The Year's Best Science Fiction 11

BETTER THAN EVER ALEX KIRS

Joe and Monica went to the Movie. Like everyone else, they were gone for a month. Clinton met them at Noordberg’s Thursday party—the one you went to get out of going to the one on Saturday—and treated them to an et tu stare.

“Welcome back to the real world,” he said.

“Clint, don’t be like that,” Monica said. Clinton saw that she had been aged by the experience. To his certain knowledge—compounded of a five years’ acquaintanceship, a thousand bits of awed gossip, and some eerily inappropriate newspaper headlines—her tawny eyes had looked out over the ruins of one of the most creepily disastrous love affairs imaginable, with the same expression of mild discomfort with which she might announce a headache. You looked at the eyes now and thought: This girl has suffered. He felt like telling her unpleasantly, You have too much makeup on; go wash your face.

“Clint’s still deepening his rut,” Joe said. Clinton smiled.

“And soon I will disappear from sight in it, hmmn?” Joe’s face was even worse; all the old, familiar tics had been ironed out. If a souvenir balloon, subsiding into wrinkles week by week on the mantel, had had a bit of fresh air valved into it, it would have inspired much the same feeling; it looked nice, yes, but how long would it last? Clinton stared coldly at their faces; that the change had been predictable made it no easier to stomach. The women came out haggard and viciously serene; the men, looking calm and dedicated and noble.

“Clint, why don’t you give in?” Monica said. “You’re getting bitter, and there’s nothing so useless as a bitter nonconformist.”

“So now I’m a nonconformist?” he asked her, pleasantly. “And bitter as well. Why is it I seem to remember a time— excuse me, it was so terribly long ago—when we all agreed it was a matter of individual choice?” He thought, If she says, “We have come to our senses, now,” I will bite my fist. And then he thought, Maybe I really mean it. But even Monica occasionally knew which arguments could be counted on to kick her in the shins.

“Oh, you’re impossible,” she said. And then, to Joe, “And it would have meant so much to him, too.” Joe tousled her hair, looking noble. Clinton felt himself in the position of a kitten playing with a ball of wool; it was interesting, and lots of fun, and so he continued playing. . . . Perhaps, if he played long enough, he would find himself disentangled, able to let go.

“Would it, now?” he said. “You tempt me; why not tell me all about it?”

“It was the greatest experience of my life,” she said.

“You should be ashamed to say things like that about your life,” he said, suddenly tired. In the background, amid couches that looked like coffee-tables and coffee-tables that looked like couches—it made no difference at all on which you sat—Noordberg was cozying up to Janet. Noordberg was short and plump, with little, stupid eyes; he could not smile, or light a cigarette, or say hello without looking sinister. He had the manners of an octopus, and a heart of gold. Janet had the sort of politeness that dealt with sex fiends as if they were somebody’s grandfather; grandfathers, so treated, could not believe their luck and coyly turned their faces away for a moment, growing tusks.

There was no reason to stay any longer; Clinton pointed with his chin, and Joe and Monica turned to look. “What is that theme they play,” Clinton murmured, “when the cavalry comes over the hill? Excuse me; good night.” He drifted away into the throng; a sociologist, tracing with a dull spoon the course of his progress, would have discovered a beautiful graph; Non-involvement at the Perimeters of Small Groups. Coming up behind Janet, he put his nose possessively in her hair. She turned her good, delicate, un-pretty face to his; was it possible there was relief in her eyes? He thought, Oh, she really loves me.

“Time to go, pet,” he said fondly. “We have a date, remember?” Yes, she loved him; between showing consideration for him, or for Noordberg, there was no need for decision at all. Rising, she smiled.

“Such a nice party, Mr. Noordberg,” she said. “Good night.”

“Good night, Noodle. See you,” Clinton said. Noordberg told them good night and how much he had enjoyed having them; possibly his heart was broken, but he just looked sinister. Joe and Monica—and several others—waved faintly as they went out the door.

Later, in the dark, his arms in their habit around her as she listened through his skin to his slowing heart, he blew a strand of her hair from his lips and said: “Joe and Monica are back. Did you talk to them?”

“Yes. You?” she said. He nodded.

“Same old story,” he said. “You know, I’m getting very tired of being Above All That, but it’s still true; I just don’t see lopping a month off my life—I have a life, you know— watching some goddamn movie. If only they didn’t come out looking so noble, smelling at every pore of having been through a transmogrifying experience.” He removed an arm from her, groped, found cigarettes and lit up. He breathed a cloud of smoke out into the dark, carefully aiming it away from her hair.

“You know what Monica said to me?” he asked. “She said, ‘It was the greatest experience of my life.’ My God, if I had had a life like Monica’s, I would be sitting on a mountain wearing a yellow robe, shuddering whenever a man came within fifty miles.”

“Clinty, Monica’s not very bright. You should be kinder to her.” And then, reflectively, “Not exactly a movie; they all tell us that. Somehow I get the impression it isn’t anything like a movie at all.”

“Movie, shmoovie,” he said. “Besides, think of the result. Can you imagine me going around being Calm, Dignified and Noble? I’m not the type. And you know, it would be more of a consolation if it weren’t so damn obvious that an awful lot of people are the type.”

She stirred then, half sitting up. She said: “Clinty, you know how Noordberg does? The way he looks at you as if he were a mad scientist and you were the retort in which he was going to mix something dirty?” Clinton chuckled in spite of himself; whither politeness now?

“Good old Noodle,” he said.

“Well, he was one of the first to go, and ever since he came back, he doesn’t.” In the darkness her face could tell him nothing, nor his, her; he frowned.

“Are you kidding? I’ve seen him a dozen times since he came back, and believe me, he’s the same as ever. If anything, he’s worse.” But mentally he began to tote and tally, wishing for a better memory.

She continued: “No, Clinty, it’s not the same at all. He tries to, but it’s just going through the motions. As if he thought you expected him to, and didn’t want to hurt your feelings, or make you anxious about him.”

“Kiddo, go to sleep; you’re already dreaming. Still, it’s a nice idea. Everybody doesn’t have to end up noble?”

She made an affirmative noise, reclining, choosing her own side of the bed. He settled back to wait for the extinguishing breath of sleep, and for tomorrow, which would be a better time to wonder whether it was reassurance he had harvested, after all.

“They must be government approved,” she said suddenly. “Mustn’t they?”

“Mustn’t who? Oh.” Clinton blinked; it was an odd thought. “I guess so,” he said. “Otherwise somebody would have raised a stink. Unless you’re thinking about the money, how much it costs? Financing, friendly banks; sure it’s government approved.”

“Umn,” she said; he felt her falling away, diminishing, receding into the void of sleep. At the last possible instant before total unconsciousness, she murmured:

“Joe and Monica don’t need to hold hands all the time, now.”

He had thought himself worried before; now he worried. She was cool and calm and resolutely considerate always; he had taken her to his bosom perhaps in some measure because, when he trumpeted at the world his I’ve got problems of my own, her unverbalized answer had been, Enough for both of us? In a world where everybody depicted love in comic-strip colors, they found richer expression in halftones; they did not make scenes. Gone back over, the conversation was the closest she could ever come to telling him she was deeply troubled.

It was some little while before Clinton fell asleep.

Clinton worked as an account executive in an advertising agency. He had a radical and extremely personal view of his situation; he thought it was like being a Boy Scout in a large room filled to the ceiling with cotton candy. You could breathe, it was delicious, and there was plenty of it— but you could not see your hand in front of your face, much less find two sticks to rub together. He told this to everyone; they thought, How original, how bitter, and laughed, sometimes a little vaguely. By the law of averages, he ought to have met somebody who would have said, What have you got against contentment? so that he could have replied, Contentment with what? But he never had.

He lived seven blocks from his office, and always walked home, smiling devilishly as he outpaced the taxicabs of his trapped superiors enroute to Sutton Place. The evening after the party, on impulse, he walked a couple of blocks out of his way to the converted brownstone in which Bernie lived. Bernie was an artist, and would have been an exceedingly expensive one, if he had not been rich. It did not matter that he was really an artist, and painted the large, disturbingly whorled emptiness he would have painted if he had been starving in a loft; in their repertoire of smiles, gallery owners have a special one reserved for the very rich, and it was the only one Bernie ever saw.

Clinton walked up, on deep plush; the door opened to his knock. Bernie, half-dressed and carrying a dirty rag in one hand, greeted him with a broad smile.

“Clint! Come on in. What have you been doing, anyway—I haven’t seen you since—”

“Since the Movie,” Clinton said easily, entering. As always, he stopped in front of the painting that faced the entrance. It was a large thing, covered with countless overlapping concentricities that seemed to diminish infinitely amid bitter smoke. Bernie had a title for it, but like most artists, Bernie was a literary imbecile; Clinton called it Kinsey in Hell, and found it tenaciously disquieting. As usual, it held his attention for some seconds; when he turned, it was to find Bernie seated on the floor, working on something in his lap. Clinton smiled; it was exactly his idea of how an artist should polish something—tailor-fashion on the floor, lovingly absorbed. Then he made out what it was Bernie was polishing. He strolled over and sat on the floor, facing Bernie.

“Going hunting?” he asked, and wondered why his voice sounded so odd.

Bernie held the rifle out to be admired. He did not hold it clumsily—artists, whatever their faults, do not hold things clumsily—but between the way its essential function dictated it be held, and the way he held it, there was an enormous and unbridgeable gap. Yet, somehow, Clinton did not find this sufficiently reassuring.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Bernie asked. “All my life, I never realized the . . . depth to these things. Do you know they’re almost a perfect symbol for power? Pure power? Think of it, curled up dormant in there, sleeping in its little nest in a cave of steel, ready to burst out instantly at the slightest call. Think of it! The perfect symbol for power; hard and cold but turgid with latent flame and noise.”

“Bernie . . .” Clinton began.

“They get dirty, though. The minute you hang them up, they attract dust like a magnet.” Clinton exhaled—why was it, with relief?—and tried again.

“Bernie, you’ve been listening to the wrong salesman.”

“Huh? What? You mean you don’t approve? Clint, you’re the last person on earth I would have thought . . .” His face was so crestfallen that Clinton had to laugh.

“No, no—it’s just that you were quoting the wrong sales pitch. The one you gave is the one for pistols, you know, like on TV.” He made shooting motions with thumb and forefinger. “That’s a rifle. You’re supposed to look at it in a combination of the ways you would look at a Patek Philippe watch and a . . . and a jet plane.”

“Oh,” said Bernie. He appeared to think for a moment. “You know, it’s impossible to buy a pistol in this city. I tried and tried, and it was like trying to get permission to buy ten pounds of heroin. It’s not just the red tape; it’s the attitudes of the people you have to go to. Pure Kafka.” He means Orwell, thought Clinton. He just doesn’t know the difference.

“What’s to tell? Why don’t you just go and find out for yourself? Monica was telling me about you just this morning, Clint. Monica is very upset about you.”

“Monica should have her mouth washed out with soap. Come on, tell me what happens in there after you go in and they take your ticket and you sit down.”

“Oh, you mean, the technical part? That’s funny ... because afterward you just don’t remember very much of that. It’s not just a . . . you don’t just sit there, I mean. And it goes on for a month, so there are intermissions, only you do exercises instead of just walking around. And you eat a little bit, just to keep the internal muscles in trim, because they feed you intravenously while you’re out. But nobody really pays much attention to the . . . technical part.”

“So tell me the story, then,” Clinton said. “Come on, Bernie, gimme the plot.”

“But, Clint, that’s impossible. It’s too big . . . there’s too much, it would take a year. And some of it I’m not even smart enough to explain. I haven’t got the . . . I’m not a wordsmith, Clint. Could you imagine somebody painting a Rembrandt from a wooden mannikin, for chrissake?”

“Very easily,” said Clinton softly. Bernie opened his mouth and then closed it again and looked doubtfully down at the floor. “Bernie, there are people who can paint Rembrandts from mannikins,” Clinton said.

“And I can’t, you mean? Well, all that has changed, let me tell you!” Bernie stopped, looking at Clinton, who beat down the sudden, betraying intensity.

“By all means, tell me,” Clinton said.

“It was the greatest experience of my life,” said Bernie, in a holy voice. “It shook my very foundations and rearranged them. It made me realize, absolutely, what I had been doing wrong.” He looked at Clinton, not defiantly, but as a man looks who has told the truth, and is awed by it.

“Bernie, what are you painting now?” Clinton asked, and sighed for saying it; he had had to.

“It’s over there by the window,” said Bernie. Clinton got up and strolled toward the easel. He did not have to force himself to stroll; he knew in advance almost exactly what he would see.

It was on the easel, and unfinished—and yet it was finished beyond necessity or sense. On the very large canvas, two big young people, boy and girl, held hands and gazed out over the viewer’s head. They were handsome and muscular and clean; he bare to the waist, she in blouse and shorts. Behind them, vibrant with early-morning light, stretched a pastoral landscape; high in the sky was the meticulous glint of an airplane; Clinton would have described their expressions as being that of cows who have just lifted their muzzles from a pond—cows who have been told to express Calm Courage, High Ideals. Every square inch of the canvas was painted as realistically as a photograph, and yet, it was obviously unfinished; it would be finished when it resembled one of those German photographs, in which everything is incredibly sharp and dramatically three-dimensional, realler than real.

“What’s it called?” Clinton said.

“It’s called New Horizons. Do you like it?” Clinton’s mind swallowed the title, swished it around a little, and spat it up slightly changed. Earth Mother, Here We Go! he thought, giving it a last steady stare. He strolled, whistling softly as he might in some bright hospital, to the door.

“Goodby, Bernie,” Clinton said.

Closing the door, he glanced back. On the wall, Kinsey listened as each devil told how it had done absolutely everything with every other devil, had always done so and would always continue to do so, world without end, so that all the case histories were exactly the same, and all the lines of all the columns of all the tables held the same number.

His apartment was dark; he did not bother calling out. He walked to the kitchen and found the note, one corner held down by a large unopened can of tomato juice, in the middle of the table. He read:

“I’m a conformist and a moral weakling and a coward. Everyone else has gone, and there seems to be provision for those of us who weren’t cut out to be noble. I’m not strong enough, Clint; I can’t fight everyone and myself and you, too. This way I’ll just have to fight you. Or maybe I’m brave; we’ll still be in love a month from now.”

There was no salutation, and it was unsigned. A jar next to the can held a bouquet of brushes and pencils; he selected a grease pencil from it and wrote, on top of her note, I love you, in thick black letters. Then he drew a heart around it.

He opened a cabinet, took down a bottle of scotch and sloshed some in a glass. He lifted the glass to his lips, where the rim made an unexpected, musical trill against his teeth. He regarded his hand with considerable surprise. “Well, well,” he said aloud, in tones of sprightly interest.

He emptied the glass in one long swallow, sloshed rather a lot more into it, and put the bottle away. Whistling softly, he strolled through the dark apartment to the bedroom. Bedrooms in which only men have slept smell of socks; bedrooms in which men and women have slept smell only of women. At least, to men. He lay down on his side of the bed, occasionally sipping at his drink, for quite a long time. He stared at the ceiling, and let his mind wander, as men under such circumstances are prone to do, back over the good times, the very good times. He closed his eyes . . .

Janet came back, still in love with him, still loved; he told her, “You look older,” which was a lie, because she looked younger, like a nineteen-year-old product of Dachau instead of a twenty-four-year-old product of Smith.

They were at somebody’s place—when were they not at somebody’s place?—and it was necessary that he stay by the TV set, to check up on a commercial. He sat near it, waiting for the station break, paying no attention to the party in the background. In midscene, the television set made a hideous, quite unconscionable noise; the screen broadcast scanning-patterns. Behind him there was a faint stir, a tension. The screen made a visual burp, and was occupied by a small man; not literally a small man, but a man you knew had a small soul. He had nasty glittering eyes and a pinched weak mouth, and every inch of him reeked of a perverted intimacy with, and knowledge of, power. The small man said, in a prim, defiant voice, all stand. To the sound of scraping chairs behind him Clinton turned, to see Janet standing, all of them standing, blank-eyed and loose-mouthed, standing waiting for the next order.

Clinton opened his eyes; he had not been asleep. It had been a waking dream, differing from a daydream in that it needed no will’s push to help its progress. It was familiar; he had had it many times.

Clinton sat up on the bed; if he were a clairvoyant, where, oh where, would he find an honest medium? Boy, what a director you’d make, he thought. Picking up his drink, he stood and then walked to the bedroom’s french windows, opened them, and went out on the small terrace. He tilted his head and rocked back; above him to all sides were sheer cliffs, terraced escarpments, of thousands upon thousands of lighted windows. High above, the stars invisible because of the diffusion of light from the windows, was the sky. Clinton thought of Noordberg, innocently lecherous and then pretending innocent lechery; in his mind he looked again at Bernie’s picture, the two big children in front of their pastorale, and wondered what it was that lurked beneath, that must needs insist so loudly that it was not there.

He could not go to the Movie; he was the devil he knew. He took a small, civilized sip of his drink and, stretching out his arm, delicately let the glass fall into the abyss beneath him. Always the one for the dramatic gesture, he thought, carefully not saying it aloud lest it turn into a sob, and, looking up again, shook his futile fist viciously, not knowing if he did so at the windows, or at the sky.

. . . brainwashing is so old-hat as almost to have passed into folklore, Alex Kirs wrote, commenting on his story . . . yet scientists jubilantly announce successful use of physio-psychological conditioning as a curative tool. People nowadays seem, whatever the real, tragic depth of incident and event in their lives, to be frighteningly prone to dismiss it all as meaningless and unfulfilling unless they can align with some party or movement...

Parties and movements, or the need for them, are hardly unique to our limes. But perhaps there is a clue here to the curious counterpoint of conformity and rebellion, constrictions and relaxations, that are specific to the (upbeat tempo) movements of mores and moralities in the sixties.

Do you remember what “civil rights” and “civil liberties” used to mean? We have accepted, one by one, the practices of peacetime military conscription, secret diplomacy, guilt by association, political imprisonment, and political debarment from employment (all unthinkably un-American in the days before the Un-American Affairs Committee). But we are no longer willing to tolerate any denial of what rights of citizenship we do retain, on the primitive and ludicrous grounds of color prejudice.

“Freedom of speech” used to be illustrated by Voltaire’s epigram: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” But most “intelligent liberals” accepted without question the necessity for some degree of censorship about sex, and the “seamy side of life.” (“Sex education” was a crusade as much as fifty years ago—but it was to be conducted in sanitary “scientific” language, in a pure—nay, chapel-like—atmosphere.)

Now, Madalyn Murray is mobbed by her neighbors, and public meeting places will not accept rental money from known Communists. But students picket for the right to use obscenity, and the common euphemisms concerning personal functions are fast joining the outstretched pinkie in the gallery of outworn respectabilities. “Dirty words” have become the subject of a sort of holy crusade, while “atheist” is once again a dirty word.

Even the once sacrosanct freedom of the press has given way before the demands of “security” and “classified” information. It hardly shocks us to hear of a magazine issue impounded for security reasons. But Henry Miller and de Sade are on sale at the corner drugstore. Authors have won the right to use ordinary household language in print. We can read and view contemporary works of literature, drama, and art with as much freedom (at least) as that previously reserved for properly aged classics.

Is it possible that antibiotics and the Pill have given us new “faith” in young people’s “sane” attitudes about sex—while the bomb and chemical warfare have awakened grave doubts about the ability of the same youths to think “realistically” about politics, religion, ethics, and philosophy? Is it in the laboratories, rather than the schools, homes, and churches, that our moralities are manufactured?

Kirs spoke of “physio-psychological conditioning” ...