The Clarkl Soup Kitchens Part 9

Kaufmann's agreed to do my shopping for the children, and I have just received my statement for December. I spent over $300 on Ferdy's children, and I received nothing in return.

It was exciting seeing Ferdy from time to time in Pittsburgh. I could always imagine he was ready to leave his bride and resume our affair. Here, though, with no message and no gift, I have to come to grips with the thought he has abandoned me.

Certainly Ferdy was the reason I was anxious to come on this a.s.signment to Clarkl. The promise of having my big house paid off in ten years was very enticing. I a.s.sumed Ferdy would be more likely to leave his marriage for a woman with a big house and a small income than for one with a huge mortgage and no job. In addition, in ten years, the children will be nearly grown, with only one of them under twenty.

I am more besotted than ever here. I think about him all the time.

If there were any man of interest here, perhaps I could move on. I had that rough man in the s.p.a.cecraft, but he was not acceptable as a long-term partner. I have had no interest from anybody else, except a shy remark from Mr. Roderick about my taking care of him when I return.

Is it all over? I feel cheated.

April 27, 2143 I have developed a little computer program that facilitates my input, and I am now working only about six hours each day, with the two afternoons off each week.

The managers are getting better, too, with preparing their numbers. It is rare I have to call one of them.

I think Mr. Roderick liked to talk to the managers, and they waited for his call each day. As for me, all this chitchat keeps me from my major activity of daydreaming.

Ferdy surely knows I am waiting to hear from him. His birthday is in about a month, and Kaufmann's has instructions about a silk jumpsuit, made to measure. I can't believe he will accept such a fine gift without a message. Kaufmann's has my code here, and they have been instructed to send it with the birthday gift.

Maybe his bride is laughing at me. Maybe she knows how much I care for him and realizes he will never leave her and her trust fund.

June 16, 2143 So far, I have saved about $3,000. I was paid the monthly stipend while I was on the s.p.a.cecraft, so I have been paid for about a year and have spent only half of my earnings.

There is nothing to buy here. The dining room manager has a closet with toiletries for sale, and she usually takes about $75 a month from me. My laundry costs another $20. Room and board, terrible as they are, are free.

A merchant visited the compound about a week ago, and I bought a Clarklian-made blanket. It is very colorful and is made of what feels like linen.

I would like another electric blanket, but there are none for sale. The dining room manager said she would put my request on her next order of supplies, due in about six weeks.

August 21, 2143 I still have few friends here. I keep to myself, except for those occasions when people invite me to play cards. I am too good a player for frequent invitations, but when the game cannot go on without a player I am included.

Still no message from Ferdy. The bill from Kaufmann's shows the silk jumpsuit was ordered and picked up.

October 17, 2143 Work remains very easy. I usually work only five hours a day, except for those days when I have a half-day holiday.

I continue to be consumed by reflections about my life with Ferdy and Mrs. Aperson. It is as if my life here on Clarkl is a waiting period, a time to rest between great pa.s.sions.

Julia has been haunting me this last week. That most beautiful of children is more in my heart than ever before.

I remember how we lay together on the day she was begun, in a cheap hotel in Wilkinsburg. Ferdy had picked me up in his old car after my chemistry cla.s.s, and we drove to the hotel in near silence. That day he had lost another job, and we had very little to celebrate.

I had had too many hopes for Ferdy's success with this job. The manager was an old friend of the Judge's, someone who had known the Judge before his first wife died and long before he married Mrs. Aperson. The fact that Ferdy was ill suited to sitting in an office all day did not dampen my spirits.

"We don't seem to have complementary work habits," the Judge's friend had concluded as he showed Ferdy the door.

Actually, Ferdy did not have much trouble finding jobs. He had a wonderful charm that gave people the idea he would fit into their workgroups, and he expressed himself so eloquently on any subject that hiring managers were convinced he would show up early and work late. For Ferdy, they continually broke the first rule of hiring: never take on anybody who has been laid off from another job.

That afternoon we were hungry for each other. Ferdy needed to feel he was good at something, and I needed him to feel I was sympathetic about his troubles.

Within a week or so, Ferdy was shipped out, by another gullible hiring manager, for a two-year a.s.signment in Alaska. Right after he left, I discovered Julia was on her way.

Mrs. Aperson was not happy. "Ferdy's left us with another mess," she concluded.

For that pregnancy, I did not see the doctor. Mrs. Aperson made sure I took the vitamins the doctor had recommended for my earlier pregnancies. After the sixth month, I took a semester off from my studies, telling my advisor I needed a vacation.

Mrs. Aperson and her sister delivered the baby. Julia was beautiful and not at all red. She lived for two weeks.

Again, Mrs. Aperson wrapped her in a silk blanket and placed her in a plastic airtight bag. I took her to the attic to join her siblings.

The next day, I saw my advisor and started my work for my junior year in college.

February 21, 2144 The dining rooms are busy, with more Clarklians coming each month than the month before.

I rarely see any of them. I walk from my cabin to the office in our compound and back to my cabin each day, and the Clarklians never come there. The traveling merchant comes about once a quarter, and that ent.i.ty always has the dining room manager handle the questions and the money.

The electric blanket I ordered several months ago came last week, and it is so small I ordered another one.

My cabin has plenty of electricity. I could burn a dozen lamps, and n.o.body would complain. The great thing about this cold planet is that electricity and water are available in abundance. The Clarklians have developed very complete delivery systems, and no Clarklian ever pays for either utility.

The best things in life are free, but there's no moon here.

Another note from Mr. Roderick this week. He is settled into his retirement routine. Again, he said he would like to see me when I return.

Mrs. Crocker also wrote this week, giving me the status of my mortgages. The one taken out in 2116 is now retired.

March 18, 2144 Three additional people have arrived, increasing the numbers of Americans here on Clarkl. This is our first increase in over ten years, with the people arriving being always equal to the people departing. I believe this addition is due to the increase in meals served in the dining rooms. I continue to see the growing numbers in my statistics.

Are there more Clarklians? Our job here is to keep them from dying from a lack of food. The dining room manager tells me we feed mostly the sterile Drones. They certainly are not multiplying.

We also received a shipment of hams on the last s.p.a.ceship. Of course, our clientele won't touch meat, so this is for the American staff. This is the first meat I have tasted since I rented that big suite on the top deck.

My work continues to be very easy. I received a bonus of $700 in January for "completeness and timely reporting." With that, my savings from my work here is reaching $6,000.

The funeral home that took care of Mrs. Aperson has sent me a final bill. They apparently had presented it to Mr. Whipple, and he finally told them he had paid out the entire estate. Have they looked to the New Christian Congregation? I sent the funeral director $2,000 and told him I did not believe I was responsible for the rest.

April 7, 2144 Life never changes here for me. I complete my reports in about five hours and walk back to my cabin. I have read all the d.i.c.kens works. I am moving onto the works of Queen Elizabeth of Rumania.

Our dining room manager has been replaced, and I need to get used to this abrupt woman. The food has improved, against all odds.

We are having a wonderful pumpkin crop, and the cooks are buzzing around exchanging recipes for stew and pie. One new dish has pumpkin as the basis for a chunky pudding.

June 9, 2144 Another bonus came from headquarters in America this week. I received $600 and two electric blankets. Everybody else received some amount of money and at least one blanket. The farmers, I understand, have been given bonuses of up to $5,000.

We also received a large shipment of smoked salmon, vacuum packed and guaranteed to be fresh until 2147. I would be surprised if it lasted another week.

The numbers of meals served have surged in the last year, too. Either the Clarklians are coming more frequently or there are more of them needing these handouts.

The dining room manager was surprised to find a group of Batwigs appear one day last week. These snooty ent.i.ties, all related to royalty, are the Clarklians who oversee our contract. The dining room manager was a.s.suming their visit was a surprise inspection.

What could be improved upon? The Clarklians eat well prepared food on clean tables, with lovely china and gla.s.sware. Robots scrub the dining room floor overnight so it is spotless every morning. Old American ladies smile while the Clarklians walk down the serving line. The managers watch carefully to make sure the favorite dishes are in good supply.

July 7, 2144 The staff is abuzz with news about the dining room managed by the Fundamentalists of Christ. On May 29, forty Slinkers entered the little church they had put up over there and ordered the minister, the organist, and the choir out and into a topless bus. The bus drove off, and n.o.body knows where.

September 3, 2144 More frightening news from the Fundamentalists today. The Slinkers came again and tore down the little church. n.o.body at the dining room has seen the nine people who were kidnapped. The cooks there continue to prepare and serve meals, but few locals are showing up, in contrast to our experience here of ever-growing lines of Clarklians, clamoring for food at all hours.

I have never seen a Slinker, but our office manager tells me they are the police. They report directly to the Batwigs, who are the faithful agents of the Monarchs.

December 25, 2144 Christmas memories today. Warm feelings surround me when I think of those early holidays, complete with pine cones on the mantelpiece and neighbors coming to the house with trays of sugar cookies. Some cookies with red crystals and some with green. We were so young, the three of us.

Then he left, to visit his brother in Kentucky. The call came from Uncle Woody the next day. He never arrived. There was no sign of him again.

Weeks pa.s.sed, with police coming and going. The large car was gone, too, and the electronic monitors showed he had pa.s.sed through Charleston, West Virginia, the day before Uncle Woody had expected him. Nothing after that.

She was bitter. "If you don't stop this noise, I will put all of you in the county orphanage," she said, over and over.

The next Christmas, we were in the orphanage. The following Christmas, Jack was with another family, far away in Georgia. The Christmas after that, Louis was in a military school in South Carolina.

January 17, 2145 Mrs. Crocker sent the bill from Kaufmann's. The packages were delivered and signed for, and my account was charged $450. I have received no note from either Ferdy or his bride, even though I specified my electronic address be included on the gift cards.

Surely those children are old enough to acknowledge gifts. Even if they exchanged what the buyer at Kaufmann's had selected, they could have written.

March 8, 2145 Still no word from the nine people missing from the little church. In addition, people are not arriving to replace the Americans, so n.o.body can go home.

People are talking about little else. Where could they be? Why are the s.p.a.cecrafts coming, filled with groceries and supplies but no workers?

I have sent a message to my contact in America, asking for any news. The response was not encouraging. The New Christian Congregation and the Fundamentalists of Christ have sent this problem to the American Department of State, which handles the relationship with Clarkl.

Everyone is pumping relatives at home for news, but messages are coming with no mention of this situation, as if they are being censored.

May 7, 2145 The kidnapping of the nine people from the church is almost forgotten now. Like the kidnapping of a girl, it was the outrage of the week and then, in a month or two, it was never talked about. I wonder if we will someday find those people buried in a remote site.

They weren't good singers, to hear the Fundamentalists talk. They had a system that knew their music and translated their sharp or flat tones into the right notes. Without the system, they would be booed off the stage. When the Slinkers tore down the church, they took that system away.

In addition, the minister had been nearly defrocked for the sin of appearing in public in tatty clothes. He was offered the a.s.signment on Clarkl as his only option.

The organist tried hard, according to the gossip, but he clearly was not good enough to make a living in music. Luckily, he had a little money of his own from his father.

I think this story is dead, except for the fact that replacements are not arriving. We have had no news about when people can go home. Of course, this is not my worry right now.

October 10, 2145 Still no replacements. Our American manager says the State Department is working on the problem.

The only other people who appear to be concerned are those whose time is nearly up. Everybody else is just ignoring the news, a.s.suming, I guess, the governments will settle their differences sooner or later.

One colleague in the office said to me, "Of course, you have hope. Hope is your name." Then, a big chuckle, as if this were the exemplification of wit.

I went back into my reverie mode. My name was always Sarah, but Hope was the name given to me at the orphanage. All surnames were changed to protect the actual relatives of the inmates. My real name, long abandoned, unlike Hope, is known only to me and the intake social worker.

She never visited. Not once.

November 8, 2145 I continue to live in the past. My work is still very routine. I wish I had a robot to program so I would not need to go into the office at all.

This week I have been thinking about Edgar. How st.u.r.dy he was and how cheerful!

Of course, Ferdy could not stay in Alaska forever. In 2124 he returned and came, immediately, to Mrs. Aperson for a.s.sistance. He had saved no money. He had no letter of recommendation from his former employer. He had no tuxedo.

By 2124, Mrs. Aperson was eighty-three and still of very sound mind. During that reunion with Ferdy after his return from Alaska, she told him she could not afford to continue to finance his activities.

As we three sat in her living room, she scolded Ferdy for wasting his youth in gallivanting around, never doing anything well enough for it to lead to something better. He laughed and agreed, so much so that Mrs. Aperson was exasperated her message was not being received. The more she berated him, the more amused he appeared to be.

Finally, she said, "Ferdy, you may live here for one month. During that time, I expect you to find another job and to keep to your own bedroom. Do not enter my bedroom, and do not enter Sarah's."

She wrote him a check, which I later determined was for $5,000. She told him to buy some clothes and to start to look for work.

Within three weeks, Ferdy was gone again, to a four-year a.s.signment to Peru to a.s.sist Princeton University with its management of an archeological site. He packed his new clothes, gave each of us a warm hug, and was on his way.

Edgar was on his way, too. Mrs. Aperson was infuriated.

Again, Mrs. Aperson's sister helped with the delivery. The little fellow lived for two months.

January 7, 2146 A nice holiday greeting from Mrs. Crocker. They are comfortable in my house, and my two remaining mortgages are closer to being retired.

Louis paid her a call. He found my name in the records of the wills filed for probate, and he read I had inherited the house. What could be more natural than for him to seek me out, after nearly forty-five years!

He left his card with an electronic address, and Mrs. Crocker told him she would send it along to me when she sent her Christmas letter.

"He looked as if he could use a good meal," Mrs. Crocker wrote. "We invited him to lunch at the house, and he sat with the staff and talked about various adventures at the military bases of Cuba and Colorado."

Louis would be just fifty now, three years younger than I. He had written a few letters from the military school, but we had lost touch about the time I entered high school. I wondered what had happened during his life, but I was not willing to open Mrs. Aperson's house to him. I had already given her enough to worry about.

However, if he has a military pension, maybe we could make a life together. After, of course, my ten years on Clarkl are over.

I wrote him a breezy note yesterday, describing my situation without sounding too complaining. Maybe he will write back, or maybe he will understand that an inheritance of a heavily mortgaged house is not much of a blessing.

January 29, 2146 The bill from Kaufmann's came today, and I sent an interplanetary transfer of Universal Gold to cover it.

A small gift for Mrs. Crocker and significant gifts for the three children. The total was just over $600, more than my current monthly income.

I continue to save, though. I have no expenses here other than for a few toiletries, so I generally put $400 away every month. The bonuses are frequent now since the terrible kidnapping of the people from the church, and I add those to my h.o.a.rd.

Mrs. Aperson usually gave me $250 each month. After my graduation from Penn State, I was able to save nearly all of it.

I think frequently about those last days at Penn State, when Ferdy was busy in Peru. In June of 2127, my advisor told me my final requirement had been met and she signed the paper for me to request my diploma. Within a few days, the certificate had been printed and signed by the University's president and the dean of the school of Liberal Arts. I took it to Mrs. Aperson's house and showed it to her.

"Well, that's very nice," she said. "I feel you will be in a good position to find a job when I pa.s.s. I'm getting along in years, you know."

I sighed. "You are only eighty-six. White American women who live until fifty are living, on average, until ninety-three. You have no complaints, and you have a very comfortable life here."

She nodded.