iv
Now I must tell you all, about the great Jié-Kè Tài-Yī.
Truly, it was he. Jié-Kè Tài-Yī. The veritable father of the Second-Common-Mix-Nation.47 Sit and listen, mustn't interrupt, because what I must tell you all is the sort of thing that you wouldn't have learnt in school.
That apple tree? No, that was purely an accident. You see, that could not have occurred. Because above the great street Madison,48 an apple tree doesn't grow inside there, where Jié-Kè Tài-Yī was raised. Because Jié-Kè Tài-Yī wasn't the Second-Common-Mix-Nation's network-assembler. He couldn't be a leader because he had other work; he was employed in the Yóu-Sī-Dì49 and Lŭ-Mĭ-Lún-Dì50 announcement-of-appraisal corporation's S&L regiment, where he was household V.P.
It was so. He was an auspicious-widespread-appraisal man.
Mustn't cry. It was so, then. You see, before the war—oh, before the war—he had given up the work, and come to Péng-shĭ Angle, in order to retire.
Jié-Kè Tài-Yī kept his home at the Delaware River. He wasn't hygienic there. The hills surrounding Péng-shĭ Angle reached the rivulets of that area, and the radioactivity descended. However Jié-Kè Tài-Yī wasn't concerned by this, because he was already supremely old.
He was just as old as the old man Kē-Gé-L>án. Not only that, they had known each other during the time-duration they'd been with the corporation.
Jié-Kè Tài-Yī was tall; he wasn't able to match Kē-Gé-Lán on that score, but he was taller than six ché. In a manner of speaking, he resembled Kē-Gé-Lán. You've seen his photograph. The same sort of eyes, the same sort of fear-not-the-heavens, fear-not-the-Earth manner, and his voice was about as wide and deep. He could have been an important man at Péng-shĭ Angle. They would have readily made him mayor. But he said he had arrived there in order to retire, and he retired; he said that the emergence of a large-scale earthquake would be required for him not to stay in there.
The inevitable outcome of this was the emergence of an earthquake.
First we see Ān-Dí Gé-Lă-Mĭ-Sī, as white as paper.
"Jié-Kè!" he said at the steps with his voice not having air, because all the way from his shop he'd come running.
Jié-Kè Tài-Yī took his feet off the porch. "Sit down, Ān," he said. "I believe that I know why you've come here."
"You know, Jié-Kè?"
"I think so." Jié-Kè Tài-Yī nodded his head. Oh, he was a handsome man. He said: "Airplanes are dropping a good deal of up-to-date henbane alkali into the pool, a strange man reaches this place driving a lead automobile. And we know the situation outside, is it not so? Right, this is the correct situation."
"Indeed, it is he," Ān-Dí Gé-Lă-Mĭ-Sī said petulantly, as he sat on the stairs, looking pale. "Because it's he, and we're incapable of taking action! This morning he came into our shop. He was leading Má-Lín. We should have thought a bit about that girl, Jié-Kè. I knew that she would not have a favorable outcome—"
"What did he want?"
"Want what-did?51 Jié-Kè, he had a writing tablet with a lead pencil; he wasn't asking for things but rather demanding—demanding—'breakfast food products,' he said. 'What sort of famous breakfast food products have you?' I told him. Oatmeal combined with maize fragments. Jié-Kè, he came through the air at me! 'Don't you people stock Cocoa Wèi-Zĭ?' he said, 'or Cuī-Zĭ, Yī-Zĭ, Ní-Zĭ, or Yī-Ní-Kě-Wèi-Zĭ?52 What of Flavour Hóng-Ní,53 or Plum Bran Dog,54 or the small box with a handgun inside?' 'Don't-have, sir,' I said to him.
"But by that time he's having a tantrum. 'Potatoes?' he shouted at me. 'What about potatoes?' Oh, we had potatoes, they were inside. I told him this, he was very dissatisfied. 'You say potatoes that sprouted?' he said very loudly. 'Haven't you fabricated Potato Floss, Sī-KĒ-Qí-óu-Jī-Mĭ-Qĭ Floss, or the Potato Chunks of Dàshū-Uncle Āi-Fú-Léi-Tè?' Then he showed me his calling card."
"I know," Jié-Kè Tài-Yī said, because now Gé-Lă-Mĭ-Sī had a bit of trouble speaking. "You needn't talk, if you don't think you should."
"Oh, I can tell it to you, Jié-Kè," Ān-Dí Gé-Lă-Mĭ-Sī strongly said. "This Mr. Kē-Gé-Lán he is an auspicious-widespread—"
"Steady on," Jié-Kè Tài-Yī said, standing, "you shouldn't make yourself do this. The situation is now unfortunate enough already. But it was correct to anticipate this. It is so, you had to anticipate this, Ān-Dí. We've had some good years, but we couldn't expect the good years to last forever."
"But what should we do?"
"Please stand up, Ān-Dí," Jié-Kè Tài-Yī said in a big voice. "Please come inside! You sit and pull yourself together. I will summon the others to join me."
"You seek trouble with him? But you should know, he has the entire United States of America ground force behind his shield."
Old Jié-Kè Tài-Yī nodded his head. "He's behind the shield, Ān-Dí," he said, although he had quite a pleased appearance.
Jié-Kè Tài-Yī's home was a sort of open-field house, with a sort of display inside. He was a great sort of man, was Jié-Kè Tài-Yī. You all know this, because you learnt it in school; perhaps you've been inside that house, but the house doesn't have that appearance now; I don't care what people say. The furniture inside hasn't the original form. Go have a look at the front—
Ah, yes, during the Great War, it's true, that was when the radioactive dust flowed down from the mountains, so that nothing can blossom now. The locals stuck up some grass and trees and flowers. Flowers! I tell you, this has a peculiar shape. During his early years, Jié-Kè Tài-Yī had been a national-flower-commerce-place businessman. Hey, he didn't have a flower inside, not to speak of planting them himself.
But what do you care, that house was nice enough. He made Ān-Dí Gé-Lă-Mĭ-Sī a cup of wine, and had him sit down. He made a phone call, and asked five or six men to come see him. He wouldn't tell them what it was about. Didn't feel the need to set up a panic.
But there weren't many places where the people didn't already know. Coming in the lead was Dì-Mĭ Háo-Lán, he was the television workman, with Chá-Lĭ Fú-Lín-Kè riding on the back of his bicycle, held standing up. His voice with no air said: "Mr. Tài-Yī, they're already using the broadcast-wire. I don't know how they did it, but Kē-Gé-Lán is using our television broadcast hook-up. What he's broadcasting, Mr. Tài-Yī, is provoking emotions truly difficult to imagine!"
"It is so," Tài-Yī calmly said. "Don't feel trouble about this matter, Dì-Mĭ. I think I know what he's broadcasting.
He stood, going hum-hum, turned on the television. "Now it's broadcast the afternoon film festival time, answer-don't-answer? I think you left the broadcast record-image-tape running?"
"Of course, but he's making trouble with our broadcast!"
Tài-Yī nodded his head. "Let's all look-a-look."
The television picture seemed tilted, murky gray, then suddenly seemed to form an image.
"I remember this!" Chá-Lĭ Fú-Lín-Kè shouted. "This is my most-of-all favorite film, Dì-Mĭ!"
On the television screen, "Son-Named-Two"" was slowly moving on foot away from an evil man in a mask. "Son-Named-Two" tripped over a plank, and fell into a vat at his side. When he surfaced, he was stuck from head to foot with putty mixed with mud-slurry, seeming bizarre yet funny.
Tài-Yī stepped backwards. He spread the five fingers of one hand in front of his own face, moved them up-and-down up-and-down quickly while looking through them.
"Ah," he said, "so. Gentlemen, see for yourselves."
Ān-Dí Gé-Lă-Mĭ-Sī did the same sort of thing as big old Tài-Yī. He spread his fingers, and shook that hand in front of his own eyes, as if protecting himself from the bright television recorded-images. Up-and-down up-and-down he shook-swayed his hand, using it to accomplish a sort of stroboscope that blocked the unseen flash of bright electric light.
Ah, yes indeed, it could be seen!
Not using the stroboscope, on the screen you'd see lukewarm-faced Charley Chan56 in his white-colored Panama straw hat. But using a stroboscope you'd see another sort of image come. Without stopping the antique movie there was another image also—every sequence flashing for not much of a second, because it was supremely fast; human consciousness couldn't grasp it. But, it struck the human subconsciousness with much violent power.
Ān-Dí could not prevent his face from reddening.
"That—that gūgu,"57 he stammer-spoke, feeling very surprised, "The upper half of her body is without—"
"Naturally she is without them," Tài-Yī pleasantly said. "That's imported to the subliminal consciousness, no? Basic natural stimulation; you don't know you're seeing it, but you hold it completely down in the subconscious. No. You see held in her hand a box of Plum Bran Dog."
Chá-Lĭ Fú-Lín-Kè made a cough-cough sound. "Now you come to mention it, Mr. Tài-Yī," he said, "I discover that I've been thinking, right now to have a box of Plum Bran Dog, and to eat it, ought to make the flavor very beautiful!"
"Of course," Tài-Yī agreed. He cocked his eyebrows. "Bright-buttocked women, right? But I think they should have something to reach the female viewers also." He was silent for a couple-two41 moments, kept the others watching silently with him, and not stopping he shook the five fingers of his hand.
Not a moment later, his face reddened.
"Ah," he said with pleasure, "that is broadcast on account of the female viewers. You all see it there. It's subliminal wide-appraisal propaganda. It must have the key to stir up people's basic drives; it is flashed so quickly, it can be used so that people's brains will be unable to resist. So that while you're thinking of Plum Bran Dog, you're approaching the level of climax. Or what's more important, while you're thinking about the climax, you're beginning to think about Plum Bran Dog."
"Gosh, Mr. Tài-Yī, I often have those old thoughts about women."
"Everybody is like that," said Tài-Yī without ruffling his hair, while he nodded his head.
From outside there was a vigorous sound, and Wēi-Ěr-bǎi É-dī-sī Lā-Fā-Jí from the Xiào-Wān-Jiā-Nóng-Kè National Bank came in. He was already pant-panting air, and looked extremely fearful.
"He just now did it again a time, he did it a time, Mr. Tài-Yī, sir! Mr. Kē-Gé-Lán came and demanded much money! He said that Péng-shĭ Angle must have a true net television pagoda. He said he's opening an additional office for the Yóu-Sī-Dì and Lŭ-Mĭ-Lún-Dì corporation, whoever those people are thought to be. He said he was going to make Péng-shĭ Angle return to the map, so he must have much money."
"You gave him that money?"
"I was unable to resist."
Jié-Kè Tài-Yī sensibly nodded his head. "Right, you were unable to resist. Even when we were children, when the corporation took charge and their people looked at you, while they had a finger on the trigger, you were still unable to resist. Water containing up-to-date henbane alkali, to make everybody in Péng-shĭ Angle more tame, not so strong and unyielding. I think that even though I don't drink much water like some people, this will get to me. The television suitably has subliminal-widespread-appraisal, and for face-to-face meetings, a deep-sound thought-control-device is used. Lā-Fā-Jí, tell me, did you barely hear a buzz-buzz sound? I thought as much; right. They have something handy when they beckon to the child. Ah," he said, with a pleased sort of look, "the matter has sunk inextricably. We feel the need to fight."
"Fight?" Wēi-Ěr-bǎi É-dī-sī Lā-Fā-Jí said like a whisper, because he was not a courageous man, notwithstanding that he afterwards became Chancellor of the Exchequer.
"Fight!" Jié-Kè Tài-Yī said in a low and deep voice.
Everyone in the place gazed at each other in speechless despair.
"We are a good hundred people," Jié-Kè Tài-Yī said, "and he is only one man. Right, we'll fight! We must distill drinking water. We must take that broadcast-device out of our television system, Dì-Mĭ should think of manufacturing a few electrical smell-probe devices, that he can use to look for the apparatus. We'll think of ways to block and break his mechanisms, we must destroy and extinguish them. That deep-sound equipment? Oh, yeah, he has to keep that at his side. We must subject him to a body-search. We can't get sentimental about this, mustn't, or our people won't be able to enjoy the good status they've had for generations!"
Wēi-Ěr-bǎi É-dī-sī Lā-Fā-Jí made his throat clean. "Afterwards—"
"You can completely say 'afterwards,'" Jié-Kè Tài-Yī echoed. "Afterwards the United States Cavalry come vigorously down from the high mountains, to support him. So, however, gentlemen, as you now already know for yourselves, the true appearance of the situation is that we must enter the field of warfare."
And in fact they did, although you would be unable to say that they felt pleased about the matter of war.