The Devil's Mirror Page 5

  ‘Perhaps, perhaps,’ muttered DeWitt, rising from his chair. ‘I confess I thought I’d trip him up on that second question. Perhaps I might be allowed to have a brandy while I formulate something a bit more difficult than I had previously planned?’

  Simpson shrugged. ‘Unless Mr Blake objects?’

  ‘No, no,’ said Corey. ‘But maybe Mr DeWitt would be interested in a counter-offer?’

  ‘Counter-offer?’ echoed DeWitt, stopping halfway to the brandy decanter.

  ‘Just a little switch,’ Corey explained. ‘Instead of you asking me a third question, I ask you a question. If you answer correctly, you get the magazine free. If you don’t, I get the $1,000—but the magazine becomes the property of The Raven Society and you get nothing. Nothing at all. How about it, Mr DeWitt? Are you chicken?’

  DeWitt took a large silk handkerchief from his pocket and slowly blotted his damp brow.

  Simpson said. ‘Well? Do you accept this amendment?’

  DeWitt frowned. Then he smiled. ‘I am intimately familiar with everything Poe wrote. Every story, every poem, every essay, every book review. Even his juvenilia. Even his uncompleted play. I know whole passages by heart. Yes. I accept.’ He sat down again.

  A murmur of anticipation went around the room. Jen squeezed Corey’s hand, and whispered, ‘Honey, are you sure?’

  Corey gripped her hand tightly in silent response. He turned to DeWitt, and said, ‘I’m going to recite a few lines of verse, and I want you to tell me which work of Poe’s they relate to.’

  DeWitt’s smile was a smirk of pity and superiority. Simpson, with concern, said, ‘Mr Blake, are you aware that Mr DeWitt is an internationally known authority on Poe? He was considered second only to your father, and since his death, he’s recognised all over the world as the foremost scholar in the field...’

  ‘Shut up, Simpson,’ snarled DeWitt. ‘The young fool got himself into this. Now let’s see him get himself out. Go on, Blake, let’s hear this verse.’

  Corey cleared his throat and recited, in measured tones:

  From Winter into Spring the Year has passed

  As calm and noiseless as the snow and dew—

  DeWitt’s eyes narrowed. ‘One of his trashy youthful poems, perhaps...’

  ‘Want me to go on for a few more lines?’ asked Corey, obligingly, and did so:

  The pearls and diamonds which adorn his robes

  Melt in the mornings when the solar beam

  Touches the foliage like a glittering wand.

  Blue is the sky above—

  ‘Rubbish!’ cried DeWitt. ‘Doggerel! This is a shabby trick!’

  Corey said, ‘What work of Poe’s do the lines relate to? And “relate to” is the operative phrase, isn’t it? It’s your phrase, Mr DeWitt, you used it in your letter.’ Corey pulled the rumpled letter from his pocket and read from it: ‘“...you will answer three questions I will put to you relating to the works of Poe.”’ Corey handed the letter to Simpson, and turned again to DeWitt. ‘Well?’

  DeWitt bellowed, ‘Poe never wrote that tripe!’

  ‘I never said he did. But that tripe definitely relates to a work by Poe. A famous work. Which one?’

  DeWitt grew purple. ‘This is absurd!’

  Simpson said, “I’m afraid you’ll have to answer, Algernon.’

  ‘I won’t answer!’

  ‘You mean you can’t,’ said Corey. ‘You give up.’

  DeWitt erupted with wordless sounds.

  ‘Do you give up. Algernon?’ Simpson asked gently. DeWitt hauled his great bulk out of the chair and stomped over to the sideboard. He sloshed brandy into a goblet, and swallowed it in a single gulp. He was breathing heavily. Simpson repeated his question: ‘Do you give up?’

  ‘Yes, damn it!’ shouted DeWitt. ‘But that young smart aleck better have a legitimate answer! If he doesn’t, the magazine and the money are mine?

  Everyone in the room turned to Corey.

  Corey said, ‘Those are the opening lines of a poem called Spring’s Advent, by someone named Park Benjamin. The poem was used as a filler in that issue of Graham’s Magazine. Page 259, the bottom half. Immediately following the Poe story. Okay?’

  The plastic covering of the old magazine was delicately, reverently opened by Simpson, and the periodical extracted. With loving care, Simpson’s fingers turned the desiccated leaves to Page 259. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘here it is. The end of the Toe story—“And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death had illimitable dominion over all.”—and then the Benjamin poem. I assume, Mr Blake, you studied this edition rather thoroughly?’

  With a shrug, Corey said, ‘This morning after I picked it up at the bank. I wanted to see what I’d be losing, if I lost. Then I sealed it up again. But I didn’t lose, did I?’

  ‘It’s a delicate point,’ said Simpson. ‘Some might agree with you about “Relating to” being the operative phrase. It could be argued that if Mr DeWitt had meant the contest confined strictly to the Poe texts, he should have said so. “Relating to” could be interpreted to embrace circumstances or conditions surrounding the original publication of the works. And this poem is very closely related to the story, of course—less than an inch away...’

  Simpson reflectively stroked his jaw and continued: ‘But I don’t know. Although I’m retired now, I was a pretty good attorney when I was younger, and I’m afraid that this business of “Relating to” is rather hair-splitting, a merely verbal... what would you call it nowadays, cop-out? I would have to say that the story and the poem, although related to each other in one sense, are net related in any meaningful way. And the old Webster definition of a magazine as a “miscellany” of various separate stories, articles, poems, and so on, would support that, I think.’

  ‘So the boy loses!’ crowed DeWitt.

  ‘Let us say he does not win,’ said Simpson.

  ‘The same thing!’

  ‘Not necessarily. I am forced to a Solomonic decision. Mr Blake does not receive the thousand dollars—but neither do you receive the magazine, Algernon—’

  ‘What?’

  ‘No, I’m afraid not...’

  ‘You old fool!’ bellowed DeWitt. ‘Give it to me! It’s mine!’ He lunged towards the magazine, but Simpson snatched it out of his reach.

  ‘Control yourself,’ Simpson said with distaste. ‘You’re getting the best of the bargain. The boy is losing a thousand dollars he sorely needs, whereas you... well, I can only think that you suffer from a neurotic obsession to own the entire collection of our late member—under the delusion, perhaps, that you would then be his equal in the field. It’s an expensive neurosis. A few dollars can buy you a copy of Graham’s identical to this.’

  ‘Not quite identical,’ said Corey, with a smile. ‘This particular copy had an extra ingredient in it—an ingredient I found and removed when I opened the plastic envelope this morning. That’s why Air DeWitt didn’t want the envelope opened here.’

  An ugly animal sound erupted from DeWitt’s throat as he suddenly sprang at Corey, flailing at him in a blind and mindless rage.

  ‘Hold him!’ shouted Simpson, and it took several members to pull back the mountain of blubber, to pin down his wind-milling arms, to force him, purple-faced with frustration, into a chair, where he sat, breathing heavily and sweating right through his clothes.

  After a moment, Simpson turned his attention to Corey again. ‘An ingredient, you said?’

  ‘A letter,’ replied Corey, ‘in longhand, just inside the back cover. All scratched out and worked over, as if the writer had really worked to get it just right. Kind of a poetic letter from a guy to his girl, a proposal of marriage. I guess it was never mailed, but the girl did marry him, in November of the same year this issue was published, 1842. That’s why my Dad held on to the magazine to the bitter end, I suppose, and that’s what Mr DeWitt really wanted for his thousand dollars. It would have been cheap at the price. It’s a letter to Mary Todd, from Abe Lincoln. The magazine probably belonged to him orig
inally. He was quite a fan of Poe’s, I understand.’

  Taking Jen’s hand, Corey led her to the door, where he stopped for a moment under the pallid bust of Pallas and turned to DeWitt. ‘I remember why I kicked you in the shins,’ he said. ‘You smelled bad. You still do. Come on, Jen, let’s go.’

  Here Comes John Henry!

  My, my, there she is, smiling up at me, big as life, right underneath me, fat and sass j as ever, and a mighty pretty gal she is, good old Mother Earth, I’m telling you. This is Atlanta’s favourite son and (excuse the expression) fair haired boy speaking, John Henry Captain John Henry Carter, that is, a genuine Yankee Doodle Dandy, born on the Fourth of July, 1945, full-fledged citizen of the US of A and the first man to set foot on the Moon.

  Correction. First man to set foot on the Moon and come home to tell about it. The real first man on the Moon was my buddy, that other John Henry, and since I’ve got another half hour till I touch down and there’s still about 600 feet of tape left on the reel here, I figure I may as well tell you all about it. Because once I home in for that famous pinpoint landing this fancy new chariot is capable of, once I get down there where those cameras are snapping and the band is playing and all the big brass is standing at attention and the biggest brass of all is waiting to pin a medal on my chest... by that time, it will be too late.

  Let me ’fess up and tell you that I didn’t warm up to the idea at first. Oh, I knew I wouldn’t be taking the 239,000 mile trip to the Moon alone, I knew I’d be one half of a two-man team, all through my training I knew that, but it sure took me by surprise when they told me that the other stud on that team was going to be one of them!

  I mean me?—riding to the Moon alongside a Russian? Whooo-eee! What a combo!

  Of course, I get used to the idea pretty quick. So I go along with the gag—symbol of international understanding, pledge of mutual trust, peaceful coexistence, hands across the sea, the whole scam (man, there was some mighty fancy language flying!). And I dig why they pick me, too—Mammy Carter’s li’l pickaninny, John Henry. Great public relations, you know? I bet the propaganda boys sat up all night thinking up that one. The Black and the Red. The Darky and the Russky. Tovarish and the Tarbaby. The Comrade and the Coon. A little cornball for my taste, a little obvious, wouldn’t you say?—but I’m a good boy, I go along.

  Of course, mixed in with all this spirit of cooperation stuff there’s a king-size slug of the old red white and blue, too. Just to give the milk of human kindness a little kick, I guess. I mean, I get some pretty strong hints that even though I’m supposed to be buddies with this guy, nobody’s forcing me to forget all that good old game spirit I learned back in Boy Scouts, nobody’s telling me I have to take a back seat to anybody, nobody’s ordering me to jettison all the natural sibling rivalry out of this nice little package of brotherly love. But this new added ingredient isn’t obvious at all—it’s a very soft-sell. Still, I get the drift. It would be oh so nice, they’re telling me, if the American half of this team could somehow end up Number One Boy in the eyes of the world. I keep a straight face while they feed me all this farina. Not long after, I meet my teamie for the first time.

  Now, first thing I notice about this cat is that he’s a John Henry, too—Ivan Genrikhovich, John son of Henry, just like me, my daddy’s name is Henry, too. Ivan Genrikhovich Yashvili. What a handle. We start out real formal—Captain Carter, Tovarish Kapitan Yashvili—but pretty soon he says to just call him Vanya and I tell him to call me John Henry, which he does, almost: Johngenry is the best he can do, but shucks, who am I to complain? One thing I got to say for him—he can talk English a damn sight better than I can talk Russian.

  All through indoctrination and dry-runs, we stay pretty formal except for that first name stuff. And then the Big Day comes. We smile and shake hands for the reporters. We cram our tails inside this mother and strap ourselves into our custom-made couches—they’re personally tailored, you know; sliding into that couch is like slipping a gingerbread man back into the cookie-cutter, old man Schirra said back in ’62, and it’s the best description I’ve heard yet—and here comes the countdown, that nerve-wracking ride to Zero that seems to take a lifetime, and then PO W ! ! !—lift-off!

  Man, the noise! The vibration! Half a million pounds of thrust turns this thing into a MixMaster! Our body weight doubles, then redoubles as the g forces squash us back into our couches! Like a ton of anvils dropped on us! We force ourselves to breathe, strain to open our lungs against all those g anvils pressing down and doing their best to flatten us out and squeeze the air out of us, breathe, that’s all you can think of, breathe baby breathe, because if you don’t you’ll slip into a grey-out and then you’ll be knocked cold completely. And the g anvils keep dropping on us, g after g after g...

  In two minutes we’re going nine thousand miles an hour, the booster engines drop off, and this stripped-down tin can of ours keeps building towards peak velocity... we hit it, twenty thousand mph... we almost black out...

  And then all those g anvils are gone and the noise has shut up and the only thing holding us to our seats are the straps because we’re lighter than a couple of soap bubbles. Zero gravity. I check the instrument panel and take a slug of ojay from the squeeze bottle and turn and grin at Vanya. He grins back. We’re on our way. The First Men In The Moon.

  It’s hard to stay formal when you’re cooped up in a thing like this, and there’s not too much to keep us busy right now, all the automatic gizmos are ticking along A-OK, so pretty soon we begin to loosen up and talk.

  He rubs my fur the wrong way when he calls me an African, but I can see he doesn’t mean any harm by it, he’s just trying to tell me that one of their big Russky poets, sort of like their Shakespeare, was part African, this Pushkin cat. I tell him that’s real fine, I bet he was a swinger. Then he asks me if I’m the son of a slave. That tickles me so much it makes me laugh out loud—shows he’s got US history all telescoped into a few years—and I tell him, no, but my great-great-grand-daddy was a slave. He nods his head, and says, ‘My father’s father was a serf.’

  That kind of breaks the ice, and pretty soon I’m asking him where he’s from, what part of Russia. He says, ‘I not Russian, Johngenry. I from what Russians call Gruzia, what my people call Sakártvelo. You call it, I think, Georgia.’

  That really cracks me up. ‘You, too? Just a couple of li’l ole Georgia boys, that’s us!’ And I start singing in my best down-home drawl—

  Jawjuh, Jawjuh,

  No peace Ah fahnd,

  Jes’ an ole sweet song

  Keeps Jawjuh awn mah mahnd...

  ‘You grow any cotton over there in your Georgia, Vanya? Any corn or tobacco?’

  He says, ‘Corn, tobacco, yes. Cotton, no. Also oranges and lemons like your California and Florida. Also tea, almonds, silk, sugarbeets, wine!’

  ‘What part of Georgia you come from? You a farm boy?’ He shakes his head. ‘From city, big city, capital. Tbilisi, what you call Tiflis.’

  ‘Don’t that beat all. I’m from the capital of Georgia, too.’ He smiles. ‘From my home comes Dzhugashvili.’

  ‘You don’t say. That some kind of vodka?’

  He laughs. ‘No! Is Stalin, Yosef Stalin!’

  ‘Well, why didn’t you say so in the first place? Say, was he some kind of kin to you? That name of yours. Yashvili, it sounds like his, sort of chopped down.’

  ‘In my home, many names sound so. Cholokashvili, Orachelashvili, Baratashvili, Taktakishvili. But not only Georgians live in Georgia. Is like your country, melting pot. Sixty-five percent, Georgians. Ten percent, Russians. Rest, Armenians, Ossetians, Abkhazians, Ukrainians, Azeri Turks, Jews, Greeks, Kurds. Many peoples.’

  And that’s the way it goes, the first few hours out from Earth, until that bad time comes, that first real bad bad time.

  Now, the big problem on a trip like this, you know, isn’t air—the life-support system includes tanks of a compound that absorbs the carbon dioxide we exhale and releases one h
undred per cent simon-pure air. As for food, we only need like less than a week’s worth because the whole round-trip to the Moon, going and coming, is only a hundred and thirty hours—which is fourteen hours short of six days—so food storage is no problem, either (hell, even if they forgot to store food aboard, we’d make it... we’d be mighty hungry and mighty skinny by the time we got back, but we’d make it—five and a half days? It would be rough, no fun, but not fatal). So air and food, like I say, are no problem. The problem is fuel.

  Storing enough fuel for two lift-offs, enough to push this bucket of bolts plus a pair of grown men up and out of a gravitational field—twice—that’s the problem. We need every speck of fuel we can cram into this thing. Those slide-rule boys downstairs have got it figured down to the last drop—and there’s no margin for error, no room to spare for a safety factor...

  That’s why I’m a mite upset, I guess you could say, when, second day out from Earth, I take myself a good long glim at the fuel storage gauge. ‘Vanya, old buddy,’ I say, ‘looky here.’

  He looks. He shakes his head. ‘I see nothing, Johngenry.’

  ‘Figure it out, buddy. Figure out how much fuel we need to get where we’re going. Then, making allowances for the lesser gravity of the Moon, figure out how much we’ll need to get back. Then look at this gauge again.’

  He uses pencil and paper. He double-checks his figures. Then he looks up at me with a big frown. ‘You are right, Johngenry.’

  ‘Not enough fuel to get us back?’

  ‘Not enough fuel to get us both back,’ he says.

  Talk about conversation-stoppers. We just sit there, sweating. Oh, the air-conditioning is working fine, but we’re sweating. We’re thinking about weight—each other’s weight—we’re thinking about how that medium-size hunk of muscle and bone strapped in the next couch is going to make all the difference between the other one getting back to Earth or dying on the Moon. Weight: just a few pounds: just the difference between life and death. And we don’t say a thing for a long long time.