Poul Anderson - How to Be Ethnic in One Easy Lesson

“Well, can’t he?” I asked. “Sure, it’s kind of short notice, same as for me. Still, given modern training methods for his cast—”

“Of course, of course,” she said irritably. “But don’t you see, a routine performance isn’t good enough either? People today are conditioned to visual spectacles. At least, the directors claim so. And Jimmy, the Festival is important, if only because of the publicity. If Dad’s part in it falls flat, his contract may not be renewed. Certainly his effort would be hurt, to educate the public back to real music.” Her tone and her head drooped. “And that’d hurt him.”

She drew a breath, straightened, even coaxed a smile into existence. “Well, we’ve made our precis of suggestions,” she said. “We’re waiting to hear what the board decides, which may take days. Meanwhile, you need to tell me your woes.” Sitting down opposite me: “Do.”

I obeyed. At the end I grinned on one side of my face and remarked: “Ironic, huh? Here your father has to stage an ultra-ethnic production—I’ll bet they’ll turn handsprings for him if he can make it German, given a name like his—only he’s not supposed to use technology for much except backdrops. And here I have to do likewise, in Chinese style, the flashier the better, only I really haven’t time to apply the technology for making a firework fountain or whatever. Maybe he and I should pool our efforts.”

“How?”

“I dunno.” I shifted in the chair. “Let’s get out of here, go someplace where we can forget this mess.”

What I had in mind was a flit over the ocean or down to the swimmably warm waters off Baja, followed maybe by a snack in a restaurant featuring outsystem food. Betty gave me no chance. She nodded and said quickly, “Yes, I’ve been wanting to. A serene environment. Do you think Adzel might be at home?”

The League scholarship he’d wangled back on his planet didn’t reach far on Earth, especially when he had about a ton of warmblooded mass to keep fed. He couldn’t afford special quarters, or anything near the Clement Institute of Planetology. Instead, he paid exorbitant rent for a shack way down in the San Jose district. The sole public transportation he could fit into was a rickety old twice—a-day gyrotrain, which meant he lost hours commuting to his laboratory and live-lecture classes, waiting for them to begin and waiting around after they were finished. Also, I strongly suspected he was undernourished. I’d fretted about him ever since we met, in the course of a course in micrometrics.

He always dismissed my fears; “Once, Jimmy, I might well have chafed, when I was a prairie-galloping hunter. Now, having gained a minute measure of enlightenment, I see that these annoyances of the flesh are no more significant than we allow them to be. Indeed, we can turn them to good use. Austerities are valuable. As for long delays, why, they are opportunities for study or, better yet, meditation. I have even learned to ignore spectators, and am grateful for the discipline which that forced me to acquire.”

We may be used to extraterrestrials these days. Nevertheless, he was the one Wodenite on this planet. And you take a being like that: four hoofed legs supporting a spike-backed, green-scaled, golden-bellied body and tail; torso, with arms in proportion, rising two meters to a crocodilian face, fangs, rubbery lips, bony ears, wistful brown eyes—you take that fellow and set him on a campus, in his equivalent of the lotus position, droning “Om mani padme hum” in a rich basso profundo, and see if you don’t draw a crowd.

Serious though he was, Adzel never became a prig. He enjoyed good food and drink when he could get them, being especially fond of rye whiskey consumed out of beer tankards. He played murderous chess and poker. He sang, and sang well, everything from his native chants through human folk ballads on to the very latest spinnies. (A few things, such as Eskimo Nell, he refused to render in Betty’s presence. From his avid reading of human history, he’d picked up anachronistic inhibitions.) I imagine his jokes often escaped me by being too subtle.

All in all, I was tremendously fond of him, hated the thought of his poverty, and had failed to hit on any way of helping him out. I set my car down on the strip before his hut. A moldering con-urb, black against feverish reflections off thickening fog, cast it into deep and sulfurous shadow. Unmuffled industrial traffic brawled around. I took a stun pistol from a drawer before escorting Betty outside. Adzel’s doorplate was kaput, but he opened at our knock. “Do come in, do come in,” he greeted. Fluoro-light shimmered gorgeous along his scales and scutes. Incense puffed outward. He noticed my gun. “Why are you armed, Jimmy?”

“The night’s dark here,” I said. “In a crime area like this—”

“Is it?” He was surprised. “Why, I have never been molested.” We entered. He waved us to mats on the floor. Those, and a couple of cheap tables, and bookshelves cobbled together from scrap and crammed with codexes as well as reels, were his furniture. An Old Japanese screen—repro, of course—hid that end of the single room which contained a miniature cooker and some complicated specially installed plumbing. Two scrolls hung on the walls, one snowing a landscape and one the Compassionate Buddha.

Adzel bustled about, making tea for us. He hadn’t quite been able to adjust to these narrow surroundings. Twice I had to duck fast before his tail clonked me. (I said nothing, lest he spend the next half-hour in apologies.) “I am delighted to see you,” he boomed. “I gathered, however, from your call, that the occasion is not altogether happy.”

“We hoped you’d help us relax,” Betty replied. I myself felt a bit disgruntled. Sure, Adzel was fine people; but couldn’t Betty and I relax in each other’s company? I had seen too little of her these past weeks.

He served us. His pot held five liters, but—thanks maybe to that course in micrometrics—he could handle the tiniest cups and put on an expert tea ceremony. Appropriate silence passed. I fumed. Charming the custom might be; still, hadn’t Oriental traditions caused me ample woe?

At last he dialled for pipa music, settled down before us on hocks and front knees, and invited: “Share your troubles, dear friends.”

“Oh, we’ve been over them and over them,” Betty said. “I came here for peace.”

“Why, certainly,” Adzel answered. “I am glad to try to oblige. Would you like to join me in a spot of transcendental meditation?” That tore my patience apart.

“No!” I yelled. They both stared at me. “I’m sorry,” I mumbled. “But…chaos, everything’s gone bad and—”

A gigantic four-digited hand squeezed my shoulder, gently as my mother might have done. “Tell, Jimmy,” Adzel said low.

It flooded from me, the whole sad, ludicrous situation. “Freeman Snyder can’t understand,” I finished. “He thinks I can learn those equations, those facts, in a few days at most.”

“Can’t you? Operant conditioning, for example—”

“You know better. I can learn to parrot, sure. But I won’t get the knowledge down in my bones where it belongs. And they’ll set me problems which require original thinking. They must. How else can they tell if I’ll be able to handle an emergency in space?”

“Or on a new planet.” The long head nodded. “Yes-s-s.”

“That’s not for me,” I said flatly. “I’ll never be tagged by the merchant adventurers.” Betty squeezed my hand. “Even freighters can run into grief, though.”

He regarded me for a while, most steadily, until at last he rumbled: “A word to the right men—that does appear to be how your Technic civilization operates, no? Zothkh. Have you prospects for a quick performance of this task, that will allow you to get back soon to your proper work?”