The Worlds of Fritz Leiber by Fritz Leiber

The Worlds of Fritz Leiber by Fritz Leiber

Author:Fritz Leiber [Leiber, Fritz]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ace Books
Published: 1976-10-31T21:00:00+00:00


PIPE DREAM

IT WASN’T until the mermaid turned up in his bathtub that Simon Grue seriously began to wonder what the Russians were doing on the roof next door.

The old house next door together with its spacious tar-papered roof, which held a sort of pent-shack, a cylindrical old water tank, and several chicken-wire enclosures, had always been a focus of curiosity in this region of Greenwich Village, especially to whoever happened to be renting Simon’s studio, the north window-cum-skylight of which looked down upon it—if you were exceptionally tall or if, like Simon, you stood halfway up a stepladder and peered.

During the 1920’s, old timers told Simon, the house had been owned by a bootlegger, who had installed a costly pipe organ and used the water tank to store hooch. Later there had been a colony of shaven-headed Buddhist monks, who had strolled about the roof in their orange and yellow robes, meditating and eating raw vegetables. There had followed a commedia dell’arte theatrical group, a fencing salon, a school of the organ (the bootlegger’s organ was always one of the prime renting points of the house), an Arabian restaurant, several art schools and silvercraft shops of course, and an Existentialist coffee house. The last occupants had been two bony-cheeked Swedish blondes who sunbathed interminably and had built the chicken-wire enclosures to cage a large number of sinister smoke-colored dogs—Simon decided they were breeding werewolves, and one of his most successful abstractions, “Gray Hunger” had been painted to the inspiration of an eldritch howling. The dogs and their owners had departed abruptly one night in a closed van, without any of the dogs ever having been offered for sale or either of the girls having responded with anything more than a raised eyebrow to Simon’s brave greetings of “Skoal!”

The Russians had taken possession about six months ago—four brothers apparently, and one sister, a beauty, who never stirred from the house but could occasionally be seen peering dreamily from a window. A white card with a boldly-inked “Stulnikov-Gurevich” had been thumbtacked to the peeling green-painted front door. Lafcadio Smits, the interior decorator, told Simon that the newcomers were clearly White Russians; he could tell it by their several bushy beards. Lester Phlegius maintained that they were Red Russians passing as White, and talked alarmingly of spying, sabotage and suitcase bombs.

Simon, who had the advantages of living on the spot and having been introduced to one of the brothers—Vasily—at a neighboring art gallery, came to believe that they were both Red and White and something more—solid, complete Slavs in any case, Double Dostoevsky Russians if one may be permitted the expression. They ordered vodka, caviar, and soda crackers by the case. They argued interminably (loudly in Russian, softly in English), they went on mysterious silent errands, they gloomed about on the roof, they made melancholy music with their deep harmonious voices and several large guitars. Once Simon thought they even had the bootlegger’s organ going, but there had been a bad storm at the time and he hadn’t been sure.



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