“Ohl I wasn't expecting anyone, so I thought it might be the pigs--or one of my clients turning up without an appointment. But you're Lora Turpin, aren't you? Come on inl”
She released the security stop and flung the door wide.
Lora hesitated, while Sheklov's eyes seized greedily on what details of the interior of the apartment he could
make out from where he stood. Books-twenty times as many as in the whole of the Turpins' home! A ouija board, hung from the wall on a bit of string! Visible on a low table abandoned presumably when the bell rang, a tarot pack! It was like coming home.
So who was this woman, anyway-Danty's mistress? That seemed unlikely. Vaguely he heard Lora asking whether Danty was in; equally vaguely, he registered the reply: “No, but he could be back at any time. Please come in and wait if you'd like to.”
“Well . . .” Lora looked to Sheklov for guidance.
“That's very kind!” he exclaimed, and this time took her arm, encouraging her over the threshold. “Apparently you know Lora,” he added. “I'm Don Holtzer.”
“Oh, yes. Danty said he met you at the Turpins'. I'm Magda Hansen.” Shutting the door and waving them to chairs. “Do sit down. Maybe you'd like some coffee?”
“Please,” Sheklov said firmly.
“I'll go plug the percolator in. Just a moment.” And she headed for the miniature kitchen in the corner.
Out of the side of her mouth, looking ill-at-ease, Lora whispered, "But that's the-uh-the girl Danty's living with. I saw her when I woke up this morning. That was why I.. "
“Turned tail?” Sheklov supplied equally softly, finally putting two and two together. “Well, she doesn't seem to mind your coming to call, does she?”
And that was all he had the chance to say before she was back and sitting down on one of the built-in couches, facing them. Recollecting her tarot cards, she leaned forward to gather them up. Sheklov decided to risk commenting on them.
“That's an unusual deck you have there. Is it what they call-uh-tarrot?” Mispronouncing it deliberately.
“Yes.” Collapsing the cards with strong, thick fingers into a neat pile. “Haven't you seen them before? Like to look?”
“Well, thanks,” Sheklov said, reaching to the full stretch of his arms to take them from her. He realized at once they were a design he didn't know. But good. The hanged man, in particular: a black surrounded by hooded Klansmen. Very apt. He gave them back, and Magda turned to park them on a vacant section of one of the many bookshelves at her back.
“Did you say you thought it might be police at the door?” he inquired, since Lora appeared to be tongue-tied.
“Could have been,” Magda said with a sigh. “Those radiated pigs are on a harassment kick right now-come crashing in, mostly on Sundays or in the middle of the night-just to turn everything over and make a mess. If they break a few things, so much the better.”
“But-uh-what excuse do they have for . . .?” Sheklov let the question trail away, thinking of the days when that had been the perennial nightmare of anyone on the other side who had dared to reveal an original turn of mind.
Magda gave a shrug. “Oh, they always say 'suspicion of illegal drugs,' you know. But that's so much shit. It's just the thing they don't need a warrant for. Fact is, they hate rebs, and that's all there is to it.”
“I see,” Sheklov said, for want of any better comment. He felt at a loss. This woman, much older than Danty, had a similar disconcerting quality in her dark gaze and in her tone of voice. He could almost imagine himself saying something to her, as he had done to Danty. that would be a betrayal of his cover, and without being able to help it even though he realized it was happening.
Still, he had to put some questions about Danty because of what had already happened. He said, “Ah . . . 1 Well, if it's Danty they're after, I can't see why. I talked to him a bit at the party last night. and he seemed to be veryuh-serious. Sort of thoughtful. And well-read, too,” he added as an afterthought.
“Yell” Lora chimed in. “That's why Don wanted to see him again. Wasn't it, Don?”
“Yes. Yes, of course.”
There was a dead silence, during which Magda looked -not discourteously, just searchingly-at both of them in turn for long seconds. She said at last, “And, of course, the pigs don't like foster-rebs, either.”
Meaning herself, Sheklov deduced. The term had been included in his briefings. It applied to an older person who actively encouraged the young to drop out of society in search of some allegedly superior truth. A few states had incorporated it into their criminal codes, making such encouragement an offence for which the parents of minors
could sue by analogy with “alienation of affection” in the old British common law.
Shades of Socrates and the hemlockl “Corrupting our youthl”
“I get the impression,” Sheklov said slowly, not looking directly at Magda, “that over the border we-you know I'm Canadian?”
“Danty did mention it.”
Was there mockery in those dark eyes? Had she seen through his pretence?-He couldn't tell. He ploughed doggedly on.
“Well, we seem to understand something different by the word reb. I mean, it's not something the police would -uh . . .” A wave of his hand.
“Down here the police pounce on anyone who's in the slightest degree different,” Magda said. “Anyone who tries to think for himself, to begin with-they're the most dangerous of all. Every loyal citizen is convinced that the government is right, even if today it says the exact opposite of what it said yesterday. Not that that happens so much any more. We've decayed into what they call a consensus.” She made the word sound fairly obscene.
“You mean-” Lora began. Magda cut her short.
“What I mean is that the government of this country is killing us. Stone-dead. By slow strangulation.”
She jolted forward on her couch, her face suddenly animated, and Sheklov realized with a start that she was beautiful-not in the conventional American, or even the conventional Russian, sense, which had more to do with mere glamour, but in the ancient sense of the Gioconda or the Venus di Milo. It was as though a light had been switched on inside her head that illuminated her true personality. Also, in contrast with the shrill whine of almost every other woman he had met since his arival-most notably, Sophie Turpin and her mother-her voice was a resonant contralto, cello-forceful.
“And it's a tough job for them,” she said. “Because in every generation you get a handful of people who won't just be crushed into the regulation mould. Don't you? The ones who want to be--oh-inventors rather than engineers, or poets rather than copywriters, or architects rather than building-contractors. Peg it?”
“I guess so,” Sheklov said, and added wryly, “likewise, ecologists rather than timber-salesmen.”
“You peg,” she said. and this time smiled at him-just with her eyes. wrinkling the lids humorously. “So what happens when you block off all their opportunities to explore and experiment as they want to? You get rebs. Hell, you're bound to.”
“Well-sure you are!” Sheklov said, blinking. “So . . .?”
“So they get stamped on,” Magda said. “Like I said.”
"But--21
“But why? Oh, I know it's crazy. I know we're so rich we ooze monev like-like fat dripping off roast pork. I know we ought to be able to tolerate a fraction of 1 per cent of young people who'd rather sit and think than fit into the machine. But people seem to resent their need to do that, don't they?”
Sheklov swallowed hard, wondering what Holtzer ought to say, and was saved the trouble. Lora spoke up.
“I know just what you mean!” she exclaimed. “Lots of times I think inside my head there's something going on that isn't in the books they make you read in school. It makes me want to do crazy things now and then, really crazy, just to shake everybody up. And they don't even notice!” The last word was almost a cry.