Nothing So Strange

by James Hilton

  I thought it again pathetic that he should so easily switch from talk of death to a confession of black marketeering; for both were further signs of the change in him—perhaps also of a change in the world around him. The truth was, I figured, that though his career had doubtless contained many incidents of a dubious character, they had all been large matters, like that of Marazon Cement; in the small things, until the war, his right to priority and privilege had never been questioned; indeed, an army of underlings had always been at call to ensure that he got the best seat, the fastest plane, the promptest service, the ringside table, the choicest cut. But now this was changed also, and though he could still get most of what he wanted, he had to chisel like any small-time grafter.

  I told him I certainly wouldn’t wish to use gas for frequent trips, but that in any case I hadn’t to visit the studio again for a week; which meant that tacitly I was agreeing to stay at Vista Grande. (And I later telephoned the hotel canceling my room.) We sat by the fire in the library after dinner listening to the radio—just the news and a commentator. I had never known him bother much with the radio in years gone by, for the reason that he never wanted to listen except when he was tired, and then he would certainly have been too tired to listen to a commentator. But now he was only too tired to comment on the commentator. Some kind of declining equilibrium seemed to have been reached, offering perhaps a tranquility that offset even the loneliness. He went up to bed about ten, kissing me good night as he had kissed me when I used to go up to bed as a girl. It was all more like a home than I had had for years, although (or else because) there was something in it that dragged at the heart.

  I stayed up myself till nearly midnight, examining the books and generally pottering about. They were a sound collection of mainly modern authors, quite unnecessarily rebound in full calf, and with a few good first editions, among them a boxed copy of the 1847 Currer Bell Jane Eyre, which I remembered my father had once bought in London. I took it down to reread that immortal opening sentence—“There was no possibility of taking a walk that day”—with its hint of English rain and Victorian servitude. I was still at the books when Dan entered. He had forgotten to tell me, he said, that someone had telephoned during the day … a Mr. Small.

  “Small?”

  “Yes, miss. He said he’d like to see you tomorrow morning.”

  “To see me? But he’s—he’s in New York!”

  “He said he’d be here, miss. Shouldn’t I have told him you’d be in?”

  “No, no … it’s all right. I’ll see him, of course.”

  * * * * *

  The thought of Mr. Small kept me restless till almost dawn, after which I slept a few hours and woke up wondering what part of my life I was in. Then I saw the sun through the curtains and felt the silence that was, of all things after New York, least familiar. It was past nine. I bathed and dressed hurriedly, having told Dan to take Mr. Small to the terrace and offer him breakfast if he came. But when I got down I found there was another man, whom Mr. Small introduced as a Dr. Newby. They had declined anything to eat, but were sipping coffee, sniffing the air, and taking in the view with a good deal of quizzical admiration. Mr. Small had made concessions to California in the shape of two-color shoes, sunglasses, and a Panama; he seemed quite cheerful and asked if I were surprised to see him again so soon.

  “Nothing surprises me any more,” I answered, deciding on a line. “You must have taken practically the next plane. How did you know where I’d gone?”

  He smiled. “You didn’t make it very difficult for me.”

  “I didn’t try.”

  He nodded. “That’s so.” Then he looked around. “Nice. Good place to settle down and write another book…. Is that the idea?”

  “No. I’m in California on a short business trip. But I’m still puzzled how you found I was here, because I’d originally intended to stay at a hotel.”

  “That’s what the hotel people said.”

  “How did you know which hotel it was, or did you try them all?”

  “I knew where the picture company had booked you a room.”

  “For heaven’s sake how did you know there was a picture company?”

  “It was in Variety that they’d bought your book to make a film…. So you see none of it was really difficult.”

  I suppose it was a very elementary example of sleuthing, and it probably impressed me more than it should have. I smiled ruefully. “All right. So you know everything.”

  “No. There’s a lot that you still haven’t told.”

  I thought I might as well force an issue then as later, so I retorted: “And I’m not going to—unless I’m given at least a ghost of a reason for all this grilling. No doubt it’s very important, or you wouldn’t have followed me out here, but that doesn’t alter my attitude—I’m just not going to answer any more.”

  “Of course you know you could be legally compelled to.”

  “Sure—by subpoena. And then you’d be surprised how little I could tell you. I’m apt to have a bad memory about things that happened so many years ago.”

  “That would certainly put us in a spot.”

  “Not you. Bradley’s the one who’s in a spot, and you won’t tell me why.”

  He thought that over for a moment, then said: “You’ll notice, Miss Waring, I haven’t brought a shorthand writer with me. You’re not even on oath.”

  “As I don’t intend to lie, that doesn’t make much difference.”

  “I thought it might make you feel more inclined to co-operate.”

  I didn’t answer. He went on: “At any rate, it ought to set the key for a friendlier talk than we had last time.”

  “What’s happened in the interval to make you feel friendlier?”

  He smiled. “I don’t see why I shouldn’t tell you. I read your book.” He stared at me through his sunglasses. They gave him a moonfaced appearance that belied certain of his qualities that were known to me. He might be kind, but I couldn’t see him ever as benign. “My wife read it too. She said it gave a very fine picture of Americanism.”

  I hadn’t ever thought of it that way, but when you have written a book you get so used to unusual compliments that you blink at them no more than at unusual insults.

  “My wife’s a very good judge of a book—and of a writer. She said you looked at things without prejudice and you had a passionate devotion to freedom, so that what you wrote was what you felt as well as what you saw.”

  This somewhat took my breath away, because it was so nearly the epitaph I would choose, if any, to have inscribed on my tombstone. I was making up my mind to remember it when he added: “That’s why she called it a picture of Americanism. And I must say I agree with her. It seems to me as American as—as- -“

  “Apple pie?” I suggested.

  “Well yes, if you like.”

  “Or cornbread … chewing gum … clam chowder….”

  By that time he realized I was trying to be funny. And I don’t know why I was, except in relief at the vision of Mr. Small at home with his intellectual wife and their solemn discussions of books. Perhaps they discussed them from one twin bed to another.

  “Well, well,” he summed up, “your book certainly made a hit with her. She also said it could only have been written by one who knew from deep experience what it means to be born in this country.”

  “Except that I wasn’t.”

  “Oh?”

  He must have known; it would be the first and easiest thing to discover about me. Was it just another test to see if I were being frank? I went on with a sort of nervous facetiousness that I don’t like but sometimes can’t help: “The great event happened in London, England, and if my mother had been taken ill a few hours later it would have been on the Olympic. What would that have made me—an Olympian?”

  He blinked. “I must tell her that…. An Olympian, eh?… One thing, anyhow, it convinced me of … the book, I mean.”

  “What?”

  He took off his glasses and
became suddenly an alarmingly different person. “That you’re somewhat your own worst enemy, Miss Waring. You’re not always wise in what you say, or how you behave. I should think you’ve got into a good many scrapes, one way and another … haven’t you?”

  “Yes,” I said. It was the simplest and truest answer.

  “But your heart’s in the right place. And you’re loyal. You’ve been careful all along not to say anything against a man who was once your friend. You’ve been equally careful not to lie—even if you’ve concealed a good deal of the truth. As it happens, the problem ought not to arise for you again. At least we hope not.”

  “Who’s we?”

  “The authority I represent.”

  “And a nice frank answer, I must say.”

  “You couldn’t expect much better in wartime.”

  “Something to do with the war—I guessed that. So what do you do if I lose my memory? Send me to jail?”

  “Perhaps I should first tell you some of the things we already know. We know all about Bradley’s activities before the war, we know of his friendships with Nazi professors, we know how he defended one of them—”

  “But that’s not true!” I interrupted. “I daresay it may have looked like that, but—”

  “We’re not questioning you about it—that isn’t what I’ve come for. I’m fairly satisfied that your friendship with this man must have been just personal—”

  “Yes, but—”

  “—which is fine—no blame attaches to you at all.”

  “But you think it does to him?… I see. So he’s under suspicion…. I can only tell you how utterly wrong you are.”

  “Possibly. There may be perfectly good reasons for everything he did, even for the fact that he worked in Germany up to the very day war broke out in 1939—”

  “What? He worked in Germany?”

  “Oh, so you didn’t know that?… Well, let’s not worry too much about it. The main thing for you to realize—as his friend—is that being under suspicion means exactly what the word means—no more and no less. He may be completely innocent—”

  “But of what?”

  “Of anything we could possibly suspect…. We certainly hope he’s innocent, if only because of his army record.”

  “Army?”

  “Does that startle you too?”

  “No … no … but I hadn’t heard from him for so long—I didn’t even know he’d come back to be drafted. Where is he now?”

  “In this country. In a hospital.”

  “Wounded?”

  “Well, injured. A flying accident. He pulled a pilot out of a burning plane…. At some risk to himself.”

  “But what happened to him? You said he was injured.”

  “Not very seriously, though he probably won’t be any more use in the Air Force.”

  “Where’s the hospital he’s at?”

  “In Arizona.”

  “Can I … could I … go to see him?”

  “You’d like to, wouldn’t you?”

  “Yes—and since it’s only the next state … Could I?”

  “I don’t think there’d be any objection.” He smiled. “That’s what you get for writing a good book.”

  If he hadn’t mentioned the book again I might not have had the misgiving that suddenly came to me. I stared over the Santa Modena Valley and wondered vagrantly if those snow-tipped summits in the distance were reachable, and if the quest for truth would somehow be easier alone at that level than across a breakfast table between two persons sparring for position in what was still a conflict of minds. For already I sensed that it was not quite permission to see Brad that I had been granted, but rather that Mr. Small was quite anxious now that I should see him.

  I said: “Well, thanks.” And then, jumping the gun as usual: “Of course I don’t suppose for a moment you’re doing all this to please me. It’s all part of some plan or other.”

  “Sure, what do you take me for? I’ve a job for you if you’ll do it. You’d probably be doing it anyway—you’re that kind of person.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Keep your eyes and ears open—that’s all.”

  “Why?… When?”

  “When you meet your friend. Same as you did when you were traveling all over Europe to get material for your book. If you saw anything then that struck you as odd or significant you made a mental note of it—I’ll bet you did. You certainly didn’t miss much, and I’m inclined to think it took someone pretty smart to fool you.”

  “Maybe you’re smart and you’re fooling me now.”

  “No.” He added quietly: “I think you’ll know what I mean when you see Bradley.”

  “Why? What’s the matter with him? You said it wasn’t serious?”

  “Physically, no…. He’s almost recovered. Now don’t get alarmed. He’s not a raving lunatic either.”

  I said as calmly as I could: “Please—since you’ve said so much about him- -tell me the whole truth. What’s wrong with him?”

  “That’s part of our problem. Dr. Newby here can talk about it—he’s a psychiatrist. He’s studied the case. He thinks Bradley has something on his mind.”

  I looked then at the other man, who hadn’t spoken a word so far, but who now seemed to emerge into a private limelight of his own. He was middle-aged, pale, and soulful-eyed, with a somewhat fussy manner and an air of reaching out for sympathy but hardly expecting it. Of the few psychiatrists I have known personally, all have seemed in need of a psychiatrist themselves, and my snap judgment was that Dr. Newby was no exception. He said in a rather dulcet voice: “Yes, that would be my opinion. Something on his mind.”

  “Why? What makes you think so?”

  “We—ell, his behavior—to the trained observer—has been sending out certain warning signals.”

  “Such as what?”

  “I don’t know whether you are at all familiar with the field of psychiatry, Miss Waring?”

  “Fairly.” I don’t think I am, but I wanted an answer.

  “We—ell, then you will know what is meant by a complex. Persecution complex, guilt complex….”

  “Is that what he has?”

  “To some extent.”

  “Both of them?”

  “Ye-es, I would say so. Plus some queer ideas that are just a little bit on the psychopathic borderline…. And a neurosis about flying—which, of course, isn’t uncommon after a plane crash.”

  “But he’ll get better—normal again?”

  “No reason at all why he shouldn’t—when the cause is removed.”

  “Is what you’re doing for him helping?”

  “I hope so…. But he doesn’t co-operate very well. He resists. If only he’d talk about himself more.”

  “I should have thought that proved how thoroughly sane he is.”

  “We—ell, that could be true, in some cases. But in his case I think it merely shows he has something to hide.”

  “I don’t follow that at all.”

  Mr. Small interposed. “Let’s stick to the original phrase—that he has something on his mind. If he has, we all know it would do him good to talk—but he won’t talk—so far—to anybody. That’s his problem as well as ours.”

  “Then why should you think he’d talk to me?”

  “Because he wrote to you, Miss Waring. He’s been several months in hospital and you were the only person he wrote to the whole time. That’s what brought you into the picture. We figured that if you meant that much to him and nobody else did….”

  “So you intercepted his letter. May I have it?”

  “Certainly. But it wasn’t a letter.”

  Mr. Small took something from his wallet and handed it to me. It was a highly colored picture postcard of a desert scene, dated the previous March, and addressed to me care of my publishers in New York. Scribbled in pencil was the hospital address and the message: “Good book, especially page 117, last paragraph.—Yrs. Brad.”

  “So this is why you got in touch with m
e in the first place?”

  “Yes. And why I got your book. But I really ought to have read it through instead of just page 117. It would have helped me to understand you better.”

  “He must have been wondering why I didn’t reply.”

  “Maybe.”

  “I don’t remember what was on page 117.”

  Mr. Small opened his briefcase. “You see I carry it around.” He passed it to me. It opened at the page where the corner was turned down. The last paragraph read:

  One day I walked with a very good friend of mine into the Burggarten where the open-air orchestra was playing the Overture to Egmont. We watched as well as listened, because the spectacle of so many music-lovers following the score, which at some trouble they must have brought with them, seemed the strangest possible contrast to the rioting in the streets, and perhaps a reassurance that when all the nonsense of the modern world has exhausted itself, Beethoven will remain, together with (my friend insisted) the Binomial Theorem and a few other intangibles….