The Link

by Richard Matheson

  “Arthur Bellenger?” asks Robert, surprised.

  “The same.”

  Robert is very impressed. Bellenger could be the Einstein of England.

  “I was in his study once,” Peter tells him. “Saw his desk, the papers on it. Never in my life have I been witness to such massive feats of mathematical calculation; naturally, I didn’t understand a bit of it. The man is living in another universe.

  “Still, if you met him, you might mistake him for a farmer or a laborer, he speaks so simply, so directly. Never ‘speaks down’ to anyone, never presses on one that incredible superiority of mind. I hope you get to meet him some day.”

  “I would love it,” Robert says solemnly.

  “So.” Peter looks at Cathy, smile repressed. “Palladino?”

  Robert laughs aloud as Peter says, in perfect unison with her, “Prime example of telekinesis.”

  “Well, it was!” she cries, laughing.

  “What do you think, Robert?” Peter asks.

  It is Cathy’s turn now as she says, “No opinion.”

  They exchange a laughing glance.

  Cathy drives Robert and Bart home. En route, he asks about Carol; she seems a “bit” unhappy to him.

  “More than a bit,” says Cathy. Carol is a lost soul in Connecticut.

  Robert nods. “I see.” He says no more but senses there is more involved.

  When they arrive at his house, he invites her in for coffee but she says it’s rather late, she has to get up early in the morning. Her hesitation is apparent. Clearly, she is drawn toward Robert as he is toward her.

  They make arrangements for him to visit ESPA the following afternoon, then she leaves.

  Later, lying in bed, Robert finds himself thinking about Palladino and we see brief SHOTS of the dramatized sitting. At one point, startlingly, the face of the Italian medium is different, that of a beautiful English woman.

  CUT BACK TO Robert as he scowls at himself. He switches off the lamp, turns brusquely on his side.

  Some hours later, he has the dream again; we see it re-enacted. Rain water rivuleting down the windowpane. The 1950 song. CAMERA PULLING BACK from pale, white curtains. The gloomy living room, the sense of something wrong. CAMERA GLIDING TOWARD the front hall, MOVING FASTER, getting closer to the hall now.

  Robert makes a grunting sound and wakes. He sits up, puts his feet down, gasps.

  Bart is lying beside the bed instead of in his basket. The Lab lays his head on Robert’s foot, sticks up a paw. Robert takes it. “What’s the matter, pal? Are you all right?” Bart’s tail thumps twice on the floor.

  Robert bends over and strokes his head. “Good ol’ Bart,” he murmurs. “He’s a good boy.”

  Then, “Why the hell do I keep dreaming that?”

  Leaving his house the next day, he makes a side trip to Long Island and picks up Ann at school, takes her to a local coffee shop for lunch.

  It is not too communicative a session. Ann, a pretty girl, is hesitant about relating what she feels, what she’s experiencing.

  Robert is equally hesitant about discussing it in detail. “I think I know what’s bothering you, sweetheart,” he tells her. “I, also, think you’re overlooking certain factors.”

  She nods mutely.

  “I don’t know what Mom’s said to you but… consider all the new elements in your life. They’re more than enough to be unsettling.”

  “Mom says that grandma—”

  “Sweetheart,” Robert cuts her off. “I don’t mean to create friction between you and Mom but my mother has nothing to do with it.”

  Ann nods, lips pressed together.

  “Look,” Robert says after a few moments. “If there is something happening in that area, there’s plenty of time to discuss it. I’m not negating what you feel, believe me. I’m just saying let the other aspects of your life be dealt with first. They’re there. Don’t underestimate them.”

  He puts his hand on hers. “I’m with you, Ann,” he assures her. “If there’s more involved, we’ll get into it. Okay?”

  She doesn’t answer.

  “Okay?” he repeats.

  She nods, looking unconvinced. Then she murmurs, “I just want to know.”

  He waits as she struggles for the words. At last, she must blurt them out, her voice breaking slightly. “Am I going crazy?”

  “No.” She looks surprised at the sharpness of his tone. He apologizes. “Sweetheart, no,” he says. “You aren’t going crazy. No one’s telling you that, are they?”

  She shakes her head. “It’s just what I’ve been thinking.”

  Worriedly, Robert drives into Manhattan, parking on the outskirts and cabbing to the ESPA offices. There he meets the Association head LEE EASTON and is given a brief tour of the facilities by Peter. Cathy is “in the field”, working with a subject at ESPA who is trying his luck at distance perception. She’ll be back soon.

  “How’s your wife?” inquires Robert.

  “Better now, thank you,” Peter says. “She had the tooth taken out this morning, poor dear.”

  During the tour, Robert learns that almost all of Cathy’s fee for her year at ESPA will be donated to their group in London. “Harry, of course, provides the bulk of her living expenses,” Peter says.

  He also learns that both she and Peter (along with those at ESPA) use as the premise of their work the assumption that all psi is caused by human “energy fields”, a kind of force envelope surrounding the human system which possesses an as yet unexplained interconnectedness with the fields of other systems both organic and inorganic.

  “The aura?” Robert asks.

  “If you will,” says Peter.

  As he shows the ESPA plant to Robert, he comments on the implications of this human energy field.

  “Consider how we all partake of it in our daily lives,” he says. “Who, for instance, handles your belongings, touches your food? Who sends out ‘bad vibes’ as opposed to ‘good’. Think of the incalculable fields of energy which saturate your average metropolis.

  “Think of slums. Jails. Hospitals. Restaurants. Theatres. Department stores. The streets themselves, teeming with God knows what floods of positive and negative energies.

  “Not only in the people. In the pavements we walk, the buildings we inhabit, the furniture we sit on, the vehicles we ride, the very clothes and jewelry we wear.

  “Consider, if you will,” he adds, “the psychiatric couch. All those patients ‘bleeding’ their ruptured energy fields into the upholstery where they remain to be soaked up by other patients. Brr.”

  “Stop, I’m going back to Connecticut,” Robert protests, smiling.

  Peter points at him. “Indeed,” he says. “The woods. The trees. The streams. The meadows. Also energy fields. But fields of such beneficence. How does the old song go? It’s so peaceful in the country. It’s so lovely and quiet; you really ought to try it. God’s truth.”

  During this exchange, we see the following:

  A subject attempting to describe color slides viewed by another person in a closed-off room, the subject wearing headphones through which she listens to the sounds of ocean waves, her eyes covered by ping-pong ball halves; the “Ganzfeld” technique.

  Another subject working on a machine, attempting to choose a number from one to four, the correct number identifying the appropriate 35mm color transparency of a scene in New York City, the slide choice made automatically by a random target generator.

  Another subject trying to identify the transmission of taste; a hypnotized woman sitting front of a man who puts pepper in his mouth so that the hypnotized woman sneezes.

  Another subject working on a machine which indicates ten numbers with bulbs beside them. The subject runs his hand over the numbers while, in another room, the sender “tells” him which one to point at when the random selector lights up a number on the sender’s identical machine.

  Another subject tested telepathically, the blood supply of a finger measured with a Pthysmograph. As sh
e picks up emotionally charged stimulus words given to her by the sender, the blood volume alters perceptibly.

  “These subjects,” Peter says, “are not professional psychics. None of them have shown any prior ability. It is their conviction at ESPA that everyone possesses ESP and can develop it.” Robert nods, the subject not too comfortable a one for him.

  Cathy returns from the “field” and asks Robert if he’d like to help her on the next round. Robert is pleased to agree, glad to get away from ESPA; he has not foreseen the discomfort it has caused him.

  He and Cathy leave the offices and go down to the street, Cathy with a sealed envelope in her purse, on it the number 156. There are 200 such envelopes, she explains. The random target generator has chosen this particular one; she has no idea what location is mentioned inside it. It could be any place within Manhattan.

  As they walk, she tells him that distance perception was once called “traveling clairvoyance”, that it partakes of various aspects of subjective experience described in medicine as autoscopy, in psychology as exteriorization and in parapsychology as out-of-the-body experiences.

  A block away from ESPA, she stops and opens the envelope, shows the card to Robert. “Ah ha,” he says.

  They board a bus and ride uptown. “I enjoyed our day together yesterday,” she says.

  He smiles. “So did I.”

  They chat as the bus takes them to Central Park. There they debark and walk into the park until they reach a bridge over a stream.

  “Now what?” Robert asks.

  “Now we look around and ‘send back’ to our subject at ESPA what we’re looking at and the subject will try to sketch it.”

  “If we get mugged, do we send that as well?”

  She smiles and they stand in silence, side by side, looking around—at the grass and bushes, the bridge, the water, the buildings seen above the treetops in all directions.

  They exchange a look and smile.

  Suddenly, she is clinging to him and they are kissing passionately. “This isn’t what we’re here for!” she whispers breathlessly.

  Back to the two of them standing motionless, transmitting to the ESPA subject. We have just seen another of Robert’s little fantasies.

  He smiles to himself, turning away from Cathy so she doesn’t notice.

  Then, although he tries to do as instructed, he sees another vision—very vivid—the two of them lying on the rug in front of his fireplace, gazing at each other. Cathy wears a pale yellow sweater, a string of pearls.

  Robert scowls and puts it from his mind. “Come on,” he murmurs to himself. CAMERA MOVES IN ON his face as he concentrates on sending images to ESPA.

  When they return to the offices, they discover that the results of the test is outstanding—the subject, a woman, has drawn a wooden walkway with a railing, the ground falling away beneath it, trees around it, a building in the distance.

  “I’d say unusually successful,” Peter says. Easton, called in, agrees. Especially since the subject, heretofore, has done only moderately well.

  “You must be good at sending,” Easton says to Robert.

  He smiles. “Not me.” When Peter tells him that he shouldn’t eliminate the possibility out of hand, Robert only shakes his head.

  “I’m sure it isn’t me,” he says.

  “Well, let’s prove it,” Cathy says. How about Robert acting as the subject in another test?

  Robert demurs. He really must go home and work.

  They look a little taken back. “You aren’t interested?” asks Peter.

  Robert smiles. “Some other time.”

  “You’re sure?” asks Cathy.

  A slight change in his eyes, the faintest hardening of his smile. “Quite sure.”

  With noticeable abruptness, he excuses himself and exits, leaving behind a perplexed Peter and Cathy.

  He drives home, his expression unreadable. Something is disturbing him.

  His state of mind is darkened further by the message on his telephone answering machine. It is from Dr. Norman Konrad, a former associate of his father who lives in the same apartment building.

  Robert’s father is in the hospital: a stroke.

  Robert makes the long drive back to Manhattan, getting caught in late day traffic. It is past dark when he reaches the hospital where he meets NORMAN KONRAD, 67, in the waiting room. His father had the stroke late this morning. He is not expected to live.

  “He’s been asking for you,” Konrad says.

  Robert goes to his father’s room and sits beside the bed. His father’s eyes are closed, a labyrinth of wires and tubes protruding from him; clearly he is close to the end.

  Robert stares at his father’s pale, drawn face. QUICK SHOTS show his memory of what Francis Allright looked like in his prime—a handsome, vigorous man. The contrast to his present state is extreme.

  Unexpectedly, his father’s eyes open. He stares at the ceiling. Robert stands and takes his hand. The old man looks at him.

  “I’m sorry,” whispers Robert.

  The old man’s throat moves. He tries to speak. The words are garbled. Robert leans over to his father’s lips.

  “Arizona,” whispers the dying man. “Go… to Arizona.”

  Robert stares into his father’s eyes. They glisten as though the old man is about to cry. “My life,” he whispers raggedly. “Wrong… all wrong. No time…” He sucks in air, the sound a liquid gurgling.

  “Don’t try to speak, Dad,” Robert says.

  Even dying, Francis Allright summons rage. His teeth clench. “You… must go,” he says. “Im … portant!” His hand squeezes weakly at Robert’s. “If there was…” A ragged breath. “… anyone else…

  Robert stares at him, his own eyes glistening now.

  “Promise,” says his father. “Help…”

  Robert draws in trembling breath. “All right,” he says. “All right.”

  The breath his father draws in is released. “My… journal,” he begins.

  Then his eyes close and his face contorts with pain. The expression holds, then flattens out, the hand goes limp.

  Robert turns and hurries to the hall. “Nurse!” he cries. They rush to the room but it is too late.

  He stares at his father’s face, hearing him say, again, “Arizona.”

  SUDDEN CUT TO Arizona. The desert sand like white silver. A steady wind. CAMERA PANS UP to a hilltop. Framed by a giant moon, the tall, dark figure stands immobile.

  Waiting.

  September 20. Robert parks beside a mortuary and starts for the front door. As he does, a cab pulls up to the curb and his brother JOHN, 44, gets out. Robert moves to greet him and they shake hands.

  “Hello, Bobby,” John says. He accepts his brother’s hug perfunctorily.

  “I thought you couldn’t make it,” Robert says.

  “I worked it out,” John replies.

  “You should have phoned me, I’d have picked you up,” says Robert.

  John gestures vaguely; no matter. He’s been drinking on the flight from San Francisco. “So who’s paying for this?” he asks as they start up the mortuary walk.

  “I’ll take care of it,” Robert tells him.

  “We’ll split it,” says John. “I don’t suppose Ruth offered to help.”

  “Didn’t ask her,” Robert says.

  “She wouldn’t have anyway,” John responds. He winces. “God, this isn’t open casket, is it?”

  They go inside. RUTH ALLRIGHT is already there. The only other person present is Konrad. “Super turnout,” mutters John. “All his friends.” Robert pats him on the back.

  They sit beside Ruth, Robert closest to her; he kisses her offered cheek. She is the oldest of the three, 46, a heavy-set woman. Whatever genes in the Allright family gave Robert and John their good looks (John’s less in evidence now due to years of drinking) Ruth did not partake of them.

  She smiles a thin, obligatory smile at Robert. “This could have been in my church, you know,” she says.

&nb
sp; “For Dad?” says Robert, smiling faintly.

  Ruth and John exchange cool smiles. “John,” she says.

  He nods. “How ya doin’, Ruth?”

  “I’m fine,” she says.

  When she speaks about their father “moving on”, he turns away from her. “We know he has survived,” she says.

  “You know it, Ruth,” John mutters.

  She shakes her head with a forgiving smile, then looks at the closed casket. “Why is everyone so frightened at the sight of a mere shell?” she says.

  “Oh, Christ,” says John gloweringly.

  Robert winces slightly as he re-lives attendance at an uncle’s funeral when he was four, his aunt preparing to lift him so he could kiss his uncle goodbye, his reaction of dread, his mother preventing it, her arm around his shoulders to protect him. We do not see her face.

  The service begins, typically dreary.

  At its conclusion, they move outside where Robert introduces them to Konrad. John breaks into the conversation to say he has to fly back to San Francisco; will Robert drive him to the airport?

  “You can’t stay a few days?” Robert asks.

  John shakes his head. “Can you take me? I can get a cab.”

  Robert looks at Ruth. “I’ll call you later,” he says.

  “She hasn’t changed a damn bit, has she?” John says as they drive off.

  Robert sighs. “She’s what she is, John,” he replies. “Why sweat it?”

  “She hated his guts, you know that.”

  Robert shrugs. “It’s in the past. Let it go.”

  John makes a bitter scoffing sound. “One Man’s Family,” he says mockingly. “Ruth. Mom. Aunt Grace. Aunt Myra. Crazy Uncle Jack. Flakes all of them.”

  “They believe what they believe, John. So did Mom.”

  “And do you?”

  “You know I don’t,” Robert says firmly.

  Trying to make conversation, he makes the mistake of telling John about their father’s dying request. “Care to take it on yourself?” he asks.

  “You mean you lied to the old man?” John asks sardonically.