Stranger in a Strange Land, Page 37

  She tried to explain this to Mike, giving her theory of the complementary functions of narcissist display and voyeurism. “The truth is, Mike, I get a kick out of having men stare at me . . . lots of men and almost any man. So now I grok why Duke likes pictures of women, the sexier the better. It doesn’t mean that I want to go to bed with them, any more than Duke wants to go to bed with a photograph. But when they look at me and tell me—think at me—that I’m desirable, it gives me a warm tingle right in my middle.” She frowned slightly. “I ought to get a real naughty picture taken of me and send it to Duke . . . to tell him I’m sorry I failed to grok what I thought was a weakness in him. If it’s a weakness, I’ve got it, too—girl style. If it is a weakness—I grok it isn’t.”

  “All right. We’ll find a photographer.”

  She shook her head. “I’ll apologize instead. I won’t send such a picture; Duke has never made a pass at me—and I don’t want him getting ideas.”

  “Jill, you would not want Duke?”

  She heard an echo of “water brother” in his mind. “Hmm . . . I’ve never thought about it. I guess I’ve been ‘being faithful’ to you. But I grok you speak rightly; I wouldn’t turn Duke down—and I would enjoy it, too! What do you think of that, darling?”

  “I grok a goodness,” Mike said seriously.

  “Hmm . . . my gallant Martian, there are times when human females appreciate a semblance of jealousy—but I don’t think there is any chance that you will ever grok ‘jealousy.’ Darling, what would you grok if one of those marks made a pass at me?”

  Mike barely smiled. “I grok he would be missing.”

  “I grok he might. But, Mike—listen, dear. You promised you wouldn’t do anything of that sort except in utter emergency. If you hear me scream, and reach into my mind and I’m in real trouble, that’s another matter. But I was coping with wolves when you were still on Mars. Nine times out of ten, if a girl gets raped, it’s partly her fault. So don’t be hasty.”

  “I will remember. I wish you were sending that naughty picture to Duke.”

  “What, dear? If I make a pass at Duke—and I may, now that you’ve put the idea in my head—I’d rather grab his shoulders and say, ‘Duke, how about it?—I’m willing.’ I don’t want to do it by sending him a picture like those nasty women used to send to you. But if you want me to, okay.”

  Mike frowned. “If you wish to send Duke a naughty picture, do so. If you not wish, then not. But I had hoped to see the naughty picture taken. Jill, what is a ‘naughty’ picture?”

  Mike was baffled by Jill’s reversal in attitude, plus longstanding bafflement at Duke’s “art” collection. But the pale Martian thing which parallels tumultuous human sexuality gave him no foundation for grokking either narcissism or voyeurism, modesty or display. He added, “ ‘Naughty’ means a small wrongness, but I grok you did not mean a wrongness, but a goodness.”

  “Uh, a naughty picture could be either, I guess—depending on who it’s for—now that I’m over my prejudice. But—Mike, I’ll have to show you; I can’t tell you. Close those slats, will you?”

  Venetian blinds flipped themselves shut. “All right,” she said. “This pose is just a little naughty—any show girl would use it as a professional pic . . . and this is a bit more so, some girls would use it. But this is unmistakably naughty ... and this one is quite naughty . . . and this is so extremely naughty that I wouldn’t pose with my face wrapped in a towel—unless you wanted it.”

  “If your face was covered, why would I want it?”

  “Ask Duke. That’s all I can say.”

  “I grok not wrongness, I grok not goodness. I grok—” He used a Martian word indicating a null state of all emotions.

  Because he was baffled, they went on discussing it, in Martian when possible because of its extremely fine discriminations for emotions and values—and in English because Martian couldn’t cope with the concepts. To pursue this mystery, Mike took a ringside table that night, Jill having coached him in how to bribe the maître d’hôtel. Jill came strutting out in the first number, her smile for everyone but a wink for Mike. She discovered that, with Mike present, the warm, pleased sensation she had been enjoying nightly was greatly amplified—she suspected that she would glow in the dark.

  When the girls formed a tableau, Mike was about ten feet from Jill—she had been promoted to a front position. The director had shifted her on her fourth day, saying, “I don’t know what it is, kid. We’ve got girls with twice your build—but you’ve got what customers look at.”

  She posed, and talked with mike in her mind (“Feel anything?” )

  (“I grok but not in fullness.”)

  (“Look where I am looking, my brother. The small one. He quivers. He thirsts for me.”)

  (“I grok his thirst.”)

  (“Can you see him?”) Jill stared into the customer’s eyes both to increase his interest and to let Mike use her eyes. As her grokking of Martian thought had increased and as they had grown steadily closer they had begun to use this common Martian convenience. Jill had little control as yet; Mike could see through her eyes simply by calling to her, she could see through his only if he gave it his attention.

  (“We grok him together,”) Mike agreed. (“Great thirst for Little Brother.”)

  (“!!!!”)

  (“Yes. Beautiful agony.”)

  A music cue told Jill to resume her slow strut. She did so, moving with proud sensuousness and feeling lust boil up in response to emotions both from Mike and the stranger. The routine caused her to walk toward the rutty little stranger; she continued to lock eyes with him.

  Something happened which was totally unexpected to her because Mike had never explained that it was possible. She had been letting herself receive the stranger’s emotions, teasing him with eyes and body, and relaying what she felt to Mike—when suddenly she was seeing herself through strange eyes and feeling all the primitive need with which that stranger saw her.

  She stumbled and would have fallen had not Mike caught her, lifted her, steadied her until she could walk unassisted, second-sight gone.

  The parade of beauties continued through the exit. Off stage the girl behind her said, “What happened, Jill?”

  “Caught my heel.”

  “That was the wildest recover I ever saw. You looked like a puppet on strings.”

  (—and so I was, dear!) “I’m going to ask the stage manager to check that spot. I think there’s a loose board.”

  For the rest of the show Mike gave her glimpses of how she looked to various men while making sure that she was not again taken by surprise. Jill was startled at how varied were the images: one noticed her legs, another was fascinated by undulations of her torso, a third saw only her proud bosom. Then Mike let her look at other girls in the tableaux. She was relieved to find that Mike saw them as she did—but sharper.

  But she was amazed to find that her excitement increased as she looked through his eyes at other girls.

  Mike left during the finale, ahead of the crowd. She did not expect to see him again that night since he had asked for time off only to see her show. But when she returned to their hotel, she felt him before she reached the room. The door opened, closed behind her. “Hello, darling!” she called out. “How nice you came home!”

  He smiled gently. “I now grok naughty pictures.” Her clothes vanished. “Make naughty pictures.”

  “Huh? Yes, dear, of course.” She ran through poses as she had earlier. With each one Mike let her use his eyes to see herself. She looked, and felt his emotions . . . and felt her own swell in mutually amplified re-echoing. At last she placed herself in a pose as randy as her imagination could devise.

  “Naughty pictures are a great goodness,” Mike said gravely.

  “Yes! And now I grok them, too! What are you waiting for?”

  They quit their jobs and saw every revue on the Strip. Jill found that she “grokked naughty pictures” only through a man’s eyes. If Mike watched, she shared his mood
, from sensuous pleasure to full rut—but if Mike’s attention wandered, the model, dancer, or peeler was just another woman. She decided that this was fortunate; to have discovered in herself Lesbian tendencies would have been too much.

  But it was fun—“great goodness”—to see girls through his eyes—and ecstatic goodness to know that, at last, he looked at her the same way.

  They moved on to Palo Alto, where Mike tried to swallow the Hoover Library. But scanners could not spin that fast, nor could Mike turn pages fast enough to read them all. At last he admitted that he was taking in data faster than he could grok it, even spending all hours the library was closed in contemplation. With relief Jill moved them to San Francisco and he embarked on systematic research.

  She came back to their flat one day to find him doing nothing, surrounded by books—many books: The Talmud, the Kama-Sutra, Bibles in several versions, the Book of the Dead, the Book of Mormon, Patty’s precious copy of the New Revelation, various Apocrypha, the Koran, the unabridged Golden Bough, The Way, Science and Health with key to the Scriptures, sacred writings of a dozen other religions major and minor—even such oddities as Crowley’s Book of the Law.

  “Trouble, dear?”

  “Jill, I don’t grok.”

  (“Waiting, Michael. Waiting for fullness is.”)

  “I don’t think waiting will fill it. I know what’s wrong; I’m not a man, I’m a Martian—a Martian in a body of the wrong shape.”

  “You’re plenty of man for me, dear—and I love the way your body is shaped.”

  “Oh, you grok what I’m talking about. I don’t grok peopde. I don’t understand this multiplicity of religions. Now among my people—”

  “Your people, Mike?”

  “Sorry. I should have said that, among Martians, there is only one religion—and it is not a faith, it’s a certainty. You grok it. ‘Thou art God!’ ”

  “Yes,” she agreed. “I do grok . . . in Martian. But, dearest, it doesn’t say the same thing in English. I don’t know why.”

  “Mmmm . . . on Mars, when we needed to know anything, we asked the Old Ones and the answer was never wrong. Jill, is it possible that we humans don’t have ‘Old Ones?’ No souls, I mean. When we discorporate—die—do we die dead . . . die all over and nothing left? Do we live in ignorance because it doesn’t matter? Because we are gone and not a rack behind in time so short that a Martian would use it for one long contemplation? Tell me, Jill. You’re human.”

  She smiled with sober serenity. “You yourself have told me. You have taught me to know eternity and you can’t take it away from me. You can’t die, Mike—you can only discorporate.” She gestured at herself with both hands. “This body that you have taught me to see through your eyes . . . and that you have loved so well, someday it will be gone. But I shall not be gone . . . I am that I am! Thou art God and I am God and we are God, eternally. I am not sure where I will be, or whether I will remember that I was once Jill Boardman who was happy trotting bedpans and equally happy strutting her stuff in her buff under bright lights. I have liked this body—”

  With a most uncustomary gesture of impatience Mike threw away her clothes.

  “Thank you, dear,” she said. “It has been a nice body to me—and to you—to both of us who thought of it. But I don’t expect to miss it when I am through with it. I hope that you will eat it when I discorporate.”

  “Oh, I’ll eat you, all right—unless I discorporate first.”

  “I don’t suppose you will. With your much greater control over your sweet body I suspect that you can live several centuries at least. Unless you choose to discorporate sooner.”

  “I might. But not now. Jill, I’ve tried and tried. How many churches have we attended?”

  “All the sorts in San Francisco, I think. I don’t recall how many times we have been to seekers’ services.”

  “That’s just to comfort Pat—I’d never go again if you weren’t sure that she needs to know that we haven’t given up.”

  “She does need to. We can’t lie—you don’t know how and I can’t, not to Patty.”

  “Actually,” he admitted, “the Fosterites have quite a lot. All twisted, of course. They are groping—the way I did as a carnie. They’ll never correct their mistakes, because this—” He caused Patty’s book to lift. “—is mostly crap!”

  “Yes. But Patty doesn’t see those parts. She is wrapped in innocence. She is God and behaves accordingly . . . only She doesn’t know She is.”

  “Uh, huh,” he agreed. “That’s our Pat. She believes it only when I tell her—with proper emphasis. But, Jill, there are only three places to look. Science—and I was taught more about how the universe ticks while I was still in the nest than human scientists can yet handle. So much that I can’t talk to them, even about as elementary a gimmick as levitation. I’m not disparaging scientists. What they do is as it should be; I grok that fully. But what they are after is not what I am looking for—you don’t grok a desert by counting its grains of sand. Then there’s philosophy—supposed to tackle everything. Does it? All any philosopher ever comes out with is what he walked in with—except for self-deluders who prove their assumptions by their conclusions. Like Kant. Like other tail-chasers. So the answer ought to be here.” He waved at piles of books. “Only it’s not. Bits that grok true, but never a pattern—or if there is, they ask you to take the hard part on faith! Faith! What a dirty monosyllable—Jill, why didn’t you mention that one when you were teaching me the short words that mustn’t be used in polite company?”

  She smiled. “Mike, you made a joke.”

  “I didn’t mean it as a joke . . . and I can’t see that it’s funny. Jill, I haven’t even been good for you—you used to laugh. I haven’t learned to laugh; instead you’ve forgotten. Instead of my becoming human . . . you’re becoming Martian.”

  “I’m happy, dear. You probably just haven’t noticed me laughing.”

  “If you laughed clear down on Market Street, I would hear. I grok. Once I quit being frightened by it I always noticed it—you, especially. If I grokked it, I would grok people—I think. Then I could help somebody like Pat . . . teach her what I know and learn what she knows. We could understand each other.”

  “Mike, all you need to do for Patty is to see her occasionally. Why don’t we, dear? let’s get out of this dreary fog. She’s home now; the carnie is closed for the season. Drop south and see her. . . and I’ve always wanted to see Baja California; we could go on south into warmer weather—and take her with us, that would be fun!”

  “All right.”

  She stood up. “Let me get a dress. Do you want to save those books? I could ship them to Jubal.”

  He flipped his fingers and all were gone but Patricia’s gift. “We’ll take that one; Pat would notice. But, Jill, right now I need to go to the zoo.”

  “All right.”

  “I want to spit back at a camel and ask him what he’s sour about. Maybe camels are the ‘Old Ones’ on this planet . . . and that’s what’s wrong with the place.”

  “Two jokes in one day, Mike.”

  “I ain’t laughing. Neither are you. Nor the camel. Maybe he groks why. Is this dress all right? Do you want underclothes?”

  “Please, dear. It’s chilly.”

  “Up easy.” He levitated her a couple of feet. “Pants. Stockings. Garter belt. Shoes. Down you go and lift your arms. Bra? You don’t need one. Now the dress—and you’re decent. And pretty, whatever that is. You look good. Maybe I can get a job as lady’s maid if I’m not good for anything else. Baths, shampoos, massages, hair styling, make-up, dressing for all occasions—I’ve even learned to do your nails so it suits you. Will that be all, Modom?”

  “You’re a perfect lady’s maid, dear.”

  “Yes, I grok I am. You look so good I think I’ll toss it away and give you a massage. The growing-closer kind.”

  “Yes, Michael!”

  “I thought you had learned waiting? First you have to take me to the zoo and buy
me peanuts.”

  “Yes, Mike.”

  It was windy cold at Golden Gate Park but Mike did not notice and Jill had learned how not to be cold. But it was pleasant to relax control in the warm monkey house. Aside from its heat Jill did not like the monkey house—monkeys and apes were depressingly human. She was, she thought, finished forever with prissiness; she had grown to cherish an ascetic, almost Martian joy in all things physical. The public copulations and evacuations of these simians did not offend her; these poor penned people possessed no privacy, they were not at fault. She could watch without repugnance, her own fastidiousness untouched. No, it was that they were “Human, All Too Human”—every action, every expression, every puzzled troubled look reminded her of what she liked least about her own race.

  Jill preferred the Lion House—the great males arrogant even in captivity, the placid motherliness of the big females, the lordly beauty of Bengal tigers with jungle staring out of their eyes, little leopards swift and deadly, reek of musk that air-conditioning could not purge. Mike shared her tastes; they would spend hours there or in the aviary or the reptile house or in watching seals—once he told her that, if one had to be hatched on this planet, to be a sea lion would be of greatest goodness.

  When first he saw a zoo, Mike was much upset; Jill was forced to order him to wait and grok, as he had been about to free the animals. He. conceded presently that most of them could not live where he proposed to turn them loose—a zoo was a nest, of a sort. He followed this with hours of withdrawal, after which he never again threatened to remove bars and glass and grills. He explained to Jill that bars were to keep people out more than to keep animals in, which he had failed to grok at first. After that Mike never missed a zoo wherever they went.

  But today even the misanthropy of camels could not shake Mike’s moodiness. Nor did monkeys and apes cheer him up. They stood in front of a cage containing a family of capuchins, watching them eat, sleep, court, nurse, groom, and swarm aimlessly around, while Jill tossed them peanuts.