He had come to the last page and was about to hand the book back with a word of thanks, when he hesitated. The final item seemed to be completely irrelevant; it was a single paragraph reporting the marriage of Miss Mary Hall and Mr. Stephen Wilhams, and the date was about two years after his departure.
“This one,” he said, putting a finger on it. “Is it connected with the rest?”
Birberger craned to study it. He frowned. “Now, what in—? If it’s there, sure as hell there’s a reason. Must have something to do with— Good
God,
I remember!” He stared in astonishment at Howson. “Don’t you know the name? I’d have thought you of all people …!”
Blankly, Howson returned the gaze. And then he had it.
He shut his eyes; the impact was almost physical. In a husky tone he said, “No … no, I never knew her name. She was deaf and dumb, you see, so she couldn’t tell me. And after she got her speech and hearing she only came to see me a few times.”
“She never wrote you?” Birberger was turning back the leaves of the album. “After all you did for her, too? I’m really surprised. Yes, here we are: ‘A plane from Ulan Bator today brought in eighteen-year-old Mary Hall, the deaf-and-dumb girl who befriended novice telepathist Gerry Howson. She told reporters at the city airport that the operation to give her artificial speech and hearing was completely successful, and now all she wanted was the chance to lead a quiet, normal life.’ Look!”
At first glance he must have missed it because he wanted to, Howson told himself. For the newspaper photo wasn’t a bad one. There she was, standing at the door of the plane: smartly dressed, true, and wearing make-up and with her hair properly styled, but recognizably the girl he had known.
“Is there any chance of finding out where she’s living?” He had uttered the question unplanned, but realized its inevitability while Birberger was still rubbing his chin and considering the problem.
“I’ll get the city directory!” he said, rather too eagerly, as though anxious to get Howson on his way.
There were several dozen Williamses, but only one Stephen Williams. Howson studied the address.
“West Walnut,” he said. “Where’s that?”
“New district since your time, I believe. Big development outside town. A Number Nineteen bus goes direct.” Birberger was hardly making any attempt to disguise his desire to see the back of his visitor now.
So Howson, dispirited, accommodated him, paying for his food and beer and gathering up his valise. Birberger stumped to the door with him and insisted on shaking his hand, treating it with care as if touching something rare and fragile. But his invitation to come back as soon as possible rang thin.
On impulse Howson asked him, “Say, Mr. Birberger! What’s your picture of the kind of work I do nowadays?”
Startled, the fat man improvised. “Why, you—you sort of look into crazy people’s minds and tell what’s wrong with them. And straighten them out. Don’t you?”
“That’s right,” Howson said a little unkindly. “Don’t worry, though—I’m not looking into your mind. After all, you’re not crazy, are you?”
The seeds of the most peculiar kind of doubt were germinating in Birberger’s mind as Howson limped down the street toward the stop for a Nineteen bus.
Odd, people’s different reactions to telepathists …
Howson contemplated them as he sat in the single seat near the driver up front in the bus. He hadn’t examined that problem for years; at the WHO therapy center he was in isolation from it, because telepathists had become
a
completely accepted part of the regular staff.
Occasionally, though not as often as he would have liked, trainees came in, and he assisted with their development. Each was unique, and consequently each responded differently to knowledge of his talent. Some were like children with a new-found toy; others were like members of a family in Nazi Germany, who had just discovered that they had Jewish blood and were desperately pretending it made no difference.
It was getting easier to accept the gift, granted. The years of carefully devised propaganda had had some effect. But telepathists were so few they barely even constituted a minority group, and that, rather than conditioning of the public, had been their salvation—at least in Howson’s view. A tiny fraction of the population had actually met someone with the power; consequently, though most people had opinions (“I don’t doubt they do wonderful work, but I wouldn’t like someone poking around in
my
mind—I mean, it’s the ultimate invasion of privacy!”), few had formed lasting attitudes.
“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!
XXII
xxii
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 …”