Collected Fiction (1940-1963)

by William P. McGivern

  “Of course.”

  “Very well.”

  They faced each other a few seconds later in a furnished room. They smiled awkwardly, and then she looked down at herself and giggled.

  “I feel absolutely idiotic,” she said. “Please don’t stare. These huge hands, and fingers with nails on them. And this hair coming down to my shoulders. Are you sure you didn’t blunder?”

  “You know that isn’t possible,” he said. “You’re just surprised, that’s all. We won’t get used to these ridiculous bodies, of course, but after a bit they won’t seem so bad.”

  He looked at himself in the full-length mirror in the back of the bathroom door. His hair was black and short, his teeth white, and his skin clear and tanned. He was tall, broad shouldered, and wore slacks and a sports shirt.

  He burst out laughing.

  “Don’t,” she said. “It’s not very nice. After all the people here have no alternative.”

  “I can’t help it,” he said. “Look at my teeth. Am I supposed to tear and chew things with them? They’re big enough, actually.”

  “But of course. You ‘eat’ with them.”

  “Oh, yes. That will be quite an experience.”

  She came over beside him and stared at herself, trying to hold back her giggles. Her hair was dark and shining, and her lips were full and red. She wore a gray flannel skirt, and a white silk blouse. Her face was heart-shaped, and her skin was smooth and pale. She had two arms, two legs, and two breasts.

  “The proportions aren’t bad, but everything is so immense,” she said.

  There was a knock on the door.

  “Well, what’s this?” she said.

  “Let’s think with their brains,” he said. “We’ll learn more about them that way.” He frowned, staring at the door. “Why, I can’t tell who’s there,” he said, in a puzzled voice. “It’s incredible. They’re brains are weak.”

  “Well, it was your idea.”

  “Unless I use my perceptions, I’ll have to go to the door and open it to find out,” he said.

  “Go ahead then.”

  “All right.” He crossed the room and opened the door. There was a woman standing in the hallway with a key in her hand. She was small, with gray hair, and a good-humored face that was set now in an expression of confused annoyance. Behind her stood a couple with luggage in their hands. They looked bewildered.

  “I thought I heard talking in here,” the gray-haired woman said. “Now just how did you folks get in?”

  ILLAR gave up the attempt to use his new brain, and retreated to his own perceptions. He realized that this was the landlady, and that she was beset with two problems. One, had she rented this room to them after having had a few drinks which dulled her memory, and two, had she asked them for six or eight dollars per day?

  “Why, you let us have the room this morning,” he said. “We discussed the terms with you in detail. You had a cold, and were taking a drop of something to relieve it at the time.”

  “Oh, yes,” the woman said vaguely.

  “It was eight dollars a day,” Illar said. “Surely you remember that?”

  “Oh, of course,” the woman grinned. “Fancy the whole thing slipping my mind that way. Excuse me for bothering you.” She turned to the couple at her back, and said, “Well, I’ll have to put you folks up somewhere else. Let’s try the next floor.”

  Illar closed the door and walked over to Tarina who was still standing in front of the mirror. “Shall we go out?” he asked. “We can learn all we need to know in a few hours. I’d like to leave tomorrow morning.”

  “All right.”

  “What are you doing?”

  She had pushed her long black hair up on top of her head and was studying the effect with a small frown. “Do you think this would be better?” she said. “Better than what?”

  “Better than the way it was before.”

  “I can’t see that it makes any difference.”

  “Oh, can’t you?” she said. “Certainly not. Let’s go.”

  She let her hair fall down to her shoulders. “Very well.”

  Their rooming house was in the East Eighties. They walked down Fifth Avenue, absorbing and interpreting phenomena with effortless efficiency. The weather, cool and pleasant, the buildings, as primitive to their eyes as anthills would have been to a human’s, the traffic, the strolling couples, the news vendors, policemen, drug stores, delicatessens, department stores—all of this they studied and classified.

  “IT’S really depressing,” she said. “Why do you suppose they go on existing?”

  “I can’t imagine,” he said. “Shall we try ‘eating’ something?”

  “Oh, I couldn’t really. I can go just so far in these experiments—then I stop.”

  “You’ll have to, I’m afraid,” he said. “That body you’re using has needs.”

  “Oh, very well,” she said, with a small shudder.

  They entered a delicatessen and ordered sandwiches and milk. When it was put before them she stared at it for a moment, and color crept up in her cheeks. “Don’t watch, please,” she said.

  “Oh, go ahead. Everyone’s doing it.”

  They ate the food quickly, avoiding each other’s eyes, and then went outside and walked along in a guilty silence.

  “It’s a gross sort of business,” he said, at last.

  “I—I feel disgusting. Imagine doing such physical, intimate things regularly. It’s ghastly.”

  “It would be ghastly,” he said.

  They experimented with a few other typical habits. They had whisky at a bar, and Illar bought a pack of cigarettes. The liquor burned their throats terribly, and the cigarettes made them cough.

  “What’s the sense of these things?” she said angrily. She threw her cigarette into the street and dabbed at her watering eyes.

  “Perhaps they dull their senses.”

  “How could they be any duller?”

  “That’s a point,” he said. They stopped at Times Square, tired from the walk, and very bored and lonely in the jostling crowds.

  “I’ve had quite enough,” she said.

  “Very well. We’ll go back to our room.”

  “This silly body is already exhausted and over-heated,” she said. “I wish I could throw it away. It’s perfectly useless.”

  “We’ll rest tonight, compare our reactions, and leave tomorrow.”

  “Good.”

  They returned to their rooms, and she slipped out of her leather pumps and stretched out on the big, soft double bed. “At last, a pleasant sensation,” she said.

  He lit a cigarette and went into the bathroom.

  “Why are you smoking those silly things?” she called.

  “Why, I don’t know. Something to keep my hands busy, I suppose,” he said. “Come in here,” he said, a few seconds later. His voice was excited.

  She joined him and glanced around, studying the tile floor, the deep, enameled tub, and the hand basin. “They wash themselves, obviously,” she said. “What’s so odd about that?” Then she saw the object in the corner at which he was staring, and she put a hand nervously to her throat. “No, no, it’s impossible,” she said.

  “I’m afraid it’s inevitable.” He laughed suddenly. “Don’t be so prudish. It’s—well, natural.”

  “You’re absolutely disgusting.”

  “I’m merely pointing out—”

  “Don’t mention it again, please,” she said, flushing.

  “It’s simply been so long that we—”

  “I WON’T listen to you,” she said, and strode back into the bedroom. “You seem to get some childish pleasure from discussing these—things.”

  “Very well. I’m going to take a bath, and get ready for bed.” He looked at her straight, angry back, and an impish little smile touched his lips. “Does that euphemism satisfy your sense of propriety?”

  “Oh, be still,” she said crossly. He closed the door of the bathroom and emerged fifteen minutes later, his thi
ck black hair still damp from the bath. He had a towel knotted about his flat waist and was smoking another cigarette, “Your turn,” he said.

  “Thanks so much,” she said drily.

  “Leave the door open so we can talk.”

  The door slammed resoundingly.

  She was in the bath an hour. When she came out he was lying on the bed asleep. She stared down at him for a few seconds, watching the rise and fall of his chest, and the muscles in his arms and shoulders. Her throat felt curiously dry; the cigarette, she thought. She looked at herself in the mirror again, noticing the way the rich, blue-black hair framed her face. It wasn’t a bad effect really, if you had to be burdened with such primitive accessories. She remembered some of the girls she had seen walking in the streets. Their hair wasn’t so pretty. And some of them were ungainly. She studied her figure; she was wearing only a slip, and her feet were bare. Yes, the proportions were pleasing, she thought, only she felt so out-sized and gross. Then she glanced at him, asleep on the bed, and realized how much bigger he was. That made her feel small. Small and helpless. What a weird, weird idea, really! She thought of all she had seen, and realized that there was no point to it. That was the curious thing; it was totally without point or meaning.

  She sat on the edge of the bed and, after a moment or so, touched him on the arm. “I just wanted to say good night,” she said, when he opened his eyes.

  “Oh. Good night.” He got up and lit another cigarette.

  “You’re smoking too much,” she said.

  He laughed. “It’s a silly habit, isn’t it? I’d better quit.” He sat down beside her, yawning, and put his hand on her knee.

  “Let’s go right now,” he said.

  “Back?”

  “Well, where else?”

  “I don’t care.” She wet her lips. “Please take your hand off my knee?”

  “Why?”

  “Does there have to be a reason?”

  “I’m interested, scientifically. Is it uncomfortable?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “YOUR reaction is curious. The contact means nothing to me, you see. I might as well be touching the bed covers or the floor.”

  “I don’t care how it affects you.”

  “But it doesn’t affect meat all.”

  “What an advantage there is in insensitivity.”

  He glanced down at her knee, mildly interested in the enigmatic quality of her reaction. Her legs were highly nonfunctional. They weren’t strong, obviously. She couldn’t support much weight on them, or employ them to propel herself into the air. They were too thin. Slender was a better word, he thought. Still they were shaped rather artistically, with a graceful line from the slim, fine-boned ankles to the fuller thighs. The skin was fair and soft; absolutely useless as a protection against climate or terrain. It was really very odd, he thought, that the genes of this species should produce such ornamental but useless properties. And most curious, was the undeniable fact that the contours and texture of these productions should be pleasant to the touch. Now why was that? he wondered, drawing on his cigarette.

  “Please,” she said.

  “Wait, I’ve got a little problem,” he said. What was it? He examined the objects that stimulated him, searching for an answer. The number of pores, which he could count instantly, and even the inner construction, the ligaments and bones, the arteries and blood vessels, the corpuscles, red and white—none of these factors was responsible for the curious feeling of pleasure he obtained from touching her knee. The sum of the parts did not give him an answer, he realized.

  He felt oddly uncomfortable then, with a curious constriction about his chest, and a dryness in his throat. Also, he realized flushing, there was something else. He stood and walked to the window, drawing deeply on his cigarette. These bodies were considerably more primitive than he had suspected. He raised the window and felt the cool air on his face. That was better. In a few moments he flipped his cigarette away and returned to the bed. She was under the covers, her hair spilled in a dark cloud on the pillows. He stretched out on top of the covers, pulling the comforter over his body.

  “They have a thoroughly pointless existence,” he said, at last.

  “Yes, that’s what I’ve decided.”

  “They tire easily, and they sleep. They hunger quickly, and they eat. That seems to be it.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “You don’t think we’ve missed anything?”

  “What could we possibly have missed?”

  “Well—” He paused, feeling the heat in his cheeks. He laughed lightly. “They mate, of course.”

  She sat up straight in the bed, hugging the covers about her white shoulders. “Illar,” she said, using his name for the first time in thousands of years. “Illar,” she said, and her voice was high and outraged. “Are you thinking, are you suggesting—”

  “No, no, of course not,” he said hurriedly. “I’d be the last one—”

  “The rest was bad enough. The ‘eating’, and that thing in the bathroom, but really, if you’ve slipped down so far that you think—”

  “DON’T be absurd,” he said, and now his voice was loud and angry. “What ever gave you the idea that I could be interested in that sort of thing?”

  “Well—” She hesitated. “I’m relieved to hear you say that.”

  “The thought is preposterous.”

  “Of course. I’m sorry. You could never be—could you?”

  “Certainly not.”

  “I’m—glad. Good night.”

  “Good night.”

  They said no more. They lay on opposite sides of the bed, their eyes firmly closed. It was hours before they went to sleep.

  The next morning she awakened to a strange but pleasant aroma tickling her nose. Illar was sitting on the edge of the bed with a tray containing cartons of coffee and scrambled-egg sandwiches on toast.

  “That looks very good,” she said. “I—I wouldn’t mind eating it. Isn’t that strange?”

  “We’re hungry now,” Illar said. “That’s the secret of this eating business. If you’re hungry it’s not quite so repulsive a routine.” He ate half of a sandwich, chewing vigorously, and washed it down with mouthfuls of strong, hot coffee. “With effort I’m overcoming my natural distaste,” he said, reaching for another sandwich.

  “I can be strong, too,” she said, reaching for food and drink.

  After breakfast she bathed and dressed. She realized with amusement as she stared at herself in the mirror that she was becoming ridiculously concerned about this body she was using. Now for instance, she was trying to imagine how its coloring would blend with another type of dress. She laughed, chiding herself for these trivial speculations, but even as she laughed she realized that she was observing the whiteness of her teeth, and the lights that laughter lit in her eyes.

  When she came out of the bathroom she saw that Illar was gazing at her oddly.

  “What’s the matter?” she said.

  “Nothing. You were laughing, that’s all.”

  “Well, is there anything wrong with that?”

  “No, of course not. It—it sounded pleasant, however.”

  “You’ll accuse me of being happy next,” she said drily.

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” They both knew, of course, that happiness was impossible. All positive and negative emotional planes were inaccessible to them; they had conditioned themselves to the neutral areas that lay between happiness and unhappiness, between laughter and tears, between hope and despair. Their psyches were passive and inert. They had acquired, laboriously and tediously, this highest goal, this Nirvana of the mind.

  “I think we should take a walk,” he suggested now.

  “Last night you were eager to be going back.”

  “I still am. However, I think you should see the city in the morning. It’s a different set of stimuli.”

  “Very well,” she said.

  THEY left their rooming house and walked East toward Fifth Avenue.
It was a dingy section, the habitat of students, actors, writers, and artists. The brownstones huddled close to each other, as if for warmth, and a few lean cats prowled the gutters.

  “This must be where the slaves live,” she said.

  “My inference, too.”

  Fifth Avenue was different. They strolled past sturdily prosperous shops, chic millinery establishments, and massive hotels.

  She stopped at one particular store front, and lingered until Illar began tapping his foot impatiently.

  “Come along,” he said. “What are you staring at?”

  “That dress,” she said. “Do you see the one I mean? It’s got slim, simple lines, and a very attractive flaring collar.

  “Of course I see it.”

  “Do you think it would look well on me?”

  He laughed. “What an absurd question?”

  “Why?” she said sharply. “You—the real you—could be wrapped up in one of the sleeves of that dress.”

  “I’m not talking about the real me,” she said, half-angrily. “I mean me, just as I am now.” He shrugged. “I’m sure I wouldn’t know. Come along now.” They returned to their rooming house at mid-morning. Illar was conscious of Tarina’s petulant silence. He glanced at her every now and then, noting the stubborn set of her jaw, and wondering what was wrong.

  THERE was a couple standing on the porch of their rooming house. They presented a sharp contrast to the bleakness of the neighborhood. The girl, particularly. She was wearing a gold lame evening dress, ankle-strap sandals, and a giant purple orchid pinned to her slim waist. Her hair was soft and fine, the color of honey poured in the sunlight, and her delicately shaped features were informed with good-humor and vitality. The man wore evening clothes, and he wasn’t as attractive as the girl. In fact, he wasn’t attractive at all. He was middle-aged, with sagging chinline, and weary eyes set in gray sockets of flesh. He looked very tired. The girl, however, looked as if she might go on forever, dancing, skipping, singing, laughing.

  They stood aside as Illar and Tarina mounted the steps. The man stared at Illar, his tired eyes narrowing thoughtfully. When Illar reached for the door, the man said, “Excuse me, young man.”