The Illustrated Man (18 page)

“But——” said Ettil.

“Now, I know, you’ll want money. Well, we got plenty of that. Besides, I got a li’l black book full of peaches I can lend you.”

“I don’t like most of your Earth fruit and——”

“You’re a card, mac, really. Well, here’s how I get the picture in my mind—listen.” He leaned forward excitedly. “We got a flash scene of the Martians at a big powwow, drummin’ drums, gettin’ stewed on Mars. In the background are huge silver cities——”

“But that’s not the way Martian cities are——”

“We got to have color, kid. Color. Let your pappy fix this. Anyway, there are all the Martians doing a dance around a fire——”

“We don’t dance around fires——”

“In 
this
 film you got a fire and you dance,” declared Van Plank, eyes shut, proud of his certainty. He nodded, dreaming it over on his tongue. “Then we got a beautiful Martian woman, tall and blond.”

“Martian women are dark——”

“Look, I don’t see how we’re going to be happy, E.V. By the way, son, you ought to change your name. What was it again?”

“Ettil.”

“That’s a woman’s name. I’ll give you a better one. Call you Joe. Okay, Joe. As I was saying, our Martian women are gonna be blond, because, see, just because. Or else your poppa won’t be happy. You got any suggestions?”

“I thought that——”

“And another thing we gotta have is a scene, very tearful, where the Martian woman saves the whole ship of Martian men from dying when a meteor or something hits the ship. That’ll make a whackeroo of a scene. You know, I’m glad I found you, Joe. You’re going to have a good deal with us, I tell you.”

Ettil reached out and held the man’s wrist tight. “Just a minute. There’s something I want to ask you.”

“Sure, Joe, shoot.”

“Why are you being so nice to us? We invade your planet, and you welcome us—everybody—like long-lost children. Why?”

“They sure grow ’em green on Mars, don’t they? You’re a naïve-type guy—I can see from way over here. Mac, look at it this way. We’re all Little People, ain’t we?” He waved a small tan hand garnished with emeralds.

“We’re all common as dirt, ain’t we? Well, here on Earth, we’re proud of that. This is the century of the Common Man, Bill, and we’re proud we’re small. Billy, you’re looking at a planet full of Saroyans. Yes, sir. A great big fat family of friendly Saroyans—everybody loving everybody. We understand you Martians, Joe, and we know why you invaded Earth. We know how lonely you were up on that little cold planet Mars, how you envied us our cities——”

“Our civilization is much older than yours——”

“Please, Joe, you make me unhappy when you interrupt. Let me finish my theory and then you talk all you want. As I was saying, you was lonely up there, and down you came to see our cities and our women and all, and we welcomed you in, because you’re our brothers, Common Men like all of us.

“And then, as a kind of side incident, Roscoe, there’s a certain little small profit to be had from this invasion. I mean for instance this picture I plan, which will net us, neat, a billion dollars, I bet. Next week we start putting out a special Martian doll at thirty bucks a throw. Think of the millions there. I also got a contract to make a Martian game to sell for five bucks. There’s all sorts of angles.”

“I see,” said Ettil, drawing back.

“And then of course there’s that whole nice new market. Think of all the depilatories and gum and shoeshine we can sell to you Martians.”

“Wait. Another question.”

“Shoot.”

“What’s your first name? What’s the R.R. stand for?”

“Richard Robert.”

Ettil looked at the ceiling. “Do they sometimes, perhaps, on occasion, once in a while, by accident, call you—Rick?”

“How’d you guess, mac? Rick, sure.”

Ettil sighed and began to laugh and laugh. He put out his hand. “So you’re Rick? Rick! So you’re Rick!”

“What’s the joke, laughing boy? Let Poppa in!”

“You wouldn’t understand—a private joke. Ha, ha!” Tears ran down his cheeks and into his open mouth. He pounded the table again and again. “So you’re Rick. Oh, how different, how funny. No bulging muscles, no lean jaw, no gun. Only a wallet full of money and an emerald ring and a big middle!”

“Hey, watch the language! I may not be no Apollo, but——”

“Shake hands, Rick. I’ve wanted to meet you. You’re the man who’ll conquer Mars, with cocktail shakers and foot arches and poker chips and riding crops and leather boots and checkered caps and rum collinses.”

“I’m only a humble businessman,” said Van Plank, eyes slyly down. “I do my work and take my humble little piece of money pie. But, as I was saying, Mort, I been thinking of the market on Mars for Uncle Wiggily games and Dick Tracy comics; all new. A big wide field never even heard of cartoons, right? Right! So we just toss a great big bunch of stuff on the Martians’ heads. They’ll fight for it, kid, fight! Who wouldn’t, for perfumes and Paris dresses and Oshkosh overalls, eh? And nice new shoes——”

“We don’t wear shoes.”

“What have I got here?” R.R. asked of the ceiling. “A planet full of Okies? Look, Joe, we’ll take care of that. We’ll shame everyone into wearing shoes. Then we sell them the polish!”

“Oh.”

He slapped Ettil’s. arm. “Is it a deal? Will you be technical director on my film? You’ll get two hundred a week to start, a five-hundred top. What you say?”

“I’m sick,” said Ettil. He had drunk the manhattan and was now turning blue.

“Say, I’m sorry. I didn’t know it would do that to you. Let’s get some fresh air.”

In the open air Ettil felt better. He swayed. “So that’s why Earth took us in?”

“Sure, son. Any time an Earthman can turn an honest dollar, watch him steam. The customer is always right. No hard feelings. Here’s my card. Be at the studio in Hollywood tomorrow morning at nine o’clock. They’ll show you your office. I’ll arrive at eleven and see you then. Be sure you get there at nine o’clock. It’s a strict rule.”

“Why?”

“Gallagher, you’re a queer oyster, but I love you. Good night. Happy invasion!”

The car drove off.

Ettil blinked after it, incredulous. Then, rubbing his brow with the palm of his hand, he walked slowly along the street toward the rocket port.

“Well, what are you going to do?” he asked himself, aloud. The rockets lay gleaming in the moonlight silent. From the city came the sounds of distant revelry. In the medical compound an extreme case of nervous breakdown was being tended to: a young Martian who, by his screams, had seen too much, drunk too much, heard too many songs on the little red-and-yellow boxes in the drinking places, and had been chased around innumerable tables by a large elephant-like woman. He kept murmuring:

“Can’t breathe . . . crushed, trapped.”

The sobbing faded. Ettil came out of the shadows and moved on across a wide avenue toward the ships. Far over, he could see the guards lying about drunkenly. He listened. From the vast city came the faint sounds of cars and music and sirens. And he imagined other sounds too: the insidious whir of malt machines stirring malts to fatten the warriors and make them lazy and forgetful, the narcotic voices of the cinema caverns lulling and lulling the Martians fast, fast into a slumber through which, all of their remaining lives, they would sleepwalk.

A year from now, how many Martians dead of cirrhosis of the liver, bad kidneys, high blood pressure, suicide?

He stood in the middle of the empty avenue. Two blocks away a car was rushing toward him.

He had a choice: stay here, take the studio job, report for work each morning as adviser on a picture, and, in time, come to agree with the producer that, yes indeed, there were massacres on Mars; yes, the women were tall and blond; yes, there were tribal dances and sacrifices; yes, yes, yes. Or he could walk over and get into a rocket ship and, alone, return to Mars.

“But what about next year?” he said.

The Blue Canal Night Club brought to Mars. The Ancient City Gambling Casino, Built Right Inside. Yes, Right Inside a Real Martian Ancient City! Neons, racing forms blowing in the old cities, picnic lunches in the ancestral graveyards—all of it, all of it.

But not quite yet. In a few days he could be home. Tylla would be waiting with their son, and then for the last few years of gentle life he might sit with his wife in the blowing weather on the edge of the canal reading his good, gentle books, sipping a rare and light wine, talking and living out their short time until the neon bewilderment fell from the sky.

And then perhaps he and Tylla might move into the blue mountains and hide for another year or two until the tourists came to snap their cameras and say how quaint things were.

He knew just what he would say to Tylla. “War is a bad thing, but peace can be a living horror.”

He stood in the middle of the wide avenue.

Turning, it was with no surprise that he saw a car bearing down upon him, a car full of screaming children. These boys and girls, none older than sixteen, were swerving and ricocheting their open-top car down the avenue. He saw them point at him and yell. He heard the motor roar louder. The car sped forward at sixty miles an hour.

He began to run.

Yes, yes, he thought tiredly, with the car upon him, how strange, how sad. It sounds so much like . . . a concrete mixer.

THEY walked slowly down the street at about ten in the evening, talking calmly. They were both about thirty-five, both eminently sober.

“But why so early?” said Smith.

“Because,” said Braling.

“Your first night out in years and you go home at ten o’clock.”

“Nerves, I suppose.”

“What I wonder is how you ever managed it. I’ve been trying to get you out for ten years for a quiet drink. And now, on the one night, you insist on turning in early.”

“Mustn’t crowd my luck,” said Braling.

“What did you do, put sleeping powder in your wife’s coffee?”

“No, that would be unethical. You’ll see soon enough.”

They turned a corner. “Honestly, Braling, I hate to say this, but you 
have
 been patient with her. You may not admit it to me, but marriage has been awful for you, hasn’t it?”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“It’s got around, anyway, here and there, how she got you to marry her. That time back in 1979 when you were going to Rio——”

“Dear Rio. I never 
did 
see it after all my plans.”

“And how she tore her clothes and rumpled her hair and threatened to call the police unless you married her.”

“She always was nervous, Smith, understand.”

“It was more than unfair. You didn’t love her. You told her as much, didn’t you?”

“I recall that I was quite firm on the subject.”

“But you married her anyhow.”

“I had my business to think of, as well as my mother and father. A thing like that would have killed them.”

“And it’s been ten years.”

“Yes,” said Braling, his gray eyes steady. “But I think perhaps it might change now. I think what I’ve waited for has come about. Look here.”

He drew forth a long blue ticket.

“Why, it’s a ticket for Rio on the Thursday rocket!”

“Yes, I’m finally going to make it.”

“But how wonderful! You 
do
 deserve it! But won’t 
she
 object? Cause trouble?”

Braling smiled nervously. “She won’t know I’m gone. I’ll be back in a month and no one the wiser, except you.

Smith sighed. “I wish I were going with you.”

“Poor Smith, 
your
 marriage hasn’t exactly been roses, has it?”

“Not exactly, married to a woman who overdoes it. I mean, after all, when you’ve been married ten years, you don’t expect a woman to sit on your lap for two hours every evening, call you at work twelve times a day and talk baby talk. And it seems to me that in the last month she’s gotten worse. I wonder if perhaps she isn’t just a little simple-minded?”

“Ah, Smith, always the conservative. Well, here’s my house. Now, would you like to know my secret? How I made it out this evening?”

“Will you really tell?”

“Look up, there!” said Braling.

They both stared up through the dark air.

In the window above them, on the second floor, a shade was raised. A man about thirty-five years old, with a touch of gray at either temple, sad gray eyes, and a small thin mustache looked down at them.

“Why, that’s 
you!”
 cried Smith.

“Sh-h-h, not so loud!” Braling waved upward. The man in the window gestured significantly and vanished.

“I must be insane,” said Smith.

“Hold on a moment.” They waited.

The street door of the apartment opened and the tall spare gentleman with the mustache and the grieved eyes came out to meet them.

“Hello, Braling,” he said.

“Hello, Braling,” said Braling.

They were identical.

Smith stared. “Is this your twin brother? I never knew—”

“No, no,” said Braling quietly. “Bend close. Put your ear to Braling Two’s chest.”

Smith hesitated and then leaned forward to place his head against the uncomplaining ribs.

Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick.

“Oh no! It 
can’t
 be!”

“It is.”

“Let me listen again.”

Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick.

Smith staggered back and fluttered his eyelids, appalled. He reached out and touched the warm hands and the cheeks of the thing.

“Where’d you get him?”

“Isn’t he excellently fashioned?”

“Incredible. Where?”

“Give the man your card, Braling Two.”

Braling Two did a magic trick and produced a white card:

MARIONETTES, INC.
Duplicate self or friends; new humanoid plastic 1990 models, guaranteed against all physical wear. From $7,600 to our $15,000 de luxe model.

“No,” said Smith.

“Yes,” said Braling.

“Naturally,” said Braling Two.

“How long has this gone on?”

“I’ve had him for a month. I keep him in the cellar in a toolbox. My wife never goes downstairs, and I have the only lock and key to that box. Tonight I said I wished to take a walk to buy a cigar. I went down cellar and took Braling Two out of his box and sent him back up to sit with my wife while I came on out to see you, Smith.”

“Wonderful! He even 
smells
 like you: Bond Street and Melachrinos!”

“It may be splitting hairs, but I think it highly ethical. After all, what my wife wants most of all is 
me.
 This marionette 
is 
me to the hairiest detail. I’ve been home all evening. I shall be home with her for the next month. In the meantime another gentleman will be in Rio after ten years of waiting. When I return from Rio, Braling Two here will go back in his box.”

Smith thought that over a minute or two. “Will he walk around without sustenance for a month?” he finally asked.

“For six months if necessary. And he’s built to do everything—eat, sleep, perspire—everything, natural as natural is. You’ll take good care of my wife, won’t you, Braling Two?”

“Your wife is rather nice,” said Braling Two. “I’ve grown rather fond of her.”

Smith was beginning to tremble. “How long has Marionettes, Inc., been in business?”

“Secretly, for two years.”

“Could I—I mean, is there a possibility——” Smith took his friend’s elbow earnestly. “Can you tell me where I can get one, a robot, a marionette, for myself? You 
will
 give me the address, won’t you?”

“Here you are.”

Smith took the card and turned it round and round. “Thank you,” he said. “You don’t know what this means. Just a little respite. A night or so, once a month even. My wife loves me so much she can’t bear to have me gone an hour. I love her dearly, you know, but remember the old poem: ‘Love will fly if held too lightly, love will die if held too tightly.’ I just want her to relax her grip a little bit.”

“You’re lucky, at least, that your wife loves you. Hate’s my problem. Not so easy.”

“Oh, Nettie loves me madly. It will be my task to make her love me comfortably.”

“Good luck to you, Smith. Do drop around while I’m in Rio. It will seem strange, if you suddenly stop calling by, to my wife. You’re to treat Braling Two, here, just like me.”

“Right! Good-by. And thank you.”

Smith went smiling down the street. Braling and Braling Two turned and walked into the apartment hall.

On the crosstown bus Smith whistled softly, turning the white card in his fingers:

Clients must be pledged to secrecy, for while an act is pending in Congress to legalize Marionettes, Inc., it is still a felony, if caught, to use one.

“Well,” said Smith.

Clients must have a mold made of their body and a color index check of their eyes, lips, hair, skin, etc. Clients must expect to wait for two months until their model is finished.

Not so long, thought Smith. Two months from now my ribs will have a chance to mend from the crushing they’ve taken. Two months from now my hand will heal from being so constantly held. Two months from now my bruised underlip will begin to reshape itself. I don’t mean to sound 
ungrateful
 . . .

He flipped the card over.

Marionettes, Inc., is two years old and has a fine record of satisfied customers behind it. Our motto is “No Strings Attached.” Address: 43 South Wesley Drive.

The bus pulled to his stop; he alighted, and while humming up the stairs he thought, Nettie and I have fifteen thousand in our joint bank account. I’ll just slip eight thousand out as a business venture, you might say. The marionette will probably pay back my money, with interest, in many ways. Nettie needn’t know. He unlocked the door and in a minute was in the bedroom. There lay Nettie, pale, huge, and piously asleep.

“Dear Nettie.” He was almost overwhelmed with remorse at her innocent face there in the semidarkness. “If you were awake you would smother me with kisses and coo in my ear. Really, you make me feel like a criminal. You have been such a good, loving wife. Sometimes it is impossible for me to believe you married me instead of that Bud Chapman you once liked. It seems that in the last month you have loved me more wildly than ever before.”

Tears came to his eyes. Suddenly he wished to kiss her, confess his love, tear up the card, forget the whole business. But as he moved to do this, his hand ached and his ribs cracked and groaned. He stopped, with a pained look in his eyes, and turned away. He moved out into the hall and through the dark rooms. Humming, he opened the kidney desk in the library and filched the bankbook. “Just take eight thousand dollars is all,” he said. “No more than that.” He stopped. “Wait a minute.”

He rechecked the bankbook frantically. “Hold on here!” he cried. “Ten thousand dollars is missing!” He leaped up. “There’s only five thousand left! What’s she done? What’s Nettie done with it? More hats, more clothes, more perfume! Or, wait—I know! She bought that little house on the Hudson she’s been talking about for months, without so much as a by your leave!”

He stormed into the bedroom, righteous and indignant. What did she mean, taking their money like this? He bent over her. “Nettie!” he shouted. “Nettie, wake up!”

She did not stir. “What’ve you done with my money!” he bellowed.

She stirred fitfully. The light from the street flushed over her beautiful cheeks.

There was something about her. His heart throbbed violently. His tongue dried. He shivered. His knees suddenly turned to water. He collapsed. “Nettie, Nettie!” he cried. “What’ve you done with my money!”

And then, the horrid thought. And then the terror and the loneliness engulfed him. And then the fever and disillusionment. For, without desiring to do so, he bent forward and yet forward again until his fevered ear was resting firmly and irrevocably upon her round pink bosom. “Nettie!” he cried.

Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick.

As Smith walked away down the avenue in the night, Braling and Braling Two turned in at the door to the apartment. “I’m glad he’ll be happy too,” said Braling.

“Yes,” said Braling Two abstractedly.

“Well, it’s the cellar box for you, B-Two.” Braling guided the other creature’s elbow down the stairs to the cellar.

“That’s what I want to talk to you about,” said Braling Two, as they reached the concrete floor and walked across it. “The cellar. I don’t like it. I don’t like that toolbox.”

“I’ll try and fix up something more comfortable.”

“Marionettes are made to move, not lie still. How would you like to lie in a box most of the time?”

“Well——”

“You wouldn’t like it at all. I keep running. There’s no way to shut me off. I’m perfectly alive and I have feelings.”

“It’ll only be a few days now. I’ll be off to Rio and you won’t have to stay in the box. You can live upstairs.”

Braling Two gestured irritably. “And when you come back from having a good time, back in the box I go.”

Braling said, “They didn’t tell me at the marionette shop that I’d get a difficult specimen.”

“There’s a lot they don’t know about us,” said Braling Two. “We’re pretty new. And we’re sensitive. I hate the idea of you going off and laughing and lying in the sun in Rio while we’re stuck here in the cold.”

“But I’ve wanted that trip all my life,” said Braling quietly. He squinted his eyes and could see the sea and the mountains and the yellow sand. The sound of the waves was good to his inward mind. The sun was fine on his bared shoulders. The wine was most excellent.

“I’ll 
never get to go to Rio,” said the other man. “Have you thought of that?”

“No, I——”

“And another thing. Your wife.”

“What about her?” asked Braling, beginning to edge toward the door.

“I’ve grown quite fond of her.”

“I’m glad you’re enjoying your employment.” Braling licked his lips nervously.

“I’m afraid you don’t understand. I think—I’m in love with her.”

Braling took another step and froze. “You’re 
what?”

“And I’ve been thinking,” said Braling Two, “how nice it is in Rio and how I’ll never get there, and I’ve thought about your wife and—I think we could be very happy.”

“T-that’s nice.” Braling strolled as casually as he could to the cellar door. “You won’t mind waiting a moment, will you? I have to make a phone call.”

“To whom?” Braling Two frowned.

“No one important.”

“To Marionettes, Incorporated? To tell them to come get me?”

“No, no—nothing like that!” He tried to rush out the door. A metal-firm grip seized his wrists. “Don’t run!”

“Take your hands off!”

“No.”

“Did my wife put you up to this?”

“No.”

“Did she guess? Did she talk to you? Does she know? Is that it?” He screamed. A hand clapped over his mouth.

“You’ll never know, will you?” Braling Two smiled delicately. “You’ll never know.”

Braling struggled. “She 
must
 have guessed; she 
must
 have affected you!”

Braling Two said, “I’m going to put you in the box, lock it, and lose the key. Then I’ll buy another Rio ticket for your wife.”

“Now, now, wait a minute. Hold on. Don’t be rash. Let’s talk this over!”

“Good-by, Braling.”

Braling stiffened. “What do you mean, ‘good-by’?”

Ten minutes later Mrs. Braling awoke. She put her hand to her cheek. Someone had just kissed it. She shivered and looked up. “Why—you haven’t done that in years,” she murmured.