These two people were lovers. For most of the day, in their separate climates, they would sit by the hole in the wall exchanging conversation, peeping at glimpses of one another, able to see only half a face, or a hand, or a length of hair through the fissure, making up poetry for one another which only had meaning for themselves alone; and sometimes they would hold hands through the rock, although they were only able to do this for very short periods of time because of the awkward height of the hole, and the extreme pain caused by being half bent and by the cold sharp rock rubbing on their arms. They would exchange bits of food—blackberries and raw rabbit meat, ripe grapes, and mushrooms—and they would pass bunches of grasses or flowers from around the base of the wall to each other with passionate love messages whispered from the heart and from their deepest feelings. Although they had never seen one another, or touched one another farther than their wrists, they felt deeply for one another in the tenderest way, and were swept by full passions that could never be consummated because of the wall. At times like these—especially was it hard when the moon was full—they would sit close to the hole and weep and moan in longing for each other, longing for something the other could give were it not for the cruel wall that parted their starving bodies. Many long tortured hours they passed in this way wishing the wall would melt. But it never melted, it stayed there hard and enduring, as if it had always been there and always would be so. They had no ideas on the subject of how to relieve themselves of this terrible situation, for it had been like this so long they could hardly remember when it was, the day they had found themselves, each at a side of the wall. Their love had begun on that very day, even before the sound of their singing voices, and with the rapturous discovery of the hole and the first blissful touches of the hands, and with the dreadful realization that they could never come closer together than this. All through the years they had yearned but never thought it could ever be any different. They knew, as if with an inborn knowledge, that the wall was too deeply set to be tunneled under, too long to be walked around, if indeed it had an end anywhere, and much too hideously guarded at its crest.
One day the man began to think that he could not stand it any longer. His body and emotion had taken all they could; he was racked with desire and his head was full of pain with inner weeping. He suggested to the woman that they should part. He explained that the idea had come to him that there might be other lands where a person might live, over the horizon, away to the north and south, things they had neither of them dreamed of, other loves perhaps, other climates and better food. He felt then that anything would be better than to sit here forever just yearning for something that could never be had. At first, when the woman listened to this idea, she was shocked so deeply inside herself that she became as stone, she neither spoke nor moved for a day or a night, but lay with her head on the stone of the wall in a cold agony such as she had never before experienced. And then she began to weep, silently at first, then with little moans, then louder and from lower in her being, until she screamed in great pain, and cut her forehead on the blue rock and the blood ran into her dark hair, although she felt nothing but the pain of the emotions caused by the idea. But the man persisted. He spoke to her soothingly and gently, and he explained with a heavy heart that it would cause him an equal pain to be parted forever from her, but that it seemed the only course open to them unless they were to die here without ever having known any other thing better than craving.
After twenty-eight days the woman had absorbed this idea herself; she had turned it over, and tried to visualize the world beyond, without the man, perhaps with strangers, other women, more food, another dress, but she could feel none of it and gave up as the pictures refused to take shape. But she knew also that her man was right, that it had to be so, that they would part, and turn their backs on each other and walk off, she over the hot sand, he over the sticky red clay. She knew it would be like this, she had accepted the idea, and so she finally bent her head down to the hole and agreed with him that they should part. They decided to begin their separate journeys the very next day.
They spent the rest of the day gathering food; the woman tore off her petticoat and wrapped it around heaps of dried grapes, mushrooms and meat that the man had given her, and he took off his shirt and did the same. They spent a sleepless silent night of unspoken doubts leaning against the hole, and at dawn they clasped hands through the hole, said quiet goodbyes and turned around to walk, he with his bundle, she with a bundle and a handbag.
They each walked for several hours, with such a weight of dread and despair in their hearts as they had never known; their feet dragged, their backs bent, tears ran gently down their faces, and they each tried to recall the feel of the other’s hand through the wall, but already the impression was fading, and it was very difficult to feel anything. So, grieving, they walked slowly toward the perimeter of the north and south sides of the valley, and there in the distance they could each hear strange sounds, smell strange smells, and feel strange changes in the atmosphere. They were four miles apart by now and it was not yet noon, and the way had been uphill for both of them.
At exactly the same moment in time, the man in the north and the woman in the south met strangers of the opposite sex, and these two asked them the same questions. They inquired who they were, where they lived, and where they were going. Sadly they both told the same tale, and the woman who now faced the man in the north asked him to touch her long fair hair and made kissing mouths at him. He was immediately impassioned by this brazenness and, full of unspent vigor from the many dry years, he held her in his arms and began to make love to her, clumsily and fiercely, his own dark woman already forgotten. At the other side of the valley, she was just then succumbing to the advances of a tall dark man, a person more handsome than she could ever have visualized, raven and brown like herself, strong and passionate, and she was so filled with admiration and physical hunger that she succumbed easily to his embrace. And then the two couples parted, after long kisses and greedy sighing. As they stood up to brush their clothes in the afternoon light they chanced to look back across the valley, and in the distance saw each other, infinite specks, but each speck duplicated, and because each had just then been unfaithful with a stranger, they each knew that the other had too, that the double speck in the distance could mean only one thing.
They were immediately filled with remorse at what they had done, and longed for each other again as much as before, and because they could now see each other, even though it was so far away, they wished very much to be close together again. Having tasted full physical contact with others they now knew that no bliss in the world could match what they would feel for one another, could it be achieved. They had the instant idea that they would run to each other across the sinking plain and somehow overcome the obstacle of the wall which, from this distance, looked very small indeed. So they set off running without even saying goodbye to their lovers-that-were-not-lovers, running and breathing heavily from the unaccustomed effort.
When they were only one mile apart they could see one another quite clearly in the sharp white air which lit this part of the valley with an illusion of clarity which seemed to telescope everything distant much nearer. They paused, then, and, staring in wonder, each at the other, a pure brave kind of love lighted them up within, and it was as if they could see the pool that was the hidden soul. They began to run again, and, as the ground leveled off, the sight of them was almost lost behind the top of the wall; but this made them run the last few hundred yards even harder. At last they came up to the wall, and ran up and down at its base in joyous haste, seeking the hole. Soon they stood opposite, and the woman shouted to the man that she was going to climb the wall, and the man shouted to the woman that he was going to scale the wall, but they were so out of breath with running that their words were all muddled up and lost, and together they dropped the bundles and the bag at the base of the wall, and began to climb. It was easy to find toe and handholds in the old vines and creepers
and in the crystalline hardness of the rock, and in minutes they were near the top where the cruel spikes stood waiting. Together they made one last desperate push upwards and saw themselves close together at the narrow top of the wall; as the spikes pushed into their bodies and as the blood ran down they stared in horror, not at the pain of Death but at what was really in the heart and soul of the other. In terror they clung to one another, closer and closer, hoping that it was not true, as they embraced breast to breast across the spikes, their cheeks pressed close with blood and tears; it was then that they noticed all the other lovers impaled on the spikes.
Some were long-dead skeletons, dry and dusty, grinning skull to skull; some were mummified by the keen wind, eyes sunk in perpetual bewilderment; and some were rotten and new, astonishingly, quite new.
They turned again to see themselves, wondering dumbly at what they had seen stretching out infinitely along the wall, all the clasping lovers long gone, no kiss nor handhold there with either bliss or agony.
And very quietly they kissed as they clung and died there, impaled across the cold spiky barrier, feeling and thought growing more feeble every second.
In the north and in the south a fair haired woman and a dark haired man set off slowly to walk towards the wall, love stirring in the innermost recesses of their being.
* * * *
Josephine Saxton describes herself briefly as—
Age thirty, occupation, woman. Married to artist: Colin Saxton, three children. “The Wall” as yet only published work, but have written two novels and several stories, secret poetry writer, also cookbook.
Not science-fiction writer, knowing little science, but of that lower class who make it up.
Aims: full-time professional writer.
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* * * *
Mrs. Saxton has one thing in common with Walter Moudy: Both are new writers (although Moudy had two stories in print before this one, and a first novel since).
The contrasts—in background, interests, situations, occupations, temperament—emerge as much in the appearance of the two “bio letters” as in their content. Hers is on thin paper, typed in brown ink and elite type, under a “Leics.” (Leicestershire) country address. His is on his office letterhead, from Kansas City (Missouri), secretary-typed on an IBM Executive: Re: Biographical Data (“The Survivor”!:
I was born and raised on a dirt farm In Barry County, Missouri, which is deep Ozark country. I was the second child in a family of eleven. Most people would call us hillbillies, although recently the sophisticating effect of electricity and TV has somewhat blurred the image. I have approximately five or six hundred blood relatives in Barry County, and so far as I know I am the first to graduate from college.
In this order: I have been a farm worker, rambler, powerline-pole digger, migrant fruit picker, college student (one and one-half years), assembly-line welder in a General Motors automobile plant (one year), soldier (three years), college (AB), law student (LIB), lawyer, and writer. All of my college and law school training was at Missouri University.
I am thirty-six. I have been practicing law for nine years and writing the past four years.
No Man on Earth was the first thing I ever wrote. [A novel, published last year—and a good one—j.m] The second thing was “The Survivor.”
* * * *
THE SURVIVOR
WALTER F. MOUDY
There was a harmony in the design of the arena which an artist might find pleasing. The curved granite walls which extended upward three hundred feet from its base were polished and smooth like the sides of a bowl. A fly, perhaps a lizard, could crawl up those glistening walls—but surely not a man. The walls encircled an egg-shaped area which was precisely three thousand meters long and two thousand one hundred meters wide at its widest point. There were two large hills located on either side of the arena exactly midway from its center to its end. If you were to slice the arena crosswise, your knife would dissect a third, tree-studded hill and a small, clear lake; and the two divided halves would each be the exact mirror image of the other down to the smallest detail. If you were a farmer you would notice the rich flat soil which ran obliquely from the two larger hills toward the lake. If you were an artist you might find pleasure in contemplating the rich shades of green and brown presented by the forested lowlands at the lake’s edge. A sportsman seeing the crystalline lake in the morning’s first light would find his fingers itching for light tackle and wading boots. Boys, particularly city boys, would yearn to climb the two larger hills because they looked easy to climb, but not too easy. A general viewing the topography would immediately recognize that possession of the central hill would permit dominance of the lake and the surrounding lowlands.
There was something peaceful about the arena that first morning. The early-morning sun broke through a light mist and spilled over the central hill to the low dew-drenched ground beyond. There were trees with young, green leaves, and the leaves rustled softly in rhythm with the wind. There were birds in those trees, and the birds still sang, for it was spring, and they were filled with the joy of life and the beauty of the morning. A night owl, its appetite satiated now by a recent kill, perched on a dead limb of a large sycamore tree and, tucking its beak in its feathers, prepared to sleep the day away. A sleek copperhead snake, sensing the sun’s approach and anticipating its soothing warmth, crawled from beneath the flat rock where it had spent the night and sought the comfort of its favorite rock ledge. A red squirrel chattered nervously as it watched the men enter the arena from the north and then, having decided that there was danger there, darted swiftly to an adjacent tree and disappeared into the security of its nest.
There were exactly one hundred of them. They stood tall and proud in their uniforms, a barely perceptible swaying motion rippling through their lines like wheat stirred by a gentle breeze. If they anticipated what was to come, they did not show it. Their every movement showed their absolute discipline. Once they had been only men—now they were killers. The hunger for blood was like a taste in their mouths; their zest for destruction like a flood which raged inside them. They were finely honed and razor keen to kill.
Their general made his last inspection. As he passed down the lines the squad captains barked a sharp order and the men froze into absolute immobility. Private Richard Starbuck heard the rasp of the general’s boots against the stones as he approached. There was no other sound, not even of men breathing. From long discipline he forced his eyes to maintain their focus on the distant point he had selected, and his eyes did not waver as the general paused in front of him. They were still fixed on that same imaginary point. He did not even see the general.
Private Richard Starbuck was not thinking of death, although he knew he must surely die. He was thinking of the rifle which he felt securely on his shoulder and of the driving need he had to discharge its deadly pellets into human flesh. His urge to kill was dominant, but even so he was vaguely relieved that he had not been selected for the assassination squad (the suicide squad the men called it); for he still had a chance, a slim chance, to live; while the assassination squad was consigned to inevitable death.
A command was given and Private Starbuck permitted his tense body to relax. He glanced at his watch. Five-twenty-five. He still had an hour and thirty-five minutes to wait. There was a tenseness inside him which his relaxed body did not disclose. They taught you how to do that in training. They taught you lots of things in training.
* * * *
The TV screen was bigger than life and just as real. The color was true and the images three-dimensional. For a moment the zoom cameras scanned the silent deserted portions of the arena. The sound system was sensitive and sharp and caught the sound made by a squirrel’s feet against the bark of a black oak tree. Over one hundred cameras were fixed on the arena; yet so smooth was the transition from one camera to the next that it was as though the viewer was floating over the arena. There was the sound of marching feet, and the pace of the moving cameras
quickened and then shifted to the north where one hundred men were entering the arena in perfect unison, a hundred steel-toed boots striking the earth as one. For a moment the cameras fixed on the flashing boots and the sensitive sound system recorded the thunder of men marching to war. Then the cameras flashed to the proud face of their general; then to the hard, determined faces of the men; then back again to the thundering boots. The cameras backed off to watch the column execute an abrupt halt, moved forward to focus for a moment on the general’s hawklike face, and then, with the general, inspected the troops one by one, moving down the rigid lines of men and peering intently at each frozen face.
When the “at ease” order was given, the camera backed up to show an aerial view of the arena and then fixed upon one of the control towers which lined the arena’s upper periphery before sweeping slowly downward and seeming to pass into the control tower. Inside the tower a distinguished gray-haired man in his mid-forties sat beside a jovial, fat-jawed man who was probably in his early fifties. There was an expectant look on their faces. Finally the gray-haired man said:
The Year's Best Science Fiction 11 - [Anthology] Page 43
