Virtual Unrealities, The Short Fiction of Alfred Bester by Alfred Bester

Author:Alfred Bester [Bester, Alfred]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, mobi
Tags: Bisac Code 1: FIC028040
ISBN: 9780679767831
Publisher: Byron Preiss Visual Publications
Published: 2013-05-29T20:00:00+00:00

Forced to go there by what happened in the U.N., you understand. It needed extreme compensation and adjustment. Almost, for a moment, I thought I would have to attack the conductor of the Opéra Comique, but fate was kind and let me off with nothing worse than indecent exposure, and I was able to square it by founding a scholarship at the Sorbonne. Didn’t someone suggest that fate was the square root of minus one?

Anyway, back in New York it is my turn to denounce the paleface but suddenly my AmerEng is replaced by a dialect out of a B-picture about a white remittance man and a blind native girl on a South Sea island who find redemption together while she plays the ukulele and sings gems from Lawrence Welk’s Greatest Hits.

“Oh-so,” I say. “Me-fella be ve’y happy ask why you-fella invade ‘long my apa’tment, ‘cept me’ now speak pidgin. Ve’y emba’ss ‘long me.”

“I bribed Mr. Lundgren,” she blurted. “I told him you needed important papers from the office.”

The dyke turned on her heel and bounced out, her brave vibration each way free. I caught up with her in front of the elevator, put $101 into her hand, and tried to apologize. She hated me more so I did a naughty thing to her vibration and returned to the living room.

“What’s she got?” the paleface asked.

My English returned. “What’s your name?”

“Good Lord! I’ve been working in your office for two months and you don’t know my name? You really don’t?”

“No.”

“I’m Jemmy Thomas.”

“Beat it, Jemmy Thomas.”

“So that’s why you always called me ‘Miss Uh.’ You’re Russian?”

“Half.”

“What’s the other half?”

“None of your business. What are you doing here? When I fire them they stay fired. What d’you want from me?”

“You,” she said, blushing fiery.

“Will you for God’s sake get the hell out of here.”

“What did she have that I don’t?” paleface demanded. Then her face crinkled. “Don’t? Doesn’t? I’m going to Bennington. They’re strong on aggression but weak on grammar.”

“What d’you mean, you’re going to Bennington?”

“Why, it’s a college. I thought everybody knew.”

“But going?”

“Oh. I’m in my junior year. They drive you out with whips to acquire practical experience in your field. You ought to know that. Your office manager—I suppose you don’t know her name, either.”

“Ethel M. Blatt.”

“Yes. Miss Blatt took it all down before you interviewed me.”

“What’s your field?”

“It used to be economics. Now it’s you. How old are you?”

“One hundred and one.”

“Oh, come on. Thirty? They say at Bennington that ten years is the right difference between men and women because we mature quicker. Are you married?”

“I have wives in London, Paris, and Rome. What is this catechism?”

“Well, I’m trying to get something going.”

“I can see that, but does it have to be me?”

“I know it sounds like a notion.” She lowered her eyes, and without the highlight of their blue, her pale face was almost invisible. “And I suppose women are always throwing themselves at you.”

“It’s my untold wealth.”

“What are you, blasé or something? I mean, I know I’m not staggering, but I’m not exactly repulsive.

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