Reincarnations Read online

  Then, as before, I awoke in a house all quiet and serene; all quiet and serene but for me, I should say, for I lay with my heart audibly thudding as if in rhythm to the tintinnabulation of a great iron bell, my nightclothes drenched with the fetid perspiration brought on by terror. I slept no more until dawn, and not a wink for two days afterwards, either.

  I had begun to steel myself towards a course of action I should have called mad in any other, yet one seemingly needful in my particular circumstance. Yet still I hesitated, for divers reasons that appeared to me good, beginning with my unwillingness to undergo yet more pain and suffering and ending with my disinclination to credit the conclusion towards which these nocturnal phantasms were driving me-or, it could be, I should say, beginning with the latter and ending with the former. So many dreams pass through the mendacious gate of ivory, it is easiest to believe they all do.

  Whilst equivocating-indeed, tergiversating, for I knew in my heart of hearts the right course, yet found not the courage to pursue it-I again found I could no longer hold eyelid apart from eyelid despite the heroic use of every stimulant known to man. I yawned; I tottered; I fell into bed, more in hope than in expectation of true rest; I slept.

  And, once more, I dreamt. I had thought my previous nightmare the worst that could ever befall any poor mortal, of no matter how sinful a character. This proves only the limits of my previous power of imagination, not of the horror to which I might subject myself in slumber-or rather, as I had begun to suspect, the horror to which some increasingly unwelcome interloper and cuckoo’s egg might subject me.

  I seemed to awake, not from sleep, but from some illness so grave and severe, so nearly fatal, as to have all but suspended permanently my every vital faculty. And, upon awakening, I found myself not in the bed in which I had surely had consciousness slip away from me, but lying on rude, hard planks in darkness absolute.

  It was not night. Oh, it may have been night, but it was not night that made the darkness. This I discovered on extending my hands upwards and encountering, less than a foot above my face, more boards, these as rude and hard as the others. Reaching out to either side, I found, God help me, more still. I had been laid in the tomb alive!

  But one question beat upon my mind as I beat uselessly, futilely, upon the inner confines of the coffin housing what soon would become in truth my mortal remains unless I found some means of egress- -would I go utterly mad ere perishing of asphyxiation, or would I take my last stifling breath still in full possession of the faculty of reason and aware to the end of my imminent extinction? The devil and the deep sea are as nothing beside it.

  My screams rang deafeningly loud in the wooden enclosure so altogether likely to enclose me forever. Perhaps God was kind, and I did not have earth surrounding me on all sides, six feet above and how many thousands of miles below? Perhaps some merciful soul, hearing the cries of one in his last extremity, would hurry to his rescue as the Good Samaritan did in our Lord’s parable so long ago. I did not believe it, but what had I to lose?

  Only after some little time had elapsed did I note what I was screaming, and in so doing startled myself even in the midst of the unsurpassable horror of interment untimely. No such commonplace expostulation as Help me! or In God’s name, let me out! passed my lips. No; what I shouted in that moment of terror inexpressible was, "I will give it back! So help me, I will give it back!"

  A monstrous shaking commenced, as from the earthquake that ravaged New Madrid in the days of my green youth. Was I saved? Had I lain in the mortuary after all, and was some kindly soul tipping over the casket to facilitate my liberation? Was that light-sweet, blissful light-beating on my eyelids, or was it no more than madness commencing to derange my sense?

  With a supreme effort of will, I opened my eyes. There above me, more sublimely beautiful than any angel’s, appeared my sweet Helen’s face, illumined by a candle bright and lovelier, altogether more welcoming, than the sun. "Are you well, Bill?" she inquired anxiously. "You gave some great, convulsive thrashes in your sleep."

  "I will give it back!" I said, as I had when I lay entombed, even if only within the bounds of my own mind. Helen laughed, reckoning me-as any reasonable person might-still half swaddled in my slumbers. Yet never in all my days was I more sincere, more intent, more determined.

  As soon as I thought there was any probability, no matter how remote, of bearding the illustrious Vankirk in his den, I hurried thither as fast as shank’s mare would carry me. Finding him there-a commendation to his diligence, a trait of character frequently allied to skill- -I was so rude as to seize him by the lapels, at the same time crying, "Take it out! Take from my jaw this ghastly, ghostly fragment, untimely ripped from the maxilla of a man who, even from beyond the grave, has made it all too plain he desires-no, requires-a reunion of his disiuncta membra."

  "My dear Legrand!" quoth Vankirk. "You desire me to remove the bicuspid I successfully-indeed, all but miraculously- -transplanted to your jaw? What madness do you speak, sir?"

  "If miracle this be, never let me see another," I replied. "A miracle is said to be a happening for the good, but no good has come to me of this. On the contrary; never have I known such nightmares, which word you may construe either metaphorically or literally, as best suits you." I spent the next little while explaining all that had eventuated since that tooth’s taking residence in my head, and finished, "This being so, I implore you to get it hence; get it hence forthwith. I have returned to you because of your knowledge of chloroform and skill with the anaesthetic drug, yet were you to tell me you needs must extract this accursed bicuspid with no such alleviating anodyne, I should not hesitate in begging you to proceed."

  "You are in earnest," Vankirk observed, and my answering nod, I dare say, closely approximated to that of a madman in its vehemence. He was for some time silent, examining me closely. "To eschew the use of chloroform in an extraction would show a beastly and barbarous cruelty to which no man aspiring to the merciful calling of dentistry should sink," he declared. "Come; seat yourself in my chair. I shall do as you wish, and charge not a penny for it; never let it be said I leave those seeking my services unsatisfied in any way."

  I seized his hand. "God bless you," I said fervently, and of my own free will placed myself in the seat in whose counterparts I had undergone so many exquisite excruciations. As he took the bottle of liquid Lethe from its repository, I held up one finger. "A moment, if you please."

  "Yes? What do you require now?"

  "Have you any notion, any true notion, of the provenance of this tooth? The more precisely you can return it, once drawn, to its former and even now rightful owner, the better, I think, for everyone."

  "I know from whom I bought it," Vankirk answered, "and have a good notion of the haunts she frequents. I can, I believe, make nearly certain to deliver it to the proper cemetery-or, I should say, paupers’ graveyard. Will that suffice you?"

  Although staggered at the notion that the person who took the tooth which had so tormented me from the reeking jaw of some dull-eyed, swollen corpse could possibly belong to the fair sex, I nodded once more. "You must do that very thing," I said. "You must swear by whatever you hold most dear and holy that you will do it; else I cannot answer for the consequences, either to you or to myself."

  "By my mother’s grave, Mr. Legrand-a fitting oath here, in my opinion-I shall do what you require of me," Vankirk said. The solemnity with which he spoke not failing to impress me, I lowered my head in agreement, as Jove is said to have done in days of yore. He commenced to removed the stopper from the jar of chloroform, but then, arresting the motion, sent my way a glance instinct with curiosity. "I trust I do infer correctly that you would have me extract the offending bicuspid-the suppositiously offending bicuspid-without attempting to implant in your maxilla another intended to replace it?"

  "Not for all the gold in California, not for all the cotton in Alabama, not for all the swindlers in New York City would I ever again have some other man’s dental apparatus
rooted in my own jaw. This being so, yes, sir, your inference is accurate."

  "Very well. You must be aware, your bite will suffer."

  "Worse things than my bite will suffer should you disregard my wishes here. Go on, man; go on."

  Bowing courteously, he said, "I obey," and did at last expose to the open air the contents of that small yet potent bottle. Once more he steeped a scrap of cloth in the oily liquid contained therein; to my nostrils came the heavy, sweetish odor of this incomparable product of human sagacity and ingenuity, this even before he pressed the cloth to my face and brought with it-oblivion.

  When I woke up, my mouth was full of blood. Vankirk held up a basin for me to spit in. I did. Soon as I could talk straight, I asks him, "Is the blamed thing out of there?"

  "It sure is," Vankirk says. He held up his pelican to prove it. I couldn’t swear that was the same tooth. But it was all over blood and there was a hole in my mouth in the right place, so I expect it was. He goes on, "I will tell you something downright peculiar, Mr. Legrand. Is your head clear enough to follow me?"

  "I will follow you wherever you may go," says I. "You may count on it. Tell me this downright peculiar thing."

  "I have had to take out a good many transplanted teeth," Vankirk says. "They most often fail. You know this yourself." I nodded, on account of I know it much too well. He goes on, "They are not in the habit of taking root. By the nature of things, they cannot be. They are dead. That means they come out easy as you please. But not this one here."

  "Is that a fact? Somehow, Mr. Vankirk, I am not much surprised."

  "By what you have told me, I can see how you would not be. This tooth here hung on with both hands and both feet, you might say. It made itself a part of you, and did not want to leave. I have never seen that before in a transplanted tooth. I never expect to see it again. I feared I would harm your jawbone getting it out. It was clinging that tight-it truly was. But it is gone now," he says.

  "A good thing, too," says I. "I will not miss it a bit, and you can bet on that. Now-are you sure you got it all?"

  He held up the pelican again. There was the tooth. It looked pretty much like a whole tooth, I will tell you that. Vankirk, now, he took another look at it. He frowned a little. Says he, "I suppose it is just barely possible some tiny little piece of root may have got left behind. I do not think so, but it is just barely possible. If it troubles you after this wound heals up, you come back, and I will go in there after it."

  "I will do that very thing. You may rely on it," says I.

  But that was a while ago now, and my teeth have not given me any trouble since. Well, that is not true. I have had some of the usual sort. I have the measure of that, though. With this new chloroform, I hardly even fear going to the tooth-drawer. I have not had any trouble of the other kind. I have not had any dreams of the sort I had with that tooth in my head. Those dreams would stagger an opium eater, and that is nothing but the truth.

  They are gone now. Thank heavens for that. Vankirk is a smart fellow, but this time he outsmarted himself. He did yank every bit of that miserable tooth, and he fooled himself when he thought he might not have. I am glad he fooled himself, too, which is one more thing you may take to the bank.

  In fact, George M., I am so glad that dreadful tooth is truly gone and will trouble me no more, I am going to ask you to set things up again for everybody, so my friends here can help me celebrate.

  Amontillado, all around!

  REINCARNATION

  I sold this one to Amazing's Pat Price at the party following the Nebula banquet in Los Angeles in 1988. Anything else I say about it would be longer than the story, so I won't.

  "It's true!" Harrison Smedley cried, looking up at last from the tomes over which he had pored for years.

  "Reincarnation is true, and I shall prove it!"

  Before his wife could stop him, he walked off the balcony of their fifteenth-floor apartment and plunged smiling to his death.

  He was right. The very next day, someone bought him and wore him for a boutonniere.

  THE PHANTOM TOLBUKHIN

  This is an alternate history involving the aftermath of a German victory in World War II. Fedor Tolbukhin was a prominent Soviet general during the war. His name, coupled with the epithet I used, also suggests a famous children's book and lets me indulge a low taste for puns I'm sure you've never, ever noticed before.

  General Fedor Tolbukhin turned to his political commissar. "Is everything in your area of responsibility in readiness for the assault, Nikita Sergeyevich?"

  "Fedor Ivanovich, it is," Nikita Khrushchev replied. "There can be no doubt that the Fourth Ukrainian Front will win another smashing victory against the fascist lice who suck the blood from the motherland."

  Tolbukhin’s mouth tightened. Khrushchev should have addressed him as Comrade General, not by his first name and patronymic. Political commissars had a way of thinking they were as important as real soldiers. But Khrushchev, unlike some-unlike most-political commissars Tolbukhin knew, was not afraid to get gun oil on his hands, or even to take a PPSh41 submachine gun up to the front line and personally pot a few fascists.

  "Will you inspect the troops before ordering them to the assault against Zaporozhye?" Khrushchev asked.

  "I will, and gladly," Tolbukhin replied.

  Not all of Tolbukhin’s forces were drawn up for inspection, of course: too great a danger of marauding Luftwaffe fighters spotting such an assemblage and shooting it up. But representatives from each of the units the Soviet general had welded into a solid fighting force were there, lined up behind the red banners that symbolized their proud records. Yes, they were all there: the flags of the First Guards Army, the Second Guards, the Eighth Guards, the Fifth Shock Army, the Thirty-eighth Army, and the Fifty-first.

  "Comrade Standard Bearer!" Tolbukhin said to the young soldier who carried the flag of the Eighth Guards Army, which bore the images of Marx and Lenin and Stalin.

  "I serve the Soviet Union, Comrade General!" the standard bearer barked. But for his lips, he was utterly motionless. By his wide Slavic face, he might have come from anywhere in the USSR; his mouth proved him a native Ukrainian, for he turned the Great Russian G into an H.

  "We all serve the Soviet Union," Tolbukhin said. "How may we best serve the motherland?"

  "By expelling from her soil the German invaders," the young soldier replied. "Only then can we take back what is ours. Only then can we begin to build true Communism. It surely will come in my lifetime."

  "It surely will," Tolbukhin said. He nodded to Khrushchev, who marched one pace to his left, one pace to the rear. "If all the men are as well indoctrinated as this one, the Fourth Ukrainian Front cannot fail."

  After inspecting the detachments, he conferred with the army commanders-and, inevitably, with their political commissars. They crowded a tumbledown barn to overflowing. By the light of a kerosene lantern, Tolbukhin bent over the map, pointing out the avenues of approach the forces would use. Lieutenant General Yuri Kuznetsov, commander of the Eighth Guards Army, grinned wide enough to show a couple of missing teeth. "It is a good plan, Comrade General," he said. "The invaders will regret ever setting foot in the Soviet Union."

  "I thank you, Yuri Nikolaievich," Tolbukhin said. "Your knowledge of the approach roads to the city will help the attack succeed."

  "The fascist invaders already regret ever setting foot in the Soviet Union," Khrushchev said loudly.

  Lieutenant General Kuznetsov dipped his head, accepting the rebuke. "I serve the Soviet Union!" he said, as if he were a raw recruit rather than a veteran of years of struggle against the Hitlerites.

  "You have the proper Soviet spirit," Tolbukhin said, and even the lanternlight was enough to show how Kuznetsov flushed with pleasure.

  Lieutenant General Ivanov of the First Guards Army turned to Major General Rudzikovich, who had recently assumed command of the Fifth Shock Army, and murmured, "Sure as the devil’s grandmother, the Phantom will make the Nazis pay."
>
  Tolbukhin didn’t think he was supposed to hear. But he was young for his rank-only fifty-three-and his ears were keen. The nickname warmed him. He’d earned it earlier in the war-the seemingly endless war-against the madmen and ruffians and murderers who followed the swastika. He’d always had a knack for hitting the enemies of the peasants and workers of the Soviet Union where they least expected it, then fading away before they could strike back at his forces.

  "Has anyone any questions about the plan before we continue the war for the liberation of Zaporozhye and all the territory of the Soviet Union now groaning under the oppressor’s heel?" he asked.

  He thought no one would answer, but Rudzikovich spoke up: "Comrade General, are we truly wise to attack the city from the northeast and southeast at the same time? Would we not be better off concentrating our forces for a single strong blow?"

  "This is the plan the council of the Fourth Ukrainian Front has made, and this is the plan we shall follow," Khrushchev said angrily.

  "Gently, gently," Tolbukhin told his political commissar. He turned back to Rudzikovich. "When we hit the Germans straight on, that is where we run into trouble. Is it not so, Anatoly Pavlovich? We will surprise them instead, and see how they like that."

  "I hope it won’t be too expensive, that’s all," Major General Rudzikovich said. "We have to watch that we spend our brave Soviet soldiers with care these days."

  "I know," Tolbukhin answered. "Sooner or later, though, the Nazis have to run out of men." Soviet strategists had been saying that ever since the Germans, callously disregarding the treaty von Ribbentrop had signed with Foreign Commissar Molotov, invaded the USSR. General Tolbukhin pointed to the evidence: "See how many Hungarian and Romanian and Italian soldiers they have here in the Ukraine to pad out their own forces."

  "And they cannot even station the Hungarians and Romanians next to one another, lest they fight," Khrushchev added-like any political commissar, if he couldn’t score points off Rudzikovich one way, he’d try another. "Thieves fall out. It is only one more proof that the dialectic assures our victory. So long as we labor like Stakhanovites, over and above the norm, that victory will be ours."