"If God (or Whoever's in charge) had wanted Dr. Netta Bernstein to continue living, He (or She) wouldn't have made it so easy for me to kill her."
Jimmy Duncaster and his co-worker, Netta Bernstein, have just made love. It was a sensual night, full of pleasure, but most importantly, a night in which both parties truly enjoyed themselves.
"And the next day she acted as if she didn't know me."
Duncaster attempts to find out if he had done or said something wrong, but Bernstein remains as untouched as ever. She returns to her work, and Duncaster is forced to carry out the remainder of his workday confused and rejected...
"And the next day was even more brutal than the first. The day before, it had only been obvious dislike. But the next day we were mortal enemies."
Duncaster cannot understand why this is happening. The two have been co-workers at MyToy Corporation for nearly a decade, and while Duncaster's position has been in Marketing Research, Bernstein's is a child psychologist. While Duncaster's objective is to make the next Big Breakthrough -- like Barbie, Furby, and Lego, -- Bernstein's is to test the toys to children and see their reactions.
Jimmy Duncaster is down to his final toy model -- his Big Breakthrough, his last hope in moving up in the company. It is the Little Miss Goodie Two-Shoes doll. Bernstein begins presenting her research.
(Image created using an AI art generator on Night Cafe)
"The pocket of the doll's dress was ignored completely by the children. I think it can be eliminated to reduce production costs."
It is now, that Duncaster decides he is going to kill Netta Bernstein.
She goes on to describe the mechanics of the doll, how a voice-activated talking loop achieves different responses. If the doll is praised, she coos; however, if the doll is rebuked, she whimpers.
"This is one of the most dangerous toys I've ever tested," Netta began. "This toy activates aggression in children, triggering the worst in them and feeding it. They were brutal with the dolls when throwing them against the walls failed to satisfy their need to hear the whimpering."
Duncaster feels defeated...
"How I killed Bernstein was slovenly, sloppily, untidily, random, and rumpled."
He follows Netta to her home, and while she's reaching into her closet, he pushes her down and strangles her to death. Then he leaves her body there and goes to work!
Jimmy half-expects the police to show up to his work and arrest him on the spot; but they don't. He walks past Bernstein's office. By force of habit he looks through her window, and when he does,
"I saw Netta poring over a large graph on her desk."
Duncaster starts to panic, thinks he is hallucinating, believes that Netta will go forward to the police about his crime! So he returns to her home and kills her -- again!
"I used a wooden cooking mallet. I crushed her skull and wrapped her in the shower curtain. I attached a typewriter to the end of the cord, carried her out to the marina at 3 a.m., and threw her in."
Duncaster goes to work; again, Bernstein is there.
So he kills her -- again!!
"And that night I killed her with a tire iron and buried her body in the remotest part of Topanga Canyon."
And the next day! ... Bernstein doesn't return to work. She has taken a leave of absence.
Duncaster manages to track her down, at the research facility where she had lived with her husband before his passing. Duncaster walks into the house, where he finds Bernstein...
Seven of her!
Jimmy learns that Netta's husband had been a geneticist. The husband had fallen in love with Netta, had cloned her several times, then passed away, leaving Netta with her "offspring."
"And one of them had fallen in love with me."
The clones sit Jimmy down. They explain that they have already retrieved the bodies of their fallen "sisters." No words are spoken, and they do not force him, but it is understood that Jimmy will be living with them from now on. He cannot leave now that he knows their secret.
"And perhaps some day, when they clone again, perhaps I'll get lucky again.
And perhaps one of them will fall in love with me."
My review...
I really enjoyed this story 😄 I read the entire collection of short stories in this novel, and I must say that the 70s is the place to be!~ Granted there were some pretentious writers in there, but for the most part it feels like the 1970s were returning to a "simpler" form of writing, and I am comparing it to the earlier Victorian works 😵 It was nice to read something that didn't involve looking up the definition of every other word!
Also, nostalgic in the sense that the 1970s were very science-fictional, and this story really amplifies that theme. Cloning -- classic! It truly puts then and now into perspective, how the technology, and thus the imagination, has changed. I believe a lot of today's science-fiction would focus on androids and brain implants!
There was one part of the story that I really wanted to include but never got the chance to, so I will do that now! While Jimmy Duncaster is reflecting on the shifts in his relationship with Netta Bernstein, how they have gone from lovers to "mortal enemies," he attempts to explain how it happened.
He makes reference to the 1975 film, Jaws (hopefully we are all familiar with the movie! 😄)
(Source: https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0073195/)
When the movie first came out -- if you can believe it -- people were having heart attacks. People who had never been to the ocean, let alone seen a shark, were so terrified that they literally had heart attacks! It caused many people to ponder: why? After all, there are horrors much closer to home: muggers and rapists, testing positive for cancer, getting obliterated while driving... Why are people so terrified of sharks?
Duncaster has his own theory.
The shark -- one of nature's most perfect killing machines -- has virtually remained unchanged since its conception 450 million years ago! Evolution has never had to tamper with the shark since! Human beings, however, we have undergone many evolutionary transformations.
"When we were still aquatic creatures... there was the shark. And somewhere deep in our racial memory, there is still the remembrance of the shark. Of swimming away from that inexorable eating machine, of crawling up onto the land to be safe from it, of vowing never to return to the seas where the death can reach us.
When we see the shark, we understand that is one of the dreadful furies that drove us to become human beings."
I am absolutely in love with this theory -- and is it one that people have already considered?! 🥴 We do not undergo evolution unless the need is necessary; in most cases, it is because the species in question is at a disadvantage. What better way to escape from one of our greatest threats than to evolve to live in an environment that the shark cannot? 😮🤦♀️ Makes so much sense!