The Devil's Mirror Page 6

  Finally, he breaks the silence. ‘Johngenry, this is... accident, you think?’

  ‘Sure. What else?’

  ‘I do net know. But how can it be accident? All is done with precision, with mathematical precision, after many tests. How can it be accident?’

  ‘Hell, man, what else could it be?’

  He turns to me. ‘Johngenry, before I am coming to join you, when I am still in Moskva, I am told much about international cooperation and coexistence. But I am told also, in subtle ways, of wholesome competition, that it is socialist realism to be friends with my partner yet loving rivals. There must be a total dedication on my part, it is suggested, a healthy striving to be best—not for myself, not for vanity, but for glory of all Soviet peoples.’

  ‘Sounds kind of familiar, Vanya,’ I say.

  You also?’

  ‘Me also. What are you getting at, buddy?’

  ‘I do not know,’ he says, turning away from me. ‘I do not know what I am... getting at.’

  A long silence sets in. We just do our job. We don’t say anything we don’t absolutely have to say. But upstairs, in the old headbone department, each of us can almost hear the other guy’s wheels just a-clickin’ away: each of us knows that his survival, his own personal survival, depends on team work—up to a critical point, that is, the exact moment of which neither of us has figured out yet. At any time before that point, neither of us can destroy the other without destroying his own self. But we blow, both of us, that when that critical moment comes—in the next hour, or the next day, before we land on the Moon or after—with cold clean scientific ruthlessness (made acceptable, you dig, by the knowledge that there’s no point in both of us cashing in), one of us will decide that the other is suddenly expendable. Clickety-click. Those wheels keep turning.

  Sleep? Forget it.

  So it’s a couple of tail-dragging travellers who set down on that chunk of green cheese right on schedule, just sixty-five hours after lift-off from Earth. The blasts from our new style vernier rockets are like columns of fire, burning holes in the Moon as they pinpoint us gently down to the surface. We open the hatch. Vanya steps aside and waves me ahead. I hang back, and we do the old ‘After you’ routine. Neither of us wants to turn his back on the other. Finally, Vanya climbs out of the hatch and becomes the first human being to set foot on the Moon. He whips around right away, of course, and watches me as I follow close behind him.

  I won’t go into all the jazz about the weird sensation of Earth-minus gravity, and the way that moon-stuff crunches soundlessly under your boots—you’ll get all that in the official log tape, and besides, you’ve seen it in old movies. But the thing you don’t get in the log and the movies, the thing you’ll never get unless you stand up there yourself with your body one-sixth Earthweight and nothing, not even air, between you and the stars, and see old Earth hanging like a big dinnerplate in the black sky, is that feeling of... hell, I don’t know what to call it. Anything you’ve ever been, any ego you ever had, any high and mighty opinion you ever had of yourself, is all wiped away by a big eraser, and you’re naked, you’re something else, you’re not even you anymore, you’re very small and very big at the same time, you’re humble and glad about it, you’re brand new, clean, purged, free, fresh, reborn.

  Vanya feels that way, too, I can tell. I can tell by the look on his face through the helmet. Well, we snap our pictures and dig up our samples and tape our notes. It doesn’t take very long, we’re not supposed to stay there very long, and then it’s time for us—for one of us—to climb back in the bucket and lift-off for home sweet home. That means it’s zero hour, the moment of truth, time to separate the men from the boys.

  We face each other. I hear him over the helmet radio, not saying anything, just breathing. I don’t know how long we just stand there.

  ‘Buddy,’ I say. Just that, no more. Then, ‘Buddy, we can’t let them do this to us. We can’t let them... manipulate us like this. We can’t play into their stinking hands.’

  ‘I do not know what you mean, Johngenry.’

  The hell you don’t. You almost said it yourself, out there in deep space, when you said “How can it be an accident?” You were thinking it, but you were afraid to say it because you couldn’t believe it, you couldn’t believe anyone could be low enough to pull a dirty stunt like the one they pulled on us, anyone, least of all your glorious People’s Republic...

  ‘You are not rational...’

  ‘People’s! That’s a laugh! It’s just a government, baby, just a government that’s no different from any that ever was or ever will be. Ask that serf grand pappy of yours about governments. Ask anybody of my colour. Ask the red Indians about the treaties they signed with governments. Ask... hell, ask yourself. Ask yourself what you meant when you said it couldn’t be an accident.’

  ‘But this... what you are suggesting... is... monstrous.’

  ‘Monstrous? Hell, no, Vanya, don’t be square, it’s just politics, expediency, a little game they play, a game with you and me as chesspieces.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Aw, come on, baby, you’re not that dumb. They want to have their cake and eat it too. They want to make a big show of cooperation, but that’s all it is, a show. Two or three cats at the very highest level, they put their heads together and they say “Look, pal, you know and I know that all this lovey-dovey crap is for the birds. There’s got to be a winner and a loser, that’s what makes the world go round, that’s what keeps us in our jobs... so let’s fix it so there will be a winner and a loser, but let’s not tell anybody, least of all the chesspieces, let it be just our little secret...’

  I’m getting to him, I can tell. He hates to admit it crossed his mind, hates to think both our governments deliberately double-crossed us and are in cahoots to play off one man against the ether, astronaut against cosmonaut, survival of the fittest, may the best man win.

  ‘If this is true...’ he starts to say.

  I needle him: ‘You know it’s true!’

  ‘If this is true... then no useful purpose will be served by both of us dying. But we must not part as enemies. We must not fight each other. We must not—if what you say is true—give them that satisfaction. We must draw lots. That is rational, that is socialist realism...’

  ‘Yeah, sure, 01 Yankee know-how or French logique or British bulldog spirit or you name it. Knock all that crap out of your head, Vanya—you’re only half right. Why should even one of us live? If you really want to show them something, why don’t we both elect to die, right here, together?’

  I got him now. He’s hooked. He digs. ‘You are saying we allow neither side to triumph. Only humanity to triumph. Together we radio back to Earth our decision to face death together here, in brotherhood to each other...’

  ‘That’s it...’

  ‘A brotherhood transcending political ambitions... a loyalty to something higher than governments...’

  ‘Now you’re talking...’

  ‘I do not know, Johngenry, I do not know... it is not an easy thing...’

  ‘Hell, I know that! You think I want to die? But we’ve got to! We can’t let them get away with this! We’ve got to show them!’ I put my gloved hands on his shoulders. ‘Vanya... I saw your face... just after we landed... I know you felt the same way I did... like you’d been washed clean, made over again, forgiven... isn’t that right? Isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes... yes...’

  ‘Look at it, Vanya, look at it all. Above us, all around us, the stars, the planets, all of it bigger than anything we could ever dream... call it infinity, eternity, call it God... look at it, buddy...’

  He does. He turns around and looks up, and out, and beyond, and when his back is turned I twist that little valve on his helmet and all the air rushes out into the vacuum and he explodes silently inside his suit and he falls, kind of slow and easy like a big feather, to the crunchy soil of the Moon. It’s all over before you can say Tovarish Kapitan Ivan Genrikhovich Yashvili.

  An
d now here I am, easing this crate down to Mother Earth, settling it down to the landing-pad careful and gentle, like a mama robin dropping a precious egg in her nest. I’m so close now I can see them, I can see it all. The Hags flying—Vanya’s and mine. The big shots—ours and theirs, military and civilian. There’s the President, by God, just like they promised, there he is, The Man himself, waiting to pin a medal on me. And there’s the Premier. And there’s the band playing, those shiny butterscotch trumpets and trombones and tubas polished like rows and rows of yellow mirrors—I can’t hear what they’re playing, but I’ll give you odds it’s that same tune we sang down home a long time ago when I was in the children’s choir and the church put on this oratorio thing by Handel or whoever. I remember it real good—

  See, the conquering hero comes!

  Sound the trumpets, beat the drums...

  Yes, I’ll just bet that’s what they’re playing down there. Well, you keep on sounding those trumpets and beating those drums, because I’m coming, all right. And you’re not going to like it one little bit. I suppose the story will go out that this bucket went out of control, but that will be a lie because I’ve got it in complete control. It’s doing everything I want it to do, this baby, this precision instrument. Of course, maybe some smart reporter will search the wreckage and find this tape and break the real story. That’d be nice. But, either way, you folks down there are in for the surprise of your lives. All you generals and senators and public relations sharpies, and you too, Mr President and Mr Premier.

  I do worry a little about one thing Vanya said. ‘You are not rational,’ he said, and, you know, he may have been right. Maybe the slide-rule brigade did make an honest mistake. Or maybe there was a slow leak in the fuel line, nobody’s fault, and we lost some that way. If so, I suppose you could say what I’m about to do is pretty rotten. But is it really? Does it really matter if I’m right or wrong in this one particular case? Look at it this way... if I’m wrong about this, if I’m ‘not rational’, if I’m crazy as a bedbug, then let’s just say I’m getting back for a whole mess of shoving around that the big brass types have been dishing out in one way or another for a long time... hell, just say I’m getting back for a lot of folks in, oh, there’s plenty to choose from, the Novgorod Massacre, the Black Hole of Calcutta, the Hungarian Revolution, Vietnam, Dresden, Hiroshima, Babi Yar, the Niseis in Double-U Double-U Two, you pick it, all those folks sautéed in a big frying pan by Ivan the Terrible, roasted by napalm, char-broiled by incendiary bombs... or old Grissom and the other guys who had to bake because some brass had to make a little more profit with cheap-ass wiring. If I’m rights of course, so much, the better, but even if I’m wrong I’m settling a whole lot of old scores.

  Well, here we go, time to set ’er down...

  Vanya, old buddy, I’m sorry about what I did to you, but it was the only way I could be sure of getting back here and doing what I knew I had to do. Sorry about all the reporters and boys in the band, too—that’s right, play your hearts out, you cats—

  Myrtle-wreaths and roses twine

  To deck the hero’s brow divine.

  Like I say, sorry about you boys, but you’ll just have to take your chances. Because, man o man, when I tilt this bucket and turn these vernier rockets or that pretty flag-draped platform where all those big shots are standing, all kinds of flaming hell are going to bust loose. I’m making for damn sure that this particular conquering hero goes out in a blaze of glory, and I’m taking as many of you with me as I can. Hold on to your hats, you son of a bitches, here corns John Henry!

  Xong of Xuxan

  i learned a thorny language of the dead; attacked and kicked and pounded on my brain with book and tape; a word, another word, until i knew the ancient wizard-way to freeze my dreaming, pin my whirling mind down to a piece of paper like a moth, and watch it twitch and flap and maybe die, but no, it did not die, it grew, branched out, becoming very like another me. another me that reached around the world, the act of teaching language to my mind kept me afloat, kept me from killing me, kept me from going mad, and kept my mind from brooding, in my lonely life, on love.

  there, i have done it. written an entire paragraph without the nineteenth letter, i knew i could do it if i really tried, but i find it rather limiting and pointlexx.

  it wax a happy day when firxt i xtumbled on thix ruxty old typewriter, and taught myxelf to uxe it, and fi¢ed it up, and oiled it, and found wayx to ink the ribbon, the xhift key and the dollar xign were far beyond all filing, but that i did not mind, more xerioux, more irkxome, wax the mixxing letter, nineteenth letter of the alphabet, how could i write without it. i decided to xubxtitute the letter x. all right, but what then would i uxe for x. not much occaxion to uxe it, i reaxoned, xo i will use in itx place, it wax only after i had gotten uxed to thix arrangement that i xaw what a fool i had been, why not uxe ¢ for the nineteenth letter and uxe x for itxelf. but by that time it wax too late, and bexidex, what doex it matter, i am alone, all alone, all alone.

  later

  i have tried to figure out how old i am, but it ix too difficult i cannot do it. i think i am young, i have xeen my reflection and i look like the young women in the old bookx and magazinex.

  my hair ix very long, of courxe, for i have never cut it. it reachex to my waixt. it ix yellow, flaxen the old bookx would call it, like the hair of rapunzel and melixande. men would probably tell me it ix beautiful, i am rather thin, because it ix not alwayx eaxy to find thingx to eat and i get a lot of e¢ercixe doing everything for myxelf, and i walk a great deal, but i do not think i would be called xkinny. i am very tan from head to toe becauxe i am in the xun xo much, my eyex are blue, my breaxtx have finally xtopped growing i think, they are not as big ax xome in the magazinex but are about the xize of large applex. i have xeen picturex of people eating applex xo i know how big they were, but i have never xeen a real apple.

  if i kept to the citiex there would never be a problem about food, plenty of food in canx and jarx in the xtorex, enough to keep me going for the rext of my life, i think, but i do not like the citiex very much and i try to keep out of them ax much ax i can. i take ax many canx of food ax i can carry and live out in the hillx until i run out of food and then i come in for more, in the bookx, they talk about living off berriex and nutx, but i have never found any and there are no fixh in the xtreamx.

  later

  i think about xam an awful lot. how i played with him, and talked to him, and how he tried to talk to me in hix own way. i loved him and i know he loved me. he alwayx woke up before i did, and he wax alwayx glad when i awakened, almoxt ax if he wax afraid i had gone away, and wax happy that i had returned i would alwayx xay good morning xam. it lookx like a beautiful day, i would tell him, chattering on and on, the xky ix blue, no rain in the air. i would axk him what will we do today, xam, and then i would anxwer my own quextion. today we will go down into the town and get food to eat. how would you like a can of corned beef haxh, I would axk him. i feel like having xome chili, myxelf. and maybe a can of peax or axparagux. xam would eat peax but not axparagux, but i like them both. after that, i would tell xam, we will go to the library and get xome more bookx. no, not for you, you xilly thing, for me. bookx about the way it wax before you and i were born. true bookx, xome of them, and xome of them made up by men and women to pleaxe each other. i think xam wax a little jealoux of the bookx, and the way i would xit and look at them for hourx and not play with him. now i wixh i had played with him more than i did.

  later

  today ix a day of blood, the word for it ix from an older word meaning month, when it happenx twelve timex, i figure that ix about a year, unlexx i have loxt count, i have had forty-nine of the blood timex, which would be about four yearx. but i do not know how old i wax when i had the firxt one, xo it doex not help me figure out my age. maybe i wax twelve, which would mean i am xi¢teen now but there ix no way of knowing for certain.

  later

  i guexx i have no name, no real name, but once i found
a name i liked in one of thoxe old tapex. xuxie. i liked the xound of that, xhort for xuxan. i called myxelf xuxie for a long time, but now i am xorry becauxe i cannot xpell it right on thix machine, why didn’t i pick a name like mary or elizabeth or amanda or gwendolyn or yvonne or charlotte or lolita or maude. but it ix top late to change it now. i am uxed to it. xo xuxie it ix.

  that firxt paragraph, which i wrote a few dayx ago, did you notice it ix a kind of poem, fourteen linex, ten xyllablex to a line, xort of a xonnet i guexx. blank verxe, no rhymex, i will try a rhymed poem xome time, i love poetry. later it ix warm here, it hax alwayx been warm, ever xince i can remember, xo uxually i do not wear any clothex. xometimex, though, it ix fun to go into one of the old xtorex and put on drexxex and xtockingx and xhoex and braxxierex and thingx like that, but the fun went out of that a long time ago.

  it never xnowx here, but i have xeen xnow in the filmx and read about it in the bookx and i wixh i could xee it xometime. maybe if i walked and walked and walked for the rext of my life i would find xnow.

  of courxe, i know all about rain, there are timex when it rainx for dayx and dayx, and that ix when i xtay inxide one of the houxex.

  but i do not like the houxex. that ix where the deadx are. i am afraid of the deadx.

  i know that i will be a dead xome day. before that, i will get old. i have xeen picturex of people who have gotten old. they hardly look like me at all. they look like a different race, i wonder how long it will take for me to get old and then be a dead.

  xam ix a dead, he died a lot of dayx ago. i wax xad. he wax a good dog, followed me everywhere, xlept with me, ever xince i can remember, maybe he wax ax old ax me. but he did not look old, like the old people in the bookx. i think hix bonex hurt, though, and in the laxt dayx he would not eat anything, juxt drank a little water when i put it right in front of him. then one morning when i woke up he wax cold and xtiff and i knew he wax a dead, i cried, becauxe i knew that now i would really be alone, when i wax very little, i thought he wax a perxon juxt like me, but when i taught myxelf to read the bookx, i knew he wax a dog and i wax a human being, i buried him and marked hix grave with a piece of wood, on it, i carved the wordx, here liex xam, beloved friend, i had to carry him a long way to find a place to bury him. i walked for milex and everything was concrete and axphalt, hard to my feet, then finally i found what had been a park and i buried him there, i mixx xam. he wax my only friend, my only family, i named him after xamuel taylor coleridge, who wrote the beautiful poem about ¢anadu. xome day i may write a poem about xam.