Avram Davidson - The Avram Davidson Treasury - a tribute collection

Silberman felt that he was present at almost the last scene of a very antick drama. Old Mat. Grahdy, with his wife’s alexandrines, his violin, Heine, Schiller, Lermontov, Pushkin, Paganini, and the Latin Psal ms — how long could he last? If he didn’t starve to death in his almost empty store, how long before they killed him?

The old man let the violin fall to his side. For an odd, long moment he gazed at Silberman with a very level gaze. Then a smile twitched onto his swollen, battered face. He shrugged one shoulder. He began to laugh. “ It didn’t even get warm, ” he chuckled.

With publication of “My Boy Friend’s Name Is Jello” in an early 1954 issue of F&SF, Avram Davidson served notice that a new and unique viewpoint had joined the sf and fantasy fields. Over the years he made good on that notice. His stories and novels covered a wide range of themes and treatments, but always they had two features in common: a rare degree of erudition, and the evident fact that no one else could have written them.

It was on the final day of PittCon, the eighteenth World sf Convention at Pittsburgh, PA, that Elinor and I first met Avram. In those days the pros for some reason tended to hide out from the vast (three-figure!) Worldcon crowds; I forget who tipped us off where to find him, but there we went and there he was, being witty and affable as might be expected. With a train to catch, we had to leave much sooner than we wanted to.

Next meeting, I think, was at the 1962 Westercon, in Los Angeles. Avram and Grania were expecting — and late that year Avram wrote a wonderful new-father testimonial for our local group’s fanzine , Cry.

Well, it go along and it go along: the stories, the letters, the books. All to be remembered warmly — but with regret that we’ll never know where The Phoenix and the Mirror, for instance, eventually wound up. And that we can’t ever ask him.

But now here’s a book to remind us, to symbolize all the goodies Avram did give us. “The Last Wizard” and “Revenge of the Cat-Lady” are, I submit, fine examples of his craft.

FOR THE HUNDREDTH TIME Bilgulis looked with despair at the paper and pencil in front of him. Then he gave a short nod, got up, left his little room, and went two houses up the street, up the stairs, and knocked on the door.

Presently the door opened and high up on the face which looked out at him were a pair of very pale gray-green eyes, otherwise bloodshot and bulging.

Bilgulis said, “I want you teach me how to make spell. I pay you.”

The eyes blinked rapidly, the face retreated, the door opened wider, Bilgulis entered, and the door closed. The man said, “So you know, eh. How did you know?”

“I see you through window, Professor,” Bilgulis said. “All the time you read great big books.”

“‘Professor,’ yes, they call me that. None of them know. Only you have guessed. After all this time. I, the greatest of the adepts, the last of the wizards — and now you shall be my adept. A tradition four thousand, three hundred and sixty-one years old would have died with me. But now it will not. Sit there. Take reed pen, papyrus, cuttlefish ink, spit three times in bottle.”

Laboriously Bilgulis complied. The room was small, crowded, and contained many odd things, including smells. “We will commence, of course,” the Professor said, “with some simple spells. To turn an usurer into a green fungus: Dippa dabba ruthu thuthu —write, write! — enlis thu . You have written? So. And to obtain the love of the most beautiful woman in the world: Coney honey antimony funny cunny crux . Those two will do for now. Return tomorrow at the same hour. Go.”

Bilgulis left. Waiting beside his door was a man with a thick briefcase and a thin smile. “Mr. Bilgulis, I am from the Friendly Finance Company and in regard to the payment which you—”

“Dippa dabba ruthu thuthu enlis thu,” said Bilgulis. The man turned into a green fungus which settled in a hall corner and was slowly eaten by the roaches. Bilgulis sat down at his table, looked at the paper and pencil, and gave a deep sigh.

“Too much time this take,” he muttered. “Why I no wash socks, clean toilet, make a big pot cheap beans with pig’s tail for eat? No,” he said determinedly and once more bent over the paper and pencil.

By and by there was a knock on his door. Answering it he saw before him the most beautiful woman in the world. “I followed you,” she said. “I don’t know what’s happening …”

“ Coney honey antimony ,” said Bilgulis, “funny cunny crux.”

She sank to her knees and embraced his legs. “I love you. I’ll do anything you want.”

Bilgulis nodded. “Wash socks, clean toilet,” he said. “And cook big pot cheap beans with pig’s tail for eat.” He heard domestic sounds begin as he seated himself at the table and slowly, gently beat his head. After a moment he rose and left the house again.

Up the street a small crowd was dispersing and among the people he recognized his friend, Labbonna. “Listen, Labbonna,” he said.

Labbonna peered at him through dirty, mended eyeglasses. “You see excitement?” he asked, eager to tell.

“I no see.”

Labbonna drew himself up and gestured. “You know Professor live there? He just now go crazy,” he said, rolling his eyes and dribbling and flapping his arms in vivid imitation. “Call ambulance but he drop down dead. Too bad, hey?”

“Too bad.” Bilgulis sighed.

“Read too much big book.”

Bilgulis cleared his throat, looking embarrassed. “Listen, Labbonna—”

“What you want?”

“How long you in country?”

“Torty year.”

“You speak good English.”

“Citizen.”

Bilgulis nodded. He drew a pencil and piece of paper from his pocket. “Listen, Labbonna. Do me big help. How you make spell in English, Please send me your free offer ? One ‘f’ or two?”

IN A SAD-SMELLING HOUSE on a weedy back street, Beulah Gurnsey sat watching a TV program. She was sitting in a sagging armchair whose upholstery had gone slick. Her face was sallow and its contours had long since slipped, and her eyes were large behind her eyeglasses. In the house next door three Oriental refugee children peered openmouthed from a window at the children of a darker and more abundant people playing in the street. These latter had not yet made up their minds about those former. They had long since made up their minds about Beulah Gurnsey, who nowadays tended not to go out very often. On the TV screen two women faced each other against the background of a house interior, to furnish which would have taken several years of Beulah’s income. These women often spoke about their being poor, but not right now.

“I feel so sorry about Loretta,” said one of them, right now. “It’s such a shock for her, her daughter Kimberly not being able to graduate because of that terrible scandal, when, after all, she was only an innocent victim of Brett Brock’s malice.”

“Yes, I feel terribly sorry for her, too,” said the other woman in the television. “And just when she was recovering from her—”

“Huh!” said Beulah Gurnsey. “You feel sorry for her , that brazen thing; what about me? ”

The television lady with the frosted hair sort of wet her lips with the tip of her tongue, and said to the real-blonde television lady, “Uh, well, yes, what about Beulah Gurnsey?”