The Avram Davidson Treasury : a tribute collection

Full Chicken Richness INTRODUCTION BY GARDNER DOZOIS

As editor of Asimov’s Science Fiction, and as an anthologist, I had occasion to work with Avram Davidson on several different occasions. He was not always an easy man to work with (our proofreaders always hated proofing a manuscript of Avram’s, for instance, because so much of the text was so eccentric, and Avram would insist that all of it was stet — even an obscure spelling or usage from some even more obscure source which, of course, could not be found in any of the standard references…and, of course, he usually turned out to be right, which they found even more annoying), and on occasion he could be quite difficult. But I was one of the editors who thought that his stories were worth every bit of the aggravation you sometimes had to put up with in order to obtain them — for Avram was one of the most eloquent and individual voices in science fiction and fantasy, and there were few writers in any literary field who could match his wit, his erudition, or the stylish elegance of his prose.

Avram had a strong presence in the pages of Asimov’s over the years, making a string of twenty-four sales to the magazine that started under former editor George Scithers and continued for more than ten years to Avram’s death, and even a bit beyond; we have published two posthumous stories by Avram, and we still have one of his stories in inventory as I write this. During the same period, he was appearing regularly in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Amazing, and other markets. Avram was never prolific, by genre standards, but throughout most of his long career he managed to continue to turn out a small but steady stream of high-quality short fiction, stories that earned him the Hugo Award, the World Fantasy Award (including the prestigious Life Achievement Award), and the Edgar Award…making him one of the few writers ever to win all three. (Although Avram was at his best at short story length — his short work has been collected in many volumes, including The Best of Avram Davidson, Or All the Seas with Oysters, What Strange Seas and Shores, and Collected Fantasies — his novels still contain much that is brilliant, engrossing, and fascinating, especially the underrated Masters of the Maze, Rork! Rogue Dragon, and The Phoenix and the Mirror.) And unlike many another aging Grandmaster, his later work was as strong or stronger than ever; his recent series of stories about the bizarre exploits of Dr. Engelbert Eszterhazy (collected in the World Fantasy Award-winning The Adventures of Doctor Eszterhazy) and the lush, strange, and vivid adventures of Jack Limekiller (as yet uncollected, alas — publishers take note!) must surely rank among the best short fantasies written by anyone in the last fifteen years…and that includes those by writers with much greater critical reputations than Avram, who make far larger amounts of money than Avram ever did.

At his best, Avram Davidson may have been one of the great short story writers of our times, in or out of the fantasy/science fiction genre. He was probably the equal, at the very least, of, say, Saki, and perhaps even of John Collier — although, unlike them, you will find no stories of Avram’s being taught in college textbooks. That’s as may be. What I think is incontestable, though, is that Avram was certainly one of the great Uniques, an absolutely individual voice and perspective and mind; nobody other than Avram could possibly have written any of Avram’s stories, nor could you have possibly mistaken a line of Avram’s prose for the prose of any other writer. This is something rare and valuable in a day when some people are trying to force fiction to be as bland and interchangeable and “marketable” as possible. Avram fit no molds, and can not be replaced. The only comfort we can take from his death is that his work survives, and will be there to speak to us in that unique, instantly recognizable, quirky, intensely flavored voice every time we open the page and read.

So open the page and read the sly, witty, and elegant story that follows, which features — among many other delights — what is very probably the single silliest use for a time-machine in the entire history of time-travel stories…

LA BUNNE BURGER WAS said to have the best hamburger on The Street; the only trouble with that was that Fred Hopkins didn’t care much for hamburger. However there were other factors to consider, such as these: other items on La Bunne’s menu were probably just a bit better than comparable items composed elsewhere on The Street, they sold for just a bit less than, etc. etc., and also Fred Hopkins found the company just a bit more interesting than elsewhere, etc. What else? It was nearer to his studio loft than any eating-place else. Any place else save for a small place called The Old Moulmein Pagoda, the proprietor of which appeared to speak very fluent Cantonese for a Burman, and the Old Moulmein Pagoda was not open until late afternoon. Late afternoon.

Late morning was more Fred’s style.

He was likely to find there, at any given time of late morning, a number of regulars, such as: well, there was Tilly, formerly Ottilie, with red cheeks, her white hair looking windblown even on windless days; Tilly had her own little routine, which consisted of ordering coffee and toast; with the toast came a small plastic container of jelly, and this she spread on one of the slices of toast. That eaten, she would hesitantly ask Rudolfo if she might have more jelly…adding, that she would pay for it. Rudolfo would hand her one or two or three more, she would tentatively offer him a palm of pennies and nickels and he would politely decline them. Fred was much moved by this little drama, but after the twelfth and succedant repetitions it left him motionless. (Once he was to encounter Tillie in a disused doorway downtown standing next to a hat with money while she played — and played beautifully — endless Strauss waltzes on that rather un-Strauss-like-instrument, the harmonica.)

Also unusually present in La Bunne Burger in the 40 minutes before the noon rush were Volodya and Carl. They were a sort of twosome there: that is, they were certainly not a twosome elsewhere. Carl was tall and had long blond hair and a long blond beard and was already at his place along the counter when Volodya walked in. Carl never said anything to Volodya, Volodya always said anything to Carl. Volodya was wide and gnarly and had small pale eyes like those of a malevolent pig. Among the things he called Carl were Popa! Moskuev! Smaravatchnik! — meaning (Fred Hopkins found out by and by) Priest! Inhabitant of Moscow! and One Who, For Immoral Purposes, Pretends to be a Chimney Sweep! Fred by and by tried to dissuade Volodya of this curious delusion: “He’s a Minnesota Swede,” Fred explained. But Volodya would have none of it. “He’s A Rahshian Artoducks priest!” was his explosive come-back — and he went on to denounce the last Czar of Russia as having been in the pay of the freemasons. Carl always said nothing, munched away as droplets of egg congealed on his beard.

And there was, in La Bunne Burger, often, breaking fast on a single sausage and a cup of tea, a little old oriental man, dressed as though for the winters of Manchuria; once Fred had, speaking slowly and clearly, asked him please to pass the ketchup: “Say, I ain’t deef,” said the l.o.o.m., in tones the purest American Gothic.

Fred himself was not in the least eccentric, he was an artist, not even starving, though…being unfashionably representational…not really prospering, either. His agent said that this last was his, Fred’s, own fault. “Paint doctors’ wives!” his agent insisted. “If you would only paint portraits for doctors’ wives, I could get you lots of commissions. Old buildings,” the agent said, disdainfully. “Old buildings, old buildings.” But the muse kisseth where she listeth and if anything is not on the list, too bad: Fred had nothing against doctors’ wives; merely, he preferred to paint pictures of old buildings. Now and then he drove around looking for old buildings he hadn’t painted pictures of and he photographed them and put the photos up by his canvas to help when he painted at home: this of course caused him to be regarded with scorn by purists who painted only from the model or the imagination; why either should be less or more scornable, they disdained to say.

Whom else was F. Hopkins likely to see in La Bunne Burger over his late breakfast or his brunch? Proprietors of nearby businesses, for example, he was likely to see there; mamma no longer brought pappa’s dinner wrapped in a towel to keep hot. Abelardo was sometimes there. Also Fred might see tourists or new emigres or visiting entrepreneurs of alien status, come to taste the exotic tuna fish sandwich on toast, the picturesque macaroni and cheese, the curious cold turkey, and, of course, often, often, often the native La Bunne De Luxe Special…said to be the best hamburger on The Street. Abelardo had long looked familiar; Abelardo had in fact looked familiar from tbe first. Abelardo always came in from the kitchen and Abelardo always went back out through the kitchen, and yet Abelardo did not work in the kitchen. Evidently Abelardo delivered. Something.

Once, carrying a plate of…something…odd and fragrant, Rudolfo rested it a moment on the counter near Fred while he gathered cutlery; in response to Fred’s look of curiosity and approbation, at once said. “Not on the menu. Only I give some to Abelardo, because our family come from the same country;” off he went.

Later: “You’re not from Mexico, Rudolfo.”

“No. South America.” Rudolfo departs with glasses.

Later: “Which country in South America you from, Rudolfo?”

“Depend who you ask.” Exit, Rudolfo, for napkins.

Fred Hopkins, idly observing paint on two of his own fingers, idly wondered that — a disputed boundary being clearly involved — Rudolfo was not out leading marches and demonstrations, or (at least!) with drippy brushes slapping up grafitti exhorting the reader to Remember the 12th of January…the 3rd of April…the 24th of October…and so on through the existing political calendar of Ibero-America… Clearly, Rudolfo was an anachronism. Perhaps he secretly served some fallen sovereign; a pseudo-crypto-Emperor of Brazil. Perhaps.

Though probably not likely.

One day, the hour being later than usual and the counter crowded, Fred’s eyes wandered around in search of a seat; met those of Abelardo who, wordlessly, invited him to sit in the empty place at the two-person table. Which Fred did. And, so doing, realized why the man had always seemed familiar. Now, suppose you are a foreigner living in a small city or medium town in Latin America, as Fred Hopkins had once been, and it doesn’t really matter which city or town or even which country…doesn’t really matter for this purpose…and you are going slightly out your mind trying to get your electricity (la luz) turned on and eventually you notice that there are a few large stones never moved from the side of a certain street and gradually notice that there is often the same man sitting on one of the boulders and that this man wears very dusty clothes which do not match and a hat rather odd for the locale (say, a beret) and that he also wears glasses and that the lens of one is opaque or dark and that this man often gives a small wave of his hand to return the greetings of passersby but otherwise he merely sits and looks. You at length have occasion to ask him something, say, At what hour does the Municipal Palace open? And not only does the man politely inform you, he politely engages you in conversation and before long he is giving you a fascinating discourse on an aspect of history, religion, economics, or folklore, an aspect of which you had been completely ignorant. Subsequent enquiry discloses that the man is, say, a Don Eliseo, who had attended the National University for nine years but took no degree, that he is an idiosyncratico, and comes from a family muy honorado — so much honorado, in fact, that merely having been observed in polite discourse with him results in your electricity being connectido muy pronto. You have many discourses with Don Eliseo and eventually he shows you his project, temporarily in abeyance, to perfect the best tortilla making-and-baking machine in the world: there is some minor problem, such as the difficulty of scraping every third tortilla off the ceiling, but any day now Don Eliseo will get this licked; and, in the meanwhile and forever after, his house is your house.

This was why Abelardo had seemed familiar from the start, and if Abelardo was not Eliseo’s brother than he was certainly his nephew or his cousin…in the spirit, anyway.

Out of a polite desire that Fred Hopkins not be bored while waiting to be served, Abelardo discussed various things with him — that is, for the most part, Abelardo discussed. Fred listened. La Bunne Burger was very busy.

“Now, the real weakness of the Jesuits in Paraguay,” Abelardo explained.

“Now, in western South America,” said Abelardo, “North American corporations are disliked less for their vices than for their virtues. Bribery, favoritism, we can understand these things, we live with them. But an absolute insistence that one must arrive in one’s office day after day at one invariable hour and that frequent prolonged telephone conversations from one’s office to one’s home and family is unfavored, this is against our conception of personal and domestic usement,” Abelardo explained.

He assured Fred Hopkins that the Regent Isabella’s greatest error, “though she made several,” was in having married a Frenchman. “The Frankish temperament is not the Latin temperament,” Abelardo declared.

Fred’s food eventually arrived; Abelardo informed him that although individual enterprise and planned economy were all very well in their own ways, “one ignores the law of supply and demand at peril. I have been often in businesses, so I know, you see.” Said Abelardo.

Abelardo did not indeed wear eyeglasses with one dark or opaque lens, but one of his eyes was artificial. He had gold in his smile — that is, in his teeth — and his white coverall was much washed but never much ironed. By and by, with polite words and thanks for the pleasure of Fred’s company, Abelardo vanished into the kitchen; when Fred strolled up for his bill, he was informed it had already been paid. This rather surprised Fred. So did the fact, conveyed to him by the clock, that the noon rush was over. Had been over.

“Abelardo seems like — Abelardo is a very nice guy.”

Rudolfo’s face, hands, and body made brief but persuasive signal that it went without saying that Abelardo was indeed a very nice guy. “But I don’t know how he stay in business,” said Rudolfo, picking up a pile of dishes and walking them off to the kitchen.

Fred had no reason to remain to discuss this, as it was an unknown to him how anybody stayed in business. Merely he was well aware how week after week the price of paints and brushes and canvases went up, up, up, while the price of his artwork stayed the same, same, same. Well, his agent, though wrong, was right. No one to blame but himself; he could have stayed in advertising, he might be an account executive by now. Or — Walking along The Street, he felt a wry smile accompany memory of another of Abelardo’s comments: “Advertisage is like courtship, always involve some measure of deceit.”

This made him quickstep a bit back to the studio to get in some more painting, for — he felt — tonight might be a good one for what one might call courtship; “exploitation,” some would doubtless call it: though why? if ladies (“women!”) did not like to come back to his loft studio and see his painting, why did they do so? And if they did not genuinely desire to remain for a while of varying length, who could make them? Did any one of them really desire to admire his art, was there no pretense on the part of any of them? Why was he not the exploited one? You women are all alike, you only have one thing on your mind, all you think of is your own pleasure… Oh well. Hell. Back to work. — It was true that you could not sleep with an old building, but then they never argued with you, either. And as for “some measure of deceit,” boy did that work both ways! Two weeks before, he’d come upon a harmonious and almost untouched, though tiny, commercial block in an area in between the factories and the farms, as yet undestroyed by the people curiously called “developers”; he’d taken lots of color snaps of it from all angles, and he wanted to do at least two large paintings, maybe two small ones as well. The date, 1895, was up there in front. The front was false, but in the harmony was truth.

A day that found him just a bit tired of the items staple in breakfast found him ordering a cup of the soup du jour for starters. “How you like the soup?”—Rudolfo.

Fred gave his head a silent shake. How. It had gone down without exciting dismay. “Truthful with you. Had better, had worse. Hm. What was it. Well, I was thinking of something else. Uh — chicken vegetable with rice? Right? Right. Yours or Campbell’s?”

Neither.

“Half mine, half Abelardo’s.”

“I beg your pardon.”

But Rudolfo had never heard the rude English story about the pint of half-and-half, neither did Fred tell it to him. Rudolfo said, “I make a stock with the bones after making chickens sandwiches and I mix it with this.” He produced a large, a very large can, pushed it over to Fred. The label said, FULL CHICKEN RICHNESS Chicken-Type Soup.

“Whah-haht?” asked Fred, half-laughing. He read on. Ingredients: Water, Other Poultry and Poultry Parts, Dehydrated Vegetables, Chickens and Chicken Parts, seasoning … the list dribbled off into the usual list of chemicals. The label also said, Canned for Restaurant and Institutional Usement.

“Too big for a family,” Rudolfo observed. “Well, not bad, I think, too. Help me keep the price down. Every little bit help, you know.”

“Oh. Sure. No, not bad. But I wonder about that label.” Rudolfo shrugged about that label. The Government, he said, wasn’t going to worry about some little chico outfit way down from the outskirt of town. Fred chuckled at the bland non-identification of “Other Poultry”—Rudolfo said that turkey was still cheaper than chicken—“But I don’t put it down, ‘chicken soup,’ I put it down, ‘soup du jour’; anybody ask, I say,”Oh, you know, chicken and rice and vegetable and, oh, stuff like that; try it, you don’t like it I don’t charge you.’ Fair enough? — Yes,” he expanded. “Abelardo, he is no businessman. He is a filosofo. His mind is always in the skies. I tell him, I could use more soup — twice, maybe even three times as many cans. What he cares. ‘Ai! Supply and demand! ’ he says. Then he tells me about the old Dutch explorers, things like that. — Hey! I ever tell you about the time he make his own automobile? (“Abelar-do did?”) Sure! Abelardo did. He took a part from one car, a part from another, he takes parts not even from cars, I don’t know what they from—”

Fred thought of Don Eliseo and the more perfect tortilla making-and-baking machine. “—well, it work! Finally! Yes! It start off, yooom! like a rocket! Sixty-three mile an hour! But oh boy when he try to slow it down! It stop! He start it again. Sixty-three mile an hour! No other rate of speed, well, what can you do with such a car? So he forget about it and he invent something else, who knows what; then he go into the soup business. — Yes, sir! You ready to order?” Rudolfo moved on.

So did Fred. The paintings of the buildings 1895 were set aside for a while so that he could take a lot of pictures of a turn-of-the-century family home scheduled for destruction real soon. This Site Will be Improved With a Modern Office Building, what the hell did they mean by Improved? Alice came up and looked at the sketches of the family home, and at finished work. “I like them,” she said. “I like you.” She stayed. Everything fine. Then, one day, there was the other key on the table. On the note: There is nothing wrong, it said. Just time to go now. Love. No name. Fred sighed. Went on painting.

One morning late there was Abelardo in the Bunne. He nodded, smiled a small smile. By and by, some coffee down. Fred said, “Say, where do you buy your chickens?” Abelardo, ready to inform, though not yet ready to talk, took a card from his wallet.

While Fred was still reading this, Abelardo passed him over another card, this one for the Full Chicken Richness Canned Soup Company. “You must visit me,” he said. “Most time I am home.”

Fred hadn’t really cared where the chickens were bought, but now the devil entered into him. First he told Abelardo the story about the man who sold rabbit pie. Asked, wasn’t there anyway maybe some horsemeat in the rabbit pie, said it was fifty-fifty: one rabbit, one horse. Abelardo reflected, then issued another small smile, a rather more painful one. Fred asked, “What about the turkey-meat in your chicken-type soup? I mean, uh, rather, the ‘Other Poultry Parts?’”

Abelardo squinted. “Only the breast,” he said. “The rest not good enough. — For the soup, I mean. The rest, I sell to some mink ranchers.”

“How’s business?”

Abelardo shrugged. He looked a bit peaked. “Supply,” he said. “Demand,” he said. Then he sighed, stirred, rose. “You must visit me. Any time. Please,” he said.

Abelardo wasn’t there in the La Bunne Burger next late morning, but someone else was. Miles Marton, call him The Last of the Old-Time Land Agents, call him something less nice: there he was. “Been waiting,” Miles Marton said. “Remember time I toll you bout ol stage-coach buildin? You never came. It comin down tomorrow. Ranch houses. Want to take its pitcher? Last chance, today. Make me a nice little paintin of it, price is right, I buy it. Bye now.”

Down Fred went. Heartbreaking to think its weathered timbers, its mellowed red brick chimney and stone fireplace, were coming down; but Fred Hopkins was very glad he’d had the favor of a notice. Coming down, too, the huge trees with the guinea-fowl in them. Lots of photographs. Be a good painting. At least one. Driving back, lo! a sign saying E. J. BINDER PRIME POULTRY FARM; absolutely by a big oak. Still, Fred probably wouldn’t have stopped if there hadn’t been someone by the gate. Binder, maybe. Sure enough. Binder. “Say, do you know a South American named Abelardo?”

No problem. “Sure I do. Used to be a pretty good customer, too. Buy oh I forget how many chickens a week. Don’t buy many nowdays. He send you here? Be glad to oblige you.” Binder was an oldish man, highly sun-speckled.

“You supply his turkeys and turkey-parts, too?” The devil still inside Fred Hopkins.

Old Binder snorted. “‘Turkeys,’ no we don’t handle turkeys, no sir, why chickens are enough trouble, cost of feeding going up, and — No, ‘guinea-fowl,’ no we never did. Just chickens and of course your cornish.”

Still civil, E. J. Binder gave vague directions toward what he believed, he said, was the general location of Mr. Abelardo’s place. Fred didn’t find it right off, but he found it. As no one appeared in response to his calling and honking, he got out and knocked. Nothing. Pues, “My house is your house,” okay: in he went through the first door. Well, it wasn’t a large cannery, but it was a cannery. Fred started talking to himself: solitary artists often do. “Way I figure it, Abelardo,” he said, “is that you have been operating with that ‘small measure of deceit in advertising, as you so aptly put it. I think that in your own naive way you have believed that so long as you called the product ‘Chicken-Type Soup’ and included some chicken, well, it was all right. Okay, your guilty secret is safe with me; where are you?” The place was immaculate, except for. Except for a pile of…well…shit…right in the middle of an aisle. It was as neat as a pile of shit can be. Chicken-shits? Pigeon-poops? Turkey-trots? ¿ Quien sabe?

At the end of the aisle was another door and behind that door was a small apartment and in a large chair in the small apartment lay sprawled Abelardo, dead drunk on mescal, muzhik-grade vodka, and sneaky pet…according to the evidence. Alcoholism is not an especially Latin American trait? Who said the poor guy was an alcoholic? Maybe this was the first time he’d ever been stewed in his life. Maybe the eternally perplexing matter of supply and demand had finally unmanned him.

Maybe.

At the other end of that room was another door and behind that other door was another room. And in that other room was…

… something else…

That other room was partly crammed with an insane assortment of machinery and allied equipment, compared to which Don Eliseo’s more perfect make-and-bake tortilla engine, with its affinities to the perpetual motion invention of one’s choice, was simplicity. The thing stood naked for Fred’s eyes, but his eyes told him very little: wires snaked all around, that much he could say. There was a not-quite-click, a large television screen flickered on. No. Whatever it was at the room’s end, sitting flush to the floor with a low, chicken-wire fence around it, it was not television, not even if Abelardo had started from scratch as though there had been no television before. The quality of the “image” was entirely different, for one thing; and the color, for another, was wrong … and wrong in the way that no TV color he had ever seen had been wrong. He reached to touch the screen, there was no “screen,” it was as though his hand met a surface of unyielding gelatin. The non-screen, well, what the hell, call it a screen, was rather large, but not gigantically so. He was looking at a savannah somewhere, and among the trees were palms and he could not identify the others. A surf pounded not far off, but he could not hear it. There was no sound. He saw birds flying in and out of the trees. Looking back, he saw something else. A trail of broken bread through the room, right up to the, mmm, screen. A silent breeze now and then rifled grass, and something moved in the grass to one side. He stepped back, slightly. What the hell could it mean? Then the something which was in the grass to one side stepped, stiff-legged, into full view, and there was another odd, small sound as the thing — it was a bird — lurched through the screen and began to gobble bread. Hopkins watched, dry-mouthed. Crumb by crumb it ate. Then there was no more bread. It doddled up to the low fence, doddled back. It approached the screen, it brushed the screen, there was a Rube Goldberg series of motions in the external equipment, a sheet of chicken wire slid noisily down to the floor. The bird had been trapped.

Fred got down and peered into the past till his eyes and neck grew sore, but he could not see one more bird like it. He began to laugh and cry simultaneously. Then he stood up. “Inevitable,” he croaked, throwing out his arms. “Inevitable! Demand exceeded supply!”

The bird looked up at him with imbecile, incurious eyes, and opened its incredible beak. “Doh-do,” it said, halfway between a gobble and a coo. “Doh-do. Doh-do.”

Afterword to “Full Chicken Richness” BY GARDNER DOZOIS

And, now that I can say this without ruining the ending, I should also point out that this is one of only two science fiction stories I can think of where the plot centers around dodoes. The identity of the other story — not by Avram — I leave as an exercise for the reader.

The Hills Behind Hollywood High INTRODUCTION BY GRANIA DAVIS

Hollywood was my hometown, and Hollywood Boulevard was my Main Street. I graduated from Hollywood High. Hollywood was a company town, and the big film and TV studios were The Company.

Avram Davidson lived in Hollywood during the placid 1950s. He worked as a night clerk in a cheap hotel off Vine Street, to support his writing habit. Every night he saw the has-beens and the rejects, the character actors and the genuine characters. From our shared experiences, this story was born, about the sacrifices that go on behind the scenes.

I collaborated with Avram Davidson on four short stories, and on the last novel published during his lifetime, Marco Polo and the Sleeping Beauty. We were working on a dark fantasy novel, Boss in the Wall, just before he passed on.

I’ve been asked how I could possibly imitate Avram Davidson’s style. The answer is easy. Nobody can imitate Avram Davidson’s style. All I could do was create a framework for his glittering prose, like a jeweler setting gems. There are many Avram Davidson gems in this droll story.

THAT THERE ARE HILLS behind Hollywood — that is, behind Hollywood Boulevard and Hollywood High School — is perhaps not universally known. Smog often hides them, and tourists have no reason to look for, let alone explore, them. They remain unnoticed by the valley commuters who flood past them twice daily. Fish, it is said, do not see the water in which they swim, nor birds observe the winds which bear them.

In the late thirties, according to Life magazine, that omniscient observer of the world scene, the students of Hollywood High School were the most beautiful in the world, being the issue of beautiful young men and women who had come to Hollywood in the twenties seeking movie stardom and, although they had failed—because they had failed — stayed on in Hollywood doing Something Else, anything else.

Success would have removed them to Beverly Hills or Brentwood — failure prevented their return to Cowpat, Kansas; Absalom, Alabama; or Pretty Bird, Idaho. (“Diddunt make it in thuh pitchers, huh, Jeff? Huh, Jean? Huh huh haw!”) So there they stayed, frying hamburgers on Hollywood Boulevard, pumping gas or sacking groceries on Vine. Marcelling waves or setting perms on Cahuenga, clipping hedges or mowing lawns on Selma. Or, if exceptionally lucky, working in studio jobs on the other side of the cameras.

Hollywood was their hometown now, just as Cowpat, Absalom, or Pretty Bird had been. No more profitable maybe, but lots more interesting. And the beautiful failures met and married other beautiful failures — and together begat beautiful babies, who their parents hoped would Make It In The Movies. Make It Big.

“What? Television, what is that?”

It was in the mid-fifties. The huge red juggernaut trolley cars still rolled down the alley right of way. Vibi’s restaurant still advertised Breakfast Served 24 Hours a Day, but did not advertise the answer to the old-timers’ eternal question: Was “Vibi” Vilma Bankey or was she not, and if not, who was she? Because the old-timers knew she was some movie star from the old days.

As to who was the little old lady in the short black velvet tunic and the sandals cross-strapped halfway up her shrunk shanks, nobody had an answer, or knew why she carried a cane-length silver wand: an ancient fairy in the ancient meaning of the word, she stepped her light-fantastic way and bothered no one.

Dorothy, Angela, and Luanne giggled when they saw her — but only after she had moved well on — as they giggled in confused respect when passing the old dark house smothered in foliage, which was the home of the ninety-odd-year-old widow of L. Frank Baum, the original Wizard of Oz. The original house where he had dreamed his strange — and strangely profitable — dreams.

Sometimes the three girls went to buy snacks at the all-night Ranch Market on Vine, and sometimes they went there just to stare at the odd types who went there to stare at the other odd types. Once they heard a squat woman who looked as though Central Casting had selected her as a Ma Kettle standin say to her equally typical Farmer-Husband: “Land sakes, Pa, what is this?”— holding up the scaly green fruit of the cherimoya-tree — and Pa had said: “Looks like a armadillo egg to me, Ma!”

Past the Hollywood Hotel, which presumably dated from the Spanish Conquista, and near Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, built like an oriental shrine with hand-and-foot-prints of the famous set into cement out front for the faithful pilgrims to worship, was the business place of Angelo, the dwarf newsvendor. Sometimes they would see Angelo darting across Hollywood Boulevard to pick up a bundle of papers while he meanwhile waved a large white sheet of cardboard as a signal to drivers that he was not merely a driven leaf. Angelo had been in the movies, too.

Side by side, waving and squealing, Dorothy, Angela, and Luanne had seen Robert Cummings ride past in an open car with his family, and Robert Cummings had waved back and smiled widely — but did not squeal.

More than once they had clutched each other to see, walking on the sidewalk, just like anybody else, the movie-villainous Porter Hall, not looking the least villainous, looking dapper and rosy-cheeked — and Porter Hall had tipped his dapper hat and said: “Hello, lovely ladies!”

Lovely ladies!

As for names even more (well…much more) glamorous than Robert Cummings, or Porter Hall — well, Dorothy, Angela, and Luanne seldom saw them … in the flesh. Very seldom, though, at great and rare intervals, some of the Very Biggest Stars could be seen cruising majestically along at less than top speed. Showing the flag, as it were. Tryone. Lana. Lauren and Bogie. Bette. Ava. Joan. Clark.

In a Company Town, people naturally hope to get jobs with The Company. In Hollywood there is no one company — there is The Industry. So, although none of their parents had ever become even minor stars, it remained the natural hope of Dorothy, Luanne, and Angela that she…and she…and she…would nevertheless become Major Ones.

Outsiders, had they ever penetrated the neighborhood of squat, scaly palm trees and pseudo-Spanish stucco houses in the Hollywood Foothills, where the smog meets the ocean breezes, might have seen merely three perfectly ordinary teen-age girls — wearing fluffy bouffant felt skirts and fluffy bouffant hairdos, or pedal pushers and pageboys. One with large dark eyes and a slight, skimpy figure (Dorothy), one a tall and narrow blonde with a face marked chiefly by freckles and zits (Angela), one with a lovely complexion and a lavish bosom, but stocky hips and legs (Luanne).

To themselves, however, they were far from ordinary. They were Daughters of Hollywood. Moviedom was their birthright; obstacles in the form of imperfectly good looks were merely temporary. Things to be overcome. They were still at Hollywood High School, yes, but they merely endured the boring academic routine (really! classes in English! Like they were some kind of foreigners!). They saved all enthusiasm for their drama courses.

If there were diets, Luanne dieted them. If there were complexion creams, Angela creamed her complexion with them. If there were exercises, all three exercised them — Luanne for hips and legs, Angela and Dorothy for bosoms.

And — did it help?

Well.

Luanne at least obtained a one-shot modeling job, with her picture cut off above the hips.

Angela did get, once, an extra part in a scene at a youth rally. (Politics? Circa 1953? Bless your Adam’s apple, no! The youths rallied for — in the film — a newer and larger football stadium.)

These opportunities never knocked again; even so—

But Dorothy got…nothing at all.

*Sigh*

The last straw was the sign in the storefront window: Now Signing Up! For Open-Air Spectacular! WANTED. One Hundred Teen-Aged GIRLS! GIRLS! GIRLS! In she went. Surely, if a hundred were wanted, she—

“No.”

“But why not?”

The woman at the table heaped with application forms said, “Because, honey, who goes to see these things? Men.” She pronounced this last word as though she were pronouncing “pubic lice.” And went on to explain, “My dear, the average American man has never been weaned. If a girl is not prominent in the mammary section, if she doesn’t have what is called ‘a full figure,’ though one might ask, ‘full of what?’—well, Mr. Average American John hasn’t gotten his money’s worth, the fool!”

Perhaps she should have stayed? Only perhaps not.

What she did do, after getting the hell out, was to walk fast. Next to walk rapidly, and next to run. Then to stumble, then to halt. And then to start weeping. She didn’t burst into tears, she just wept.

And cried.

At that moment, Dorothy caught sight of her slender, tiny self reflected in a store window. Even amidst her grief and woe she realized that, if her life had been a movie, someone would have come up behind her and asked, “Why are you crying?”

At that moment someone came up behind her and asked, “Why are you crying?”

The moment was one of genuine thrill. Mingled with its pleasure, however, was an element of alarm. The voice wasn’t that of a wholesome, handsome American Boy with a mouthful of large white teeth set in a cornflakes smile; no: it definitely had a Foreign Accent.

Dorothy looked up. Was the man who had spoken—was he tall, dark, and handsome? Truth to say — not altogether. He was rather short. He was kind of dark; sallow, one might say. He had large and shining eyes. Now there was nothing wrong with all of this, or with any of this. Dorothy had long ago learned that even the most wholesome-looking of American Boys was not above urging her into some rotten old Nash or Chevy or Studebaker, stinking of grease, and then trying to Get Fresh with her. She gave a cautious sniff: no auto grease. However: something else. What? Something odd. But something not unpleasant.

“Why are you crying?” the man repeated. Impossible to guess his age.

“It’s my figure,” she said mournfully. “It’s too thin and skimpy.”

This was the strange man’s signal to say, “Nonsense, there’s nothing wrong with your figure; it’s all in your mind, you have a lovely figure.” Which would be her signal to slip away and get going. Men and boys had lied to her before, and with what result? (Never mind.)

What the strange man did say was, “Hmm, yes, that is certainly true. It is too thin and skimpy. About that you should something do.”

So right. “I need to see a doctor,” she whimpered.

“I am a doctor,” said the stranger. In his hand he held a small, wet-glistening bottle of a brown liquid, which he shifted to draw a wallet out, and out of the wallet a card. He handed the card to her. It read:

The word Batavia had been crossed out with a thin-point fountain pen and the word Djakarta written above. The word Djakarta had been scratched out with a thick-point fountain pen and the word Hollywood written beneath. In pencil.

“I have only come down to buy this bottle of celery tonic at the deli store. Of course you are familiar with it, an American drink. I wish to have it with my Reistafel. How. ‘Rice Table,’ you would say. It is a mixed dish, such as me, self. Part Nederlandse, part Indonesian. Are you fond of?”

Dorothy had no idea if she was fond, or not fond of. She had a certain feeling that this doctor with the funny name was weird. Weird. But still there was the chance that he might be able to help her. If anything, it increased the chance, for everything normal had certainly failed.

“Is your office near here?” she asked.

It wasn’t like other doctors’ offices, for sure. It had funny things in it: skulls, stuffed things, carved things, things in bottles. Other doctors didn’t give her a spicy meal. Was she fond of? Or not? Well, it was different.

So—“What kind of medicine do you think will help me?”

The doctor, who had been eyeing her intently, seemed surprised by the question. “What? Ah, the medicine. Oh, to sure be. Hmm!”

He got up and opened a few drawers, then took out a funny-looking bottle with a funny-looking powder in it. “In my native island Sumatra,” he explained, “I was very interested in natural history and botany, zoology and pharmacology, also hunting and fishing. And so therefore. But. Details.”

She eyed the powder. “Do I take it by the spoonful? Or in a capsule, Doctor?”

He was again staring at her with his odd and shining eyes. “Take — Oh, but first I must you examine,” said he.

Well, what he did with Dorothy before, during, and after the examination was certainly no worse than what had been done with her by others, not that most of them had been doctors, though this doctor used his fingers fairly freely. It was…well…interesting. And the couch was nicer than the back seat of a tatty old jalopy, and the spices and incense certainly smelled lots better than auto grease.

“Gnumph,” he said, after helping her on with her clothes. “You seem in excellent physical condition, exception of thin, skimpy figure, of course. The medicine substance; it is a glandular one which I prepared myself from — but details you would not be fond. I will dilute with water,” he said, moving to the sink. But nothing came from the faucet save a wheeze, a grind, and a trickle of rust.

“Ah, I had forgotten. Repairs; they had informed me. No water for a while. So. Another liquid. Not alcoholic. What? Ho!” He took up the small bottle of celery tonic. It was still half full, and he pulled the odd stopper out of the odd bottle and emptied the carbonated beverage into it. Swirled it several times. Handed it to her.

Well! This certainly beat paying a drugstore, and it was better than an injection! She closed her eyes and swallowed. And swallowed. How did it taste? A little like celery and no worse than she had expected. Much easier than exercises! “How much do I owe you?” she asked.

Once again the liquid look. “Owe? Oh. Please pay me with the pleasure of listening with me some of my maternally native music. Here is one gramophone. I shall play some gamalan.”

After quite some of this unusual music the doctor asked how she felt. She said she felt sort of funny; he said he would examine her again. She said she would go to the bathroom first; and then, removing her shoes and holding them in her hands, she silently left the premises of Songhabhongbhong Van Leeuwenhoek, Dr. Philosof, and went home.

After a night of odd and restless dreaming, in which she seemed to be rather high up in a greenish place with lots of grass and trees and some rather, well, funny-peculiar people, Dorothy awoke with a faint sick-headache. Was it—? No, it wasn’t; wrong time of the month, for one thing, and it really didn’t feel like that anyway. She drifted back to sleep, this time with no dreams, and awoke again. As she stirred in her bed the thought came that she did feel heavier than usual. The medicine! Had it begun to work so soon? She hurried to the bathroom and hopped onto the scales. As she looked down she realized two things: For one, she had certainly gained weight! And, for another, her feet were covered with dark hair.

“Oh, my God!” she whimpered and, slipping off her nightie, she turned to face the full-length mirror.

It wasn’t just her feet.

It was all of her.

As far as she could see, and even in the mirror she couldn’t see all of her — she had turned into a gorilla.

It was certainly better than turning into a giant cockroach. But that was all she could think of in its favor.

The pounding on the door had been going on for a long time. Of course it was impossible to let anyone see her — and what good luck that her father had gotten one of the irregularly occurring jobs which kept the household going, and was away helping build sets on location somewhere. She’d better speak through the door. But someone was speaking through the door to her!

“I know you’re in there, hairy!” the voice was shouting. Hairy! Then…then they already knew! How—? Who—?

She peered through a gap in her bedroom curtain, being careful not to move it, but in vain! Though she scuttled away in terror, whoever was outside began tapping, rapping on the bedroom window. Suddenly she remembered whom she’d seen. Not “hairy”! The man was shouting for “Harry,” her father!

Dorothy’s mother, smelling of whisky and perfume, had vanished from their lives some years ago — but she had left debts. Lots of debts. Dad had borrowed to pay the debts, then he borrowed to pay the money he had borrowed.

The whole thing had spiraled and doubled and tripled, and then fallen into the hands of the Greater Los Angeles Punitive Collection Agency. In fact, as she tiptoed into the living room she saw that another of the familiar cards had been slipped under the door. Bang! Bang! Bang! “I know you’re in there, Harry! Better open up and let me talk, Harry! We can’t wait forever, Harry!”

On the card was printed the name of Hubbard E. Glutt, District Agent. Mr. Glutt wasn’t an entire stranger. He wore a once-white shirt and a once-gray suit, both with ingrown ketchup stains, and he had extremely hairy nostrils. It could not be said, even with the best of intentions, that he was a very nice man. His breath smelled, too.

“Go away, please go away,” Dorothy said through the door. She was thankful to note that her voice was unchanged. She wasn’t thankful for much else. “My dad’s not in—”

“I don’t care who’s not in,” yelped Mr. Glutt. “Ya gunna pay sompthing?”

“But I have no money!”

Mr. Glutt made a noise between a grunt and a snarl. “Same old story: ‘My dad’s not in and I have no money.’ Huh? Still not in? Well, I gotta sudgestion.” Here his voice sank and grew even nastier. “Lemme in, and I’ll tell ya how we can, mmm, take mebbe twenty dollas affa the bill, liddle gurl, huh, huh, huh…”

Dorothy could stand it no longer. She jerked the door open and pulled Mr. Glutt inside. The scream had not even reached his throat when Dorothy’s new-formed fangs sank into it.

As though in a blur, she dragged the suddenly inert body into the breakfast nook. And feasted on it.

Moments passed.

The blur vanished. Oh God, what had she done? Killed and partially eaten someone, was what. But how? Gorillas don’t eat people, gorillas eat bananas…don’t they?

Therefore she wasn’t even a gorilla. She was some sort of monster — like a werewolf? A were-gorilla? Trembling with shock and horror and fear, she stared at her image in the big front hall mirror…and gave a squeal of terrified loathing. The hair that covered her was now darker and coarser, and her facial features had coarsened, too. Her fingernails had become talons, although fragments of the Pearly Peach nail polish still remained. And examining her mouth as the squeal died away, she saw that it was full of yellow fangs. She began to sob.

How could something like this have happened to her? That’s what girls always asked when they found themselves unwantedly pregnant — as if they didn’t know how! But this was worse than pregnancy, a million times worse…and besides, pregnancy had a well-known cause, and she really couldn’t imagine what had caused this.

Then a sudden thought came, echoing like a clap of thunder, illuminated as by a flash of lightning: that…that weird glandular-extract medicine which she had taken only yesterday! To make her figure fuller. Well, fuller it certainly was! But oh, at what a price! There was nothing to do but call the doctor and have him come over, and give her something to undo its effects. Only — only — would he make house calls? Well, she’d just have to see.

Only alas, she could not see. The most searching examination of the L.A. phone books, all several of them, failed to show any listing for a Doctor Van Leeuwenhoek…however spelled. Nor could she remember a phone in his small apartment. She was afraid to go out as she was now, at least by day. At night? Maybe. If anybody found out about what she’d done to Mr. Glutt they’d have her jailed…or even killed…or put in a mental home. She’d have to conceal the body, run away and hide in the woods of Griffith Park, high in the Hollywood Hills, where she would roam and kill like a wild beast…until she was finally discovered and slain with a silver bullet.

At this thought she gave another tearful squeal.

Weeping, Dorothy cleaned the blood off the Spanish-style tiles in the entry hall and kitchen with her O-Cello sponge mop, and methodically put the remains of the collection agent in a large plastic bag, which she placed in the refrigerator to eat later. Oh, how lucky that her father wouldn’t be home for another week! She had until then to decide what to do. Well, at least she had enough food.

Although, between weeping and listening to Jack Benny, the Whistler, and Stella Dallas on the radio, and watching Uncle Milton Berle and Kukla, Fran, and Ollie cavort on their prized new television set, she grew hungry again — she realized that she had no appetite at all for the rest of Mr. Hubbard E. Glutt. Evidently she had partially devoured him out of mere rage and shock. Listlessly, Dorothy ate some lasagna instead.

And so passed the remainder of the week inside the psuedo-Spanish house in the Hollywood foothills. A few times Angela or Luanne or other friends, and twice religious representatives of two different exclusive Truths, came to the door (besides phone calls) — Dorothy said (over the phone and through the door) that she had a highly contagious flu. She gave the same excuse to the newsboy, the Avon Lady, and the highly confused Welcome Wagon Woman.

As the week’s end approached with no thoughts except flight into the hills, etc., her mood became almost frantic. Then one glorious morning she woke to find the hair vanished, her body lighter, and her teeth and nails returned to normal. She hastened to replace the Pearly Peach Polish.

But…wasn’t there something else she had to do? The answer came at the week’s absolute end, with her body again distressingly short and thin — but human. Clicking her tongue reproachfully at her forgetfulness, she dressed quickly and toted Mr. Hubbard E. Glutt’s very chilled remains in their plastic sack, and deposited them fairly late at night in a public trash bin.

Dad Harry returned on schedule, sunburned and exhausted, and demanding fried chicken and beer. Then he went to bed, and Dorothy, again in her padded bra, tight sweater, bouffant skirt, and (very) high heels, went back to school. She felt relieved, she felt worried. A visit to the place where Doctor Funny Name lived disclosed empty windows and a FOR RENT sign: Would the horrible condition recur? Oh, how she hoped not! Better to remain thin and skimpy all the days of her life — and never get into the movies at all!

Luanne and Angela were happy to see her again. They chattered away about the trifling things which had happened at Hollywood High during her absence, and now and again Dorothy squealed with interest which was only sometimes simulated. Would it happen again?

Early one night, about a month later, feeling vaguely ill at ease, she went for a stroll. The malaise increased; she thought a trip to a ladies room would help, but the one in the park was now closed. There was nothing to do but go behind a bush; and it was there, as she adjusted her dress, that she felt her hands again come in contact with — a shaggy pelt. She let out a squeal of anguish. And fainted.

It was a lucky thing that her Dad was once again away, this time on his monthly week-long visit to his girl friend in the unfashionable section of Malibu, the girl friend’s mother then making her monthly visit to her other daughter in Chula Vista.

Now it was impossible for Dorothy to fit into her clothes, so she made a bundle and dropped them into a debris receptacle as she passed it by. How to get home? Slinking was the only way, but as she sought out the most dimly lit streets, she only seemed to get further from home rather than nearer. And, oh! Was she suddenly hungry! She fought and fought against the desire for immediate food, but her stomach growled menacingly. Well, she knew how wasteful the average American family was. So of a sudden she lifted up the lid of a garbage can near a private home, with intent to delve into its contents.

No sooner had she lifted off the lid and bent over to examine what was inside, than there appeared suddenly, out of the chiaroscuro, the figure of a well-nourished early middle-aged man with a small moustache. He had a large brown-paper bag in his hands which looked like garbage for disposal; astonishment was simultaneous. Dorothy squealed and dropped the lid with a clatter. The man said, “Gevalt!” and dropped the brown-paper bag, then recovered it almost immediately. Dorothy would have fled, but there was a high fence behind her. In theory she could have turned upon him with tooth and fang and claw, but unlike Mr. Glutt, this man offered no gross importunity. And beneath the astonishment he seemed to have rather a kindly face.

“For a moment you had me fooled,” said he. “A better-looking gorilla suit I never seen. What, you’re embarrassed. Someone should see you rifling the garbage can, you should have what to eat?”

He shook his head from side to side, uttered a heavy sigh which seemed not devoid of sympathy.

“I’m not wearing a gorilla suit!” exclaimed Dorothy.

This time the shake of the head was skeptical. “Listen,” said the man. “That L.A. has one weird what you might call ecology, this I know: possums, coyotes, escaped pythons, the weird pets some people keep because from human beings they don’t find empathy: okay. But gorillas? No. Also, gorillas don’t talk. They make clicking noises is what, with an occasional guttural growl, or a squeal. Say. That was some squeal you gave just now. Give it again.”

Dorothy, partly because of relief at finding the man neither hostile nor terrified, partly because of pride that anything she could do should meet with approbation, obliged.

“Not bad. Not. Bad. At. All. I like it. I like it. Listen, why don’t we do this? Come into the house, we’ll have a little something to eat. I’m batching it right now; you like deli stuffed cabbage? Warming up now on the stove. Miffanwy ran away on me; luck with women I have yet to find, but hope I haven’t given up yet, springs eternal in the human breast.” Gently he urged Dorothy forward towards the house.

“Sandra hocked me a tchainik by day and by night, Shelley would gritchet me in kishkas until I could spit blood, I took up with Miffanwy. We’ll eat a little something, we’ll talk a little business — no commitments on either side. What we’ll eat is anyway better than what’s in the garbage can, although gourmet cooking isn’t my line — listen, you wanna know something about shiksas? They never hock you a tchainik, they never gritchet you in kishkas, they don’t kvetch in public places till you could drop dead from the shame; no. All they do is cheat. Watch out for the step.”

Dorothy had seen better kitchens and she had seen worse. However, kitchen decor wasn’t uppermost in her mind; what was uppermost was friendly human contact; also food. The man of the house (“Alfy is the name”) filled her plate with stuffed-cabbage rolls and plied her with tangerines, asked if she preferred milk or cream soda and set out some Danish, pointed to a bowl of cut-up raw vegetables and pointed out that it kept away the dread scurvy, offered her a choice of seeded rye, pumpernickel, and egg-bread.

“Where there is no food, there is no religion. Where there is no religion, there is no food. So my first father-in-law used to say. What a gonnif. Eat, my shaggy friend. Eat, eat.”

After quite some time, during which they both ate heartily and, truth to tell, noisily, Alfy gave grateful eructation. Gave a sudden exclamation. “Almost missed the news on the video! Finally I broke down and bought one. Many a movie big shot it will wipe out of business, they say, but me it wouldn’t wipe out. Pardon my back,” he said, as he turned to watch the small screen.

Dorothy gladly did so, for quite apart from her contentment in the immediate situation, she was also pleased to watch what many still called “video,” which was not yet to be found in every room of every house, rather like an ashtray.

Neither black and white screen nor sound adjusted immediately, and Alfy adjusted the rabbit-ear antennas; at length a voice was heard to say: “…meanwhile, search continues for the so-called Monster of the Hollywood Hills.”

“I’ll give them yet a Monster of the Hollywood Hills,” growled Alfy. “What are they trying to do with my property values? Communists! Holdupnikkes! Shut up, Alfy,” he advised himself.

Two men, besides the television news personality, sat before a background of greatly enlarged photographs and plaster casts.

“Well, Dr. William Wumple of the University of Southern Los Angeles Department of Primate Sciences, and Superintendent Oscar Opdegroof of the County Police Bureau of Forensic Zoology, won’t you tell us what your opinion is about all this?”

Professor Wumple said, “These photographs and plaster casts are of the foot-and-knuckle prints of the increasingly rare Sumatran mountain gorilla of Sumatra, and—”

“I grant you, Professor Wumple,” said Superintendent Opdegroof, “that there is certainly a resemblance. But the increasingly rare Sumatran mountain gorilla, a native of Sumatra in Indonesia, is vegetarian in its habitat. There is, as you know, no record of an increasingly rare Sumatran mountain gorilla, which inhabits the East Indies or Sumatra, ever having killed and eaten part of a credit bureau representative and concealed his bones in a plastic bag. The diet of this otherwise harmless creature is mostly the stalk of the wild celery plant which grows profusely on every wild mountain slope of the archipelago of Sumatra.”

“Depraved appetite,” said Professor Wumple, “may be found in any species. I refresh your memory with the fact that pachyderms are also herbivorous, and yet there is the classical case of the elephant named Bubi which fatally trampled and ate a young woman named Anna O. in the Zurich Zoo, who had heedlessly fed him leftover kümmelbrot from the table of her employer, a dealer in low-priced watch cases named Schultz.”

The television news personality opened his mouth, but it and the rest of him dwindled and vanished as Alfy switched off the set. “Look, so now to business. Um, what did you say your name was, unwilling though I am to force you out of your chosen anonymity? Dorothy? A girl in a gorilla suit, this I never encountered before,” he said, surprised; but rallied quickly. “My mother, she should rest in peace, told me that in her own younger days, if a woman so much as smoked a cigarette in the public street, she might as well have gone to Atlantic City with a traveling salesman. But now we live in an enlightened era. Lemme hear you squeal.”

“Squeal?” asked Dorothy, somewhat lethargic from food and rest.

Alfy nodded. “Yeah, squeal. Use your imagination. Say you’re strolling through your native jungle and you see, like, reclining under a tree and fast asleep because she’s lost from her expedition — what then, a bewdyful young woman. You never seen nothing like this in your life before! So naturally, you give a squeal of astonishment. Lemme hear.”

Dorothy, with only the slightest of thoughtful pauses, gave a squeal. Of, she hoped, astonishment.

“Bewdyful,” said Alfy.

Dorothy gave him a doubtful look. “No,” he said. “I mean it, I swear it. By my second mother-in-law’s grave, she should soon be inside of it. Hypocrisy is alien to my nature, even though I never finished high school, but was cast out in the midst of the teeming thoroughfares, what I mean jungles, which are the streets of our large cities. But of this I needn’t bore you, Dotty. — Now use your imagination again. You and this lovely young woman are going along a jungle trail in search of the mysterious Lost Temple of Gold. Her boy friend, the head of the expedition, gets knocked on the head by a falling coconut, and as he sinks to the ground, simultaneously you — and you alone — become aware that an unfriendly tribe of rotten natives are slinking through the underbrush to attack: lemme hear you convey this information to your lovely human newfound lady friend with a series of intelligent squeals.”

Dorothy did her best to oblige, and in the unpremeditated fervor of her performance, began to use gestures. Alfy was immensely pleased. “We’ll dub it, we’ll dub it!” he cried.

She was so excited that she found herself jumping up and down and scratching her pelt.

Alfy, watching her benignly, became concerned. “Even through your gorilla suit you’re sweating,” he said, “let me get you some ice cubes for your cold drink.” Running water over the old-fashioned all-metal tray, he turned and asked, “Why not take off your costume, you’ll be more comfortable, Dotty?”

Even as she opened her mouth to repeat that she wore no costume, Dorothy observed a strange woman come running across the dimly lit dining room adjoining the kitchen; and as she ran, thus she screamed:

“I’ll give you ‘take off your costume,’ I’ll give you Dotty, I’ll give you Shelley, I’ll give you Miffanwy—”

“Sandra, if you hock me a tchainik, I’ll—”

Dorothy reacted to Sandra with as little instinctive affection as she had to Hubbard E. Glutt; raising herself on her toes, extending her arms high and her hands out, her talons clawing and her fangs showing, she began to utter squeals of pure rage.

Sandra never for a moment showed the slightest sign of believing that she was confronted by someone in a gorilla suit; Sandra turned and fled, giving shriek after shriek of terror, horror and fright.

Dorothy pursued her down the street, sometimes erect, sometimes bounding along on all fours; till the lights of an oncoming car caused her to shinny up the nearest deciduous tree, whence she dropped upon a housetop, thence to another tree, and thence to another housetop. Until eventually she realized that she was absolutely lost.

Inadvertently scattering the inhabitants of a hobo jungle, she moodily drank their bitter black coffee and spent the night on a musty mattress in a culvert near their fire. The illustrated magazines of a certain type which those lonely and semihermitical men used to while away the hours of their solitude, she merely fed into the flames in disgust.

Much of the next day Dorothy spent in a eucalyptus grove destined soon to be “developed” into total destruction. She gave a lot of thought to her condition. It was no doubt the celery tonic in which the incompetent quack-doctor Songhabhongbhong Van Leeuwenhoek had administered the so-called glandular extract — containing as the soft drink must have done, certain elements very similar to the wild celery stalks eaten by the increasingly rare mountain gorilla of Sumatra — which had caused this change to come upon her. Of this she was certain.

Since it wasn’t concurrent with her monthly cycle, and seemed not even to be identical with the full moon, she wondered if its occurrence might have something to do with her sign: Aries on the cusp. Vaguely she remembered hearing of a certain economically priced astrologer mentioned by her mother before she left to become an Avon Lady in Anaheim — or so her father said; perhaps (Dorothy now wondered for the first time) he had been shielding some less respectable occupation.

Her thoughts were interrupted with the utmost suddenness by the appearance in the grove of a simianlike creature who appeared equally startled. For a long moment both stood still, each staring at the other. Was this another increasingly rare Sumatran mountain gorilla? Another victim of the celery and hormone tonic? — No. It appeared to be a man in a flea-bitten gorilla suit! And it held a bottle of something wrapped in a brown paper bag.

“Listen,” it said. (Or, though the voice was slightly slurred, it was a masculine voice — said he.) “In times past, honey, when I was a well-known star of stage and screen, I drank nothing but the best Madeira, with a preference for sercial, but when you’re down it’s all over with the imported vintages. Any kind of sneaky pete will do. Go on, my dear. Go on and take a hit.” His sunken snout came so near to her face that she sensed it wasn’t his first drink of the day.

The well-known former star of stage and screen took the bottle and slid the top of it up high enough so that he could uncap it and drink of its contents, and yet quickly slide it back down inside of the paper bag; for many people might object to someone blatantly imbibing alcohol in public — even in a eucalyptus grove which had formerly served as the site of a hobo jungle — for to do so is against the law.

Next, and though he had gallantly offered her a hit, he proceeded to do the following: turning slightly at an angle away from Dorothy, he fumbled his paw into his pelt and produced a second bottle, a smaller one with clear liquid in it; of this he swiftly drank and swiftly disposed it once again in a pocket of some sort; and next he took a much longer tug of the cheap wine. Then he offered it to her again, and as she hesitated, thinking of a tactful refusal, he said, “It’s only polite to offer, but to insist would be most impolite. — And jerked it away.

His voice had become increasingly slurred, and as he lurched off down the road, Dorothy considered the possibility that the clear liquid was vodka. It was only because he half-turned his head, and inclined it as though in invitation for her to accompany him, that she followed. Grotesquery prefers company, and she thought that she might as well go along — because she wasn’t sure what else to do. So follow she did.

Now and then some of the passersby looked at them, but nobody looked twice. Not only was this Hollywood, but this was the famous “Gower St. Gulch,” as outsiders in the know called it. To those on the inside it was merely “The Gully.”

To outsiders not in the know it might have seemed as if preparations were being made for the annual cattle drive to Dodge City, so numerous were the men in cowboy outfits. There was a slight stir in their ranks, seemingly caused by a dark man wearing a soiled khaki shirt and faded dungarees, moccasins and a pair of reddened eyes, who was standing on the sidewalk and shouting:

“Slant-eyed folks and Mexicans and Very Light Colored People, keep the hell outa the gully!” he yelled, in particular directing his cries to several people in war paint and feathers. “Leave the depictation of Native American Indian roles to jen-u-wine Native American Indians! — You, you, Marcus Garvey Doothit, professional named Marco Thunderhorse, I’m addressing myself ta you, don’t gi’ me no bull about yer Grandmother bein’ a full-blooded Cherokee Injin!”

M. G. Doothit, a.k.a. Marco Thunderhorse, gave a scornful pout and said, “All I have to say to you, Amos Littlebird, is that sticks and stones and arrows and musket balls may break my bones, but ethnic epithets merely reflect upon those who hurl them.”

Scarcely had all this faded behind them when Dorothy and her lurching companion encountered a scowling young man bearing a sign which read: SO-CALLED “SCIENCE FICTION” MOVIES/STOP LIBELOUS PORTRAYALS OF SO-CALLED “MAD SCIENTISTS,” SCIENCE IS THE HOPE OF THE PEOPLE!

It was not yet the 1960s, but the winds were full of straws.

By and by they came to a high wire fence surrounding a barrackslike compound; and here the senior simian figure paused to drain both of his bottles and hurl them away. Then he approached the gate in, for the first time, a fairly good simulation of an apelike lope. A gray-haired man stepped out of a booth, beaming.

“Gee, good morning, Mr. Bartlett Bosworth,” he exclaimed. “Only last night I was saying to my wife, ‘Guess who I saw at AESSP this A.M., sugar?’ And she says, ‘Who?’ And I told her, ‘Remember Bart Bosworth who played Greeta Garbo’s boy friend and also he played Mree Dressler’s grown-up handsome son?’ And she says ‘Sure! What’s he doing now?’ And I told her, ‘He’s imitating a gorilla for Alf Smatz, King of the D-Movies,’ and she says, ‘Oh gee, what a shame,’ and—”

Thickly, from behind his gorilla mask, Bart Bosworth said, “Both of you just take your pity and divide it in two and then you can both shove it.” And he lurched on through the gate.

The gray-haired man, no longer beaming, pointed to Dorothy and asked, “Who’s this?”

“Who’s it look like? Myrna Loy? My understudy.”

The gateman turned his attention to other arrivals. Ahead of them was a sign reading: ALFRED EMMANUEL SMITH-SMATZ PRODUCTIONS. POPULAR ENTERTAINMENT AT POPULAR PRICES. The way seemed endless, but Bartlett Bosworth evidently knew his way.

By and by they came upon a clearing in a jungle. Scarcely had Dorothy time to express surprise in a single squeal, when Bart Bosworth, uttering a huge and hideous hiccup, fell full length upon the synthetic turf and began to snore.

This dull and repetitious sound was interrupted by a short, sharp slap: a man in a long-considered-obsolete uniform of a moving-picture director (including turned-around cap), had occasioned this by striking his forehead with the flat of his hand. “Again!” he cried. “Again! Drunk yesterday, drunk the day before — get him up! Hot coffee, bennies if anybody’s got any, an ice pack. But get him up, get him sober!”

Although a shriveled-looking chap with the air of a superannuated yesman turned round and round like a dervish, shrilling: “Right, Chief! Yes, Chief! How coffee! Benzedrine! A nice pack!” others were not convinced.

“It’s no use, Mr. Smatz,” said the script girl.

“Wouldn’t help, Alfy,” called down the cameraman.

“We couldn’t get him sober yesterday and we couldn’t keep him sober the day before,” declared a blond, youngish-looking fellow in short khaki pants and shirt, and a pith helmet.

And in a high, petulant voice, a bosomy blonde youngish-looking woman dressed similarly announced that she was “fed up with alla this stuff”—actually, she didn’t say stuff—and in another minute would go sit in her dressing room.

“Get somebody else,” advised somebody else, “for the ape part.”

The man with the turned-around cap gave, through his megaphone, an anguished howl. “Even in a low-budget film no one could afford to maintain a shikker gorilla on the payroll! — Also,” he said, giving the youngish-looking woman a baleful stare, “histrionics in high places I’m not appreciative of; also, furthermore, in low-budget films high places ain’t so damn high. — What, ‘Get somebody else?’ Who, ‘Get somebody else?’ Where, ‘Get somebody else for the ape part?’ Ape-part-playing is a dying art, gorilla suits cost a fortune — and if I had a fortune would I be making D-films? No,” he answered.

Then an odd expression came over his face. One hand he cupped around his ear; the other hand he used to shade his eyes. “Wait. Listen. Look. Just before shikker here, he plotzed, didn’t I hear like a high-pitched squeal which clearly indicated astonishment and alarm? Sure I did. So. Okay. Who squealed?”

Voices were heard denying that he or she or they had squealed. Ears were cupped and eyes were shaded… It was very soon indeed that fingers were pointed. Dorothy, realizing that concealment was useless, shyly stepped forward.

Alfred Emmanuel Smith-Smatz—“Alfy” (for it was he) clapped both hands together. “Dotty!” he exclaimed. “Not only did you chase away Sandra, that yenta; early this morning I get a phone call from my thirty-year-old stepson Sammy, the schmuck: ‘Mommy is so terrified she swears she’ll never leave Desert Hot Springs again’—but you are still giving out the intelligent squeals, with expression! Bartlett Bosworth never got no expression in his squeals; that’s the way it is with them silent screen stars: squeak, yes; squeal, no. Are you a quick study, Dotty? Yeah? Good! So take a quick sixty seconds to study the next scene… You got it? Yeahh! Yeay! Lights! Camera! Dolly in on Dotty, this great little gorilla lady! ACTION! Let’m roll!”

The rest is Film History, even if much of it must be concealed from the fans and the gossip columns and the world at large. To be sure, Alfy Smatz (“King of the D-films”) was a bit put out at first when he learned that Dorothy couldn’t play gorilla roles week after week; but only during those weeks when the moon is full in central Sumatra.

But the month has, after all, more than one week. The first week Dorothy, in her own natural form (with artfully padded hips and bosom) plays the heroine in a science fiction film as the daughter of (despite feeble social protest) the mad scientist. The second week Dorothy is kidnapped from various wagon trains and restored to various wagon trains by, alternatively, Marco Thunderhorse and Amos Littlebird. The third week Dorothy is, first, threatened by love-starved Arabs, and second, saved from same by the noble efforts of either Marco or Amos in djellabas. — But the fourth week in the AESSP shooting schedule: Ahah!

In the fourth week of every month Dorothy stars in one STARRING JEANNIE OF THE JUNGLE, THE WORLD’S MOST LOVABLE LITTLE GORILLA film after another after another after another. These movies have wowed the fans in every drive-in in North America, and break records in every box office from Tampa to Tahiti; and, boy! How the money rolls in!

Dorothy has paid off her father’s debts and retired him on a personal pension, with modest privileges at the gaming tables in the poker palaces of Gardena.

Every now and then she and her blond, youngish-looking leading man of the moment get into her lemon-yellow Pighafetti-Zoom convertible to visit Luanne and Angela. They are green with envy. Again and again, separately and together, Luanne and Angela wonder. What is the secret of Dorothy’s success? It isn’t looks. It isn’t figure. What? What? What?

It’s showbiz, is what.

Dr. Songhabhongbhong Van Leeuwenhoek has never been heard from again.

Serves him right.

The Slovo Stove INTRODUCTION BY MICHAEL SWANWICK

“The Slovo Stove” is probably the definitive statement on a process central to the American immigrant experience — the loss of ethnicity. I once wrote Avram to praise this story and mentioned that my wife, Marianne Porter, who is of Ruthenian extraction, had been able to learn almost nothing about her heritage. He wrote back:

As for the already dead and gone Czechoslovakian Republic of my youth. Local attitudes in Yonkers went like this: “What about the Czechs?” “The Czechs… The Czechs are all right. They have funny names but basically they are all right.” “And the Slovacks?” “Well…the Slovacks…they work hard…but on Saturday night they get drunk and beat up their wives and kids, the Slovacks…they don’t wear hats…they wear caps!” “And the Carpatho-Ruthenians?” Answer: “Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!” I never heard anybody mention them without laughing. To this day I don’t know what is or is supposed to be so damned funny about the Carpath-Russian-Ruthenians. NO idea.

Which was how Avram wrote casually—with erudition, street smarts, and enormous humor. If, by the way, you have a loved one who “doesn’t read science fiction,” but appreciates the fine literary craftsmanship of (say) Updike, Cheever, or Raymond Carver, here is a story you can urge upon him or her with confidence. Because Avram was — is — their peer. In craft, in heart, in experience, his best are the equal of theirs. He was, like them, a great American short story writer.

As to why this fact was never acknowledged in his lifetime, I simply cannot say. NO idea.

IT WOULD HAVE BEEN a little bit hard for Fred Silberman to have said a completely good word for his hometown; “a bunch of boors and bigots,” he once described it; and life had carried him many leagues away. However. In Parlour’s Ferry lived Silberman’s sole surviving aunt, Tanta Pesha; and of Tanta Pesha (actually a great-aunt by marriage) Silberman had only good memories. Thinking very well of himself for doing so, he paid her a visit; as reward — or punishment — he was recognized on the street and almost immediately offered a very good job. Rather ruefully, he accepted, and before he quite knew what was happening, found himself almost a member of the establishment in the town where he had once felt himself almost an outcast.

Okay, he had a new job in a new business; what was next? A new place to live, that was what next. He knew that if he said to his old aunt, “Tanta, I’m going to live at the Hotel”—Parlour’s Ferry had one, count them, one—she would say, “That’s nice.” Or, if he were to say, “Tanta, I’m going to live with you,” she would say, “That’s nice.” However. He rather thought that a roomy apartment with a view of the River was what he wanted. Fred developed a picture of it in his mind and, walking along a once long-familiar street, was scarcely surprised to see it there on the other side: the apartment house, that is. He hadn’t been imagining, he had been remembering, and there was the landlady, sweeping the steps, just as he had last seen her, fifteen years ago, in 1935. He crossed over. She looked up.

“Mrs. Keeley, do you have an apartment to rent? My name is Fred Silberman.”

“Oh,” she said. “Oh. You must be old Jake Silberman’s grandson. I reckernize the face.”

“Great-nephew.”

“I reckernize the face.”

The rent was seventy-five dollars a month, the painters would come right in, and Mrs. Keeley was very glad to have Nice People living there. Which was very interesting, because the last time Silberman had entered the house (Peter Touey, who used to live upstairs, had said, “Come on over after school; I got a book with war pictures in it”) Mrs. Keeley had barred the way: “You don’t live here,” said she. Well. Times had changed. Had times changed? Something had certainly changed.

The building where the new job would be lay behind where the old livery stable had been; Silberman had of course already seen it, but he thought he would go and see it again. The wonderful dignified old blue-gray thick flagstones still paved most of the sidewalks on these unfashionable streets, where modernity in the form of dirty cracked concrete had yet to intrude; admiring them, he heard someone call, “Freddy! Freddy?” and, turning in surprise, almost at once recognized an old schoolmate.

“Aren’t you Freddy Silberman? I’m Wesley Brakk. We still live here.” They rambled on a while, mentioned where each had been in the War, catalogued some common friends, then Wesley said, “Well, come on into the house, we’re holding my father’s gromzil,” or so it sounded; “you don’t know what that means, do you? See, my father passed away it’s been three years and three months, so for three days we have like open house, it’s a Slovo and Huzzuk custom, and everybody has to come in and eat and drink.” So they went in.

There were a lot of people in the big old-fashioned kitchen at the end of the hall; the air was filled with savory smells, the stove was covered with pots—big pots, too. One of the older women asked something in a foreign language; immediately a younger man snapped, “Oh for Crise sake! Speak United States!” He had a dark and glowering face. His name, Fred learned, was Nick. And he was a relative.

“This is beef stomach stuffed with salami and hard-boiled eggs,” said a woman. “Watch out, I’ll pick away the string.”

“You gonna eat that stuff?” asked Nick. “You don’t hafta eat that stuff; I’ll getcha a hamburger from Ma’s Lunch.”

Ma’s Lunch! And its french-fried grease! And Ma, with frowsy pores that tainted the ambient air. “Thanks, Nick, this is fine,” said Fred.

Nick shrugged. And the talk flowed on.

By and by a sudden silence fell and there was a tiny sound from forward in the house. “Aintcha gonna feed the baby, f’Crise sake?” cried Nick. His wife struggled to rise from a chair crowded behind the table, but “old Mrs. Brakk,” who was either Wes’s mother or Wes’s aunt, gestured her not to; “I will do,” said she. And produced a baby bottle and a saucepan and filled the pan at the sink. There was a movement as though to take one of the heavy cook pots off the stove to make room to warm the bottle, but the dowager Mrs. Brakk said a word or two, and this was not done. Perhaps only Fred noticed that she moved toward a small pile of baby clothes and diapers in a niche, as though she wanted to bring them with her, but Fred noticed also that her hands were full. So he picked them up and indicated that he would follow.

“Thank you, gentleman,” she said. She gave him, next, an odd glance, almost as though she had a secret, of which she was very well aware and he was utterly ignorant. Odd, yes; what was it? Oh well.

In her room, “You never see a Slovo stove,” Mrs. Brakk said. It was not a question. It was a fact. Until that moment he had never heard of a Slovo stove. Now he gave it a glance, but it was not interesting, so he looked away; then he looked back down at it. Resting on a piece of wood, just an ordinary piece of wood, was a sort of rack cut from a large tin can, evidently not itself brought from Europe by whichever Slovo brought the stove. On top of the rack was something black, about the length and width of a book, but thinner. Stone? Tentatively he touched a finger to it. Stone…or some stonelike composition. It felt faintly greasy.

“You got to put the black one on first,” Mrs. Brakk said. However glossy black the old woman’s hair, wrinkled was her dark face. She put on the saucepan of water and put the baby’s nursing bottle in the pan. “Then the pot and water. Then you slide, underneath, the blue one.” This, “the blue one,” was about the size and thickness of a magazine, and a faint pale blue. Both blue and black pieces showed fracture marks. As she slid “the blue one” into the rack, Mrs. Brakk said, “Used to be bigger. Both. Oh yeah. Used to could cook a whole meal. Now, only room for a liddle sorcepan; sometimes I make a tea when too tired to go in kitchen.”

Fred had the impression that the black piece was faintly warm; moving his finger to the lower piece (a few empty inches were between the two), he found that definitely this was cool. And the old woman took up the awakening child and, beaming down, began a series of exotic endearments: “Yes, my package; yes, my ruby stone; yes, my little honey bowl—” A slight vapor seemed to arise from the pan, and old Mrs. Brakk passed into her native language as she crooned on; absolutely, steam was coming from the pan. Suddenly Silberman was on his knees, peering at and into the “stove.” Moistening a fingertip as he had seen his mother and aunts do with hot irons a million times, he applied it to “the blue piece,” below. Mrs. Brakk gave a snort of laughter. The blue piece was still cool. Then he wet the fingertip again and, very gingerly, tested the upper “black piece.” It was merely warm. Barely warm. The pan? Very warm. But the steam continued to rise, and the air above pan and bottle was…well…hot. Why not?

She said, “You could put, between, some fingers,” and, coming over, baby pressed between one arm and bosom, placed the fingers of her free hand in between the upper and lower pieces. He followed her example. It was not hot at all in between; it was not even particularly warm.

Silberman peered here and there, saw nothing more, nothing (certainly) to account for…well…anything… She, looking at his face, burst out laughing, removed the lower slab of stone (if it was stone), and set it down, seemingly, just anywhere. Then she took the bottle, shook a few drops onto her wrist and a few drops onto Fred Silberman’s wrist — oh, it was warm all right. And as she fed the baby, calling the grandchild her necklace, her jewel ring, her lovely little sugar bump, he was suddenly aware of two things: one, the bedroom smelled rather like Tanta Pesha’s: airless, and echoing faintly with a cuisine owing nothing to either franchised foods or Fanny Farmer’s cookbook (even less to Ma’s Lunch!); two, that his heart was beating very, very fast. He began to speak, heard himself stutter.

“Buh-buh-but h-h-how does it wuh-work? work? How—” Old Grandmother Brakk smiled what he would come to think of as her usual faint smile; shrugged. “How do boy and girl love? How does bird fly? How water turn to snow and snow turn to water? How?”

Silberman stuttered, waved his arms and hands; was almost at once in the kitchen; so were two newcomers. He realized that he had long ago seen them a hundred times. And did not know their names, and never had.

“Mr. Grahdy and Mrs. Grahdy,” Wesley said. Wes seemed just a bit restless. Mrs. Grahdy had an air of, no other words would do, faded elegance. Mr. Grahdy had an upswept moustache and a grizzled Vandyke beard; he looked as though he had once been a dandy. Not precisely pointing his finger at Fred, but inclining it in Fred’s general direction, Mr. Grahdy said, “How I remember your grandfather well! [“Great-uncle.”] His horse and wagon! He bought scraps metal and old newspaper. Sometimes sold eggs.”

Fred remembered it well, eggs and all. Any other time he would have willingly enough discussed local history and the primeval Silbermans; not now. Gesturing the way he had come, he said, loudly, excitedly, “I never saw anything like it before! How does it work, how does it work? The — the”—what had the old one called it? — “the Slovo stove?”

What happened next was more than a surprise; it was an astonishment. The Grahdy couple burst out laughing, and so did the white-haired man in the far corner of the kitchen. He called out something in his own language, evidently a question, and even as he spoke he went on chuckling. Mr. and Mrs. Grahdy laughed even harder. One of the Brakk family women tittered. Two of them wore embarrassed smiles. Another let her mouth fall open and her face go blank, and she looked at the ceiling: originally of stamped tin, it had been painted and repainted so many times that the design was almost obscured. There was a hulking man sitting, stooped (had not Fred seen him, long ago, with his own horse and wagon — hired, likely, by the day, from the old livery stable — calling out Ice! Ice! in the summer, and Coal! Coal! in the winter?); he, the tip of his tongue protruding, lowered his head and rolled his eyes around from one person to another. Wesley looked at Silberman expressionlessly. And Nick, his dark face a-smolder, absolutely glared at him. In front of all this, totally unexpected, totally mysterious, Fred felt his excitement flicker and subside.

At length Mr. Grahdy wiped his eyes and said something, was it the same something, was it a different something? was it in Slovo, was it in Huzzuk? was there a difference, what was the difference? Merry and cheerful, he looked at Fred. Who, having understood nothing, said nothing.

“You don’t understand our language, gentleman?”

“No.”

“Your grandfather understood our language.”

“Yes, but he didn’t teach me.” Actually, Uncle Jake had taught him a few words, but Silberman, on the point of remembering anyway one or two of them, and quoting, decided suddenly not to. Uncle Jake had been of a rather wry and quizzical humor; who knew if the words really meant what Uncle Jake had said they did?

Wes’s sister (cousin?) said, perhaps out of politeness, perhaps out of a wish to change the subject, perhaps for some other reason — she said, “Mrs. Grahdy is famous for her reciting. Maybe we can persuade Mrs. Grahdy to recite?”

Mrs. Grahdy was persuaded. First she stood up. She put on a silly face. She put her finger in her mouth. She was a little girl. Her voice was a mimic’s voice. She became, successively: hopeful, coy, foolish, lachrymose, cheerful. From the company: a few chuckles, a few titters. Then she stopped playing with her skirts, and, other expressions leaving her face, the corners of her mouth turned down and she looked around the room at everyone. Some exclamations of, supposedly, praise were heard, and a scattered clapping of hands; Mrs. Grahdy silenced all this in a moment. For a second she stood there, pokerfaced, stiff. Then she began a rapid recitation in what was obviously verse. Her face was exalted, tragic, outraged, severe: lots of things! How her arms and hands moved! How she peered and scouted! How she climbed mountains, swung swords. A voice in Fred’s ear said, half whispering, “This is a patriotic poem.” Mrs. Grahdy planted the flag on, so to speak, Iwo Jima. Loud cries from the others. Much applause. The patriotic poem was evidently over. The down-turned mouth was now revealed to be, not the mask of Tragedy, but the disciplined expression of one too polite to grin or smirk at her own success.

After a moment she turned to Silberman. “I know that not one word did you understand, but did the ear inform you the verses were alexandrines?”

He was hardly expecting this, scarcely he knew an alexandrine from an artichoke: and yet. Not pausing to examine his memory or to analyze the reply, he said, “Once I heard a recording of Sarah Bernhardt—” and could have kicked himself; surely she would feel he was taking the mickey out of her? Not at all. All phony “expression” gone, she made him a small curtsy. It was a perfectly done thing, in its little way a very sophisticated thing, an acknowledgment of an acceptable compliment, an exchange between equals. It made him thoughtful.

Grahdy: “So you didn’t understand what this Mr. Kabbaltz has asked?”—gesturing to the white-haired man in the far corner. Fred shook his head; if the question dealt with iambic pentameter, he would plotz. “This Mr. Kabbaltz has asked, the Slovo stove, you know, ‘Did it even get warm yet?’ Hoo, hoo, hoo!” laughed Mr. Grahdy, Mrs. Grahdy, Mr. Kabbaltz. Hoo, hoo, hoo!

Fred decided that ignorance was bliss; he turned his attention to the steaming bowl set before him as the people of the house dished out more food. Soup? Stew? Pottage? He would ask no more questions for the moment. But could he go wrong if he praised the victuals? “Very good. This is very good.” He had said, evidently, the right thing. And in the right tone. — It was very good.

Mr. Grahdy again: “Your great-grandfather never send you to the Huzzuk-Slovo Center to learn language?”

“No, sir. Not there.”

“Then where he did send you?”

“To the Hebrew School, as they called it. To learn the prayers. And the Psalms.” Instantly again he saw those massive ancient great thick black letters marching across the page. Page after page. A fraction of a second less instantly Mr. Grahdy made the not quite pointing gesture, and declaimed. And paused. And demanded, “What is the second line? Eh?”

Silberman: “Mr. Grahdy, I didn’t even understand the first line.”

Surprise. “What? Not? But it is a Psalm.” He pronounced the p and he pronounced the l. “Of course in Latin. So—?”

“They didn’t teach us in Latin.”

More surprise. Then, a shake of the head. Silberman thought to cite a Psalm in Hebrew, reviewed the words in his mind, was overcome with doubt. Was that a line from a Psalm? — and not, say, the blessing upon seeing an elephant?…or something? The Hebrew teacher, a half-mad failed rabbinical student, had not been a man quick with an explanation. “Read,” he used to say. “Read.”

More food was set out: meat, in pastry crust. Then (Mr. Grahdy): “When you will be here tomorrow? Perhaps I shall bring my violin”—he pronounced it vee-o-leen—“and play something.”

“That would be nice”—Fred, noncommittally; and turning again to the food of the memorial feast, “Delicious!” said Fred.

“Is it warm yet?”—Mr. Grahdy. Hoo, hoo, hoo! — Mr. Grahdy, Mrs. Grahdy, Mr. Kabbaltz. People entered, talked, ate, left. Someone: “You’re old Jake Silberman’s grandson?” “Great-nephew.” By and by Fred looked up: Mr. Kabbaltz and the Grahdys were gone. For a moment he heard them just outside the door. Laughing. Footfalls. The gate closed; nobody seemed left but family members. And Fred. Silence. Someone said, “Well, there go the Zunks.” Someone else: “Don’t call them that. Call them Huzzuks.”

Wesley suddenly leaped up, almost toppling his chair. Began to bang his head against the wall. “I can take Chinks!” Bang. “I can take Japs!” Bang. “I can take Wops, Wasps, Heebs, and Micks!” Bang. Bang. Bang.

“Wesley—”

“Wes—”

“Wassyli—”

“Was—”

“I can take Spics and Niggers.” Bang! Bang! “I cannottake—Zunks!” Bang! Abruptly, he sat down, and held his head.

In Fred’s mind: Question: So what’s a Zunk? Answer: A deprecated Huzzuk.

Wes began again. “They can talk Latin. We can hardly grunt. They recite poems. We can barely tell a dirty joke. They have violinists. We are lucky if we got fiddlers. Why did God punish us poor Slovo slobs by putting us in the same country with them, over there in Europe? Why are we still respectful to them, over here in America? Why? Somebody please tell me. Why?”

A sister, or maybe a sister-in-law, said, somewhat slowly, “Well…they are better educated—”

This set Wes off again. “In their dialect, they had books, magazines, newspapers. All we had was the catechism and the missal, in ours. They—”

“We had a newspaper. Didn’t Papa’s brother used to send it to us…sometimes? We—”

Wesley brushed the invisible ethnic newspaper aside. “The Patriótsk? The Patriótsk. Came out once a month. One sheet of paper, printed on four pages. What was in it? The new laws, the price of pigs, some obituaries, no births, and the Saints’ Days in both Church calendars: that’s all. Finish. The Patriótsk!” Evidently the invisible newspaper had climbed on the table again, for Wesley swept it off again, and then he trampled on it. Heavily.

“Hey, look at the time. I got to be going. I sure want to thank you for that delicious—”

“We are giving you some to take with you, home,” said an aunt. Or was it a niece?

“Oh, I—”

“It’s the custom. And you liked.”

“Oh, sure. But my new apartment isn’t ready yet, and my aunt is strictly kosher.” They didn’t say anything ecumenical, neither did they tell him that the Law of Moses was dead and reprobate; they began to put fruit into a paper bag. A large paper bag.

But Wes, taking head from hand, was not finished yet. “Why? Why? Will someone tell me why?”

Someone, surely a sister, too straight-faced to be serious, said, “They are so beautiful; they ride red horses.” Wes almost screamed. When had she ever seen a Huzzuk on a horse? When had she ever seen a red horse? Nick’s wife told Silberman that it was a saying. A proverb.

“Anyway, you know, some people say it wasn’t the horse that was red, but, uh, the things on the horse? What the horse, like, wore?” Nick, who had been reading the funny papers with a very unfunny expression, now fired up. Who gave a damn? he demanded. Quit talking about all them old European things, he demanded. Fred announced his thanks for the fruit. Wes asked Nick if he wasn’t interested in his rich Old World heritage; Nick, upon whom subtlety was wasted, shouted that no, he wasn’t; Wes ceased being subtle and shouted back; Fred Silberman said that he really had to be going. And started out.

Someone came out into the hall and walked along with him: old Mrs. Brakk…being very polite, he thought. A dim light was on in her room. She stopped. He paused to say good night. The look she now gave him, had she been forty years younger, would have been an invitation which he knew could not be what she now meant; what was it she now meant?

“You want to come in,” she said. “You want to see how it works.” She moved inside the room. Silberman followed, beginning to breathe heavily, beginning to feel the earlier excitement. He had forgotten! How could he have forgotten?

“First you put on the black piece, up on here.” The book-sized slab slid into its place on the rack. The infant sighed in sleep. “Yes, my rope of pearls,” she said softly. “Next, you put on the sorcepan with the water in it. Now, I make just a bowl of tea, for me. And so…next … you put in the blue piece,” about the size of a magazine, “down…there. See? This is what we call the Slovo stove. And so now it gets warm…”

What had the old Huzzuks, those quasi-countrymen of the old Slovos, what had they meant, “Is it even warm yet?” Silberman forgot the question as he watched the vapors rise, felt the air warm, above; felt the unwarmed space between the two “pieces,” the thicker fragment of black stone (if it was stone) and the thin fragment of pale blue; saw, astonishingly soon, the size of crabs’ eyes, the tiny bubbles form; and, finally, the rolling boil. He was still dazed when she made the tea; he hadn’t remembered setting down the bag of fruit, but now he picked it up, set a soft thank-you and good-night, left the house.

He could hear them still shouting in the kitchen.

“That’s nice,” said Tanta Pesha when he gave her the fruit.

“Tanta, what is it with the Huzzuks and the Slovos?”

Out came the bananas. “The Huzzuks?” She washed the bananas, dried them with a paper towel, dropped it in the garbage. “The Huzzuks. They are all right.” Out came the oranges.

“Well, what about the Slovos?”

She washed the oranges. “The Slovos?” She dried the oranges with a paper towel, dropped it in the garbage. “The Slovos? They are very clean. You could eat off their floors. On Saturday night they get drunk,” and he waited for more, but no more came: Tanta Pesha was washing the apples. This done, she was overcome by a scruple. “Used to,” she said. “Now? I don’t know. Since I moved away.” How long had she and Uncle Jake lived near the Huzzuks’ and Slovos’ neighborhood? She began to dry the apples with a paper towel. How long? Forty years, she said.

“Forty years? Forty-two? Let be: forty.”

Had she ever heard of the Slovo stove? No…she never had.

“Well. Why don’t — how come they don’t like each other?”

Tanta Pesha looked at him a moment. “They don’t?” she said. She dropped the paper towel in the garbage. Then she put the fruit into a very large bowl and, standing back, looked at it. “That’s nice,” she said.

The next morning, early, Silberman drove down to the City and made arrangements to be moved, and drove back to “the Ferry.” He went to take a look at his apartment-to-be: lo! the painters were actually painting in it. Mrs. Keeley stopped sweeping, to assure him that everything would be ready in a day or two. “Well, a cup la days,” she amended. “You won’t be sorry; this is always been a very nice block, more’n I can say for some parts a town, the Element that’s moving in nowadays. I give you a very nice icebox, Mr. Silberman.”

“Say, thanks, Mrs. Keeley; I really appreciate that. Say, Mrs. Keeley, what’s the difference between the Huzzuks and the Slovos?”

Mrs. Keeley shrugged and pursed her lips. “Well, they mostly don’t live right around here. Mostly they live down around, oh, Tompkins… Gerry… De Witt… Mostly around there.” She adjusted her hairnet.

“But — is there a difference between them? I mean, there’s got to be; some are called Huzzuks and some are called Slovos. So there must be a—”

Mrs. Keeley said, well, frankly, she never took no interest in the matter. “Monsignor, up at St. Carol’s, that big church on the hill, he used ta be a Hozzok, rest his soul. What they tell me. Now, your Bosnians, as they call ‘um, they mostly live around on Greenville Street, Ashby, St. Lo. The Lemkos, whatever the hell they are, excuse my French, you find them mostly in them liddle streets along by the Creek… Ivy, Sumac, Willow, Lily, Rose. Well…use to. Nowadays…nowadays people are moving around, moving around,” she said, rather fretfully, “and I wish they would-int. I wish people they would stay put. So, as t’them people that you ast me about, Hozzoks and Slobos, mostly you find them down around on Tompkins… Gerry… De Witt…them streets there. What time is it? Is my program coming on?” She went into her apartment and closed the door behind her. A second later he heard a radio increased in volume. He wandered out into the street.

The streets.

The streets had certainly been wide enough when Uncle Jake’s had not been almost the only horse-and-wagon plying for trade along them. But that had been a long time ago. The streets had been full of children then, oh what a merry cheerful sight: you think so? To Fred Silberman as a small child this had been Indian Country, full of hostiles. Oh well. Then, during the Depression, there had been a considerable depopulation. Stores had emptied, and stayed empty, and one of the public schools, “Number Seven,” had even closed. However. In the year or two before the War several empty factories had been reopened as Defense Plants, and many new faces had appeared on the streets. Southern Blacks. Island Tans. Mountain Whites. Then Fred had gone off into the Army, and…really…had only now come back. Coming back out of his revery, he found himself in a time warp.

Gone were the four-story tenements, block after block of them; he was in a neighborhood of wooden houses, old wooden houses, old wooden fences, old wooden trees. Right across the street was a store building, a sagging rectangle of boards. Seemingly just as he remembered it, even to the raised letters on the glass storefront: SAL DA T A. Untouched by any recent paint was a sign, Mat. Grahdy, Meats, Groceries. He went in, knowing that a bell would tinkle, so of course one did.

The showcase on one side was large enough to show lots and lots of meats; what it showed now were some scrawny pieces of pig, a hunk of headcheese, a hunk of Swiss cheese, a tray of lilac-colored sausages, and (in a puddle of congealing blood) half of a head of something, cut longitudinally and looking incredibly anatomical. The store seemed vast, and was vastly empty; the smell proclaimed that Coolidge was President; the floor was splintery and clean. Looking up from something on the counter, Mr. Grahdy gazed with absolute amazement. Was he merely amazed that Fred Silberman was coming into his store? — that someone who looked like Fred Silberman was coming into his store? — or, simply, that someone, anyone, was coming into his store?

Then he smiled. Dipped his head to one side. They shook hands. Fred asked for some small item. Grahdy shrugged one shoulder. Fred asked for a different small item. Another shrug. Fred tried to think of some other small item, opened his mouth to name something, said, “Uh—” and named nothing. Grahdy laughed, finger-brushed his long moustaches: Right! Left!

“Rice?” he asked. “Sugar? Potatoes?” It was Silberman’s turn to laugh. The elder man joined in. A cut of headcheese was his next suggestion; “and a cut of Swiss? a sliced roll? I give mustard for nothing.” Somehow they wound up sharing the sandwich. Fred, observing an opened book on a newspaper there atop the counter, asked Mr. Grahdy What was he reading?

The book was turned around. But it was Greek to Fred. “Schiller,” said the grocer, turning pages. “Heine. You can read in the original?” He widened his eyes at Fred’s headshake. “What great pleasure you are missing. So. But… Lermontov? Pushkin? What? ‘Nope’?” A look of mild surprise. And mild reproof. A sigh. “So. No wonder you have Slovo friends!” The front of his very clean, very threadbare apron moved in merriment.

This was it. The opening. “Mr. Grahdy—” Mr. Grahdy bowed slightly. His horse, his carriage, were at Fred Silberman’s disposal. “Mr. Grahdy…what is it with you…with you people…your people…and the Slovo people? Could you tell me that? I would like to know. I would really like to know.”

Mr. Grahdy stroked his smile, moustachioes, Vandyke, and all. He looked (Silberman suddenly thought), he would have looked, much like the Kaiser…if the Kaiser had ever looked much like having a sense of humor. “Well, I shall tell you. In our old kingdom there back in Europe. In one province lived mainly Huzzuk only. In one province lived mainly Slovo only. In our own province lived we both. How shall I explain? To say that the Slovo were our serfs? Not exact. To say they were our tenants, our servants? Mm…but…well… Our thralls? You see. The kings, they were of foreign origin, a dynasty. We were their feudalists. We Huzzuk. And the Slovo, the Slovo, they were our feudalists!” His smile indicated not so much satisfaction with the subordinate position of the Slovo as satisfaction with his explanation. And, as Silberman stood leaning against the counter digesting this, the old grocer added to it.

The Slovo were not, hm, bad people. They were simple. Very simple people. Had come into Europe long ago following behind the Magyar and the Avar. Had been granted permission to settle down in “empty land” belonging to the Huzzuk. Had become Christianized. Civilized. Gave up their old language. Adopted the language of the Huzzuk. Which they spoke badly. Very badly. — Here, with many chuckles, Grahdy gave examples of the comical Slovo dialect, of which exemplar Fred of course understood nothing whatsoever.

He did take advantage of the old man’s laughing himself into a coughing fit and then into smiling silence. “What about their stove, Mr. Grahdy? What’s with the Slovo stove? What is it, what is it, how does it work?” And here Mr. Grahdy threw back his head and laughed and laughed and coughed and coughed and laughed and coughed and laughed.

It took quite a while for him to recover. And after he had been slapped on the back and had sipped a glass of water and sucked a Life Saver and assured Fred (with many mimes and gestures) that he was now all right, Grahdy spoke in a weakened voice, incomprehensibly; then, rather more clearly, though very husky: “Did it get warm yet?” he asked.

Silberman jumped away from the counter. “But what do you mean by that? You said it last night and so did Mr. What’s-His-Name with the thick white hair and you both laughed and laughed then—”

“The woman in the story. The Slovo woman in the story. The famous story anecdote. You know.”

But finally Fred got his point across that no, he did not know. Grahdy was amused at this. At this, next, Grahdy was incredulous. And finally, persuaded that indeed, famous or never so famous, the story anecdote was absolutely unknown to F. Silberman—“Your great-grandfather did not ever told you? No? No?”—Grahdy was absolutely delighted. God knows when he had last had an absolutely fresh audience…

A Slovo woman had newly emigrated to the United States. Came to stay with relatives. By and by someone asked that a pot of water be put on for tea. “I will do it,” said the greenhorn woman. Did she know how to do it? Of course, of course! What did they think? Of course she knew how! “Shouldn’t someone go and show her?” Nonsense; not necessary! Off she went, from the front room into the kitchen to put the water on for the tea. So they talked and they waited and they waited and they waited, and still no call from the kitchen. Had she gone out the back door? So someone went in to see. They found her standing by the stove and looking at it. (Grahdy indicated her perplexed look.) “Was the water hot yet?” Here Grahdy indicated that the great punch line was coming; here Grahdy put hands on hips and an expression of annoyance and bewilderment on face.

“‘Was the water hot yet?’”

“‘Hot? Hot? It didn’t even get warm!’”

Neither did Silberman. What the hell. But the story anecdote was not over. The punch line was followed by an explanation. (a) The Slovo greenhorn woman knew nothing about a gas range. (b) The Slovo greenhorn woman assumed that the gas range was, simply, a Slovo stove, American style. (c) So she, seeing that the grate — which to her was, of course, “the black part”—seeing this already in place, she put water in the pot and set it on top. (d) Leaning against the gas stove there happened to be the grease tray, usually placed of course underneath the burners to catch spatters and drips; it had just been cleaned, was why it was where it was. It was enameled, and a pale blue. (e) So, assuming that this was “the blue part,” she had slid it into place, underneath the burners. (f) Had not turned on the gas, (g) had not struck a match, (h) had just waited for this American gas stove to behave like a Slovo stove—

— and here came the question and answer together again, as inexorable as Greek tragedy and by now almost as familiar as Weber and Fields or Abbott and Costello:

“‘Was the water hot yet?’”

“‘Hot? Hot? It didn’t even get warm!’”

This was, evidently, and by now Fred had had lots of evidence, the hottest item there had ever been in Huzzuk humor in the history of the world: Joe Miller, Baron Munchausen, Charlie Chaplin, step way back. Get ready for something really funny: the anecdote story of the greenhorn who thought that by sliding the grease tray underneath the gas burners, and by doing nothing else, she could produce heat!

Hot-cha!

Yocketty-bop-cha!

Why this venerable race joke, certainly worth a chuckle when fresh and crisp, still guffawed its way down the corridors of time, required more consideration than Fred was then prepared to give. But it was a lot, lot easier to understand why the Slovos, who had been listening to it for…how long? forty years? eighty years?…were beginning to get kind of restless. And—

“And how does it work, Mr. Grahdy? I mean…scientifically?”

The one-shoulder shrug. “Who knows, my dear young gentleman? Consider the electrical properties of the amber, a great curiosity in the former age; but today, merely we flick a switch.”

The local public library was not changed much since Andrew Carnegie had helped endow it; there was nothing in the catalogue under either Huzzuk, Slovo, or Stove which provided even faint enlightenment. The encyclopedia ran to information about the former dynasty and its innumerable dull rulers; also The Huzzukya areas have become moderately industrialized and The interests of the Slovoya areas remain largely agrarian and Exports include duck down, hog bristles, coarse grades of goat hair and wool. Goody.

In the Reference Room the little librarian with the big eyeglasses listened to his request; said, in her old-time professionally hush-hush voice, “I think there is a pamphlet”…and there certainly was a pamphlet; it was bound in, and bound in tightly, with a bunch of other pamphlets on a bunch of other subjects. The nameless author-publisher (“Published by the Author”) had disguised the fact of not having much to say by saying it in rather large type. Leaning on the volume with both hands to keep it open, Silberman learned that “the Slovoi themselves no longer admit to know just where was or even approximately their ancestral ‘Old Home’ or ‘Old Place’ near ‘The Big Water.’ The latter has been suggested for Caspian Sea or Aral Sea, even fantastically has been suggested ‘Lake Baikal.’ In Parlour’s Ferry are found Huzzuki in many Middle Class professional commercial role and has been correctly suggested Slovoi fulfill labor tasks with commendable toil and honesty.” There was nothing about stoves, and Fred felt that unless he wanted eventually to sell photographs of his wrists to Charles Atlas, he might as well let go of the bound volume of pamphlets; he did, and it closed like a bear trap.

The pamphlet probably contained the text of a paper done for a pre-WWI class in Night School, the Author of which, intoxicated by getting a fairly good grade, had rushed it off to a job printer; it was suggested in Fred’s mind that he was probably (probably?) a Huzzuk.

Back at Fred’s new apartment-to-be, lo! the painters were no longer painting; the painters were no longer, in fact, there; and neither was the painting finished. Only, in the middle of the drainboard of the kitchen sink sat a white bread and sardine sandwich with a single symmetrical bite missing out of it. Another unsolved mystery of the sea; or had it come there by a fortuitous concourse of the atoms: why not? Down went Fred and rang Mrs. Keeley’s bell. By and by the door opened a crack long enough to transmit heavy breathing and the odor of gin and onions; almost at once the door closed shut again and by and by the volume of the radio went up. Mrs. Keeley was not one of your picky listeners out there in Radioland who require very fine tuning, and Silberman was unable to say if she was listening to an old recording of the Tasty Yeast Jesters or maybe one of a love song by President Harding. He went away.

A côte chez Brakk, an aunt said, as he came in, “I saved you some fruit stew,” and also Wes poured him something powerful-looking. Evidently the conventicle/potlatch was still going on, with Fred’s presence still acceptable. Although—A newspaper was lowered; behind it was Nick. “Don’t make the Old Lady show ya that jee-dee stove no more,” he said. “She’s all wore out.”

Fred said, easily, “Okay, Nick. — Who else has got one?” he asked the world at large. There was a thinking pause. Wes said, No one that he knew of.

“It’s the last of the Mohicans,” Wes said.

Nick slapped down the paper. “She better get ridda it. Y‘hear me? I’m gonna smash it up, I’m gonna throw it offa the bridge; I don’ wanna even hear about it — no wonder they make funna us all the time!” No one said a word, so Nick said a word, a short and blunt one; and then, as though shocked himself, slammed out of the room. In a moment a car drove rapidly away. Wes was expressionless and, seemingly, emotionless.

Fred sampled the fruit stew. Was it the same as stewed fruit? no it wasn’t. Good, though. As soon as his spoon scraped the bottom, a bowl of something else was set down beside him. And a plate of something else. “Here is beaten-up bean soup with buttermilk and vinegar. This is lamb fritters with fresh dill.” Golly, they sounded odd! Golly, they were good!

In a corner across the room an old man and an old woman discordantly sang-sung religious texts from, shared between them, an old wide book in Old Wide Huzzuk or something of the sort. “That’s supposed to benefit the soul of the late deceased,” said a very young man with a very large and shiny face, in a tentatively contentious tone.

“College boy,” said Wes. “Could it hurt?”

Fred Silberman put down his spoon. (Eating fritters with a spoon? Sure. Why not? Hurts you?) “Listen, where was ‘the Old Home Place by the Big Water’?” he asked.

The college boy instantly answered, “Gitche Gumee.”

Wes said, with a shrug of his own, far heavier than Mat. Grahdy’s, “Who the hell knows? Whoever knew? You think they had maps in those days? I suppose that one year the crops failed and there was no nourishment in the goat turds, so they all hit the road. West. And once they crossed a couple mountains and a couple of rivers, not only didn’t they know where they were, they didn’t even know where they’d been.”

Fred said, “Listen. Listen. Nick isn’t here, the Huzzuks aren’t here, nobody is here but us chickens, cut-cut-cut-cut, God should strike me dead if I laugh at you: Where did the stoves come from? The Slovo stoves?”

“Who the hell knows?”

“Well, did they have them when they left…wherever it was? Lake Ontario, or the Yellow Sea? Did they…?”

Wes just sighed. But his, probably, sister took to answering the question, and the further questions, and, when she didn’t know, asked her elders and translated the answers. According to old stories, yes, they did have the stoves before they left the Old Place. The black parts they came from the mountain and the blue parts they came from the Big Water. From the inside of the mountain, what mountain, nobody knows what mountain, and from the bottom of the Big Water. How did they get the idea? Well, Father Yockim said that the angels gave it to them. Father Yockim said! That’s not what the old people use to say…what did the old people used to say? The old people used to say it was the little black and white gods but Father Yockim he thought people would think that meant like devils or something, so he changed it and — Well, there aren’t any little black and white gods, for God’s sake! — Oh, you’re so smart, you think you—

“Maybe they were from outer space,” said Silberman, to his own surprise as much as anyone else’s.

Silence the most profound. Then the “college boy,” probably either a nephew or a cousin, said, slowly, “Maybe they were.” Another silence. Then they were all off again.

The trouble all began with Count Cazmar. Count Cazmar had, like, a monopoly on all the firewood from the forest. The king gave it to him. Yes, but the king didn’t just “give” it to him; he had to pay the king. Okay, so he had to pay the king. So anybody wanted firewood they had to pay Count Cazmar. Then he got sore because the Slovo people weren’t buying enough firewood, see, because he still had to pay the king. Which king? Who the hell knows which king? Who the hell cares? None of them were any damn good anyway. What, old King Joseph wasn’t any good, the one who let Yashta Yushta out of the dungeon? Listen, will you forget about old King Joseph and get on with the story!

So Count Cazmar sent out all the blacksmiths to go from house to house with their great big sledgehammers to smash up all the Slovo stoves to force the Slovos to buy more firewood and — What? Yeah, that’s how Gramma’s stove is, like, broken. They all got, like, broken. Of course you could still use them. But dumb Count Cazmar he dint know that. So, what finely happen, what finely happen, everybody had to pay a firewood tax irregardless of how much they used or not. So lotta the Slovo people they figured, ya gotta pay for it anyway? so might as well use it. See? Lotta them figure, ya gotta pay for it anyway, so might as well use it. And so, lotta them quit usin’ their Slovo stoves. Y’see.

“That’s your superior Huzzuk civilization for you,” Wes said. Just then the deacon and deaconess in the corner, or whatever they were, lifted their cracked old voices and finished their chant; and everybody said something loudly and they all stamped their feet. “Here, Fred,” said Wes, “have some more — have another glass o’ mulberry beer.” And promptly an aunt set two more bowls down in front of Fred. “In this one is chopped spleen stew with crack buckwheats. And in udder one is cow snout cooked under onions. Wait. I give you pepper.”

Eventually Silberman got moved into his new apartment and eventually Silberman got moved into his new job; his new job required (among other things…among many other things) a trip to the diemakers, a trip to the printers, a trip to the suppliers: how convenient that all three were located in a new or newish commercial and industrial complex way out on the outskirts of. As he drove, by and by such landmarks as an aqueduct, a cemetery, an old brick foundry, reminded him that, more or less where the commercial and industrial complex now was, was where old Applebaum used to be. Lo! it seemed: still was! Shabby, but still reading M. APPLEBAUM CASH AND CARRY WHOLESALE GROCERIES. The complicated commerces and industries perhaps didn’t like shabby Old Applebaum’s holding out in their midst? Tough. Let them go back where they came from.

Afterwards, business finished elsewhere, thither: “Freddy. Hello.”

“Hello, Mr. Applebaum. How are you?”

“How should I be? Every week seems like another family grocery bites the dust. Nu. I own a little swamp in Florida and maybe I will close up the gesheft and go live on a houseboat with hot and cold running crocodiles. Ahah, here comes an old customer with his ten dollars’ worth of business if we are both lucky; Mat. Grahdy.”

Sure enough. Beat him to the punch. “Hey, Mr. Grahdy, did it get hot yet?”

Grahdy laughed and laughed; then gave the counterword: “It didn’t even get warm! Ho ho ho ho.” He gestured to another man. “This is Petey Plazzek, he is a half-breeth. Hey, Petey, did it get hot yet? Ho ho ho ho! — Mosek!”—this to Old Applebaum. “A little sugar I need, a little semolina I need, a little cake flour, licorice candy, marshmallow crackers.” M. Applebaum said he could give him a good buy on crackers today. They went inside together.

Petey Plazzek, a worn-looking man in a worn-looking lumber jacket, came right to the point. “If you’re driving by the bus deepo, you could give me a ride.”

“Sure. Get in.” Off they went. Silberman’s glance observed no Iroquois cheekbones. “Excuse me, but what did he mean, ‘A half-breed’? No offense—”

“Naa, naa. Half Huzzuk, half Slovo.”

A touch of the excitement. “Well, uh, Mr. Plazzek—”

“Petey. Just Petey.”

“Well, uh, Petey, how many people have one of those old Slovo stoves anymore?”

“Nobody. Them stoves are all a thing o’ the past nowadays. Watch out for that truck.”

“How come, Petey? How come they are?”

Petey rubbed his nose, sighed very deeply. “Well. You know. Some greenhorn would come to America — as we used to say, ‘He had six goats and he sold five to get the steamship ticket and he gave one to the priest to pray for a good journey.’ I’m talking about a Slovo now. Huzzuk, that’s another thing altogether. So the poor Slovo was wearing high boots with his pants tucked innem and a shirt smock and a sheepskin coat and a fur hat. This was before Ellis Island. Castle Garden in those days. He didn’t have a steamer trunk, he didn’t have a grip, he only had a sort of knapsack; so what was in it? A clean smock shirt and some clean foot rags, because they didn’t use socks, and a little iron pot and some hardtack-type bread and those two stove parts, the black part and the, uh, the, uh—”

“The blue part.”

“—the blue part, right. Watch out for that Chevy. Well, he’d get a job doing the lowest-paid dirtiest work and he’d rent a shack that subsequently you wouldn’t dast keep a dog in it, y’understand what I’m telling you, young fellow? Lights, he had no lights, he didn’t even have no lamp, just a tin can with some pork fat and a piece of rag for a wick. And he’d pick up an old brick here and an old brick there and set up his Slovo stove and cook buckwheat in his little iron pot and he’d sleep on the floor in his sheepskin coat.”

But by and by things would get better; this was America, the land of opportunity. So as soon as he started making a little money he brought his wife over and they moved into a room, a real room, and he’d buy a coal-oil lamp and a pair of shoes for each of them, but, um, people would still laugh attem, partickley the Zunks would still be laughing at them because of still using the Slovo stove, y’see. So by and by they’d buy a wood stove. Or a coal stove. And they’d get the gaslight turned on. And they’d even remember not t’ blow it out.”

“Yes, but, Petey. The wood and coal cost money. And the Slovo stove was free. So—”

Petey sighed again. “Well. To tell you the truth. It could cook: sure. Didn’t give out much heat, otherwise. Boil up a lotta water, place’d get steamy.”

Fred Silberman cried, “Steam heat! Steam heat!”

Petey looked startled, then — for the first time — interested. Then the interest ebbed away. He sighed. “None of them people were plumbers. They never thought of nothing like that, and neither did anybody else. The Slovo stove, what it come to mean, it come to mean poverty, see? It come to mean ridicule. And so as soon as they quit being dirt-poor, well, that was that.”

Fred asked, eagerly, “But aren’t there still a lot of them in the attics? Well…some of them? In the cellars?”

Petey’s breath hissed. “Where you going? You going to the bus deepo, y’ shoulda turned leff! Oh. Circling the block. Naa…they juss, uh, thrown’m away. Watch out for that van.”

The new job and its new responsibilities occupied and preoccupied most of Silberman’s time, but one afternoon as he was checking an invoice with the heating contractor fitting up the plant, lo! the old matter came abruptly to his mind.

“Sudden thought?” said Mr. McMurtry.

“Uh. Yuh. You ever hear of a… Slovo stove?”

Promptly: “No. Should I have?”

Suppose Fred were to tell him. What then? Luddite activity on the part of McMurtry? “Let me ask you a make-believe question, Mac—”

“Fire when ready.”

So…haltingly, ignorantly… Fred (naming no names, no ethnic groups) described matters as well as he could, winding up: “So could you think, Mac, of any scientific explanation as to how such a thing could, or might, maybe, work? At all?”

Mac’s brow furrowed, rolling the hairs of his conjoined eyebrows: a very odd effect. “Well, obviously the liquid in the container acts as a sort of noncontiguous catalyst, and this amplifies the vortex of the force field created by the juxtaposition of the pizmire and the placebo”—well of course McMurtry did not say that: but that was what it sounded like to Silberman. And so McMurtry might just as well have said it.

McMurtry said one last word or two. “If these things weren’t make-believe it would be interesting to examine them. Even a couple of little pieces might do. What can be analyzed could maybe be duplicated.”

Once things got going well at work, Fred thought he would go and ask old Mrs. Brakk…go and ask old Mrs. Brakk what? Would she let the sole extant Slovo stove be examined by an expert? be looked at in a lab? be scraped to provide samples for electronic microscopic analysis?

???

He might suggest that, if she didn’t trust him, it might be done through a Brakk Family Trust…or something…to be set up for that purpose. Via Wes…and, say, Nick…

Sure he might.

But he waited too long.

Silberman of course knew nothing; how could he have known? The people of the house had just learned themselves. All he knew, arriving early one night, was that, as he came up to the house, a tumult began within. Lots of people were yelling. And as he came into the Brakk kitchen, Nick was yelling alone.

“We’re Americans, ain’t we?” he yelled. “So let’s live like Americans; bad enough so the Huzzuks make fun of us, I’m tired of all them Old Country ways, what next, what else? Fur hats? Boots? A goat in the yard?” He addressed his wife. “A hundred times I told your old lady, ‘Throw it away, throw the damned thing away, I-am-tired they making fun of us, Mamma, you hear?’ But she didn’t. She didn’t. So I, did.” He stopped, breathing hard. “And that’s all…”

A sick feeling crept into Silberman’s chest.

“Where did you throw it? Where? It wasn’t yours!”—his wife. Nick pressed his lips together. His wife clapped her hand to her head. “He always used to say, ‘I’ll throw it off the bridge, I’ll throw it off the bridge!’ That’s where! Oh, you hoo-dlóm!” For a moment his eyes blazed at her. Then he shrugged, lit a cigarette, and began to smoke with an air of elaborately immense unconcern.

Old Mrs. Brakk sat with her faint smile a moment more. Then she began to speak in her native language. Her voice fell into a chant, then her voice broke, then she lifted her apron to her eyes.

“She says, ‘All she had to remind her of the old home country. All she wanted to do was sometimes warm the baby’s bottle or sometimes make herself a bowl of tea in her own room if she was tired. She’s an old lady and she worked hard and she never wanted to bother nobody—’”

Nick threw his cigarette with force onto the linoleum and, heedless of shrieks, stamped on it heavily. Then he was suddenly calm. “All right. Listen. Tomorrow I’ll buy you a little electric stove, a, a whadda they call it? A hot plate! Tomorrow for your own room I’ll buy y’a hot plate. Okay?”

The effect was great; Nick had never been known — voluntarily — to buy anything for anyone.

Old Mrs. Brakk exclaimed, in English, “You will?”

He gave a solemn nod. “I swear to God.” He crossed his heart. “Tomorrow. The best money can buy. Mamma can come with me,” he added. His wife kissed him. His older brother-in-law patted him on the back. The old woman began to smile again.

Silberman felt his heart pounding at twice its regular rate. He dared say nothing. Then, by and by, Nick strolling out into the yard and lighting up another cigarette, he strolled out after him.

“Nick.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m going to ask you something. Don’t get mad.”

“Gaw head.”

“You really threw the stove parts off the bridge?”

“Yeah. Well…the pieces.”

“Pieces?”

Nick yawned. Nodded. “I took the damn thing to the shop. Where I work. You know.” Fred knew. “An I runnum through the crusher. And what was left … I puttum in a bag. An I threw it offa the bridge.” He wasn’t angry or regretful. He let fall his cigarette, stomped it, went back into the house. Fred heard him working the television.

The shop. Sneaky as could be, Fred lurked and skulked and peeked. The light was on, the door was open. Had Nick left them so? No matter; surely some crumbles of blue, of black, would be left, and he would zip in, scoop them off the floor by the crusher, and — A long shadow oozed across the floor. The janitor, humping his broom. A real, old-time Slovo, immense moustache and all, of the real, old-time Slovo sort; in a minute he was gone. Fred zipped, all right. But he didn’t scoop; there was nothing to scoop. No crumbles. There wasn’t even dust. Tanta Pesha was not physically present but her voice sounded in her great-nephew’s ears: The Slovos? They are very clean…you could eat off their floors…

He drove his car up and down the silent streets. Shouted aloud, “I don’t believe it! The greatest discovery in thermodynamics since the discovery of fire! And it’s gone. It’s gone! It can’t be gone! It can’t be—”

In the days that followed, in the weeks and months, he knocked on doors, he advertised, he offered rewards. Pleaded. Begged. That incredible discovery, mysteriously having come to earth who knew how and who knew how many thousands of years ago or how many thousands of miles away.

It was gone.

Fred threw himself into his work. Developed, locally, an active social life. Womanized. Thought of marriage. Changed. Other things changed too. Wes Brakk abruptly moved to Idaho, why Idaho? Of all places. “Because he said it was as far away from the Huzzuks as he could get and still wear shoes.” Oh. And the rest of the Brakk family, plus Nick—led by Nick — almost as suddenly moved to Brownsville, Texas. Why Brownsville, Texas? “To get away from the cold.” Others might move to Florida, California, Arizona, to get away from the cold: the rest of the Brakk family (plus Nick) moved to Brownsville, Texas, to get away from the cold.

It seemed, somehow, a very Slovo sort of thing to do.

They were ripping up Statesman Street again and Fred had to detour. Had he to drive along Tompkins, Gerry, and De Witt streets? For one reason or another, he did drive along there: my, the neighborhood had changed! The new neighbors glanced at him with unneighborly glances. There was Grahdy’s store. But one whole once-glass pane was missing, boarded up. He stopped. Went in. There was Mr. Grahdy, part of his face bandaged, the other part bruised and discolored. His violin was in his hand. He nodded his jaunty nod. “Would you enjoy to hear a little Paganini?” he asked. Began to play.

Silberman felt that he was present at almost the last scene of a very antick drama. Old Mat. Grahdy, with his wife’s alexandrines, his violin, Heine, Schiller, Lermontov, Pushkin, Paganini, and the Latin Psalms — how long could he last? If he didn’t starve to death in his almost empty store, how long before they killed him?

The old man let the violin fall to his side. For an odd, long moment he gazed at Silberman with a very level gaze. Then a smile twitched onto his swollen, battered face. He shrugged one shoulder. He began to laugh. “It didn’t even get warm,” he chuckled.

Two Short-Shorts: “The Last Wizard” and “Revenge of the Cat-Lady” INTRODUCTION BY F. M. BUSBY

With publication of “My Boy Friend’s Name Is Jello” in an early 1954 issue of F&SF, Avram Davidson served notice that a new and unique viewpoint had joined the sf and fantasy fields. Over the years he made good on that notice. His stories and novels covered a wide range of themes and treatments, but always they had two features in common: a rare degree of erudition, and the evident fact that no one else could have written them.

It was on the final day of PittCon, the eighteenth World sf Convention at Pittsburgh, PA, that Elinor and I first met Avram. In those days the pros for some reason tended to hide out from the vast (three-figure!) Worldcon crowds; I forget who tipped us off where to find him, but there we went and there he was, being witty and affable as might be expected. With a train to catch, we had to leave much sooner than we wanted to.

Next meeting, I think, was at the 1962 Westercon, in Los Angeles. Avram and Grania were expecting — and late that year Avram wrote a wonderful new-father testimonial for our local group’s fanzine, Cry.

Well, it go along and it go along: the stories, the letters, the books. All to be remembered warmly — but with regret that we’ll never know where The Phoenix and the Mirror, for instance, eventually wound up. And that we can’t ever ask him.

But now here’s a book to remind us, to symbolize all the goodies Avram did give us. “The Last Wizard” and “Revenge of the Cat-Lady” are, I submit, fine examples of his craft.

FOR THE HUNDREDTH TIME Bilgulis looked with despair at the paper and pencil in front of him. Then he gave a short nod, got up, left his little room, and went two houses up the street, up the stairs, and knocked on the door.

Presently the door opened and high up on the face which looked out at him were a pair of very pale gray-green eyes, otherwise bloodshot and bulging.

Bilgulis said, “I want you teach me how to make spell. I pay you.”

The eyes blinked rapidly, the face retreated, the door opened wider, Bilgulis entered, and the door closed. The man said, “So you know, eh. How did you know?”

“I see you through window, Professor,” Bilgulis said. “All the time you read great big books.”

“‘Professor,’ yes, they call me that. None of them know. Only you have guessed. After all this time. I, the greatest of the adepts, the last of the wizards — and now you shall be my adept. A tradition four thousand, three hundred and sixty-one years old would have died with me. But now it will not. Sit there. Take reed pen, papyrus, cuttlefish ink, spit three times in bottle.”

Laboriously Bilgulis complied. The room was small, crowded, and contained many odd things, including smells. “We will commence, of course,” the Professor said, “with some simple spells. To turn an usurer into a green fungus: Dippa dabba ruthu thuthu—write, write! — enlis thu. You have written? So. And to obtain the love of the most beautiful woman in the world: Coney honey antimony funny cunny crux. Those two will do for now. Return tomorrow at the same hour. Go.”

Bilgulis left. Waiting beside his door was a man with a thick briefcase and a thin smile. “Mr. Bilgulis, I am from the Friendly Finance Company and in regard to the payment which you—”

“Dippa dabba ruthu thuthu enlis thu,” said Bilgulis. The man turned into a green fungus which settled in a hall corner and was slowly eaten by the roaches. Bilgulis sat down at his table, looked at the paper and pencil, and gave a deep sigh.

“Too much time this take,” he muttered. “Why I no wash socks, clean toilet, make a big pot cheap beans with pig’s tail for eat? No,” he said determinedly and once more bent over the paper and pencil.

By and by there was a knock on his door. Answering it he saw before him the most beautiful woman in the world. “I followed you,” she said. “I don’t know what’s happening …”

“Coney honey antimony,” said Bilgulis, “funny cunny crux.”

She sank to her knees and embraced his legs. “I love you. I’ll do anything you want.”

Bilgulis nodded. “Wash socks, clean toilet,” he said. “And cook big pot cheap beans with pig’s tail for eat.” He heard domestic sounds begin as he seated himself at the table and slowly, gently beat his head. After a moment he rose and left the house again.

Up the street a small crowd was dispersing and among the people he recognized his friend, Labbonna. “Listen, Labbonna,” he said.

Labbonna peered at him through dirty, mended eyeglasses. “You see excitement?” he asked, eager to tell.

“I no see.”

Labbonna drew himself up and gestured. “You know Professor live there? He just now go crazy,” he said, rolling his eyes and dribbling and flapping his arms in vivid imitation. “Call ambulance but he drop down dead. Too bad, hey?”

“Too bad.” Bilgulis sighed.

“Read too much big book.”

Bilgulis cleared his throat, looking embarrassed. “Listen, Labbonna—”

“What you want?”

“How long you in country?”

“Torty year.”

“You speak good English.”

“Citizen.”

Bilgulis nodded. He drew a pencil and piece of paper from his pocket. “Listen, Labbonna. Do me big help. How you make spell in English, Please send me your free offer? One ‘f’ or two?”

IN A SAD-SMELLING HOUSE on a weedy back street, Beulah Gurnsey sat watching a TV program. She was sitting in a sagging armchair whose upholstery had gone slick. Her face was sallow and its contours had long since slipped, and her eyes were large behind her eyeglasses. In the house next door three Oriental refugee children peered openmouthed from a window at the children of a darker and more abundant people playing in the street. These latter had not yet made up their minds about those former. They had long since made up their minds about Beulah Gurnsey, who nowadays tended not to go out very often. On the TV screen two women faced each other against the background of a house interior, to furnish which would have taken several years of Beulah’s income. These women often spoke about their being poor, but not right now.

“I feel so sorry about Loretta,” said one of them, right now. “It’s such a shock for her, her daughter Kimberly not being able to graduate because of that terrible scandal, when, after all, she was only an innocent victim of Brett Brock’s malice.”

“Yes, I feel terribly sorry for her, too,” said the other woman in the television. “And just when she was recovering from her—”

“Huh!” said Beulah Gurnsey. “You feel sorry for her, that brazen thing; what about me?”

The television lady with the frosted hair sort of wet her lips with the tip of her tongue, and said to the real-blonde television lady, “Uh, well, yes, what about Beulah Gurnsey?”

A sort of sarcastic smile on her face, the blonde one asked, “Well, what about her? She’s nothing special. Why is she any better than anyone else?”

In the kitchen the icebox made that funny sound that meant it was going to die again, and so Beulah would have to eat the lunch leftovers for supper or else they would be no good by tomorrow. “Oh, you rotten thing!” she exclaimed.

“Oh, well, you know,” said the frosty-haired one, “she came from such a good family once upon a time and now look at the awful element moving into her neighborhood; besides which she hasn’t got any money and she hasn’t the first idea where to go look for any.”

“Oh no?”—such sarcasm!

“No!” cried Beulah, striking the worn-through cloth on the arm of the chair. “No, she hasn’t! So you just shut up—”

“And the few old-timers who are left around where she still lives, never coming to see her for years on end and looking at her house when they go by and talking about her and saying you-know-what…and besides that, as I say, she hasn’t got any money. Well, that’s what it is to be poor, as well we know; let me give you some fresh tea in that nice bone china cup, dear. We can’t afford anything better, because we’re poor.”

Blondie in the television let Frosty pour, but then she said, after a single sip, “Well, why doesn’t she just go right down to J. Saul Sloane and ask him what about her late brother Clarence’s bearer bonds that he has?”

Beulah Gurnsey stretched neck up straight and peered all around the room. “I don’t know anything about any bearer bonds of my late brother Clarence’s that J. Saul Sloane has!”

Frosty in the television put her head slightly to one side, said, “You see, she doesn’t know anything about that. Isn’t the receipt for that inside the big paperweight on her late brother’s desk? She doesn’t know about that—”

Blondie smirked. Anyone could see what she was. “Weh-ll,” said she, with a toss of her head, “you can just bet that J. Saul Sloane knows about that. So—” But Beulah Gurnsey turned the set off before that one could say another word. Then she went into the closet and got out her ugliest black velvet hat and put it on with firm little jerks. Then she went into Clarence’s bedroom, everything just as he had left it: there was the big paperweight on his desk. She pulled with her fingers, she pushed with her fingers — lo! part of the bottom came sliding out. Just like Clarence. Who always had to have the nicest lamb chop? Clarence! Beulah didn’t exactly remember the last time she had had a lamb chop. There was the receipt. Secretive. Sly. Clarence.

She picked up the shopping bag with the neatly folded newspapers in it; people didn’t have to think she didn’t have a house to shop for.

Out she went.

The two children on the street had already grown bored with trying to bait the three at the window; on seeing her, they slid simultaneously across her path, their faces gone rubbery but not quite blank. She leaned over toward them and opened her eyes wide as she could and crossed them and with a quick movement of her tongue slid her false uppers almost entirely out between her lips, then immediately slipped them in again. The children fled, mouths open to express a silent horror. “Don’t you dare eat my cats!” she shouted at the suddenly empty window, shaking her fist. Beulah didn’t exactly remember the last time she had had a cat.

J. Saul Sloane. Insurance. Real Estate. Usury. Unscrupulous Bilking of Widows, Orphans, and Legatees.

In she went.

That was a sight to see. Oh, that would have made your heart feel good. Oh, how he looked up when she just marched in as bold as you please. She knew about his filthy rotten low vile immoral life. His putty mouth opening in his putty face under his putty nose as he saw her just march in and wave that receipt so he could see it and recognize it, and then what did he say? Ha!

“Miss Beulah. Miss Beulah. I can explain. I was just keeping them for you. I—”

She said, “Hand them over. Ev-er-y-single-one-of-them, J. Saul Sloane.” Which he did. And she gave him one look. Out of his safe. In the manila envelope. Did she think to check them to see if they were all of them there? Oh, you just bet. And left him his old paper and said not one word more.

Out she went.

County First National Bank and Trust Company.

“Now, Miss Gurnsey, we are really very sorry, but another extension would be out of the — Oh.”

“Oh.” Ha! Took the wind out of his sails!

Herman Heinrichs and Sons. Fine Meats. The young heinie, well, one of the young heinies, drew a sour face when he saw her. “No, I don’t have any bones for your dog today,” he said. Beulah Gurnsey didn’t exactly remember the last time she had had a dog. A legal fiction; never mind.

Ignoring the young one, she turned to the old one, who was there today, for a change; “Heinie,” she said, firmly, “I want six of your best, biggest, nice rib lamb chops, and don’t you trim an ounce off them and don’t you break a single bone: you know how I like them.”

“Yes, Miss Kurnssey,” he said, obediently. And after, he asked, “Shoult I but dem on your pill, Miss Kurnssey?”

Oh, how the young one yelped! “Grossdaddy, we don’t carry any more bills,” he cried.

Beulah paid him no mind. “I. Shall pay. Cash. Thank you, Heinie.”

Simmons Electrical. It always took Hi Simmons a week to stand up, he was so tall. “Beulah Gurnsey,” said he, now, “that was a good enough and cheap enough used icebox when I sold it to you and I have worked many a miracle with it for you and for the old times in Old Granger Grammar School, but I am not Frankenstein and cannot hang it up in a tower in a lightning storm to revive it again; therefore—” He was all stood up.

“I want a nice new one.”

“You can have a nice new one for $300.”

“I want a nice new one for $500.”

“You shall have it. Though there’s got to be a catch.”

“Yes. The catch is that the men who bring the new one take away the old one. You pay the dump fee. Good-bye, Hiram-firam.”

Back home she simply sat in her chair awhile. A long while. Then she got up and unwrapped the lamb chops and she salted them and peppered them and garlic’d them and onioned them and thymed them and put them in the broiler and turned it on, and then she washed her hands. The fat would bubble and crisp and they would grow nice and brown on the outside and yet be pink and juicy on the inside and she would hold each one by its bone-handle and eat it while she watched television.

Speaking of which.

7:30 2 WHERE IT’S AT. Featured: Treasure in Your Attic and Basement.

8:00 13 MOVIE ★½ Revenge of the Cat-Lady (1953) Percy Wilkins, Velda Snow. An insane spinster terrorizes her neighborhood with the aid of a strange old family amulet. (2 hrs. 5 mins.)

Good, good. Those looked very good. Beulah Gurnsey sat back in her armchair.

What was the treasure in her attic and in her basement? Well, she would find out. The television would let her know.

And tomorrow she must certainly get a cat.

Cats.

She leaned forward and turned on the television.

While You’re Up INTRODUCTION BY FORREST J. ACKERMAN

I’m an Esperantist and, as a recognizer of the “universalanguage” Esperanto, when I look at author Davidson’s first name it reverses itself and practically suggests “marvelous.” In any language, Avram was marvelous.

My auctorial specialty is the short-short story. I have had the world’s shortest published, “Cosmic Report Card: Earth.” You may guess the one failing letter of the alphabet that the flying saucer sociologists give Earth.

I’ve collaborated on short stories with Catherine L. Moore, Robert W. Lowndes, Theodore Sturgeon, and A. E. van Vogt, among others. Why didn’t it occur to me while there was still time to ask Avram if he’d consider collaborating with me on a sequel to “Cosmic Report Card”? After all, I sold it five times for a total of five hundred dollars and it’s been translated into eight languages.

But enough of my ambling along in this preamble, this is a collection of Davidson stories, not Ackermanuscripts. I’m delighted that the word “friend” was found after my name in Avram’s address book and therefore I was contacted to write an introduction to “While You’re Up.”

I had only finished the first sentence when I realized something was wrong, inexplicably anachronistic. Undoubtedly you will too when you wonder why anyone would include Maxfield Parrish as a compatriot (dare I, with a bow to Avram, say compaintriot?) of da Vinci and Rembrandt?

Warm wine?

Crystal bowls for divining — not balls?

Aprons outlawed?

Handkerchiefs archaic?

What’s going on here?

And when Sexton — But, no, I’ll leave you to read the shock yourself.

Avram, you marva rascal, you’ve done it again!

THE SCENE MIGHT HAVE been painted by Maxfield Parrish, perhaps the best of painters during that rich, lost era that also gave the world Leonardo and Rembrandt. While the latter two have their spokesmen, nay, their devotees, even they would have to concede that neither ever painted so blue a sky, and that there are those who deny that such blue skies ever indeed existed is (as Sexton often explained) beside the point. “They ought to have existed,” Tony said now to the few friends, to Mother Ruth — his wife of many years — all sitting in the large front room to which his preeminence and seniority entitled him. “They ought to have existed, for, as we see now, sometimes they almost do — and — look! a cloud!”

Mother Ruth, who had certainly seen clouds from this room before, merely smiled and murmured something soft and inaudible; the others craned and clearly spoke of their delight and good fortune. All, except of course, for Samjo, who continued sitting with his mouth open. Tony Sexton more than once had said, though — they could all well remember—“Don’t ever underestimate Samjo. He sees more than you think, and he adds things up, too.”

“The wine should be warm enough to drink in a few minutes,” Sexton said now. “We brought it up from the cellar several hours ago.”

Barnes, from his chair with the wooden arms, declared, hands sweeping the air, “Good friends, a good view, good thoughts, and — good wine, too.” Overfamiliarity may have perhaps tarnished the quotation, but Barnes’s enthusiasm was always contagious.

Maria said, “This moment, with the view and the blue and the cloud and, shortly, the wine — will be a moment that I shall always remember.” She peered forward, probably seeking to look into Mother Ruth’s eyes, for such was Maria’s habit; when she said something worthy, she felt, of notice, she sought someone’s eyes and, as it were, sought to bring forth an evident approval: a smile, a nod, an expression of the face, a gesture. But this time it was not forthcoming. Perhaps Maria, for all she knew, was just a bit annoyed.

Perhaps Tony understood all this, for he smiled his famous Sexton smile, and said, “Mother Ruth often looks into her apron as the ancient sibyls did into their crystal bowls.” For it was true, Mother Ruth dared to wear the antique apron, so long outlawed; and almost it did seem to make her look like something from antique eras.

Barnes picked up the metaphor and asked — Barnes often asked very odd!questions—“Father, were those crystal bowls empty when the sybils looked into them, or did they contain something, a…a liquid, perhaps?”

Tony Sexton very slightly pursed his lips. “Wine, I suppose, would have been too precious for such a use; water would always be in short supply. What, then? A thick soup would surely have interfered with the visioning, so — broth perhaps?”

Barnes in a moment went bright: A new concept! Then the brightness went. “One never knows when you are making a joke,” he muttered.

“I wanted to have a few friends over,” Sexton said, lightly leaving the subject. “Wine and five glasses waiting, a day with a lot of blue, and, if we were lucky…and I felt we would be lucky…even a cloud. A day to be remembered.”

Murmurs from all assured him that the day would surely be remembered. With an effect most odd, Sexton’s face turned gray, and his body seemed to fall in upon itself. For a second only, his face — like a dim, thin, crusted mask — rested on what seemed a pile of ashes; then it, too, dissolved.

The reaction of the others was varied. Maria started to rise, fell back, composed herself, looked about with a rueful air. Mother Ruth sagged. “Oh, Tony, Tony,” she said, her voice very small. Barnes exclaimed loudly, beat his hands upon the costly arms of his chair. “He didn’t renew!” cried Barnes. “Time and time again, I asked, I begged — much good that will do now,” he said, deeply annoyed. He bent over, removed from the still settling pile the small tag of malleable substance, read aloud, “Your warranty expires on or about the hour of noon on the 23rd of April, 2323.” Several voices declared that Tony Sexton had timed it just about right — leave it to Sexton! they said.

Maria now rose all the way. “I think,” she said, “that now is just the time to drink that container of wine Sexton was saving; he’d want that, wouldn’t he?”

“Bound to!” exclaimed Barnes. “Absolutely!”

Mother Ruth looked up from her lap. “Maria, dear. While you’re up. Would you mind also bringing back with you the dustpan and the broom? Thank you, dear.”

Samjo had as usual seemed to have been thinking of nothing at all; as often, this semblance was deceptive. He had been wiping, first his eyes, then his nose, with an article of cloth quite as archaic as Mother Ruth’s apron. Then he spoke. “Only four glasses now, Maria,” said he.

Who could help chuckling?

The Spook-Box of Theobald Delafont De Brooks INTRODUCTION BY ALGIS BUDRYS

“The Spook-Box of Theobald Delafont De Brooks,” Avram’s last story published before his death, came to me via a literary agent. But when it was published, he wrote to Kandis Elliot, my Production Manager and, in this case, illustrator, to say how much he liked the illustrations, and could he have them? What I don’t think he knew was that Kandis composed them on her computer, so it was no trouble at all to run off a complete set and send them to him. But he was dead by then.

Avram and I go back a long way. At one point, when we were both selling men’s hairy-chested “true” adventures, we even were collaborators, in the sense that we often talked about it, and fully intended to do it. The problem became that Avram’s stories were true, whereas mine were “true,” and we finally decided against it. But when he published Masters of the Maze, about a hack who wrote “true” adventure stories, he mentioned my invariable working title: “Love-Starved Arabs Raped Me Often.” And when I became editor-in-chief of Regency Books, I published an excellent collection—Crimes and Chaos—of Avram’s true adventure tales.

We went back further than that. Both of us were living in New York City, and I often wound up in his place on 110th Street. We had something — exactly what is difficult to pin down — that drew us together. It turned out, among other things, that his father had had a chicken farm a few miles up the road from my father’s chicken farm, but that would hardly account for even a part of it, because we never came in contact during that period. But whatever it was, it endured; he and I would trade letters pretty steadily from about 1955 to his death (and he always included my wife in his greetings). I was immensely flattered; here was one of the finest wordsmiths in the English language, with a first-class mind behind all that, and first-class creativity, and he deigned to speak to me as “Uncle Ajay.”

I wish he still did. I saw him at all the Norwescons I attended, and I did not think he would be gone so soon. I did not realize that Jahweh would dare to take him away from an Earth he made special.

IT WAS MORE THAN his theory, it was the very foundation of his belief, that if you were legally entitled to use a name containing the names of two very well-known people, then…sooner or later…it would result in some very good pieces of business getting thrown your way. It hadn’t happened yet…well…not very good pieces of business. He collected rents on a number of properties, collected them for the owners, that is, and he sold the insurance policies to the same properties. He alas did not hold a power of attorney for any of the properties. Not as yet. And he had managed to keep an apartment in one of the properties vacant for so long that old Miss Whittier had forgotten it was even rentable. And then—

“Eighty-five West Elm really needs a night watchman, Miss Whittier,” he said.

“It does?” her voice had already begun to flutter.

“Yes, it does. But it isn’t going to get it. Tell you what I am going to do, Miss Whittier—”

“Ye-es?”

“I. Am going to give up the place I now have. And I. Will move in there. Will,” and here he named a sum about the third of his present rent, a rent which he was increasingly finding it inconvenient to pay, “—will that be all right, Miss Whittier?”

Miss Whittier would have undergone a slow course of the water torture rather than admit she really no longer had a good notion of what would be all right for the place (or any other place). “Oh…why I suppose …” Some last vestige of business sense entered Miss Whittier’s aged mind. “Wasn’t that about what those nice Van Dynes used to pay?” Was it necessary for him to remind her that the Van Dynes (they had been dead for decades) had actually occupied another apartment in another building? Theobald Delafont De Brooks didn’t think it was.

He squinted a moment, deep in thought, then: “Oh, I have to hand it to you, Miss Whittier. For a minute there I had a hard time remembering just what the Van Dynes used to pay. Little bit less, Miss Whittier. Little bit less, they paid.”

Another flutter. “Well, then, is that quite fair to you… Mr. De Brooks? To pay more than—”

But Mr. De Brooks begged her not to think about him. “The main thing, you see, is to have somebody living in that apartment. Apartment stays vacant, no curtains, no screens, no shades in the windows: gives the place a bad name.”

Miss Whittier was never moved to ask how long the apartment in question had stayed vacant, or anything else pertaining to its possible bad name. “Why…then… I’m sure it will be just fine. Thank you—”

Very politely he brushed away her thanks. “Anybody wants anything, for example, at night: there I am. Never go out at night anymore. Except,” he did want to be honest with her, his face said, “Thanksgiving. Got to.” He breathed the magic words, Family Dinner.

Ever squeeze a drop of lemon on a live oyster? Remember what happened? That, more or less, is what happened to Miss Whittier. “Well, of course—why, oh, certainly, Mr. De Brooks! The very idea! that you for one moment or any reason shouldn’t think of going—!”

“Don’t like to leave the place alone, you see.” Do you see? He hadn’t even moved into the place yet, Thanksgiving was months away, already the owner was begging him not to give it a second thought.

The prophets, where are they? And your fathers, do they live forever?

And, bringing it up to date, do your owners live forever, either? It would have been almost as easy as for him to have gotten the apartment rent-free. But a man had to look at the future. Were he to have done so, and the cold eye of an executor or a cost-accountant looked at that No Rent arrangement — and not by any means could De Brooks have pretended he had acted as janitor — superintendent — engineer, so as to have justified the rentlessness: No. Whereas this way, if it were even mentioned, “Well, the late Miss Whittier very much wanted someone whom she knew very well to live in that apartment and, as she put it, ‘Keep an eye on things …’” What could the heir…the banker…the whoever…say? At most, a slight grunt, and at worst, some small amount of time later, a civil letter on crisp paper to the effect that his services were no longer…but that was likely enough in any event. No camp lasts forever.

So there was one piece of good, if not very, very good, piece of business.

And although he did not know it, yet he — having a sixth or/and a seventh sense for such things — would have been not at all surprised to learn that a Certain Connection of Miss Whittier had, oh, some several years ago, at her own expense, obtained an independent genealogical report; from which we will cite just a bit, as follows:

The family line or lines of Mr. Theobald Delafont De Brooks himself are certainly traceable to 1820, and probably to 1800. Possibly as far back as 1787. There were quite a number of De Brookses in New York, and only one known progenitor, the Jacobus Aurelius De Broogh who had arrived from Bergen-op-Zoom in the Netherlands in 1643 and on whose great success in the Indian trade the De Brooks family fortunes were founded…so that a distant relationship to both Presidents is certainly probable, though now impossible either to prove or disprove. A further search, though perhaps more productive, would be much more expensive.

And at the words more expensive, the Certain Connection (certain…and suspicious) drew in her horns, bore the costs in silence, and never, ever said another word. Just as well.

Visitors and possible clients, gazing at the two large framed photographs, invariably asked on their first visit, “Are you related to both presidents?” and Theobald Delafont De Brooks would say, with a smile, “Shirt-tail cousins, you might say—” Adding, “We were the poor relations.” And…invariably?…well…just in case the visitors and possible clients didn’t ask, TDD would somehow always manage to get in an early reference to Cousin Theo and to Cousin Grosvenor, would laugh and add, “They stopped sending us the Christmas turkey after My Folks supported the other candidates.” Who could fail to enjoy that not-quite-a-story? and who could fail to get the not-quite-point? — High Family Connections … and…Fearlessly Independent People…

But…really…were they?…weren’t they? Mr. Quincy De Brooks was once semi-publicly asked this outright; rather smoothly said, “If they didn’t have a lot of enemies, then we are probably not related;” rather smoothly passed on before further question time. Still — how could one but wonder? What names to be announced by trumpets! Theobald De Brooks, President of the United States! and Grosvenor Delafont De Brooks, President of the United States! Dead now, long dead, both of them, of course — but what about the descendants?

Q. Do you ever see anything of any of them, Del?

A. Nope. Nope. They don’t push it. And we don’t push it.

This was perhaps wise of Mr. Theobald Delafont De Brooks who had, anyway, a few other stories to tell. Not many.

Story Number One. When TDD’s grandfather was a student in the seventh grade at the old Governor Daniel Tompkins School (long obliterated), who should make a visit to said school but old T. D. himself: see an officious principal shove Del’s grandfather forward, Mr. President, here is a namesake of yours! Well, you don’t get to be President by asking too many dumb questions and so all that old T. D. said was, “I believe we may be related, then.” “I believe we may, sir.” Old T. D. grinned, made feint of offering the boy a cigar, and, amidst the genial laughter, briskly shook hands with him, and passed on along.

Story Number Two. Del’s father did have the courage to send a letter beginning Dear Cousin Grosvenor congratulating GDD on his first election: back came another letter, from the same mold and form as all replies to all such letters, but beginning — mind you, mind you—Dear Cousin Delafont. Explain that, would you. They knew — almost spooky, as you might say.

In neither case: No invitation to come boating or swimming at Muskrat Sump. No invitation to go golfing or riding at Parkill Ridge.

Oh well. Take what you can get. Hope for the Big Chance. Keep your powder dry. And — say? — don’t knock it. On the strength of the Story Number One, Theobald De Brooks the distant, floated into a job offered by an uncle of the boy standing next to him during the handshake. And on the strength of the letter (framed) D. James De Brooks floated into a job given him by the local Commiteeman: not much of a job, but it kept them in groceries and off Relief. See?

Maybe at one time they had been the poor relations. But for a long, long time, they hadn’t even been that. Had Del’s dad been merely boasting, swaggering, in giving his son the names, the given names, of both the presidential De Brookses? Or had he merely given what he had to give—

Were there any other family anecdotes? There were no other family anecdotes. Were there, then, any family traditions …? any, even, family words or phrases, such as almost every family has? Well…this expression: More money than six patroons… Theo. Del. De Brooks’s grandfather sometimes used to say that. And, actually, for quite a while, the grandson had taken it for granted that a patroon must be a rich Irishman! Later he learned, long later, that a patroon had been a Hudson Valley landowner, a sort of squire, with a land-grant from the old Dutch or English governments. And this expression: did someone say, Say, guess what I found? a family answer was, the spook box! No explanation came with that. And this expression (and a little bit more): If the family was having a hot-dog roast or toasting marshmallows in the backyard (the barbecue had yet to cross the Mississippi) and the fire didn’t at first or at second burn too well, see Grandpa De B. grub for a cigar- or cigarette-butt or even a pinch of pipe-tobacco, stamp his foot, and say, with an air of mock solemnity something that sounded like Skah-ootch! and cast the bit of tobacco on the fire. And the fire did always seem to burn better. Once: Theo. Del De B.: “Grandpa, what does Skah-ootch mean?” Grandpa (once) “That’s what the pow-wow man used to say.” “Grandpa, who was the—” Mrs. De Brooks: “Pa, you are going to burn that frankfurter!” A low-scale squabble, but after that it (the trick) was seldom done. A few times, if an electric light flickered or the old vacuum-tube radio misbehaved, the boy did actually stamp his foot and cry “the magic word” and sometimes it did work. But his Mother didn’t like feet being stamped in the house. So he quit doing it.

And the funny old yellow brick “from the old house in the Bowery”? Vanished. Dusty old thing. Forget it.

And don’t think, either, that it was all peaches and cream and little anecdotes (even what little there were of them), having a famous Name. Names. For one thing: If you’re so much, whutta ya doin’ here? If your name is De Brooks, why ain’t chew rich? How often, merely to answer, What’s your name? was to collect a sneer, a scowl, a jeer, jibe, explicit insult, sometimes — more than once — a poke in the ribs? Often. There was an army sergeant who had made his life a living hell, and — Ya don’t like it? Write t’ GDD! Well…doubtless there had been people who had hated George Washington… Millard Fillmore, for that matter.

Once, Theo (actually, he had more often been called Baldy) did put the question to his old man. “How come all we’ve got are the names?”

At once he saw that his father well knew the meaning of the question and only pretended his, “Huh? Whuddaya mean?”

“They’re famous. We’re not famous. They got money. We haven’t got no — any — money. They’re up on top. We’re down at the bottom. How…come…?

A weary expression. A sigh. “I dunno, Theo. I just don’t know. How’d I know? Maybe one of us married the servant girl. Maybe one of us was a horse thief. Maybe we’re illegitimate, or something. And I’ll tell ya somethin’ else, sonny. My great-great-grandmother? She was a cousin to Commodore Aurelius Vandervelt. And it never even got none of us a job shovelin’ coal on the old East Coast Steam Boat Line. They say that once she went to the Old Man’s wife’s funeral. And at the, ah, reception? They wouldn’t even give her a glass of sherry. Said, ‘No, this is just for the family.’ And so she just turned around and went home. Big people don’t like little people, and if they got the same name? seems like they like ‘em even less. The, uh, names? Well…hold onto ’em. Who knows…”

And, before turning back to his newspaper, he added, “You’re entitled to them, anyway.”

So.

There had in those days been someone, at least someone, to whom the matter had meant something; his high school teacher, the virginal Miss Vark: “Are you planning to go to college, Theobald?”

“No money.”

And Miss Vark had explained to him that there was a certain scholarship, he had long ago forgotten its name, “for the benefit of native-born American boys being of Holland Dutch descent.” “I think,” said Miss Vark, “that the part about the being of Dutch descent…which I am, too, Theobald…may actually be of more importance than the actual grades.” Poor Miss Vark. Ancestry was no dowry. And, rather to his own surprise, there really was such a scholarship: that year there were three openings, and they all went to native-born American boys being of Holland Dutch descent, all of them having names like Vanderdam, Vanderzam, Vanderbam, and all of them of a more recent and perhaps more vigorous immigration, by way of Grand Rapids, Michigan. But good Miss Vark didn’t stop there. He was fazed, but she wasn’t. Her face an unaccustomed pink, she said to him, “I am going to write to Sophronia Vandervelt De Brooks,” no need to explain who she was, you’d have to be illiterate never to have read about her; half way between the two lines of Presidential De Brookses — very famous…very charitable And so, he hadn’t meant to, he’d known better than to mention it to any of the kids, he told her of the great-great-grandmother who’d been Commodore Vandervelt’s cousin. He left out about the snub and the sherry.

Miss Vark felt sure that this would clinch it…and what was the lady’s maiden name? Dad De Brooks put his poor old head in his hands at the question, and said, “Jesus.” It took a personal visit from Miss Vark to persuade him to look into the matter; in his Sunday suit he traveled via two changes on the subway to find his only living great-uncle, who gave to the question the same pious reply. Great-uncle Greeley, however, was game. And took Dad De Brooks, via trolley-car, to the uttermost end of the wilderness, where miraculously there still survived, God knows how, an aged lady cousin, in an ancient cottage smelling of kerosene. She didn’t even remember her cousin’s great-nephew but she remembered the incident. “They wouldn’t even give her a glass of sherry!” she exclaimed, as vivid to her as though it were yesterday. She went on to say a few vivid things about Old Aureeley Chaw-Tobacco (as she called him). None of them to his credit: but—what was the lady’s maiden name?

Long, long the ancient creature sat, from time to time murmuring Now, don’t mix me up—and then — like a tongue of fire at Pentecost—“Phoebe Fisher! That’s what it is! Phoebe Fisher! From Fishkill, New York!” The fire died down, leaving only age and suspicion: “Why do ye want ta know, Greeley?”

“Delly here, wants t’send his boy to the academy, and he hopes Soprony De Brooks’ll give’m some money, they bein’ distant double-cousins, as y’might—”

“She’ll never do it! She’ll give him nothing! Not a thrip, not a fip, not a shinplaster! All them old family connections? — not-worth-a-continental!” Very, very suddenly she stopped. Looked Del in the eye. Very slowly got up, fumbled through the Family Bible, extracted an envelope crumbling with age, and drew forth a splendidly engraved and antique five-dollar bill, so archaic that it was blue and not green. “I send this to your boy,” said she. “Tell him that Millie Totten sends it.”

“Say, guess what I got, Theo?”

“The spook box?”

The five-dollar bill looked so odd that they bore it to the bank with trepidation. “Is this worth anything?” “It’s worth five dollars,” said the cashier, cheerfully. “Real old-timer. Want it changed?”

It was a nine-days wonder; and, after much talk, bought Theo a pair of shoes. He needed them. Badly.

Primed with the name of Phoebe Fisher De Brooks of Fishkill, New York, and with whatever other information Miss Vark was able to find on her own researches — there was after all a rather large gap between Jacobus Aurelius De Broogh and John Quincy A. De Brooks, whose services with the Army of the Potomac had anyway earned him an honorable mustering-out — off the letter went. To be followed, in no haste, by one from Sophronia Vandervelt De Brooks’s secretary. To the effect that there were so many demands upon her employer’s means and so many commitments had already been made that Miss De Brooks was absolutely unable to be of assistance even in regard to distant family ties, and that she hoped that Theobald would meet with all the success to which his merits might entitle him.

“Well, such a disappointment,” Miss Vark observed. “Though rather a nice letter in its way, all the same.”

Delafont James De Brooks said, “The old lady was right. Not worth a continental.”

>When you’re on your own, and having nothing else to do in particular, you might as well sell insurance. In doing so, Theo left the Old neighborhood and moved into a rather better one where, anyway, there were no more — well, very few — insults. In fact, people…some people…seemed rather impressed by the double-barreled, the ancient and honorable name(s). One thing led to another. By and by he opened his own office, added the words Real Estate to his sign and calling card. In order to do that he’d had to pass an exam, yet nothing but the assistance of the sign painter and the printer was required to add the words Business and Financial Management. Sometimes (often) he much felt that he was god-awful tired of the names and all, and that maybe he’d just change it to, say, Higgins…or, for that matter, to his mother’s maiden name of Puckleman; the Pucklemans were cheerful outgoing urban yeomen, brewery deliverymen who had never looked a glass of sherry in the eye; asked, where had they come from? cried, Off the pickle-boat! and farther than that, did not and could not have cared less. But…somehow… Theobald Delafont Puckle man? And if it came to changing first and middle names as well, well really, there were just too many choices. So he held to his, such as it was, heritage.

Someone in his family, perhaps a grandmother still reluctant to accept that marriage into a glorious name had brought her no further to glory than a rather shabby house on a rather shabby street, had begun, long and long ago, an attempt to keep a scrap-book about people with The Name; but the effort did not persist — how could It? — no library in the world could have kept up with it. But some loose pages persisted here and there throughout the house: in the kind of old cardboard cartons which continue on in the cellar of almost every house, a nuisance, but no one wants to throw them away…in the backmost part of a closet…in the bottoms of drawers, along with an old shirtwaist, an old pair of longjohns, a fountain pen which had been awaiting a bladder transplant since 1920…and some of these must have followed (must have followed, for surely he would not have wanted to bother taking them) TDD from place to place in his various moves; most of them did not interest him any longer.

Now and then one would surface, a page from the extinct scrapbook, that is, would surface, like an old piece of shrapnel or a fragment of bone from a tooth which was no longer there. These had become familiar to him in his long and lonely hours waiting for The Chance which never came, and when, unaccountably, one would rise and appear again, he would read it again, although he may have read it a dozen times before… Theobald De Brooks, Jr. had perhaps shot a rare antelope somewhere in Manchuria, say… James Q. De Brooks’s yacht had been overdue but all’s well that ends well… Grosvenor D. K. De Brooks III had been appointed to an office and the newspaper wondered if this newly-begun career would culminate in the presidency…just as certain cardinals were considered papable, so certain De Brookses were considered presidentiable (but no one had ever proposed appointing Theobald Delafont D. to any office, however minor). Interest in these appointees persisted, then flickered, then went out: twenty years later another one would come into focus…for a while. But no reporter or feature writer or political leader ever focused, however briefly, on Theobald Delafont De Brooks, because nobody even knew he was there. Nobody watched him during the long grey years while he grew more and more solitary and his wraith of a business just about sufficed to bring his two good suits to the dry-cleaners a few times a year and his six good white shirts to the French Laundry down the block.

At perhaps somewhat shorter intervals the classical old De Brooks homes at Muskrat Sump or Parkill Ridge were always good for a story; same, dim and thin as old tissue-paper by now, the faded dream that a Someone would appear, “Say, I’m Jim K. De Brooks! Mother and Dad think it’s about time you paid us a visit… I’ve got the car outside.” Through the years (decades) the car changed: it was a Stutz…a Star…a Caddy…a Kaiser… Edsel… Jag…but…somehow…it never really Got Outside. Here.

There was one old newspaper story in particular; unlike others, which tended to be cyclical, it seemed to have appeared in print only once: and the scissors had missed the date: it was worn, torn, and faded: its headline was, MISSING TREASURE OF THE PATRIOT PATROON. A patroon, remember, was a sort of squire who held an old land grant from the Dutch or English governments; this particular patroon was Wouter Cornelius De Brooks, and he was a patriot because, unlike anyway some other patroons he remained steadfast to the Continental Cause, whose ultimate victory he did not live to see. The list of the treasure itself was so detailed that it must have been read even by King George while he helped himself to his breakfast beer and beef. And, except for 75 silver Pieces of Eight Royals, it was all in gold: escudos, guineas, louis d’or, doubloons. The Patriot Patroon, one season during the War of the Revolution, had in the presence of witnesses packed the treasure into a traveling-chest made of cedarwood and black bull’s-hide and set off in his very own sloop from De Brooks Castle high above the lordly Hudson with the expressed intention of making his way to Philadelphia via the kills, creeks, rivers, and bays which lay outside of British Occupation, and, once arrived, to put said treasure at the disposal of the Patriot Government. One month later he turned up in York, Pennsylvania, “tired, hungry, muddy, bloody, and exceedingly confused.” He had nothing with him save the clothes on his poor old back, and died a few weeks later, without ever having disclosed where he had been, what he had done, or what had happened to the carefully-listed Treasure. A contemporary source (said the old newspaper clipping) had darkly suggested that “the poor old man” (the Patriot was then fifty-five in age) “had somehow been waylaid by the British or the Tories and feloniously robbed.” Three generations later some sad, sour Whig (this was not in the article, but TDD had found it in a letter at the Historical Society) commented, with who knows what mad motive, that “Neeley De Brooks had really intended to send it by ship to be banked in France, but was made drunk and lost it at the craps”; fie upon the fellow who said so.

And, “is this all there is?” Theo asked the faded, quiet lady at the Historical Society. She thought for a moment. “Well, there is this,” she said, removing a manila envelope from a file. Within lay something between translucent sheets; removed, this appeared to be a page from an old, old letter, so stained with time and water and God-knows what, that only a few words were, theoretically, legible. And Theo could not have read even them, had not the letter-page been accompanied by a conjectured reading of those words, typed on even-now-yellowing paper by an old-time typewriter. As follows:

……cadet of [the] fam[ly?]………addlepa[te?] or drunkar[d?]………strong[ly] defen[ded?] himself, but cou[ld?] or [wou?]ld produ[ce?] no [evi?]dence………but never shewed any Signs of [ac?]crued Wealth, so………alOthoug[?] tis true that a Fool and his money are soon……

Also in the old-fashioned typewriting:

This paper was certainly manufactured between 1820 and 1829 or 30, but the Penmanship is of the late 18th century, Mr. Stuyvesant believes it relates somehow to the Patriot Patroon. —G. D.

“Mr. Stuyvesant, of course, has been dead for some years,” said the faded, quiet lady; “and so has Mr. Gilbert Dawes, our former Director. Our budget,” she concluded, “does not allow us to submit the paper to any of the later scientific tests.”

That was that.

And, last and last of all, was this, from a letter of Phillip Hone, Mayor of a then-much-smaller New York City, both in population and in area, say a million years ago, give or take a quarter of a million; addressed to a Mr. Gansevoort, Officer aboard the Ship Nepera, care of the Office of the Seamens’ Chapel, Honolulu, Sandwich Islands: skip most of it; stop at this: “Yesterday was the funeral of Aurelius De Brooke, son of the Patroon, last of the old Indian Traders, of whom I recall my Gt. Aunt Maria used to say, That he knew more of the ways of the Pow-whaw Men than was lawful for a Christian to know, I cd not go, having a bad cold.”

Did the old Patroon learn how to cast the always at least semisacred tobacco into a not very flourishing fire and cry Skah-ootch?

Useless to ask. Useless even to wonder.

And, just as no young and handsome and famously-De Brooks-grinning distant cousin had ever appeared to invite poor Theo to tennis and tea, just so no unknown figure had ever appeared out of the dusk to hand him the map and the key to the traveling-chest made of cedar and black bull’s-hide.

And the years rolled on and he had rolled on with them, explaining endlessly to anyone who would listen why their family needed that extra protection which only the Special Indemnity Policy offered; and to collect the rents for Miss Whittier and a few other ancients who still thought that he went annually to Parkill Ridge or Muskrat Sump for Thanksgiving Dinner to be made privy to the secrets of America’s almost-royal family. Whereas actually he went over to his mother’s folks, where he was loudly and cheerfully greeted as Pres-i-dent-De-Brooks! (once: then the annual joke was over), and cheerfully squeezed into a place at the crowded table where the only political philosophy expressed was that fingers were made before forks; and lavishly poured many glasses of whatever beer the Pucklemans were currently contracted to deliver

Once, out of the mists, an elderly man in a high-crowned fedora such as Warren G. Harding might have worn at the Convention of 1912 (the sweat-band was very sweaty, though; even its sweat-stains) and a once-elegant suit with matching vest — that is, the spots on it matched those on the jacket and pants — had visited TDD in his office. The visitor glanced carefully at him, glanced carefully at the two framed photographs, made him a ponderous nod. “Yep!” said he. “You’re a De Brooks for sure!” His faded blue eyes had a sort of film over them and there were little traces of yellow gum at the corners and his complexion was as grey as his suit.

“I…am…a Hammerson! Augustus Hammerson, Minister of Marine under John Adams? [Was this the face to launch a thousand ships and — ] Great-uncle, four times removed, in the di-rect line!” And he leaned back, awaiting the effect. “Can call me Gus,” he said.

“Gus,” said Theo, obediently. And, after a moment, added, “Well. well. well.”

“Wrong side of the tracks!” exclaimed his visitor, suddenly and bitterly. “Won’t even give me the time of day! — Suppose it’s sort of the same with you, I guess,” he concluded, in a not-quite questioning tone. “All of those fancydancy De Brookses, hand in glove with the Big Bankers, hey.”

Theo said, slowly, “Well…”

And Gus Hammerson, after expressing his own grievances, which were many, went on to invite TDD to attend an informal get-together of a group of Real Americans interested in purifying the political system and restoring things the way they used to be and the way they ought to be: “‘No Irish need apply,’” said he. And gave another ponderous nod. “Apply our united strength,” said he. “Get some of those good political plums for ourselves!” said he. And, after some more such talk, asked TDD if he had a cigar, then borrowed a dollar to get one, then took his leave, still nodding deeply.

TDD, after a lifetime of ungratified hopes and increasingly entrenched disappointments, was no longer really sure of what he really wanted. But he was sure that it was not to become a part of a would-be cabal of unpensioned former railroad telegraphers, retired secretaries of down at the heel institutions, bankrupted salesmen of the bonds of obscure municipalities: seeking to revive the ghost of the Know Nothings and secure for themselves a share of the openings for U.S. vice-consulates and inspectorates of intestate properties, to which their descents from militia officers of the War of 1812 obviously entitled them. He opened his office door to let a little air in, and wrote the dollar off as charity.

— Was that how he seemed to others? he wondered — and the wondering of it gave him a very sharp pain whenever he thought about it: and, after that, he thought about it often.

Not very many months after that Old Miss Whittier died, leaving him — surprisingly — a $1,000 Liberty Bond. Her nephew and niece, it was very plain, deeply begrudged him this trifle; but, inasmuch as Miss Whittier’s will had specified that if any of the heirs contested the will, such contestants were to receive the sum of $25 each and nothing more, decided to let him carry it away as spoil. As then, one hoped they neither of them broke a leg in their haste, sold all the Whittier properties to a syndicate with offices in Zurich and Hong Kong. The syndics sent TDD a nicely-worded letter expressing appreciation for his long services, for which their plans however…

Having lost his apartment in Miss Whittier’s West Elm building, and not feeling quite ripe for yet another major move, Theobald Delafont De Brooks sold some of the furniture, gave some away to an eleemosynary organization whose bands had, now and then, briefly brightened his boyhood; and moved a very few items (such as, for example, a folding screen and an army cot and some blankets and sheets) into his office. He considered that what he would henceforth save on house rent would, if he were lucky, outweigh the increasing costs of dry-cleaning and finished shirts, and so on. It also came to pass that a morning meal consisting of a little orange juice and a little vodka not only cost less than a heavy greasy breakfast however traditional (and what had tradition ever done for Theobald Delafont De Brooks?) but that he felt rather better afterwards. Slowly going over these matters in his mind one night as preparation for unfolding the cot, he gazed — as one engaged in a religious ritual which no longer greatly attached him but which was very much a part of his routine — at the large framed oval photographs: President Theobald De Brooks, the Hero of the Pampas War; President Grosvenor Delafont De Brooks, who presided over the nation during more perilous times (happy era! whose major enemy was Spain!)—

— came a knocking at the door—

“Come in!”

No one could have looked less like a raven than the decent-looking, tired-looking woman who entered, a woman of about the same age as Theo. Woman who at once saw the photographs, at once recognized them. Was at once impressed. Then, “Am I talking to Mr. De Brooks?”

“You certainly are.” Well…he certainly was. Wasn’t she? The woman (really, he thought of her as “the lady”) looked at him carefully. Her face, somewhat faded, but fairly pleasant, asked a very over-familiar question. “Shirt-tail cousins,” said Theo. Didn’t feel like rest of the routine at all, at all. “What can I do for you, Mrs. — ?” (Had to be Mrs., she wore a wedding ring and was not of the generation to be a Ms.)

“Thatcher. Ella Thatcher. Widow of Bob — Robert Thatcher — I married my cousin, didn’t even get to change my last name.” (How brief, the dry, wry smile, anticipating the oh God how foreseeable remark which she must have heard a hundred thousand times: and weary of it as he of the one which he—). They shook hands. “Mr. De Brooks, have you ever heard of… Thatcher’s Storage?” Her manner was a bit embarrassed, a bit defiant, a bit irresolute, and…though rather less…a bit hopeful.

TDD was not very used to women (and certainly not respectable women) calling on him late at night; he was just a bit embarrassed, certainly more than a bit puzzled; politeness won, however. “That-cher’s… Storage…? Yes! Browning Street! Isn’t that—”

Ella Thatcher laughed briefly. “You’ve seen that old sign, the one painted on the side of the old Odeon Building by the railroad tracks. Why, that advertisement, it’s been there since the Year of One! My goodness! We moved, the firm moved, as a matter of fact, in 1930. To 635 Oldham.” She seemed rather pleased: however obsolete the sign, it had at least—

“Well, Mrs. Thatcher. I’ll be glad to sell you some insurance, or—” He would be glad. He would be surprised, too.

Ella Thatcher again gave her short laugh. “We’re going out of business. Did you ever hear of Mullet River, Florida? Just a wide place in the road, the town, can’t even call it a town. I own a couple of little bungalows there, and that’s where I’m going, just as soon as I wind things up here. Got my social security, going to catch and sell bait. Bob taught me how to load a hook and hold a net when we were just kids. I have a book about a hundred ways to cook fish…”

“Sounds great.” It did.

“Yes? Do you think so? Well, I think so, too. The place is just too far from the nearest fire hydrant, I couldn’t get insurance…come on down, then, I’ll rent you the bungalow out behind for almost nothing, just for the company. It’s on, oh, a sort of canal. Quiet.”

Quietly, “‘Why are you going out of business, Mrs. Thatcher?”

Mrs. Thatcher sighed. “Well, people just don’t store things the way they used to. And…seems like the government, and the Unions, they are just making it harder and harder for a body to stay in business. Taxes, my God, the taxes! And…then…the place’s got about seventeen mortgages on it, and my brother-in-law, he owns sixteen of them. You know how long we’ve been in business, Mr. De Brooks? No… I suppose not… I sort of thought, you being a real old family, you might have heard something. Well, the fact is, we don’t know how long we’ve been in business! A lot of those old records, they were burned up, about the time of the Civil War. That’s when the last Mr. Simkins, he married…his daughter married…my great-grandfather, he was named Robert Thatcher, too. Before that,” her voice had taken on a slight singsong rhythm, and TDD formed the notion that perhaps Mrs. Thatcher had recited this history many times. “…before thaaat, it was called The Great Repository. How’s that for a name, The Great Repository? Anyway, to come to the point. Cleaning out the place, way down in the sub-basement, I come across this great big box—”

“A box?” TDD’s heart gave a sudden thump.

“Great big box. My hunch, you know if you’ve been in the same business all your life, you sort of get hunches sometimes about things, and my hunch, is that inside the box there’s maybe another box. Or something. And, on the box, it’s painted with the word, the name, I mean…”

“De Brooks.”

The two of them had spoken the word simultaneously. They chuckled. Then stopped. Was there, very suddenly, a slight but definite drop in the temperature?

“See, maybe you do know something about it. And besides the name there’s a number, but the number doesn’t mean anything — Well: maybe it meant something to Simkins, and maybe it meant something to The Great Repository. But it doesn’t mean a thing to Thatcher’s. I mean, it-is-old…the box.”

TDD nodded. “And you want to clear it out…and close up, I see.”

Mrs. Thatcher, speaking with rather more confidence, said that she had written to every De Brooks in the book. Maybe because it was because she had no more letterheads and didn’t see any reason to get anymore and had just written in ink on plain paper and used just plain envelopes… “Or maybe they just thought I was trying to rook them, I don’t know. But, do you know what? Not one of them answered. Not a single one.”

“I believe you,” Theo said, with great sincerity.

“I never wrote you, Mr. De Brooks, because you, you’re in a different phone book, here. Just, tonight, thinking it over, I did remember that I did once see your name when I was driving past. So…well…so… Here I am.”

Very quietly, Theobald Delafont De Brooks asked, “What’s the bill?”

Ella Thatcher took a piece of paper from her purse, started to look at it, started to speak, then looked at it again, and then read aloud, “Three thousand, five hundred and thirty-five dollars and thirty-five cents.” And she looked at TDD, slightly diffident, slightly embarrassed, slightly defiant, and withal: somewhat hopeful.

It flashed across TDD’s mind that, on something which had been in storage so long that no one knew how long it had been in storage, and the very records of which had been burned over a hundred years ago that the bill as announced could represent nothing but a pious hope; he said, “Will you take a $1,000 Liberty Bond in full settlement?” Surprise and delight moved across Ella Thatcher’s face, and so, in a second, did a slight shadow.

“—that will cover moving it over here…and we won’t need to mention a thing to your brother-in-law—”

In an instant they were shaking hands.

In twenty minutes they were in a bar for which dim, drab, sleazy were inadequate qualifiers. “Red.” (Mrs. Thatcher speaking.) “Red. Want to help us move a box?”

“Gimme twenny dollars,” said Red, “and I’ll move the Moon.”

The warehouse truck was old, it was, for a truck still in service, very old. But it, with the dolly, Red, Ella Thatcher, and TDD, made no hard task of transportation. By midnight they had moved it into TDD’s office. Red received his $20, was gone, leaving only the thought of a thirst for beer.

“Does that do it?” asked Mrs. Thatcher.

“That does it,” said TDD. He opened his (mostly-empty) old safe, removed the manila envelope, slid the bond out for swift inspection, handed it over.

“Lots of luck,” said Ella.

“Lots of luck,” said TDD.

And yet she did not move to go. He made no move to hasten her, eager though he was to be at work on the crate.

“Well …” she said. Gave her purse a nervous pat, as though perhaps a bit afraid she might lose it. “Well …” she said, again. “Honestly, I should have told you honestly before…although I did come across the thing just a month or so ago, well, I had heard of it before. Bob mentioned it. My father and my uncle and their father mentioned it. And I’ll tell you what they called it.” She stopped suddenly. He had felt his face change. She had seen it change.

“The spook box,” he said.

Everybody has read of someone’s jaw dropping. Hers now dropped.

After a moment it was back in place.

“‘Well, I’ve heard the expression, too. But I…we…never knew what it meant,” he said. “What does It—?”

She had somewhat recovered. He saw her swallow. But she did not ask for a glass of water, or even if she might sit down. She was game. “Well, it was an old family story. I mean, old. It was a…‘now you see it and now you don’t’ sort of thing. Every now and then it would turn up. By the time it would take for someone to go and tell about it, by the time someone would come back, it was…well…gone. As though it had some kind of a hex on it.”

Theo said, “Maybe he had cheated the pow-whaw man on a bale of furs, or something. Or maybe his father had. They didn’t get rich buying dear and selling cheap, that’s for sure. Well. Guess we’ll never know.”

She agreed that, probably, they never would. “But when I saw it and touched it myself, I knew that if there really had been a hex! on it, the hex was really off it now. Woman’s intuition; I really have to go.” And she really went.

Sometimes dreams come true. Among the (few) things which TDD had brought with him in his latest move was the old toolbox, its last remembered use being the dismantling of a hen-house: “It smells, is ‘why,’” said Mrs. Delafont James De Brooks, nee Puckelman. The box was far more well-built than the hen-house had been, and it must have taken him an hour to get it open, his heart beating, beating, beating. How many years? Over three hundred years. What did he have to show for it? A lifetime of unrealized hopes. And many sly tricks, most of which never worked. How was he going to handle the matter? Some of the gold coins he would sell in Boston. Some he would sell in New York. Some in Philadelphia. Some in Baltimore. No dumping. And then he would catch a plane. Where to, a plane? Jamaica… Barbados… Curacao…and… Ella…?

He never doubted for a minute what, exactly, was inside the box.

He was right.

Mrs. Thatcher was right, too.

The story of how the traveling-chest made of cedar-wood and black bull’s-hide got packed into a snug box and how it found its way into The Great Repository and what had happened to the poor Old Patriot Patroon and why it had lain abandoned for almost two centuries would never, certainly, now be known. And as for the rich De Brookses, screw the rich De Brookses. They had had their chance. Chances.

And maybe the pow-whaw man taught the Patriot Patroon the hex.

The chest was easier to break into than the heavy outer box had been. The black bull’s-hide crumbled easily. The cedar was sturdy, but the builders had not built it precisely snug, and the crowbar fitted between the gaps. Theo felt a slight difficulty in breathing; there was fortunately a bottle kept in case of emergencies; as he sipped, these words came into and ran through his mind: Seventy-five silver Pieces of Eight Royals, and the rest all in gold: gold escudos, golden guineas, golden louis, gold doubloons: every one of the rightful heritage of Theodore Delafont De Brooks.

And sometimes they don’t.

The treasure chest of the Patriot Patroon contained not a brass farthing nor a pewter shilling nor two copper pence, and certainly neither silver nor gold. Witnesses had seen that it had once been packed with metal money. But Wouter Cornelius De Brooks had not been called the Patriot patroon for nothing; it was not in word alone that he had supported the Continental Congress: he had trusted in its currency as well; and sometime during that mysteriously missing month he had exchanged every single piece of hard money for paper money, and the fruits of this exchange filled the chest. How unpatriotic, then, how cruel, on the part of whoever it was who had first used the phrase, Not worth a continental.

The Continental Congress had been gallant.

But it had not stuck around to pay.

The ancient, the august, the almost-noble house of De Brooks, for reasons which Theobald Delafont had never known and would never know, had smitten him, innocent as he was, more than one blow: and this one more and greatest blow, it had waited more than two hundred years to smite.

The greatest.

But the last. Had he, though, been entirely innocent? Had he not wasted his life on a dead claim to a dead name? Was there not, waiting in the chest, one message of great worth? Lay thy burden down, it seemed to say. It had to say something, didn’t it? He spent another while neatly dividing the old paper money into two equal portions, and in neatly wrapping and addressing them. One to Muskrat Sump. And one to Parkill Ridge. And in the upper left-hand corner of each he wrote, Wouter Cornelius De Brooks. It was morning by now, the post office would soon be open. And…then …? Mullet River was so small that he could not even find it on the map in the Atlas.

But he could look for it, on or off the main-traveled roads. There was lots of time.

Yellow Rome; or, Vergil and the Vestal Virgin INTRODUCTION BY DARRELL SCHWEITZER

“Yellow Rome,” at first merely a pervasive image, suggesting the sunbaked brick, the searing sky, the soap-shy vulgus with their stained tunics, a condemned convict uncontrollably urinating; but in the hands of Avram Davidson it becomes something else, a resonant incantation. Yellow Rome! Teeming, filthy, and magnificent, where even a magus might lose himself.

In the hands of Avram Davidson, everything becomes something else. The Yellow Rome of Emperor Julius I is not that of history. Julius Caesar wasn’t an emperor, for one thing. Every citizen most certainly did not carry knives as described here. In fact, the Julian law forbade them to. (This law coming to the attention of most readers — and most Romans — when repealed some four centuries later, as the center could not hold, mere anarchy was loosed upon the world, and the government told the provincials, “We cannot protect you. Go ahead and carry knives. Good luck!”)

What we have here is ancient Rome seen through the filter of medieval remembrance, the setting of two exemplary Davidson novels, The Phoenix and the Mirror and Vergil in Averno, based on the curious legend that Vergil, the author of the Aeneid, was also a sorcerer. Davidson, the most playfully erudite of fantasy writers, brought the exploits of Vergil Magus irresistibly to life.

“Yellow Rome” is the opening chapter of the unpublished third Vergil Magus novel, The Scarlet Fig. It is Avram at his atmospheric and arcane best. Read it for the pleasure of Avram’s presence and Avram’s unique voice.

IN ROME — YELLOW ROME! Yellow Rome! — a man was being led to public execution. Aristocrats might be quietly done-in in dungeons; this was no aristocrat. Some common thug, a street-robber by night, or a house-breaker; thick and shambling, ill-made and ill-looking, he had killed a cobbler’s apprentice for a stiver — the smallest coin. The lictor went first, carrying the bundle of rods which might be used to flog the criminal (but wouldn’t) wrapped around the single-edged axe which might be used to cut off his head (but wouldn’t). It was a symbol only, and the lictor looked bored and disdainful. Then, arms bound behind him at the elbows, legs hobbled with ropes, the felon followed between two files of soldiers. Grasping him fast by a noose round his neck came the common hangman: one might have had them change clothes and places and scarcely told them apart.

“Well, ‘one Vergil, a natural of Rome, and no mere denizen,’ do they have anything to do with this in Naples… I say nothing of the Bail of Brundisy…?” The wauling in my ear was Quint’s, to be heard above the clamor of the throng. There was in his voice some light and affectionate taunt that I had not been born in the City itself but in a fœderate town in the Italies’ south, well within the Empery, but nearer to where I now lived by the great Voe of Naples than to Yellow Rome itself. The so-well-paved Appian Way went straight and strait between Yellow Rome and Brundisy, but there branched off a branch of it for Naples. A young mage, not yet very well-established in his profession (or in public fame) did well to travel now and then to the Imperial capital, and gently press the thought that there was one (myself) useful to be friend of a friend (Quint) with a friend (the rich Etruscan) to the Court Imperial, to the Oliphaunt Throne…not to be lightly named: whosoever sate upon it.

I pressed my bearded lips to Quint’s smooth ear-hole, said loud and sharp, that we had throngs and thugs, all right: but neither one was anything to this particular display.

The throng howled, as the throng always would.

“Chin up, cock! Brave it out!”

“They’ll stretch that short neck!”

“Hang the hangman! A louse for the hangman!”

“You’ll scrag no more widdies nor prentices!”

“Up tails all!”

“Die! For a lousy stiver? Die!”

The wretch’s face changed expression, but it changed slowly: now he had the sly look of a pig who had broken into a pea-patch, now he was pleased at the attention, now he scowled as some thick and gross insult struck home, now he looked desperately from side to side; always the hangy forced him on, as close to him as the butcher to the ox. All this passed before me and before Quint, and we stood and looked on; I was his guest, and he was the guest of Someone Important in Yellow Rome. Even a wizard, even if he did not want wealth, was willing to draw near to wealth, if he were young and new and scarcely known. And near to power, even if that sort of power he did not much want. Soon enough this procession would pass by, and then we would cross, cross safely on foot, for in Rome (and in Rome alone) no wheeled vehicle might pass through the streets in the day time.

In that case, in a sudden silence, what hooves were those, and what wheels? Quint, I saw, that Roman of Romans, knew at once: and would tell me soon enough…if I did not ask. The mob broke into noise again, its inalienable right, and though it was still shouting, it seemed to be shouting the same something, though not all at the same time. Half the yammering throng faced the nice little wagonette and its nice little mule, and the woman, half-veiled, who was in it. Her small slave-girl holding the sea-silk sunshade or ombello was beginning to be inattentive a bit and a bit the sunshade slipped.

And half the vulgus faced the procession and shouted and gestured, pointing, pointing—

The lictor had strode on, eyes down; and in fact by then he had gotten ahead of the procession and seemed rather to have forgotten it: lictors, too, have their secret private thoughts.

The soldiery slogged along in its fixed rhythms, paying no attention at all to the thing its ranks confined; probably thinking of the evening’s rations: bread, salt, garlic, parsley, wine, perhaps a bit of dried meat or a bit of dried fish — tunny harpooned in the bloody trapping pens, for instance — and the anticipated meal with its, perhaps, treat, meant far more to them than any execution of a sentence of death (death, to an old soldier, was more boring than exciting).

The hangman, whose attention was so suddenly besought by many cries and movements, pressed on. I noticed that the hangman pressed on.

What Quint, with his pale thin face and dark thin hair, noticed, was not known to me.

Who made up the mob rabbling and howling? The meanest class of citizenry, whose leather badges with S P Q R stamped in gilt served to prove citizenship, made up the largest part. They had no money to buy anything and no mind to read anything, so a procession to the gibbet was an absolute gift for them.

Men, too, from all the peoples of the Empery were there: Franks with long hair and Celts with short and Ægyptians with none; pale Berbars from the Solitudes of Syrtica and of As’hara, sand as high as mountains and hills of solid stone pierced with holes where the Troglodytes live; dark Numidians who had seen the Sphynges flying in their thousands to drink of the waters at the sources of the Nile — of all other waters drink they not, of the Waters of Ægypt drink they not — and Gauls with their bearded chops, the wailing of whose dead fills the islands and the highlands of the misty great green darkling Sea of Atlantis between shore to shore of whose vasty waters might no bird fly; and Æthiops with emeraulds in their ears. Many indeed could I see (though not so many) were aliens from outside the Empery, and even the Œconomium.

I was indifferent at seeing or smelling the so-called Foul or Infamous Crafts such as the knackers and the carriers of dogs’-dung for the tanneries, for I still had the muck of the farmyards and the fernbrooks on my legs and feet, and the odor of dead beasts and dung-heaps was fresher to my nose-holes than those of ambergrise and nard.

And here and there, as so often of late (and some said, more and more often, and they darkly mumbled their gums about laws graven on the Twelve Iron Tablets about the artificial production of monsters and other omens…no one of course was ever able to find such laws) here and there through the mass went wandering a satyr or a centaur of, say, the size of a goat-kid. There were no weanling Lapiths to be seen, however; and who would know one, had there been? memory of one Cluco, a night-soil-man little wittier than a wittold, in my home-hamlet in the Bail of Brundisy, who used to stop anyone too purblind to avoid him, and confide, “My granddam, now, she seen a Laypith, she seen ‘un with a horn in the muddle o’ his forrid: which be the reason, she bein’ six months gorn wi’ child, that I has six finger on my left ’and.” What the logical, or even illogical connection between the two things were, no one was ever able to conjecture; certainly all local priests denied that ever there had been stories—“myths,” you might call them — of monoceroid Lapiths; and neither was anyone, lay or cleric, able to credit Cluco’s being able to invent such a story. But, however invented, tell it he did, decade after decade, to whoever could not trot faster than he could, and who — usually — was glad or let us say willing enough to avoid the presence of Cluco, polydactylous or not (for rhododactylos I assure you he wasn’t, and neither was he rosy-scented) with the dole of a very small coin or a not-quite-so-small chunk of bread: at which see Cluco become unseen; this may or may not have been more profitable than the night-soil business, but was certainly much easier.

When I mention the size of a goat-kid I refer to the centaurs, for the satyrs were man-sized (as I could have told anyone), and very near each creature was someone (invariably a shill) mentioning confidentially the name of the thaumaturge who’d made it, in some such words as, “That ’un’s the work of that same Septimus as keeps his crib atween Apollo’s Court and the Steps of Woe.”—why would anyone want a confected satyr or centaur? perhaps one of those newly-rich who kept a baby elephant in his atrium might want one, and for the same reason: show.

Thieves were there, in the vulgus; as they could not steal the golden spikes from the ridge-poles of the temples and the other public buildings, they cut the thongs of purses with their knives so much sharper than razors; sellers of snacks were there, for many a man had neither cook nor kitchen to dress a meal of victuals, and if he turned aside into a cheap eating-place he might miss something: but whether a rabbleman stewed hog-palates in vinegar or cut the thongs of purses or did, as was the right of citizens, nothing at all, something there had now changed and perhaps everything had changed. But the hangman wished to behave as though nothing had happened. The lictor, whose attention was now besought by many cries and movements, strode on, eyes down, and in fact by now he had gotten ahead of the procession. The hangman pressed on. A bit the woman’s sunshade slipped and a bit the veil, revealing to me a face of such extraordinary loveliness and purity that my breath was stopped.

The word coming up from the populus now was pardon: the hangman would not stop for it; why should he? He received the deadman’s clothes as a perquisite: even if they were rags (and they were not always rags) they had their value and their price as ingredients of the Black Rite; he got to receive everything which was, or at the time of prisonment had been, on the body of the dead-man-to-be; and he also received his fee for making the liveman’s body dead by pushing it off the ladder at the gibbet and at once leaping onto his shoulders and jumping up and down on them — thus assuring that the caitiff’s neck must break if it had not already been broken by the drop. Of these benefits the hangman would receive none at all in case of pardon, so why should he stop for it? and lastly, it would deprive him of all the pleasure of the death scene: the hangman, howl the mob as it would, would not stop. And who might stop him?

(The lictor, fasces bundled into his arms, was by now rather far ahead, stooped, aloof, deep in thought: of what, who could say? Perhaps that time there was, ere Roma’s woes began…perhaps not.)

Who else? Himself, the August Caesar? Where was he? not here. From what other place, then, did the musty multitude seem to think that help might arise? The woman in the wagonette commenced to rise, in a slow and flowing motion like a hieratical dancer: though, perhaps actually not: only…somehow…it seemed so. The brute would not see her. I caught her eye, and again, that ambiguous impression, that impression deep yet perhaps false. Had I caught her eye at all? Erect, like a statue of the golden age, she seemed.

The lictor, perhaps grown somewhat aware of the hideous shriek and hum from that mass of men — here and there some women: not trulls alone: vendors of fragrant citrons, of pickled samphire for relish, of sieves and baskets in many sizes, fishwives going down to the river to renew supplies of mullet and sardines and dogfish with double-lobed livers; others — the lictor at once saw all. Quint, keenly enjoying everything, was telling me nothing; scarcely he raised a thin and hairy hand to brush the ever-deliquescent ointment from his bleary eyes — his physicians were generally agreed ’twas from an excess of some humor, but they never yet agreed on which humor, though there were not many, but prescribed this salve or that; they might as well, I thought, have told him to graze grass like an ox…whoever saw a blear-eyed ox? And, “Ow!” shouted the throng, and “Yow!” shouted the throng. “Pardon! Pardon!” it howled. And ever and again, “Uptails, all!” and “A louse for the hangman!”

The hangman may or may not have gotten a louse (close-pressed in that stinking swarm, it would have been no surprise if he had) but what he very quickly got was the lictor at his side; and the lictor said to him, more in astonishment than anger, “Where are you going, turd of a toad? Don’t you see the highborn Virgin lady? Stop! — Or I’ll let the populus have you, and may they eat your liver!”

The Vestal, meanwhile, remained standing in her wagon all but motionless, the very image of aristocratic calm. Silence took a while. When things were almost silent, the felon seemed to emerge from his daze. One could almost read — no, one could read — the play of thoughts coursing over across his sword-slashed and much-confused face. Where was he? What was happening? Why had they stopped? Why was everything quiet? Answer: they were arrived and halted at the place of execution; any minute now he might have a small and ill-tasting coin thrust into his mouth and feel nothing beneath his feet, and a sharp brief pain in his neck. With a sound like the lowing of a yearling ox he spread his hobbled legs, and pissed.

The swarm went wild with laughter. Only the lictor’s leather face, the Vestal’s marmoreal countenance, did not change, for all that her little maid, hand hiding mouth, seemed to whisper in her ear. At length silence was again achieved, and in that silence — though the punks and pogues still rolled their painted eyes and smirked at potential clients — the Vestal rose completely to attention, put out her white arm and hand and in a lovely ringing tone declared, “I pardon that man.” No one word more. And sat down. It had been a completely legal formula, sans emotion. “I divorce you; herewith your dowerfund.” “Slave, thou art henceforth free.” “Bear witness: I sell this horse-stud for six solids.” I pardon that man. No one word more. And sat down.

The crowd went wild again. A soldier in a swift second slashed the bonds about the elbows; another slightly stooped and severed those around the ankles. For a second more the thug gaped. Then he started to run at a stumbling trot. Many hands caught at him: he fought against them. Many cries of, “Not yet, man!”

“Not yet! Thank the holy lady! Go and kiss the Virgin’s foot! Thank her for your life!”

But one might as well have spoken to a pig escaped from the shambles; loose, was he? Then he meant to stay loose. And this meant to flee. For a full minute (so I guessed) the absurd scene continued, the pardoned man butting furiously against the arms and bodies which would have had him first do his duty by giving thanks for that pardon; the crowd all of one mind now (the whores most of all: could it have been they fancied a slight upon that one quality which they universally lacked, and lacked, one might say, almost by definition?), the crowd’s sense of amour propre was seriously offended; while the lictor covered his grim face with his free hand and gazed through his spread and ringless fingers as though he could not believe his eyes — And then herself the Vestal: something which might have been a mere flicker of rueful amusement passed over her fine face and was in an instant gone (more than Caesar’s wife must a Vestal Virgin be above suspicion, she must be above suspicion of vulgar emotion). She raised her hand at an angle to her wrist, slightly pushed it away from her; the other hand fluttered the colored leathers on the mule’s neck. The crowd released the fool felon and laughed to hear his running feet; at once made way for the Vestal’s wee carriage, and saluted her with the utmost respect. Did the little maid murmur something, something, anything, with well-practised and almost motionless lips? did the sea-silk sunshade dip for a second a fraction of an inch in a particular direction? this was not certain.

Certain it was that a mule was not a horse, all horses were hysterical more or less, the most placid old cob was likely to behave like a northish bear-shirt if — if, whatever; this would differ from cob to cob — horse to horse. But mules were mysterious creatures, that this one was a small mule did not make its potential mystery any smaller; probably it had been bred for the service it now performed out of a pony-mare by one of the jack-donkeys of the northern lands, lighter in build and in size than the asses of the south, brought to Rome or its countryside for just this purpose. And in view of what was about to happen it was necessary to consider also the probable history of the street-bed. Quint might know just when the street had last been paved, I not. But in some short moment I envisioned the scene — a man engaged in ramming the gravel turning aside for a moment to go piss or to get a drink of water, another workman not waiting for his return or not even considering the matter of had the gravel been rammed sufficiently — and it had not — the second workman perhaps, then, mechanically setting down the pave-stone; the first workman returning and, likely even without so much as a shrug, picking up his implement and moving on a few feet to commence the work of ramming a bit further on. And then the passing of the years, the rains, many years of rains, the not-fully-packed gravel shifting, moving; then perhaps the fall of a heavier stone from an improperly-laded wagon passing by in the torchlight: the paving stone sustaining a crack not observed in the night, more years passing, the incessant traffic at last splitting the pave-stone. Somehow the inspectors had missed it…or, their reports ignored…the night-traffic cared nothing for any bad spot which their heavy wagons could lurch across…had, anyway, the drivers and teamsters, no time to spend on complaints: into the city by nightfall, incargo laded-off, out-cargo laded-on, out of the city by nightrise: so.

A horse, had it felt a sunken spot behind it…if it felt it…would either have strained forward or strained backward. An ass would have stopped. And stayed. Time to put something under the wheel. But the mule, even the small, supposedly sophisticated mule, reacted entirely differently. The mule was, after all, the Symbol of Unbridled Lust — though why this should be so when the mule was sterile, was hard to say: the mule (this particular one) had somehow missed the sunken spot. Now it somehow backed up a trifle. Now it felt it. The wheel not right! The wheel sinking! The entire universe of a sudden gone awry! The mule at once went insane: the mule screamed, rolled back its eyes, laid down its ears, made as if to stand on its hind legs — on its forelegs — to lie down and roll over — it was at once evident that there was nothing the mule might not do.

In a second the little slave girl had jumped out of the car to safety, held up her wrists, thin as carrots, at an absolutely useless angle for the Vestal to lean upon. The crowd gave a great groan. It was no slight thing to witness the fall of a Vestal Virgin. Should she be killed, for a space of time at least there would be only five “sisters” to hold safe the hearths of Rome…who knew what might happen during such an interregnum. Many in the crowd believed that seeing such a sight obliged one to fast: many even believed that whoso saw such would — must! — within the year surely die. From the crowd a great groan. Many rushed forward… I amongst them…some seized the mule…some seized the car…some seized hold of their knives, such as each man wore at his belt, or was no man: to cut reins, traces…one man alone seized the Vestal by the arm…by the upper and the lower arm…it lasted a second. The mule was suddenly calm and collected: panic? what panic? The car was suddenly steady and safe. The knives were all suddenly back in their belts, absit omen lest any delator or informer should occasion to ask, How didst thou dare to bare thy knife unto the high-born Virgin Lady? a man might well be well-dead before an explanation were forthcoming. A man might receive a most pressing intimation to slip the short sword between any twain ribs he preferred, thus to prevent his family from attainder and his property from escheatal. Might. Might not. A man might receive a silver pottle or an ember-scuttle enchased with gold, as reward. Might. Might not.

It was all so very suddenly done. So very suddenly her arm was free from my steadying hands. In a second’s time; less than it took a drop of water to fall from the clock — And in that second, while a flame of fire seemed to run up both my hands and arms and through my heart and thence into my manly parts (Touched a Vestal! Touched the Virgin’s naked arm!); in that second our eyes chanced to meet — then her eyes were gone — then she was gone herself — and three thoughts like three bolts of lightning, so swift that before one fades away the other flashes, passed across my mind.

The woman’s age then, I did not know. How old was I then, I will not say.

She was gone at once, long enough had she tarried at the sordid scene beneath the walls of saffron-colored stone, sallow where long suns had beat upon them; not swiftly yet very steadily the small carriage departed, the mule’s ears aprick, heading back towards the Temple of Vesta up there beneath the Palatine. It might be that her six-hour watch approached, of guarding and tending the sacred fire. Or it might be that she sought rest and refreshment after the noise and dust and glare. Where had she been? Secluded though they generally were, the Vestals were allowed to take the air at intervals: perhaps to worship at another temple, perhaps to pray before two-faced Janus, he with red mouth straining and with face all grim, as the Oracles of Maro had it. Scraps of thought flitted through my mind. Only a Vestal Virgin might drive a wheeled vehicle through day-time Rome (but ah gods! the hideous rumbling noisy nights!). Should she be accused of inchastity, two defenses were open to her: she might draw off a ship foundered on some shoal in the Tiber…using only a single thread. The Tiber at Rome was full of shoals, but as this knowledge was elementary and universal, ships (as distinct from bumboats) seldom came as high as Rome. Or…she might instead carry water in a sieve. A brave option; small wonder they were seldom accused. Only a Vestal might pardon a man on the way to execution. No one might pardon a Vestal caught in flagrant delight, or convicted after trial — Meherc! that a priestess of fire should be tried by water! — she was buried alive in a tomb at once sealed shut and a grim byword pointed out her last and only choice: starve while the lamp burned, or drink the oil and live a while longer in the dark. Whichever, the glory of the world would soon enough pass, and with it, too: the beauty, the damps, the chills, the plots, the pests, the fevers, and the fleas, of eternal Rome. Of Yellow Rome. Yellow Rome.

As the great fire of the First Year of the Emperor Julius I was destined to occur, dixit David cum Sybilla (whoever “David” is), it was fortunate that it occurred whilst the Roy was completing the conquest of Gaul the Sur, for when word of the extent of the conflagration reached Himself the August Caesar as he was entering the great Port called Marsayle, he ordered that it never be fired but that every building faced with marble be taken apart and the facing be sent by galley-drawn barges to the Ost Port of Rome and thence by oxen-courted shallow-draft vessels up the Tiber. This nonpareil stayne was at once named the Gallo Antico, the Ancient Gaul; some take it from giallo antico, the old gayle, as one says, the blaunche fever and the gayle: or in that poetic line, his face as gayle as Winter grass, sello beneath the snae. Soon enow came marbe of tother hues, rosso antico, and the green one green as the pistuquimnut; the maid-pale-white, the black-as-night, the mottled and the creamy brown; other yet. Well might the Julio exult, A hamlet of wooden huts and hovels so I found, and one of marmol structoes I am to leave behind. As this was in effect the first great quantity of marmorstone seen in Mamma Roma, its popular name was quickly given and ever been left so.

“Good fortune to that man,” I said, shaking my head as though to dispel the flimsies of bad dreams.

Quint made a scoffing sound, such as only the tutelage of the costliest of rhetors could have produced. “Did you see that animal face? He will be caught for another dirty crime and condemned again and this time surely hanged for it within the year — if not, indeed, the week — and should he encounter another Vestal?”

I asked if the Vestals always set the felon free. Quint considered. “First you must meet your felon face to face,” he said, shrugging. Quint was a great shrugger. “Then — of the current Six, you mean?” Instantly it occurred to him that I would scarcely have meant the Six current in the reign of Tarquin the Proud or Judah King of the Jews, and he went on to capitulate them. “Clothilda pardons everyone. Volumnia pardons no one. Honoria, would you believe it, gravely casts dice to decide. Carries them with her in a monopede’s shoe — a monopede’s shoe!” (There would be no gain in asking how he knew it was the shoe of a monopede, for he might have given me some such answer as, “Everybody knows it,” or, “Because there is only one”—in which case my respect for him would be diminished.)

“Aurelia pardons now and then. — the dice? They are the most ordinary dice; sort of spoils the story, doesn’t it? Stories are often spoiled like that: tiresome.” My respect for him increased. “Lenora, they say, never drives that way, so as not to have to choose.” He quirked his mouth, hunched his shoulders, flung out his hand and fluttered his fingers, with what might just be perceived as a very slight emphasis of the digit of infamy. “Soft-hearted Lenora, eh? — but they are all brutes, these fellows. Kindness to them is cruelty to others.”

And he told a recent report, not even to be designated as a rumor, that the man just freed had once been a provincial gladiator of the lowest sort, probably expelled for incompetence. “I shouldn’t wonder,” he said. “You saw that sword-scarred face. No brow. No chin. Some ancestral taint, I’d venture. They sell very good bread with opium seed over there.”

My question almost burst forth. “But which one was she?” She was only one of six sacred women in the service of Vesta, the goddess of the hearth, without whom there could really be no home, and hence, no Rome: but which one was she? The bread did smell good; they say there is at least one bakeshop in the capital for every province in the Empery. One does not doubt.

Quint turned to me, immediately (he) a man of the most scornful urban world. “But my dear fellow, you know nothing! — mage though you are — Well…how could you, there in Naples? She is Claudia.”

“And does she often spare?”

Quint started again his rigmarole, stopped. Sincerely he seemed in doubt. Then, somewhat surprised, said that he did not know. That the matter had never — in his presence — come up before. Then he fell silent, merely gestured to his important friend’s litters (only two of many, of course) which were waiting for us: quite in the Roman fashion: not too very far from the appointed place. He certainly did not ask, “Handsome woman, is she not?” or “What did you think of her?” or, “Do you fancy her?” One simply never asked such questions about a Vestal Virgin. It was a long way up to the Tarpaean Rock when you had to climb.

But it was only a short way down when you were pushed.

There were nights when I slept like a farmer, and nights when I could not sleep, or slept but ill. That night I fell soon into slumber, for thank the gods, in that very quiet — and very, very rich — quarter of Rome, where Quint’s Etruscan friend had one of his villas, there was neither wagon traffic nor roistering. Whence, then, came that noise, a mere murmur at first, then tumult and clamor? I must have left my bed the better to observe and to hearken — what, then, a horrid shock, to realize that my arms were bound behind me at the elbows and my feet confined by straps or ropes so that I might take no very long steps and certainly could not run. I turned to ask my terrified question of the man nearest to me, an intent and stinking fellow in a dirty tunicle; but this one held, looped around his hands and arms, a rope: and the rope was noosed round my neck! It did not choke me, not so long as I kept up with my keeper. “But what then?” I begged the fellow. “But what then?” The shun-soap made no answer, but steadily led me along, as a nacker leads the nag before stopping him, stunning him, stabbing him, skinning him, and then cutting him up: hooves, hide, and pizzle to the glue-maker, and the other parts to — Suddenly the sound of the vulgus ceased, then resumed in another note and another register.

Then ceased again.

A woman’s voice, strong and level and chill. “I pardon that man.” Our gazes met. She showed her shock. Her eyes were blue and clear.

It was yet dark when I woke, but Rome generally awoke in the yet dark; a few lamps had already been kindled in the corridor; I noticed this abstractedly as I rushed to Quint: but Quint was already rushing to me. We met in the lesser atrium with the dull red walls where a few servants passed hither and thither like wraiths, thin vapors rising from the vessels in their hands. The heavy master of the household had either not yet aroused, or was occupied elsewhere; had he been present, our own respective business, however much it agitated us, must needs wait: but present he was not. At first our confrontation was in silence, there were sighs and moanings inarticulate, but not words. Then Quint said, and his voice trembled, “I have had such a dream!”

“And I—”

“Dreams are best kept silent, except to a qualified interpreter — or to a closemost friend—”

“Yes…”

“I am older, let me speak first,” said Quint. I staying silent, he went on to speak his words, clutching my arm, my arms, as though he would draw me to him. “Did you notice?” he asked. “Did you notice that old pedlar-dame in yesterday’s mob? selling baskets and sieves? She passed through my dream at an angle and then I saw the woman, I mean the woman…the real woman… I saw the woman holding the sieve… Claudia it was…it was Claudia…she held the sieve—you know what that means—and my heart went chill and swollen and I peered to see if the sieve did indeed hold the water, or if it had merely let it slip through and the mesh still wet. But she held it upside-down, she held it upside-down! What does that mean? And she looked at me and I saw that her eyes were very blue and very clear,” his own eyes, I saw in the increasing light of early day, were very red, and quite without salve or ointment; “and she looked past me and she looked at you and her eyes went wide and I remarked her voice, I shall always remember her voice: it was level and strong and clear, and she pointed her hand at you and she said, ‘Thou art the man!’ And what that means, I dare not think: but I would that you would leave our Yellow Rome at once.”

After I had spoken in turn, Quint leaned closer to me, and almost, somehow, I expected to see a thin cold breath from his mouth, like that from the basins of hot water for a quick early morning wash even now hurried past us by a few diligent slaves: but slavery makes for diligence…and makes it, much. Quint asked, “What is the meaning of this two-part dream? Does one part come from the Gate of Ivory and is false? does one part issue from the Gate of Horn and is it true? Is the whole dream one of evil omen? or of good? If we say, Good, in that she pardons you? of some sentence of death, it is sure, for if it were merely a matter of a fine…prison…the dungeon…or the scourge—” here I shuddered, he went on—“how many men yearly die beneath the lash, merely, the lash? how many in the dungeon, where even a reflection of a reflection of the light of the sun or the moon never shines?…let alone in the mere prison? where sometimes a gleam of sunlight creeps as it were uncertainly amongst the filthy littered rushes or the trampled straw…or now and then a beam of moonlight is reflected by a burnished mazer or a pewter plate polished like a mirror? For that matter,” he babbled, as we stood, crouched, in the atrium, close together; “for that matter,” he went on, “when a mere fine, merely the matter of a fine has broke a man’s bench, his bancus become ruptus, his lands his fields his house his yards his loft his laboratory all his goods his gear his tools his attire and even the very dead embers of his hearth for potash, and even the broken pisspot in the corner of his house of office: all, all, sold to pay the fine — eh? — how many, sinking beneath shame and broken spirit, the fine like blazing fire consumes all means of earning food?”

Quint, beside himself, was now unwittingly imitating the gestures, the very vocal tricks, of any advocate seen and heard in Apollo’s Court. He swept the air with his hands, he bulged his eyes, he stood on his tip-toes, he touched his ear-lobe with a finger. “But all of these minor penalties,” this was a new Quint to me and no longer the sophisticate, the man-about-Rome, the cynical; “and if the enemy of the enemies of mine enemy does not die of the stinking-pox, then let him live…let him live under these minor penalties; And these, allegedly the lesser of evils, the Vestal Virgin may not pardon: not a farthing, not a fig: not the theft of enough crushed walnut paste to cover the toenail of an infant child: none!”

To sum up: I, Vergil, once with brief: an advocate: ’twas very brief: eh? if the Vestal Virgin in this probably vatic dream — and every dream in one way or another must be vatic, must be prophetic, else why is a dream dreamed? if I, Vergil, am he whom the Vestal pardons, she can be pardoning me only from sentence of death. Not from charge of a crime meriting death, no, from sentence of death. And what can I, Vergil, have done or what would I do, to merit?

Dared I, would I dare? to love her—?

And as for the other dream, and her cry of, “Thou art the man!” if this was not accusative, then what was it? Could it be exculpatory? all things were, some barely, possible: but…he would believe that this the Virgin’s exclamation was exculpatory? then he would believe anything…let him, if he would, believe—

But let him first flee. And if not to the end of the Empery, then at least from Yellow Rome. To be, at least, a while more, safe.

Where would he safest be? from the accusations of the vatic voice in a state of dream—? whither flees the frightened child? he flees to home.

And now and for a long time: Naples was home.

… whence he might, if he would, if he need, having taken stock, flee again …

But why at once …? Why, because there was no set time indicated in these dreams. Who knows but what even now delators and informants were bespeaking those who bespoke the soldiery, He laid his hands upon the Virgin’s naked flesh, and, Act quickly, he may soon escape and flee …

Also, did I wait, tarry?…opportunity…temptation…lust …

Thus: at once.

It is tiresome to say what everyone knows, in this case that some things are more quickly said than done. There was no ship at a wharf behind a signboard reading HOME, AT ONCE. We had to wait until Quint’s friend, our host, was willing to see us. Then it was needful (he, Quint, thought) that I should leave the City by a round-about way and not by any of the broader streets, and essential (I thought) that Quint should not be seen with me; and I was a long time persuading him of this, and even I had a chore preventing him of this, and even I had a chore preventing him that he might not even, as he put it, “put bread in my wallet” for the journey, in my old doe-skin budget, bread: had I yielded at all, we would likely have wandered over half of Rome to find some particular bake-shop. With or without opium seed. Even, yes indeed! he might bethink him, bread is not enough! and insist he obtain me cheese, and salamesausage! — at which, by the sod and staff! might I give myself up for lost—

I was therefore long in leaving, and I neither drew rein of my borrowed horse, a gentle stalwart grey with dappled haunches; his name alas I never learned, I called him Thee (the Etruscan…a bit mysterious, like most his kind; and like most his kind: rich…had many horses, asked no questions) nor looked back till I had reached the rise by the third milestone. Then I halted, and turned. No pursuit? None…though I was uneasy in recalling that a dream, like a curse, might sometimes wait as much as seven years for fulfillment. No sign of pursuit, nor yet I was not easy. Ease is not always to the wise; was I wise? Some knowledge had I gained, but had I gained wisdom?

And lifting my eyes from the Appian Road I saw in the setting sun the cloud of dust raised by the hooves of the beasts being driven into the city to be slaughtered early next morning for sale in the markets, and the dust was faintly yellow. I saw in the suddenly visible middle distance the gold-spiked roofs, and stonework in marble the color of the hair of a fair-haired woman, brickwork the shade of straw, tiles a tint between that of the lemon of Sicily and a bright marigold blowing in the wind. I saw the glittering roofs and glowing golden buildings of Rome. By the yellow Tiber in the yellow dusk I saw the city of Yellow Rome…of Yellow Rome…

Yellow Rome.

I turned and urged on my horse. It was a long way to Naples.

Afterword to “Yellow Rome; or, Vergil and the Vestal Virgin” BY RAY NELSON

All the Vergil Magus stories together are only the tip of an iceberg the size of a rather large universe, as I realized when Avram allowed me to browse the boxes containing the detailed notes on fact, myth, and fantasy upon which they rest. Here’s a glimpse into the Vergil Magus Cosmos, a tiny bright diamond in which the infinite whole is reflected.