While she waited with other cars for a streetlight to change, she remembered that she had not told them at the desk about Joe sitting on the floor of the room needing the doctor. Still waiting up there, waiting from now on until the end of the world, or until the cleaning women showed up tomorrow sometime. I better go back, she decided, or telephone. Stop at a pay phone booth.
It’s so silly, she thought as she drove along searching for a place to park and telephone. Who would have thought an hour ago? When we signed in, when we shopped . . . we almost went on, got dressed up and went out to dinner; we might even have gotten out to the nightclub. Again she had begun to cry, she discovered; tears dripped from her nose, onto her blouse, as she drove. Too bad I didn’t consult the oracle; it would have known and warned me. Why didn’t I? Any time I could have asked, any place along the trip or even before we left. She began to moan involuntarily; the noise, a howling she had never heard issue out of her before, horrified her, but she could not suppress it even though she clamped her teeth together. A ghastly chanting, singing, wailing, rising up through her nose.
When she had parked she sat with the motor running, shivering, hands in her coat pockets. Christ, she said to herself miserably. Well, I guess that’s the sort of thing that happens. She got out of the car and dragged her suitcase from the trunk; in the back seat she opened it and dug around among the clothes and shoes until she had hold of the two black volumes of the oracle. There, in the back seat of the car, with the motor running, she began tossing three RMS dimes, using the glare of a department store window to see by. What’ll I do? she asked it. Tell me what to do; please.
Hexagram Forty-two, Increase, with moving lines in the second, third, fourth and top places; therefore changing to Hexagram Forty-three, Breakthrough. She scanned the text ravenously, catching up the successive stages of meaning in her mind, gathering it and comprehending; Jesus, it depicted the situation exactly—a miracle once more. All that had happened, there before her eyes, blueprint, schematic:
It furthers one
To undertake something.
It furthers one to cross the great water.
Trip, to go and do something important, not stay here. Now the lines. Her lips moved, seeking . . .
Ten pairs of tortoises cannot oppose him.
Constant perseverance brings good fortune.
The king presents him before God.
Now Six in the third. Reading, she became dizzy:
One is enriched through unfortunate events.
No blame, if you are sincere
And walk in the middle,
And report with a seal to the prince.
The prince . . . it meant Abendsen. The seal, the new copy of his book. Unfortunate events—the oracle knew what had happened to her, the dreadfulness with Joe or whatever he was. She read Six in the fourth place:
If you walk in the middle
And report to the prince,
He will follow.
I must go there, she realized, even if Joe comes after me. She devoured the last moving line, Nine at the top:
He brings increase to no one.
Indeed, someone even strikes him.
He does not keep his heart constantly steady.
Misfortune.
Oh God, she thought; it means the killer, the Gestapo people—it’s telling me that Joe or someone like him, someone else, will get there and kill Abendsen. Quickly, she turned to Hexagram Forty-three. The judgment:
One must resolutely make the matter known
At the court of the king.
It must be announced truthfully. Danger.
It is necessary to notify one’s own city.
It does not further to resort to arms.
It furthers one to undertake something.
So it’s no use to go back to the hotel and make sure about him; it’s hopeless, because there will be others sent out. Again the oracle says, even more emphatically: Get up to Cheyenne and warn Abendsen, however dangerous it is to me. I must bring him the truth.
She shut the volume.
Getting back behind the wheel of the car, she backed out into traffic. In a short time she had found her way out of downtown Denver and onto the main autobahn going north; she drove as fast as the car would go, the engine making a strange throbbing noise that shook the wheel and the seat and made everything in the glove compartment rattle.
Thank God for Doctor Todt and his autobahns, she said to herself as she hurtled along through the darkness, seeing only her own headlights and the lines marking the lanes.
At ten o’clock that night because of tire trouble she had still not reached Cheyenne, so there was nothing to do but pull off the road and search for a place to spend the night.
An autobahn exit sign ahead of her read Greeley Five Miles. I’ll start out again tomorrow morning, she told herself as she drove slowly along the main street of Greeley a few minutes later. She saw several motels with vacancy signs lit, so there was no problem. What I must do, she decided, is call Abendsen tonight and say I’m coming.
When she had parked she got wearily from the car, relieved to be able to stretch her legs. All day on the road, from eight in the morning on. An all-night drugstore could be made out not far down the sidewalk; hands in the pockets of her coat, she walked that way, and soon she was shut up in the privacy of the phone booth, asking the operator for Cheyenne information.
Their phone—thank God—was listed. She put in the quarters and the operator rang.
“Hello,” a woman’s voice sounded presently, a vigorous, rather pleasant younger-woman’s voice; a woman no doubt about her own age.
“Mrs. Abendsen?” Juliana said. “May I talk to Mr. Abendsen?”
“Who is this, please?”
Juliana said, “I read his book and I drove all day up from Canon City, Colorado. I’m in Greeley now. I thought I could make it to your place tonight, but I can’t, so I want to know if I can see him sometime tomorrow.”
After a pause, Mrs. Abendsen said in a still-pleasant voice, “Yes, it’s too late, now; we go to bed quite early. Was there any—special reason why you wanted to see my husband? He’s working very hard right now.”
“I wanted to speak to him,” she said. Her own voice in her ears sounded drab and wooden; she stared at the wall of the booth, unable to find anything further to say—her body ached and her mouth felt dry and full of foul tastes. Beyond the phone booth she could see the druggist at the soda counter serving milk shakes to four teen-agers. She longed to be there; she scarcely paid attention as Mrs. Abendsen answered. She longed for some fresh, cold drink, and something like a chicken salad sandwich to go with it.
“Hawthorne works erratically,” Mrs. Abendsen was saying in her merry, brisk voice. “If you drive up here tomorrow I can’t promise you anything, because he might be involved all day long. But if you understand that before you make the trip—”
“Yes,” she broke in.
“I know he’ll be glad to chat with you for a few minutes if he can,” Mrs. Abendsen countinued. “But please don’t be disappointed if by chance he can’t break off long enough to talk to you or even see you.”
“We read his book and liked it,” Juliana said. “I have it with me.”
“I see,” Mrs. Abendsen said good-naturedly.
“We stopped off at Denver and shopped, so we lost a lot of time.” No, she thought; it’s all changed, all different. “Listen,” she said, “the oracle told me to come to Cheyenne.”
“Oh my,” Mrs. Abendsen said, sounding as if she knew about the oracle, and yet not taking the situation seriously.
“I’ll give you the lines.” She had brought the oracle with her into the phone booth; propping the volumes up on the shelf beneath the phone, she laboriously turned the pages. “Just a second.” She located the page and read first the judgment and then the lines to Mrs. Abendsen. When she got to the Nine at the top—the line about someone striking him and misfortune—she heard Mrs. Abendsen exclaim. “Pardon?” Julia
na said, pausing.
“Go ahead,” Mrs. Abendsen said. Her tone, Juliana thought, had a more alert, sharpened quality now.
After Juliana had read the judgment of the Forty-third hexagram, with the word “danger” in it, there was silence. Mrs. Abendsen said nothing and Juliana said nothing.
“Well, we’ll look forward to seeing you tomorrow, then,” Mrs. Abendsen said finally. “And would you give me your name, please?”
“Juliana Frink,” she said. “Thank you very much, Mrs. Abendsen.” The operator, now, had broken in to clamor about the time being up, so Juliana hung up the phone, collected her purse and the volumes of the oracle, left the phone booth and walked over to the drugstore fountain.
After she had ordered a sandwich and a Coke, and was sitting smoking a cigarette and resting, she realized with a rush of unbelieving horror that she had said nothing to Mrs. Abendsen about the Gestapo man or the SD man or whatever he was, that Joe Cinnadella she had left in the hotel room in Denver. She simply could not believe it. I forgot! she said to herself. It dropped completely out of my mind. How could that be? I must be nuts; I must be terribly sick and stupid and nuts.
For a moment she fumbled with her purse, trying to find change for another call. No, she decided as she started up from the stool. I can’t call them again tonight; I’ll let it go—it’s just too goddam late. I’m tired and they’re probably asleep by now.
She ate her chicken salad sandwich, drank her Coke, and then she drove to the nearest motel, rented a room and crept tremblingly into bed.
14
MR. NOBUSUKE TAGOMI thought, There is no answer. No understanding. Even in the oracle. Yet I must go on living day to day anyhow.
I will go and find the small. Live unseen, at any rate. Until some later time when—
In any case he said good-bye to his wife and left his house. But today he did not go to the Nippon Times Building as usual. What about relaxation? Drive to Golden Gate Park with its zoo and fish? Visit where things who cannot think nonetheless enjoy.
Time. It is a long trip for the pedecab, and it gives me more time to perceive. If that can be said.
But trees and zoo are not personal. I must clutch at human life. This had made me into a child, although that could be good. I could make it good.
The pedecab driver pumped along Kearny Street, toward downtown San Francisco. Ride cable car, Mr. Tagomi thought suddenly. Happiness in clearest, almost tear-jerking voyage, object that should have vanished in 1900 but is oddly yet extant.
He dismissed the pedecab, walked along the sidewalk toward the nearest cable tracks.
Perhaps, he thought, I can never go back to the Nippon Times Building, with its stink of death. My career over, but just as well. A replacement can be found by the Board of Trade Mission Activities. But Tagomi still walks, exists, recalling every detail. So nothing is accomplished.
In any case the war, Operation Dandelion, will sweep us all away. No matter what we are doing at the time. Our enemy, alongside whom we fought in the last war. What good did it do us? We should have fought them, possibly. Or permitted them to lose, assisted their enemies, the United States, Britain, Russia.
Hopeless wherever one looks.
The oracle enigmatic. Perhaps it has withdrawn from the world of man in sorrow. The sages leaving.
We have entered a Moment when we are alone. We cannot get assistance, as before. Well, Mr. Tagomi thought, perhaps that too is good. Or can be made good. One must still try to find the Way.
He boarded the California Street cable car, rode all the way to the end of the line. He even hopped out and assisted in turning the cable car around on its wooden turntable. That, of all experiences in the city, had the most meaning for him, customarily. Now the effect languished; he felt the void even more acutely, due to vitiation here of all places.
Naturally he rode back. But . . . a formality, he realized as he watched the streets, buildings, traffic pass in reverse of before.
Near Stockton he rose to get off. But at the stop, when he started to descend, the conductor hailed him. “Your briefcase, sir.”
“Thank you.” He had left it on the cable car. Reaching up he accepted it, then bowed as the cable car clanged into motion. Very valuable briefcase contents, he thought. Priceless Colt .44 collector’s item carried within. Now kept within easy reach constantly, in case vengeful hooligans of SD should try to repay me as individual. One never knows. And yet—Mr. Tagomi felt that this new procedure, despite all that had occurred, was neurotic. I should not yield to it, he told himself once again as he walked along carrying the briefcase. Compulsion-obsession-phobia. But he could not free himself.
It in my grip, I in its, he thought.
Have I then lost my delighted attitude? he asked himself. Is all instinct perverted from the memory of what I did? All collecting damaged, not merely attitude toward this one item? Mainstay of my life . . . area, alas, where I dwelt with such relish.
Hailing a pedecab, he directed the driver to Montgomery Street and Robert Childan’s shop. Let us find out. One thread left, connecting me with the voluntary. I possibly could manage my anxious proclivities by a ruse; trade the gun in on more historicity sanctioned item. This gun, for me, has too much subjective history . . . all of the wrong kind. But that ends with me; no one else can experience it from the gun. Within my psyche only.
Free myself, he decided with excitement. When the gun goes, it all leaves, the cloud of the past. For it is not merely in my psyche; it is—as has always been said in the theory of historicity—within the gun as well. An equation between us!
He reached the store. Where I have dealt so much, he observed as he paid the driver. Both business and private. Carrying the briefcase he quickly entered.
There, at the cash register, Mr. Childan. Polishing with cloth some artifact.
“Mr. Tagomi,” Childan said, with a bow.
“Mr. Childan.” He, too, bowed.
“What a surprise. I am overcome.” Childan put down the object and cloth. Around the corner of the counter he came. Usual ritual, the greeting, et cetera. Yet, Mr. Tagomi felt the man today somehow different. Rather—muted. An improvement, he decided. Always a trifle loud, shrill. Skipping about with agitation. But this might well be a bad omen.
“Mr. Childan,” Mr. Tagomi said, placing his briefcase on the counter and unzipping it, “I wish to trade in an item bought several years ago. You do that, I recollect.”
“Yes,” Mr. Childan said. “Depending on condition, for instance.” He watched alertly.
“Colt .44 revolver,” Mr. Tagomi said.
They were both silent, regarding the gun as it lay in its open teakwood box with its carton of partly consumed ammunition.
Shade colder by Mr. Childan. Ah, Mr. Tagomi realized. Well, so be it. “You are not interested,” Mr. Tagomi said.
“No sir,” Mr. Childan said in a stiff voice.
“I will not press it.” He did not feel any strength. I yield. Yin, the adaptive, receptive, holds sway in me, I fear . . .
“Forgive me, Mr. Tagomi.”
Mr. Tagomi bowed, replaced the gun, ammunition, box, in his briefcase. Destiny. I must keep this thing.
“You seem—quite disappointed,” Mr. Childan said.
“You notice.” He was perturbed; had he let his inner world out for all to view? He shrugged. Certainly it was so.
“Was there a special reason why you wanted to trade that item in?” Mr. Childan said.
“No,” he said, once more concealing his personal world—as should be.
Mr. Childan hesitated, then said, “I—wonder if that did emanate from my store. I do not carry that item.”
“I am sure,” Mr. Tagomi said. “But it does not matter. I accept your decision; I am not offended.”
“Sir,” Childan said, “allow me to show you what has come in. Are you free for a moment?”
Mr. Tagomi felt within him the old stirring. “Something of unusual interest?”
“Come, sir.�
� Childan led the way across the store; Mr. Tagomi followed.
Within a locked glass case, on trays of black velvet, lay small metal swirls, shapes that merely hinted rather than were. They gave Mr. Tagomi a queer feeling as he stooped to study.
“I show these ruthlessly to each of my customers,” Robert Childan said. “Sir, do you know what these are?”
“Jewelry, it appears,” Mr. Tagomi said, noticing a pin.
“These are American-made. Yes of course. But, sir. These are not the old.”
Mr. Tagomi glanced up.
“Sir, these are the new.” Robert Childan’s white, somewhat drab features were disturbed by passion. “This is the new life of my country, sir. The beginning in the form of tiny imperishable seeds. Of beauty.”
With due interest, Mr. Tagomi took time to examine in his own hands several of the pieces. Yes, there is something new which animates these, he decided. The Law of Tao is borne out, here; when yin lies everywhere, the first stirring of light is suddenly alive in the darkest depths . . . we are all familiar; we have seen it happen before, as I see it here now. And yet for me they are just scraps. I cannot become rapt, as Mr. R. Childan, here. Unfortunately, for both of us. But that is the case.
“Quite lovely,” he murmured, laying down the pieces.
Mr. Childan said in a forceful voice, “Sir, it does not occur at once.”
The Man in the High Castle Page 22