His bodyguard did so; the Mole stood facing Eric Sweetscent.
‘Listen, doctor. Here’s what I want to ask you. Suppose you began to perform an org-trans operation on me, taking out my old stomach and putting in a new one, and something went wrong. It wouldn’t hurt, would it? Because I’d be out. Could you do that?’ He watched Eric’s face. ‘You understand me, don’t you? I see you do.’ Behind them, at the closed door, the bodyguard stood impassively, keeping everyone else out, preventing them from hearing. This was for Eric alone. In utmost confidence.
‘Why?’ Eric said, after a time. Why not simply use Johannson’s loger-magnum pistol? If this is what you want…
‘I don’t know why, actually,’ the Mole said. ‘No one particular reason. The death of my wife, perhaps. Call it the responsibility I have to bear.. . and which I’m not managing to discharge properly, at least according to many people. I don’t agree; I think I’m succeeding. But they don’t understand all the factors in the situation.’ He admitted, then, ‘And I’m tired.’
‘It – could be done,’ Eric said truthfully.
‘And you could do it?’ The man’s eyes blazed, keen and fixed on him. Sizing him up as each second ticked away.
‘Yes, I could do it.’ He held, personally, an odd view regarding suicide. Despite his code, the ethical under-structure of medicine, he believed – and it was based on certain very real experiences in his own life – that if a man wanted to die he had the right to die. He did not possess an elaborated rationalization to justify this belief; he had not even tried to construct one. The proposition, to him, seemed self-evident. There was no body of evidence which proved that life in the first place was a boon. Perhaps it was for some persons; obviously it was not for others. For Gino Molinari it was a nightmare. The man was sick, guilt-ridden, saddled with an enormous, really hopeless task: he did not have the confidence of his own people, the Terran population, and he did not enjoy the respect or trust or admiration of the people of Lilistar. And then, above and beyond all that, lay the personal consideration, the events in his own private life, starting with the sudden, unexpected death of his wife and ending up with the pains in his belly. And then, too, Eric realized with acute comprehension, there was probably more. Factors known only to the Mole. Deciding factors which he did not intend to tell.
‘Would you do such a thing?’ Molinari asked.
After a long, long pause Eric said, ‘Yes I would. It would be an agreement between the two of us. You’d ask for it and I’d give it to you and it would end there. It would be no one’s business but our own.’
‘Yes.’ The Mole nodded and on his face relief showed; he seemed now to relax a little, to experience some peace. ‘I can see why Virgil recommended you.’
‘I was going to do it to myself, once,’ Eric said. ‘Not so long ago.’
The Mole’s head jerked, he stared at Eric Sweetscent with a look so keen that it cut through his physical self and into that which lay at the deepest, most silent part of him. ‘Really?’ the Mole said then.
‘Yes.’ He nodded. So I can understand, he thought to himself, can empathize with you even without having to know the exact reasons.
‘But I,’ the Mole said, ‘want to know the reasons.’ It was so close to a telepathic reading of his mind that Eric felt stunned; he found himself unable to look away from the penetrating eyes and he realized, then, that it had been no parapsycho-logical talent on the Mole’s part: it had been swifter and stronger than that.
The Mole extended his hand; reflexively, Eric accepted it. And, once he had done so, he found the grip remaining; the Mole did not release his hand but tightened his grip so that pain flew up Eric’s arm. The Mole was trying to see him better, trying, as Phyllis Ackerman had done not so long ago, to discover everything that could be discovered about him. But out of the Mole’s mind came no glib, flip theories; the Mole insisted on the truth, and articulated by Eric Sweetscent himself. He had to tell the Mole what it had been; he had no choice.
——————————————————————————–
Actually, in his case it had been a very small matter. Something which if told – and he had never been so foolish as to tell it, even to his professional headbasher – would have proved absurd, would have made him appear, and rightly so, an idiot. Or, even worse, mentally deranged.
It had been an incident between himself and—
‘Your wife,’ the Mole said, staring at him, never taking his eyes from him. And still the steady grip of his hand.
‘Yes.’ Eric nodded. ‘My Ampex video tapes … of the great mid-twentieth century comedian Jonathan Winters.’
The pretext for his first invitation of Kathy Lingrom had been his fabulous collection. She had expressed a desire to see them, to drop by his apt – at his invitation – to witness a few choice shots.
The Mole said, ‘And she read something psychological into your having the tapes. Something “meaningful” about you.’
‘Yes.’ Eric nodded somberly.
After Kathy had sat curled up one night in his living room, as long-legged and smooth as a cat, her bare breasts faintly green from the light coating of polish she had given them (in the latest style), watching the screen fixedly and, of course, laughing – who could fail to? – she had said contemplatively, ‘You know, what’s great about Winters was his talent for role-playing. And, once in a role, he was submerged; he seemed actually to believe in it.’
‘Is that bad?’ Eric had said.
‘No. But it tells me why you gravitate to Winters.’ Kathy fondled the damp, cold glass of her drink, her long lashes lowered in thought. ‘It’s that residual quality in him that could never be submerged in his role. It means you resist life, the role that you play out – being an org-trans surgeon, I suppose. Some childish, unconscious part of you won’t enter human society.’
‘Well, is that bad?’ He had tried to ask jokingly, wanting – even then – to turn this pseudopsychiatric, ponderous discussion to more convivial areas… areas clearly defined in his mind as he surveyed her pure, bare, pale green breasts flicking with their own luminosity.
‘It’s deceitful,’ Kathy said.
Hearing that, then, something in him had groaned, and something in him groaned now. The Mole seemed to hear it, to take note.
‘You’re cheating people,’ Kathy said. ‘Me, for instance.’ At that point – mercifully – she changed the topic. For that he felt gratitude. And yet – why did it bother him so?
Later, when they had married, Kathy primly requested that he keep his tape collection in his study and not out in the shared portion of their conapt. The collection vaguely vexed her, she said. But she did not know – or anyhow did not say – why. And when in the evenings he felt the old urge to play a section or tape, Kathy complained.
‘Why?’ the Mole asked.
He did not know; he had not then and did not now understand it. But it had been an ominous harbinger; he saw her aversion but the significance of it eluded him, and this inability to grasp the meaning of what was taking place in his married life made him deeply uneasy.
Meanwhile, through Kathy’s intercession, he had been hired by Virgil Ackerman. His wife had made it possible for him to take a notable leap in the hierarchy of econ and sose – economic and social – life. And of course he felt gratitude toward her; how could he not? His basic ambition had been fulfilled.
The means by which it had been accomplished had not struck him as overpoweringly important: many wives helped their husbands up the long steps in their careers. And vice versa. And yet—
It bothered Kathy. Even though it had been her idea.
‘She got you your job here?’ the Mole demanded, scowling. ‘And then after that she held it against you? I seem to get the picture, very clear.’ He plucked at a front tooth, still scowling, his face dark.
‘One night in bed—’ He stopped, feeling the difficulty of going on. It had been too private. And too awfully unpleasant.
‘I want to know,’ the Mole said, ‘the rest of it.’
He shrugged. ‘Anyhow – she said something about being “tired of the sham we’re living.” The “sham,” of course, being my job.’
Lying in bed, naked, her soft hair curling about her shoulders – in those days she had worn it longer – Kathy had said, ‘You married me to get your job. And you’re not striving on your own; a man should make his own way.’ Tears filled her eyes, and she flopped over on her face to cry – or appear, anyhow – to cry.