Kate Wilhelm in Orbit - Volume Two (8 page)

I took more steps toward the door; it was open and I tried to see inside without entering. Then I heard a grumbling voice. “Don’t hold the screen open. Mosquitoes thick as dust in here. I went inside. An old woman was sitting at a small table. She beckoned to me without looking up. “Don’t be skittish, girl. I don’t eat young’uns.” She was unbelievably old, her skin was brown and thin, transparent on her hands. She reached out and took my left hand, then rubbed her thumb over the warts, mumbling in a barely audible monotone. “Rub a seed potato over them, then bury it where the moon will shine on it and when the potato rots the warts will be gone.” She raised her head and the brilliant blue that studied me were young eyes with dancing light in them. I don’t know how long I stood there with my hand in that ancient hand, staring at those young eyes. Emma’s voice roused me, broke the tableau. I pulled my hand away.

“What did she tell you?” Emma asked, walking home. “I heard the part about a better than average marriage, and three kids. What else?”

I looked up and down the quiet dirt road, and the dark little town. There was nothing to see. “I don’t remember,” I said. Then I did. “She said that I’d become a famous scientist or something.” We giggled over that for a long time after we went to bed, until Aunt Janie told Emma she’d send her Pa in if she heard anything else out of us.

I didn’t go to sleep. I stared at the ceiling and felt a fear that I couldn’t explain or rid myself of as if somehow the world had shifted and nothing was what I thought it was. But I couldn’t describe why it frightened me so. And under the fear, waiting for it to ease, there was an overwhelming sadness that finally seized me and I buried my face in the pillow and wept, and didn’t know why.

• • •

The Red Canary

(Orbit 12 — 1973)

Sometimes the baby played with old blocks that Tillich had found. The blocks were worn almost smooth, so that the letters and numbers were hard to read. You had to turn them this way and that, catch the light just right. The corners were rounded; there was no paint on them. Tillich remembered blocks like them. He thought the old, worn ones were much nicer than the shiny, sharp-cornered new ones had been. He never watched the baby play, actually. He would see it on the floor, with the blocks at hand, and he would busy himself somewhere else, because there was the possibility that the baby’s movements with the blocks were completely random. In Tillich’s mind was an image of the baby playing with blocks. He was afraid of shattering the image.

There had been another image. The baby sleeping peacefully, on its side after its morning bottle; its forefinger and index finger in its mouth. Tillich glanced at it each morning before leaving for work, in case it had wriggled out from its covers, or was under them completely. Always, in the dim dawn light, the baby’s sleep had been peaceful and Tillich had left quietly. One morning, for no reason, Tillich entered the room, went to the other side of the bed to look at the infant. It wasn’t asleep. It was staring, not moving, hardly even blinking, just staring at nothing at all, the two fingers in its mouth. It shifted its gaze to Tillich and stared up at him in an unfathomable look that was uncanny, eerie, inhuman and somehow evil. Tillich backed away, out of its line of sight. At the partition that separated that end of the bedroom from the rest of it, he paused to look back. The baby looked asleep, unmoving, peacefully asleep.

“Tillich,” he said at the dispensary. “Norma Tillich.”

The dispensary nurse read the card he handed her.

“Any change? Does she need an appointment?”

“No. No change.”

“Two a day, morning and night. Fourteen capsules. Please verify fourteen and sign at the bottom.”

He hated the young woman on duty in the dispensary. If he could get there during his lunch break, she wouldn’t be on duty. He never could make it until after work, however. She had a large, bony face. Her hands were large, strong fingers flicking out capsules, pills, moving deftly, sure of themselves. No need to verify the count when she was on duty. The computer card went back into the machine. He moved on. The line was always there, might always have been the same people in the same order. He hurried home. She would be hungry. The baby would be hungry and crying.

“Good morning, Mr. Rosenfeld.”

“Good morning, Mr. Tillich. You are well, I trust?”

“Quite well, thanks.” He poured boiling water over the soup powder, spread two large crackers with Pro-team and put them on the tray. He filled Mr. Rosenfeld’s water pitcher and got some fresh cups out and put them on the bed stand. “Anything else, Mr. Rosenfeld?”

“No. No. That’ll do me. Thank you kindly.”

“You’re welcome. I’ll just drop in this evening.”

“Not if you’re busy, my friend.”

“No trouble. Have a good day, Mr. Rosenfeld.”

The old man nodded. He was eyeing his tray, impatient for his breakfast, too polite to begin until Tillich was gone.

The baby was always wet and usually soiled as well when he got home. Tillich changed it and put it in its bed with its bottle propped by it. Its color was greyed yellow.

“Norma, did he eat anything today?”

She looked vague. Then her face folded in somehow and collapsed in tears. “I don’t know. I can’t remember. You left the formula, didn’t you? Did you forget its formula?”

“I didn’t forget. The bottle’s gone. You must have put it in the disposer. Did he take the milk?”

She wept for another minute or two, then jumped up, peeking at him between her fingers. She sang, “
I had a red canary. He couldn’t sing. I left the window open and he flew away.
Would that be a bad thing to do? Let it fly away, I mean.”

“No, that wouldn’t be bad.”

“Because I would. And I’d watch him fly away. Fly away. Fly away.”

Sometimes she brought him her brush. “Would you like to do my hair?” It was long and silky when it was clean and brushed, alive with red-gold highlights in the dark blond. Her eyes were blue, sometimes green, her skin very pale and translucent. Blue veins made ragged ray patterns on her breasts, which were rounded, firm, exciting to him. She had nursed the baby for months. One day she hadn’t, then another and another. It took days and days for her milk to stop, and all the while it seemed to puzzle her. She would come show him her wet clothes, or drying milk on the bedding, on her belly. When he tried to put the baby to her breast again, she recoiled as if terrified. He awakened one night to find her kneeling over him trying to force the nipple between his lips. There was a taste of sweet milk on his mouth.

Mrs. De Vries lived on the same floor; he met her often. She usually had a child by the hand when they met. She was very thin and tired-looking. When he opened the door to an insistent knock, she was there.

“Mr. Tillich, will you please come? Please. I need someone.”

He glanced back inside; Norma hadn’t even looked up. She was watching the TV with a rapt expression. He hesitated a second, then stepped out into the hall, closing the door behind him. “What’s wrong?”

“One of the kids. God, I don’t know.” She hurried him down the hall to her apartment. A girl about ten stood in the doorway. He had seen her before in the hall, down in the lobby. She had always seemed normal enough. She held the door open and moved aside as they came near.

Mrs. De Vries pushed Tillich past the girl, through the living room to a bedroom that had mattresses all over the floor. Two more children stared at him, then he saw the other child, alone on a mattress against the wall. The child, a boy, four, five, was having a convulsion. His back was arched, his tongue protruded between clamped jaws, blood and foam on his chin. He was already cyanotic.

Tillich turned to the woman. “Don’t you have any medicine for him?”

“No. He never did this before. My God, what is it?”

“Call Pediatrics, Emergency.” She stared. “Do you have a phone?”

“No.”

“I’ll go. What’s his name? Symptoms?”

“Roald De Vries. Fever a hundred and four, all day.”

He called Pediatrics, Emergency. “I’m sorry. We are already over capacity. Please leave patient’s identification number, name and reason for calling. Take patient to nearest hospital facility at eight
a.m
. Thank you. This is a recording.”

He didn’t have the number.

“I’ll stay here,” he told Mrs. De Vries. “Call them back and give his file number. Or they won’t see him tomorrow.”

The oldest child was the girl he had seen before. Waiting for her mother to return, he saw the welts on her arms, her neck. She seemed to have conjunctivitis. The next two children, boys about six and five, were very thin, and the larger of the two peed on the floor. The girl cleaned it up soundlessly. There were two bedrooms. A man slept in the other one. He had the dry, colorless skin of long illness; his sleep was unnatural. He was heavily sedated. Tillich looked at the sick child. His body was limp now and dripping sweat. The woman came back and he left. He saw her again a week later. Neither of them mentioned the child.

Tillich brought in the trains in section 3B. He picked them up fifty miles from the city, each one a brilliant speck of white or green light. His fingers knew the keys that opened and closed switches, that stopped one of the lights, hurried another. It was like weaving a complex spiderweb with luminous spiders.

He worked three hours, had a twenty-minute break, worked three more hours, had forty minutes for lunch, then the last three hours. He worked six days a week. He compared his work with a friend, Frank Jorgens, and both agreed it was harder than the air-traffic control job that Jorgens had.

“I have to have a raise,” Tillich said to the union representative.

“You know better than that, Tillich. We don’t ask for a raise for just one guy and his problems. Every sod has them.”

He tried to apply directly to the personnel department; his application was rejected, accompanied by a notice that he could appeal through his union representative. He threw the application and the notice away.

“Tillich. Norma Tillich.”

“Any change? Does she require an appointment?”

“Yes, we need to see her doctor.”

“Please take your card and this form to one of the tables and fill it out. When you have completed it, return it to one of the attendants in Section Four-N. Thank you.” The young woman looked at him directly; he frowned and snatched the form sheet.

Name. Age. Copy code from Line 3 of patient’s identity card. Copy code from Lines 7, 8, 9… Reason for request to see physicians. Check one. If none apply, use back of application to state reason.

He rubbed his eyes. He should have written it out at home so he could simply copy it here.
She can’t take care of the child. She neglects it. She doesn’t eat or feed the baby, or keep it clean. It might injure itself. Or she might.
He read it, dissatisfied. It was true, but not enough. He added only:
injure herself
.

“Thank you, Mr. Tillich. You will be notified next week when you come back. Report to this desk at that time. Fourteen capsules. Will you please verify the count and sign here.”

His request was turned down. There was a typed message attached to her card. Tillick (they had misspelled the name), Norma. Nonaggressive. A series of dates and numbers followed. The times she had seen doctors, their diagnoses and instructions, all unintelligible to Tillich. Request denied on grounds of insufficient symptomatic variation from prognosis of 6-19-87-E-D-P/S-4298-MC.

“Fourteen capsules. Verify count please and sign here.”

The baby learned a new cry. It started high, wailed with increasing volume until it hit a note that made Tillich’s head hurt. Then it cut it off abruptly and gasped a time or two and started over.

“You have to feed it while I’m gone,” he said. “You can hold its bottle. Remember. Like this.”

She wasn’t watching. She was looking beyond him, past the baby, smiling at what she saw between herself and the streaked blue wall. He looked at the child who was taking formula greedily, staring at him in his unblinking way. Tillich closed his eyes.

After the baby was through, Tillich made their dinner. Tasti-meat, potatoes, soy-veg melange. She ate as greedily as the baby.

“Norma, while I’m at work you could eat some of the crackers I bought for you. The baby could chew on one. Remember them, Norma?”

She nodded brightly. The baby stared to wail. She seemed not to hear it. While he cleaned up the dishes she watched TV. The baby wailed. Its next clinic appointment was in two months. He wondered if it would wail for the whole eight weeks, fifty-nine nights. He broke a plate, each hand gripping an edge painfully. He stared at the pieces. They were supposed to be unbreakable.

The baby wailed until twelve, when he fed it again. Gradually it quieted down after that, and by one it seemed to be sleeping. He didn’t go past the partition to see.

Norma was waiting for him on their bed. Her cheeks were flushed, her nipples hard and dark red. He started to undress and she pulled at his clothes, laughing, stopping to nip the flesh of his stomach, his buttock when he turned around, his thigh. She crowed in delight at his erection, and he fell on her in savage coitus. She cried out, screamed, raked his back, bit his lip until it bled. She clung to him and tried to push him away. She called him names and cursed him and whispered love words and gutter words. When it was over, she rolled from him, felt the edge of the bed and crept from it, staring at him in horror, or hatred. She backed to the door, crouching, ready to bolt. At the doorway she shrieked like a wild animal mortally wounded, again and again. He buried his head in the bedding. Presently she became silent and he took a cover from the bed and put it over her on the couch where she slept very deeply. He knew he could pick her up, carry her to bed, she wouldn’t wake up. But all he did was cover her. He looked at the baby. It hadn’t moved. He shivered and went to bed.

“Fourteen capsules. Verify fourteen, please, and sign…”

“There are only thirteen.”

The long, capable fingers stopped. Tillich looked up. She returned his glance with no expression, then looked again at the pale-green capsules. Her fingers moved deliberately as she counted, “…twelve. Thirteen.” She pushed another one across the counter. “Fourteen. Please verify fourteen, Mr. Tillich.” Again she met his gaze. Her eyes were grey, her eyelashes were very long and straight.