Eye in the Sky (1957) (18 page)

“I follow you,” Hamilton
assented.

“It would be a small and
unworthy thing to boast of, that EDA is a financial success. Actually, it is.
But that’s of no importance. Our task here—and it is a great and rewarding task—goes
beyond any concept of profit and gain. This is especially so, in your case.
You, as a young and idealistic beginner, are motivated by the same kind of zeal
that prompted me, once. Now I’m old. I’ve done my work. Someday, perhaps not
too far in the future, I will be laying down my burden, turning my load over to
more eager, more energetic hands.”

His hand on Hamilton’s shoulder,
Doctor Tillingford led him proudly into EDA’s vast network of research
labs.

“Our purpose,” he intoned
grandly, “is to turn the immense resources and talents of the electronics
industry to the task of raising the cultural standards of the masses. To bring
art to the great body of mankind.”

Violently, Hamilton yanked himself
away. “Doctor Tillingford,” he shouted, “can you look me
squarely in the eye and say that?”

Astonished,
Tillingford stood opening and shutting his
mouth. “Why, Jack—”
he muttered. “What—”

“How can you stand here
reciting all this nonsense? You’re an educated, intelligent man; you’re one of
the
world’s greatest research
statisticians.” Waving his arms
wildly, Hamilton roared at the
bewildered old man, “Don’t you have a mind of your own? For God’s sake—try
to remember who you are. Don’t let this happen
to you!”

Backing away in dismay, Tillingford
stuttered and
clasped his hands timidly
together. “Jack, my boy. What’s come over you?”

Hamilton shuddered. It was no use;
he was wasting
his time. Suddenly a desire
to laugh overcame him. The
situation was absurd beyond belief; he might
as well conserve his anger. It was not poor Tillingford’s fault …
Tillingford wasn’t any more to blame than the
trouser-clad
horse pulling the junk wagon.

“I’m sorry,” he said
wearily. “I’m upset”

“Goodness,” Doctor
Tillingford gasped, beginning to recover. “Would you mind if I sat down a
moment? I have a heart condition … nothing serious, an odd
complaint called paroxysmal tachycardia. Makes the
old
ticker run fast sometimes. Excuse me.” He ducked off
into a side office; the door slammed shut and the
sounds
of medicine bottle being hurriedly opened and pills being taken
filtered out into the hall.

Probably,
he had lost his new job. Listlessly, Hamilton
sank down on a hall bench and groped for his cigarettes.
A fine
start in his adjustment
…
he
couldn’t have made
a worse beginning.

Slowly,
cautiously, the door of the side office opened.
Doctor Tillingford, eyes
wide and fearful, peeped hesitantly out “Jack,” he said faintly.

“What?”
Hamilton muttered, not looking up.

“Jack,”
Tillingford asked uncertainly, “you
do
want to
bring culture to the masses, don’t you?”

Hamilton sighed. “Sure, Doctor.”
Getting to his feet
he turned to face the
old man. “I love it. It’s the greatest
thing invented.”

Relief
flooded Tillingford’s face. “Thank heaven.” His
confidence somewhat restored, he ventured out
into the
hall. “You believe you
feel strong enough to begin work?
I ah—don’t want to put too much of a
strain on you.

A
world composed of and inhabited by Edith Pritchets.
He could envision it
now: friendly, helpful, saccharine
sweet.
Doing, thinking, believing nothing but the beauti
ful and the good.

“You’re not going to fire
me?” Hamilton demanded.

“Fire
you?” Tillingford blinked. “What on earth for?”

“I
grossly insulted you.”

Tillingford chuckled weakly.
“Think nothing of it. My boy, your father was one of my dearest friends.
Sometime I’ll have to tell you how furious we used to get at each other. Chip
off the old block, eh, Jack?” Patting Hamilton cautiously on the shoulder,
Doctor Tillingford conveyed him into the labs proper. Technicians and
equipment stretched out in all directions;
a
humming, vibrant expanse of busily functioning elec
tronic research projects.

“Doctor,” Hamilton said,
without conviction, “can I
ask you one
question? Just for the record?”

“Why, of course, my boy. What
is it?”

“Do you remember Somebody named
(Tetragram
maton)?”

Doctor Tillingford looked puzzled.
“What was that? (Tetragrammaton)? No, I don’t think so. Not that I can
recall.”

“Thanks,” Hamilton said
drearily. “I just wanted to make sure. I didn’t think you did.”

From a worktable, Doctor Tillingford
picked up a copy of the
Journal of Applied Sciences
for November,
1959. There’s an article in here that’s
circulating among
our staff. It may
interest you, although it’s somewhat old
stuff, these days. An analysis
of the writings of one of the really significant men of our century, Sigmund
Freud.”

“Fine,” Hamilton said
tonelessly. He was prepared
for anything.

“As
you realize, Sigmund Freud developed the psycho
analytic concept of sex
as a sublimation of the artistic drive. He showed how the basic, fundamental
human
urge toward artistic creativity, if
given no valid means of
expression,
is transformed and altered into its surrogate
form: sexual activity.”

“Is
that right?” Hamilton murmured, resigned.

“Freud showed that in the
healthy, uninhibited human, there is no sexual drive and no curiosity or interest
in sexuality. Contrary to traditional thought, sex is a wholly artificial
preoccupation. When a man or woman is given a chance for decent, normal,
artistic
activity—painting, writing, music—the
so-called sexual drive withers away. Sexual activity is the covert, hidden
form under which the artistic talent operates
when mech
anistic society subjects the individual to unnatural in
hibition.”

“Sure,”
Hamilton said. I learned that in high school. Or something like it”

“Fortunately,” Tillingford
continued, “the initial re
sistance to
Freud’s monumental discovery has been over
come. Naturally, he met terrific opposition. But, happily,
that’s
all dying out. Nowadays you rarely find an educated person speaking of sex and
sexuality. I use the terms merely in their clinical sense, to describe an ab
normal clinical condition.”

Hopefully, Hamilton asked, “You
say there’s some
remnant of traditional
thinking among the lower classes?”

“Well,”
Tillingford conceded, “it will take time to reach
everybody.”
He brightened; enthusiasm returned. “And that’s our job, my boy. That’s
the function of the elec
tronics
craft.”

“Craft,”
Hamilton muttered.

“Not quite an art-form, I’m
afraid. But not far from it. Our task, my boy, is to continue the search for
the
ultimate communication medium,
the device which will leave no stone
unturned. By which all living humans will be faced with civilization’s cultural
and artistic
heritage. You follow me?”

“I’m there already,”
Hamilton answered. “I’ve had a
high
fidelity rig for years.”

“High fidelity?”
Tillingford was delighted. “I didn’t
realize
you had an interest in music.”

“Only
in sound.”

Ignoring him, Tillingford rushed on:
Then you’ll have to join the company symphony orchestra. We’re challenging
Colonel T. E. Edwards’ orchestra the early
part
of December. By golly, you’ll have a chance to play
against your old
company. What instrument do you
play?”

“The
uke.”

“Just
a beginner, eh? What about your wife? Does she
play?”

“The rebeck.”

Puzzled, Tillingford let the matter
drop. “Well, we
can discuss it later. I
imagine you’re anxious to get to
your
work.”

At
five-thirty that afternoon, Hamilton was permitted
to lay down his schemata and put away the tools of
his
craft. Joining the other
homeward-bound workers, he
made his way gratefully from the plant, out
onto the
tree-lined gravel paths that led
to the street.

He was just beginning to look around
for the train
station, when a familiar blue
car drove up to the curb
and came
quietly to a halt beside him. Behind the wheel
of his Ford
coupe
was Silky.

“I’ll
be damned,” he said—or thought he said. Actu
ally, it came out
darned.
“What are
you doing here? I
was about to start
hunting you down.”

Smiling,
Silky pushed open the car door for him. “I
got your name and address from the registration tag.”
She indicated the white slip on the steering
column. “You
were telling the truth, after all. What’s the ‘W.’
stand
for?”

“Willibald.”

“You’re
impossible.”

As
he got warily in beside her, Hamilton observed,
“It doesn’t tell where I work, though.”

“No,”
Silky admitted. “I called your wife and she told
me where I could find you.”

While
Hamilton gazed at her in blank dismay, Silky
shifted into low and gunned the car forward.

“You
don’t mind if I drive, do you?” she asked wist
fully. “I just
love your little car … it’s so cute and
neat,
and easy to handle.”

“Drive
it,” Hamilton said, still marveling. “You—called
Marsha?

“We
had a long heart-to-heart talk,” Silky informed
him placidly.

“What
about?”

“About
you.”

“What
about me?”

“What you like. What you do.
Oh, everything about
you. You know the way
women talk.”

Reduced to impotent silence,
Hamilton gazed sightlessly at El Camino Real and the streams of cars moving
down the peninsula to the various suburban towns. Beside him, Silky drove
happily, her small sharp face bright and contented. In this untarnished world,
Silky had undergone a radical transformation. Her blond hair dangled down her
back in two tight yellow braids. She
wore a
white middy blouse and a conservative dark blue
skirt. On her feet were
plain, unadorned loafers. She
looked, in
all respects, like a
guileless young school girl.
Make-up was lacking. Her coy, predatory expression
was
absent. And her figure, like Marsha’s, totally undevel
oped.

“How’ve
you been?” Hamilton inquired drily.

“Just
fine.”

“Do you remember,” he
asked carefully, “when I saw
you last?
You remember what was happening?”

“Of course,” Silky
answered confidently. “You and I and Charley McFeyffe drove up to San
Francisco.”

“What
for?”

“Mr. McFeyffe wanted you to
visit his church.”

“Did I?”

“I suppose so. You both
disappeared inside.”

“Then
what?”

“I have no idea. Then I fell
asleep in the car.”

“You—didn’t
see anything?”

“What
like?”

It would have sounded odd to say,
“Two grown men rising to Heaven on an umbrella. So he didn’t say it.

Instead, he asked, “Where are
we going? Back to Bel
mont?”

“Of course. What else?”

“To
my house?” Adjustment to this world was going to
be a slow process.
“You and I and Marsha—”

“Dinner’s all ready,”
Silky told him. “Or will be, by the time we get there. Marsha phoned me at
work, told me what she wanted from the store, and I picked it
up.”

“At work?” Fascinated, he
asked, “What, ah, line of business are you in?”

Silky glanced at him, perplexed.
“Jack, you’re such a
strange
man.”

“Oh.”

Troubled, Silky continued to gaze at
him until a muffled squeak of brakes ahead forced her to turn back to
the highway.

“Honk,” Hamilton
instructed her. A mammoth oil truck on their right was crowding into their
lane.

“What?”
Silky asked.

Annoyed,
Hamilton reached over and tapped the horn.
Nothing happened; no sound
came out.

“Why did you do that?”
Silky asked curiously, slowing down to allow the truck clearance ahead of her.

Relapsing back into meditation,
Hamilton filed away another piece of datum in his storehouse of wisdom. In this
world, the category
car horn
had been abolished. And, in the thick
homeward bound traffic, there should have been a constant din.

In cleaning up the ills of the
world, Edith Pritchet eradicated, not merely objects, but whole classes of
objects. Probably, at some remote time and place, she had been annoyed by a
honking car. Now, in her pleasant fantasy version of the world, such things
didn’t exist. They simply
weren’t.