But the churches had to go farther. After death you met all your friends. In the happy land far, far away there was music and trees and a river and flowers and green fields, and no pain. Christianity itself promised no more than survival of the soul, but the ministers preaching to real people distributed after-death largesse in the form of an invitation to a real nice clambake across the Jordan, on Canaan's shore.
Heaven would be an eternal picnic with all the people you liked best, and no hangovers.
Well, he had managed to take a certain amount of baggage with him, not to heaven, but to the somewhat empty marble halls of Judy's brain. Yet even there two was a crowd.
As he explored, however, he found that his baggage had been limited. He had not, after all, been allowed, or able, to pack an unlimited number of cabin trunks with all the mental impedimenta that John Fletcher had accumulated in his forty-three years. On his mental flight he had been allowed just so much personal baggage, no more.
He tried to remember that same passage from the Bible in French:
Or je dis ceci, frčres, que . . . Voici, je vous dis un mystere. Nous . . . a la derničre trompette . . . la mort a été engloutie en victoire . . . Oů est, o mort, ton . . . ?
His knowledge of the French Bible had been greater than that of the English Bible, since he liked to read "La Sainte Bible" rather than the version of King James. But now he could remember only phrases here and there -- probably passages, he realized in a flash of inspiration, that he had recited to Judy. She had not understood them, had not remembered them, yet they were not entirely unfamiliar to her brain.
For the rest, he knew he was, or had been, John Fletcher. He knew about Baudaker, Anita, Judy, Gerry -- all concerned in recent events.
But at least 95% of the knowledge of John Fletcher was gone. He had managed to take with him only a basic pattern of John Fletcher, no more.
Well, what did it matter, anyway? Suddenly he tired of the whole thing. Pure basic animal fear of death had made him strive for life when he knew he must die. This time there was no conflict. He wanted to leave Judy
--You're wrong, she observed.
Returning to awareness, he found they had reached the Westfield skyscraper, the city's first. It towered over them. Now it was quite dark, ten or eleven o'clock, perhaps.
--I don't want to leave you?
--No, not that. About forgetting all your learning. Why, I know millions of things I never knew before.
He had grown careless about keeping his thoughts to himself. Shutting Judy right out at first, he had gradually forgotten to keep up the barrier.
Now he felt the pain of Judy's knee and ankle.
--You shouldn't be out like this, he said. --You've walked too far.
She entered the hall, deserted except for a few people leaving the building. Visitors, probably, they paid no attention to her as she entered the lift they had vacated.
--I'll be all right in a day or two, she replied indifferently. If this works, that is.
He was suddenly struck by the essential difference between them, the quality most characteristic of Judy as she had been and as she was now, and the quality still characteristic of him. She was an optimist and he was a pessimist.
--You're right, she observed, pleased. --I always think everything is going to turn out all right, and it does.
--I always expect everything to turn out wrong, and it does.
--Well, that's another reason why this is going to work. When I set up something that could turn out wrong for one of us or both of us, it's not likely to turn out wrong for me, is it?
He didn't answer that. Another thought which had not occurred to him before struck him now. Pessimistic though he still was, he no longer had quite the black acceptance of failure of John Fletcher in the body of John Fletcher. Perhaps it was impossible to be so bleakly unhopeful in the brain and body of the sparkling Judy. She had sparkled even when retarded, and she had lost none of that quality.
The lift had stopped. Judy stepped out into a long corridor.
--Now remember, she warned. --Leave this to me.
Fletcher curled himself into a mental ball and left it all to Judy. He didn't know what she intended, and didn't want to know.
--No! said Judy, giving him a mental jolt which, though not physical at all, was like a punch in the stomach, if not even more unenjoyable. --Leave everything to me, yes, but don't run away and hide. You have to watch what's going on.
--All right. Please don't do that again.
She chuckled.
--You felt that, didn't you, Mr. Fletcher? Now who's weak-minded, you or me?
--I concede the point without further demonstration.
Judy went to the stone parapet and looked over.
Far below, tiny cars crawled about the streets like beetles. The street lights were all shielded from above; the round pools of light they cast were like shining silver coins on the dark streets.
"No, no!" said Judy, as he tried to draw back. --Stay quiet. Leave this to me.
--I'm afraid.
--Good.
She looked along the windows behind them. On one side quite a few were lit. In the other direction, only one was, and that was heavily curtained.
She climbed nimbly on the stone parapet.
All that was left of fletcher screamed with terror.
As skyscrapers went, this was a mere high tenement. But the people moving below looked like ants. The parapet was no more than three inches wide.
Casually Judy started to walk along the parapet.
--No, no! Fletcher screamed silently.
--I won't look down again. So you won't see it.
--Jump down!
--This way? She turned to face the chasm.
--Oh, Christ, no!
--I never heard you swear before. I'm shocked.
--I wasn't swearing, that was a prayer.
She turned ninety degrees and started to walk along the parapet again. --I'm very surefooted, and I've never been afraid of heights, just as heights. Think of it this way: anybody at all could walk along a three inch painted line in a car park, without ever stumbling off the line. Unless he was drunk, of course, or unless the wind was very fierce and gusty . . . there's quite a strong breeze here as a matter of fact, but it's fairly steady.
Having shrunk in terror until what remained of him barely existed at all, Fletcher desperately tried to regain control of Judy and make her jump safely on to the balcony.
"You know perfectly well that will kill us both," said Judy aloud. "We can't fight for control now of all times. You couldn't even get off the parapet safely. Your terror would make you do the wrong thing. So please don't be silly ."
He knew she was right. Once more he pretended not to exist. Yet he was no longer able, as he had been on the way to the skyscraper, not to look through Judy's eyes. He tried and failed. She didn't have to jolt him again. Fear made him look.
Her injured leg gave way slightly as she put her weight on it, all but pitching her into the abyss.
--Near thing, she observed cheerfully, as Fletcher silently gibbered in terror.
Judy reached the corner of the building. No longer was there safe solidness on one side. At the apex of the parapet, it was like standing on the point of a mile high needle with a gulf all around.
She turned to bisect the 270 degree angle. Now there was nothing but the gulf. Calmly, curiously, she surveyed the streets below.
--Funny, she remarked. --As a moron, I had too much sense to do this. Maybe intelligence does make you less sensible.
She raised one leg, the injured one, and held it out in front of her, over the gulf.
Fletcher's nerve snapped and he tried desperately to get out.
But he couldn't.
Judy's plan was working all right. However, the strain was not enough.
--Pity, she said. --I thought that would do it. Oh well . . .
She fell. Deliberately she fell. As she did so, she twisted lithely in the air. She cou
ldn't conceal from Fletcher for more than a split second her intention of catching the parapet with her hands and pulling herself back safely.
But for him, this scarcely registered. He was falling off a skyscraper.
He thought of nothing else but escape. Survival was neither here nor there. It was not death he was afraid of, or dying, but the far more terrifying fact of falling from the parapet.
Fleetingly he knew that he could have tumbled deliberately into the basement well to kill himself and Judy . . . but he could not fall from the top floor of the skyscraper.
Everything that was left of him went into the effort to escape.
And he escaped.
CHAPTER 3: ROSS
Again he found himself in bed, but this time he was powerless to open his eyes or move.
Soundlessly he groaned. It was not over.
In one way it was the same as before: he was ravenous. Other considerations had driven from his mind the fierce hunger he had experienced in the young body of Judy.
Fletcher had always been hungry. Like a compulsive drinker who slipped in extra, surreptitious snorts because his friends could not keep up with him, he had supplemented the normal three meals a day with mid-morning, mid-afternoon and late-evening snacks. Perhaps his early lean years in the Homes had something to do with it: as a boy in the thirties he had good reason to be always hungry. Charity had not been particularly cold to him, but it had never been over-generous.
There was another theory, of which he was not unaware . . . psychologists suggested that unnatural hunger could be caused by lack of affection. Unwanted, unloved children turned to gluttony. Well, that could be relevant. Until very recently, until illness began to claim him, he had eaten, when he could afford it, like seven men; but like the seven lean kine he ate up the seven fat kine, and when he had eaten them up he was still lean and ill-favored, as in the beginning.
He prayed that Judy was safe. He did not know if she had caught the parapet, because he had escaped before waiting to find out.
And it was not over. Now he was in another body, this time, he somehow knew, the body of a man. The body of a man who, apparently, was asleep. Fletcher did not seriously attempt to rouse him. His experience with Judy had made him cautious.
Remembering how comparatively little of him had survived in Judy, he sought himself, such as he was, and found just about the same as he had found in Judy. After all, his bags were already packed.
Yet there was one difference.
Nous ne nous endormirons pas tons, mais nous serons tous changés: en un instant, en un clin d'oeuil, ŕ la derničre trompette, car la trompette . . .
He knew it all. The word he had not been able to remember was 'aiguillon.'
Now he wondered if he had ever really accepted death. Consciously, yes. Yet perhaps not entirely, with his whole being.
Now, consciously, he tried to get out of the mind he was in. He tried to die without killing his host. With a firm prohibition against merely jumping to yet another body, he tried desperately to leave the one he was in. And he failed.
Only at the moment of death had he been able to make a mental leap into the mind of Judy. Only in utter terror, terror beyond ordinary fear of death, had he been able to leave the mind of Judy.
For the moment at least, he was stuck where he was. His realization of this was so complete, so incontrovertible, that peace descended on him; and, like his host, he slept.
When he awoke, he was a prisoner. He could see, feel, hear and think, but he was helpless.
His host yawned, scratched himself, got out of bed and dropped his pajama trousers, his only garment, to the floor. A quick cold shower made Fletcher wince incorporately; he experienced the cold shower as near agony.
Then as the host shaved, Fletcher saw his face.
It was remarkably like his own, though more than twenty years younger: lean, sharp, dark-complexioned, yet glowing with health. The body was similar too, tall, spare, sinewy.
And he had seen the face before. This was one of the students who had assisted Baudaker at the all-night session.
This time Fletcher could make no contact with the rest of the brain he inhabited. He tried cautiously at first, then more strongly. Nothing happened. He was certain his host had no idea he was there.
It was not difficult to guess why. Judy's poor little mind was easy to dominate. Yet even there he had been overborne, had finally been ejccted. In the mind of a young, strong man, what little was left of Fletcher was no more than a memory, a shadow.
He did not even know his host's name.
But the young student, after toweling himself vigorously, obligingly went to the door, still naked, and picked up the four letters lying on the mat. They were all addressed to Ian Ross.
Ross put a match to the two envelopes which obviously contained bills, without opening them, and threw them in the empty grate. The two others were from girls. He glanced at the signatures, Sandra and Veronica, and put them on the mantel unread.
The small flat was vaguely familiar, and Fletcher guessed that this was simply because it was very like his own.
Ross went to the tiny kitchen and turned on the heat below a frying pan. Back in his bedroom he threw on a clean white shirt, underpants, slacks, socks, shoes. Combing his thick hair, he whistled tunelessly.
Returning to the kitchen as the fat in the pan began to sizzle, he broke two eggs into it and added a couple of rashers of bacon, rather carelessly. Shortly afterward he ate breakfast with an undiscriminating appetite which could tackle anything that was not completely spoiled.
Fletcher enjoyed breakfast, unlike the cold shower. There was bacon left, and plenty of eggs. He tried to prod Ross into frying more eggs and bacon, but this effort, too, failed.
Some ninety minutes later Ross was at a lecture, and when Fletcher discovered the subject was Heine, he began to guess why he had landed in Ross's mind, of all minds.
Ross was tall and lean, like Fletcher; he was a modern languages student, and Fletcher was a modern languages graduate; he had taken part in a long series of experiments in which he tried over and over again to touch Fletcher's mind; he lived alone in a flat like the one in which Fletcher had lived alone; and there was one more thing about him that Fletcher guessed, with a fair assurance of being correct. Anita was a common factor.
After the lecture a girl came up to Ross. She was garishly dressed, attractive, not pretty. She said: "Well, what about it?"
"What about what?" said Ross.
"Didn't you get my letter?"
"Oh . . . yes, Sandra, I believe I did."
"Well, what about it?" she demanded impatiently.
He laughed. "I didn't read it."
"You didn't read it?" she said fiercely. "You . . . "
"I got two bills too. I threw them in the fire."
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