The Complete Stories of J. G. Ballard

by J. G. Ballard

  ‘Venusians. That’s Kandinski. Not only seen them,’ Professor Cameron added. ‘He’s talked to them. Charles works at a café in Vernon Gardens. We know him fairly well.’

  ‘He runs the other observatory?’

  ‘Well, an old 4-inch MacDonald Refractor mounted in a bucket of cement. You probably wouldn’t think much of it, but I wish we could see with our two-fifty just a tenth of what he sees.’

  Ward nodded vaguely. The two observatories at which he had worked previously, Cape Town and the Milan Astrographie, had both attracted any number of cranks and charlatans eager to reveal their own final truths about the cosmos, and the prospect of meeting Kandinski interested him only slightly. ‘What is he?’ he asked. ‘A practical joker, or just a lunatic?’

  Professor Cameron propped his glasses on to his forehead and negotiated a tight hairpin. ‘Neither,’ he said.

  Ward smiled at Cameron, idly studying his plump cherubic face with its puckish mouth and keen eyes. He knew that Cameron enjoyed a modest reputation as a wit. ‘Has he ever claimed in front of you that he’s seen

  a . . . Venusian?’

  ‘Often,’ Professor Cameron said. ‘Charles lectures two or three times a week about the landings to the women’s societies around here and put himself completely at our disposal. I’m afraid we had to tell him he was a little too advanced for us. But wait until you meet him.’

  Ward shrugged and looked out at the long curving peach terraces lying below them, gold and heavy in the August heat. They dropped a thousand feet and the road widened and joined the highway which ran from the Vernon Gardens across the desert to Santa Vera and the coast.

  Vernon Gardens was the nearest town to the Observatory and most of it had been built within the last few years, evidently with an eye on the tourist trade. They passed a string of blue and pink-washed houses, a school constructed of glass bricks and an abstract Baptist chapel. Along the main thoroughfare the shops and stores were painted in bright jazzy colours, the vivid awnings and neon signs like street scenery in an experimental musical.

  Professor Cameron turned off into a wide tree-lined square and parked by a cluster of fountains in the centre. He and Ward walked towards the cafés – Al’s Fresco Diner, Ylla’s, the Dome – which stretched down to the sidewalk. Around the square were a dozen gift-shops filled with cheap souvenirs: silverplate telescopes and models of the great Vernon dome masquerading as ink-stands and cigar-boxes, plus a juvenile omnium gatherum of miniature planetaria, space helmets and plastic 3-D star atlases.

  The café to which they went was decorated in the same futuristic motifs. The chairs and tables were painted a drab aluminium grey, their limbs and panels cut in random geometric shapes. A silver rocket ship, ten feet long, its paint peeling off in rusty strips, reared up from a pedestal among the tables. Across it was painted the café’s name.

  ‘The Site Tycho.’

  A large mobile had been planted in the ground by the sidewalk and dangled down over them, its vanes and struts flashing in the sun. Gingerly Professor Cameron pushed it away. ‘I’ll swear that damn thing is growing,’ he confided to Ward. ‘I must tell Charles to prune it.’ He lowered himself into a chair by one of the open-air tables, put on a fresh pair of sunglasses and focused them at the long brown legs of a girl sauntering past.

  Left alone for the moment, Ward looked around him and picked at a cellophane transfer of a ringed planet glued to the table-top. The Site Tycho was also used as a small science fiction exchange library. A couple of metal bookstands stood outside the café door, where a soberly dressed middle-aged man, obviously hiding behind his upturned collar, worked his way quickly through the rows of paperbacks. At another table a young man with an intent, serious face was reading a magazine. His high cerebrotonic forehead was marked across the temple by a ridge of pink tissue, which Ward wryly decided was a lobotomy scar.

  ‘Perhaps we ought to show our landing permits,’ he said to Cameron when after three or four minutes no one had appeared to serve them. ‘Or at least get our pH’s checked.’

  Professor Cameron grinned. ‘Don’t worry, no customs, no surgery.’ He took his eyes off the sidewalk for a moment. ‘This looks like him now.’

  A tall, bearded man in a short-sleeved tartan shirt and pale green slacks came out of the café towards them with two cups of coffee on a tray.

  ‘Hello, Charles,’ Cameron greeted him. ‘There you are. We were beginning to think we’d lost ourselves in a time-trap.’

  The tall man grunted something and put the cups down. Ward guessed that he was about 55 years old. He was well over six feet tall, with a massive sunburnt head and lean but powerfully muscled arms.

  ‘Andrew, this is Charles Kandinski.’ Cameron introduced the two men. ‘Andrew’s come to work for me, Charles. He photographed all those Cepheids for the Milan Conference last year.’

  Kandinski nodded. His eyes examined Ward critically but showed no signs of interest.

  ‘I’ve been telling him all about you, Charles,’ Cameron went on, ‘and how we all follow your work. No further news yet, I trust?’

  Kandinski’s lips parted in a slight smile. He listened politely to Cameron’s banter and looked out over the square, his great seamed head raised to the sky.

  ‘Andrew’s read your book, Charles,’ Cameron was saying. ‘Very interested. He’d like to see the originals of those photographs. Wouldn’t you, Andrew?’

  ‘Yes, I certainly would,’ Ward said.

  Kandinski gazed down at him again. His expression was not so much penetrating as detached and impersonal, as if he were assessing Ward with an utter lack of bias, so complete, in fact, that it left no room for even the smallest illusion. Previously Ward had only seen this expression in the eyes of the very old. ‘Good,’ Kandinski said. ‘At present they are in a safe deposit box at my bank, but if you are serious I will get them out.’

  Just then two young women wearing wide-brimmed Rapallo hats made their way through the tables. They sat down and smiled at Kandinski. He nodded to Ward and Cameron and went over to the young women, who began to chatter to him animatedly.

  ‘Well, he seems popular with them,’ Ward commented. ‘He’s certainly not what I anticipated. I hope I didn’t offend him over the plates. He was taking you seriously.’

  ‘He’s a little sensitive about them,’ Cameron explained. ‘The famous dustbin-lid flying saucers. You mustn’t think I bait him, though. To tell the truth I hold Charles in great respect. When all’s said and done, we’re in the same racket.’

  ‘Are we?’ Ward said doubtfully. ‘I haven’t read his book. Does he say in so many words that he saw and spoke to a visitor from Venus?’

  ‘Precisely. Don’t you believe him?’

  Ward laughed and looked through the coins in his pocket, leaving one on the table. ‘I haven’t tried to yet. You say the whole thing isn’t a hoax?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘How do you explain it then? Compensation-fantasy or –’

  Professor Cameron smiled. ‘Wait until you know Charles a little better.’

  ‘I already know the man’s messianic,’ Ward said dryly. ‘Let me guess the rest. He lives on yoghurt, weaves his own clothes, and stands on his head all night, reciting the Bhagavadgita backwards.’

  ‘He doesn’t,’ Cameron said, still smiling at Ward. ‘He happens to be a big man who suffers from barber’s rash. I thought he’d have you puzzled.’

  Ward pulled the transfer off the table. Some science fantast had skilfully pencilled in an imaginary topography on the planet’s surface. There were canals, craters and lake systems named Verne, Wells and Bradbury. ‘Where did he see this Venusian?’ Ward asked, trying to keep the curiosity out of his voice.

  ‘About twenty miles from here, out in the desert off the Santa Vera highway. He was picnicking with some friends, went off for a stroll in the sandhills and ran straight into the space-ship. His friends swear he was perfectly normal both immediately before and after the landing, an
d all of them saw the inscribed metallic tablet which the Venusian pilot left behind. Some sort of ultimatum, if I remember, warning mankind to abandon all its space programmes. Apparently someone up there does not like us.’

  ‘Has he still got the tablet?’ Ward asked.

  ‘No. Unluckily it combusted spontaneously in the heat. But Charles managed to take a photograph of it.’

  Ward laughed. ‘I bet he did. It sounds like a beautifully organized hoax. I suppose he made a fortune out of his book?’

  ‘About 150 dollars. He had to pay for the printing himself. Why do you think he works here? The reviews were too unfavourable. People who read science fiction apparently dislike flying saucers, and everyone else dismissed him as a lunatic.’ He stood up. ‘We might as well get back.’

  As they left the café Cameron waved to Kandinski, who was still talking to the young women. They were leaning forward and listening with rapt attention to whatever he was saying.

  ‘What do the people in Vernon Gardens think of him?’ Ward asked as they moved away under the trees.

  ‘Well, it’s a curious thing, almost without exception those who actually know Kandinski are convinced he’s sincere and that he saw an alien space craft, while at the same time realizing the absolute impossibility of the whole story.’

  ‘“I know God exists, but I cannot believe in him”?’

  ‘Exactly. Naturally, most people in Vernon think he’s crazy. About three months after he met the Venusian, Charles saw another UFO chasing its tail over the town. He got the Fire Police out, alerted the Radar Command chain and even had the National Guard driving around town ringing a bell. Sure enough, there were two white blobs diving about in the clouds. Unfortunately for Charles, they were caused by the headlights of one of the asparagus farmers in the valley doing some night spraying. Charles was the first to admit it, but at 3 o’clock in the morning no one was very pleased.’

  ‘Who is Kandinski, anyway?’ Ward asked. ‘Where does he come from?’

  ‘He doesn’t make a profession of seeing Venusians, if that’s what you mean. He was born in Alaska, for some years taught psychology at Mexico City University. He’s been just about everywhere, had a thousand different jobs. A veteran of the private evacuations. Get his book.’

  Ward murmured non-committally. They entered a small arcade and stood for a moment by the first shop, an aquarium called ‘The Nouvelle Vague’, watching the Angel fish and Royal Brahmins swim dreamily up and down their tanks.

  ‘It’s worth reading,’ Professor Cameron went on. ‘Without exaggerating, it’s really one of the most interesting documents I’ve ever come across.’

  ‘I’m afraid I have a closed mind when it comes to interplanetary bogey-men,’ Ward said.

  ‘A pity,’ Cameron rejoined. ‘I find them fascinating. Straight out of the unconscious. The fish too,’ he added, pointing at the tanks. He grinned whimsically at Ward and ducked away into a horticulture store halfway down the arcade.

  While Professor Cameron was looking through the sprays on the hormone counter, Ward went over to a news-stand and glanced at the magazines. The proximity of the observatory had prompted a large selection of popular astronomical guides and digests, most of them with illustrations of the Mount Vernon domes on their wrappers. Among them Ward noticed a dusty, dog-eared paperback, The Landings from Outer Space by Charles Kandinski. On the front cover a gigantic space vehicle, at least the size of New York, tens of thousands of portholes ablaze with light, was soaring majestically across a brilliant backdrop of stars and spiral nebulae.

  Ward picked up the book and turned to the end cover. Here there was a photograph of Kandinski, dressed in a dark lounge suit several sizes too small, peering stiffly into the eye-piece of his MacDonald.

  Ward hesitated before finally taking out his wallet. He bought the book and slipped it into his pocket as Professor Cameron emerged from the horticulture store.

  ‘Get your shampoo?’ Ward asked.

  Cameron brandished a brass insecticide gun, then slung it, buccaneer-like, under his belt. ‘My disintegrator,’ he said, patting the butt of the gun. ‘There’s a positive plague of white ants in the garden, like something out of a science fiction nightmare. I’ve tried to convince Edna that their real source is psychological. Remember the story “Leiningen vs the Ants”? A classic example of the forces of the Id rebelling against the Super-Ego.’ He watched a girl in a black bikini and lemon-coloured sunglasses move gracefully through the arcade and added meditatively: ‘You know, Andrew, like everyone else my real vocation was to be a psychiatrist. I spend so long analysing my motives I’ve no time left to act.’

  ‘Kandinski’s Super-Ego must be in difficulties,’ Ward remarked. ‘You haven’t told me your explanation yet.’

  ‘What explanation?’

  ‘Well, what’s really at the bottom of this Venusian he claims to have seen?’

  ‘Nothing is at the bottom of it. Why?’

  Ward smiled helplessly. ‘You will tell me next that you really believe him.’

  Professor Cameron chuckled. They reached his car and climbed in. ‘Of course I do,’ he said.

  When, three days later, Ward borrowed Professor Cameron’s car and drove down to the rail depot in Vernon Gardens to collect a case of slides which had followed him across the Atlantic, he had no intention of seeing Charles Kandinski again. He had read one or two chapters of Kandinski’s book before going to sleep the previous night and dropped it in boredom. Kandinski’s description of his encounter with the Venusian was not only puerile and crudely written but, most disappointing of all, completely devoid of imagination. Ward’s work at the Institute was now taking up most of his time. The Annual Congress of the International Geophysical Association was being held at Mount Vernon in little under a month, and most of the burden for organizing the three-week programme of lectures, semesters and dinners had fallen on Professor Cameron and himself.

  But as he drove away from the depot past the cafés in the square he caught sight of Kandinski on the terrace of the Site Tycho. It was 3 o’clock, a time when most people in Vernon Gardens were lying asleep indoors, and Kandinski seemed to be the only person out in the sun. He was scrubbing away energetically at the abstract tables with his long hairy arms, head down so that his beard was almost touching the metal tops, like an aboriginal halfman prowling in dim bewilderment over the ruins of a futuristic city lost in an inversion of time.

  On an impulse, Ward parked the car in the square and walked across to the Site Tycho, but as soon as Kandinski came over to his table he wished he had gone to another of the cafés. Kandinski had been reticent enough the previous day, but now that Cameron was absent he might well turn out to be a garrulous bore.

  After serving him, Kandinski sat down on a bench by the bookshelves and stared moodily at his feet. Ward watched him quietly for five minutes, as the mobiles revolved delicately in the warm air, deciding whether to approach Kandinski. Then he stood up and went over to the rows of magazines. He picked in a desultory way through half a dozen and turned to Kandinski. ‘Can you recommend any of these?’

  Kandinski looked up. ‘Do you read science fiction?’ he asked matterof-factly.

  ‘Not as a rule,’ Ward admitted. When Kandinski said nothing he went on: ‘Perhaps I’m too sceptical, but I can’t take it seriously.’

  Kandinski pulled a blister on his palm. ‘No one suggests you should. What you mean is that you take it too seriously.’

  Accepting the rebuke with a smile at himself, Ward pulled out one of the magazines and sat down at a table next to Kandinski. On the cover was a placid suburban setting of snugly eaved houses, yew trees and children’s bicycles. Spreading slowly across the roof-tops was an enormous pulpy nightmare, blocking out the sun behind it and throwing a weird phosphorescent glow over the roofs and lawns. ‘You’re probably right,’ Ward said, showing the cover to Kandinski. ‘I’d hate to want to take that seriously.’

  Kandinski waved it aside. ‘I have seen 11th-cen
tury illuminations of the pentateuch more sensational than any of these covers.’ He pointed to the cinema theatre on the far side of the square, where the four-hour Biblical epic Cain and Abel was showing. Above the trees an elaborate technicolored hoarding showed Cain, wearing what appeared to be a suit of Roman armour, wrestling with an immense hydraheaded boa constrictor.

  Kandinski shrugged tolerantly. ‘If Michelangelo were working for MGM today would he produce anything better?’

  Ward laughed. ‘You may well be right. Perhaps the House of the Medicis should be re-christened “16th Century-Fox”.’

  Kandinski stood up and straightened the shelves. ‘I saw you here with Godfrey Cameron,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘You’re working at the Observatory?’

  ‘At the Hubble.’

  Kandinski came and sat down beside Ward. ‘Cameron is a good man. A very pleasant fellow.’

  ‘He thinks a great deal of you,’ Ward volunteered, realizing that Kandinski was probably short of friends.

  ‘You mustn’t believe everything that Cameron says about me,’ Kandinski said suddenly. He hesitated, apparently uncertain whether to confide further in Ward, and then took the magazine from him. ‘There are better ones here. You have to exercise some discrimination.’

  ‘It’s not so much the sensationalism that puts me off,’ Ward explained, ‘as the psychological implications. Most of the themes in these stories come straight out of the more unpleasant reaches of the unconscious.’

  Kandinski glanced sharply at Ward, a trace of amusement in his eyes. ‘That sounds rather dubious and, if I may say so, second-hand. Take the best of these stories for what they are: imaginative exercises on the theme of tomorrow.’

  ‘You read a good deal of science fiction?’ Ward asked.

  Kandinski shook his head. ‘Never. Not since I was a child.’

  ‘I’m surprised,’ Ward said. ‘Professor Cameron told me you had written a science fiction novel.’

  ‘Not a novel,’ Kandinski corrected.

  ‘I’d like to read it,’ Ward went on. ‘From what Cameron said it sounded fascinating, almost Swiftian in concept. This space-craft which arrives from Venus and the strange conversations the pilot holds with a philosopher he meets. A modern morality. Is that the subject?’