Damon Knight - Orbit 14

The old man is strong, with good muscles in his legs and arms, his back strong and straight. His hair is very light, and even though it has whitened in the past three years, it looks much the same as always, except that now it has become very fine, almost like baby’s hair. It is as if his hair is wearing out before anything else. He has a beard that is soft also, not the coarse pubic hair of many beards. When the wind blows through it, it parts in unfamiliar ways, just as a girl’s long hair does, and when the wind is through rearranging it, it falls back into place easily and shows no disarray. The old man reads, and now he turns and searches among the many notebooks, finds the one he wants and draws it to him. On the cover is his name, written in beautiful script: Llewellyn Frick.

He begins to write. He is still writing when the door is flung open and another man runs in wildly, his face ashen. He is plump and soft, unfinished-looking, as if time that has carved the old man’s face has left his untouched. He is forty perhaps, dressed in a red cape that opens to reveal a blue robe. He is barefoot. He rushes to the desk and grabs the old man’s arm frantically.

“Not now, Boy,” the old man says, and pulls his arm free. He doesn’t look up. Boy has made him trail a thick line down the page and he is too irritated to show forgiveness immediately, but neither does he want to scold. Boy shakes him again and this time his insistence communicates itself and the old man looks at him.

“For God’s sake, Boy . . .” The old man stops and stands up. His voice becomes very gentle. “What is it, Boy? What happened?”

Boy gestures wildly and runs to the window, pointing. The old man follows, sees nothing on the streets below. He puts his 'arm about Boy’s shoulders and, holding him, says, “Calm down, Boy, and try to tell me. What is it?”

Boy has started to weep, and the old man pulls him away from the window and forces him into a chair. He is much stronger than Boy, taller, heavier. He kneels in front of Boy and says soothingly, “It’s all right, Boy. It’s all right. Take it easy.” He says it over and over until Boy is able to look at him and start to gesticulate in a way the old man can understand.

Once, many years ago, a pack of wild dogs entered the city and almost ran Boy down. He fled through the alleys, through stores, through backyards, every short cut that he knew, and they followed, yelping, driven by hunger. The old man heard them blocks from the apartment building and went out with his shotgun.

Now Boy makes the same motions he made then. They almost caught him. They were after him. The old man returns to the window. “Dogs?” He looks out and the city is quiet; the sun is very low now and the shadows fall across the streets, fill the streets. Boy runs after him and tries fiercely to pull him away from the window, shaking his head. Not dogs.

He shakes his head wildly now, and he touches the old man, touches himself, then holds his hand at waist level, then a bit higher, a bit lower. “Animals?” the old man asks. Again the wild shake. “People? Little people? Children?”

Children! The old man stares at Boy in disbelief. Children? In the city? Boy pulls at him again, to get him away from the window. The old man searches the darkening shadows and sees nothing. The city is very quiet. No wind blows. There is nothing out there to make a sound.

Children! Again and again he demands that Boy change his story. It was animals. Dogs. Wild cats. Anything but children. Boy is weeping again, and when the old man starts to light the lamp, Boy knocks it from his hands. The oil spills and makes a gleaming, dark pattern on the tile floor, a runner from the door to the center of the room. The old man stares at it.

“I’ll have to tell the others,” the old man says, but he doesn’t move. He still can’t believe there are any children in the city. He can’t believe there are any children anywhere in the country, in the world. Finally he starts to move toward the door, avoiding the oil. Boy tugs at him, holds his robe, clutches at his arm.

“Boy,” the old man says gently, “it’s all right. I have to tell everyone else, or they might make fires, put lights on, draw the children this way. Don’t you understand?” Boy’s eyes are insane with fear. He looks this way and that like an animal that smells the blood of slaughter and is helpless to communicate its terror. Suddenly he lets go the old man’s robe and darts to the door, out into the hall, and vanishes into the shadows that are impenetrable at the end of the hall.

It is not so dark outside, after all. The twilight is long at this time of year, but there is a touch of frost in the air, a hint that by morning the grass will have a white sheath, that the leaves will be silver and gold, that the late-blooming flowers will be touched and that perhaps this time they will turn brown and finally black. The old man walks through the corner of the park, and it makes little difference to him if there is light or not. For thirty-two years he has lived in that building, has walked in this park at all hours; his feet know it as well by night as by day. It is easier to walk in the park than on the city streets and sidewalks. Whole sections of roadways have caved in, and other sections are upthrust, tilting precariously. Everywhere the grass has taken hold, creeping along cracks, creating chasms and filling them. When the old man emerges from the trees, he is on the far side of a wide street from a large department store. This side of the building is almost all open. Once it was glass-fronted and very expensive; now it is Monica Auerbach’s private palace.

Inside the palace graceful columns of black marble rise out of sight. The counters have been removed and oddities now occupy the spots where the rough construction might otherwise show. A bronze Buddha from the garden shop; a cupid with a birdbath, chalklike in the dim light; a bookcase with knick-knacks on its shelves—china cups in matching saucers, a teapot, a jade bowl, owls. Monica is very fond of owls. There is something draped in tattered and brittle material that over the years has turned to a strange blue with a violet sheen. Farther back everything fades into shadows as the light fails. The old man starts up the wide, ornate stairs. On the second floor he calls her. On the third floor he finds her.

This floor once housed the furniture department and a plush restaurant. One side is open to the last rays of the still bright western sky, and the sunlight slants through a forest scene, not yet finished, but already thick with greenery. It even smells like a living forest, and the old man realizes what Boy’s missions for Monica have been during the past weeks: there are dozens of six- to eight-foot evergreens in planters in the foreground, and a small hill of pine cones. Monica is creating a green spot to see her through the coming winter.

Now the old man sees Monica. She is tying red balls on one of the plastic trees. She must have scoured the city for the greenery, there is so much of it. Palm trees, vines, garlands of leaves. Monica glances his way and her face sets in hard lines; she is furious with him for ruining her surprise, for intruding before opening day. She ignores him, passes behind the tree she is decorating, and continues to tie on the red balls.

The old man walks over a carpet of plastic earth and grass (but the rocks scattered on the path are real) and approaches her. Across the room are lanterns already lighted; often Monica works on into the night.

“Boy saw children in the city today, Monica.”

She turns her back on him and studies the tree, her eyes narrowed in thought.

“Boy saw children!” he shouts at her.

Her hands shake now when she reaches for the tree, and she jerks them back behind her.