Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction 11th Part 14

"Have courage, Darling. Please. For your sake, for mine, have courage."

"Ah well," he said, "things could have been worse. Sup-pose it happened at home..." he laughed with genuine mirth.

"Lord, yes..."

"It might have happened in the subway, or tying my shoelace, or painting the ceiling."

"You are wonderful, Darling. Keeping your sense of hu-mor."

"Complaining won't do any good."

"George!"

"Please, Dearest. Keep calm. I don't like this any better than you. I can't go bowling any more, or fis.h.i.+ng, or play ball. Nothing."

"George, Darling! You never went bowling. You never did any of those things."

"No," he said with resignation. "True. But I'm still young. I could have done them ... I can't play ping-pong."

Her cry was one of anguish. "You never played ping-pong!"

After a long silence, he said, "But I always wanted to."

"We have to make a living," Marjorie said. "You can't work. What will we live on? We have to eat."

"Yes. I hadn't thought of that."

She crushed his limp hand in her tense one. "I'll work, George. I don't care.

We'll get along; don't you worry. I'll do anything. I'll take in wash; I'll scrub floors; I'll work in a millinery shop. Don't you worry. I'll keep us going."

"Maybe you can get back that modelling job," he sug-gested. She was about to speak but he silenced her with a nod. "Let's see now. Money? Will we need money?" he mused aloud. "With our social security, company benefits, disability, and all our policies, I figure we ought to get..." His brow creased as he calculated. "Let's see ... our income ought to be increased ... I figure ... forty dollars a week."Marjorie smiled briefly but the smile turned to a grimace of pain. "The price we have to pay."

George nodded, as though agreeing with some private in-ner thought. "Not so bad. That's not bad at all. We'll have more money; you can buy the things you always wanted. My own needs will be less..." He stretched out his arm toward the peanut bowl and Marjorie set it violently back on the armrest.

"Don't do that, Darling!"

"Don't do what?"

"Reach for the peanuts. Who knows, any minute now ... and you'd be reaching for peanuts the rest of your life."

"Oh, Marge."

"I'm serious. If you want something, Dear, ask me for it. Is there anything you want? You can still move from the waist; would you rather lie down, Dear?"

"This is fine."

"Are you sure? Wouldn't you rather lie down? Remem-ber..."

"This is better. I'll be able to talk to my friends. I can watch the television."

"How about the program, George? Do you like the pro-gram? Would you rather see something else?" She ran to the hall for the TV guide and came back with it opened. "There's boxing, George. Wouldn't you like to watch it?"

"Just leave it the way it is. I like this. And you know you can't stand boxing."

"I'd love to see it. Look! Rocky Florio versus Kid Carver, welter-weights. I'd like to see that."

"You know you wouldn't. You hate boxing."

"Because I never understood it. Teach me, George. I'll learn to like it."

He s.h.i.+vered and a quick spasm contorted his features. "My waist," he said.

"The atrophy hit my waist."

Marjorie looked deep into his eyes, and tears trickled from hers. "Won't it stop, George? Why won't it stop? Why us? Why not someone else?"

"That's selfish thinking, Dear."

"It's this sitting around that's so awful. This awful sitting, watching it happen. It would be different if I went out to a movie and came back andfound you atrophied. But this! This dying by inches."

"You know I'm not dying. Please don't get emotional." George raised his arm unconsciously and Marjorie threw her full weight on it pressing it back to the armrest.

"Don't do that! Tell me what you want, George, and I'll do it for you."

He grinned bashfully. "It's such a small thing."

"Anything, George, no matter how small..."

"Will you scratch my nose for me?" She looked at him with deep pity and scratched his nose. "A little higher," George said and then sighed a contented Ahhh.

Marjorie wrung her hands. "A whole life ahead of you," she said in hollow tones, "and you'll never be able to scratch yourself. Oh, George, I'll have to be here, beside you, al-ways, to scratch for you."

George shook his head. "No. Where the atrophy has set in there is no sensation at all. Just for a few minutes..."

"That's the worst part of all!" she cried. "A whole life to live and you'll never know what it is to itch." She ran her hands over his face and he kissed her palm gently. They sat in silence until George broke into both their thoughts.

"You know what I will miss," he said, wistfully. "I'll miss making myself snacks for the Late Late Show..."

"I'll make you marvellous snacks, George."

"No," he said. "No, it won't be the same thing. You don't quite understand.

You see, when you go to bed early, I stay up for the Late Show and the Late Late Show. In between between the two I get hungry. The house is completely quiet. Sometimes I hear buses down the avenue; once in a while a fire engine or ambulance; the siren screaming. I'm all alone. I go into the kitchen and switch on the light. It takes a second for the fluorescents to catch and then I'm all alone in the bright, s.h.i.+ny kitchen.

Everything is clean and tidy..."

"I do my best!"

"There's no food in sight. The only thing you can see are spotless shelves, a gleaming refrigerator, maybe a drainboard with clean dishes and cups in it. It looks like there isn't a bit of food in the place. I go to the refrigerator and open it..." His voice grew enthusiastic as he reminisced. "A whole world of midnight snacks lights up before my eyes. Herring in sour cream. Herring in wine sauce. Odds and ends of cheddar. Pimento olives. Velveeta spread.

A quarter cantaloupe; half a thing of cream cheese. I go through everything. I look around. I pick one out and then I put it back. There are dishes and dishes with covers on them; little things that were left over andthat we've forgotten about. One by one I take off the covers. There is a meatball! Two slices of roast-beef! I look at everything. I don't choose yet.

I go to the breadbox. There is half a loaf of rye, three or four kinds of crackers. Still I don't choose. I go to the pantry. There's peanut b.u.t.ter and all kinds of jam. Maybe during the day you bought some sardines, a new brand maybe, or perhaps tuna fish or salmon. Still I don't choose. I go to the cabinet with the sugar and flour and breakfast cereals. There are cornflakes! They weren't there yesterday. Cornflakes! Corn-flakes! Did I see peaches in the refrigerator? No! Yes! I don't remember. I run to the refrigerator. If there are peaches I'll have cornflakes with peaches and cream..."

"No! George!" she cried. "There aren't any peaches. But there are strawberries! Nice big ones. You can have corn-flakes with strawberries instead."

George sighed. She had missed the whole idea. "Ah, well," he said, letting the sentence trail off.

"I never knew it meant so much to you. I never dreamed "It was a small thing," he said with a deprecating gesture.

"The small things are the most important."

"Really, Darling, it doesn't..." He shuddered as his left arm atrophied. "My arm," he said, matter-of-factly. "The arm just went."

Marjorie said nothing but two bright trickles of tears ran down the two tiny gullies that age was wearing into her face. George darted a sidewise glance at her, saw that her attention was elsewhere, and flicked out his movable arm to the peanut dish.

"George!"

But George was grinning broadly. "I made it," he said.

"You mustn't do that. Do you want to give me heart fail-ure? George, you know what could happen. One second more..."

"But I made it; there's nothing to worry about."

"Promise me you won't do that again."

"Yes. I promise. But I had to reach for my last handful of peanuts."

Marjorie sat upright in her chair and gazed at her hus-band with deep admiration. Solemnly she said, "You have more courage than most men, George. No one will ever tell me that my husband is a coward."

"It was nothing."

"Don't be modest, George. You know perfectly well that most men wouldhave just sat there. Men with less character would have hesitated..."

George quivered as his other arm atrophied.

"You see," she said, her voice rising to an unnatural pitch.

"That split second was all. Other men would have been less decisive; and in that time-poof. But you, George, you defied fate." She took a deep breath. "I go all weak inside when I think of it. George ... I ... I..." But she couldn't get out whatever it was that she wanted to say. George seem-ed totally absorbed in the program and was unaware that his wife watched him intently; sobbing noiselessly, and flexing her own hands as though she hoped to grasp the physical essence of the futile situation and bend it to her will. She ended the long silence with a piercing little scream.

"George!"

"What is it now, Dear?"

"Our lives, Darling! Our lives are ruined!"

"Please don't start that again." His voice struck a note of mild admonition.

"You have to stay there, in that chair, the whole long rest of your life."

"We both know that, Marge, Dear," he said gently.

She bolted from the chair, leaned over him and spoke with her mouth scant inches from his. "You don't ... I don't think you know what that means. You can't ever leave, never, forever you'll always be sitting there..."

"Of course I know that. It's perfectly clear."

"You don't understand. You don't see." She searched his eyes for the gleam that would tell her he knew her unspoken meaning; but she saw no light.

"We can't fight City Hall," George said. "We have to face the realities."

"George, George," she moaned. "You don't understand; you don't see. All the time ... never to leave."

George's p.r.o.nounced, balding forehead creased and crinkled in thought as he struggled toward comprehension. "Yes," he said, finally, smiling faintly.

"I see. You'll have to bring me my food; that will be a bother. You'll have to vacuum around me ... I still don't see why you have to get so excited..."

"You can't come to bed, George," she blurted.

"Yes," he said, after a pause. "That's so. I hadn't thought of that ... but with a couple of extra blankets I'll be warm here. It won't be as bad as all..."

"And me, George. I have to get between the cold sheets alone...""Oh now, Marge, a couple of extra blankets and you'll be warm enough."

"We can't make love any more, George!" she cried. "We aren't husband and wife. We aren't lovers any more."

"True," George said. "I hadn't' thought of that."

"Not another chance! Never again. Oh George!" She was standing erect now, her arms stretched before her in an imploring gesture. Her voice became poetic, nostalgic. "That was the best part, George; I loved you most then; always in your arms, the little light glowing ... You always said such silly little things; I loved you most then, George." She paused and then continued in anguish. "And it's my fault, George. All my fault. If I had been a little more understanding be-fore; if I had listened to my intuition just a while ago; when it was just your foot. We would have had one last chance; we would have had time. One last chance; it doesn't seem so much to ask."

"But we didn't think of it," George said, trying to be both consoling and logical. "We didn't think of it, Marge."

"I know, I know. It's all my fault. I didn't think. I didn't dream ... Oh George, just one last time. It wouldn't have been so much to ask; one last time in your arms."

"We didn't think of it, Marge. I didn't and you didn't. It isn't Wednesday.

There's no use crying over spilt..."

But Marjorie was talking at him, not to him, rapturously. "All our quarrels were made up there, George. Whatever the day, the nights were all soft and tender; in your arms I was a princess at dawn, George, beside my sleeping prince. It was marvellous; it was perfect; wasn't it?"

"Oh yes," he said.

"We were pa.s.sionate; how we were pa.s.sionate; like lovers, not like husband and wife. Each day was an experience; wasn't it, George? Every night eight hours of paradise. We were happy, so very happy, weren't we, George?"

"Oh yes," he said.

"We did things together. What lives we led! Everyone envied us, we made life so exciting. We never fought, never bickered like other couples; we were happy, weren't we?"

"I said we were," he replied gently. "We were very happy."