streets, that as you say yourself, you were certain you were going to find – what of course you did find. It was a lead-pipe cinch that you would.' He held up a hand as I started to speak. 'Oh, you saw it, all right. In every tiny detail. Exactly as you described it. You saw it as vividly and absolutely
He was right; I did. In pre-med college, I once sat in a classroom listening to a psychology professor quietly lecturing, and now, sitting there on the edge of the road, the sun warming against my face, I was remembering how the door of that classroom had suddenly burst open, as two struggling men stumbled into the room. One man broke loose, yanked a banana from his pocket, pointed it at the other, and yelled, 'Bang!' The other clutched his side, pulled a small American flag from his pocket, waved it violently in the other man's face, then they both rushed out of the room.
The professor said, 'This is a controlled experiment. You will each take paper and pencil, write down a complete account of what you just saw, and place it on my desk as you leave the room.'
Next day, in class, he read our papers aloud. There were some twenty-odd students, and no two accounts were alike, or even close. Some students saw three men, some four, and one girl saw five. Some saw white men, some Negroes, some Orientals, some saw women. One student saw a man stabbed, saw the blood spurt, saw him hold a handkerchief to his side which quickly became blood-soaked, and could hardly believe it when he found no bloodstains on the floor, as he left his paper at the professor's desk. And so on, and so on. Not a single paper mentioned the American flag or the banana; those objects didn't fit into the sudden violent little scene that had burst on our senses, so our minds excluded them, simply ruled them out and substituted other more appropriate things such as guns, knives, and bloodsoaked rags that we were each of us absolutely certain we'd seen. We
So now I wondered if Mannie weren't right, and it was strange; I felt a sense of disappointment, a real let- down at the thought, and realized that I was trying to resist believing him. We do prefer the weird and thrilling, as Mannie had said, to the dull and commonplace. Even though I could still see in my mind, vivid and horribly real, what I'd thought I'd seen in Becky's basement, I felt, intellectually, that Mannie was probably right. But emotionally it was still very nearly impossible to accept, and I guess it showed in my face, and in Jack's.
Because Mannie got to his feet, and stood there for several seconds, looking down at us. Then he said, softly, 'You want proof? I'll give it to you. Miles, go back to Becky's house and, in a calm state of mind, you'll see no body on that shelf in her basement; I guarantee that. There was only one body, in Jack's basement; the one that started all this. You want more proof? I'll give it to you. This delusion will die down in Santa Mira, just as it did in Mattoon, just as it did in Europe, just as all of them always do. And the people who came to you, Miles – Wilma Lentz and the others – will come back; some of them, anyway. Others will avoid you out of simple embarrassment. But if you hunt them up, they'll admit what the others tell you: that the delusion is gone, that they simply don't understand how or why it ever entered their heads. And that'll be the end of it; there'll be no more cases. I guarantee you that, too.'
Mannie grinned then, glanced around him at the sky, blue and clear now, and said, 'I could use some breakfast.' Jack smiled up at him, getting to his feet, and so did I. 'Me, too,' I answered. 'Come on back to my place, and let's see what the girls can find us to eat.' Jack went through his house, then, turning off lights, closing and locking doors. When he came out, he had a brown cardboard folder under his arm, the accordion type, divided into sections, every one of them crammed to bulging with papers. 'My office,' he said, nodding down at the folder. 'Work-in-progress, notes, references, junk. Very valuable stuff' – he grinned – 'and I like to keep it with me.' Then we all drove back down the hill to town.
At Becky's house I stopped at the curb, and got out, leaving the motor running. It was still very early, the street white with new daylight, and I didn't see a soul or movement in the entire block. I walked boldly around to the side of the house, but on the grass, my feet making no sound. At the broken basement window I stood glancing up at the neighbours' windows; I didn't see anyone, or hear a sound. I stooped quickly, crawled in through the window, then walked across the concrete floor on tiptoes. The basement was light, now, and very silent, and I was calm but worried; I didn't want to be caught down there and have to explain what I was doing.
The cupboard door I'd opened stood half ajar as I'd left it, and now I opened it wide and lowered my eyes to the bottom shelf. The light from a near-by basement window struck it full, and the shelf was empty. I opened every door in that wall of shelves, and there was nothing that didn't belong there; only canned goods, tools, empty fruit jars, old newspapers. On the empty bottom shelf lay a thick mass of gray fluff and, squatting beside it, I shrugged; it was the kind of dust and dirt, I could only suppose, that accumulates in basements, and which my senses had distorted, in a kind of hysterical explosion, into a body.
I didn't want to stay a moment longer than I had to, and I closed the cupboard, as I'd found it, crossed to the window, and crawled out onto the side lawn again. What Becky's father would think of this broken window when he found it, I didn't know; but I knew I wasn't going to explain it.
In the car, drawing away from the curb, I nodded at Mannie, grinning a little sheepishly. 'You were right,' I said, and I glanced at Jack and shrugged.
Chapter eight
The human animal won't take a straight diet of any emotion: fear, happiness, horror, grief, or even contentment. It was queer; after the night we'd all spent, breakfast was a gay affair. The sun helped; it streamed in through the open windows and the kitchen door, yellow and warm and full of morning promise. Theodora was up when we got there, sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee with Becky. She stood up as we came in, Jack hurrying toward her, and then they held each other tight for a long moment, Jack kissing her hard. He drew back to look at her then, and Mannie and I looked, too. She was still tired, there were circles under her eyes, but the eyes were calm and sane now, and she smiled at us over Jack's shoulder.
Then, almost as though a signal had been given, we all began chattering, laughing a lot, making jokes; and the two women began turning on gas jets, getting out skillets and pans, opening cupboards and the refrigerator, while the three men sat down at the kitchen table. Becky poured us each some coffee. By a sort of unspoken consent, we didn't talk about the night before – not seriously, anyway – or about what Jack, Mannie, and I had just been doing, and the women asked no questions; they must have felt from our manner that things were all right.
Sausage began sputtering on the stove, Theodora turning it with a fork, and Becky began beating up eggs in a bowl, the metal spoon tapping rhythmically against the china, a nice sound. Theodora said, eyes laughing, 'I've been thinking it over, and I could use a duplicate of Jack. One of them could moon around the house as usual, not hearing a word I say, working out whatever he's writing in his mind. And maybe the other would have time to talk to me, and even help with the dishes once in a while.'
Jack smiled at her over the rim of his cup, his eyes happy and relieved to see her this way. 'Might be worth trying,' he said. 'At times I think any change in me would be an improvement. Maybe the new one would actually know how to write, instead of beating his head against a stone wall just trying.'
Becky was nodding. 'There are advantages, all right,' she said. 'I like the idea of one me secretly carried through the streets in her nightgown, while the other is still home, properly alone in her bed, satisfying all the proprieties.'
We rang the changes on that idea. Mannie wanted one Dr. Kaufman listening to his patients, while the other was out playing golf, and I said I could use a duplicate Miles Bennell to catch up on sleep.
The food tasted wonderful, and we ate and chattered all through breakfast, making what jokes there were to be made. Actually, I think, we were a little too gay, almost high, in reaction against what had happened. Presently Mannie touched his mouth with his napkin, glanced at the wall clock, and stood up. By the time he got home, he said, and shaved, changed clothes, and got to his office, he'd just have time to keep his first appointment. He said his good-byes, told me he planned to send me an enormous bill, charging his usual hourly rates, if not double, grinned, and I saw him to the front door. Then the rest of us all had second or third cups of coffee.
While I sipped mine, I lighted a cigarette, sat back in my chair, and told Theodora and Becky, briefly and
