Algis Budrys - Some Will Not Die

He stopped, turned, and looked at Margaret. “You realize what that poor guy wanted? You know who he sounded like? Like me, that’s who—like me, Matt Garvin, the guy who just wanted a place to live in peace.”

“Matt, I know what he said he—”

“Hey! Hey, you, in there!” The muffled voice came blurredly into the apartment, followed by a series of sharp knocks on the other side of the wall that separated this apartment from the next.

Margaret stopped, but Garvin slid forward, his boots making no sound on the floor as he moved quietly over to the wall. The knocking started again. “You! Next door. What’s all that racket?”

Garvin heard Margaret start to say something. His hand flashed out in a silencing gesture, and he put his ear to the wall. His right hand came down and touched the Glock’s holster.

“I’m warning you.” He could hear the voice more clearly. “Speak up, or you’ll never come out of there alive. I’m mighty particular about my neighbors, and if you’ve knocked off the ones I had, I’ll make damn sure you don’t enjoy their place very long.”

Garvin’s mouth opened. He’d known there was someone in there, of course, but, up to now, there had never been any break in the silence.

“Well?” The voice was impatient. “I’ve got the drop on you. My wife’s in the hall right now, with a gun on your door. And I can get some dynamite in a big hurry.”

Garvin hesitated. It meant giving the other man an advantage.

“Hurry up!”

But there-was nothing else he could do. “It’s all right,” he finally said, speaking loudly enough for the other man to hear. “There was somebody in here, but we took care of it.”

“That’s better,” the other man said, but his voice was still suspicious. “Now let’s hear your wife say something.”

Margaret moved up to the wall. She looked at Garvin questioningly, and he reluctantly nodded. “Go ahead,” he said.

“This is Margaret Garvin. We’re—we’re all right.” She stopped, then seemed to reach a decision and went on with a rush. “My husband’s name is Matt. Who are you?”

That wasn’t right. Garvin frowned. She was getting too close to an infringement on the silent privacy that had existed for so long, now. Men were no longer brothers. They were distant nodding acquaintances.

Surprisingly, the other man did not hesitate a perceptible length of time before answering. “My name’s Gustav Berendtsen. My wife’s name is Carol.” The tone of his voice had changed, and now Garvin thought he could make out the indistinct trace of a pleased chuckle in Berendtsen’s voice. “Took care of it, did you? Good. Damn good! Nice to have neighbors you can depend on.” The voice lost some of its clarity as Berendtsen obviously turned his head away from his side of the wall. “Hey, Toots, you can put that cannon down now. They straightened it out themselves.”

Out in the hall, a safety-catch clicked, and no-longer-careful footsteps moved back from the Garvins’ door. Then Berendtsen’s door opened and shut, and, after a moment, there was a shy voice from beside Berendtsen on the other side of the wall.

“Hello. I’m Carol Berendtsen. Is—” She stopped, as though she too was as unsure of herself as Margaret and Garvin were, here in this strange situation that had suddenly materialized from beyond the rules. But she stopped only for a moment, “Is everything all right?”

“Sure, everything’s all right, Toots!” Berendtsen’s voice cut in from behind the wall. “I’ve been telling you those were damn sensible people living in there. Know how to mind their own business. People who know that, know how to make sure nobody else tries minding it, either.”

“All right, Gus, all right,” Garvin and Margaret heard her say, her low voice still carrying well enough to be heard through the masonry. “I just wanted to hear them say it.” And then she added something in an even lower voice. “It’s been a long time since I heard people just talking,” and Garvin’s hand tightened on Margaret’s as they heard her.

“Sure. Toots, sure. But I kept telling you it wasn’t always going to be that way. I—” His voice rose up to a louder pitch. “Hey, Garvins! I gotta idea. Also got a bottle of Haig and Haig in here. Care for some? We’ll come over,” he added hurriedly.

Garvin looked at Margaret’s strained face and trembling lips. He could feel his own face tightening.

“Please, Matt?” Margaret asked.

She was right. It was too big a chance not to take.

“Sure, Hon,” he said. “But get my rifle and cover the door from the hall,” he added softly.

“All right,” he said, raising his voice. “Come over.”

“Right,” Berendtsen answered. “Be a minute.”

The words were jovial enough, Garvin thought.

He heard Margaret move back into the hall, and his mind automatically registered the slight creak of the sling’s leather as she lifted the rifle to cover the door.

And then he heard Carol Berendtsen’s voice faintly through the wall.

“I—I don’t know,” she was saying to Gus, her voice uncertain. “Will it be all right? I mean, I haven’t talked to another woman in… What’ll she think? I haven’t got any good clothes. And there’s a strange man in there… Gus, I look so—I’m ashamed!”

And Gus Berendtsen’s voice, clumsy but gentle, its power broken into softness. “Aw, look, Toots, they’re just people like us. You think they’ve got any time for frills? I bet you’re dressed just fine. And what’s to be ashamed of in being a woman?” And then there was a moment’s silence. “I’ll bet you’re prettier than she is, too.”

“You’d better think so, Gus.”

Something untied itself in Garvin. “I think you can put that rifle away, Hon,” he said to Margaret. He saw her look of uncertainty, and nodded to emphasize the words. “I’m pretty sure.”

Garvin poured out another finger of the Scotch. He raised his glass in a silent mutual toast with Berendtsen, who grinned and lifted his own glass in response. Gus chuckled, the soft, controlled sound rumbling gently up through his thick chest. The glass was almost out of sight in his spade of a hand, huge even in proportion to the rest of his body. He sat easily in the chair that should have been too small for him, the shaped power of his personality reflected in his body’s casual poise.

“Ought to be able to set up a pretty good combo,” he said. “One of us stays home to hold the fort while the other one goes out for the groceries. Take turns. Might try knocking a hole through this wall, too. Be easier.” He slapped the plaster with his hand.

Garvin nodded. “Good idea.” They both smiled at the drift of women’s voices that came from one of the bedrooms. “Make it easier on the baby-sitter, too.”

“My gal was a little worried,” Berendtsen agreed. He grinned again. “You know, we may have something here.” He raised his glass again, and Garvin, catching his train of thought, matched the gesture. “To the Second Republic,” Berendtsen said.

“All six-and-two-halves rooms of it,” Garvin affirmed. Then his glance reached the living room window, and he realized that there was still something undone. He got up to loosen the sheet and let the body fall to join the others that lay scattered among the dark buildings.

But he stopped before his hand touched the sheet. No one would know, now, how much honesty there had been within the fear of the intruder’s voice. But it was time somebody in the world got the benefit of the doubt. They’d carry him down to the ground, Gus and he, and give him a burial, like a man.

It was winter again, and seven years since the plague. December snow lay deep between Stuyvesant’s buildings, under the frosty night, while Manhattan raised its blunt stone shoulders up and, here and there, silent figures in the department stores took time from their normal foraging and climbed the prostrate escalators to the toy counters.