Avram Davidson - The Avram Davidson Treasury - a tribute collection

Yock etty -bop -cha!

Why this venerable race joke, certainly worth a chuckle when fresh and crisp, still guffawed its way down the corridors of time, required more consideration than Fred was then prepared to give. But it was a lot, lot easier to understand why the Slovos, who had been listening to it for… how long? forty years? eighty years?…were beginning to get kind of restless. And—

“And how does it work , Mr. Grahdy? I mean…scientifically?”

The one-shoulder shrug. “Who knows, my dear young gentleman? Consider the electrical properties of the amber, a great curiosity in the former age; but today, merely we flick a switch.”

The local public library was not changed much since Andrew Carnegie had helped endow it; there was nothing in the catalogue under either Huzzuk, Slovo , or Stove which provided even faint enlightenment. The encyclopedia ran to information about the former dynasty and its innumerable dull rulers; also The Huzzukya areas have become moderately industrialized and The interests of the Slovoya areas remain largely agrarian and Exports include duck down, hog bristles, coarse grades of goat hair and wool . Goody.

In the Reference Room the little librarian with the big eyeglasses listened to his request; said, in her old-time professionally hush-hush voice, “I think there is a pamphlet”…and there certainly was a pamphlet; it was bound in, and bound in tightly, with a bunch of other pamphlets on a bunch of other subjects. The nameless author-publisher (“Published by the Author”) had disguised the fact of not having much to say by saying it in rather large type. Leaning on the volume with both hands to keep it open, Silberman learned that “the Slovoi themselves no longer admit to know just where was or even approximately their ancestral ‘Old Home’ or ‘Old Place’ near ‘The Big Water.’ The latter has been suggested for Caspian Sea or Aral Sea, even fantastically has been suggested ‘Lake Baikal.’ In Parlour’s Ferry are found Huzzuki in many Middle Class professional commercial role and has been correctly suggested Slovoi fulfill labor tasks with commendable toil and honesty.” There was nothing about stoves, and Fred felt that unless he wanted eventually to sell photographs of his wrists to Charles Atlas, he might as well let go of the bound volume of pamphlets; he did, and it closed like a bear trap.

The pamphlet probably contained the text of a paper done for a pre-WWI class in Night School, the Author of which, intoxicated by getting a fairly good grade, had rushed it off to a job printer; it was suggested in Fred’s mind that he was probably ( probably? ) a Huzzuk.

Back at Fred’s new apartment-to-be, lo! the painters were no longer painting; the painters were no longer, in fact, there; and neither was the painting finished. Only, in the middle of the drainboard of the kitchen sink sat a white bread and sardine sandwich with a single symmetrical bite missing out of it. Another unsolved mystery of the sea; or had it come there by a fortuitous concourse of the atoms: why not? Down went Fred and rang Mrs. Keeley’s bell. By and by the door opened a crack long enough to transmit heavy breathing and the odor of gin and onions; almost at once the door closed shut again and by and by the volume of the radio went up. Mrs. Keeley was not one of your picky listeners out there in Radioland who require very fine tuning, and Silberman was unable to say if she was listening to an old recording of the Tasty Yeast Jesters or maybe one of a love song by President Harding. He went away.

A côte chez Brakk , an aunt said, as he came in, “I saved you some fruit stew,” and also Wes poured him something powerful-looking. Evidently the conventicle/potlatch was still going on, with Fred’s presence still acceptable. Al though —A newspaper was lowered; behind it was Nick . “Don’t make the Old Lady show ya that jee-dee stove no more,” he said. “She’s all wore out.”

Fred said, easily, “Okay, Nick. — Who else has got one?” he asked the world at large. There was a thinking pause. Wes said, No one that he knew of.

“It’s the last of the Mohicans,” Wes said.

Nick slapped down the paper. “She better get rid da it. Y‘hear me? I’m gonna smash it up, I’m gonna throw it offa the bridge; I don’ wanna even hear about it — no wonder they make funna us all the time!” No one said a word, so Nick said a word, a short and blunt one; and then, as though shocked himself, slammed out of the room. In a moment a car drove rapidly away. Wes was expressionless and, seemingly, emotionless.

Fred sampled the fruit stew. Was it the same as stewed fruit? no it was n’t. Good, though. As soon as his spoon scraped the bottom, a bowl of something else was set down beside him. And a plate of something else. “Here is beaten-up bean soup with buttermilk and vinegar. This is lamb fritters with fresh dill.” Golly, they sounded odd! Golly, they were good!

In a corner across the room an old man and an old woman discordantly sang-sung religious texts from, shared between them, an old wide book in Old Wide Huzzuk or something of the sort. “That’s supposed to benefit the soul of the late deceased,” said a very young man with a very large and shiny face, in a tentatively contentious tone.

“College boy,” said Wes. “Could it hurt?”

Fred Silberman put down his spoon. (Eating fritters with a spoon? Sure. Why not? Hurts you? ) “Listen, where was ‘the Old Home Place by the Big Water’?” he asked.

The college boy instantly answered, “Gitche Gumee.”

Wes said, with a shrug of his own, far heavier than Mat. Grahdy’s, “Who the hell knows? Whoever knew? You think they had maps in those days? I suppose that one year the crops failed and there was no nourishment in the goat turds, so they all hit the road. West . And once they crossed a couple mountains and a couple of rivers, not only didn’t they know where they were , they didn’t even know where they’d been. ”

Fred said, “Listen. Listen. Nick isn’t here, the Huzzuks aren’t here, nobody is here but us chickens, cut -cut-cut- cut , God should strike me dead if I laugh at you: Where did the stoves come from? The Slovo stoves? ”

“Who the hell knows?”

“Well, did they have them when they left …wherever it was? Lake Ontario, or the Yellow Sea? Did they…?”

Wes just sighed. But his, probably, sister took to answering the question, and the further questions, and, when she didn’t know, asked her elders and translated the answers. According to old stories, yes, they did have the stoves before they left the Old Place. The black parts they came from the mountain and the blue parts they came from the Big Water. From the inside of the mountain, what mountain, nobody knows what mountain, and from the bottom of the Big Water. How did they get the idea? Well, Father Yock im said that the angels gave it to them. Father Yock im said! That’s not what the old people use to say…what did the old people used to say? The old people used to say it was the little black and white gods but Father Yockim he thought people would think that meant like devils or something, so he changed it and — Well, there aren’t any little black and white gods , for God’s sake! — Oh, you’re so smart, you think you—

“Maybe they were from outer space,” said Silberman, to his own surprise as much as anyone else’s.

Silence the most profound. Then the “college boy,” probably either a nephew or a cousin, said, slowly, “Maybe they were .” Another silence. Then they were all off again.