The Mammoth Book of 20th Century SF II (16 page)

She crashed into the table.

Even though she had known that this must happen, her success was so complete, so overwhelming, that it momentarily appalled her.

Martha Jacques and The Cork had moved with anxious, rapid jerks, like puppets in a nightmare. But their rhythm was all wrong. With their ingrained four-time motor responses strangely modulated
by a five-time pattern, the result was inevitably the arithmetical composite of the two: a neural beat, which could activate muscle tissue only when the two rhythms were in phase.

The Cork had hardly begun his frantic, spasmodic squeeze of the trigger when the careening table knocked him backward to the floor, stunned, beside Martha Jacques. It required but an instant for
Anna to scurry around and extract the pistol from his numbed fist.

Then she pointed the trembling gun in the general direction of the carnage she had wrought and fought an urge to collapse against the wall.

She waited for the room to stop spinning, for the white, glass-eyed face of Martha Jacques to come into focus against the fuzzy background of the cheap paint-daubed rug. And then the eyes of the
woman scientists flickered and closed.

With a wary glance at the weapon muzzle, The Cork gingerly pulled a leg from beneath the table edge: “You have the gun,” he said softly. “You can’t object if I assist
Mrs. Jacques?”

“I
do
object,” said Anna faintly. “She’s merely unconscious . . . feels nothing. I want her to stay that way for a few minutes. If you approach her or make any
unnecessary noise, I will probably kill you. So – both of you must stay here until Grade investigates. I know you have a pair of handcuffs. I’ll give you ten seconds to lock yourself to
that steam pipe in the corner – hands
behind
you, please.”

She retrieved the roll of adhesive patching tape from the floor and fixed several strips across the agent’s lips, following with a few swift loops around the ankles to prevent him stamping
his feet.

A moment later, her face a damp mask, she closed the door leisurely behind her and stood there, breathing deeply and searching the room for Grade.

He was standing by the studio entrance, staring at her fixedly. When she favored him with a glassy smile, he simply shrugged his shoulders and began walking slowly toward her.

In growing panic her eyes darted about the room. Bell and Ruy Jacques were leaning over the phono, apparently deeply absorbed in the racing clangor of the music. She saw Bell nod a covert signal
in her direction, but without looking directly at her. She tried not to seem hurried as she strolled over to join them. She knew that Grade was now walking toward them and was but a few steps away
when Bell lifted his head and smiled.

“Everything all right?” said the psychogeneticist loudly.

She replied clearly: “Fine. Mrs. Jacques and a Security man just wanted to ask some questions.” She drew in closer. Her lips framed a question to Bell: “Can Grade
hear?”

Bell’s lips formed a soft, nervous guttural: “No. He’s moving off toward the dressing room door. If what I suspect happened behind that door is true, you have about ten seconds
to get out of here. And then you’ve got to hide.” He turned abruptly to the artist. “Ruy, you’ve got to take her down into the Via. Right now –
immediately
.
Watch your opportunity and lose her when no one is looking. It shouldn’t be too hard in that mob.”

Jacques shook his head doubtfully. “Martha isn’t going to like this. You know how strict she is on etiquette. I think there’s a very firm statement in Emily Post that the host
should never, never,
never
walk out on his guests before locking up the liquor and silverware. Oh, well, if you insist.”

“Tell ya what the professor’s gonna do, ladies and gentlemen. He’s gonna defend not just one paradox. Not just two. But seventeen! In the space of one short
hour, and without repeating himself, and including one he just thought up five minutes ago: ‘Security is dangerous.’”

Ruy frowned, then whispered to Anna: “That was for us. He means Security men are circulating. Let’s move on. Next door. They won’t look for a woman there.”

Already he was pulling her away toward the chess parlor. They both ducked under the For Men Only sign (which she could no longer read), pushed through the bat-wing doors, and walked
unobtrusively down between the wall and a row of players. One man looked up briefly out of the corner of his eyes as they passed.

The woman paused uneasily. She had sensed the nervousness of the barker even before Ruy, and now still fainter impressions were beginning to ripple over the straining surface of her mind. They
were coming from that chess player: from the coins in his pocket; from the lead weights of his chess pieces; and especially from the weapon concealed somewhere on him. The resonant histories of the
chess pieces and coins she ignored. They held the encephalographic residua of too many minds. The invisible gun was clearer. There was something abrupt and violent, alternating with a more subtle,
restrained rhythm. She put her hand to her throat as she considered one interpretation:
Kill – but wait
. Obviously, he’d dare not fire with Ruy so close.

“Rather warm here, too,” murmured the artist. “Out we go.”

As they stepped out into the street again, she looked behind her and saw that the man’s chair was empty.

She held the artist’s hand and pushed and jabbed after him, deeper into the revelling sea of humanity.

She ought to be thinking of ways to hide, of ways to use her new sensory gift. But another, more imperative train of thought continually clamored at her, until finally she yielded to a gloomy
brooding.

Well, it was true. She wanted to be loved, and she wanted Ruy to love her. And he knew it. Every bit of metal on her shrieked her need for his love.

But – was she ready to love him? No! How could she love a man who lived only to paint that mysterious unpaintable scene of the nightingale’s death, and who loved only himself? He was
fascinating, but what sensible woman would wreck her career for such unilateral fascination? Perhaps Martha Jacques was right, after all.

“So you got him, after all!”

Anna whirled toward the crazy crackle, nearly jerking her hand from Ruy’s grasp.

The vendress of love-philters stood leaning against the front centre pole of her tent, grinning toothily at Anna.

While the young woman stared dazedly at her, Jacques spoke up crisply: “Any strange men been around, Violet?”

“Why, Ruy,” she replied archly, “I think you’re jealous. What kind of men?”

“Not the kind that haul you off to the alcoholic ward on Saturday nights. Not city dicks. Security men – quiet – seem slow, but really fast – see everybody –
everything.”

“Oh,
them
. Three went down the street two minutes ahead of you.”

He rubbed his chin. “That’s not so good. They’ll start at that end of the Via and work up toward us until they meet the patrol behind us.”

“Like grains of wheat between the millstones,” cackled the crone.
“I knew
you’d turn to crime, sooner or later, Ruy. You were the only tenant I had who paid the
rent regular.”

“Mart’s lawyer did that.”

“Just the same, it looked mighty suspicious. You want to try the alley behind the tent?”

“Where does it lead?”

“Cuts back into the Via, at White Rose Park.”

Anna started. “White rose?”

“We were there that first night,” said Jacques. “You remember it – big rose-walled cul-de-sac. Fountain. Pretty, but not for us, not now. Has only one entrance.
We’ll have to try something else.”

The psychiatrist said hesitantly: “No, wait.”

For some moments she had been struck by the sinister contrast in this second descent into the Via and the irresponsible gaiety of that first night. The street, the booths, the laughter seemed
the same, but really weren’t. It was like a familiar musical score, subtly altered by some demoniac hand, raised into some harsh and fatalistic minor key. It was like the second movement of
Tchaikovsky’s
Romeo and Juliet:
all the bright promises of the first movement were here, but repetition had transfigured them into frightful premonitions.

She shivered. That second movement, that echo of destiny, was sweeping through her in ever faster tempo, as though impatient to consummate its assignation with her. Come safety, come death, she
must yield to the pattern of repetition.

Her voice had a dream-like quality: “Take me again to the White Rose Park.”

“What! Talk sense! Out here in the open you may have a chance.”

“But I
must
go there. Please, Ruy. I think it’s something about a white rose. Don’t look at me as though I were crazy. Of course I’m crazy. If you don’t want
to take me, I’ll go alone. But I’m going.”

His hard eyes studied her in speculative silence, then he looked away. As the stillness grew, his face mirrored his deepening introspection. “At that, the possibilities are intriguing.
Martha’s stooges are sure to look in on you. But will they be able to see you? Is the hand that wields the pistol equally skilled with the brush and palette? Unlikely. Art and Science again.
Pointillist school versus police school. A good one on Martha – if it works. Anna’s dress is green. Complement of green is purple. Violet’s dress should do it.”

“My dress?” cried the old woman. “What are you up to, Ruy?”

“Nothing. Luscious. I just want you to take off one of your dresses. The outer one will do.”

“Sir!” Violet began to splutter in barely audible gasps.

Anna had watched all this in vague detachment, accepting it as one of the man’s daily insanities. She had no idea what he wanted with a dirty old purple dress, but she thought she knew how
she could get it for him, while simultaneously introducing another repetitive theme into this second movement of her hypothetical symphony.

She said: “He’s willing to make you a fair trade, Violet.”

The spluttering stopped. The old woman eyed them both suspiciously. “Meaning what?”

“He’ll drink one of your love potions.”

The leathery lips parted in amazement. “
I’m
agreeable, if
he
is, but I know he isn’t. Why, that scamp doesn’t love any creature in the whole world, except
maybe himself.”

“And yet he’s ready to make a pledge to his beloved,” said Anna.

The artist squirmed. “I like you, Anna, but I won’t be trapped. Anyway, it’s all nonsense. What’s a glass of acidified water between friends?”

“The pledge isn’t to me, Ruy. It’s to a Red Rose.” He peered at her curiously. “Oh? Well, if it will please you . . . All right, Violet, but off with that dress
before you pour up.”

Why, wondered Anna, do I keep thinking his declaration of love to a red rose is my death sentence? It’s moving too fast. Who, what – is The Red Rose? The Nightingale dies in making
the white rose red. So
she –
or I – can’t be The Red Rose. Anyway, The Nightingale is ugly, and The Rose is beautiful. And why must The Student have a Red Rose? How will it
admit him to his mysterious dance?

“Ah, Madame De Medici is back.” Jacques took the glass and purple bundle the old woman put on the table. “What are the proper words?” he asked Anna.

“Whatever you want to say.”

His eyes, suddenly grave, looked into hers. He said quietly: “If ever The Red Rose presents herself to me, I shall love her forever.”

Anna trembled as he upended the glass.

A little later they slipped into the Park of the White Roses. The buds were just beginning to open, and thousands of white floreate eyes blinked at them in the harsh artificial
light. As before, the enclosure was empty, and silent, save for the chattering splashing of its single fountain.

Anna abandoned a disconnected attempt to analyze the urge that had brought her here a second time. It’s all too fatalistic, she thought, too involved. If I’ve entrapped myself, I
can’t feel bitter about it. “Just think,” she murmured aloud, “in less than ten minutes it will all be over, one way or the other.”

“Really? But where’s my red rose?”

How could she even
consider
loving this jeering beast? She said coldly: “I think you’d better go. It may be rather messy in here soon.” She thought of how her body would
look, sprawling, misshapen, uglier than ever. She couldn’t let him see her that way.

“Oh, we’ve plenty of time. No red rose, eh? Hmm. It seems to me, Anna, that you’re composing yourself for death prematurely. There really is that little matter of the rose to
be taken care of first, you know. As The Student, I must insist on my rights.”

What made him be this way? “Ruy, please . . .” Her voice was trembling, and she was suddenly very near to tears.

“There, dear, don’t apologize. Even the best of us are thoughtless at times. Though I must admit, I never expected such lack of consideration, such poor manners, in
you
. But
then, at heart, you aren’t really an artist. You’ve no appreciation of form.” He began to untie thc bundled purple dress, and his voice took on the argumentative dogmatism of a
platform lecturer. “The perfection of form, of technique, is the highest achievement possible to the artist. When he subordinates form to subject matter, he degenerates eventually into a
boot-lick, a scientist, or, worst of all, a Man with a Message. Here, catch!” He tossed the gaudy garment at Anna, who accepted it in rebellious wonder.

Critically, the artist eyed the nauseating contrast of the purple and green dresses, glanced momentarily toward the semi-circle of white-budded wall beyond, and then continued:
“There’s nothing like a school-within-a-school to squeeze dry the dregs of form. And whatever their faults, the pointillists of the impressionist movement could depict color with
magnificent depth of chroma. Their palettes held only the spectral colors, and they never mixed them. Do you know why the Seines of Seurat are so brilliant and luminous? It’s because the
water is made of dots of pure green, blue, red and yellow, alternating with white in the proper proportion.” He motioned with his hand, and she followed as he walked slowly on around the
semi-circular gravel path. “What a pity Martha isn’t here to observe our little experiment in tricolor stimulus. Yes, the scientific psychologists finally gave arithmetical vent to what
the pointillists knew long before them – that a mass of points of any three spectral colors – or of one color and its complementary color – can be made to give any imaginable hue
simply by varying their relative proportion.”