“West Walnut, pal!” the driver called to him, slowing the bus. He was trying to control his prejudice reactions at Howson’s appearance, and for that Howson gave him a projective wave of warm gratitude. It lighted the man’s mind like a gaudy show of fireworks, and he was whistling a cheerful tune as he drove away.
Howson gave a bitter chuckle. If it were always that easy, things would be fine!
XXIIxxii
The new development was clean, airy, spacious, with small houses set among bright green lawns. Children on their way home from school ran and laughed along the paths. He thought achingly of the close, ugly streets of his own childhood, and repressed absurd envy. Briskening his pace as much as possible, he followed signs toward the Williams home.
Yes, there was the name on the mailbox: s. williams. He reached up and pressed the bell.
After a whole the door was cautiously opened on a security chain, and a girl of about seven looked through the gap. ‘“What do you want?” she said timidly.
“Is Mrs. Williams in?”
“Mummy isn’t home,” the girl said in her most grown-up and authoritative voice. “I’m dreadfully sorry.”
“Will she be back soon? I’m an old friend of hers, and I want to—”
“What is it, Jill?” a boy’s voice inquired from out of sight.
“There’s a man here who wants to see Mummy,” the girl explained, and a clatter of shoes announced her brother’s descent of the stairs. In a moment another pair of eyes was peering at the visitor. The boy was startled at Howson’s appearance, and failed to conceal the fact, but he had obviously been trained to be polite, and opened the door with an invitation to come in and wait.
“Mummy’s gone to see Mrs. Oiling Olling next door,” he said. “She won’t be long.”
Howson thanked him and limped into the lounge. Behind him he heard an argument going on in whispers— Jill complaining that they oughtn’t to have let a stranger into the house, and her brother countering scornfully that Howson was no bigger than himself, so how could he be dangerous?
Shyly, the children followed him into the lounge and sat down on a sofa opposite the chair he had taken, at a loss for anything to say. Howson had not had anything to do with children for many years; he felt almost equally tongue-tied.
“Maybe your mother has told you about me,” he ventured. “I’m called Gerry—Gerry Howson. I used to know your mother when she was—uh—before she met your daddy. You’re Jill, aren’t you? And …?”
“I’m Bobby,” said the boy. “Er … do you live near here, Mr. Howson?”
“No, I live at Ulan Bator. I’m a doctor at the big hospital there.”
“A doctor!” This began to thaw Jill’s shyness. She leaned forward excitedly. “Ooh! I’m going to be a nurse when I grow up.”
“How about you, Bobby? Do you want to be a doctor?”
“No, I don’t,” said the boy rather slightingly. “I want to be a Mars pilot or a submarine captain.” Iben Then he relented, and with a gravity exactly imitated from some stiff- mannered adult, he added, “I’m sure a doctor’s work is very interesting, though.”
“Mr. Howson,” said Jill with a puzzled expression. “If you’re a doctor, why have you got a bad leg? Can’t you have it fixed?”
“Jill!” exclaimed Bobby, horrified. “You know you shouldn’t say things like that to people!”
He was being grown-up, thought Howson with amusement. “I don’t mind,” he said. “No, Jill, I can’t have it fixed. I was born like it, and now there’s nothing that can be done. Besides, I’m not that kind of doctor. “I …” He recollected Birberger’s halting, naive naïve description of his work, and finished, “I look into sick people’s minds and tell what’s wrong with them.”
Bobby’s adult manners vanished in a wave of surprise. “You mean you’re a crazy doctor?”
“Well, now!” Howson countered with a hint of a smile. “I don’t think ‘crazy’ is a very nice word. The people who come to my hospital are pretty much the same as anybody; they just need help because life has got too complicated for them.”
They didn’t contest the statement, but their skepticism was apparent. Howson sighed. “How would you like me to tell you a story about my work?” he suggested. “I used to tell stories to your mother, and she enjoyed it.”
“Depends on the story,” said Bobby cautiously. Jill had been sitting in wide-eyed wonder since Howson’s revelation that he was a “crazy doctor.” Now she spoke up in support of her brother.
“I don’t think we’d like a story about crazy people,” she said doubtfully.
“It’s very exciting,” Howson promised quietly. “Much more exciting than being a spaceman or a submarine captain, really. I have a wonderful job.” He found time to ask himself when he had last realized how completely he meant that declaration, before he went on.
“Suppose I tell you about this person who came to my hospital. …”
The technique came back to him as though he had used it yesterday, instead of eleven years before. Gently he projected the hint that the children should shut their eyes, just as he had done long ago for the deaf-and-dumb girl whose mind was closed to anything but bright plain images and rich sensory impressions.
First … A hospital ward: efficiency, confidence, kindliness. Pretty nurses—Jill could be one of them for an instant, calming a patient whose face reflected gratitude.
Now … A glance inside the patient’s mind. Nightmare: but not a child’s nightmare, which would have been too terrifying for them. An adult nightmare, rather—too complex for them to recognize more than its superficial nature.
And then … Sharp, well-defined images: the patient running through the corridors of his own mind pursued by monsters from his subconscious; running for help and finding none until the presence of the doctor suggested reassurance and comfort. Then the harrying horrors paused in their chase; arming themselves with weapons which they could create merely by thinking, patient and doctor together cowed the things, drove them back, cornered them—and they were not.
It was a compound of half a dozen cases he had h1andled [??]andled as a novice, simple, vigorous and exciting without being too fearful. When he had done, Howson broke the link and suggested that they open their eyes again.
“Goodness!” said Bobby with considerable new respect “I didn’t know it was like that at all!”
Jill was about to confirm his reaction when she glanced through the open door into the hallway and bounced to her feet. “There’s Mummy!” she exclaimed. “Mummy, here’s somebody to see you. He’s been telling us such an exciting story, lie the ones he used to tell you!”
Mary Williams pushed the door fully open and looked at Howson. Her face—rather coarse, as he remembered it, but showing more personality and cleverly madf made up—set in a frozen stare. Through lips which barely opened, she said, “That was nice of him. Now you run along so I can talk to Mr. Howson on my own.”
Obediently the children started for the door. “Will you tell us some more stories sometime, please?” Jill threw over her shoulder as she went out.
“If you like,” Howson promised, smiling, and when they had gone, added to Mary, “Two fine children you have there!”
She ignored the remark. With her face still icy cold and empty, she said, “Well, Gerry? So you’ve come back to plague me, have you?”
Howson waited in blank astonishment for a few seconds. When she did not amplify this amazing statement, he got to his feet. “I came to find out how you were getting on,” he snapped. “If you call it plaguing you, I’ll go. Right now!”
He picked up his valise, half-expecting her to open the door and say it was good riddance. Instead, she burst into tears.
“Mary!” he exclaimed, and realized and added aloud in the same moment: “Why, that’s the first time I’ve ever called you by name! And we knew each other pretty well, didn’t we?”
She mastered her sobs, and gestured for him to sit down again. “I’m
sorry,” she said weakly. It was amazing how completely she had learned to use her artificial vocal cords; unless one looked carefully for the scar on her throat, it was impossible to detect they had been inserted by the hand of man. “It just took me by surprise, I guess. It … it’s nice of you to call, Gerry.”
“But what did you mean when you said I’d come to plague you?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” She moved to the place where Jill had been sitting, and waved vaguely at her surroundings—the room, the house, the whole suburb. “Now that you have :come, what have you found? An ordinary housewife with a couple of ordinary kids and a decent enough guy for a husband. You can find a million people like me wherever you go. Only …”
She dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief and sat up, crossing her legs. “Only seeing you reminded me of what I was going to be. … That was why I stopped coming to see you.”
“I think I understand,” Howson said faintly. A cold weight was settling in the pit of his stomach. “But I never suspected there was anything wrong. You seemed so happy!”
“Oh, I guess I didn’t really suspect it myself.” She stared past him at the plain pastel walls. “It was after I came home that I realized. You remember how—in the stories you used to tell me—I was always beautiful and sought after, and I could hear and talk like anyone else.” She gave a harsh laugh.
“Well, the only part that came true was the ‘like anyone else’! I thought I’d got over it—until I came through the door and saw you sitting there. And it reminded me that instead of being the … the princess in the fairy tale, I’m plain Mary Williams the West Walnut housewife, and I shall never be anything else.”
There was silence for ä a moment. Howson could think of nothing to say.
“And of course I’ve been so jealous of you,” she went on in a level tone. “While I had to drop back into this anonymous existence, you became important and famous. …”
“I suppose you wouldn’t believe me,” said Howson meditatively, “if I were to tell you that sometimes I feel I’d give up fame, importance, everything, for the privilege of looking other men straight in the eye and walking down the street without a limp.”
In an odd voice she said, “Yes, Gerry, I think I do believe you. I heard they hadn’t been able to do anything—about your leg, I mean. And the rest of it. I’m sorry.”
A thought struck her, and she stiffened. “Gerry, you haven’t really been telling Jill and Bobby the same kind of stories you told me? I’d never forgive you if you cursed them with the same kind of discontent.”
“I’ve learned a lot in eleven years,” Howson said bitterly. “You needn’t worry. I just told them about my work at Ulan Bator, and Jill says she wants to be a nurse anyway. I don’t think it will leave them discontented.”
“It left me that way,” Mary mused. “I remember the stories you told me much more vividly than I remember the dreadful place where we were living. The stories are more … more definite. While the real world has faded into a blur of gray.”
Howson had not yet replied when there were steps in the hall, and the sound of the children running. A man’s voice was heard greeting them affectionately.
“There’s Steve,” said Mary dispiritedly. “I wish—”
Howson didn’t hear what she wished, for at that moment Williams entered the room and stopped in surprise at seeing Howson there. “Uh—good afternoon!” he said blankly, his eyes asking furious questions of his wife.
“Steve, this is—I guess I should call you ‘doctor,’ shouldn’t I, Gerry?—Dr. Gerry Howson, fiom Ulan Bator. He used to be a friend of mine before I met you.”
Wilhams Williams signally failed to mask the fact that he thought his wife’s choice of friends must have been peculiar, but he offered his hand and Howson rose to take it.
“Gerry’s a psychiatrist,” Mary explained further, and Howson shook his head, wondering why she hadn’t told her husband about him.
“Not exactly. I’m actually a curative telepathist on the staff of the therapy center there—the Asian headquarters of WHO.”
“A telepathist!” The information shook Williams severely. “Well, how—uh—interesting! I never met one of you people before.” And never particularly wanted to, his mind glossed silently.
There was a pause. Mary tried to fill it by saying in a bright voice, “You’ll stay for supper with us, Gerry, I hope?” But behind the words he could read desperate anxiety: Please say no: I never told him about you and I don’t think 1 I could bear to have you reminding me, reminding me. …
Howson made great play of looking at his watch. “I’d love to,” he lied. “But I haven’t got too much time and I want to look up a good many old acquaintances. I’d better say no.”
He collected his valise and took his leave. On the doorstep he looked back at Mary.
“Apologize to the children for my not being able to stay and tell them another story, won’t you?” he said. “And … try not to hate me.”
“I promise,” said Mary with a wan smile.
“And try not to pity me, either!” he finished savagely, turning his back. He wished he could have stormed down the path from the house, instead of hobbling like a rather ridiculous jointed doll
XXIIIxxiii
For many years the hope had endured in his mind: that the deaf-and-dumb girl who had been kind to him had not suffered lastingly because of him. He had believed that there if anywhere he had managed ultimately to ensure a person’s happiness.
He had avoided questioning the assumption. Why? Because he subconsciously realized the truth?
The encounter with her had jolted his personality to its foundations. For a while, as he limped toward the highway fringing the West Walnut development, he was inclined to abandon his trip at once, unwilling to face any more such revelations. But this was exactly what he must not do; no matter how unique his talent made him, he remained a human being, and he had come hunting for the completion of that humanity.
He sighed, put his valise down on the sidewalk and looked both ways along the street. A cab was turning around after dropping a dark-suited man, home from work. He waved at the driver, wondering where he should ask to be taken now.
The vehicle went on by. In sudden anger Howson made as if to project a deafening mental shout after it, but at the last moment he realized the driver had mistaken him for a kid waving a greeting because of his small size, and contented himself with suggesting that the man think again.
The cab braked, reversed, pulled up to where he stood. The hackie, a thick-set man with humorous eyes, took in Howson’s appearance, considered it, shrugged. He said, “Sorry, pal—dreaming, I guess. I lose more fares … Where to, anyway?”
“Grand Avenue,” Howson said briefly, and scrambled in.
Now the name was ridiculous. The process of disintegration which had begun at the time of Howson’s birth and was well under way when he left for Ulan Bator had gone nearly to completion. A stretch of four blocks at the north end of the avenue was being demolished and laid out as a city housing project; beyond, as though disheartened by the threat of extinction, the stores had closed their eyes behind lids of crude bright posters: everything must go! clearance sale! lease up, bargain time now!
An evening wind pushed balls of paper and clouds of dust down the unswept gutters, and the few people about walked with an air of gloom.
There was the movie theater where he had conceived his first and disastrous attempt at importance, still struggling on, but grimy and neglected. And beyond it, something entirely new: a handsome, clean, tall block with discreet bronze lettering on the marble pillars of its main door. Frowning, Howson considered what they said.
central university—faculty of pure and applied sciencbscience.
“Driver!” he called. “Take it slow along here, will you?”
Complying with a dab on his brakes, the driver glanced over his shoulder. “Makes a difference, doesn’t it?” he commented. “That’s the Drake Gift, that place. Wh
ole big piece of land given to the university a few years back. Going to have room for a thousand students when they’re through—classrooms, offices, dormitories!”
Well, that was an improvement, no denying. But once more Howson felt the unaccountable stab of nostalgia at the disappearance of a place he had never thought he would want to see again.
“Is it already in use?” he asked.
“Oh sure—since last fall. They put the students into rooms all around this district so they needn’t wait till the dormitories are ready.”
Way, way back young Gerry Howson had had visions of going to college, then on to some academic career. … He stifled the memory with an effort. Even if he had got further than he had done toward his goal, his gift would have developed sooner or later and everything else would have had to take second place anyway. He wouldn’t have got where he was by the same route, but he would have been forced here eventually.
“Is there still a bar along here on the right?” he asked. “The one that used to be rim run by a guy called Horace Hampton?”
“The Snake?” The driver twisted his head clear around at that. “You must have been away a long time, pal! I recall The Snake, but only just! Why—uh—ten years back, I guess, some teeps came in from the UN and went through the big rackets and cleared ‘’em out. The Snake got five years with compulsory rehabilitation for accessory to murder, and last I heard he was going to join some UN outfit and make good.”
Teeps—TP’s—telepathists. Howson nodded. He didn’t remember hearing the nickname before, which surprised him; it was so obvious. As for the news about Snake Hampton, it was less strange that he shouldn’t have known that. This was, after all, a city that the new world was passing by. A minor law-enforcement action was petty compared to the big jobs the—the teeps had undertaken here.
“But his bar’s still going,” the driver said. “Just coming into sight ahead, there. I don’t know who runs it now.”