Уолтер Тевис - The Man Who Fell to Earth

His voice was softer now, but still angry. “Tell him no. Tell him I’m not seeing anyone before tomorrow: I’m not talking to anyone.”

For a minute there was silence. He stared at the broken glass at his feet, then kicked the larger pieces under the couch. Then Betty Jo’s voice: “All right, Tommy. I’ll tell him.” She paused. “You rest now, Tommy. Hear?”

“All right,” he said, “I’ll rest.”

He heard her footsteps receding from the door. He went to the bookcase. There was no other glass. He started to shout for Betty Jo, instead picked up the nearly full bottle, twisted the cap off, and began to drink from it. He switched off the Haydn—who could expect him to understand music like that?—and then switched on a collection of folk music, old Negro songs, Gullah music. There was, at least, something in the words of those songs that he could understand.

A rich and weary voice came from the speakers:

He smiled thoughtfully; the words of the song seemed to reach something in him. He settled himself on the couch with the bottle. He began to think about Nathan Bryce and about the conversation they had had together that afternoon.

He had imagined from their first meeting that Bryce suspected him; the very fact that the chemist had insisted on the interview was itself a kind of giveaway. He had made himself certain, through expensive investigation, that Bryce represented no one other than himself—that he did not work for the FBI, as did at least two of the construction workers at the missile site, nor for any other government agency. But then, if Bryce had somehow come to suspect him and his purposes—as, certainly, Farnsworth and probably several others had—why had he, Newton, gone out of his way to cultivate an afternoon’s intimacy with the man? And why had he been dropping hints about himself, talking about the war and the Second Coming, calling himself Rumplestiltskin—that evil little dwarf who came from nowhere to weave straw into gold and to save the princess’s life with his unheard-of knowledge, the stranger whose final purpose was to steal the princess’s child? The only way to defeat Rumplestiltskin was to uncover his identity, to name him.

And why, he thought abruptly, had Rumplestiltskin given the princess a chance to escape the bargain? Why had he given her that three-day respite in which to discover his name? Was it simply over-confidence—for who would ever imagine or guess at a name like that one?—or did he want to be found out, caught, deprived of the object of his deceit and magic? And for himself, Thomas Jerome Newton, whose magic and whose deceptions were greater than those of any enchanter or elf in any fairy tale—and he had read them all—did he now want to be found out, caught?

Why, thought Newton, his bottle in his hand, would I want to be found out? He stared at the label on the bottle, feeling very strange, dizzy. Abruptly, the recording ended. There was a pause, while another ball rolled into place. He took a long, shocking drink. Then, from the speakers, an orchestra boomed, assaulting his ears.

He stood up wearily, and blinked. He felt very weak—it seemed as if he had not been so weak since that day, now so many years ago, when, frightened and alone, he had been sick in a barren field, in November. He walked to the panel, turned off the music. Then he walked to the television controls and turned them on—maybe a Western…

The large picture of the heron on the far wall began to fade. When it was gone it was replaced by the head of a handsome man with the falsely serious stare in his eyes that is cultivated by politicians, faith healers, and evangelists. The lips moved soundlessly, while the eyes stared.

Newton turned up the volume. The head gained a voice, saying,”… of the United States as a free and independent nation, we must gird up our loins like men, with the free world behind us, and face the challenges, the hopes and fears of the world. We must remember that the United States, regardless of what the uninformed may say, is not a second-rate power. We must remember that freedom will conquer, we must…”

Suddenly Newton realized that the man speaking was the President of the United States, and he was speaking the bombast of the hopeless. He turned a switch. A bedroom scene appeared on the screen. Some tired suggestive jokes were made by the man and woman, both of them in pyjamas. He turned the switch again, hoping for a Western. He liked Westerns. But what appeared on the screen was a propaganda piece, paid for by the government, about the American virtues and strengths. There were pictures of white New England churches, field hands—always one smiling black person in each group—and maple trees. These films seemed more and more common lately; and, like so many popular magazines, more and more wildly chauvinistic—more committed than ever to the fantastic lie that America was a nation of God-fearing small towns, efficient cities, healthy farmers, kindly doctors, bemused housewives, philanthropic millionaires.

“My God,” he said aloud. “My God, you frightened, self-pitying hedonists. Liars! Chauvinists! Fools!”

He turned the switch again and a nightclub scene appeared on the screen, with soft music as background. He let it stay, watching the movement of bodies on the dance floor, the men and women dressed like peacocks, embracing one another while the music played.

And what am I, he thought, if not a frightened, self-pitying hedonist? He finished the bottle of gin, and then looked at his hands holding the bottle, staring now at the artificial fingernails, shining like translucent coins in the flickering light from the television screen. He looked at them for several minutes, as though he were seeing them for the first time.

Then he stood up and walked shakily to a closet. From a shelf he took a box that was about the size of a shoebox. On the inside of the closet door hung a full-length mirror. He looked at himself, at his tall, skinny frame, for a moment. Then he went back to the couch and set the box on the marble-topped coffee table in front of him. From it he took a small plastic bottle. On the table sat an empty bowl-shaped ashtray, of Chinese porcelain; Farnsworth had given it to him. He poured the liquid from the bottle into the ashtray, set the bottle down, and then dipped the fingertips of both his hands into the tray, as if it were a finger bowl. He held them there for a minute, and then took them out and slapped his hands together, hard. The fingernails fell on to the marble table with small, tinkling sounds. The fingers were smooth at the ends now, the tips flexible but somewhat sore.

From the television came the sound of jazz, with a loud, insistent rhythm.

He stood up, walked to the door of the room, locked it. Then he went back to the box on the table, and took from it a ball of something resembling cotton, and dipped the ball into the liquid for a moment. His hands, he noticed, were trembling. He knew, too, that he was drunker than he had ever been. But that, apparently, was not drunk enough.

Then he went to the mirror and held the damp ball against each of his ears until the synthetic earlobes fell off. Unbuttoning his shirt, he removed false nipples and hair from his chest in the same manner. The hair and nipples were attached to a thin, porous sheet, and they came off together. He took these things and laid them on the coffee table. Walking back to the mirror he began speaking in his own language, first softly and then loudly, to drown out the jazz from the television set, quoting a poem that he himself had written in his youth. The sounds did not come well from his tongue. He was too drunk; or he was losing the ability to speak in the Anthean sibilants. Then, breathing heavily, he took a small, tweezerlike instrument from the box and stood in front of the mirror and carefully removed the thin, colored plastic membrane from each of his eyes. Still struggling to speak his poem, he blinked at himself with the eyes whose irises opened vertically, like a cat’s.