She nodded--not a nod of agreement, but because she had expected that
answer. "Right out of the textbooks and propaganda pieces, Tom. Tell
me, why is my father in the vaults?"
"Because he has radiation poisoning!"
"And how did he get this radiation poisoning?"
"How?" I blinked at her. "You know how, Rena. In the war between Naples
and--the war--"
* * * * *
Rena said remorselessly, "That's right, Tom, the war. The war that
couldn't have existed, because the Company ended war--everybody knows
that. Ah, Tom! For God, tell me, why is the world blind? Everyone
believes, no one questions. The Company ended war--it says so itself.
And the blind world never sees the little wars that rage, all the time,
one upon the heels of another. The Company has ended disease. But how
many deaths are there? The Company has abolished poverty. But am I
living in riches, Tom? Was the old man who ran into the vaults?"
I stammered, "But--but, Rena, the statistical charts show very
clearly--"
"No, Tom," she said, gentle again. "The statistical charts show _less_
war, not no war. They show _less_ disease."
She rubbed her eyes wearily--and even then I thought: Marianna wouldn't
have dared; it would have smeared her mascara.
"The trouble with you, Tom, is that you're an American. You don't
know how it is in the world, only in America. You don't know what it
was like after the Short War, when America won and the flying squads
of Senators came over and the governments that were left agreed to
defederate. You're used to a big and united country, not little
city-states. You don't have thousands of years of intrigue and tyranny
and plot behind you, so you close your eyes and plunge ahead, and if
the charts show things are getting a _little_ better, you think they
are perfect."
She shook her head. "But not us, Tom. We can't afford that. We walk
with eyes that dart about, seeking danger. Sometimes we see ghosts,
but sometimes we see real menace. You look at the charts and you see
that there are fewer wars than before. We--we look at the charts and we
see our fathers and brothers dead in a little war that hardly makes a
ripple on the graph. You don't even see them, Tom. You don't even see
the disease cases that don't get cured--because the techniques are
'still experimental,' they say. You don't--Tom! What is it?"
I suppose I showed the pain of remembrance. I said with an effort,
"Sorry, Rena. You made me think of something. Please go on."
"That's all of it, Tom. You in America can't be blamed. The big
lie--the lie so preposterous that it cannot be questioned, the thing
that proves itself because it is so unbelievable that no one would say
it if it weren't true--is not an American invention. It is European,
Tom. You aren't inoculated against it. We are."
* * * * *
I took a deep breath. "What about your father, Rena? Do you really
think the Company is out to get him?"
She looked at me searchingly, then looked hopelessly away. "Not as you
mean it, Tom," she said at last. "No, I am no paranoid. I think he
is--inconvenient. I think the Company finds him less trouble in the
deep-freeze than he would be walking around."
"But don't you agree that he needs treatment?"
"For what? For the radiation poisoning that he got from the atomic
explosion he was nowhere near, Tom? Remember, he is my father! I was
with him in the war--and he never stirred a kilometer from our home.
You've been there, the big house where my aunt Luisa now lives. Did
you see bomb craters there?"
"_That's a lie!_" I had to confess it to myself: Rena was beginning to
mean something to me. But there were emotional buttons that even she
couldn't push. If she had been a man, any man, I would have had my fist
in her face before she had said that much; treason against the Company
was more than I could take. "You can't convince me that the Company
deliberately falsifies records. Don't forget, Rena, I'm an executive of
the Company! Nothing like that could go on!"
Her eyes flared, but her lips were rebelliously silent.
I said furiously: "I'll hear no more of that. Theoretical discussions
are all right; I'm as broad-minded as the next man. But when you accuse
the Company of outright fraud, you--well, you're mistaken."
We glowered at each other for a long moment. My eyes fell first.
I said sourly, "I'm sorry if I called you a liar. I--I didn't mean to
be offensive."
"Nor I, Tom," she hesitated. "Will you remember that I asked you not to
make me discuss it?"
She stood up. "Thank you very much for a dinner. And for listening. And
most of all, for giving me another chance to rescue my father."
I looked at my watch automatically--and incredulously. "It's late,
Rena. Have you a place to stay?"
She shrugged. "N--yes, of course, Tom. Don't worry about me; I'll be
all right."
"Are you sure?"
"Very sure."
* * * * *
Her manner was completely confident--so much so that I knew it for an
act.
I said: "Please, Rena, you've been through a tough time and I don't
want you wandering around. You can't get back to Naples tonight."
"I know."
"Well?"
"Well what, Tom?" she said. "I won't lie to you--I haven't a place to
go to here. I would have had, this afternoon, if I had succeeded. But
by now, everything has changed. They--that is, my friends will assume
that I have been captured by the Company. They won't be where I could
find them, Tom. Say they are silly if you wish. But they will fear that
the Company might--request me to give their names."
I said crisply, "Stay here, Rena. No--listen to me. You stay here. I'll
get another room."
"Thank you, Tom, but you can't. There isn't a room in Anzio; there are
families of suspendees sleeping in the grass tonight."
"I can sleep in the grass if I have to."
She shook her head. "Thank you," she repeated.
I stood between her and the door. "Then we'll both stay here. I'll
sleep on the couch. You can have the bed." I hesitated, then added,
"You can trust me, Rena."
She looked at me gravely for a moment. Then she smiled. "I'm sure I
can, Tom. I appreciate your offer. I accept."
* * * * *
I am built too long for a hotel-room couch, particularly a room in a
Mediterranean coastal fleabag. I lay staring into the white Italian
night; the Moon brightened the clouds outside the window, and the room
was clearly enough illuminated to show me the bed and the slight,
motionless form in it. Rena was not a restless sleeper, I thought. Nor
did she snore.
Rena was a most self-possessed girl, in fact. She had overruled me when
I tried to keep the bellboy from clearing away the dinner service.
"Do you think no other Company man ever had a girl in his room?" she
innocently asked. She borrowed a pair of the new pajamas Defoe's
thoughtful expediters had bought and put in the bureau. But I hadn't
expected that, while the bellboy was clearing away, she would be
softly singing to herself in the bath.
He had seemed not even to hear.
He had also leaped to conclusions--not that it was much of a leap, I
suppose. But he had conspicuously not removed the bottle of champagne
and its silver bucket of melting ice.
It felt good, being in the same room with Rena.
I shifted again, hunching up my torso to give my legs a chance to
stretch out. I looked anxiously to see if the movement had disturbed
her.
There is a story about an animal experimenter who left a chimpanzee in
an empty room. He closed the door on the ape and bent to look through
the key-hole, to see what the animal would do. But all he saw was an
eye--because the chimp was just as curious about the experimenter.
In the half-light, I saw a sparkle of moonlight in Rena's eye; she was
watching me. She half-giggled, a smothered sound.
"You ought to be asleep," I accused.
"And you, Tom."