Otto smiled again. “No objection,” he said—and thought how truly wonderful was the Machine in its speed of working and its camouflage of the working parts. He wondered now what steps would be taken to gain him proper entrance to America.
Etter might have been reading his mind.
“I was talking to the Swedish Consul,” said Etter. “He spoke to you up on deck. He told me he was getting you temporary permission to land. Like ordinary shore leave. But he’s also going to work to get you an immigration quota number—if you want one. . . . That’s permission to live in this country—they call it being a resident alien. It’s next door to being a citizen—except you can’t vote and you do pay income tax. Like that, wouldn’t you?”
“Oh,” said Otto slowly. “Oh—I understand. . . .”
“Great guy, the Consul!” said Etter. “Good friend of mine.”
“Yes?” said Otto. “Yes. I should like to be . . . what did you say? . . . a resident alien. And live in this country. Yes.”
“Fine!” Etter gave approval. “So if you like that—well, you won’t mind giving me a break, huh?”
Otto stared. “Pardon?” It was the first time he had not understood.
Etter laughed—a harsh, creaking sound. “Sorry. I mean, if that arrangement’s all right for you, you shouldn’t object to giving me that Personality of the Week deal? Huh?”
“Oh,” said Otto. “I see. . . . No—of course I will certainly do that.” He spoke even more slowly than before—but he was thinking fast.
“Fine!” said Etter. “Swell. Thanks.” He pulled a wallet from his pocket, and a folded paper from the wallet. He said:
“There’s one thing, though.” He was unfolding the paper. “You have to promise me you won’t give any other interviews until the Kosmo Personality’s out. Understand that? It’s only fair.”
“Yes,” Otto said. “Yes. I understand.”
Etter slapped him on the shoulder and held out the paper. “Swell!” he said. “Just sign this, will you. It’s a simple form of contract—exclusive rights on your life-story and experiences—all that sort of thing. Better read it.”
Otto took the paper. Painstakingly, he read the first lines, and saw that the document was what it had been said to be. He smiled at Etter. He said:
“All right. . . . I will sign. Thank you.”
Etter stood up, groping in his pockets and looking down at Otto.
“Got a pen?” said Etter.
Otto shook his head. “I had a pencil,” he said slowly. “But it was lost—in the sea.”
Etter seemed to be looking at him very hard—but before he could speak there came the sound of voices outside the door and it opened to admit the Captain, neat and burly in spotless, clumsy shore-going clothes, and the tall, distinguished figure of the man who had spoken to Otto in Swedish.
“Hi, Consul!” said Etter. “Got a pen? . . . Hi there, Captain.”
It was only noon when they took Otto ashore—but it was not until after nine that night that he was stationary and alone.
He was in a small, bright room which, with its fellows, was perched against all credibility four hundred feet above the ground. Everything around him was actual and utile and pleasing to the senses, but these qualities seemed merely to enhance the all-embracing feeling of unreality which had possessed him ever since the Admiral Farragut had dropped anchor in the harbour.
There was a big easy chair by the bay window, He wanted to switch off the lights and drop into it and stare unseeingly at the clear, star-crusted sky without looking at the incredible carpet of lights below. He wanted to do this because he thought it the best, the only, way in which he might sort out his thoughts.
But there was something he must do first; something he should have done much earlier than this; something he would have done much earlier than this had he been for one moment alone.
He pulled curtains and made sure that the door to the hallway was locked, and walked over to the bed which they had shown him how to pull out of its ingenious hiding-place in the wall. There was a mass of packages on the bed, of all shapes and colours and sizes, the fruits of the two-hour shopping trip upon which the little, bespectacled assistant of the Consul had taken him. He rifled among the parcels until he found what he wanted—a small affair of cheaper appearance than the others.
He ripped it open and brought to light a penknife and a small black and chromium propelling pencil. He was very busy then for fifteen minutes—after which time he was repossessed of the only important thing which the sinking of the Vulcania had cost him, a cheap and entirely unremarkable mechanical pencil whose missing top had been replaced by a whittled piece of wood. . . .
He looked at the chair by the window—but then he looked at the bed, and after a moment went over to it and swept all the packages to the floor and began to rip off his clothes.
In three minutes the lights were out and he was between the covers and deep in the sleep of exhaustion.
7 NEW YORK:
Second Phase
“And that,” said Nils Jorgensen carefully, “is all that I can tell you.” He tried not to fix his gaze upon any one face in the hundreds turned up to him. He had been warned against this—not only by Mrs. Van Teller but also by a plump, harassed stage manager and several other well-meaning persons connected in various ways with this expensive hodge-podge of (he thought) inordinately dull ‘entertainment’ whose obviously considerable cash proceeds were for ‘Greek Relief,’ whatever exactly this ambiguous phrase might mean.
“I would like now very much,” said Nils Jorgensen, coming to the peroration upon which he had worked so carefully and which had so much delighted Mrs. Van Teller, “to say to all ‘thank you for the way you have listened’—and to express much and high appreciation of this wonderful country: it is truly a free land of free people.”
He stood straight—almost but not quite at military attention. He bowed with a little, stiff movement which should have been ungraceful but somehow was not. In the discreet but revealing limelight he was pleasing to the eye—tall and lean and wide-shouldered in the new dark clothes which were good but not too good; blond and hard and clean, with deep shadows under the high cheekbones lending a touch almost of asceticism to the frankly Nordic face; slightly constrained and awkward in manner, but saved from gaucherie by simplicity and self-respect.
He walked off the stage to a rolling wave of applause which amazed him by its volume. He smiled inside, with a curling of mental lip: what easily deluded sheep were these, fat and soft and sterile in their self-complacency!
Mrs. Van Teller herself was waiting in the wings. The applause rolled on, undiminished by his disappearance. He stood close to Mrs. Van Teller and found both his hands in hers. A curious little shock travelled up his arms, and he became aware of her perfume and the extraordinary texture of her skin, cool and thick and firm, and alive, he thought, as no other skin he had ever touched; alive as if a current flowed beneath it of some unknown, uncharted potency.
“Nils!” she said. “You were wonderful!” She still held his hands. “Wonderful!” She was tall and straight and magnificent in the gown of black velvet, and against its soft sombreness the marble sheen of her shoulders was dazzling.