Beyond the Curtain of Dark (v1.0), page 25
“Belay that,” interrupted Tarpaulin, astonished not more at the length of his companion’s speech than at the nature of his refusal—“Belay that, you lubber!— and I say, Legs, none of your palaver. My hull is still light, although I confess you yourself seem to be a little top-heavy; and as far as the matter of your share of the cargo, why rather than raise a squall I would find stowage-room for It myself, but—”
“This proceeding,” interposed the president, “is by no means in accordance with the terms of the mulct or sentence, which is in its nature Median, and not to be altered or recalled. The conditions we have imposed must be fulfilled to the letter, and that without a moment’s hesitation—in failure of which fulfilment we decree that you do here be tied neck and heels together, and duly drowned as rebels in yon hogshead of October beer!”
“A sentence!—a sentence!—a righteous and just sentence!—a glorious decree!—a most worthy and upright and holy condemnation!” shouted the Pest family all together. The king elevated his forehead into innumerable wrinkles; the gouty little old man puffed like a pair of bellows; the lady of the winding-sheet waved her nose to and fro; the gentleman in the cotton drawers pricked up his ears; she of the shroud gasped like a dying fish; and he of the coffin looked stiff and rolled up his eyes.
“Ugh! Ugh! ugh!” chuckled Tarpaulin, without heeding the general excitation, “ugh! ugh! ugh!—ugh! ugh! ugh! ugh!—ugh ugh ugh!—I was saying,” said he— “I was saying when Mr. King Pest poked in his marlin-spike, that as for the matter of two or three gallons more or less of Black Strap, it was a trifle to a tight sea-boat like myself not overstowed—but when it comes to drinking the health of the Devil (whom God assoilize) and going down upon my marrowbones to his ill-favoured majesty there, whom I know, as well as I know myself to be a sinner, to be nobody in the whole world but Tim Hurlygurly the stage-player!—why! it’s quite another guess sort of a thing, and utterly and altogether past my comprehension.”
He was not allowed to finish this speech in tranquility. At the name of Tim Hurlygurly the whole assembly leaped from their seats.
“Treason!” shouted his Majesty King Pest the First.
“Treason!” said the little man with the gout.
’Treason!” screamed the Arch Duchess Ana-Pest.
“Treason!” muttered the gentleman with his jaws tied up.
“Treason!” growled he of the coffin.
“Treason! treason!” shrieked her majesty of the mouth; and seizing by the hinder part of his breeches the unfortunate Tarpaulin, who had just commenced pouring out for himself a skull of liqueur, she lifted him high into the air, and let him fall without ceremony into the huge open puncheon of his beloved ale. Bobbing up and down, for a few seconds, like an apple in a bowl of toddy, he, at length, finally disappeared amid the whirlpool of foam which, in the already effervescent liquor, his struggles easily succeeded in creating.
Not tamely, however, did the tall seaman behold the discomfiture of his companion. Jostling King Pest through the open trap, the valient Legs slammed the door down upon him with an oath, and strode toward the centre of the room. Here tearing down the skeleton which swung over the table, he laid it about him with so much energy and goodwill that, as the last glimpses of light died away within the apartment, he succeeded in knocking out the brains of the little gentleman with the gout. Rushing then with all his force against the fatal hogshead full of October ale and Hugh Tarpaulin, he rolled it over and over in an instant. Out poured a deluge of liquor so fierce—so impetuous—so overwhelming—that the room was flooded from wall to wall—the loaded table was overturned—the tressels were thrown upon their backs—the tub of punch into the fireplace—and the ladies into hysterics. Piles of death-furniture floundered about. Jugs, pitchers, and carboys mingled promiscuously in the mêlée, and wicker flagons encountered desperately with bottles of junk. The man with the horrors was drowned upon the spot—the little stiff gentleman floated off in his coffin —and the victorious Legs, seizing by the waist the fat lady in the shroud, rushed out with her into the street, and made a beeline for the Free and Easy, followed under easy sail by the redoubtable Hugh Tarpaulin, who, having sneezed three or four times, panted and puffed after him with the Arch Duchess Ana-Pest
MAYAYA'S LITTLE GREEN MEN
By Harold Lawlor
I have it here in the lower right-hand drawer of my desk, in a pint Mason jar full of alcohol. A gruesome souvenir, some might say, but I look upon it as a talisman. And—who knows?—some day I may go to Trinidad…
Mayaya came unexpectedly, and just in the nick of time. For Peggy had been doing the cooking and cleaning, inefficiently enough, this long week past, and she was on the verge of hysteria that morning.
A rambling, reconverted farmhouse, twenty miles from town, is all very well and beautiful—in the decorator’s magazines. But we’d had hell’s own time of it trying to keep servants—three batches of them in less than two months. They couldn’t stand the isolation, the lack of amusements.
So there were just the three of us now in a house with twelve rooms, two studios, and four baths; my wife Peggy, our three-year-old son Scooter, and myself. The servant-less week had left Peggy a wraith—a somewhat peevish wraith.
“No, no, no!” she said to Scooter, as we were at breakfast that morning in the kitchen. “The oatmeal goes in your face, darling, not on it.”
Peggy’s voice was on the thin edge, and I should have known better. I should have kept my mouth shut. But I said, “You’ve really exceeded yourself this mom* ing, baby. The coffee is even lousier than yesterday’s.”
Peggy glared at me, speechless. Then her face broke up, and she laid her head in her aims on the table, and bawled. “If you can do any better,” she cried incoherently, “go right ahead! I’m fed up! I’m nearly crazy! Max phoning me this morning that if I don’t get the illustrations done for the Nellis 'book Fll never get another job out of them, so help him. And I’m three weeks behind now. And the bathrooms to be cleaned! And who wanted to live in the country, anyway? You did!”
“Sh, sh, sh!” For some time I’d been trying to stem the tide. “There, baby, calm down, for the love of Mike. We’ll get somebody yet And, anyway, 111 help—”
“A fat lot of help you are,” Peggy sniffed. “You and your darned old soap operas.”
“Yes, and where would we be if I didn’t get an installment out every day, I’d like to know! You like to eat, don’t you?”
“You can’t talk to me like that!” Peggy cried.
“Oh, can’t I?” We stood there glaring at each other, shaping up to a nice battle.
Scooter then added his bit to the general confusion by crying, “Whee!” and shoving his dish of oatmeal onto the linoleum.
“Oh, my God!” Peggy wailed at this last straw. “And I spent all day yesterday scrubbing that blasted—”
Obviously we were badly in need of help. Then the knock came on the kitchen door.
Peggy was in no condition to answer it, with her face all tear-streaked. I handed her my handkerchief sulkily. “Here wipe your face. I don’t know which is the bigger baby, you or Scooter. I’ll go.”
“Oh, shut up,” Peggy said mildly.
So I opened the door, and Mayaya was there, smiling.
“Good day,” she said softly. “I understand you are in need of domestic help?”
I couldn’t help but stare. She was a very superior-looking colored girl. At least I thought she was colored, though she was no darker than well-creamed coffee. And rather beautiful, with unrouged skin, wine-red lips, and dark lustrous eyes. She was an undeniable figure of chic in her plain black coat and hat, and looked totally unlike any household help I’d ever seen before.
Peggy recovered first. “For heaven’s sake, Jay, ask her in. You might even roll out the red carpet”
Our visitor laughed huskily, with a sound like muted chimes. “I’m Mayaya,” she introduced herself.
“If you can make coffee, you’re hired,” I said.
Peggy glared at me for this. “And we’ll get other servants to help you, just as soon as possible,” she enticed.
The girl was already taking off her coat and hat, to our relief. She shooed us gently out of the kitchen, and in less than a half-hour called us to the breakfast room. The china, silver, glassware, were shining—which they certainly hadn’t been under Peggy’s inexpert ministrations. Scooter was already seated and—miracle!—his face was even clean for a change.
“Pinch me,” Peggy whispered. “I don’t believe a word of this.”
Neither did I. But the coffee was marvelous. I smacked my lips.
“The bacon, the eggs, the muffins!” Peggy was almost delirious. “We’ve found ourselves a pearl!”
“What’d she say her name was again?” I asked.
“Sounded like she said ‘Me-yah-yah’ to me.”
“Never heard of a name like that.”
“Listen,” Peggy said intensely. “If she can go on like this, I don’t care if she calls herself Ming Toy Fatima O’Rourke!”
Neither did I. We beamed at each other. Peace was restored. All was right with the world.
We thought.
There was just one small thing troubling me slightly. When Mayaya came in with more muffins—neat, clean, a candy pink tignon wrapped around her head—I asked her, “How did you know we were in need of domestic help?”
And that was when she said the strange thing.
She laughed throatily, “Oh, the little green men told me.”
The little green men!
Well, we didn’t think it so strange at the time. I thought it was just a phrase, a gag, one of those things you say. There was no impudence behind it, and as we were too glad to have her, we weren’t really very curious to learn just how she’d known of our desperate need for a servant. So we dismissed the little green men from our minds.
For a while.
Mayaya promised to keep a watchful eye on Scooter, so Peggy went off to her studio, and I went off to mine, and soon lost myself in the fictional woes of Ma Costello and her brood. (Universal Network, 10:45 a.m. It’ll tear your heart out.) It was wonderful to be able to work again without stopping to blow Scooter’s nose, or having to call up the laundry to bawl than out for ripping my shirts.
At noon I’d got Ma nicely embroiled with a loan shark, and her youngest son threatened with the reformatory (though innocent as an unborn babe), and her oldest daughter’s lovable daughter stricken with acute appendicitis, when there was an interruption.
Peggy knocked on my door, and when I opened it she said solemnly, “Spooks!”
“Spooks?”
“M-h’m. Come and look.”
She led me to the living room, and then stood there eyeing me expectantly. Clearly she expected me to be bowled over. But I couldn’t see anything at first.
I blinked, and said, “So what?”
“Well, look, dummy! It’s clean. And so are the other eleven rooms. And the four baths! Look at the gloss on that piano! Look at the windows, the blinds, the draperies. Spotless!”
I said, “You mean Mayaya did all this? In four hours? Alone?”
“And looked after Scooter besides!”
“It’s impossible,” I said flatly, knowing Scooter.
“It certainly is.” Peggy agreed. “What did I tell you? Spooks!”
It made us just curious enough to ring for Mayaya. When the girl came in—neat, unobtrusive—Peggy cleared her throat. “Mayaya, the house looks beautiful. You couldn’t have done this all alone?”
“Oh, no, Mrs. Chase.”
Peggy and I looked bewildered. “Well, then, who —?”
Mayaya said, “The little green men. They helped me.”
I started to laugh. I couldn’t help it. After a minute, Peggy began to laugh, too. Mayaya joined in. The three of us stood there laughing like fools. And what we were laughing at, I don’t know. Nothing made any sense.
When Mayaya excused herself, and went back to the kitchen, I said to Peggy, “Our pearl is a jewel of the first water, honey, but she’s nuts.”
“She must be, Jay, do you suppose it’s safe to leave Scooter with her? I know she adores him already, but—”
“Well, she doesn’t seem to be violent. And, anyway, maybe we’re wronging her. Maybe there really are some little green men.”
“Jay, darling! Don’t be a blithering, driveling idiot!”
But, nevertheless, Peggy looked thoughtful. And so did I.
Definitely, the little green men were beginning to intrigue us.
But something happened that evening that wasn’t funny. At least, we didn’t think so. We saw it with our own eyes, and I don’t mind telling you I could feel every hair on my scalp itching to stand erect as I watched. Not that it was such a macabre incident. It was just—impossible. Yet it happened.
Peggy, in chartreuse slacks, was sprawled on the floor in front of the fireplace reading a magazine. Scooter was upstairs in bed. Mayaya was in the kitchen washing the dinner dishes. And I was at the piano, picking out with one finger the Meditation from Massenet’s Thais, which Peggy always claims gives her the colly-wobbles, whatever they are.
She said now, “Jay.”
“Um?” I said, absorbed. The artist. I hit A instead of B flat, and winced myself.
“I’m not likely to fall asleep while you’re striking all those sour notes,” Peggy said tartly, “but it really is stuffy in here. Open a window, will you, there’s a lamb?”
“Can’t.”
“I know they’re stuck, ever since the painters finished. But try again, Jay, please.”
“Am I Taiwan, the ape? I like to broke my back last night to get ’em open, and—”
I broke off, struck by something in Peggy’s expression. She was staring over my shoulder, her mouth open, her eyes wide. I turned to see what she was looking at.
The window behind me was sliding open of itself, easily, silently.
There was absolutely no one near it.
I tell you, it gave me the damnedest sensation in the small of my back. Like tiny mice scurrying up my spine.
Halfway up, the windows stopped rising. The draperies swayed faintly in the breeze. And I turned at last to look at Peggy, my jaw ajar, like her own.
We stared at each other, speechless. Peggy was the first to regain her voice. She usually is.
She said, “Jay, wasn’t that the strangest thing?”
It was the well-known rhetorical question. I didn’t bother to answer. Instead I got up and went over to the window. And I’m ashamed to say I was almost afraid to touch it. But at last I put my hands on the sash and tried to shove it down.
I couldn’t force it down any more than I could open it the night before. It was stuck fast in its frame, and it stayed stuck, though I shoved and heaved till I was red in the face, using all my strength, and I’m no lightweight.
I gave up at last, and I tell you I backed away from the window, never taking my eyes off it. Weakly I sat down on the piano bench. Peggy came over and huddled oh it beside me. I put my arm around her, and we sat there gaping at the window as if we were hypnotized.
“Of course, there’s one explanation—” I said at last, half in jest.
Peggy nodded, but she wasn’t laughing. “The little green men,” she whispered.
Well, this couldn’t go on forever. On a sudden decision, I rang for Mayaya. She came in presently and stood before us respectfully, her head swathered in a poison-green tignon—a strangely exotic figure there in our living-room. She looked at us inquiringly.
I swallowed. “Mayaya, I’ve been unable to open these windows since the painters finished a week ago. Yet tonight, when Mrs. Chase expressed a wish to have one of them open—one of them opened of itself.”
If I had hoped to disconcert her, or expected expressions of disbelief or ignorance of the whole thing, I was disappointed.
Mayaya smiled faintly. It was as if she were secretly enchanted, and a little proud. “It might have been the little green men,” she said. “They heard—and helped.”
“But Mayaya!” I protested. “This is insane. Who—or what—are the little green men?”
“I do not know, Mr. Chase. When I left Trinidad to come to the States, Maman said they must accompany me.”
“But we can’t see them!” Peggy broke in.
“Oh, no, Mrs. Chase,” Mayaya agreed. “Myself, I have never seen them either. I just know—they are there.”
She beamed at us as if everything were reasonably explained. Eliciting information from Mayaya, we found, was like pushing one of those roly-poly toys children play with. You push it down, and think you have it down, and it bounces right back again, leaving you with a horrible feeling of frustration.
I tried again. “But Mayaya, we can’t have the house cluttered up with invisible men!” I sounded like a fool, and I knew it, which didn’t add to my peace of mind. “It’s—it’s eerie.”
“But they have offered you no harm, Mr. Chase!” Mayaya protested. Her lovely eyes filled mistily. “Of course, if you want me to leave—”
Well, we didn’t want her to leave. And in all fairness I have to admit we had no reason to think that Mayaya was laughing up her sleeve at us. It was obvious that she sincerely believed in the little green men.
So Peggy and I both protested we didn’t want her to go. And that was the way the interview ended. Mayaya stayed…
And we were stuck with the little green men.
Peggy said, half-hysterically, “So help me, from now on I’ll be afraid to take a shower!”
