The Toynbee Convector Page 12

  He had to stop talking, as a fresh burst of grief shook his shoulders. When he quieted down, he managed to find and speak the rest in a whisper:

  “She’s all right, okay, she came out of it just two hours ago. Shell recover, the doctor is sure. The doctor says. If he gave me a bill for a million dollars right now, I’d spend the rest of my life paying it, she’s worth all that.”

  “I know she is. Daughters always are, or most are, for their fathers.”

  He sank back in the chair, and she remained crouched by his knees, waiting for him to get his breath. At last, she said:

  “How did it happen?”

  “One of those stupid things. She put up a flimsy stepladder in the closet to reach some Christmas ornaments. The damn thing broke, she fell and hit her head, hard. We didn’t know. We were in another part of the house. We’ve always respected her privacy. But after an hour, when her door stayed shut and we heard nothing, my wife, for some reason, just went in. All of a sudden, she was yelling. I ran, and there was Beth on the floor, lots of blood, she had struck her head on the edge of a bookcase. I almost fell, getting to her. I tried to pick her up, but suddenly I was so weak I couldn’t even move myself, my God, she felt dead, loose, the way dead people are. I couldn’t feel her pulse, my own was so loud. I somehow found the phone but couldn’t make my fingers work the dial. Clara took the phone away from me and dialed the paramedics. When she got them, I grabbed the phone back, but couldn’t speak, Clara had to tell them— Jesus, I almost cost Beth her We! I was paralyzed. What if I’d been alone? Would I have been able to talk? Would she have died? Without Clara, well, the paramedics were there in five minutes, God bless them, five instead of half an hour. They got Beth to the hospital. I rode along like an extra dead man in the ambulance. Clara followed with the car. At the hospital, they wouldn’t let us see Beth for an hour, they were fighting to save her. When the doctor came out, he said it was touch and go, fifty-fifty for the next day, two days. Think of it... waiting for two whole days, not knowing. We stayed at the hospital until two in the morning, when they made us go home, said they’d call if there was any change. We went home and cried all night. I don’t think we stopped for more than ten minutes at a time. Have you ever cried constantly for a full night, have you ever wanted to kill yourself you were so full of grief? God, we’re spoiled. This was the first real nightmare in all our lives. We’ve always been well, no sickness, no accidents, no deaths. Listen to me! I can’t stop talking. God, I’m tired, but I just had to come see you, Laura.”

  “She’s all right, really all right?” said Laura. “She ought to be out and around in about three days, the doctor said.”

  “Let me fill that.” She refilled his glass and watched him drink it convulsively, as new tears gathered in her eyes. “I’ve seen your daughter only once, but she was, she is, a sweet girl. No wonder you—”

  “No wonder.” He shut his eyes, then opened them at last to look at his mistress. “Do you know what really saved her?”

  “The paramedics—*’

  “No.”

  “Your doctor—”

  ‘Those all count. But we prayed. We prayed, Laura. And God answered. Something answered. But it happened. I’ve never believed in prayer. I do now.”

  He was staring at her intently. She had to look away at last, almost flinching. She twisted her fingers together and looked at them. Her face grew suddenly pale as if she had guessed at something, then put it aside behind her eyes. At last she took a deep breath, glanced quickly at him, and asked:

  “What?”

  “Eh?” he said.

  “What did you pray?” she asked.

  “It,” he said, “was not so much a prayer... as... a promise.” Laura grew paler, waited, took a deep breath and asked:

  “What did you promise?”

  He was not able to answer. Suddenly it was like not being able to dial the phone, then not being able to speak.

  “Well?” said Laura.

  “I promised God—”

  “Yes?”

  “That if he saved Beth—”

  “That I’d give you up and go away and never see you again!”

  It came out in a terrible sighing rush.

  “What!?” She sat straight up on the floor, pushed herself back, and stared at him as if he were mad.

  “You heard what I said,” he replied, quietly.

  She leaned forward almost convulsively and shouted at him: “How could you possibly have promised God that?”

  “I had to, I did, it was the only thing I could think of.” He slid down off the chair, and reaching the floor began to edge toward her, reaching out. “I was frantic, don’t you see? Frantic!”

  She pushed herself back from him, to increase the space between as he advanced. She looked at the window, the door, as if seeking escape and then said, almost as loud as before:

  “You know that I’m now a Catholic—”

  “I know, I know.”

  “A new one. Do you see the position you’ve put me in?”

  “I didn’t put you in a position, life did, my daughter’s accident did. I had to make the promise to save her! What’s wrong with you?”

  “I’m in love with you, that’s what’s wrong!”

  She jumped up, wheeled about, then spun back to seize her own elbows and lean down at him.

  “Don’t you see, you just can’t go around promising God things like that! You fool, you can’t take it back now!”

  “I don’t want to take it back,” he replied, looking up at her, stunned. “You—you can’t make me!”

  “Tom, Tom,” she explained, “I am deeply religious. Do you think for a moment I would demand such a thing of you? Christ, what a mess! A promise is a promise, you must keep it, but that puts me out in the cold. And if you broke that promise, I wouldn’t much like you any more for being a liar, a liar to my new God and my new faith. Good grief, you couldn’t have done a better, lousier job if you had planned it!”

  Seated on the floor, he now had to push himself back, then wipe his cheeks with the back of one hand.

  “You don’t think—?”

  “No, no. After all, it was an accident, and she is your daughter. But you could have thought, taken time, considered, been more careful, what you said!”

  “How can you be careful when you’re felling out of a twenty-story building and need a net?”

  She stood over him, and her shoulders slumped as if he had shot her through the chest. She felt herself fell all the way down, even as he described it. If there was a net anywhere, he couldn’t share it. When she hit bottom and found herself still alive, she forced a few trembling words out:

  “Oh? Tom, Tom, you—”

  “I’m crying over two things,” he gasped. “My daughter, who almost died. And you, who might as well be dead. I tried to choose. For a wild moment I thought, there is a choice. But I knew God would see through any damned lie I tried to make up. You can’t just promise and pray and then forget it as soon as your daughter opens her eyes and smiles. I am so grateful now I could explode. I’m so sad about us, you and me, I’ll cry all week and my wife will think it’s just relief that Beth’s coming home.”

  “Shut up,” Laura said, quietly.

  “Why?”

  “Because. The more you talk, the less I can find to answer you with. Stop driving me into a corner. Stop killing me in her place. Stop.”

  He could only sit, growing heavy and immovable, as she turned and went in blind search of a glass and something to put in it. It took her a long while to pour and then a longer while to remember to drink whatever it was. Faced away from him, she looked only at the wall and asked:

  “What did you say in your prayer?”

  “I can’t remember.”

  “Yes, you can. My God in heaven, Tom, what did you say that was so damned irreversible!” He flushed and turned his face this way and that, not able to look at her.

  “Do you mean the exact words—”

  “The ex
act ones. I want to hear. I demand to hear. I deserve to hear. Say it.”

  “God,” he said, his breath uneven, “this reminds me of my mother making me say prayers when I was five. I hated it I was embarrassed, I couldn’t see God anywhere, I didn’t know who I was supposed to be talking to. It was so terrible, my mother gave up. Years later, I learned to pray, on my own, inside. All right, all right, don’t stare at me that way. Here’s what I said—”

  He got up suddenly, walked to the window and looked out across the city, toward a building, any building that looked like the hospital, and focused his attention there. His voice was almost inaudible. He knew this and stopped, and started over, so she could hear:

  “I said: please, God, save her, save my daughter, let her live. If you do, I promise, I swear to give up the dearest thing in my existence. I promise to give up Laura, and never see her again. I promise, God. Please.”

  There was a long pause until he repeated the last word, quietly:

  “Please.”

  Without moving, she lifted the glass to her lips and drank the brandy straight down and, eyes shut, shook her head.

  “Now, you’ve really done it,” she said.

  He turned from the window and started toward her, but stopped. “You believe me, don’t you?”

  “I wish I didn’t, but I do. Damn!” She hurled the glass away and watched it roll unbroken along the rug. “You could have promised something else Couldn’t you, couldn’t you, couldn’t you?”

  “Promise, what, what?” Not knowing where to go, he prowled the room, not able to look back at her. “What can you promise God that means anything! Money? My house? My car? Give up my Paris trip? Give up my work? God knows I love that! But I don’t think God takes things like that There’s only one value, isn’t there? For him? Not things, people, but...love. I thought and thought and I knew I had only one special last rich thing in my life that was of any priceless value that might mean something in an exchange.”

  “And that thing was me? she said.

  “Yes, dammit. Name me something else. I can’t think of anything. You. My love for you has been so big, so all-consuming, so vital to my whole life, I knew it had to be the right gift, the right promise. If I said I’d give you up, God would have to know what a devastation it would be, what a total loss. Then he’d just have to give my daughter back! How could he not?”

  He had stopped in the middle of the living room now. She picked up the fallen glass, looked at it, and circled him, slowly.

  “I’ve heard and seen everything now,” she said.

  “Heard and seen what?”

  “Men, one way or another, getting out of their affairs.”

  “Is that what this looks like to you?”

  “How else can it look? You’ve been wanting out for a long time. Now you have your excuse.”

  He made a mourning sound, then a groan, then a sigh of exasperation.

  “An excuse? No. A commitment. What else would you have wanted me to do?”

  “Well, certainly not promise God to give me up!” she cried. “Why me?’

  “Don’t you know? Haven’t you been listening? You’re all I had as collateral. I loved you, I love you, I will always love you. And now, though I know I’ll bleed for years, I have to hand you over. Who is hurt worse here, me or you? Does it hurt more for you to be left or for me, to leave? Can you really, I mean really, figure that and tell me?”

  “No,” she said, and her shoulders slumped again. “I’ll be all right. Forgive me. It’ll just take time. It’s only been ten minutes since you came in that door. Christ.”

  She turned and walked slowly out to the kitchen. He’ heard her rummaging in the refrigerator. He went and sat down and held on to the armchair as if it might suddenly hurl him across the room.

  She came back in with a bottle of champagne and two glasses, walking across the floor as if it were land-mined. “What’s that?” he asked, as she sat down on the floor.

  “What’s it look like?” She worked the cork expertly and when it popped and hit the ceiling, she added, “Wei began with this, why not end with it?”

  “You’re angry at me—”

  “Angry, hell, I’m mad clean through, and so sad I’d like to go to bed for a month and not get up again, but I will, tomorrow, dammit. Maybe this godawful champagne will help, lake your glass.”

  She poured and they drank and were silent for a long! while. i “So this is the last time well ever see each other;” she said.

  “You don’t have to put it so bluntly.”

  “Why not? You already have. Let’s not kid around. This is the last five minutes of our lives. When you finish that, I want you out the door. I can’t stand having you here. I don’t want you to go. I wish I had a prayer, a promise, as strong as yours, that I believed in. I’d cry out to God with it But I don’t have that strength, and no one’s dying for me, except you, and you’re not really dead, just going. So, don’t ever call, don’t write, don’t come back, don’t drop in. I know, I know, that’s what you intend, to go, to stay. But you might be tempted. And if you called, I’d have to the all over again. Do I sound mean, do I sound hard? I’m not. I can’t handle it any other way. So—”

  She lifted her glass and finished the champagne, then got up and walked to open the door to her apartment and stand by it, waiting.

  “So soon?” he said, bleakly.

  “Hard to believe it’s been five years. But—so soon.”

  He got up and looked around as if he had left something, and then realized it was really her and came to stand before her, his hands at his sides. He didn’t seem to know what to do with his arms or his body.

  “Do you forgive me?”

  “No, not now. But soon, yes, I must. Either that, or stop going to church. Give me time to really think about your daughter and her dying almost, and yes, I will. It’s a terrible week for all of us. Fart of me knows that you are being cut right down the middle. Goodbye.” Her mouth whispered, darling, but she couldn’t say it out loud.

  She kissed him once, for a long moment, and when she felt the slight pull of her gravity moving him closer, broke off and stepped away.

  He went out the door and halfway down the stairs turned and looked at her and said:

  “Goodbye.”

  He turned and went the rest of the way down.

  Tears exploded from her eyes. She flung herself forward to seize the top stair rail and stare blindly down. “How dare you!” she shrieked, and stopped. She stared at the empty stairwell, stifling her breath.

  The next words fell out of their own accord:

  “—love your daughter—” And then the rest, which only she could hear: “—more than me?” She backed up, groped round, found herself inside, and slammed the door, hard.

  Downstairs, he heard. And it was like the sound of the shutting of a tomb.

  The Love Affair

  All morning long the scent was in the clear air, of cut grain or green grass or flowers, Sio didn’t know which, he couldn’t tell. He would walk down the hill from his secret cave and turnabout and raise his fine head and strain his eyes to see, and the breeze blew steadily, raising the tide of sweet odor about him. It was like a spring in autumn. He looked for the dark flowers that clustered under the hard rocks, probing up, but found none. He searched for a sign of grass, that swift tide that rolled over Mars for a brief week each spring, but the land was bone and pebble and the color of blood.

  Sio returned to his cave, frowning. He watched the sky and saw the rockets of the Earthmen blaze down, far away, near the newly building towns. Sometimes, at night, he crept in a quiet, swimming silence down the canals by boat, lodged the boat in a hidden place, and then swam, with quiet hands and limbs, to the edge of the fresh towns, and there peered out at the hammering, nailing, painting men, at the men shouting late into the night at their labor of constructing a strange thing upon this plan et. He would listen to their odd language and try to understand, and watch the rockets gather up great
plumes of beautiful fire and go booming into the stars; an incredible people. And then, alive and undiseased, alone, Sio would return to his cave. Sometimes he walked many miles through the mountains to find others of his own hiding race, a few men, fewer women, to talk to, but now he had a habit of solitude, and lived alone, thinking on the destiny that had finally killed his people. He did not blame the Earthmen; it had been an accidental tiling, the disease that had burned his father and mother in their sleep, and burned the fathers and mothers of great multitudes of sons.

  He sniffed the air again. That strange aroma. That sweet, drifting scent of compounded flowers and green moss. “What is it?” He narrowed his golden eyes in four directions.

  He was tall and a boy still, though eighteen summers had lengthened the muscles in his arms and his legs were long from seasons of swimming in the canals and daring to run, take cover, run again, take swift cover, over the blazing dead sea bottoms or going on the long patrols with silver cages to bring back assassin-flowers and fire-lizards to feed them. It seemed that his life had been full of swimming and marching, the things young men do to take their energies and passions, until they are married and a woman soon does what mountains and rivers once did. He had carried the passion for distance and walking later into young manhood than most, and while many another man had been drifting off down the dying canals in a slim boat with a woman like a bas-relief across his body, Sio had continued leaping and sporting, much of the time by himself, often speaking alone to himself. The worry of his parents, he had been, and the despair of women who had watched his shadow lengthening handsomely from the hour of his fourteenth birthday, and nodded to each other, watching the calendar for another year and just another year to pass....

  But since the invasion and the disease, he had slowed to stillness. His universe was sunken away by death. The sawed and hammered and freshly painted towns were carriers of disease. The weight of so much dying rested heavily on his dreams. Often he woke weeping and put his hands out on the night air. But his parents were gone and it was time, past time, for one special friend, one touching, one love.