Nothing So Strange

by James Hilton

  I had never done that before either. I flew round again and remade the approach. A terrific gust dropped the plane five hundred feet in a single swirl, but with power on I managed to level up till the white patch lay beneath. It proved to be the dried bed of a lake, smoother than any airfield runway; except for the wind a landing would be easy. I waited for lulls between gusts, then came down in a hurry. After we had touched ground the next gust almost blew us over. “Don’t stop,” Brad shouted. “Taxi over there….” He pointed in a direction where the lake bed elbowed into surrounding upland. We covered half a mile, tacking like a yacht whenever the big gusts came. Presently in the lee of a hill the wind lessened. We stopped and clambered out.

  “Well!” I said.

  “Well?” he answered, and slapped me on the back. Then he put stones against the wheels and climbed up to unscrew the cap of the gas tank. “Down to the last drop,” he reported.

  “We were lucky.”

  “The motor’s fouled up too—didn’t you notice the engine missing?”

  “I didn’t notice anything….”

  “Bad gas. Or else worn rings. Or loose bolts on a cylinder head…. You made a pretty good landing. I’d half a mind to do it for you, at the end, but then I thought you’d like the practice.”

  “Practice! Do you know I’ve never done a thing like that before?”

  “I thought you hadn’t. That’s why I said you did pretty well.”

  “And … and weren’t you scared of letting me?”

  “No. For one thing, I was a bit confident you’d make it.”

  “Any other reason?”

  He was already pouring coffee from the thermos. “I don’t want to sound melodramatic, but I suddenly realized while we were flying that I don’t give a damn about certain things any more … and one of them’s my life.”

  “Another must be my life, in that case.”

  “Sure…. Sit down. Coffee’s only warm—altitude always loosens corks. You should squeeze them tight again after you climb.”

  We sat in the shade of a yellow rock and I had a queer feeling that nobody else since the earth began had been exactly where we were. Which was quite possible, for we were a mile from the roughest road, and twenty from the nearest town. “We’ve got to get gas,” I said, searching the map.

  “You have. My job’s on the motor. I didn’t quite like the way she behaved those last few miles.”

  “No? What’s wrong?”

  “Just that I wouldn’t want to fly her anywhere else without a checkup. I’m a good mechanic—did you know that? Take me about a couple of hours—time for you to hitchhike to the nearest gas station…. But no hurry. Eat your sandwiches and have a cigarette…. I like it here. For the first time in God knows how long I’m reasonably sure I’m not being spied on.” And suddenly he drew me down to him on the desert sand and kissed me. It was different from that time in the car. Perhaps the relief after tension made us both responsive to something no longer within bounds.

  He said later, beginning quietly: “You think I’m still out of my mind, don’t you? All this stuff about being watched everywhere…. Neurosis … psychosis … one of those jargon words. You’re calm about it, that’s one thing. You’re always calm. I like that. It’s my favorite cure. When I saw your head in front of me while we were flying I was calm too. And I didn’t care what happened. That was part of the calmness. I kept thinking of Bill—probably because we’d talked about him in the car. When we were in those gusts I thought ‘For Christ’s sake, God, what are you trying to do to us?’—but I wasn’t mad about it, as Bill was, I was calm. It seemed a good question. Something worth a bit of research, if anyone had time for it these days and wasn’t being watched. There I go again—the neurosis. Just for the moment I even suspected Murdoch— because they put the unlikeliest people on to jobs like that—just as they did in the army … in New York … Washington … and … other places…. Of course it sounds incredible. I sometimes dream it’s still just algebra—with a flaw in it somewhere. A big dud. That’s what I hoped—that’s what they knew I hoped. So they watched me afterwards. Maybe in case I suddenly wrote the truth in the sky. The mysterious way in which God moves, specially prepared for those over two-thirty-five, and when you read God backwards it spells Dog. In another moment I will give you my prediction for the end of the world, but first, a message from your announcer….”

  “Stop talking like that,” I cried. “Whatever it means, stop it—stop it!”

  “I’m sorry. Perhaps I am out of my mind. Maybe they don’t watch me half as much as I imagine. Or maybe I’m not watched at all and it just proves I’m out of my mind for thinking so.”

  “No, no, don’t worry about that. You’re not out of your mind.”

  “But if I think I’m being watched when I’m not … because you don’t believe it, do you?”

  I saw the look in his eyes and knew there was no longer any alternative. I said simply: “Darling, yes. I believe it.”

  “What?”

  “I believe it. I believe you.”

  “Hey, let’s get this straight. So I am being watched? It’s true, then?”

  “Yes, yes, I believe you—”

  “But what evidence have you? You know more than you’ll say, don’t you?”

  “Brad, please—please don’t—”

  “Listen, I want to know what you know. What makes you agree with me that I’m being watched all the time? Who’s on the job now? Is it Dan? Why do you think anyone’s watching me?”

  I pulled his head against mine and held it there while I whispered: “Because I am, Brad.”

  “You?”

  “Yes, darling.”

  “What do you mean?”

  I told him then about Mr. Small. I told him how I had gone to a downtown office in New York to be interrogated, how Mr. Small had followed me to California for further questioning, and how Brad’s visit to Vista Grande had been arranged so that I could keep an eye on him, size him up, try to get him to talk—but precisely about what, they wouldn’t tell me. It was the vaguest assignment. “So I said I’d try, but I didn’t try—except for what I wanted myself, and that was to get to know you again after all these years.”

  After the first shock he was calmer than I had expected, and he wasn’t angry with me at all, as I thought he might have been. “So you’ve been watching me,” he said reflectively, as if he must make it fit in with other things in his mind.

  “Yes—but not for him. For myself.”

  “And what are you going to tell him?”

  “Either everything or nothing, darling, but not half and half.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because it’s the mistake I’ve already made and perhaps you have too.”

  He said with a sigh: “You’re uncanny sometimes…. And you’ve helped me tremendously. D’you know, I’m relieved at what you’ve said—about you watching me. I began to think I was going out of my mind—I wasn’t sure … sometimes I wondered if it were all my imagination. Now I know it isn’t…. Fine…. And I can fly too—that’s something else you’ve shown me.” He took my hand and held it rather solemnly. “Just like you, Jane. Remember that time in Vienna when I said you’d always be on my side?”

  That wasn’t quite what he had said, but I liked the misquotation.

  “What do they suspect me of?” he asked quietly.

  “I don’t know, Brad. Maybe the fact that you worked with Framm started them off. But after what you did in the army I don’t see why you shouldn’t be able to make them trust you…. That is, unless there are other angles I don’t know about.”

  “There are.”

  “What?”

  “I can’t tell you—now. I wish I could and it’s perhaps absurd that I can’t, but—”

  “All right. Don’t bother.”

  “What’s so wonderful is that you trust me. It doesn’t occur to you that I might have done anything bad, does it?”

  “Have you?”

 
He shook his head. “But I love the way you ask. You remind me of the priest who heard a confession of murder and merely asked very calmly ‘How many murders, my son?’ Not that the parallel fits me, but I think it does you.”

  “It might. Or maybe I’m just remembering Daniel Webster’s remark that there’s nothing so strange as truth. I can always imagine you getting into the most complicated trouble from the highest possible motives. I’m capable of doing that myself, that’s why it doesn’t shock me so much.”

  He laughed and then asked seriously: “When do you see this man again?”

  “I don’t know, exactly. He was coming today, to the house, but we’ve missed him by making this trip. I did that deliberately.”

  “Good for you.”

  “But he’ll come again. You can’t keep him off.”

  “What sort of man is he?”

  “That kind. The kind you can’t keep off. Otherwise not so bad. Fairly fair. Nothing Gestapo-ish. He told me they don’t know anything against you. I guess they just can’t let you alone—any more than I can, but not in the same way.”

  “Did he want to see me today?”

  “No, only me. To find out what I’d found out—or if I’d found out anything. He seems to think I have an inside track on you.”

  “And you have.” All his nerves, and mine too, came to rest in the way he said it.

  “That makes me very happy.”

  “Me too.” He leaned up on one elbow. “I wish we could stay here longer, or come again, but perhaps that’s impossible…. I’m glad we had this day, anyhow. A lovely time…. When you see him again, will you tell him something?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Tell him….” He hesitated and half smiled. “I’m sorry it sounds so mysterious, but I can’t help it…. Just tell him I’ve kept my word so far. Will you tell him that?”

  “Yes. You’ve kept your word—so far.”

  “But don’t make the ‘so far’ sound like a threat. It’s a fact. I can’t be blamed if … well, never mind…. That’s all.” He began to get up. “And now, if you’re ready….”

  “Sure … the gas.”

  “And the motor. We’ve both got to get busy.”

  * * * * *

  The road was round the corner of the hill, according to the map, but I had no idea what chance there would be of a lift. It’s an experience to start off alone across the desert land; you set a course, as when flying or sailing, but distances have a fabulous unreality; the place you keep your eye on may be one or five or ten miles away. I aimed just for the outer edge of the lake bed; caked hard, it made good walking, and soon the little plane was beyond sight against the background of hills. Presently I came to a jutting rock round which the road should be; but then came the hot wind, laden with dust and tumbleweed. I fought my way and struck the road almost before seeing it. A dirt road, not very encouraging, though there were fairly recent tire marks in the ruts. I began to wonder what I could do if no car overtook me. Just nothing, I supposed, except keep on walking. Twenty miles to Giant’s Pass—say six hours. I should be scorched and thirsty and dead-beat, but probably I could do it.

  A car came along after a quarter of an hour—an aged Ford, driven by a Mexican. He spoke little English, and grinned when I used my Spanish on him. I don’t think he understood much of what I explained, but he cheerfully made room for me amongst crates of eggs and bundles of alfalfa. We bumped along for four or five miles, then joined a paved highway for the rest of the journey.

  Giant’s Pass was a small place, with not more than one of anything except wooden shacks. It looked like a ghost town either reviving or not quite dead. But for its altitude it would have been impossibly hot. Dogs lay sprawled in the shade; their barks and the occasional bang of a screen door were the only sounds. At a single gas pump in the midst of a litter of weather-worn auto cabins a boy of about fifteen listened curiously to my tale of a forced plane landing in the desert. It occurred to me later he probably thought it a trick to buy gas without coupons. Even when I had convinced him of the story there was another problem; he said he couldn’t leave his place to drive me anywhere, nor did he know anyone who could. I tried to talk him into a change of mind till suddenly I saw the Mexican repassing; I yelled out to ask if he were on his way back. He answered with the same cheerful grin. So I handed up the cans and found the eggs and alfalfa replaced by enough groceries to keep a large family for a month. Perhaps that was what they were for. At the last minute, as we were leaving Giant’s Pass, I remembered the newspaper and dashed back to the general store for one.

  It’s curious to recollect where you were when you learned of big events. I was having a music lesson in the New York house when John came in to tell us excitedly that Lindbergh had landed in Paris; I was with a group of friends in Boise, Idaho, arguing after a long late Sunday breakfast when news came over the radio that the Japs had attacked Pearl Harbor; I was walking in Central Park when I saw all kinds of people struck by some strange dumbfoundedness and presently a girl’s voice, overheard as I passed by, told me with sobs that Roosevelt was dead.

  And I was riding with a Mexican through the California desert when I picked up the paper and first saw the name Hiroshima.

  * * * * *

  The Mexican, with a beaming disregard of his tires and springs, had insisted on driving right through the scrub to the plane. He helped fill the tank, accepted a reward with genial dignity, and drove off in a second cloud of dust. Brad said he had fixed and checked everything. It hadn’t taken either of us as long as he had expected, so we could now relax again before leaving. “Sit down and smoke. It’s an easy take-off and whatever wind there still is will help us back, though it’ll probably slacken by evening.”

  “It’s begun to slacken already,” I said.

  He lit a cigarette and lay outstretched on the sand. “I still say I like this place. I don’t want to leave it somehow.” I handed him the paper; he let it fall on his lap. “Oh, so you got one? Any news?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  Then he picked it up, glanced at the headlines, and I saw the glance become a stare.

  He made no comment at first, and I watched him covertly while I packed the picnic things. I stowed them away in the plane, still to give him more time; then I came over.

  “Read about this new bomb?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Extraordinary thing.”

  “Yes.”

  “I reckon a good many people are finding it pretty hard to believe.”

  “Probably.”

  “Looks like they can only split atoms out of rare stuff like uranium—so far. And at terrific cost. One of these days, though, they’ll find out how to do it cheaper out of common material—hydrogen, say. Nothing impossible about that—in theory.”

  “Isn’t there?”

  “Sure no. All it needs is the short cut. Somebody’ll find it sooner or later.”

  All this casualness had been so absurdly overdone that I simply looked at him, wondering how best to convey not so much what was in my mind as the fact that he would have to act much better if he wished to conceal what was in his.

  Presently he said: “What’s the idea, staring like that? Anything wrong?”

  I lay beside him. “You’ve kept your word long enough, Brad.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Seems to me you’re free to talk—after these headlines.”

  He made smoke rings through an uneasy silence. Then he said: “I guess that’s so—to some extent. But I see they don’t go into the science of it much.”

  “Oh, to hell with that. Tell me what happened to you. That’s what I’m interested in.”

  “It oughtn’t to be.”

  “I know … the world … the future … science … all that’s more important. But with me, last things come first.”

  “What last things?”

  “The last things we’d have if we lost everything else. Human relationships.”

  “
I suppose that must be what they call the woman’s angle.”

  * * *

  PART FIVE

  He told me, during the several hours that followed, more or less what had happened. The story was often disjointed in the way he gave it, and I had to probe to get certain parts clear; but in the end it assembled itself.

  He had intended, he said, to return to America at once, in September 1939; but after his year in Berlin he found that crossing the frontier into a free country gave him a part-fascinated, part-frantic interest in the world drama that was developing. With the release of his mind from technical work he turned with something of the same intensity to a grandstand scrutiny of chaos. Perhaps oddly, he said, he hated the Nazis more and not less when he saw them in this perspective; it was as if Berlin had been too much the center of the whirlpool, just as America would be too far beyond the outer edge. At any rate, he lived in France, the nearer distance, throughout the so-called phony war and most of the invasion. In June, just before that country’s fall, he crossed to England and was in London during the worst of the blitz.

  I asked him what he was trying to get out of all this and he answered: “Experience. You yourself once said that scientists lived in an ivory tower. I’d lived in one so long I couldn’t even wait to come down the stairs—I had to jump out of the window.”

  “How did you make a living?”

  “I didn’t. For the first time in my life I idled—idled while Rome was burning. I pottered about France and then I pottered about England.”

  “During the blitz?”