The Avram Davidson Treasury

by Avram Davidson

  A Slovo woman had newly emigrated to the United States. Came to stay with relatives. By and by someone asked that a pot of water be put on for tea. “I will do it,” said the greenhorn woman. Did she know how to do it? Of course, of course! What did they think? Of course she knew how! “Shouldn’t someone go and show her?” Nonsense; not necessary! Off she went, from the front room into the kitchen to put the water on for the tea. So they talked and they waited and they waited and they waited, and still no call from the kitchen. Had she gone out the back door? So someone went in to see. They found her standing by the stove and looking at it. (Grahdy indicated her perplexed look.) “Was the water hot yet?” Here Grahdy indicated that the great punch line was coming; here Grahdy put hands on hips and an expression of annoyance and bewilderment on face.

  “‘Was the water hot yet?’”

  “‘Hot? Hot? It didn’t even get warm!’”

  Neither did Silberman. What the hell. But the story anecdote was not over. The punch line was followed by an explanation. (a) The Slovo greenhorn woman knew nothing about a gas range. (b) The Slovo greenhorn woman assumed that the gas range was, simply, a Slovo stove, American style. (c) So she, seeing that the grate—which to her was, of course, “the black part”—seeing this already in place, she put water in the pot and set it on top. (d) Leaning against the gas stove there happened to be the grease tray, usually placed of course underneath the burners to catch spatters and drips; it had just been cleaned, was why it was where it was. It was enameled, and a pale blue. (e) So, assuming that this was “the blue part,” she had slid it into place, underneath the burners. (f) Had not turned on the gas, (g) had not struck a match, (h) had just waited for this American gas stove to behave like a Slovo stove—

  —and here came the question and answer together again, as inexorable as Greek tragedy and by now almost as familiar as Weber and Fields or Abbott and Costello:

  “‘Was the water hot yet?’”

  “‘Hot? Hot? It didn’t even get warm!’”

  This was, evidently, and by now Fred had had lots of evidence, the hottest item there had ever been in Huzzuk humor in the history of the world: Joe Miller, Baron Munchausen, Charlie Chaplin, step way back. Get ready for something really funny: the anecdote story of the greenhorn who thought that by sliding the grease tray underneath the gas burners, and by doing nothing else, she could produce heat!

  Hot-cha!

  Yocketty-bop-cha!

  Why this venerable race joke, certainly worth a chuckle when fresh and crisp, still guffawed its way down the corridors of time, required more consideration than Fred was then prepared to give. But it was a lot, lot easier to understand why the Slovos, who had been listening to it for…how long? forty years? eighty years?…were beginning to get kind of restless. And—

  “And how does it work, Mr. Grahdy? I mean…scientifically?”

  The one-shoulder shrug. “Who knows, my dear young gentleman? Consider the electrical properties of the amber, a great curiosity in the former age; but today, merely we flick a switch.”

  The local public library was not changed much since Andrew Carnegie had helped endow it; there was nothing in the catalogue under either Huzzuk, Slovo, or Stove which provided even faint enlightenment. The encyclopedia ran to information about the former dynasty and its innumerable dull rulers; also The Huzzukya areas have become moderately industrialized and The interests of the Slovoya areas remain largely agrarian and Exports include duck down, hog bristles, coarse grades of goat hair and wool. Goody.

  In the Reference Room the little librarian with the big eyeglasses listened to his request; said, in her old-time professionally hush-hush voice, “I think there is a pamphlet”…and there certainly was a pamphlet; it was bound in, and bound in tightly, with a bunch of other pamphlets on a bunch of other subjects. The nameless author-publisher (“Published by the Author”) had disguised the fact of not having much to say by saying it in rather large type. Leaning on the volume with both hands to keep it open, Silberman learned that “the Slovoi themselves no longer admit to know just where was or even approximately their ancestral ‘Old Home’ or ‘Old Place’ near ‘The Big Water.’ The latter has been suggested for Caspian Sea or Aral Sea, even fantastically has been suggested ‘Lake Baikal.’ In Parlour’s Ferry are found Huzzuki in many Middle Class professional commercial role and has been correctly suggested Slovoi fulfill labor tasks with commendable toil and honesty.” There was nothing about stoves, and Fred felt that unless he wanted eventually to sell photographs of his wrists to Charles Atlas, he might as well let go of the bound volume of pamphlets; he did, and it closed like a bear trap.

  The pamphlet probably contained the text of a paper done for a pre-WWI class in Night School, the Author of which, intoxicated by getting a fairly good grade, had rushed it off to a job printer; it was suggested in Fred’s mind that he was probably (probably?) a Huzzuk.

  Back at Fred’s new apartment-to-be, lo! the painters were no longer painting; the painters were no longer, in fact, there; and neither was the painting finished. Only, in the middle of the drainboard of the kitchen sink sat a white bread and sardine sandwich with a single symmetrical bite missing out of it. Another unsolved mystery of the sea; or had it come there by a fortuitous concourse of the atoms: why not? Down went Fred and rang Mrs. Keeley’s bell. By and by the door opened a crack long enough to transmit heavy breathing and the odor of gin and onions; almost at once the door closed shut again and by and by the volume of the radio went up. Mrs. Keeley was not one of your picky listeners out there in Radioland who require very fine tuning, and Silberman was unable to say if she was listening to an old recording of the Tasty Yeast Jesters or maybe one of a love song by President Harding. He went away.

  A côte chez Brakk, an aunt said, as he came in, “I saved you some fruit stew,” and also Wes poured him something powerful-looking. Evidently the conventicle/potlatch was still going on, with Fred’s presence still acceptable. Although—A newspaper was lowered; behind it was Nick. “Don’t make the Old Lady show ya that jee-dee stove no more,” he said. “She’s all wore out.”

  Fred said, easily, “Okay, Nick.—Who else has got one?” he asked the world at large. There was a thinking pause. Wes said, No one that he knew of.

  “It’s the last of the Mohicans,” Wes said.

  Nick slapped down the paper. “She better get ridda it. Y‘hear me? I’m gonna smash it up, I’m gonna throw it offa the bridge; I don’ wanna even hear about it—no wonder they make funna us all the time!” No one said a word, so Nick said a word, a short and blunt one; and then, as though shocked himself, slammed out of the room. In a moment a car drove rapidly away. Wes was expressionless and, seemingly, emotionless.

  Fred sampled the fruit stew. Was it the same as stewed fruit? no it wasn’t. Good, though. As soon as his spoon scraped the bottom, a bowl of something else was set down beside him. And a plate of something else. “Here is beaten-up bean soup with buttermilk and vinegar. This is lamb fritters with fresh dill.” Golly, they sounded odd! Golly, they were good!

  In a corner across the room an old man and an old woman discordantly sang-sung religious texts from, shared between them, an old wide book in Old Wide Huzzuk or something of the sort. “That’s supposed to benefit the soul of the late deceased,” said a very young man with a very large and shiny face, in a tentatively contentious tone.

  “College boy,” said Wes. “Could it hurt?”

  Fred Silberman put down his spoon. (Eating fritters with a spoon? Sure. Why not? Hurts you?) “Listen, where was ‘the Old Home Place by the Big Water’?” he asked.

  The college boy instantly answered, “Gitche Gumee.”

  Wes said, with a shrug of his own, far heavier than Mat. Grahdy’s, “Who the hell knows? Whoever knew? You think they had maps in those days? I suppose that one year the crops failed and there was no nourishment in the goat turds, so they all hit the road. West. And once they crossed a couple mountains and a couple of rivers, not only didn’t t
hey know where they were, they didn’t even know where they’d been.”

  Fred said, “Listen. Listen. Nick isn’t here, the Huzzuks aren’t here, nobody is here but us chickens, cut-cut-cut-cut, God should strike me dead if I laugh at you: Where did the stoves come from? The Slovo stoves?”

  “Who the hell knows?”

  “Well, did they have them when they left…wherever it was? Lake Ontario, or the Yellow Sea? Did they…?”

  Wes just sighed. But his, probably, sister took to answering the question, and the further questions, and, when she didn’t know, asked her elders and translated the answers. According to old stories, yes, they did have the stoves before they left the Old Place. The black parts they came from the mountain and the blue parts they came from the Big Water. From the inside of the mountain, what mountain, nobody knows what mountain, and from the bottom of the Big Water. How did they get the idea? Well, Father Yockim said that the angels gave it to them. Father Yockim said! That’s not what the old people use to say…what did the old people used to say? The old people used to say it was the little black and white gods but Father Yockim he thought people would think that meant like devils or something, so he changed it and—Well, there aren’t any little black and white gods, for God’s sake!—Oh, you’re so smart, you think you—

  “Maybe they were from outer space,” said Silberman, to his own surprise as much as anyone else’s.

  Silence the most profound. Then the “college boy,” probably either a nephew or a cousin, said, slowly, “Maybe they were.” Another silence. Then they were all off again.

  The trouble all began with Count Cazmar. Count Cazmar had, like, a monopoly on all the firewood from the forest. The king gave it to him. Yes, but the king didn’t just “give” it to him; he had to pay the king. Okay, so he had to pay the king. So anybody wanted firewood they had to pay Count Cazmar. Then he got sore because the Slovo people weren’t buying enough firewood, see, because he still had to pay the king. Which king? Who the hell knows which king? Who the hell cares? None of them were any damn good anyway. What, old King Joseph wasn’t any good, the one who let Yashta Yushta out of the dungeon? Listen, will you forget about old King Joseph and get on with the story!

  So Count Cazmar sent out all the blacksmiths to go from house to house with their great big sledgehammers to smash up all the Slovo stoves to force the Slovos to buy more firewood and—What? Yeah, that’s how Gramma’s stove is, like, broken. They all got, like, broken. Of course you could still use them. But dumb Count Cazmar he dint know that. So, what finely happen, what finely happen, everybody had to pay a firewood tax irregardless of how much they used or not. So lotta the Slovo people they figured, ya gotta pay for it anyway? so might as well use it. See? Lotta them figure, ya gotta pay for it anyway, so might as well use it. And so, lotta them quit usin’ their Slovo stoves. Y’see.

  “That’s your superior Huzzuk civilization for you,” Wes said. Just then the deacon and deaconess in the corner, or whatever they were, lifted their cracked old voices and finished their chant; and everybody said something loudly and they all stamped their feet. “Here, Fred,” said Wes, “have some more—have another glass o’ mulberry beer.” And promptly an aunt set two more bowls down in front of Fred. “In this one is chopped spleen stew with crack buckwheats. And in udder one is cow snout cooked under onions. Wait. I give you pepper.”

  Eventually Silberman got moved into his new apartment and eventually Silberman got moved into his new job; his new job required (among other things…among many other things) a trip to the diemakers, a trip to the printers, a trip to the suppliers: how convenient that all three were located in a new or newish commercial and industrial complex way out on the outskirts of. As he drove, by and by such landmarks as an aqueduct, a cemetery, an old brick foundry, reminded him that, more or less where the commercial and industrial complex now was, was where old Applebaum used to be. Lo! it seemed: still was! Shabby, but still reading M. APPLEBAUM CASH AND CARRY WHOLESALE GROCERIES. The complicated commerces and industries perhaps didn’t like shabby Old Applebaum’s holding out in their midst? Tough. Let them go back where they came from.

  Afterwards, business finished elsewhere, thither: “Freddy. Hello.”

  “Hello, Mr. Applebaum. How are you?”

  “How should I be? Every week seems like another family grocery bites the dust. Nu. I own a little swamp in Florida and maybe I will close up the gesheft and go live on a houseboat with hot and cold running crocodiles. Ahah, here comes an old customer with his ten dollars’ worth of business if we are both lucky; Mat. Grahdy.”

  Sure enough. Beat him to the punch. “Hey, Mr. Grahdy, did it get hot yet?”

  Grahdy laughed and laughed; then gave the counterword: “It didn’t even get warm! Ho ho ho ho.” He gestured to another man. “This is Petey Plazzek, he is a half-breeth. Hey, Petey, did it get hot yet? Ho ho ho ho!—Mosek!”—this to Old Applebaum. “A little sugar I need, a little semolina I need, a little cake flour, licorice candy, marshmallow crackers.” M. Applebaum said he could give him a good buy on crackers today. They went inside together.

  Petey Plazzek, a worn-looking man in a worn-looking lumber jacket, came right to the point. “If you’re driving by the bus deepo, you could give me a ride.”

  “Sure. Get in.” Off they went. Silberman’s glance observed no Iroquois cheekbones. “Excuse me, but what did he mean, ‘A half-breed’? No offense—”

  “Naa, naa. Half Huzzuk, half Slovo.”

  A touch of the excitement. “Well, uh, Mr. Plazzek—”

  “Petey. Just Petey.”

  “Well, uh, Petey, how many people have one of those old Slovo stoves anymore?”

  “Nobody. Them stoves are all a thing o’ the past nowadays. Watch out for that truck.”

  “How come, Petey? How come they are?”

  Petey rubbed his nose, sighed very deeply. “Well. You know. Some greenhorn would come to America—as we used to say, ‘He had six goats and he sold five to get the steamship ticket and he gave one to the priest to pray for a good journey.’ I’m talking about a Slovo now. Huzzuk, that’s another thing altogether. So the poor Slovo was wearing high boots with his pants tucked innem and a shirt smock and a sheepskin coat and a fur hat. This was before Ellis Island. Castle Garden in those days. He didn’t have a steamer trunk, he didn’t have a grip, he only had a sort of knapsack; so what was in it? A clean smock shirt and some clean foot rags, because they didn’t use socks, and a little iron pot and some hardtack-type bread and those two stove parts, the black part and the, uh, the, uh—”

  “The blue part.”

  “—the blue part, right. Watch out for that Chevy. Well, he’d get a job doing the lowest-paid dirtiest work and he’d rent a shack that subsequently you wouldn’t dast keep a dog in it, y’understand what I’m telling you, young fellow? Lights, he had no lights, he didn’t even have no lamp, just a tin can with some pork fat and a piece of rag for a wick. And he’d pick up an old brick here and an old brick there and set up his Slovo stove and cook buckwheat in his little iron pot and he’d sleep on the floor in his sheepskin coat.”

  But by and by things would get better; this was America, the land of opportunity. So as soon as he started making a little money he brought his wife over and they moved into a room, a real room, and he’d buy a coal-oil lamp and a pair of shoes for each of them, but, um, people would still laugh attem, partickley the Zunks would still be laughing at them because of still using the Slovo stove, y’see. So by and by they’d buy a wood stove. Or a coal stove. And they’d get the gaslight turned on. And they’d even remember not t’ blow it out.”

  “Yes, but, Petey. The wood and coal cost money. And the Slovo stove was free. So—”

  Petey sighed again. “Well. To tell you the truth. It could cook: sure. Didn’t give out much heat, otherwise. Boil up a lotta water, place’d get steamy.”

  Fred Silberman cried, “Steam heat! Steam heat!”

  Petey looked startled, then—for the first t
ime—interested. Then the interest ebbed away. He sighed. “None of them people were plumbers. They never thought of nothing like that, and neither did anybody else. The Slovo stove, what it come to mean, it come to mean poverty, see? It come to mean ridicule. And so as soon as they quit being dirt-poor, well, that was that.”

  Fred asked, eagerly, “But aren’t there still a lot of them in the attics? Well…some of them? In the cellars?”

  Petey’s breath hissed. “Where you going? You going to the bus deepo, y’ shoulda turned leff! Oh. Circling the block. Naa…they juss, uh, thrown’m away. Watch out for that van.”

  The new job and its new responsibilities occupied and preoccupied most of Silberman’s time, but one afternoon as he was checking an invoice with the heating contractor fitting up the plant, lo! the old matter came abruptly to his mind.

  “Sudden thought?” said Mr. McMurtry.

  “Uh. Yuh. You ever hear of a… Slovo stove?”

  Promptly: “No. Should I have?”

  Suppose Fred were to tell him. What then? Luddite activity on the part of McMurtry? “Let me ask you a make-believe question, Mac—”

  “Fire when ready.”

  So…haltingly, ignorantly… Fred (naming no names, no ethnic groups) described matters as well as he could, winding up: “So could you think, Mac, of any scientific explanation as to how such a thing could, or might, maybe, work? At all?”

  Mac’s brow furrowed, rolling the hairs of his conjoined eyebrows: a very odd effect. “Well, obviously the liquid in the container acts as a sort of noncontiguous catalyst, and this amplifies the vortex of the force field created by the juxtaposition of the pizmire and the placebo”—well of course McMurtry did not say that: but that was what it sounded like to Silberman. And so McMurtry might just as well have said it.