by Kate Wilhelm
He put all the Brighton material aside; that stack grew as the afternoon wore on. There was a timetable in Brighton’s writing, with his caricatures. The satellite at year one, a hazy, smudged blur in space. Year two, the beginning of a curve of metal. Year three, four . . . up to eight, when it was finished. Year nine showed a cable from earth to the space station, cable cars, crowded with people, some of them carrying picnic baskets. And above the station, aimed away from it toward space, there was a heavy black arrow. Brighton’s dream.
Why had his father kept Brighton’s papers? Why were they here? Cluny had been kneeling on the floor, all the papers in some sort of order finally, when the question occurred to him.
The Brighton stack was two inches high at least. There were the same kinds of drawings his father had done, the same kinds of sketches of the station in various stages, drafts of speeches, heavily rewritten, whole passages x’d out, the same kinds of cryptic notes about people identified only by initials.
The same initials, he realized, and began to paw through one of his father’s stacks. He stopped, and leaned back on his heels. It hadn’t been just one time, but repeatedly. Talked to S—shithead! R says no, he’ll come around C has to be cut off at the pass.
He got up then. Another day had passed, more meals had been eaten, he had taken a walk, probably had talked to his mother, although he no longer could remember a word either had said.
He left the attic. It was twelve, but he knew he could not read anything else, see anything else. Brighton had been an artist, or could have been if he had chosen it, had trained even a little for it. His papers were full of doodles, decorations, complex geometrical designs. Some were so heavily covered it was hard to make out the actual content of them. They were a man’s private papers, not meant for anyone else. Why were they in his father’s stuff?
He walked for an hour, until a slight rain started and mosquitoes began to buzz him. At least here there was no drought. The rain was warm and soft; everything in this area was lush, green, possibly too wet. He passed a new development that had been started only two weeks ago, his mother had told him, and would be occupied in another week or so. It grew as fast as the amanitas under the live oak tree in his mother’s backyard. Ugly, functional. Outside town, a dozen miles away, was the beginnings of a Newtown, hastily planned, hastily built, or so they all seemed, those Newtowns. He thought, with painful intensity, of the beautiful Lina Davies. Lina Davies, he repeated to himself. He thought of her all the way home, and while he lay trying to dull his mind enough to sleep. He wanted to dream of her, to possess her in his dreams. He dreamed of his father and the satellite and cowboys who blasted space monsters again and again with six-shooters.
Toward the end both men had become cynical, pessimistic, despairing. They had known for months, possibly years, that the station would not be completed. His father had written many speeches about it; one was an especially impassioned plea for understanding of what it meant, why it had to be finished. At the end of the speech, never delivered, he had written by hand, his writing bold and heavy in comparison with the neat typescript: “If I can’t go why should I give a goddamn? My day is past.” He had drawn a line through the words. On the back of the page he had written, with a different pen, finer, lighter ink: “Dan can do it.”
Cluny found the notebook that had been used to prepare the speech. His father always had worked first in a notebook, then on to typescript from the handwritten ideas. The original speech in the notebook was even more passionate. There was a list of the men who had died, the kinds of accidents that had killed them. He had written about the rumors of sabotage, then at great length proved it could not have been the act of any one person, or nation, or group. A very heavy line had run across the page then, as if he had thought of something that had made him jerk his pen. Or had been interrupted, Cluny amended. Or something else had happened. He stared at the line, shook his head, went on reading. But the rest was different. There were false starts, crossed-out sections, a few pedestrian restatements of what he had already written eloquently.
The next page was torn out. Bits of paper still clung to the spiral. The speech was not continued in the notebook.
At lunch his mother said, “What are you finding out?”
He glanced at her, then looked closer. She was pale, and there was a slight tic in her cheek that he had never seen before.
“There is something, isn’t there?” she said. “I always knew there was something he was afraid to have anyone discover. That’s why he was so desperate about the papers.”
Cluny shook his head. “Nothing you didn’t already know.”
His mother had not bothered to prepare a setting for herself, but had sipped tea while he ate the salad and sandwich she had made. She looked as if she had been sleeping no better than he.
“What do you think I’ll find?”
“That they did it,” she said in a rush. “Your father and Dan Brighton. They sabotaged the station when they realized the economy would not support it to completion. They were afraid the Russians would finish it alone, claim it, if we dropped out. So they sabotaged it.”
Cluny almost laughed. “No. That’s not in the papers, thank God!”
She did not respond to his relief. “It is, or it was. He hurried to Dan’s house that night, before anyone else could get there, and he collected folders, notebooks, I don’t know what all. He tore up and burned things for a long time. He would have finished them all, even his own, but there was an interruption, and he had to go to Washington, and there was no time. I put them away. It’s there.”
Cluny stared at her.
“They had been such good friends, right up till the end,” she said. “Then Dan was supposed to do something big, maybe even blow it up. I don’t know what. Instead he ran away, ran away to outer space. He got what he had always wanted, and your father never forgave him for it. He died hating Dan Brighton the way you hate a traitor, a betrayer. He never got over it. He blamed himself for pushing Dan to it, but he never forgave him.”
Cluny stood up and shoved his chair back. Stiffly he hurried from the room, left her sitting at the table holding her teacup. In the attic he stared at the many stacks he had been making. When he moved again, his motions were mechanical. He had been caught up in the dream of the two men; now he was in their nightmare. There was nothing that could possibly confirm his mother’s suspicions, he knew. Nothing.
He had put all the Brighton stuff in a box after glancing at it; now he began to read it thoroughly. By that night he was feeling uneasy, without anything to peg his unease to. Brighton had been too sharp, too intelligent and clever. An undertone of mockery, and self-mockery, underlay many of his notes. All along he had been several steps ahead of Colonel Cluny; that had become apparent early in the reading.
Cluny stopped at a handwritten page of notes for a speech; the page was heavily decorated with doodles—pyramids, stars, comets with corkscrew tails. There were bears, he realized, studying the intricate lines, and over and over, worked into various designs, the letters S.M.K. There were tracks made by one of the bears with the letters US on the left paw print, SR on the right. The entire body of the animal made a large M.K. The Russian bear, Cluny thought with a start. Of course. M.K., the Russian bear. His father had referred to him also. M. Klyuchevsky. He searched for the list of accidents and dates. Klyuchevsky had been killed a week before Brighton’s last trip to the station.
Not conclusive, he told himself angrily. Without his mother’s accusation, he never would have noticed any of this because it was so innocuous. But—he found himself following the thought—what if Brighton had been mixed up with Russia in some way? What if his father had found out? He would have stopped him, not ordered him back to Alpha. It made no sense any other way. Unless, he thought, Brighton had agreed to do something, or undo something, in exchange for silence. Then, if Brighton had chosen to flee where no one could pursue, that might explain his father’s feeling of betrayal and bitterness, his ov
erload of guilt at the end.
He kept telling himself he did not believe any of this, and all the. time he was trying to convince himself of his own disbelief, he kept searching. His father had burned too many of Brighton’s papers; nothing could be proved now, nothing disproved. He did not want Murray going through this same procedure he was undergoing, however; there had been no good reason for his father to have squirreled away Brighton’s papers. Their presence here could only raise questions that could not be answered.
Two days later he took a large box of material downstairs. “I’m getting some of this stuff out of the house,” he said to his mother. “I won’t destroy it. It’ll be safe.” She nodded. “I’ll be away for a week or so, and then I’ll come back and bring Murray with me. Is that all right?”
Again she nodded. Her eyes were fastened on the box.
“It’s okay, Mother. You can rest your mind. He was a hero, not a destroyer. That’s how he lived and that’s how he was. I’ll see you in a week or ten days.”
In Boston he rented a safety-deposit box and put his burden in it. When he went outside again, the streets were thick with people; he had not even noticed them before. Now he thought he never had seen so many people, and felt almost smothered before he began to move with the surging mass. He headed for the office building that housed the American Refugee Society. This time, he thought, this time . . . In his pocket his fingers kept closing over the key to the safety-deposit box until he realized what he was doing and released it, only to have his fingers grope for it, cling to it again and again.
Sid and Murray were waiting for him; he had told them he would be back sometime today, or tonight, but now he rushed the opposite way, trying to drive out the thoughts of Murray pacing his rat-infested room, or Sid chewing his nails at school. “A few more hours,” he muttered. He felt a great resentment toward them, as if they were getting in his way physically, imposing barriers between him and Lina Davies.
CHAPTER
4
“THEY told me someone had been looking for me,” Lina Davies said when he intercepted her on her way from the office. “They said you were very tall and handsome. I don’t usually meet men so much taller than I am. Did you know it’s a myth that men average several inches taller than women? It’s just that custom has always made a tall man want a woman short enough to show him to advantage.”
“Will you have lunch with me?”
“Why?”
“I want to talk to you, get to know you. I’ve seen you before.” She was regarding him as if she did not remember him from the restaurant. He was glad.
“I can’t. I have to collect ration coupons. Have you contributed yet?”
He nodded, afraid that if he repeated he had none left, she would remember seeing him drunk, with drunken friends. “Can I come with you, then?”
“That would be nice. You can help. I’ll ask the businessmen and you ask the women. Women usually won’t give me a thing, would you believe that? They look more like they would like to see me go to a camp to live, or like they’re afraid I’m really after their men. It’s a strange thing about women, some of them, how jealous and petty they can be. . . .”
She talked on and on, easily, expecting no response most of the time, cuing him neatly when she did want affirmation or encouragement. He watched her; today she was dressed in a pale green sari that left one shoulder bare. She was even more beautiful than he had remembered, her skin more perfect, if that was possible. In the sunlight, in the sultry air that made other women sweat, and their make-up look like house paint, she was lovely and fresh. Her eyes were greener than he had realized. Sea green, aquamarine green. She talked and he watched her and mused about her skin, her hair, which would feel silky. . . .
“. . . and just stand there and wait. That’s all you have to do. Most of them feel so guilty that they’ll hand them over to get rid of you. Here we go.” She flashed a smile and left him inside the doorway of an expensive restaurant that catered to bankers and stockbrokers and their clients. He realized he was blocking the luncheon traffic and moved, not toward any of the tables, but to one side, where he could continue to watch her approach the tables, speak, receive the coupons and leave, as majestically as a queen collecting overdue taxes.
She looked at him, frowned, and motioned for him to start collecting, and he moved very awkwardly toward a table where three women were eating salads. They looked up expectantly as he drew near and stopped. He felt foolish.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” he began. “You see, I’m helping out with the committee for the . . .” He could not remember the name of the organization, and he never had heard anyone refer to them as refugees until Lina had done so. “The Newtowns,” he blurted. “They need more water and stuff. . . .” It was no use. The women were now looking past him, for a waiter or a bouncer or a cop or something. He tried to smile reassuringly and backed away; he bumped into a waiter who had caught the signal. “Excuse me. Excuse me, just leaving. Sorry to have bothered you.” He turned and fled.
“I never eat when I’m collecting,” Lina said, back on the sidewalk. “It makes me feel virtuous somehow, almost holy. The people I collect from seem to understand that. Don’t worry if those women didn’t give you any coupons. I wouldn’t have got any from them either. But you asked them the wrong way. You were begging, and that doesn’t work. . . .”
They walked, she talked, and they went into three more restaurants, and then the luncheon rush was over. “All through until dinner. I’ll have to take these to the office, and then we can go to your apartment for a snack and some rest.”
He thought his legs would buckle, and he had an immediate erection at her words. In his apartment, she began to undress as soon as the door was closed. “I’m five ten and a half,” she said, “and most men seem afraid of such a tall woman, as if I’m a threat to their masculinity or something.”
Cluny jerked off his clothes feverishly, afraid she would change her mind, remember something else she had to do, or simply vanish before his eyes. She was more beautiful than ever naked. He never had seen a woman like her before.
She laughed at his erection. “Look what your mind’s been doing to your body. Did you know stimulation comes from your own mind, not from external causes?”
He dragged her down onto the bed and stopped her chatter with his mouth and she moved under him and suddenly it was over. She sighed and when he rolled off her, she slipped from the bed and went to the bathroom. She returned a few minutes later, smiling happily. “You use my shampoo! And my toothpaste! Isn’t that a coincidence!”
Cluny knew he didn’t care. She could talk forever, say absolutely nothing for the rest of her life in a nonstop monologue, and it would not matter a bit. He watched her move, the play of long muscles in her thighs, the sharp curve of her breast, the way the light caught her pubic hair and glistened.
. . . It didn’t matter what she said, when, how often.
“Don’t dress yet,” he said, when she reached for the sari. “Let me look at you.”
“Silly. You act like you’ve never seen a naked woman in your life. All eyes. If you could only see your eyes . . .”
“Tell me about you,” he said. “Where you came from, how you got mixed up with the committee, where you went to school, everything.”
She laughed and sat down tailor fashion on the foot of the bed. “You have to do something for others, don’t you agree? I was in school, and I heard a lecture about the Newtowns, how awful they are, and all that. And how the children hardly ever have enough water to drink, and stay dirty all the time. I gave the man all my own coupons that day and promised to help for as long as they need someone. Only I couldn’t start right away because I was working for Senator Dvorak—his reelection, you know? He lost, but we worked awfully hard and even he said he never had seen such hard workers. . . .”
Cluny reached for her, and she continued to talk as he petted and stroked her silky skin.
Later when she went to the bath
room, she took her clothes with her and came out fully dressed, as clean and fresh looking as dawn.
“Now, no more,” she said sternly. “Two a day is my absolute limit. I think it’s harmful to overindulge in anything, don’t you? I mean anything at all. Are you hungry now? Do you have anything here to eat? This is a nice little apartment, so cozy and masculine. I think men’s apartments should definitely reflect their tastes, be masculine and all. . . .” She found cheese and bread and onions and made a sandwich, talking as she put them all together. Talking as she ate. Cluny could only watch her and marvel at her beauty even as she chewed. He never had seen anyone who looked beautiful eating. He told her that and she laughed and shook her head, wagged her finger at him.
“I said no more, didn’t you hear me?”
He nodded meekly. “Will you come back tonight? After you collect coupons from the dinner crowd?”
“I don’t know,” she said, frowning. “You aren’t getting up now, are you? Well, you really aren’t very good at it. Not everyone has the knack. It’s a gift, I think, don’t you? To make people want to help and all?” The frown vanished and she laughed. “I’ll tell you what. If you see me, that means I decided to come back, and if you don’t, that means I didn’t. If I come back, probably in a little while I’ll be very hungry. Do you have any money? Can you afford to take me to dinner, or will I have to pay my own? I mean, I could, but then I would want a pretty cheap, but good, place because I’m already over this month’s allowance, and Daddy will be furious as it is. . .
Murray had a room across town in a tenement that was overstuffed with Westerners who had come to Boston to escape the drought. He had one chair, a mattress on the floor, and a dozen cartons of books. A hot plate was on a wooden box, a few pans inside the box. He claimed a dozen rats were included with each room at no extra cost.
