Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction 11th Part 12

"We temporal castaways are bound to be disoriented for a while," he said.

"We must help each other. You, for example, may have some trouble adjusting to the fact that your son Hauki, the Freeholder of Tervola-"

"Hauki!" She sprang to her feet. The cabin blurred around her.

"-is now a vigorous elderly man who looks back on a most successful life,"

said Ivalo. "Which includes the begetting of Karlavi here." Her grandson's strong hands closed about her own. "Who in turn," finished Ivalo, "is the recent father of a bouncing baby boy named Hauki. And all your people are waiting to welcome you home!"

_______________________________.

John Anthony West years ago fled the weather of New York and publis.h.i.+ng row to live on Ibiza (an island south of Robert Graves' Majorca], and write.

This stimulating (?) example of his special satiric talent is one of the products of that flight, and perhaps in part explains it.

GEORGE.

by John Anthony West

George and Marjorie were sitting, alternately reaching for peanuts, watching TV-as they did most weekday eve-nings-when George's foot fell asleep.

At least his foot seemed to be asleep though that characteristic tinglingsensa-tion was absent. First he tried ma.s.saging the foot but when it failed to improve he rose from his chair and began hop-ping about the living room, thinking that the exercise would restore circulation.

Marjorie watched him with increasing irritation.

"George!" she said, finally. "Cut it out! You're making the image jump."

He stopped and smiled at her apologetically. "Sorry, Dear," he said. "My darn foot's asleep. Must have been sitting in the same position too long,"

and he began hopping again.

"George! You don't have to make such a fuss about it."

He walked, jiggled and hopped across the room in un-gainly strides, shaking his foot vigorously. "I can't help it," he said, with a grimace, still hopping. "Have to wake it up."

Marjorie struck the table between the armchairs with the palm of her hand.

"Everybody's foot falls asleep," she said.

George halted and glared at her. "But my foot," he said, a bit breathlessly, "is asleep right now," and he began hopping about the living room again.

"The least you can do," said Marjorie, with chilled sar-casm, "if you must hop, is to hop out in the hall."

"I'll be G.o.dd.a.m.ned if I'll hop out in the hall just to wake up my foot!" he shouted.

"You're being childish again."

"Childish? What's childish? What's childish about waking up my foot?"

"It's your att.i.tude that's childish."

"Att.i.tude? I'm trying to wake up my foot. There's no atti-tude in the whole picture."

"If you'll just sit down, Dear, and forget it, it will pa.s.s."

From the middle of the living room he stared at his wife. His brow furrowed with leashed insults; his jaws worked; but when he spoke, finally, he said, "You are right, Dear. It will pa.s.s." He sat back in the armchair.

Several minutes later the foot was still asleep. He stood up, took a few tentative hops; but when he saw Marjorie glaring at him with her most baleful glare he sat down sheepishly, took off his shoe and began ma.s.saging the foot.

"...George!"

"What?""What do you think you're doing?"

"Can't I take off my shoes?"

"Suppose someone comes?"

"Suppose they do?"

"And you're sitting there with your shoe off?"

"Can't I take off my shoes in my own house?"

"But you only took off one shoe."

George put one hand on his knee and with the other ruminatively scratched the balding spot on his head. "I'm afraid I don't see the difference."

"You're completely insensitive," snapped Marjorie.

"Well watch the program," he replied, in strained tones.

But a few minutes pa.s.sed and he could no longer contain himself. He began thumping the foot on the floor and knocking it against the table leg. He felt Marjorie's gimlet glance.

"I know, I know. I'm being silly-but I can't watch the program when my foot's asleep."

"Other men could. You have no intestinal fort.i.tude, George."

"It's easy for you to say. It isn't your foot.

"And if it were I wouldn't make a fuss about it. Men are all big babies."

George let out a long, sighing breath and jammed his back into the foam rubber cus.h.i.+ons.

When George spoke again, his voice had a note of alarm in it. He had his foot crossed over his knee and was rubbing it vigorously. "Marjorie!" he said, "my foot isn't asleep..."

"Then why make all this..."

"Something wrong with it."

"Oh George."

"I'm serious. Look! I can't move it. My foot is stiff some-how." He tugged and wrenched at the foot. "See? It won't move."

"You are holding it that way on purpose."He ripped off his sock. "Will you pay attention to me? Just look!" He wrestled with the foot; tried to flex his toes. "Now do you believe me? My whole foot is rigid."

"You are doing it on purpose. You just want my sym-pathy."

"Marjorie, Darling. Please listen to me." He tugged at the foot. "See? I can't move it."

"You're not trying."

"I know when I'm trying and when I'm not. I am trying. Try to move it yourself."

She looked at the foot disdainfully. "I don't want to play games with your sweaty foot."

"My foot isn't sweaty."

"In this weather?"

"All right. My foot is sweaty. But try and move it."

"I believe you. You can't move your foot."

"You don't believe me. I can tell by the tone of your voice."

"Your foot is asleep and you can't move it. I believe you."

"It is not asleep; there's something wrong with it. A sleep-ing foot doesn't just go rigid."

Marjorie threw a peanut on the rug in pique. "You are such a hypochondriac, George. Every little thing. Just like the time you thought you had appendicitis and it was gas pains."

"What was I supposed to think? I was lying on the bed in agony. It might have been appendicitis."

"Well, it wasn't. And you're not lying in agony right now. Your foot is asleep and you have to make such a deal out of it. I just don't know."

"A sleeping foot doesn't get stiff."

"It does when it's very soundly asleep ... maybe you sprained it walking around."

"How would I do that?"

"I don't know. Where did you walk today?"

"My usual walking; what do you think? I walked from the subway to the office and then I walked to the water cooler twice ... no, three times."Marjorie nodded. "You see! Usually you only go to the water cooler twice."

"Yeah," George snarled, "but I only went to the Men's Room once. That makes up for it. You're always talking about things you don't know the first thing about."

"How am I supposed to know? Usually you go twice."

"That's precisely what I mean. Let's forget the whole thing." He plunged into the cus.h.i.+ons but when the commer-cial began, Marjorie said: "Still-you can over-exert a tendon and not know it. Remember Geraldine Roberts? She fell down the subway stairs and broke three ribs and didn't know it for a week."

George laughed mirthlessly. "I didn't fall down the sub-way stairs. I didn't over-exert a tendon. And Geraldine Rob-erts was stewed to the ears when she fell."

"So what," said Marjorie, her eyes glittering. "Your friend, Walter, is a complete lush."

"We weren't talking about Walter," he replied tonelessly.

He rose from the chair and began limping about the room. Marjorie watched him with scorn. "Does it hurt?"

"No."

She smiled suddenly. "You walk like a war hero, George ... 'Only hurts when I lawf'," she said, with an abysmal British accent.

"I'm not a war hero and I don't want to walk like one."

"Don't be such a milktoast, George. You could have been a war hero."

George stopped limping and spoke at the wall. "How could I be a war hero?

I was in New Jersey training recruits the whole time."

"Yes," said Marjorie, enthusiastically. "You are training recruits and a nervous private drops a hand grenade. In another second you see that the whole regiment will be blown to smithereens and you leap on top of it..."

"All of which results in a stiffened foot. Besides, I was training them to use a calculating machine. And if someone dropped a hand grenade near me, you can bet that..." His sarcastic expression became one of horror.

Tentatively he took several steps. When he spoke his voice approached the breaking point.

"Marjorie! Marjorie! My other foot! My other foot's gone stiff! I can't move it!"She watched his awkward hobble a moment before she spoke. "Please, George," she said. "You mustn't get this excited. Come and sit down and it will pa.s.s in a while. Your other foot's gone asleep, that's all. Don't make such a fuss about every little thing."

George hobbled in great, crooked lurches, shaking with fear and anger.

"Don't make such a fuss. Great Christ! You'd think I'm just anybody. Me, George. Your husband. Suddenly I'm paralyzed; I can't walk, and you say..."

"Of course you can walk. You were just walking."

"Do you call that walking?" He exaggerated his hobble. "Is that walking?"

"There are millions of people who would give their right arm to walk that well..."

"What the h.e.l.l do I care about them. It's me, George, who can't walk right now. I've got leprosy or something and you sit there..."

"You don't have leprosy, George. If you had leprosy your feet wouldn't stiffen; they'd fall off..." She stood up sud-denly, and in a high, off-key voice began singing, "Lep-ro-sy. My G.o.d, I've got lep-ro-sy. There goes my eye-ball, right into my high-ball..."