May 24, 2025 • 24 mins
A surreal sci-fi series exploring speculative concepts, dreams, and philosophical what-ifs. Each episode is a cerebral journey into the mind’s deepest questions.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Mind. Welcome to a half hour of mind Webs.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Short stories from the world are spec into section.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
O.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Carol Cowan joins us on mind Webs tonight to read
Judith Merrill's story But Only a Mother, a tale that
first appeared in The Stounding magazine in nineteen forty eight
and is reprinted by Pamela Sergeant in her collection Women
of Wonder, science fiction Stories by women about women. The
story is about a mother, a child, and nuclear weaponry.
(01:23):
Judith Merrill's But Only a Mother.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
Now you are at the world's largest airfield on Tinian
and the Marianas. The voice you hear is that of
Chaplain William Downey, who stood amongst the target charts the escape,
gets in the stale coffee and set a prayer for
the Onola, gay and civilization.
Speaker 5 (01:42):
We'd pray the at the end of the war may
come south and then once more we may know peace.
Or or may the men who fly this night be
kept safe in Thy care, and may they be returned
safely to us. We shall go forward, trusting.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
In knowing that we are in Guy cared now.
Speaker 5 (02:03):
And forever the name of Jesus Christ abe.
Speaker 4 (02:09):
The bomb run lasted four minutes the bomb went away
at nine fifteen. My God was the only entry in
the co pilot's diary. Seventy eight thousand, one hundred and
fifty people died at Hiroshima.
Speaker 6 (02:33):
Margaret reached over to the other side of the bed
where Hank should have been. Her hand patted the empty pillow,
and then she came all together awake. Wondering that the
old habit should remain after so many months, she tried
to curl up catstyle to hoard her own warmth, found
she couldn't do it anymore, and climbed out of bed
with a pleased awareness of her increasingly clumsy bulkiness. Morning
(02:56):
motions were automatic. On the way through the kitchenete, she
pressed the button that would start breakfast cooking. The doctor
had said to eat as much breakfast as she could,
and tore the paper out of the facsimile machine. She
folded the long sheet carefully to the national news section
and propped it on the bathroom shelf to scan while
she brushed her teeth. No accidents, no direct hits, at
(03:17):
least none that had been officially released for publication. Ow, Maggie,
don't get started on that. No accidents, no hits, take
a nice newspaper's word for it. The three clear chimes
from the kitchen announced that breakfast was ready. She set
a bright napkin and cheerful colored dishes on the table
in a feudal attempt to appeal to a faulty morning appetite. Then,
(03:40):
when there was nothing more to prepare, she went for
the mail, allowing herself the full pleasure of prolonged anticipation,
because to day there would surely be a letter.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
There was.
Speaker 6 (03:51):
There were two bills, and a worried note from her mother,
which read, Darling, why didn't you write and tell me sooner?
I'm thrilled, of course, But well, one hates to mention
these things. But are you certain the doctor was right?
Hank's been around all that uranium and thorium or whatever
it is all these years. And I know you say
he's a designer, not a technician, and doesn't get near
(04:11):
anything that might be dangerous, But well you know he
used to back at oak Ridge, don't you think. Oh? Well,
of course, I'm just being a foolish old woman, and
I don't want to get you upset. Do you know
much more about it than I do? And I'm sure
your doctor was right. He should know. Margaret made a
face over the excellent coffee and caught herself refolding the
paper to the Medical News. Stop it, Maggie, stop it,
(04:36):
the radiologist said. Hank's job couldn't have exposed him and
the bomb area that we drove past.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
No, no, now, stop it.
Speaker 6 (04:42):
Now, read the social notes or the recipes. Maggie Girl,
a well known geneticist in the Medical News, said that
it was possible to tell with absolute certainty at five
months whether the child would be normal, or at least
whether the mutation was likely to produce anything freakish. The
worst cases, at any rate could be prevented. Minor mutations.
(05:04):
Of course, displacements in facial features of changes in brain
structure could not be detected, and there had been some
cases recently of normal embryos with atrophied limbs that did
not develop beyond the seventh or eighth month. But the
doctor concluded cheerfully, the worst cases could now be predicted
and prevented. Predicted and prevented. We've predicted it, didn't we
(05:31):
Hank and the others. They predicted it, but we didn't
prevent it. We could have stopped it, but we didn't,
and now Margaret decided against breakfast. Coffee had been enough
for her in the morning for ten years.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
It would have to do for to day.
Speaker 6 (05:48):
She buttoned herself into interminable folds of material that the
sales girl had assured her was the only comfortable thing
to wear during the last few months, and with a
surge of pure pleasure the letter the newspaper forgotten, she
realized that she was on the next to the last button.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
It wouldn't be long now.
Speaker 6 (06:08):
The city in the early morning had always been a
special kind.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
Of excitement for her.
Speaker 6 (06:12):
Last night it had rained, and the sidewalks were still
damp gray instead of dusty. The air smelled the fresher
to a city bred woman for the occasional pungency of
acrid factory smoke. She walked the six blocks to work,
watching the lights go out in the all night hamburger joints,
where the plate glass walls were already catching the sun,
and the lights go on in the dim interiors of
(06:32):
cigar stores and dry cuming establishments. The office was in
a new government building in the relevator. On the way up,
she felt, as always like a Frankfurter roll in the
ascending half of an old style rotary toasting machine. She
abandoned the airfoam cushioning gratefully at the fourteenth floor, and
settled down behind her desk, at the rear of a
(06:53):
long row of identical desks. Each morning, a pile of
papers that greeted her was a little higher. These were
every no one knew the decisive months the war might
be won or lost on these calculations, as well as
many others. The Manpower Office had switched her here when
her old expediter's job had got to be too strenuous.
The computer was easy to operate, and the work was absorbing,
(07:14):
if not as exciting as the old job. But you
didn't just stop working. These days, everyone who could do
anything at all was needed. Vaguely, she remembered the interview
with the psychologist. I'm probably the unstable type. Wonder what
sort of neurosis I'd get sitting home reading that sensational paper.
(07:34):
And she plunged into work without pursuing the thought. February eighteenth,
Hank Darling, just a note from the hospital. No less,
I had a dizzy spell at the work and the
doctor took it to heart. Blessed if I know what
I'll do with myself lying in bed for weeks just waiting.
But doctor Boyer seemed to think it may not be
too long. There are too many newspapers around here or
(07:55):
in fanticides all the time, and they can't seem to
get a jury to convict any of them. It's the
father's who do it. Lucky, think you're not around just
in case.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
Oh darling, that wasn't a very funny joke.
Speaker 6 (08:06):
Wasn't write as often as you can?
Speaker 5 (08:08):
Will you?
Speaker 6 (08:09):
I have too much time to think. But there really
isn't anything wrong and nothing to worry about, right often,
and remember I love you, Maggie.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Special Service Telegram February twenty first, nineteen ninety two from
Tackler ten at H. Marvell to missus H. Marvell Women's
Hospital in New York City. Pad Doctor's Graham, Stop we'll
arrive four ten stop short leave Stop.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
You did it, Maggie, Stop, Love Hank.
Speaker 6 (08:40):
February twenty fifth, Hank, dear, Oh so you didn't see
her either. You would think a place this size would
at least have visit plates on the incubators so that
fathers could get a look. Even if the poor benighted mamas.
Can't they tell me I won't see her for another
week or maybe more. But of course mother always warned
me that if I didn't slow my pace, i'd prop
I even have my babies too fast I is, She
(09:02):
always writes, did you meet that battle axe of a
nurse they put on here? I imagine they save her
for people who've already had theirs and don't let her
get too near the perspectives. But a woman like that
simply shouldn't be a lot in a maternity ward. She's
obsessed with mutations, can't seem to talk about anything else.
Oh well, ours is all right, even.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
If it was in an unholy hurry.
Speaker 6 (09:24):
I'm tired. They warned me not to sit up too soon,
but I had to.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
Write to you, Oh my love, Darling.
Speaker 6 (09:31):
Maggie February twenty ninth, Darling, I finally got to see her.
It's all true what they say about new babies in
the face that only a mother could love. But it's
all there, darling, eyes, ears and noses, no, no, only one, all.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
In the right places.
Speaker 6 (09:46):
Oh, we're so lucky, Hank. I'm afraid I've been a
rambunctious patient. I kept telling that hatchet faced female with
the mutation, meaning that I wanted to see the baby. Finally,
the doctor came in to explain everything to me and
talked a lot of nonsense, most of which I'm sure
no one could have understood any more than I did.
The only thing I got out of it was that
she didn't actually have to stay in the incubator. They
(10:07):
just thought it was a little wiser. I think I
got a little hysterical at that point. I guess I
was more worried than I was willing to admit, but.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
I threw a small fit about it.
Speaker 6 (10:16):
The whole business wound up with one of those hushed
medical conferences.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
Outside the door, and finally the.
Speaker 6 (10:21):
Woman and wife said, well, we might as well. Maybe
it'll work out better that way. I'd heard about the
way doctors and nurses in these places develop a god complex,
and believe me, it is as true figuratively as it
is literally that a mother hasn't not a leg to
stand on around here. M I am awfully weak still
all right again, Sue Love Maggie Mark eight, dearest Hank, Well,
(10:47):
the nurse was wrong if she told you that she's
an idiot. Anyhow, it's a girl. It's easier to tell
with babies than with cats. And I know how about Henrietta.
I'm home again and busier than a Betatron. They got
everything mixed up at the hospital, and I had to
teach myself how to bathe her and do just about
everything else. She's getting prettier too. When can you get
a leave, a real leave? Love? Maggie May twenty sixth,
(11:14):
Hank Dear, you should see her now, and you shall.
I'm sending along a reel of color movie. My mother
sent her those nighties with draw strings all over. I
put one on, and right now she looks like a
snow white potato sack with that beautiful, beautiful flower.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Face blooming on top.
Speaker 6 (11:31):
Is that me talking? Am I a doting mother?
Speaker 5 (11:34):
Oh?
Speaker 6 (11:34):
But wait till you see her July tenth.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
Believe it or not as you like.
Speaker 6 (11:41):
But your daughter can talk, and I don't mean baby talk.
Alice discovered it. She's a dental assistant in the wax,
you know. And when she heard the baby giving out
what I thought was a string of gibbery, she said
that the kid knew words and sentences but couldn't say
them clearly because she has no teeth yet. I'm taking
her to a speech specialist September thirteenth. We have a
(12:03):
prodigy for real, now that all her front teeth are in,
her speech is perfectly clear, and a new talent. Now
she can sing. I mean she can really carry a tune.
At seven months, darling, my world would be perfect if
you could only get home. November nineteenth. At last, the
little goon was so busy being clever it took her
(12:24):
all this time to learn to crawl. The doctor says,
development in these cases is always erratic.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Special Service Telegram December first, nineteen ninety two from Tech
Lieutenant H. Marvel to missus H. Marvell, Apartment K seventeen
five O four East nineteenth Street, New York, New York.
Week's leave starts tomorrow. Stop we'll arrive airport ten oh five.
Stop don't meet me. Stop love love, love, Hank.
Speaker 6 (12:52):
Margaret let the water run out of the bath innet
until only a few inches were left, and then she
loosed her hold on the wriggling baby. I think it
was better when you were a tired, good young woman,
she informed her daughter.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
Happily, you can't crawl in a bath.
Speaker 6 (13:03):
And at you know, then I sing you in the
back cub. Margaret was used to her child's volubility by now,
but every now and then it caught her unawares. She
swooped the resistant mass of pink flesh into a tower
and began to rub. Because you're too.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
Little, and your head is very.
Speaker 6 (13:19):
Soft, and bath tubs are very hard. Oh, then when
can I go on the back cup when the outside
of your head is as hard as the inside? Brainchild?
She reached, sort a pile of fresh clothing. I cannot understand,
she added, pinning a square of.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
Cloth through the nightgown.
Speaker 6 (13:37):
Why a child of your intelligence can't learn to keep
a diaper on the way the babies do. They've been
used for centuries, you know, with perfectly satisfactory results. The
child is deigned to reply, she'd heard it too often.
She waited patiently until she'd been tucked, clean and sweet
smelling into a white painted crib. Then she favored her
mother with a smile that inevitably made Margaret think of
(13:59):
the first golden edge of.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
The sun bursting into a rosy pre dawn.
Speaker 6 (14:03):
She remembered Hanks's reaction to the color pictures of his
beautiful daughter, and with a thought, realized how late it was.
Go to sleep, Pouse, Please, when you wake up, you
know your daddy will be here, why, asked the four
year old mind, waging a losing battle to keep a.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
Ten month old body awake.
Speaker 6 (14:23):
Margaret went into the kitchenette and set the timer for
the roast. She examined the table and got her new
clothes out of the closet, new dress, new shoes, newcliff
knew everything, bought weeks before and saved for the day
Hanks telegram came. She stopped to pull a paper from
the facsimile, and with clothes and news, went into the
bathroom and lowered herself gingerly into a steaming luxury of
(14:43):
a scented tub. She glanced through the paper with indifferent interest.
To day, at least there was no need to read
the national news. There was an article by a geneticist,
the same geneticist. Mutations He said were increasing disproportionately. It
was too soon for recessives. Even the first mutants were
not old enough yet to breed. But my baby's all right.
(15:08):
Apparently there was some degree of free radiation from atomic
explosions causing the trouble. My baby's fine precocious, but normal.
If more attention had been paid to the first Japanese mutations,
he said, there was that little notice in the paper
in the spring of eighty five, That was when Hank
(15:29):
quit at oak Ridge. Only two or three of those
guilty of infanticide are being caught and punished in Japan
to day. But my baby's all right. She was vested, combed,
and ready to the last light blush on his lip paste.
When the door chime sounded, she dashed for the door
(15:50):
and heard, for the first time in eighteen months, the
almost forgotten sound of a key turning in the lock
before the chime had quite died away. Hank Bay and
then there was nothing to say. So many days, so
many months of small news piling up, so many things
to tell him, and now she just stood there. She
(16:12):
traced the features with the finger of memory. The same
high bridged nose, wide set eyes, fine feathery brows, the
same long jaw, the hair a little further.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
Back now on the high forehead.
Speaker 6 (16:23):
The same tilted curve of his mouth. Pale. Of course,
he'd been underground all this time, and strange, stranger because
of lost familiarity than any newcomer's face could be. She
had time to think all that before his hand reached
out to touch her and spanned the gap of eighteen months.
(16:43):
Now again, there was nothing to say, because there was
no need. They were together, and for the moment, that
was enough.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
Where's the baby sleeping?
Speaker 6 (16:54):
She would be up any minutes, no urgency. Their voices
were casual, as though it were daily exchange, as though
war and separation did not exist. Margaret picked up the
coat he'd thrown on the chair near the door and
hung it carefully in the closet. She went to check
the roast, leaving him to wander through the rooms by himself.
Remembering and coming back, she found him fine. By standing
(17:18):
over the baby's crib, she couldn't see his face, but
she had no need to, Hank, I think we can
wake her just this once, Margaret pulled the covers down
and lifted the white bundle from the bed. Sleepy lids
pulled back heavily from smoky brown eyes.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
Hello.
Speaker 6 (17:40):
Hank's voice was tentative.
Speaker 5 (17:41):
Hello.
Speaker 6 (17:42):
The baby's assurance was more pronounced. He'd heard it, of course,
but that wasn't the same as hearing it. He turned
eagerly to Margaret.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
She really can.
Speaker 6 (17:53):
Of course she can, darling. But what's more important, she
can even do nice, normal things like other babies do,
even stupid once to watch her crawl, and Margaret set
the baby on the big bed, and for a moment,
young Henrietta lay and eyed her parents dubiously crawl. Well
that's the idea, honey. Your daddy's new around here. You
know he wants to see.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
Your show off.
Speaker 6 (18:14):
They'll trut me in my ty Oh of course, and
Margaret obligingly rolled the baby over.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
Maggie, what's the matter? I thought they turned over first?
Speaker 6 (18:26):
This baby, hank, Darling. This baby does things when she
wants to. This baby's father watched with softening eyes while
the head advanced and the body hunched up, propelling itself
across the bed.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
Quite a little rascal.
Speaker 6 (18:41):
Off.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
She looks like one of those potato sack racers they
used to have hunt picnics made, and got her arms
pulled out of the sleeves already.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
Oh here, I'll do it, darling.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Don't be silly, Maggie. This may be your first baby,
but I had five kid brothers.
Speaker 6 (18:57):
And he reached with his hand for the string that
closed one sleeve. He opened the sleeve bow and groped
for an arm.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
Hum away you wringle.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
Any one might thank your worm using your tummy to
crawl out instead of your hands and feet.
Speaker 6 (19:11):
And his hand touched a moving novel's flesh at the shoulder.
Margaret stood and watched, smiling, Hank, darling, wait till you.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
Hear his thing.
Speaker 6 (19:22):
His right hand traveled down from the shoulder to where
he thought an arm would be, traveled down and straight
down over firm, small muscles that writhed in an attempt
to move against the pressure of his hand, he let
his fingers drift up again to the shoulder, and with infinite.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
Care, he opened the knot at the bottom of the nightgown.
Speaker 6 (19:40):
His wife was standing by the bed, saying, Hank, she
could do jingle bells and several other things. His left
hand felt along the soft knitted fabric of the gown,
up toward the diaper that folded flat and smooth across
the bottom end of his child. No wrinkles, no kicking,
(20:00):
No Maggie. He tried to pull his hands from the
neat fold in the diaper, from the wriggling body.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
Maggie.
Speaker 6 (20:08):
His voice went dry. Words came hard, low and grating.
He spoke very very slowly, thinking the sound of each
word to make himself say it. His head was spinning,
but he had to know before he.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
Let it go.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Maggie, Maggie, why didn't you tell me?
Speaker 5 (20:26):
Tell you what?
Speaker 1 (20:27):
Darling.
Speaker 6 (20:29):
Margaret's poise was the immemorial patience of woman confronted with
man's childish impetuosity.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
Her sudden laugh sounded fantastically easy and natural.
Speaker 6 (20:39):
In that room.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
It was all clear to her.
Speaker 6 (20:41):
Now, Hey, I'm sorry. Is she wet? I didn't know,
she didn't know.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
My hands, beyond control, ran up and down the soft
skinned baby body, the sinuous, limbless body.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
Oh God, dear God.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
My head shook, muscles contracted in a bitter spasm of
his daire you. My fingers tightened on the child.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Oh god, she didn't know or lock h.
Speaker 6 (22:17):
H.
Speaker 5 (22:31):
We pray be at the end of the war, may
comes to to sto, and then once more we may go.
Speaker 3 (22:39):
May amens the night I can say, says, I don't care.
Speaker 5 (22:43):
May they give the journeys or they see to what
or what you want? We shall go to go a
war us singing season, knowing no.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
Or anybody caring all, they will they use this Rice,
Rice right.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Carol Cowen joined us tonight for reading of Judith Merrills
But Only a Mother, a story that appeared in Family
Sergeant's collection Women of Wonder, science fiction Stories by women
about women. This is Michael Hanson speaking. Technical production by
Steve Gordon. Mind Webbs is produced at w YA and Madison,
(23:58):
the service of University of Wisconsin Extension
Speaker 6 (24:24):
H
Mind. Welcome to a half hour of mind Webs.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Short stories from the world are spec into section.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
O.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Carol Cowan joins us on mind Webs tonight to read
Judith Merrill's story But Only a Mother, a tale that
first appeared in The Stounding magazine in nineteen forty eight
and is reprinted by Pamela Sergeant in her collection Women
of Wonder, science fiction Stories by women about women. The
story is about a mother, a child, and nuclear weaponry.
(01:23):
Judith Merrill's But Only a Mother.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
Now you are at the world's largest airfield on Tinian
and the Marianas. The voice you hear is that of
Chaplain William Downey, who stood amongst the target charts the escape,
gets in the stale coffee and set a prayer for
the Onola, gay and civilization.
Speaker 5 (01:42):
We'd pray the at the end of the war may
come south and then once more we may know peace.
Or or may the men who fly this night be
kept safe in Thy care, and may they be returned
safely to us. We shall go forward, trusting.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
In knowing that we are in Guy cared now.
Speaker 5 (02:03):
And forever the name of Jesus Christ abe.
Speaker 4 (02:09):
The bomb run lasted four minutes the bomb went away
at nine fifteen. My God was the only entry in
the co pilot's diary. Seventy eight thousand, one hundred and
fifty people died at Hiroshima.
Speaker 6 (02:33):
Margaret reached over to the other side of the bed
where Hank should have been. Her hand patted the empty pillow,
and then she came all together awake. Wondering that the
old habit should remain after so many months, she tried
to curl up catstyle to hoard her own warmth, found
she couldn't do it anymore, and climbed out of bed
with a pleased awareness of her increasingly clumsy bulkiness. Morning
(02:56):
motions were automatic. On the way through the kitchenete, she
pressed the button that would start breakfast cooking. The doctor
had said to eat as much breakfast as she could,
and tore the paper out of the facsimile machine. She
folded the long sheet carefully to the national news section
and propped it on the bathroom shelf to scan while
she brushed her teeth. No accidents, no direct hits, at
(03:17):
least none that had been officially released for publication. Ow, Maggie,
don't get started on that. No accidents, no hits, take
a nice newspaper's word for it. The three clear chimes
from the kitchen announced that breakfast was ready. She set
a bright napkin and cheerful colored dishes on the table
in a feudal attempt to appeal to a faulty morning appetite. Then,
(03:40):
when there was nothing more to prepare, she went for
the mail, allowing herself the full pleasure of prolonged anticipation,
because to day there would surely be a letter.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
There was.
Speaker 6 (03:51):
There were two bills, and a worried note from her mother,
which read, Darling, why didn't you write and tell me sooner?
I'm thrilled, of course, But well, one hates to mention
these things. But are you certain the doctor was right?
Hank's been around all that uranium and thorium or whatever
it is all these years. And I know you say
he's a designer, not a technician, and doesn't get near
(04:11):
anything that might be dangerous, But well you know he
used to back at oak Ridge, don't you think. Oh? Well,
of course, I'm just being a foolish old woman, and
I don't want to get you upset. Do you know
much more about it than I do? And I'm sure
your doctor was right. He should know. Margaret made a
face over the excellent coffee and caught herself refolding the
paper to the Medical News. Stop it, Maggie, stop it,
(04:36):
the radiologist said. Hank's job couldn't have exposed him and
the bomb area that we drove past.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
No, no, now, stop it.
Speaker 6 (04:42):
Now, read the social notes or the recipes. Maggie Girl,
a well known geneticist in the Medical News, said that
it was possible to tell with absolute certainty at five
months whether the child would be normal, or at least
whether the mutation was likely to produce anything freakish. The
worst cases, at any rate could be prevented. Minor mutations.
(05:04):
Of course, displacements in facial features of changes in brain
structure could not be detected, and there had been some
cases recently of normal embryos with atrophied limbs that did
not develop beyond the seventh or eighth month. But the
doctor concluded cheerfully, the worst cases could now be predicted
and prevented. Predicted and prevented. We've predicted it, didn't we
(05:31):
Hank and the others. They predicted it, but we didn't
prevent it. We could have stopped it, but we didn't,
and now Margaret decided against breakfast. Coffee had been enough
for her in the morning for ten years.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
It would have to do for to day.
Speaker 6 (05:48):
She buttoned herself into interminable folds of material that the
sales girl had assured her was the only comfortable thing
to wear during the last few months, and with a
surge of pure pleasure the letter the newspaper forgotten, she
realized that she was on the next to the last button.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
It wouldn't be long now.
Speaker 6 (06:08):
The city in the early morning had always been a
special kind.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
Of excitement for her.
Speaker 6 (06:12):
Last night it had rained, and the sidewalks were still
damp gray instead of dusty. The air smelled the fresher
to a city bred woman for the occasional pungency of
acrid factory smoke. She walked the six blocks to work,
watching the lights go out in the all night hamburger joints,
where the plate glass walls were already catching the sun,
and the lights go on in the dim interiors of
(06:32):
cigar stores and dry cuming establishments. The office was in
a new government building in the relevator. On the way up,
she felt, as always like a Frankfurter roll in the
ascending half of an old style rotary toasting machine. She
abandoned the airfoam cushioning gratefully at the fourteenth floor, and
settled down behind her desk, at the rear of a
(06:53):
long row of identical desks. Each morning, a pile of
papers that greeted her was a little higher. These were
every no one knew the decisive months the war might
be won or lost on these calculations, as well as
many others. The Manpower Office had switched her here when
her old expediter's job had got to be too strenuous.
The computer was easy to operate, and the work was absorbing,
(07:14):
if not as exciting as the old job. But you
didn't just stop working. These days, everyone who could do
anything at all was needed. Vaguely, she remembered the interview
with the psychologist. I'm probably the unstable type. Wonder what
sort of neurosis I'd get sitting home reading that sensational paper.
(07:34):
And she plunged into work without pursuing the thought. February eighteenth,
Hank Darling, just a note from the hospital. No less,
I had a dizzy spell at the work and the
doctor took it to heart. Blessed if I know what
I'll do with myself lying in bed for weeks just waiting.
But doctor Boyer seemed to think it may not be
too long. There are too many newspapers around here or
(07:55):
in fanticides all the time, and they can't seem to
get a jury to convict any of them. It's the
father's who do it. Lucky, think you're not around just
in case.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
Oh darling, that wasn't a very funny joke.
Speaker 6 (08:06):
Wasn't write as often as you can?
Speaker 5 (08:08):
Will you?
Speaker 6 (08:09):
I have too much time to think. But there really
isn't anything wrong and nothing to worry about, right often,
and remember I love you, Maggie.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Special Service Telegram February twenty first, nineteen ninety two from
Tackler ten at H. Marvell to missus H. Marvell Women's
Hospital in New York City. Pad Doctor's Graham, Stop we'll
arrive four ten stop short leave Stop.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
You did it, Maggie, Stop, Love Hank.
Speaker 6 (08:40):
February twenty fifth, Hank, dear, Oh so you didn't see
her either. You would think a place this size would
at least have visit plates on the incubators so that
fathers could get a look. Even if the poor benighted mamas.
Can't they tell me I won't see her for another
week or maybe more. But of course mother always warned
me that if I didn't slow my pace, i'd prop
I even have my babies too fast I is, She
(09:02):
always writes, did you meet that battle axe of a
nurse they put on here? I imagine they save her
for people who've already had theirs and don't let her
get too near the perspectives. But a woman like that
simply shouldn't be a lot in a maternity ward. She's
obsessed with mutations, can't seem to talk about anything else.
Oh well, ours is all right, even.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
If it was in an unholy hurry.
Speaker 6 (09:24):
I'm tired. They warned me not to sit up too soon,
but I had to.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
Write to you, Oh my love, Darling.
Speaker 6 (09:31):
Maggie February twenty ninth, Darling, I finally got to see her.
It's all true what they say about new babies in
the face that only a mother could love. But it's
all there, darling, eyes, ears and noses, no, no, only one, all.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
In the right places.
Speaker 6 (09:46):
Oh, we're so lucky, Hank. I'm afraid I've been a
rambunctious patient. I kept telling that hatchet faced female with
the mutation, meaning that I wanted to see the baby. Finally,
the doctor came in to explain everything to me and
talked a lot of nonsense, most of which I'm sure
no one could have understood any more than I did.
The only thing I got out of it was that
she didn't actually have to stay in the incubator. They
(10:07):
just thought it was a little wiser. I think I
got a little hysterical at that point. I guess I
was more worried than I was willing to admit, but.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
I threw a small fit about it.
Speaker 6 (10:16):
The whole business wound up with one of those hushed
medical conferences.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
Outside the door, and finally the.
Speaker 6 (10:21):
Woman and wife said, well, we might as well. Maybe
it'll work out better that way. I'd heard about the
way doctors and nurses in these places develop a god complex,
and believe me, it is as true figuratively as it
is literally that a mother hasn't not a leg to
stand on around here. M I am awfully weak still
all right again, Sue Love Maggie Mark eight, dearest Hank, Well,
(10:47):
the nurse was wrong if she told you that she's
an idiot. Anyhow, it's a girl. It's easier to tell
with babies than with cats. And I know how about Henrietta.
I'm home again and busier than a Betatron. They got
everything mixed up at the hospital, and I had to
teach myself how to bathe her and do just about
everything else. She's getting prettier too. When can you get
a leave, a real leave? Love? Maggie May twenty sixth,
(11:14):
Hank Dear, you should see her now, and you shall.
I'm sending along a reel of color movie. My mother
sent her those nighties with draw strings all over. I
put one on, and right now she looks like a
snow white potato sack with that beautiful, beautiful flower.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Face blooming on top.
Speaker 6 (11:31):
Is that me talking? Am I a doting mother?
Speaker 5 (11:34):
Oh?
Speaker 6 (11:34):
But wait till you see her July tenth.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
Believe it or not as you like.
Speaker 6 (11:41):
But your daughter can talk, and I don't mean baby talk.
Alice discovered it. She's a dental assistant in the wax,
you know. And when she heard the baby giving out
what I thought was a string of gibbery, she said
that the kid knew words and sentences but couldn't say
them clearly because she has no teeth yet. I'm taking
her to a speech specialist September thirteenth. We have a
(12:03):
prodigy for real, now that all her front teeth are in,
her speech is perfectly clear, and a new talent. Now
she can sing. I mean she can really carry a tune.
At seven months, darling, my world would be perfect if
you could only get home. November nineteenth. At last, the
little goon was so busy being clever it took her
(12:24):
all this time to learn to crawl. The doctor says,
development in these cases is always erratic.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Special Service Telegram December first, nineteen ninety two from Tech
Lieutenant H. Marvel to missus H. Marvell, Apartment K seventeen
five O four East nineteenth Street, New York, New York.
Week's leave starts tomorrow. Stop we'll arrive airport ten oh five.
Stop don't meet me. Stop love love, love, Hank.
Speaker 6 (12:52):
Margaret let the water run out of the bath innet
until only a few inches were left, and then she
loosed her hold on the wriggling baby. I think it
was better when you were a tired, good young woman,
she informed her daughter.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
Happily, you can't crawl in a bath.
Speaker 6 (13:03):
And at you know, then I sing you in the
back cub. Margaret was used to her child's volubility by now,
but every now and then it caught her unawares. She
swooped the resistant mass of pink flesh into a tower
and began to rub. Because you're too.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
Little, and your head is very.
Speaker 6 (13:19):
Soft, and bath tubs are very hard. Oh, then when
can I go on the back cup when the outside
of your head is as hard as the inside? Brainchild?
She reached, sort a pile of fresh clothing. I cannot understand,
she added, pinning a square of.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
Cloth through the nightgown.
Speaker 6 (13:37):
Why a child of your intelligence can't learn to keep
a diaper on the way the babies do. They've been
used for centuries, you know, with perfectly satisfactory results. The
child is deigned to reply, she'd heard it too often.
She waited patiently until she'd been tucked, clean and sweet
smelling into a white painted crib. Then she favored her
mother with a smile that inevitably made Margaret think of
(13:59):
the first golden edge of.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
The sun bursting into a rosy pre dawn.
Speaker 6 (14:03):
She remembered Hanks's reaction to the color pictures of his
beautiful daughter, and with a thought, realized how late it was.
Go to sleep, Pouse, Please, when you wake up, you
know your daddy will be here, why, asked the four
year old mind, waging a losing battle to keep a.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
Ten month old body awake.
Speaker 6 (14:23):
Margaret went into the kitchenette and set the timer for
the roast. She examined the table and got her new
clothes out of the closet, new dress, new shoes, newcliff
knew everything, bought weeks before and saved for the day
Hanks telegram came. She stopped to pull a paper from
the facsimile, and with clothes and news, went into the
bathroom and lowered herself gingerly into a steaming luxury of
(14:43):
a scented tub. She glanced through the paper with indifferent interest.
To day, at least there was no need to read
the national news. There was an article by a geneticist,
the same geneticist. Mutations He said were increasing disproportionately. It
was too soon for recessives. Even the first mutants were
not old enough yet to breed. But my baby's all right.
(15:08):
Apparently there was some degree of free radiation from atomic
explosions causing the trouble. My baby's fine precocious, but normal.
If more attention had been paid to the first Japanese mutations,
he said, there was that little notice in the paper
in the spring of eighty five, That was when Hank
(15:29):
quit at oak Ridge. Only two or three of those
guilty of infanticide are being caught and punished in Japan
to day. But my baby's all right. She was vested, combed,
and ready to the last light blush on his lip paste.
When the door chime sounded, she dashed for the door
(15:50):
and heard, for the first time in eighteen months, the
almost forgotten sound of a key turning in the lock
before the chime had quite died away. Hank Bay and
then there was nothing to say. So many days, so
many months of small news piling up, so many things
to tell him, and now she just stood there. She
(16:12):
traced the features with the finger of memory. The same
high bridged nose, wide set eyes, fine feathery brows, the
same long jaw, the hair a little further.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
Back now on the high forehead.
Speaker 6 (16:23):
The same tilted curve of his mouth. Pale. Of course,
he'd been underground all this time, and strange, stranger because
of lost familiarity than any newcomer's face could be. She
had time to think all that before his hand reached
out to touch her and spanned the gap of eighteen months.
(16:43):
Now again, there was nothing to say, because there was
no need. They were together, and for the moment, that
was enough.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
Where's the baby sleeping?
Speaker 6 (16:54):
She would be up any minutes, no urgency. Their voices
were casual, as though it were daily exchange, as though
war and separation did not exist. Margaret picked up the
coat he'd thrown on the chair near the door and
hung it carefully in the closet. She went to check
the roast, leaving him to wander through the rooms by himself.
Remembering and coming back, she found him fine. By standing
(17:18):
over the baby's crib, she couldn't see his face, but
she had no need to, Hank, I think we can
wake her just this once, Margaret pulled the covers down
and lifted the white bundle from the bed. Sleepy lids
pulled back heavily from smoky brown eyes.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
Hello.
Speaker 6 (17:40):
Hank's voice was tentative.
Speaker 5 (17:41):
Hello.
Speaker 6 (17:42):
The baby's assurance was more pronounced. He'd heard it, of course,
but that wasn't the same as hearing it. He turned
eagerly to Margaret.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
She really can.
Speaker 6 (17:53):
Of course she can, darling. But what's more important, she
can even do nice, normal things like other babies do,
even stupid once to watch her crawl, and Margaret set
the baby on the big bed, and for a moment,
young Henrietta lay and eyed her parents dubiously crawl. Well
that's the idea, honey. Your daddy's new around here. You
know he wants to see.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
Your show off.
Speaker 6 (18:14):
They'll trut me in my ty Oh of course, and
Margaret obligingly rolled the baby over.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
Maggie, what's the matter? I thought they turned over first?
Speaker 6 (18:26):
This baby, hank, Darling. This baby does things when she
wants to. This baby's father watched with softening eyes while
the head advanced and the body hunched up, propelling itself
across the bed.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
Quite a little rascal.
Speaker 6 (18:41):
Off.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
She looks like one of those potato sack racers they
used to have hunt picnics made, and got her arms
pulled out of the sleeves already.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
Oh here, I'll do it, darling.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Don't be silly, Maggie. This may be your first baby,
but I had five kid brothers.
Speaker 6 (18:57):
And he reached with his hand for the string that
closed one sleeve. He opened the sleeve bow and groped
for an arm.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
Hum away you wringle.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
Any one might thank your worm using your tummy to
crawl out instead of your hands and feet.
Speaker 6 (19:11):
And his hand touched a moving novel's flesh at the shoulder.
Margaret stood and watched, smiling, Hank, darling, wait till you.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
Hear his thing.
Speaker 6 (19:22):
His right hand traveled down from the shoulder to where
he thought an arm would be, traveled down and straight
down over firm, small muscles that writhed in an attempt
to move against the pressure of his hand, he let
his fingers drift up again to the shoulder, and with infinite.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
Care, he opened the knot at the bottom of the nightgown.
Speaker 6 (19:40):
His wife was standing by the bed, saying, Hank, she
could do jingle bells and several other things. His left
hand felt along the soft knitted fabric of the gown,
up toward the diaper that folded flat and smooth across
the bottom end of his child. No wrinkles, no kicking,
(20:00):
No Maggie. He tried to pull his hands from the
neat fold in the diaper, from the wriggling body.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
Maggie.
Speaker 6 (20:08):
His voice went dry. Words came hard, low and grating.
He spoke very very slowly, thinking the sound of each
word to make himself say it. His head was spinning,
but he had to know before he.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
Let it go.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Maggie, Maggie, why didn't you tell me?
Speaker 5 (20:26):
Tell you what?
Speaker 1 (20:27):
Darling.
Speaker 6 (20:29):
Margaret's poise was the immemorial patience of woman confronted with
man's childish impetuosity.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
Her sudden laugh sounded fantastically easy and natural.
Speaker 6 (20:39):
In that room.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
It was all clear to her.
Speaker 6 (20:41):
Now, Hey, I'm sorry. Is she wet? I didn't know,
she didn't know.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
My hands, beyond control, ran up and down the soft
skinned baby body, the sinuous, limbless body.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
Oh God, dear God.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
My head shook, muscles contracted in a bitter spasm of
his daire you. My fingers tightened on the child.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Oh god, she didn't know or lock h.
Speaker 6 (22:17):
H.
Speaker 5 (22:31):
We pray be at the end of the war, may
comes to to sto, and then once more we may go.
Speaker 3 (22:39):
May amens the night I can say, says, I don't care.
Speaker 5 (22:43):
May they give the journeys or they see to what
or what you want? We shall go to go a
war us singing season, knowing no.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
Or anybody caring all, they will they use this Rice,
Rice right.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Carol Cowen joined us tonight for reading of Judith Merrills
But Only a Mother, a story that appeared in Family
Sergeant's collection Women of Wonder, science fiction Stories by women
about women. This is Michael Hanson speaking. Technical production by
Steve Gordon. Mind Webbs is produced at w YA and Madison,
(23:58):
the service of University of Wisconsin Extension
Speaker 6 (24:24):
H
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