The Golden Age Of Science Fiction Vol I Part 42

"How are things going?" the girl said in her pleasant smooth voice.

"I am fine," Mrs. Wladek said deliberately. She did not inquire about the girl's health. That would show her; that impoliteness would show her what an old woman thought of her!

"That's good," the girl said. "That's very good. And how is Rudi?"

"Rudi is my son," Mrs. Wladek said.

"I know that," the girl said, and smiled. "We met last week, don't you remember?"

"I remember you," Mrs. Wladek said. Then, grudgingly, she added: "Rudi is the same. He is fine."

"That's fine," the girl said. "And has he found a job yet?"

Here it was necessary to lie, Mrs. Wladek knew. One could not say that Rudi did not look for work. One had to say: "Work is difficult to find. He tries, but there is no job."

"And how about yourself?" the girl said.

"I am an old woman," Mrs. Wladek said. "Who would hire an old woman?"

The girl nodded. "It's been a long time since your husband died," she said.

"In an accident with an automobile," Mrs. Wladek said. "I remember that time. It is sad to think of."

"And Rudi hasn't found any work in all that time," the girl said.

"He looks hard," Mrs. Wladek said earnestly. This was a game that had to be played, she knew, a conversation that started and finished each time she came for an appointment. "He looks but work is difficult to find," she said.

"I understand," the girl said. "But I'm sure you and Rudi will both find work soon." She paused and her eyes closed.

Mrs. Wladek felt something happen.

It was ... she felt ... a stirring, a changing- She stood up suddenly and the chair clattered, balanced and rocked back upright. "What are you doing?"

"Doing?" the girl said.

"I go to look for work," Mrs. Wladek said. "You make me want to look for work!"

"That's fine, Mrs. Wladek," the girl said. "That's just fine."

"But I want to look for work!" Mrs. Wladek said, horrified. "What do you do to me?"

The girl only smiled.

Mrs. Wladek spun and ran for the door, her eyes wide; but she collided with a desk and backed off, and then managed to find her way. The door banged behind her.

Gloria sat at her desk smiling, filled with satisfaction. Of course, a reaction like Mrs. Wladek's was only to be expected, but when it was over she would be looking for work.

Gloria released the little doll she had held throughout the interview and let it fall back, out of sight, into her desk drawer. The doll was shaped into a vague female likeness.

She didn't need it now.

Her work was done.

Mrs. Wladek was going to look for work, and that would adjust her to the world. She would be a functioning member of society now, and it would do her a lot of good. Rudi, too-Gloria considered Rudi. There was another doll in the drawer, a male, and after a few seconds she put her hand in the drawer and fished around until she had found it.

She turned it slowly, feeling for the son, until at last she had made contact.

There.

He was talking with some friends; it would not be hard. She concentrated, and at the same time she heard him talking: "So look, here's the way I see it. We got the Cobras on our necks, we got to get rid of them, right?"

Someone said: "Right, Rudi."

"So if we start a little rumble, very quiet so the cops don't figure what's going on, then we-"

A silence.

Someone said: "What's wrong, Rudi?"

"I don't know. Something. What am I doing just standing here?"

And someone said: "What do you mean?"

"I mean I ought to be out getting a job, man. Earning some bread for the old lady. Got to have money, got to have a job."

Someone said: "Hey, Rudi. Wait. What's the hurry?"

And Rudi had gone.

Gloria dropped the doll and closed the drawer, and sat back, smiling gently. It was wonderful to be able to help people.

It was just wonderful.

Find work. Find a job.

Go to the employment agency.

Start looking for work, right now.

Get a job.

It will be nice to have a steady job.

Nice- Somehow, Mrs. Wladek fought off the voices in her mind. It was so easy to succ.u.mb to them and to drift into the terrible things they wanted. Mrs. Wladek did not want them at all.

A job, indeed!

But it took effort, all the same, to concentrate on herself instead of the work, the job, the employment agency. It took effort to sit down on a bench in the park, near the building where the case workers were, and plan out the next step.

A witch, certainly. The girl was a witch and she had put a hex on Mrs. Wladek, and that hex had to be removed.

How?

Mrs. Wladek thought first of the old woman in the store.

Certainly a gypsy woman would be able to take off a hex. Mrs. Wladek remembered gypsies from the old country, laughing people with the strange gift, witches themselves but always available for a price- The gypsy woman.

Mrs. Wladek stood up and began to walk toward the park's exit. She forced her legs to move, creaking, one step at a time, thinking to herself: The gypsy woman, the gypsy woman, the gypsy woman-and trying to ignore the voices in her head that went on and on: It would be good to find a job.

Go right away to the employment agency.

Right away- There were those who laughed-Marya Proderenska thought-and there would always be those who laughed, but that did not injure her; for scoffers she felt only a vast contempt. Had she not been shown in a dream that the power was hers? Had not each of her husbands, even the third who had contracted the fever and died with great suddenness in three weeks, admitted to her that she had a power beyond that of any normal woman? It was the power of vision and movement, the power of spell and incantation.

The others called it magic, though no gypsy would call it so.

Marya Proderenska sat quietly in the back room of the little shop and waited. A woman would come; she knew that, and the knowledge was another piece of her power, and a proof of it. Farther she could not see, but in the cloud of the future the woman was clear.

(What power Marya Proderenska had, a blond social worker had, too, and other people; she had never been able to clear her mind of her own superst.i.tions enough to train the power or work very effectively with it. The power was sufficient for her.) Marya Proderenska sighed. The power demanded its own responsibilities. She could not marry outside the clan into which she had been born. She could not be seen on certain days of every month. During those days many foods were forbidden her.

Thus the power worked, and thus she lived.

The woman would bring money for her, Marya knew. So she sat in the back of the shop and waited, and sighed, until the front door sighed open and Marie Wladek called: "Old woman, old woman!"

"Do you call me?" Marya said in her proud baritone.

"I call you, I call the gypsy woman."

Marya stood up and smoothed her old dress over the big-boned frame all of her husbands had admired. "Then come to me," she called.

Marie Wladek crept into the room, her eyes saucers of awe. To speak of witches was all very well, and a fresh-faced girl could give one fright; but here was the authority and power of witchcraft, in this woman with the fuzz of hair on her lip and the great trumpeting voice.

"I come for help," Mrs. Wladek said.

"I know why you have come," Marya Proderenska said. "You have a great trouble."

Mrs. Wladek nodded. "I am bewitched. A witch has placed a hex upon me, and I come to you to remove it."

There was a little silence. Then Marya Proderenska said: "The powers will not do work without payment."

Mrs. Wladek dug into her ancient beaded purse and found a crumpled dollar bill. She handed it over and the gypsy woman smiled and ducked her head.

"It is enough," she said.

Mrs. Wladek said: "Then you will help me?"

"I will help you," the gypsy woman said. "Tell me of this curse upon you."

"There is a voice in my mind," Mrs. Wladek said. "The voice tells me-even now it continues-to go to an employment agency, to accept work ... and the voice is not of my making."

"Whose voice is this?" the gypsy woman said.

"It is my own voice," Mrs. Wladek said. "The voice is my own, but I did not tell it to speak. Inside my own head, I can hear my own voice as if someone else put it there."

"Ah," the gypsy woman said. "And who is the witch who has put this curse upon you?"

Mrs. Wladek sighed. "At the office of the social workers, there is one, a young woman. She has done this to me."

Marya Proderenska nodded. Her eyes closed.

Mrs. Wladek stared at the still figure without moving for a minute. Time stretched endlessly. The room was very quiet; Mrs. Wladek heard the continuing voice in her mind and felt fear.

Another minute ticked by.

At last the gypsy woman opened her eyes. "It is a strong curse," she said in a distant voice. "But I have erased it for you. I have taken the hex from you. Is it not so?"

"Taken the hex-" Mrs. Wladek shook her head. "Then why do I still hear the voice?"

"You still hear it?" The gypsy woman muttered under her breath. "Come back tomorrow. We work again."

"Tomorrow is a long time."

The gypsy woman closed her eyes for a second. "All right," she said, and snapped them open. "Four o'clock this afternoon."

"I will be here."

"It is a strong curse."

"You will help me," Mrs. Wladek said.

"I will help you," Marya Proderenska said.

But, after the old woman had left, Marya Proderenska sat alone and her face was troubled. The strength of the curse-she had felt it herself-was enormous. She did not know of any magician who had such power.

She listed over the members of her own clan in her mind, and became satisfied that none she knew was responsible. And yet, the strength of the curse argued real power; was it possible that a power existed within the city, and she did not know of it? Marya felt a cold wind on her back, the wind of fear.

Such a power might do-anything.

And yet it was being used to coerce one useless old woman into taking a job!

Marya Proderenska lay flat on the floor, her arms outstretched. Thus one might gather the vital energies. Four o'clock was not many hours distant, and by four o'clock she would need all of the energy she could summon.

She did not allow herself to become doubtful about the outcome.

And yet she was afraid.

Gloria smiled understandingly at the woman who sat across the desk.

"I understand, Mrs. Francis," she said.