Mack Reynolds: After Utopia

Spain! That was where, even as a teenager, he’d gotten his bellyful of the damn Russians and where he’d begun to achieve some maturity in political economy. Spain, where the idealistic kids of a score of countries had flocked to fight for democracy and had wound up dying for Russian expediency.

Mr. Cogswell, yet! Was he that far along? Did he look like an old fogy to the marine?

He pushed his glass over toward Paul Lund and said, “Let’s have another one.”

To Jim he said, “Our position seems to be that the virtues of western democracy are so superior to the Soviet system that a few blasts on our trumpet will bring the Commie Jericho down. It might’ve been true, had the premise it rested upon been a little sounder. Unfortunately, the West doesn’t form the community of unsullied virgins which the triumph of virtue predicates. As a matter of fact, the most shrill of the anti-Commie harridans are usually those of least political repute. For every Denmark or Holland, we’ve got a South Korea or Turkey. The big western powers seem to have recruited their allies not for their adherence to the principles we preach but for their opposition to the principles we oppose.”

Pierre Meunier was grinning happily. “My point, exactly,” he said.

Tracy Cogswell turned on him and snapped, “As for the Commies, where did you get the idea that because one side might be wrong, the other must be right?”

Meunier said something like, “Ung?”

Cogswell growled, “I sometimes think that if there wasn’t any such thing as the Communist party that it’d be to the interest of the western powers to create one. It makes the biggest bogy of all time. In the name of fighting the Commies you can pull just about anything in the way of keeping your people from examining your own institutions. In Guatemala, if the fruit pickers decide they need a union to get better pay than six bucks a week, the cry goes up they’re commies ! and the leaders are thrown into the jug. In South Africa the natives decide that some of the freedom they’ve been hearing about might be a good idea and start making some noises to that effect. Commies! the call goes up and they’re slapped down flat. It applies to every country outside the Soviet ones. Any man in his right mind can see that what they’ve got in the Soviet Union is no answer, so even men of good will allow almost anything to be pulled just as long as its done in the name of fighting communism.”

Tracy Cogswell took an angry pull at his drink, finishing it. “I think that the worst thing that ever happened to social progress was that damned premature Bolshevik revolution.”

Paul Lund was laughing at him. “What side are you on, anyway?”

Cogswell slid off his stool and tossed two hundred francs to the counter. He grunted his disgust. “That was the point I was trying to make. It’s about time the people in this world find out both sides are wrong and start looking for something else. Good night, gentlemen.”

Jim said vacantly, “So long.” He hadn’t followed Cogswell’s argument very well, but he could see by Meunier’s unhappy expression that the party line hadn’t been extolled.

Back in his apartment, he grunted sourly to himself. What did he think he was accomplishing? None of the three men he’d sounded off to were potential material for the movement. And there was a remote possibility that, as a result of his little curse-on-both-your-houses speech, word would get around that he, Tracy Cogswell, had rather strong political opinions, and that was the last thing he wanted.

He went out into his tiny kitchen and poured himself still another drink. Cogswell wasn’t generally much for belting the bottle, but at the moment he felt the need for another drink. He brought his glass back to the living room and sat it on the coffee table next to his reading chair.

He picked up the Leibnecht pamphlet and thumbed through the pages idly. He was still in no mood for concentration.

Something alien flickered in his eyes, and he scowled and looked up at the wall opposite. There seemed to be some sort of light reflection. No, that wasn’t the word.

Cogswell frowned, trying to figure out what it could be. Some reflection, or something, from somewhere. But where? Anything coming through the window that opened onto Rue Dr. Fumey would hardly…

He squinted at the vague flickering. What was it that it reminded him of? Why, a Fourth of July pin wheel, like they used to have when he was a kid in Cincinnati. One of the little penny ones.

His mind went back to Cincinnati.

The big swimming pool where the adults would throw in pennies and you’d dive for them. You could get enough to go to the movies if you worked at it long enough. Ten cents was the price of a kid’s admission.

The movies in Cincinnati, back in the 1920s. He’d been a real fan. Lon Chaney, Hoot Gibson, Rin-Tin-Tin, Tom Mix, Our Gang.

The pin wheel was larger and turning faster. What in the world could it be? Quite an optical illusion. He knew that if he got up and walked over to it, either it would fade away or he would be able to determine what caused it. He felt too lazy to make the effort.

It still seemed to be growing in size.

That Pernod he’d had at Paul Lund’s had hit him harder than he’d expected. Evidently he’d had too little dinner, and the alcohol had free range.

Of a sudden, Tracy Cogswell shook his head. He was getting drowsy and that wasn’t right. That damned spinning was having hypnotic effect on him. He was going to have to…

Part of him backed away in astonishment. Why, he was actually, in a strange manner, under. Asleep, though still awake, from the effects of the spinning and… and something else. He didn’t know what else. Good Jesus Christ, certainly Paul hadn’t put something in his drink. No, that was ridiculous.

But now, in an impossible sort of way, part of his brain seemed to stand off and watch the rest of him. As though—what was the term the occult crackpots used?—as though his astral body was standing aloof from him and watching his every action.

Tracy Cogswell stood up suddenly. The pinwheel was gone now. But there was still something there. And still his second self stood off and seemingly watched, completely puzzled. And there was even a touch of fear. Was he simply drunk?

Purposefully, Cogswell strode over to the heaviest of the steel files, fished his keys from his pocket and unlocked it. Inside the bottom drawer was a heavy strongbox. Another key opened it. He fished out more than a thousand dollars in pounds, French francs, fifty-dollar bills and British gold sovereigns. His emergency money. He also brought forth two bankbooks, one on Barclay’s in Gibraltar and one on the Moses Pariente bank here in Tangier, as well as his emergency forged Australian passport.

He tucked all of these into his pockets and went into the bedroom where he fished a suitcase from under the bed.

While his separate ‘sane’ self watched in growing amazement and disconcertedness, Tracy Cogswell rapidly packed his bag. He ignored the light Luger in the top drawer of his bureau and, contrary to his usual custom, packed no reading material at all.

Fifteen minutes after first seeing the pin wheel, he was carefully locking the door of his apartment behind him.

Down on the street, he strolled over to Rue Goya, tossing his apartment keys into a corner refuse can on the way. In front of the Goya Theatre, he hailed a Chico Cab and said, “ Je voudrais aller au Grand Zocco .”

This could only be a dream. A dream composed of too much work, too little relaxation, too much strain, and two of Paul Lund’s heavy charges of Pernod.

But all the time he knew it was no dream.