He yanked up the receiver.
"Hello!" he cried.
Buzzzzzzzzz.
"Hello, hello!"
They had hung up.
"Hello!" he shouted, and banged the phone. "You stupid idiot!" he cried to himself. "Sitting on that curb, you fool! Oh, you damned and awful fool!" He squeezed the phone. "Come on, ring again! Come on!"
He had never thought there might be others left on Mars. In the entire week he had seen no one. He had figured that all other towns were as empty as this one.
Now, staring at this terrible little black phone, he trembled. Interlocking dial systems connected every town on Mars. From which of thirty cities had the call come?
He didn't know.
He waited. He wandered to the strange kitchen, thawed some iced huckleberries, ate them disconsolately.
"There wasn't anyone on the other end of that call," he murmured. "Maybe a pole blew down somewhere and the phone rang by itself."
But hadn't he heard a click, which meant someone had hung up far away?
He stood in the hall the rest of the night. "Not because of the phone," he told himself. "I just haven't anything else to do."
He listened to his watch tick.
"She won't phone back," he said. "She won't ever call a number that didn't answer. She's probably dialing other houses in town right now! And here I sit--Wait a minute!" He laughed. "Why do I keep saying 'she'?"
He blinked. "It could as easily be a 'he,' couldn't it?"
His heart slowed. He felt very cold and hollow.
He wanted very much for it to be a "she."
He walked out of the house and stood in the center of the early, dim morning street.
He listened. Not a sound. No birds. No cars. Only his heart beating. Beat and pause and beat again. His face ached with strain. The wind blew gently, oh so gently, flapping his coat.
"Sh," he whispered. "Listen."
He swayed in a slow circle, turning his head from one silent house to another.
She'll phone more and more numbers, he thought. It must be a woman. Why? Only a woman would call and call. A man wouldn't. A man's independent. Did I phone anyone? No! Never thought of it. It must be a woman. It has to be, by God!
Listen.
Far away, under the stars, a phone rang.
He ran. He stopped to listen. The ringing, soft. He ran a few more steps. Louder. He raced down an alley. Louder still! He passed six houses, six more. Much louder! He chose a house and its door was locked.
The phone rang inside.
"Damn you!" He jerked the doorknob.
The phone screamed.
He heaved a porch chair through a parlor window, leaped in after it.
Before he even touched the phone, it was silent.
He stalked through the house then and broke mirrors, tore down drapes, and kicked in the kitchen stove.
Finally, exhausted, he picked up the thin directory which listed every phone on Mars. Fifty thousand names.
He started with number one.
Amelia Ames. He dialed her number in New Chicago, one hundred miles over the dead sea.
No answer.
Number two lived in New New York, five thousand miles across the blue mountains.
No answer.
He called three, four, five, six, seven, eight, his fingers jerking, unable to grip the receiver.
A woman's voice answered, "Hello?"
Walter cried back at her, "Hello, oh lord, hello!"
"This is a recording," recited the woman's voice. "Miss Helen Arasumian is not home. Will you leave a message on the wire spool so she may call you when she returns? Hello? This is a recording. Miss Arasumian is not home. Will you leave a message--"
He hung up.
He sat with his mouth twitching.
On second thought he redialed that number.
"When Miss Helen Arasumian comes home," he said, "tell her to go to hell."
He phoned Mars Junction, New Boston, Arcadia, and Roosevelt City exchanges, theorizing that they would be logical places for persons to dial from; after that he contacted local city halls and other public institutions in each town. He phoned the best hotels. Leave it to a woman to put herself up in luxury.
Suddenly he stopped, clapped his hands sharply together, and laughed. Of course! He checked the directory and dialed a long-distance call through to the biggest beauty parlor in New Texas City. If ever there was a place where a woman would putter around, patting mud packs on her face and sitting under a drier, it would be a velvet-soft, diamond-gem beauty parlor!
The phone rang. Someone at the other end lifted the receiver.
A woman's voice said, "Hello?"
"If this is a recording," announced Walter Gripp, "I'll come over and blow the place up."
"This isn't a record," said the woman's voice. "Hello! Oh, hello, there is someone alive! Where are you?" She gave a delighted scream.
Walter almost collapsed. "You!' He stood up jerkily, eyes wild. "Good lord, what luck, what's your name?"
"Genevieve Selsor!" She wept into the receiver. "Oh, I'm so glad to hear from you, whoever you are!"
"Walter Gripp!"
"Walter, hello, Walter!"
"Hello, Genevieve!"
"Walter. It's such a nice name. Walter, Walter!"
"Thank you."
"Walter, where are you?"
Her voice was so kind and sweet and fine. He held the phone tight to his ear so she could whisper sweetly into it. He felt his feet drift off the floor. His cheeks burned.
"I'm in Marlin Village," he said. "I--"
Buzz.
"Hello?" he said.
Buzz.
He jiggled the hook. Nothing.
Somewhere a wind had blown down a pole. As quickly as she had come, Genevieve Selsor was gone.
He dialed, but the line was dead.
"I know where she is, anyway." He ran out of the house. The sun was rising as he backed a bettle-car from the stranger's garage, filled its backseat with food from the house, and set out at eighty miles an hour down the highway, heading for New Texas City. A thousand miles, he thought. Genevieve Selsor, sit tight, you'll hear from me!
He honked his horn on every turn out of town.
At sunset, after an impossible day of driving, he pulled to the roadside, kicked off his tight shoes, laid himself out in the seat, and slid the gray Homburg over his weary eyes. His breathing became slow and regular. The wind blew and the stars shone gently upon him in the new dusk. The Martian mountains lay all around, millions of years old. Starlight glittered on the spires of a little Martian town, no bigger than a game of chess, in the blue hills.
He lay in the half-place between awakeness and dreams. He whispered. Genevieve. Oh, Genevieve, sweet Genevieve, he sang softly, the years may come, the years may go. But Genevieve, sweet Genevieve .... There was a warmth in him. He heard her quiet sweet cool voice singing. Hello, oh, hello, Walter! This is no record. Where are you, Walter, where are you?
He sighed, putting up a hand to touch her in the moonlight. Long dark hair shaking in the wind; beautiful, it was. And her lips like red peppermints. And her cheeks like fresh-cut wet roses. And her body like a clear vaporous mist, while her soft cool sweet voice crooned to him once more the words to the old sad song, Oh, Genevieve, sweet Genevieve, the years may come, the years may go ...
He slept.
He reached New Texas City at midnight.
He halted before the Deluxe Beauty Salon, yelling.
He expected her to rush out, all perfume, all laughter.
Nothing happened.
"She's asleep." He walked to the door. "Here I am!" he called. "Hello, Genevieve!"
The town lay in double moonlit silence. Somewhere a wind flapped a canvas awning.
He swung the glass door wide and stepped in.
"Hey!" He laughed uneasily. "Don't hide! I know you're here!"
He searched every booth.
He found a tiny handkerchief on the floor. It
smelled so good he almost lost his balance. "Genevieve," he said.
He drove the car through the empty streets but saw nothing. "If this is a practical joke ... "
He slowed the car. "Wait a minute. We were cut off. Maybe she drove to Marlin Village while I was driving here! She probably took the old Sea Road. We missed each other during the day. How'd she know I'd come get her? I didn't say I would. And she was so afraid when the phone died that she rushed to Marlin Village to find me! And here I am, by God, what a fool I am!"
Giving the horn a blow, he shot out of town.
He drove all night. He thought, What if she isn't in Marlin Village waiting, when I arrive?
He wouldn't think of that. She must be there. And he would run up and hold her and perhaps even kiss her, once, on the lips.
Genevieve, sweet Genevieve, he whistled, stepping it up to one hundred miles an hour.
Marlin Village was quiet at dawn. Yellow lights were still burning in several stores, and a juke box that had played steadily for one hundred hours finally, with a crackle of electricity, ceased, making the silence complete. The sun warmed the streets and warmed the cold and vacant sky.
Walter turned down Main Street, the car lights still on, honking the horn a double toot, six times at one corner, six times at another. He peered at the store names. His face was white and tired, and his hands slid on the sweaty steering wheel.
"Genevieve!" he called in the empty street.
The door to a beauty salon opened.
"Genevieve!" He stopped the car.
Genevieve Selsor stood in the open door of the salon as he ran across the street. A box of cream chocolates lay open in her arms. Her fingers, cuddling it, were plump and pallid. Her face, as he stepped into the light, was round and thick, and her eyes were like two immense eggs stuck into a white mess of bread dough. Her legs were as big around as the stumps of trees, and she moved with an ungainly shuffle. Her hair was an indiscriminate shade of brown that had been made and remade, it appeared, as a nest for birds. She had no lips at all and compensated this by stenciling on a large red, greasy mouth that now popped open in delight, now shut in sudden alarm. She had plucked her brows to thin antenna lines.
Walter stopped. His smile dissolved. He stood looking at her.
She dropped her candy box to the sidewalk.
"Are you--Genevieve Selsor?" His ears rang.
"Are you Walter Griff?" she asked.
"Gripp."
"Gripp," she corrected herself.
"How do you do," he said with a restrained voice.
"How do you do." She shook his hand.
Her fingers were sticky with chocolate.
"Well," said Walter Gripp.
"What?" asked Genevieve Selsor.
"I just said, 'Well,'" said Walter.
"Oh."
It was nine o'clock at night. They had spent the day picnicking, and for supper he had prepared a filet mignon which she didn't like because it was too rare, so he broiled it some more and it was too much broiled or fried or something. He laughed and said, "We'll see a movie!" She said okay and put her chocolaty fingers on his elbow. But all she wanted to see was a fifty-year-old film of Clark Gable. "Doesn't he just kill you?" She giggled. "Doesn't he kill you, now?" The film ended. "Run it off again," she commanded. "Again?" he asked. "Again," she said. And when he returned she snuggled up and put her paws all over him. "You're not quite what I expected, but you're nice," she admitted. "Thanks," he said, swallowing. "Oh, that Gable," she said, and pinched his leg. "Ouch," he said.
After the film they went shopping down the silent streets. She broke a window and put on the brightest dress she could find. Dumping a perfume bottle on her hair, she resembled a drowned sheep dog. "How old are you?" he inquired. "Guess." Dripping, she led him down the street. "Oh, thirty," he said. "Well," she announced stiffly, "I'm only twenty-seven, so there!
"Here's another candy store!" she said. "Honest, I've led the life of Reilly since everything exploded. I never liked my folks, they were fools. They left for Earth two months ago. I was supposed to follow on the last rocket, but I stayed on; you know why?"
"Why?"
"Because everyone picked on me. So I stayed where I could throw perfume on myself all day and drink ten thousand malts and eat candy without people saying, 'Oh, that's full of calories!' So here I am!"
"Here you are." Walter shut his eyes.
"It's getting late," she said, looking at him.
"Yes."
"I'm tired," she said.
"Funny. I'm wide awake."
"Oh," she said.
"I feel like staying up all night," he said. "Say, there's a good record at Mike's. Come on, I'll play it for you."
"I'm tired." She glanced up at him with sly, bright eyes.
"I'm very alert," he said. "Strange."
"Come back to the beauty shop," she said. "I want to show you something."
She took him in through the glass door and walked him over to a large white box. "When I drove from Texas City," she said, "I brought this with me." She untied the pink ribbon. "I thought: Well, here I am, the only lady on Mars, and here is the only man, and, well ... " She lifted the lid and folded back crisp layers of whispery pink tissue paper. She gave it a pat. "There."
Walter Gripp stared.
"What is it?" he asked, beginning to tremble.
"Don't you know, silly? It's all lace and all white and all fine and everything."
"No, I don't know what it is."
"It's a wedding dress, silly!"
"Is it?" His voice cracked.
He shut his eyes. Her voice was still soft and cool and sweet, as it had been on the phone. But when he opened his eyes and looked at her ...
He backed up. "How nice," he said.
"Isn't it?"
"Genevieve." He glanced at the door.
"Yes?"
"Genevieve, I've something to tell you."
"Yes?" She drifted toward him, the perfume smell thick about her round white face.
"The thing I have to say to you is ... " he said.
"Yes?"
"Good-by!"
And he was out the door and into his car before she could scream.
She ran and stood on the curb as he swung the car about.
"Walter Griff, come back here!" she wailed, flinging up her arms.
"Gripp," he corrected her.
"Gripp!" she shouted.
The car whirled away down the silent street, regardless of her stompings and shriekings. The exhaust from it fluttered the white dress she crumpled in her plump hands, and the stars shone bright, and the car vanished out onto the desert and away into blackness.
He drove all night and all day for three nights and days. Once he thought he saw a car following, and he broke into a shivering sweat and took another highway, cutting off across the lonely Martian world, past little dead cities, and he drove and drove for a week and a day, until he had put ten thousand miles between himself and Marlin Village. Then he pulled into a small town named Holtville Springs, where there were some tiny stores he could light up at night and restaurants to sit in, ordering meals. And he's lived there ever since, with two deep freezes packed with food to last him one hundred years, and enough cigars to last ten thousand days, and a good bed with a soft mattress.
And when once in a while over the long years the phone rings--he doesn't answer.
April 2026: THE LONG YEARS
Whenever the wind came through the sky, he and his small family would sit in the stone hut and warm their hands over a wood fire. The wind would stir the canal waters and almost blow the stars out of the sky, but Mr. Hathaway would sit contented and talk to his wife, and his wife would reply, and he would speak to his two daughters and his son about the old days on Earth, and they would all answer neatly.
It was the twentieth year after the Great War. Mars was a tomb, planet. Whether or not Earth was the same was a matter for much silent debate for Hathaway and his family on the long Martian
nights.
This night one of the violent Martian dust storms had come over the low Martian graveyards, blowing through ancient towns and tearing away the plastic walls of the newer, American-built city that was melting down into the sand, desolated.
The storm abated. Hathaway went out into the cleared weather to see Earth burning green on the windy sky. He put his hand up as one might reach to adjust a dimly burning globe in the ceiling of a dark room. He looked across the long-dead sea bottoms. Not another living thing on this entire planet, he thought. Just myself. And them. He looked back within the stone hut.
What was happening on Earth now? He had seen no visible sign of change in Earth's aspect through his thirty-inch telescope. Well, he thought, I'm good for another twenty years if I'm careful. Someone might come. Either across the dead seas or out of space in a rocket on a little thread of red flame.
He called into the hut, "I'm going to take a walk."
"All right," his wife said.
He moved quietly down through a series of ruins. "Made in New York," he read from a piece of metal as he passed. "And all these things from Earth will be gone long before the old Martian towns." He looked toward the fifty-centuries-old village that lay among the blue mountains.
He came to a solitary Martian graveyard, a series of small hexagonal stones on a hill swept by the lonely wind.
He stood looking down at four graves with crude wooden crosses on them, and names. Tears did not come to his eyes. They had dried long ago.
"Do you forgive me for what I've done?" he asked of the crosses. "I was very much alone. You do understand, don't you?"
He returned to the stone hut and once more, just before going in, shaded his eyes, searching the black sky.
"You keep waiting and waiting and looking," he said, "and one night, perhaps--"
There was a tiny red flame on the sky.
He stepped away from the light of the hut.
"--and you look again," he whispered.
The tiny red flame was still there.
"It wasn't there last night," he whispered.
He stumbled and fell, picked himself up, ran behind the hut, swiveled the telescope, and pointed it at the sky.
A minute later, after a long wild staring, he appeared in the low door of the hut. The wife and the two daughters and the son turned their heads to him. Finally he was able to speak
"I have good news," he said. "I have looked at the sky. A rocket is coming to take us all home. It will be here in the early morning."
He put his hands down and put his head into his hands and began to cry gently.