Which of the sixty-four hexagrams, he wondered, am I laboring under? Opening his desk drawer he brought out the I Ching and laid the two volumes on the desk. So much to ask the sages. So many questions inside me which I can barely articulate…
When Mr. Ramsey entered the office, he had already obtained the hexagram. “Look, Mr. Ramsey.” He showed him the book.
The hexagram was Forty-Seven. Oppression—Exhaustion.
“A bad omen, generally,” Mr. Ramsey said. “What is your question, sir? If I’m not offending you to ask.”
“I inquired as to the Moment,” Mr. Tagomi said. “The Moment for us all. No moving lines. A static hexagram.” He shut the book.
At three o’clock that afternoon, Frank Frink, still waiting with his business partner for Wyndam-Matson’s decision about the money, decided to consult the oracle. How are things going to turn out? he asked, and threw the coins.
The hexagram was Forty-seven. He obtained one moving line, Nine in the fifth place.
His nose and feet are cut off.
Oppression at the hands of the man with the purple knee bands.
Joy comes softly.
It furthers one to make offerings and libations.
For a long time—at least half an hour—he studied the line and the material connected with it, trying to figure out what it might mean. The hexagram, and especially the moving line, disturbed him. At last he concluded reluctantly that the money would not be forthcoming.
“You rely on that thing too much,” Ed McCarthy said.
At four o’clock, a messenger from W-M Corporation appeared and handed Frink and McCarthy a manila envelope. When they opened it they found inside a certified check for two thousand dollars.
“So you were wrong,” McCarthy said.
Frink thought, Then the oracle must refer to some future consequence of this. That is the trouble; later on, when it has happened, you can look back and see exactly what it meant. But now–
“We can start setting up the shop,” McCarthy said. “Today? Right now?” He felt weary.
“Why not? We’ve got our orders made out; all we have to do is stick them in the mail. The sooner the better. And the stuff we can get locally we’ll pick up ourselves.” Putting on his jacket. Ed moved to the door of Frink’s room.
They had talked Frink’s landlord into renting them the basement of the building. Now it was used for storage. Once the cartons were out, they could build their bench, put in wiring, lights, begin to mount their motors and belts. They had drawn up sketches, specifications, parts lists. So they had actually already begun.
We’re in business, Frank Frink realized. They had even agreed on a name.
“The most I can see today,” he said, “is buying the wood for the bench, and maybe electrical parts. But no jewelry supplies.”
They went, then, to a lumber supply yard in south San Francisco. By the end of an hour they had their wood.
“What’s bothering you?” Ed McCarthy said as they entered a hardware store that dealt on a wholesale basis.
“The money. It gets me down. To finance things that way.”
“Old W-M understands,” McCarthy said.
I know, Frink thought. That’s why it gets me down. We have entered the world. We’re like him. Is that a pleasant thought?
“Don’t look back,” McCarthy said. “Look ahead. To the business.”
I am looking ahead, Frink thought. He thought of the hexagram. What offerings and libations can I make? And to whom?
7
The handsome young Japanese couple who had visited Robert Childan’s store, the Kasouras, telephoned him toward the end of the week and requested that he come to their apartment for dinner. He had been waiting for some further word from them, and he was delighted.