Kitabı oku: «We Can Build You»

2

The Mark VII Saloon Model Jaguar is an ancient huge white car, a collector’s item, with fog lights, a grill like the Rolls, and naturally hand-rubbed walnut, leather seats, and many interior lights. Maury kept his priceless old 1954 Mark VII in mint condition and tuned perfectly, but we were able to go no faster than ninety miles an hour on the freeway which connects Ontario with Boise.

The languid pace made me restless. ‘Listen Maury,’ I said, ‘I wish you would begin explaining. Bring the future to me right now, like you can in words.’

Behind the wheel, Maury smoked away at his Corina Sport cigar, leaned back and said, ‘What’s on the mind of America, these days?’

‘Sexuality,’ I said.

‘No.’

‘Dominating the inner planets of the solar system before Russia can, then.’

‘No.’

‘Okay, you tell me.’

‘The Civil War of 1861.’

‘Aw chrissakes,’ I said.

‘It’s the truth, buddy. This nation is obsessed with the War Between the States. I’ll tell you why. It was the only and first national epic in which we Americans participated; that’s why.’ He blew Corina Sport cigar smoke at me. ‘It matured we Americans.’

‘It’s not on my mind,’ I said.

‘I could stop at a busy intersection of any big downtown city in the US and collar ten citizens, and six of those ten, if asked what was on their mind, would say, “The US Civil War of 1861.” And I’ve been working on the implications – the practical side – ever since I figured that out, around six months ago. It has grave meaning for MASA ASSOCIATES, if we want it to, I mean; if we’re alert. You know they had that Centennial a decade or so back; recall?’

‘Yes,’I said. ‘In 1961.’

‘And it was a flop. A few souls got out and refought a few battles, but it was nothing. Look in the back seat.’

I switched on the interior lights of the car and twisting around I saw on the back seat a long newspaper-wrapped carton, shaped like a display window dummy, one of those manikins. From the lack of bulge up around the chest, I concluded it wasn’t a female one.

‘So?’ I said.

‘That’s what I’ve been working on.’

‘While I’ve been setting up areas for the trucks!’

‘Right,’ Maury said. ‘And this, in time, will be so far long remembered over any sales of spinets or electronic organs that it’ll make your head swim.’

He nodded emphatically. ‘Now when we get to Boise – listen. I don’t want your dad and Chester to give us a hard time. That’s why it’s necessary to inform you right now. That back there is worth a billion bucks to us or anyone else who happens to find it. I’ve got a notion to pull off the road and demonstrate it to you, maybe at some lunch counter. Or a gas station, even; any place that’s light.’ Maury seemed very tense and his hands were shaking more than usual.

‘Are you sure,’ I said, ‘that isn’t a Louis Rosen dummy, and you’re going to knock me off and have it take my place?’

Maury glanced at me oddly. ‘Why do you say that? No, that’s not it, but by chance you’re close, buddy. I can see that our brains still fuse, like they did in the old days, in the early ’seventies when we were new and green and without backing except maybe your dad and that warning-to-all-of-us younger brother of yours. I wonder, why didn’t Chester become a large-animal vet like he started out to be? It would have been safer for the rest of us; we would have been spared. But instead a spinet factory in Boise, Idaho. Madness!’ He shook his head.

‘Your family never even did that,’ I said. ‘Never built anything or created anything. Just middlemen, schlock hustlers in the garment industry. I mean, what did they do to set us up in business, like Chester and my dad did? What is that dummy in the back seat? I want to know, and I’m not stopping at any gas station or lunch counter; I’ve got the distinct intuition that you really do intend to do me in or some such thing. So let’s keep driving.’

‘I can’t describe it in words.’

‘Sure you can. You’re an A-one snow-job artist.’

‘Okay. I’ll tell you why that Civil War Centennial failed. Because all the original participants who were willing to fight and lay down their lives and die for the Union, or for the Confederacy, are dead. Nobody lives to be a hundred, or if they do they’re good for nothing – they can’t fight, they can’t handle a rifle. Right?’

I said. ‘You mean you have a mummy back there, or one of what in the horror movies they call the “undead”?’

‘I’ll tell you exactly what I have. Wrapped up in those newspapers in the back seat I have Edwin M. Stanton.’

‘Who’s that?’

‘He was Lincoln’s Secretary of War.’

‘Aw!’

‘No, it’s the truth.’

‘When did he die?’

‘A long time ago.’

‘That’s what I thought.’

‘Listen,’ Maury said, ‘I have an electronic simulacrum back in the back seat, there. I built it, or rather we had Bundy build it. It cost me six thousand dollars but it was worth it. Let’s stop at that roadside cafe and gas station up along the road, there, and I’ll unwrap it and demonstrate it to you; that’s the only way.’

I felt my flesh crawl. ‘You will indeed.’

‘Do you think this is just some bagatelle, buddy?’

‘No. I think you’re absolutely serious.’

‘I am,’ Maury said. He began to slow the car and flash the directional signal. ‘I’m stopping where it says Tommy’s Italian Fine Dinners and Lucky Lager Beer.’

‘And then what? What’s a demonstration?’

‘We’ll unwrap it and have it walk in with us and order a chicken and ham pizza; that’s what I mean by a demonstration.’

Maury parked the Jaguar and came around to crawl into the back. He began tearing the newspaper from the human-shaped bundle, and sure enough, there presently emerged an elderly-looking gentleman with eyes shut and white beard, wearing archaically-styled clothing, his hands folded over his chest.

‘You’ll see how convincing this simulacrum is,’ Maury said, ‘when it orders its own pizza.’ He began to tinker with switches which were available at the back of the thing.

All at once the face assumed a grumpy, taciturn expression and it said in a growl, ‘My friend, remove your fingers from my body, if you will.’ It pried Maury’s hands loose from it, and Maury grinned at me.

‘See?’ Maury said. The thing had sat up slowly and was in the process of methodically brushing itself off; it had a stern, vengeful look, now, as if it believed we had done it some harm, possibly sapped it and knocked it out, and it was just recovering. I could see that the counter man in Tommy’s Italian Fine Dinners would be fooled, all right; I could see that Maury had made his point already. If I hadn’t seen it spring to life I would believe myself it was just a sour elderly gentleman in old-style clothes and a split white beard, brushing itself off with an attitude of outrage.

‘I see,’ I said.

Maury held open the back door of the Jaguar, and the Edwin M. Stanton electronic simulacrum slid over and rose to a standing position in a dignified fashion.

‘Does it have any money?’ I asked.

‘Sure,’ Maury said. ‘Don’t ask trifling questions; this is the most serious matter you’ve ever had facing you.’ As the three of us started across the gravel to the restaurant, Maury went on, ‘Our entire economic future and that of America’s involved in this. Ten years from now you and I could be wealthy, due to this thing, here.’

The three of us had a pizza at the restaurant, and the crust was burned at the edges. The Edwin M. Stanton made a noisy scene, shaking its fist at the proprietor, and then after finally paying our bill, we left.

By now we were an hour behind schedule, and I was beginning to wonder if we were going to get to the Rosen factory after all. So I asked Maury to step on it, as we got back into the Jaguar.

‘This car’ll crack two hundred,’ Maury said, starting up, ‘with that new dry rocket fuel they have out.’

‘Don’t take unnecessary chances,’ the Edwin M. Stanton told him in a sullen voice as the car roared out onto the road. ‘Unless the possible gains heavily outweigh the odds.’

‘Same to you,’ Maury told it.

The Rosen Spinet Piano & Electronic Organ Factory at Boise, Idaho doesn’t attract much notice, since the structure itself, technically called the plant, is a flat, one-story building that looks like a single-layer cake, with a parking lot behind it, a sign over the office made of letters cut from heavy plastic, very modern, with recessed red lights behind. The only windows are in the office.

At this late hour the factory was dark and shut, with no one there. We drove on up into the residential section, then.

‘What do you think of this neighborhood?’ Maury asked the Edwin M. Stanton.

Seated upright in the back of the Jaguar the thing grunted, ‘Rather unsavory and unworthy.’

‘Listen,’ I said, ‘my family lives down here near the industrial part of Boise so as to be in easy walking distance from the factory.’ It made me angry to hear a mere fake criticizing genuine humans, especially a fine person like my dad. And as to my brother – few radiation-mutants ever made the grade in the spinet and electronic organ industry outside of Chester Rosen. Special birth persons, as they are called. There is so much discrimination and prejudice in so many fields … most professions of high social status are closed to them.

It was always disappointing to the Rosen family that Chester’s eyes are set beneath his nose, and his mouth is up where his eyes ought to be. But blame H-bomb testing in the ’fifties and ’sixties for him – and all the others similar to him in the world today. I can remember, as a kid, reading the many medical books on birth defects – the topic has naturally interested many people for a couple of decades, now – and there are some that make Chester nothing at all. One that always threw me into a week-long depression is where the embryo disintegrates in the womb and is born in pieces, a jaw, an arm, handful of teeth, separate fingers. Like one of those plastic kits out of which boys build a model airplane. Only, the pieces of the embryo don’t add up to anything; there’s no glue in this world to stick it together.

And there’re embryos with hair growing all over them, like a slipper made from yak fur. And one that dries up so that the skin cracks; it looks like it’s been maturing outdoors on the back step in the sun. So lay off Chester.

The Jaguar had halted at the curb before the family house, and there we were. I could see lights on inside the house, in the living room; my mother, father and brother were watching TV.

‘Let’s send the Edwin M. Stanton up the stairs alone,’ Maury said. ‘Have it knock on the door, and we’ll sit here in the car and watch.’

‘My dad’ll recognize it as a phony,’ I said, ‘a mile away. In fact he’ll probably kick it back down the steps, and you’ll be out the six hundred it cost you.’ Or whatever it was Maury had paid for it, and no doubt charged against MASA’s assets.

‘I’ll take the chance,’ Maury said, holding the back door of the car open so that the contraption could get out. To it he said, ‘Go up there to where it says 1429 and ring the bell. And when the man comes to the door, you say, “Now he belongs to the ages.” And then just stand.’

‘What does that mean?’ I said. ‘What kind of opening remark is that supposed to be?’

‘It’s Stanton’s famous remark that got him into history,’ Maury said. ‘When Lincoln died.’

‘“Now he belongs to the ages,’” the Stanton practiced as it crossed the sidewalk and started up the steps.

‘I’ll explain to you in due course how the Edwin M. Stanton was constructed,’ Maury said to me. ‘How we collected the entire body of data extant pertaining to Stanton and had it transcribed down at UCLA into instruction punch-tape to be fed to the ruling monad that serves the simulacrum as a brain.’

‘You know what you’re doing?’ I said, disgusted. ‘You’re wrecking MASA, all this kidding around, this harebrained stuff – I never should have gotten mixed up with you.’

‘Quiet,’ Maury said, as the Stanton rang the doorbell.

The front door opened and there stood my father in his trousers, slippers, and the new bathrobe I had given him at Christmas. He was quite an imposing figure, and the Edwin M. Stanton, which had started on its little speech, halted and shifted gears.

‘Sir,’ it finally said, ‘I have the privilege of knowing your boy Louis.’

‘Oh yes,’ my father said. ‘He’s down in Santa Monica right now.’

The Edwin M. Stanton did not seem to know what Santa Monica was, and it stood there at a loss. Beside me in the Jaguar, Maury swore with exasperation, but it struck me funny, the simulacrum standing there like some new, no-good salesman, unable to think up anything at all to say and so standing mute.

But it was impressive, the two old gentlemen standing there facing each other, the Stanton with its split white beard, its old-style garments, my father looking not much newer. The meeting of the patriarchs, I thought. Like in the synagogue.

My father at last said to it, ‘Won’t you step inside?’ He held the door open, and the thing passed on inside and out of sight; the door shut, leaving the porch lit up and empty.

‘How about that,’ I said to Maury.

We followed after it. The door being unlocked, we went on inside.

There in the living room sat the Stanton, in the middle of the sofa, its hands on its knees, discoursing with my dad, while Chester and my mother went on watching the TV.

‘Dad,’ I said, ‘you’re wasting your time talking to that thing. You know what it is? A machine Maury threw together in his basement for six bucks.’

Both my father and the Edwin M. Stanton paused and glanced at me.

‘This nice old man?’ my father said, and he got an angry, righteous expression; his brows knitted and he said loudly, ‘Remember, Louis, that man is a frail reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but goddamn it, mein Sohn, a thinking reed. The entire universe doesn’t have to arm itself against him; a drop of water can kill him.’ Pointing his finger at me excitedly, my dad roared on, ‘But if the entire universe were to crush him, you know what? You know what I say? Man would still be more noble!’ He pounded on the arm of his chair for emphasis. ‘You know why, mein Kind? Because he knows that he dies and I’ll tell you something else; he’s got the advantage over the goddamn universe because it doesn’t know a thing of what’s going on. And,’ my dad concluded, calming down a little, ‘all our dignity consists in just that. I mean, man’s little and can’t fill time and space, but he sure can make use of the brain God gave him. Like what you call this “thing,” here. This is no thing. This is ein Mensch, a man. Say, I have to tell you a joke.’ He launched, then, into a joke half in yiddish, half in English.

When it was over we all smiled, although it seemed to me that the Edwin M. Stanton’s was somewhat formal, even forced.

Trying to think back to what I had read about Stanton, I recalled that he was considered a pretty harsh guy, both during the Civil War and the Reconstruction afterward, especially when he tangled with Andrew Johnson and tried to get him impeached. He probably did not appreciate my dad’s humanitarian-type joke because he got the same stuff from Lincoln all day long during his job. But there was no way to stop my dad anyhow; his own father had been a Spinoza scholar, well known, and although my dad never went beyond the seventh grade himself he had read all sorts of books and documents and corresponded with literary persons throughout the world.

‘I’m sorry, Jerome,’ Maury said to my dad, when there was a pause, ‘but I’m telling you the truth.’ Crossing to the Edwin M. Stanton, he reached down and fiddled with it behind the ear.

‘Glop,’ the Stanton said, and then became rigid, as lifeless as a window-store dummy; the light in its eyes expired, its arms paused and stiffened. It was graphic, and I glanced to see how my dad was taking it. Even Chester and my mom looked up from the TV a moment. It really made one pause and consider. If there hadn’t been philosophy in the air already that night, this would have started it; we all became solemn. My dad even got up and walked over to inspect the thing firsthand.

‘Oy gewalt.’ He shook his head.

‘I could turn it back on,’ Maury offered.

‘Nein, das geht mir nicht.’ My dad returned to his easy chair, made himself comfortable, and then asked in a resigned, sober voice, ‘Well, how did the sales at Vallejo go, boys?’ As we got ready to answer he brought out an Anthony & Cleopatra cigar, unwrapped it and lit up. It’s a fine-quality Havana-filler cigar, with a green outer wrapper, and the odor filled the living room immediately. ‘Sell lots of organs and AMADEUS GLUCK spinets?’ He chuckled.

‘Jerome,’ Maury said, ‘the spinets sold like lemmings, but not one organ moved.’

My father frowned.

‘We’ve been involved in a high-level confab on this topic,’ Maury said, ‘with certain facts emerging. The Rosen electronic organ –’

‘Wait,’ my dad said. ‘Not so fast, Maurice. On this side of the Iron Curtain the Rosen organ has no peer.’ He produced from the coffee table one of those masonite boards on which we have mounted resistors, solar batteries, transistors, wiring and the like, for display. ‘This demonstrates the workings of the Rosen true electronic organ,’ he began. ‘This is the rapid delay circuit, and –’

‘Jerome, I know how the organ works. Allow me to make my point.’

‘Go ahead.’ My dad put aside the masonite board, but before Maury could speak, he went on, ‘But if you expect us to abandon the mainstay of our livelihood simply because salesmanship – and I say this knowingly, not without direct experience of my own – when and because salesmanship has deteriorated, and there isn’t the will to sell –’