The World Asunder

by Ian Wallace

  As time went on, I beefed up my incomes from private practice and police work by late-aftemoon lecturing in undergraduate psychology; my class was located in a nearby high school, but the people were college students and mostly adults, varying in age from eighteen to fiftyish. Along about the sixth week, this being a ranging survey course, I got into police psychology; and it crossed my mind to get Dio to guest-lecture one late afternoon on the realities of police work. Dio bought it—and the story really begins here.

  I remember the date well: it was my twenty-eighth birthday, June 16, 1952. Korea was grinding in agony, and the cold war with Russia was gelid; but I was career-drawn-and-driven, and I was conscious only of immediate concerns.

  For convenience, I was to meet Dio in front of his apartment building, which was only a few hundred yards from my office with the high school only a half-mile farther on. Approaching his place, I found that I was a bit early: he had wanted to run upstairs first, touch base with his Esther, and then meet me here below. I paused maybe a hundred feet on my side of his building-entrance, saw him approaching from the subway station beyond, waved at him and jerked

  my head upward at a chilling woman-scream from above. Flames flared out of a second-story window; and on a balcony in front of the flames a woman crowded her body outward against the iron railing, seared from behind. My paroxysmal sense was: That woman is ME.... Having run forward a few futile steps, I saw equally agonized Dio running toward me gazing upward A man materialized between Dio and me just under the flaming balcony. Dio, nearly on him, braked and stared— and froze; I, patterning on a monstrosity, froze also. Inexplicably for a few moments I was Dio, gaping at the small flame-haired hero—and he was my torch-man; and he was smiling alert, commanding the action. His right hand flicked forward, and out of his jacket-sleeve a tangled skein of slender golden cord tumbled onto the sidewalk; the cord erected itself like a fakir-charmed cobra, snaked goldenly upward-aloft; its head paused undulant in front of the screaming-woman balcony. Leaping for his cord, the redhead hand-caught it a yard above his head and hand-over-hand scurried upward until he clung swaying in front of the balcony, one-hand-clinging, extending the other hand for the woman, who was now silent in everywhere-silence. Now I was that woman, back-roasted by flame-roar, high terror hope-diminished, facing the inviting face of my red-haired rescuer: obediently she/I extended a small right hand, clasping his wiry wrist while his wiry fingers clasped her/my wrist; she/I made a tiny leap and was elastically swung over the rail against Ms tough small body; her/my legs came up and locked around his hips, his hand in a lightning motion let go her/my hand and clasped her/my waist. . .

  I came back into myself, Lil the electrified watcher, as the skyborne man and woman and their rope vanished and the flames died.

  Maybe ten seconds I gaped upward at nothing. Nothing —except a balcony off a second-floor apartment No flames. No woman. Nothing.

  My eyes came down to Dio: he was rigid in stupefaction, face upward. He cursed a foulness and ran for the door and vanished. I waited below, unwilling to follow uninvited.

  He appeared above me on the balcony, staring down but not seeing me, staring up, staring down and around.... And certainly I was in no shape to think straight: the woman above had been me, and the red-haired man had been a smaller but facially identical version of my long-lost man. ... Aa! how my weak knees yearned for an easy chair on the sidewalk....

  Out of the street door stalked Detective-Inspector Diodoro Horse. By now I had my head on fairly straight, and I grieved for him: the woman had been his Esther. . . . Abruptly my head came loose again: but the rope-trick and the fire had been hallucination— Me? hallucinating? On the porch six steps above the sidewalk, Dio stared down at me, shook his head once, stumped down toward me. I came toward him. We halted facing each other, mutually awkward with the unprecedented kind of awkwardness that is two common-sense humans who have startlingly hallucinated the same imagery together.

  He said, talking to the pavement, ‘1 saw my wife up on that balcony threatened by fire. I saw a little redheaded guy go up a rope and snatch her into the sky. Lil, I’m sick.”

  I said, not professional, just appalled woman: “I’m sick too, Dio. I saw the same things.”

  We both stared at the sidewalk.

  Our heads came up slowly. We stared at each other—we were equally tall or short, our eyes were level-on. His teeth were sheathed.

  I ventured, “How about—up there, in there?"

  He wet thin lips. “Nothing wrong, up there. All normal. No sign of fire.”

  “Was—Esther there?”

  He shook his head apathetically. “No, but that doesn’t mean anything. She—goes a lot. She should be back in time for supper—’’

  Pulling control back in gradually, I checked my wrist-watch. It was tough to say, but— “Dio, we’re almost late for class. Do you—”

  He came up erect, bristlingly erect I grabbed his arm, and we plodded toward the high school.

  After the lecture—he had performed brilliantly for an hour—we met in the corridor; and as soon as we could break away from passing students touching skin with both of us, he said brittle, “Lil, don’t comment now, I have this overwhelming urge to call home.” Natch. Feeling fire-chill, I took him down the corridor to the deserted office and plumped him down in front of a phone and went out into the corridor.

  Out stumped Dio. “No answer.”

  I swung on him. “Want to go home?”

  “No point,” he muttered, eyebrows hard down. “I have to tell you, Lil: sometimes she doesn’t come home for supper.”

  It was five-thirty, and he was a good friend in trouble. I grabbed his upper arms. “How early do you start drinking?”

  The first drink-round, at a quietly secluded table in a dim small luxurious Fifty-second Street place, conjured up something approaching ease, and it certainly promoted congeniality and unobtrusive candor. At first we carefully avoided the hallucination-subject. I went professional, just a little: to draw him out, I confessed that some adolescent ser hangups had led me into psychology (which was a lie, my adolescence having been cheerfully virginal necking-great). “No hangups now,” quickly I added, “but I remain selective.” That drew a wry smile from him; and he ventured to tell me that he was a long way from being a Casanova although he’d known a couple of dames before Esther, but meeting and winning Esther had been sheer luck, he didn’t think he deserved her....

  I blurted, “That’s always bullshit” When that galvanized him erect with culture-shock, I added more delicately, “I mean, man and woman are both humans, aren’t they? Don’t both of us have to slog at living? don’t both of us have sex-itches? Sorry, Dio, but I have no patience with the woman-on-a-pedestal kick.”

  He looked at me sharply, like back at his office on a case. “Tell me what your hallucination was.”

  It shriveled me. Presently I told what was left of my Tanqueray martini: “I saw your lost love being raped-away on a rope by the guy I’ve been carrying a torch for since nineteen forty-eight.”

  Silence. Then Dio: “Oboy.” And he signaled for more drinks.

  The second one did fine for us. From me he learned that my guy had been named Burk Halloran, that he had looked exactly like the rope-trick guy except that Burk had been more on the tall side, that he had been transiently psychotic, that I had drawn him back into self-confidence, that immediately I had run away hoping that he would cure himself and come looking for me, that he had cured himself but hadn’t come looking for me. From Dio I learned that he had met Esther when he was an army major and she was a Wac in World War II France, that at first their married life had been decently happy, that in due course she had had to face the reality of his energetic career-orientation while he had had to cope with her increasing discontentment, that his own unreliability with reference to coming home in time for supper or even before morning had seemed to set Esther equally into unscheduled prowling but not on any sort of duty—and that he had never before lai
d eyes on the illusion-redhead.

  I wanted to know, “Have you ever had it out with Esther?”

  Seeing an ambiguity, I grinned and emended, “I mean, have you two ever talked out your problems?”

  He nodded at the remnant of his second Beefeater. “Real good conversations. Only, they ended up nowhere.”

  He looked up, strained. “Dr. Vogel, I have to tell you a thing. I am not happy with myself the way I am. I know that’s wild, but I wish I were some other kind of guy.”

  This intimate confession made me most unhappy, and I gazed at him like a—no, not like a mother, but like the mother of a boy’s best boy-friend, which is pretty sympathetic and not at all scary. ‘Tell me what kind of a guy you’d like to be.”

  “Like that guy we just hallucinated—only, built like your Burk.”

  I stared. I swallowed.

  He added, making all plain: “Not little, and not bucktoothed, and not an Establishment slave. Tall and handsome and able to create my own responsibilities. Could there be such a thing as an Irish-American Pueblo Indian?”

  I grinned into my drink. Conquering this compulsive grin along with my compulsive urge to deny his self-belittle-ment, I suggested, “We have three choices now, Dio. A third round of drinks, or dinner, or both.”

  He scared me with his directness: “What time is it?”

  “About six-thirty. Why?”

  “I want to go home, Lil. Whether she’s there or not, I want to check out that apartment like a cop this time.” Having considered him, I tossed off my Tanqueray and stood. “Good luck, pal. Don’t worry about me, I find my way home real good—”

  “You come with me.”

  "Why?”

  “It’s our hallucination, Lil. We both together saw your man stealing my wife using the Indian rope-trick. Let’s go.” “But if she’s there—how will it look—”

  “She’s been wanting to meet you. Let’s go.”

  He dropped four dollars, which then amply covered four drinks and tip in a plush place, and steered me toward the exit.

  Esther wasn’t there. But— “Look here,” Dio crisped, arming aside a drape and pointing to the floor by the window-doors that opened onto the balcony.

  There was a little coil of golden thread-rope; and a note atop the coil. The note sad: “Forgive me, Dio. This note constitutes my consent without contest to your petition for divorce. I love you, but I can’t handle you when you are impersonal. I’m going with Kali to my favorite place in all the world. Esther”

  Having read it twice, I wanted to say harsh, “I suppose it hasn’t escaped your trained police mind that this note leaves a few questions, like how the divorce court would view the ambiguity about property and alimony?” I didn’t say it, because you don’t have to be a psychologist to know that this would be a second-or third-day thing to say. And anyhow, some kind of Horse-action was going on....

  Still holding the drape back, Dio was staring at the rope.

  Good God, the rope’s end ascended a little!

  And fell back inert...

  So did the drape, hiding the rope. Savagely he swung on me: “Did you see that? I did it—”

  I nodded, numb. This was beyond science as of now.

  He blurted, starting for the kitchen, “Christ do I need another drink!” He paused at the threshold and turned, “What’s your pleasure?” I shook my head, still gin-warm: “Not yet, but go ahead yourself—and watch out for mixes.” He vanished.

  I knelt, pushed back the drape, fingered the rope. It was just rope. Not even anymore golden.

  I arose and turned to discover that he was in a big easy chair with gin-and-tonic and with shoes off, legs outstretched, head back, eyes closed, teeth sheathed.

  Uneasily I perched myself on the edge of a sofa facing him, not sure yet what might be asked of me. What does this kind of a guy do with a not-bad lady psychologist in this kind of wife-crisis? Anything, anything at all: like requiring my professional solace, or demanding my female solace, or needing my friendly human solace, or wanting me to go away and leave him alone. Liking Dio very much, I was prepared to grant two of these possible requirements; as for the other two, I would have to handle either as the situation might seem to be developing.

  Eyes closed, head back, he brought the drink faultlessly to his mouth and tilted in another ounce of it; whereafter hand and drink came down and hung over the chair-arm. He said tonelessly, “I could kill myself for not finding the rope when I came up here before—but I guess my mood then was, just to verify that all was really well. All right Now.

  Lilith—what did you see me do with that coil of rope, just now?”

  Carefully: “I saw you stare at the coil of rope. I then saw the rope’s end rise about one foot, and fall back.”

  “Good scientific reserve. I did it, Lilith.”

  Still cautious, inwardly frigid: “Bully for you.”

  “Okay. Well. You shared my hallucination out there, and you saw me just now levitating the rope. So neither was a psychotic episode for either of us. I hate the idea, and so do you, but we have to call both episodes reality.”

  “I—think I need that drink. One part gin, three parts tonic.”

  “Please do, but would you mind? The bottles are out on the sink, glasses in the cupboard to the left of the fridge.” Still his eyes were closed.

  So far, all professional. I went into the kitchen—and realized while pouring that the professionalism was his; he was Inspector Horse nosing down a trail, and he’d just given me a courteously soft order to take care of myself while he did it. Well, that I was doing; but I was feeling an increasing urge, undoubtedly professional, to take care of him, too.

  When I returned, he was seated straight-up in his chair, eyes open, alert; and his drink wasn’t gone. “Please sit down,” he urged, waving a hand; I did, leading toward him. “First, relax, Lil; I’m under control now. Second—can you put a name to what I did to the rope?”

  “If in fact you did it, we’d call it psychokinesis.”

  “PK, yes; I remember. Have you studied that?”

  “As a cognate only. Actually, my kick is hysterias.”

  “You mean like people blowing their tops?”

  “No, not that. Let me think of a for-instance. Like a guy whose arm gets paralyzed—”

  “Because he thinks his arm is guilty of something?”

  “Good, very good. That’s a dissociation, see? He gets out from under his own guilt by pushing it off on his arm.”

  “And that’s your kick?”

  “Well, I’m interested in the more bizarre hysterias. Like dual and even triple and quadruple personalities.”

  He sighed. “I’d like to pursue this, it’s fascinating, but events are pushing my nose against the psychokinesis. Do you psychology-guys have any good theories for phenomena like these? I don’t mean vague hypotheses, I mean hard theories about how the phenomena are caused.”

  Professionally, Dio was becoming increasingly good to work with. After a thoughtful sip, I responded: “No hard etiological theories. Very good empirical evidence for telepathy, with good rationale for how it might occur. Equally good empirical evidence for clairvoyance, but lousy rationale for it—unless somebody else is visually seeing what the clairvoyant mentally sees, in which case the clairvoyant may be reading the other guy’s mind, so it would simply be telepathy. But psychokinesis—amazingly good empirical evidence, and absolutely no rationale whatsoever.”

  “You’ve seen other people make a rope go up?”

  “Not that—except professional magicians who admit it’s a trick. But making dice come up with the wanted number, and stuff like that—yes.”

  “But the rope-trick would be an extension of that, if it’s real.”

  “So it would seem.”

  “And they bring it off regularly in India, according to many reports.”

  “Right."

  “Well—I just did it. No question that I did. How did I do it?”

  Wasn’t this guy
ever going to mention his gone wife? Well, stay with his lead. A counter-question was indicated: “Tell me what you experienced while you were doing it”

  He frowned. “I’ve thought that out and some related things. The rope part is easy because it isn’t much: I stared at it and—fairly drove into it my will for it to rise, filling myself with absolute confidence that it would rise. And it did. And then suddenly I lost confidence, and it fell back. Does that help us any?”

  I shook my head slowly, thinking. Then the big personal question grew too big for containment; and as gently as I could, I demanded, “Why was rope-levitation your first reaction to the news that your wife had left you?”

  “It wasn’t My first reaction was that I should suicide, I’d fouled up the last important thing, there wasn’t anything left Then I took some time to steady myself, remembering what I’d always told myself: that if nothing but suicide seemed posable, I should pretend suicide and go off somewhere to start a new anonymous life. All right I said: but what do I do with such a life? That was when it came over me that Esther’s weird disappearance was only the last and most personal and otherwise most insignificant of a great many today-questions requiring answers, like the interminable, heartbreak of Korea and the growing prevalence of crime and commercialized vice and dope and the meaningless intransigence of the cold war with atom bombs in the picture. So whatever else I would do after pretending suicide and going anonymous, I would be going for those answers; and when and if I would finally get them, then I would decide what to do next. Okay, I said, that should hold me for starters; now, what else is meaningful about the situation here? Let’s get on the stick, let’s find a way to chase Esther, let’s find out face-to-face whether she really means it! That was when the rope first came into context with Kali’s rope-trick, whoever Kali is; and it crossed my mind to try duplicating the redhead’s rope-trick, and I guess maybe I was so passionally involved that it worked—”