Avram Davidson - The Avram Davidson Treasury - a tribute collection

The new job and its new responsibilities occupied and preoccupied most of Silberman’s time, but one afternoon as he was checking an invoice with the heating contractor fitting up the plant, lo! the old matter came abruptly to his mind.

“Sudden thought?” said Mr. McMurtry.

“Uh. Yuh. You ever hear of a… Slovo stove?”

Promptly: “No. Should I have?”

Suppose Fred were to tell him. What then? Luddite activity on the part of McMurtry? “Let me ask you a make-believe question, Mac—”

“Fire when ready.”

So…haltingly, ignorantly… Fred (naming no names, no ethnic groups) described matters as well as he could, winding up: “So could you think, Mac, of any scientific explanation as to how such a thing could, or might, maybe, work? At all?”

Mac’s brow furrowed, rolling the hairs of his conjoined eyebrows: a very odd effect. “Well, obviously the liquid in the container acts as a sort of noncontiguous catalyst, and this amplifies the vortex of the force field created by the juxtaposition of the pizmire and the placebo”—well of course McMurtry did not say that : but that was what it sounded like to Silberman. And so McMurtry might just as well have said it.

McMurtry said one last word or two. “If these things weren’t make-believe it would be interesting to examine them. Even a couple of little pieces might do. What can be analyzed could maybe be duplicated.”

Once things got going well at work, Fred thought he would go and ask old Mrs. Brakk…go and ask old Mrs. Brakk what ? Would she let the sole extant Slovo stove be examined by an expert? be looked at in a lab? be scraped to provide samples for electronic microscopic analysis?

???

He might suggest that, if she didn’t trust him , it might be done through a Brakk Family Trust…or something…to be set up for that purpose. Via Wes…and, say, Nick …

Sure he might.

But he waited too long.

Silberman of course knew nothing; how could he have known? The people of the house had just learned themselves. All he knew, arriving early one night, was that, as he came up to the house, a tumult began within. Lots of people were yelling. And as he came into the Brakk kitchen, Nick was yelling alone.

“We’re Amer icans, ain’t we?” he yelled. “So let’s live like Americans; bad enough so the Huzzuks make fun of us, I’m tired of all them Old Country ways, what next, what else? Fur hats? Boots? A goat in the yard?” He addressed his wife. “A hundred times I told your old lady, ‘Throw it away, throw the damned thing away , I-am -tired they making fun of us, Mamma, you hear?’ But she didn’t. She didn’t. So I, did .” He stopped, breathing hard. “And that’s all…”

A sick feeling crept into Silberman’s chest.

“ Where did you throw it? Where? It wasn’t yours! ”—his wife. Nick pressed his lips together. His wife clapped her hand to her head. “He always used to say, ‘I’ll throw it off the bridge, I’ll throw it off the bridge!’ That’s where! Oh, you hoo -dlóm! ” For a moment his eyes blazed at her. Then he shrugged, lit a cigarette, and began to smoke with an air of elaborately immense unconcern.

Old Mrs. Brakk sat with her faint smile a moment more. Then she began to speak in her native language. Her voice fell into a chant, then her voice broke, then she lifted her apron to her eyes.

“She says, ‘All she had to remind her of the old home country. All she wanted to do was sometimes warm the baby’s bottle or sometimes make herself a bowl of tea in her own room if she was tired. She’s an old lady and she worked hard and she never wanted to bother nobody—’”

Nick threw his cigarette with force onto the linoleum and, heedless of shrieks, stamped on it heavily. Then he was suddenly calm. “All right . Listen. Tomorrow I’ll buy you a little electric stove, a, a whadda they call it? A hot plate! Tomorrow for your own room I’ll buy y’a hot plate. Okay? ”

The effect was great; Nick had never been known — voluntarily — to buy any thing for any one.

Old Mrs. Brakk exclaimed, in English, “You will ?”

He gave a solemn nod. “I swear to God.” He crossed his heart. “Tomorrow. The best money can buy. Mamma can come with me,” he added. His wife kissed him. His older brother-in-law patted him on the back. The old woman began to smile again.

Silberman felt his heart pounding at twice its regular rate. He dared say nothing. Then, by and by, Nick strolling out into the yard and lighting up another cigarette, he strolled out after him.

“Nick.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m going to ask you something. Don’t get mad.”

“Gaw head.”

“You really threw the stove parts off the bridge?”

“Yeah. Well…the pieces. ”

“Pieces?”

Nick yawned. Nodded. “I took the damn thing to the shop. Where I work. You know.” Fred knew. “An I runnum through the crusher. And what was left … I puttum in a bag. An I threw it offa the bridge.” He wasn’t angry or regretful. He let fall his cigarette, stomped it, went back into the house. Fred heard him working the television.

The shop . Sneaky as could be, Fred lurked and skulked and peeked. The light was on, the door was open. Had Nick left them so? No matter; surely some crumbles of blue, of black, would be left, and he would zip in, scoop them off the floor by the crusher, and — A long shadow oozed across the floor. The janitor, humping his broom. A real, old-time Slovo, immense moustache and all, of the real, old-time Slovo sort; in a minute he was gone. Fred zipped, all right. But he didn’t scoop; there was nothing to scoop. No crumbles. There wasn’t even dust . Tanta Pesha was not physically present but her voice sounded in her great-nephew’s ears: The Slovos? They are very clean…you could eat off their floors…

He drove his car up and down the silent streets. Shouted aloud, “I don’t believe it! The greatest discovery in thermodynamics since the discovery of fire! And it’s gone. It’s gone! It can’t be gone! It can’t be—”

In the days that followed, in the weeks and months, he knocked on doors, he advertised, he offered rewards. Pleaded. Begged. That incredible discovery, mysteriously having come to earth who knew how and who knew how many thousands of years ago or how many thousands of miles away.

It was gone.

Fred threw himself into his work. Developed, locally, an active social life. Womanized. Thought of marriage. Changed. Other things changed too. Wes Brakk abruptly moved to Idaho, why Idaho? Of all places. “Because he said it was as far away from the Huzzuks as he could get and still wear shoes.” Oh. And the rest of the Brakk family, plus Nick— led by Nick — almost as suddenly moved to Brownsville, Texas. Why Brownsville, Texas ? “To get away from the cold.” Others might move to Florida, California, Arizona, to get away from the cold: the rest of the Brakk family (plus Nick) moved to Brownsville, Texas, to get away from the cold.

It seemed, somehow, a very Slovo sort of thing to do.

They were ripping up Statesman Street again and Fred had to detour. Had he to drive along Tompkins, Gerry, and De Witt streets? For one reason or another, he did drive along there: my , the neighborhood had changed! The new neighbors glanced at him with unneighborly glances. There was Grahdy’s store. But one whole once-glass pane was missing, boarded up. He stopped. Went in. There was Mr. Grahdy, part of his face bandaged, the other part bruised and discolored. His violin was in his hand. He nodded his jaunty nod. “Would you enjoy to hear a little Paganini?” he asked. Began to play.