Hal hesitated for a moment before answering, though he did not know why or even think of it. Then, he said, "In here, Mary."
Mary said, "Oh! Of course, I knew you'd be there, if you were home. Where else could you be?"
Unsmiling, he walked into the living room. "Must you be so sarcastic, even after I've been gone so long?"
Mary was a tall woman, only half a head shorter than Hal. Her hair was pale blond and drawn tightly back from her forehead to a heavy coil at the nape of her neck. Her eyes were light blue. Her features were regular and petite but were marred by very thin lips. The baggy high-necked shirt and loose floor-length skirt she wore prevented any observer from knowing what kind of figure she had. Hal himself did not know.
Mary said, "I wasn't being sarcastic, Hal. Just realistic. Where else could you be? All you had to do was say, `Yes.' And you would have to be in there"—she pointed at the door to the unmentionable—"when I come home. You seem to spend all your time in there or at your studies. Almost as if you were trying to hide from me."
"A fine homecoming," he said.
"You haven't kissed me," she said.
"Ah, yes," he replied. "That's my duty. I forgot."
"It shouldn't be a duty," she said. "It should be a joy."
"It's hard to enjoy kissing lips that snarl," he said.
To his surprise, Mary, instead of replying angrily, began to weep. At once, he felt ashamed.
"I'm sorry," he said. "But you'll have to admit you weren't in a very good mood when you came in."
He went to her and tried to put his arms around her, but she turned away from him. Nevertheless, he kissed her on the side of her mouth as she turned her head.
"I don't want you to do that because you feel sorry for me or because it's your duty," she said. "I want you to do it because you love me."
"But I do love you," he said for what seemed like the thousandth time since they had married. Even to himself, he sounded unconvincing. Yet—he told himself—he did love her. He had to.
"You have a very nice way of showing it," she said.
"Let's forget what happened and start all over again," he said. "Here."
And he started to kiss her, but she backed away.
"What in H is the matter with you?" he said.
"You have given me my greeting kiss," she said. "You must not start getting sensual. This is not the time or place."
He threw his hands up in the air.
"Who's getting sensual? I wanted to act as if you had just come in the door. Is it worse to have one more kiss than prescribed than it is to quarrel? The trouble with you, Mary, is that you're absolutely literal-minded. Don't you know that the Forerunner himself didn't demand that his prescriptions be taken literally? He himself said that circumstances sometimes warranted modifications!"
"Yes, and he also said that we must beware of rationalizing ourselves into departing from his law. We must first confer with a gapt about the reality of our behavior."
"Oh, of course!" he said. "I'll phone our good guardian angel pro tempore and ask him if it's all right if I kiss you again!"
"That's the only safe thing to do," she said.
"Great Sigmen!" he shouted. "I don't know whether to laugh or cry! But I do know that I don't understand you! I never will!"
"Say a prayer to Sigmen," she said. "Ask him to give you reality. Then, we will have no difficulty."
"Say a prayer yourself," he said. "It takes two to make a quarrel. You're just as responsible as I am."
"I'll talk to you later when you're not so angry," she said. "I have to wash and eat."
"Never mind me," he replied. "I'll be busy until bedtime. I have to catch up on my Sturch business before I report to Olvegssen."
"And I'll bet you're happy you have to," she said. "I was looking forward to a nice talk. After all, you haven't said a word of your trip to the Preserve."
He did not reply.
She said, "You needn't bite your lip at me!"
He took a portrait of Sigmen down from the wall and unfolded it on a chair. Then he swung down his projector-magnifier from the wall, inserted the letter in it, and set the controls. After putting on his unscrambling goggles and sticking the phone in his ear, he sat down in the chair. He grinned as he did so. Mary must have seen the grin, and she probably wondered what caused it, but she did not ask. If she had, she would not have been answered. He could not tell her that he got a certain amusement from sitting on the Forerunner's portrait. She would have been shocked or would have pretended to be, he was never sure about her reactions. In any event, she had no sense of humor worth considering, and he did not intend to tell her anything that would downrate his M.R.
Hal pressed the button that activated the projector and then sat back, though not relaxedly. Immediately, the magnification of the film sprang up on the wall opposite him. Mary, not having goggles on, could see nothing except a blank wall. At the same time, he heard the voice recorded on the film. First, as always with an official letter, the face of the Forerunner appeared on the wall. The voice said, "Praise to Isaac Sigmen, in whom reality resides and from whom all truth flows! May he bless us, his followers, and confound his enemies, the disciples of the unshib Backrunner!"
There was a pause in the voice and a break in the projection for the viewer to send forth a prayer of his own. Then, a single word—woggle—flashed on the wall, and the speaker continued. "Devout believer Hal Yarrow:
"Here is the first of a list of words that have appeared recently in the vocabulary of the American-speaking population of the Union. This word—woggle—originated in the Department of Polynesia and spread radially to all the American-speaking peoples of the departments of North America, Australia, Japan, and China. Strangely, it has not yet made an appearance in the Department of South America, which, as you doubtless know, is contiguous to North America."
Hal Yarrow smiled, though there was a time when statements of this type had enraged him. When would the senders of these letters ever realize that he was not only a highly educated man but a broadly educated one, too? In this particular case, even the semiliterates of the lower classes should know where South America was, for the reason that the Forerunner had many times mentioned that continent in his The Western Talmud and The Real World and Time. It was true, however, that the schoolteachers of the unpros might never have thought to point out the location of South America to their pupils, even if they themselves knew.
"Woggle," continued the speaker, "was first reported on the island of Tahiti. This island lies in the center of the Polynesian Department and is inhabited by people descended from Australians who colonized it after the Apocalyptic War. Tahiti is, at present, used as a military spaceship base.
"Woggle apparently spread from there, but its use has been confined mainly to unprofessionals. The exception is the professional space personnel. We feel there is some connection between the appearance of the word and the fact that spacefarers were the first to use it—as far as we know.
"Truecasters have asked permission to use this word on the air, but this has been denied until further study.
"The word itself, as far as can be determined at this date, is used as adjective, noun, and verb. It contains a basically derogatory meaning close to, but not equivalent to, the linguistically acceptable words fouled-up and jinxed. In addition, it contains the meaning of something strange, otherworldly; in a word, unrealistic.
"You are hereby ordered to investigate the word woggle, following Plan No. ST-LIN-476 unless you have received an order with a higher priority number. In either case, you will reply to this letter not later than 12th Fertility, 550 B.S."
Hal ran the letter to the end. Fortunately, the other three words had lower priority. He did not have to accomplish the impossible: investigate all four at once.
But he would have to leave in the morning after reporting to Olvegssen. Which meant not even bothering to unpack his stuff, living for days in the clothes he was wearing, perhaps not having time to have them cleaned.
Not that he did not wish to get away. It was just that he was tired and wished to rest before going on this trip.
What rest? he asked himself after removing the goggles and looking at Mary.
Mary was just getting up from her chair after turning off the tridi. She was now bending over to pull a drawer from the wall. He saw that she was getting out their nightclothes. And, as he had for many a night now, he felt sick in his stomach.
Mary turned and saw his face.
"What's the matter?" she said.
"Nothing."
She walked across the room (only a few steps to traverse the length of the chamber, reminding him of how many steps he could take when he was on the Preserve). She handed him a crumpled-up mass of tissue-thin garments and said, "I don't think Olaf had them cleaned. It's not his fault, though. The deionizer isn't working. He left a note saying he called a technician. But you know how long it takes them to fix anything."
"I'll fix it myself, when I get time," he said. He sniffed at the nightclothes. "Great Sigmen! How long has the cleaner been out?"
"Ever since you left," she said.
"How that man does sweat!" Hal said. "He must be in a perpetual state of terror. No wonder! Old Olvegssen scares me, too."
Mary's face became red. "I have prayed and prayed that you wouldn't curse," she said. "When are you going to quit that unreal habit? Don't you know? . . ."
"Yes," he said, interrupting harshly, "I know that every time I take the Forerunner's name in vain, I delay Timestop just that much more. So what?"
Mary stepped back from the loudness of his voice and the curl of his lip.
" `So what?' " she repeated incredulously. "Hal, you can't mean it?"
"No, of course I don't mean it!" he said, breathing heavily. "Of course I don't! How could I? It's just that I get so mad at your continual reminding me of my faults."
"The Forerunner himself said we must always remind our brother of his unrealities."
"I'm not your brother. I'm your husband," he said. "Though there are plenty of times, such as now, when I wish I weren't."
Mary lost the prim and reproving look, tears filled her eyes, and her lips and chin shook.
"For Sigmen's sake," he said. "Don't cry."
"How can I help it," she sobbed, "when my own husband, my own flesh and blood, united to me by the Real Sturch, heaps abuse on my head? And I have done nothing to deserve it."
"Nothing except turn me in to the gapt every chance you get," he said. He turned away from her and pulled the bed down from the wall.
"I suppose the bedclothes will stink of Olaf and his fat wife, too," he said.
He picked up a sheet, smelled it, and said, "Augh!" He tore off the other sheets and threw them on the floor. With them went his nightclothes.
"To H with them! I'm sleeping in my clothes. You call yourself a wife? Why didn't you take our stuff to our neighbor's and get them cleaned there?"
"You know why," she said. "We don't have the money to pay them for the use of their cleaner. If you'd get a higher M.R., then we could afford it."
"How can I get a higher M.R. when you babble to the gapt every time I commit a little indiscretion?"
"Why, that's not my fault!" she said indignantly. "What kind of Sigmenite would I be if I lied to the good abba and told him you deserved a better M.R.? I couldn't live with myself after that, knowing that I had been so grossly unreal and that the Forerunner was watching me. Why, when I'm with the gapt, I can feel the invisible eyes of Isaac Sigmen burning into me, reading my every thought. I couldn't! And you should be ashamed because you want me to!"
"H with you!" he said. He walked away and went into the unmentionable.
Inside the tiny room, he shed his clothes and stepped into the shower for the thirty-second fall of water allowed him. Then he stood in front of the blower until he was dried. Afterward, he brushed his teeth vigorously, as if he were trying to scour out the terrible words he had uttered. As usual, he was beginning to feel the shame of what he had said. And with it the fear of what Mary would tell the gapt, what he would tell the gapt, and what would happen afterward. It was possible that his M.R. would be so devaluated that he would be fined. If that happened, then his budget, strained as it was, would burst. And he would be more in debt than ever, not to mention that he would be passed over when the next promotion time came.
Thinking this, he put his clothes back on and left the little room. Mary brushed by him on her way into the unmentionable. She looked surprised on seeing him dressed, then she stopped and said, "Oh, that's right! You did throw the night-things on the floor! Hal, you can't mean it!"
"Yes, I do," he said. "I'm not sleeping in those sweaty things of Olaf's."
"Please, Hal," she said. "I wish you wouldn't use that word. You know that I can't stand vulgarity."
"I beg your pardon," he said. "Would you rather I used the Icelandic or Hebrew word for it? In either language, the word stands for the same vile human excretion: sweat!"
Mary put her hands to her ears, ran into the unmentionable, and slammed the door behind her.
He threw himself down on the thin mattress and put his arm over his eyes so the light would not get into them. In five minutes, he heard the door open (it was beginning to need oiling but would not get it until their budget and that of the Olaf Marconis could afford to buy the lubricant). And if his M.R. went down, the Marconis might petition to move into another apartment. If they could find one, then another, even more objectionable couple (probably one that had just been elevated from a lower professional class) would move in with them.
Oh, Sigmen! he thought. Why can't I be content with things as they are? Why can't I accept reality fully? Why must I have so much of the Backrunner in me? Tell me, tell me!
It was Mary's voice he heard as she settled into bed beside him. "Hal, surely you aren't going to stick to this unshib?"
"What unshib?" he said, though he knew what she meant.
"Sleeping in your dayclothes."
"Why not?"
"Hal!" she said. "You know very well why not!"
"No, I don't," he replied. He removed his arm from his eyes and stared into total blackness. She had, as prescribed, turned off the light before getting into bed.
Her body, if unclothed, would gleam white in the light of lamp or moon, he thought. Yet, I have never seen her body, never seen her even half-undressed. Never seen any woman's body except for that picture that man in Berlin showed me. And I, after one half-hungry, half-horrified look, ran as swiftly as I could. I wonder if the Uzzites found him soon after and did to him whatever they do to men who pervert reality so hideously.
So hideously . . . yet, he could see the picture as if it were before his eyes now in the full light of Berlin. And he could see the man who was trying to sell it to him, a tall, good-looking youth with blond hair and broad shoulders, speaking the Berliner variety of Icelandic.
White flesh gleaming . . .
Mary had been silent for several minutes, but he could hear her breathing. Then, "Hal, haven't you done enough since you came home? Must you make me tell the gapt even more?"
"And just what else have I done?" he asked fiercely. Nevertheless, he smiled slightly, for he was determined to make her speak plainly, to come out and ask. Not that she ever would, but he was going to get her to come as close as she was capable.
"That's just it, you haven't done anything," she whispered.
"Now what do you mean?"
"You know."
"No, I don't."
"The night before you left for the Preserve, you said you were too tired. That's no real excuse, but I didn't say anything to the gapt about it because you had fulfilled your weekly duty. But you've been gone two weeks, and now—"
"Weekly duty!" he said loudly, resting on one elbow. "Weekly duty! Is that what you think of it?"
"Why, Hal," she said with a surprised note. "What else am I to think?"
Groaning, he lay back down and stared into the dark.
"What's the use?" he said. "Why, why should we? Nine years we've been married; we've had no children; we never will. I've even petitioned for a divorce. So why should we continue to perform like a couple of robots on tridi?"
Mary's breath sucked in, and he could imagine the horror on her face.
After a moment which seemed to bulge with her shock, she said, "We must because we must. What else can we do? Surely, you're not suggesting that? . . ."
"No, no," he said quickly, thinking of what would happen if she told their gapt. Other things he could get away with, but any hint on her part that her husband was refusing to carry out the specific command of the Forerunner . . . He did not dare to think about that. At least, he now had prestige as a university teacher and a puka with some room in it and a chance to advance. But not if . . .
"Of course not," he said. "I know we must try to have children, even if we seem doomed not to."
"The doctors say there's nothing physically wrong with either of us," she said for perhaps the thousandth time in the past five years. "So, one of us must be thinking against reality, denying with his body the true future. And I know that it can't be me. It couldn't be!"
" `The dark self hides overmuch from the bright self,' " said Hal, quoting The Western Talmud. " `The Backrunner in us trips us, and we know it not.' "
There was nothing that so infuriated Mary, herself always quoting, as to have Hal do the same. But now, instead of beginning a tirade, she cried, "Hal, I'm scared! Do you realize that in another year our time will be up? That we'll go before the Uzzites for another test? And, if we fail, if they find out that one of us is denying the future to our children . . . they made it clear what would happen!"
Artificial insemination by a donor was adultery. Cloning had been forbidden by Sigmen because it was an abomination.
For the first time that evening, Hal felt a sympathy with her. He knew the same terror that was making her body quiver and shake the bed.
But he could not allow her to know it, for then she would break up completely, as she had several times in the past. He would be all night putting the pieces back together and making them stick.
"I don't think there is too much to worry about," he said. "After all, we are highly respected and much needed professionals. They're not about to waste our education and talents by sending us to H. I think that if you don't get pregnant, they'll give us an extension. After all, they do have precedent and authority. The Forerunner himself said that every case should be considered in its context, not judged by an absolute rule. And we—"
"And how often is a case judged by the context?" she said shrilly. "How often? You know as well as I do that the absolute rule is always applied!"
"I don't know any such thing," he replied soothingly. "How naïve can you get? If you go by what the truecasters say, yes. But I've heard some things about the hierarchy. I know that such things as blood relationship, friendship, prestige, and wealth, or usefulness to the Sturch, can make for a relaxation of the rules."
Mary sat upright in bed.
"Are you trying to tell me that the Urielites can be bribed?" she said in a shocked tone.
"I would never ever say that to anybody," he said. "And I will swear by Sigmen's lost hand that I did not mean even to hint at such a vile unreality. No, I am just saying that usefulness to the Sturch sometimes results in leniency or another chance."
"Who do you know to help us?" said Mary, and Hal smiled in the darkness. Mary could be shocked by his outspokenness, but she was practical and would not hesitate to use any means to get them out of their predicament.
There was silence for a few minutes. Mary was breathing hard, like a cornered animal.
Finally, he said, "I don't really know anybody with influence except Olvegssen. And he's been making remarks about my M.R., though he does praise my work."
"See! That M.R.! If you'd only make an effort, Hal . . ."
"If only you weren't so eager to downgrade me," he said bitterly.
"Hal, I can't help it if you go along so easily with unreality! I don't like what I have to do, but it's my duty! You're even making a misstep by reproaching me for what I have to do. Another black mark—"
"Which you will be forced to repeat to the gapt. Yes, I know. Let's not go into that again for the ten thousandth time."
"You brought it up," she said righteously.
"That seems to be all we have to talk about."
She gasped, and then she said, "It wasn't always that way."
"No, not for the first year of our marriage. But since then—"
"Whose fault is that?" she cried.
"That's a good question. But I don't think we should go into it. It might be dangerous."
"What do you mean?"
"I don't care to discuss it."
He was himself surprised at what he had said. What did he mean? He did not know; he had spoken, not with his intellect but with his whole being. Had the Backrunner in him made him say that?
"Let's get to sleep," he said. "Tomorrow changes the face of reality."
"Not before—" she said.
"Before what?" he replied wearily.
"Don't play shib with me," she said. "This is what started the whole thing. You trying to . . . put off your . . . duty."
"My duty," said Hal. "The shib thing to do. Of course."
"Don't talk like that," she said. "I don't want you to do it just because it's your duty. I want you to do it because you love me, as you are enjoined to do. Also, because you want to love me."
"I am enjoined to love all of mankind," said Hal. "But I notice that I am expressly forbidden to perform my duty with anyone but my realistically bound wife."
Mary was so shocked that she could not reply, and she turned her back to him. But he, knowing that he was doing it as much to punish her and himself as doing what he should, reached out for her. From then on, having made the formal opening statement, everything was ritualized. This time, unlike some times in the past, everything was executed step by step, the words and actions, as specified by the Forerunner in The Western Talmud. Except for one detail: Hal was still wearing his dayclothes. This, he had decided, could be forgiven, for it was the spirit, not the letter, that counted, and what was the difference whether he wore the thick street garments or the bulky nightclothes? Mary, if she had noticed the error, had said nothing about it.