She leaned forward still further, her elbows on her knees and her voice very earnest.
She said, “Then we’ve got to make some changes. Back before we licked the problems of production of abundance that was, and had to be, the main goal of the race. Food, clothing, shelter, medicine, education, recreation for all, in abundance. But now that we’ve gained the goals, let’s stop a minute and look around. How about the arts, how about the handicrafts? Ours has become a synthetic world, why not devote these surplus energies of ours, devote the leisure time that hangs so heavily, into some of the old virtues? My grandfather mentions that when he was a boy practically everybody played some musical instrument. There was a bandstand in every park and at least one band in every town, no matter how small. Women used to sew, knit, crochet, embroider, make quilts and so forth. Have you ever seen some of those handmade quilts in a museum and compared them with the mass-produced things that we put on our beds today?”
Bat was chewing away on his lip. He said, “Some people already go into the arts; yourself, for instance. But not everybody has talent. And most are too lazy, if they don’t have to, to bother with doing ceramics, weaving cloth, quilting, or whatever.”
“Perhaps they are now, but that’s our problem,” she told him. “We’ve got to educate our people to want to do them. Take cooking. Cooking has become automated#longdash#and it tastes like it. Why, the person who could afford decent food a hundred years ago wouldn’t have dreamed of eating the tasteless stuff that we down these days. Never has food been more beautifully packaged, been so adulterated, and tasted so poorly. And music. For all practical purposes, it’s all canned these days. Sometimes I think that a few dozen musicians are turning out all the music for the country. How long has it been since you’ve seen a live musician? How long has it been since you’ve seen live theatre?”
Bat said doggedly, “It doesn’t make sense in this day for there to be live theatres, employing tens of thousands of actors, when a cast of twenty can entertain fifty million persons at a time over TV.”
“Like hell it doesn’t,” she said. “That’s exactly the point I was trying to make. I’m beginning to suspect that Ferd is right. Our present society needs a little subverting. What time is it?” She brought her pocket phone from her jeans and dialed for the time.
“Good Jesus,” she said. “Is it that late? I better get going. I assume we’re off to a fairly early start in the morning.”
Bat shrugged. “Not necessarily. We’ll probably only go about two hundred kilometers, so there’s no rush to get rolling.” He stood to show her to the door.
But Diana didn’t return immediately to her own trailer.
Her sexual binge with Ferd Zogbaum had been possibly the most satisfying she had ever known. It wasn’t just that her lover had been tireless, though heavens knew he was possibly the only man she had ever slept with who had truly satiated her. It was also that they were in rapport. He obviously liked her, was attracted to her, as much as she was to him. It is difficult to prevaricate in bed, in a sexual relationship, or, at least, she had always thought so. She knew, instinctively, that he adored her body. She also knew, from the easygoing association she had had with the aspiring writer over the past weeks, that he was intellectually compatible with her.
Now she approached his camper and knocked at the door. She made no effort at all to be stealthy. Not in New Woodstock. Nobody could have cared less if she was having an affair with the popular Ferd Zogbaum. In fact, if anybody discovered the development they undoubtedly would have been happy for them both. Probably half of the so-called married folk in town were actually living in what was once known as sin.
She knocked at the door.
He opened and looked at her and made a humor face and said, “Oh, no, not again.”
“Oh yes,” she said. “Stand aside, young man. We’re going to play yes and no once more.”
“I surrender.”
She said, “Oh, darling, whatever is going to happen to us?”
“Yes.”
“But it can never be a normal relationship. Not with you continually having to be on guard with everything you say to me.”
“No.”
“I love you, Ferd Zogbaum.”
There was no answer. They kissed again, hotly.
“There is no answer, is there, darling?”
“No.”
“Even if it was possible for us to have a… permanent relationship, they wouldn’t allow it, would they? I’m an alien, an off-beat artist, a Bohemian#longdash#”
“Yes.”
“You mean they wouldn’t allow it?”
“Yes.”
She slumped a bit in his arms. “All we can have is this?”
“Yes.”
“Or they’ll drag you back to prison#longdash#or to more brain surgery?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s get undressed.”
They were resting between bouts.
She said, “Ferd, can you answer yes or no questions about this conspiracy to commit subversion against this government of yours?”
He hesitated for a long moment before saying cautiously, “Yes.”
“They can’t monitor your thoughts as such, eh? Just the words you think and if you get emotionally upset by committing violence.”
He hesitated again.
She said, “There’s more to it then that, eh?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I don’t suppose I’d understand it even if you could explain. Brain surgery isn’t exactly my strong point. Did you belong to an organization in the States?”
Hesitation. Then, “Yes.”
“Whose purpose was to start a new kind of government?”
“Yes.”
“Was it a very large organization?”
“No.”
“Do you think someday it will win out?”
Ferd hesitated still once again before saying, “Yes.” It was an extremely difficult manner in which to learn much about what he believed in. She knew perfectly well that he would have preferred to answer in more detail, to have qualified some of his yes and no answers.
She would have liked to find out just what this organization of Ferd’s foresaw as a more desirable socio-economic system than Meritocracy. But it was too complicated a question under the circumstances.
Something came to her. “Could you write out answers to questions I asked you?”
“No.”
“Hmmm. That’s one hell of a complicated electronic bug they’ve planted in your bonnet, friend.”
“Yes.”
XV
Bat Hardin had been right. New Woodstock was slow to get underway the following morning. It was almost eleven o’clock before they began to roll.
Dean Armanruder was impatient with Bat but yielded to his demand that the mobile town remain in tight convoy again this day.
Bat led the way down the Pan American Highway, about a kilometer in advance of the town proper. Al Castro, driving today rather than his wife Pamela, was in Bat’s usual place immediately ahead of the column. Luke Robertson brought up the rear. They were utilizing the same system as they had the day before. On the town phone system, Bat had once again emphasized the need for no one dropping out.
All went without incident for the first 120 kilometers, then ahead of him Bat spotted an official-looking car, two uniformed men next to it. There was a crossroads, and a barrier blocked the highway they were proceeding along. The sign on the barrier read Desviasion and an arrow pointed to the right.
Bat pulled up and one of the uniformed Mexicans came over and touched the peak of his hat in an informal salute.