“Sleep with the drugs is bad. In my case. I am more tired after the sleep than before.”
He kept his eyes upon her face, but her eyes were guarded. She did not cast them down nor veil them studiedly—but they seemed, without any sign of deliberate avoidance, never to meet his for more than an instant far too short for any revelation. She said:
“I’ll tell the doctor,” and bent over him and touched his forehead lightly with fingers which were cool and impersonal. His skin was clammily wet with the sweat of horror and he wished that she had not touched it then. She brought him water to drink and straightened the twisted dressings upon his head and gave him a fresh pillow. She said no more than the four words—but there were no more drugs, despite skirmishings with the doctor after certain nights when pain had made it impossible for him to sleep. . . .
That was the first Event-unit of his own making. The second was the matter of reporting himself and his whereabouts to Rudolph Altinger. This must be done—for many reasons it must be done. It was his duty to do it—and perhaps to do his duty against all difficulty might somehow be a protective charm to ward off the dreams which, even after the cessation of the drugs, were wont to haunt his sleep whenever he least expected them. They were not, mercifully, as bad as the voices or the pictures—but they were bad enough, particularly the one which recurred. This was a fantastic medley made the more frightful by reason of its perpetual hovering upon the edge of farce. It concerned his triumphal return to Germany and the continual emergence, at the most unlikely and never-to-be-foreseen times and places, of a small and dark-haired and squarely built figure clad incongruously in a brown woolly bathrobe over which was strapped the clumsy bulk of a cork life-jacket. The small figure’s hands were for ever leaving dark stains upon things they touched, and the clipped, precise little voice was for ever championing him to others when there did not seem any need or reason for the implied defence. And it never changed its words; it said, over and over again, whatever the time and place and situation:
“He isn’t bad, you know! He’s going to teach them that an Evil Idea cannot beat a Good Ideal”
And then he would wake, shaking.
So he communicated with Altinger. He had help, her help. It was morning. He said:
“Please: could you write a letter for me? To my employer—my boss. He will be wondering what has happened to me.”
She was by the wide hearth, with her back to him. She was setting fresh flowers in the vases upon the broad mantel. She said:
“Of course I will,” and set down the flowers and brought pen and paper and sat in the chair beside the bed. As always now, she contrived to guard her eyes.
He dictated his letter, slowly. Mr. Altinger would have heard of the train-wreck. He had been hurt in the train wreck, so he had been unable to reach Seattle and complete for Mr. Altinger the business about the site for the house of Mr. Blum. He had been hurt considerably—with a gash in his head and both legs broken—but was recovering well. He was not in a hospital, but a guest in the house of Samaritans who refused to let him be moved.
And so on—stiff and correct and completely beyond any sort of suspicion—provided, of course, that the enemy had no means of proving that he had never been upon the train. And that they had was most highly improbable, since the wreck had been so complete, with so many servants of the railroad company beyond doubt killed.
He had done his duty, anyhow, to the best of his ability—he had notified his commanding officer. He hoped and believed that the charm would work and that the dreams would be banished.
But, strangely, they were not. They grew, instead, worse and more frequent, so that he became haunted not only by the fear and memory of them but also by the revived fear that he might unwittingly betray himself and the Machine. He did not know, although he kept on telling himself that he did, which fear was the worse. He grew afraid of sleep—yet knew that sleep was essentiaclass="underline" he was imprisoned in a relentless circle.
But at last he found solution to the problem: he found that if sleep came when she was with him in the room, he dreamed of her or not at all, and was safe.
He said to her:
“Please: I have something to ask you,” and she suddenly stopped in what she was doing and stood absolutely still, like a picture of arrested motion. She was sideways to him and he could not see her face. She said:
“What is it?” and her voice was different; it was still and controlled and the words came stiffly. He was alarmed by this difference.
“Please do not be annoyed with me. But there is something you can do; something that will help me. . . . I sound like a child—but I can only sleep rightly if you are here when I begin to sleep.”
Her strange stillness broke then. She set down the things she was carrying on the bedside table. She did not look at him, but at what she was doing. She said:
“Oh—I see. All right—don’t worry.” Her voice wasn’t different any more, but deep and cool and clear and perhaps even softer than he had known it.
That was all she said—but he knew that now she would always be with him when sleep was coming. And she was, and he slept nearly always without the dreams. . . .
That was the second Event-unit of his own making, and the last one of any importance. The other, objective fillings-in of the timeless map were many, very many. But he knew them all.
He knew them all. This house was named Los Robles. It was less than ten miles from the Palitos viaduct. Her name was Clare—Clare Ingolls. The doctor’s name was Brandt. He had a wound in his head, but the skull was not fractured. There were three coloured servants, but the only one he had seen was Lena, who helped to nurse him and was tall and bronze-coloured and Amazonian and very happy. His left shin was broken in one place, his right in three. It was known immediately that the wreck of the train was the work of saboteurs. Los Robles had been built by and belonged to Waldemar Ingolls, the father of Clare. Altinger had received his letter. Altinger was in New York and had telephoned two or three times to ask how he was and tell him not to worry and offered to have him moved to a San Francisco hospital, but the Ingolls had preferred to keep him. This room where he lay was called the big guest-room. He was here because at the sound and news of the wreck the whole scattered community of the countryside had turned out to see and help and there had been a shortage of ambulances in this lonely place and Waldemar Ingolls had found him near the dead woman whom he had pulled out from beneath the wreckage. Clare’s mother was not alive. Dr. Brandt was very pleased with his progress. No one had known his name until he had been able to tell them it was Jorgensen: they thought he must somehow have lost his purse or wallet, to have nothing on him at all which gave any clue to his identity. Waldemar Ingolls was a tall, lean giant of a man: he had iron-grey hair and a deeply tanned face and hard, direct grey eyes which looked very straight at you and were always softening suddenly and wrinkling at their corners when he smiled or laughed, which was often, but never without reason. Several newspaper reporters had called at the house to see the wreck-victim, but had been turned away. . . .
All this and more he knew—and he knew also that he had not betrayed himself.
10 LOS ROBLES:
Second Phase
Without wanting or struggle the time-sense returned to him. At one instant it was not there, at the next the grid-lines of the chart—the lines which ruled life from seconds to centuries—were firmly superimposed upon his being again.
Propped against his pillows, he was finishing his first meal of the day, and at the far end of the big room Lena was busy with broom and dustcloths, every now and then a little snatch of tuneful humming would break from her lips, only to be instantly suppressed as a possible source of annoyance to the invalid.