The Mammoth Book of 20th Century SF II (101 page)

Into the chamber came Elizabeth, with three other young women whom Duray vaguely recalled having met before. At the sight of Duray, Elizabeth stopped short. She essayed a smile and said in a
light, strained voice, “Hello, Gil. You’re here after all.” She laughed nervously and, Duray felt, unnaturally. “Yes, of course you’re here. I didn’t think
you’d come.”

Duray glanced toward the other women, who stood with Waille, watching half expectantly. Duray said, “I’d like to speak to you alone.”

“Excuse us,” said Waille. “We’ll go on outside.”

They departed. Elizabeth looked longingly after them and fidgeted with the buttons of her jacket.

“Where are the children?” Duray demanded curtly.

“Upstairs, getting dressed.” She looked down at her own costume, the festival raiment of a Transylvanian peasant girl: a green skirt embroidered with red and blue flowers, a white
blouse, a black velvet vest, glossy black boots.

Duray felt his temper slipping; his voice was strained and fretful. “I don’t understand anything of this. Why did you close the passways?”

Elizabeth attempted a flippant smile. “I was bored with routine.”

“Oh? Why didn’t you mention it to me yesterday morning? You didn’t need to close the passways.”

“Gilbert, please. Let’s not discuss it.”

Duray stood back, tongue-tied with astonishment. “Very well,” he said at last. “We won’t discuss it. You go up and get the girls. We’re going home.”

Elizabeth shook her head. In a neutral voice she said, “It’s impossible. There’s only one passway open. I don’t have it.”

“Who does? Bob?”

“I guess so; I’m not really sure.”

“How did he get it? There were only four, and all four were closed.”

“It’s simple enough. He moved the downtown passway from our locker to another and left a blank in its place.”

“And who closed off the other three?”

“I did.”

“Why?”

“Because Bob told me to. I don’t want to talk about it. I’m sick to death of the whole business.” And she half whispered: “I don’t know what I’m going
to do with myself.”

“I know what I’m going to do,” said Duray. He turned toward the door.

Elizabeth held up her hands and clenched her fists against her breast. “Don’t make trouble – please! He’ll close our last passway!”

“Is that why you’re afraid of him? If so – don’t be. Alan wouldn’t allow it.”

Elizabeth’s face began to crumple. She pushed past Duray and walked quickly out upon the terrace. Duray followed, baffled and furious. He looked back and forth across the terrace. Bob was
not to be seen. Elizabeth had gone to Alan Robertson; she spoke in a hushed, urgent voice. Duray went to join them. Elizabeth became silent and turned away, avoiding Duray’s gaze.

Alan Robertson spoke in a voice of easy geniality. “Isn’t this a lovely spot? Look how the setting sun shines on the river!”

Roger Waille came by rolling a cart with ice, goblets, and a dozen bottles. He said: “Of all the places on all the Earths, this is my favorite. I call it Ekshayan, which is the Scythian
name for this district.”

A woman asked, “Isn’t it cold and bleak in the winter?”

“Frightful!” said Waille. “The blizzards howl down from the north; then they stop, and the land is absolutely still. The days are short, and the sun comes up red as a poppy.
The wolves slink out of the forests, and at dusk they circle the house. When a full moon shines, they howl like banshees, or maybe the banshees are howling! I sit beside the fireplace,
entranced.”

“It occurs to me,” said Manfred Funk, “that each person, selecting a site for his home, reveals a great deal about himself. Even on old Earth, a man’s home was ordinarily
a symbolic simulacrum of the man himself; now, with every option available, a person’s house is himself.”

“This is very true,” said Alan Robertson, “and certainly Roger need not fear that he has revealed any discreditable aspects of himself by showing us his rather grotesque home
on the lonely steppes of prehistoric Russia.”

Roger Waille laughed. “The grotesque house isn’t me; I merely felt that it fitted its setting . . . Here, Duray, you’re not drinking. That’s chilled vodka; you can mix it
or drink it straight in the time-tested manner.”

“Nothing for me, thanks.”

“Just as you like. Excuse me; I’m wanted elsewhere.” Waille moved away, rolling the cart. Elizabeth leaned as if she wanted to follow him, then remained beside Alan Robertson,
looking thoughtfully over the river.

Duray spoke to Alan Robertson as if she were not there. “Elizabeth refuses to leave. Bob has hypnotized her.”

“That’s not true,” said Elizabeth softly.

“Somehow, one way or another, he’s forced her to stay. She won’t tell me why.”

“I want the passway back,” said Elizabeth. But her voice was muffled and uncertain.

Alan Robertson cleared his throat. “I hardly know what to say. It’s a very awkward situation. None of us wants to create a disturbance – “

“There you’re wrong,” said Duray.

Alan Robertson ignored the remark. “I’ll have a word with Bob after the party. In the meantime I don’t see why we shouldn’t enjoy the company of our friends, and that
wonderful roast ox! Who is that turning the spit? I know him from somewhere.”

Duray could hardly speak for outrage. “After what he’s done to us?”

“He’s gone too far, much too far,” Alan Robertson agreed. “Still, he’s a flamboyant, feckless sort, and I doubt if he understands the full inconvenience he’s
caused you.”

“He understands well enough. He just doesn’t care.”

“Perhaps so,” said Alan Robertson sadly. “I had always hoped – but that’s neither here nor there. I still feel that we should act with restraint. It’s much
easier not to do than to undo.”

Elizabeth abruptly crossed the terrace and went to the front door of the tall house, where her three daughters had appeared – Dolly, twelve; Joan, ten; Ellen, eight – all wearing
green, white, and black peasant frocks and glossy black boots. Duray thought they made a delightful picture. He followed Elizabeth across the terrace.

“It’s Daddy,” screamed Ellen, and threw herself in his arms. The other two, not to be outdone, did likewise.

“We thought you weren’t coming to the party,” cried Dolly. “I’m glad you did, though.”

“So’m I.”

“So’m I.”

“I’m glad I came, too, if only to see you in these pretty costumes. Let’s go see Grandpa Alan.” He took them across the terrace, and after a moment’s hesitation,
Elizabeth followed. Duray became aware that everyone had stopped talking to look at him and his family, with, so it seemed, an extraordinary, even avid, curiosity, as if in expectation of some
entertaining extravagance of conduct. Duray began to burn with emotion. Once, long ago, while crossing a street in downtown San Francisco, he had been struck by an automobile, suffering a broken
leg and a fractured clavicle. Almost as soon as he had been knocked down, pedestrians came pushing to stare down at him, and Duray, looking up in pain and shock, had seen only the ring of white
faces and intent eyes, greedy as flies around a puddle of blood. In hysterical fury he had staggered to his feet, striking out into every face within reaching distance, men and women alike. He
hated them more than the man who had run him down: the ghouls who had come to enjoy his pain. Had he the miraculous power, he would have crushed them into a screaming bale of detestable flesh and
hurled the bundle twenty miles out into the Pacific Ocean . . .

Some faint shadow of this emotion affected him now, but today he would provide them no unnatural pleasure. He turned a single glance of cool contempt around the group, then took his three
eager-faced daughters to a bench at the back of the terrace. Elizabeth followed, moving like a mechanical object. She seated herself at the end of the bench and looked off across the river. Duray
stared heavily back at the Rumfuddlers, compelling them to shift their gazes to where the ox roasted over a great bed of coals. A young man in a white jacket turned the spit; another basted the
meat with a long-handled brush. A pair of Orientals carried out a carving table; another brought a carving set; a fourth wheeled out a cart laden with salads, round crusty loaves, trays of cheese
and herrings. A fifth man, dressed as a Transylvanian gypsy, came from the house with a violin. He went to the corner of the terrace and began to play melancholy music of the steppes.

Bob Robertson and Roger Waille inspected the ox, a magnificent sight indeed. Duray attempted a stony detachment, but his nose was under no such strictures; the odor of the roast meat, garlic,
and herbs tantalized him unmercifully. Bob Robertson returned to the terrace and held up his hands for attention; the fiddler put down his instrument. “Control your appetites; there’ll
still be a few minutes, during which we can discuss our next Rumfuddle. Our clever colleague Bernard Ulman recommends a hostelry in the Adirondacks: the Sapphire Lake Lodge. The hotel was built in
1902, to the highest standards of Edwardian comfort. The clientele is derived from the business community of New York. The cuisine is kosher; the management maintains an atmosphere of congenial
gentility; the current date is 1930. Bernard has furnished photographs. Roger, if you please.”

Waille drew back a curtain to reveal a screen. He manipulated the projection machine, and the hotel was displayed on the screen: a rambling, half-timbered structure overlooking several acres of
park and a smooth lake.

“Thank you, Roger. I believe that we also have a photograph of the staff.”

On the screen appeared a stiffly posed group of about thirty men and women, all smiling with various degrees of affability. The Rumfuddlers were amused; some among them tittered.

“Bernard gives a very favorable report as to the cuisine, the amenities, and the charm of the general area. Am I right, Bernard?”

“In every detail,” declared Bernard Ulman. “The management is attentive and efficient; the clientele is well-established.”

“Very good,” said Bob Robertson. “Unless someone has a more entertaining idea, we will hold our next Rumfuddle at the Sapphire Lake Lodge. And now I believe that the roast beef
should be ready – done to a turn, as the expression goes.”

“Quite right,” said Roger Waille. “Tom, as always, has done an excellent job at the spit.”

The ox was lifted to the table. The carver set to work with a will. Duray went to speak to Alan Robertson, who blinked uneasily at his approach. Duray asked, “Do you understand the reason
for these parties? Are you in on the joke?”

Alan Robertson spoke in a precise manner: “I certainly am not ‘in on the joke,’ as you put it.” He hesitated, then said: “The Rumfuddlers will never again intrude
upon your life or that of your family. I am sure of this. Bob became overexuberant; he exercised poor judgment, and I intend to have a quiet word with him. In fact, we have already exchanged
certain opinions. At the moment your best interests will be served by detachment and unconcern.”

Duray spoke with sinister politeness: “You feel, then, that I and my family should bear the brunt of Bob’s jokes?”

“This is a harsh view of the situation, but my answer must be Yes.”

“I’m not so sure. My relationship with Elizabeth is no longer the same. Bob has done this to me.”

“To quote an old apothegm: ‘Least said, soonest mended.’”

Duray changed the subject. “When Waille showed the photograph of the hotel staff, I thought some of the faces were familiar. Before I could be quite sure, the picture was gone.”

Alan Robertson nodded unhappily. “Let’s not develop the subject, Gilbert. Instead – ”

“I’m into the situation too far,” said Duray. “I want to know the truth.”

“Very well, then,” said Alan Robertson hollowly, “your instincts are accurate. The management of the Sapphire Lake Lodge, in cognate circumstances, has achieved an unsavory
reputation. As you have guessed, they comprise the leadership of the National Socialist party during 1938 or thereabouts. The manager, of course, is Hitler, the desk clerk is Goebbels, the
headwaiter is Goring, the bellboys are Himmler and Hess, and so on down the line. They are, of course, not aware of the activities of their cognates of other worlds. The hotel’s clientele is
for the most part Jewish, which brings a macabre humor to the situation.”

“Undeniably,” said Duray. “What of that Rumfuddlers party that we looked in on?”

“You refer to the high-school football team? The 1951 Texas champions, as I recall.” Alan Robertson grinned. “And well they should be. Bob identified the players for me. Are
you interested in the lineup?”

“Very much so.”

Alan Robertson drew a sheet of paper from his pocket. “I believe – yes, this is it.” He handed the sheet to Duray who saw a schematic lineup:

Duray returned the paper. “You approve of this?”

“I had best put it like this,” said Alan Robertson, a trifle uneasily. “One day, chatting with Bob, I remarked that much travail could be spared the human race if the more
notorious evildoers were early in their lives shifted to environments which afforded them constructive outlets for their energies. I speculated that having the competence to make such changes, it
was perhaps our duty to do so. Bob became interested in the concept and formed his group, the Rumfuddlers, to serve the function I had suggested. In all candor I believe that Bob and his friends
have been attracted more by the possibility of entertainment than by altruism, but the effect has been the same.”