Arkady Strugatsky - Definitely Maybe

“Well, and what do you do now?” Malianov asked, feeling his heart sinking somewhere again.

No one answered. Weingarten poured himself another glass, drank it, and ate the last herring roll. Gubar watched listlessly as his strange son played with the glasses, his serious, pale face intent. Then Weingarten took up the story again, without any jokes this time, as though too weary for them, barely moving his lips. How he called Gubar, and Gubar did not answer; how he called Malianov and discovered that Snegovoi did exist; how scared he was when Malianov went to let Lidochka in and didn’t come back to the phone for so long; how he didn’t sleep all night, pacing his room and thinking, thinking, thinking, taking bromides and thinking some more; how he called Malianov this morning and realized that they had contacted him, too, and then Gubar came over—with his own problems.

Excerpt 13 …. found out that Gubar was lazy and played hooky as a child and was overly concerned with sex then, too. He dropped out of school after the ninth grade, worked as an orderly, then as a driver on a fertilizer truck, then as a lab assistant in the institute, where he met Val, and now was working in a closed research institute on some gigantic, very important project, something to do with energetics. Zakhar had no special training, but was always a radio buff; electronics was in his soul and bone marrow, and he rose quickly in the institute, even though he was held back by the lack of a diploma.

He patented several inventions, and he had two or three in the works, and he definitely did not know which one was causing all these problems. But he figured that it was last year’s—he had invented something connected with “the constructive use of fading.” He figured, but he wasn’t sure.

The most important thing in his life had always been women. They were attracted to him like flies to honey. And when for some reason they stopped sticking to him, he began sticking to them. He had been married once and retained the most unpleasant memories and bitter lessons from the union; he now maintained the strictest code in relation to that institution. In short, he was a lady-killer of the highest degree, and in comparison with him, Weingarten looked like an ascetic, anchorite, and stoic. But for all that, he was no lecher. He treated his women with respect, even awe, and apparently saw himself as a humble source of their pleasure. He never had two lovers at the same time; he never got into fights or ugly scenes with them, and he never, apparently, hurt any of them. So in that area, from the time his unhappy marriage ended, everything was going very well. Until very recently.

He himself felt that the unpleasantness brought on by the space aliens began with the appearance of a repulsive rash on his feet. He rushed to a doctor as soon as the rash appeared, because he always took good care of his health. The doctor calmed him down, gave him some pills, and the rash went away. But then came the invasion of women. They came in droves—all the women he had ever been involved with. They hung around his apartment in twos and threes; there was one horrible day when there were five women in his apartment at the same time. And he simply did not understand what they wanted from him. And, worse than that, he had the sneaking suspicion that the women didn’t know either. They abused him; they groveled at his feet; they begged for something or other; they fought among themselves like cats; they broke all his dishes, shattered the blue Japanese water bowl, and ruined his furniture. They had hysterical fits; they tried poisoning themselves, some threatened to poison him, and they were inexhaustible and extremely demanding in lovemaking. And many of them had been married a long time, loved their husbands and children, and the husbands also came to Gubar’s apartment and behaved strangely. (Gubar mumbled more than ever in this part of the story.)

In brief, his life had turned into hell; he lost fifteen pounds; he had a rash all over his body; there was no question of doing his work, and he had to take an unpaid leave of absence even though he was deep in debt. (At first, he sought refuge from the onslaught at the institute, but very quickly realized that this would only lead to his personal problems hitting the public limelight. He also mumbled this part.)

This hell lasted ten days nonstop and suddenly ended the day before yesterday. He had just turned over the last of the women to her husband, a gloomy police sergeant, when a woman appeared with a child. He remembered the woman. He’d met her six years ago. They had been in a crowded bus, squeezed together. He looked at her, and he liked what he saw. Excuse me, he said, would you have a piece of paper and a pencil? Yes, here you are, she replied, taking the needed articles from her purse. Thank you so much, he said, now please write down your name and phone number. They had a wonderful time on the Riga seashore and parted quietly—it seemed never to meet again, pleased with each other and no strings attached.

And now she appeared on his doorstep with the boy and said he was his son. She had been married for three years to a very good and very famous man, whom she loved and respected deeply. She could not explain to Gubar why she had come. She cried every time he tried to find out. She wrung her hands, and it was apparent that she felt her behavior was immoral and criminal. But she would not leave. The days that she spent in Gubar’s ravaged apartment were the worst part of the nightmare. She behaved like a sleepwalker, talking all the time. Gubar could understand the words, but there was no way he could make any sense of them. And then yesterday morning she woke up. She pulled Gubar out of bed, led him to the bathroom, turned on the water full blast, and whispered an absolutely unbelievable tale into Gubar’s ear.

According to her (in Gubar’s interpretation) it seemed that since ancient times there had been this secret, semimystical Union of the Nine on Earth. These were monstrously secretive wise men, either very long-lived or immortal, who were concerned with only two things: first, that they gather and master all the achievements of every single branch of science, and second, that they make sure that none of the new scientific-technological advances be used by people for self-destruction. These wise men are almost all-knowing and practically all-powerful. It is impossible to hide from them, and it is no use fighting them. And now this Union of the Nine was taking on Zakhar Gubar. Why him—she did not know. What Gubar was supposed to do now she didn’t know either. He had to figure that out for himself. She only knew that all the recent unpleasantnesses he had had were a warning. And she was sent to him as a warning too. And so that Zakhar would remember the warning, she had been ordered to leave the boy with him. Who gave the order she didn’t know. In fact, she knew nothing else. And didn’t want to know. She only wanted to be sure that nothing bad happened to the boy. She begged Gubar not to resist and to think twenty times before taking any action. And now she had to go.

Weeping, her face buried in her handkerchief, she left. And Gubar was left with the boy. One on one. What took place between them until three in the afternoon, he didn’t wish to tell. But something did happen.

(The boy had a brief statement on the matter: “I straightened him out is all.”) At three p.m. Gubar couldn’t stand it anymore, and he called and then ran over to see Weingarten, his closest friend.

“I still don’t understand a thing,” he concluded. “I listened to Val and I listened to you, Dmitri. I still don’t understand. Maybe it’s the heat? They say it hasn’t been this hot in two hundred and fifty years. And we’ve all gone mad, each in his own way.”