Collected Short Fiction, page 871
—Come upstairs. I’ll meet you by the elevator.
He was bigger than Selig expected, a fullback of a man, his blue eyes uninviting, his smile a purely formal one. He was remote without actually being cold. Nyquist offered him a drink and they talked, keeping out of one another’s minds as much as possible. It was a subdued visit, unsentimental, no tears of joy at having come together at last. Nyquist was affable, accessible, pleased that Selig had appeared, but not at all delirious with excitement at the discovery of a fellow freak. Possibly it was because he had discovered fellow freaks before. “There are others,” he said. “You’re the third, fourth, fifth I’ve met since I came to the States. Let’s see—one in Chicago, one in San Francisco, one in Miami, one in Minneapolis. You’re the fifth. Two women, three men in all.”
“Are you still in touch with the others?”
“No.”
“What happened?”
“We drifted apart,” Nyquist said. “What did you expect? That we’d be clannish? Look, we talked, we played games with our minds, we got to know each other and after a while we got bored. I think two of them are dead now. I don’t mind being isolated from the rest of my kind. I don’t think of myself as one of a tribe.”
“I never met another one,” said Selig. “Until today.”
“It isn’t important. What’s important is living your own life. How old were you when you found out you could do it?”
“I don’t know. Five, six years old, maybe. And you?”
“I didn’t realize I had anything special until I was eleven. I thought everybody could do it. It was only after I came to the States and heard people thinking in a different language that I knew there was something out of the ordinary about my mind.”
“What kind of work do you do?” Selig asked.
“As little as I can,” said Nyquist. He grinned and thrust his perceptors brusquely into Selig’s mind. It seemed like an invitation of sorts—Selig accepted it and pushed forth his own antennae. Roaming the other man’s consciousness, he quickly grasped the picture of Nyquist’s Wall Street sorties. He saw the entire balanced, rhythmic, unobsessive life of the man. He was amazed by Nyquist’s coolness, his wholeness, his clarity of spirit. How limpid Nyquist’s soul was! How unmarred by life! Where did he keep his anguish? Where did he hide his loneliness, his fear, his insecurity? Nyquist, withdrawing, said, “Why do you feel so sorry for yourself?”
“Do I?”
“It’s all over your head. What’s the problem, Selig? I’ve looked into you and I don’t see the problem, only the pain.”
“The problem is that I feel isolated somewhat from other human beings.”
“Isolated? You? You can get right inside people’s heads. You can do something that ninety-nine point nine hundred and ninety-nine percent of the human race can’t do. They’ve got to struggle along using words, approximations, semaphore signals, and you go straight to the core of meaning. How can you pretend you’re isolated?”
“The information I get is useless,” Selig said. “I can’t act on it. I might just as well not be reading it in.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s just voyeurism. I’m spying on them. Sometimes I see myself as a kind of leech. A parasite. A vampire.”
“You feel guilty about that?”
“Don’t you?”
“I didn’t ask for my gift,” Nyquist said. “I just happen to have it. Since I have it, I use it. I like it. I like the life I lead. I like myself. Why don’t you like yourself, Selig?”
“You tell me.”
But Nyquist had nothing to tell him and when Selig had finished his drink he went back downstairs. His own apartment seemed so strange to him as he reentered it that he spent a few minutes handling familiar artifacts, his parents’ photograph, his little collection of adolescent love-letters, the plastic toy that the psychiatrist had given him years ago. He felt so jarred by the meeting, so intruded upon, that he resolved never to see Nyquist again, in fact to move somewhere else as soon as possible, to Manhattan, to Philadelphia, to Los Angeles, any place that might be beyond Nyquist’s reach. All his life he had yearned to meet someone who shared his gift and now that he had he felt threatened. Nyquist was so much in control of his life that it was terrifying. He’ll humiliate me, Selig thought. He’ll devour me. But that panic faded. Two days later Nyquist came around to ask him out to dinner. They ate in a nearby Mexican restaurant and got smashed on Carta Blanca. It still appeared to Selig that Nyquist was toying with him, teasing him, holding him at arm’s length and tickling him—but it was all done so amiably that Selig felt no resentment. Nyquist’s charm was irresistible and his strength was worth taking as a model of behavior. Nyquist was like an older brother who had preceded him through this same vale of traumas and had emerged unscathed long ago—now he was jollying Selig into an acceptance of the terms of his existence. The superhuman condition, Nyquist called it.
THEY became close friends.
Two or three times a week they went out together, ate together, drank together. Selig had always imagined that a friendship with someone else of his kind would be uniquely intense, but this was not—after the first week they took their specialness for granted and rarely discussed the gift they shared, nor did they ever congratulate each other on having formed an alliance against the ungifted world around them. They communicated sometimes by words, sometimes by the direct contact of minds. It became an easy, cheerful relationship, strained only when Selig slipped into his habitual brooding mood and Nyquist mocked him for such self-indulgence. Even that was no difficulty between them until the blizzard—then all their tensions became exaggerated because they were spending so much time together.
“Hold out your glass,” Nyquist said.
He poured an amber splash of bourbon. Selig settled back to drink while Nyquist set about finding girls for them. The project took him five minutes. He scanned the building and turned up a pair of roommates on the fifth floor. “Take a look,” he said to Selig. Selig entered Nyquist’s mind. Nyquist had attuned himself to the consciousness of one of the girls—sensual, sleepy, kittenish—and was looking through her eyes at the other, a tall gaunt blonde. The doubly refracted mental image nevertheless was quite clear—the blonde had a leggy voluptuousness and fashion-model poise. “That one’s mine,” Nyquist said. “Now tell me if you like yours.” He jumped, Selig following along, to the mind of the blonde. Yes, a fashion model, more intelligent than the other girl, cold, selfish, passionate. From her mind, via Nyquist, came the image of her roommate, sprawled out on a sofa in a pink housecoat—a short plump redhead, breasty, full-faced. “Sure,” Selig said. “Why not?” Nyquist, rummaging through minds, found the girls’ phone number, called, worked his charm. They came up for drinks. “This awful snowstorm,” the blonde said, shuddering. “It can drive you crazy!” The four of them went through a lot of liquor to a tinkling jazz accompaniment: Mingus, MJQ, Chico Hamilton. The redhead was better-looking than Selig had expected, not quite so plump or coarse—the double refraction must have introduced some distortions—but she giggled too much and he found himself disliking her to some degree. Still, there was no backing out now. Eventually, very late in the evening, they coupled off, Nyquist and the blonde in the bedroom, Selig and the redhead in the living room.
About the time he realized the redhead was too drunk to perform, Selig felt a tickle in his skull—Nyquist was probing him. This show of curiosity, this voyeurism, seemed an odd diversion for the usually self-contained Nyquist. Spying’s my trick, Selig thought, and for a moment he was disturbed. Then: This has no deep significance, he told himself. Nyquist is wholly amoral and does what he pleases, peeks here and peeks there without regard for propriety—why should I let his scanning bother me? Recovering, he reciprocated the probe. Nyquist welcomed him:
—How you doing, Davey?
—Fine. Just fine.
—I got me a hot one here. Take a look.
Selig envied Nyquist’s cool detachment. Nyquist, pausing a moment to detect and isolate Selig’s sense of uneasiness, mocked it gently. You’re worried that there’s some kind of latent gayness in this thing, Nyquist told him. But I think what really scares you is contact, any sort of contact. Right? Wrong, Selig said, but he had felt the point hit home. Soon afterward their contact ceased.
Nyquist came into the living room half an hour later, the blonde with him. He didn’t bother to knock, which surprised the redhead a little. Nyquist put on some music and they all sat quietly, Selig and the redhead working on the bourbon, Nyquist and the blonde nipping into the Scotch. Toward dawn, as the snow began to slacken, the redhead fumbled for her clothes. At the door, wobbling and staggering, making a boozy farewell, she let something slip. In vino veritas. “I can’t help thinking there’s something peculiar about you two guys. You aren’t a couple of queers, by any chance?”
XIV
I TRIED to be good to Judith, I tried to be kind and loving, but our hatred kept coming between us. I said to myself, She’s my kid sister, my only sibling, I must love her more. But you can’t will love. You can’t conjure it into existence on nothing more than good intentions. Besides, my intentions had never been that good. I saw her as a rival from the word go. I was the firstborn, I was the difficult one, the maladjusted one. I was supposed to be the center of everything. Those were the terms of my contract with God—I must suffer because I am different, but by way of compensation the entire universe will revolve about me. The girl baby who was brought into the household was intended to be nothing more than a therapeutic aid designed to help me relate better to the human race. That was the deal. She wasn’t supposed to have independent reality as a person, she wasn’t supposed to have her own needs or make demands or drain away parental love. Just a thing, an item of furniture. But I knew better than to believe that. I was ten years old, remember, when they adopted her. Your ten-year-old, he’s no fool. I knew my parents, no longer feeling obliged now to direct all their concern exclusively toward their mysteriously intense and troubled son, would rapidly and with great relief transfer their attention and their love—yes, particularly their love—to the cuddly, uncomplicated infant. She would take my place at the center—I would become a quirky obsolescent artifact. Do you blame me for trying to kill her in her bassinet? On the other hand you can understand the origin of her lifelong coldness toward me. I offer no defense at this late date. The cycle of hatred began with me. With me, Jude, with me, with me, with me. You could have broken it with love, though, if you had wanted to. You didn’t want to.
On a Saturday afternoon in May, 1961, I went out to my parents’ house. In those years I didn’t go there often, though I lived twenty minutes away by subway. I was outside the family circle, autonomous and remote, and I felt a powerful resistance to any kind of reattachment. For one thing I had free-floating hostilities toward my parents—their fluky genes, after all, had sent me into the world this way. And then, too, there was Judith, shriveling me with her disdain—did I need more of that? So I stayed away from the three of them for weeks, months at a time, until the melancholy maternal phone calls became too much for me, until the weight of my guilt overcame my resistance.
I was happy to discover, when I got there, that Judith was still in her bedroom, asleep. At three in the afternoon? Well, my mother said, she had been out late last night on a date. Judith was sixteen. I imagined her going to a high school basketball game with some skinny pimply kid and sipping milkshakes afterwards. Sleep well, sister, sleep on and on. But of course her absence put me into direct and unshielded confrontation with my sad and depleted parents. My mother, mild and dim, my father, weary and bitter. All my life they had steadily grown smaller. They seemed very small now. The seemed close to the vanishing point.
I had never lived in this apartment. For years Paul and Martha had struggled with the upkeep of a three-bedroom place they couldn’t afford, simply because it had become impossible for Judith and me to share the same bedroom once she was past her infancy. The moment I left for college, taking a room near campus, they found a smaller and far less expensive one. Their bedroom was to the right of the entry foyer and Judith’s, down a long hall and past the kitchen, was to the left. Straight ahead was the living room, in which my father sat dreamily leafing through the Times. He read nothing but the newspaper these days, though once his mind had been more active. From him came a dull sludgy emanation of fatigue. He was making some decent money for the first time in his life, actually would end up quite prosperous, yet he had conditioned himself to the poor-man psychology: poor Paul, you’re a pitiful failure—you deserved so much better from life. I looked at the newspaper through his mind as he turned the pages. Yesterday Alan Shepard had made his epochal sub-orbital flight, the first manned venture into space by the United States, U.S. HURLS MAN 115 MILES INTO SPACE, cried the banner headline, SHEPARD WORKS CONTROLS IN CAPSULE, REPORTS BY RADIO IN 15-MINUTE FLIGHT. I groped for some way to connect with my father. “What did you think of the space voyage?” I asked. “Did you listen to the broadcast?” He shrugged. “Who gives a damn? It’s all crazy. A waste of everybody’s time and money.” ELIZABETH VISITS POPE IN VATICAN. Fat Pope John, looking like a well-fed rabbi. JOHNSON TO MEET LEADERS IN ASIA ON U.S. TROOP USE. He skimmed onward, skipping pages. Kennedy signs wage-floor bill. Nothing registered on him, not even KENNEDY TO SEEK INCOME TAX CUTS. He lingered at the sports pages. A faint flicker of interest. MUD MAKES CARRY BACK STRONGER FAVORITE FOR 87th KENTUCKY DERBY TODAY. YANKS OPPOSE ANGELS IN OPENER OF 3-GAME SERIES BEFORE 21,000 ON COAST. “What do you like in the Derby?” I asked. He shook his head. “What do I know about horses?” he said. He was, I realized, already dead, although in fact his heart would beat for another decade. He had stopped responding. The world had defeated him.
I left him to his brooding and made polite talk with my mother: her Hadassah reading group was discussing To Kill a Mockingbird next Thursday and she wanted to know if I had read it. I hadn’t. What was I doing with myself? Had I seen any good movies? L’Avventura, I said. Is that a French film, she asked? Italian, I said. She wanted me to describe the plot. She listened patiently, looking troubled, not following anything. “Who did you go with?” she asked. “Are you seeing any nice girls?” My son the bachelor. Already twenty-six and not even engaged. I deflected the tiresome question with patient skill born of long experience. Sorry, Martha. I won’t give you the grandchildren you’re waiting for.
“I have to baste the chicken now,” she said and disappeared. I sat with my father for a while, until I couldn’t stand that, and went down the hall to the john, next to Judith’s room. Her door was ajar. I glanced in. Lights off, blinds drawn, but I touched her mind and found that she was awake and thinking of getting up. All right, make a gesture, be friendly, Duvid. It won’t cost you anything. I knocked lightly. “Hi, it’s me,” I said. “Okay if I come in?”
SHE was sitting up, yawning, stretching. Her face, usually so taut, was puffy from too much sleep. From force of habit I went into her mind, and saw something new and surprising there. My sister’s erotic inauguration. The night before. The whole thing: the scurry in the parked car, the rise of excitement, the sudden realization that this was going to be more than an interlude of petting, the panties coming down, the awkward shiftings of position, the moment of ultimate hesitation giving way to total willingness, the body against body, the quick explosion, the messy aftermath, the guilt and confusion and disappointment as it ended with Judith still unsatisfied. The drive home, silent, shamefaced. Into the house, tiptoe, hoarsely greeting the vigilant, unsleeping parents. The late night shower. Uneasy sleep, frequently punctured. A long stretch of wakefulness, in which the night’s event is considered: she is pleased and relieved to have entered womanhood, but also frightened. Unwillingness to rise and face the world the next day, especially to face Paul and Martha. Judith, your secret is no secret to me.
“How are you?” I asked.
Stagily casual, she drawled, “Sleepy. I was out very late. How come you’re here?”
“I drop in to see the family now and then.”
“Nice to have seen you.”
“That isn’t friendly, Jude. Am I that loathsome to you?”
“Why are you bothering me, Duv?”
“I told you, I’m trying to be sociable. You’re my only sister, the only one I’ll ever have. I thought I’d stick my head in the door and say hello.”
“You’ve done that. So?”
“You might tell me what you’ve been doing with yourself since the last time I saw you.”
