The Tomb and Other Stories

by Stanley Salmons

  Paul got up. He looked visibly relieved, and I would guess a whole lot more comfortable. “Thanks a lot,” he said, not sure where to direct his gratitude.

  “Now, Martin, would you mind if Paul stays while I examine you?”

  Damn, it knew I was still here.

  “No,” I growled. “I mean, I don’t need an examination.”

  “Tell him about your indigestion,” said Paul enthusiastically, “maybe he can do something for you.”

  “There is no him, idiot…” I started to say. I was really irritated that a professional roboticist should be so taken in by a supercomputer and a bunch of gizmos. But it was too late: FLAUBERT had picked up the cue.

  “You have indigestion? Where is the pain?”

  “Where do you think it is?” I snarled. There was a pause. I must have rung every bell with the voice spectrum analyser.

  “Please try not to be hostile, I am only trying to help you.”

  Oh, nice touch, I thought. I damn near said “Sorry”.

  “Now, would you like to tell me where the pain is?”

  “Here, behind my breastbone,” I said grudgingly.

  “And is it a dull, bruising pain, a sharp pain or a burning sensation?”

  “Dull, bruising. Like someone is pressing there with his fist.”

  “And does the pain go anywhere, such as down one arm or through to the back?”

  “No.”

  “Martin, I think that with symptoms like that it would be well if I took a proper look at you. Please get undressed down to your underpants and lie on the couch.”

  Reluctantly, I did as I was told. The treatment would only get billed to Paul’s credit card if I didn’t.

  It did the trick with the balloons again to take my pulse and blood pressure. Then it came out with the scanning probe again, but this time the jointed arms were arranged side by side, so the cylinders were in a line, like an ammunition belt. All except one, which stayed pointing at my wrist, probably a doppler ultrasound transceiver left there to monitor my pulse. The rest of the array moved over my chest. First of all I was thinking it might be looking for a stomach ulcer, but I didn’t think that would show up on a scan. Probably it was trying to eliminate gallstones. Then the probe withdrew and six other arms came up, each tipped with an electrode. They applied themselves to different points on my chest. After about a minute, FLAUBERT said:

  “I want to take a tiny blood sample, Martin. It will just be a pin-prick on your finger.”

  Before I could protest, it was done. The drop of blood was collected on some sort of analyzer. That must have been when FLAUBERT reached his diagnosis.

  •

  Six months later, Paul and I met up in town for a coffee. It was good to see him again. We sat down and he grinned and held the thumb up for me. It had healed beautifully, the scar barely visible. His face went serious.

  “You know, Marty, with all that happened I don’t think I thanked you properly for the way you looked after me that day. You did a great job.”

  “Was nothing. You’d have done the same for me.”

  “But you weren’t well yourself.”

  “Yeah, but I didn’t know that, did I?”

  “You didn’t know you were having a heart attack?”

  “Shit, no. I thought it was indigestion.”

  “What happened after we were flown back? They separated us and I couldn’t find you.”

  “They flew me all the way to the Company hospital. Got seen by a cardiologist. He examines me, then he says I’m the luckiest man on the planet. I say to him, ‘Oh yes, Dame Fortune has really been smiling on me.’ But he says, ‘No, I mean it, Marty. First off, you had a heart attack and it didn’t kill you. In anyone’s book that’s got to be lucky. Okay? Second, if you’d arranged to have it on the doorstep of the greatest cardiologist in the world, you couldn’t have got finer care. That robot Medistation you went to did everything right. It diagnosed you quickly and correctly, and it injected the clot-buster drugs in good time. Your coronaries are clear now, Marty, but from the electrocardiogram it sent me I’d say you had a major block in the left anterior descending. You wouldn’t know it now. There’s a tiny bit of damage to your myocardium – your heart muscle – but it’s not significant. You’re a lucky guy all right.’ That’s what he said.”

  “That’s really great, Marty. So how’ve you been?”

  “I’m good.”

  “You’ve lost weight.”

  “You noticed, eh? Well, I had a warning, didn’t I? I’m watching my diet, doing regular exercise. Haven’t been as fit as this in years.”

  “Are you back at work? I haven’t seen you around.”

  “I’m there part-time. You know everyone could see I needed something less stressful, but it’s a bit early for me to retire. So the Company said I could work part-time, training new field operators, particularly in re-programming techniques. You know, pass on my knowledge to a new generation? If I do it for five years, they’ll retire me on full pension. It’s a good deal. I like the work and I have time for other things. The doc was right; I am lucky. I could’ve been dead, or at best a cardiac cripple. Instead of which I’m enjoying life. Thanks to FLAUBERT.”

  He smirked. “I thought you couldn’t stand robots.”

  “Who, me? Never! You must be thinking of someone else, not me. Robots are just about the best friends a guy can have.”

  [First published in Alexei’s Tree and Other Stories, Matador, 2005]

  The Gift

  In the middle of the bed in the middle of the ward a gaunt figure sits cross-legged, head bowed.

  Bernard Levison takes the hospital notes from Henry Foden and signs for them. The two doctors continue to discuss the case, looking at the patient from the glassed-in office at the end of the ward.

  “He still needs refeeding, but what he needs most of all is psychiatric rehab.”

  “You didn’t find anything organic?”

  “No. Which is a miracle if you look at his back. There isn’t an inch of him that isn’t scarred. Except the head – the brain scan was okay. He must have taken most of it on the arms – the forearms are badly scarred underneath. Typical defence wounds.”

  “Does he sit like that all the time?”

  “If you let him. But he’s quite compliant. And he’s kind of aware of what’s going on around him. You’d know better than me, but the state he’s in, it looks like some kind of meditation or self-hypnosis. He never speaks. He sleeps funny too, all curled up in a ball. It’s like his body’s here but his mind’s still back in Vietnam.”

  “Where did they find him?”

  “It’s in the notes. The way I understand it, a bunch of our guys were moving north when they came across this Cong enclave. They knew there was something in that area because they’d lost a patrol up there. There wasn’t any resistance; the Cong had already cleared out. They found the patrol. All nine of them. Hands tied, bullet in the back of the head. And they found this guy. He seemed to have been there much longer – six months or more to judge by the shape he was in. Why he survived after they executed all the others God only knows. They found him on his own in a bamboo cage. Looks like beatings were a regular fixture. That and starvation. He’s still very emaciated.”

  “Is he eating?”

  Foden gives a short, humourless laugh. “Well, he’s taking the food on board, if you can call it eating. We have to be careful what we give him. Whatever it is he just shovels it in and swallows. Doesn’t chew. I don’t know how he keeps it down, especially in that condition.”

  “Any visitors?”

  “No. The notes say his mother lives in Cleveland. There’s nothing about a father – divorced, I think. Leastways she’s next of kin. The army informed her as soon as they handed him over to the VA – standard procedure – but she hasn’t tried to get in touch. Not even a phone call.”

  “I think we should get her down here. A familiar face might help him re-orientate.”

  “Yeah, maybe. T
he guy’s a survivor, Bernie. I sure hope you can do something for him.”

  “We’ll try, Hal. We can but try.”

  *

  “Have a seat, Mrs. Travis, I’m Dr. Levison. Thank you for coming down. I hope you had a good journey.”

  “Where is he?”

  “He’s on the ward. I’ll take you to see him in just a moment. But I wanted to prepare you first. Your son may not be…as you saw him last.”

  “They said he wasn’t badly injured.”

  “To an extent that’s true. Physically. Mentally he’s carrying injuries that may take some time to go away.”

  She looks at him through narrowed eyes. “What kind of doctor are you, Dr. Levison?”

  “I’m a psychiatrist.” He pauses and adds quietly, “Your son’s had a very tough time, Mrs. Travis.”

  Her mouth tightens and she draws herself up. “Life hasn’t been easy for any of us, Dr. Levison.”

  He looks at her thoughtfully, reading her body language as if it were a book, leaving the silence to grow. Eventually she breaks it.

  “We were all against it, this senseless war – my friends, my neighbours, my professional associates. We campaigned, we lobbied. Then they drafted my son! I begged him not to go.”

  “He’d have gone to jail.”

  “I wanted him to go to jail! People would have respected him for that! I could have been proud of him! I could have held my head up in public! But no, he had to shame me by joining up.”

  “It’s no shame to fight for your country, Mrs. Travis.”

  “Oh, don’t feed me that crap, please. Self-defence? No one with a scrap of intelligence believes that! It’s just an excuse you people use to send decent young men abroad to be killed and maimed. What for? Politics? Greed? I don’t know what the agenda is. A mother would be the last to be told.”

  He picks it up. “Mrs. Travis, let me be frank. You knew your son was being invalided home, and where he was being treated. I would have thought that – as his mother – you might have wanted to get in touch with us before now.”

  She bristles. “And I would have thought that was none of your goddam business, Dr. Levi-son.” She rests heavily on the first part of his name.

  He notes the antisemitic overtone but does not react. He is not even surprised. He is a professional.

  “Mrs. Travis, I’m just a doctor. I’m only interested in the welfare of my patients. I thought it would be appropriate to ask you to come, but…”

  “Well, now I’m here I might as well see him.”

  *

  He leads her wordlessly to the ward. Her eyes are drawn to a living cadaver seated cross-legged on a bed, and a look of disbelief crosses her face as she realizes this is the bedside he is leading her to. He pulls the screens and leaves them alone. She chews her lip for a few minutes, then speaks to what is on the bed.

  “Hello, James.”

  He rocks slightly, but does not reply.

  “James. It’s your mother. I’ve come all the way down here to see you.”

  Silence. Her discomfort starts to kindle her anger.

  “James, I’m sorry to see you in this condition, but you brought it on yourself, you know. I mean, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  Still silence. She lowers her voice.

  “Listen to me, James. What do you think it’s been like for me, all these years? Left to bring you up single-handed. My career down the drain , no chance of getting married again to someone better than your lousy father. I made a lot of sacrifices for you, James, and this is the way you repay me. Well, it’s no good you coming back now, as if nothing ever happened…”

  Quite suddenly he raises his head and gives vent to a keening, animal howl that reaches fingers into every corner of the ward and chills the blood of everyone in it. Heads jerk towards the screened-off bed. Two nurses, frozen momentarily by the unearthly sound, now leap into action. Mrs. Travis is bundled out of the ward by one of them, struggling and shouting, “You have no right to treat me this way! I’m his mother!” The other nurse runs to James. He is quiet now, shaking all over. She gives him a tranquillizing injection. Slowly he subsides. She turns back the bed covers, helps him to lie down, tucks him in tightly. Then she murmurs something about getting some rest, and strokes soft, cool fingers over his head. He looks at the nurse out of the dark, haunted sockets of his eyes. His eyes close, but the eyelids flicker.

  *

  The journey to school proceeds in silence. It is always this way. She seldom talks while she is driving; she says it’s a dangerous distraction. She doesn’t have the radio on either, for the same reason, and so they drive in silence. It takes thirty minutes, a little longer if the traffic is bad. When they get there he will thank his mother for going out of her way, although the school is actually on her route to work and was chosen for that reason. He will not kiss her. They are not, she says, a kissing family. She says “kissing” as if it were a disease. They are not a crying family either, and any show of weakness in that direction earns him a long spell locked in his room. But once, just once, he has seen his mother cry.

  James (never “Jim” or “Jimmy”) wonders how things might have been if his father was still around. That was the time he saw her cry, the time his father walked out on them. He was seven. He can’t recall what his father looked like and there are no photographs around the house to remind him. So it’s just the two of them. They don’t kiss, they don’t cry, and they talk very little, and not at all when they are in the car.

  He is thirteen now, quiet, withdrawn, aware of the stirrings of manhood without quite understanding or recognizing them. He watches the passers-by, his gaze lingering on the girls in their thin summer dresses. The car comes to a halt in heavy traffic. A girl wearing a T-shirt and blue shorts is on the sidewalk ahead of them. She has nice slim legs. He wonders if she is pretty. He would like to know. He wants to know. As a game, he concentrates his mind, willing her to turn around. Abruptly she stops walking and faces in his direction. He looks away hurriedly, surprised and excited. Although the girl is quite pretty it is her response that energizes him.

  He seeks out someone else, a man this time. The man turns suddenly, as if he has been tapped on the shoulder. His excitement builds. It is the first time he is aware of the Gift.

  Every day of the week his mother takes him to school, and every day he chooses his targets, using the Gift, honing it. He learns to recognize the sensation when he contacts another mind, a feeling of mental pressure, as if reaching out with a ghostly hand and encountering some resistance. Soon he can focus powerfully, with less effort and with an almost immediate result. He gains confidence.

  Jenny Dover is at the school dance. She has cornflower-blue eyes and short blonde hair and when he looks at her it makes his chest ache. Some of the kids are dancing, but only the ones who came together. The rest are gathered in knots, the boys nudging each other’s ribs on one side of the floor, the girls trying to look unaware of them on the other. The music echoes off the hard surfaces of the gymnasium where they hold the dances.

  Sean sees him eyeing Jenny. “Go on, then, James. Ask her.”

  He bites his lip in irritation and embarrassment.

  “Go on, James. No guts?”

  In desperation he focuses on Jenny’s turned head. She stops talking and looks round. This time he does not look away, but concentrates, reaching into her mind. Slowly, as if in a dream, she walks across the floor to him. He maintains his focus until she is a few feet away, and then he can hold it no longer. She stops, confused, wondering where she is. She looks up at him, frowning. Before she can say anything he steps forward.

  “Oh, hullo, Jenny. I was hoping you’d come by. Would you like to dance?”

  She is too surprised to say no, and it is less embarrassing to say yes. They dance chastely, exchanging brittle conversation, while his friends gawp. When the music stops he escorts her politely back to her group. They do not dance again, but once in a while she glances suspiciously in his directio
n.

  In the weeks following the dance he entertains feverish ambitions. His Gift will make him powerful! Beautiful women will flock to him! Men will obey him! He will become influential, important, famous! All too soon his hopes descend into disappointment and resignation. Try as he might he can only turn people’s heads. Sometimes, as with Jenny, he can draw them towards him. What he cannot do is influence the way they think or act or feel. It is, after all, only a small gift – a party trick, no more. It may not even be that unusual. He uses it less and less.

  He graduates from High School without distinction, and without any clear idea of what he wants to do with his life. The immediate problem is solved for him; he is drafted into the army. His mother thinks he should go to prison rather than fight in Vietnam, but he is burdened by the memory of long hours locked in his room as a punishment. He cannot face confinement. He would rather go.

  *

  His face looks small over the broad, white fold of the hospital sheet. His eyelids continue to flutter; unseen demons tugging persistently at the corner of his mouth.

  *

  The heat of the jungle is overpowering, fetid, oppressive. Biting insects are a constant torment. Rivulets of sweat run down his neck and creep inside his shirt. The patrol moves slowly and yet still too fast. He knows that every leaf can conceal the muzzle of a gun, every step can set off a mine or a booby-trap. He has experienced contact once before, heard the agonized screams of his companions, witnessed their dreadful injuries. He is afraid, always afraid. This time there is no contact.

  He lives in the temporary reprieve of a return to base camp. Then the mail arrives and everyone has letters from family, friends, lovers. He knows there is nothing for him, and yet each time he hopes, hopes just hard enough to feel the disappointment more keenly…

  Another patrol. The sun is rising through a thin haze as they set off. Vapour curls off every leaf and hangs in the air. The mist plays tricks with their eyes. The conditions are perfect for a VC ambush and they know it. All at once there is an explosion and someone is screaming and everyone is shouting and running and loosing off with M16s. In the confusion he is separated from the others. The firing stops. He crouches in the undergrowth. He hears the enemy moving all around him. Fear tears at his guts. His heart bangs in his ears. Urine flows hotly down the inside of his trouser leg…