by Fritz Leiber
What do I think about the figure? How do I explain it? (or her)? Well, at the time of her appearance I was absolutely sure that she was real, solid, material, and I think the intentness with which I observed her up to the end (the utterly unexpected silvery skin-crackle I saw at the last instant!) argues for that. In fact, the courage to hold still and fully observe was certainly the only sort of courage I displayed during the whole incident. Throughout, I don't believe I ever quite lost my desire to know, to look into mystery. (But why was I so absolutely certain that my life depended on watching her? I don't know.)
Was she perhaps an archetype of the unconscious mind somehow made real? the Anima or the Kore or the Hag who lays men out (if those be distinct archetypes)? Possibly, I guess.
And what about that science fiction suggestiveness about her? that she was some sort of extraterrestrial being? That would fit with her linkage with a very peculiar violet star, which (the star) I do not undertake to explain in any way! Your guess is as good as mine.
Was she, vide Lang, a waking dream? – nightmare, rather? Frankly, I find that hard to believe.
Or was she really the Button Molder? (who in Ibsen's play, incidentally, is an old man with pot, ladle, and mold for melting down and casting lead buttons). That seems just my fancy, though I take it rather seriously.
Any other explanations? Truthfully, I haven't looked very far. Perhaps I should put myself into the hands of the psychics or psychologists or even the occultists, but I don't want to. I'm inclined to be satisfied with what I got out of it. (One of my author friends says it's a small price to pay for overcoming writer's block.)
Oh, there was one little investigation that I did carry out, with a puzzling and totally unexpected result which may be suggestive to some, or merely baffling.
Well, when the light went out in my bedroom, as I've said, the figure seemed to fade back through the doorway into the small hallway with lowered ceiling I've told you about and there fade away completely. So I decided to have another look at the ceilinged-off space. I stood on a chair and pushed aside the rather large square of frosted glass and (somewhat hesitantly) thrust up through the opening my right arm and my head. The space wasn't altogether empty, as it had seemed when I changed the bulb originally. Now the 200-watt glare revealed a small figure lying close behind one of the two-by-four beams of the false ceiling. It was a dust-filmed doll made (I later discovered) of a material called Fabrikoid and stuffed with kapok – it was, in fact, one of the Oz dolls from the 1920's; no, not the Scarecrow, which would surely be the first Oz character you'd think of as a stuffed doll, but the Patchwork Girl.
What do you make of that? I remember saying to myself, as I gazed down at it in my hand, somewhat bemused, Is this all fantasy ever amounts to? Scraps? Rag dolls?
Oh, and what about the lay figure in the store window? Yes, she was still there the next morning same as ever. Only they'd changed her position again. She was standing between two straight falls of sheeting, one black, one white, with her mitten hands touching them lightly to either side. And she was bowing her head a trifle, as if she were taking a curtain call.
DO YOU KNOW DAVE WENZEL?
WHEN Don Senior said, "There's the bell," and pushed back his chair, Wendy had just upset her bowl, John's hand was creeping across the edge of his plate to join forces with his spoon, and Don Junior had begun to kick the table leg as he gazed into space at an invisible adventure comic.
Katherine spared Don Senior a glance from the exacting task of getting the top layer of mashed carrots back into the bowl while holding off Wendy's jumpy little paws. "I didn't even hear it," she said.
"I'll answer it," Don Senior told her.
Three minutes later Wendy's trancelike spoon-to-mouth routine was operating satisfactorily, John's hand had made a strategic withdrawal, and the rest of the carrots had been wiped up. Don Junior had quietly gone to the window and was standing with his head poked between the heavy rose drapes looking out across the dark lawn – perhaps at more of the invisible adventure, Katherine thought. She watched him fondly. Little boys are so at the mercy of their dreams. When the "call" comes, they have to answer it. Girls are different.
Don seemed rather thoughtful when he came back to the table. Suddenly like Don Junior, it occurred to Katherine.
"Who was it, dear?"
He looked at her for a moment, oddly, before replying.
"An old college friend."
"Didn't you invite him in?"
He shook his head, glancing at the children. "He's gone down in the world a long way," he said softly. "Really pretty disreputable."
Katherine leaned forward on her elbows. "Still, if he was once a friend–"
"I'm afraid you wouldn't like him," he said decisively, yet it seemed to Katherine with a shade of wistfulness.
"Did I ever meet him?" she asked.
"No. His name's Dave Wenzel."
"Did he want to borrow money?"
Don seemed not to hear that question. Then, "Money? Oh, no!"
"But what did he want to see you about?"
Don didn't answer. He sat frowning.
The children had stopped eating. Don Junior turned from the window. The drapes dropped together behind him.
"Did he go away, Dad?" Don Junior asked.
"Of course."
It was quiet for several moments. Then Don Senior said, "He must have cut around the other side of the house."
"How strange," Katherine said. Then, smiling quickly at the children, she asked, "Have you ever seen him since college, Don?"
"Not since the day I graduated."
"Let's see, how long is that?" She made a face of dismay, mockingly. "Oh Lord, it's getting to be a long time. Fourteen, fifteen years. And this is the same month."
Again her husband looked at her intently. "As it happens," he said, "it's exactly the same day."
* * * *
When Katherine dropped in at her husband's office the next morning, she was thinking about the mysterious Mr. Wenzel. Not because the incident had stuck in her mind particularly, but because it had been recalled by a chance meeting on the train coming up to town, with another college friend of her husband.
Katherine felt good. It is pleasant to meet an old beau and find that you still attract him and yet have the reassuring knowledge that all the painful and exciting uncertainties of youth are done with.
How lucky I am to have Don, she thought. Other wives have to worry about women (I wonder how Carleton Hare's wife makes out?) and failure (Is Mr. Wenzel married?) and moods and restlessness and a kind of little-boy rebelliousness against the business of living. But Don is different. So handsome, yet so true. So romantic, yet so regular. He has a quiet heart.
She greeted the secretary. "Is Mr. McKenzie busy?"
"He has someone with him now. A Mr. Wenzel, I think."
Katherine did not try to conceal her curiosity. "Oh, tell me about him, would you? What does he look like?"
"I really don't know," Miss Korshak said, smiling. "Mr. McKenzie told me there would be a Mr. Wenzel to see him, and I think he came in a few minutes ago, while I was away from the desk. I know Mr. McKenzie has a visitor now, because I heard him talking to someone. Shall I ring your husband, Mrs. McKenzie?"
"No, I'll wait a while," Katherine sat down and pulled off her gloves.
A few minutes later Miss Korshak picked up some papers and went off. Katherine wandered to the door of her husband's office. She could hear his voice every now and then, but she couldn't make out what he was saying. The panel of frosted glass showed only vague masses of light and shadow. She felt a sudden touch of uneasiness. She lifted her hand, which was dusted with freckles almost the same shade as her hair, and knocked.
All sound from beyond the door ceased. Then there were footsteps and the door opened.
Don looked at her blankly for a moment. Then he kissed her.
She went ahead of him into the gray-carpeted office.
"But where is Mr. Wenzel?" she
asked, turning to him with a gesture of half-playful amazement.
"He just happened to be finished," Don said lightly, "so he left by the hall door."
"He must be an unusually shy person – and very quiet," Katherine said. "Don, did you arrange with him last night to come and see you here?"
"In a way."
"What is he after, Don?"
Her husband hesitated. "I suppose you could describe him as a kind of crank."
"Does he want to publish some impossible article in your magazine?"
"No, not exactly." Don grimaced and waved a hand as if in mild exasperation. "Oh, you know the type, dear. The old college friend who's a failure and who wants to talk over old times. The sort of chap who gets a morbid pleasure out of dwelling on old ideas and reviving old feelings. Just a born botherer." And he quickly went on to ask her about her shopping and she mentioned running into Carleton Hare, and there was no more talk of Dave Wenzel.
* * * *
But when Katherine got home later that afternoon after picking up the children at Aunt Martha's, she found that Don had called to say not to wait dinner. When he finally did get in he looked worried. As soon as the children were asleep, Don and Katherine settled themselves in the living room in front of the fireplace. Don made a fire, and the sharp odor of burning hardwood mingled with the scent of freesias set in a dull blue bowl on the mantelpiece under the Monet.
As soon as the flames were leaping, Katherine asked seriously, "Don, what is this thing about Dave Wenzel?"
He started to make light of the question, but she interrupted, "No, really, Don. Ever since you came back from the door last night, you've had something on your mind. And it isn't at all like you to turn away old friends or shoo them out of your office, even if they have become a bit seedy. What is it, Don?"
"It's nothing to worry about, really."
"I'm not worried, Don. I'm just curious." She hesitated. "And maybe a bit shuddery."
"Shuddery?"
"I have an eerie feeling about Wenzel, perhaps because of the way he disappeared so quietly both times, and then – oh, I don't know, but I do want to know about him, Don."
He looked at the fire for a while and its flames brought orange tints to his skin. Then he turned to her with a shame-faced smile and said, "Oh, I don't mind telling you about it. Only it's pretty silly. And it makes me look silly, too."
"Good," she said with a laugh, turning toward him on the couch and drawing her feet under her. "I've always wanted to hear something silly about you, Don."
"I don't know," he said. "You might even find it a little disgusting. And very small-boy. You know, swearing oaths and all that."
She had a flash of inspiration. "You mean the business of it being fifteen years, to the exact day?"
He nodded. "Yes, that was part of it. There was some sort of agreement between us. A compact."
"Oh good, a mystery," she said with lightly mocked childishness, not feeling as secure as she pretended.
He paused. He reached along the couch and took her hand. "You must remember," he said, squeezing it, "that the Don McKenzie I'm going to tell you about is not the Don McKenzie you know now, not even the one you married. He's a different Don, younger, much less experienced, rather shy and gauche, lonely, a great dreamer, with a lot of mistaken ideas about life and a lot of crazy notions ... of all sorts."
"I'll remember," she said, returning the pressure of his fingers. "And Dave Wenzel, how am I to picture him?"
"About my age, of course. But with a thinner face and deep-sunk eyes. He was my special friend." He frowned. "You know, you have your ordinary friends in college, the ones you room with, play tennis, go on dates. They're generally solid and reliable, your kind. But then there's a special friend, and oddly enough he's not so apt to be solid and reliable."
Again he frowned. "I don't know why, but he's apt to be a rather disreputable character, someone you're a bit ashamed of and wouldn't want your parents to meet.
"But he's more important to you than anyone, because he shares your crazier dreams and impulses. In fact, you're probably attracted to him in the first place because you feel he possesses those dreams and impulses even more strongly than you do."
"I think I understand," Katherine said wisely, not altogether certain that she did. She heard Don Junior call in his sleep and she listened a moment and looked attentively at her husband. How extraordinarily bright his eyes are, she thought.
"Dave and I would have long bull sessions in my room and we'd go for long walks at night, all over the campus, down by the lake front, and through the slum districts. And always the idea between us was to keep alive a wonderful, glamorous dream. Sometimes we'd talk about the books we liked and the weirder things we'd seen. Sometimes we'd make up crazy experiences and tell them to each other as if they were true. But mostly we'd talk about our ambitions, the amazing, outrageous things we were going to do someday."
"And they were–?"
He got up and began to pace restlessly. "That's where it begins to get so silly," he said. "We were going to be great scholars and at the same time we were going to tramp all over the world and have all sorts of adventures."
How like Don Junior, she thought. But Don Junior's so much younger. When he goes to college, will he still ... ?
"We were going to experience danger and excitement in every form. I guess we were going to be a couple of Casanovas, too."
Her humorous "Hmf!" was lost as he hurried on, and despite herself, his words began to stir her imagination. "We were going to do miraculous things with our minds, like a mystic does. Telepathy. Clairvoyance. We were going to take drugs. We were going to find out some great secret that's been hidden ever since the world began. I think if Dave said, 'We'll go to the moon, Don,' I'd have believed him."
He came to a stop in front of the fire. Slitting his eyes, he said slowly, as if summing up, "We were like knights preparing to search for some modern, unknown, and rather dubious grail. And someday in the course of our adventuring we were going to come face to face with the reality behind life and death and time and those other big ideas."
For a moment, for just a moment, Katherine seemed to feel the spinning world under her, as if the walls and ceiling had faded, to see her husband's big-shouldered body jutting up against a background of black space and stars.
She thought, Never before has he seemed so wonderful. And never so frightening.
He shook his finger at her, almost angrily, she felt. "And then one night, one terrible night before I graduated, we suddenly saw just how miserably weak we were, how utterly impossible of realizing the tiniest of our ambitions. There we were, quite floored by all the minor problems of money and jobs and independence and sex, and dreaming of the sky! We realized that we'd have to establish ourselves in the world, learn how to deal with people, become seasoned men of action, solve all the minor problems, before we could ever tackle the big quest. We gave ourselves fifteen years to bring all those small things under control. Then we were to meet and get going."
Katherine didn't know it was going to happen, but she suddenly started to laugh, almost hysterically. "Excuse me, dear," she managed to say after a moment, noting Don's puzzled expression, "but you and your friend did so get the cart before the horse! But you had a chance for some adventure, at least you were free. But you had to go and pick on the time when you'd be most tied down." And she started to laugh again.
For an instant Don looked hurt, then he began to laugh with her. "Of course, dear, I understand all that now, and it seems the most ridiculous thing in the world to me. When I opened the door last night and saw Dave standing there expectantly in a sleazy coat, with a lot less hair than I remembered, I was completely dumbfounded. Of course I'd forgotten about our compact years ago, long before you and I were married."
She started to laugh again. "And so I was one of your minor problems, Don?" she asked teasingly.
"Of course not, dear!" He pulled her up from the couch and hugged her boisterously.
Katherine quickly closer her mind to the thought, He's changed since I laughed – he's shut something up inside him, and welcomed the sense of security that flooded back into her at his embrace.
When they were settled again, she said, "Your friend must have been joking when he came around last night. There are people who will wait years for a laugh."
"No, he was actually quite serious."
"I can't believe it. Incidentally, just how well has he done at fulfilling his end of the bargain – I mean, establishing himself in the world?"
"Not well at all. In fact, so badly that, as I say, I didn't want him in the house last night."
"Then I'll bet it's the financial backing for his quest that he's thinking about."
"No, I honestly don't think he's looking for money."
Katherine leaned toward him. She was suddenly moved by the old impulse to measure every danger, however slight. "Tell you what, Don. You get your friend to spruce up a bit and we'll invite him to dinner. Maybe arrange a couple of parties. I'll bet that if he met some women it would make all the difference."
"Oh no, that's out of the question," Don said sharply. "He isn't that sort of person at all. It wouldn't work."
"Very well," Katherine said, shrugging. "But in that case how are you going to get rid of him?"
"Oh, that'll be easy," Don said.
"How did he take it when you refused?"
"Rather hard," Don admitted.
"I still can't believe he was serious."
Don shook his head. "You don't know Dave."
