Уолтер Тевис - The Man Who Fell to Earth

“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t have any people around Cincinnati.”

“You could go back to your family in… what was it?”

“In Irvine. It’s not too far.” She looked at him wistfully. “But I don’t think I want to. We never got along.”

He said, hardly thinking what it meant. “Do you want to stay with me? Maybe at a hotel? And then, if you wanted to, we could find an apartment.”

She seemed stunned for a moment, and he was afraid he had insulted her. But then she took a step closer to him and said, “My God, yes. I think we ought to stay together, Doctor Bryce.”

He began drinking heavily again, during the second month of his confinement, and he was not altogether sure why. It was not loneliness, since now he had confessed himself, as it were, to Bryce, he felt little wish for companionship. Nor did he feel that sense of intense strain he had labored with for years, now that the issues were simpler and the responsibilities almost nonexistent. He had only one major problem that might have served as an excuse for drinking; the problem of whether or not to continue the plan, should he ever be permitted by the government to do so. Yet he did not often trouble himself with that—drunk or sober—since the possibility of his having any further choice in the matter seemed remote.

He still read a great deal, and had taken up a new interest in avant-garde literature, especially in the difficult, rigidly formal poetry of the little magazines— sestinas, villanelles, ballades , which, though somewhat weak on ideas and insight, were often linguistically fascinating. He even attempted a poem himself, an Italian sonnet in Alexandrines, but found himself alarmingly ungifted at it before he had struggled his way through the octave. He thought he might attempt it some time in Anthean.

He also read a good deal in the sciences and in history. His jailers were as liberal about supplying him with books as with gin; he never received so much as a raised eyebrow or a day’s delay about anything he requested of the steward who was in charge of feeding him and cleaning his apartment. They seemed admirably skilled at serving him. Once, to see what would happen, he asked for the Arabic translation of Gone With The Wind , and the steward, unconcerned, had it for him in five hours. Since he could not read Arabic, and cared little for novels anyway, he used it as a bookend on one of his shelves; it was monumentally heavy.

The only serious objections he had to his confinement were that he sometimes missed being out of doors, and there were times that he would have liked to see Betty Jo, or Nathan Bryce, the only two people on the planet he could have claimed as friends. He had some feeling as well about Anthea—he had a wife on Anthea, and children—but the feeling was vague. He no longer thought very often about his home. He had gone native.

By the end of two months they seemed to have finished their physical tests, leaving him with a few unpleasant memories and a mild, recurring backache. Their interrogations by that time had become boringly repetitious; apparently they had run out of things to ask him. And yet no one had put to him the most obvious of questions; no one had asked him if he were from another planet. He was certain by that time that they suspected it, but it was never directly asked. Were they afraid of being laughed at, or was this a part of some elaborate psychological technique? At times he almost decided to tell them the entire truth, which they would probably disbelieve anyway. Or he could claim to be from Mars or Venus and insist on it until they were convinced he was a crackpot. But they could hardly be that foolish.

And then one afternoon they abruptly changed their technique with him. It came as a considerable surprise, and, finally, as a relief.

The questioning began in the usual fashion; his interrogator, a Mr. Bowen, had questioned him at least once a week from the beginning. Although none of the various officials had identified their positions to him, Bowen had always struck Newton as being a more important personage than the others. His secretary seemed a shade more efficient, his clothes a shade more expensive, the circles beneath his eyes a shade darker. Perhaps he was an under-secretary, or someone of consequence in the CIA. He was also obviously a man of considerable intelligence.

When he came in he greeted Newton cordially, seated himself in an armchair, and lit a cigarette. Newton did not like the smell of cigarettes, but he had long since given up protesting against them. Besides, the room was air-conditioned. The secretary seated himself at Newton’s desk. Fortunately, the secretary did not smoke. Newton greeted them both affably enough; however, he did not offer to rise from the couch when they entered the room. There was, he recognized, a kind of petty cat-and-mouse game in all that; but he was not loath to play the game.

Bowen usually got to the point in a hurry. “I’ll have to confess, Mr. Newton,” he said, “that you have us as mystified as ever. We still don’t know who you are or where you are from.”

Newton looked straight at him. “I’m Thomas Jerome Newton, from Idle Creek, Kentucky. I’m a physical freak. You’ve seen my birth record in the Bassett County courthouse. I was born there in 1918.”

“That would make you seventy years old. You look forty.”

Newton shrugged his shoulders. “As I say, I’m a freak. A mutant. Possibly a new species. I don’t think that’s illegal, is it?” All of this had been said before; but he did not much mind saying it all again.

“It’s not illegal. But we believe your birth record is forged. And that’s illegal.”

“Can you prove it?”

“Probably not. What you do you do pretty well, Mr. Newton. If you could invent Worldcolor films I imagine you could have a record forged easily enough. Naturally, a 1918 record would be a hard one to check on. Nobody still alive, and all. But there’s still that matter of our not being able to locate any childhood acquaintances. And the even more odd matter that we can’t find anyone who knew you prior to five years ago.” Bowen stubbed out his cigarette, and then scratched his ear, as if his mind were somewhere else. “Would you tell me again why that is so, Mr. Newton?” Newton wondered idly if interrogators went to special schools to learn their techniques, like scratching the ear, or if they picked them up from the movies.

He gave the same answer he had given before. “Because I was such a freak, Mr. Bowen. My mother let hardly anyone see me. As you may have noticed I’m not the sort who chafes at confinement. Nor was confining a child very difficult to do in those days. Especially not in that part of Kentucky.”

“You never went to school?”

“Never.”

“Yet you’re one of the best educated persons I’ve ever met.” And then, before he could reply, “Yes. I know, you have a freak mind as well.” Bowen stifled a yawn. He seemed thoroughly bored.

“That’s right.”

“And you hid out in some obscure Kentucky ivory tower until you were sixty-five years old, and nobody ever saw you or heard of you?” Bowen smiled wearily at him.

The conception of that was, of course, absurd, but there was nothing he could do about it. Obviously nobody but a fool would believe it, but he had to have a story of some kind or other. He could have taken more pains to create some documents and to bribe some officials to make a more convincing past for himself; but that had been decided against long before he’d left Anthea as being more risky than it would have been worth. Even getting an expert to forge the birth document had been a difficult and perilous business.

“That’s right,” he smiled. “Nobody ever heard of me, except a few long-dead relatives, until I was sixty-five.”