The Ninth Wave (31 page)

They came out of the blackness of his memory like bubbles rising from
a pool; each episode rounded and bright, connected to the next memory
with a thin bright strand. Each thing about them was jewellike in its
precision: the vaccination scar on a leg, the sharp intake of breath as
contact was made, the smell of perfume and beer, the odor of grass.
"Mr. Cromwell, Mr. Cromwell," a voice said.
Cromwell opened his eyes and for a moment he could not focus because of
the sun and all he saw was the tangled pattern of Pershing Square, the
whirling pigeons, the palm trees, the sailors, the statue, the azaleas,
the limp bodies of old men dozing. Then he saw the face of Riley, the
office boy, looking down at him.
"Mr. Freesmith sent me out to look for you," Riley said. "He says he
wants to talk to you."
"What's all the rush?"
"I don't know, sir. He just said he wanted to see you and for me to find
you." Riley's face was marked with freckles and bruised by a blunt nose
and a tough look.
He is, Cromwell thought, just like an ape that has been taught to read and
write, but still carries around a jungle suspicion. Cromwell remembered
dimly a story of Kafka's about an ape that made a speech to an academy.
He felt a sudden pique at having the sequence of his recollections
interrupted. Usually he went ahead with the sequence, giving each episode
its proper time and never being rushed. It had become a sort of ritual. If
he started he must run through the entire series.
"Just a minute. I'm thinking something out," Cromwell said. "Just wait
and I'll walk back to the office with you."
Just before his-eyes closed, when his vision was cut to a tiny bright
crescent, he saw a hard understanding grin go across Riley's face. He
felt a flicker of outrage and then forgot it.
The sixth girl had been Gloria. He had met Gloria on a summer's day in
Atherton when the whole San Francisco Peninsula had just been swept
clean by summer fog that was burned off by sparkling sun. His mother
wanted him to marry Gloria. They met by the tennis courts back of
his family's big redwood house. Gloria came out to the tennis courts
followed by her four older brothers. She had a long elegant neck and
rather large feet that were covered with white tennis shoes. Gloria
and her four brothers stood at the side of the tennis court, racquets
in their hands, watching Cromwell finishing a game. Like Gloria they
were all tall and lean and tanned and Cromwell knew they would be very
good tennis players. Also he knew from the look on their faces that
they thought he was poor. Cromwell had an awkward, scrambling style,
but he won most of the games he played. Cromwell ran far back and with
an awkward powerful smash sent the ball back and won the point. But,
as he ran over to meet Gloria and her brothers, he could see a look of
disapproval on their faces and he knew they disliked the way he played.
Days later he and Gloria were in the hayloft of the old barn on the
back of the Atherton estate. They were both lying naked in the hay and
the sunlight came with a muted golden color through a small window,
The air was full of hay motes and the edges of Gloria's legs and arms
glowed softly. There was the soft smell of fresh hay and beneath it the
odor of the older rotting hay. Once a horse snorted and kicked a hoof
against its stall.
Cromwell looked down at Gloria's body and through the muted, obscured,
beautiful air he studied her: from her large shapely feet, up the
length of her legs, to the round swelling of her belly, to the small
hard breasts with their madder-brown nipples and then her long neck. He
could not remember her face, but he could remember her eyes. They opened
slowly and looked at him with a cool detached expression.
"I wasn't the first one," he said softly.
"That's right," she replied. "You are not the first." Her eyes looked
calmly at him.
"Who were the other ones?" he asked.
"My brothers," she said.
Cromwell leaned up on his elbow. He felt a strange churning sensation in
his stomach; a mixture of shock and curiosity and desire. He felt as if
he would like to vomit and also as if he would like to again take her
strong naked body in his arms.
"Which of your brothers?" he asked and his throat felt congested and
his voice shook.
"All of them," she said and her voice had something of defiance in it.
Cromwell stared at her, and her body seemed to merge with the soft
strands of hay; to glow like some strange plant which took on the color
of its surroundings. The churning sensation in his stomach no longer had
anything of shock or disgust. The sensation was of complete concupiscence
and excitement. He bent down and ran his tongue over her lips. Her golden
arms came out of the hay and went around his body. Five minutes later
he looked down into her face. Her eyes were wide, looking at nothing,
the cords in her neck were tight. Her face was flat with pleasure.
"Wait, just a minute," she whispered fiercely. "Don't come now. Wait
just a minute."
Her hands went behind his buttocks, pulled him up against her. At the
same time she reached up and bit his shoulder. Between her teeth there
was a fold of his flesh and he could feel her tongue run over it.
Later he had married Gloria. Since the day of their marriage he could
not recall what she had looked like before they married. It was as if
she had become another woman. And really, in his mind, he considered
her to be two women. He never consciously thought of the woman that he
was married to. Only of the long-legged, golden-colored girl whose body
was half sunk in the hay.
Cromwell opened his eyes and stood up. Riley was still waiting for him.
"All right, Riley, I've worked it out," Cromwell said.
They walked across Pershing Square, turned up Sixth Street and walked
toward the Citrus Building. The cars poured down the streets, and above
the buildings the smog was a thin yellow layer. Behind the huge plate
glass windows of an airline office there was a new bas-relief map of
California and they stopped a moment and looked at it. From a cornucopia
in the rear of the window a flood of real oranges poured across the tiny
miniature oil derricks, the model ships at San Pedro, and rolled up to
the tiny wrinkled foothills of the Sierras. One orange rested in the
curvature of the San Joaquin Valley.
As they turned away from the window Cromwell felt the sun on his shoulders
and, suddenly, he was very happy. He began to whistle.
CHAPTER 19
A Tiny Systolic Splash
Georgia and Mike looked at land around Ojai and Santa Barbara. It was
mostly elegant little valleys already planted in oranges and lemons. They
went up to Kern County and watched the big earth-movers working miles of
rolling land into a perfect flatness so that the water could flow across
it. They went up to Salinas and looked at the long light-green rows of
lettuce that ran from the highway out to where the fog broke the precise
lines. They went to Modesto, Merced and Tulare. They followed the Friant
Kern Canal and saw that where it ended the growing ended and the desert
took over again. And this was true of the Delta Mendota Canal and the
All-American Canal and wherever there was water.
"Morrie wants to talk to you today," Georgia said one morning over the
telephone. "He wants to talk about the farm land."
"Good. I'll be out about two this afternoon," Mike said.
There was a pause and then Georgia spoke.
"I have to explain about Morrie," she said. "He's an invalid. He's been
in bed for twelve years. He was a classics student in college and then
he went to medical school. But he dropped out after his first year
and has been in bed ever since." She hesitated and because Mike said
nothing she went on. "He's very bright and he helps Father a lot with
business. He'll try to be rude, but don't let it upset you. He doesn't
really mean anything by it."
"He won't upset me," Mike said.
"No. I guess he won't," Georgia said. She laughed and hung up.
The Blenner home was in Bel-Air. It sat far back on a knoll and was
hidden by a row of California wild oak trees. From the street to the
house there was a stretch of closely cropped and very green grass.
Georgia was waiting for him in a parking area behind the house. It was
very hot and bright and the sun was reflected off the white concrete. She
was leaning against the garage, dozing; with the sun full on her face. She
opened her eyes as Mike drove in.
She led him around the house along the side of a large kidney-shaped
swimming pool. An old and very thin man was lying beside the pool in
a pair of shorts. He had a shrunken, pot-bellied body and his flesh
was very white and wrinkled. He had a beard that reached almost to the
middle of his chest. He lay there, sweating and ancient, his eyes closed
against the sun, his nose hawklike.
"That's Grandfather Blenner," Georgia said. "He's a very orthodox Jew. He
wants us to eat kosher, but nobody else in the house wants to. It's a
long battle. Sometimes we have separate china services for dairy and
meat foods and then someone wants sour cream and the servants mix the
plates up and Grandfather won't eat off of them. Once he ate for a week
from paper plates because he said that washing dishes together in an
electric dishwasher mixed the plates."
They went into the huge colonial style house. They walked through
french doors into a library. On a leather couch two girls and a boy,
all about twelve years old, were seated. They were wearing Levi's and
saddle shoes. Across from them was a small dark man who was teaching
them an opening move in chess.
"Now this is the Capablanca opening," the small man said in an intense
theatrical voice. He moved a pawn and looked up with startled eyes. "What
would you do now?"
The children stared intently at the board.
Georgia led Mike up to the second floor of the house. She stopped at
the head of the stairs.
"You won't let him upset you?" she asked. In the dimness of the hall
she looked intently at Mike, bent forward slightly to see his face.
"For Christ's sake," Mike said.
"All right, I'm sorry," Georgia said. "He upsets some people; that's
all. I'm sorry."
She opened a door and went in. The room was dim. Venetian blinds covered
one side of the wall and through the ivory-colored slats horizontal
lines of brilliant sunshine cut into the grayness of the room. A large
man with a very white face was sitting up in the middle of a Hollywood
bed. His head did not move, but his eyes looked at them, rotating like
marbles sunk in suet. On a table beside the bed was an array of medicine
bottles. A bottle of yellow and red capsules had spilled over the table
and onto the rug. In the midst of the medicine bottles was a plate with
a half-empty bottle of Pabst beer, a glass with dried beer scum on it
and a plate with the remains of a ham sandwich.
"Hello, you're Freesmith," the man said. "I'm Blenner. Morrie Blenner."
He put out his hand and Mike took it. The hand was soft and puffy and
the middle finger was squeezed tightly by a thick band of gold.
"That's right. I'm Freesmith," Mike said. "How did you know?"
"I've heard you described," Morrie said. He looked up at Mike, almost
shyly. "I told Father to see you. I know a lot about you."
Georgia sat down in a chair by the head of the bed, but Mike remained
standing. Georgia looked intently at Mike, trying to read his reactions.
"Are you sick?" Mike asked flatly.
Morrie's head moved for the first time. He looked up sharply at Mike and
then over at Georgia. Georgia smiled rigidly and then looked quickly at
Mike. Morrie began to laugh. His lips pulled away from his large white
teeth, and at first, for a short moment, his laugh had the pure trilling
quality that Mike remembered when Mr. Blenner laughed. Then Morrie was
laughing so hard that he was soundless. He was almost convulsive. He
slowly turned red and then with an act of will he pulled his lips back
over his teeth and cut off the laugh, He pointed a white finger at Mike.
"You're the first person who's asked me that in ten years," he said.
"Everyone else is afraid to. They just come in and stand around and try
to be cheerful. Nobody else has asked me if I'm sick. That's funny."
"All right, nobody else has asked you," Mike said. "But are you sick?"
"It's really something of a mystery," Morrie said. "Wait just a second."
He fumbled in the bed covers and brought up a stethoscope. He fixed
the earpieces in his ears and then pulled back his pajamas. His chest
was hairless and his breasts were white and protruding, like those of a
young girl. He pushed the diaphragm of the stethoscope against the flesh
and winced. Georgia watched him move the diaphragm, her face strained.
"It's cold at first," he said and smiled at Mike.
He probed. with the stethoscope, his face expectant and then he relaxed
against the pillows.
"Now I've found my heart. At first it's very faint, but then it gets
more solid. Go ahead, take the earplugs and listen."
"No, I don't want to listen. You tell me what you hear," Mike said.
"You've heard the old story about medical school students," Morrie
said. "How they develop the symptoms of whatever disease they're
studying. They all think they've got syphilis when they're studying
that and hypertension when they're studying that. The symptoms change
with each disease they study. Well, I was like that. Except that I kept
having the symptoms of one affliction, even when we stopped studying it,"
"What was it?''I Mike asked.
"Systolic splash," Morris said. "A leakage of the valves of the heart. It
is characterized by a tiny gush of blood that leaks during the systolic
pulse of the heart. Eventually the valves get weaker and weaker and
finally the blood just rushes through and the heart fails. With the
stethoscope you can hear the tiny splashing sound the blood makes as it
leaks through the valve. In medical school they described it. I listened
to my own heart and could hear it; exactly what they described. A throb,
an easing of pressure and then a tiny faraway splash of blood . . . barely
audible."
He opened his eyes wide and turned his head up at Mike. Georgia turned
and looked up at Mike also. Her face was expectant,