Philip Dick - The Man in the High Castle

The young Japanese, obviously not understanding English, bowed and smiled.

“I see,” Baynes murmured. “Well, I wish him luck.” I have my own linguistic problems, he thought. Evidently.

Good lord—the young Japanese student, while driving him to his hotel, would no doubt attempt to converse with him in Swedish the entire way. A language which Mr. Baynes barely understood, and then only when it was spoken in the most formal and correct manner, certainly not when attempted by a young Japanese who tried to pick it up from a phonograph record course.

He’ll never get through to me, Mr. Baynes thought. And he’ll keep trying, because this is his chance; probably he will never see a Swede again. Mr. Baynes groaned inwardly. What an ordeal it was going to be, for both of them.

Early in the morning, enjoying the cool, bright sunlight, Mrs. Juliana Frink did her grocery shopping. She strolled along the sidewalk, carrying the two brown paper bags, halting at each store to study the window displays. She took her time.

Wasn’t there something she was supposed to pick up at the drugstore? She wandered in. Her shift at the judo parlor did not begin until noon; this was her free time, today. Seating herself on a stool at the counter she put down her shopping bags and began to go over the different magazines.

The new Life , she saw, had a big article called: TELEVISION IN EUROPE: GLIMPSE OF TOMORROW . Turning to it, interested, she saw a picture of a German family watching television in their living room. Already, the article said, there was four hours of image broadcast during the day from Berlin. Someday there would be television stations in all the major European cities. And, by 1970, one would be built in New York.

The article showed Reich electronic engineers at the New York site, helping the local personnel with their problems. It was easy to tell which were the Germans. They had that healthy, clean, energetic, assured look. The Americans, on the other hand—they just looked like people. They could have been anybody.

One of the German technicians could be seen pointing off somewhere, and the Americans were trying to make out what he was pointing at. I guess their eyesight is better than ours, she decided. Better diet over the last twenty years. As we’ve been told; they can see things no one else can. Vitamin A, perhaps?

I wonder what it’s like to sit home in your living room and see the whole world on a little gray glass tube. If those Nazis can fly back and forth between here and Mars, why can’t they get television going? I think I’d prefer that, to watch those comedy shows, actually see what Bob Hope and Durante look like, than to walk around on Mars.

Maybe that’s it, she thought as she put the magazine back on the rack. The Nazis have no sense of humor, so why should they want television? Anyhow, they killed most of the really great comedians. Because most of them were Jewish. In fact, she realized, they killed off most of the entertainment field. I wonder how Hope gets away with what he says. Of course, he has to broadcast from Canada. And it’s a little freer up there. But Hope really says things. Like the joke about Göring… the one where Göring buys Rome and has it shipped to his mountain retreat and then set up again. And revives Christianity so his pet lions will have something to– “Did you want to buy that magazine, miss?” the little dried-up old man who ran the drugstore called, with suspicion.

Guiltily, she put down the Reader’s Digest which she had begun to thumb through.

Again strolling along the sidewalk with her shopping bags, Juliana thought, Maybe Göring will be the new Fuhrer when that Bormann dies. He seems sort of different from the others. The only way that Bormann got it in the first place was to weasel in when Hitler realized how fast he was going. Old Göring was off in his mountain palace. Göring should have been Fuhrer after Hitler, because it was his Luftwaffe that knocked out those English radar stations and then finished off the RAF. Hitler would have had them bomb London, like they did Rotterdam.

But probably Goebbels will get it, she decided. That was what everyone said. As long as that awful Heydrich doesn’t. He’d kill us all. He’s really bats.

The one I like, she thought, is that Baldur von Schirach. He’s the only one who looks normal, anyhow. But he hasn’t got a chance.

Turning, she ascended the steps to the front door of the old wooden building in which she lived.

When she unlocked the door of her apartment she saw Joe Cinnadella still lying where she had left him, in the center of the bed, on his stomach, his arms dangling. He was still asleep.

No, she thought. He can’t still be here; the truck’s gone. Did he miss it? Obviously.

Going into the kitchen, she set her grocery bags on the table among the breakfast dishes.

But did he intend to miss it? she asked herself. That’s what I wonder.

What a peculiar man… he had been so active with her, going on almost all night. And yet it had been as if he were not actually there, doing it but never being aware. Thoughts on something else, maybe.

From habit, she began putting food away in the old G.E. turret-top refrigerator. And then she began clearing the breakfast table.

Maybe he’s done it so much, she decided, it’s second nature; his body makes the motions, like mine now as I put these plates and silver in the sink. Could do it with three-fifths of his brain removed, like the leg of a frog in biology class.

“Hey,” she called. “Wake up.”

In the bed, Joe stirred, snorted.

“Did you hear the Bob Hope show the other night?” she called. “He told this really funny joke, the one where this German major is interviewing some Martians. The Martians can’t provide racial documentation about their grandparents being Aryan, you know. So the German major reports back to Berlin that Mars is populated by Jews.” Coming into the living room where Joe lay in the bed, she said, “And they’re about one foot tall, and have two heads… you know how Bob Hope goes on.”

Joe had opened his eyes. He said nothing; he stared at her unwinkingly. His chin, black with stubble, his dark, achefilled eyes… she also became quiet, then.

“What is it?” she said at last. “Are you afraid?” No, she thought; that’s Frank who’s afraid. This is—I don’t know what.

“The rig went on,” Joe said, sitting up.

“What are you going to do?” She seated herself on the edge of the bed, drying her arms and hands with the dish towel.

“I’ll catch him on the return. He won’t say anything to anybody; he knows I’d do the same for him.”

“You’ve done this before?” she asked.

Joe did not answer. You meant to miss it, Juliana said to herself. I can tell; all at once I know.

“Suppose he takes another route back?” she said.

“He always take Fifty. Never Forty. He had an accident on Forty once; some horses got out in the road and he plowed into them. In the Rockies.” Picking up his clothes from the chair he began to dress.

“How old are you, Joe?” she asked as she contemplated his naked body.

“Thirty-four.”

Then, she thought, you must have been in the war. She saw no obvious physical defects; he had, in fact, quite a good, lean body, with long legs. Joe, seeing her scrutiny, scowled and turned away. “Can’t I watch?” she asked, wondering why not. All night with him, and then this modesty. “Are we bugs?” she said. “We can’t stand the sight of each other in the daylight—we have to squeeze into the walls?”

Grunting sourly, he started toward the bathroom in his underpants and socks, rubbing his chin.

This is my home, Juliana thought. I’m letting you stay here, and yet you won’t allow me to look at you. Why do you want to stay, then? She followed after him, into the bathroom; he had begun running hot water in the bowl, to shave.