The Very Best of Barry N Malzberg Page 8

  Hastings and the Captain were on top of him all the time now, and neither of them had the faintest idea of what they were doing. Only a man who had been through four wars and eight limited actions could comprehend how serious the war effort was. Three days a week the company had a forest to capture; three days a week they had the cliffs to worry about, and on Mondays they had all of the responsibility of reconnoitering and planning strategy, and all of this devolved on the First Sergeant; nevertheless, neither of them would leave him alone. The First Sergeant had more duties than any man could handle: he supervised the officers’ tents and kept up the morale of the troops; he advised the officers of the lessons of his experience, and he had to help some of the men over difficult personal problems; no one, not even a combat veteran such as himself, could handle it. He slept poorly now, threw up most of his meals, found his eyesight wavering so that he could not handle his rifle in combat, and he decided that he was, at last, falling apart under the strain. If he had not had all of his obligations, he would have given up then. They were that ungrateful, the whole lot of them. Hastings, the Captain; the Captain, Hastings: they were both lunatics, and on top of that, there was the matter of the tents and the communications. One night, the First Sergeant had his penultimate inspiration. In an agony of wild cunning, he decided that there was only one way to handle things. And what was better, he knew that he was right. No one could have approached his level of functioning.

  He got up at three o’clock in the morning and crept through the forest to the communications tent and carefully, methodically, lovingly, he tore down the equipment, so that it could not possibly transmit, and then he furiously reconstructed it so that it looked perfect again. Then, he sat up until reveille, scribbling out headquarters communiques, and he marked DELIVERED in ink on all of the company’s messages to headquarters. After breakfast, he gave these messages to the Captain, and the Captain took them and said that they were typical headquarters crap; they were the same as ever. The Captain said then that sometimes, just occasionally, you understand, he thought that Hastings might have a point, after all. The First Sergeant permitted himself to realize that he had stumbled on to an extremely large concept; it was unique. Nothing that day bothered him at all.

  The next morning, he got up early again and crept through the cliffs to the communications tent and wrote out three headquarters messages advising the Captain to put his First Sergeant on the point. When the Captain read these, he looked astonished and said that this had been his idea entirely; the First Sergeant led the column that day, firing his rifie gleefully at small birds overhead. He succumbed to a feeling of enormous power and, to test it, wrote out no messages at all for the next two days, meanwhile keeping the company’s messages in a DELIVERED status. The Captain said that this was a pleasure, the bastards should only shut up all the time like this. On the third day, the First Sergeant wrote out a message ordering that company casualties made heavier to prove interest in the war effort; two men were surreptitiously shot that day in combat by the Junior-Grade Lieutenants. By then, the First Sergeant had already decided that, without question, he had surpassed any of the efforts of western civilization throughout five hundred generations of modern thought.

  Headquarters seemed to take no notice. Their supply trucks came as always; enlisted men looked around and cursed with the troops and then went back. They did not even ask to see the First Sergeant because he had let it be known that he was too busy to be bothered. The First Sergeant got into schedule, taking naps in the afternoon so that he could refer daily stacks of headquarters messages in the early morning. One morning, he found that he felt so exceptionally well that he repaired the equipment, transmitted Hastings’ request for convalescent leave without a tremor, affixed the Captain’s code countersignature, and then destroyed the radio for good. It seemed the least that he could do in return for his good luck.

  This proved to be the First Sergeant’s last error. A day later, a Corporal came from headquarters to see the Captain, and later the Captain came looking for the First Sergeant, his white face stricken with confusion. He asked who the hell had allowed that Hastings to sneak into the tent and thus get hold of the equipment? The First Sergeant said that he did not know anything about it, but it was perfectly plausible that this could happen; he had other duties and he had to leave the radio, sometime or other. The Captain said that this was fine because headquarters had now ordered Hastings’ recall and had arranged for him to be put in a hospital. The Corporal had come up to say something about a psychiatric-discharge. The First Sergeant said that he would handle this, and he started to go to the Corporal to say that Hastings had just died, but the Captain followed and said that this was not necessary because he himself had had Hastings’ future decided; he would take care of things now. The Captain said that Hastings was not going to get out of any damned company of his any way at all; he would make things so hot for that lunatic now that it would not be funny for anyone at all. The Captain said that he was in control of the situation and there was no doubt about that whatsoever. The Sergeant left the Captain’s presence and went outside to cry for half an hour, but when he came back, he found the space empty, and he knew exactly what he was going to do. He stayed away from the Captain until nightfall and, as soon as it was safe, dictated a total war communique. In the morning, breathing heavily, he delivered it to the Captain. The Captain read it over twice and drooled. He said that this was the best thing that had ever happened to anyone in the entire unfortunate history of the Army. He said that he would go out immediately and make a speech to his troops. The First Sergeant said that he guessed that this would be all right with him; if he inspired them, it could count for something in combat.

  The First Sergeant did not even try to listen to the mad Captain’s idiotic speech. He only stood behind and waited for it to finish. When Hastings came over after it was done and cut the Captain’s rear end harmlessly with a bayonet, the First Sergeant laughed like hell. But later, when he went to the broken equipment, wondering if he could ever set it up again, he was not so sure that it was funny. He wondered if he might not have done, instead, the most terrible thing of his entire life. Much later and under different circumstances, he recollected that he had not.

  The Wooden Grenade

  I

  STEIN, an obsessive, carried a large dummy hand grenade in: the right pocket of his converted Army fatigue jacket. This instrument, which he had found in a surplus store two years ago while hunting for a rifle, he now carried with him everywhere he went, squeezing it through the fabric, stroking it with his fingertips and at private moments during the day removing it to better inspect its contours. He had no interest in rifles. All of the shapes of his grenade were varied and beautiful to him, and at night, when his door was secured, he would stare at it, sometimes for hours.

  The counting, however, had started only recently. Now, he counted objects and actions, furiously added and subtracted numbers. Sixty, no, ‘sixty-one steps, he measured, and four nails in the opposite wall as he climbed the last flight of stairs in a condemned tenement one gray October morning. One hundred and twenty-five divided by seven is seventeen point eighty-three, times ten equals one hundred seventy-eight point three and the wall was green: that much was obvious, although one could not tell specific qualities by the light of one bulb in the exhausted hallway. If four steps, he thought, made twenty-five yards, then one step would make six and one-half. All of this Stein considered as he ascended with groans, fondling his grenade while two stricken children far beneath leaned upwards in the well and cursed him twelve times each. They knew that he was from the Government and, solemnly, Stein knew that they were right to swear. At the top of the flight he paused, wavering in dimness, rubbing his eyes with one’ hand while he looked for numerals on the doors. Counting vigorously, he saw opposed apartments and a third angle between; this last bore the number forty-two but the others were not as clear. One had a number three hanging by a staple with a blank scar where the other num
ber would have been, and the other door was barren — Stein knew that they would not maintain their apartments in this building, not with the landlord in jail and three contractors assuring the Municipal Board that each of the others was the most dangerous. The contractors were the whole problem, Stein thought furiously, and he took his notebook from under his arm and made an entry with a pencil, the strokes uneven because of his limited vision. Three contractors, he wrote, and three apartments. Is this rule of three symptomatic? He closed the book with a snap, hearing it echo for several yards and, half bending, removed his grenade from his pocket, shielding it with his cupped hands. In the glow of the shattered bulb it acquired an infinity of colors and Stein rubbed his thumbnail over it, bringing one surface to a high polish. He could, if he wished, pull an imaginary pin and hurl it down all the flights,’ in which case it would explode and bring the fire: the consuming fire virgin in its purity that would lift the tenement into the air and hurl it, mumbling with dread, into some primal sea, as the tenants gasped with wonder and blew free of their history. Or, he could replace the grenade in his pocket and come to terms with the building for the next quarter-hour, knowing that at any ‘instant he could extract his instrument, show it to the woman whom he was about to interview, and say: It’s all over now, Mrs. Silver; better hold your ears, honey. The latter choice was more temporarily seductive but he replaced the grenade with a moan: it had never looked better than it did this morning.

  “Hoo! He’s a big mother,” one of the children below whistled to his friend. Stein began to stumble through the hall, looking for the right apartment. Yes I am, he mumbled, and I’ll blow you and your friend and your tenement all off the face of this perished earth.

  “Can’t do that,” he heard the other child say softly, “this one official.”

  The apartment numbered three was the place to start, and he hit the door flatly with both palms, three times. Yes, the three was symptomatic; it had all kinds of significance: the three wishes and Trinity and the third, the prodigal son, cast to the lost countries, all of it was clear as a result of his perception. When he heard nothing inside the door, Stein hit it again, slapping his fists against it briskly. Instantly, the door was snatched open as if the occupant within had been standing behind it for a generation, testing his resolve for a moment precisely like this. Stein looked at the caverns of an old man’s face and reeled: it did indeed look like a minefield.

  “I’m sixty-five years old,” the man said. “Just got my first Security check, day before last.” “That’s fine,” Stein said. “Does Silver live here? I have an appointment.”

  “Got me a check that says Government right on it in printing,” said the old man, running his tongue over his lower features. It was long and amazingly mobile. “Told me, m’wife did, before she died, that those bastards in the Federal Building would never come across; no loot from the Government! she said. Guess I proved a thing or two.”

  Over the shoulder of the old man, Stein could see the apartment’s kitchen: it was streaked with pastels and scotch-taped to the walls were several hundred pictures of female breasts; detached from their owners, they had the curious look of a battery of artillery. The old man followed his glare and grinned at the pictures. “Betcha your pop’s no fool,” he said, “even though he’s living’ with his black brothers, old pops knows what’s good in this world. Ain’t that right, son?” He winked at the pictures. “Seen better’n that, you betcha life, son.”

  With difficulty, Stein looked away from the breasts and at his feet, rubbing his hands together as If the grenade were there. “I’m looking for a Mrs. Silver,” he said. “I’m from the Government.”

  A look of terrible cunning came into the old man’s eyes; he began to close the door. “Ain’t gettin’ my Social Security, son,” he said. M’wife said you fellas be knockin’ down doors, trying to take away m’money. M’wife’s dead.”

  “I’m in a different branch,” Stein said quickly, patting his grenade through his coat pocket, “I have other business. “

  “No foolin’ the old scout Johnny. Ain’t no branches, just one Government. You can’t touch my Security! Worked forty-seven years I did.” .

  Clamping the grenade hard, Stem could feel, even through the layers of the jacket, a distant warmth, a puppy’s affection. He wondered what the old man would do if he took out the grenade and showed it to him. “I just want to see someone named Mrs. Silver.”

  “Government fellas,” the old man said, closing the door. “Smart young Government whippersnappers come ‘round lookin’ to take back the old man’s money. Ain’t no young buck gonna have the brains to do. that.” From the inside, Stein could hear the creaking of panels as the old man leaned. “Gonna hole up and drink on Government money till I die.” Stein heard puffs of laughter, long gasps. “Government ain’t gettin’ . in my way no more.”

  Alone in the hall, Stein shrugged and tilted his warm right hand at the ceiling. With the light from the apartment gone, it was quite dim again and, sighing, Stein lit a match and, peering through his dark glasses, went to the door of the opposed apartment.

  “Screw,” said one of the children below, “now he fixin’ to put this place to fire.”

  “No. no,” the other said; “he just tryin’ to find a way for himself.”

  Stein flicked the match and threw it down the well, he spasmodically hit at the door of the other apartment with both hands, knowing that this was the second time that he had done this today and that, therefore there must follow at some time, a third. The door was flung open. A sweating cheek came out toward him then another; then Stem saw the entire face of a woman plastered over a fine, trapped delicacy which flickered at him from the corners of the half-closed eyes. “Me Silver,” the woman said, “what you want?”

  “Mrs. Silver? I’m from the Government. I — ”

  “I expected you,” the woman said. She grabbed Stein by the shoulder, dragged him into a long, long corridor at the end of which he could sense kitchen smells and an accretion of dishes. “I’ve been waiting for you.” Twirling in her grasp, rubbing his grenade, breathing absently through his mouth, Stem hopelessly followed.

  II

  Four years ago, Stein’s grenade had hit. The entire situation had started then. There were just two of them in the enclosure when it happened, the Sergeant and Stein in his private’s fatigues, steel pot absurdly jammed so deep on his head that his ears were blocked. All up and down the range that day, privates in fatigues were experimenting with their new grenades, fondling them, stroking their surfaces, half-burying them to gloat in the stand; looking with lust at their discovered possibilities, they waited for the Sergeants to come in for the fire. The Sergeants went with vast weariness down the rows of cubicles; they supervised the pulling of the pin and at the top of the throw they would shout for the private to release; then the grenade would go out fifty, sixty, seventy yards into the mud where it ticked and erupted. All up and down the range, then, the grenades were exploding in an intricate rhythm; two would hit at the same time and there would be a flash and roar, a pause, perhaps, of three seconds and another two would throw; then four more would hurtle into their smoke; it was all a delicate and precise business. In the last stall on the third line, Stein kneeled with the grenade in his right hand, staring. He knew that at any moment he could take the pin and diminish his life by ten-count; after, the entire line would be an inferno, but he tried not to think of this. Looking sadly at his grenade, knowing that he had the power in his hand to destroy, Stein found it all too much to contemplate: one twitch, one misplaced synapse, and it would all be in flames; Captain, Basic Training, Sergeants and the Company.

  This mixture of conscience and terror which kept the grenade lying shyly at his knee was such a narrow thing: Stein could feel it disintegrate as he squeezed the grenade and thought what an excellent thing it would probably be if all of them were to be pulverized. He waited, sweating in his clenched uniform, for the Sergeant to come in. On the far left, in the to
wer, a Lieutenant with a megaphone bellowed for synchronization of the fire, and Stein heard him as if from a great distance, then suddenly with power and immediacy, this shifting all as if in the first instants of true sleep. He was in a state of near-collapse; that was evident. This Lieutenant was two hundred yards away, but the megaphone injected him into every aspect of the field, into the helmet of every private. Looking at the grenade, Stein felt waves of potential lashing at him.

  This was the point that he had reached when the Sergeant came into the cubicle behind him, a small grim man wearing heavy combat belt and boots as if some undeclared and buried war had raged on these plains since the edge of the last engagement; there was an exhaustion about him which frightened Stein, gauging as he did the weariness of the small Sergeant from the way his feet lurched as he came into the cubicle and from the movement of his throat every time the grenades roared. It was not something he would have expected. The Sergeant detatched his canteen, had a careful drink of water, examined Stein. “Jesus Christ,” he said, “look who they’re giving grenades. Will you stop staring at it for God’s sake?”