Sometime I feel like a motherless child;
Glory, Hallelujah!
And why, he thought abruptly, had Rumplestiltskin given the princess a chance to escape the bargain? Why had he given her that three-day respite in which to discover his name? Was it simply over-confidence—for who would ever imagine or guess at a name like that one?—or did he want to be found out, caught, deprived of the object of his deceit and magic? And for himself, Thomas Jerome Newton, whose magic and whose deceptions were greater than those of any enchanter or elf in any fairy tale—and he had read them all—did he now want to be found out, caught?
This man he come round to my door
He say he don’t like me
He come; he standing at my door
He say he don’t like me.
Why, thought Newton, his bottle in his hand, would I want to be found out? He stared at the label on the bottle, feeling very strange, dizzy. Abruptly, the recording ended. There was a pause, while another ball rolled into place. He took a long, shocking drink. Then, from the speakers, an orchestra boomed, assaulting his ears.
He stood up wearily, and blinked. He felt very weak—it seemed as if he had not been so weak since that day, now so many years ago, when, frightened and alone, he had been sick in a barren field, in November. He walked to the panel, turned off the music. Then he walked to the television controls and turned them on—maybe a Western…
The large picture of the heron on the far wall began to fade. When it was gone it was replaced by the head of a handsome man with the falsely serious stare in his eyes that is cultivated by politicians, faith healers, and evangelists. The lips moved soundlessly, while the eyes stared.
Newton turned up the volume. The head gained a voice, saying,”… of the United States as a free and independent nation, we must gird up our loins like men, with the free world behind us, and face the challenges, the hopes and fears of the world. We must remember that the United States, regardless of what the uninformed may say, is not a second-rate power. We must remember that freedom will conquer, we must…”
Suddenly Newton realized that the man speaking was the President of the United States, and he was speaking the bombast of the hopeless. He turned a switch. A bedroom scene appeared on the screen. Some tired suggestive jokes were made by the man and woman, both of them in pyjamas. He turned the switch again, hoping for a Western. He liked Westerns. But what appeared on the screen was a propaganda piece, paid for by the government, about the American virtues and strengths. There were pictures of white New England churches, field hands—always one smiling black person in each group—and maple trees. These films seemed more and more common lately; and, like so many popular magazines, more and more wildly chauvinistic—more committed than ever to the fantastic lie that America was a nation of God-fearing small towns, efficient cities, healthy farmers, kindly doctors, bemused housewives, philanthropic millionaires.
“My God,” he said aloud. “My God, you frightened, self-pitying hedonists. Liars! Chauvinists! Fools!”
He turned the switch again and a nightclub scene appeared on the screen, with soft music as background. He let it stay, watching the movement of bodies on the dance floor, the men and women dressed like peacocks, embracing one another while the music played.
And what am I, he thought, if not a frightened, self-pitying hedonist? He finished the bottle of gin, and then looked at his hands holding the bottle, staring now at the artificial fingernails, shining like translucent coins in the flickering light from the television screen. He looked at them for several minutes, as though he were seeing them for the first time.
Then he stood up and walked shakily to a closet. From a shelf he took a box that was about the size of a shoebox. On the inside of the closet door hung a full-length mirror. He looked at himself, at his tall, skinny frame, for a moment. Then he went back to the couch and set the box on the marble-topped coffee table in front of him. From it he took a small plastic bottle. On the table sat an empty bowl-shaped ashtray, of Chinese porcelain; Farnsworth had given it to him. He poured the liquid from the bottle into the ashtray, set the bottle down, and then dipped the fingertips of both his hands into the tray, as if it were a finger bowl. He held them there for a minute, and then took them out and slapped his hands together, hard. The fingernails fell on to the marble table with small, tinkling sounds. The fingers were smooth at the ends now, the tips flexible but somewhat sore.
From the television came the sound of jazz, with a loud, insistent rhythm.
He stood up, walked to the door of the room, locked it. Then he went back to the box on the table, and took from it a ball of something resembling cotton, and dipped the ball into the liquid for a moment. His hands, he noticed, were trembling. He knew, too, that he was drunker than he had ever been. But that, apparently, was not drunk enough.
Then he went to the mirror and held the damp ball against each of his ears until the synthetic earlobes fell off. Unbuttoning his shirt, he removed false nipples and hair from his chest in the same manner. The hair and nipples were attached to a thin, porous sheet, and they came off together. He took these things and laid them on the coffee table. Walking back to the mirror he began speaking in his own language, first softly and then loudly, to drown out the jazz from the television set, quoting a poem that he himself had written in his youth. The sounds did not come well from his tongue. He was too drunk; or he was losing the ability to speak in the Anthean sibilants. Then, breathing heavily, he took a small, tweezerlike instrument from the box and stood in front of the mirror and carefully removed the thin, colored plastic membrane from each of his eyes. Still struggling to speak his poem, he blinked at himself with the eyes whose irises opened vertically, like a cat’s.
He stared at himself a long time, and then he began to cry. He did not sob, but tears came from his eyes—tears exactly like a human’s tears—and slid down his narrow cheeks. He was crying in despair.
Then he spoke aloud, to himself, in English. “Who are you?” he said. “And where do you belong?”
His own body stared back at him; but he could not recognize it as his own. It was alien, and frightening.
He got himself another bottle. The music had stopped. An announcer was saying, “…ballroom of the Seelbach Hotel in downtown Louisville, brought to you live by Worldcolor—films and developers for all that’s best in photography….”
Newton did not look at the screen; he was opening the bottle. A woman’s voice began to speak: “To store up memories of the holidays ahead, of the children, the traditional family feast at Thanksgiving and Christmas, there is nothing more lovely than Worldcolor prints, filled with glowing life…”
And on the couch, Thomas Jerome Newton now lay drinking, his gin bottle open, his nailless fingers trembling, his catlike eyes glazed and staring at the ceiling in anguish….
3
On a Sunday morning five days after his drunken conversation with Newton, Bryce was at home, trying to read a detective novel. He was seated by the electric heater in his small, prefabricated living room, was dressed only in his green flannelette pyjamas, and was drinking his third cup of black coffee. He felt better this morning than he had lately; his concern with Newton’s identity did not plague him so much as it had for the past several days. The question was still the paramount one in his mind; but he had decided on a sort of policy—if watchful waiting could be called a policy—and had managed to dismiss the problem, if not from his thoughts, at least from his continual scrutiny. The detective novel was pleasantly dull enough; the weather outside had turned bitterly cold. He was comfortable by the would-be fireplace, and he felt no sense of urgency about anything. On the wall to his left hung The Fall of Icarus. He had moved it there from the kitchen two days before.
He was about halfway through the book when a faint knock came at his front door. He got up with some irritation, wondering who in hell would call on him on a Sunday morning. There was social life enough among the staff; but he rigorously avoided it, and he ha
d few friends. He had no friend close enough to come calling on a Sunday morning before lunch. He got his bathrobe from the bedroom and then opened the front door.
Outside in the gray morning, shivering in a light nylon jacket, was Newton’s housekeeper.
She smiled at him and said, “Doctor Bryce?”
“Yes?” He could not remember her name, although Newton had mentioned it in his presence once. There were a good many rumors about Newton and this woman. “Come in and get warm.” he said.
“Thanks.” She came in quickly, but apologetically, closing the door behind her. “Mr. Newton sent me.”
“Oh?” He led her to the electric fire. “You need a heavier coat.”
She seemed to blush—or perhaps it was only the redness of her cheeks from the cold. “I don’t get out much.”
After he had helped her off with her jacket, she bent over the heater and began warming her hands. Bryce seated himself and watched her thoughtfully, waiting for her to bring up the reason for her call. She was not an unattractive woman—full-mouthed, black-haired, heavy-bodied beneath her plain blue dress. She must be about his own age, and like himself she dressed in old-fashioned clothes. She wore no makeup, but, with the reddening of her complexion from the cold, she did not need any. Her breasts were heavy, like those of peasant women in Russian propaganda films; and she would have had the perfect, monumental “earth mother” look if it had not been for her shy, self-effacing eyes and her hillbilly manner and voice. Beneath the half-sleeves of her dress there was a light growth of black hair on her arms, soft and pleasant looking. He liked that, as he liked the way that she did not pluck her eyebrows.
Abruptly she straightened up, smiled at him more comfortably now, and spoke. “It isn’t like a wood fire.”
For a moment he didn’t understand what she meant. Then, nodding at the red-glowing heater, he said, “No, it certainly isn’t.” And then, “Why don’t you sit down?”
She took the chair across from him, leaned back, and put her feet up on the ottoman. “Doesn’t smell like a wood fire either.” She looked thoughtful. “I lived on a farm and I can still remember wood fires in the morning when I was hopping around trying to get dressed. I’d lay my clothes on the hearth to warm them up and I’d stand and keep my backside warm by the fire. I can remember how the fire smelt. But I haven’t smelt a wood fire in—God knows—twenty years.”
“I haven’t either,” he said.
“Nothing smells as good as it used to,” she said. “Not even coffee, the way they make it. Most things don’t smell at all any more.”
“Do you want a cup? Of coffee?”
“Sure,” she said. “You want me to get it?”
“I’ll get it,” he stood up, finishing off his cup. “I was ready for another one anyway.”
He went to the kitchen and fixed two cups, using the coffee pills that were practically all you could buy these days, ever since the country had broken relations with Brazil. He brought them in on a tray and she smiled up at him pleasantly as she took hers. She looked very comfortable, like an old, good-tempered dog—with neither pride nor philosophy to hinder its comfort.
He sat down, sipping. “You’re right.” he said, “nothing much smells as it used to. Or maybe we’re too old to remember exactly.”
She continued smiling. Then she said, “He wants to know if you’ll go to Chicago with him. Next month.”
“Mr. Newton?”
“Um hmm. There’s a meeting. He said you’d probably know about it.”
“A meeting?” He drank his coffee speculatively for a moment. “Oh. The Institute of Chemical Engineers. Why does he want to go to that?”
“Don’t know,” she said. “He told me if you wanted to go with him he’d come by this afternoon and talk about it. You won’t be working?”
“No.” he said. “No. I don’t work on Sundays.” He had not changed his casual tone of voice, but his mind was beginning to race. There was an opportunity here, being dropped in his lap. There was a plan he had half formed two days before; and if Newton were definitely coming by the house… “I’ll be glad to talk to him about it.” And then, “Did he say when he would come?”
“No, he didn’t.” She finished her coffee, set the cup on the floor beside her chair. She certainly makes herself at home, he thought, but he did not mind the way that she did it. It was genuine informality, and not the affected kind that men like Professor Canutti, and all his crew-cut peers back at Iowa, practiced.
“He hasn’t been saying much lately at all.” There was a hint of strain in her voice when she said this. “In fact I hardly ever see him anymore.” There was something grim in her voice, too, and Bryce wondered what there could possibly be between these two. And then it occurred to him that her being here was an opportunity, too—one that he might never have again.
“Has he been sick?” If he could start her talking…
“Not that I know of. He’s funny. He takes moods.” She was staring at the glowing heat element in front of her, not looking at him. “Sometimes he talks to that Frenchman, Brinnarde his name is, and other times he talks to me. Sometimes he just sits in his room. For days. Or he’ll drink; but you can hardly tell it.”
“What does Brinnarde do? What’s his job?”
“I don’t know.” She looked at him fleetingly and then back to the fire. “I think he’s a bodyguard.” She turned again to him, her face worried, anxious. “You know, Mister Bryce, he carries a gun with him. And you watch the way he moves. He’s quick.” She shook her head, as a mother might. “I don’t trust him and I don’t think Mr. Newton should either.”
“A lot of wealthy men have bodyguards. Besides, Brinnarde’s a kind of secretary too, isn’t he?”
She laughed, a short, wry laugh. “Mr. Newton don’t write letters.”
“No. I suppose not.”
Then, still staring at the heater, she said, meekly, “Could I have a little drink, please?”
“Sure.” He stood up almost too quickly. “Gin?”
She looked up at him. “Yes please, gin.” There was something plaintive about her and Bryce realized, abruptly, that she must be very lonely, must have practically no one to talk to. He felt pity for her—a lost, anachronistic hillbilly—and at the same time excitement at the realization that she was dead ripe to be pumped for information. He could oil her with a little gin, let her stare at the fire for a while, and wait for her to talk. He smiled at himself, feeling Machiavellian.
When he was in the kitchen, getting the gin bottle down from the shelf over the sink, she said, from the living room, “Would you put some sugar in it, please?”
“Sugar?” That was pretty far out.
“Yes. About three spoons.”
“Okay,” he said, shaking his head. And then, “I’ve forgotten your name.”
Her voice was still strained—as if she were trying to keep from trembling, or from crying. “My name’s Betty Jo, Mr. Bryce. Betty Jo Mosher.”
There was a kind of soft dignity about the way she answered him that made him feel ashamed for not having remembered her name. He put sugar in a glass, began filling it with gin, and felt further ashamed for what he was about to do—for using her. “Are you from Kentucky?” he said, as politely as he could. He filled the glass almost full, and stirred it.
“Yes. I’m from Irvine. About seven miles out of Irvine. That’s north of here.”
He carried it in to her and she took it gratefully, but with an attempt at reserve that was both touching and ridiculous. He was beginning to like this woman. “Are your parents living?” He remembered that he was supposed to be pumping her about Newton, not herself. Why did his mind always wander from the point, the real point?
“Mother’s dead.” She took a sip of the gin, rolled it around in her mouth speculatively, swallowed it, blinked. “I sure like gin,” she said. “Daddy sold the farm to the government for a… a hydro…”
“Hydroponics station?”
“That’s right.
Where they make that nasty food out of tanks. Anyway, Daddy’s on relief now—up in Chicago in a development—just like I was, in Louisville, until I met Tommy.”
“Tommy?”
She smiled wryly. “Mr. Newton. I call him Tommy sometimes. I used to think he liked it.”
He took a breath, looking away from her, and said, “When did you meet him?”
She took another drink of her gin, savored it, swallowed. Then she laughed softly. “In an elevator. I was going up in this elevator in Louisville, to get my county welfare check, and Tommy was in it. Lord, was he peculiar looking! I could see right off. And then he broke his leg in the elevator.”
“Broke his leg?”
“That’s right. Sounds funny as hell, but that’s what he did. The elevator must’ve been too much for him. If you knew how light he was…”
“How light?”
“Lord yes, he’s light. You could pick him up with one hand. His bones must have no more strength than a bird’s. I tell you he’s a peculiar man. Lord, he’s a nice man; and he’s so smart and rich, and so patient. But, Mr. Bryce…”
“Yes?”
“Mr. Bryce, I think he’s sick, I think he’s sick bad. I think he’s sick in his body—My God, you ought to see the pills he takes!—and I think he has… troubles in his mind. I want to help, but I never know where to begin. And he wouldn’t ever let a doctor come near him.” She finished her glass of gin, and leaned forward, as if to gossip. But there was grief on her face—grief too genuine to be faked as an excuse for gossip. “Mr. Bryce, I don’t think he ever sleeps. I been with him now for almost a year, and I’ve never seen him asleep. He’s just not human.”
Bryce’s mind was opening like a lens. A chill was spreading from the nape of his neck, across his shoulders, down his backbone.
“Do you want more gin?” he asked. And then, feeling something that was half laugh, half sob, he said, “I’ll join you….”
She had two more drinks before she left. She did not tell him very much more about Mr. Newton—probably because he did not want to ask her any more, did not feel as though he had to. But when she left—not staggering at all, for she could hold her liquor like a sailor—she said, as she put on her coat, “Mr. Bryce, I’m a silly, ignorant woman, but I really appreciated talking to you.”
The Man Who Fell to Earth Page 10
