Cautionary Tales (7 page)

Ethan nodded. It did make sense. Either the guy was crazy or he wasn't; why should he have to choose between incarceration and death? But there was a third possibility. “Suppose you are neither crazy nor correct, but simply had a bad vision?” he asked. “So there are no dragons, and if you just recognize that, you can be released and pursue a normal life?”

Ulysses turned that disquieting stare on him once more. “I hope you believe that, because it will save you from a terrible revelation. Look at the wall again, and pray you do not see Jesus.”

Ethan gazed at the wall. The random pattern of stains remained. He concentrated, giving it his best effort, because he didn't want to be blinded by prejudice, he wanted to be quite sure there was nothing.

He realized that one part of the pattern might almost resemble an eye. Another could be taken as the highlight of a chin. And a gently curving line might be called the bridge of a nose, with the light on one side, shadow on the other. Maybe, by a sufficient stretch of the imagination, it would be possible to picture a crude face there. Follow the nose-line down, and there was maybe a nostril; follow it up, and there was the arc of an eyebrow. The larger black and white patches framed the head, and below were the shoulders and chest, with a loosely hanging garment …

It was, indeed, a picture of Jesus. Suddenly the calm, understanding gaze met his own gaze. “I see—” Ethan breathed, astonished at the clarity and detail of it, where before there had been only smears.

“You see nothing!” Ulysses snapped. “It's just a stained wall!”

“No, you are right! It's Jesus.” Ethan looked around. “And there on the wall behind you is a beautiful natural landscape. And on the floor—why there's a river, with fish swimming in it, and a mermaid! And on the ceiling—what's that creature?”

“It's a dragon!” Ulysses whispered. “Avert your gaze, man, before it sees you looking! Do you want to die?”

Ethan yanked his eyes away. He focused on Ulysses. “Now look,” he said, shaken. “I agree there are pictures, with astonishing realism; it's as if this entire hospital ward is just a glass shell, through which we can see a fantastic larger world. But that's all it is, of course: just a pattern of pictures. Pictures can't harm anyone. So why not appreciate them?”

“I can do so,” Ulysses said. “Because I'm certified crazy, and no one believes me. But you must not, because you're sane. Now I see I should never have spoken to you, never have told you the truth. I thought you were too ignorantly self-assured to see, but I misjudged you. For your own safety, for your very life, shut it out, man, shut it out!”

Ethan still did not believe in any invisible dragons. But the extent of the revelation that the picture of Jesus had brought him shook his very nature. Ulysses had been right about Jesus, and right about the hidden larger world beyond the normal one, at least in appearance. Suppose he were right about the rest?

“Of course it's just an optical illusion,” Ethan said. “I tried to empathize with you, to see what you see, and I succeeded. But the difference between us is that I know it's not real.”

“Yes, yes!” he agreed. “Hang on to that! Don't look at it any more. Look for the stains, the cracks, the meaningless randomness beyond the limited world. Know that I am crazy, and you don't want to be that way. Go away from me; when you return, I won't talk to you at all, so you'll know it was just your idle fancy that I had a lucid moment. Don't put your death on my conscience.”

“But you know I can't pretend that you weren't lucid!” he said. “I may disagree with your vision, but certainly you can talk. You don't have to pretend—”

But he saw that the man's gaze had wandered. Ulysses was now staring at the wall again, ignoring him.

“Hey, don't do that!” Ethan exclaimed.

Ulysses glanced at him. His eyes were unfocussed, and a bit of drool was starting down his chin. He was playing the idiot.

Disgusted, Ethan turned away. But still he saw the larger world. It had been a job to fathom it, but once he had done so, he couldn't un-fathom it, any more than he could forget how to ride a bike once he had learned.

Well, he would do something about this. He would go fetch a supervisor, and show him the picture of Jesus. He would get others to see the larger world. Then Ulysses would have to talk to them, and whatever truth there was behind this vision would emerge.

He turned the corner to enter the wing of the ward where the phone was.

There, beside the phone, was the dragon.

Note:
As I recall, in 1991 I was asked to contribute a story to a prospective anthology, so I wrote “A Picture of Jesus,” based on an experience I had had, trying to see Jesus in an obscure picture. I looked at it every day, and after about six months finally saw Jesus. I guess a religious person can do it much faster. My wife, the daughter of a minister, saw it faster, I think. Everything I experience is grist for my imagination: suppose the ability to see something in such a picture were an avenue to a larger perception, perhaps with danger? So I merged the notion with my long-ago experience as an aide in a mental hospital, describing the patients I actually knew, and wrote the story.

Time passed, and the anthology did not find a publisher. So when I had a request from another publisher, I gave them this one, and it was published in
Science Fiction Age,
July 1993. Now, twenty years later, it should be safe to share it with you without getting caught by a dragon. But if you see that picture, don't push your luck.

Caution: personal essay, some repetition

5. My America

I'm an immigrant. I'm from England, and it was England I longed for as a child; America felt like exile. My parents did relief work in Spain during its savage civil war, feeding starving children, until my father was “disappeared” by the victorious dictatorship. He smuggled out a note, and with that and the threat of financial repercussions, they were able to get him free, though banished from the country. Thus we came to America on the last commercial ship out, in 1940, as World War Two engulfed Europe. I don't like discrimination against immigrants; too many are far worse off than we were, victims of totalitarian abuses. America is a refuge.

I'm a writer. I write because my imagination will not be suppressed. America has the freedom for the flowering of the arts, including writing. When I write, I receive love for my fiction and ire for my success. I understand what it is like to be the object of such mixed attentions.

I'm a naturalized American. My education, career, family, and future are here. I believe in the Constitutional values, for I chose to subscribe to them, and wince when I see them abridged. Unfortunately there is some of that occurring now, as fanaticism, greed, and lust for power prosper in the name of patriotism. I do have a notion where that leads. Yet I hope and believe that in time America will cast off these illnesses and return to the grandeur of its aspirations.

America is relatively wealthy and free and proud, so is loved and hated regardless of its merits. Love inspires tolerance; hatred sponsors terrorism. I saw one building become a ghastly smokestack, and a plane crash into another like a deadly chicken coming home to roost, and I saw the tall towers fall. I saw the heroes and the bigots roused, and the shock of illusion shattered. I remembered the assassination of President John Kennedy, the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and I thought of the Chinese curse: “May you live in interesting times.”

I'm an immigrant. I'm a writer. I'm American.

Note:
I shared the shock of the nation when 9/11 happened, so when Hugh Downs solicited me to contribute to his volume
My America
, I did so, becoming one of 150 Americans to do so. It was published a year after the event. As it turned out, there came to be hundreds of volumes about that day, so this one wasn't that remarkable, but it was worth doing once.

Caution: graphic rape by a woman

6. Serial

The security screen gave a silent alarm. Newton sat up in his pajamas, gazing at the screen. Someone was studying his premises, doing a systematic survey. A scintillatingly beautiful woman.

He touched the intercom button. “Maria.”

“Master,” she responded immediately.

“Here to me. Bedroom.”

“Can I fix hair, put on something sexy?” she asked eagerly.

“No.”

She did not respond. In a moment she entered, garbed in drab working clothing that could not conceal her excellent figure. “Master?”

“Someone is spying on the estate. A woman.”

“I call police?”

“No. Take the car this afternoon. Make sure you are seen leaving. Go to a motel for the night. See a movie. You have time off.”

“Master, I no want time off!” she protested. “I want you rape me like you used to.”

“No.”

“Master, please. I still got body.” She tore open her blouse to reveal her full breasts. “You no need other woman.”

Newton frowned. “Do not argue with me, Maria. You know that only annoys me.”

“Then punish me! I argue, I disobey you.” She ripped off the rest of her clothing. “I bad girl! Spank me.”

“Maria—”

She stepped into him, pressing close, bearing him back on the bed, hungrily kissing him. “Punish me!” she repeated. “Torture me. I scream real good.”

He heaved her off him, but she clung tenaciously. “Dammit, Maria! You know your status has changed. Get out of here.”

“Rape me first!” Her hands were clawing at his pajamas. “Like before.”

He struggled to free himself, but it was like wrestling with a tar baby. She would not be dislodged short of mayhem. Which was of course what she wanted.

“Enough!” He slapped her face with his open hand. It smashed her lips against her teeth, and a smear of blood appeared.

“Beat me!” she gasped. “Make me hurt!”

The violence and blood aroused him, as she intended. He grasped her by the neck, pinned her to the bed, rolled on top of her, and wedged his erect member between her wide-spread legs. “Resist me,” he reminded her.

“Yes! Yes! I fight you!” She hauled her legs together and struggled ineffectively to push his hands away.

He squeezed her throat until her face reddened and her struggling weakened. She went limp. Then he rammed up between her loosened legs and into her vagina, thrusting once, twice, and climaxing. He put his face down to kiss her bruised mouth. She firmed her lips, kissing back avidly.

Newton subsided, spent. “The irony is, you're no masochist, Maria,” he said. “You're a normal woman.”

“I anything you want,” she said. “I wish you love me.”

“Maria, you know my taste. You're no longer a caged bird. You no longer hate and fear me. It's over. Accept what I offer: decent employment.”

“Not enough. You no love me, but I love you. The stockyard syndrome.”

He had to smile. “Stockholm.”

“At least it like old time, right now. I felt your passion.”

He rolled off her. “You play a dangerous game, Maria. I could have killed you in my rage.”

“Then I die happy.” She was incorrigible. But she knew as well as he did that it was a bluff. He was a sadist and a rapist, but not a killer.

“Now do what I tell you. Clean up, dress, go out to a motel later in the day. Use the grocery credit card to buy yourself something you like. Chocolate éclairs, perhaps.”

She licked her lips, but shook her head. “They fatten me. I only jam them in hole and squeeze, pretend it you.”

He had to laugh. His penis was huge and fat and soft, with custard for an emission? He wandered whether she would really do that. She just might. “I want to be alone tonight. To encourage her to come in.”

“Master, you no know what that lady dog intend. Maybe she a cereal killer. Maybe she come to rob and rub out you.”

Newton smiled grimly, not bothering to correct what he knew was her misspelling of serial. “Then maybe I will die happy. Look at her!” For now the woman's image on the screen was sharp. “What a stunner.”

“I jealous.” And of course she was. But she got up, collected her things, and departed. She had no further reason to remain; she had after all succeeded in seducing him. That was a genuine, if minor, victory on her part.

For Maria knew him for what he was. She had been his last victim, tricked into coming into this country undocumented for maidservant work, knowing very little English, then locked in his underground prison and forced into sexual slavery. She had been good for about six months, resisting bitterly as he repeatedly raped her, cursing him in her native tongue. But finally she had come to accept her situation, and even to enjoy their sexual sessions. They were better, she confessed, than being always alone and totally bored. But as her resistance eased, becoming token, so did his passion. He had given her more freedom, so that she had the chance to run away. She had not taken it. Now she was truly his loyal maidservant—and longed to be his captive again. It was ironic.

But she typified his larger problem: he was not turned on by conventional love. He preferred hate. The girls he captured inevitably ameliorated in the course of time, becoming resigned or accepting. That was like stale beer. So they had to be disposed of, to make way for the next. As a rule he did not like killing, using it only as a threat; it was too apt to stir up complications, even though no body would ever be found. It was easier to ship them off to some distant location with enough money to see them through a month or so while they found their bearings. They never knew his real name or location, calling him Master, so could not implicate him. Only Maria knew, and had become his tacit accomplice. But her continuing feeling for him was awkward.

He gazed into the screen. He had an outdated security system that could fairly readily be nullified. That was the honey pot. His real system was unlikely even to be detected, and could not be nullified without lethal consequences. So he knew when intruders came. Generally they were robbers, who would trip some hidden wire and summon the police. Or so they thought, not knowing that he signaled the police when he had verified the intruder's nature. This one was different: not only a woman, but an outstandingly voluptuous one.