First Contacts: The Essential Murray Leinster

by Murray Leinster

  And Mrs. Canaris did not understand at all.

  Mrs. Canaris was young and brilliantly suave and beautifully dressed. Also she was a member of the Committee, because her husband was rich and she gave liberally to all worthy causes. But Nancy Walker wished annoyedly that Mrs. Canaris hadn’t chosen to come to the Rummage Shop on Thursday. Nancy gave the Shop her Thursdays, and Mrs. Canaris was just a little bit too aristocratic, in the European fashion.

  “Charmeeng,” said Mrs. Canaris, in her delightful foreign accent. “Quite charmeeng! But in Europe we would not do eet thees way. Charity ees charity. Those who do not weesh to accept charity work harder to avoid eet.”

  “We try not to push it down anybody’s throat,” said Nancy. “After all, anybody can be down on their luck!”

  The Rummage Shop sold second-hand things to people who could not afford new ones. It gave good value—much-better-than-honest-value—because its stock was acquired by hounding the well-to-do for things that they didn’t need any longer, but were still in fair condition.

  “But een Europe,” said Mrs. Canaris gently, putting Nancy right in a consciously charming, definitely aristocratic kindliness, “een Europe, we take the long view. We do not pretend that everyone ees equal.”

  The doorbell jingled. Old Mrs. Korvac came in. Nancy waved cheerfully to her—Mrs. Korvac was a valued customer—and waited patiently for a lecture from Mrs. Canaris on how much better things were managed in Europe. Mrs. Canaris and her husband had been refugees once, and they had bitter memories. But Mr. Canaris—harsh-featured and bright-eyed—had a genius for business. In five years he had become rich and was losing his accent. But Mrs. Canaris would never lose hers. She would be always the charming wealthy foreigner in America. She said:

  “Een Europe, we have a respect for facts. Charity ees charity. Position ees position, and there ees no nonsense about luck—”

  Then her voice stopped dead. It stopped so suddenly that her throat almost clicked. She stared at old Mrs. Korvac with her mouth dropped open and strange and violent emotions pursuing each other over her face. Mrs. Canaris abruptly did not look suave. She looked scared and indignant and angry.

  “Who—who ees that?” she asked abruptly.

  “That’s Mrs. Korvac,” said Nancy. “She comes in often. She’s terribly poor, but her manners are exquisite. She’s really a darling! Will you excuse me while I go speak to her?”

  She went over. Mrs. Korvac was shabby, but her face was serene. Somehow Nancy always thought of courage when she talked to Mrs. Korvac. Now she said cheerfully:

  “Back again, Mrs. Korvac? I hope we’ve something you want, today.”

  Mrs. Korvac smiled at her. It was a very fine smile. She said in beautifully precise English:

  “I already have something I have long wanted, Mrs. Walke. Yesterday I became a citizen. Now I am an American!”

  “Wonderful!” said Nancy warmly. “I’m so glad! Congratulations!”

  “It is very wonderful,” said Mrs. Korvac. She laughed a little. “I took an oath, Mrs. Walke, to protect and defend the United States!” Her eyes twinkled, because she was little and old and wrinkled. But she added, “And I meant it!”

  Nancy was almost embarrassed. Mrs. Korvac chuckled.

  “Ah, you do not understand! But I do!—Now, do not bother about me. I shall shop. You go and talk to—to Mrs. Canaris.”

  She moved comfortably toward the shelves on which kitchen utensils were displayed. Nancy’s mouth opened and closed. She made her way back to Mrs. Canaris.

  “She knows you!” she said blankly. “She knew your name!”

  Mrs. Canaris’ lips pinched for an instant. Then she became again the poised, the charming, the aristocratic foreigner. But she did not quite smile.

  “Eet ees natural enough,” she said. “I knew her een Europe. Do you know who she ees? She ees—she was the Countess Korvac! Oh, but she was reech! Her family owned half a province! When she drove eento the ceety with a maid and a coachman and a footman, the police leefted their hats and stopped the traffeec to make way for her! And here in America she ees poor and neglected and must accept charity!”

  Nancy blinked. She had thought of Mrs. Korvac as one of the nicest old ladies she had ever met. She had never thought of aristocracy in connection with her. Not in the way Mrs. Canaris exuded aristocracy.

  “Yes!” said Mrs. Canaris, nodding her head rapidly. “An aristocrat een Europe—a poor old woman here! Theengs are better arranged een Europe! There, respect would be paid to her position!”

  Nancy refrained from observing that though things might be better arranged in Europe, Mrs. Canaris’ husband had done very well for himself here.

  “Eet ees terrible!” said Mrs. Canaris. “The Countess Korvac a poor old woman een America! Accepting charity!”

  “We don’t consider the Shop a charity,” said Nancy politely. “It’s a social service. Things that would be wasted are sold, and the shop pays its own expenses. Nobody demeans themselves by buying here!”

  Mrs. Canaris smiled tolerantly—but she was ill at ease. “Een Europe eet would not be imaginable that the Countess Korvac should buy een a charity place. There was respect for her position. Here—”

  Mrs. Korvac, on the other side of the shop, lifted her head and smiled at Nancy. Nancy went to her.

  “I have chosen this pot,” said Mrs. Korvac contentedly. “It is a very good one. The price is twenty-five cents. It is a very great bargain!”

  She extracted a quarter from a worn purse and paid it. Nancy took the aluminum pot to wrap it. It was the policy of the Rummage Shop that all purchases should be wrapped meticulously, as in any other shop. It made for dignity in the transactions—and Nancy was very glad of it, just now.

  Then, close over her shoulder, she heard Mrs. Canaris’ voice. She spoke to Mrs. Korvac in French, swiftly and urgently and overwhelmingly. Nancy’s French was just good enough for her to catch three words in six, but she felt that Mrs. Canaris was trying to carry off a situation that to her seemed awkward. She looked embarrassed. She looked upset.

  “Ah, Anna!” said Mrs. Korvac cordially, and put out her hand in American fashion.

  Nancy went away to wrap up the package. Mrs. Canaris spouted swift French, and Mrs. Korvac answered—it seemed to Nancy quite as swiftly—and Nancy caught only the general drift of what they said. But she did understand that Mrs. Korvac was asking cordially about Mrs. Canaris’ husband, and expressing satisfaction that he prospered. And then Mrs. Canaris said something in a low tone. She said it jerkily; furtively; almost ashamedly, and Mrs. Korvac said amusedly:

  “Mais non, Anna. Je ne dirai pas que tu fus mon domestique.”

  Then Nancy’s mouth dropped open for a moment, and she wanted very much to laugh, and a little she wanted to be angry, and she went back to the two of them with the wrapped package in her hand. She felt an illogical resentment that she could not honorably tell anyone. Mrs. Canaris, who was so overwhelmingly aristocratic and so overwhelmingly the charming foreigner, had been Mrs. Korvac’s maid when Mrs. Korvac was a countess, and now had shamefacedly asked Mrs. Korvac not to reveal the fact. Nancy would never again be impressed by Mrs. Canaris. She would come close to pitying her. But she could not tell anyone but her husband, because she had overheard it, in a manner, by eavesdropping.

  Mrs. Korvac switched to English as Nancy returned.

  “I am so glad,” she said warmly, “that you and Luis escaped, Anna! Give him my regards and wishes for continued good fortune!”

  She took the parcel Nancy handed her and beamed. Nancy hesitated and said:

  “I am very glad of the news you told me just now, Mrs. Korvac. I’d like to make a comment. You said that yesterday you became an American. But I—I think you only became a citizen. I think you have been an American for a long time, Mrs. Korvac.”

  Mrs. Korvac chuckled. She pressed Nancy’s hand.

  “All my life,” she said, “and I did not know it! But now I am home!”

  She
went out of the shop, frail and old and valiant. Nancy looked after her. Mrs. Canaris spoke in a new voice. Confidence had come back into it, and Nancy knew that it was because Mrs. Korvac had promised not to reveal that she had been Mrs. Canaris’ mistress in days gone by.

  “Think of eet!” said Mrs. Canaris. “A countess, and reech—and here she ees a neglected old woman! In Europe respect would be paid to her position. There ees no respect here! Even I—even my husband receives no respect from those who work for heem! Even the police treat us as eef we were no deeferent from common work-people!” Mrs. Canaris’ tone was now the confident, tolerantly critical one appropriate to a rich and charming foreigner in America. “Theenk how she must feel, when een the old days when she drove eento the town een her carriage the police leefted their hats and stopped all traffeec so she could pass! Ah, theengs are managed better at home!”

  Nancy looked out of the window. Mrs. Korvac, on the street, approached the crossing. The traffic was heavy. Mrs. Korvac waited on the curb, and she was little and old and shabby. But there was a fat, red-faced policeman on traffic duty there. He saw Mrs. Korvac. He raised a large, hamlike hand.

  Traffic stopped. Taxis and trucks and private cars and limousines, all came to a halt. A clear lane was made for Mrs. Korvac to cross. She stepped down from the curb and made her way across the street. Nancy saw her face turn toward the policeman, and evidently she smiled her thanks. He lifted his hat politely, stopping the traffic for a shabby old woman without the least idea that she had ever been any different from any other old woman in America. Nancy drew a deep breath.

  “I love him!” said Nancy fervently in the stillness of the Rummage Shop. “I love all the policemen in America! I adore fat ones with red faces! May God bless him and keep him!”

  And Mrs. Canaris did not understand at all.

  Murray Leinster

  Born William Fitzgerald Jenkins in 1896, near Norfolk, Virginia, Murray Leinster worked almost exclusively as a writer of science fiction and mystery literature. He did take time out for the two World Wars and to invent the back-projector special effect for motion pictures, perhaps the earliest virtual reality device. As befits one of the few authors who wrote for both the early pulps and modern science fiction magazines, Leinster won both a Hugo (for “Exploration Team”) and a Retro-Hugo (for “First Contact”).

  Hannibal King, a martial arts expert who lives in Dorchester, Massachusetts, has done extensive work in comics and collectible card games. This is his first book cover.