Greybeard

by Brian W Aldiss

  “I can’t hear what he’s saying — or else I can’t understand it,” Martha whispered.

  “It doesn’t sound particularly funny to me either,” Timberlane whispered.

  With his arm around his girlfriend’s shoulder, Pilbeam said, “It’s not meant to be funny. It’s meant to be slouch, as they call it.” Nevertheless, he was grinning broadly, as were many other customers. Noticing this, Dusty Dykes shook a cautionary finger. It was his only gesture. “Smiling won’t help it,” he said. “I know you’re all sitting there naked under your clothes, but you can’t embarrass me — I go to church and hear the sermon every Sunday. We are a wicked and promiscuous nation, and it gives me as much pleasure as the preacher to say so. I’ve no objection to morality, except that it’s obsolete.

  “Life gets worse every day. In the high court in California, they’ve stopped sentencing their criminals to death — they sentence them to life instead. Like the man said, there’s no innocence anymore, just undetected crime. In the state of Illinois alone, there were enough sex murders last month to make you all realize how vicarious your position is.

  “The future outlook for the race is black, and that’s not just a pigment of my imagination. There were two sex criminals talking over business in Chicago the other day. Butch said, ‘Say, Sammy, which do you like best, murdering a woman or thinking about murdering a woman?’ ‘Shucks, I don’t know, Butch, which do you prefer?’ ‘Thinking about murdering a woman, every time!’ ‘Why’s that?’ ‘That way you get a more romantic type of woman.’ ”

  For some minutes more the baby-faced little man stood there under the spot in his slept-in suit, making his slept-in jokes. Then the light cut off, he disappeared, and the house lights rose to applause.

  “More drinks!” Pilbeam said.

  “But he was awful!” Martha exclaimed. “Just blue!”

  “Ah, you have to hear him half a dozen times to appreciate him — that’s the secret of his success,” Pilbeam said. “He’s the voice of the age.”

  “Did you enjoy him?” Martha asked the green-eyed girl. “Well, yes, I guess I did. I mean, well, he kind of made me feel at home.”

  Twice a week they went over to a small room in the Pentagon, where a blond young major taught them how to programme and service a POLYAC computer. These new pocket-sized computers would be fitted in all DOUCH recording trucks.

  Timberlane was setting out for one of the POLYAC sessions when he found a letter from his mother awaiting him in his mail slot. Patricia Timberlane wrote irregularly. This letter, like most of them, was mainly filled with domestic woes, and Timberlane scanned it without a great deal of patience as his taxi carried him over the Potomac. Near the end he found something of more interest.

  “It’s nice for you to have Martha over there in Washington with you. I suppose you will marry her — which is romantic, because it is not often people marry their childhood sweethearts. But do make sure. I mean, you’re old enough to know that I made a great mistake marrying your stepfather. Keith has his good points, but he’s terribly faithless, sometimes I wish I was dead. I won’t go into details.

  “He blames it on the times, but that’s a too easy get-out. He says there’s going to be a revolution here. I dread to think of it. As if we haven’t gone through enough, what with the Accident and this awful war, revolution I dread. There’s never been one in this country, whatever other countries have done. Really it’s like living in a perpetual earthquake.”

  It was a telling phrase, Timberlane thought soberly. In Washington, the perpetual earthquake ground on day and night, and would grind, until all was reduced to dust, if the gloomy DOUCH predictions were fulfilled. It revealed itself not only in the constant economic upheavals, the soup queues downtown, and the crazy sales as the detritus of fallen financial empires was thrown onto the market, but in the wave of murders and sexual crimes that the law found itself unable to check. This wave rose to engulf Martha and Timberlane.

  The morning after the letter from Patricia Timberlane arrived, Martha appeared early in Timberlane’s room. Clothes lay scattered over the carpet — they had been out late on the previous evening, attending a wild party thrown by an Air Strike buddy of Bill Dyson’s.

  Wearing his pyjama trousers, Timberlane stood shaving himself in semi-gloom. Martha went over to the window, pulled the curtains back, and turned to face him. She told him about the flowers that had been delivered to her at the hostel.

  He squinted at her and said, “And you say you got some yesterday morning, too?”

  “Yes, just as many — crates full of orchids, the same as this morning. They must have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

  He clicked off the spiteful buzz of his razor and looked at her. His eyes were dull and his face pale.

  “Kind of slouch, eh? I didn’t send them to you.”

  “I know that, Algy. You couldn’t afford them. I have looked at the price of flowers in the shops — they’re dear in the first place, and they carry state tax, entry tax, purchase tax, and what the hostel matron calls GDT, General Discouragement Tax, and goodness knows what else. That’s why I destroyed yesterday’s lot — I mean, I knew they weren’t from you, so I burned them and meant to say no more about it.”

  “You burned them? How? I’ve not seen a naked flame on anything bigger than a cigar lighter since I got here.”

  “Don’t be so dumb, darling, I pushed them all down the disposal chute, and anything that goes down there gets burned in the basement of the hostel. Now, this morning, another lot, again with no message.”

  “Maybe the same lot, with love from the fellow in the basement.”

  “For God’s sake, don’t go slouch on me, Algy!”

  They laughed. But next morning, another bank of flowers arrived at the hostel for Miss Martha Broughton. Timberlane, Pilbeam, and Martha’s matron came to look at them.

  “Orchids, roses, violets — whoever he is, he can afford to get very sentimental,” Pilbeam said. “Let me assure you, Algy, old man, I didn’t send these to your girlfriend. Orchids is one thing you can’t slap on a DOUCH expense account.”

  “I am frankly worried, Miss Broughton, honey,” the matron said. “You have to be careful, especially seeing you’re a stranger to this country. Remember now, there are no more girls under twenty around. That was the age older men used to go for. Now it’s the twenties-thirties group must watch out. Those older men, who are the rich men, have always been used to — well, to making hay while the sun shines. Now that the sun is going down — they will be more anxious to get at the last of the hay. If you know what I mean.”

  “Dusty Dykes himself couldn’t have put it better. Thanks for the warning, Matron. I’ll watch my step.”

  “Meanwhile, I’ll phone a florist,” Pilbeam said. “There’s no reason why you shouldn’t pick up a cool couple of thousand from this slob’s amorousness. Small change is mighty useful.”

  Pilbeam was due to leave Washington the next day. The order had come through Dyson for him to go to another theatre of war — this time, central Sarawak. As he put it himself, he could use the rest. During the afternoon he was down in town collecting more kit and an inoculation when the Fat Choy alert sounded. He phoned through to Timberlane, who was then attending a lecture on propaganda and public delusion.

  “Thought I’d tell you I’m likely to be delayed by this raid, Algy,” Pilbeam said. “You and Martha better go on to the Thesaurus without me and get the drinks moving, and I’ll meet you there as soon as I can. We can eat there if we have to, though the Babe Lincoln down the block gives you less synthetics.”

  “It’s chiefly calorie intake I’m having to watch,” Timberlane said, patting his waistline.

  “See how your sensuality output reacts this evening — I’ve met a real scorcher here, Algy, name of Coriander and as plastic as Silly Putty.”

  “I can’t wait. Is she married or single?”

  “With her energy and talent, could be both.”

  They
winked at each other’s images in the vision screens and cut off.

  Timberlane and Martha caught a prowling taxi cab into town after dark. The enemy attack consisted of two missiles, one of which broke into suitcases over the now almost derelict slaughter and marshalling yards, while the other, causing more damage, broke over the thickly populated Cleveland Park suburb. On the sidewalks police uniforms seemed to predominate over service uniforms; the Choy had served to make a lot of people stay at home, and as a result the streets were clearer than usual.

  At the Thesaurus, Timberlane climbed out and inspected the façade of the club. It was studded with groups of synonyms in bas-relief: Chosen Few, Prime, Picked Bunch, Creme of the Cream, Elite, Salt of the Earth, Top Drawer, Pick of the Pops, Best People. Smiling, he turned to pay the cabbie.

  “Hey, you!” he yelled.

  The taxi, with Martha in it, swerved out into traffic, squealed around a private car, and sped down a side street. Timberlane ran into the road. Brakes and tires whined behind him. A big limousine bucked to a stop inches from his legs, and a red face was thrust from the driver’s window and began to curse him. A crunching noise sounded from behind, and the red face turned towards the rear to curse even more ferociously. As a cop came running up, Timberlane grabbed his arm.

  “My girl’s been kidnapped. Some chap just drove off with her.”

  “Happens all the time. You sure have to watch them.”

  “She was made away with!”

  “Go and tell it to the sergeant, Mac. Think I don’t have troubles? I have to get this tin real estate rolling again.” He jerked a thumb at an approaching prowl car. Biting his lip, Timberlane made his way towards it.

  At eleven o’clock that night, Dyson said, “Come on, Algy, we’re doing no good here. The police’ll phone us if they get a lead. Let’s find a bite to eat before my stomach falls apart.”

  “It must have been that devil that sent her the flowers,” Timberlane said, by no means for the first time. “Surely the flower shop could give the police a lead.”

  “They got no change from the manager of the flower store. If only you recalled the taxi number.”

  “All that I can remember is that it was mauve and yellow, with the words ‘Antelope Taxis’ across the boot. Hell, you’re right, Bill, let’s go and get a bite to eat.”

  As they left the police station, the superintendent said sympathetically, “Don’t worry, Mr Timberlane. We’ll have your fiancée tracked down by morning.”

  “What makes the man so confident?” Timberlane asked grumpily as they climbed into Dyson’s car. Although both Dyson and Jack Pilbeam, who had been down at the station earlier, had done all they could, he felt unfairly eager to annoy them. He felt so vulnerable in what was, however much he liked it, a strange country. Trying to button down his emotions, he remained silent as he and Dyson went to a nearby all-night stall and wolfed down hamburgers with chillies and mustard; the hamburgers were synthetic but good.

  “Thank God for chillies,” Dyson said. “They could put a bit of fire into sawdust. I’ve often wondered if chillies aren’t the things the scientists are really looking for in all their megabuck’s worth of research into a way of restoring our poor old shattered genes.”

  “Could be,” Timberlane assented. “Bet you they invent synthetic chillies first.”

  He got to bed after a final nightcap and fell asleep at once. When he woke next morning, he phoned the police station straightaway, but they had nothing new to offer him. Moodily, he washed and dressed for breakfast, and went down the hall to collect his mail from the mail slot.

  A hand-delivered letter awaited him in the rack. He tore it open to find a sheet of paper bearing the words:

  “If you want your girl back, take a look in God’s Sufferance Press. Go alone, for her sake. Then call off the cops.”

  Suddenly, he wanted no breakfast. He almost ran to the hall phone booth and thumbed through the appropriate volume of the phone directory. There it was, under an old-style non-vision number: God’s Sufferance Press, and its address. Should he ring first or go straight around? He hated the feeling of indecision that flooded him. He dialled and got the disconnected tone.

  Hurrying back to his room, he wrote a hasty note to Pilbeam, giving the address to which he was going, and left it on the pillow of his unmade bunk. He pocketed his revolver.

  He walked down to the end of the street, picked up a taxi from the regular rank, and told the driver to take it as fast as he could. Once over the Anacostia Bridge, they hit tight traffic as the capital moved in to do its day’s work. Even swamped as it was by wartime congestion, Washington kept its beauty; as they filtered past the Capitol, the sward about it now peppered with emergency office buildings, and swung westward along Pennsylvania Avenue, the white stone caught a flush from the clear sky. The permanence and proportion of the buildings gave Timberlane a little reassurance.

  Later, as they headed north, the impression of dignity and justice was broken. Here the unsettlement of the times found expression. Name and sign altering was in full swing. Property changed hands rapidly; office furniture vans and military lorries delivered or removed furniture. And there were other buildings standing unaccountably silent and empty. Sometimes a whole street seemed deserted, as if its inhabitants had fled from a plague. In one such street, Timberlane noticed, stood the travel offices of overseas airlines and the tourist bureaux of Denmark, Finland, Turkey. The shutters were up; private travel had closed down for the duration, and the big airliners were under United Nations’ charge, flying medical aid to war victims.

  Some districts showed evidence of suitcase damage, though an attempt had been made to cover the desolation with large advertisement hoardings. Like all the great cities of the world, this one, behind its gay smile, revealed the rotting cavities that nobody was able to fill.

  “Here’s your destination, bud, but it don’t look like anybody’s at home,” the taxi driver said. “Do you want me to wait around?”

  “No, thank you.” He paid the man, who saluted and drove off.

  The home of the God’s Sufferance Press was a drably pretentious five-storey building dating from the turn of the previous century. For-sale notices were plastered over its windows. The iron folding gates giving access to the main swing door were secured in place with a strong chain and padlock. By the name plates on the porch, Timberlane saw how the Press had occupied itself. It was mainly a religious publisher catering to children, issuing such periodicals as The Children’s Sunday Magazine, The Boys’ Bugle, Girls’ Guidance, more popular lines such as Bible Thrills, Gospel Thrills, Holy Adventures, and the educational line, Sufferance Readers. A torn bill slid across the porch and wrapped itself around Timberlane’s leg. He turned away. On the opposite side of the road a large apartment house rose. He surveyed the windows, trying to see if anyone was watching him. As he stood there, several people hurried by without looking at him.

  There was a side alley flanked by a high wall. He went down it, treading through rubbish. He slid one hand to his revolver, and held it ready for action in his pocket. With pleasure he felt a primitive ferocity grow in his chest; he wanted to smash somebody’s face in. The alley led to a waste lot at the back. In the middle distance, framed between two shoulders of wall, an old black man with round shoulders flew a kite, leaning dangerously back to watch its course over the rooftops.

  Before Timberlane reached the lot, he came upon a side door into the Press. It had been broken open; two of the little squares of glass in its upper half were shattered, and it stood ajar. He paused against the wall, remembered procedure for army house-to-house fighting, kicked the door open, and ran through it for cover.

  In the gloom, he peered cautiously about. Not a movement, or a whisper of movement. Silence. The Big Accident had decimated the rat population. It had been almost as hard on cats, and human hunger for meat had probably accounted for most of the rest of the feline population; so that if rats came back, they would be more difficult than ever
to check. But as yet this gaunt building obviously needed no cat.

  He was in a broken-down store. An ancient raincoat on a peg spoke mutely of desertion. Piles of children’s religious reading stood about gathering dust, their potential purchasers either dead or forever unborn and unconceived. Only the footsteps across the floor to an inner passage were new.

  He followed the prints across the room, into the passage, and along it to the main hall, conscious of the sound of his own footsteps. Above grimy swing doors, through which dim figures could be seen passing in the street, was a bust and an inscription in marble: “Suffer the Little Children and Let Them Come to Me.”

  “They suffered all right,” Timberlane said to himself.

  He started a search downstairs, growing less cautious as he went along. Stagnation lay here like a malediction. Standing under the blind eyes of the founder, he looked up the stairs.

  “I’m here, you bastards. Where are you?” he shouted. “What have you done with Martha?” The noise of his own voice shocked him. He stood frozen as it echoed up the elevator shaft into the regions above. Then he took the steps two at a time, gun out before him, with the safety catch off.

  At the top he paused. Still the silence. He walked reverberatingly down the corridor and threw open a door. It slammed back on its hinges, knocking over an ancient blackboard and easel. This was some kind of editorial room, by the look of it. He stared out of the window down onto the waste lot; he looked for the old Negro flying a kite, recalling him almost as one recalls a friend. The old man had gone, or could not be seen. Nobody could be seen, not a human, not a dog.