Transmigration

by J. T. McIntosh

  The youth's game now was to turn as if to go ashore, and every time the girl tried to get past him, nudge her and make her fall again. As he turned for the fourth time he saw Fletcher striding down the sandbank straight toward him..

  He hesitated. Their eyes met. The boy waded ashore, making a detour to avoid Fletcher. Fletcher moved a few steps to meet him. The youth caught his eye again.

  Defiantly the boy made a rude gesture and strode away.

  Fletcher waited for the girl to wade in. Her white dress was dull gray now, limp and bedraggied. She was crying and shivering.

  He started to unzip his anorak. "Put this on," he said. "You'll . . . "

  She looked at him and the incident at the telephone box was repeated. The gift shielded her eyes, stepped back into the water to avoid him, twisted, ran, stumbled in the water and nearly fell again, then reached the sand and rushed away without looking back.

  Fletcher winced. He had been angry at the senseless cruelty of the youth Gerry, but his feelings toward the girl were entirely protective and sympathetic. It hurt that she ran from him as if from the devil.

  It hurt most because she was the first young person to run from him. Was he to end up as a leper shunned even by children? Would even Judy cower away from him in time?

  No longer taking any pleasure in the day or his surroundings, suddenly tired, he turned for home. Well, hardly home. Had he ever really had a home?

  Of course he had lived for many years in a Home. It was one of the ironies of the English language that when a thing was called what it clearly was not, it was given a capital letter.

  Suddenly he thought it would be very pleasant to talk to Judy. Judy liked him. He even suspected, incredulously, that she adored him. Undoubtedly Mrs. MacDonald, who did not fear but was uneasy with him, had told her to keep out of his way. But this, like the millions of other things the harassed widow had told Judy in the last thirteen years, had dropped into the bottomless well that was Judy's mind, never to emerge again.

  Judy was delighted to see him. She proved it by switching off the blaring radio, remembering by some miracle that he hated pop music.

  She loved to hear him reciting French poetry. She even understood, in a vague general way, what some of the poems were about.

  She sat on the bed, clutching her sore leg, as he recited. She had not put on the tipped nylons again, and as she rocked gently in time with the meter, he was able for a while, to rest his eyes on her with pleasure as if she were still the lovely, sexless child she had been last year.

  Once when he reached the end of a Verlaine poem she said: "Why is it you talk French so much better than you speak English?"

  "I don't really, Judy."

  "Yes, you do. When you talk French your voice goes all warm and deep and exciting. Did you ever live in France?"

  "For a few months."

  "Why didn't you stay there?"

  It was a key question, but he couldn't answer it because he didn't know the answer. He should have stayed in France, or in Germany. Returning to England was one of the many mistakes he had made in life, the mistakes he was compelled to make. John Fletcher could never do anything right; it was obligatory for him to make a mess of everything.

  He had been happy, even reasonably successful, for him, on the Continent. So of course he had returned to England.

  The psychology department was one of the new buildings at the university, a block standing alone among trees and grassland in the extensive grounds. As Fletcher approached it a youth came out of the main door and hurried away along one of the avenues. Fletcher paid no attention to him at first, but after a slow double-take stared after him. The youth obliged by glancing back over his shoulder, at the building, not at Fletcher, and Fletcher got a good look at him.

  It was Gerry, the youth who had pushed the girl in the white dress into the water.

  Fletcher sighed. He was not surprised. The coincidence, to him, was unremarkable. Such things were always happening. No doubt he would meet the girl in the white dress again, too.

  Then he remembered: he was not going to be meeting many more people. Many of the things he was doing, perhaps most of them, were being done for the last time. He had very little time left.

  Baudaker met him in the hall, impatient, eager, yet hesitant and nervous. Putting out a cigarette as Fletcher appeared, he lit another.

  "Mr. Fletcher!" he said, pumping his hand. "I'm so glad you came."

  Since surprise and relief seemed to be implicit, Fletcher said: "I told you I was coming, didn't I?"

  "Yes, but . . . Well, never mind. I've got half a dozen volunteers to help me, students who are interested . . . well, I'd better have a word with you about them first. In here."

  Fletcher followed him into a tiny room full of filing cabinets.

  "That young fellow who just left," said Fletcher. "Name of Gerry. You don't know him, by any chance?"

  "Not very well," said Baudaker quietly. "I should know him much better. I wish I did. He's my son."

  "I saw him with a girl today."

  "That would be Sheila."

  There was restraint in Baudaker's manner. He didn't want to talk about Gerry. At another time Fletcher would have been curious. However, he was there for one purpose only, to find out if he really did have special talents, as Baudaker so strongly believed.

  "You wanted to tell me about the students," he said.

  "Yes. I've told them to regard you merely as a subject, and I'd like you to treat them as . . . well, machines. I don't want any personal factors to intrude, so I won't introduce you and the students will work mainly in shadow."

  "Are there any girls?"

  "Two. And four men."

  "You don't even want me to look at them?"

  "Not any more than you can help. Naturally, you know who I am, and I know you, and because of that I'll take no part in the tests. Another thing -- any factor which disturbs you, let me know about. If you find it too light, too dark, too warm, too cool . . . "

  "All that disturbs me," said Fletcher, "is your chain-smoking, Baudaker. I don't smoke. I never have. I'm choking already."

  "Oh." Baudaker stubbed out his cigarette. "I'll try not to. When I want a cigarette I'll go out. The students . . . "

  "I don't mind ordinary smokers," said Fletcher. "You smoke all the time. I'd forgotten that, but I remember now. What sort of tests do you want to make? Umpteen different kinds, I suppose?"

  "No, on the contrary, what I'd like to obtain is statistical proof of a certain theory. Therefore I want to concentrate on one type of test. I want to run a long series of tests with the ESP cards. Five symbols, twenty-five cards in a pack: a rather old device, but it was in the tests we did with those cards before that the most interesting . . . "

  He shut himself off. "You must understand, Mr. Fletcher, I mustn't tell you what I expect to find. In fact, I'd better not say any more. It might invalidate everything."

  "I remember the cards. Not very exciting. No inkblots, word association, clairvoyance tests, telepathy?"

  "The ESP cards can be a test of both clairvoyance and telepathy . . . but please, Mr. Fletcher, don't make me say any more just now. Shall we get started?"

  He led Fletcher to a large, rather poorly lit room in which the six students were arguing about something. They ceased abruptly as Baudaker and Fletcher entered. Evidently Baudaker's instructions were going to be followed precisely, for they scarcely looked at Fletcher and went woodenly to various stations, some to sit at tables, some behind screens, one to a tape-recorder.

  They were all in shadow if not behind screens, and Fletcher saw he was going to have no difficulty in regarding them as machines, even the girls.

  First Baudaker showed Fletcher one of the ESP card packs, twenty-five cards showing a star, cross, square, triangle or wavy lines, five of each.

  "I remember," Fletcher said.

  Behind a screen, the top of her blonde head just visible, one of the girls looked at the twenty-five cards of a pack
in turn, and Fletcher said what he thought the card she was looking at was. Then one of the men students silently held up each of the cards of another pack so that Fletcher could see only the back and no one could see the symbol.

  For Fletcher the whole thing was very tedious. He was never allowed to know if he was right or not. The other seven found plenty to do. They wrote copiously, used calculating machines, checked each other's work. They replaced each other systematically as Fletcher's partner in the test. Sometimes two or more of them stared at the same card, the symbol of which Fletcher was to guess. Once all six students ran tests simultaneously, and he was asked to name the cards in turn.

  They stopped frequently for coffee. Fletcher was amused; this had been his one condition when he agreed to come, and Baudaker was painstakingly literal in such matters. Baudaker also took care to go out when he wanted a smoke, taking his notes with him to the little office. Of the students, three apparently did not smoke, including both girls, and of the three who did, two smoked pipes.

  When they stopped, the students withdrew to a screened corner where they had coffee and sandwiches. Baudaker remained with Fletcher. Fletcher drank a good deal of coffee, but refused sandwiches.

  "How am I doing?" he asked Baudaker.

  Baudaker was shocked. "I can't tell you that."

  "I thought as much. Baudaker, I'm tired and I'm beginning to get a headache. Couldn't we have even a Rorschach for a change?"

  "Please, Mr. Fletcher . . . " The little man was agitated, terrified that Fletcher would refuse further tests and walk out, as he had done once before.

  Fletcher smiled faintly. "Oh, all right. But is this any good? Are you sure it isn't a waste of time?"

  Baudaker hesitated, torn between the necessities of his test plan and keeping his subject cooperative; even, perhaps, keeping his subject.

  Then, his voice trembling with excitement, he said: "Mr. Fletcher, the results so far are sensational."

  Fletcher was startled. "Sensational" was not a word Fletcher had thought he would use at all.

  Something was happening in the darkened lab that night, something remarkable in the unremarkable life of John Fletcher, (F for failure). Could it be a late, last breath of achievement? Fletcher, who had always lacked ambition, was surprised to find himself hoping fiercely that in the end -- before the end -- he would be proved not entirely useless, and that his lonely unhappy life would turn out not to be entirely pointless.

  Hour after hour the tests went on, always with the ESP cards. No doubt by intent, there was no clock in the lab, and none of the students seemed to have watches. If Baudaker or any of the others ever consulted a watch, it was done covertly.

  The students worked conscientiously and remarkably quietly. Once or twice, when he had a spare moment, Fletcher did try to differentiate between them, get a good look at them, catch them staring at him. But they remained deliberately impersonal. They acted like masked surgeons in an operating theater. Even Baudaker, who talked to Fletcher frequently, was abstracted. Fletcher felt like an animal specimen being observed coldly by beings of a different species.

  He did not complain again as the hours went by and his headache grew steadily worse. He wanted to know. Many times he stopped himself on the point of asking what time it was. He had, after all, agreed to stay all night if necessary.

  Now that was a strange thing. Here were four young men and two girls of twenty-one or less, and a university technician, all prepared to give up a night's rest to work on him. Some of them, perhaps all, would be expected to be active the next day. And Baudaker, after all, was only a glorified office-boy, not a professor who might have compelled these youngsters to help in this routine investigation.

  They were all amateurs. They showed no sign of excitement or even interest, but they worked steadily and carefully on their chores, most of which were routine.

  At last Baudaker, who no longer seemed quite so helpless a little man, turned on more lights and said: "It's five o'clock."

  It had gone on for ten hours. At a rough estimate, they had consumed among them four gallons of coffee. The students had had sandwiches as well; Fletcher and Baudaker had eaten nothing.

  Fletcher started to rise. "You're finished?"

  "No, we want to try something different now," said Baudaker. "Another two or three hours, that's all . . . "

  Fletcher groaned. "My head is splitting."

  "I'm not surprised. We know nothing about the kind of energy you've been using up, but the strain must be immense." Baudaker's enthusiasm burst through again.

  "It's all tremendously worth while, though. What we've been doing tonight may be one of history's turning points. We're all tired, but none of us would give up if we had to carry on here for a week."

  "It's been worth while, then?"

  Baudaker started to say something and checked himself.

  Now that the lights were up Fletcher saw the students properly for the first time. A tall, thin youth in tight jeans and a floppy shirt grinned at him. One of the girls smiled too. He wondered if at last Baudaker was going to introduce them.

  But no; at least he was introduced only to one.

  "Anita would like to try a little experiment on her own," said Baudaker. "Meantime, the rest of us will have plenty to do sorting out these results. She'll tell you herself what she wants to do."

  One of the girls was pretty, one was not. It was the pretty one, a small, neat brunette in a white coat, who smiled at him and led him to a waiting room, a small room carpeted in red, containing comfortable armchairs, a sofa, and nothing else.

  She laid her papers and boxes on the sofa, smiled at him again, and took off her white coat. She was disturbingly attractive in a sleeveless red dress, short but of a more modest length than was fashionable, nylons of a shade so natural he could not be sure her legs were not bare, and high-heeled shoes of an uncommon style, open-toed like the shoes pretty girls used to wear twenty years earlier. She was not at all like the graceless, present day dollies wearing boots and recklessly short skirts, with eyes so blackened they always looked tired, sad and surprised. Also, her lips were unfashionably red.

  She held out her hand. "I'm Anita Somerset."

  He managed to turn and sit down as if he had merely failed to see her outstretched hand. He did not want to touch her.

  In less than twenty-four hours fate had thrown three pretty girls in his path. Fate was not usually so generous -- or ungenerous. He liked, he had always liked, looking at pretty girls, but they disturbed him deeply. And for many years he had been careful never to touch any woman if he could help it. Judy, careless, trusting and quite unsophisticated, had several times that day brushed past him and she had certainly expected him to probe her ankle and her thigh. Probably she was unaware that he had managed to avoid touching her or being touched.

  Anita didn't seem to notice either. She pushed her papers aside, sat on the sofa and swung her legs up carelessly.

  "I'm nineteen," she said, "and I'm reading psychology. Actually, I'm the only psychology student among the six of us -- pure psychology, that is. Mr. Baudaker asked me to round up some helpers, and I did."

  So that was how it was done.

  "One," she said with a frown, "I didn't want, but he got wind of it and insisted on coming along . . . but that needn't concern you. About me -- most people consider me rather quiet and studious -- but I really fancy myself as a sort of Mata Hari."