Robert Sheckley - The Same to You Doubled

In New York, it never fails, the doorbell rings just when you’ve plopped down onto the couch for a well-deserved snooze. Now, a person of character would say, “To hell with that, a man’s home is his castle and they can slide any telegrams under the door.” But if you’re like Edelstein, not particularly strong on character, then you think to yourself that maybe it’s the blonde from 12C who has come up to borrow a jar of chili powder. Or it could even be some crazy film producer who wants to make a movie based on the letters you’ve been sending your mother in Santa Monica. (And why not; don’t they make movies out of worse material than that?)

Yet this time, Edelstein had really decided not to answer the bell. Lying on the couch, his eyes still closed, he called out, “I don’t want any.”

“Yes you do,” a voice from the other side of the door replied.

“I’ve got all the encyclopedias, brushes, and waterless cookery I need,” Edelstein called back wearily. “Whatever you’ve got, I’ve got it already.”

“Look,” the voice said, “I’m not selling anything. I want to give you something.”

Edelstein smiled the thin, sour smile of the New Yorker who knows that if someone made him a gift of a package of genuine, unmarked $20 bills, he’d still somehow end up having to pay for it.

“If it’s free ,” Edelstein answered, “then I definitely can’t afford it.”

“But I mean really free,” the voice said. “I mean free that it won’t cost you anything now or ever.”

“I’m not interested,” Edelstein replied, admiring his firmness of character.

The voice did not answer.

Edelstein called out, “Hey, if you’re still there, please go away.”

“My dear Mr. Edelstein,” the voice said, “cynicism is merely a form of naïvete. Mr. Edelstein, wisdom is discrimination.”

“He gives me lectures now,” Edelstein said to the wall.

“All right,” the voice said, “forget the whole thing, keep your cynicism and your racial prejudice; do I need this kind of trouble?”

“Just a minute,” Edelstein answered. “What makes you think I’m prejudiced?”

“Let’s not crap around,” the voice said. “If I was raising funds for Hadassah or selling Israel bonds, it would have been different. But, obviously, I am what I am, so excuse me for living.”

“Not so fast,” Edelstein said. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re just a voice from the other side of the door. For all I know, you could be Catholic or Seventh-Day Adventist or even Jewish.”

“ You knew ,” the voice responded.

“Mister, I swear to you—”

“Look,” the voice said, “it doesn’t matter, I come up against a lot of this kind of thing. Good-bye, Mr. Edelstein.”

“Just a minute,” Edelstein replied.

He cursed himself for a fool. How often had he fallen for some huckster’s line, ending up, for example, paying $9.98 for an illustrated two-volume Sexual History of Mankind , which his friend Manowitz had pointed out he could have bought in any Marboro bookstore for $2.98?

But the voice was right. Edelstein had somehow known that he was dealing with a goy.

And the voice would go away thinking, The Jews, they think they’re better than anyone else . Further, he would tell this to his bigoted friends at the next meeting of the Elks or the Knights of Columbus, and there it would be, another black eye for the Jews.

“I do have a weak character,” Edelstein thought sadly.

He called out, “All right! You can come in! But I warn you from the start, I am not going to buy anything.”

He pulled himself to his feet and started toward the door. Then he stopped, for the voice had replied, “Thank you very much,” and then a man had walked through the closed, double-locked wooden door.

The man was of medium height, nicely dressed in a gray pinstripe modified Edwardian suit. His cordovan boots were highly polished. He was black, carried a briefcase, and he had stepped through Edelstein’s door as if it had been made of Jell-O.

“Just a minute, stop, hold on one minute,” Edelstein said. He found that he was clasping both of his hands together and his heart was beating unpleasantly fast.

The man stood perfectly still and at his ease, one yard within the apartment. Edelstein started to breathe again. He said, “Sorry, I just had a brief attack, a kind of hallucination—”

“Want to see me do it again?” the man asked.

“My God, no! So you did walk through the door! Oh, God, I think I’m in trouble.”

Edelstein went back to the couch and sat down heavily. The man sat down in a nearby chair.

“What is this all about?” Edelstein whispered.

“I do the door thing to save time,” the man said. “It usually closes the credulity gap. My name is Charles Sitwell. I am a field man for the Devil.”

Edelstein believed him. He tried to think of a prayer, but all he could remember was the one he used to say over bread in the summer camp he had attended when he was a boy. It probably wouldn’t help. He also knew the Lord’s Prayer, but that wasn’t even his religion. Perhaps the salute to the flag…

“Don’t get all worked up,” Sitwell said. “I’m not here after your soul or any old-fashioned crap like that.”

“How can I believe you?” Edelstein asked.

“Figure it out for yourself,” Sitwell told him. “Consider only the war aspect. Nothing but rebellions and revolutions for the past fifty years or so. For us, that means an unprecedented supply of condemned Americans, Viet Cong, Nigerians, Biafrans. Indonesians, South Africans, Russians, Indians, Pakistanis, and Arabs. Israelis, too, I’m sorry to tell you. Also, we’re pulling in more Chinese than usual, and just recently, we’ve begun to get plenty of action on the South American market. Speaking frankly, Mr. Edelstein, we’re overloaded with souls. If another war starts this year, we’ll have to declare an amnesty on venial sins.”

Edelstein thought it over. “Then you’re really not here to take me to hell?”

“Hell, no!” Sitwell said. “I told you, our waiting list is longer than for Peter Cooper Village; we hardly have any room left in limbo.”

“Well… Then why are you here?”

Sitwell crossed his legs and leaned forward earnestly. “Mr. Edelstein, you have to understand that hell is very much like U.S. Steel or ITT. We’re a big outfit and we’re more or less a monopoly. But, like any really big corporation, we are imbued with the ideal of public service and we like to be well thought of.”

“Makes sense,” Edelstein said.

“But, unlike Ford, we can’t very well establish a foundation and start giving out scholarships and work grants. People wouldn’t understand. For the same reason, we can’t start building model cities or fighting pollution. We can’t even throw up a dam in Afghanistan without someone questioning our motives.”

“I see where it could be a problem,” Edelstein admitted.

“Yet we like to do something. So, from time to time, but especially now, with business so good, we like to distribute a small bonus to a random selection of potential customers.”

“Customer? Me?”

“No one is calling you a sinner,” Sitwell pointed out. “I said potential —which means everybody.”

“Oh… What kind of bonus?”

“Three wishes,” Sitwell said briskly. “That’s the traditional form.”

“Let me see if I’ve got this straight,” Edelstein said. “I can have any three wishes I want? With no penalty, no secret ifs and buts?”

“There is one but,” Sitwell said.