This chap spoke good General American. "Nebbi is the name, he said, shaking hands where no one shakes hands, "and you're Gordon, I know. Delighted to meet you."
"Me, too," I agreed. "It's a surprise and a pleasure to hear my own language."
"Professional knowledge, my dear chap. Comparative culturologist, linguisto-historo-political. You're American, I know. Let me place it—Deep-South, not born there. Possibly New England. Overlaid with displaced Middle Western, California perhaps. Basic speech, lower-middle class, mixed."
The smooth oaf was good. Mother and I lived in Boston while my father was away, 1942-45. I'll never forget those winters; I wore overshoes from November to April. I had lived Deep South, Georgia and Florida, and in California at La Jolla during the Korean unWar and, later, in college. "Lower-middle class"? Mother had not thought so.
"Near enough," I agreed. "I know one of your colleagues."
"I know whom you mean, ‘the Mad Scientist.' Wonderful wacky theories. But tell me: How were things when you left? Especially, how is the United States getting along with its Noble Experiment?"
" ‘Noble Experiment'?" I had to think; Prohibition was gone before I was born. "Oh, that was repealed."
"Really? I must go back for a field trip. What have you now? A king? I could see that your country was headed that way but I did not expect it so soon."
"Oh, no," I said. "I was talking about Prohibition."
"Oh, that. Symptomatic but not basic. I was speaking of the amusing notion of chatter rule. ‘Democracy.' A curious delusion—as if adding zeros could produce a sum. But it was tried in your tribal land on a mammoth scale. Before you were born, no doubt. I thought you meant that even the corpse had been swept away." He smiled. "Then they still have elections and all that?"
"The last time I looked, yes."
"Oh, wonderful. Fantastic, simply fantastic. Well, we must get together, I want to quiz you. I've been studying your planet a long time—the most amazing pathologies in tile explored complex. So long. Don't take any wooden nickels, as your tribesmen say."
I told Rufo about it. "Rufe, I know I came from a barbarous planet. But does that excuse his rudeness? Or was it rudeness? I haven't really got the hang of good manners here."
Rufo frowned. "It is bad manners anywhere to sneer at a person's birthplace, tribe, or customs. A man does it at his own risk. If you kill him, nothing will happen to you. It might embarrass Her Wisdom a little. If She can be embarrassed."
"I won't kill him, it's not that important."
"Then forget it. Nebbi is a snob. He knows a little, understands nothing, and thinks the universes would be better if he had designed them. Ignore him."
"I will. It was just—look, Rufo, my country isn't perfect. But I don t enjoy hearing it from a stranger."
"Who does? I like your country, it has flavor. But—I'm not a stranger and this is not a sneer. Nebbi was right."
"Huh?"
"Except that he sees only the surface. Democracy can't work. Mathematicians, peasants, and animals, that's all there is—so democracy, a theory based on the assumption that mathematicians and peasants are equal, can never work. Wisdom is not additive; its maximum is that of the wisest man in a given group.
"But a democratic form of government is okay, as long as it doesn't work. Any social organization does well enough if it isn't rigid. The framework doesn't matter as long as there is enough looseness to permit that one man in a multitude to display his genius. Most so-called social scientists seem to think that organization is everything. It is almost nothing—except when it is a straitjacket. It is the incidence of heroes that counts, not the pattern of zeros."
He added, "Your country has a system free enough to let its heroes work at their trade. It should last a long time—unless its looseness is destroyed from inside."
"I hope you're right."
"I am right. This subject I know and I'm not stupid, as Nebbi thinks. He's right about the futility of ‘adding zeros'—but he doesn't realize that he is a zero."
I grinned. "No point in letting a zero get my goat."
"None. Especially as you are not. Wherever you go, you will make yourself felt, you won't be one of the nerd. I respect you, and I don't respect many. Never people as a whole, I could never be a democrat at heart. To claim to ‘respect' and even to ‘love' the great mass with their yaps at one end and smelly feet at the other requires the fatuous, uncritical, saccharine, blind, sentimental slobbishness found in some nursery supervisors, most spaniel dogs, and all missionaries. It isn't a political system, it's a disease. But be of good cheer; your American politicians are immune to this disease...and your customs allow the non-zero elbow room."
Rufo glanced at my sword again. "Old friend, you didn't come here to bitch about Nebbi." "No." I looked down at that keen blade. "I fetched this to shave you, Rufo."
"Eh?"
"I promised I would shave your corpse. I owe it to you for the slick job you did on me. So here I am, to shave the barber."
He said slowly, "But I'm not yet a corpse." He did not move. But his eyes did, estimating distance between us. Rufo wasn't counting on my being "chivalrous"; he had lived too long.
"Oh, that can be arranged," I said cheerfully, "unless I get straight answers from you."
He relaxed a touch. "I'll try, Oscar."
"More than try, please. You're my last chance. Rufo, this must be private. Even from Star."
"Under the Rose. My word on it."
"With your fingers crossed, no doubt. But don't risk it, I'm serious. And straight answers, I need them. I want advice about my marriage."
He looked glum. "And I meant to go out today. Instead I worked. Oscar, I would rather criticize a woman's firstborn, or even her taste in hats. Much safer to teach a shark to bite. What if I refuse?"
"Then I shave you!"
"You would, you heavy-handed headsman!" He frowned. " ‘Straight answers—‘ You don't want them, you want a shoulder to cry on."
"Maybe that, too. But I do want straight answers, not the lies you can tell in your sleep."
"So I lose either way. Telling a man the truth about his marriage is suicide. I think I'll sit tight and see if you have the heart to cut me down in cold blood."
"Oh, Rufo, I'll put my sword under your lock and key if you like. You know I would never draw against you."
"I know no such thing," he said querulously. "There's always that first time. Scoundrels are predictable, but you're a man of honor and that frightens me. Can't we handle this over the see-speak?"
"Come off it, Rufo. I've nobody else to turn to. I want you to speak frankly. I know that a marriage counselor has to lay it on the line, pull no punches. For the sake of blood we've lost together I ask you to advise me. And frankly, of course!"
" ‘Of course,' is it? The last time I risked it you were for cutting the tongue out of me." He looked at me moodily. "But I was ever a fool where friendship speaks. Hear, I'll dicker ye a fair dicker. You talk, I'll listen...and if it should come about that you're taking so long that my tired old kidneys complain and I'm forced to leave your welcome company for a moment...why, then you'll misunderstand and go away in a huff and we'll say no more about it. Eh?"
"Okay."
"The Chair recognizes you. Proceed."
So I talked. I talked out my dilemma and frustration, sparing neither self nor Star (it was for her sake, too, and it wasn't necessary to speak of our most private matters; those, at least, were dandy). But I told our quarrels and many matters best kept in the family, I had to.