From then on we too would live with the bomb dangling over our heads; the situation would be that we must have more bombs and better bombs, and the world’s only hope of peace would rest on the fact that while the Russians could wipe out New York and Washington, they would know that they couldn’t keep us from wiping out Moscow and Leningrad. The result would be that both sides would start putting their great factories and cities under ground. The human race would convert itself into moles, living and working by artificial light, and arresting and executing everybody who expressed an idea different from Lenin and Stalin on the one side and from Coolidge and Hoover on the other.
This prospect did not please the Peace Group; indeed, it seemed very much like being in jail, and their minds behaved like restless prisoners, trying every possible device to break out. Alston, who had known F.D.R. longer and even better than Lanny, told how the Governor had been worried by this problem. Lanny had talked with him the night before his death, Alston a couple of weeks earlier, just before his leaving Washington for Warm Springs. The Governor had begun to realize that his idea of a Fifty-Year Plan for making friends with the Soviet Union had been a sorry jest indeed; he had been played for a sucker—or whatever might be the Russian equivalent for that slang. The Communists meant to impose their system upon the world, and it was a fundamental dogma with them that this system was bound to triumph; it was something automatic, materialistically predetermined, and whoever stood in its way must be liquidated.
Lanny remarked, “I wonder if Truman has begun to realize it.”
“I should think that Molotov would have convinced him,” replied the ex-geographer. After a moment he added, “Why don’t you go and see him and tell him all this?”
“I?” exclaimed Lanny. “He wouldn’t know me from any other timewaster.”
“I’m not so sure. He must have learned of your testimony in Nürnberg.”
“Why don’t you talk to him, Professor? He surely knows about you.”
“Yes, but he knows the wrong things. Apparently he has made up his mind not to try to work with the old Roosevelt crowd. They think they know more than he does—and maybe they are right.” Alston thought for a moment, then continued, “I’ll tell you what: I’ll go to Washington and suggest that he meet you. He’ll be interested in knowing about. Roosevelt’s plan to send you to Stalin, and he might be moved to take it up for himself. It couldn’t do any harm to give him the chance.”
Lanny couldn’t say no to this. He glanced at Laurel and saw the pain in her face. Another long journey for her husband—ten thousand miles or so! But she couldn’t say no either.
31
Architects of Fate
I
So far the press had had little to say about the Peace Program. It was a maverick, a critter that bore none of the recognized brands; it was looked upon as something more adapted to Southern California than to an all-wise and distrustful metropolis. But when you started publishing advertisements in the papers—paying cash money to the business department—that put you in an altogether different class. When you advertise it must be that you have something. This program had a presidential agent, certified by the War Crimes Commission; also a presidential “fixer” who had been abused by the papers for eighteen years, long enough to make him a national institution.
So the revelations concerning Roosevelt’s dissatisfaction with Russia were reported, and were cabled abroad, and in due course denounced by Pravda. On Thursday morning there appeared one of those fancy write-ups by which Time had managed to establish a new style and even a new vocabulary for the reporting of current events. The editors of this weekly sit “on the hills like gods together, careless of mankind.” They are able to take the most tragic events in their stride, and if they were reporting the crucifixion of Jesus Christ they would not fail to make it picturesque and playful. It was a great event for the Peace Program when Time gave it the works; it let many thousands of serious-minded Americans know that there was a new development in the moral life of America.
But sailing is never smooth for any reformer in this tough period of history. This burst of success prepared the way for one of the Peace Group’s great sorrows; Rick lost his chief assistant, the most valuable member of his staff. Philip Edgerton came to him with a hangdog look and stammered out his apologies—he was going to have to resign. His wife couldn’t stand life in Edgemere, and no man can live and keep his mind on good literature while his wife is in a stew all day.
It was “that woman,” of course. Laurel and Nina had distrusted her from the first hour, but they had always been polite, giving her no cause for complaint. But she wasn’t like them, she couldn’t interest herself in reading or in the idea of changing the world. There was nobody in this Godforsaken town whom she considered worth knowing or to whom it was worth while showing her clothes. She was frantic to get back to the city where she had friends of her own kind.
It was a serious matter to Rick, who had come to lean so heavily on Philip’s excellent judgment. Again and again the younger man had brought him stuff by some new writer which the syndicate had taken and had sold. But Rick understood the situation, and that there could be no changing Alma. “Couldn’t you do the work in the city and come out, say, two days a week?” he asked, and the answer was, “I’ve had a much better offer, one that I can’t turn down.”
So then, with a little pressure, Rick got the real facts: one of the big fellows was raiding them. One of the two-million-a-week boys! Their attention had been attracted by the sudden success of the new enterprise; there must be some brains behind it, and an editor whom Philip knew had called him up and questioned him about how the enterprise was run and then invited him to come in for a talk. The result had been an offer of a thousand dollars a month, instead of the three hundred and fifty the New Writers’ Bureau was paying. And that wasn’t all: there was the certainty of a raise—the top men on that magazine got from twenty-five to fifty thousand a year.
“You won’t like the work nearly so well,” pleaded Rick.
“I know, but Alma will be happier and will let me alone. I plan to do something for you folks; there’ll be a lot of stuff that I’ll recommend but that the magazine won’t take, and there’ll be no objection to my tipping you off to it.”
“All right, old man,” Rick said. “Good luck to you. And remember, the lamp will always hold out to burn, in case you can’t stand the sort of stuff you have to read.”
When he told the others about it Rick said, “I suppose that’s to be our destiny—to train young fellows and let Big Business buy them up.”
Laurel answered, “Next time, before we hire anybody, let’s have a look at the wife.”
II
During Lanny’s absence in Germany, Laurel and Nina had been trying a few psychic experiments. No longer were there any war secrets which might leak out by this means; and Nina’s curiosity had been aroused by some of the stories Laurel had told her, especially about how she had discovered this strange gift. There had been a night at the end of August 1939 when she and Lanny had been in Hitler’s Berghof, trying to fool the Führer and his Number Three and postpone the dreaded coming of war. Laurel had pretended to be a medium and to fall into a trance; it had gone well, and perhaps she had fooled herself—nobody knows how these strange subconscious forces work. Laurel had actually fallen into a trance, and when she came out she was astonished to hear the story of a long dialogue, purporting to be a controversy between Zaharoff, the onetime munitions king, and Otto Kahn, the onetime New York banker and art patton. All that had come from Laurel’s lips without her having had the slightest idea of it, or the slightest memory of it afterward.
People wouldn’t believe such things, and there didn’t seem to be much use trying to persuade them. Laurel had satisfied herself that the things happened and that she would never know how they happened, at any rate not in this life. She had come to be bored with both the old Greek rascal and the elegant international financier who talked perfectly in ch
aracter but never said anything important. Madame Zyszynski, the old Polish woman who had taken the role of Laurel’s control, seemed to be tired and discouraged, and Laurel was busy with the complex new life which she and her friends had created.
But Nina had reawakened her interest, and they had tried several séances. One result of this was that they had got to talking about Dr. J. B. Rhine and the extraordinary experiments he had been carrying on for many years to test and prove the reality of what he called “parapsychology.” They had his book, New Frontiers of the Mind, and Nina said, “Why don’t we put him on a program?” No sooner said than done; she called him on the telephone at Duke University and told him what they were doing, and he said he would be pleased and honored to tell their large audience what parapsychology might do to improve the chances for world peace.
The other development was one for which Laurel had long been prepared in her talks with her husband. So many persons they had known in the past had come back or had purported to come back; and would it ever be Franklin Roosevelt? They were discussing him and thinking about him continually; at this juncture they all had their minds upon the mission which he had assigned to his P.A. Whether there was such a thing as a disembodied spirit, or whether it was all subconscious work of Lanny’s mind, or of Laurel’s, or of all their minds combined into some strange fantasy-making amalgamation—in any case, it was to be expected that he might present himself. Perhaps the very fact of their concentration upon him might bring him.
III
One evening, while Lanny was busy with his fan mail and Rick was in his study racing through manuscripts, hopeful as always of a find, Nina came to Laurel’s room and said, “Let’s have a try with Madame.” It didn’t take long and didn’t tire Laurel, so she always assented; she lay down on her bed and closed her eyes, while Nina sat by, with a shaded light and a pad and pencil. That was the routine, and what would come out of it was a gamble, and afterward would be one of life’s intriguing mysteries. Laurel began to breathe hard and moan slightly; then she was still. Nina said, “Is anybody present?” And a voice replied, “I am here. Madame.”
It is one of the rules of this strange experiment that you must treat the voices as if you believed in them. It may be only a child’s game, it may be a dip into an infinite mind, but whatever it is, one of the established rules is to treat the voices as if they came from another world. Nina asked, “Is anybody with you?” The reply was, “There is a gentleman here; he is tall and handsome and has a good smile.”
“Will he tell us his name?”
“He says, call him ‘Governor.’”
“Will you ask him what he wants?”
“He wants to know if Lanny is here.”
“Tell him that Lanny is in the house.”
“He wants to know if you will bring him.”
“Yes, I will.” Nina rose and ran quickly to Lanny’s room and tapped on the door. “Come quickly! Roosevelt is here!”
A startling announcement, but Lanny, who had been making these experiments for years, could guess what it meant. He jumped up and went with long strides to his wife’s room. He took the chair by her side, and Nina took another.
“Hello, Madame,” said the ex-P.A. “How are you feeling tonight?” One must never fail in personal consideration for these mysterious entities.
“I am well, Lanny. There is a new gentleman here.”
“I know him, Madame. Tell him I have been hoping to hear from him.”
“He says you told him about me.”
“Many times. I have been hoping he would find you.”
“He says he is sorry that you missed the boat.”
“Tell him I may take another. Does he think it will do any good?”
“He says, ‘Nothing venture, nothing gain.’”
“Ask him if he can talk to me directly, Madame.”
“He hears what you say but he cannot answer. He is new to our ways, he says. He thinks you made a mistake to return that money. You had earned it.”
“Ask him how he knows I returned the money.”
“He says that he still has his secret agents. He is laughing. He likes to make jokes.”
“He always did. Ask him if he will come and talk to us now and then.”
“He says he will try his best.”
“Tell him that if I could depend on him, I would put him on the radio and let him give a fireside chat. It would get him many votes.”
“He is laughing over that. He has a big laugh.”
Laurel, lying on the bed, shuddered as if something were hurting her. Lanny waited a few moments, then went on, “Governor, make an effort, and see if you cannot speak to me.”
A silence, followed by a startling thing—a voice that Lanny knew, and that all the world knew; a man’s voice, deep and resonant. Coming from Laurel’s mouth it was most uncanny. “I am going to be very busy, Lanny.”
“What shall you be doing, Governor?”
“I am going to be haunting Molotov.” And then another of those full-throated laughs that had greeted so many of Lanny’s jokes, and his own. Lanny felt that he could see the fine head thrown back, that mouth open, and that large chest shaking. It shook Laurel, and she began to stir.
“Tell me, Governor,” said the ex-P.A. when the storm had passed, “what shall we do about the Russians?”
The answer came promptly. “What can we do but what we have been doing? Offer friendship and be prepared for whatever comes. Be like the eagle on our dollar bill—an olive branch in one set of claws and a sheaf of arrows in the other.”
“You still feel as you did when you talked with me?”
“The same, only more so. Stalin is not keeping his agreements, and I am being blamed for it.”
“They say you gave him too much at Yalta.”
“Of course, but what choice did I have? I had no means of knowing what the A-bomb would do. I had to get the Russians to join us; and they stated their terms. They are hard men, Lanny, and you and I are soft. Too soft, I fear.”
“You are worried, Governor?”
The answering voice was grave. “There will come a man of the people for the people; and the people will know him.”
A pause followed, and then Laurel began to moan. That always meant the end; no use trying to hold on. She opened her eyes and began to question Lanny. What had happened? When he told her, she was greatly moved. “The shepherd speaks!” she exclaimed.
They debated the problem that had been puzzling them for many years. Had it actually been Roosevelt? Had there been any part of Roosevelt in it? Or was it a construction of their own minds? Apart from the voice, there was nothing evidential about it; the voice had told them nothing they didn’t already know. Lanny had told his wife about the check he had given to the OSS; he had told her every detail of his conference with the Chief on the night before his death. The representation had been extraordinarily vivid; but then, so were their impressions, their recollections of the great man. Quite possibly there might be a first-class actor in the subconscious mind of every human; certainly there was in Laurel’s an entity, a being trained to imagine character and to set it forth in dialogue and actions.
They just didn’t know; they possibly never would know in this life. When they died they would know—if they knew anything. If they didn’t know anything, they wouldn’t know that they didn’t know. “The days when thou wert not, did they trouble thee? The days when thou art not shall trouble thee as much.”
IV
Dr. Rhine came on the night train from North Carolina, and Lanny and Laurel drove to meet him at the station in Newark. They told him about the séance while driving to Edgemere, and of course he wanted Laurel to promise him a try, which she did.
J. B. Rhine, trained as a biologist, had become convinced that the unexplored powers of the mind should no longer be left to the haphazard attention of amateurs and charlatans. He had become assistant to Dr. William McDougall, who had succeeded William James at Harvard University, and to the
honorary title of dean of American psychology. Going to Duke University, McDougall had founded the Department of Parapsychology—the prefix “para” meaning “beyond,” and applying to those powers of the mind which the conventional psychologist ignored because he couldn’t explain them and didn’t want to start his education all over again.
For the past fifteen years—all the time that Lanny had been fighting Hitler and Mussolini—the patient Dr. Rhine had been working to evolve a method for the mass production and testing of psychic phenomena. He and his assistants and students had been making tests, literally millions of them, to find out whether it was possible to read cards which were being turned up behind a screen or in another room—and then to read cards which weren’t being turned up at all but were left face-down in a deck that had been freshly shuffled by the experimenter and never touched by the person being tested.
When it was shown that great numbers of persons could perform these feats, to such an extent that the odds against them were enormous, the conventional psychologists were left with the alternative of supposing that an entire department of a great American university was carrying on an elaborate hoax, or else of challenging those mathematical laws of probability which had been accepted by the scientific world for centuries. Some chose this latter course; others just wouldn’t pay any attention—an ancient and long-established way of protecting your mind from disturbance. The consequences of believing what Dr. Rhine had proven were so devastating to the ordinarily received ideas about the mind, and indeed about all human affairs, that the average psychologist just couldn’t face it, and the average college professor couldn’t face the thought of what his dean would say and his prexy and his colleagues. It called for heroism, and the men who have that endowment usually choose livelier jobs than teaching in a classroom.
V
In the afternoon, when young Lanny had gone out to play in somebody else’s garden, and after the telephone had been shut off and the front doorbell plugged, these half-dozen questioners of the infinity of mind sat waiting in a quiet room and met with one of those disappointments which become an old and sad story to every psychic researcher. “I can call spirits from the vasty deep.”—“Why, so can I, and so can any man; but will they come when you do call for them?” They so seldom do that many questioners give up in disgust. And then, when you are unprepared and have no witnesses present, they come—or something that gives such a good imitation that your incredulity seems a grave discourtesy.
O Shepherd, Speak! Page 66