A Handful of Time (14 page)

At that moment Jerry walked out, flipped a cigarette into the petunias, took my elbow and guided me out for a walk in the starlight.

“I’ll bring her back alive.”

I knew without looking that Mama smiled and then went frowning into the house.

A little down the road, near the Leaning Pine Tree, I stumbled over a rock and came out of my daze.

“Jerry,” I said, “my mother is stark, raving mad. There’s a plain bad streak in the family.” I shuddered. Who’d be next?

Jerry laughed. “Don’t you know what’s happened?”

“No. And if somebody doesn’t explain it to me pretty soon I’ll lose what little remains of my mind.”

“The Venusians have landed,” Jerry said, “in a swamp around Bayou Teche. They landed, in fact, in a bayou that runs behind your great Aunt Felicie’s house. You
have
a great Aunt Felicie?”

“Great aunt by marriage. Aunt Felicie is nine hundred years old and she insists on living by herself out there with the alligators. Every Christmas she comes in with a great big pot of gumbo. Otherwise, we never see her.”

“Well, your great Aunt Felicie took to the Venusians and the Venusians took to your great Aunt Felicie.”

“I suppose Walter told you all this and I suppose you swallowed it hook, line and sinker. But will you please explain why nobody’s heard about the Venusian landing.”

Jerry shrugged. “Apparently Felicie tried. She wired the president of the Confederacy. She wired her state representative. She even wired the Union government and several top Union scientists. When no one came she apologized to the Venusian representatives and wrote a letter to Grandfather Walter.”

“Did the Venusians learn English from her?”

“No. They learned Cajun from her.”

I giggled. It all sounded so exactly like Aunt Felicie.

“Do I see a nice piney bank up there?” Jerry asked, pointing to the bluff beyond the old Carey place.

“You do. Here, hold my hand and I’ll take you around the back way. You can’t get there from the road.”

I led Jerry around the dark, crumbling house, which looked like a place where no one had lived but many had died. We crossed a queasy little bridge with stars laughing in the creek beneath.

“What did Aunt Felicie say in her letter to Walter?” I asked when I had gotten Jerry across the creek safely and on to an overgrown path that no one could have found but me.

“She said the Venusians wanted to know what sort of present the people of the Confederacy would most appreciate. And of course Walter, being badly in need of rejuvenation himself, suggested a Rejuvenator.”

“The Venusians didn’t know he and Aunt Felicie are both half crazy?”

“They’re not so crazy. Let me finish. The Venusians thought this was a perfectly good idea, and they whipped one up.”

“Really,
Jerry.”

“You said you wanted to hear. You’re the one that wants to waste all this starlight talking.”

“I mean it’s hard to believe the Venusians just happened to have a recipe for human Rejuvenation with them. Particularly since I assume they’re not human.”

“Not human the same way we are. But they do have one useful area of scientific knowledge under control. And that’s virology. The study of viruses.”

“Given time,” I said, “I could have figured out what virology is.”

“You’re not being a good listener,” Jerry said. We sat down and watched the fireflies across the road, and there was something lovely and comforting about the darkness and the stars and the little surprise glowings of the lightning bugs.

“What does virology have to do with Swamp Water Youth Restorer?” I asked, dropping pebbles off the edge of the bluff.

“Just this. The Venusians had increased their own life span enormously through the use of viruses.”

“I thought Walter said it was hormones.”

“He does think so. But from what he says, I think it’s all done with viruses. This is a guess. I gather they have a virus that goes in and replaces the template of the living cell. The template is the pattern from which new cells are formed. And if you change the template, a different cell is formed. Now maybe for themselves, they can rejuvenate without changing their appearance a great deal.

“But you can figure out what happened. Working with viruses with which they were familiar, they found one which alters cellular patterns but not to the extent of causing shock or death. But it was, after all, a Venusian virus, and the effect is‌—‌well, rather amphibious. You see how Walter looks.”

“I don’t know,” I said, “but what I’d rather look like Aunt Felicie and die at a reasonable age than end up like Walter.”

“If you think Walter minds, you’re wrong.”

“Oh, I know. Walter’s enjoying the living soul out of all this.”

“At the rate the mail order business is going, everyone may soon be just exactly like Walter.”

“Jerry, I get the oddest picture of the old guard UDC sprouting tails and swarming down en masse to Bayou Lafourche. In all humanity, somebody ought to go and warn the alligators.”

Well, Jerry left in a huff the next day and at the time I thought it must have been because of something I’d done‌—‌or more likely what I’d not done‌—‌the night before.

But the next week we got a frantic telegram from Aunt Felicie. Apparently Jerry had gone north and convinced somebody about the Venusians, because Aunt Felicie’s house was running over with Union scientists. Well, this would get Jerry into a good Eastern medical school.

Of course, nobody told him
not
to do this, but he should have asked us about it beforehand. It sounded like he was selling out to the Yankees.

Even so. The Venusians are on our side, because that’s where the nice, warm swamps are. Not to speak of Aunt Felicie, who has a way with people when she tries.

No doubt the Union scientists learned many useful things from the Venusians. But Walter has an exclusive franchise on the Swamp Water Youth Restorative.

And the swamps are a paradise for rich old post-senescents, which is nice for the poor old natives. Not to speak of the poor young natives.

The latest thing is, of course, top secret. But since cousin Jefferson is in the senate I know all about it and I think it’s a grand idea. Watch for the Annexation of Venus.

“T
HERE
’
S A
new twenty-second century man coming in tomorrow,” my husband said through a mouthful of dried Martian furz. “God! Do we have to have this damn furz for breakfast
every
day?”

“Furz is the
only
food that provides everything you need for nutrition.
Everything.
Scientists say you could live entirely on furz and be perfectly healthy. Healthier, as a matter of fact. For only ten credits a year. And you get all that food value with only two hundred calories a meal. Think of it!”

“I’ll be damned if I’ll think of it. I get paid to think about Domestic Architecture from 1875 to 1890, not about Martian furz.”

“Paid!
Is that what you call that flimsy, half-starved credit guarantee the University sends you every month? If we ever have a baby we’ll have to live on furz three times a day.”

“Baby!” William paled, pushed away his bowl of furz and lighted a cigarette. “I just bought you an electric zither. What do you want with a…”

“Never mind,” I said darkly, “Just be glad your daddy didn’t buy your mama an electric zither.”

“Now what do you mean by that?” William snapped, because he is always the one to start arguments. “You always say something obscure when I’m hungry and it activates my digestive juices. That’s how ulcers get started. The hydrochloric acid or whatever it is starts digesting the stomach.”

“That’s ridiculous! In the first place I wasn’t talking to your digestive juices. And in the second place you’ve just had a nice, big bowl of furz.”

“It
wasn’t
nice. It leaves you feeling guilty because you want to eat something else and you know you don’t need to. And when you feel guilty your large intestine contracts and that leads to…”

“William, I
won’t
be made responsible for your digestive tract. The doctor said you were in perfect health and marriage has done wonders for you.”

William grinned. “I like you, anyway, furz and all.” He reached for his lecture notes and stood up to leave.

“Love
me, William,” I reminded him. “Understatement is all very effective when you’re lecturing on nineteenth-century history. But not when you’re making love to your wife.”

“I don’t have time to make love to you,” William said, glancing at the chronometer set in his thumbnail. “I have an eight o’clock class.”

“That isn’t what I meant. Oh, William, you’re absolutely impossible. But go ahead and ask him to dinner tomorrow night.”

“Who?” William asked, kissing me goodbye.

“The twenty-second century man, you idiot. You were going to ask me to have him to dinner before you got off on the furz.”

“Oh, yes. Fine.” William jumped on the conveyor belt that led to the Faculty Building.

“Tell him six o’clock!” I shouted.

“Right Six o’clock.”

“Is he married?” I screamed for William was going off fast.

“Either that or living in sin!” William screamed back at me.

Which is why there was always a delightful suspicion attached to the Jrobs. Four square blocks of Ivy Leave faculty heard William’s quip.

Five minutes later dear old Mrs. Blake, Mrs. Romantic Poetry Blake, came dithering over bearing a jar of those dreadful creech preserves you were too polite to throw away.

“I thought you might like a jar of my creech preserves,” she said with dignity. Then she threw restraint to the winds.
“Who’s
living in sin, my dear? Isn’t it fascinating?”

“The Jrobs,” I answered thoughtlessly, because my mind was full of other things. Thank God he was married. That meant I could have a soufflé. Bachelors are too independable for soufflés and timbales aren’t nearly as impressive. Venusian grilch cheese soufflé with a soupçon of saffron. Green peas. Popped potatoes. But were the Teenie vacuums dependable? The last batch didn’t pop right and I’d have to go all the way into town to get Acme Frozen Vacuums and even so…

Mrs. Blake’s conversation was beginning to create static in my train of thought.

“Quite like Percy Bysshe and Mary,” she was rattling on. “Or even George Gordon, Lord B. Though I must say I think Byron was something of a cad. I mean about the little girl in the convent. Though if you can write such lovely poetry and you look like Manfred… Does Mr. Jrob look like Manfred?”

“Manfred?” I asked, frowning. I didn’t like the gist of the conversation at all.

“My dear, I didn’t mean to be superior. You’re late nineteenth century architecture, so of course you wouldn’t know. Manfred. Dark, gloomy, handsome, romantic.”

“What about Manfred?” I asked, deciding we couldn’t have cheese for dessert if we were having cheese soufflé for the entree.

“Mr. Jrob. The one that’s living in sin. Does he look like Manfred?”

“Mr. and Mrs. Jrob aren’t living in sin,” I answered, horrified. “He’s coming in from the twenty-second century to occupy the Future chair at the University.”

“But you
said
they were living in sin,” Mrs. Blake insisted, working her eyebrows.

“My husband was just having his little joke. I’m sure they’re perfectly respectable people and after all they’ll be friends of ours.”

“Of course,” Mrs. Blake said, smiling with delight. “We must take up for our friends, mustn’t we? And now I’ve got to fly. I promised a jar of creech preserves to Norma. She’s just out of the hospital, poor thing, and I’ve always said there’s nothing like creech preserves for a hysterectomy.”

Had the Jrobs been different, I might have gone about the neighborhood clearing up after Mrs. Blake’s rumor. As it was, I maintained an enigmatic smile practically during the entire stay of the Jrobs at Ivy Leave. And I must say, I don’t envy the Cheshire cat. Because it’s a strain on the facial muscles.

But the Jrobs deserved everything they got. More, in fact, but tempers tend to get flabby in an intellectual atmosphere.

The Jrobs were in the midst of an argument as they arrived at our modest inflated bubble.

“Ivy
Leave!”
she was sputtering. “I thought you said Ivy
League.”

“Now, now, Beta. Remember this is mid twenty-first century, not mid-twentieth century. Don’t you ever read anything? Ivy Leave is…”

“Come on in,” William said heartily, before they had a chance to toe the button.

I took both index fingers and pulled my mouth into a smile. How dare she use such a nasty tone about Ivy Leave? Before she even saw a pay check.

“How quaint!” Mrs. Jrob remarked when she was in the door. “Amazing what you’ve done with that old claka crate.”

“I don’t know what a crate is,” I said, “but that’s our new Young Professional Pined Finish Family Cabinet.”

“Notice her middle low coastal accent, Beta,” Mr. Jrob said, extending a hand that might easily have held a peanut. “It’s charming, isn’t it?”

“It has a hairy sort of charm,” Mrs. Jrob agreed nastily. I soon discovered that “hairy” was their general word of abuse. It was easy to see why. Both the Jrobs were completely hairless, except for an obviously dyed blond fringe around Mrs. Jrob’s dome.

“Mash yourself up a hunk of furniture,” I said much more cheerfully than I felt, “and make yourselves at home. What would you like to drink, Mrs. Jrob?”

“Mead?” she asked. It was obviously an unusual physical effort for her to shape her chair.

“Beta!” Mr. Jrob said reprovingly. “Mid-twentieth century America, remember? Try to seem like a part of the native atmosphere.”

“Porter? Claret cup? Grog?”

Mr. Jrob cleared his throat in embarrassment. “Martini,” he said. “We would be delighted to have a martini.”

“What’s a martini?” I asked. “I’d be glad to make it if…”

William laughed. “Nice try, J. Only you’re a little off your century too. The latest respectable drink is a Suspicion.”