The Eskimo Invasion (33 page)

 

 

"He just got up on the wrong side of his bed this morning, his bunk,
perhaps," she laughed. "He's a retired naval officer, your navy, by the way.
But he's Canadian born -- "

 

 

"Born in hell," Dr. West's voice muffled, and there was quiet.

 

 

"Mmm, that's better. Don't nibble me too hard. Forget, mm, everything.
Think about me -- Has all that isolation made you too sensitive? See --
You're ticklish. Lover, that big white square, that scar on your leg -- ?"

 

 

"Would you believe a bear bit me? You're warm and smooth, the end of
the world."

 

 

"What do you mean by that?"

 

 

"I don't know," Dr. West's voice breathed.

 

 

"My heavens, you're certainly trying to find out," her voice squealed
in delighted alarm.

 

 

Dr. West's voice hoarsened. "Listen, I fell, Nona, Nona -- "

 

 

There were sighing sounds and finally her voice. "Yes, that's it,
wonderful, wonderful -- Now!"

 

 

From the tent there was no coherent conversation and finally quietness.

 

 

"Darling, so nice -- " her voice sighed, "so relaxed."

 

 

"Nona, I feel wonderful," Dr. West's voice laughed, and after a while
in an even tone of voice: "I've been wanting to ask you, in one of the
towers here -- as a fellow student of mine, have you seen -- don't laugh
-- a middle-aged Eskimo? Fierce looking man. Not the stereotype of an
Eskimo. Not lovable. His name is Peterluk, from the Boothia Peninsula."

 

 

"You've asked other staff members that question," her voice answered
cautiously. "I'm mainly familiar with this tower. Not a single Eskimo
in this tower -- "

 

 

"Could you find out?"

 

 

"No, it wouldn't be ethical. That is, each student has his -- privacy."

 

 

"Privacy?" Dr. West laughed, giving up on Peterluk momentarily. "That's
what we enjoy. After a little kiss, let's you and me break out of this
prison."

 

 

"Now you've regained your self-confidence," her voice teased him. "Don't
get overconfident. I still work here. I like it here. You are my student,
my job."

 

 

"To charm us cons away from reality?" his voice laughed.

 

 

"Would you rather be in one of those gigantic penitentiaries in the States
-- with 5000 criminal types, all supposedly male. March, march! No privacy.
Fellow prisoners to teach you better ways to stick up filling stations.
Guards who shave and aren't as -- ahem, sympathetic as I am. Now would you
trade places -- ?"

 

 

"You do have nice smooth skin," his voice exhaled, "but here I've never
seen another prisoner. When I tapped on the walls, nobody answered."

 

 

"Which would you rather have -- ?" her voice insisted.

 

 

"We're really all in solitary, the 240 men in this tower, and I don't know
how many other towers."

 

 

"Ten towers," she said. "It's not solitary unless you think of it as
solitary."

 

 

"Twenty-four hundred men. How many women? Divide by six?"

 

 

"You always try to be too precise," her voice laughed. "Our men are
changing and graduating all the time. The average stay is less than a
year. Thousands and thousands." Her voice grew serious. "I think of a
stream of men being reborn."

 

 

"I think of thieves and murderers, criminals, myself, crouched in their cells
waiting for you." His voice rose. "Listen, I'll never get out of here.
For political reasons, I'll -- "

 

 

"Oh shut up. Don't act so egotistical. If you want to act like a pessimistic,
guilt-tortured little boy, go ahead and roll in your own mess." In the
blanket tent rose the bulge of a head. "Until you take a more positive
attitude, you jolly well won't roll on the sheets with me."

 

 

"You mean it, don't you," his voice softened, then exclaimed with wry
laughter. "I understand too well! So simple, but I don't know how effective.
Solitary confinement is the stick and you're the carrot. I've been given
donkey ears."

 

 

"You stubborn donk," her voice laughed, "don't you see any further than
your big nose? You men in here can't be deeply changed by rewards and
punishments. Outside, carrots and sticks certainly failed to civilize
you, or you wouldn't be in here. All your life you've been rewarded and
punished, but you wouldn't conform and you ended up in here."

 

 

"I need to get out. There is a great need for me to get out. Outside,
the Esks are -- "

 

 

"Sweet, harmless, law-abiding people. There's no use talking about Eskimos
in here. Listen, we want you to like it in here. Lover, when you adjust --
we love you."

 

 

"My god, Nona, are you going to give me the family bit? The Recreation
Officer already shoveled it on me -- during his friendly period."
Dr. West's voice rose with anger. "The staff is my family. I am provided
with a new childhood, loving and secure, so that I can grow up to the
world again. Strengthened by my secure second childhood, or is that the
wrong terminology? With new inner security we criminals graduate from
our prison families into the world to be law-abiding and patient and
sympathetic with our fellow man. Bugles please."

 

 

"It works. The family-group produces the -- "

 

 

"Yes, Mom. But Dad was nasty today. Was he cranky because he thought
I wanted to get in bed with you?"

 

 

"You don't need to be that sarcastic," her voice said.

 

 

"I'm sorry. But my eloquence gets -- poisonous. How can you bring yourself
to lie beside a murderous maniac like me? The civil service ought to give
you a medal. If you're supposed to feel motherly toward me, you don't have
to. Just leave me, please, I -- "

 

 

"I love you.~~

 

 

"I should accept that as it is, now. You also love five other men in five
other suites."

 

 

"Yes, I love men. I love women. I love my children. I try to love everybody."

 

 

"Next you'll tell me you also have a husband to love. I was hoping --
and I wasn't so jealous of my five invisible cellmates," Dr. West's
voice stammered, "but I was hoping that ring on your third finger left
hand was just for -- show."

 

 

"Every evening after work I take the monorail back to the apartment district.
Did you get much of a look at Ottawa?"

 

 

"I saw those angry people waving signs at me."

 

 

"I have three children, three little girls. The oldest puts the TV dinners
in the oven before I get home. After supper I help them with their homework.
On the rug, even the second grader mutters at her homework. The older two
have begun to giggle about boys, and the oldest is only sixth grade,
my heavens! Then we watch TV and no one wants to go take the first bath.
When my angels are asleep, I think -- they're another day older and
stronger and wiser, I hope. I sit watching TV. Me, I'm another day older.
I crawl into bed."

 

 

"I wish I were there with you."

 

 

"You are. Squeeze me hard. You're in bed with me right now."

 

 

"That wasn't all that I meant," Dr. West's voice replied. "At the moment
I feel more protective than -- "

 

 

"You needn't be. I can get along very well, thank you," she said.
"Except when my children were helpless babies, I always worked, worked
as an IBM operator, even when my husband was working." Her voice for
the first time rose in anger.

 

 

Her voice tried again more softly. "My husband was a nice guy, he really
was. I didn't just love him because he was the father of my children.
He was a sweet guy, not scheming, not adjustable the way we have to be.
Everything's changing faster and faster, and he got quieter every time
they automated away his job. What did I do? Did I give him inner strength?
No, I began to earn more money than he did, and he said less and less.
When I brought my -- our kids home from my father's into the kitchen,
I ran to turn off the gas."

 

 

Her voice sank. "I tried to give him artificial respiration."

 

 

"It wasn't until then -- after then," her voice laughed unhappily,
"I learned what brief animals we are. You're all horny schemers. If you
and I were Outside, don't expect that a dinner date downtown and a cinerama
will make me -- owe you anything just because I haven't got a husband.
You understand me?"

 

 

"So you got the perfect job here. No, I'm oversimplifying you."

 

 

"Yes, I'm simple. I'm just a simple bundle of mother love. Always cheery.
Pardon me for sounding cynical with you, but my other students happen
to be such uneducated children. They wouldn't understand."

 

 

"Or notice you're not perfect, I hope," Dr. West laughed. "I hope not.
You're our only hope. Don't hurt us. You are too powerful. Without your
personal love this would be solitary confinement and we convicts would
go insane. Right now you are miraculously changing me and five other men."

 

 

Dr. West's voice suddenly probed. "If any of your prisoners fail, I mean,
are released and then hold up a liquor store, do you have such a masochistic
and guilty view of yourself that you believe you are responsible for the
failure of this man?"

 

 

"I don't understand you?"

 

 

"As with the failure of your husband."

 

 

"What are you saying?"

 

 

"Nona, do you think you are so God-awful powerful that if we cons fail,
it is because of something you did or didn't do?"

 

 

"I don't understand. Not one of my students has become a recidivist.
I've worked here four years. Twenty-two of my students have graduated.
None have gotten in any trouble with the law."

 

 

"You misunderstood my question."

 

 

"Of course I'm holding my breath about a few of my boys," she said. "They
all get pretty fair jobs because we've retrained them, and the Government
subsidizes, pays their employers during the first year."

 

 

"So they get along without you?" Dr. West's voice laughed suddenly.
"Marry girls just like you?"

 

 

"You
are
a flatterer. My students write to me, some of them, and I save
the letters and photos. One boy is going with a woman a little bit older
than he is, but very pretty. I shouldn't have said that. What I meant
to say was she looks enough like me to be my sister."

 

 

"No doubt the Government wishes you could be divided more than six ways."

 

 

"Silly. The whole purpose of the Government's reformation policy is to help
them -- you -- stand on their own feet when they go Outside. Someday, you'll
-- Now you stop that," her voice sighed.

 

 

"Nona, you're so warm, so smooth -- "

 

 

"I think you just want me to stop preaching at you."

 

 

"Nona, what I want -- "

 

 

"Lover, turn your wrist the other way. My heavens, if your wristwatch
is correct and I'm sure it is, your borrowed time is up."

 

 

"You aren't going to leave me like this?"

 

 

"Sort of let me up, lover. Where's my bra? You're lying on it."

 

 

"But I was just beginning."

 

 

"But you've no more time today," she laughed. "Be here tomorrow? On second
thought, I won't be back till Wednesday. You traded away tomorrow. Oh,
there's a run in my stocking. Now stop that! You can wait till Wednesday,
lover."

 

 

The blanket tent shook and Nona's legs swung out. She fumbled for her shoes.
"Where's my comb?" Zipping up the hip of her blue skirt, she clicked on
high heels to the door. There was a departing hiss as the inner door opened
and closed. Dr. West was alone.

 

 

Dr. West emerged from the blanket tent. He stared blankly at the huge cage
where the Arctic ground squirrels slept in artificially induced hibernation.
Then he smiled and squinted up at the artificial afternoon in his suite.

 

 

The luminous ceiling panels were synchronized to a clock and rheostat.
There also was an OFF switch, but if he left the panels alone, the evening
would come gradually, and then night. Then Tuesday. On Wednesday morning
at 10:00 --

 

 

He smiled down at the coffee table where she had sat looking up at him.
He hurried to dismantle the tent, folding the blankets, his pulse racing,
his face hot with suppressed memory. For an instant he pictured her
inside the tent, moving. The view was too powerful -- and he laughed and
shook his head, and blinked his eyes. "Wednesday, Wednesday, hurry up,
Wednesday."

 

 

He vaulted over the couch, grinning. Tomorrow was only Tuesday but --
"When Tuesday's here, can Wednesday be far behind?"

 

 

He reached for a glass tube on his work counter, and grinned at the Bunsen
burner in his lab setup. He felt young. If he softened the glass tubing,
bending, twisting the glass, he could make something for her. "A glass
giraffe to make her laugh?"

 

 

Behind him, the inner door hissed open. With a surge of warmth, wanting
to believe she had returned already, Dr. West whirled.

 

 

"Surprise," the Recreation Officer said. "I'm off duty now -- Doctor.
Before you get too well adjusted in here, I'm to deliver this."