The Mammoth Book of 20th Century SF II (14 page)

The woman laughed grimly. “All right.
You’re
an artist. Just what scientific law
have you
discovered?”

“I have discovered,” answered the artist with calm pride, “what will go down in history as ‘Jacques’ Law of Stellar Radiation’.”

Anna and Bell exchanged glances. The older man’s look of relief said plainly: “The battle is joined, they’ll forget you.”

Martha Jacques peered at the artist suspiciously. Anna could see that the woman was genuinely curious but caught between her desire to crush, to damn any such amateurish “discovery”
and her fear that she was being led into a trap. Anna herself, after studying the exaggerated innocence of the man’s wide, unblinking eyes knew immediately that he was subtly enticing the
woman out on the rotten limb of her own dry perfection.

In near-hypnosis Anna watched the man draw a sheet of paper from his pocket. She marvelled at the superb blend of diffidence and braggadocio with which he unfolded it and handed it to the woman
scientist.

“Since I can’t write, I had one of the fellows write it down for me, but I think he got it right,” he explained. “As you see, it boils down to seven prime
equations.”

Anna watched a puzzled frown steal over the woman’s brow. “But each of these equations expands into hundreds more, especially the seventh, which is the longest of them all.”
The frown deepened. “Very interesting. Already I see hints of the Russell diagram . . .”

The man started. “What! H. N. Russell, who classified stars into spectral classes? You mean he scooped me?”

“Only if your work is accurate, which I doubt.”

The artist stammered: “But – ”

“And here,” she continued in crisp condemnation, “is nothing more than a restatement of the law of light-pencil wavering, which explains why stars twinkle and planets
don’t, and which has been known for two hundred years.”

Ruy Jacques’ face lengthened lugubriously.

The woman smiled grimly and pointed. “These parameters are just a poor approximation of the Be the law of nuclear fission in stars – old since the thirties.”

The man stared at the scathing finger. “Old . . . ?”

“I fear so. But still not bad for an amateur. If you kept at this sort of thing all your life, you might eventually develop something novel. But this is a mere hodge-podge, a rehash of
material any real scientist learned in his teens.”

“But Martha,” pleaded the artist, “surely it isn’t
all
old?”

“I can’t say with certainty, of course,” returned the woman with malice-edged pleasure, “until I examine every sub-equation. I can only say that, fundamentally,
scientists long ago anticipated the artist, represented by the great Ruy Jacques. In the aggregate, your amazing Law of Stellar Radiation has been known for two hundred years or more.”

Even as the man stood there, as though momentarily stunned by the enormity of his defeat, Anna began to pity his wife.

The artist shrugged his shoulders wistfully. “Science versus Art. So the artist has given his all, and lost. Jacques’ Law must sing its swan song, then be forever forgotten.”
He lifted a resigned face toward the scientist. “Would you, my dear, administer the
coup de grâce
by setting up the proper co-ordinates in the Fourier
audiosynthesizer?”

Anna wanted to lift a warning hand, cry out to the man that he was going too far, that the humiliation he was preparing for his wife was unnecessary, unjust, and would but thicken the wall of
hatred that cemented their antipodal souls together.

But it was too late. Martha Jacques was already walking toward the Fourier piano, and within seconds had set up the polar-defined data and had flipped the toggle switch. The psychiatrist found
her mind and tongue to be literally paralyzed by the swift movement of this unwitting drama, which was now toppling over the brink of its tragicomic climax.

A deep silence fell over the room.

Anna caught an impression of avid faces, most of whom – Jacques’ most intimate friends – would understand the nature of his little playlet and would rub salt into the abraded
wound he was delivering his wife.

Then in the space of three seconds, it was over.

The Fourier piano had synthesized the seven equations, six short, one long, into their tonal equivalents, and it was over.

Dorran, the orchestra leader, broke the uneasy stillness that followed. “I say, Ruy old chap,” he blurted, “just what is the difference in Jacques’ Law of Stellar
Radiation’ and ‘Twinkle, twinkle, little star’?”

Anna, in mingled amusement and sympathy, watched the face of Martha Jacques slowly turn crimson.

The artist replied in amazement. “Why, now that you mention it, there does seem to be a little resemblance.”

“It’s a dead ringer!” cried a voice.

“‘Twinkle, twinkle’ is an old continental folk tune,” volunteered another. “I once traced it from Haydn’s ‘Surprise Symphony’ back to the
fourteenth century.”

“Oh, but that’s quite impossible,” protested Jacques. “Martha has just stated that science discovered it first, only two hundred years ago.”

The woman’s voice dripped
aqua regia
. “You planned this deliberately, just to humiliate me in front of these . . . these clowns.”

“Martha, I assure you . . . !”

“I’m warning you for the last time, Ruy. If you ever again humiliate me, I’ll probably kill you!”

Jacques backed away in mock alarm until he was swallowed up in a swirl of laughter.

The group broke up, leaving the two women alone. Suddenly aware of Martha Jacques’ bitter scrutiny, Anna flushed and turned toward her.

Martha Jacques said: “Why can’t you make him come to his senses? I’m paying you enough.”

Anna gave her a slow wry smile. “Then I’ll need your help. And you aren’t helping when you deprecate his sense of values – odd though they may seem to you.

“But Art is really
so foolish!
Science – ”

Anna laughed shortly. “You see? Do you wonder he avoids you?”

“What would
you
do?”

“I?”
Anna swallowed dryly.

Martha Jacques was watching her with narrowed eyes. “Yes, you.
If you wanted him
?”

Anna hesitated, breathing uneasily. Then gradually her eyes widened, became dreamy and full, like moons rising over the edge of some unknown, exotic land. Her lips opened with a nerveless
fatalism. She didn’t care what she said:

“I’d forget that I want, above all things, to be beautiful. I would think only of him. I’d wonder what he’s thinking, and I’d forsake my mental integrity and try to
think as he thinks. I’d learn to see through his eyes, and to hear through his ears. I’d sing over his successes, and hold my tongue when he failed. When he’s moody and depressed,
I wouldn’t probe or insist that-I-could-help-you-if-you’d-only-let-me. Then – ”

Martha Jacques snorted. “In short, you’d be nothing but a selfless shadow, devoid of personality or any mind or individuality of your own. That might be all right for one of your
type. But for a scientist, the very thought is ridiculous!”

The psychiatrist lifted her shoulders delicately. “I agree. It
is
ridiculous. What
sane
woman at the peak of her profession would suddenly toss up her career to merge –
you’d say ‘submerge’ – her identity, her very existence, with that of an utterly alien male mentality?”

“What woman, indeed?”

Anna mused to herself, and did not answer. Finally she said: “And yet, that’s the price; take it or leave it, they say. What’s a girl to do?”

“Stick up for her rights!” declared Martha Jacques spiritedly.

“All hail to unrewarding perseverance!” Ruy Jacques was back, swaying slightly. He pointed his half-filled glass toward the ceiling and shouted: “Friends! A toast! Let us drink
to the two charter members of the Knights of the Crimson Grail.” He bowed in saturnine mockery to his glowering wife. “To Martha! May she soon solve the Jacques Rosette and blast
humanity into the heavens!”

Simultaneously he drank and held up a hand to silence the sudden spate of jeers and laughter. Then, turning toward the now apprehensive psychiatrist, he essayed a second bow of such sweeping
grandiosity that his glass was upset. As he straightened, however, he calmly traded glasses with her. “To my old schoolteacher, Dr. van Tuyl. A nightingale whose secret ambition is to become
as beautiful as a red red red rose. May Allah grant her prayers.” He blinked at her beatifically in a sudden silence. “What was that comment, doctor?”

“I said you were a drunken idiot,” replied Anna. “But let it pass.” She was panting, her head whirling. She raised her voice to the growing cluster of faces.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I offer you the third seeker of the grail! A truly great artist. Ruy Jacques, a child of the coming epoch, whose sole aim is not aimlessness, as he would like you to
think, but a certain marvellous rose. Her curling petals shall be of subtle texture, yet firm withal, and brilliant red. It is this rose that he must find, to save his mind and body, and to put a
soul in him.”

“She’s right!” cried the artist in dark glee. “To Ruy Jacques, then! Join in, everybody. The party’s on Martha!”

He downed his glass, then turned a suddenly grave face to his audience. “But it’s really such a pity in Anna’s case, isn’t it? Because her cure is so simple.”

The psychiatrist listened; her head was throbbing dizzily.

“As any
competent
psychiatrist could tell her,” continued the artist mercilessly, “she has identified herself with the nightingale in her ballet. The nightingale
isn’t much to look at. On top it’s a dirty brown; at bottom, you might say it’s a drab grey. But ah! The soul of this plain little bird! Look into my soul, she pleads. Hold me in
your strong arms, look into my soul, and think me as lovely as a red rose.”

Even before he put his wineglass down on the table, Anna knew what was coming. She didn’t need to watch the stiffening cheeks and flaring nostrils of Martha Jacques, nor the sudden flash
of fear in Bell’s eyes, to know what was going to happen next.

He held out his arms to her, his swart satyr-face nearly impassive save for its eternal suggestion of sardonic mockery.

“You’re right,” she whispered, half to him, half to some other part of her, listening, watching. “I
do
want you to hold me in your arms and think me beautiful. But
you can’t, because you don’t love me. It won’t work. Not yet. Here, I’ll prove it.”

As from miles and centuries away, she heard Grade’s horrified gurgle.

But her trance held. She entered the embrace of Ruy Jacques, and held her face up to his as much as her spine would permit, and closed her eyes.

He kissed her quickly on the forehead and released her. “There! Cured!”

She stood back and surveyed him thoughtfully. “I wanted you to see for yourself, that nothing can be beautiful to you – at least not until you learn to regard someone else as highly
as you do Ruy Jacques.”

Bell had drawn close. His face was wet, grey. He whispered: “Are you two insane? Couldn’t you save this sort of thing for a less crowded occasion?”

But Anna was rolling rudderless in a fatalistic calm. “I had to show him something. Here. Now. He might never have tried it if he hadn’t had an audience. Can you take me home
now?”

“Worst thing possible,” replied Bell agitatedly. “That’d just confirm Martha’s suspicions.” He looked around nervously. “She’s gone. Don’t
know whether that’s good or bad. But Grade’s watching us. Ruy, if you’ve got the faintest intimations of decency, you’ll wander over to that group of ladies and kiss a few
of them. May throw Martha off the scent. Anna, you stay here. Keep talking. Try to toss it off as an amusing incident.” He gave a short strained laugh. “Otherwise you’re going to
wind up as the First Martyr in the Cause of Art.”

“I beg your pardon, Dr. van Tuyl.”

It was Grade. His voice was brutally cold, and the syllables were clipped from his lips with a spine-tingling finality.

“Yes, Colonel?” said Anna nervously.

“The Security Bureau would like to ask you a few questions.”

“Yes?”

Grade turned and stared icily at Bell. “It is preferred that the interrogation be conducted in private. It should not take long. If the lady would kindly step into the model’s
dressing room, my assistant will take over from there.”

“Dr. van Tuyl was just leaving,” said Bell huskily. “Did you have a coat, Anna?”

With a smooth unobtrusive motion Grade unsnapped the guard on his hip holster. “If Dr. van Tuyl leaves the dressing room within ten minutes, alone, she may depart from the studio in any
manner she pleases.”

Anna watched her friend’s face become even paler. He wet his lips, then whispered, “I think you’d better go, Anna. Be careful.”

The room was small and nearly bare. Its sole furnishings were an ancient calendar, a clothes tree, a few stacks of dusty books, a table (bare save for a roll of canvas patching
tape) and three chairs.

In one of the chairs, across the table, sat Martha Jacques.

She seemed almost to smile at Anna; but the amused curl of her beautiful lips was totally belied by her eyes, which pulsed hate with the paralyzing force of physical blows.

In the other chair sat Willie the Cork, almost unrecognizable in his groomed neatness.

The psychiatrist brought her hand to her throat as though to restore her voice, and at the movement, she saw from the corner of her eye that Willie, in a lightning motion, had simultaneously
thrust his hand into his coat pocket, invisible below the table. She slowly understood that he held a gun on her.

The man was the first to speak, and his voice was so crisp and incisive that she doubted her first intuitive recognition. “Obviously, I shall kill you if you attempt any unwise action. So
please sit down, Dr. van Tuyl. Let us put our cards on the table.”

It was too incredible, too unreal, to arouse any immediate sense of fear. In numb amazement she pulled out the chair and sat down.

“As you may have suspected for some time,” continued the man curtly, “I am a Security agent.”