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Authors: Fritz Leiber
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permanent.
Except for the bangs she wore her hair pinned up. Her ears were flat, thin-edged, and nicely shaped, with the long lobes that in Chinese art mark the philosopher. Small square silver flats with rounded comers ornamented them.
Her face might have been painted by Toulouse-Lautrec or Degas. The skin was webbed with very fine lines; the eyes were darkly shadowed and there was a touch of green on the lids (Egyptian?—I asked myself); her mouth was wide, tolerant, but realistic. Yes, beyond all else, she seemed realistic.
And as I’ve indicated, I was ready for realism, so when she asked, "Do you want to live?” I somehow managed not to let slip any of the flippant answers that came flocking into my mouth, I realized that this was the one time in a million when a big question is really meant and your answer really counts and there are no second chances, I realized that the line of my life had come to one of those points where there’s a kink in it and the wrong (or maybe the right) tug can break it and that as far as I was concerned at the present moment, she knew all about everything.
So I thought for a bit, not long, and I answered, “Yes.”
She nodded—not as if she approved my decision, or disapproved it for that matter, but merely as if she accepted it as a basis for negotiations—and she let her bangs fall back across her forehead. Then she gave me a quick dry smile and she said, “In that case you and I have got to get out of here and do some talking.”
For me that smile was the first break in the shell—the shell around my rancid consciousness or perhaps the dark, star-pricked shell around the space-time continuum.
“Come on,” she said. “No, just as you are. Don’t stop for anything and—” (She caught the direction of my immediate natural movement) “—don’t look behind you if you meant that about wanting to live.”
Ordinarily being told not to look behind you is a remarkably silly piece of advice, it makes you think of those “pursuing fiend” horror stories that scare children, and you look around automatically—if only to prove you’re no child. Also in this present case there was my very real and dreadful curiosity: I wanted terribly (yes, terribly) to know whom it was I had just killed—a forgotten third wife? a stray woman? a jealous husband or boyfriend? (though I seemed too cracked up for love affairs) the hotel clerk? a fellow derelict?
But somehow, as with her “want to live” question, I had the sense to realize that this was one of those times when the usually silly statement is /lead serious, that she meant her warning quite literally.
If I looked behind me, I would die.
I looked straight ahead as I stepped past the scattered brown empty bottles and the thin fume mounting from the tiny crater in the carpet where I’d dropped a live cigarette.
As I followed her through the door I caught, from the window behind me, the distant note of a police siren.
Before we reached the elevator the siren was nearer and it sounded as if the fire department had been called out too.
I saw a silvery flicker ahead. There was a big mirror facing the elevators.
“What I told you about not looking behind you goes for mirrors too,” my conductress informed me. “Until I tell you differently.”
The instant she said that, I knew that I had forgotten what I looked like; I simply could not visualize that dreadful witness (generally inhabiting a smeary bathroom mirror) of so many foggy mornings: my own face. One glance in the mirror
But I told myself: realism. I saw a blur of brown shoes nnd black sandals in the big mirror, nothing more.
The cage of the right-hand elevator, dark and empty, was stopped at this floor. A cross wise wooden bar held the door open. My conductress removed the bar and we stepped inside. The door closed and she touched the controls. I wondered, “Which way will it go? Sideways?”
It began to sink normally. I started to touch my face, but didn’t. I
Except for the bangs she wore her hair pinned up. Her ears were flat, thin-edged, and nicely shaped, with the long lobes that in Chinese art mark the philosopher. Small square silver flats with rounded comers ornamented them.
Her face might have been painted by Toulouse-Lautrec or Degas. The skin was webbed with very fine lines; the eyes were darkly shadowed and there was a touch of green on the lids (Egyptian?—I asked myself); her mouth was wide, tolerant, but realistic. Yes, beyond all else, she seemed realistic.
And as I’ve indicated, I was ready for realism, so when she asked, "Do you want to live?” I somehow managed not to let slip any of the flippant answers that came flocking into my mouth, I realized that this was the one time in a million when a big question is really meant and your answer really counts and there are no second chances, I realized that the line of my life had come to one of those points where there’s a kink in it and the wrong (or maybe the right) tug can break it and that as far as I was concerned at the present moment, she knew all about everything.
So I thought for a bit, not long, and I answered, “Yes.”
She nodded—not as if she approved my decision, or disapproved it for that matter, but merely as if she accepted it as a basis for negotiations—and she let her bangs fall back across her forehead. Then she gave me a quick dry smile and she said, “In that case you and I have got to get out of here and do some talking.”
For me that smile was the first break in the shell—the shell around my rancid consciousness or perhaps the dark, star-pricked shell around the space-time continuum.
“Come on,” she said. “No, just as you are. Don’t stop for anything and—” (She caught the direction of my immediate natural movement) “—don’t look behind you if you meant that about wanting to live.”
Ordinarily being told not to look behind you is a remarkably silly piece of advice, it makes you think of those “pursuing fiend” horror stories that scare children, and you look around automatically—if only to prove you’re no child. Also in this present case there was my very real and dreadful curiosity: I wanted terribly (yes, terribly) to know whom it was I had just killed—a forgotten third wife? a stray woman? a jealous husband or boyfriend? (though I seemed too cracked up for love affairs) the hotel clerk? a fellow derelict?
But somehow, as with her “want to live” question, I had the sense to realize that this was one of those times when the usually silly statement is /lead serious, that she meant her warning quite literally.
If I looked behind me, I would die.
I looked straight ahead as I stepped past the scattered brown empty bottles and the thin fume mounting from the tiny crater in the carpet where I’d dropped a live cigarette.
As I followed her through the door I caught, from the window behind me, the distant note of a police siren.
Before we reached the elevator the siren was nearer and it sounded as if the fire department had been called out too.
I saw a silvery flicker ahead. There was a big mirror facing the elevators.
“What I told you about not looking behind you goes for mirrors too,” my conductress informed me. “Until I tell you differently.”
The instant she said that, I knew that I had forgotten what I looked like; I simply could not visualize that dreadful witness (generally inhabiting a smeary bathroom mirror) of so many foggy mornings: my own face. One glance in the mirror
But I told myself: realism. I saw a blur of brown shoes nnd black sandals in the big mirror, nothing more.
The cage of the right-hand elevator, dark and empty, was stopped at this floor. A cross wise wooden bar held the door open. My conductress removed the bar and we stepped inside. The door closed and she touched the controls. I wondered, “Which way will it go? Sideways?”
It began to sink normally. I started to touch my face, but didn’t. I
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