Short Fiction Fritz Leiber (free e books to read .txt) 📖

had been two bony-cheeked Swedish blondes who sunbathed interminably and had built the chicken-wire enclosures to cage a large number of sinister smoke-colored dogs⁠—Simon decided they were breeding werewolves, and one of his most successful abstractions, “Gray Hunger,” had been painted to the inspiration of an eldritch howling. The dogs and their owners had departed abruptly one night in a closed van, without any of the dogs ever having been offered for sale or either of the girls having responded with anything more than a raised eyebrow to Simon’s brave greetings of “Skoal!”

The Russians had taken possession about six months ago⁠—four brothers apparently, and one sister, who never stirred from the house but could occasionally be seen peering dreamily from a window. A white card with a boldly-inked “Stulnikov-Gurevich” had been thumbtacked to the peeling green-painted front door. Lafcadio Smits, the interior decorator, told Simon that the newcomers were clearly White Russians; he could tell it by their bushy beards. Lester Phlegius maintained that they were Red Russians passing as White, and talked alarmingly of spying, sabotage and suitcase bombs.

Simon, who had the advantages of living on the spot and having been introduced to one of the brothers⁠—Vasily⁠—at a neighboring art gallery, came to believe that they were both Red and White and something more⁠—solid, complete Slavs in any case, Double Dostoevsky Russians if one may be permitted the expression. They ordered vodka, caviar, and soda crackers by the case. They argued interminably (loudly in Russian, softly in English), they went on mysterious silent errands, they gloomed about on the roof, they made melancholy music with their deep harmonious voices and several large guitars. Once Simon though they even had the bootlegger’s organ going, but there had been a bad storm at the time and he hadn’t been sure.

They were not quite as tightlipped as the Swedish girls. Gradually a curt front-sidewalk acquaintance developed and Simon came to know their names. There was Vasily, of course, who wore thick glasses, the most scholarly-looking of the lot and certainly the most bibulous⁠—Simon came to think of Vasily as the Vodka Breather. Occasionally he could be glimpsed holding Erlenmayer flasks, trays of culture dishes, and other pieces of biological equipment, or absentmindedly wiping off a glass slide with his beard.

Then there was Ivan, the dourest of the four, though none of them save Vasily seemed very amiable. Simon’s private names for Ivan were the Nihilist and the Bomber, since he sometimes lugged about with him a heavy globular leather case. With it and his beard⁠—a square black one⁠—he had more than once created a mild sensation in the narrow streets of the Village.

Next there was Mikhail, who wore a large crucifix on a silver chain around his neck and looked like a more spiritual Rasputin. However, Simon thought of him less as the Religious than as the Whistler⁠—for his inveterate habit of whistling into his straggly beard a strange tune that obeyed no common harmonic laws. Somehow Mikhail seemed to carry a chilly breeze around with him, a perpetual cold draught, so that Simon had to check himself in order not to clutch together his coat collar whenever he heard the approach of the eerie piping.

Finally there was Lev, beardless, shorter by several inches, and certainly the most elusive of the brothers. He always moved at a scurry, frequently dipping his head, so that it was some time before Simon assured himself that he had the Stulnikov-Gurevich face. He did, unmistakably. Lev seemed to be away on trips a good deal. On his returns he was frequently accompanied by furtive but important-looking men⁠—a different one on each occasion. There would be much bustle at such times⁠—among other things, the shades would be drawn. Then in a few hours Lev would be off again, and his man-about-town companion too.

And of course there was the indoors-keeping sister. Several times Simon had heard one of the brothers calling “Grushenka,” so he assumed that was her name. She had the Stulnikov-Gurevich face too, though on her, almost incredibly, it was strangely attractive. She never ventured on the roof but she often sat in the pent-shack. As far as Simon could make out, she always wore some dark Victorian costume⁠—at least it had a high neck, long sleeves, and puffed shoulders. Pale-faced in the greenish gloom, she would stare for hours out of the pent-shack’s single window, though never in Simon’s direction. Occasionally she would part and close her lips, but not exactly as if she were speaking, at least aloud⁠—he thought of calling her the Bubble Blower. The effect was as odd as Mikhail’s whistling but not as unpleasant. In fact, Simon found himself studying Grushenka for ridiculously long periods of time. His mild obsession began to irk him and one day he decided henceforth to stay away altogether from his north window and the stepladder. As a result he saw little of the alterations the Russians began to make on the roof at this point, though he did notice that they lugged up among other things a length of large-diameter transparent plastic piping.

So much for the Russians, now for the mermaid. Late one night Simon started to fill his bathtub with cold water to soak his brushes and rags⁠—he was working with a kind of calcimine at the time, experimenting with portable murals painted on large plaster-faced wooden panels. Heavily laden, he got back to the bathroom just in time to shut off the water⁠—and to see a tiny fish of some sort splashing around in it.

He was not unduly surprised. Fish up to four or five inches in length were not unheard-of apparitions in the cold-water supply of the area, and this specimen looked as if it displaced no more than a teaspoon of water.

He made a lucky grab and the next moment he was holding in his firmly clenched right hand the bottom half of a slim wriggling creature hardly two inches long⁠—and now Simon was surprised indeed.

To begin with, it was not