The Mammoth Book of 20th Century SF II (10 page)

Grade stepped forward and introduced himself curtly, then presented Anna to Mrs. Jacques.

And then the psychiatrist found her eyes fastened to a sheet of paper on Mrs. Jacques’ desk. And as she stared, she felt a sharp dagger of ice sinking into her spine, and she grew slowly
aware of a background of brooding whispers in her mind, heart-constricting in their suggestions of mental disintegration.

For the thing drawn on the paper, in red ink, was – although warped, incomplete, and misshapen – unmistakably a rose.

“Mrs. Jacques!” cried Grade.

Martha Jacques must have divined simultaneously Anna’s great interest in the paper. With an apologetic murmur she turned it face down. “Security regulations, you know. I’m
really supposed to keep it locked up in the presence of visitors.” Even a murmur could not hide the harsh metallic quality of her voice.

So
that
was why the famous Sciomnia formula was sometimes called the “Jacques Rosette”: when traced in an everexpanding wavering red spiral in polar coordinates, it was . . .
a Red Rose.

The explanation brought at once a feeling of relief and a sinister deepening of the sense of doom that had overshadowed her for months. So you, too, she thought wonderingly, seek The Rose. Your
artist-husband is wretched for want of it, and now you. But do you seek the same rose? Is the rose of the scientist the true rose, and Ruy Jacques’ the false? What is The Rose? Will I ever
know?

Grade broke in. “Your brilliant reputation is deceptive, Dr. van Tuyl. From Dr. Bell’s description, we had pictured you as an older woman.”

“Yes,” said Martha Jacques, studying her curiously. “We really had in mind an older woman, one less likely to . . . to – ”

“To involve your husband emotionally?”

“Exactly,” said Grade. “Mrs. Jacques must have her mind completely free from distractions. However” – he turned to the woman scientist – “it is my
studied opinion that we need not anticipate difficulty from Dr. van Tuyl on that account.”

Anna felt her throat and cheeks going hot as Mrs. Jacques nodded in damning agreement: “I think you’re right, Colonel.”

“Of course,” said Grade, “Mr. Jacques may not accept her.”

“That remains to be seen,” said Martha Jacques. “He might tolerate a fellow artist.” To Anna: “Dr. Bell tells us that you compose music, or something like
that?”

“Something like that,” nodded Anna. She wasn’t worried. It was a question of waiting. This woman’s murderous jealousy, though it might some day destroy her, at the moment
concerned her not a whit.

Colonel Grade said: “Mrs. Jacques has probably warned you that her husband is somewhat eccentric; he may be somewhat difficult to deal with at times. On this account, the Security Bureau
is prepared to triple your fee, if we find you acceptable.”

Anna nodded gravely. Ruy Jacques and money, too!

“For most of your consultations you’ll have to track him down,” said Martha Jacques. “He’ll never come to you. But considering what we’re prepared to pay,
this inconvenience should be immaterial.”

Anna thought briefly of that fantastic creature who had singled her out of a thousand faces. “That will be satisfactory. And now, Mrs. Jacques, for my preliminary orientation, suppose you
describe some of the more striking behaviorisms that you’ve noted in your husband.”

“Certainly. Dr. Bell, I presume, has already told you that Ruy has lost the ability to read and write. Ordinarily that’s indicative of advanced dementia praecox, isn’t it?
However, I think Mr. Jacques’ case presents a more complicated picture, and my own guess is schizophrenia rather than dementia. The dominant and most frequently observed psyche is a
megalomanic phase, during which he tends to harangue his listeners on various odd subjects. We’ve picked up some of these speeches on a hidden recorder and made a Zipf analysis of the
word-frequencies.”

Anna’s brows creased dubiously. “A Zipf count is pretty mechanical.”

“But scientific, undeniably scientific. I have made a careful study of the method, and can speak authoritatively. Back in the forties Zipf of Harvard proved that in a representative sample
of English, the interval separating the repetition of the same word was inversely proportional to its frequency. He provided a mathematical formula for something previously known only
qualitatively: that a too-soon repetition of the same or similar sound is distracting and grating to the cultured mind. If we must say the same thing in the next paragraph, we avoid repetition with
an appropriate synonym. But not the schizophrenic. His disease disrupts his higher centres of association, and certain discriminating neural networks are no longer available for his writing and
speech. He has no compunction against immediate and continuous tonal repetition.”

“A rose is a rose is a rose . . .” murmured Anna.

“Eh? How did you know what this transcription was about? Oh, you were just quoting Gertrude Stein? Well, I’ve read about her, and she proves my point. She admitted that she wrote
under autohypnosis, which we’d call a light case of schizo. But she could be normal, too. My husband never is. He goes on like this all the time. This was transcribed from one of his
monologues. Just listen:

“‘Behold, Willie, through yonder window the symbol of your mistress’ defeat: the rose! The rose, my dear Willie, grows not in murky air. The smoky metropolis of yester-year
drove it to the country. But now, with the unsullied skyline of your atomic age, the red rose returns. How mysterious, Willie, that the rose continues to offer herself to us dull, plodding humans.
We see nothing in her but a pretty flower. Her regretful thorns forever declare our inept clumsiness, and her lack of honey chides our gross sensuality. Ah, Willie, let us become as birds! For only
the winged can eat the fruit of the rose and spread her pollen . . .’”

Mrs. Jacques looked up at Anna. “Did you keep count? He used the word rose’ no less than five times, when once or twice was sufficient. He certainly had no lack of mellifluous
synonyms at his disposal, such as ‘red flower,’ ‘thorned plant,’ and so on. And instead of saying ‘the red rose returns’ he should have said something like
‘it comes back’.”

“And lose the triple alliteration?” smiled Anna. “No, Mrs. Jacques, I’d reexamine that diagnosis very critically. Everyone who talks like a poet isn’t necessarily
insane.”

A tiny bell began to jangle on a massive metal door in the right-hand wall.

“A message for me,” growled Grade. “Let it wait.”

“We don’t mind,” said Anna, “if you want to have it sent in.”

“It isn’t
that
. That’s my private door, and I’m the only one who knows the combination. But I told them not to interrupt us, unless it dealt with this specific
interview.”

Anna thought of the eyes of Willie the Cork, hard and glistening. Suddenly she knew that Ruy Jacques had not been joking about the identity of the man. Was The Cork’s report just now
getting on her dossier? Mrs. Jacques wasn’t going to like it. Suppose they turned her down. Would she dare seek out Ruy Jacques under the noses of Grade’s trigger men?

“Damn that fool,” muttered Grade. “I left strict orders about being disturbed. Excuse me.”

He strode angrily toward the door. After a few seconds of dial manipulation, he turned the handle and pulled it inward. A hand thrust something metallic at him. Anna caught whispers. She fought
down a feeling of suffocation as Grade opened the cassette and read the message.

The Security officer walked leisurely back toward them. He stroked his moustache coolly, handed the bit of paper to Martha Jacques, then clasped his hands behind his back. For a moment he looked
like a glowering bronze statue. “Dr. van Tuyl, you didn’t tell us that you were already acquainted with Mr. Jacques. Why?”

“You didn’t ask me.”

Martha Jacques said harshly: “That answer is hardly satisfactory. How long have you known Mr. Jacques? I want to get to the bottom of this.”

“I met him last night for the first time in the Via Rosa. We danced. That’s all. The whole thing was purest coincidence.”

“You are his lover,” accused Martha Jacques.

Anna colored. “You flatter me, Mrs. Jacques.”

Grade coughed. “She’s right. Mrs. Jacques. I see no sex-based espionage.”

“Then maybe it’s even subtler,” said Martha Jacques. “These platonic females are still worse, because they sail under false colors. She’s after Ruy, I tell
you.”

“I assure you,” said Anna, “that your reaction comes as a complete surprise to me. Naturally, I shall withdraw from the case at once.”

“But it doesn’t end with that,” said Grade curtly. “The national safety may depend on Mrs. Jacques’ peace of mind during the coming weeks. I
must
ascertain
your relation with Mr. Jacques. And I must warn you that if a compromising situation exists, the consequences will be most unpleasant.” He picked up the telephone. “Grade. Get me the
O.D.”

Anna’s palms were uncomfortably wet and sticky. She wanted to wipe them on the sides of her dress, but then decided it would be better to conceal all signs of nervousness.

Grade barked into the mouthpiece. “Hello! That you, Packard? Send me – ”

Suddenly the room vibrated with the shattering impact of massive metal on metal.

The three whirled toward the sound.

A stooped, loudly dressed figure was walking away from the great and inviolate door of Colonel Grade, drinking in with sardonic amusement the stuporous faces turned to him. It was evident he had
just slammed the door behind him with all his strength.

Insistent squeakings from the teleset stirred Grade into a feeble response. “Never mind . . . it’s Mr. Jacques . . .”

The swart ugliness of that face verged on the sublime. Anna observed for the first time the two horn-like protuberances on his forehead, which the man made no effort to
conceal. His black woollen beret was cocked jauntily over one horn; the other, the visible one, bulged even more than Anna’s horns, and to her fascinated eyes he appeared as some Greek satyr;
Silenus with an eternal hangover, or Pan wearying of fruitless pursuit of fleeting nymphs. It was the face of a cynical post-gaol Wilde, of a Rimbaud, of a Goya turning his brush in saturnine glee
from Spanish grandees to the horror-world of Ensayos.

Like a phantom voice Matthew Bell’s cryptic prediction seemed to float into her ears again: “. . . much in common . . . more than you guess . . .”

There was so little time to think. Ruy Jacques must have recognized her frontal deformities even while that tasselated mortar-board of his Student costume had prevented her from seeing his. He
must have identified her as a less advanced case of his own disease. Had he foreseen the turn of events here? Was he here to protect the only person on earth who might help him? That wasn’t
like him. He just wasn’t the sensible type. She got the uneasy impression that he was here solely for his own amusement – simply to make fools of the three of them.

Grade began to sputter. “Now see here, Mr. Jacques. It’s impossible to get in through that door. It’s my private entrance. I changed the combination myself only this
morning.” The moustache bristled indignantly. “I must ask the meaning of this.”

“Pray do, Colonel, pray do.”

“Well, then, what is the meaning of this?”

“None, Colonel. Have you no faith in your own syllogisms? No one can open your private door but you. Q.E.D. No one did. I’m not really here. No smiles? Tsk tsk! Paragraph 6, p. 80 of
the Manual of Permissible Military Humor officially recognizes the paradox.”

“There’s no such publication – ” stormed Grade.

But Jacques brushed him aside. He seemed now to notice Anna for the first time, and bowed with exaggerated punctilio. “My profound apologies, madame. You were standing so still, so quiet,
that I mistook you for a rose bush.” He beamed at each in turn. “Now isn’t this delightful? I feel like a literary lion. It’s the first time in my life that my admirers ever
met for the express purpose of discussing my work.”

How could he know that we were discussing his “composition,” wondered Anna.
And how did he open the door?

“If you’d eavesdropped long enough,” said Martha Jacques, “you’d have learned we weren’t admiring your ‘prose poem’. In fact, I think it’s
pure nonsense.”

No, thought Anna, he couldn’t have eavesdropped, because we didn’t talk about his speech after Grade opened the door. There’s something here – in this room – that
tells
him.

“You don’t even think it’s poetry?” repeated Jacques, wide-eyed. “Martha, coming from one with your scientifically developed poetical sense, this is utterly
damning.”

“There
are
certain well recognized approaches to the appreciation of poetry,” said Martha Jacques doggedly. “You ought to have the autoscanner read you some books on the
aesthetic laws of language. It’s all there.”

The artist blinked in great innocence. “
What’s
all there?”

“Scientific rules for analyzing poetry. Take the mood of a poem. You can very easily learn whether it’s gay or sombre just by comparing the proportion of low-pitched vowels –
u
and
o
, that is – to the high-pitched vowels
– a
,
e
and
i
.”

“Well, what do you know about that!” He turned a wondering face to Anna. “And she’s right! Come to think of it, in Milton’s
L’Allegro
, most of the
vowels are high-pitched, while in his
Il
Penseroso
, they’re mostly low-pitched. Folks, I believe we’ve finally found a yardstick for genuine poetry. No longer must we
flounder in poetastical soup. Now let’s see.” He rubbed his chin in blank-faced thoughtfulness. “Do you know, for years I’ve considered Swinburne’s lines mourning
Charles Baudelaire to be the distillate of sadness. But that, of course, was before I had heard of Martha’s scientific approach, and had to rely solely on my unsophisticated, untrained,
uninformed feelings. How stupid I was! For the thing is crammed with high-pitched vowels, and long
e
dominates: ‘thee,’ ‘sea,’ ‘weave,’ ‘eve,’
‘heat,’ ‘sweet,’ ‘feet’ . . .” He struck his brow as if in sudden comprehension. “Why, it’s gay! I must set it to a snappy polka!”