Dark Carnival (23 page)

    After three days, Douglas realized he was getting no complaints. On the fourth day, after Grandma was gone to the store, he yelled outside Mr. Koberman's door ten minutes straight, without criticism.

    Then, and only then, did he dare to try the door, carefully, and open it.

    The room was in half-light, the shades drawn. Mr. Koberman lay on top of the covers of his bed, in sleeping clothes, breathing gently, up and down. He didn't move. His face was motionless.

    'Hello, Mr. Koberman.'

    The colourless walls echoed the man's regular breathing.

    'Mr. Koberman, hello!'

    Bouncing the golf-ball, Douglas advanced. No response. He yelled. Still no answer. Mr. Koberman lay like a papier-mâché dummy, not complaining, his eyes shut.

    'Mr. Koberman!'

    Douglas searched the room with quick eyes. On the bureau rested the wooden eating utensils. This gave Douglas an idea. He ran and got a silver fork, came back. Picking the tines he held it close to the sleeping face.

    Mr. Koberman winced. He twisted on his bed, groaning, muttering bitterly.

    Response. Good. Swell.

    Another ting of the fork. Mr. Koberman twitched in a nightmare of vibrations, but could not wake up. He didn't look as if he could, even if he wanted to.

    Douglas remembered about the coloured glass. He drew a pink shard from his pocket and stared through it at Mr. Koberman.

    The clothes dissolved off of Mr. Koberman. The pink glass had something to do with it. Or maybe it was the clothes themselves, being
on
Mr. Koberman. Douglas licked his lips. He could see
inside
Mr. Koberman.

    Mr. Koberman was — weird inside.

    Very weird. Very interesting.

    He was beginning to enjoy himself when the front door banged. Grandma was home.

    Douglas had to come downstairs, frustrated, trying to look innocent.

    When a slow heavy tread filled the hall, and a thick mahogany cane thumped in the cane-rack, that always meant Grandfather was home for the day. He arrived from his newspaper office each night, shortly ahead of the boarders, at five-fifteen, a copy of his own newspaper folded into his black coat-pocket along with a pink peppermint stick to be used expressly for spoiling Douglas's dinner-appetite.

    Douglas ran to embrace the large stomach that was Grandpa's main defence against a vigorously long life-battle with circumstance. Grandpa, peering down over the cliff of that stomach, cried, 'Hello, down there!'

    Seated in the great morris chair, his spectacles attached, Grandpa scanned the paper with a keen eye.

    'Grandma cut chickens again today. It's fun watching,' said Douglas.

    Grandpa kept reading. 'Chickens? Again? That's twice this week. She's the chickenest woman. You like to watch her cut ‘em, eh? Cold-blooded little pepper, Ha!'

    Douglas felt the subterranean laughter explode down through the huge old bones, echo out on Grandpa's vibrant knee-cap.

    'I'm just curious,' said Douglas.

    'You
are
,' rumbled Grandpa, pursing his lips, scowling. 'I remember that day when the young lady was killed at the rail station. Didn't bother you a mite. You just walked over and looked at her, blood and all.'

    'But, why shouldn't I look?'

    'Doesn't it make you sick?' Grandpa put the paper aside.

    'No.'

    'Queer duck. Sensible, though. Stay that way, Dougie-boy. Fear nothing, ever in life. Life's full of things not worth fearing. Bodies are bodies and blood is blood. The only bad things are those we make in our minds. We teach each other fear. We learn certain reactions to certain stimuli. Death, for instance. Orientals deem it fairly fine and honourable to die. But some European cultures have trumped up sassafras about death being a dark horror. Why — '

    He stopped blinked, swallowed, and laughed.

    'What
am
I saying? You don't understand one word — '

    'Sure I do. Go ahead, Gramps. It's fun.'

    'Funny duck. Your father raised you funny. But then, him being a military man, and you so close to him ‘till you come here last year.'

    'I'm not funny. I'm just
me
.'

    'There — ' Grandpa nodded, 'you
have
a point! There's no norm among humans, not really. Certain cultural norms, perhaps, but individual norms, no, no.'

    This seemed like the moment ripened on the tree of time for picking. Douglas picked.

    'Gramps, what if a man didn't have no heart, lungs or stomach?'

    Grandpa was used to such questions. 'Why, then, I guess he'd be dead.'

    'No, I don't mean that. I mean, what if he didn't have a heart or no lungs or no stomach but still walked around? Alive.'

    'That,' rumbled Gramps, 'would be a miracle.'

    'Besides,' said Douglas, swiftly. 'I don't mean a — a miracle. I mean — what if he was all
different
inside? Not like me.'

    'Oh, I see. Umm. Well, he wouldn't be quite human then, would he, boy?'

    'I guess not,' Douglas stared at the watch-fobbed stomach. 'Gramps. Gramps, you got a heart and a brain and lungs, Gramps?'

    'I should live to tell you!'

    'How do you
know?
'

    'Uh — ' Gramps stopped. 'Well,' he had to laugh, 'tell the truth, I don't know. Never seen them. Never been to a doctor, never had an X-ray. Might as well be potato-solid for all I know.'

    'How about me? Have
I
got a stomach?'

    'You certainly
have!
' said Grandma, in the parlour entrance. 'Cause I feed it. And you've lungs, because you scream loud enough to wake the crumblees. And you've dirty hands, go wash them! Dinner's ready. Grandpa, come on. Douglas, git!'

    She tinkled a little black lacquered metal bell in the hall.

    In the rush of boarders streaming downstairs, Grandpa, if he had intentions of questioning Douglas further about the weird conversation, lost his opportunity. If dinner delayed an instant more, Grandma and the potatoes would develop simultaneous lumps.

    The other boarders, laughing and talking at the table, Mr. Koberman silent and sullen between them — this attitude being attributed to liver trouble by Grandma — were put into a silent stasis by Grandfather who cleared his throat and spoke about the recent deaths in the town.

    'Save that for later, when we drink our coffee,' said Grandma.

    'It's certainly enough to make a newspaper editor prick up his ancient ears,' said Grandpa, carefully eyeing them all. 'That young Miss Larsson, lived over across the ravine, now. Found her dead three days ago for no reason, just funny kinds of tattoos all over her, and a facial expression would make Dante cringe. And that other young lady, what was her name? Whitely? She disappeared and never did come back.'

    'Those things happen alla time,' said Mr. Peters, the garage mechanic, chewing. 'Ever peek in the Missing People's Bureau file? It's
that
long.' He illustrated. 'Can't tell
what
happens to most of ‘em.'

    Grandma cut in. 'Anyone want more dressing?' She ladled liberal portions from the chicken's sad interior. Douglas watched, thinking about how that chicken had had two kinds of guts — God-made and man-made.

    Well, how about
three
kinds of guts?

    Eh?

    Why not?

    Conversation continued merry about the mysterious death of so-and-so, and, oh yes, remember a week ago, Marion Barsumian died of heart failure, but maybe that didn't connect up, or did it, you're crazy, forget it, why talk about it at supper, on a full stomach? So.

    Cigarettes fired, the diners idled lazily into the parlour, where Grandpa let somebody interrupt him on occasions when he needed breath.

    'Never can tell,' said the garage mechanic. 'Maybe we got a vampire in town.'

    'In the year 1927? Oh, go on now.'

    'Sure. Kill ‘em with silver bullets. Anything silver for that matter. I read it in a book somewhere, once. Sure, I did.'

    Douglas sat on the floor looking up at Mr. Koberman who ate with wooden knives and forks and spoons, and carried only copper pennies in his pocket.

    'It'd be poor judgment,' said Grandpa, 'to call anything by a name. We don't even know what a hobgoblin or a vampire or a troll is. Could be a lot of things. You can't heave them into categories with labels, and say they'll act one way or another. That'd be silly. They're people, people who do things. Yes, that's the way to put it — people who
do
thing's.'

    'Good evening, everyone,' said Mr. Koberman, and got up and went out for his evening walk to work.

    The radio was turned on. Card games were played. Ice-cream was bought and served later. Then, the good-nights, and into bed.

    The stars, the moon, the wind, the clock ticking and the chiming of hours into dawn, the sun coming up, and here it was another morning, another day, and Mr. Koberman coming from his walk after breakfast. Douglas stood off like a small mechanism whirring and watching with carefully microscopic eyes.

    At noon, Grandma went to the store to buy groceries.

    Douglas yelled outside Mr. Koberman's door for a minute, and then tried to enter. This time the door was locked. He had to run get the pass-key.

    Clutching the pass-key, and the pieces of coloured glass nervously, he entered and closed the door and heard Mr. Koberman breathing deep. Douglas placed the blue glass fragment over his own eyes.

    Looking through it, he found himself in a blue room, in a blue world different from the world he knew. As different as was the red world. Aquamarine furniture, cobalt bedclothes, turquoise ceilings, and the sullen dark blue of Mr. Koberman's face and arms, and his blue chest rising, falling. Also — something else.

    Mr. Koberman's eyes were wide open, staring at him with a hungry darkness. Douglas fell back, pulled the blue glass from his face. Mr. Koberman's eyes were shut. Blue glass again — open. Blue glass away — shut. Blue glass again — open. Away — shut. Funny. Douglas experimented, trembling. Through the glass the eyes seemed to peer hungrily, avidly through the closed lids, like little flashlights. Without the blue glass they seemed tight shut.

    But it was the rest of Mr. Koberman's body. . .

    Douglas must have stood amazed for five minutes. Thinking about blue worlds, red worlds, yellow worlds, side by side, living together like glass panes around the big white stair window. Side by side, the coloured panes, the different worlds; Mr. Koberman had said so himself.

    So this was why the windows had been broken. At least partially why.

    'Mr. Koberman, wake up!'

    No response.

    'Mr. Koberman, where do you work at night? Mr. Koberman, where do you work?'

    A little breeze stirred the blue window shade.

    'In a red world or a green world or a yellow one, Mr. Koberman!'

    Over everything was a blue-glass silence.

    'Wait there,' said Douglas.

    He walked out of the room, walked downstairs to the kitchen and pulled open the great squeaking drawers where all the knives lay gleaming. He picked out the sharpest, biggest one. Very calmly he walked into the hall, climbed back up the stairs again, opened the door to Mr. Koberman's room and closed it.

    Grandma was busy fingering a pie-crust into a pan when Douglas entered the kitchen to put something on the table.

    'Grandma, what's this?'

    She glanced up briefly, over her glasses. 'I don't know.'

    It was square, like a box, and elastic. It was bright orange in colour. It had four square tubes, coloured blue, attached to it. It smelled funny. Not good but yet not bad.

    'Ever see anything like it, Grandma?'

    'No.'

    'That's what
I
thought.'

    Douglas left it there, went out of the kitchen. Five minutes later he returned with something else. 'How about
this?
'

    It resembled a bright pink linked chain with a purple triangle at one end.

    'Don't bother me,' sniffed Grandma. 'It's only a chain.'

    He went away. Next time he came with two hands full. A ring, a square, a pyramid, a rectangle — and other shapes. 'This isn't all. Lots more where this came from.'

    Grandma said, 'Yes, yes,' in a far-off tone, very busy.

    'You were wrong, Grandma.'

    'About what?'

    'About all people being the same inside.'

    'Stop talking nonsense.'

    'Where's my piggy-bank?' he asked.

    'On the mantel.'

    'Thanks.'

    He tromped into the parlour, reached up for the piggy-bank.

    Grandpa came home from the office at five-fifteen.

    'Grandpa, come upstairs.'

    'Sure, son. Why?'

    'Something to show you. It's not nice. But it's interesting.'

    Grandpa chuckled, followed his grandson's feet up to Mr. Koberman's room.

    'Grandma mustn't know about this; she wouldn't like it,' said Douglas. He pushed the door wide. 'There.'

    Grandfather gasped.

    Douglas remembered the last scene all the rest of his life. Standing over the naked body, the coroner and his assistants. Grandma, downstairs, asking somebody, 'What's going on up there?' and Grandpa saying, shakily, 'I'll take Douglas away on a long vacation so he can forget this whole ghastly affair. Ghastly, ghastly affair!'

    Douglas said, 'Why should it be bad? I don't see anything bad. I don't feel bad.'

    The coroner shivered and said: 'Koberman's dead all right.'

    His assistant sweated. 'Did you see those
things
in the pan of water and in the wrapping paper?'

    'Oh, My God, My God, yes, I saw them.'

    'Christ.'

    The coroner bent over Mr. Koberman's body. 'This better be kept secret, boys. It wasn't murder. It was a mercy the boy acted. God knows what may have happened if he hadn't.'