“I’ll drop you at the door.”
“Can I phone you tomorrow to find out about Miss Togelson?”
“In the afternoon.”
The doctor let him out and started up almost before Dake had slammed the car door. He went into the brightly lighted terminal. Two large groups of Indian tourists were chatting, laughing. Their women wore saris heavily worked with gold and silver. They gave him a quick incurious glance. They came from a hard, driving, ambitious and wealthy land. It was fashionable to tour the bungling rattle-trap Western world. So quaint, my dear. But the people! So incredibly lethargic. And so excitingly vulgar. Naturally we owe them a debt — I mean this is the country where modern mass production methods originated, you know. In fact, we used to import their technicians, send our young people to their engineering schools. Think of it! But of course we’ve improved tremendously on all of their techniques. Tata set up the first completely automated steel mill. I suppose the war did exhaust these people terribly. We don’t know how lucky we are that Pak-India has never been a bomb target. And we’re strong enough so that it never will be. You heard President Lahl’s latest speech, of course. Any overt act will be punished a thousandfold. That made Garva and Chu and Fahdi sit up and take notice.
Nine
Dake took his luggage to a nearby hotel, registered, had a late supper and went up to his room. He was unpacking his toilet articles when the bellhop arrived with the typewriter.
“It doesn’t look like much, sir, but the assistant manager says it’s in good shape.” He carried it over to the desk by the window and set it down.
“I didn’t order a typewriter sent up.”
The bellhop was a chinless and earnest young man. He gave Dake an uneasy smile. “I suppose that’s some kind of a joke, Mr. Lorin. I guess I don’t get it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I was in here ten minutes ago when you sent for a boy, and you told me you wanted a typewriter. I mean, if it’s a gag, I don’t get it.”
Before the episode with Patrice, Dake knew he would have objected strenuously. He would have phoned the manager and asked if this was a new method of gouging the guests. He would have demanded that the typewriter be taken away.
But the world was altering in some obscure way. A brassy little wench had talked imaginatively of the delusion of reality. Half a death’s head in a mirror. A woman mad from fright. A fingernail. Fundamentally he was a man of curiosity. A reporter. He could not ignore the objective questions triggered by subjective experience.
He tipped the boy. “Not a very good joke, I guess.”
The boy sighed. “Thanks, sir. You had me worried there for a minute. I wondered if I was going nuts. Good night, sir.”
The boy closed the door after him. Dake stood in the middle of the room, rubbing his chin. This, like every other damnable thing that had happened, had two aspects. The other side of the coin was that he had requested a typewriter. Insanity. Delusion. But Molly and Patrice had seen something. Could that be objective proof? Only, he thought, if he could prove to himself that he had gone to her house and what he imagined had happened had actually happened. He went quickly to the phone. It took twenty minutes to get the hospital. Phone service had changed over the years from a convenience to an annoying irritant.
The girl at the hospital switchboard answered at last. “Do you have a patient there, recently admitted? A Miss Patrice Togelson?”
“Just a moment, sir. I’ll check.”
He waited. She came back on the line and said, “Yes sir. She was admitted about three hours ago. She is resting comfortably, sir.”
“Thank you.”
He hung up, sat on the edge of the bed, lit a cigarette. All right. Take it another step. How do I prove I made that call, and prove I talked to the girl at the hospital switchboard? The call will appear on my bill. Yet, when I see it noted on the bill, how do I know I am actually seeing it?
There was a stabbing pain centered behind his eyes, a pain so sudden and intense that it blinded him. He closed his eyes and opened them again, aware of an abrupt transition, aware that time had passed. Instead of being seated on the bed, he was seated in front of the desk. A dingy sheet of hotel stationery was rolled into the typewriter. Several lines had been typed.
Dake read them mechanically. “To whom it may concern: When Darwin Branson died I saw that I could use his death to my own advantage. I saw a way I could put myself back in the public eye. I had worked for Darwin Branson for a full year, but his assigned task had been to make a detailed survey of State Department policy decisions. He was not engaged in any way in secret negotiations.
“The article I wrote for the Times-News was a ruse. No such agreements were made. I had the plan of writing the article in order to help promote world unity. I realize now that it was a delusion of grandeur. I realize now that the article will have the reverse effect from what I had planned. I feel that at the time I wrote the article I was not responsible for my actions.
“The only way I can make amends is to write this full confession and then proceed to...”
It stopped there. The sudden time transition seemed to leave him numbed, unable to comprehend. The words seemed meaningless. He moved his lips as he read it again, much like a child trying to comprehend an obscure lesson in a textbook.
“No!” he said thickly.
The pain again focused behind his eyes, but not as intensely as before. It was almost as though it were coming to him through some shielding substance. It made his vision swim, but it did not black him out entirely. There was a pulsating quality to it, a strength that increased and diminished, as though in conflict.
He tried to keep his hands at his sides, but they lifted irresistibly to the keys of the typewriter. A new word. “... take...”
He held his hands rigid. Sweat ran down the side of his throat. Two hard clacks as his fingers hit the keys. “... my...”
The feeling of combat in his mind, of entities battling for control, was sharp and clear. He did not feel that he was fighting with any strength. He was something limp, helpless, being pushed and pulled at the same time.
“... own...”
His hands flexed, the knuckles crackling.
“... life.”
And again, without temporal hiatus, his pen was in his hand, his signature already scrawled at the foot of the sheet, the sheet out of the typewriter. Blackout, and he was at the window, one long leg over the sill, the window flung high, sharp October night breathing against his face, an enclosed court far below, a few lighted windows across from him, like watchful eyes.
Conflict crescendoed in his mind and was suddenly gone. Emptiness. He straddled the sill, motionless. No more pushing and pulling. Easy now to let go. Easier than trying to find answers to problems. Easier than fighting insanity. Let go and spin slowly down through the whispering night, down by the lighted windows, down to that final answer. He heard himself make a sniggling sound, a drunken giggle. He sensed the impending rupture of his brain. A bursting of tissues. His hand tightened on the sill. Come now, God of darkness. Take your tired child. Find the dark land father, hanging in the stone cell of eternity, turning slowly with blackened face. Find the wife who one instant was warmth, and now lives forever in the heart of the whiteness hotter than the sun.
But... WHY?
Drop with question unanswered? Fall to the smash of bone on stone and never know why?
His mind wheeled for one insane instant and focused on WHY. Big letters, the color of flame, written on the black night. Never knowing was more horrid than continuing the conflict, the distortion of reality.