Дэймон Найт - Orbit 6

Hold on, he said softly to the woman, and took the last step.

She knew when the car passed her that she had seen it and the four men in it before, had seen it and paid no attention, for now, trying hard, thinking hard, she couldn’t remember when it had passed, only that it had. The car passed her and slowed down, and in the back window two faces turned, toward each other at first, choreographed precisely, nose to nose, then nose to window, eyes on her. She slowed to fifty, forty. One of the men looking at her said something, the other laughed. The car ahead had passed her doing sixty-five, and now it was keeping two cars’ lengths in front of her. She could outdistance it. She was sure. If they let her get around them. Hers was a new Buick, less than a year old, and the other one, she didn’t know what it was, only that it looked older, and was dirty, very used-looking. She should write down the license number. Groping in her purse she saw a third car appear in her rear-view mirror. It was coming fast. Witnesses. She pushed the accelerator hard and whipped out into the other lane to pass; the car with the four men in it picked up speed also. Seventy, seventy-five, a truck was coming, a dazzling red speck in the brilliant sunlight. She jammed the gas pedal to the floor and pulled ahead of the older car, swung back in, and began to pull away from it. The driver gave up and the car began to diminish in her rear-view mirror, then was passed by the new one that was drawing up to her steadily. She didn’t want to have to drive so fast but she wanted the new car between her and the other one until she got to the next town or city, or telephone, in a pinch. She held seventy cautiously, slowing on curves and where the road vanished in a dip ahead of her, and presently the driver behind her became impatient and touched his horn, then pulled. .

Maiya walks across the living room and sinks gracefully onto the couch. Her movements are fluid, her appearance almost boneless, a curve of lines without angles. . No.

Maiya sits upright, tense, ready, anxious to help in any way. She is aware of the importance of the interview, and she is impatient with them when they query her about her fatigue. . No.

Maiya walked into the kitchen and checked the coffee and finger sandwiches, wrapped in plastic cooling in the refrigerator. She looked at the tray and wondered: Should I offer them gin and tonic instead?

Should she offer anything? She bit her lip, then had to go to the bathroom to inspect her face and apply more of the pale, pale pink lipstick. She lowered her eyelids and tilted her head and put a trace of a smile on her lips only, her eyes remaining sad and knowing.

Maiya lets them talk around her, cool, distant, remote even, and when she answers one of the many questions, it is in a low voice that is tightly controlled. She gives no hint of the tumult she is feeling. . No.

She remembered that she hadn’t decided about the gin and tonic, and she took the bottle from the shelf and considered it. It was a hot day, but of course the apartment was pleasantly air-conditioned. They might be hot when they arrived. In air-conditioned cars? From air-conditioned offices? She paced the apartment. Kitchen. Hall. Living room. Bedroom. Bath. Closet. Kitchen. Full circle. She put the gin away and counted the cups on the tray. Eight. All of her good cups. Too many. Four of them and her, possibly five of them. Probably five, but one at least would refuse coffee, gin too, if she decided on impulse to offer it. She might; she should be ready for the possibility that she would do just that, but that would mean having a second tray ready, and that would look gauche.

“It is gauche not to have wine with dinner, that’s why the rose,” she said furiously to Hank.

“Honey, who’re you trying to kid? Jack and Susan will have beer before we eat, maybe they’ll want beer with dinner.”

She should have bought some beer. Even executives liked beer in hot weather. She yanked the plug from the coffeepot. She wouldn’t offer them anything.

Maiya admits them to the small, well-kept apartment and murmurs her appreciation. .

She should have told them not to come, that they couldn’t come now or ever. She hadn’t dared. She looked out the window at the street seven stories below, white concrete glaring in the sunlight, green plants in pink planters, neat palm trees throwing shadows on neat lawns. The shadows were like whirligigs. Child on tricycle, in and out of the stick shadows, in and out, dark, light, dark, light, in and out. Her dress was white, a glare when she came from the shadow into the sun, an eye-hurting flash of white. She throbbed against Maiya’s eyes, in and out, in and out.

Although she drove with fierce concentration, now and then the other car began to grow in her mirror and she would realize with a feeling of terror that she had let up on the gas, that she had slowed down to her customary sixty-five, and she would again do seventy or more and sigh when the other car began to fade out of sight. It swelled, then shrank, filled the mirror with its image, dwindled to a dot. . The roads were so straight, so untraveled. Desert, plains, sunlight, white concrete ribbon, an occasional car or truck from the other direction. And the car behind her that threatened constantly to catch up, to pass her, only to slow down so that the faces could turn to regard her through the rear window. But what could they do? It was daylight, on a public road that had no turnoffs anywhere, that just went on and on to vanish into the sky white with sun straight ahead.

The very small dab of a girl had got to the corner and turned carefully and was now pedaling back down the sidewalk, in and out of the shadows. Maiya pulled the drapes shut and immediately the room was softened, looked more spacious and felt cooler. Living room: couch, two Danish modern chairs, television-stereo console, two wooden chairs, ash-colored cocktail table, end tables, bare floor except for the conversation rug, crescent shaped, flame colored (she had made it from a rug kit), two table lamps, white china bases, white shades, orange drapes, ivory walls, black throws on the couch and chairs. Spotless, shining. Wax and furniture polish fragrant. Kitchen: gleaming black and white floor, chrome table legs, white cover, polished coffeepot, toaster, mixer, orange and black crockery. She poured a cup of the cooling coffee and returned to the living room with it. She didn’t have to let them in. She sat down on the black couch and sipped cooling coffee and wished she had been able to say no.

Maiya leans back wearily, her slender white neck barely able to support her head, her hands thin, but quiet on her lap, patience and suffering evident on her pale face, etched in violet under her eyes.

“My dear,” Dr. Whitman says gently, “we know you’ve been through a lot. We’ll try to be brief. Can you tell us what happened now?”

“I don’t know,” she says in a low voice, shutting her eyes against the nightmare that is out there. “An accident. Hank was working so hard, studying. .”

Books. She hurried to the bedroom and dragged the carton of books from the closet where she had put it and took the top six books without noticing what they were. She put them on tables in the living room, picked one up and put it on the couch, opened, face down. The room looked cluttered suddenly. She picked up the three magazines that were on the cocktail table and took them to the bedroom and left them on top of the carton. The House Beautiful opened when she put it down and she stared at the double spread: a pool seen through a window wall, a fire in a fireplace that filled a second wall, low couches, plants that reached the high ceiling, lots of brass. . “Goddammit, will you get it through your head. We can’t afford a bigger apartment now. We can’t afford this apartment. I am a file clerk! Not a junior executive! How much room do we need?”