“Verne, we’ve gone on with what we started four years ago. We taken it up again. Only it was all the bad parts we brought back. None of the good.”
“You said that.” He got up and walked around the room. “Perhaps. I did feel something. Something coming onto me. Like a hand catching. Settling over me.”
She watched him silently.
Suddenly he stopped. “Well, actually, there’s no real problem. If our psychological apparatuses won’t allow us to be together, then we’ll have to separate. The human mind is very complex. The unconscious sense of guilt—”
“Separate? How?”
“We won’t—”
“We already have. And you told me once the time is passed, the moment of choice—”
“For Christ’s sake! This is silly.”
“Verne, does it mean we’re going to have to keep living this way, all the rest of our lives? Around and around... Can’t we break away? Will— will it always be like this? Like it is now?”
“We can separate any time we want.”
“We separated four years ago. We were apart four years. It’s too late. We’ve already done it We’ve made our choice. It’s happened to us already.”
“Well, then if we’re in the soup we’re in the soup.” Verne smiled wryly. “And what’s so bad about it? There could be a lot worse ways to live.”
Barbara twisted. “I’m so—so dirty! So contaminated. I want to be clean.” She got up and crossed the room to the door.
“Where are you going?”
“I’ve got to get clean. I’ve got to try to wash it away.”
“That’s not very flattering,” Verne murmured. “I didn’t have to hit you over the head, you remember.”
“It’s my fault, then. It’s all my fault.” She shuddered. “God, I’ve become so dirty. So dirty and cold. I can’t stand it.”
“Like I said,” Verne murmured. “We can stop any time. We can make this the last. Now we know. It’s a bad idea. But it’s settled. It won’t happen again.”
“It’s not as easy as that. How can we stop? What can we do?”
“Quit seeing each other.”
“All right.” She sagged. “All right.”
“I guess it’ll be hard to do. At least, during the next week. But after that—”
“We didn’t see each other for four years. And here we are.”
“Well, something will break it. There’s always a way out.” He grinned, trying to be cheerful. “I’m not joking. It’s true; don’t you remember? The curse always is lifted, when the right thing is found.”
Barbara smoothed her slacks aimlessly.
“Think of all the old stories,” Verne said. “The old legends. Remember the Ring of the Niebelungen? The gods were cursed by having the gold. They grew old.”
Barbara nodded.
“They got rid of the curse.”
“How?”
Verne pondered. He picked his shoes up from the floor and began to put them on. “Siegfried saved them. Or almost saved them. At least, he was supposed to.”
“Siegfried?”
“The guileless fool. The virgin. Completely uncorrupted... The innocent fool.”
“Very interesting,” Barbara said. She smiled tightly, rocking back and forth, her arms folded. Some color was beginning to come back into her arms and face. “It’s not really too promising, though. Is it?”
“Why not?”
“Well, we have no Siegfried to save us. To make us clean again.”
They were both silent.
There was a sound, from the hall outside. They glanced at each other.
“What was that?” Verne said.
Barbara raised her hand. “Listen.”
They listened. Someone was coming uncertainly down the hall, cautious and timid. He came closer and closer, until he reached the door. He stopped outside, and they heard a faint breathing sound.
Verne and Barbara moved together, listening. For a time there was no sound at all. Then, at last, a faint voice came, distant and polite.
“Barbara? Verne? Are you in there?”
“For God’s sake!” Barbara exclaimed. “It’s only Carl.” She gasped in relief. “Lord.”
Verne opened the door. “You scared the hell out of us.”
Carl looked around hesitantly. “Can I come in?” He came slowly into the room, smiling at them. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“It’s all right,” Barbara murmured.
“I got worn out looking around. It’s hot, all right. But I found some very interesting things. Very interesting. I thought you two might like to come “with me. It’s no fun exploring around alone.”
Verne was watching Carl intently, rubbing his jaw. After a time he brought out his pipe and began to fill it slowly, still watching the boy.
“What do you say?” Carl said, looking around at them hopefully. “If you say it sounds silly I’ll agree with you, but—”
“No. No, it’s not silly. It’s something different to do.” Verne and Barbara looked at each other.
“The manager’s house is full of things!” Carl said excitedly, unable to contain himself, now that he had got some response. “Nothing has been taken out. I didn’t get inside, but I know. I saw through some boards nailed over one of the windows. Everything’s there. All of it! They must be going to have their officers stay there.”
“Maybe we should go along,” Verne said. “It might be interesting.”
“Come on!” Carl cried. “I’ll lead the way!”
Eleven
The station manager’s house was set apart from the rest of the buildings. It did not look like them at all. Once, it had been an old home in New England. The manager had noticed it during one of his business trips to the United States. He purchased it and had it shipped piece by piece all the way across the world, by boat, by pack train across mountains, finally assembled by workmen at the station. Now it stood, an old-fashioned American Colonial house, trim and white, its austere front rising up like some pale frosted cake, among refining plants and towering factory units and heaps of slag.
Around the house was a lawn and a border of flowers. At the edge of the lawn was a white picket fence and a tiny gate. Three trees, birch trees, grew at the side of the house. Under one was a bench, a plain wood bench.
Carl and Verne and Barbara stood at the fence, all of them a little awed.
“Just think,” Carl said. “We can open the gate and walk across the lawn and go inside the house.”
“If we can get the boards off,” Verne said. He fingered the crowbar.
“Let’s go,” Carl said. “I’m anxious to get inside.” He pushed the gate open.
“Don’t be in so much of a hurry.”
“I can’t help it.” Carl waited for them to catch up with him. “Just think—we could move in here, if we wanted to. We could move right in, live here for a whole week. Until they come. We could use his things, his kitchen, his chairs, his bed—”
“All right,” Barbara said.
Suddenly Carl stopped.
“What’s the matter?”
Carl looked around. “Maybe—”
“Maybe what?”
“You know, maybe this isn’t such a good idea.”
“Why not?”
“Well, maybe we shouldn’t break in this way. I—I don’t think we’re supposed to. That’s why they boarded it all up.”
“It was your idea.”
“I know.” Carl hung his head. “But now that we’re actually going to do it I’m not sure how I feel.”
“Come on,” Barbara said impatiently. “I’m kind of curious myself. I’d like to see how he lived. We heard so many different things.”
Carl hesitated. “Should we do it?”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. I guess I’m just letting my conditioned responses get the better of me. But it’s like breaking into a church. Where you’re not supposed to be. Like soldiers, the German Army during the war. Breaking in and sleeping in front of the altar, stealing things, breaking and tramping around.”