The Avram Davidson Treasury

by Avram Davidson

Eszterhazy’s look brought silence. And another flurry of tics. Several times he moved the stethoscope. Then the silence was broken. “A wax doll, isn’t it, Professor? Isn’t—”

  Eszterhazy shook his head. “The heartbeat is perceptible,” he said. “Though very, very faint.” The crowd sighed. He removed the ear-pieces and passed the instrument to Commissioner Lobats, who, looking immensely proud and twice as important, attached himself to It—not without difficulty. After some moments, he—very slowly—nodded twice. The crowd sighed again.

  “Questions? Has anyone a question to ask of Polly Charms, the Sleeping Woman?—ah, one moment please. It is time for her daily nourishment.” Murgatroyd, with a practiced flourish, produced two bottles, a glass, and a very tarnished, very battered, but unquestionably silver, spoon. “All attempts to make the mysterious and lovely Miss Mary partake of solid sustenance have failed. Nor will her system accept even gruel. Accordingly, and on the advice of her physicians—of the foremost physicians in Christendom—” Here he turned and beckoned to a member of the audience, an elderly dandy, audibly recognized by several as a ribbon clerk in a nearby retail emporium. “I should like to ask of you the favor, sir, to taste and smell of this and to give us your honest and unbought opinion as to its nature.”

  The man simpered, sniffed, sipped. Smacked his lips. “Ah. Why that’s Tokai. Bull’s-blood Tokai.” And he made as though to take more. Laughs and guffaws and jests. The contents of the other bottle were declared to be water. The girl’s manager then ceremonially mixed the glass half-full of wine and half of water. He might have been an alchemist, proving an elixir. “Come on, now, come on. Some of you are in a hurry, you say… Questions?”

  Snickers, jokes, people being pushed forward, people holding back. Then the ribbon clerk, glancing at his watch, a-dangle and a-bangle with fobs and seals, said, “Very well. One question and then I must go. Gracious Lady: Who is Frantchek? And where?”

  Murgatroyd held the spoon to her lips, and, indeed so gently, raised her head a trifle. “Just a spoonful. Polly. A nice spoon of something good. To please Father Murgatroyd.” The slick and hairless head bent over, indeed like that of a father cosseting an ill child. Slowly and slightly the lips parted. The spoon clinked against the even rows of teeth. Withdrew.

  “Very well, Polly. You’re a good girl. Father Murgatroyd is very pleased with you. And now, if you please, an answer to the question. ‘Who is Frantchek? And where?’”

  The lips parted once again. A faint, a very faint sigh was heard. And then, in the voice of a girl in her middle teens imitating one much younger, in tones artificial and stilted, Polly Charms spoke.

  “Why, Brother, I am in America. With Uncle.”

  All turned to the old dandy, who had been standing, one hand on hip, with an expression of one who expects to be fooled. But who won’t be, even if he is. Because of expecting it. This expression quite fell away. He gaped.

  “Well, Maurits. And what about that?” they pressed him.

  “Why…why… Why, Frantchek is my brother. He run off, oh, five-and-twenty-year ago. We none of us had a word of him—”

  “And the uncle? In America?”

  Old Maurits slowly nodded, dumbfounded. “I did have an uncle, in America. Maybe still do. I don’t know—” With a jerk away from the hand on his shoulder, he stumbled out, face in his hands.

  Comment was uncertain. One said, “Well, that didn’t really prove nothing… Still …”

  And another one—probably the same who had loudly demanded the biographical details be omitted, now said, loudly, “Well, Miss, I think you’re a fake, a clever fake. Wha-at? Why, half the people in the Empire have a brother named Frantchek, and an uncle in America! Now, just you answer this question. What’s this in my own closed hand, here in this coat pocket?”

  Another spoonful of wine and water.

  Another expectant silence, this time with the questioner openly sneering.

  Another answer.

  “The pearl-handled knife which you stole at the bath-house …”

  And now see the fellow, face mottled, furious, starting toward the sleeping woman, hand moving up and out of the pocket. And see Lobats lunge, hear a sudden and sick cry of pain. See a something fall to the ground. And watch the man, now suddenly pale, as Lobats says, “Get out! Or—!” Watch him get…holding one hand with the other. And see the others stoop and gape.

  “A pearl-handled knife!”

  “Jesus, Mary, and—”

  “—known him for years, he ain’t no good—”

  And now someone, first clutching his head in his hands, and then leaning forward, then drawing back and staring, glaring all round, face twisted with half shame and half defiance: “Listen…listen… Say—I want to know. Is my wife…is she all that she should be—to me—is she—” He doesn’t finish, nobody dares to laugh. They can hear him breathing heavily through heavily distended nostrils.

  Another spoonful. Another pause.

  “Better than she should be…though little you deserve it …”

  The man will not face anyone. He leans to one side, head bent, breathing very heavily.

  And soon the last question has been asked, and the wine is all gone.—Or, perhaps, it is the other way around.

  And, as Murgatroyd goes to put down the spoon, and the audience is suddenly uncertain, suddenly everyone looks at someone whom nobody has looked at before. Who says, “And so, Professors, what about the French song?” A spruce, elderly gent, shiny red cheeks, garments cut in the fifth year of the Reign, looking for all the world like a minor notary from one of the remoter suburbs (“Ten tramways and a fiacre ride away,” as the saying goes) where each family still has its own cow, and probably up to the center of the city for his annual trip to have his licensure renewed; wanting a bit of fun along with it, and, not daring to tell the old lady (“Tanta Minna,” probably) that he has had it at any place more risky, has been having it at a “scientific exhibition.”

  “Wasn’t there supposed to be a French song?” he asks calmly.

  Murgatroyd, at a murmur from Dougherty, produces a wooden tray lined with worn green velveteen and covertly places in it a single half-ducat, which he watches rather anxiously. “For a very slight additional charge,” he says, starting the rounds, “a beautiful song in the French language will be sung by the lovely and mysterious Polly Charms, the—”

  Spectators show signs of departing…or, at any rate, of drawing away from the collection tray. A single piece of gold spins through the air, all a-glitter, falls right upon the half-ducat with a pure ringing sound. Mr. Murgatroyd looks up, almost wildly, sees Eszterhazy looking at him. Who says, “Get on with it.”

  Murgatroyd makes the money vanish. He leans over the sleeping woman, takes up her right hand, and slowly caresses it. “Will you sing us a song, Polly dear?” he asks. Almost, one might think, anxiously.

  “That sweet French song taught you by Madame, in the old days… Eh?” And, no song being forthcoming, he clears his throat and quaveringly begins, “‘Je vous envoye un bouquet …’, Eh, Polly?”

  Eszterhazy, watching, sees a slight tremor in the pale, pale throat. A slight rise in the slight bosom, covered in its bedizened robe. The mouth opens. An indrawn breath is clearly heard. And then she sings. Polly Charms, the Sleeping Lady, sings.

  Je vous envoye un bouquet de ma main

  Que j’ai ourdy de ces fleurs epanies:

  Qui ne les eust à ce vespre cuillies,

  Flaques à terre elles cherroient demain.

  No one had asked Dougherty to translate the previous French song, sung by the eunuch singer (surely one of the very last) on the gramophone; nor had he done so; nor did anyone ask him to translate now. Yet, and without his gray face changing at all, his gray lips moved, and he began, “‘I send you now a sheaf of fairest flowers / Which my hand picked; yet are they so full blown, / Had no one plucked them they had died alone, / Fallen to earth before tomorrow’s hours.’”2

  Still, Murgatroyd c
aressed the pallid hand. And again, the eerie and infantile voice sang out.

  Cela vous soit un exemple certain

  Que voz beautés, bien qu’elles soient fleuries,

  En peu de tems cherront toutes flétries,

  Et periront, comme ces fleurs, soudain.

  “‘Then let this be a portent in your bowers,’” Dougherty went on. “‘Though all your beauteous loveliness is grown, / In a brief while it falls to earth o’erthrown, / Like withered blossoms, stripped of all their powers …’”

  Quietness.

  A dray rumbles by in the street. The gas lights bob up and down. Breaths are let out, throats cleared. Feet shuffle.

  “Well, now,” says old Uncle Oskar, “that was very nice, I am sure.” Smiling benignly, he walks over, and, into the now empty collection plate he drops a large old five-kopperka piece. Nodding and beaming, he departs. It has been worth every kopperka of it to him, the entire performance. Tonight, over the potato dumplings with sour-crout and garlic wurst, he will tell Tanta Minna all about it. In fact, if he is alive and she is alive, ten years from now, he will still be telling about it; and she, Tanta Minna, will still be as astonished as ever, punctuating each pause with Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! or, alternately, Oh, thou dear Cross!

  Some follow after, some still remain.

  “The performance is over,” says Eszterhazy.

  Lobats: “Over. Good afternoon to you.”

  And Frow Grigou calls after them, anxious as ever, “There is another performance at half-past five, Dear Sirs, and also at eight and at ten!”

  Lobats looks at Eszterhazy, as though to say, What now? And Eszterhazy looks at Murgatroyd. “I am a Doctor of Medicine and a Titular Court Physician,” he says; “and I should like your permission to make an examination of—” he gestures. Dougherty, without looking anywhere in particular, at once begins to translate Eszterhazy’s English into Avar, then slowly seems to feel that this is, perhaps, not exactly what is wanted at the moment, and his voice dies away.

  Murgatroyd licks his lips, the lower parts of his moustache. Almost, he licks the tip of his nose. “Oh no,” he says. “Oh no …”

  “And this,” Eszterhazy says, calmly, “is a Commissioner of Police.”

  Murgatroyd looks at the Commissioner of Police, who looks back; he looks at Dougherty, who looks away; then he looks for Frow Grigou.

  But Frow Grigou has gone, quite gone.

  Excerpts from the Day-Book of Dr. Eszterhazy:

  … Query Reuters for the precise date of the death by apoplexy of ENTWHISTLE, LEONARD (see Private Encyclopedia), British mesmerist and mountebank, supposedly in the midst of an exhibition or performance …

  … no signs of any callosities whatever on the soles of the female’s feet, or heels…degeneration of the muscular tissue, such as is found among the long-senile, was not present, however …

  Murgatroyd declared, though reluctantly, that passage of waste materials was infrequent, and cleanly …

  Murgatroyd was almost violent in reply to the tentative suggestion of Lobats that an attempt, by mesmerism, to bring the young woman out of this supposed-mesmeric trance be attempted. MEMO: To reread story by American writer E. A. Poe, “The Case of Monsieur Waldemar.” In this tale, a presumed account of facts, a dying man is placed under mesmeric trance of long duration (exact duration not recalled); removal of trance state or condition discloses that “Waldemar” has actually been dead, body at once lapsing into decay. Cannot state at present if the story is entirely fictitious or not; another story by same writer (Marie Roget?) known to be demi-factual.

  Obvious: welfare of young woman, Charms, is first consideration.

  Suggestions: Consider question of use of galvanic batteries, but only if—

  For some seconds the sound of running feet had echoed in the narrow street below. A voice, hoarse and labored… Then the night porter, Emmerman, entered. He was always brief. “Goldbeaters’ Arcade on fire, master,” he said now. Adding, as Eszterhazy, with an exclamation, ran for his medical bag, “Commissioner Lobats has sent word.” The Tsigane had appeared, as though rising from out of the floor (where, indeed, on the threshold of his master’s bedroom door he always slept), but Eszterhazy, waving aside the coat and hat, said two words: “The steam—” He followed the silently running Herrekk through the apartment and down the back steps to the mews, where the runabout was kept, and they leaped on it. Schwebel, the retired railroad engineer who maintained the machine, had been charged to see that a head of steam was always kept up, and he had never failed. With a sketch of a salute, he threw open the stable door. With a low hiss, the machine, Eszterhazy at the tiller, rolled out into the night. Herrekk had already begun to toll the great bronze handbell to warn all passersby out of the way.

  Lobats had said that he was “a fool for all sorts of circus acts, sideshows, mountebanks, scientific exhibitions, odd bits, funny animals, house-hauntings …” He might have added: “and fires.”

  Three fire engines of the newest sort, each drawn troika-fashion by three great horses of matching colors, had come one after another to The Street of the Defeat of Bonaparte (universally called Bonaparte Street), as near as they could maneuver, and made much with hoses into the Arcade. But the watchmen of the neighborhood, many of whom had been employed there before the modern fire department came into being, had set up their bucket brigade and were still passing the old but functioning leather containers from hand to hand. A sudden breeze now whipped up the flames and sparks and sent them flying overhead, straight up and aloft into the black sky—at the same time clearing the passageway of the Arcade from all but the smell of smoke.

  Off in a corner, her red velveteen dress flying loose about her fat body, Frow Grigou crouched, hand to mouth, mouth which screamed incessantly, “Ruined! Ruined! The curtains, the bad gas jets! The bad gas jets, the curtains! Ruined! Ruined! Ruined!”

  All at once the firehoses heaved, writhed, gushed forth in a potent flow. The smoke turned back and clouds of steam arose. Eszterhazy felt himself choking, felt himself being carried away in the powerful arms of Herrekk, the Mountain Tsigane. In a moment he cried, “I am all right! Set me down.” He saw himself looking into the anxious face of Lobats, who, seeing Eszterhazy on his feet and evidently recovered, gestured silently to two bodies on the pavement in Bonaparte Street.

  Murgatroyd. And Polly Charms.

  [Later, Lobats was to ask, “What was it that you found out when you put your fingers on the Englishman’s head?” And Eszterhazy was to answer, “More than I will ever speak of to anyone.”]

  Eszterhazy flung himself down beside them. But although he cursed aloud the absence of his galvanic batteries, and although he plied all the means at his behalf—the cordials, the injections, the ammoniated salts—he could bring no breath or motion to either of them.

  Slowly, Lobats crossed himself. Ponderously, he said, “Ah, they’re both in a better world now. She, poor little thing, her life, if you call that long sleep a life—And he, bad chap though I suppose he must’ve been in lots of ways, maybe in most—but surely he expiated his sins in dragging her almost to safety, trying to save her life at the risk of his own when her very hair was on fire—”

  And indeed, most of the incredible mass of hair had burned away—those massive tresses which Murgatroyd (for who else?) must have daily and nightly spent hours in brushing and combing and plaiting and braiding…one must hope, at least lovingly…that incredible profusion of light-brown hair, unbound for the night, had indeed burned away but for a light scantling, like that of a crop-headed boy. And this shown in the dim and flaring lights, all a-glitter with moisture, shining with the drops of the water which had extinguished its fire. The girl’s face as calm now as ever. The lips of the color of a pink were again so slightly parted. But whatever she might once have had to tell would now forever be unknown.

  And as for Murgatroyd, Death had at least and at last released him from all need of concealment and fear. The furtive look was quite gon
e now. The face seemed now entirely noble.

  “I suppose you might say that he’d exploited her, kept her in that state of bondage—but at least he risked his life to save hers—”

  One of the watchmen standing by now stepped a pace forward and respectfully gestured a salute. “Beg the Sir High Police Commissioner a pardon,” he said now. “However, as it is not so.”

  “What is not so?” Lobats was annoyed.

  The watchman, still respectful, but quite firm: “Why, as the poor gentleman tried, dying, to save the poor missy. But it wasn’t so, Sir High Commissioner and Professor Doctor. It was as one might say the opposite way. ‘Twas she as was trying to get him out. Ohyes, Sirs. We heard of him screaming, oh Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, how he screamed! We couldn’t get in to them. We looks around and we looks back and there she comes, she come out of the flames, sometimes carrying him and sometimes she dragged at him and then her pretty hair went all ablaze and they two fell almost at our feet and we doused them with water… Y’see,” he concluded, his eloquence exhausted.

  “Ah, stop your damned lies, man!” said Lobats.

  Eszterhazy, shaking his head, murmured, “See, then, how swiftly the process of myth-making and legendry begins…Oh! God!” Shocked, speechless, he responded to Lobats only with a gesture. Still on his knees, Eszterhazy pointed wordlessly to the feet of Polly Charms, the Sleeping Woman. The feet were small and slight. They were, as always, naked, bare. And Lobats, following the slight gesture, saw with a shock that even experience had not prepared him for that the bare feet of the dead girl were deeply scratched, and torn and red with blood.

  The Final Adventure of Harlan in Avramland

  by his friend, Harlan Ellison

  I loved him most because he redeemed me from almost a decade of ridicule, and he did it all-knowing. It wasn’t an accident; he knew what he was doing; and I was his pal from that moment to this, even though he’s gone.

  I was a hyperkinetic fan when I was a teenager. Loud, and whacky, and far too cocky for my own good. So smartalecky that I made instant enemies, just because of the brashness, just because of the ebullient manner. That I had a good heart, and meant no harm…well, that didn’t much serve to beat the bull dog, as they say. I rubbed people the wrong way. Not at all the urbane, suave, and charming self I present today, midway in my sixties.