Smoke Ghost & Other Apparitions

by Fritz Leiber

  "Moreover," he went on, "Hell has become a welfare state, with rehabilitation rather than punishment its aim, especially when it comes to Vice rather than Violence."

  "What's the exact difference?" Nicholas wanted to know.

  "Violence is what harms another person, whether it injures them only a little or hurts them to the point of death," Dr. Obermann dogmatized. "While Vice is what harms the doer alone. In fact, anything done compulsively or to the point of boredom – to the point where it unbalances your life and makes it less rich – is vice! In your own case, my dear boy, the pursuit of girls. Especially the pursuit of girls unnecessarily prolonged. Your dossier shows that you have a bit of the voyeur in you. It's even been suggested that you'd rather chase girls than get them – Don't fume, Teufler! It never helps – that you'd rather watch girls do things than do things to them yourself.

  "Of course, this again is characteristic of our culture with its increasing use of sex stimulation for purposes properly called perverse, such as money-making, and with so many more exciting desirable girls in advertisements, on billboards, in movies, TV and books than there are in the flesh."

  Nicholas squeezed in, "It seems unfair that I should be punished–"

  "Oh, you consider what's been happening to you punishment?" Dr. Obermann interrupted. "Some philosophers affirm that anticipation is far more delightful than fulfillment. In which case you've been in paradise, my boy."

  "I didn't find it that way," Nicholas said gruffly, again battling down his rage at the six girls. "The old Chinese used uninterrupted sex as a torture. I think that in your intolerable anticipation indefinitely prolonged you've gone them one better. But what I was trying to say was that it's unfair that I should be punished for a fault of my own culture."

  Dr. Obermann yawned. "War does exactly the same thing to the individual. It's the rule in this neck of the cosmos. A man has to be able to outthink his culture or else suffer the consequences. Vice is vice and must be given the treatment it deserves. Hence your frustrations, which I trust will now at least be more intelligible to you when I return you to them."

  By chance or design, his hand moved toward the silver bell. Nicholas measured the distances – he had no chance of reaching it first. And if by some miracle he won the grab, he'd be sure to ring the thing. He looked around desperately. For an instant Miss Diable narrowed her eyes at him and tapped her left wrist with her right forefinger. The gesture meant nothing to him.

  "I'd like to know one thing," he burst out hurriedly. "Is that map behind me–" He indicated the rectangle in the floor, "–an actual map of the place where I was, or a televised projection of it, or the thing itself, far below, and seen through its transparent gray roof?"

  "Suppose you figure that out for yourself," the doctor retorted coldly. "But do consider the possibility that I can bring any part of it close by television, so that Miss Diable and I – if I wish – can amuse ourselves by watching your antics." His pudgy hand now moved definitely toward the bell.

  "But why's the place down there so huge?" Nicholas demanded hurriedly.

  The doctor halted his hand. "My dear boy," he grinned savoringly, "do you imagine you're the only man damned to that department of Hell, that it was constructed solely for you? No, there are thousands, millions of men going through it all the time, invisible to each other. Your vice is an extremely common one, as I explained. These days it takes a trained – and unscrupulous – psychiatrist to think of anything really new or interesting in the way of sexual deviations. Which reminds me, Miss Diable..."

  He picked up the bell, but so delicately it didn't tinkle once.

  Nicholas froze. Throat dry, he asked, "Does that mean you have millions of beautiful ... well ... she-devils working down there all the time?"

  The doctor set down the bell with equal care. Apparently he thought such a rare bit of naiveté as Nicholas' could not be allowed to go unsquelched, for he said with a pitying smile, "My boy, Hell is above everything else efficient. If I may refresh a stale euphemism, we use even the squeal of the damned. The only she-devil you have viewed thus far is my charming Miss Diable. No, all the girls you encounter down there are bona fide female human beings damned for the vices of self-adoration and teasing, though some of our moralists consider the latter sin a mild violence. Their dossiers are there–" He indicated the nearest tier of filing cabinets, "–and they make quite interesting reading. A few of the naughty little lambs were murdered. Others grew into embittered old maids – though in Hell they're all young again so that they can practice their vice to the point of extreme frustration. You see, in almost every case they think it is you who jingles the silver bell to dismiss them. The one with the gong – a sadly superstitious little Hindu – had been led to believe that its sound would enchant you and keep you from escaping."

  He continued, "They get pretty depressed with this constant rejection, as you can imagine, though they keep on smiling. When the suffering of one of them becomes simply too great, I summon her here and give her consolation. They're very grateful, the poor dears."

  "How do you summon them?" Nicholas asked, still playing for time.

  "Simply by pressing the appropriate one of these buttons," the other replied, turning toward the silver panel with great satisfaction. "You'll notice their interestingly large number, like the stars or the sands of the desert – if a psychiatrist may be permitted to wax poetic."

  Nicholas looked toward Miss Diable. Now that her employer was turned away she quickly made a face of disgust, then for an instant pursed her vermilion lips at Nicholas. It was exactly the morale-restorer he needed.

  Turning back, Dr. Obermann sighed, "I truly wish you too were a button-pusher, Nicholas, instead of the one for whom the bell is rung," and once again he reached toward the tiny red-handled instrument.

  Nicholas fixed his features in a sneer. "Oh, I'd take it for granted that you could have your will of any of those poor little damned girls. After all, you're the great psychiatrist, you're the boss. But such easy conquests must be small satisfaction to you, I'm sure. Just as I'm sure you have no power over any of the girls with status in Hell, any of the really interesting ones, such as Miss Diable."

  "Is that so?" Dr. Obermann asked harshly, drawing back his hands. "You really have the nerve to think that and tell me that to my face? Miss Diable! Come here and take some dictation!"

  Rather ostentatiously he sat forward in his chair and thrust out a pillowy knee. He tossed his head, saying, "Off with you now," and the circling flies vanished.

  Miss Diable stood up. While she was still turned away from the doctor, she stared intently again at Nicholas and again tapped her left wrist. Then, her eyes obediently downcast, with only the faintest professional smirk on her lips, she went over and sat down. Dr. Obermann at once clasped her with a gesture so intimate that Nicholas felt that any fiendess of good breeding should show strong signs of distaste and begin to struggle violently, perhaps employing a discrete judo chop. But Miss Diable merely poised her notebook and pencil, taking no notice of the hand crawling like a fat pink spider near her waist, except that her fiery nails thinned a little and her nostrils flared.

  "You don't like this, Miss Diable, do you?" Dr. Obermann asked benevolently.

  "I detest it," she replied cooly.

  "And this even less?"

  "You fill me with disgust and loathing."

  "Yet you endure my attentions because you are my secretary and because this is Hell?"

  "Yes, Dr. Obermann," she replied meekly.

  Dr. Obermann turned his head to sneer at Nicholas. "Perhaps Teufler, you'll soon be begging me to ring the silver bell, eh?"

  "Just two more questions, sir," Nicholas replied brightly, doing his best to hide his chivalrous anger. The hint of a master stratagem had come to his mind, but he could not quite bring it into focus. "Why did my wrist watch stop while I was having those ... well ... experiences down there – and then start up when I arrived here? And why was your hour-glass stuck whe
n I arrived? – and then start to trickle when you woke and noticed me? Perhaps these are mysteries beyond my limited understanding, but–"

  "Indeed they are, except in their simplest manifestations," Dr. Obermann said with happy contempt, meanwhile running his hand over Miss Diable's in a series of caresses which Nicholas found highly offensive. "Suffice it for you, Teufler, that time is not the tyrant here it is in the mortal world. By use of various clever gadgets we can start, stop, advance and reverse it. The mighty hour-glass is my gadget, the humble wrist watch yours. Your experiences, as you refer to them take place in the timelessness of eternity. As for myself, I sometimes travel from this workaday desk to seek refreshment in worlds of mystic enjoyment beyond your ken – secret realms of wonder known only to the upper executive echelons of Hades.

  "But now I have various pressing matters to attend to, and I do not desire to bore you and perhaps pain you to excess by forcing you to witness them. So it is time I returned you to your ... ah ... experiences. I believe your next ... er ... receptionist is a professional stripper with lifelong mysophobia. Or is it a debutante accident prone as to scams and shoulder straps but unshakably credulous of the horrid picture of sex her mother painted her? No matter. Now, Miss Diable, prepare yourself to endure–"

  With his free hand he snatched at the silver bell.

  At that instant Nicholas seized the tiny milled knob of his wristwatch and set the time back from ten minutes past four to fifteen to.

  The effect was all that could have been desired. Dr. Obermann's hand stopped an inch from the bell, his other paw dropped away from Miss Diable's person, and his hypnotic eyes closed. His pillow of chins received his bald head, while a dozen flies appeared from nowhere and began to circle it, and he began gently to snore.

  Miss Diable sprang from his knee. With equal alacrity Nicholas came around the desk, carrying the flame-emblemmed chair, and set it down beside Dr. Obermann. With Miss Diable eagerly assisting, he transferred the gross bulk of the psychiatrist from one chair to the other. The dozing man did not wake, though the flies buzzed for a moment angrily. Nicholas took off his watch and strapped it on the doctor's wrist. Then he confidently seated himself in the swivel chair and tinkled the silver bell sharply.

  Air whispered as it rushed in to occupy the space where Dr. Obermann had been. A clot of colliding flies buzzed frantically, then flew off like bullets.

  Miss Diable set her fists on her black sheathed hips and said with great satisfaction, "Well, that takes care of him!"

  Nicholas reached out a gentle but authoritative hand and gathered her onto his knee. She shivered delightfully – it gave his knee gooseflesh – and sighed, "Oh, Nick!" He repeated the claspings and caresses he had watched Dr. Obermann apply and discovered that there was not anything offensive about them at all – in fact, that they were the height of friendly courtesy. Miss Diable snuggled closer to him. He remarked on the similar colors of their costumes and she explained to him that she had planned it that way, after falling in love with his picture in the files. Thereafter she had guided Dr. Obermann's every step leading to his downfall.

  Nicholas proceeded to demonstrate his gratitude. In putting his arm around her waist, he touched one of the red buttons on her belt. To his considerable interest, her skirt began slowly to shorten, though it was impossible to see where the material was disappearing to. Not that that problem concerned his mind greatly, he was more interested in discovering where her stockings ended. She looked down too, her cheek against his, as if she were as mystified as he – but after a bit she pressed the other button. Her skirt crawled down an inch, to mid-thigh, and stopped.

  "For now," she said softly, adding, "Hell has some extremely clever couturiers, don't you think? And they're not one-idea men either."

  He explored her jacket. A glint of silver at the end of the red piping of one of her pockets intrigued him. He delicately pinched the zipper-tag between finger and thumb and pulled it four inches sideways. There popped out a breast that would have fitted a champagne glass, but now rested in a half-cup red silk brassiere. Feeling that symmetry must always be maintained, he repeated the action with the other pocket, with the same result. Miss Diable luxuriated against him like a cat, looked up at him innocent-eyed and asked, "Didn't you ever know why they were called breast pockets? There are at least six other stimulating gadgets on this wardrobe. I think it would be nice, Nick, if in the spirit of a treasure hunt–"

  But by then the word "six" had registered on Nicholas' mind. He suddenly sat up straight, almost dumping Miss Diable on the floor.

  "This is all very well," he said in tones of fury, "but–"

  "I should think it's all very well," Miss Diable countered indignantly, glaring at him. "I've often been told it's the greatest."

  "Oh, all very, very well," he placated her. "You have opened up to me lines of exploration which I have no doubt I will spend intoxicated hours investigating. But–" (Again his voice became furious) "–there are a certain six girls who have frustrated me abominably. I assure you I cannot concentrate on anything else until I have admonished each of them severely. So please explain to me the system of the buttons on this silver panel, so we can have them up in sequence, beginning with one particular slim blonde wearing a red velvet evening sheath with a red zipper."

  Miss Diable stood up, quivering with suppressed anger, yet looking most engaging in her short-short skirt and with her pocketless breast pockets filled.

  "Mr. Teufler," she said evenly, "I cannot accede to this humiliating request. That you should prefer any or all of six damned little minxes to me, one of the upper crust of Hell, one of the status figures, as you yourself said–"

  "I infinitely prefer you to any one or all six of them together, Miss Diable," he assured her. "In fact, I detest them to the point of obsession – but that's just the point! Until I have rebuked each of them very severely, I cannot possibly think of anything, or even anyone else."

  "Do you think you have the strength to rebuke all six?" she sneered.

  "Do not increase my anger, dear divine – I mean devilish Miss Diable," he told her, "but obey my orders. Oh, and while you're at it, please fetch me from the files the dossiers of each of the girls, so that I will be able to interrogate them searchingly before I rebuke them. I intend to reduce each one of them to a quivering–"

  "Can't you at least get it through your thick head," she shouted, "that they weren't trying to frustrate but hold onto you? That they were suffering in their schoolgirl way as much as you?'

  Nicholas frowned. "I hadn't thought of that," he admitted, smiling. "Perhaps I'll give them medals after admonishing them. Kindly scout up for me a half dozen silver pitchfork brooches or whatever else seems appropriate."

  "Mr. Teufler!" Miss Diable asserted ringingly, the contents of her breast pockets quivering. "You are on the way to making me as angry with you as I was with Dr. Obermann. Do you see that tiny red light moving about down there?" She pointed beyond the desk to where a tiny bright point of red light was indeed moving among the pastel ones. "That is Dr. Obermann, who is even now suffering the tantalizations and torments you were going through with the same six damned little demi-virgins. Do you want to put yourself on his level? Do you expect me to sit quietly by, taking notes, while–"

  The vision enchanted Nicholas. "Miss Diable, I will tolerate no further delay!" he said incisively. "You are my secretary now and must obey all my orders, just as you did those of Dr. Obermann. And I want you to understand – in fact, I order you to understand – that what I am doing is only to rid my emotions of an intolerable burden. So explain to me at once the system of the buttons and also teach me the appropriate dossiers and medals!"

  "I won't," she said, folding her arms at waist height, which made a frame for her breast pockets.

  "Very well!" he blustered, well aware that he knew nothing whatever of the system whereby Dr. Obermann had enforced the obedience of Miss Diable, or if there had been such a system. "Very well, then I'll do it for
myself. Don't think I can't; the colors are seared on my memory: rose, green, blue, yellow, orange, violet. And I earlier noted a line of buttons of those hues." He studied the panel briefly. "Ah, here they are! Now, Miss Diable," he said, turning to her triumphantly, "are you going to fetch me the dossiers – and medals! – and explain to me customary procedures, or am I simply going to press this rose button?"

  She stood straight no longer, but crouched like a cat, her green eyes glaring. "So you insist," she hissed, "that I demonstrate to you that you are not all-powerful. Very well, be it on your own head – or tail, if that's the way you happen to land!"

  In one blur of movement, she seized the hour-glass on the desk and tipped it almost on its side, so that the trickle of sand nearly stopped, became the barest sliding of one or two grains at a time.

  Nicholas was instantly paralyzed. His right forefinger, already touching the rose button, could not exert an atom of force against it.

  At the same time the room around him grew dim, so that he saw it only as a shadow, while at the same time he found himself in another room, lit with burningly hot white lights. Here he was one of a considerable group of men and a few women crouched around a very large circular table. Each of them had the look of a high executive, a master of men, yet each was obviously in a state of pitiable shock, apprehension, and terror. In the center of the table squatted an obscene monster, half man, half dragon, with a barbed black tail and burningly red eyes. It was the size of a medium tank. It was clearly giving all the upper-crust underlings, all the presumable department heads, a dreadful tongue-lashing – both figuratively (in a voice like an orchestra of drums, sirens, machine-guns, and cannon) and literally (with a very long barbed black tongue that snaked out from between slabby lips and yellowed fangs to flog the backs of super-folk screeching out pain and promises.)