Курт Воннегут - Player Piano (Utopia 14)

"And then what?" asked Khashdrahr.

"She feeds the clothes through this ironer, which can do what was an hour's ironing before the war in three minutes. Bing!"

"And then what does she do?" asked Khashdrahr.

"And then she's done."

"And then what?"

Doctor Dodge reddened perceptibly. "Is this a joke?"

"No," said Khashdrahr. "The Shah would like to know what it is that the woman Takaru -"

"What's a Takaru? " said Wanda suspiciously.

"Citizen," said Halyard.

"Yes," said Khashdrahr, smiling at her oddly, "citizen. The Shah would like to know why she has to do everything so quickly - this in a matter of seconds, that in a matter of seconds. What is it she is in such a hurry to get at? What is it she has to do, that she mustn't waste any time on these things?"

"Live!" said Doctor Dodge expansively. "Live! Get a little fun out of life." He laughed, and clapped Khashdrahr on the back, as though to jar him into feeling some of the jollity in this average American man's home.

The effect on Khashdrahr and the Shah was a poor one. "I see," said the interpreter coldly. He turned to Wanda. "And how is it you live and get so much fun out of life?"

Wanda blushed and looked down at the floor, and worried the carpet edge with her toe. "Oh, television," she murmured. "Watch that a lot, don't we, Ed? And I spend a lot of time with the kids, little Delores and young Edgar, Jr. You know. Things."

"Where are the children now?" asked Khashdrahr.

"Over at the neighbors' place, the Glocks, watching television, I expect."

"Would you like to see the ultrasonic washer work?" said Doctor Dodge. "Right before your eyes, bing! Takes off egg, lipstick, bloodstains -"

"The transducer's shot again," said Edgar, "so the washer's out of commission. Wanda's been doing the washing in a tub for a month now, waiting for a new transducer."

"Oh, I don't mind," said Wanda. "Really, I like doin' 'em that way. It's kind of a relief. A body needs a change. I don't mind. Gives me something to do."

Halyard ended the silence that followed her statement with a brisk suggestion that they leave these good people alone and have a look at the central recreation pavilion down the street.

"If we hurry," said Doctor Dodge, "we'll probably catch the leathercraft class still in session."

The Shah patted the radar stove, the laundry console, and peered for a moment at the television screen, which showed five persons seated around a conference table, arguing earnestly. " Brahouna! " he chuckled.

Khashdrahr nodded. " Brahouna! Live!"

As the party left, Halyard was explaining that the house and contents and car were all paid for by regular deductions from Edgar's R&RC pay check, along with premiums on his combination health, life, and old age security insurance, and that the furnishings and equipment were replaced from time to time with newer models as Edgar - or the payroll machines, rather - completed payments on the old ones. "He has a complete security package," said Halyard. "His standard of living is constantly rising, and he and the country at large are protected from the old economic ups and downs by the orderly, predictable consumer habits the payroll machines give him. Used to be he'd buy on impulse, illogically, and industry would go nutty trying to figure out what he was going to buy next. Why, I remember when I was a little boy, we had a crazy neighbor who blew all his money on an electric organ, while he still had an old-fashioned icebox and kerosene stove in his kitchen!"

Edgar closed the door and leaned against it, against the door of his M-17 castle.

Wanda sank to the couch. "The place looked nice, I think," she said. She said it whenever a visitor - Amy Glock, Gladys Pelrine, the Shah of Bratpuhr, anybody - left.

"Yep," said Edgar. And he felt evil and damned as he looked at Wanda, good, good soul, who'd never done anything to offend him, whose love for him was as big as all outdoors. He fingered the three ten-dollar bills in his pocket, his take-home pay - cigarette money, recreation money, small luxury money the machines let him have. This tiny atom of the economy under his control he was going to spend, not on himself or Wanda or the kids, but on Marion. Edgar's troubled heart had gone out to the crazy man in Halyard's story, the guy who'd bought himself an electric organ. Expensive, impractical, strictly personal - above and beyond the goddamned package.

But deceit was another thing. "Wanda," said Edgar, "I'm no good."

She knew what he was talking about, all right. She wasn't in the least surprised. "Yes, you are, Edgar," she said lamely. "You're a fine man. I understand."

"About Marion?"

"Yes. She's very beautiful and charming. And I'm not exactly a girl any more, and I expect I'm pretty dull." She started to cry, and, good soul that she was, she tried to keep him from seeing it. She hurried into the kitchen, took four suppers from the deep freeze, and thrust them into the radar range. "Call the children, will you please, Edgar?" she said in a small, high voice. "Supper will be ready in twenty-eight seconds."

Edgar shouted the children's names into the twilight, and returned to Wanda. "Listen, Wan - it isn't you. The Lord knows it isn't your fault." He hugged her from behind, and she twisted away and pretended to adjust dials on the range, though there was no adjusting to be done. Clockwork was doing everything.

Chimes rang, the clockwork clicked, and the range's humming stopped. "Call the children before everything gets cold," she said.

"They're coming." Edgar tried to hug her again, and she let him this time. "Listen," he said passionately, "it's the world, Wan - me and the world. I'm no good to anybody, not in this world. Nothing but a Reek and Wreck, and that's all my kids'll be, and a guy's got to have kicks or he doesn't want to live - and the only kicks left for a dumb bastard like me are the bad ones. I'm no good, Wan, no good!"

"It's me that's no good to anybody," said Wanda wearily. "Nobody needs me. You or even little old Delores could run the house and all, it's so easy. And now I'm too fat for anybody but the kids to love me. My mother got fat, and my grandmother got fat, and guess it's in the blood; but somebody needed them, they were still some good. But you don't need me, Ed, and you can't help it if you don't love me any more. Just the way men are, and you can't help it if you're the way God made you." She looked at him lovingly, pityingly. "Poor man."

Delores and Edgar, Jr., bustled in, and Edgar and Wanda composed themselves and told their children all about the Shah.

The subject was soon exhausted, and at dinner only the children spoke and touched their food.

"Somebody sick?" said Edgar, Jr.

"Your mother isn't well. She has a headache," said Edgar.

"Yeah? That's too bad, Mom."

"Just a little thing," said Wanda. "It'll pass."

"How about you, Pop?" said Edgar, Jr. "You well enough to take in the basketball game at the pavilion tonight?"

Edgar kept his eyes on his plate. "Like to," he mumbled. "Promised Joe I'd go bowling with him tonight."

"Joe Prince?"

"Yeah, Joe Prince."

"Why, Daddy," said Delores, "we saw Mr. Prince over to the Glocks', and he said he was going to the basketball game."

"He did not!" said Edgar, Jr., fiercely. "Just be quiet. You don't know what you're talking about. He didn't say that at all."

"He did, too!" said Delores stubbornly. "He said -"

"Delores, honey," said Wanda, "I'm sure you misunderstood Mr. Prince."

"Yes," said Edgar, Jr., "I remember now he said he was going bowling with Pop. Sis got it all wrong, Mom." His hands were trembling, and, clumsily, he knocked over his milk glass. Both he and his father jumped to their feet to catch it before it toppled all the way. Young Edgar caught it, and when his eyes met old Edgar's they were full of hate. "Guess I'm too tired to go to the ball game after all," he said. "Guess I'll stay home and watch television with Mom."