Sirens of Titan - Kurt Vonnegut [17]
"Well?" said Beatrice.
"I just wish we could go out to the chrono-synclastic infundibula together," said Rumfoord. "So you could see for once what I was talking about. All I can say is that my failure to warn you about the stock-market crash is as much a part of the natural order as Halley’s Comet—and it makes an equal amount of sense to rage against either one.
"You’re saying you have no character, and no sense of responsibility toward me," said Beatrice. "I’m sorry to put it that way, but it’s the truth."
Rumfoord rocked his head back and forth. "A truth—but, oh God, what a punctual truth," he said.
Rumfoord retreated into his magazine again. The magazine opened naturally to the center spread, which was a color ad for MoonMist Cigarettes. MoonMist Tobacco, Ltd., had been bought recently by Malachi Constant.
Pleasure in Depth! said the headline on the ad. The picture that went with it was the picture of the three sirens of Titan. There they were—the white girl, the golden girl, and the brown girl.
The fingers of the golden girl were fortuitously spread as they rested on her left breast, permitting an artist to paint in a MoonMist Cigarette between two of them. The smoke from her cigarette passed beneath the nostrils of the brown and white girls, and their space-annihilating concupiscence seemed centered on mentholated smoke alone.
Rumfoord had known that Constant would try to debase the picture by using it in commerce. Constant’s father had done a similar thing when he found he could not buy Leonardo’s "Mona Lisa" at any price. The old man had punished Mona Lisa by having her used in an advertising campaign for suppositories. It was the free-enterprise way of handling beauty that threatened to get the upper hand.
Rumfoord made a buzzing sound on his lips, which was a sound he made when he approached compassion. The compassion he approached was for Malachi Constant, who was having a far worse time of it than Beatrice.
"Have I heard your whole defense?" said Beatrice, coming behind Rumfoord’s chair. Her arms were folded, and Rumfoord, reading her mind, knew that she thought of her sharp, projected elbows as bull-fighter’s swords.
"I beg your pardon?" said Rumfoord.
"This silence—this hiding in the magazine—this is the sum and total of your rebuttal?" said Beatrice.
"Rebuttal—a punctual word if there ever was one," said Rumfoord. "I say this, and then you rebut me, then I rebut you, then somebody else comes in and rebuts us both." He shuddered. "What a nightmare where everybody gets in line to rebut each other."
"Couldn’t you, this very moment," said Beatrice, "give me stock-market tips that would enable me to gain back everything I lost and more? If you had one shred of concern for me, couldn’t you tell me exactly how Malachi Constant of Hollywood is going to try to trick me into going to Mars, so I could outwit him?"
"Look," said Rumfoord, "life for a punctual person is like a roller coaster." He turned to shiver his hands in her face. "All kinds of things are going to happen to you! Sure," he said, "I can see the whole roller coaster you’re on. And sure—I could give you a piece of paper that would tell you about every dip and turn, warn you about every bogeyman that was going to pop out at you in the tunnels. But that wouldn’t help you any."
"I don’t see why not," said Beatrice.
"Because you’d still have to take the roller-coaster ride," said Rumfoord. "I didn’t design the roller coaster, I don’t own it, and I don’t say who rides and who doesn’t. I just know what it’s shaped like."
"And Malachi Constant is part of the roller coaster?" said Beatrice.
"Yes," said Rumfoord.
"And there’s no avoiding him?" said Beatrice.
"No," said Rumfoord.
"Well—suppose you tell me then, just what steps bring us together," said Beatrice, "and let me do what little I can."
Rumfoord shrugged. "All right—if you wish," he said. "If it would make you feel better—
"At this very moment," he said, "the President of the United States is announcing a New Age of Space