Уолтер Тевис - The Man Who Fell to Earth

He stared at himself a long time, and then he began to cry. He did not sob, but tears came from his eyes—tears exactly like a human’s tears—and slid down his narrow cheeks. He was crying in despair.

Then he spoke aloud, to himself, in English. “Who are you?” he said. “And where do you belong?”

His own body stared back at him; but he could not recognize it as his own. It was alien, and frightening.

He got himself another bottle. The music had stopped. An announcer was saying, “…ballroom of the Seelbach Hotel in downtown Louisville, brought to you live by Worldcolor—films and developers for all that’s best in photography….”

Newton did not look at the screen; he was opening the bottle. A woman’s voice began to speak: “To store up memories of the holidays ahead, of the children, the traditional family feast at Thanksgiving and Christmas, there is nothing more lovely than Worldcolor prints, filled with glowing life…”

And on the couch, Thomas Jerome Newton now lay drinking, his gin bottle open, his nailless fingers trembling, his catlike eyes glazed and staring at the ceiling in anguish….

On a Sunday morning five days after his drunken conversation with Newton, Bryce was at home, trying to read a detective novel. He was seated by the electric heater in his small, prefabricated living room, was dressed only in his green flannelette pyjamas, and was drinking his third cup of black coffee. He felt better this morning than he had lately; his concern with Newton’s identity did not plague him so much as it had for the past several days. The question was still the paramount one in his mind; but he had decided on a sort of policy—if watchful waiting could be called a policy—and had managed to dismiss the problem, if not from his thoughts, at least from his continual scrutiny. The detective novel was pleasantly dull enough; the weather outside had turned bitterly cold. He was comfortable by the would-be fireplace, and he felt no sense of urgency about anything. On the wall to his left hung The Fall of Icarus . He had moved it there from the kitchen two days before.

He was about halfway through the book when a faint knock came at his front door. He got up with some irritation, wondering who in hell would call on him on a Sunday morning. There was social life enough among the staff; but he rigorously avoided it, and he had few friends. He had no friend close enough to come calling on a Sunday morning before lunch. He got his bathrobe from the bedroom and then opened the front door.

Outside in the gray morning, shivering in a light nylon jacket, was Newton’s housekeeper.

She smiled at him and said, “Doctor Bryce?”

“Yes?” He could not remember her name, although Newton had mentioned it in his presence once. There were a good many rumors about Newton and this woman. “Come in and get warm.” he said.

“Thanks.” She came in quickly, but apologetically, closing the door behind her. “Mr. Newton sent me.”

“Oh?” He led her to the electric fire. “You need a heavier coat.”

She seemed to blush—or perhaps it was only the redness of her cheeks from the cold. “I don’t get out much.”

After he had helped her off with her jacket, she bent over the heater and began warming her hands. Bryce seated himself and watched her thoughtfully, waiting for her to bring up the reason for her call. She was not an unattractive woman—full-mouthed, black-haired, heavy-bodied beneath her plain blue dress. She must be about his own age, and like himself she dressed in old-fashioned clothes. She wore no makeup, but, with the reddening of her complexion from the cold, she did not need any. Her breasts were heavy, like those of peasant women in Russian propaganda films; and she would have had the perfect, monumental “earth mother” look if it had not been for her shy, self-effacing eyes and her hillbilly manner and voice. Beneath the half-sleeves of her dress there was a light growth of black hair on her arms, soft and pleasant looking. He liked that, as he liked the way that she did not pluck her eyebrows.

Abruptly she straightened up, smiled at him more comfortably now, and spoke. “It isn’t like a wood fire.”

For a moment he didn’t understand what she meant. Then, nodding at the red-glowing heater, he said, “No, it certainly isn’t.” And then, “Why don’t you sit down?”

She took the chair across from him, leaned back, and put her feet up on the ottoman. “Doesn’t smell like a wood fire either.” She looked thoughtful. “I lived on a farm and I can still remember wood fires in the morning when I was hopping around trying to get dressed. I’d lay my clothes on the hearth to warm them up and I’d stand and keep my backside warm by the fire. I can remember how the fire smelt. But I haven’t smelt a wood fire in—God knows—twenty years.”

“I haven’t either,” he said.

“Nothing smells as good as it used to,” she said. “Not even coffee, the way they make it. Most things don’t smell at all any more.”

“Do you want a cup? Of coffee?”

“Sure,” she said. “You want me to get it?”

“I’ll get it,” he stood up, finishing off his cup. “I was ready for another one anyway.”

He went to the kitchen and fixed two cups, using the coffee pills that were practically all you could buy these days, ever since the country had broken relations with Brazil. He brought them in on a tray and she smiled up at him pleasantly as she took hers. She looked very comfortable, like an old, good-tempered dog—with neither pride nor philosophy to hinder its comfort.

He sat down, sipping. “You’re right.” he said, “nothing much smells as it used to. Or maybe we’re too old to remember exactly.”

She continued smiling. Then she said, “He wants to know if you’ll go to Chicago with him. Next month.”

“Mr. Newton?”

“Um hmm. There’s a meeting. He said you’d probably know about it.”

“A meeting?” He drank his coffee speculatively for a moment. “Oh. The Institute of Chemical Engineers. Why does he want to go to that?”

“Don’t know,” she said. “He told me if you wanted to go with him he’d come by this afternoon and talk about it. You won’t be working?”

“No.” he said. “No. I don’t work on Sundays.” He had not changed his casual tone of voice, but his mind was beginning to race. There was an opportunity here, being dropped in his lap. There was a plan he had half formed two days before; and if Newton were definitely coming by the house… “I’ll be glad to talk to him about it.” And then, “Did he say when he would come?”

“No, he didn’t.” She finished her coffee, set the cup on the floor beside her chair. She certainly makes herself at home, he thought, but he did not mind the way that she did it. It was genuine informality, and not the affected kind that men like Professor Canutti, and all his crew-cut peers back at Iowa, practiced.

“He hasn’t been saying much lately at all.” There was a hint of strain in her voice when she said this. “In fact I hardly ever see him anymore.” There was something grim in her voice, too, and Bryce wondered what there could possibly be between these two. And then it occurred to him that her being here was an opportunity, too—one that he might never have again.

“Has he been sick?” If he could start her talking …

“Not that I know of. He’s funny. He takes moods.” She was staring at the glowing heat element in front of her, not looking at him. “Sometimes he talks to that Frenchman, Brinnarde his name is, and other times he talks to me. Sometimes he just sits in his room. For days. Or he’ll drink; but you can hardly tell it.”

“What does Brinnarde do? What’s his job?”