Job: A Comedy of Justice by Robert A. Heinlein
We had come out of the desert into low green hills. It was a beautiful day but we were tired, hungry, sweaty, and dirty, for our persecutors—Satan or whoever—had outdone themselves: three changes in thirty-six hours.
In one day I had had two dishwashing jobs in the same town at the same address…and had collected nothing. It is difficult to collect from The Lonesome Cowboy Steak House when it turns into Vivian’s Grill in front of your eyes. The same was true three hours later when Vivian’s Grill melted into a used-car lot. The only thing good about these shocks was that by great good fortune (or conspiracy?) Margrethe was with me each time—in one case she had come to get me and was waiting with me while my boss was figuring my time, in the other she had been working with me.
The third change did us out of a night’s lodging that had already been paid for in kind by Margrethe’s labor.
So when that trucker dropped us, we were tired and hungry and dirty and my paranoia had reached a new high.
We had been walking a few hundred yards when we came to a sweet little stream, a sight in Texas precious beyond all else.
We stopped on the culvert bridging it. “Margrethe, how would you like to wade in that?”
“Darling, I’m going to do more than wade in it, I’m going to bathe in it.”
“Hmm—Yes, go under the fence, along the stream about fifty, seventy-five yards, and I don’t think anyone could see us from the road.”
“Sweetheart, they can line up and cheer if they want to; I’m going to have a bath. And—That water looks clean. Would it be safe to drink?”
“The upstream side? Certainly. We’ve taken worse chances every day since the iceberg. Now if we had something to eat—Say, your hot fudge sundae. Or would you prefer scrambled eggs?” I held up the lower wire of the fence to let her crawl under.
“Will you settle for an Oh Henry bar?”
“Make that a Milky Way,” I answered, “if I have my druthers.”
“I’m afraid you don’t, dear. An Oh Henry bar is all there is.” She held the wire for me.
“Maybe we’d better stop talking about food we don’t have,” I said, and crawled under—straightened up and added, “I’m ready to eat raw skunk.”
“Food we do have, dear man. I have an Oh Henry in my tote.”
I stopped abruptly. “Woman, if you’re joking, I’m going to beat you.”
“I’m not joking.”
“In Texas it is legal to correct a wife with a stick not thicker than one’s thumb.” I held up my thumb. “Do you see one about this size?”
“I’ll find one.”
“Where did you get a candy bar?”
“That roadside stop where Mr. Facelli treated us to coffee and doughnuts.”
Mr. Facelli had been our middle-of-the-night ride just before the truck that had just dropped us. Two small cake doughnuts each and the sugar and cream for coffee had been our only calories for twenty-four hours.
“The beating can wait. Woman, if you stole it, tell me about it later. You really do have a real live Oh Henry? Or am I getting feverish?”
“Alec, do you think I would steal a candy bar? I bought it from a coin machine while you and Mr. Facelli were in the men’s room after we ate.”
“How? We don’t have any money. Not from this « world.”
“Yes, Alec. But there was a dime in my tote, from two changes back. Of course it was not a good dime, strictly speaking. But I couldn’t see any real harm if the machine would take it. And it did. But I put it out of sight before you two got back…because I didn’t have three dimes and could not offer a candy bar to Mr. Facelli.” She added anxiously, “Do you think I cheated? Using that dime?”
“It’s a technicality I won’t go into…as long as I get to share in the proceeds of the crime. And that makes me equally guilty. Uh…eat first, or bathe first?”
We ate first, a picnic banquet washed down by delicious creek water. Then we bathed, with much splashing and laughing—I remember it as one of the happiest times of my life. Margrethe had soap in her tote bag, too, and I supplied the towel, my shirt. First I wiped Margrethe with it, then I wiped me with it. The dry, warm air finished the job.
What happened immediately after was inevitable. I had never in my life made love outdoors, much less in bright daylight. If anyone had asked me, I would have said that for me it would be a psychological impossibility; I would be too inhibited, too aware of the indecency involved.
I am amazed and happy to say that, while keenly aware of the circumstances, I was untroubled at the time and quite able…perhaps because of Margrethe’s bubbling, infectious enthusiasm.
I have never slept naked on grass before, either. I think we slept about an hour.
When we woke up, Margrethe insisted on shaving me. I could not shave myself very well as I had no mirror, but she could and did, with her usual efficiency. We stood knee-deep in the water; I worked up soapsuds with my hands and slathered my face. She shaved and I renewed the lather as needed.
“There,” she said at last, and gave me a sign-off kiss, “you’ll do. Rinse off now and don’t forget your ears. I’ll find the towel. Your shirt.” She climbed onto the bank while I leaned, far over and splashed water on my face.
“Alec—”
“I can’t hear you; the water’s running.”
“Please, dear!”
I straightened up, wiped the water out of my eyes, looked around.
Everything we owned was gone, everything but my razor.
XVII
Behold, I go forward, but he is not there;
and backward, but I cannot perceive him: On the
left hand, where he doth work, but I cannot
behold him: he hideth himself on the right hand,
that I cannot see him.
Job 23:8-10
Margrethe said, “What did you do with the soap?”
I took a deep breath, sighed it out. “Did I hear you correctly? You’re asking what I did with the soap?”
“What would you rather I said?”
“Uh—I don’t know. But not that. A miracle takes place…and you ask me about a bar of soap.”
“Alec, a miracle that takes place again and again and again is no longer a miracle; it’s just a nuisance. Too many, too much. I want to scream or break into tears. So I asked about the soap.”
I had been halfway to hysteria myself when Margrethe’s statement hit me like a dash of cold water. Margrethe? She who took icebergs and earthquakes in her stride, she who never whimpered in adversity…she wanted to scream?
“I’m sorry, dear. I had the soap in my hands when you were shaving me. I did not have it in my hands when I rinsed my face. I suppose I laid it on the bank. But I don’t recall. Does it matter?”
“Not really, I suppose. Although that cake of Camay, used just once, would be half our worldly goods if I could find it, this razor being the other half. You may have placed it on the bank, but I don’t see it.”
“Then it’s gone. Marga, we’ve got urgent things to worry about before we’ll be dirty enough to need soap again. Food, clothing, shelter.” I scrambled up onto the bank. “Shoes. We don’t even have shoes. What do we do now? I’m stumped. If I had a wailing wall, I’d wail.”
“Steady, dear, steady.”
“Is it all right if I just whimper a little?”
She came close, put her arms around me, and kissed me. “Whimper all you want to, dear, whimper for both of us. Then let’s decide what to do.”
I can’t stay depressed with Margrethe’s arms around me. “Do you have any ideas? I can’t think of anything but picking our way back to the highway and trying to thumb a ride…which doesn’t appeal to me in the state I’m in. Not even a fig leaf. Do you see a fig tree?”
“Does Texas have fig trees?”
“Texas has everything. What do we do now?”
“We go back to the highway and start walking.”
“Barefooted? Why not stand still and wave our thumbs? We can’t
“They’ll toughen up. Alec, we must keep moving. For our morale, love. If we give up, we’ll die. I know it.”
Ten minutes later we were moving slowly east on the highway. But it was not the highway we had left. This one was four lanes instead of two, with wide paved shoulders. The fence marking the right of way, instead of three strands of barbed wire, was chain-link steel as high as my head. We would have had a terrible time reaching the highway had it not been for the stream. By going back into the water and holding our breaths, we managed to slither under the fence. This left us sopping wet again (and no towel-shirt) but the warm air corrected that in a few minutes.
There was much more traffic on this highway than there had been on the one we had left, both freight and what seemed to be passenger cars. And it was fast. How fast I could not guess, but it seemed at least twice as fast as any ground transportation I had ever seen. Perhaps as fast as transoceanic dirigibles.
There were big vehicles that had to be freight movers but looked more like railroad boxcars than they looked like lorries. And even longer than boxcars. But as I stared I figured out that each one was at least three cars, articulated. I figured this out by attempting to count wheels. Sixteen per car? Six more on some sort of locomotive up front, for a total of fifty-four wheels. Was this possible?
These behemoths moved with no sound but the noise of air rushing past them, plus a whoosh of tires against pavement. My dynamics professor would have approved.
In the lane nearest us were smaller vehicles that I assumed to be passenger cars, although I could not see anyone inside. Where one would expect windows appeared to be mirrors or burnished steel. They were long and low and as sleekly shaped as an airship.
And now I saw that this was not one highway, but two. All the traffic on the pavement nearest us was going east; at least a hundred yards away another stream of traffic was going west. Still farther away, seen only in glimpses, was a limit fence for the northern side of the widest right of way I have ever seen.
We trudged along on the edge of the shoulder. I began to feel gloomy about the chances of being picked up. Even if they could see us (which seemed uncertain), how could they stop quickly enough to pick up someone on the highway? Nevertheless I waved the hitchhikers’ sign at each car.
I kept my misgivings to myself. After we had been walking a dismal time, a car that had just passed us dropped out of the traffic lane onto the shoulder, stopped at least a quarter mile ahead of us, then backed toward us at a speed I would regard as too fast if I were going forward. We got hastily off the shoulder.
It stopped alongside us. A mirrored section a yard wide and at least that high lifted up like a storm-cellar door, and I found myself looking into the passenger compartment. The operator looked out at us and grinned. “I don’t believe it!”
I tried to grin back. “I don’t believe it myself. But here we are. Will you give us a ride?”
“Could be.” He looked Margrethe up and down. “My, aren’t you the purty thing! What happened?”
Margrethe answered, “Sir, we are lost.”
“Looks like. But how did you manage to lose your clothes, too? Kidnapped? Or what? Never mind, that can wait. I’m Jerry Farnsworth.”
I answered, “We’re Alec and Margrethe Graham.”
“Good to meet you. Well, you don’t look armed—except for that thing in your hand, Miz Graham. What is it?”
She held it out to him. “A razor.”
He accepted it, looked at it, handed it back. “Durned if it isn’t. Haven’t seen one like that since I was too young to shave. Well, I don’t see how you can highjack me with that. Climb in. Alec, you can have the back seat; your sister can sit up here with me.” Another section of the shell swung upward.
“Thank you,” I answered, thinking sourly about beggars and choosers. “Marga is not my sister, she’s my wife.”
“Lucky man! Do you object to your wife riding with me?”
“Oh, of course not!”
“I think that answer would cause a tension meter to jingle. Dear, you’d better get back there with your husband.”
“Sir, you invited me to sit with you and my husband voiced his approval.” Margrethe slipped into the forward passenger seat. I opened my mouth and closed it, having found I had nothing to say. I climbed into the back seat, discovered that the car was bigger inside than out; the seat was roomy and comfortable. The doors closed down; the “mirrors” now were windows.
“I’m about to put her back into the flow,” our host said, “so don’t fight the safeties. Sometimes this buggy bucks like a Brahma bull, six gees or better. No, wait a sec. Where are you two going?” He looked at Margrethe.
“We’re going to Kansas, Mr. Farnsworth.”
“Call me Jerry, dear. In your skin?”
“We have no clothing, sir. We lost it.”
I added, “Mr. Farnsworth—Jerry—we’re in a distressed state. We lost everything. Yes, we are going to Kansas, but first we must find clothes somewhere—Red Cross, maybe, I don’t know. And I’ve got to find a job and make us some money. Then we’ll go to Kansas.”
“I see. I think I do. Some of it. How are you going to get to Kansas?”
“I had in mind continuing straight on to Oklahoma City, then north. Stick to the main highways. Since we’re hitchhiking.”
“Alec, you really are lost. See that fence? Do you know the penalty for a pedestrian caught inside that fence?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Ignorance is bliss. You’ll be much better off on the small side roads where hitching is still legal, or at least tolerated. If you’re for Oke City, I can help you along. Hang on.” He did something at controls in front of him. He didn’t touch the wheel because there wasn’t any wheel to touch. Instead there were two hand grips.
The car vibrated faintly, then jumped sideways. I felt as if I had fallen into soft mush and my skin tingled as with static electricity. The car bucked like a small boat in a heavy sea, but that “soft mush” kept me from being battered about. Suddenly it quieted down and only that faint vibration continued. The landscape was streaking past.
“Now,” said Mr. Farnsworth, “tell me about it.”
“Margrethe?”
“Of course, dearest. You must.”
“Jerry…we’re from another world.”
“Oh, no!” He groaned. “Not another flying saucer! That makes four this week. That’s your story?”
“No, no. I’ve never seen a flying saucer. We’re from earth, but…different. We were hitchhiking on Highway Sixty-Six, trying to reach Kansas—”
“Wait a minute. You said, ‘Sixty-Six.’”
“Yes, of course.”
“That’s what they used to call this road before they rebuilt it. But it hasn’t been called anything but Interstate Forty for, oh, over forty years, maybe fifty. Hey. Time travelers! Are you?”
“What year is this?” Tasked.
“Nineteen-ninety-four.”
“That’s our year, too. Wednesday the eighteenth of May. Or was this morning. Before the change.”
“It still is. But—Look, let’s quit jumping around. Start at the beginning, whenever that was, and tell me how you wound up inside the fence, bare naked.”
So I told him.
Presently he said, “That fire pit. Didn’t burn you?”
“One small blister.”
“Just a blister. I reckon you would be safe in Hell.”
“Look, Jerry, they really do walk on live coals.”
“I know, I’ve seen it. In New Guinea. Never hankered to try it. That iceberg—Something bothers me. How does an iceberg crash into the side of a vessel? An iceberg is dead in the water, always: Certainly a ship can bump into one but damage should be to the bow. Right?”
“Margrethe?”
“I don’t know, Alec. What Jerry says sounds right. But it did happen.”
“Jerry, I don’t know either. We we
Farnsworth looked thoughtfully at me. He had swiveled his seat around to face both of us while I talked, and he had showed Margrethe how to unlock her chair so that it would turn, also, which brought us three into an intimate circle of conversation, knees almost touching—and left him with his back to the traffic. “Alec, what became of this Hergensheimer?”
“Maybe I didn’t make that clear—it’s not too clear to me, either. It’s Graham who is missing. I am Hergensheimer. When I walked through the fire and found myself in a different world, I found myself in Graham’s place, as I said. Everybody called me Graham and seemed to think that I was Graham—and Graham was missing. I guess you could say I took the easy way out…but there I was, thousands of miles from home, no money, no ticket, and nobody had ever heard of Alexander Hergensheimer.” I shrugged and spread my hands helplessly. “I sinned. I wore his clothes, I ate at his table, I answered to his name.”
“I still don’t get the skinny of this. Maybe you look enough like Graham to fool almost anyone…but your wife would know the difference. Margie?”
Margrethe looked into my eyes with sadness and love, and answered steadily, “Jerry, my husband is confused. A strange amnesia. He is Alec Graham. There is no Alexander Hergensheimer. There never was.”
I was left speechless. True, Margrethe and I had not discussed this matter for many weeks; true, she had never flatly admitted that I was not Alec Graham. I was learning again (again and again!) that one never won an argument with Margrethe. Any time I thought I had won, it always turned out that she had simply shut up.
Farnsworth said to me, “Maybe that knock in the head, Alec?”
“Look, that knock in the head was nothing—a few minutes unconsciousness, nothing more. And no gaps in my memory. Anyhow it happened two weeks after the fire walk. Jerry, my wife is a wonderful woman…but I must disagree with her on this. She wants to believe that I am Alec Graham because she fell in love with Graham before she ever met me. She believes it because she needs to believe it. But of course I know who I am: Hergensheimer. I admit that amnesia can have some funny effects…but there was one clue that I could not have faked, one that said emphatically that I, Alexander Hergensheimer, was not Alec Graham.”