Bradbury, Ray - SSC 09

by The Small Assassin (v2. 1)

  The school lay empty and dark. No fire roared on the hearth to toss shadows on the beamed ceiling. There was not a crackle or a whisper.

  “Teacher?”

  He poised in the center of the flat, cold room.

  “Teacher!” he screamed.

  He slashed the drapes aside; a faint shaft of sunlight fell through the stained glass.

  Edwin gestured. He commanded the fire to explode like a popcorn kernel on the hearth. He commanded it to bloom to life! He shut his eyes, to give Teacher time to appear. He opened his eyes and was stupefied at what he saw on her desk.

  Neatly folded was the gray cowl and robe, atop which gleamed her silver spectacles, and one gray glove. He touched them. One gray glove was gone. A piece of greasy cosmetic chalk lay on the robe. Testing it, he made dark lines on his hands.

  He drew back, staring at Teacher’s empty robe, the glasses, the greasy chalk. His hand touched a knob of a door which had always been locked. The door swung slowly wide. He looked into a small brown closet.

  “Teacher!”

  He ran in, the door crashed shut, he pressed a red button. The room sank down, and with it sank a slow mortal coldness. The World was silent, quiet, and cool. Teacher gone and Mother—sleeping. Down fell the room, with him in its iron jaws.

  Machinery clashed. A door slid open. Edwin ran out.

  The Parlor!

  Behind was not a door, but a tall oak panel from which he had emerged.

  Mother lay uncaring, asleep. Folded under her, barely showing as he rolled her over, was one of Teacher’s soft gray gloves.

  He stood near her, holding the incredible glove, for a long time. Finally, he began to whimper.

  He fled back up to the Highlands. The hearth was cold, the room empty. He waited. Teacher did not come. He ran down again to the solemn Lowlands, commanded the table to fill with steaming dishes! Nothing happened. He sat by his mother, talking and pleading with her and touching her, and her hands were cold.

  The clock ticked and the light changed in the sky and still she did not move, and he was hungry and the silent dust dropped down on the air through all the Worlds. He thought of Teacher and knew that if she was in none of the hills and mountains above, then there was only one place she could be. She had wandered, by error, into the Outlands, lost until someone found her. And so he must go out, call after her, bring her back to wake Mother, or she would lie here forever with the dust falling in the great darkened spaces.

  Through the kitchen, out back, he found late afternoon sun and the Beasts hooting faintly beyond the rim of the World. He clung to the garden wall, not daring to let go, and in the shadows, at a distance, saw the shattered box he had flung from the window. Freckles of sunlight quivered on the broken lid and touched tremblingly over and over the face of the Jack jumped out and sprawled with its arms overhead in an eternal gesture of freedom. The doll smiled and did not smile, smiled and did not smile, as the sun winked on the mouth, and Edwin stood, hypnotized, above and beyond it. The doll opened its arms toward the path that led off between the secret trees, the forbidden path smeared with oily droppings of the Beasts. But the path lay silent and the sun warmed Edwin and he heard the wind blow softly in the trees. At last, he let go of the garden wall.

  “Teacher?”

  He edged along the path a few feet.

  “Teacher!”

  His shoes slipped on the animal droppings and he stared far down the motionless tunnel, blindly. The path moved under, the trees moved over him.

  “Teacher!”

  He walked slowly but steadily. He turned. Behind him lay his World and its very new silence. It was diminished, it was small! How strange to see it less than it had been. It had always and forever seemed so large. He felt his heart stop. He stepped back. But then, afraid of that silence in the World, he turned to face the forest path ahead.

  Everything before him was new. Odors filled his nostrils, colors, odd shapes, incredible sizes filled his eyes.

  If I run beyond the trees I’ll die, he thought, for that’s what Mother said. You’ll die, you’ll die.

  But what’s dying? Another room? A blue room, a green room, far larger than all the rooms that ever were! But where’s the key? There, far ahead, a great half-open iron door, a wrought-iron gate. Beyond a room as large as the sky, all colored green with trees and grass! Oh, Mother, Teacher . . .

  He rushed, stumbled, fell, got up, ran again, his numb legs under him were left behind as he fell down and down the side of a hill, the path gone, wailing, crying, and then not wailing or crying any more, but making new sounds. He reached the great rusted, screaming iron gate, leapt through; the Universe dwindled behind, he did not look back at his old Worlds, but ran as they withered and vanished.

  The policeman stood at the curb, looking down the street.

  “These kids. I’ll never be able to figure them.”

  “How’s that?” asked the pedestrian.

  The policeman thought it over and frowned. “Couple seconds ago a little kid ran by. He was laughing and crying, crying and laughing, both. He was jumping up and down and touching things. Things like lampposts, the telephone poles, fire hydrants, dogs, people. Things like sidewalks, fences, gates, cars, plateglass windows, barber poles. Hell, he even grabbed hold and looked at me, and looked at the sky, you should have seen the tears, and all the time he kept yelling and yelling something funny.”

  “What did he yell?” asked the pedestrian.

  “He kept yelling, ‘I’m dead, I’m dead, I’m glad I’m dead, I’m dead, I’m dead, I’m glad I’m dead, I’m dead, I’m dead, it’s good to be dead!’” The policeman scratched his chin slowly. “One of them new kid games, I guess.”

  THE MAN UPSTAIRS

  He remembered how carefully and expertly Grandmother would fondle the cold cut guts of the chicken and withdraw the marvels therein; the wet shining loops of meat-smelling intestine, the muscled lump of heart, the gizzard with the collection of seeds in it. How neatly and nicely Grandma would slit the chicken and push her fat little hand in to deprive it of its medals. These would be segregated, some in pans of water, others in paper to be thrown to the dog later, perhaps. And then the ritual of taxidermy, stuffing the bird with watered, seasoned bread, and performing surgery with a swift, bright needle, stitch after pulled-tight stitch.

  This was one of the prime thrills of Douglas’s eleven-year-old life span.

  Altogether, he counted twenty knives in the various squeaking drawers of the magic kitchen table from which Grandma, a kindly, gentle-faced, white-haired old witch, drew paraphernalia for her miracles.

  Douglas was to be quiet. He could stand across the table from Grandmama, his freckled nose tucked over the edge, watching, but any loose boy-talk might interfere with the spell. It was a wonder when Grandma brandished silver shakers over the bird, supposedly sprinkling showers of mummy-dust and pulverized Indian bones, muttering mystical verses under her toothless breath.

  “Grammy,” said Douglas at last, breaking the silence, “Am I like that inside?” He pointed at the chicken.

  “Yes,” said Grandma. “A little more orderly and presentable, but just about the same. . . .”

  “And more of it!” added Douglas, proud of his guts.

  “Yes,” said Grandma. “More of it.”

  “Grandpa has lots more’n me. His sticks out in front so he can rest his elbows on it.”

  Grandma laughed and shook her head.

  Douglas said, “And Lucie Williams, down the street, she . . .”

  “Hush, child!” cried Grandma.

  “But she’s got . . .”

  “Never you mind what she’s got! That’s different.”

  “But why is she different?”

  “A darning-needle dragon-fly is coming by some day and sew up your mouth,” said Grandma firmly.

  Douglas waited, then asked, “How do you know I’ve got insides like that, Grandma?”

  “Oh, go ’way, now!”

  The front doo
rbell rang.

  Through the front-door glass as he ran down the hall, Douglas saw a straw hat. The bell jangled again and again. Douglas opened the door.

  “Good morning, child, is the landlady at home? “

  Cold gray eyes in a long, smooth, walnut-colored face gazed upon Douglas. The man was tall, thin, and carried a suitcase, a brief case, an umbrella under one bent arm, gloves rich and thick and gray on his thin fingers, and wore a horribly new straw hat.

  Douglas backed up. “She’s busy.”

  “I wish to rent her upstairs room, as advertised.”

  “We’ve got ten boarders, and it’s already rented; go away!”

  “Douglas!” Grandma was behind him suddenly. “How do you do?” she said to the stranger. “Never mind this child.”

  Unsmiling, the man stepped stiffly in. Douglas watched them ascend out of sight up the stairs, heard Grandma detailing the conveniences of the upstairs room. Soon she hurried down to pile linens from the linen closet on Douglas and send him scooting up with them.

  Douglas paused at the room’s threshold. The room was changed oddly, simply because the stranger had been in it a moment. The straw hat lay brittle and terrible upon the bed, the umbrella leaned stiff against one wall like a dead bat with dark moist wings folded.

  Douglas blinked at the umbrella.

  The stranger stood in the center of the changed room, tall, tall.

  “Here!” Douglas littered the bed with supplies. “We eat at noon sharp, and if you’re late coming down the soup’ll get cold. Grandma fixes it so it will, every time!”

  The tall strange man counted out ten new copper pennies and tinkled them in Douglas’ blouse pocket. “We shall be friends,” he said, grimly.

  It was funny, the man having nothing but pennies. Lots of them. No silver at all, no dimes, no quarters. Just new copper pennies.

  Douglas thanked him glumly. “I’ll drop these in my dime bank when I get them changed into a dime. I got six dollars and fifty cents in dimes all ready for my camp trip in August.”

  “I must wash now,” said the tall strange man.

  Once, at midnight, Douglas had wakened to hear a storm rumbling outside—the cold hard wind shaking the house, the rain driving against the window. And then a lightning bolt had landed outside the window with a silent, terrific concussion. He remembered that fear of looking about at his room, seeing it strange and awful in the instantaneous light.

  So it was, now, in this room. He stood looking up at the stranger. This room was no longer the same, but changed indefinably because this man, quick as a lightning bolt, had shed his light about it. Douglas backed up slowly as the stranger advanced.

  The door closed in his face.

  The wooden fork went up with mashed potatoes, came down empty. Mr. Koberman, for that was his name, had brought the wooden fork and wooden knife and spoon with him when Grandma called lunch.

  “Mrs. Spaulding,” he had said, quietly, “my own cutlery; please use it. I will have lunch today, but from tomorrow on, only breakfast and supper.”

  Grandma bustled in and out, bearing steaming tureens of soup and beans and mashed potatoes to impress her new boarder, while Douglas sat rattling his silverware on his plate, because he had discovered it irritated Mr. Koberman.

  “I know a trick,” said Douglas. “Watch.” He picked a fork-tine with his fingernail. He pointed at various sectors of the table, like a magician. Wherever he pointed, the sound of the vibrating fork-tine emerged, like a metal elfin voice. Simply done, of course. He pressed the fork handle on the table-top, secretly. The vibration came from the wood like a sounding board. It looked quite magical. “There, there, and there!” exclaimed Douglas, happily plucking the fork again. He pointed at Mr. Koberman’s soup and the noise came from it.

  Mr. Koberman’s walnut-colored face became hard and firm and awful. He pushed the soup bowl away violently, his lips twisting. He fell back in his chair.

  Grandma appeared. “Why, what’s wrong, Mr. Koberman?”

  “I cannot eat this soup.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I am full and can eat no more. Thank you.”

  Mr. Koberman left the room, glaring.

  “What did you do, just then?” asked Grandma at Douglas, sharply.

  “Nothing. Grandma, why does he eat with wooden spoons?”

  “Yours not to question! When do you go back to school, anyway?”

  “Seven weeks.”

  “Oh, my land!” said Grandma.

  Mr. Koberman worked nights. Each morning at eight he arrived mysteriously home, devoured a very small breakfast, and then slept soundlessly in his room all through the dreaming hot daytime, until the huge supper with all the other boarders at night.

  Mr. Koberman’s sleeping habits made it necessary for Douglas to be quiet. This was unbearable. So, whenever Grandma visited down the street, Douglas stomped up and down stairs beating a drum, bouncing golf balls, or just screaming for three minutes outside Mr. Koberman’s door, or flushing the toilet seven times in succession.

  Mr. Koberman never moved. His room was silent, dark. He did not complain. There was no sound. He slept on and on. It was very strange.

  Douglas felt a pure white flame of hatred burn inside himself with a steady, unflickering beauty. Now that room was Koberman Land. Once it had been flowery bright when Miss Sadlowe lived there. Now it was stark, bare, cold, clean, everything in its place, alien and brittle.

  Douglas climbed upstairs on the fourth morning.

  Halfway to the second floor was a large sun-filled window, framed by six-inch panes of orange, purple, blue, red and burgundy glass. In the enchanted early mornings when the sun fell through to strike the landing and slide down the stair banister, Douglas stood entranced at this window peering at the world through the multicolored windows.

  Now a blue world, a blue sky, blue people, blue streetcars and blue trotting dogs.

  He shifted panes. Now—an amber world! Two lemonish women glided by, resembling the daughters of Fu Manchu! Douglas giggled. This pane made even the sunlight more purely golden.

  It was eight A.M. Mr. Koberman strolled by below, on the sidewalk, returning from his night’s work, his cane looped over his elbow, straw hat glued to his head with patent oil.

  Douglas shifted panes again. Mr. Koberman was a red man walking through a red world with red trees and red flowers and—something else.

  Something about—Mr. Koberman.

  Douglas squinted.

  The red glass did things to Mr. Koberman. His face, his suit, his hands. The clothes seemed to melt away. Douglas almost believed, for one terrible instant, that he could see inside Mr. Koberman. And what he saw made him lean wildly against the small red pane, blinking.

  Mr. Koberman glanced up just then, saw Douglas, and raised his cane-umbrella angrily, as if to strike. He ran swiftly across the red lawn to the front door.

  “Young man!” he cried, running up the stairs. “What were you doing?”

  “Just looking,” said Douglas, numbly.

  “That’s all, is it?” cried Mr. Koberman.

  “Yes, sir. I look through all the glasses. All kinds of worlds. Blue ones, red ones, yellow ones. All different.”

  “All kinds of worlds, is it!” Mr. Koberman glanced at the little panes of glass, his face pale. He got hold of himself. He wiped his face with a handkerchief and pretended to laugh. “Yes. All kinds of worlds. All different.” He walked to the door of his room. “Go right ahead; play,” he said.

  The door closed. The hall was empty. Mr. Koberman had gone in.

  Douglas shrugged and found a new pane.

  “Oh, everything’s violet!”

  Half an hour later, while playing in his sandbox behind the house, Douglas heard the crash and the shattering tinkle. He leaped up.

  A moment later, Grandma appeared on the back porch, the old razor strop trembling in her hand.

  “Douglas! I told you time and again never fling your basketball against
the house! Oh, I could just cry!”

  “I been sitting right here,” he protested.

  “Come see what you’ve done, you nasty boy!”

  The great colored window panes lay shattered in a rainbow chaos on the upstairs landing. His basketball lay in the ruins.

  Before he could even begin telling his innocence, Douglas was struck a dozen stinging blows upon his rump. Wherever he landed, screaming, the razor strop struck again.

  Later, hiding his mind in the sandpile like an ostrich, Douglas nursed his dreadful pains. He knew who’d thrown that basketball. A man with a straw hat and a stiff umbrella and a cold, gray room. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He dribbled tears. Just wait. Just wait.

  He heard Grandma sweeping up the broken glass. She brought it out and threw it in the trash bin. Blue, pink, yellow meteors of glass dropped brightly down.

  When she was gone, Douglas dragged himself, whimpering, over to save out three pieces of the incredible glass. Mr. Koberman disliked the colored windows. These—he clinked them in his fingers—would be worth saving.

  Grandfather arrived from his newspaper office each night, shortly ahead of the other boarders, at five o’clock. When a slow, heavy tread filled the hall, and a thick, mahogany cane thumped in the cane-rack, Douglas ran to embrace the large stomach and sit on Grandpa’s knee while he read the evening paper.

  “Hi, Grampa!”

  “Hello, down there!”

  “Grandma cut chickens again today. It’s fun watching,” said Douglas.

  Grandpa kept reading. “That’s twice this week, chickens. She’s the chickenist woman. You like to watch her cut ’em, eh? Cold-blooded little pepper! Ha!”

  “I’m just curious.”

  “You are,” rumbled Grandpa, scowling. “Remember that day when that young lady was killed at the rail station. You just walked over and looked at her, blood and all.” He laughed. “Queer duck. Stay that way. Fear nothing, ever in your life. I guess you get it from your father, him being a military man and all, and you so close to him before you came here to live last year.” Grandpa returned to his paper.