Mockingbird by Walter Tevis Read Free Book Online Page B

anymore,” she said. “Look at me. They haven’t detected me. For stealing sandwiches. For sleeping in a Public Place. For leaving the Drop-out Reservation without Re-entry.”
    I said nothing, but the shock must have shown on my face.
    “The Detectors don’t detect
anything
,” she said. “Maybe they never did. They don’t have to. Everybody is so conditioned from childhood that nobody ever
does
anything.”
    “People burn themselves to death,” I said. “Often.”
    “And do the Detectors stop that?” she said. “Why don’t the Detectors know that people are thinking unbalanced, suicidal thoughts, and restrain them?”
    I could only nod. She had to be right, of course.
    I looked at the broken glass on the floor and then at the broken case with the plastic tree in it, now empty of movement. Then I looked at her, standing there in the House of Reptiles in the bright artificial light, calm, undrugged, and—I was afraid—totally out of her head.
    She was looking toward the python’s case. From one of the higher branches of the tree inside there was hanging some sort of fruit. Abruptly, she reached her arm inside the cage and stretched up toward the fruit, clearly intending to pick it.
    I stared at her. The branch was quite high, and she had to stand tiptoed and reach as far up as she could reach, just to catch the bottom of the fruit with her fingertips. With the strong light from the inside of the case coming through her dress her body was outlined clearly; it was beautiful.
    She plucked the fruit, and stood there poised like a dancer with it for a moment. Then she brought it down level with her breasts and, turning it over in her hand, looked at it. It was hard to tell what kind of fruit it was; it seemed to be some kind of mango. For a moment I thought she was going to try to eat it, even though I was certain it was plastic, but then she stretched her arm out and handed the thing to me. “This certainly can’t be eaten,” she said. Her voice was surprisingly calm, resigned.
    I took it from her. “Why did you pick it?” I said.
    “I don’t know,” she said. “It seemed to be the thing to do.”
    I looked at her for a long time, saying nothing. Despite the age lines and the sleep lines in her face, and despite the uncombed look of her hair, she was very beautiful. And yet I felt no desire for her—only a kind of awe. And a slight sense of fear.
    Then I stuffed the plastic fruit into my pocket and said, “I’m going back to the library and take some sopors.”
    She turned away, looking back toward the empty case. “Okay,” she said. “Good night.”
     
    When I got back I put the fruit on top of
Dictionary
that sat on my bed-and-desk. Then I took three sopors. And slept until noon today.
    The fruit is still sitting there. I want it to mean something; but it doesn’t.
     
     
DAY THIRTY-SEVEN
     
     
    Four days without pills. And only two joints a day—one after supper and one before going to bed. It is all very strange. I feel tense and, somehow, excited.
    I am often restless and must have taken to walking up and down in the halls outside my room in the library basement. The halls are endless, labyrinthine, mossy and gently damp. I pass doorways and, occasionally, open a door and look in, remembering when I found
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, apprehensive, almost, that I may find something. I’m not certain that I want to find anything. I have had enough new things since I came to this place.
    But there is never anything in the rooms. Some have shelves in them, from floor to ceiling, but there is never anything on the shelves. I look around, then close the door and continue down the hall. The halls always smell musty.
    The doors of the rooms are of different colors, so that you may tell them apart. My room has a lavender door, to match the carpet inside.
    When I first moved in here, the feeling of walking about in this vast, empty building was frightening. But now I derive a kind of comfort from it.
    I no