The flow of small talk was interrupted by Claire’s return. She carried three glasses awkwardly balanced between her hands, two sherries and a tall lemonade. Colin was mildly surprised when she handed the lemonade to Peter.
“I’m going on duty in a few hours,” Peter explained, noting Colin’s glance.
“Peter’s with the Berkeley Police,” Claire said. Her tone turned faintly chiding, “I told you, Colin.”
“So you did,” Colin admitted, smiling. “And I’m the first to admit that I have the most perniciously bad memory. So you plan on a career in law enforcement, Peter?”
“Well, sir—Colin—I’m still in uniform, but I’m taking the exams, and I hope to make detective in not too many years,” Peter answered, looking toward Claire. “It’s a hard life for an officer’s wife—I won’t deny that—and I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that a lot of marriages don’t last—”
“Peter!” Claire said, laughing and protesting at once.
“Are you two talking about marriage already?” Colin asked. He felt a faint pang. Not jealousy precisely; but marriage was such a big step, and Claire was so young … .
She’s twenty years old, Colin reminded himself. That’s old enough to take charge of your life. When you were twenty, you’d already, killed three men. Not that that’s a fair analogy … .
“I know what I want,” Peter said firmly. “And it wouldn’t be honest not to tell Claire so.”
“He hasn’t convinced me yet,” Claire said, smiling, “but I have to admit he seems to be wearing me down.”
Colin raised an eyebrow at her. In only a few months, Claire London had changed almost completely, a gawky cygnet becoming a self-assured swan. Under Colin’s guidance and explanations she’d learned to trust the Gift that nature had given her, and by extension, to trust the people around her.
She’d taken eagerly to the simple mental disciplines he and Alison were able to teach her, and she’d gained confidence both in her ability to intervene successfully in the lives of others and in the rightness of doing so.
“I’ve told Peter everything—about myself,” Claire added, though perhaps only Colin could have heard the qualifying hesitation in her voice.
“And how do you feel about that?” Colin asked, neutrally.
Peter laughed. “Well, it isn’t something that I want to discuss with the boys down at the bar!” he said cheerfully, then sobered. “I know that this whole business of psychic powers sounds pretty much like Bunco Squad territory—”
“Sometimes it is,” Colin agreed. “For as long as there have been psychics, there have been frauds—in fact, some people might say that the frauds came first. One of the things parapsychology—an emerging science, as I’ll be one of the first to admit—tries to do is bring the study of these human abilities into the realm of the scientific method. I’m as interested as anybody in exposing the frauds that litter our field, but not at the price of issuing a blanket condemnation of anyone with paranormal abilities. Whew! That’s quite a speech.”
“But a good answer,” Claire said. “Colin does as much to expose—oh, table-tippers and gypsy tea-leaf readers, and all those so-called mystics who prey upon the unwary, as—as you do, Peter!” she finished in a rush.
“That’s my Claire,” Peter said fondly. “But tell me, Professor—Colin—is there any way for someone like me to tell a psychic from a fraud? It isn’t legal in Alameda County to foretell the future—at least for money—but there’s lots of ways around the law for people who want to work that scam, and I can’t bring Claire along with me to check them all out.”
Claire wrinkled her nose. “You might as well read a good book as a pack of Tarot cards—it’s all the same to me, Peter. I can’t tell the future—I wish I could.”
“There are certain obvious guidelines for separating the sheep from the goats,” Colin said, “but the most obvious is one you already know: if a person has set himself up to make a living from his alleged psychic powers, it’s almost a dead certainty that he’s a fraud. Science understands very little about the psychic senses, but one thing that seems to be true is that these gifts are highly erratic, and rarely come when they’re called.”
“But what’s possible?” Peter asked. “How can anyone tell the difference between, say, a fraud medium and, well, someone like Claire?”
“That’s a difficult question,” Colin said, “but if you’d like, I’ll be happy to come down and talk to your department about it. I may have found a few ways of exposing a fake psychic that they haven’t run into yet.”
Peter grinned engagingly. “Wish me luck at getting them to go for it! Still, it can’t hurt to mention it. Some of the guys, though, they aren’t likely to think you’re, well, on the square.”
“And while my own assurances won’t count for much, there is the fact that the state of California is trusting me with its children,” Colin said. “But don’t worry, Peter; my ego’s strong enough to survive a few dents.”
Colin saw a good deal of Peter Moffat after that. Peter still lived at home with his widowed mother, but Colin and Claire were both frequent visitors to the Moffat house, for Sunday dinner or simply to drop in for the evening.
And, slowly, Peter began bringing Colin the odd problems that cropped up in the borderlands of police work; those events that were not precisely criminal, or even illegal, merely … strange.
Claire proved to be an invaluable partner to Colin’s investigations. She was sensitive to the presence of paranormal activity, and infallibly capable of recognizing the psychic gift in others. To Colin’s secret relief, Peter was delighted with her competence and impressed with her abilities, and as the months passed it began to seem inevitable that the two of them would spend the rest of their lives together … .
It was a June wedding. Colin and Peter had attended Claire’s graduation from nursing school only a few days before, and now many of the same people were gathered here.
The wedding was a quiet weekday affair held in the Lady Chapel of the Anglican Church that Claire and Peter both attended. The bride wore a sensible blue suit with a corsage of white roses and a pillbox hat with a scrap of veil; the groom was sober and conscientious in a blue serge suit, and both of them made their responses in quiet, firm voices.
She looks so happy, Colin thought prosaically, but didn’t all brides look happy? Today he had given the bride away, in the archaic custom, and now Colin felt a great sense of peace, as of an obstacle gracefully negotiated. But the true work had been Claire’s, and the impediments things he could not begin to guess at. None of Claire’s family was at the wedding, for one thing—whether they had not been invited, or had simply refused to come, Colin did not know. Mrs. Moffat was sitting in the pew across the aisle from Colin in a pink flowered dress, beaming tearfully as she entrusted her only son into the care of another woman.
It had been a short engagement—Claire and Peter had met for the first time that December, barely six weeks after Colin had sent Claire to Toller Hasloch’s birthday party. Those events seemed as if they’d taken place in another world, now. Hasloch had disappeared almost immediately, not even staying to finish out the semester. There’d been rumors and wild talk on campus, but without their focus, the gossip and speculations had eventually died away, as those whose lives Hasloch had touched found other—more wholesome—interests. The old white Victorian still stood vacant with a FOR RENT sign in its yard, its basement now innocent and empty.
In the pew behind Colin, Jonathan Ashwell shifted self-consciously. For a while, he and Claire had seen a great deal of each other, but Claire had already been seeing Peter, and Jonathan had realized almost as soon as Colin did that Claire felt only a sisterly affection for him. Claire had made up her mind only a little after Peter had, and now Colin wished them both all happiness.
Colin returned his attention to the front of the church, where Peter slipped a gleaming gold circlet on Claire’s finger. A moment more, and the newlyweds turned to face the small congregati
on, matching rings twinkling on both their left hands.
It was done. Claire and Peter were bonded eternally to one another, a spiritual decision that man’s laws, however gravely enacted, could not lightly set at naught. The organist played the recessional, and the congregation stood.
Young Mr. and Mrs. Moffat moved out of Colin’s orbit for a time, but he was content to have it so. His commitment to teaching increased, and he found fulfillment in touching the lives of the children who passed through his care on their way to adulthood. Around him the world changed only a little each day, the gathering power of the events beneath the passage of the days invisible to those who lived through them.
1963 was the year that police in Birmingham, Alabama, turned dogs loose on civil rights marchers, just as their spiritual ancestors had unleashed them on the inhabitants of the European ghettos. President Kennedy demanded civil rights for all Americans in a speech before Congress, and, before the echoes of his speech were stilled, a black man named Medgar Evers was slaughtered for sharing the young president’s dream, and would wait thirty years for justice. This was the year in which prayer left the public schools, when Camelot came to shadowed, still-divided Berlin, where President Kennedy announced that he, along with all who prayed for freedom, was a Berliner. It was the year that Martin Luther King had a dream.
And 118 days after Kennedy had stood unafraid in the Berlin sunlight and held out the hope of an end to Europe’s long nightmare, the news came from Dallas.
What happened then ended the morning of America more completely than civil war and civil strife, two world wars, and half a dozen smaller brawls had ever hoped to do. The invincible innocence that America had carried like a torch into the postwar period was shattered forever. Like the Fisher King’s unhealed wound, the destruction of Camelot would taint the American soul forever more.
It was November 1963.
It was a little after ten in the morning on Friday, November 22. Colin had finished his nine A.M. Introduction to Psychology class, and he was leaving Tolman Hall to walk across the campus to his office when he heard footsteps running through the corridor behind him. He turned around and saw Sylvia Eshleman running toward him. Her mascara was smeared like clown-wings across her cheeks; she was crying in an awful, gape-mouthed silence.
Dear God, Colin thought. Someone has died.
“He’s been shot!” she sobbed, stopping in front of him. “The president’s been shot in Dallas.”
It was as if the Armageddon they’d all been braced for had come a year late. All through that terrible day and into the night the dead glassy eye of the television showed the commentators in Dallas and Washington, showed footage of Dealey Plaza and of the stunned, silent crowds. The president who had passed the torch to a new generation was dead—not in war, not by accident, but by the thoughtless bullet of an assassin.
People huddled together, not knowing what else to do. Everyone was stunned and desperate for news, as if each new bulletin might be a reprieve from the nightmare. Colin found himself in the Student Union, his face turned like all the others to the television in the corner, wishing that this news weren’t true. Knowing that it was, and praying that the nation could find the strength to face it.
Claire found him there—he never afterward knew how—and came into his arms, weeping as if her heart would break.
“They’ve killed him,” she repeated, over and over, as if no other words were needed. “They’ve killed President Kennedy.”
The university canceled the rest of the day’s classes an hour later. Colin knew that there were people he should see, words of comfort that he could offer, but first he had to see to Claire. He could feel her body shaking, resonating with the emotions of the people around her, emotions that ranged from shock, to disbelief, to grief, to rage.
“Let’s go home, Claire,” Colin said gently. “There’s nothing you can do here.”
They drove to the small apartment on Telegraph where she and Peter had made their first home. The phone was ringing as Claire let them in, and Colin crossed the room in one long stride and scooped the receiver out of its cradle.
“Claire? Claire?” Peter’s voice was desperate.
“It’s Colin, Peter. Claire’s right here.” He handed her the telephone and walked into the kitchen. Behind him he could hear the sound of Claire’s responses, her voice hoarse but composed.
Where was the kettle? Colin puttered around the kitchen, letting the very normalcy of what he was doing soothe his frayed nerves. Here was the kettle, and the pot, and the sugar—but where was the tea?
“Let me do that.” Claire came into the kitchen and took the kettle away from him. “Poor Peter—he’s been trying to reach me all day. I left him a message, but I guess he didn’t get it. We hardly see each other these days; he’s working days and I’m working nights, but I’m sure everything will sort itself out soon—”
She rattled on, talking much as she would to calm a troubled patient, as she filled the kettle and set it on the stove and took down the canister of loose tea.
“Peter’s such a coffee hound that I’ve switched to bags; there’s no point in brewing up a whole pot when there’s only me to drink it. I think there’s some cake in the icebox—good heavens, look at the time; are you sure you wouldn’t rather have lunch?” She rubbed her eyes, and her shoulders sagged. “I’m so tired. And I work again tonight, and after this, I know the Emergency Room’s going to be a zoo … .” Her voice trailed off. “Oh, dear God …”
“Claire.” Colin took her gently by the shoulders. “You have the strength to face this. It’s a shock, but we’ll all survive. There’ll be a peaceful transfer of power—that’s what this country’s all about—Johnson will be sworn in as president.”
Claire sighed, and smiled wanly. “I just want to know ‘why?’ That’s what everybody wants to know, I guess. Why would anybody do something this horrible? What can they gain?”
Chaos. Chaos, and destruction, and ruin … .
And for just an instant Colin was elsewhere; in the vaults of memory, where the sword-bright image of Toller Hasloch smiled in confident cruelty. We reshape the Inner Planes by reshaping the outer … .
Had Hasloch been a member of a greater organization than he’d suspected?
1964 began with the new president’s state of the union speech. Lyndon Baines Johnson declared a war on poverty—to distract the electorate, some said, from all the wars they were losing. More and more these days the evening news programs were talking about a war in Vietnam, a war that—if America lost it—would give Communism free reign over half the globe.
In Cuba, the American naval base at Guantánamo grew steadily more isolated; Fidel Castro had gone from cipher to clown to monster in the public mind, his scruffy, cigar-smoking image was iconized until it became nearly a trademark for Banana Republic Communism.
As if to divert America’s attention from the dimming light of the American Dream, in February four English boys arrived in New York—a singing group called The Beatles. The teenagers who had bought 45s titled “Love Me Do” and “Please Please Me” flocked to the airport to meet the Fab Four in screaming thousands, and for the first time their parents heard the voices that would take six short years to blend the worlds of music and world events in a fashion from which neither would ever recover. Two days later America saw the faces that went with the voices on the Ed Sullivan Show, in a scene that would become an icon for a generation.
And as spring ripened into summer, the battle lines were drawn for a new war, this time between the generations. At last the dream of the protest singers had come true: music was politics. The children of the soldiers in the Last Good War, the generation that had been orphaned in Dallas, had identified their own generation’s enemy, and this time the enemy was not over the sea or across a national border. This time the enemy lived in their own homes.
In California, 1964 was the first Endless Summer—in Mississippi it was Freedom Summer. And in the sultry days of summer a
resolution was proposed in Washington by a president whose greatest offense was that he had survived—a resolution that was passed by Congress and began spreading its power through the fabric of American life as if it were a conscious retaliation against the brief hopeful candles of the idealistic Youthquake. The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution called for more troops to fight in the jungles of Southeast Asia, more troops to be committed to an unwinnable fight whose existence the American government would only admit to after another year had passed.
The bogeyman of a generation, Nikita Khrushchev, fell from power. Oswald was guilty and had acted alone (so the Warren Commission found), China had the Bomb, Vatican II had abolished the Latin Mass. Students everywhere had left the campus and taken to the streets, demanding that their voices be heard. All around them, the world changed, growing farther from certainties with each day.
And Thorne Blackburn arrived in San Francisco.
1965 began with another assassination—this time of black activist Malcolm X. Violence seemed entrenched on the American political scene, along with something called the Students for a Democratic Society. In March, protesters in Selma, Alabama, were attacked by state police, and in the crucible of August the Watts ghetto would erupt in hysterical, self-destructive violence. No one could be unaffected by the winds of change that blew with hurricane force through American society—least of all someone who taught on one of the most turbulent campuses in America.
“Kids today,” Colin MacLaren said with a sigh.
“You’re too young for that statement,” Alison chided him gently. She and Colin were sitting on the terrace of Greenhaven, looking out over the sunlit city below—a city that had become world news as runaways from every corner of the globe flooded into the Haight-Ashbury district. They strained city services to the breaking point and proclaimed the birth of a new nation based on peace, love, and rock ‘n’ roll.
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