Time and the Riddle: Thirty-One Zen Stories (50 page)

“I am not sure I understand,” the Third Officer said.

“In time you will. It is enough to accept the fact that the people on Cephes 5 place their planet and their own selves at the center of the universe, and then they structure their lives so that no uncertainty concerning this should ever arise. This is why we have been able to continue this process for so many years. You see, they refuse even to consider the fact that mankind might exist elsewhere in the universe.”

“Then they don't know?”

“No, they don't know.”

For a while they stood there, the Third Officer watching the work on the other side of the glass panel and growing more and more uneasy. Then the Counsellor tapped his shoulder and said, “Enough. Even in their sleep, they think and dream, and you are still too new to this to suffer their vibrations for long. Come, we will go to one of the viewing rooms, sit and look at the universe, and talk a little more and compose ourselves.”

In the viewing room, with the enormous, blazing glory of the stars in front of him and with the comforting presence of the Counsellor beside him, the Third Officer was able to relax and begin to deal with the flood of ideas and impressions. He found that he was full of a great pity, an overwhelming sense of sadness, and he spoke of this to the old man.

“It's quite normal,” the Counsellor said.

“What do they do on Cephes 5?” he wondered.

“They kill.”

“Then is the planet empty?”

“Hardly. You see, these poor demented creatures are aware of their function, which is to kill, and like all creatures with a sense of function, they place the function above all else. Thus they breed like no other men in the universe, increasing their population constantly, so that while their killing mounts, their breeding remains ahead of it.”

“Are they normally intelligent?”

“Very intelligent—yet their intelligence is to no effect. Their egos prevent them from even turning it inward.”

“But how can they be intelligent and continue this thing you call murder?”

“Because the intelligence is directed toward only one end—the killing of their own kind. As I told you, they are insane.”

“But if they are intelligent, won't they devise ways to move through space?”

“Oh, yes. They have done so, with very crude rockets. But we chose Cephes 5 originally because it is the farthest inhabitable planet from the center of the galaxy, almost forty light-years from another inhabitable planet. They will move through space, but the problem of warping space, of moving faster than light—this will always elude them, for this is a problem that man can solve only within himself.

For some time the Third Officer sat in silence, and then he asked softly, “Do they suffer a great deal?”

“I am afraid so.”

“Is there any hope for them?”

“There is always hope,” the old man replied.

“We call it Cephes 5 in our table of planets,” the Third Officer said. “But every planet has a subjective name for itself. What do these people call their planet?”

“They call it the Earth,” the old man said.

22
Of Time and Cats

A
t least, if it makes no sense at all, it explains about the cats. There was a note in the
Times
today about the pound; they have put away four times the average number of cats, and it keeps getting worse. It will continue to get worse and worse, no doubt, but cats are not as bad as some things.

To explain it, after I had convinced myself that I was in my right mind, I telephoned my wife. Some say that there is actually no way of convincing yourself that you are in your right mind, but I don't go along with that. At least I was as sane as I was a week before.

“Where are you?” my wife demanded. “Why are you telephoning—why don't you come up?”

“Because I am downtown at the Waldorf.”

“Oh no—no. You are downstairs where I left you less than three minutes ago.”

“That is not me—not myself, do you understand?”

“No.”

I waited a while, and she waited too. Finally, I said, “No, I guess you don't.”

“I also saw you dodge around the corner of 63rd Street,” she added. “Were you playing games?”

“Well—”

“Yes?”

“That wasn't me either. Do you think I'm out of my mind? I mean, do you think I've had a breakdown or something like that?”

“No,” my wife said. “You're not the breakdown type.”

“Well, what do you think?”

“I'm reserving opinions,” my wife said.

“Thank you. I still love you. When you saw me downstairs a few minutes ago, what was I wearing?”

“Don't you know?” She seemed shaken for the first time.

“I know. But I want you to tell me. Is that asking so much? Just tell me.”

“All right. I'll tell you. The gray herringbone.”

“Ah,” I said. “Now I will hold the wire, and you go to my closet and tell me what you see there.”

“You're not drunk. I've seen you drunk, and you don't act this way. I will not go to the closet. You come home and we'll decide whether to call a doctor or not.”

“Please,” I begged her. “Please. I am asking a small thing. We have been married twelve years. It has been give and take, the best with the worst. But we came through. Now all I am asking is that you go—”

“All right,” she said shortly. “I'll humor you. I will go to your closet. Just hold on.”

I waited while she went and returned. She picked up the phone again, but said nothing.

“Well?”

She signed and admitted that she had gone to the closet.

“And you saw it there?”

“Your gray suit?”

“Yes?”

“Yes.”

“Gray herringbone. My one gray suit. I have brown, blue and Oxford. I have two sport jackets and three pairs of flannel trousers. But only one gray suit—gray herringbone. Right?”

“Gray herringbone,” she said weakly. “But maybe you bought another?”

“Why?”

“How should I know why? You like gray herringbone, I suppose.”

“No, I didn't buy another. I give you my word of honor. Alice, I love you. We have been married twelve years. I'm a solid character as such things go. Not flighty. Not even romantic, as you have remarked.”

“You are romantic enough,” she said flatly.

“You know what I mean. I did not buy another gray suit. It is the same gray suit.”

“In two places at the same time?”

“Yes.”

“Oh?”

There was a long, long pause then, until finally I said, “Now will you do as I say, even if it makes no sense?”

She paused and sighed again. “Yes.”

“Good. It is now two-fifteen. Shortly before three o'clock, Professor Dunbar will call and tell you some rubbish about his cat and then ask for me. Tell him to go to hell. Then get a cab down here to the Waldorf. I'm in Room 1121.”

“Bob,” she said uncertainly, “just that way—go to hell? He is the head of your department.”

“Well, not in so many words. Do it your own way. Then come straight here. Yes—one thing more. If you see me anywhere, ignore me. Do you understand—no matter what. Ignore me. Don't talk to me.”

“Oh? Yes—Of course. If I see you anywhere, I ignore you. And if I see you, you'll be wearing the gray herringbone?”

“Yes,” I said. “And will you do as I say?”

“Oh, yes—yes. Of course.”

And strangely enough, she did. There are wives and wives; I like mine. I sat in that room (the least expensive, eight dollars a day) and waited and tried to think about something no one should ever have to think about, and at exactly 3:20, there was a knock at the door, and I opened it, and there was Alice. She was a little pale, a little shaken, but still very nice to look at and standing and walking on her own feet.

I kissed her, and she returned the kiss, but told me it was only because I had the blue suit on. Not a chance with the gray suit, she said; and then asked me seriously whether we could be dreaming?

“Not both of us,” I said. “Either you or me. But this isn't a dream. Why do you ask? Did you see me?”

She nodded. “Let me sit down first.” She sat down and looked at me with a curious smile on her face.

“You did see me?” I asked.

“Oh, yes—yes, I saw you.”

“Where?”

“On the corner of 58th Street.”

“Did I see you?”

“No, I don't think so. I was in a cab. But not in the singular, either. You would have to say, ‘Did we see you?' There were three of you.”

“All in gray herringbone?”

“Every one of you.”

I had a bottle of brandy, and I poured a tot for each of us, and I drank mine down and then so did Alice. Then she asked me what I was doing, and I told her I was taking my pulse.

“You would think the rooms would be nicer than this in the Waldorf,” she said, “even for eight dollars a day. If I was hiding, I wouldn't hide in the Waldorf. I'd go downtown to a flophouse, like they do in the stories, for fifty cents a day. How is your pulse?”

“Eighty. I'm not hiding.”

“Eighty is good, isn't it?”

“It's all right. It's normal,” I pointed out. “We're both normal. We're plain people with common sense.”

“Yes?”

“How was I? I mean, was I—”

“We. Say
we
. There were three of you. And I might as well tell you, I saw you outside the house. That makes four of you. I got the cab before you caught me, and when I looked back, there was another one of you. Five of you.”

“Oh, my God!”

“Yes, indeed, and you can thank your stars that I am not the hysterical type. How many of you are there, if I may ask?”

“I don't know,” I whispered. “Maybe fifty—maybe a hundred—maybe five hundred. I just don't know.”

“You mean New York is full of you,” Alice nodded. “When I was a little girl, I used to read
Alice in Wonderland
and pretend it was me. Now I don't have to pretend.”

“No, I guess you don't. Tell me, Alice—just one or two things more—and then I'll try to explain.”

I poured her another brandy and she drank it down neat, and said, “Oh, fine. I want to hear you explain about this.”

“Yes, yes, naturally you do. And I'm going to—that is as much as I understand, I'm going to, I am indeed—”

“You are babbling,” Alice interrupted, not without sympathy.

“I am, aren't I? Well, there you are. What I meant is—when you saw the three of me, was I—were we quarrelling, angry or what?”

“Oh, no, getting along fine. Just so deep in discussion you didn't realize you had stopped traffic. Three of you are triplets, not any kind of triplets, but bald, forty-year-old college-professor type triplets, identical of course, and dressed in that gray herringbone that all of the city must be talking about—oh, yes, and the sleeveless cashmere instead of a vest and the bright green bow-tie—”

“I don't see how you can laugh at something like this.”

“I have problems of my own sanity,” Alice said. “Would you like another nip? Yes—I told Dunbar to go to hell, just as you advised me to.”

She poured the brandy for me, and her hand didn't shake. Don't even tell me that any man knows the woman he is married to, not in twelve years and not in twenty years—not unless something happens that can't happen, and most people live their lives without that.

“He called?”

“Yes. You said he would.”

“But I didn't believe he would. What time?”

“Ten minutes to three, exactly. I checked the time.”

“Yes. What did he say—for God's sake, Alice, what did he say?”

“If you had only said it was important, I would have listened more carefully.”

“But you did listen—please. Alice!”

“The trouble is, he doesn't talk English even at best, and he was very excited. He's building some kind of a silly machine in his basement—a field deviator or something of that sort—”

“I know. I know what he's trying to do.”

“Then perhaps you can tell me.”

“I will, I will,” I pleaded. “I don't quite understand it myself, to tell you the truth. He has some notion that space can be warped or bent—no, that doesn't do it, but something like that. Knotted, perhaps. A tiny corner of it twisted into a knot—”

“You're not making any sense at all, Bob. I think you're excited. I think you're upset.”

“Yes, I'm upset! Going out of my mind! God damn it, Alice—what did he say?”

“That's better,” Alice nodded. “I think it's good for you to get angry, a sort of safety valve.”

“What did he say?”

“He said that his cat walked into the—what would it be—between two electrodes or something like electrodes?”

“A vortex?”

“Perhaps. Whatever it is, his cat walked into it and disappeared. Poof—just like that. No cat. So he tried it on himself—he has the emotional stability of a six year old, if you ask me—and nothing at all happened. So he wants you to get in your car and get right over to his basement and let him know what you make of it.”

“And?”

“I don't know,” Alice frowned. “He assured me that it had nothing to do with atomic disintegration or anything of that sort or there would have been a dreadful explosion and he wouldn't have been talking to me at all. I think he thought that was a joke—he laughed. The kind of humor a professor uses with his students. Oh, I'm sorry.”

“Don't mind me at all. You can't hurt my feelings now.”

“And I told him to go to hell. Not in those words—I told him you were spending the night with your brother in Hartford and when he wanted your brother's telephone number, I said it had been temporarily disconnected, so he got the address and sent you a wire there, or said he would. Now it's your turn.”