Time Travel Omnibus, page 684
He was home before dark. Showered, shaved, dressed, headed over to the Top of the Marina. Tommy Hambleton and Yvonne were in town, and he had agreed to meet them for drinks. Hadn’t seen them for years, not since Tommy had taken over his brother’s villa on the Riviera. Good old Tommy, Mikkelsen thought. Great to see him again. And Yvonne. He recalled her clearly, little snub-nosed blonde, good game of tennis, trim compact body. He’d been pretty hot for her himself, eleven or twelve years ago, back before Adrienne, before Charlene, before Georgiana, before Nedra, before Cindy, Melanie, Elena, Paula. Good to see them both again. He stepped into the skylift and went shooting blithely up the long swivel-stalk to the gilded little cupola high above the lagoon. Hambleton and Yvonne were already there.
Tommy hadn’t changed much—same old smooth slickly dressed little guy—but Mikkelsen was astonished at how time and money had altered Yvonne. She was poised, chic, sinuous, all that baby-fat burned away, and when she spoke there was the smallest hint of a French accent in her voice. Mikkelsen embraced them both and let himself be swept off to the bar.
“So glad I was able to find you,” Hambleton said. “It’s been years! Years, Nick!”
“Practically forever.”
“Still going great with the women, are you?”
“More or less,” Mikkelsen said. “And you? Still running back in time to wipe your nose three days ago, Tommy?”
Hambleton chuckled. “Oh, I don’t do much of that any more. Yvonne and I were to the Fall of Troy last winter, but the short-hop stuff doesn’t interest me these days. I—oh. How amazing?”
“What is it?” Mikkelsen asked, seeing Hambleton’s gaze go past him into the darker corners of the room.
“An old friend,” Hambleton said. “I’m sure it’s she! Someone I once knew—briefly, glancingly—” He looked toward Yvonne and said, “I met her a few months after you and I began seeing each other, love. Of course, there was nothing to it, but there could have been—there could have been—” A distant wistful look swiftly crossed Hambleton’s features and was gone. His smile returned. He said, “You should meet her, Nick. If it’s really she, I know she’ll be just your type. How amazing! After all these years! Come with me, man!”
He seized Mikkelsen by the wrist and drew him, astounded, across the room.
“Janine?” Hambleton cried. “Janine Carter?”
She was a dark-haired woman, elegant, perhaps a year or two younger than Mikkelsen, with cool perceptive eyes. She looked up, surprised. “Tommy? Is that you?”
“Of course, of course. That’s my wife, Yvonne, over there. And this—this is one of my oldest and dearest friends, Nick Mikkelsen. Nick—Janine—”
She stared up at him. “This sounds absurd,” she said, “but don’t I know you from somewhere?”
Mikkelsen felt a warm flood of mysterious energy surging through him as their eyes met. “It’s a long story,” he said. “Let’s have a drink and I’ll tell you all about it.”
FULL CHICKEN RICHNESS
Avram Davidson
LA Bunne Burger was said to have the best hamburger on The Street; the only trouble with that was that Fred Hopkins didn’t care much for hamburger. However there were other factors to consider, such as these: other items on La Bunne’s menu were probably just a bit better than comparable items composed elsewhere on The Street, they sold for just a bit less than, etc. etc., and also Fred Hopkins found the company just a bit more interesting than elsewhere, etc. What else? It was nearer to his studio loft than any eating-place else. Any place else save for a small place called The Old Moulmein Pagoda, the proprietor of which appeared to speak very fluent Cantonese for a Burman, and the Old Moulmein Pagoda was not open until late afternoon. Late afternoon.
Late morning was more Fred’s style.
He was likely to find there, at any given time of late morning, a number of regulars, such as: well, there was Tilly, formerly Ottilie, with red cheeks, her white hair looking windblown even on windless days; Tilly had her own little routine, which consisted of ordering coffee and toast; with the toast came a small plastic container of jelly, and this she spread on one of the slices of toast. That eaten, she would hesitantly ask Rudolfo if she might have more jelly . . . adding, that she would pay for it. Rudolfo would hand her one or two or three more, she would tentatively offer him a palm of pennies and nickels and he would politely decline them. Fred was much moved by this little drama, but after the twelfth and succedant repetitions it left him motionless. (Once he was to encounter Tillie in a disused doorway downtown standing next to a hat with money while she played—and played beautifully—endless Strauss waltzes on that rather un-Strauss-like-instrument, the harmonica.)
Also unusually present in La Bunne Burger in the 40 minutes before the noon rush were Volodya and Carl. They were a sort of twosome there; that is, they were certainly not a twosome elsewhere. Carl was tall and had long blond hair and a long blond beard and was already at his place along the counter when Volodya walked in. Carl never said anything to Volodya, Volodya always said anything to Carl. Volodya was wide and gnarly and had small pale eyes like those of a malevolent pig. Among the things he called Carl were Popa! Moskuey! Smaravatchnik!—meaning (Fred Hopkins found out by and by) Priest! Inhabitant of Moscow! and One Who, For Immoral Purposes, Pretends to be a Chimney Sweep! Fred by and by tried to dissuade Volodya of this curious delusion; “He’s a Minnesota Swede,” Fred explained. But Volodya would have none of it. “He’s A Rahshian Artoducks priest!” was his explosive comeback—and he went on to denounce the last Czar of Russia as having been in the pay of the freemasons. Carl always said nothing, munched away on droplets of egg congealed on his beard.
And there was, in La Bunne Burger, often, breaking fast on a single sausage and a cup of tea, a little old oriental man, dressed as though for the winters of Manchuria; once Fred had, speaking slowly and clearly, asked him please to pass the ketchup: “Say, I ain’t deef,” said the l.o.o.m., in tones the purest American Gothic.
Fred himself was not in the least eccentric, he was an artist, not even starving, though . . . being unfashionably representational . . . not really prospering, either. His agent said that this last was his, Fred’s, own fault. “Paint doctors’ wives!” his agent insisted. “If you would only paint portraits for doctors’ wives, I could get you lots of commissions. Old buildings,” the agent said, disdainfully. “Old buildings, old buildings.” But the muse kisseth where she listeth and if anything is not on the list, too bad: Fred had nothing against doctor’s wives; merely, he preferred to paint pictures of old buildings. Now and then he drove around looking for old buildings he hadn’t painted pictures of and he photographed them and put the photos up by his canvas to help when he painted at home: this of course caused him to be regarded with scorn by purists who painted only from the model or the imagination; why either should be less or more scomable, they disdained to say.
Whom else was F. Hopkins likely to see in La Bunne Burger over his late breakfast or his brunch? Proprietors of nearby businesses, for example, he was likely to see there; mamma no longer brought pappa’s dinner wrapped in a towel to keep hot. Abelardo was sometimes there. Also Fred might see tourists or new émigrés or visiting entrepreneurs of alien status, come to taste the exotic tuna fish sandwich on toast, the picturesque macaroni and cheese, the curious cold turkey, and, of course, often, often, often the native La Bunne De Luxe Special . . . said to be the best hamburger on The Street. Abelardo had long looked familiar; Abelardo had in fact looked familiar from the first. Abelardo always came in from the kitchen and Abelardo always went back out through the kitchen, and yet Abelardo did not work in the kitchen. Evidently Abelardo delivered. Something.
Once, carrying a plate of . . . something . . . odd and fragrant, Rudolfo rested it a moment on the counter near Fred while he gathered cutlery; in response to Fred’s look of curiosity and approbation, at once said, “Not on the menu. Only I give some to Abelardo, because our family come from the same country;” off he went.
Later: “You’re not from Mexico, Rudolfo.”
“No. South America.” Rudolfo departs with glasses.
Later: “Which country in South America you from, Rudolfo?”
“Depend who you ask.” Exit, Rudolfo, for napkins.
Fred Hopkins, idly observing paint on two of his own fingers, idly wondered that—a disputed boundary being clearly involved—Rudolfo was not out leading marches and demonstrations, or (at least!) with drippy brushes slapping up graffiti exhorting the reader to Remember the 12th of January . . . the 3rd of April . . . the 24th of October . . . and so on through the existing political calendar of Ibero-America . . . Clearly, Rudolfo was a anachronism. Perhaps he secretly served some fallen sovereign; a pseudo-crypto-Emperor of Brazil. Perhaps.
Though probably not likely.
One day, the hour being later than usual and the counter crowded, Fred’s eyes wandered around in search of a seat; met those of Abelardo who, worldlessly, invited him to sit in the empty place at the two-person table. Which Fred did. And, so doing, realized why the man had always seemed familiar. Now, suppose you are a foreigner living in a small city or medium town in Latin America, as Fred Hopkins had once been, and it doesn’t really matter which city or town or even which country . . . doesn’t really matter for this purpose . . . and you are going slightly out of your mind trying to get your electricity (la luz) turned on and eventually you notice that there are a few large stones never moved from the side of a certain street and gradually notice that there is often the same man sitting on one of the boulders and that this man wears very dusty clothes which do not match and a hat rather odd for the locale (say, a beret) and that he also wears glasses and that the lens of one is opaque or dark and that this man often gives a small wave of his hand to return the greetings of passersby but otherwise he merely sits and looks. You at length have occasion to ask him something, say, At what hour does the Municipal Palace open? And not only does the man politely inform you, he politely engages you in conversation and before long he is giving you a fascinating discourse on an aspect of history, religion, economics, or folklore, an aspect of which you had been completely ignorant. Subsequent enquiry discloses that the man is, say, a Don Eliseo, who had attended the National University for nine years but took no degree, that he is an idiosyncratico, and comes from a family rnuy honorado—so much honorado, in fact, that merely having been observed in polite discourse with him results in your electricity being connectido muy pronto. You have many discourses with Don Eliseo and eventually he shows you his project, temporarily in abeyance, to perfect the best tortilla making-and-baking machine in the world: there is some minor problem, such as the difficulty of scraping every third tortilla off the ceiling, but any day now Don Eliseo will get this licked; and, in the meanwhile and forever after, his house is your house.
This was why Abelardo had seemed familiar from the start, and if Abelardo was not Eliseo’s brother than he was certainly his nephew or his cousin . . . in the spirit, anyway.
Out of a polite desire that Fred Hopkins not be bored while waiting to be served, Abelardo discussed various things with him—that is, for the most part, Abelardo discussed. Fred listened. La Bunne Burger was very busy.
“Now, the real weakness of the Jesuits in Paraguay,” Abelardo explained.
“Now, in western South America,” said Abelardo, “North American corporations are disliked far less for their vices than for their virtues. Bribery, favoritism, we can understand these things, we live with them. But an absolute insistence that one must arrive in one’s office day after day at one invariable hour and that frequent prolonged telephone conversations from one’s office to one’s home and family is unfavored, this is against our conception of personal and domestic usement,” Abelardo explained.
He assured Fred Hopkins that the Regent Isabella’s greatest error, “though she made several,” was in having married a Frenchman. ‘The Frankish temperament is not the Latin temperament,” Abelardo declared.
Fred’s food eventually arrived; Abelardo informed him that although individual enterprise and planned economy were all very well in their own ways, “one ignores the law of supply and demand at peril. I have been often in businesses, so I know, you see,” said Abelardo.
Abelardo did not indeed wear eyeglasses with one dark or opaque lens, but one of his eyes was artificial. He had gold in his smile—that is, in his teeth—and his white coverall was much washed but never much ironed. By and by, with polite words and thanks for the pleasure of Fred’s company, Abelardo vanished into the kitchen; when Fred strolled up for his bill, he was informed it had already been paid. This rather surprised Fred. So did the fact, conveyed to him by the clock, that the noon rush was over. Had been over.
“Abelardo seems like—Abelardo is a very nice guy.”
Rudolfo’s face, hands, and body made brief but persuasive signal that it went without saying that Abelardo was indeed a very nice guy. “But I don’t know how he stays in business,” said Rudolfo, picking up a pile of dishes and walking them off to the kitchen.
Fred had no reason to remain to discuss this, as it was an unknown to him how anybody stayed in business. Merely he was well aware how week after week the price of paints and brushes and canvases went up, up, up, while the price of his artwork stayed the same, same, same. Well, his agent, though wrong, was right. No one to blame but himself; he could have stayed in advertising, he might be an account executive by now. Or—Walking along The Street, he felt a wry smile accompany memory of another of Abelardo’s comments: “Advertisage is like courtship, always involve some measure of deceit.”
This made him quickstep a bit back to the studio to get in some more painting, for—he felt—tonight might be a good one for what one might call courtship; “exploitation,” some would doubtless call it: though why? If ladies (“women!”) did not like to come back to his loft studio and see his painting, why did they do so? And if they did not genuinely desire to remain for a while of varying length, who could make them? Did any one of them really desire to admire his art, was there no pretense on the part of any of them? Why was he not the exploited one? You women are all alike, you only have one thing on your mind, all you think of is your own pleasure . . . Oh well. Hell. Back to work.—It was true that you could not sleep with an old building, but then they never argued with you, either. And as for “some measure of deceit,” boy did that work both ways! Two weeks before, he’d come upon a harmonious and almost untouched, though tiny, commercial block in an area in between the factories and the farms, as yet undestroyed by the people curiously called “developers”; he’d taken lots of color snaps of it from all angles, and he wanted to do at least two large paintings, maybe two small ones as well. The date, 1895, was up there in front. The front was false, but in the harmony was truth.
A day that found him just a bit tired of the items staple in breakfast found him ordering a cup of the soup du jour for starters. “How you like the soup?”—Rudolfo.
Fred gave his head a silent shake. How. It had gone down without exiting dismay. “Truthful with you. Had better, had worse. Hm. What was it? Well, I was thinking of something else. Uh—chicken vegetable with rice? Right? Right. Yours or Campbell’s?”
Neither.
“Half mine, half Abelardo’s.”
“I beg your pardon.”
But Rudolfo had never heard the rude English story about the pint of half-and-half, neither did Fred tell it to him.
Rudolfo said, “I make a stock with the bones after making chickens sandwiches and I mix it with this.” He produced a large, a very large can, pushed it over to Fred. The label said. FULL CHICKEN RICHNESS Chicken-Type Soup.
“What-haht?” asked Fred, half-laughing. He read on. Ingredients: Water, Other Poultry and Poultry Parts, Dehydrated Vegetables, Chickens and Chicken Parts, seasoning . . . the list dribbled off into the usual list of chemicals. The label also said, Canned for Restaurant and Institutional Usement.
“Too big for a family,” Rudolfo observed. “Well, not bad, I think, too. Help me keep the price down. Every little bit help, you know.”
“Oh. Sure. No, not bad. But I wonder about that label,” Rudolfo shrugged about that label. The Government, he said, wasn’t going to worry about some little chico outfit way down from the outskirt of town. Fred chuckled at the bland non-identification of “Other Poultry”—Rudolfo said that turkey was still cheaper than chicken—“But I don’t put it down, ‘chicken soup,’ I put it down, ‘soup du jour’; anybody ask, I say, ‘Oh, you know, chicken and rice and vegetable and, oh, stuff like that; try it, you don’t like it I don’t charge you.’ Fair enough?—Yes,” he expanded. “Abelardo, he is no businessman. He is a filosofo. His mind is always in the skies. I tell him, I could use more soup—twice, maybe even three times as many cans. What he cares. ‘Ai! Supply and demand!’ he says. Then he tells me about the old Dutch explorers, things like that—Hey! I ever tell you about the time he make his own automobile? (“Abelar-do did?”) Sure! Abelardo did. He took a part from one car, a part from another, he takes parts not even from cars, I don’t know what they from—”
