A cracked guitar to which she had once sung lovesongs,
A Piaf record bought during Piaf’s heyday.
A voice said, “Christ, Charlie, this is worth a fortune.”
Wrapping an ornament, a newspaper informed him
Of the triumphant success of the first manned Moon-landing.
A voice said, “Christ, Charlie, did you ever see such junk?”
Names were strewn broadcast: Dylan, Brassens, Aldous
Huxley, Rauschenberg, Beethoven, Forster, Mailer,
Palestrina …
Like silt deposited by the river of time in oozy layers
The sludgy heritage of passing fashion-generations
Testified to the contact of Miss Rowley with her world.
And somehow the strain … old age … the contact broke, anyway.
Looking up and suddenly discovering her staring at them,
The men, who were both young, thought, “Oh my God.
Oh my God.”
* * *
With the authority of the committee, democratically elected,
They took away Grace Rowley and they put her in a Home.
By authority of the committee, democratically elected,
They auctioned her belongings apart from her clothing
And prosperous antique dealers purchased some of it
And sold at huge profit to collectors and even museums.
When the question next came up of excessive public outlay
On the maintenance in council accommodations of senior citizens,
It was explained that Miss Rowley’s belongings when sold
Had more than defrayed the cost of accommodating her
Because she had lived for only another month, and moreover
A medical school had saved them the price of a funeral.
continuity (28)
FROM HERE ON DOWN IT’S UPHILL ALL THE WAY
Someone fetched a diadermic syringe and shot through the blood masking Donald’s wrist, wishing on him a premature night. When he awoke it was real night; darkness lay on the windows of the room where he found himself, as complete as if the glass had been magicked to an ebony mirror. His cut hands had been dressed and his bruises swabbed with something to reduce their ache. Watching by him in the glow of a self-luminous wall-panel was a very small girl in nurse’s coverall and sterile mask.
It was raining again. He heard the sound of it on the walls, soft as a slack drum. He moved his hands and felt the faint remaining sting from all the many gashes he had inflicted on himself, and his vision turned the pure red of new blood and he moaned.
Prepared, the girl gave him another shot, into the muscles of his exposed upper arm, presumably a trank of some kind. It left him with a dull ache, but the horror declined to the bearable intensity of nightmare. She counted his pulse while it was taking effect and he lay there not objecting. He could feel the pulse himself against her fingertips. When it was down to a rate he judged to be in the middle seventies she rose and went to the door.
Through it he heard raised voices, a man’s and a woman’s, harshly arguing. The man said he wanted to go in and the woman said he would have to wait no matter who he was. Eventually she won and marched into Donald’s room.
She was big for a Yatakangi, about five feet seven and solid, not wearing a shareng but a man’s tunic and breeches and boots that thumped on the plastic floor. Her hair was cut short and she carried a recorder with a pistol grip. Behind her followed two buff-uniformed policemen who combined to close the door and shut out the nurse and the other, unseen speaker.
“You’re feeling better?” the woman asked.
Donald nodded.
“Good. Our medical treatment is of the highest standard, of course.” She gestured to one of the policemen, who seized a chair and placed it where she could face the bed. “I am State Police Superintendent Totilung. It is necessary for me to ask you some questions.”
“Before charging me with murder, I suppose,” Donald said.
“If that is an American joke please take notice that I cannot spare the time for social chatter.” Totilung settled her big firm buttocks on the narrow seat and pointed the recorder at him like the muzzle of a blunderbuss.
“Who was he?” Donald said suddenly.
“What?”
“The man I killed—who was he?”
Totilung bit back a sharp retort, probably scheduled to have been along the lines, “I’m asking the questions, not you!” She said with ill grace, “A student who had been overworking. His family expected too much of him, they say.”
I thought it must be something like that. Donald knuckled his temples with his bandaged fists. “Go ahead, Superintendent,” he sighed. “What can I tell you that the witnesses can’t? There were plenty of people watching.”
“True. Constable Song was among them”—she gestured at one of the policemen accompanying her—“but the crowd prevented him getting a clear shot at the man who ran amok.”
“I remember,” Donald said. “I caught a glimpse of him trying to get along the walkway.” The trank kept his voice under control; without it he thought he would have screamed.
I didn’t have to kill him. He was already unconscious!
“All this is wasting time,” Totilung said. “Now! You are Donald Hogan, a reporter working for English Language Relay Satellite Service?”
“Ah—yes.”
“You came to the university ostensibly to undergo the sterilisation compulsory for foreigners?” She didn’t wait for an answer, but added, “That has been attended to, by the way.”
Donald’s hand, against his will, leapt to his genitals. Unsmiling, Totilung said, “There will be no scar or discomfort. And they assure me that an operation to reverse the effect would definitely be successful.”
Donald withdrew his hand like a guilty child caught playing with himself. He said angrily, “Why bother to question me? You know things about me that I don’t know myself!”
Totilung ignored that. She said, “We examined your papers and other belongings. Also your body. You are physically in good health with some trace of a stimulant drug no doubt taken to counteract the time-gain on your flight from America—correct?”
Donald gave a wary nod. Luckily there was a jar of just such a drug in his baggage at the hotel. But he had taken none of it; the trace they had detected must be the last residue of what he had been given during eptification.
“In our records there has never been a case of an unarmed man overcoming a mucker before,” Totilung said. “Of course, we have very few muckers, and the enlightened system under which we now live is helping to reduce the number still further.” She included that assertion without much conviction, as though it were a required propaganda claim. “However, we have made theoretical studies of such people, and our experts conclude that the reaction of a mucker, not being subject to rational judgment, are faster than those of a person in a normal state of mind. Yet I have to accept what many witnesses tell me: you defeated one much younger than yourself and what’s more armed with a phang. So what I want to know is this—what makes you such an efficient killing machine?”
Nobody had told Donald how to answer that question. It had apparently not occurred to those who had trained him that his talent might be revealed at a time and place he had not chosen. He said weakly, “I—I don’t know.”
“Are you a trained athlete? Some of our psychologists believe that athletes who break records can voluntarily enter a berserk state.”
“No—uh—no, I’m not. I keep myself in good shape, but that’s all.”
“And you were not drugged, and you were not in such a blind rage that you might be regarded as amok yourself. This—”
“I think I was,” Donald said.
“What?”
“I think I was in a blind rage. I saw all these people running away from one boy just because he had a sword. And there was this man lying on the ground who was trying to get up and couldn’t make it and in another minute he’d have been dead as well.” He forced himself to an upright position and glared at Totilung.