Golem 100

18

“This is the original medieval mass from which the song was adapted,” Gretchen said, “or copied or stolen. I had it faxed for you, Regina, because I thought it would fit into your lovely Communist decor. Naturally, I used a modern piano score when I played it for you.”

Regina’s eyes were brimming. “This is the sweetest, most thoughtful gift I’ve ever received, BB. I’m overcome. Truly. Opbless, dear, and a thousand thanks.”

“Well, I knew you didn’t get that pianola roll,” Gretchen smiled from the piano, “so I dug out the music. That was the least I could do for you, Regina.”

“And played so beautifully! Didn’t she, ladies?”

“All heart.” Ildefonsa applauded. “All heart, hammer and sickle.”

“AYE! Mock BB if you will, Nell,” Sarah Heartburn burst out, “but the PROLETARIAT were inspired by that SACRED ANTHEM to give their lives in the battle to wrest DEMOCRATIC art, science and freedom from the greedy grasp of capitalist, imperialist BOSSES!”

In the stunned silence that followed the outburst, Gretchen said, “I didn’t know you were a party member.”

“Oh, Sarah isn’t,” Ildefonsa said. “She played The Rebel Girl, a Precious Pearl who made the labor exploiters tremble with terror. I caught the show. That was her big Act One curtain speech. Pfui!”

“Now, now, Nellie,” Regina chided. “We mustn’t tease Sarah about that performance. Surely an actor can’t be held responsible for old-fashioned speeches in historical romances. Sarah was truly dedicated to The Rebel Girl and can’t be blamed for the silly words the author put into her mouth.”

“Who wrote it?”

“An Old Wave dramatist named Szechuan Finkel.” Sarah mused. “D’you know, I think they may really have talked like that back in the Red Flag days.”

“When was that?” Mary Mixup asked.

“Ages ago. I’m not sure. I think it was when some saint named Joe Stalin drove the bosses out of the temple—or vice versa.”

“But what was a boss?”

“A sort of Bigfoot with fangs.”

“It doesn’t matter, Mary,” Regina interposed. “All that’s ancient history now. BB dear, please play it again and we’ll sing it with you. We’ve been rehearsing in foreign languages, hoping I’d get the original pianola roll. We were going to play an underground Bolshevik International. Now we can, thanks to you, dear, so let’s organize, organize. Pi-girl! Make sure the vodka is iced.”

“Only frozen bathwater, Miz Winifred.”

“Quite all right, child. You don’t put the ice in the drinks; you ice the bottles. Now, BB… ?”

“Once more, with solidarity, comrade,” Ildefonsa laughed.

“Oh, do be serious, Nellie. Our theme is ‘The Red Front Forever,’ and we must be sincere. We must believe in the coming revolution.”

Regina began to sing to Gretchen’s accompaniment:

Arise, ye pris’ners of starvation!

Arise, ye wretched of the earth.

For justice thunders condemnation,

A better world’s in birth.

No more tradition’s chains shall bind us.

Arise, ye slaves, no more in thrall!

The earth shall rise on new foundations.

We have been naught, we shall be all!

Regina bowed graciously to the applause. “Thank you, comrades, thank you. Solidarity forever, and Pi-girl where is our vodka? Next we have tovarisch Mary Mixup, our French mavin, to sound the tocsin of the despotic ruling class. Mary?”

The Queen made way for Mary Mixup who took her place alongside the piano.

Gretchen pointed to the music as though coaching her. “When you sing, mean it!” she whispered. “Regina never takes you seriously. Nellie Gwyn is always making fun of you. Don’t be in thrall. Assert yourself.”

Mary stared, then turned and began to sing:

Debout, les damnés de la terre,

Debout, les forçats de la faim!

La raison tonne en son cratère:

C’est l’éruption de la fin.

Du passé faisons table rase,

Foules d’ésclaves, debout, debout!

Le monde va changer de base:

Nous ne sommes rien, soyons tout!

Through the applause Gretchen whispered, “Debout! Debout! You should be all!”

“And now,” Regina announced, “Our own Yenta Calienta. The Jews of the world have always been in the forefront of the fight for freedom and the liberation of ethnic minorities.”

“But I couldn’t do it without my rabbi,” Yenta said as she took Mary’s place alongside the piano.

“What are you doing with Regina and her goyish friends?” Gretchen whispered. “They’re all dreck! Mary can never get a bargain straight. Nellie has no respect for money. Regina’s too rich to care. When you sing about liberation, mean it for yourself!”

Yenta cocked an eye at Gretchen, then turned and sang:

Sheit oif ir ale wer nor shklafen

Was hunger leiden mus in noit.

Der geist er kocht un ruft tzu wafen,

In shlacht uns firen is es greit.

Di welt fun gwaldtaten un leiden

Tzushteren welen mir, un dan

Fun freiheit gleichheit a geneiden

Bashafen wet der arbetsman!

“Freiheit! Freiheit!” Gretchen whispered. “Sheit oif! Sheit oif with your rabbi!”

“Next, our ‘Rebel Girl, a Precious Pearl’ will favor us with the ‘Internationale,’ as sung for the finale of the play of the same name.”

“But not, I say, NOT in drab English. In the only VERO language of BELLEZZA ARTI!” ¶¶¶¶

●●●●

“What does Regina know about beautiful art? She’s just a rich reactionary. What do any of them know? Yenta is commercial. Mary’s too dumb. Nell’s insincere.”

Compagni avanti! Il gran partito

Noi siam dei lavoratore.

Rosso un fior c’è in petto fiorito;

Una fede c’è nata in cor!

Noi non siamo piu nell’officina,

Entro terra, nei campi, in mar,

La plebe sempre all’opera china

Senza Ideal in cui sperar.

“Avanti, Sarah! Avanti! Leave these superficial UNCREATIVE women. They’re beneath you.”

“Miss Priss has chosen the precise tongue of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels,” Regina said. “They are the godfathers of our glorious Bolshevik Epiphany, and she perhaps may become the godmother.”

“Regina’s always putting you down,” Gretchen hissed. “She’s rich and vulgar. They’re all vulgar and common. The twins are marital perverts. Nell Gwyn is worse than a whore.”

Wacht auf, Verdammte dieser Erde,

Die stets man noch zum Hungern zwingt!

Das Recht, wie Glut im Kraterherde,

Nun mit Macht zum Durchbruch dringt.

Reinen Tisch macht mit den Bedrängern:

Heer der Sklaven, wache auf!

Ein Nichts zu sein, tragt es nicht länger—

Alles zu werden strömt zuhauf!

“Wacht auf, Priss! Wacht auf! Wake up. Get out of here. You’re too nice and decent for these rotten women who’re completely without cultivated manners.”

“It’s no secret that our beloved Nell Gwyn is the color of our beloved Revolutionary Red Flag,” Regina smiled, “but I do have a secret to reveal. She is of Spanish descent, and that rara avis, a titian Castilian.”

“And she’s a bile-green turkey, Nell. Green with envy. She knows you ought to be holding the meetings in your beautiful apartment and running them in your high style. She’s jealous of you. They all are.”

Arriba los pobres del mundo

En pié los esclavos sin pan

Y alcémon todos al grito de

Viva la Internacionál!

Rompamos al punto las trabas

Que impiden el triunfo del bien

Cambiemos el mundo de fase,

Hundiendo el imperio burgués!

“Triunfo, Nell! Triunfo! Viva la Internacionál! Believe what you sing. You know damned well that you should be the queen.”

* * *

As the depressed Gretchen strolled the Strøget, chewing over her failure to arouse the bee-ladies to a hive revolution against Queen Regina, she was astonished and delighted to see Blaise Shima bearing down on her like the Flying Dutchman, full-sail and silent. She ran to meet him, seized his arm, and before they could exchange greetings was pouring out an account of the psalm-singing for the coming of the glorious Bolshevik epiphany.

“… And then the twins, Oodgedye and Udgedye, sang it in Russian and I handed them the same number—You two are the only really liberated women here, and all the rest hate you for it; Regina, Priss, Sarah, Yenta… Why don’t you get lost from this dull scene? Why don’t you take the song to heart? Same result. Nothing…

“My God, I’m glad we ran into each other, Blaise. I’m heartsick. I couldn’t start a palace revolution in the colony, even with malice, jealousies, rivalries, anything. Regina binds them together, and she’s too strong. The Queen Bee has got to be removed if we hope to scatter the hive and wipe the Golem. But how?

“Don’t bother to answer, Blaise. It was a rhetorical question. I know the answer and it sickens me, but it’s the only way out for us and the rest of the Guff. I’m going to the P.L.O. and buy a contract on Winifred Ashley with the PloFather. She can and will wipe her. It’s horrible—neither of us is a deliberate destroyer—but there’s no other way. What do you think, Blaise? Will you go along with it? God knows what Ind’dni will do when he finds out—that cat finds out everything—but are you with me? What do you think?”

“uoy kcuf lliw I kniht I”

“What?”

“uoy kcuf lliw I kniht I”

“Blaise!”

“uoy kcuf lliw I kniht I”

“For God’s sake! What’s this gibberish?”

“uoy kcuf lliw I kniht I”

“You’ve gone out of your mind!”

Gretchen tore herself away from Shima’s clutch, gave him one stupefied look, then dashed out of the Strøget. She careered around a corner, another, and came face to face with Salem Burne, smooth, slender, polished. The psychomancer smiled and held out his arms, grasping and clawing.

“uoy kcuf won llahs I”

“What!”

“uoy kcuf won llahs I”

“Are you insane?”

“uoy kcuf won llahs I”

“You’re mad, Burne. The whole Guff’s gone mad and gibbering!”

“uoy kcuf won llahs I”

She ran again, panting, trembling, and rammed into Dr. F.H. Leuz. The Drogh Director caught and enveloped her massively as she staggered.

“kcuf lamirP”

“For God’s sake, Leuz! Not you!”

“kcuf lamirP”

“First Blaise? Then Burne? Now you? No! No!”

“kcuf lamirP”

“This is a nightmare. It has to be. This garble! I’m asleep somewhere. Why can’t I wake up?”

She fought free of Leuz and reeled back into a doorway. She hid in the darkness in a panic. She was suddenly swept into the arms of the “UpMan” poster’s Mr. “After” who spun her around, beamed, and bruised her crotch with battering ram blows of his larger-than-lifesize.

“kcuF kcuF kcuF kcuF kcuF kcuF”

“Christ almighty! Dear God almighty!”

She stumbled out of the doorway, ran blind, ran hot, ran broken, sobbing, flinching and flailing, and

there was

the

Statue

of

Liberty

holding out

her

arms

and

flaming torch.

And as the ponderous metal arms crushed around her, Gretchen fainted.

* * *

“No, you have not gone mad, Miz Nunn,” Ind’dni assured her. “What you have experienced was not hallucination. It was a nightmare of quasi-reality; the reality of the polymorphic Golem beast in many guises: Dr. Shima; Salem Burne, the psychomancer; Dr. Leuz, the much-respected Director of Drogh Operations; the ‘UpMan’ poster come to life; the long-ago-scrapped Statue of Liberty.”

“And the gibberish it spoke?”

“Feeble attempts at spoken communication, which it got backwards. The creature is not of intelligence and has no grasp of our reality. It is merely brute passion using what it dredges up from your memory as decoys. I’m surprised that the Hundred-Handed animal did not appear as a computer or transport or anything else in your experience. I have no doubt that it is too primitive to understand that machines cannot speak.”

“And you rescued me, Subadar?”

“Staff was only too happy to oblige.”

“Your staff just happened to be passing by?”

“Not quite, Miz Nunn. After the ominous revelation of last night, I had you followed.”

“What ominous revelation?”

“You and Dr. Shima have private and intimate nicknames for each other, yes? Archaic pejoratives?”

“The Jig and the Jap. Yes.”

“And it never occurred to you that your final perception in the Phasmaworld—the letter ‘double-U’ which transformed into upraised muscular arms and then buttocks, bringing on the threat of death— it never occurred to you that this image was composed of two letters, ‘J,’ facing each other? Jig and Jap. J and J.”

Gretchen was thunderstruck. “And that’s the double implication you were trying to find last night, Subadar?”

“Indeed yes. Your exploration made you aware of the Golem, but it also made the Golem aware of you and your potential menace. I said that the motives of id-creatures are satisfaction and survival. The Golem must survive, so it is now attacking the danger; not Miz Winifred Ashley, no, you. I suspected the possibility and gave instructions, which is why staff was following you to protect.”

“Just me alone or Blaise, too?”

“I anticipated for both, and particularly for Dr. Shima. Please not to resent plain speaking, Miz Nunn, but where you have much strength, the doctor has weakness. You are the New Primal Man. Dr. Shima, despite all brilliance, may be one of the expendables. We cannot know Nature’s standards for her pinnacle.”

“Ummm.” Gretchen thought that over. “Maybe. No matter. He is protected?”

Ind’dni sighed. “Alas, staff has lost him.”

“Lost him? How? Where?”

“I need not point out the finesses of our mutual profession, Miz Nunn. You do know that whilst tailing a subject half the art lies in recognition of customary behavior patterns so that one is never at total loss.”

“Yes, I know that. And?”

“Dr. Shima abruptly broke usual, familiar patterns, and staff was at total loss.”

“How did Blaise break his usual patterns?”

“I am saddened to suggest that he has probably gone into fugue again.”

“Mr. Wish?”

Ind’dni nodded.

“Did the Golem bring it on?”

Ind’dni shrugged helplessly.

“Who’s Mr. Wish following?”

Ind’dni shrugged again.

“My God! My God! It’s all falling apart. Those damned bee-ladies… Everything’s falling apart.”

“We must not despair, madame.”

“No. No, you’re right. We’ve got to act.” Gretchen took a deep breath of resolution. “Yes. Act hard and fast.”

“Staff is doubling energies.”

“Thank you, Subadar, but I mean me.”

“Ah? What do you contemplate?”

“Is this being taped?”

“Recording can be ended immediately if you so desire.”

“No. I’m going to do something rotten brutal and I want to go on record.”

“Yours the honor, Miz Nunn.”

Gretchen firmed her lips. “I’m going to the P.L.O. pyramid for a meeting with the PloFather. I’m going to negotiate a contract on Winifred Ashley, the Queen Bee who’s holding the hive together and providing the Golem with a home. I’ll be accessory to murder.”

“Say, rather, an instigator?”

“Then both, and I’ll take what’s coming to me—with honor, at least. The only way to destroy that damn horror is destroy the Queen and her hive.”

Ind’dni sighed again. “You know, of course, that I cannot permit.”

“I know, but you cannot stop. By the time you and Legal have me gagged in the slammer, the contract will be signed and nobody can stop the P.L.O. soldiers. Christ Jesus, Subadar!” Gretchen shouted. “The wolf on the fold. Your words. The wolf! The wolf!”

She was headlong out of the office before he could answer.

* * *

“The name is Wish, dear lady. You may call me Mr. Wish.”

Regina inspected Mr. Wish. “You seem to be a harmless young man, and quite attractive. May I ask why you’re foolish enough to follow me?”

“But I’m not following you, dear lady. I’m following something else, something extraordinary, and our paths happen to coincide.”

“What are you following?”

“Ah!” Under his glassy exterior Mr. Wish was excited. “You seem to be a harmless lady and quite attractive, so I’ll confide in you. I’m drawn by something new. I play a private game, a fun sort of paper chase or treasure hunt, and suddenly I find myself drawn by a novel trail of clues. They magick me. They beckon me. They hypnotize me.”

“What are these mysterious magic clues?”

“Double death; given and received.”

“Good heavens, Mr. Wish!”

“Merely poesy, dear lady.”

“Oh, you’re a poet, are you?”

“A poet of destruction. A singer of the re-establishment.”

“The Establishment? I find that a contradiction in terms, Mr. Wish. No poet of any merit was ever reconciled to the Establishment.”

“You misheard me, dear lady. I am a poet of the RE-establishment. I am a singer of the thanatatic.”

“And what, pray, is the thanatatic?”

“It is the deep, basic human urge to re-establish the state of the universe as it was before it was disrupted by the emergence of life.”

“Disrupted? You are anti-life?”

“I am the enemy of disruption, of anything that mars the pristine logic of nature, and whenever life attempts to end its intrusion on the perfection by destroying itself, I’m drawn to help. That is my treasure hunt.”

“You must be an unusual poet, Mr. Wish, and I should like to hear your verse. Will you read for me? Here is my card. I receive Thursday afternoons. There will be other guests and, to be sure, refreshments. Now, au revoir. I must be getting along. I have an appointment.”

“So have I, and it seems in the same direction. Shall we?”

They continued together through the malignant streets and alleys of the Guff, casually detouring around rubbish, trash, and rotting forms that once were alive. All this they accepted as, indeed, did everyone. This was the advanced twenty-second century and a price must be paid for progress. Regina chatted graciously about poesy and the decorative arts, but seemed almost as excited as Mr. Wish.

“You’ve confided in me, sir,” she said at last, “and I will reciprocate by confiding in you. I’m reaching the end of a treasure hunt, too. A friend, or rather the husband of a friend, attended a party at my place on the first Opsday. He is a collector of oddments and he revealed something that thrilled me. He owns a treasure I’ve yearned for, an original pianola roll of the ‘Internationale’ by Pottier and Degeyter. He was generous enough to offer it as a gift, and I accepted. The gentleman lives here. Goodbye again, sir.”

Regina turned into a magnificent Oasis and Mr. Wish followed. She regarded him. He smiled. “My trail ends here, too, dear lady. Another odd coincidence.”

She was flustered as she was passed through by Security, but not too badly. Yet she was rattled enough not to notice that Mr. Wish had been passed under her aegis. They entered the express elevator together and were shot skyward.

“I’m for thirty-one,” Regina said.

“So am I, but not to be alarmed, dear lady. There are four apartments to the floor. Coincidence once more, and I shall compose an epic on the coincidence of Thanatos for your next Thursday afternoon.”

But when Droney Lafferty opened the door for Regina, he stared and exclaimed, “What? You too, doctor?”

Mr. Wish smiled into the piebald face. “The name is Wish, sir. You may call me Mr. Wish. I’ve come to help you.”

He glided past them into the apartment. Lafferty lifted an arm to block him, suddenly smiled raffishly and permitted him to pass. Mr. Wish gazed glassily at the illuminated vitrines displaying Lafferty’s curious collections; sundials, ear trumpets, walking sticks, matchbook porn, lurid French letters, and death masks of Lucrezia Borgia, Eleanor Gwyn, Catherine II, Pauline Borghese, Emma Hamilton, Lola Montez, Elizabeth I, and Elizabeth III.

“Now don’t let’s have another awkward scene, doctor. Sit down and behave. An audience may add something extra.”

“The name is Wish, sir. You may call me Mr. Wish,” Shima said and sat down obligingly, his eyes fixed on infinity.

“Do come in, Miz Ashley,” Droney said. “And be welcome. I didn’t know you were acquainted with Dr. Shima, but then I know very little about either of you.”

“But he says his name is Wish.” Regina was bewildered. “A poet named Wish.”

“Yes, I’ve experienced Dr. Shima’s fantasies before. It’s not one of his more attractive attributes. Now let me parade my collections before I give you your pianola roll.”

Mr. Wish unobtrusively removed a hangman’s noose from his pocket and set it on the floor alongside his chair.

“I adore my death masks of these divine ladies of Easy Virtue. Now you may object that a mask was never taken from Eleanor Gwyn, say, or Pauline Borghese, or Catherine the Great, and you would be quite right. But the ingenuity of the collector can always triumph over mere reality. I assembled all existing portraits of these lascivious ladies and then commissioned a plastic surgeon to mold duplications onto the faces of bodies in the morgue. The masks were taken from them. I may add that there would have been no need to re-create Emma Hamilton if only I had known you then. You are a reincarnation of that magnificent demirep.”

A laser burner and 8-mm. palm-pistol joined the noose.

“I’m extremely proud of these erotic matchbooks which took years to assemble. The constraint of the collector’s matchbook is that it must be virgin; the matches unused, the striking surface unscratched. These are from India and each displays one of the mystic love-positions from the Kama Sutra. Inspiring, don’t you think, Miz Ashley?”

A pressure bulb labeled (CN)₂ was placed on the floor.

“I was showing this collection to a guest once and before I could stop him he pulled a match out of a book and struck it. When he saw the horror on my face he asked, ‘Is anything wrong?’ and I said, ‘Oh no, nothing at all,’ and then I fainted. Fortunately I was able to replace the matchbook with another virgin. Are you a virgin, Miz Ashley? I think so. They have a magnetic attraction, as do you.”

A scalpel glittered down to the floor.

“Now this is my collection of dog collars. Some are fascinating reflections of their times. The spiked German for giant Great Danes, reminiscent of the spiked steel ball-on-chain, der Morgenstern, used by mounted knights to smash the heads of foot soldiers. Here is an original Saint Bernard collar with miniature cask of brandy attached. I’ve never dared sample the brandy. A harness for a twentieth-century ‘Seeing Eye’ dog. French jeweled collars for toy terriers. That strange thing is an Eskimo husky sled harness. And this beauty is a silver curb-link choke collar.

“Choke collar?” Regina asked.

“Why yes. It was used in the days before vets devised implanted radio controls. It restrained the animal when it was on the leash. Let me show you. Here, put it around your neck—You know, it would make a fabulous necklace, and I’m almost tempted to give it to you—That’s it. Now, the leash was attached, and the collar was loose and comfortable so long as the dog accompanied its master dutifully; but if it tried to explore or wander or run away? One pull on the leash would strangle it into submission—Like this!”

Lafferty’s huge fist twisted the chain until it disappeared into the skin of her neck. Regina’s eyes started and she flailed as Droney maintained his grip on the silver garrote and thrust her supine on a couch with his body on top of hers. “Kommt Hure! Herunter! Sitz! Liege! Bleib!” His lips were on her distorted mouth. “Yes. Speak French to your mistress, Italian to your wife, English to your horse, German to your dog. Sterb Hund! Yes. Sterb Hure! The moment I met you I knew you would die passionately and give passion to me. Yes. I knew—Ah!”

As Regina shuddered into death spasms, he penetrated her while gazing expectantly at Mr. Wish. Then he screamed into the orgasm which her last contractions produced, and slowly collapsed.

At length he arose from the dead body and disentangled the buried chain, meanwhile regarding his audience wistfully.

“No response, Mr. Wish? No reaction? Shock? Horror? Disgust? Fear? Nothing? No, nothing. Too bad. I’d hoped for your extra added fillip, Mr. Wish. This was no better than the necrolovelies in the morgue.”

“The name is Shima,” Mr. Wish said. “Blaise Shima.”

He reached down, picked up the laser, and burned Droney Lafferty through the head.