Nova 3 Read online

  Despite what I’d said earlier, I decided to go to work. First, I had to straighten the boys out. At ten, they went off to school. It seemed to me that it was useless for them to do so. But they were eager to talk with their classmates about this situation. To tell the truth, I wanted to get down to the office and the courthouse for the same reason. I wanted to talk this over with my colleagues. Staying home all day with Carole seemed a waste of time. We just kept saying the same thing over and over again.

  Carole didn’t want me to leave. She was too frightened to stay home by herself. Both our parents are dead, but she does have a sister who lives in Hannah, a small town nearby. I told her it’d do her good to get out of the house. And I just had to get to the courthouse. I couldn’t find out what was happening there because the phone lines were tied up.

  When I went outside to get into my car, Carole ran down after me. Her long blonde hair was straggling; she had big bags under her eyes; she looked like a witch.

  “Mark! Mark!” she said.

  I took my finger off the starter button and said, “What is it?”

  “I know you’ll think I’m crazy, Mark,” she said. “But I’m about to fall apart!”

  “Who isn’t?” I said.

  “Mark,” she said, “what if I go out to my sister’s and then forget how to get back? What if I forgot you!”

  “This thing only happens at night,” I said.

  “So far!” she screamed. “So far!”

  “Honey,” I said, “I’ll be home early. I promise. If you don’t want to go, stay here. Go over and talk to Mrs. Knight. I see her looking out her window. She’ll talk your leg off all day.” I didn’t tell her to visit any of her close friends, because she didn’t have any. Her best friend had died of cancer last year, and two others with whom she was familiar had moved away.

  “If you do go to your sister’s,” I said, “make a note on a map reminding you where you live and stick it on top of the dashboard, where you can see it.”

  “You son of a bitch,” she said. “It isn’t funny!”

  “I’m not being funny,” I said. “I got a feeling . . .”

  “What about?” she said.

  “Well, we’ll be making notes to ourselves soon. If this keeps up,” I said.

  I thought I was kidding then. Thinking about it later today I see that that is the only way to get orientated in the morning. Well, not the only way, but it’ll have to be the way to get started when you wake up. Put a note where you can’t overlook it, and it’ll tell you to turn on a recording, which will, in turn, summarize the situation. Then you turn on the TV and get some more information.

  I might as well have stayed home. Only half of the courthouse personnel showed up, and they were hopelessly inefficient. Judge Payne wasn’t there and never will be. He’d had a fatal stroke at six that morning while listening to the TV. Walter Barbindale, my partner, said that the judge probably would have had a stroke sometime in the near future, anyway. But this situation must certainly have hastened it.

  “The stock market’s about hit bottom,” he said. “One more day of this, and we’ll have another worldwide depression.

  Nineteen twenty-nine won’t hold a candle to it. And I can’t even get through to my broker to tell him to sell everything.”

  “If everybody sells, then the market will crash,” I said. “Are you hanging onto your stocks?” he said.

  “I’ve been too busy to even think about it,” I said. “You might say I forgot.”

  “That isn’t funny,” he said.

  “That’s what my wife said,” I answered. “But I’m not trying to be funny, though God knows I could use a good laugh. Well, what’re we going to do about Lankers?”

  “I went over some of the records,” he said. “We haven’t got a chance. I tell you, it was a shock finding out, for the second time, mind you, though I don’t remember the first, that our star witness is in jail on a perjury charge.”

  Since all was chaos in the courthouse, it wasn’t much use trying to find out who the judge would be for the new trial for Lankers. To tell the truth, I didn’t much care. There were far more important things to worry about than the fate of an undoubtedly guilty murderer.

  I went to Grover’s Rover Bar, which is a block from the courthouse. As an aside, for my reference or for whoever might be listening to this someday, why am I telling myself things I know perfectly well, like the location of Grover’s? Maybe it’s because I think I might forget them some day.

  Grover’s, at least, I remembered well, as I should, since I’d been going there ever since it was built, five years ago. The air was thick with tobacco and pot smoke and the odors of pot, beer and booze. And noisy. Everybody was talking fast and loud, which is to be expected in a place filled with members of the legal profession. I bellied up to the bar and bought the D.A. a shot of Wild Turkey. We talked about what we’d done that morning, and then he told me he had to release two burglars that day. They’d been caught and jailed two days before. The arresting officers had, of course, filed their reports. But that wasn’t going to be enough when the trial came up. Neither the burglars nor the victims and the officers remembered a thing about the case.

  “Also,” the D.A. said, “at two-ten this morning, the police got a call from the Black Shadow Tavern on Washington Street. They didn’t get there until three-thirty because they were too disorientated to do anything for an hour or more. When they did get to the tavern, they found a dead man. He’d been beaten badly and then stabbed in the stomach. Nobody remembered anything, of course. But from what we could piece together, the dead man must’ve gotten into a drunken brawl with a person or persons unknown shortly before 1:00 a.m. Thirty people must’ve witnessed the murder. So we have a murderer or murderers walking the streets today who don’t even remember the killing or anything leading up to it.”

  “They might know they’re guilty if they’d been planning it for a long time,” I said.

  He grinned and said, “But he, or they, won’t be telling anybody. No one except the corpse had blood on him nor did anybody have bruised knuckles. Two were arrested for carrying saps, but so what? They’ll be out soon, and nobody, but nobody, can prove they used the saps. The knife was still half-sticking in the deceased’s belly, and his efforts to pull it out destroyed any fingerprints.”

  5.

  We talked and drank a lot, and suddenly it was 6:00 p.m. I was in no condition to drive and had sense enough to know it. I tried calling Carole to come down and get me, but I couldn’t get through. At 6:30 and 7:00, I tried again without success. I decided to take a taxi. But after another drink, I tried again and this time got through.

  “Where’ve you been?” she said. “I called your office, but nobody answered. I was thinking about calling the police.”

  “As if they haven’t got enough to do,” I said. “When did you get home?”

  “You’re slurring,” she said coldly.

  I repeated the question.

  “Two hours ago,” she said.

  “The lines were tied up,” I said. “I tried.”

  “You knew how scared I was, and you didn’t even care,” she said.

  “Can I help it if the D.A. insisted on conducting business at the Rover?” I said. “Besides, I was trying to forget.”

  “Forget what?” she said.

  “Whatever it was I forgot,” I said.

  “You ass!” she screamed. “Take a taxi!”

  The phone clicked off.

  She didn’t make a scene when I got home. She’d decided to play it cool because of the kids, I suppose. She was drinking gin and tonic when I entered, and she said, in a level voice, ‘Tow’ll have some coffee. And after a while you can listen to the tape you made yesterday. It’s interesting, but spooky.”

  “What tape?” I said.

  “Mike was fooling around with it,” she said. “And he found out you’d recorded what happened yesterday.”

  “That kid!” I said. “He’s always snooping
around. I told him to leave my stuff alone. Can’t a man have any privacy around here?”

  “Well, don’t say anything to him,” she said. “He’s upset as it is. Anyway, it’s a good thing he did turn it on. Otherwise, you’d have forgotten all about it. I think you should make a daily record.”

  “So you think it’ll happen again?” I said.

  She burst into tears. After a moment, I put my arms around her. I felt like crying, too. But she pushed me away, saying, “You stink of rotten whiskey!”

  “That’s because it’s mostly bar whiskey,” I said. “I can’t afford Wild Turkey at three dollars a shot.”

  I drank four cups of black coffee and munched on some shrimp dip. As an aside, I can’t really afford that, either, since I only make forty-five thousand dollars a year.

  When we went to bed, we went to bed. Afterward, Carole said, “I’m sorry, darling, but my heart wasn’t really in it.”

  “That wasn’t all,” I said.

  “You’ve got a dirty mind,” she said. “What I meant was I couldn’t stop thinking, even while we were doing it, that it wasn’t any good doing it. We won’t remember it tomorrow, I thought.”

  “How many do we really remember?” I said. “Sufficient unto the day is the, uh, good thereof.”

  “It’s a good thing you didn’t try to fulfill your childhood dream of becoming a preacher,” she said. “You’re a born shyster. You’d have made a lousy minister.”

  “Look,” I said, “I remember the especially good ones. And I’ll never forget our honeymoon. But we need sleep. We haven’t had any to speak of for twenty-four hours. Let’s hit the hay and forget everything until tomorrow. In which case. . .”

  She stared at me and then said, “Poor dear, no wonder you’re so belligerently flippant! It’s a defense against fear!”

  I slammed my fist into my palm and shouted, “I know! I know! For God’s sake, how long is this going on?”

  I went into the bathroom. The face in the mirror looked as if it were trying to flirt with me. The left eye wouldn’t stop winking.

  When I returned to the bedroom, Carole reminded me that I’d not made today’s recording. I didn’t want to do it because I was so tired. But the possibility of losing another day’s memory spurred me. No, not another day, I thought. If this occurs tomorrow, I’ll lose another four days. Tomorrow and the three preceding May 25. I’ll wake up June 3 and think it’s the morning of the twenty-second.

  I’m making this downstairs in my study. I wouldn’t want Carole to hear some of my comments.

  Until tomorrow then. It’s not tomorrow but yesterday that won’t come. I’ll make a note to myself and stick it in a comer of the case which holds my glasses.

  6.

  True date: June 3, 1980

  I woke up thinking that today was my birthday, May 22. I rolled over, saw the piece of paper half-stuck from my glasses case, put on my glasses and read the note.

  It didn’t enlighten me. I didn’t remember writing the note. And why should I go downstairs and turn on the recorder? But I did so.

  As I listened to the machine, my heart thudded as if it were a judge’s gavel. My voice kept fading in and out. Was I going to faint?

  And so half of today was wasted trying to regain twelve days in my mind. I didn’t go to the office, and the kids went to school late. And what about the kids in school on the dayside of Earth? If they sleep during their geometry class, say, then they have to go through that class again on the same day. And that shoves the schedule forward, or is it backward, for that day. And then there’s the time workers will lose on their jobs. They have to make it up, which means they get out an hour later. Only it takes more than an hour to recover from the confusion and get orientated. What a mess it has been! What a mess it’ll be if this keeps on!

  At eleven, Carole and I were straightened out enough to go to the supermarket. It was Tuesday, but Carole wanted me to be with her, so I tried to phone in and tell my secretary I’d be absent. The lines were tied up, and I doubt that she was at work. So I said to hell with it.

  Our supermarket usually opens at eight. Not today. We had to stand in a long line, which kept getting longer. The doors opened at twelve. The manager, clerks and boys had had just as much trouble as we did unconfusing themselves, of course. Some didn’t show at all. And some of the trucks which were to bring fresh stores never appeared.

  By the time Carole and I got inside, those ahead of us had cleaned out half the supplies. They had the same idea we had. Load up now so there wouldn’t be any standing in line so many times. The fresh milk was all gone, and the powdered milk shelf had one box left. I started for it but some teen-ager beat me to it. I felt like hitting him, but I didn’t, of course.

  The prices for everything were being upped by a fourth even as we shopped. Some of the stuff was being marked upward once more while we stood in line at the checkout counter. From the time we entered the line until we pushed out three overflowing carts, four hours had passed.

  While Carole put away the groceries, I drove to another supermarket. The line there was a block long; it would be emptied and closed up before I ever got to its doors.

  The next two supermarkets and a comer grocery store were just as hopeless. And the three liquor stores I went to were no better. The fourth only had about thirty men in line, so I tried that. When I got inside, all the beer was gone, which didn’t bother me any, but the only hard stuff left was a fifth of rotgut. I drank it when I went to college because I couldn’t afford anything better. I put the terrible stuff and a half-gallon of cheap muscatel on the counter. Anything was better than nothing, even though the prices had been doubled.

  I started to make out the check, but the clerk said, “Sorry, sir. Cash only.”

  “What?” I said.

  “Haven’t you heard, sir?” he said. “The banks were closed at 2:00 p.m. today.”

  “The banks are closed?” I said. I sounded stupid even to myself.

  “Yes, sir,” he said. “By the federal government. It’s only temporary, sir, at least, that’s what the TV said. They’ll be reopened after the stock market mess is cleared up.”

  “But . . .” I said.

  “It’s destructed,” he said.

  “Destroyed,” I said automatically. “You mean, it’s another Black Friday?”

  “It’s Tuesday today,” he said.

  “You’re too young to know the reference,” I said. And too uneducated, too, I thought.

  “The president is going to set up a rationing system,” he said. “For The Interim. And price controls, too. Turner said so on TV an hour ago. The president is going to lay it all out at six tonight.”

  When I came home, I found Carole in front of the TV. She was pale and wide-eyed.

  “There’s going to be another depression!” she said. “Oh, Mark, what are we going to do?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I’m not the president, you know.” And I slumped down onto the sofa. I had lost my flippancy.

  Neither of us, having been born in 1945, knew what a Depression, with a big capital D, was; that is, we hadn’t experienced it personally. But we’d heard our parents, who were kids when it happened, talk about it. Carole’s parents had gotten along, though they didn’t live well, but my father used to tell me about days when he had nothing but stale bread and turnips to eat and was happy to get them.

  The president’s TV speech was mostly about the depression, which he claimed would be temporary. At the end of half an hour of optimistic talk, he revealed why he thought the situation wouldn’t last. The federal government wasn’t going to wait for the sentients in The Ball—if there were any there—to communicate with us. Obviously, The Ball was hostile. So the survey expedition had been canceled. Tomorrow, the USA, the USSR, France, West Germany, Israel, India, Japan and China would send up an armada of rockets tipped with H-bombs. The orbits and the order of battle were determined this morning by computers; one after the other, the missiles would zero in until
The Ball was completely destroyed. It would be over-kill with a vengeance.

  “That ought to bring up the stock market!” I said.

  And so, after I’ve finished recording, to bed. Tomorrow, we’ll follow our instructions on the notes, relisten to the tapes, reread certain sections of the newspapers and await the news on the TV. To hell with going to the courthouse; nobody’s going to be there anyway.

  Oh, yes. With all this confusion and excitement, everybody, myself included, forgot that today was my birthday. Wait a minute! It’s not my birthday!

  True date: June 5, 1980.

  Subjective date: May 16, 1980

  I woke up mad at Carole because of our argument the previous day. Not that of June 4, of course, but our brawl of May 15. We’d been at a party given by the Burlingtons, where I met a beatufiul young artist, Roberta Gardner. Carole thought I was paying too much attention to her because she looked like Myma. Maybe I was. On the other hand, I really was interested in her paintings. It seemed to me that she had a genuine talent. When we got home, Carole tore into me, accused me of still being in love with Myma. My protests did no good whatsoever. Finally, I told her we might as well get a divorce if she couldn’t forgive and forget. She ran crying out of the room and slept on the sofa downstairs.

  I don’t remember what reconciled us, of course, but we must have worked it out, otherwise we wouldn’t still be married.

  Anyway, I woke up determined to see a divorce lawyer today. I was sick about what Mike and Tom would have to go through. But it would be better for them to be spared our terrible quarrels. I can remember my reactions when I was an adolescent and overheard my parents fighting. It was a relief, though a sad one, when they separated.

  Thinking this, I reached for my glasses. And I found the note. And so another voyage into confusion, disbelief and horror.

  Now that the panic has eased off somewhat, May 18 is back in the saddle—somewhat. Carole and I are, in a sense, still in that day, and things are a bit cool.