This is the Way the World Ends (7 page)

Shoulders heaped with snow, a crooked figure was walking up the Frostig driveway. He recognized her handbag, shuddered to see her bent, defenseless frame. She should have a coat on, he thought, a sweater, a scopas suit, something besides that black dress.

Rosehaven Cemetery rushed by. Grace Loquatch’s stone –
THE HAMMER GROWS SILENT
– was now in place. White drifts engulfed black South African obelisks. Marble saints grinned stoically as the blizzard whipped their faces and stuck to their sides. Should I have offered Mrs Covington my down jacket? he wondered. Old ladies get cold . . . especially those with her kind of blood.

George switched on the car radio. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was deploying a hundred and fifty additional ground-launched Raven cruise missiles in Belgium to offset the Soviet deployment of three hundred intermediate-range SS-90 missiles in Poland. The snow slackened. George hummed along with Brahms’s String Quintet No. 2 in G Major. The van sailed into the white city.

He parked in a lot – five dollars, paid in advance, but who cares when you’re about to get a free scopas suit? – and, securing Nadine’s map under his arm, set off. The storm was over. Snow crunched beneath his boots. White sculpted mounds clung to everything, cars, fire hydrants, litter receptacles, subway entrances, all lying half-interred, vast pieces of quiet. Scopas-suited Christmas shoppers appeared on the frosted streets. George saw a Santa Claus, then an other, and another. Their scopas suits were blood red. Beards were glued to their helmets. The white strands vibrated in the wind. When the Santa Clauses rang their bells, the sound was lost in the fast bitter air.

George hurried on. He pitied the shoppers, sealed in their suits, unable to sense the magical white silence. Walking here was like being on a deep-sea dive into the heart of winter. He wore a wool cap, wool mittens, and a down jacket, but they were not enough – the wind still pinched his nose, stung his cheeks. Curling his fingers into self-warming fists, the epicure of everyday pleasures wished for hot coffee.

By the time he reached Snapes Hill, he had started doubting the wisdom of his trip. A free scopas suit? Just for making up a couple of silly epitaphs? More likely the black-blooded old woman was playing some senile joke. (‘I have always been with you . . .’ Nut talk.) He looked at the prehistoric megalith. Crude, humorless, and stern, it towered over stones of more conventional design. Here at the Snapes Hill Burial Grounds a canny observer could witness the entire evolution of a technology. In one section rose the limestone memorials, names, dates, and fond remembrances smeared away by decades of Boston weather. In an adjacent area leaned markers of slate, a sturdier proposition, inscriptions soft and worn but still readable. And finally, of course, the precincts of immortal granite, more permanent than anything a Pharaoh had ever demanded.

He left the graveyard, walked on, and suddenly it appeared, the coffee shop of his humble dream, the Holistic Donut. He went inside, treated himself to coffee with actual cream plus two donuts filled with a wondrous white goo. The waitress’s breasts flowed lushly against her scopas suit.

Had he and Justine conceived an Aubrey Paxton that morning? George began to whistle. Daddies could sense these things. Father’s intuition.

Still whistling, he stepped out of the Holistic Donut. He consulted Nadine’s map, charted his course. He turned left, went down an obscure street called Gooseberry Place, turned right, followed something called Pitchblende Lane, turned left, entered Moonburn Alley. It was a twisted, cobblestoned passageway pinched between rows of shops – cheese shop, rare coins shop, used books shop, clock repair shop – each snug and quaint, crescents of snow resting in their windows. Golden light spilled through the panes, marking the ground with shapes that George decided were elf shadows. Tonight, he thought, I’ll tell Holly a story about an elf who casts a golden shadow.

The sign advertising Theophilus Carter’s establishment was a hearty slab of oak bearing a painted teapot captioned
THE MAD TEA PARTY
–
REMARKABLE THINGS FOR HUMAN BODIES
. Under that,
PROFESSOR THEOPHILUS CARTER
–
TAILOR, HATTER, FURRIER, INVENTOR, PROPRIETOR
. Across the front of the Mad Tea Party ran a bellied, multi-paned window displaying a definitive collection of hats: beaver, homburg, derby, tricorne, fedora, slouch, bowler, fez, stovepipe, even a king’s bejeweled crown.

A frail carillon from three tin bells announced George’s entrance. The Mad Tea Party was dark and musty. It was also, he surmised, extremely popular – customers jammed the shop to the walls – but then he realized that this impression owed entirely to the several dozen mannequins stationed about, their reflections inhabiting a multitude of full-length mirrors. Like the hats in the front window, the mannequins’ clothing was extraordinarily varied, with no fashion or era neglected. George moved through a tangled mass of gowns, togas, kimonos, doublets, jerkins, sarongs, crinolines, tunics, and shining armor. Could these all be scopas suits? he wondered. Had Theophilus Carter figured out how to combine deterrence with style?

‘So tell me, my good man, why is a raven like a writing desk?’ A British accent, precise, aristocratic.

George stumbled free of the congested clothing like a jungle explorer breaking into a clearing. ‘What?’

Behind the counter sat the most disturbingly comic person he had ever seen. The salesman was beetle-browed, sharp-nosed, rabbit-toothed, and small. Polka dots speckled his large four-in-hand tie. Wild red hair escaped from beneath his top hat.

‘Why is a raven like a writing desk?’ the salesman said again. He rushed forward, rubbing his hands together as if lathering a bar of soap. He was on the downward side of middle age, yet his voice and movements had a robust, rat-a-tat quality. ‘A vulture then.’ He issued a chuckle that might have come from a jack-in-the-box. ‘Why is a vulture like a writing desk?’

‘I’m not here for riddles.’

‘I can tell you why a vulture is like a raven, but the answer is distasteful, involving carrion and bad table manners.’ The squeal of automobile brakes suddenly penetrated the shop from Moonburn Alley, conjuring up images of narrowly averted death. ‘The human body is an egg. “Humpty-Dumpty sat on a wall: Humpty-Dumpty had a great fall. All the King’s horses and—” Now why in the world would anybody expect
horses
to be able to put an egg back together? People were naive in those days.’

‘I’m looking for Professor Carter.’

The salesman pulled off his top hat, and his hair spilled out like released champagne. ‘Also known as the Tailor of Thermonuclear Terror. Also known as the Sartor of the Second Strike. Also known as the MAD Hatter.’

Now we’re getting somewhere, George told himself, although he sensed that this situation would not endure.

‘But if I am the Mutual Assured Destruction Hatter,’ Theophilus trilled, ‘then where is the Mutual Assured Destruction Tea Party? In Geneva, of course. Entry number three in the Strategic, Tactical, and Anti-Ballistic Limitation and Equalization talks – STABLE III to you. The Soviets and the Americans sit down at the STABLE table, and the Soviets say, “We don’t like that MAD Hatter you’ve got sitting over there. Nobody mutually assures Mother Russia’s destruction.” And the Americans reply, “Then meet the MARCH Hare, named for our new war-fighting strategy, Modulated Attacks in Response to Counterforce Hostilities. MARCH puts the fun back in nuclear war – you can actually
do
MARCH.” ’

‘I really don’t want to hear about this, Professor Carter.’

‘Quiet, sir! So the MARCH Hare comes bounding in, and Alice says, “Now that Russia’s forces are the same as America’s, both sides will make reductions.” And the Hare says, “Russia’s forces are not the same as America’s, they are equivalent, which means you’ll get reductions when Frosty the Snowman conquers hell.” ’

‘Professor Carter, I am losing patience,’ George snapped.

‘Hold your tongue, sir! “And don’t forget,” says the Hare, “they are equivalent because the Soviets began matching the American buildup necessitated by the early sixties missile gap that did not exist.” ’

‘I am George Paxton,’ the tomb inscriber stated calmly, deliberately, ‘and I would appreciate it if you would let me speak. Nadine Covington said you have a scopas suit for my daughter. If she was mistaken, then—’

‘Mistaken? No, I’m the one who’s mistaken. It’s the mercury we use to cure our felt. Makes me mistaken. Crazy as well. The doctors say there’s no cure, because I’ve used it on the felt, but I
feel
cured, I really do, never cured more felt or felt more cured. Mrs Covington, did you say? Oh, yes, a sterling woman, sterling. You could serve tea off her. The old girl and I have a lot in common. One nose. Two eyes. Black blood. We have always been with you, waiting to get in. Of
course
I have a suit for you, George. Let me dig it out. Meanwhile, have some wine.’

‘I don’t see any wine.’

‘There isn’t any.’

The MAD Hatter vanished behind velvet drapes, returning almost instantaneously with a child-size scopas suit, one unlike any George had ever seen.

The material was golden, silky, and phosphorescent, bathing the shop in a bright, boiling-butter glow. The boots and gloves suggested vulcanized jade. George pulled off his mitten and touched a sleeve. Warm milk.

‘This is the only one I shall ever make,’ said the Hatter. ‘I raised the caterpillars myself – fed them on vitriol and metal shavings so they’d put out tough silk. It takes a hefty fabric to get through a thermonuclear exchange, George. They were marvelous caterpillars. They smoked hookahs and sat on mushroom clouds.’

When Theophilus flopped the luminous invention on the counter, George thought he saw golden sparks.

‘Is it as good as an Eschatological?’ he asked warily.

‘Better. It actually works.’

‘Then why don’t you make more?’

‘That will be obvious once you read the contract.’

‘I thought it was free!’

‘If you want the suit, you must sign the sales contract.’ The Hatter reached behind the counter, drawing out a crisp, rattly sheaf of printed paper and a fountain pen. ‘Here,’ he said, sliding the paper toward George. ‘Put your John Hancock, or the founding father of your choice, on the line.’

Sales Contract

BY AFFIXING MY NAME
to this agreement, which entitles me to receive one scopas suit free of charge, I hereby confess to my complicity in the nuclear arms race.

I, THE SIGNATORY, AM FULLY AWARE
that the prevalence of these suits emboldens our society’s leaders to pursue a policy of nuclear brinksmanship.

I AM FURTHERMORE AWARE
that these suits are a public opiate, numbing our society to the dangers inherent in the following: the failure of the STABLE agreements to constrain meaningfully the arsenals of the superpowers; the ongoing refinement of the MARCH Plan for waging a limited nuclear war; the refusal of the current administration to adopt a no-first-use policy regarding theater nuclear forces; and the continued deployment by the United States and the Soviet Union of first-strike intercontinental ballistic missiles with multiple warheads.

Signed:_______________

‘I don’t understand this,’ said George.

‘Just sign it.’

‘ “Complicity.” That means . . . ?’

‘Partnership in wrongdoing.’

‘Sounds like I could go to
jail
.’

‘Well, you might go to jail anyway. I mean, suppose you woke up tomorrow morning and murdered somebody. They’d surely put you in jail.’

‘STABLE agreements. You said they were the Strategic, Tactical, and . . . Anti-something.’

‘Anti-Ballistic Limitation and Equalization. Hey, George, if you don’t want the suit, I’ll give it to somebody who does.’

‘MARCH Plan. Moderate Attacks—’

‘
Modulated
Attacks in Response to Counterforce Hostilities. Just another war-winning strategy. Old wine in new bottles. Don’t worry about it. Sign.’

‘ “No-first-use,” it says.’

‘As opposed to no-second-use, no-third-use, no-seventeenth-use . . . Have you forgotten how to write your name?’

George picked up the pen. When Holly was born, the first words out of his mouth were, ‘I don’t ever want anything bad to happen to her.’ He signed. The minors recorded his deed. The mannequins fixed him with their plasticine stares, whispering among themselves.

He took the warm, soft suit in his arms. He felt as if he were hugging Holly. Her incandescence poured through him.

‘This is her Christmas present,’ he said.

The Hatter picked up the sales contract with a carefulness he might have accorded a china figurine. Taking off his top hat, he stuffed the paper inside.

‘I hope that your daughter enjoys many years of not using her Christmas present,’ he said, complementing his rabbit teeth with a smile that George did not find entirely benign.

‘Thank you.’

George shoved the precious garment under his arm, plowed through the crowded shop, and yanked the door open. He waited for the bells to settle down.

‘Holly is safe now,’ he asserted quietly to the mannequins, and he was off.

CHAPTER FIVE

In Which the Limitations of Civil Defense Are Explicated in a Manner Some Readers May Find Distressing

Complicity. Partnership in wrongdoing. Am I a wrongdoer? wondered George as his van chugged away from the snow-muffled city. He glanced at the fabulous suit, which he had carefully strapped into the infant car seat. It fit perfectly. The golden helmet seemed to smile. You did it, Paxton. You brought it off. Merry Christmas, Holly.

But then his palms grew damp, and his bowels tightened. All the way up Route 2A, he studied his rear-view mirror for police cruisers. The traffic lights became eyes on the lookout for signers of scopas suit sales contracts. At each red light, he half-expected some jackbooted commandant to open the van door and arrest him.