You Don't Make Wine Like the Greeks Did Page 4

didn't know where I was going but I was scaredto hell and I just ran. I ran through five or six cars and the panickept getting worse, and then I turned around and began running back theway I had come, just running as fast as I could and you know what that'slike on a train, I kept falling against people and pushing them off andrunning and suddenly this man grabbed me and said, 'Mimi, Mimi,' he keptsaying that and I guess some more and finally he calmed me down and, ofcourse, it was Donald. He told me I was all right and to be quiet andwhat the hell was the matter with me anyhow. Well, to make a long storyshort, we got off the train here and stayed in a hotel for a while andthen Donald bought this place and here we are. But I don't know if I'mreally his wife or not. Did he mention sex to you?"

  Victor nodded and she said, "So you know I'm not his wife _that_ way, atleast. And I have only his word that we were ever married."

  "You don't have a marriage certificate, or pictures?"

  "We don't have anything that would prove our existence prior to thatdate we were on the train. Naturally, he'd have left all that behindwhen we left wherever we were coming from. Any documents at all wouldruin his story. For all I know he just picked me up at the trainstation."

  "And you just picked up life here?" Victor asked. "As simple as that!"

  "What else could I do? I was terribly frightened, and Donald was so calmand assuring. I didn't really think I had lost my memory, you know. Imean, I _couldn't_ believe it. I didn't seem bewildered or anything, Ijust could not remember anything. Am I making sense? Anyway, I felt itwould all come back to me any moment, and I went on living from onemoment to another, and here I am and I still can't remember anything."

  * * * * *

  "What was Donald's reaction when you told him you didn't know who youwere?" Victor asked her.

  "As a matter of fact, I didn't tell him right away. I was so afraid, Ijust went along with him.... Oh, it's so hard to explain."

  "He didn't realize that you were acting strange, bewildered?"

  "Well, you know," Mimi said, "we're not talking about a normal man,remember. I suppose if I acted sort of, you know, lost, he attributed itto our recent trip through time. _I_ don't know. Anyhow, he seemed toaccept me."

  "Let's get back to this time-travel bit. When did you realize that hethought you had both come from another time?"

  "The limes really make the drink, don't they?" she asked. "Well, it cameout sort of gradually. I'd listen to him really closely whenever hetalked about the past, naturally. I was trying to find out about mewithout telling him, I thought he'd get all excited and all, and ofcourse he did when I finally told him but by then it was all sodifferent and I'm afraid I've gotten confused. Where was I? Oh, you needa refill."

  "Thank you," Victor said, "I forget myself exactly where it was youwere. Is that right? Where you was it were? No, I'm sure _that's_ wrong.Where were you it was, I think. Does that sound better to you?"

  "Isn't that peculiar?" she answered. "Could it be where I was youweren't? No, now I'm being silly, and I can't for the life of meunderstand why. After all, this is a serious affair. Or at least I wishit were. Was."

  "What?"

  "I remember, damn it," she said. "We were talking about _Don_ald again.Well, he kept making these remarks about coming through time and ofcourse I didn't understand what the hell he was talking about but Ithought because of my not remembering anything and all that I betterjust not say anything so I didn't, but he kept on and little by little Igot the idea, the general idea anyhow, but what on earth could I doabout it? And then he started talking about it was time to go back andall that, and I _cer_tainly wasn't going to go floating off in any old_time_ machine whether he was nuts or not, so I just kept puttinghim off the best I could but he started getting so impatient thatfinally--what was that? I think there's something wrong."

  * * * * *

  They both sat suddenly quite still and listened, but they heard nothing.

  "I hear nothing," Victor said.

  "That's it," Mimi hissed. "He's not snoring anymore. He'll be here anyminute. Act natural. Have another martini."

  "Thank you, perhaps just one more," Victor said as Donald Fairfield cameinto the room.

  * * * * *

  He strode across the room crossing in front of them without turning hishead or acknowledging their presence and made straight for the buffet inthe opposite corner. He bent over and extracted a thick black cigar,struck a match, lit the cigar, puffed several times, dropped the matchinto a gigantic ashtray made of marble, or something that looked likemarble, puffed several more times, finally inhaled deeply and exhaledslowly before he turned and nodded at his two spectators. "You makebetter cigars than we do, I'll say that for the twentieth century," hecomplimented Victor in the manner of all tourists, as if Victor himselfwere the cause and not the product of his age. "One of the mysteries ofhistory," he continued, "how a simple technique, like making a goodcigar or a good mummy, can be lost once it's been perfected. Alwaysseems to be though. Each age has its secrets. You can't make wine nowlike the ancient Greeks did."

  "As," Mimi interpolated. "As the Greeks did."

  "I hate to be bombastic," Donald answered her, "not to say dogmatic orpedagogical, or impecunious too, for that matter, at least in thisparticular day and age, but I believe my original adjectival usage to bethe correct one."

  "If your thought had called for an adjective," Mimi countered, "butproperly, according to the accepted grammar of the present day, that is,you should have used an adverb."

  "Whatchamacallit tastes good _like_ a dum-dum cigarette should," Victorput in, in an attempt to settle the subject.

  "That's ridiculous," Donald answered, "it's completely wrong."

  "I _know_ it's wrong," Victor cried, "that's the point, _every_bodyknows it's--"

  "Of course it is," Mimi agreed. "Why on earth _should_ a cigarette tastegood? Who says it should? If one wants to taste something good, why thenone takes a bite of cake, or a smidgin of candy, or a plate of coldborscht. If one cares for borscht. But you certainly don't smoke acigarette to taste something good, they all taste horrible. Horribly? Ohdamn, look what you started, Donald. Now I can't think straight.Anyhow, people smoke because of the phallic symbolism, right, Victor?"

  Donald looked with distaste from Mimi to the big black cigar he washolding in his right hand, and thence to Victor for a denial. Victor,however, shrugged his shoulders, and murmured something to the effectthat this consideration might possibly have some bearing on the subject,that it was really a matter of interest more to the appliedpsychologists and advertising men than to the pure scientist or doctor,and that even so it didn't necessarily follow that--

  "You're hedging," Mimi said. "All you have to do is watch a woman smokeand then watch a man and--"

  "I thought we were talking about wine," Donald interrupted, crushing outhis cigar in the oversize marble, or nearly so, ashtray. "What were wesaying about it?"

  "You were commenting on the relative excellence of our wines and thoseof the Greeks," Victor told him. "I was wondering if perhaps you'vevisited them too?"

  Donald Fairfield did not answer the query. He stared at Victorcontemplatively, drew in a deep lungful of acrid smoke-filled air fromabove the smoldering ashtray, and let it out again. "This is not goingto be as simple an affair as it should be," he said finally. "I can seethat now, but I suppose there's nothing to be done but to see itthrough. I take it you've settled everything between the two of youwhile I've been gone?"

  "Oh my," Mimi ejaculated, "I've got to see about dinner. See if you twocan find something to talk about while I'm gone." She hurried out of theroom, one hand already reaching for the apron of the modernistic designas she passed through the swinging door into the kitchen.

  * * * * *

  "Well," Donald began, "what did you discover from my little wife?"

  "To begin with," Victor answered him, "she seems to have lost herme
mory. Everything previous to an experience on the train some eightmonths ago is a total blank. Were you aware of this?"

  "I was not only aware of it, I told you about it," Donald answered."What in God's creation is this moldy brew?" he asked after taking adeep gulp from the lip of the pitcher and spitting most of it into thefirst ashtray he could