by Sladek, John
Beddoes sowed more ash on the carpet. ‘I agree. Chance doesn’t come into it.’
Corcoran looked angry. ‘Spell that out for me, will you?’
‘Gladly. If I hear of a rat that ought to take fourteen seconds to run a maze, but who does it in bnly eight seconds, I immediately suppose that the rat has some experience of the maze. Has that possibility been ruled out?’
‘Completely,’ said Smith.
Corcoran stood up, knocking over his drink. ‘You two can sit here listening to veiled accusations of fraud if you like,’ he said. ‘I’ve had enough. Let me out of here.’
Fraud? I thought at the time that Corcoran was merely over-reacting to Beddoes’s stupid question. Later I learned that poor ‘Gorky’ was going mad.
We finished the second series, again with success. Corcoran was oddly silent, depressed. He spent much of his time at the drawing board, laying out plans for many more mazes – far more than we could ever use. He might work furiously for days, then suddenly fling down his pen and slam out the door, saying something about a walk. He’d be gone for hours.
Neither Smith I could account for it.
‘I think Beddoes has depressed him,’ I said. ‘Belittling our work. Corcoran worked hard on this.’
Smith looked up from his calculations. ‘Eh? No, I don’t think that’s the answer. My guess is, it’s the experiment itself that’s got to him. You see, he worked so hard, hoped so deeply – and then it all worked out right. It’s like being a long-term prisoner, and finally having the cell door bang open. The fear of freedom. Let’s hope he’s over it soon.’
But he seemed to grow worse. There was said to have been an incident in the canteen, when Corcoran caught sight of his own face reflected in a spoon and began to scream. I happened to see him on one of his long walks –going round and round the same building.
I remained convinced that Beddoes was at the bottom of it, somehow. I gradually began to see that it I could once crush Beddoes, crack through his hard shell with a harder piece of evidence, Corcoran might begin to see him for what he was. It might help.
Beddoes could not be drawn to comment upon our experiment. The only answer seemed to be to show him the Durkell letter. A story that strange and compelling could not be ignored. I now reread it: Mr Durkell had seen an article about our group in a Sunday paper. He was sales manager of an electronics firm, and had recently moved to Blenford New Town, whence he daily commuted to work in Casterwich, some ten miles away.
Mornings I usually take the secondary road, to avoid traffic. One Tuesday I left Blenford as usual, but driving slowly. It was a fine day, I had plenty of time, and the colours of the autumn leaves were too lovely to miss. Then I had the vision.
It wasn’t a vision then, only a surprise. On my right, through a small copse, I glimpsed a village. I knew there shouldn’t be any village there, so I kept my eye on the spot. After the copse came a large hill, and after that, no village! Nothing but empty fields, as always.
I kept watching for it. A week later – Tuesday again – I was bringing my wife along with me (she had shopping to do in Casterwich), when I saw it again. I hit the brakes, backed up and we both took a better look. There was no mistake about it. We could see bits of several half-timbered houses and a smoking chimney. My wife flipped open the road map and found what she thought must be the place, with the strange name of Mons. ‘Mons? In England?’ I said. ‘Let me see that.’ But she’d already put the map away again. We didn’t look again until we got to Casterwich. Would you believe it, neither one of us could find it! I know my wife is no great mapreader, but we searched the entire area (lower left-hand corner of the map) and found nothing remotely like the name Mons.
I couldn’t stop wondering about it. Finally I went to the Blenford police. They said they’d never heard of a village called Mons in Britain, and that there was no village on that spot, and never had been. I think they thought I was drunk or drugged or crazy!
I investigated a bit on my own. I learned that the place was a pasture belonging to a farmer named Letworthy. I called in to see him. Not only couldn’t he help me, he was extremely suspicious. Finally he came out with it: His wife had disappeared! He’d gone to market –on a Tuesday! – and returned to find her gone. When I asked him if he had any explanation, he muttered something about her being carried off by a glacier!
At this point it was all too much for me; I decided I never should know the truth. A vanishing village, a vanishing woman, glaciers and the map business – I just gave up. Shortly after, we moved to Casterwich, so I more or less tried to forget about it. But now and then I still wonder. Especially on Tuesdays!
Yours sincerely,
‘F. H. Durkell’
‘Is that your evidence?’ Beddoes asked, handing the letter back. ‘And if so, evidence of what?’
I found it hard to put into words. ‘Evidence that – that the Durkells have seen something that ought not to be seen, by your laws of science. It’s an event that transcends normal explanation. I believe that the Durkells are psychic sensitives, or else that this place is, at times, a psychically sensitive place. There’s just no other explanation.’
‘There are a great many other possible explanations,’ he said. ‘Not all correct, of course. Still I believe that it’s possible to settle the matter very quickly – if you really want it settled. Shall I look into it?’
‘Done,’ I said. ‘How much time do you want?’
‘That depends,’ he said. ‘How much digging have you done already?’
I told him I had written to Durkell, to the Blenford police, and to the local paper. Mrs Durkell had confirmed her husband’s story, and the police remembered his enquiry. The Blenford Gazette knew of Mrs Letworthy’s disappearance, but they were taking the police’s version of it, that she had simply run away with another man.
‘And not a floe of psychic ice?’ Beddoes asked. ‘Curious. But very useful. I think I could clear this up in – shall we say, two hours?’
‘Or not at all,’ I retorted.
‘Why not? All things are as you say, possible. But don’t expect miracles, if you take my meaning.’
I saw Corcoran outside, walking round and round the same building.
‘What are you doing?’ I asked. ‘Looking for something?’ He laughed. ‘Yes. The way out.’
I started to leave him but he caught my arm. ‘Wait a minute, Latham. I want to tell you something. I have a confession to make.’
We walked into the deserted ‘Quad’, sat down on the grass. Corcoran looked at the little half-dead tree and quoted it: the limerick I’d always expected to hear from Beddoes:
‘There once was a man who said, God
Must think it exceedingly odd,
Continues to be
To find that this tree
When there’s no one about in the quad.’
‘Is that the confession?’ I said drily. ‘Because I’ve heard it.’
‘Ah, what haven’t we all heard? and seen? Especially seen. In the mirror. Thoughts while shaving. With Ockham’s Razor? No, that cuts both ways. I’d better begin again.’
‘You’d better,’ I said. ‘And try to make more sense.’
‘Take care of the sense and the sounds take care of themselves,’ he quoted. ‘What’s that from? Through the Looking-Glass?’
‘I think so. But what –’
‘But there’s more to that title, isn’t there: And what Alice Found there. The truth?’
‘And what is the truth you want to tell me?’ I suddenly thought I knew: Corcoran was going to confess that he’d somehow rigged our experiment to make it work. ‘And what might it have to do with mirrors and trees in the quad?’
‘Mirrors? You’ll see about that. Trees in the quad? The point is, out of sight, out of mind; out of mind, out of existence. What happens when no one’s about is Nobody’s business, right? All right, here’s my little story. Through the looking glass and what Corky found there. Do you remember when I was looki
ng for a bit of felt for the door?’
After a moment, I did. ‘You were worried about the draught in the lab.’
‘And I kept on worrying. One evening during the second series, I was in the lab with Smith and I thought of it again. I remembered a door in the hallway that might be a janitor’s cupboard or something, and I thought there might be a bit of rag in there. So I excused myself and went to look.
‘It wasn’t a cupboard at all. It’s an observation room. The psychology department must have been using it for experiments before we took it over. You know that wall mirror behind the bank of cages: That’s it. Oneway glass. Darkly I was given a vision into the lab. There was Smith messing about the maze.’ He rubbed his face with both hands and said,
‘God forgive me for looking!’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘He was running a rat through the maze. The same rat, two or three runs. Training it to build up speed. I kept watching and I saw which cage he returned it to. Next day we took that rat and tested it. Naturally the rat ran the maze in eight seconds. Not psychic vibes at all – just Smith’s bloody fraud.’
I didn’t believe it and I said so.
‘Who cares what you believe? Say I’m mad, call me a liar – I still had to tell you. I had to confess, you see? I’m the one who’s buggered it all up. I peeked – and there wasn’t any bloody tree at all! There’s nothing, do you understand? No bloody tree!’
He leapt up and seized the little tree, trying to uproot it. After a moment of struggling, he gave up.
‘Calm down,’ I said. ‘Suppose Smith did cheat a little, so what? It’s not the end of the world. We know he’s got a long and distinguished record as a scientist, and he didn’t get that by fraud. He probably just boosted the statistics a bit, to underline our case. There’s plenty of other evidence of ESP, after all.’
‘Yes, and now I wonder how good it is. How many more Smiths are there? No, we’re caught in the maze, for good and all. What is there to believe in? The evidence of some Smith somewhere?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘The evidence inside. We know there’s more than this. We know the world is bigger and deeper than it looks on the surface.’
‘Do we indeed? And how about Dr Efraim Smith – does he know it? Because if he does, Why did he think he had to cheat?’
At six o’clock I faced Beddoes alone in the Faculty Lounge. Corcoran had gone to his room. Smith was being interviewed on local television.
I began abruptly. ‘Have you found the village of Mons?’
‘Mons? Oh, the map village. Yes, I think so. But it has little to do with what the Durkells saw.’ Beddoes lit a cigarette. ‘Except psychologically.’
‘Hallucinations?’ I stared at him until his gaze shifted.
‘I think not,’ he said. ‘The answer I’ve got may not be the right answer, but it seems to account for everything. It depends upon a close reading of the letter. “My wife is no great map-reader,” for example. We must also remember that Mrs Durkell must have been rather nervous. Her husband, without warning on a deserted country road, had just “hit the brakes”. Then he shows her a village which, he says, does not exist. She fumbles for a map and finds the name Mons. Later they cannot find it. I suggest that the ink of their printed map did not alter in the meantime.’
‘Because it’s “impossible”?’ I asked. He handed me a scrap of paper. I saw it was the corner of a road map, with one word circled heavily: MONS.
‘Not the lower left-hand corner,’ he explained. ‘The upper right. Notice that all the other place-names but Mons are upside-down. The village is SNOW, and it’s in a different part of the county.’
I handed it back. ‘Snow. Very suggestive of glaciers. I suppose you’ll find some map-trick to explain the disappearance of Mrs Letworthy?’
He smiled, if one can call it that. ‘No, I think a calendar-trick, this time. Doesn’t this Tuesday business strike you as odd?’
‘Of course it does.’
‘Odd, I mean, in the sense that Tuesday is market day? When Mr Letworthy would likely be absent from his farm?’
I made no answer, so he carried on:
‘Let us assume the police version is correct. Mrs Letworthy did not “disappear”, but simply ran away with another man. That means she must have been seeing the man earlier, and she might well have chosen to do so on Tuesdays. Let us make an even wilder assumption: That the man’s profession forced him to drive a distinctive vehicle that must not be seen parked near the Letworthy farmhouse.’
‘Or he might be the man in the moon,’ I said.
‘Quite. Forget him for the moment, then, and look at the letter: “Mornings I usually take the secondary road”, says Mr Durkell. That suggests that there is a primary road which he takes of an evening –hurrying home from work.’
‘Agreed, but so what?’
‘It gives us two views of Blenford New Town, where he lives,’ Beddoes said. ‘One at his back in the morning, and a possibly quite different view that he faces each evening.’
‘Oh, it’s Blenford that he sees through the trees,’ I said with some sarcasm. ‘Looking to his right, he sees a town that is really behind him. It must all be done with mirrors.’
‘I was just about to suggest that,’ he said. ‘The mystery village is not likely an hallucination, and far too clear for a mirage. We are left with one natural explanation: A mirror or something like a mirror is placed behind that little grove of trees every Tuesday.’
I had to laugh aloud. Pathetically, Beddoes kept clutching at the wispiest straws of ‘natural’ phenomena, to avoid facing the obvious truth.
In the opposite corner of the Faculty Lounge, a few people had gathered round the TV set. I could hear Smith’s voice booming across to us, but I could not make out his words.
Beddoes continued the farce: ‘Naturally I wondered what kind of large mirror might be portable enough to fit the bill. I sent reply-paid telegrams to Mr Letworthy, to the local police and to the local weekly newspaper, asking if they knew the profession of the man supposed to have eloped with Mrs Letworthy. They confirmed what I suspected. The man drove a large van …’
The television was making too much noise, and anyway, I found Beddoes’s hypothesis boring. In a sense, Smith on television was giving him his answer, only Beddoes was too deaf and blind to notice. He droned on:
‘… large sheets of … attached to its sides. A kind of portable … definitely parked in that spot, behind the little copse. There. Does that possibility fit the facts?’
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I guess I missed the point.’
‘I said it was common knowledge: Mrs Letworthy’s boyfriend was a glazier.’
Smith’s voice suddenly became louder and clearer: ‘… as in the range of poetic or artistic experience, the mystic sees clearer and deeper, if only at times. Insight – the sudden sunburst of pure understanding. That’s what we’re concerned with here. Psychic phenomena are only a small part of it, you see.’
The interviewer asked if he would call himself a rationalist.
‘Well there are rationalists and rationalists, aren’t there? Take for example the rationalist answer to Russell’s Paradox: “In this village there is a barber who shaves all of the men who do not shave themselves. But does he shave himself?” You see how it goes: If he does, he doesn’t, and vice versa. There’s no rational answer, except to say: “There can be no such village.” But the true mystic, the man of vision, says: “Why not?” Why not indeed? You see, Man is a paradox in himself. He is apparently finite, yet he can easily conceive of vast infinities …’
I suppose it must have been just about that time that poor Corcoran was cutting his wrists with a razor blade.
We all share in the blame for Corcoran’s death. I, for sitting arguing futile theories with Beddoes, instead of staying with him. Smith – if what Corcoran told me was true – for his momentary loss of faith. Beddoes most of all, for hating all that is of a subtle and mysterious beauty, all that he cannot
immediately reduce to a petty formula, all that he cannot slash with Ockham’s Razor. With his relentless scepticism, he almost certainly drove ‘Corky’ to the brink of insanity and to his death.
This being true, I have had no hesitation in dismissing Beddoes’s theory of the vanishing village as simply another of his destructive fantasies. Even without checking, I am sure it is utterly without foundation.
For different reasons, Corcoran’s statements about Smith’s ‘fraud’ must also be dismissed. To dootherwise would be to take the word of a hopelessly insane man against that of a reputable scientist with a brilliant record.
Our work carried on, though we now see much less of Beddoes. What would be the point? One cannot explain the incredibly beautiful colours of a sunset to a blind man.
THE INTERSTATE
Andor sat three rows back from the driver. Having jammed his small suitcase in the rack overhead, having seen his large suitcase stowed in the bowels of the bus, Andor began the pleasurable process of relaxing.
First he concentrated on the calves of his legs, letting their knots of muscle soften and grow numb. Then he folded his hands across his paunch, the left still gripping a magazine, however, in case the man next to him began talking. Andor let the muscles of his shoulders and neck relax now, ordering the tension in them to surrender.
He felt some of the nervous charge generated by the exciting activity at the great bus terminal drain out of him now, as the bus got into smooth, gearless motion. The acceleration sickened him, and as the bus rolled on through terminal tunnels, he turned his thoughts to the circumstances that had led to his trip.
Once again, on the television screen of his mind, Andor sat erect at his desk, operating a small calculator and marking numbers upon torms of pink, white, yellow, pale blue and pale green. At the desks just to his left and right, and immediately before and behind him, were men performing similar tasks. He knew their names, though now, away from the office, he could not recall their faces. One, he thought, had white hair. Andor supposed that on the floors immediately above him and below him were men performing similar tasks, though he had no proof of this. In thoughts, Andor’s office moved through the office seasons.
