Ray Bradbury. Marionettes, Inc

                Ray Bradbury
                http://blogs.myspace.com/mysteryal

                Marionettes, Inc.
                1949

     They  walked  slowly  down  the street at about ten in the evening, talking
calmly. They were both about thirty-five, both eminently sober.
     'But why so early?' said Smith.
     'Because,' said Braling.
     'Your first night out in years and you go home at ten o'clock.'
     'Nerves, I suppose.'
     'What  I wonder is how you ever managed it. I've been trying to get you out
for  ten  years  for  a  quiet  drink.  And now, on the one night, you insist on
turning in early.'
     'Mustn't crowd my luck,' said Braling.
     'What did you do, put sleeping powder in your wife's coffee?'
     'No, that would be unethical. You'll see soon enough.'
     They  turned a corner. 'Honestly, Braling, I hate to say this, but you have
been  patient  with her. You may not admit it to me, but marriage has been awful
for you, hasn't it?'
     'I wouldn't say that.'
     'It's  got  around,  anyway,  here and there, how she got you to marry her.
That time back in 1979 when you were going to Rio --
     'Dear Rio. I never did see it after all my plans.'
     'And  how  she tore her clothes and rumpled her hair and threatened to call
the police unless you married her.'
     'She always was nervous, Smith, understand.'
     'It was more than unfair. You didn't love her. You told her as much, didn't
you.
     'I recall that I was quite firm on the subject.'
     'But you married her anyhow.'
     'I  had  my  business to think of, as well as my mother and father. A thing
like that would have killed them.'
     'And it's been ten years.
     ‘Yes,  said  Braling,  his  gray eyes steady. ‘But I think perhaps it might
change now. I think what I’ve waited for has come about. Look here.’
     He drew forth a long blue ticket.
     ‘Why, it’s a ticket for Rio on the Thursday rocket!’ _
     ‘Yes, _I’m finally going to make it.’
     ‘But  how  wonderful!  You  do  deserve  it!  But won’t _she _object? Cause
trouble?’
     Braling smiled nervously. ‘She won’t know I’m gone. I’ll be back in a month
and no one the wiser, except you:’
     Smith sighed. ‘I wish I were going with you.’
     ‘Poor Smith, _your _marriage hasn’t exactly been roses, has it?’
     ‘Not  exactly,  married to a woman who overdoes it. I mean, after all, when
you’ve  been  married ten years, you don’t expect a woman to sit on your lap for
two hours every evening, call you at work twelve times a day and talk baby talk.
And  it  seems  to  me  that  in  the last month she’s gotten worse. I wonder if
perhaps she isn’t a little simple-minded?’
     ‘Ah,  Smith, always the conservative. Well, here’s my house. Now, would you
like to know my secret? How I made it out  this evening?’
     ‘Will you really tell?’
     ‘Look up, there!’ said Braling.
     They both stared up through the dark air.
     In  the  window  above them, on the second floor, a shade was raised. A man
about  thirty-five  years  old,  with a touch of gray at either temple, sad gray
eyes, and a small thin mustache looked down at them.
     ‘Why, that’s _you!’ _cried Smith.
     ‘Sh-h-h, not so loud!’ Braling waved upward. The man in the window gestured
significantly and vanished.
     ‘I must be insane,’ said Smith. ‘Hold on a moment.’
     They waited.
     The  street  door of the apartment opened spare gentleman with the mustache
and the came out to meet them.
     ‘Hello, Braling,’ he said.
     ‘Hello, Braling,’ said Braling. They were identical.
     Smith stared. ‘Is this your twin brother? I never knew---
       ‘No,  no,’  said Braling quietly. ‘Bend close. Put your ear Braling Two’s
chest.’
     Smith   hesitated  and  then  leaned  forward  to  place  his  against  the
uncomplaining ribs.
      _Tick- tick- tick- tick- tick- tick- tick- tick. _
     ‘Oh no! It can’t be!’ ‘It is.’
     ‘Let me listen again.’
     _Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick. _
     Smith  staggered  back and fluttered his eyelids, appalled. reached out and
touched the warm hands and the cheeks the thing.
     ‘Where’d you get him?’
     ‘Isn’t he excellently fashioned?’ ‘Incredible. Where?’
     ‘Give the man your card, Braling Two.’
     Braling Two did a magic trick and produced a white card:

    
    

     MARIONETTES, INC.
     Duplicate  self  or  friends;  new humanoid plastic 1990 models, guaranteed
against all physical wear. From $ 7,600 to our $ 15,000 de luxe model.

    
    
     ‘No,’ said Smith.
     ‘Yes,’ said Braling.
     ‘Naturally,’ said Braling Two.
     ‘How long has this gone on?’
     ‘I’ve  had  him for a month. I keep him in the cellar in a toolbox. My wife
never  goes  downstairs, and I have the only lock and key to that box. Tonight I
said  I  wished  to  take a walk to buy a cigar. I went down the cellar and took
Braling Two out of his box and sent him back up to sit with my wife while I came
on out to see you, Smith.’
     ‘Wonderful! He even smells like you!’
     ‘It  may be splitting hairs, but I think it highly ethical. After all, what
my  wife wants most of all is _me. _This marionette is me to the hairest detail.
I’ve  been home all evening. I shall be home with her for the next month. In the
meantime  another  gentleman  will  be in Rio after ten years of waiting. When I
return from Rio, Braling Two here will go back in his box.’
     Smith  thought  that  over  a  minute  or two. ‘Will he walk around without
sustenance for a month?' he finally asked.
     'For six months if necessary. And he's built to do everything - eat, sleep,
perspire  - everything, natural as natural is. You'll take good care of my wife,
won't you, Braling Two?'
     'Your  wife  is  rather nice,' said Braling Two. 'I've grown rather fond of
her.'
     Smith  was  beginning  to tremble. 'How long has Marionettes, Inc., been in
business?'
     'Secretly, for two years.'
     'Could  I - I mean, is there a possibility - 'Smith took his friend's elbow
earnestly.  'Can  you  tell  me  where I can get one, a robot, a marionette, for
myself? You _will_ give me the address, won't you?'
     'Here you are.'
     Smith  took  the  card and turned it round and round. 'Thank you,' he said.
'You  don't  know  what this means. Just a little respite. A night or so, once a
month  even.  My wife loves me so much she can't bear to have me gone an hour. I
love her dearly, you know, but remember the old poem: "Love will fly if held too
lightly, love will die if held too tightly." I just want her to relax her grip a
little bit.'
     'You're  lucky,  at least, that your wife loves you. Hate's my problem. Not
so easy.
     'Oh,  Nettie  loves  me  madly.  It  will  be  my  task to make her love me
comfortably.'
     'Good  luck  to  you,  Smith. Do drop around while I'm in Rio. It will seem
strange,  if  you  suddenly stop calling by, to my wife. You're to treat Braling
Two, here, just like me.'
     'Right! Goodbye. And thank you.'
     Smith  went  smiling  down  the  street. Braling and Braling Two turned and
walked into the apartment hail.
     On  the  crosstown bus Smith whistled softly, turning the white card in his
fingers:
     Clients must be pledged to secrecy, for while an act is pending in Congress
to legalize Marionettes, Inc., it is still a felony, if caught, to use one.
     'Well,' said Smith.

     Clients  must  have  a  mold  made of their body and a color index check of
their  eyes,  lips,  hair, skin, etc. Clients must expect to wait for two months
until their model is finished.
     Not  so long, thought Smith. Two months from now my ribs will have a chance
to mend from the crushing they've en. Two months from now my hand will heal from
being  constantly  held.  Two  months from now my bruised underlip will begin to
reshape itself. I don't mean to sound ungrateful... He flipped the card over.

     Marionettes,  Inc.,  is  two  years  old and has a fine record of satisfied
customers  behind  it.  Our  motto  is  "No Strings Attached". Address: 43 South
Wesley Drive.
     The bus pulled to his stop; he alighted, and while humming up the stairs he
thought, Nettie and I have fifteen thousand on our joint bank account. I'll just
slip eight thousand out as a business venture, you might say. The marionette .11
probably pay back my money, with interest, in many ways. Nettie needn't know. He
unlocked  the  door  and in a minute was in the bedroom. There lay Nettie, pale,
huge, and piously asleep.
     'Dear  Nettie.'  He  was  almost overwhelmed with remorse her innocent face
there  in  the semidarkness. 'If you were awake you would smother me with kisses
and  coo  in  my  ear. Really, you make me feel like a criminal. You have been a
good,  loving  wife.  Sometimes  it  is impossible for me believe you married me
instead  of that Bud Chapman you once liked. It seems that in the last month you
have loved me more wildly than ever before.'
     Tears  came  to his eyes. Suddenly he wished to kiss her, confess his love,
tear  up  the  card,  forget the whole business. But as he moved to do this, his
hand  ached  and  his ribs racked and groaned. He stopped, with a pained look in
his  eyes,  and  turned  away.  He  moved  out into the hall and the dark rooms.
Humming,  he  opened  the  kidney  desk in the library and filched the bankbook.
'Just  take  it thousand dollars is all,' he said. 'No more than that.' stopped.
'Wait a minute.'
     He  rechecked  the  bankbook  frantically.  'Hold  on here!' he cried. 'Ten
thousand dollars is missing!' He leaped up.
     'There's only five thousand left! What's she done? What's she done with it?
More hats, more clothes, more perfume! Or, wait - I know! She bought that little
house on the Hudson she's been talking about for months, without so much as a by
your leave!'
     He  stormed  into  the bedroom, righteous and indignant. What did she mean,
taking their money like this! He bent over her. 'Nettie, wake up!'
     She did not stir. 'What've you done with my money!' he bellowed.
     She  stirred fitfully. The light from the street flushed over her beautiful
cheeks.
     There  was  something  about  her. His heart throbbed violently. His tongue
dried.  He  shivered. His knees suddenly turned to water. He collapsed. 'Nettie,
Nettie!' he cried. 'What've you done with my money!'
     And  then,  the  horrid  thought.  And  then  the terror and the loneliness
engulfed  him.  And then the fever and disillusionment. For, without desiring to
do  so,  he bent forward and yet forward again until his fevered ear was resting
firmly and irrevocably upon her pink bosom. 'Nettie!' he cried.
     _Tick- tick- tick- tick- tick- tick- tick- tick- tick. _

    
    
     As  Smith walked away down the avenue in the night, Braling and Braling Two
turned  in  at  the  door  to the apartment. 'I'm glad he'll be happy too,' said
Braling.
     'Yes,' said Braling Two abstractedly.
     'Well,  it's  the  cellar  box  for  you,  B-Two.' Braling guided the other
creature's elbow down the stairs to the cellar.
     'That's  what  I  want  to  talk  to  you about,' said Braling Two, as they
reached the concrete floor and walked across it. 'The cellar. I don't like it. I
don't like that toolbox.'
     'I'll try and fix up something more comfortable.'
     'Marionettes  are made to move, not to lie still. How would you like to lie
in a box most of the time?'
     'Well -'
     'You  wouldn't  like  it  at all. I keep running. There's no way to shut me
off. I'm perfectly alive and I have feelings.'
     'It'll  only  be  a  few days now. I'll be off to Rio and you won't have to
stay in the box. You can live upstairs.'
      Braling Two gestured irritably.
     'And when you come back from having a good time, back in the box I go.'
     Braling  said,  'They  didn't tell me at the marionette shop that I'd get a
difficult specimen.'
     'There's  a  lot they don't know about us,' said Braling Two. 'We're pretty
new.  And  we're  sensitive.  I  hate the idea of you going off and laughing and
lying in the sun in Rio while we're stuck here in the cold.'
     'But I've wanted that trip all my life,' said Braling quietly.
     He squinted his eyes and could see the sea and the mountains and the yellow
sand.  The  sound of the waves was good his inward mind. The sun was fine on his
bared shoulders. The wine was most excellent. 'I'll never get to go to Rio,' the
other man. 'Have you thought of that?'
     No, I -, 'And another thing. Your wife.'
     'What about her?' asked Braling, beginning to edge toward the door.
     'I've grown quite fond of her.'
     'I'm   glad  you're  enjoying  your  employment.'  Braling  :ked  his  lips
nervously.
     'I'm afraid you don't understand. I think - I'm in love with her.'
     Braling took another step and froze. 'You're in what?'
     'And  I've  been  thinking,'  said Braling Two, 'how nice it in Rio and how
I'll  never  get there, and I've thought out your wife and - I think we could be
very happy.'
     'Th-that's nice.' Braling strolled as casually as he could the cellar door.
'You won't mind waiting a moment, will u? I have to make a phone call.'
     'To whom?' Braling Two frowned.
     'No one important.'
     'To Marionettes, Incorporated? To tell them to come get me
     'No, no - nothing like that!' He tried to rush out the door.
     A metal-firm grip seized his wrists. 'Don't runt' 'Take your hands off!'
     'No.'
     'Did my wife put you up to this?'
     'No.'
     'Did  she guess? Did she talk to you~ Does she know? Is it?' He screamed. A
hand  clapped  over  his mouth. You'll never know, will you?' Braling Two smiled
delicately. 'You'll never know.'
     Braling struggled. 'She must have guessed; she must affected you!'
     Braling  Two said, 'I'm going to put you in the box, lock and lose the key.
Then I'll buy another Rio ticket for your wile.'
     'Now, now, wait a minute. Hold on. Don't be rash. Let's talk this over!'
     'Goodbye, Braling.'

    
     Ten  minutes  later  Mrs.  Braling  awoke.  She  put her hand to her cheek.
Someone  had just kissed it. She shivered and looked up. 'Why - you haven't done
that in years,' she murmured.
     'We'll see what we can do about that,' someone said.