Barry N. Malzberg - Jobs Partner.pdf - Barry N. Malzberg - widez2

BARRY N. MALZBERG and BATYA S. YASGUR

JOB'S PARTNER

There were three of them -- a tall one, and two shorter ones -- and they

appeared to Judith in the Day Room, where she was gazing through the barred

windows, trying to figure out how to cajole Diana, the 8-4 nurse, into returning

her knitting needles so she could finish the sweater for Baby.

When she saw them, her veins ran ice and her bile bubbled up, burning her

throat, like those early days of empty-bellied morning sickness.

"Go away," she hissed. "You've gotten me into enough trouble already."

"Not until you say yes," the Tall One said -- or radiated. Mouthless, faceless,

he couldn't speak, perhaps, but his words entered her consciousness

effortlessly, automatically. She, on the other hand, had to speak aloud, as if

talking to ordinary human beings.

"I'll never do it." Her skin was goosebumpy, and she clutched the window bars.

"Let's discuss it reasonably." One of the Short Ones glided forward until it was

almost touching her knee.

She flinched and jumped back, glancing around nervously. Joan and Nicole were

squabbling over the television as usual, Francis holding court with Queen

Elizabeth and Samantha dancing for an imaginary audience.

"Not here." She motioned to them. "Let's go into the Quiet Room."

The Quiet Room was where you could go to be alone -- voluntarily, not like

Seclusion. It was carpeted, padded, soundproof. She lumbered down the hall, the

Beings gliding noiselessly behind her.

"Okay." She lowered herself to the floor gracelessly, easing her swollen belly

along. "Why can't you leave me alone?"

"We want the baby." The vibrations were stronger and she was shaking from them,

the infant within tossed in the whirlwind of amniotic fluid.

"No!" she shouted, backing into a corner, huddling into it, as in womb.

"What's going on in here?" It was blonde Diana, passing in the hall, crisp and

starched in her white uniform.

"N-nothing," she called back, her voice an assemblage of artificial breeze and

cheer.

She turned back to them. "What are you trying to do? Get me sent to seclusion?"

"We're not trying to do anything to you." The Tall One spoke with assurance and

authority, the calm of one clearly used to being in charge. "Except we want you

to agree to give us the baby after he's born."

"He? How do you know?" She gazed at her belly, moving with the movements of the

baby.

"We see through solidity, unlike you humans. We pass through solidity --that's

how we got in here. We aren't limited by your physical laws."

"Or our emotional ones."

The Tall One's movements resembled a shrug. "True. But we are not devoid of

compassion either."

"Compassion?" She laughed bitterly. "And you persecute me like this? Get me sent

to a nuthouse because no one will believe me about you?"

"We'll leave you alone when you promise us the baby."

Baby. Crowing and capering and bouncing around her belly, regaling her with

little internal kicks. Baby -- soon to appear (next month), its pudgy fists

dimpling as they closed over her finger, tiny lips pulling eagerly on her

breast, amid tiny contentment noises. She cradled her belly.

"What do you need a baby for?"

A trio of sighs. Why, she wondered, did all visitations come in threes? Angels

to Abraham, shepherds to Mary, Trinity to Paul? Three wishes. Three Wise Men.

"We've been through all this already," the Tall One said, ripples of trembling

light cascading toward her.

"No we haven't."

"All right." Another sigh as the Tall One seemed to settle back on formless

haunches. "Your people are destroying the Earth. Holes in ozone, poisons on

plants, smog hugging your cities. Your race will not survive. Your planet will

be annihilated. So -- the baby. We will raise Baby. Teach him all we know.

Return him to Earth when he's grown. As long as there is one among you who

possesses our secrets, your planet will survive."

"I don't get it." She hid her face in her hands, tears scalding her fingers.

"It's no reflection on you," said one of the Short Ones kindly. "Your race is

significantly lower in intelligence than most of the others in the galaxy."

She glanced up quickly. "How do you know?"

The Tall One laughed -- droplets of mirthful light bouncing off walls and floor.

"We are the Doers of Giving on our Planet. It is our sacred task to travel to

distant galaxies, rescuing inhabitants from their own follies."

"Sort of like interstellar Boy Scouts? Or Social Workers?"

"Something like that."

The tears winked in the light, casting little splotches of rainbow across the

diabolically green floor. "But why my baby? There's a nursery in Building B --

across the hall, down the elevator, through the courtyard, up to second floor, I

had my other kids there -- and you'll see lots of babies. Rows and rows of

babies, all snug and neat in their little plastic cribs. Just help yourselves

and leave me alone."

"And leave some bereaved mother to go to pieces when she finds out her child has

been abducted?"

"What about me?" The cry burst forth, as the waters would burst forth from her

womb next month -- but foul, stinking waters, prelude to stillbirth and death.

"You'll never worry, where is my child? You'll know."

"No!" She rocked back and forth, balancing her belly awkwardly between her legs.

"Why? Why choose me? There are millions of other women in the world who are

pregnant!"

The Tall One cocked his head (or the top of him anyway, that kind of resembled a

head). "Oh come, now, you mean you don't know?

"She shook her head violently.

"Your openness," said one of the Short Ones. "To ideas, possibilities, flights

of heart and spirit."

"Your vision," said the other Short One. "For a world where humanity shall dwell

in peace and none shall make him afraid."

"Your dreams," said the Tall One. "To be the mother of the Messiah."

She closed her eyes. Old Mrs. Martex loomed before her--sixth grade. Iron hair,

steel eyes, red X's dripping as blood from her pen. "Judith, daydreaming again,

eh? Always off on some other planet, aren't you." A sharp jab with the pointer,

still chalky from the geography assignment on the blackboard. "Wouldn't you like

to share your dream with the rest of us?" Hot cheeks, wet eyes, stammers, amid

the giggles and titters of the others. "I was thinking about -- I mean wishing

for --" How to open the golden chest, locked in her heart, lined with velvet,

limned with light, refuge and vision? To spill its secrets before the icy words

and dark laughter of Mrs. Martex and the others? The golden fields through which

her winged feet carried her to the glowing Baby, surrounded by angels and

shepherds and Beings of Light, proclaiming, "behold our Lord," and whispering,

pointing, "behold His mother."

"I saw -- saw -- "

No! Never to tell! She tore herself from the room. Down, down the hall, to the

bathroom, the buzzing laughter pursuing her like an army of wasps. Flushing,

flushing, till Janie Edwards -- Teacher's Pet and Goody Two Shoes of the First

Order -- came to fetch her with her smirk and her swishing skirts.

"This is what you always wanted, isn't it?" the Tall One was saying.

She closed her eyes again.

Grandmother on the couch, the giant photo album spread across her lap like an

ancient shawl, the numbers glowing darkly on her wrinkled white arm. "See? That

young girl?" A smiling face, little crinkles of merriment around the eyes, arm

lifted in greeting to a joyous future. "That was me, before." And the tears,

watering the picture, blurring and obliterating the face of hope and promise

that was soon to be scarred by coals and ashes, the arm uplifted, soon to be

stamped, branded with the eternal pain. "I held on because someday, there would

be you -- Judith. The Future."

And what was the Future? If the past ended in the charting heat of the oven, the

future must begin in the warmth of the womb. Her womb.

And so the dream. Of conception, birth, growth -- a passage of everlasting

safety: Redemption.

A vision locked away, still. Locked through girlhood, through the little games

and prattles of the others in the playground; through budding womanhood, the

mysterious and wondrous preparations her body was making for inviting and

welcoming that Ultimate Child into the world; through courtship with Al. Dear

Al. Nice enough, to be sure. He stopped the car to take a hurt puppy to the

animal hospital; he diligently wrote checks to the American Cancer Society and

to the U.J.A. He climbed on top of her twice a week, whispering kind words in

her ear. But once -- only once -- did she dare, timidly, with trepidation and

prayer, to ask -- Is this enough? Isn't there more, a Final and Ultimate

purpose? And Al's blankness. "We're here. Isn't that enough?"

Only once, that is, until the arrival of the Beings. "Don't you see them, Al?"

she pleaded. "Three. There. Over there. The Tall One's in the middle, he's sort

of flanked by two shorter ones." First blank-faced stares, a mild suggestion to

get more sleep, maybe the pregnancy? --Then That Look. Gazing at the floor,

shifting of feet, twitching of lips, eyes half-mast. Then recoil, horror. Then

the trek, the endless trek to doctors, the mutterings and deliberations about

medications and dosages, the inane questions ("When were you toilet trained?"

"How did you relate to your peer group?"). The talk of shock treatment, how it

would affect a growing fetus. The decision, finally, as she held firm to her

Vision: maybe a few days here, safely locked away, would be enough to bring her

to her senses. If not -- then afterwards -- well, the medicines, the shock,

think of all the avenues available.

And now Al, walled behind breeziness and false cheer, stopping on his way from

work, bringing her tidbits of office gossip and asking where he could find a pot

to steam beans, and whether to wash underwear on hot or cold. Al, inhabiting

another world, a world of ads and ad blanks, synagogue once a year and

whisperings in the night twice a week.

A vision of Purpose -- hers -- which transcended anyone else's. To bring Him

into the World. To be the Mother of the Messiah.

And now, here were these Beings -- Angels? Aliens? -- to bring it all to

fruition. And she was thrashing about in her mind, resisting. Why?

"I -- I don't want to lose my baby." Her voice was tiny, wavering. "Maybe, maybe

just let the Earth go its own way. Die. Whatever. But don't take my child away

from me."

A tsk-tsk from the trio. "Sacrifice all to save one?" A shake of the headlike

parts. "Is this the Judith whose life dreams have been devoted to saving the

world?"

She sighed and sank back, her face seeking refuge in her cupped hands. Then a

thought, a tiny splash of harmony amid the dissonance. "Why can't I come too?"

"We don't have accommodations for two. Just one."

"So build more!"

The three surrounded her, engulfing in their dripping kindness. "We have so many

planets -- so many universes -- so many galaxies. All in serious trouble. We can

only save one from each, or we'd be overrun, you see, and then we couldn't help

anyone. Could we?"

A prison. A prison of words, arguments, logic. A prison of her own dreams, the

milk of childhood fantasies soured by this trio of warmth which was to bring it

to fruition. To voluntarily turn the tiny particle of her which was growing and

kicking inside her over to Others to raise --

Then her eyes widened, her heartbeat quickened, hands, icily moist, clutched her

belly. The baby would be taken from her anyway. These people -- Al, the doctors

-- who wouldn't believe her, who thought the Beings were simply shadowy actors

on some demented mental stage -- they would start pouring their poisons into her

body as soon as Baby would be born, would deem her an unfit mother and wrench

Baby from her anyway.

She looked up. The Tall One was looming over her.

Barry N. Malzberg - Jobs Partner.pdf

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