at one another. Then Betty hollered and Marilyn turned toward the stove. Irving went inside to get me his bathrobe.
I grew quickly engaged.
Shortly thereafter, I was allowed a glimpse into the mouth of my fiance’s hope chest. I saw treasure which would have shamed Captain Kidd. Material things meant little to me then. I was young and foolish.
Our engagement did not last long. We were, it seemed, very different. Before choosing our bedroom set, or even our silver pattern, we began to drift. After all, we were total strangers. Once, in Tanglewood, we fell asleep after Stravinsky and never woke to each other. Unprepared for such relaxation, we said goodbye.
Oh yes. The draft board rejected me for nerves and a bent knee.
In September, Marilyn was wed to an accountant. She invited me to the wedding. I went. Even Betty did a cha-cha with me, and the Baked Alaska was indeed hot and sweet
The gods left my dreams. I assume they returned to Arizona. Our parting was friendly, but I am convinced that their immortality was diluted by the whole experience.
Wakonda Manhattan is its own strong medicine.
Time advances. After heavenly vengeance, reality is a warm shower.
Miss Luptik is now Dr. Luptik. She spends summers with such corn grinders as remain. We correspond.
As for Oliver August, I found my own tribe.
Today I have a store. I give green stamps with pleasure. I sleep beside a mountain of heat.
“Come back inside,” she always says.
Three kids ask me questions and the smell of me gives them security.
You know my hobby? I take pictures. I snap my Polaroid and flash my flash and fill albums by the pound. I take so many pictures the druggist asks if I am some kind of Jap.
It is not that I am a tourist-on my own street. My pictures are pieces of a jigsaw. When it is finished I believe I will have something to look at.
The druggist, a philosopher, says picture taking is for idiots. He says time should not be saved except in the heart.
“All we need,” he said this morning, “is a picture of God. The rest is a waste of clicking.”
“God wouldn’t pose for a picture,” I said. “He doesn’t need publicity.”
“Sure He would pose,” said the druggist. “He would love it. He could look on himself and feel impressed. Take Him a picture, Oliver. Be a sport. It would do us all good. Probably nobody asked Him. Maybe He has a shyness.”
“All right,” I said. “I’ll take Him a picture.”
“Take two,” said the druggist, “in case He moves.”
Tonight in the tub I noticed a gray curly hair float like a gondola of nostalgia. It drifted to the drain. I watched it swirl and go bubbling down.
Then I heard myself say out loud to the tiles, “Dear Marilyn. Dear Book of Knowledge. Marilyn knew!”
* * * *
Harvey Jacobs was born in New York City In 1930, attended the New York public schools, and went on to Syracuse University, in New York State—where he returned a few years later as an instructor in the university’s Writers’ Workshop. He is now manager of public relations for Worldvision, ABC’s (soon to be satellite-relayed) network o
f TV stations in twenty-five countries. Between flying business trips to odd corners of the world, he lives, with his wife and baby son, Adam, in the executive-suite-near-West-Side section of Greenwich Village.
J. G. Ballard was born in Shanghai in 1930, the son of a Scottish doctor resident in an American section of Shanghai. He was interned in a Japanese prison camp during World War II, and repatriated to England in 1946, where he spent a brief period at a proper boys’ public school, before going on to read medicine at Cambridge. He has traveled extensively in the Mediterranean countries and spent a tour of duty with the RAF in Canada. A widower, he now lives in a row-house middle-middle-class London suburb with his three children, James Jr., Faye, and Beatrice.
The Year's Best Science Fiction 11 - [Anthology] Page 27
