Philip Dick - We Can Build You

I could not bear the idea that my father was about to launch into one of his philosophical tirades; sinking down on the chair and pretending not to hear him I made his words blur into fly-like buzzing. In my stupor of disappointment I imagined how it would have been if there had been no joke played on me, if I had found Pris here in this room, lying on the bed.

Think how it would have been. I would have found her asleep, perhaps drunk; I would have lifted her up and held her in my arms, brushed her hair back from her eyes, kissed her on the ear. I could imagine her stirring to life as I woke her up from her drunken nap.

"You're not paying attention," my father said reprovingly. And I was not; I was completely away from the dismal disappointment, into my dream of Pris. "You still pursue this will-of-the-wisp." He frowned at me.

In my dream of a happier life I kissed Pris once more, and she opened her eyes. I laid her back down, lay against her and hugged her.

"How's the Lincoln?" Pris's voice, murmuring at my ear. She showed no surprise at seeing me, or at my having gathered her up and kissed her; in fact she did not show any reaction at all. But that was Pris.

"As good as could be expected." I awkwardly caressed her hair as she lay on her back gazing up at me in the darkness. I could barely discern her outline there. "No," I admitted; "actually it's in terrible shape. It's having a psychotic depression. What do you care? You did it."

"I saved it," Pris said remotely, languidly. "Bring me a cigarette, will you?"

I lit a cigarette for her and handed it to her. She lay smoking.

My father's voice came to me, "Ignore this introverted ideal, _mein Sohn_--it takes you away from reality, like Mr. Barrows told you, and this is serious! This is what Doctor Horstowski, if you'll excuse the expression, would have to call ill; do you see?"

Dimly I heard Chester's voice. "It's schizophrenia, Dad, like all those adolescent kids; millions of Americans have it without knowing it, they never get into the clinics. I read an article, it told about that."

Pris said, "You're a good person, Louis. I feel sorry for you, being in love with me. You're wasting your time, but I suppose you don't care about that. Can you explain what love is? Love like that?"

"No," I said.

"Won't you try?" she said. "Is the door locked? If it isn't, go lock it."

"Hell," I said miserably, "I can't shut them out; they're right here on top of us. We'll never be away from them, we'll never be alone, just the two of us--I know it." But I went anyhow, knowing what I knew, and shut and locked the door.

When I got back to the bed I found Pris standing up on it; she was unzipping her skirt. She drew her skirt up over her head and tossed it away from her, onto a chair; she was undressing. Now she kicked off her shoes.

"Who else can teach me, Louis, if not you?" she said. "Pull the covers back." She began taking off her underwear, but I stopped her. "Why not?"

"I'm going mad," I said. "I can't stand this. I have to go back to Boise and see Doctor Horstowski; this can't go on, not here with my family in the same room."

Pris said gently, "Tomorrow we'll fly back to Boise. But not now." She dragged the bedspread and blankets and top sheet back, got in, and, picking up her cigarette again, lay naked, not covering herself up but simply lying there. "I'm so tired, Louis. Stay with me here tonight."

"I just can't," I said.

"Then take me back to where you're staying."

"I can't do that either; the Lincoln is there."

"Louis," she said, "I just want to go to sleep; lie down and cover us up. They won't bother us. Don't be afraid of them. I'm sorry the Lincoln had one of its fits. Don't blame me for that, Louis; it has them anyhow, and I did save its life. It's my child... isn't it?"

"I guess you could put it like that," I said.

"I brought it to life, I mothered it. I'm very proud of that. When I saw that filthy Booth object... all I wanted to do was kill it on the spot. As soon as I saw it I knew what it was for. Could I be your mother, too? I wish I had brought you to life like I did it; I wish I had brought all kinds of people into life... everybody. I give life, and tonight I took it, and that's a good thing, if you can bear to do that. It takes a lot of strength to take someone's life, don't you think, Louis?"

"Yeah," I said. I seated myself beside her on the bed once more.

In the darkness she reached up and stroked my hair from my eyes. "I have that power over you, to give you life or take it away from you. Does that scare you? You know it's true."

"It doesn't scare me now," I said. "It did once, when I first realized it."

"It never scared me," Pris said. "If it did I'd lose the power; isn't that so, Louis? And I have to keep it; someone has to have it."

I did not answer. Cigar smoke billowed around me, making me sick, making me aware of my father and my brother, both of them intently watching. "Man must cherish some illusions," my father said, puffing away rapidly, "but this is ridiculous." Chester nodded to that.

"Pris," I said aloud.

"Listen to that, listen to that," my father said excitedly, "he's calling her; he's talking to her!"

"Get out of here," I said to my father and Chester. I waved my arms at them, but it did no good; neither of them stirred.

"You must understand, Louis," my father said, "I have sympathy for you. I see what Mr. Barrows doesn't see, the nobility of your search."

Through the darkness and the babble of their voices I once more made out Pris; she had gathered her clothes in a ball and sat on the edge of the bed, hugging them. "Does it matter," she said, "what anyone says or thinks about us? I wouldn't worry about it; I wouldn't let words become so real as that. Everybody on the outside is angry at us, Sam and Maury and all the rest of them. The Lincoln wouldn't have sent you here if it wasn't the right thing... don't you know that?"

"Pris," I said, "I know it'll be all right. We're going to have a happy future."

She smiled at that; in the darkness I saw the flash of her teeth. It was a smile of great suffering and sorrow, and it seemed to me--just for a moment--that what I had seen in the Lincoln simulacrum had come from her. It was here so clearly, now, the pain that Pris felt. She had put it into her creation perhaps without intending to; perhaps without even knowing that it was there.

"I love you," I said to her.

Pris rose to her feet, naked and cool and thin. She put her hands to the sides of my head and drew me down.

"_Mein Sohn_," my father was saying now to Chester, "_er schiaft in dem Freiheit der Liebesnacht_. What I mean, he's asleep, my boy is, in the freedom of a night of love, if you follow me."

"What'll they say back in Boise?" Chester said irritably. "I mean, how can we go back home with him like this?"

"Aw," my father said reprovingly, "shut up, Chester; you don't understand the depth of his psyche, what he finds. There's a two-fold side to mental psychosis, it's also a return to the original source that we've all turned away from. You better remember that, Chester, before you shoot off your mouth."

"Do you hear them?" I asked Pris.

Standing there against me, her body arched back for me, Pris laughed a soft, compassionate laugh. She gazed up at me fixedly, without expression. And yet she was fully alert. For her, change and reality, the events of her life, time itself, all had at this moment ceased.

Wonderingly, she lifted her hand and touched me on the cheek, brushed me with her fingertips.

Quite close to the door Mrs. Nild said clearly, "We'll get out of here, Mr. Rosen, and let you have the apartment."

From farther off I heard Sam Barrows mutter, "That girl in there is underdeveloped. Everything slides back out. What's she doing there in the bedroom anyhow? Has she got that skinny body--" His voice faded.