Theodore Sturgeon - More Than Human

They went in. He switched on the lights. She took off her hat and hung her bag on the bedpost and sat down on the bed, her hands on her lap. Waiting.

He seemed blind, so deep was his introspection. He came awake slowly, his gaze fixed on the money in his hand. For a moment it seemed without meaning to him; then slowly, visibly, he recognized it and brought it into his thoughts, into his expression. He closed his hand on it, shook it, brought it to her and spread it out on the night table—three crumpled bills, some silver.’ It isn’t mine,’ he said.

‘Of course it is!’

He shook his head tiredly. ‘No it isn’t. None of it’s been mine. Not the roller coaster money or the shopping money or coffee in the mornings or… I suppose there’s rent here.’

She was silent.

‘That house,’ he said detachedly. ‘The instant I saw it I knew I’d been there before. I was there just before I got arrested. I didn’t have any money then. I remember. I knocked on the door and I was dirty and crazy and they told me to go around the back if I wanted something to eat. I didn’t have any money; I remember that so well. All I had was…’

Out of his pocket came the woven metal tube. He caught lamplight on its side, flicked it off again, squeezed it, then pointed with it at the night table. ‘Now, ever since I came here, I have money. In my left jacket pocket every day. I never wondered about it. It’s your money, isn’t it; Janie?’

‘It’s yours. Forget about it, Hip. It’s not important.’

‘What do you mean it’s mine?’ he barked.’ Mine because you give it to me?’ He probed her silence with a bright beam of anger and nodded. ‘Thought so.’

‘Hip!’

He shook his head, suddenly, violently, the only expression he could find at the moment for the great tearing wind which swept through him. It was anger, it was humiliation, it was a deep futility and a raging attack on the curtains which shrouded his self-knowledge. He slumped down into the easychair and put his hands over his face.

He sensed her nearness, then her hand was on his shoulder. ‘Hip…’ she whispered. He shrugged the shoulder and the hand was gone. He heard the faint sound of springs as she sat down again on the bed.

He brought his hands down slowly. His face was twisted, hurt. ‘You’ve got to understand, I’m not mad at you, I haven’t forgotten what you’ve done, it isn’t that,’ he blurted. ‘I’m all mixed up again,’ he said hoarsely. ‘Doing things, don’t know why. Things I got to do, I don’t know what. Like…’ He stopped to think, to sort the thousand scraps that whirled and danced in the wind which blew through him. ‘Like knowing this is wrong, I shouldn’t be here, getting fed, spending money, but I don’t know who ever said I shouldn’t, where I learned it. And… and like what I told you, this thing about finding somebody and I don’t know who it is and I don’t know why. I said tonight…’ He paused and for a long moment filled the room with the hiss of breath between his teeth, his tense-curled lips. ‘ I said tonight, my world… the place I live, it’s getting bigger all the time. It just now got big enough to take in that house where we stopped. We passed that corner and I knew the house was there and I had to look at it. I knew I’d been there before, dirty and all excited… knocked… they told me to go around back… I yelled at them… somebody else came. I asked them, I wanted to know about some—’

The silence, again the hissing breath.

‘—children who lived there, and no children lived there. And I shouted again, everybody was afraid, I straightened out a little. I told them just tell me what I wanted to know, I’d go away, I didn’t want to frighten anybody. I said all right, no children, then tell me where is Alicia Kew, just let me talk to Alicia Kew.’

He straightened up, his eyes alight, and pointed the piece of tubing at Janie. ‘You see? I remember, I remember her name, Alicia Kew!’ He sank back. ‘And they said, „Alicia Kew is dead.” And then they said, oh her children! And they told me where to go to find them. They wrote it down someplace, I’ve got it here somewhere…’ He began to fumble through his pockets, stopped suddenly and glared at Janie. ‘It was the old clothes, you have it, you ’ ve hidden it!’

If she had explained, if she had answered, it would have been all right but she only watched him.

‘All right,’ he gritted. ‘I remembered one thing, I can remember another. Or I can go back there and ask again. I don’t need you.’

Her expression did not change but, watching it, he knew suddenly that she was holding it still and that it was a terrible effort for her.

He said gently, ‘I did need you. I’d’ve died without you. You’ve been…’ He had no word for what she had been to him so he stopped searching for one and went on, ‘It’s just that I’ve got so I don’t need you that way any more. I have some things to find out but I have to do it myself.’

At last she spoke: ‘You have done it yourself, Hip. Every bit of it. All I’ve done is to put you where you could do it. I—want to go on with that.’

‘You don’t need to,’ he reassured her. ‘I’m a big boy now. I’ve come a long way; I’ve come alive. There can’t be much more to find out.’

‘There’s a lot more,’ she said sadly.

He shook his head positively. ‘ I tell you, I know! Finding out about those children, about this Alicia Kew, and then the address where they’d moved—that was right at the end; that was the place where I got my fingertips on the—whatever it was I was trying to grab. Just that one more place, that address where the children are; that’s all I need. That’s where he’ll be.’

‘He?’

‘The one, you know, the one I’ve been looking for. His name is—‘ He leapt to his feet. ‘His name’s—‘

He brought his fist into his palm, a murderous blow. ‘I forgot,’ he whispered.

He put his stinging hand to the short hair at the back of his head, screwed up his eyes in concentration. Then he relaxed. ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘I’ll find out, now.’

‘Sit down,’ she said. ‘Go on, Hip. Sit down and listen to me.’

Reluctantly he did; resentfully he looked at her. His head was full of almost-understood pictures and phrases. He thought, Can ’ t she let me alone? Can ’ t she let me think a while? But because she… Because she was Janie, he waited.

‘You’re right, you can do it,’ she said. She spoke slowly and with extreme care. ‘You can go to the house tomorrow, if you like, and get the address and find what you’ve been looking for. And it will mean absolutely— nothing— to you. Hip, I know! ’

He glared at her.

‘Believe me, Hip; believe me!’

He charged across the room, grabbed her wrists, pulled her up, thrust his face to hers. ‘You know!’ he shouted. ‘I bet you know. You know every damn thing, don’t you? You have all along. Here I am going half out of my head wanting to know and you sit there and watch me squirm!’

‘Hip! Hip, my arms—‘

He squeezed them tighter, shook her.’ You do know, don’t you? All about me?’

‘Let me go. Please let me go. Oh, Hip, you don’t know what you’re doing!’

He flung her back on the bed. She drew up her legs, turned on her side, propped up on one elbow and, through tears, incredible tears, tears which didn’t belong to any Janie he had yet seen, she looked up at him. She held her bruised forearm, flexed her free hand. ‘You don’t know,’ she choked, ‘what you’re…’ And then she was quiet, panting, sending, through those impossible tears, some great, tortured, thwarted message which he could not read.