Restoree (2 page)

“Eat red food. Eat red food,” Balon snarled into the speaker system.

There were no more incidental remarks over the speaker that day, but it was a constant source of odd, vulgar dialogues between much the same personnel during the next week.

Although I never understood their topical references until much later, my understanding of the language increased immensely . . . if limited to a very rough vernacular. I knew there was a war going on between these people and the inhabitants of another planet, Tane. I knew that the army unit, the Patrol, was considered to be run by incompetents and that the casualties were high. That there was a sudden epidemic of insanity that caused the guards no end of secret amusement.

I had been told by Balon to return the tray after I had eaten the red food. I was then told to be seated in the other chair of the room without any further commands for what seemed a long time. My private meditations were uninterrupted until the green sun had sunk from sight and a twin-moonlit night well darkened.

As the greening twilight increased to the point of low visibility, I was briefly startled to see the lights in the four corners of the room come on. It was not overly bright for me to assume that a central agency turned on all the functions of the cottage, remotely controlling the order of the days with no need for personal contact. This isolation was merciful to me as I sorted out truth from fancy in newly regained sanity.

Perhaps, on another day, if I hadn’t heard the coarse interchange, I might have innocently announced my rationality. The wise decision to remain silent was strengthened each day by the grotesque conversations I overheard. It was lucky, too, that there was not a single diversion in that barely furnished room so that my activity, outside of the care of my patient, was restricted to looking out the window or sitting looking at my vacant-eyed companion. Any other industry would have immediately communicated my change to the guard on his random rounds.

I learned early that the speaker system was two-way. A chance, overloud comment on my part fetched the guard instantly. To him I presented the same vacant stare that inhabited the face of my charge. He looked at me suspiciously, caressed me in a vulgar fashion that shocked me motionless and departed with a shrug of his shoulders. After that I lived with another dread, that one of them might select me for his pleasure.

It was a good thing, too, that there was no visual check installed in the cottage or I should have been apprehended the very next morning of my rationality as I stood in front of the window and made my most amazing discovery.

For the body I inhabited bore few resemblances to the one I distinctly remembered possessing. It was the same height, same chestnut hair, but it was a slim, graceful figure I saw, not my former awkward self. And my skin was a warm golden color. All over. In contour my face was similar, but now my blue eyes stared at, to me, a totally transformed face. My incredulous fingers softly caressed the new, marvelously congruous nose. No longer was I crucified by that horrible hooked monstrosity bequeathed me with hereditary injustice from some New England zealot. This new nose, all golden, fine-grained skin, was straight, short and charming. I stroked it, reveling in the tactile sensation that proved it was really part of me and there was no more of it than I could see in the window reflection. How many, many agonies that horrid nose had given me. How often I had railed at the injustice of parents who produced child after indiscriminate child and had no money to provide more than the basic needs and none to remedy cruel genetic jokes.

Had they been at least sympathetic, I would not have left home. But they couldn’t even understand why I wanted to save money for plastic surgery. Only Jewish girls felt it necessary to have nose bobs. The fact that I looked Semitic with such a nose didn’t bear on that problem.

“You are as God made you, Sara, and you’ve much to commend you to any decent self-respecting man.”

“But nothing to commend myself to
me,”
I remembered saying, “and I don’t see any decent self-respecting men pounding a path to my door.”

They couldn’t argue that, certainly, for not even my brothers could be blackmailed or pressured into getting me dates. But they could and did argue against my going to New York although I had a written job offer, a good one with an advertising firm, confirmed and secured.

“Why the library right here in Seaford has offered you a very nice position,” my father had argued.

“Seaford? I might as well rot in the end of the world,” I had cried. “I’m twenty-one and I’m leaving home. If I cook another meal for anyone, it’ll be for myself and not for six field-hand appetites that don’t know decent food from pigs’ swill.” I had glared at my brothers, busy shoveling food into their mouths. “If I iron anything, it’ll be my own clothing, not shirts and shirts and shirts.”

“The girl’s ill,” my mother had declared as if this explained my unexpected outburst.

“All that education,” my father had retorted sourly. He had resented my insistence on college, to the point where I had had to work constantly to support myself: making ends meet only because library majors got state support.

“I’m not ill. I’m sick, but not of education. I’m sick of Seaford and everyone in it.”

“But everyone knows you here, hon,” Seth, the brother next oldest to me, said soothingly. He alone came nearest to appreciating my despair. He had needed glasses desperately as a young boy and his now permanently damaged eyes were weak, watering and subject to continual inflammations.

“And
no one
wants me,” I had cried from the bitterness of my soul. “At twenty-one, I have never even had a date.”

“I’m leaving, Mother,” I had repeated quietly and to end conversation had started to clear the table. And I did leave, taking my suitcase from the back porch on my way out the kitchen door to catch the night bus to Wilmington and the train to New York City.

But now, here on some strange planet, God only knows how many light-years from Seaford, Delaware, I had my new nose. I giggled. If I ever got back home, I could use my savings for a trip to Europe. Only I was abroad already.

I stroked my nose again and then the smooth, golden-skinned arms where a dark hairy growth had once added to the list of my physical embarrassments.

Further examination proved that three prominent scars, the rewards of trying to play tomboy to my older brothers, were gone from my body. Of my disfiguring marks, only the double gash on my right instep where I had stepped on a bottle wading remained. But the corns on my toes from shoes too short for growing feet were gone.

I was utterly delighted, mystified and grateful to, if appalled by, the strange agency that had caused this transformation. I was all my most glowing dreams had once evoked. Not beautiful but pretty, healthy looking with my golden tan (only it wasn’t a tan, I discovered), properly curved—and precious little advantage could I see of it, locked in one room with a mindless idiot.

The air of danger and despair that hung over the pleasant gardens and bare cottages could not be mistaken. When outsiders walked among us, the guards were tensely alert. The lack of treatments of any kind, the tenor of the conversations I overheard on the loudspeakers, contrasted strangely with the luxurious surroundings and the physical appearance girls and patients were made to maintain. The other women who paraded with their charges were pretty, perfect in their prettiness with almost frightening similarity. Their expressions were only slightly more intelligent than those of their patients. A case of the dolt caring for the idiotic in a moronic paradise.

I learned the reason for the simple harness that had to be strapped on my man before each promenade in the garden. A small, needled vial containing a tan, viscous fluid was aimed at the right arm through the padding that kept both arms bound to the sides. A jerk on the reins exerted a pressure that drove the needle into the arm.

I saw one man run berserk, yelling, dragging the girl who, in her stupidity, still clutched the reins. He halted abruptly, screaming in agony, and dropped rigid to the ground. The performance thoroughly frightened me and I regarded the big man I cared for with alarm. I knew of no such precautions should a seizure overtake a patient in the cottage. One night, though, I did hear the sudden crescendo of hysterical laughter, shrieks and a final shrill cry from a neighboring cottage. I did see the limp, bloody figure of a girl carried out. Another pretty, blue-robed woman took her place by the next exercise hour, vacantly parading her glassy-eyed charge. I took to staring at my ugly man at all times, hoping to forestall such an occurrence in my cottage. I knew every line on his face, every pitted scar, every twitch of his muscles. At one point, I started with every deep breath he took.

My patient received his first professional visit eight days after my recovery. Three men came in; a white-coated technician pushed in a small treatment cart and immediately left; the fat-faced man called Gleto came in and a man whose appearance was an odd contrast to Gleto’s.

Gleto ordered me to stand in one corner and vacantly I moved after what I considered an appropriate time for moronic comprehension. I stood, however, so that I could see everything that went on and the third man held my attention most.

He was not tall, just my height, and carried himself stiffly erect. His movements were all as precise as a Scots guardsman, no motion was wasted. His skin seemed to be drawn tightly across his skull and each straight black hair on his head was precisely combed into place. His nose was high-bridged and thin; his lips were thin, his eyes of a nondescript shade were penetrating and intense, set deeply into his skull. There was no expression on his face nor were there any lines that indicated he had ever had any expression. A colder personality I never met nor a more impressive one. In dress, manner, color, motion, speech, he was a machine of efficiency, not a human being.

He made a rapid and thorough examination of the patient, skimming the first page of the stiff chart on the treatment wagon without missing a word. Looking up, he said:

“I see no need whatever of increasing the dosage now. The injection every two weeks plus the oral amounts in his food are ample to subdue his personality,” and he implied that his valuable time had been wasted.

“I’m taking no chances,” Gleto replied accusingly, “and you haven’t been here in two months. You know how powerful Harlan is physically,” and the heavy, fat eyelids flickered with unctuous insolence, “since it took three injections to hold him under the first week.”

The cold man looked at Gleto. “And you will no doubt recall from whose laboratories cerol originated and who is most familiar with its properties. I am no more eager for his recovery than you. It would interrupt my research at a time when success is a matter of weeks away.” The thin, precise eyebrows raised imperceptibly and the cold man reached for the chart again, flipping over a few rigid sheets before his thin finger jabbed at a notation.

With no expression he now indicated displeasure.

“Where is the weekly absorption count? If you are stupid enough to ignore the simple precaution of an absorption count, naturally you are stupid enough to sit quivering with fright that Harlan might recover. I thought I had made the necessity of those checks adequately clear to your technicians.”

Gleto attempted to pass this off.

“Do not evade the issue, Gleto,” came the implacable voice. “The absorption count has not been taken for four weeks. One is to be taken immediately and retaken every other week. When I have perfected a simple check, I do not intend to waste time coming here just to remind you to use it.”

“I don’t have the technicians to . . .”

“What about that . . . fellow outside?”

Gleto snorted at the suggestion.

“I thought so. You’ve spent only enough of your wealth to maintain an outward appearance of efficiency and shiver in your bed at night because your avarice prevents you from hiring sufficient personnel to run this
place
properly.”

Gleto looked at him suspiciously and then twisted his lip into a sneer.

“You don’t fool me, Monsorlit; absorption rates, ha! That’s just an excuse to get more of your dummies off your hands.”

Monsorlit turned his eyes from the chart he had started to reread to gaze at the fat man. The room became still, broken only by the breathing of the patient, until the sneer left Gleto’s face and he began to shift his bulk restlessly.

“Your assessment of the situation is erroneous and I mistakenly credited you with more medical acumen than you possess. And I correct your term ‘dummy’ to ‘mental defective.’ ” Monsorlit’s voice without changing pitch gave the effect of a shouted disgust for Gleto. “Since your perception is limited by its effect on your cash pouch, I will send, with my compliments, a repossessed technician who can perform this simple but necessary test. He will come each fifth day. I will have one ready for such tasks in four weeks. In the meantime,” Monsorlit took a lancet and ampul and deftly took a blood sample from the ugly man.

Gleto recovered his poise and affected a knowing smile.

“Your generosity, indeed,” he scoffed.

“The technician’s instructions will be limited to Harlan, as he is the only one with whom I am concerned,” Monsorlit continued, taking up a filled syringe, testing it and then plunging it into the patient’s vein. The man’s body became rigid with muscular tension, quivered as if trying to release itself from the grip of the drug and finally relaxed. Sweat beaded his brow and rolled unheeded to the pillow.

“If he’s here, why can’t he do Trenor’s nine as well,” Gleto insisted angrily.

Monsorlit stood up, wiped his hands precisely with an antiseptic solution.

“As I said, my only concern is Harlan. If you wish to hire the services of the technician for the others, you may check with the business director for the rates.”

Gleto’s face turned an apoplectic purple and he controlled himself with effort.

“That’s how you market your dummies. Oh, you’re clever, Monsorlit, but one day . . .”