Part 1 (2/2)
Dan asked benignly: ”Was that you raising a ruckus in here about five minutes ago? Looked like a whole mob of people was running around.”
I nodded, feeling the beginning of a strange contentment.
Next day I awoke at the usual time, to afternoon sunlight pus.h.i.+ng at the closed yellow shades of my furnished apartment, to the endless street noises coming in. I had slept well and felt alert at once, and began thinking about the girl.
Even if I had not seen her vanish, it would have been obvious that her comings and goings at the Inst.i.tute were accomplished by no ordinary prowlers' or burglars' methods. Nor was she there on any ordinary purpose; if she had stolen or vandalized, I would most certainly have been awakened early.
I ate an ordinary breakfast, not noticing much or being noticed, sitting at the counter in the restaurant on the ground floor of the converted hotel where I rented my apartment. The waitress wore green, although her hair was black. Once I had tried half-heartedly to talk to her, to know her, to make out, but she had kept on working and loafing, talking to me and everyone else alike.
When the sun was near going down I started for work as usual. I bought the usual newspaper to take along, but did not read it when I saw the headline PEACE TALKS FAILING. That evening I felt the way I supposed a lover should feel, going to his beloved.
Dan and two other guards greeted me with smiles of the kind that people wear when things that are clearly not their fault are going wrong for their employer. They told me that the psuedo-prowler had once more visited the gallery two-fifteen, had vanished as usual from the panel just as a guard approached that room, and then had several times appeared on the indicators for gallery two-twenty-seven. I went to two-twenty-seven, making a show of carrying in tools and equipment, and settled myself on a bench in a dim corner, to wait.
The contentment I had known for twenty-four hours became impatience, and with slow pa.s.sing time the tension of impatience made me uncon-trollably restless. I felt sure that she could some-how watch me waiting; she must know I was waiting for her, she must be able to see that I meant her no harm. Beyond meeting her, I had no plan at all.
Not even a guard came to distrub me. Around me, in paint and bronze and stone and welded steel, crowded the tortured visions of the twentieth century. I got up at last in desperation and found that not everything was torture. There on the wall were Monet's water lilies; at first nothing but vague flat shapes of paint, then the surface of a pond and a deep curve of reflected sky. I grew dizzy staring into the water, a dizziness of relief that made me laugh. When I looked away at last the walls and ceiling were s.h.i.+mmering as if the glare of the nightlights was reflected from Monet's pond.
I understood then that something was awry, something was being done to me, but I could not care.
Giggling at the world, I stood there breathing air that seemed to sparkle in my lungs. The auburn-haired girl came to my side and took my arm and guided me to the bench where my unused equipment lay.
Her voice had the beauty I had expected, though witha strange strong accent. ”Oh, I am sorry to make you weak and sick. But you insist to stay here and span much time, the time in which I must do my work.”
For the moment I could say nothing. She made me sit on the bench, and bent over me with con-cern, turning her head with something of the same questioning look as the girl in the Rembrandt painting. Again she said: ”Oh, I am sorry.”
”S'all right.” My tongue was heavy, and I still wanted to laugh.
She smiled and hurried away, flowed away. Again she was dressed in a green stretch suit, setting off the color of her hair. This time she vanished from my sight in normal fas.h.i.+on, going around one of the gallery's low part.i.tions. Coming from behind that part.i.tion were flashes of light.
I got unsteadily to my feet and went after her. Rounding the corner, I saw three devices set up on tripods, the tripods s.p.a.ced evenly around the Reclining Figure. From the three devices, which I could not begin to identify, little lances of light flicked like stings or brushes at the sculpture. And whirling around it like dancers, on silent rubbery feet, moved another pair of machine-shapes, busy with some purpose that was totally beyond me.
The girl reached to support me as I swayed. Her hands were strong, her eyes were darkly blue, and she was tall in slender curves. Smiling, she said: ”It is all right, I do no harm.”
”I don't care about that,” I said. ”I want only-not to tangle things with you.”
”What?” She smiled, as if at someone raving. She had drugged me, with subtle ga.s.ses in the air that sparkled in my lungs. I knew that but I did not care.
”I always hold back,” I said, ”and tangle things with people. Not this time. I want to love you without any of that. This is a simple miracle and I just want it to go on. Now tell me your name.”
She was so silent and solemn for a moment, watching me, that I feared that I had angered her. But then she shook her head and smiled again. ”My name is Day-ell. Now don't fall down!” and she took her supporting arm away.
For the moment I was content without her touching me. I leaned against the part.i.tion and looked at her busy machines. ”Will you steal our Reclining Figure?” I asked, giggling again as I wondered who would want it.
”Steal?” she was thoughtful. ”The two greatest works of this house I must save. I will replace them with copies so well made that no one will ever know, before-” She broke off. After a moment she added: ”Only you will know.” And then she turned away to give closer attention to her silent and ragingly busy machines. When she made an adjustment on a tiny thing she held in her hand, there were suddenly two Reclining Figures visible, one of them smaller and transparent but growing larger, moving toward us from some dark and distant s.p.a.ce that was temporarily within the gallery.
I was thinking over and over what Day-ell had said. Addled and joyful, I plotted what seemed to me a clever compliment, and announced: ”I know what the two greatest works in this house are.”
”Oh?” The word in her voice was a soft bell. But she was still busy.
”One is Rembrandt's girl.”
”You are right!” Day-ell, pleased, turned to me. ”Last night I took that one to safety. Where I take them, the originals, they will be safe forever.”
”But the best-is you.” I pushed away from the part.i.tion. ”I make you my girl. My love. Forever, if it can be. But how long doesn't matter.”
Her face changed and her eyes went wide, as if she truly understood how marvelous were such words, from anyone, from grim Joe Ricci in particular. She took a step toward me.
”If you could mean that,” she whispered, ”then I would stay with you, in spite of everything.”
My arms went round her and I could feel forever pa.s.sing. ”Stay, of course I mean it, stay with me.”
”Come, Day-ell, come,” intoned a voice, soft, but still having metal in its timbre. Looking over her shoulder I saw the machine-shapes waiting, balancing motionless now on their silent feet. There was again only one Reclining Figure.
My thoughts were clearing and I said to her: ”You're leaving copies, you said, and no one will know the difference, before. Before what? What's going to happen?”
When my girl did not answer I held her at arms' length. She was shaking her head slowly, and tears had come into her eyes. She said: ”It does not matter what happens, since I have found here a man of life who will love me. In my world there is no one like that. If you will hold me I can stay.”
My hands holding her began to shake. I said: ”I won't keep you here, to die in some disaster. I'll go with you instead.”
”Come, Day-ell, come.” It was a terrible steel whisper.
And she stepped back, compelled by the machine-voice now that I had let her go. She said to me: ”You must not come. My world is safe for paint, safe for bronze, not safe for men who love. Why do you think that we must steal-”
She was gone, the machines and lights gone with her.
The Reclining Figure stands ma.s.sive and immobile as ever, bronze blobs and curved holes, with a face like something scratched on by a child. Thump it with a knuckle, and it sounds hollowly. Maybe three hundred years' perspective is needed to see it as one of the two greatest in this house. Maybe eyes are needed, accustomed to more dimensions than ours; eyes of those who sent Day-ell diving down through time to save choice fragments from the murky wreckage of the New Renaissance, plunged in the mud of the ignorant and boastful twentieth century.
Not that her world is better. I could not live there now.
The painting looks unchanged. A girl of seven-teen still waits, frozen warmly in Rembrandt's light, three hundred years and more on the verge of smiling, secure that long from age and death and disappointment.
But will a war incinerate her next week, or an earthquake swallow her next month? Or will our city convulse and die in ma.s.s rioting madness, a Witches' Sabbath come true? What warning can I give?
When they found me alone and weeping in the empty gallery they talked about a nervous breakdown.
The indicators on the Security Panel are always quiet now and I have let myself be argued out of the little of my story that I told. No world is safe for those who love.
THE ADVENTURE OF THE METAL MURDERER.
It had the shape of a man, the brain of an electronic devil.
It and the machines like it were the best imitations of men and women that the berserkers, murderous machines themselves, were able to devise and build. Still, they could be seen as obvious frauds when closely inspected by any humans.
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