Nova 2 Page 9

  Of course.

  FIFTH NOTE:

  In the bleakest reaches of the universe, on the tenth-rate abandoned planet of a forgotten star, a grave is laid. The grave has a headstone which says HERE WAS A MAN. The only other symbols on this planet are a collection of pulp magazines and several still photographs of naked women in questionable poses, all of this circled around the grave itself and hammered in with knives. The story behind this is very unique and very interesting, involving events which occurred in the ninety-third century, long after Man had spread out to the seedling stars far from Mother Earth. The name of this man who lies in the grave is not really important since he is all men but anyway it is Sam Ross and he will never be dead, never dead so long as a life itself exists and a condition of destiny. What he did was to journey to the various planets in the huge solar system, singing and playing his guitar for sustenance, a wanderer of the interstellar pathways. His only comfort was his deck of pornographic playing cards which he kept in his guitar case and he would sit in the cafes of the various planets, looking at them one by one and thinking his harmless psychopath’s thoughts until one night, the interstellar police team came in to patrol the bar and arrested him on charges of gross and comic indecency.

  His attempts to resist the arrest resulted in a bullet in his spine which first paralyzed and then lingeringly killed him. He spent his last days in the Deneb XVLL asylum, surrounded by nuns, drinking huge carafes of space cocktails which were held for him, and looking over his cards which were suspended by a wire above his bed. When he died—they all happened to be Catholic but held nothing against a libertarian stranger—they agreed that it was tragic and that his death was more than a simple, muted anonymity of extinction because he had been at all times extremely courteous to them.

  What they did in commemoration, then, was to look for a deserted planet for him and there he was buried just the way that he would have always wanted—with a headstone saying those words I told you about earlier, with the cards around him and also some pulp magazines since the occupants of this culture read a great deal of cheap escape literature. Later on his story became a ballad and was popularized. So Ross lies today, sentimentalized, a culture hero, no one knowing or understanding that he was a simple, perverse planetary scout. And if they understood this they would not care. This is part of the eternal wonder of the universe as man forages out to discover in the womb of time the nascence of his individuality in the motherhood of possibility.

  SIXTH NOTE:

  Smith journeyed to an alternate time-track. It was called earth-prime or Llanavogel and he became an adventure amidst the fairies, elves, gremlins, and magicians of that wonderful plane. He was on a search for the Holy Grail which would take him back to his own life but you would hardly know that he cared from all the marvelous experiences he had and all the things he learned while fighting his enemy Jom, a bearded giant who lived on a mountain top with eighteen imprisoned virgins and made things very difficult for the fairies and gremlins before Smith showed them the way. He was seven feet tall in Llanavogel with large feet and a knack for pouring out ballads in a tenor voice which made the elves in particular tremble and dream wistfully of an alternate earth in which they too might have the comforts, the necessities and the security of an orderly existence for a change: a civil service job.

  SEVENTH NOTE:

  Dear Tech Room: I liked all the yams and it was awful close but probably that one about the Emperor Nero was the most satisfying because of the sense of wonder. Where is that sense of wonder? We don’t seem to have it any more and things just aren’t quite the same. I liked the one about the fairies too. What can I say? I loved them all. At least someone is out there trying to make me happy. My address is right here under my signature and I’d like other fen to gafia and correspond with me; I have a lot of old magazines and new ideas (ha, ha!) and Ghod knows if there are any “Tek” fen out there I’d like to talk to them about “Tek” or chess. So, won’t someone please come on and get in touch with me; here I am, right where I always always been, please write me, I’d like to hear from any of you others, just please write to me, someone please write because if I don’t hear from someone else in my predicament I swear I’m crazy to write but . . .

  EIGHTH NOTE:

  So and so lived in this year and the society was oriented at that time to such and such and so and so wasn’t happy with such and such so he decided to do this and that which put him in revolt against such and such but eventually after a long struggle of this and that so and so happened and they took paperback rights.

  Darkness

  by André Carneiro

  [translated by Leo L. Barrow]

  Andre Carneiro is a determinedly handsome man; a poet, film maker, novelist, photographer and critic—who also writes a very good short story in his spare time. His Introdugao ao Estudo da “Science-Fiction,” published by a state commission of literature in Sao Paulo, is the best introduction to the study of science fiction yet written, though unhappily it is not yet translated into English. “Darkness” is not only a good story, but it provides a fascinating peep into the totally different world of Brazilian science fiction.

  Waldas accepted the reality of the phenomenon a little later than the others. Only on the second day, when everybody was commenting on the growing darkness and the dimming of the lights did he admit it was true. An old lady was shouting that the world was coming to an end. People gathered in little groups, most of them offering metaphysical explanations, mixed with the scientific commentaries from the papers. He went to work as usual. Even the boss, always distant, was at the window, talking intimately. Most of the employees didn’t show up. The huge room full of desks, mostly unmanned, defined the degree of importance of the event.

  Those people who always watched the weather were the first to notice. The sunlight seemed a little weaker, houses and objects were surrounded by growing shadows. At first they thought it was an optical illusion, but that night even the electric lights were weaker. Women noticed that liquids didn’t reach the boiling point and food remained hard and uncooked. Authoritative opinions were cited, opinions heard on the radio. They were vague and contradictory. Nervous people were provoking panic and the train and bus stations were filled with those leaving town. No one knew where they were going. The news programs said that the phenomenon was universal, but Waldas doubted this.

  The latest telegrams, however, were affirmative; the shadow was growing rapidly. Someone struck a match, and the tests began. Everyone made these tests: they would light a lighter or turn on a flashlight in a dark comer, noticing the weaker illumination. Lights didn’t brighten the room as before. It couldn’t be a universal visual effect. It was possible to run one’s fingers through fire without burning them. Many were frightened, but Waldas wasn’t one of them. He went home at four o’clock; the lights were on. They gave off very little light-seemed like reddish balls, danger signals. At the lunch counter where he always ate, he got them to serve him cold sandwiches. There was only the owner and one waitress, who left afterwards, walking slowly through the shadows.

  Waldas got to his apartment without difficulty. He was used to coming home late without turning on the hall lights. The elevator wasn’t working so he walked up the stairs to the third floor. His radio emitted only strange sounds, perhaps voices, perhaps static. Opening the window, he confronted the thousands of reddish glows, lights of the huge buildings whose silhouettes stood out dimly against the starless sky. He went to the refrigerator and drank a glass of milk; the motor wasn’t working. The same thing would happen to the water pump. He put the plug in the bath tub and filled it. Locating his flashlight, he went through his small apartment, anxious to find his belongings with the weak light. He left the cans of powdered milk, cereal, some crackers and a box of chocolates on the kitchen table and closed the window, turned out the lights and lay down on the bed. A cold shiver ran through his body as he realized the reality of the danger.

  He slept fitfully, dreamed confu
sed and disagreeable dreams. A child was crying in the next apartment, asking its mother to turn on the lights. He woke up startled. With the flashlight pressed against his watch, he saw that it was eight o’clock in the morning. He opened the windows. The darkness was almost complete. You could see the sun in the east, red and round, as if it were behind a thick smoked glass. In the street dim shapes of people passed by like silhouettes. With great difficulty Waldas managed to wash his face; he went to the kitchen and ate rice crispies with powdered milk. Force of habit made him think about his job. He realized that he didn’t have any place to go, and he remembered the terror he felt as a child when they locked him in a closet. There wasn’t enough air, and the darkness oppressed him. He went to the window and took a deep breath. The red disk of the sun hung in the dark background of the sky. Waldas couldn’t coordinate his thoughts; the darkness kept making him feel like running for help. He clenched his fists, repeated to himself, “I have to keep calm, defend my life until everything returns to normal.”

  He had a married sister who lived three blocks away.

  The need to communicate with someone made him decide to go there, to help her family in any way he could. In the darkness of the hallway, he used the wall as a guide. On one side of the hall, a man’s anxious voice asked, “Who is it out there?”

  “It’s me, Waldas from apartment 312,” he answered.

  He knew who it was, a graying man who had a wife and two children.

  “Please,” the man asked, “tell my wife that the darkness is going to end; she has been crying since yesterday and the kids are scared.” Waldas approached slowly. The woman must be standing next to her husband, sobbing quietly. He tried to smile even though they couldn’t see him.

  “Don’t worry, ma’am, it’s pretty dark but you can still see the sun out there. There is no danger; it won’t last long.”

  “Do you hear,” the man seconded, “it’s only the darkness, no one is going to suffer, you need to stay calm for the children’s sake.” By the sounds Waldas sensed that they were all clinging to one another. He remained silent for a few moments and then started to go away. “I have to go now, if you need anything . . .” The man said goodbye, encouraging his wife. “No, thank you very much. This won’t last long.”

  On the steps he couldn’t see a thing. He heard bits of conversation coming from the doors of the different apartment buildings. The lack of light made people speak more loudly, or their voices sounded more clearly against the general silence.

  He reached the street. The sun was high, but it hardly gave off any light, perhaps less than that of the waning moon. From time to time men went by, alone or in groups. They spoke in loud voices, some still joked when they stumbled in the depressions in the street. Waldas started to walk slowly, mentally visualizing the road to his sister’s house. The reddish outline that silhouetted the buildings was diminishing. With his arms extended he could hardly see his fingers. He walked slowly, amazed by those who passed him hurriedly. The whining of a small dog came from some balcony. There was crying in the distance, confused shouts, people calling. Someone was walking and praying.

  Waldas kept close to the wall so they wouldn’t run into him. He must have been halfway there. He stopped to catch his breath. His chest was heaving, searching for air; his muscles tense and tired. His only point of reference was a blotch of disappearing sun. For a moment he imagined that the others could see more than he. But now shouts and cries were rising everywhere. Waldas turned around. The pulsating red disk had disappeared. The blackness was absolute. Without the silhouette of the building, he felt lost. It was impossible to continue. He would try to return to the apartment. Feeling the wall, identifying some doors and shop windows, he started back, his feet dragging on the pavement. He was sweating and trembling, all his senses concentrating on the way back.

  Turning the corner, he heard the unintelligible words of a man coming in his direction. Perhaps drunk, and shouting loudly, he forcibly grabbed Waldas who, trying to pry himself loose, pleaded for calmness. The man shouted all the louder, meaningless things. Desperate, Waldas grabbed him by the throat, pushed him backwards. The man fell and began to moan. His hands extended in front of him in defense, Waldas walked on a bit. Behind him the drunk was crying and moaning in pain. A loose window was rattling, and sounds previously muffled by the noise of radios and cars were coming from the houses and apartments. In the darkness, his hands groping, recognizing different landmarks and doors of iron bars, walls of residences and their big gates, he fell on the first steps of the stairway. Someone shouted:

  “Who is it out there?”

  “It’s me, Waldas, from the third floor.”

  “Were you outside? Can you see anything?”

  “No, you can’t see a thing anywhere.”

  There was a silence, and he slowly went on up the stairs. Moving carefully he opened the door and lay down on the bed.

  It was a short and anxious respite. He couldn’t relax his muscles, couldn’t think calmly. He dragged himself out to the kitchen, managed to open his watch with a knife. He felt the hands. It was 11 o’clock, or noon, more or less. He dissolved powdered milk in a cup of water and drank it. There was a knocking on his door; his heart beat more rapidly. It was his neighbor, asking for some water for the children. Waldas told him about the full bathtub, and went with him to get his wife and children. His prudence had paid off. They held hands and the human chain slid along the hall, the kids calmer, even his wife who, no longer crying, kept repeating, “Thank you, thank you very much.” Waldas took them to the kitchen, made them sit down, the children clinging to their mother. He felt the cupboard, broke a glass, then found an aluminum pan which he filled from the bathtub and took to the table. He surrendered cups of water to the fingers that groped for them. He couldn’t keep them level without seeing and the water spilled onto his hands. As they drank, he wondered if he should offer them something to eat. The boy thanked him and said that he was hungry. Waldas picked up the big can of powdered milk and began to prepare it carefully. While he made the slow gestures of opening the can, counting the spoonfuls and mixing them with water, he spoke in a loud voice. They encouraged him, telling him to be careful and praising his ability. Waldas took more than an hour to make and ration out the milk and the effort, the certainty that he was being useful, did him good.

  One of the boys laughed at something funny. For the first time since the darkness had set in, Waldas felt optimistic, that everything would turn out all right. They spent an endless time after that in his apartment, trying to talk. They would lean on the window sill, searching for some distant light, seeing it at times, all enthused, only to discover the deceit that they wouldn’t admit. Waldas had become the leader of that family; he fed them and led them through the small world of four rooms which he knew with his eyes closed. They left at nine or ten that night, holding hands, Waldas accompanied them, helped put the children to bed. In the streets desperate fathers were shouting, asking for food. Waldas had closed the windows so he couldn’t hear them. What he had would be enough to feed the five of them for one or two more days. Waldas stayed with them, next to the children’s room. They lay there talking, their words like links of presence and company. They finally went to sleep, heads under their pillows like shipwrecked sailors clinging to logs, listening to pleas for help’ that they couldn’t possibly answer. They slept, dreaming about the breaking of a new day, a blue sky, the sun flooding their rooms, their eyes, hungry from fasting, avidly feeding on the colors. It wasn’t that way.

  The hands of Waldas’ watch indicated it was more or less eight o’clock. The others began to stir and holding hands they filed back to his kitchen where they ate their frugal meal of cereal and milk. The children bumped into the furniture, got lost in the small living room; their mother scolded them anxiously. Once settled in the armchairs they didn’t know what to do with themselves.