I felt sorry for the boy. Quite apart from the growing sense of recognition, he was plainly intelligent and agonized at the ignominy of his position. He had been unable to conceal his excitement at my library—I’d collected for many years and in many lands and the collection abounded with choice items. Many volumes had cost considerably in excess of the price I was now being offered for the lot. And the boy knew it. Clearly.
“Very well,” I said, perhaps maliciously, “if you think that a fair bid, I accept.”
He swallowed. Then he unscrewed his pen and began to fill in the check. He got no further than the date. “Mr. Friedman,” he said, slowly, “on second thought, the risk is too great. I’m—afraid I’ll have to withdraw the offer. We can’t use these books.”
“Oh? Pity. I’d hoped you could—you see, I’m leaving for Cairo next week. Probably for good. Well, no harm done; there are other book stores, now, aren’t there. What about Martindale’s? Do you suppose they might—”
“Sir—” The boy tore up the check and walked over to my bookcases. He looked up suddenly: the feeling of familiarity burst powerfully at this exact instant: somewhere, at some time, I’d seen that face. But not merely the face. More disturbing, the entire personality was closely associated with my memory.
“Sir, I’ve got to tell you something.”
“By all means.”
He licked his lips and dropped his eyes to the folio of pre-Dynastian tablets he’d removed. “This library,” he said, “is worth a great deal of money. It’s by far the finest collection of Egyptology I’ve ever seen. To give you a fair price, I’d have to write you out a check for five thousand dollars, not five hundred. Even at that, we could turn a nice profit.”
“But,” I said, “if they’re not in demand . . .”
“I lied, Mr. Friedman. That’s my job: to lie. Had you really accepted the store’s offer—I’m only authorized to write checks up to five hundred dollars; I went my limit—we would have made close to a thousand per cent profit.”
I put a look of surprise on my face, though of course I was not in the least surprised. “Why are you telling me this?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Maybe because I’m a lousy businessman. I don’t know; it doesn’t matter. You could do me a favor though and not mention this to anybody.”
“Sit down, won’t you?” I said. “Surely the chief buyer for the town’s largest bookstore has the authority to waste a little time—if not money.”
He slumped into the chair and folded his hands. Thin, pale hands. Artist’s hands. Almost to himself, he said, “There are at least three universities I know of that would have gone crazy trying to outbid each other over your set. High bids.”
“You are a lousy businessman,” I smiled. “Picking up the Breasted was fatal, you know.”
“I know. Look—why don’t you take them with you, or dispose of them privately, or even give them away. But don’t call a bookstore. You’ll only get cheated. Believe me. They’re—we’re—like used car dealers, except used car dealers have more love for their merchandise. More understanding, anyway.”
“You love books very much, don’t you?” I said.
He seemed glad to admit it, or glad not to have to be ashamed to admit it. “Yes; I’m afraid I do.”
“That’s a pretty serious affliction, for a buyer. Tell me, why do you do it?” I did not think myself capable of such a tactless question. But it was too late.
He smiled. “Well, it’s this habit I’ve picked up. Eating.”
I felt the bitterness of his voice unlock other doors of memory. The conjunction of this room was part of it, too. Part of the secret of where I had seen the boy before. It had, I was confident, been in this very library. And yet, he’d not been here ever before. I had to know.
“What is your name?” I asked, somewhat abruptly.
“Hoffman,” he said. “Maurice Hoffman.”
It didn’t help. The name meant nothing to me. We shook hands; and at the touch, the sadness of Maurice Hoffman transmitted itself to me, and another door came open. It had been long ago—that’s for certain. Very long ago. I mixed some highballs.
“The usual first novel?” I said, hoping to cheer him, hoping to learn more.
He crumpled an empty cigarette package and took one of mine. “Four novels,” he said. “Over a hundred short stories.”
“Rejected?”
He nodded.
I fumbled. “Were they good?”
“No,” he said, with finality. “No. You see, Mr. Friedman, the thing is: just because you love books and literature, that doesn’t have a damn thing to do with whether or not you’re a good writer.”
“Well, but isn’t that what accounts for the great number of practicing critics?” The joke was bad. My visitor was old, very old; I saw that good-humored commiseration would only sound foolish. He had tried and he had failed. It showed in his eyes.
I was immediately, and a bit unreasonably, overcome with concern. And still another door creaked open. Writer. Unsuccessful writer. With sad eyes.
“Perhaps,” I said, “that’s why I chose my own special field. Egyptology doesn’t present much in the way of competition.”
“That isn’t what’s wrong. I’m just not any good, that’s all. My work,” he said definitely, “smells.”
“I’m sorry.” I thought of how it might have affected me to have failed in my profession and been forced to content myself with sweeping out the Cairo museum after hours.
He drank most of the highball at a swallow. “No—I’m the one to be sorry,” he said. “I’ve taken up a lot of your time. Well, it doesn’t happen very often, thank God. I’m actually quite happy. Really I am. I’ll open a store of my own some day; nothing pretentious: but the kind you see on sidestreets, you know: Ye Old Rare Book Shoppe, that sort of thing. Where the kindly old proprietor sits perched on a ladder and makes you buy a copy of Strindberg’s Spook Sonata and if you don’t have enough money, well, pay for it when you can. I won’t get rich. But it’s better than working in a freight company or a sawmill and at least I won’t have to cheat people like you.” He rose and extended his hand. “Goodbye, Mr. Friedman. Please—for me: don’t sell them. They’re scholarly, beautiful things and you’ve loved them for a long time. I know you have. To a bookstore they’ll be so much merchandise, to the libraries they’ll be relics; believe me, they’ll gather dust and rot. Treat them right. Because—well, because there aren’t many important things left in the world. But these—” he looked at the books and ran his hands delicately, lovingly along the spines “—these are important.”
I felt suddenly very young and stupid. I wanted to thank the lad, for I had been about to sell what had once been—and was now!—a part of my soul; and he had stopped me. “Where are you going now?” I asked, unsure of what I meant.
“Back to the store,” he said. “Then, I don’t know, home; why? Sleep. Then maybe on the weekend I’ll take a swim. There’s a reservoir up in the hills where I live—not many people know about it. You can swim there at night if you want to, the water’s pretty clean, considering. I like to swim. Mr. Friedman—don’t, look, don’t worry about me. I’m going to be all right. Just some adjusting to do.”
He pressed my hand and the door closed and he was gone. I tried to forget the look on his face.
But I could not forget.
The final packing and arrangements for my passage consumed much time, but even so I found it impossible to be rid of the question: Where had I seen Maurice Hoffman before?
It remained in my mind, annoying by day and tortuous by night, throughout the trip, which was a long one. Finally it was over: a great deal of work awaited me in Cairo and in time I forgot about the boy.
It was at the conclusion of a field trip that the image was unexpectedly brought up again—and the riddle, at least the immediate one, solved.
I had been going through some of my books, the few it had seemed prudent to take along, searching for data concerning t
he site of the village of El Amarna. Lovett’s Wonders of the Nile was proving inadequate to my needs; it was a superior work aesthetically, but it bristled with romantic, and highly unscientific, speculation. I required specific information and was about to lay the book aside when the splendidly printed illustrations caught my attention.
It was Plate VI that made my heart tighten. This photograph depicted the mummy of a young man, with a subplate below of the casket bearing his meticulously rendered likeness. The caption read:
HUYA-SON-OF-TERURA. Born 1362 B.C. Tomb uncovered by Prof. Richard von Hanstein’s fruitful expedition of 1926 into the Sakkarah site region. The casket was found to contain numerous documents and tablets revealing this man’s occupation to be that of an artist. Translation of a document bearing the seal of Akhnaton I discloses Huya-son-of-Terura elected to take his own life. The body was perfectly preserved and a member of the expedition, Dr. Carl Baumgartner, states that drowning was the probable cause of death . . .
The resemblance was almost unbelievable. It could easily have been a photograph of Maurice Hoffman in fourteenth century B.C. habit: the sadness of the eyes, the placid acceptance of defeat, the features down to the last minute detail, everything—more than a likeness. They were identical.
It often requires many hours for a human to rationalize his own inmost fears into logical skepticism. Before I could manage to persuade myself that it was a coincidence and nothing more, I had a cable addressed to the bookstore in California; a cable begging for information concerning Maurice Hoffman, clerk, Jewish-American.
The answering letter, from the bookkeeper, arrived several weeks later by regular mail. It was brief and businesslike:
Dear Mr. Friedman:
In response to your cable, we regret to inform you that our former employee, Maurice Hoffman, died under tragic circumstances two-and-one-half months ago.
His body was found in a reservoir near his home. An autopsy revealed that he had drowned, and, as he had been known to swim in this reservoir on certain evenings, it was generally agreed that he must have suffered an attack of cramps.
If you wish further information, I would suggest that you contact Maurice’s mother, Rhoda Hoffman . . .
I tore the letter and the book plate into hundreds of small pieces and threw the pieces into the hot desert wind.
They are lost now, covered over with centuries. But I cannot forget. Sometimes, when the moon is clear upon the sand, I think of the two unhappy young men, and I feel that I am an animal which has wandered too far from the clear safety of its home.
A very old animal, and afraid.
A Friend of the Family
She was talking about what a wonderful show, what wonderful dancers, what wonderful hands on that woman in the organdy dress, and while she was talking, he was thinking: Miss Kelly, you’re a very pretty girl. He decided to hold her closer. It worked fine. They swayed smoothly to the off-tempo rhythms of the four old men who were playing Basin Street half sad, half happy, all wrong.
“Are you having any fun?” Reynolds asked. He had to be sure.
“Yes,” the girl said, and pressed her body closer to his. “I’m having a wonderful time.” Her eyes were shut.
Always before, he thought, she’d answered, “Yes, Mr. Reynolds, I’m having a very good time, thank you very much.” Now it was wonderful—without the Mr. Reynolds. And he liked it. He liked her, too, as she was now, tonight: Ruth. Not Miss Kelly.
Who was Miss Kelly?
A cornet strained for a high note, didn’t make it, bleated painfully. Someone said, “Ouch!” The music trailed off, instrument by instrument, and the musicians sat down and wiped their faces. It was hot. Smoky and hot.
“Let’s get a drink,” Reynolds said. “You want to?”
“Sure,” the girl said.
They pardoned and elbowed their way back to the little circular table. He walked behind her and kept thinking about what a pretty girl she was and what was wrong with him that he hadn’t noticed this in all these years.
She slid into her chair and pretended to fan herself with a bar menu.
“Same?” he said.
“No,” she said. “I think I’ll try something new.”
“Be careful.”
“Why?” She laughed and adjusted the straps of her evening gown. It was cut low. Her chest was dotted with little brown freckles. “It’s all right to mix,” she said. “It won’t hurt you.”
“That a fact?”
“Yup.” She looked terribly young in this light, much younger than she actually was. “It’s all according to how fast you drink, not what. I mean about the system absorbing too much alcohol too fast for the brain. That’s what makes you woozy.”
“Oh. I see.” One of her pet words. Woozy—for drunk. Simple-minded, but, somehow, cute. A little like Janet, back before she’d gotten sick: always going around calling everybody ridiculous names . . .
Reynolds shook his head. Don’t start it, he thought. For God’s sake, now, don’t start it.
“Yes, sir?” A shapely girl in a barmaid’s uniform appeared out of the smoke-haze.
“Another on-the-rocks for me. And—”
“I’ll take a Silver Fizz,” Ruth said.
“What in the name of digestion is a Silver Fizz?”
“Who knows?”
The orchestra began to play again. A rumba. It made Reynolds feel good: he listened to the noise and watched the people getting up to dance.
“Chug-a-lug?” Ruth said, wrinkling her nose at him. He grinned and they threw down their drinks.
“I intend,” Reynolds said, feeling dizzy, “to ask you a question.”
“Oh-oh. That sounds grim.”
“Very grim, indeed. Miss K: you’ve been enjoying yourself?”
“Lord, yes,” she said. “I’ve told you that eighteen times already.”
He watched her face carefully. “Let’s make it for tomorrow then.”
It almost happened, the thing he feared, the drawing up; but it didn’t. Ruth smiled. “You mean tomorrow?”
“And the day after that,” he said, “and the day after that. What do you say?”
He thought about the evening, the first in—how long?—that he’d had a good time, honestly, without faking, without saying, Forgive me, Janet, forgive me, I’m sorry. It hadn’t gone right the first few times. Stiff, formal, strained; boss-secretary relationship: “Good night, Mr. Reynolds” and “Good night, Miss Kelly.” She hadn’t done much talking then. Even tonight, right through dinner, she was quiet, reserved. But afterwards—something had happened, he knew it. He didn’t know what. At the ballet, and then at the Tropics; and now . . .
“Please, Ruth,” he said. “It would mean a lot to me.”
But she wasn’t Ruth any more. She was Miss Kelly sitting there, and he felt embarrassed and ashamed, caught out. She was looking at him and thinking, he could see that, thinking very hard.
Then she said, “All right, if you really want to,” and the smile was back and Ruth was back. “But you better promise not to scream at me when I mess up your dictation.”
“I promise,” he said, and touched her hand.
And thought, so it does end. Janet had been right. For almost a year you fall, and you keep falling, and you almost hit bottom—and then you meet a Ruth. And the awful sore spots begin to hurt a little less.
He wanted to talk to this girl, to tell her what she had done, let her know, somehow, if he could, what this night was meaning to him.
“It was something with gin.”
He stopped thinking. “What was?”
“The Silver Fizz. I tasted gin.”
Now he found that he wanted to kiss her. Wanted badly, very much to kiss her. “Ruth,” he said, “let’s get out of here. I’d like—”
“Well, Wally Reynolds, for God’s sakes, you old horse thief!”
The voice was strident and booming. Reynolds looked around to face a thin yellowish man with a long pitted nose and a litt
le brush of mustache. The man was grinning widely.
“Hello, Pearson. Ruth, this is our claims agent, Mr.—”
“I know Mr. Pearson,” Ruth said. “Hello.”
“Hiya.” The man wobbled slightly, but his speech was clear. “Got company?”
“Tell you the truth, Eddie,” Reynolds said, “we were just getting ready to leave. Kind of late. Got to rise and shine tomorrow, you know.”
“Sure,” Pearson said. “Sure. But you can have one more, can’t you? One more tiny one, for Auld Lang Syne?” He didn’t wait for an answer. He pulled a chair from one of the other tables and winked at the waitress. She came over.
“Folksies?” Pearson said.
Reynolds sighed and sank back in the seat. “Bourbon with seven,” he said. “Ruth?”
“The same, I guess.”
“Make it three,” Pearson said, chuckling. “Yes, sir, three little old bombshells.” He waved the girl away. “Well, Wally, doggone it, how the devil are you, anyway?”
“I’m all right, Eddie. Yourself?”
“You know me—if I was any healthier, they’d shoot me.” Pearson slapped the table and squinted at Ruth. “Looking mighty fancy tonight, Miss Kelly, if you don’t mind a man saying so.”
Ruth said, “Thank you,” and looked over quickly at Reynolds. Her smile was perfunctory.
“Mighty fancy, yes, indeedy.” Pearson laughed wetly, shook his head. “That Wally, I tell you. Always could pick them. But now you take me—have I got a pretty gal along this evening? Nope I do not, no sir. Stagging it. Always alone, stagging it, that’s Eddie. Isn’t that right, Wally?”
“That’s right,” Reynolds said. He wanted desperately to get out. The glow of the evening had been so perfect, it had all been so perfect. He didn’t want anything to spoil it. And, all at once, he was afraid.
The drinks came. Eddie Pearson reached into his pocket and drew out a five dollar bill and laid it on the platter. “Keep the change,” he said to the waitress. Then, leaning forward, he raised his glass. “Come on, now,” he said, “let’s do it. Over the lips and past the gums, watch out, stomach, here it comes!”
A Touch of the Creature Page 12
