Bradbury, Ray - SSC 09 (18 page)

 
          
Douglas
climbed upstairs on the fourth morning.

 
          
Halfway
to the second floor was a large sun-filled window, framed by six-inch panes of
orange, purple, blue, red and burgundy glass. In the enchanted early mornings
when the sun fell through to strike the landing and slide down the stair
banister,
Douglas
stood entranced at this window peering at
the world through the multicolored windows.

 
          
Now
a blue world, a blue sky, blue people, blue streetcars and blue trotting dogs.

 
          
He
shifted panes. Now—an amber world! Two
lemonish
women
glided by, resembling the daughters of Fu Manchu!
Douglas
giggled. This pane made even the sunlight
more purely golden.

 
          
It
was eight A.M. Mr.
Koberman
strolled by below, on the
sidewalk, returning from his night’s work, his cane looped over his elbow,
straw hat glued to his head with patent oil.

 
          
Douglas
shifted panes again. Mr.
Koberman
was a red man walking through a red world with red
trees and red flowers and—something else.

 
          
Something about—Mr.
Koberman
.

 
          
Douglas
squinted.

 
          
The
red glass
did
things to Mr.
Koberman
.
His face, his suit, his hands.
The clothes seemed to melt away.
Douglas
almost believed, for one terrible instant, that he could see
inside
Mr.
Koberman
.
And what he saw made him lean wildly against the small red pane, blinking.

 
          
Mr.
Koberman
glanced up just then, saw
Douglas
, and raised his cane-umbrella angrily, as
if to strike. He ran swiftly across the red lawn to the front door.

 
          
“Young
man!” he cried, running up the stairs. “What were you doing?”

 
          
“Just
looking,” said
Douglas
, numbly.

 
          
“That’s
all, is it?” cried Mr.
Koberman
.

 
          
“Yes, sir.
I look through all the glasses.
All kinds of worlds.
Blue ones, red ones,
yellow ones.
All different.”

 
          
“All
kinds of worlds, is it!” Mr.
Koberman
glanced at the
little panes of glass, his face pale. He got hold of himself. He wiped his face
with a handkerchief and pretended to laugh. “Yes.
All kinds
of worlds.
All different.”
He walked to the
door of his room. “Go right ahead; play,” he said.

 
          
The
door closed. The hall was empty. Mr.
Koberman
had
gone in.

 
          
Douglas
shrugged and found a new pane.

 
          
“Oh,
everything’s violet!”

 
          
Half
an hour later, while playing in his sandbox behind the house,
Douglas
heard the crash and the shattering tinkle.
He leaped up.

 
          
A
moment later, Grandma appeared on the back porch, the old razor strop trembling
in her hand.

 
          
“
Douglas
! I told you time and again never fling your
basketball against the house! Oh, I could just cry!”

 
          
“I
been sitting right here,” he protested.

 
          
“Come
see what you’ve done, you nasty boy!”

 
          
The
great colored window panes lay shattered in a rainbow chaos on the upstairs
landing. His basketball lay in the ruins.

 
          
Before
he could even begin telling his innocence,
Douglas
was struck a dozen stinging blows upon his
rump. Wherever he landed, screaming, the razor strop struck again.

 
          
Later,
hiding his mind in the
sandpile
like an ostrich,
Douglas
nursed his dreadful pains. He knew who’d
thrown that basketball.
A man with a straw hat and a stiff
umbrella and a cold, gray room.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
He dribbled tears. Just wait. Just
wait.

 
          
He
heard Grandma sweeping up the broken glass. She brought it out and threw it in
the trash bin. Blue, pink, yellow meteors of glass dropped brightly down.

 
          
When
she was gone,
Douglas
dragged himself, whimpering, over to save
out three pieces of the incredible glass. Mr.
Koberman
disliked the colored windows. These—he clinked them in his fingers—would be
worth saving.

 
          
Grandfather
arrived from his newspaper office each night, shortly ahead of the other
boarders, at
five o’clock
.
When a slow, heavy tread filled the hall, and a thick, mahogany cane thumped in
the cane-rack,
Douglas
ran to embrace the large stomach and sit on
Grandpa’s knee while he read the evening paper.

 
          
“Hi,
Grampa
!”

 
          
“Hello,
down there!”

 
          
“Grandma
cut chickens again today.
It’s
fun watching,” said
Douglas
.

 
          
Grandpa
kept reading. “That’s twice this week, chickens. She’s the
chickenist
woman. You like to watch her cut ’
em
, eh?
Cold-blooded little pepper! Ha!”

 
          
“I’m
just curious.”

 
          
“You
are,” rumbled Grandpa, scowling. “Remember that day when that young lady was
killed at the rail station. You just walked over and looked at her, blood and
all.” He laughed. “Queer duck. Stay that way. Fear nothing, ever in your life.
I guess you get it from your father, him being a military man and all, and you so
close to him before you came here to live last year.” Grandpa returned to his
paper.

 
          
A long pause.
“Gramps?”

 
          
“Yes?”

 
          
“What
if a man didn’t have a heart or lungs or stomach but still walked around,
alive?”

 
          
“That,”
rumbled
Gramps,
“would be a miracle.”

 
          
“I
don’t mean a—a miracle. I mean, what if he was all
different
inside. Not like me.”

 
          
“Well,
he wouldn’t be quite human then, would he, boy?”

 
          
“Guess
not, Gramps. Gramps, you got a heart and lungs?”

 
          
Gramps
chuckled. “Well, tell the truth, I don’t
know.
Never seen them.
Never had an X-ray, never been to a
doctor. Might as well be potato-solid for all I know.”

 
          
“Have
I
got a stomach?”

 
          
“You
certainly have!” cried Grandma from the parlor entry. “
‘Cause
I feed it! And you’ve lungs, you scream loud enough to wake the
crumblees
. And you’ve dirty hands, go wash them! Dinner’s
ready. Grandpa, come on.
Douglas
,
git
!”

 
          
In
the rush of boarders streaming downstairs, Grandpa, if he intended questioning
Douglas
further about the weird conversation, lost
his opportunity. If dinner delayed an instant more, Grandma and the potatoes
would develop simultaneous lumps.

 
          
The
boarders, laughing and talking at the table—Mr.
Koberman
silent and sullen among them—were silenced when Grandfather cleared his throat.
He talked politics a few minutes and then shifted over into the intriguing
topic of the recent peculiar deaths in the town.

 
          
“It’s
enough to make an old newspaper editor prick up his ears,” he said, eying them
all. “That young Miss
Larson,
lived across the ravine,
now. Found her dead three days ago for no reason, just funny kinds of tattoos
all over her, and a facial expression that would make Dante cringe. And that
other young lady, what was her name?
Whitely?
She
disappeared and
never did
come back.”

 
          
“Them
things happen
alla
time,” said Mr.
Britz
, the garage mechanic, chewing. “Ever
peek
inna
Missing Peoples Bureau
file? It’s
that
long.” He
illustrated. “Can’t tell
what
happens
to most of ’
em
.”

 
          
“Anyone
want more dressing?” Grandma ladled liberal portions from the chicken’s
interior.
Douglas
watched, thinking about how that chicken
had had two kinds of guts—God-made and Man-made.

 
          
Well,
how about
three
kinds of guts?

 
          
Eh?

 
          
Why
not?

 
          
Conversation
continued about the mysterious death of so- and-so, and, oh, yes, remember a
week ago, Marion
Barsumian
died of heart failure, but
maybe that didn’t connect up?
or
did it?
you’re
crazy!
forget
it, why talk
about it at the dinner table?
So.

 
          
“Never
can tell,” said Mr.
Britz
. “Maybe we got a vampire in
town.”

 
          
Mr.
Koberman
stopped eating.

 
          
“In
the year 1927?” said Grandma.
“A vampire?
Oh, go on,
now.”

 
          
“Sure,”
said Mr.
Britz
. “Kill ’
em
with silver bullets. Anything silver for that matter. Vampires
hate
silver. I read it in a book
somewhere, once. Sure, I did.”

 
          
Douglas
looked at Mr.
Koberman
who ate with wooden knives and forks and carried only new copper pennies in his
pocket.

 
          
“
It’s
poor judgment,” said Grandpa, “to call anything by a
name. We don’t know what a hobgoblin or a vampire or a troll is.
Could be lots of things.
You can’t heave them into
categories with labels and say they’ll act one way or another. That’d be silly.
They’re people.
People who do things.
Yes, that’s the
way to put it: people who
do
things.”

 
          
“Excuse
me,” said Mr.
Koberman
, who got up and went out for
his evening walk to work.