It is interesting how often the bathtub has figured in the history of science, politics, and art: Archimedes, for instance, and the Shang emperor about whom he has just been reading, who inscribed on his tub the characters that Pound translated, "Make it new." Why on his tub? Was it because the emperor, like Linck himself, this person, this physical body who lies here now submerged and displacing water like Archimedes, liked to philosophize in his tub?
Now the shapes at the bottom of the water have paled almost to invisibility, but they are still there, no longer ideograms but slowly elongating serpents. The Manichaeans believed that God was visible in light, Satan in darkness. In the struggle between them, the elements had been mingled; the whole world was a mixture of darkness and light, good and evil. At certain moments Linck finds this a very plausible theory, the more so because without this mingling there would be no contrast and no borders; the perceptible universe could not exist.
On the bottom of the tub there is another shadow, a drifting chain of three lozenges, each one surrounded by two bright arcs, mathematically perfect, that intersect at the points of the lozenge. When he looks for the source of this shadow, he finds that it is a floating hair. It is curious, he thinks, that this marvelous and perfect appearance should be generated by nothing more than a hair, probably a pubic hair.
Alone in his room in the secure yellow-white light, Gene Anderson takes three coins from the cup on the desk. He throws them six times: they yield the hexagram Tui, "The Joyous, Lake."
He finds it in the 'text. Tui is the hexagram of "the joyous" and of success, which comes through gentleness. When men's hearts are won by gentleness, says the oracle, they will accept hardships and even death. This is the Judgment. The Image, the second trigram, tells him that knowledge becomes a vitalizing force through stimulating conversation with congenial friends.
There is a moving line, an old yin, in the third place. This tells him that if a man is empty inside, idle pleasures will fill the void. The next two lines are old yang. The first tells him that inner peace can come only from the renunciation of base pleasures; the second, that danger comes in the form of "disintegrating influences" even to the best of men.
As always, the I Ching's response is apposite, and as always, it is ambiguous. He forms another question: "What is this danger?" and casts the coins again. They yield the hexagram Pi, "Union." Again the response is apposite: it says that for union to take place, there must be a central figure for the others to rally around: but if that man has no real calling, he will only bring about confusion.
Year by year the layers of coldness have folded around him, numbing the pain to a distant pinprick. Sculpture, painting, that whole world, is now like a nest of bright objects laid away in cabinets. People are interesting, clever little mechanisms, with their bright eyes, their flushes and smiles.
It is not that they are unintelligent. Taken one by one, they are as smart as they need to be, but in their numbers they are a terrible swarming mass, grinding everything to smaller and smaller bits.
For months he has been carrying in his mind the solution to humanity's problem -- a way of saving the world. He knows it is possible, and he is almost persuaded that he can do it himself. When he examines his motives, he sees that for the most part they are selfish: the lust for glory; the desire for great accomplishment, for a sense of superiority; the urge to save his own life. On the other side, he is afraid of giving up his peace and privacy, perhaps forever; he is afraid of failure; he is afraid of revealing himself as a megalomaniac and narcissistic fool. Which is worse, to save humanity for the wrong reasons -- or to let it perish through cowardice?
Chapter Twenty-three
The cab driver let Cooley off in front of the railroad station in Springfield. It was black dark, and cold. He went into the station carrying the attaché case; it weighed only about five pounds, but it felt like fifty. He sat with it between his knees until the train pulled in. The conductor helped him up the steps. "There you go, Gramp."
There was a three-hour wait between trains in New York. On the Florida train, the heat wasn't working in the dining car, and the food was worse than he remembered, but his compartment was comfortable; an "economy bedroom" was what they called it now. He slept fairly well, and at eleven the next morning he was in Tampa. He got a cab and went looking for a motel. The first one was not what he wanted: the lobby was too small and too crowded. "That's a fleabag," he told the driver when he came out. "Isn't there a decent motel in this town?"
The next one was just right; it had a big lobby with a lot of furniture and planters, and there didn't seem to he many people around.
Cooley had lunch in the coffee shop and made a phone call from his room, then went down to the desk to check out.
"You're not staying with us tonight, then?" the clerk said. He looked disapproving.
"No, something's come up. A friend of mine's going to come for me in an hour or so -- I'll just wait over there out of the way. How long's it take to get to the airport from here?"
"About twenty minutes, sir."
The lobby was empty. At the far end there were two big wing chairs facing each other. Cooley knelt on the floor, opened the attaché case and lifted out the explosive device. He had to get his legs under the chair, supporting the device on his knees, before he could attach it the way Jacobs had shown him. When he finished, he was sweating and dizzy. He closed the attaché case, which also contained his toothbrush and a change of underwear, and sat down to wait.
They were finishing lunch when the phone rang; Irma leaned over to answer it. "Anderson residence. . . . Who shall I say is calling?" After a moment she punched the hold button and said, "His name is McIver, and he says it's about your parents."
"McIver," said Gene refiectively, and shook his head. "Put it on tape, Irma, and turn on the speaker.", When she had done so, he took the phone and said, "Mr. McIver, this is Gene Anderson. What's this about my parents?"
The voice that came into the room was thin and high-pitched, an old man's voice. "Gene, you don't remember me, I guess, but I used to work with your father in Dog River when you was a boy. You know they moved away about a year after you left."
"Yes. Mr. McIver, how did you find me here?"
"Well, I have a friend in St. Pete, he's in real estate, and when he happened to mention your name and said you was a giant, why, I figured that's got to be the same Gene Anderson that I knew back then."
"What is your friend's name?"
"His name is Russ Lafler. Now I don't know if you know, Gene, that your parents both died in Chehalis in nineteen fifty-six."
"Yes, I know that."
"Well, I have reason to believe that their death may not of been accidental. I don't want to talk too much about this on the phone, but there's certain information I have that I think you'd like to know. I'm in Tampa for a day or two, staying at the Costa Brava Motel, do you know where it's at?"
"I can find it." Gene nodded at Irma, who took the Tampa directory from the shelf and began turning the pages. "Would it be convenient if I came over this afternoon, say in about an hour?"
"Yes, that'd be fine. I'll be in the lobby, Gene, because from what I hear you wouldn't fit into a motel room too good."
"I appreciate that. In an hour then, Mr. McIver."
At Gene's nod, Irma turned off the phone. "What was that all about?"
Gene's face was stony. "There was a man who worked with my father -- his name might have been McIver, I don't remember. Irma, see if you can find a Russ Lafler under real estate."