Soon afterwards the two of them were walking up the sidewalk together.
“Why do people take their own lives?” Anne asked. “I keep thinking I could have prevented it. I sold him a flute for his boy. He still had the flute; I saw it with his suitcases on the curb–he never gave it to his son. Is that the reason, something to do with the flute? I debated between the flute and–”
“Cut it out,” Arnie said. “It’s not your fault. Listen, if a man is going to take his life nothing can stop him. And you can’t cause a person to do it; it’s in his bloodstream, it’s his destiny. They work themselves up to doing it years in advance, and then it’s just like a sudden inspiration; all of a sudden– wham. They do it, see?” He wrapped his arm around her and patted her.
She nodded.
“Now, I mean, _we’ve_ got a kid there at Camp B-G, but it doesn’t get us down,” Arnie went on. “It’s not the end of the world, right? We go on. Where do you want to eat? How’s that place across the street, that Red Fox? Any good? I’d like some fried prawns, but hell, it’s been almost a year since I saw them. This transportation problem has got to be licked or nobody is emigrating.”
“Not the Red Fox,” Anne said. “I loathe the man who runs it. Let’s try that place on the corner; it’s new, I haven’t ever eaten in there. I hear it’s supposed to be good.”
As they sat at a table in the restaurant, waiting for their food to come, Arnie went on and developed his point. “One thing, when you hear about a suicide, you can be sure the guy knows this: he knows he’s not a useful member of society. That’s the real truth he’s facing about himself, that’s what does it, knowing you’re not important to anybody. If there’s one thing I’m sure of it’s that. It’s nature’s way–the expendable are removed, by their own hand, too. So I don’t lose any sleep when I hear of a suicide, and you’d be surprised how many so-called natural deaths here on Mars are actually suicides; I mean, this is a harsh environment. This place weeds out the fit from the unfit.”
Anne Esterhazy nodded but did not seem cheered up.
“Now this guy–” Arnie continued.
“Steiner,” Anne said.
“Steiner!” He stared at her. “Norbert Steiner, the blackmarket operator?” His voice rose.
“He sold health foods.”
“That’s the guy!” He was flabbergasted. “Oh, no, not Steiner.” Good grief, he got all his goodies from Steiner; he was utterly dependent on the man.
The waiter appeared with their food.
“This is awful,” Arnie said, “I mean, really awful. What am I going to do?” Every party he threw, every time he had a cozy two-person dinner arranged for himself and some girl, for instance Marty or especially of late Doreen . . . It was just too goddamn much in one day, this and his encoder, both together.
“Don’t you think,” Anne said, “it might have something to do with him being German? There’s been so much sorrow in Germans since that drug plague, those children born with flippers. I’ve talked to some who’ve said openly they thought it was God’s punishment on them for what was done during the Nazi period. And these weren’t religious men, these were businessmen, one here on Mars, the other at Home.”
“That damn stupid Steiner,” Arnie said. “That cabbage head.”
“Eat your food, Arnie.” She began to unfold her napkin. “The soup looks good.”
“I can’t eat,” he said. “I don’t want this siop.” He pushed his soup bowl away.
“You’re still just like a big baby,” Anne said. “Still having your tantrums.” Her voice was soft and compassionate.
“Hell,” he said, “sometimes I feel like I’ve got the weight of the entire planet on me, and you call me a baby!” He glared at her in baffled outrage.
“I didn’t know that Norbert Steiner was involved in the black market,” Anne said.
“Naturally you wouldn’t, you and your lady-committees. What do you know about the world around you? That’s why I’m here–I read that last ad you had in the _Times_ and it stank. You have to stop giving out that crap like you do; it repels intelligent people–it’s just for other cranks like yourself.”
“Please,” Anne said. “Eat your food. Calm down.”
“I’m going to assign a man from my Hall to look over your material before you distribute it. A professional.”
“Are you?” she said mildly.
“We’ve got a real problem–we’re not getting the skilled people to come over from Earth any more, the people we need. We’re rotting–everybody knows that. We’re falling apart.”
Smiling, Anne said, “Somebody will take Mr. Steiner’s place; there must be other black-market operators.”
Arnie said, “You’re deliberately misunderstanding me so as to make me look greedy and small, whereas actually I’m one of the most responsible members of the entire colonization attempt here on Mars, and that’s why our marriage broke down, because of your belittling me out of jealousy and competitiveness. I don’t know why I came over here today–it’s impossible for you to work things out on a rational basis, you have to inflict personalities into everything.”
“Did you know there’s a bill before the UN to shut Camp B-G?” Anne said calmly.
“No,” Arnie said.
“Does it distress you to think of B-G being closed?”
“Hell, we’ll give Sam private individual care.”
“What about the other children there?”
“You changed the subject,” Arnie said. “Listen, Anne, you have to knuckle down to what you call masculine domination and let my people edit what you write. Honest to God, it does more harm than good–I hate to say this to your face but it’s the truth. You’re a worse friend than you would be an enemy, the way you go about things. You’re a dabbler! Like most women. You’re–irresponsible.” He wheezed with wrath. Her face showed no reaction; what he said had no effect on her.
“Can you bring any pressure to bear to help keep B-G open?” she asked. “Maybe we can make a deal. I want to see it kept open.”
“A _cause_,” Arnie said ferociously.
“Yes.”
“You want my blunt answer?”
She nodded, facing him coolly.
“I’ve been sorry ever since those Jews opened that camp.”
Anne said, “Bless you, honest blunt Arnie Kott, mankind’s friend.”
“It tells the entire world we’ve got nuts here on Mars, that if you travel across space to get here you’re apt to damage your sexual organs and give birth to a monster that would make those German flipper-people look like your next-door neighbor.”
“You and the gentleman who runs the Red Fox.”
“I’m just being hard-headedly realistic. We’re in a struggle for our life; we’ve got to keep people emigrating here or we’re dead on the vine, Anne. You know that. If we didn’t have Camp B-G we could advertise that away from Earth’s H-bomb-testing, contaminated atmosphere there are no abnormal births. I hoped to see that, but B-G spoils it.”
“Not B-G. The births themselves.”
“No one would be able to check up and show our abnormal births,” Arnie said, “without B-G.”
“You’d say it, knowing it’s not true, if you could get away with it, telling them back Home that they’re safer here–”
“Sure.” He nodded.
“That’s–immoral.”
“No. Listen. You’re the immoral one, you and those other ladies. By keeping Camp B-G open you’re–”
“Let’s not argue, we’ll never agree. Let’s eat, and then you go on back to Lewistown. I can’t take any more.”
They ate their meal in silence.
Dr. Milton Glaub, member of the psychiatric pool at Camp B-G, on loan from the Interplan Truckers’ Union settlement, sat by himself in his own office once more, back from B-G, his stint there over for today. In his hands he held a bill for roof repairs done on his home the month before. He had put off the work–it involved the use of the scraper which kept the sand from piling up–but finally the settlement building inspector had mailed him a thirty-day condemnation notice. So he had contacted the Roofing Maintenance workers, knowing that he could not pay, but seeing no alternative. He was broke. This had been the worst month so far.
If only Jean, his wife, could spend less. But the solution did not lie there, anyhow; the solution was to acquire more patients. The ITU paid him a monthly salary, but for every patient he received an additional fifty-dollar bonus: incentive, it was called. In actuality it meant the difference between debt and solvency. Nobody with a wife and children could possibly live on the salary offered to psychiatrists, and the ITU, as everyone knew, was especially parsimonious.
And yet, Dr. Glaub continued to live in the ITU settlement; it was an orderly community, in some respects much like Earth. New Israel, like the other national settlements, had a charged, explosive quality.