The Medium

by Noëlle Sickels

  Iris waited patiently, as always, while Helen reinforced her trance state. Though, Helen had thought in the past, could Iris ever be said to be truly waiting? There was no air of expectancy in her, no sense that her time was being ill-spent, no sense of time passing at all. Iris didn’t wait, really, Helen had finally decided. Nor did she have patience. Or not have it. She simply existed. She didn’t struggle to understand things, nor to elucidate them. Maybe she already understood everything, or maybe she didn’t deem full understanding to be necessary or even particularly interesting. It was an enviable state.

  “You desire to understand,” Iris communicated, as Helen was trying to think of how to say just that. “It is natural. No act bears fruit without this desire.”

  “There must be a reason you come to me,” Helen said, “and a reason my boys come, and all the spirits who appear when I call on behalf of other people.”

  “We come out of love.”

  “But why?”

  “For that question.”

  Helen felt a fluttering of despair. Talking with Iris was like trying to grasp flowing water. Except that Iris wanted to help her. She was sure of that. Though wanting was perhaps too muscular a notion.

  Helen envisioned a stream of cold, clear water, eddying around rocks, sliding through a quiet forest. She elaborated the image until she could smell dampness, hear the stream gurgle, pick out individual pebbles in the streambed and water striders near its green banks. She stared at the stream, as mesmerized and content as she might have been beside a real stream in the woods by Hunter’s River on a summer afternoon at home.

  Her fledgling despair lifted. It wasn’t her responsibility to steer the stream. She had no control over what the stream might carry to her or past her. Iris had control. Or something or someone beyond Iris. It was a liberating realization.

  “We can guide anyone,” Iris said, “but some are easier to reach. Some stand by the door. You are one.”

  “What is your guidance?”

  “Prepare to live evermore. You make your own rewards, your own regrets, in your earthly world and in ours. Live in joy here and now, and prepare to live in joy.”

  Helen recalled the mundane questions people put to their departed loved ones during seances. Requests for advice on practical problems, pleas for release from sorrow or guilt, applications for glimpses into the future. They all seemed so small compared to what Iris was offering. Yet most of the time, the spirits had obliged.

  Helen had started discouraging these kinds of inquiries last October because she’d begun to feel such use of her powers, and of the spirits’ tolerance, was actually a misuse, or, at best, a mistaken use. But she’d never broached her theory to Iris, and Iris had never made any overt notice that Helen was approaching her mediumship differently. In the series of seances last month, Helen had lifted all restrictions in an attempt to pave the way for Billy to appear. Iris hadn’t shown notice of that shift, either.

  “If there’s this higher purpose,” Helen pressed now, “why do spirits bother to answer earthly problems and petitions?”

  “They answer so people will believe,” Iris said, “so people will pay attention. Those answers are not the real answer.”

  “Why do they send me visions I didn’t ask for?”

  “There is a sea of nows,” Iris continued. “The boundaries do not always hold.”

  “But what am I to do?”

  “Choose. Give what will help. Everything has its time.”

  To Helen’s dismay, Iris began to fade.

  “I still don’t understand,” she called to her.

  But Iris was already part of the mist, distinguishable merely as a thicker area of cloudiness. Only her flower was still identifiable, hovering unsupported in the air.

  “You will know,” Iris said from out of the mist. Her voice was unusually melodious and sweet.

  Despite Iris’s confident words, when Helen came out of trance, she felt frustrated. Then, Iris’s tone, lingering in her mind, began to soothe her, in the same way she’d been soothed as a fretful child by her father singing her a lullaby or her mother stroking her head.

  It occurred to Helen that though she wasn’t in control of the elusive stream of the spirit world, nor of the boundary-cracking visions, she was in charge of what information from these sources she shared with others. And just as she’d learned to enter and leave trance at will, she would learn how to “schedule” opportunities for receiving visions. After all, hadn’t she succeeded years ago in “turning off” seeing auras all the time? She stood up and stretched her arms above her head. She felt better.

  The next evening, Helen began her intensive newspaper reading. She tried to pry out the common, human experiences behind the facts of battle statistics and geography. She read about families and schools and churches, and how the war was touching them. She read editorials and analyses, and letters from local boys overseas. If, as Iris had instructed, she was to choose what was helpful, she had to know what was needed. Not what people thought they needed, not what they would say at first blush if you asked them, but what they might say in an unguarded moment after a tiring day, when they were sitting with a friend who fell quiet at the right time, or when they took a gamble on a compassionate stranger’s shoulder.

  Major Levy arrived in Seagoville ten days after Helen. A clerk from Dr. Stannard’s office found Helen weeding in the flower garden and escorted her to a meeting room in the administration building. The major was seated at a long table when Helen entered. He stood up and said good morning. She nodded to acknowledge his greeting, but she didn’t say anything in return. He seemed not to mind.

  “I trust you’ve been comfortable, Miss Schneider?” he said when they’d sat down on opposite sides of the table. “This camp has an excellent record.”

  “Being kept in the dark is not comfortable, Major,” Helen replied.

  She wasn’t afraid of him, as she’d been on Ellis Island. What could he threaten her with now? She wanted to get out of Seagoville and go home, but if she had to stay, she would manage. The war against Germany couldn’t last much longer. The experts were saying it’d be over by Christmas. In any case, Major Levy was not likely to be swayed by displays of humility or timidity, nor by appeals. She didn’t know what, in fact, would sway him, but she believed that the stronger she was, the better chance she had. And she did feel strong. So why not show it?

  “Kept in the dark?” Levy said roguishly. “I assume you don’t mean literally.”

  “No, not literally.”

  “Well, Miss Schneider, perhaps by the end of this meeting, you won’t have that complaint any longer. It’s all up to you.”

  Helen doubted this was true. The major bent to open a briefcase on the floor at his side. He took out an olive green folder and set it on the table between them. It was stamped “Top Secret.” Helen looked from the folder to the major. He seemed to be waiting for her to speak. But why bother to ask about the folder? He was obviously going to tell her about it whether she asked or not.

  “What did you think of the news of D-Day, Miss Schneider?” Levy finally said.

  “I thought what everyone thought—that it was horrible and yet good news.”

  “Nothing more?”

  Helen hesitated. This must be what people mean, she thought, when they speak of playing cat and mouse.

  “I thought that I’d been right.”

  The major nodded.

  “I thought that, too,” he said quietly.

  He laid his hands flat on top of the green folder. His fingers were hairy, and he was wearing a wedding ring.

  “I’d like to ask you some questions about how you … see such things.”

  “All right.”

  “They aren’t dreams, correct?”

  “No, I’m awake. I’m usually in the middle of some ordinary activity, and a vision just arrives. Though when I saw that beach, I was in trance.”

  “In trance?”

  “It was during a séance.”
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br />   “A séance.” The major sat back in his chair and shook his head. “Where dead people in white sheets float around the room and levitate furniture.”

  “It’s not like that.”

  “Whatever you say,” Levy conceded, sounding fatigued. “Séances are not my concern. What I want to know is whether you can bring on visions like the D-Day battle at will.”

  “I’ve never tried.”

  “Do you think you could?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Major Levy stood up and walked the length of the room twice. He seemed to be weighing the advisability of some course of action.

  “Miss Schneider,” he said returning to the table but not sitting down. “I’ve been granted some discretionary leeway, and I’m going to take a chance on you. I’m going to be candid—up to a point—and I’m relying on you to hear me out without prejudice, and then to see and fulfill your duty to your country.”

  Helen was taken aback. She hadn’t known what to expect from this interview. She’d girded herself for insinuations, insults, threats, brow-beating, even some form of bribery. She hadn’t counted on a plain request. She’d never imagined being taken into the major’s confidence. Was this simply another, more sophisticated tactic in the cat-and-mouse game?

  “Everything I’m about to tell you,” the major went on, “is not to go beyond this room.”

  “But you said I’m a danger to the peace and safety of the United States,” she said.

  The major looked at her with a mixture of amusement, annoyance, and admiration in his eyes.

  “I said potentially dangerous,” he replied.

  “Yet here I am.”

  “At the time of our last meeting, detaining you was a necessary precaution. In wartime, Miss Schneider, niceties must sometimes be dispensed with. I trust you won’t hold it against us.”

  “Niceties? Like liberty?”

  “Don’t be naive,” the major said, irritation winning out over decorum. “We were on the eve of the biggest, most important invasion of the war, for God’s sake, and there you were, a girl with a multitude of German connections, spewing forth all kinds of details about beach landings and casualties and code names—”

  “But you didn’t believe me!”

  The major exhaled audibly and sat down again.

  “We couldn’t take the risk that someone else might believe you,” he said. Then he tapped the folder with his index finger. “There was this, too. If your vision turned out to be even partially accurate, we wanted you available to discuss this.”

  “Do you always lock up people you want to talk to?”

  The major stared wearily into Helen’s eyes. Let’s not do this anymore, he seemed to be saying.

  “Very soon,” the major said, “you will be free to go. Now can we dispense with this topic?”

  “I guess so.”

  “All right, then.”

  He got up again and went to the door. A woman appeared in the hall, and Major Levy asked her to bring them coffee. When he came back into the room, he went to the window and stood staring out, his back to Helen. The view was hardly absorbing—just two buildings for staff housing outside the gate—but he remained steadily turned towards it. Five minutes later, there was a rap on the door. Major Levy opened it, and the woman he’d spoken to entered with a tray on which sat two mugs, two napkins, a pot of coffee, a small pitcher of milk, and a plate of jelly doughnuts. After the woman left, Helen and the major each poured themselves some coffee. Helen took a doughnut and put it on her napkin. The major let the doughnuts be.

  “The Army has begun an experimental program,” Levy said without preamble, “to explore the possible military uses of certain apparent mental abilities. The Russians have reported some success with a similar program.”

  “Mental abilities?”

  “Your visions,” the major answered, lifting his eyebrows just a tad.

  “You don’t think this program is worthwhile, do you?” Helen hazarded.

  Levy shrugged. “Wiser heads than mine have decided this is worth a look-see.” He smiled conspiratorially. It was the first time his smile had held any genuineness. “Heads higher up, at any rate.”

  “What kind of program is it?”

  “We ask people like you to try to get information for us on target areas—through the air or the spirits or however it is you do it—plus, we look for soldiers who have traits that lead us to believe they could be trained to do this sort of thing, and we test them, too. Remote viewing, we call it.”

  “What do you mean by target areas?”

  “We ask you to concentrate on specific locales and to describe what you see—buildings, weather, anything. Some of the viewers make drawings. Some of them claim to hear sounds or even smell things from the target area. Me, I’d take aerial reconnaissance over this stuff any day, but we can’t always get our planes in everywhere.”

  “So it’s a kind of spying.”

  “You could say. We haven’t used it in the field yet. We’re still giving the viewers coordinates of places we know, so we can check their accuracy. But the Russians claim they’ve got men zeroing in on enemy targets already and that they’re right on track.”

  Helen took a bite of her doughnut and a swallow of coffee. She purposely stared at the wall to forestall the conversation’s continuing. What would Iris think of this surprising development? Was this a proper use of Helen’s capacity for visions? Choose, Iris had said. She probably wouldn’t ever say more. But that was all right. Because, Helen suddenly thought, this is mine. My ability, my decision.

  “What happens to this information?” she said, turning back to the major.

  “Once we get to feel okay relying on its accuracy, then it’d figure into military planning—troop movements, air strikes, timing. Not everyone in the program is convinced yet it isn’t all a bunch of malarkey, or at best, lucky guesses and coincidence. That’s not much to build a plan on. Not enough to stake lives on.”

  “What about what the Russians say?”

  “Could be they’re exaggerating.”

  “What about my Omaha Beach vision?”

  “Could be you’re the real McCoy.”

  He stood up. He set his briefcase on the table and put the “Top Secret” folder into it.

  “I’ll be in the area a few days,” he said. “You think about it. Dr. Stannard knows how to reach me.”

  He walked to the door. Helen stood up, too.

  “Can I ask you one more thing, Major?”

  “Shoot.”

  “Did you ever really intend to lock up my family?”

  “I intended you to feel the full might of the U.S. Army,” he said soberly.

  Helen tried hard not to show how much this remark unbalanced her.

  “I wasn’t kidding when I told you there were enough grounds,” he continued. “In hindsight, maybe I should have taken you all in. Your father’s been kicking up a lot of dust. Got a lawyer to file a writ of habeas corpus. We had to send Captain Fitzpatrick to tell him to back off, that your release was imminent.”

  “Is it?”

  “We won’t know which paperwork to process until you’ve decided about the remote viewing.”

  “But you’re going to release me either way?”

  The major looked disappointed.

  “Either way,” he said. “Still, you must remember, Miss Schneider,” he added, perking up, “the Army is a machine whose wheels grind slowly at times. ‘Imminent’ doesn’t give you a date to mark on your calendar, now does it?”

  CHAPTER 41

  Major Levy had left a one-page description of the remote viewing project, and the day after her meeting with him, Helen went to the administration building to look it over. She had to sit in the warden’s office to read it, with the warden present. Helen reviewed it several times before handing it back to Dr. Stannard.

  The major had outlined only the testing and training phase of the project. Presumably, the details of exactly how the Army planned to
use remote viewers were too classified for the warden of an internment camp to see, let alone a civilian who hadn’t yet signed on to the project.

  The brief document reiterated that Helen would be asked to concentrate on certain geographic coordinates and to verbally describe or make sketches of any mental impressions she received. She’d also be asked to work with a beacon, a person in another room who would be staring at a National Geographic photograph. Again, she’d record any impressions of the place in the photo. If her rate of accuracy on these tasks was adequate, she’d move on to the training phase, which entailed the same activities, except that a monitor would help her refine her impressions as she was receiving them, by asking her questions and by guiding her to center on particular aspects of a target.

  After Helen left Dr. Stannard’s office, she wandered over to the baseball field and stopped to watch some boys playing. They were running and shouting like boys anywhere, their enthusiasm unhampered by either their confinement in a camp or the unforgiving Texas sun. But beyond noticing that, Helen wasn’t really paying attention to the game. Her mind was still on the remote viewing project.

  Describing the physical features of a place could be construed as benign or trifling, especially during training exercises, but, of course, if the program ever truly entered the arena of war, there would be consequences, and those consequences would be lethal. This made Helen very uneasy.

  She told herself her qualms had to be overcome for a greater good. She reminded herself that decent people everywhere were having to do so. Lloyd had killed. Billy would have. Rosie was a helpmate to killing. What were scrap collecting and bond buying, really, but ways to fund killing? The posters encouraging such activities made no bones about it. To save American lives, they said in no uncertain words and pictures, German and Japanese lives must be taken. Many posters showed vicious-looking Nazi and Japanese soldiers brutally murdering women and children, or gloating over the bloodied bodies of handsome American infantrymen, sailors, and airmen. But giving the Army information that would be used to guide specific attacks was more direct, more soldier-like, than buying bonds or even working in a defense plant, and Helen was not sure she wanted to be a soldier. Major Levy had implied it was her duty to join the project. Why was duty so commonly presented as straightforward and simple, when it was often, in reality, a complicated affair?