Pihkal

by Alexander Shulgin

  I kept looking at him and said nothing.

  "I've never had a relationship anything like this," he said, "And sometimes I wonder if I've convinced myself of something that isn't really there at all."

  He sat, hunched over his knees, his voice subdued, "Yet, I'm sure of what's been said and I remember what was done, and I know that some part of it's quite real. And I suspect that some part of it isn't." He turned to me and shrugged/ "My problem is, how to find out which is which."

  Well, well, he doesn't waste time with small-talk answers, bless him.

  I met his eyes and openly read them. There was inwardness/ and pain at the corners, and something else right in the center, and that something else had to do with me, not with anybody named Ursula. I thought, he really is seeing me; I'm not just a couple of sympathetic ears. That's good. Just as long as he doesn't suspect how very much I detest beautiful (I assumed she was beautiful) German women, specially those called Ursula. After all, we've only met once before. I couldn't possibly be as interesting to him as he is to me. No, I thought, that isn't true. I didn't believe that part, and my Observer was pleased to note that I didn't.

  Hilda was asking for everyone's attention.

  But I couldn't very well be as fascinating to him as Ursula, because he's in love with her. On the other hand, people have been known to recover from being in love. Especially if things don't go well and there's another nice, warm, caring person around to pick up the pieces.

  I got a sudden image of my usually cool Observer holding its head in despair. Okay, okay, I thought, I'll go easy. We don't even know whether Ursula is in California, do we?

  When the turbaned Indian person was well launched into his presentation, I put my mouth up to Shura's right ear and whispered, "Does that mean Ursula didn't come back with you?"

  He inclined his head and nodded a confirmation. All right. Maybe she was arriving next week or something, but at least she wasn't with him right now. I kept my face impassive, thanking the gods that most of us humans were not competently telepathic, most of the time. It would have been hard to explain the fierce little thrust of exhilaration I felt. It was hard enough to explain it to myself, considering.

  At the end of the talk, before the music was to start, there was an intermission. The guests helped themselves to wine or coffee at Hilda's table; Shura and I went outside onto the wide deck, to smoke our cigarettes. He held a plastic cup of wine in one hand and perched on the wide wooden railing. I suddenly remembered a question I had forgotten to ask the first time we'd met.

  "By the way," I said, "I'm sure you must have answered this a thousand times, but - are you related in any way to the composer Borodin, the Prince Igor Borodin?"

  "Only very distantly, I'm afraid. Not enough to boast about."

  "Okay, now that's out of the way, tell me what you're going to do about your German lady. Did the two of you make any kind of decision about where to go from here? Or there?"

  Shura tapped ash off the end of his cigarette, "Yes, I suppose you could say we made some kind of decision. She's going to begin proceed ings for a divorce, start packing her things, and before long - whatever that means - she'll join me here."

  I thought about the curious flatness of his voice, and decided to take a chance.

  "That all sounds very hopeful; why are you not sounding - well, your tone of voice doesn't match what you're saying, if you'll forgive my ...." I made an apologetic gesture.

  He shifted his weight on the railing and glanced toward the glass doors and the lights of the living room, taking his time with the answer, "Yes, I suppose I don't sound that full of excitement, and it's probably because there've been an awful lot of false starts in this thing. It isn't the first time she's told me she would be moving out here, but somehow there never seems to be a definite date."

  He looked around for an ashtray and I offered him a small cracked blue saucer I'd found on the deck floor - probably the cat's dish.

  "When she does come for a visit," he continued, "She lets me know her plans a very short time in advance, and she never stays long. Yet while she's here, she talks as though she really does intend to move in; you know, things like wanting to change this or that in the house, sounding as if she can't wait to be settled in, to be staying with me forever. Yet, she always goes home, after a couple of weeks, and it's always, 'Just a few more months, please be patient just a few more months."'

  I asked, "What is the husband doing, in the meantime?"

  Shura looked directly at me, the furrow between his eyebrows deepening in the reflected light, and he said, "You know, that's probably the strangest part of this whole very strange business; Ursula has told me, over and over, that Dolph is very upset and angry about all this, even on the verge of violence of some kind - which would not be totally unexpected, after all - and yet, he's answered the phone a few times, when I've called Germany to ask Ursula something that couldn't wait for a letter, and he always talks to me as if I am still his friend and nothing has changed, nothing is going on. I don't know what to think."

  "Maybe he's just being stiff-upper-lip?"

  "No, I don't think so. There's always some strain in the voice when a person's doing that - you can pick it up pretty easily - and there's absolutely no strain in Dolph's voice, no hint of anything underneath. He sounds as if he honestly enjoys hearing from me and still likes me, unbelievable as that sounds. He rattles on about articles in journals, stuff like that, and we talk just as we used to when he was visiting here. Then he says goodbye very affectionately and turns the phone over to his wife."

  "Good Lord," I said, genuinely surprised, "That doesn't make sense at all, does it? You'd expect some explosion or accusations - or at least some sadness, wouldn't you?" "Yes," said Shura, "I would think so."

  Hilda appeared at the glass doors and motioned us in. As I headed toward my corner, I thought about what Shura had been telling me.

  He's wondering if his lady is playing games of some kind; he's sensing something out of kilter, but doesn't know what it is or where to look for it.

  We settled down on our pillows, and after the music - played by three men dressed, Indian fashion, in white tunics with broad red sashes around the waist - had been going on for about ten minutes, Shura rose very quietly. When I looked up, he grasped my hand, pulled me to my feet and led me through the open archway into Hilda's darkened hall. As he urged me along, I giggled at the suspicions tumbling through my mind, and Shura turned around, finger to lips, pantomiming Silence.

  I followed him into a small room at the end of the hall, where I could make out a large desk and piles of books and magazines on the floor, and two chairs. Shura left the door open for what there was of available light, and settled himself in an old-fashioned captain's chair with wheels. I sat, knee to knee with him, in the other chair.

  I smiled at him and said, "Oh?"

  He grinned back, "I decided talking to you was more important than listening to the music, beautiful as it is, and fond of it as I am. Do you mind?"

  "Terribly."

  "Okay. What I want to talk to you about is the work I do."

  This is getting wilder and wonderfuler all the time. He drags me into a little darkened room to tell me about his work. I am intrigued. I think I adore this marvelous character and I hope Germany sinks into the sea.

  I said, "I would love to hear about your work."

  He began, "Do you know what psychopharmacology is?"

  "Not really."

  "I think I told you, the last time we talked, that I am a chemist and a psychopharmacologist.

  Actually, what I do is somewhat different than what is done by most of the other people who call themselves psychopharmacologists. Everyone in this particular discipline studies the effects of drugs on the central nervous system, which is what I also do. But most of them study those effects in animals, and I study them in humans. I don't investigate all kinds of drugs, just a certain kind in particular."

  "What certain kind in particula
r?"

  "The drugs I work with are called psychedelics or psychotomimetics. I assume you've heard something about them?"

  "You mean, things like mescaline and LSD?"

  "Exactly"

  "Well, I've never had LSD, but one of the most extraordinary and important days of my life was the day I took peyote." Shura leaned forward, "Really! When was that?"

  "Oh, good grief, I think it was - I have to count backwards for a moment - I think about 15 -

  no, more than that - maybe 20 years ago. A very interesting man who has since become a psychiatrist took me on the journey; his name is Sam Golding. Do you know him?"

  Shura laughed, "Yes, I know Sam very well. We did a lot of work together in the 60's; in fact, he co-authored a couple of papers with me. That was a long time ago, though. I haven't seen him for at least a year."

  "Sam's an unusual man, and he was a good guide for me. I haven't seen him in years, either.

  Anyway - go on."

  "About 20 years ago, I left a very good job with a large company I'm sure you've heard of.

  Dole Chemical?"

  I nodded.

  "I went back to school, to learn everything I could about the central nervous system. It was a somewhat risky thing to do, since I had a wife and child to support, but Helen went to work as a librarian at the university, without even a hint of protest - she was totally supportive, bless her

  - then, after I'd done two years of medical school, I set to work creating a private laboratory in a large room about a hundred yards behind my house. It had been the basement of my family's first home on the property. The house burned down one summer and everything was lost except that perfectly good basement. Then I went through the long process of finding out how to deal with the red tape and the authorities, in order to get the kind of license I needed for what I wanted to do, which is an interesting story for another time. And I became a consultant."

  I was still tasting the promising words, "... an interesting story for another time," and had to replay the mental voice tape quickly to catch up.

  "What kind of consultant?"

  "In the field of the effects of psychoactive drugs on the human senso-rium, particularly those kinds called psychedelic. I began publishing everything I was doing and discovering. And I continued to find new ones

  - new drugs."

  I shifted in my chair, my knee bumping his, not sure I understood. "You found new psychedelics?"

  "I invented new ones. I still invent them. I try each new drug out on myself, starting at extremely low levels and gradually increasing the amount until I get activity. It saves a lot of mice and dogs, believe me. If I like what I'm seeing with the new compound, I run it through my research group. After that, I write up the results and publish them in a journal, usually a very respected one called the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry."

  Jesus Aitch! I can't believe this! He INVENTS psychedelics!

  I realized I was staring at him with my mouth open. I said, "It sounds like the most exciting work in the universe, or am I mistaken?" "No, you're absolutely right. At least, in my eyes, it is. Most people who call themselves psychopharmacologists, however, would assume I'm out of my mind." "Why?"

  "Because trying new compounds out in your own body has gone out of fashion. It used to be the only responsible way for a person who called himself a scientist to evaluate a drug which was intended for human consumption, particularly if the drug was his own creation. Now, scientists shudder at the idea of anything but animal work, and when you argue that a mouse or a dog can't possibly tell you how a drug is changing their perceptions or their feelings/ it falls on deaf ears. They're entirely comfortable with their way of doing things, and my old-fashioned approach strikes them as very strange and dangerous."

  "What drugs have you invented? Would I know any of the names?" "Well, the most notorious one was developed while I was still at Dole Chemical, and the fact that my name was connected to it has made certain people very distrustful of me, even though I was in no way responsible for the mess it caused. Have you ever heard of DOM?" "No, I'm afraid not."

  "That's all right. Most people haven't heard of it under that name. It got onto the street as STP."

  "Oh, yes, I've heard of that. I don't remember any details, though. I have a vague impression that there was something called STP around and people were having problems with it, but it was a long time ago, when the papers were full of all sorts of hysteria about drugs in the Haight-Ashbury."

  Shura leaned back, his chair creaking, "Well, while I was still working for Dole, I was invited to give a lecture at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore and I talked about several compounds, including DOM and - this is entirely speculation, but it's the most logical explanation I can come up with - someone in that audience must have decided to run with it/ go into business for himself with a brand new turn-on, because within a few months there were reports of a new menace on the streets of San Francisco, with people piling into the Haight-Ashbury Clinic, totally out of control/ sure they were dying."

  "Good grief!"

  "What happened, apparently, was that our unknown entrepreneur had put the stuff out in capsules of 20 milligrams each, and it's fully effective -1 mean, fully - at a third of that amount. I didn't know any of this at the time, of course, because I had no reason to associate anything I'd made with this STP thing I was hearing about. And, as if the overdose weren't enough - DOM is a very, very powerful psychedelic - the people getting it weren't told that it takes two to three hours before the full effects are realized. So some of them were swallowing their pill and when noth ing much happened after 40 or 50 minutes, they'd take another one."

  "Oh, boy."

  "When the effects caught up with them, they panicked and rushed into emergency clinics because they couldn't handle it. I don't think anyone could handle 20 milligrams - much less twice that - of DOM!"

  "How did you find out that it was your DOM?"

  "It took quite a while. I kept getting bits of information from various sources; I heard it was a long-lasting drug, over 24 hours' duration - at that dosage level, anyway - that it took a long time to come on, and that STP stood for Serenity, Tranquility and Peace."

  I nodded, "Ah, that does sound familiar."

  "I also heard that, according to the Berkeley police, STP stood for Too Stupid To Puke."

  I laughed, repeated the words to myself and laughed all over again.

  Shura continued, "Eventually, word filtered down to me from a friend that the FDA - the Food and Drug Administration - had tracked the stuff down to a patent held by Dole Chemical, and that Dole had identified it as one of the drugs I'd developed while I was working for them. I sent to the FDA for the information I assumed they had, but never got a reply. Finally, a chemist I knew got hold of a sample and analyzed it, and that was that; it was my old friend, DOM."

  He crossed one leg over the other and I saw that he was wearing sandals. I remembered he'd had on sandals the first night I'd met him.

  Maybe he always wears sandals. Have to ask him sometime.

  "How many psychedelic drugs have you invented, so far?"

  "Oh," he sighed, "Somewhere over a hundred - hundred and fifty or so. Some of them aren't worth pursuing, others are."

  It caught up with me, all of a sudden. Here was a man I had liked from my first sight of him, was liking more and more - in fact, I was absolutely captivated, by now - and he had just told me that he'd invented about a hundred and fifty psychedelic drugs. I was assuming that they worked like mescaline - at least, some of them did - opening up the soul's eyes to other realities, and here I was, sitting in Hilda's little study, touching knees with a person who didn't just possess and try out these extraordinary treasures; he created them - doorways to a world in which plants emit light and God holds your hand.

  I was aware of silence, and felt Shura's eyes on me. I looked at the bearded face and realized that, despite the appearance of casualness in his half-smile and the sprawl of his body in the chair, h
e was watching me intently.

  I smiled fully at him, feeling excitement in my throat like the pressure of laughter. I sat straight and opened my hands to help me speak, "I don't know quite how to say this, but I have to try. For years and years, I've been fascinated by this whole area of - of experience, exploration - and I've read Huxley and Michaux and anybody else I could find who seemed to know anything about it."

  Shura nodded.

  I continued, "I even had a secret dream about setting up, or at least being part of, some sort of research project for testing ESP before, during and after the taking of a psychedelic, and although nothing ever came of it, the idea still appeals to me."

  The shadowed figure was still, listening.

  "It's hard to believe that I've finally met somebody who's doing all these things, exploring this world, and isn't afraid of what he'll discover. It's incredible!" I laughed, holding out my hands in mock helplessness.

  Shura smiled, then reached over and took my left hand. He held it as he talked. "There are a lot of people doing the kind of research I do, but at the moment, I'm the only one I know of anywhere who publishes on the effects of these materials in human beings."

  "Why aren't the others publishing?"

  "Mostly because chemists want to make enough money to support families and house payments, and buy the usual nice things, so they hire themselves out to large companies, or they work for universities, and one of the things you depend on in a university is government funds. When you're dependent on funding from the government, or in a business which has contracts from the government, you play the game according to government rules. And since the government decided that psychedelic drugs are too dangerous for anybody but the Pentagon and the CIA to play around with, they've refused to fund anything but animal research, and most of that animal research is directed toward reinforcing the idea that psychedelic drugs are dangerous in man."

  "Well," I countered, "They are, aren't they, if they're not used the right way?"