She tucked the afghan around her and lay on her side, legs drawn up, hands pressed between her thighs. She closed her eyes but didn’t go to sleep until in her mind she was sure his plane had landed at Heathrow.
She slept exceptionally deeply, longer than usual, and was proud of that. See, she told herself as she drew open the drapes to view an upright rectangle of clear sky between two buildings, see how well you can cope when you have to.
In that mood she spent what remained of the morning cleaning the apartment, and while she straightened, vacuumed and dusted, her mind kept repeating parts of a Liza Minnelli song:
It was a good time,
It was the best time …
Every so often it came out as a hum or she’d sing the first line, not really conscious of how appropriate the words might be, their past tense.
It was a good time.
In the early afternoon she went out to mail the money to the mother and take a walk anywhere. Down Lexington, window-shopping along, feeling the urge to buy but saving it. All the way to Bloomingdale’s, where she went to a crowded first-floor counter and spent nearly an hour trying on inexpensive summer hats. Various shapes and colors: precocious, head-hugging pink; icy, innocent white; floppy, worldly black. Her face in the mirror responded accordingly. She hardly saw the hats. Look at me looking at me, I’m not apparently unhappy, she thought, and after a final long, contemplative gaze into her own eyes she smiled her best soft, comforting smile to herself, causing two comma-shaped lines to appear at the corners of her mouth.
From the hats she took the escalator up and happened to notice that the bosoms of display dummies were now realistically punctuated. About time. On the fourth floor she watched a man cutting wine bottles into drinking glasses, making it appear easy, and another demonstrating a motorized tumbling rock polisher. She was immediately sold on the polisher. It would be fun to find pretty pebbles and make them shine even prettier. She remembered she already had a few she’d picked up to never forget some of the places she’d been. Charge or cash, she was asked. She paid by check. Sensibly she’d canceled all her charge accounts when she’d quit her last steady job. Take or send? The rock polisher was compact but quite heavy. However, she didn’t hesitate to say she’d take. The burden was more endurable than having to wait for something she’d already bought. The salesclerk tied a handle on it for her.
She left Bloomingdale’s via one of the Third Avenue exits and strolled down to 58th Street. There was a famous personal landmark. The Off-Track Betting parlor where she and Hazard first met. On impulse she went in to pay sentimental tribute. She wagered ten dollars on the sixth race Exacta at Aqueduct, coupling the horses’ designated letters H and K. They were both outside long shots running in a large field but, she thought, anything was possible. She tucked the OTB ticket into the snug rear pocket of her jeans, for luck.
Then back up Third. The 59th Street area was crowded, mostly with people not going anywhere. When she’d first come to the city four years before, the district around 59th had been smartly unconventional, a cleaner uptown version of downtown. But it had seen its day and was now well on its way to sleazy, spoiled dirty by being the place to go, meet, and be seen, by the invasion of too much pizza, tacky boutiques, cheap shoe stores, and even porno film theaters. East 60th was better preserved and Keven headed for it and Serendipity, where she knew she’d be able to get cold fresh-squeezed carrot juice and an organic sandwich.
She was almost there when she was approached head on, her way blocked by two conscientiously tailored Negroes. Their eyes held directly on Keven’s as they told her she was a foxy lady and advised that she should go with them because she would dig it, coke and all.
She stepped back to go around them, but they casually prevented that. She was considering a groin kick when they gave way to let her pass, their fingers snapping at the wide brims of their hats: dig it, baby, it’s your loss.
Keven knew what they were. A pair of dudes out looking to recruit another girl to their working string. It made her remember being financially desperate in California at eighteen and someone trying to persuade her to go topless for big tips. Instead, she’d taken a job as a receptionist and gone to UCLA nights. There’d been many such decisive things, but fortunately she’d always chosen the straight, if not the expedient, way to go. She was grateful for her good judgment. She believed she must have gotten it from the father. Anyway, now she was past the danger point, a survivor.
However, the encounter with the two dudes had depressed her, put a chink in her fragile good mood. The whole damned city was a mess, one endless gutter, a summer festival of dog droppings, a combat zone for the greedy insane.
She hurried to Second Avenue, took a cab to Grand Central, and just made the 4:05 Bridgeport express.
When she arrived at the installation Kersh was finishing up for the day. He was, as usual, pleased to see her. She tried to appear buoyant and animated, but Kersh saw through that. He called Julie to tell her Keven would be having dinner with them and staying the night. It was not an offhand, easy gesture, because ordinarily Kersh and Julie enjoyed being alone, spending time on one another as though it were their own precious, personal currency. Respecting that, Keven resisted the hospitality but Kersh wouldn’t have it.
He gave her a bright red crash helmet, put on a white one himself, and within minutes they were speeding over the narrow black ribbons of sideroads on the Harley-Davidson with Kersh’s hairy sheepdog Baldy chasing after them. The growl and vibrations of the old heavy motorcycle made it seem to be going faster than it really was. Keven couldn’t help being a bit apprehensive. She leaned forward against Kersh’s broad back, put her arms around him and locked her hands. Then she felt more secure, protected by his husky solidness. When they paused at a crossroad, Keven glanced back but Baldy wasn’t in sight. “What about him?” she asked, having to shout.
“He knows the way,” Kersh assured her, and roared ahead. But at the next crossroad Kersh idled until they saw the dog come over the rise some distance behind, a fluffy gray ball rolling their way. Kersh encouraged the dog with a wave and continued on. After a short way they turned off onto a dirt road and were there.
It was a three-story, wood-frame farmhouse set on enough land for privacy. Painted clean white with shutters of blue. It had a wide porch all around and there were large, old, friendly trees and lilac bushes. Set off to the right was a barn, settled askew and nicely weathered.
Julie came out to greet them. She gave Kersh a kiss on the mouth and then hugged Keven, though it was a bit awkward because she was so pregnant. Seven and a half months now, causing her long cotton skirt to hike up unevenly in front and her blouse to strain and gap from the fullness of her breasts. She was obviously very happy with her condition, glowing with a kind of self-amazement.
Baldy came lumbering in, panting, his pink tongue hanging, exhausted but needing to wag and bound around. Kersh gave a few rewarding pats and led the dog into the house for water.
“Come help me pick some lettuce for the salad,” Julie invited and Keven went with her to the rear of the house, where there was a vegetable garden neatly rowed and fenced.
It was one of Keven’s someday wishes to have a garden like that, growing fresh things she knew for certain were uncontaminated. She took the small fruit basket Julie handed her and went down between rows, eager to pick.
“It’s early lettuce,” Julie said. “This will be the first we’ve had.”
That made Keven feel that her presence was an occasion. She bent over and broke off some of the outer greener leaves of a plant, liking the crisp, healthy snap her fingers experienced. Glancing down the row she saw Julie squatted gracelessly, her reach and mobility restricted by her unborn burden. It occurred to Keven that perhaps pregnancy overcame aloneness. At least during pregnancy one was connected to another person. That could be the joy of it, a temporary relief from aloneness. Reason enough for any woman to feel special.
The thought was interrupted by th
e clatter of a dull bell. Across the way in a small pasture two cows were munching and swishing. “You even have your own milk.”
“Not quite yet,” Julie said lightly, and then realized Keven meant the cows. “Oh, them. They’re both old and dry.”
“They’re just for atmosphere?”
“Well, they also make valuable contributions to the garden.”
“They don’t look very friendly.”
“They’d come in the house if we’d let them.”
Keven thought she’d get acquainted with those cows if she had the chance.
At that moment Julie lost her balance. From her squatting position she toppled over backwards. Keven rushed to her, but Julie was laughing. “It happens all the time,” she said. “I’m always overcompensating for being front heavy.”
Keven helped her up. Julie slapped the dirt from her skirt as though annoyed at herself and immediately squatted to start picking again.
They had dinner out on the side porch. While they ate dusk gave way to dark and with it came the pleasant sounds of all the little night-loving creatures. Moths performed around the kerosene lamp on the table. The conversation went from one trivial subject to another.
After dinner they all helped clear the table and then returned to the porch with mugs of tea and ginger cookies. They sat on the edge with their legs over, facing the night. Below them in the grass Baldy was suddenly alert for no apparent reason. He barked twice and wandered away.
Keven said: “Animals are very telepathic, aren’t they?”
“Some seem to be,” said Kersh.
“Especially dogs,” Julie said.
“And horses,” said Keven, wondering how those two outsiders had done that afternoon at Aqueduct.
“Quite a few telepathic experiments have been done with dogs,” Kersh said. “The other day I read a paper by a Russian scientist named Bekherev. He put a thousand identical sticks of wood in a room, just scattered them around. Each stick was numbered. From a separate room he telepathically commanded a dog to go in and retrieve a particular, numbered stick. I don’t remember the exact results but about ten times out of every hundred tries the dog retrieved the right stick.”
“I’d like to try that with Haz sometime,” Keven said, entertained by the thought.
“You’d be fetching the sticks,” Kersh told her, reminding her of her receiver’s role.
“I suppose,” she said vaguely. It was the first time that night Hazard had been mentioned. They’d been avoiding the subject for her sake and now she’d done it to herself, making her feel a sharp longing for him. To pull out of it she told them, “This afternoon on the train I sat beside a very fat and nosey woman who wanted to know my life history. When she asked what I did for a living I told her I was a telepathist. Just to see what her reaction would be. She told me she had a niece who also works for the telephone company.”
That got a laugh.
“I’m always doing battle with the infidels,” said Julie.
“Infidels?” Keven was amused.
“She tries to make a believer out of everyone,” Kersh said. “Next thing she’ll be on the street shaking a tambourine and handing out leaflets.”
“I’ve converted a few,” Julie said.
“Including me,” Kersh said.
“You were easy. Your mind was wide open.”
“Half open.”
“Well, that’s half more than most people.”
“I think people experience telepathy every day and don’t realize it,” Keven said.
Julie also thought that. “They prefer to call it something else like willpower or intuition.”
“Or plain old coincidence, like two people getting the same thought at the same time. That’s happened to everyone.”
“Especially to people who are intimately involved,” Kersh said.
“Why is that?” Keven asked.
“I don’t know for sure, but it’s a piece of recurring evidence. The area of the brain that controls emotional behavior is the same area that has most to do with telepathic abilities.”
“You mean love might have something to do with telepathy?” Keven asked.
“Let’s just say it seems to help.”
“What gripes the hell out of me,” said Julie, “is the way people claim to be believers just because its fashionable. Scratch the surface and they’re really as skeptical as ever.”
“Can’t entirely blame them for that,” Kersh said. “If anyone’s to blame it’s the scientists.”
“Not all scientists,” Julie said, and gave Kersh a possessive hug.
“No, but it’s their fault for not making people more aware of how far science has gone. The average person sees and judges things according to the so-called laws of nature, disbelieving anything that doesn’t apply. Such as telepathy. Actually, compared to some recent developments in the exact sciences, telepathy seems almost ordinary. For instance, we know now about negative mass—particles of antimatter that correspond to every known particle of matter in the universe. A sort of duplicate of everything.”
Keven imagined another Keven somewhere.
“What do you think happens when an antiparticle meets its counterpart?” Kersh asked.
“They fall in love,” Julie guessed.
“Quite the contrary. They annihilate one another.”
“Figures,” Keven said.
“We also have time flowing backward and things called neutrinos that we know travel faster than the speed of light, which until only a few years ago was known to be impossible.”
“What are they called?”
“Neutrinos.”
Keven said it sounded like an Italian restaurant.
Kersh laughed. “And they’re just about as predictable. Neutrinos are particles of matter that come from space and have no respect at all for any of our rules. They pass right through solid mass as though it wasn’t there. Right at this moment billions of neutrinos are shooting through our bodies and going on their way into and all the way through the earth. Although the neutrino is matter, obviously it exists in an entirely different dimension.”
“That’s really far out,” said Julie.
“But why,” Keven said, “when scientists are involved with such fantastic things are they so set against telepathy?”
“Some of them are coming around, especially the physicists. They’re getting closer to it.”
From somewhere out in the dark, Baldy’s bark punctuated the moment.
Kersh asked Julie and Keven if they were chilled. The night air was dewy and cool, but they didn’t want to go inside yet. Kersh went in to get sweaters. He also put the London Symphony on the stereo, Vaughn Williams’ Number Six in E minor. When he came back to the porch he sat with his back against a post and Julie snuggled into the cave of his arms.
“Someday,” Julie said, “telepathy will be a regular way of communicating. People will use words only when they want to. The greedy, old telephone company, Western Union, and the post office will all be out of business and movies will be silent again.”
“And a receiver will have to marry a sender,” Kersh said.
“Not necessarily,” Kevin said. “By then probably everyone will be going both ways.”
“That seems to be the tendency,” Julie commented.
“Anyway,” said Keven, “in the future people will look back on now as the blabbering dark age.”
Kersh said he doubted that. “Chances are people may be even more talkative.”
“You mean with their minds.”
“With their mouths,” Kersh said.
“But that’s ridiculous,” said Keven. “Why should they talk even more when they’re telepathic?”
“You’re assuming—as most people do—that telephathy is a new kind of human ability that will be refined and developed along with interplanetary weekend excursions and humanoid sex partners.”
“Isn’t it?”
“I don’t think so,” Kersh said.
Julie
reacted as though Kersh had committed blasphemy. In all their many discussions she’d never heard him say such a thing.
“Rather than an ability we’re developing, telepathy may be something from our evolutionary past.”
“You mean we used to be better at it?” Keven asked.
“Possibly. Anyway, there’s quite a bit of evidence in favor of such a theory.”
Julie and Keven needed convincing.
Kersh smiled and asked if they wanted the deluxe or economy lecture.
“You can stop when we start to yawn,” Julie told him.
Kersh took a moment to decide where to begin. “At best,” he said, “we can only speculate about how the human brain originated. We’ve very little to go on besides a record of fossils and there are still a lot of gaps. But by using comparative anatomy, embryology, and a few other related disciplines we can piece together a fairly accurate picture. It’s believed that man’s earliest ancestors were tiny organisms that lived in the waters of the Cambrian Seas some five hundred million years ago. We call these creatures primordial chordates. They occupied the warm surface areas of the seas, and the sunlight hit on their backs. Apparently, as a reaction, they developed a strip of sensory cells called neurons. Even now in the human embryo the first sign of development of a nervous system is the same such strip of tissue.”
Julie patted her stomach and said it was her Cambrian Sea.
“At first this strip of nerve tissue was dangerously exposed. So, for protection it rolled itself into a more rigid, tubular shape and sank into the body of the organism. Then for even more protection it was encased in a bony substance and became the spinal cord and column.”
“What does all this have to do with telepathy?” Julie asked.
“I’m getting to it.”
“Well, get, my love,” she said, snuggling.
“Next in evolutionary order came the forming of the brain. At first it was merely a swelling at the front end of the spinal cord. No more than a tiny nodule, then another and another. These three nodules would eventually be the stem on which the advanced brain would grow. But for a long period in our evolution those three earliest chambers were a sensory unit in themselves. They were our primordial brain.”
Hazard Page 18
