life. Now you must amuse yourself for a while lad. I always sleep an hour before dinner, which is at seven. You see those shelves of books? From what your mother writes, I’m sure you can amuse yourself.”
His grandfather left the room and he went to the bookshelves. There was a biography of Henry James there and he took it down and began to read.
“I SUPPOSE,” HIS GRANDFATHER SAID CHEERFULLY at the dinner table, “that I ought to explain to you about Serena. To tell you the truth, your mother knows nothing about her. When her mother died—my first wife, Sarah—I was in Peking. Sarah had not wanted to go to China with me. She thought of it as a heathen country, instead of what it was, the oldest and most civilized country in the world. So I went alone. Your mother was then about three years old. Sarah went back to her own family. As a matter of fact, we never lived together again though we were not legally separated, but as I said, she died while I was in Peking. When I returned from China, I was a very different man from the brash young fellow I was when I went there, thinking I had so much to teach the Chinese. Instead, they taught me.”
“How long were you there?” he asked.
“I went to stay a year and stayed seven,” his grandfather replied. “When I came home again, I moved here. I had a job in a private foundation—a very wealthy man in Wall Street, who was interested in vital statistics and world population. My office was there, just across the bridge, on the forty-fourth floor of a skyscraper. I met Serena there—matter of fact, she was his daughter, a brilliant, beautiful, willful creature. She fell in love with me first. I hadn’t thought of love. It embarrassed me—she was much younger than I. I went to him about it. He laughed, but he sent her to the Sorbonne for a couple of years. Then suddenly she was back again, standing there at my desk. ‘Well, here I am,’ she said, ‘and I’m just the same.’”
He laughed that high old laughter. “Well, I said, ‘I’ll have to take you seriously.’ Which I did, with the result that I married Serena in due course—or rather, she married me.”
“My mother never told me,” he said.
“No, she wouldn’t, for, as I told you, she never saw Serena,” his grandfather replied. “She continued to live with her aunt, and I went regularly twice a year to see her while she was growing up, but Serena felt she would be happier not to see my child. She always said emotions should never be confused. But little Sue always knew where I was and that she could depend on me, if needed. Nevertheless, I did not ask her to bring you here and live with me when your father died. I felt Serena would be confused, even after death. And I wasn’t sure that Serena wouldn’t come back now and then. I don’t think she’ll mind you—but two women—”
His grandfather shook his head doubtfully. Silence fell and neither of them broke it for several minutes. Then he spoke, his curiosity overwhelming him.
“Grandfather, do you mean she—Serena, your wife—really comes back to you… now?”
His grandfather, placidly eating an ice dessert, wiped his lips with his huge old-fashioned linen napkin before he spoke.
“Oh yes, indeed, dear boy,” he said cheerfully. “I never know when, of course, any more than I knew when she’d come into my room at night when she was alive. And she didn’t come at all for nearly four years after she died. I suppose it takes a certain length of time to become accustomed after the shock of death. It must be a shock to die, just as it is to be born. It takes time—it takes time. That’s a very delicious sweet, Sung. I’ll have a bit more.”
His grandfather ate heartily and with enjoyment. He appeared so sane, so healthy, so alive in spite of his age, that Rann could not believe his mind was deranged. Indeed, he was sure it was not. Then, his grandfather must have experiences not common to ordinary folk. But he himself was not ordinary either, and his sense of wonder would not let him rest.
“What I am trying now to discover,” his grandfather continued, “strictly through the science of parapsychology, is just how she does it, or how I do it. It is probably a combination, which as yet with me is accidental. But in time, as I do more study, I shall discover the proper technique. I am a scientist, Randolph. I learned that in China. I don’t know how much you know of my work. It began with my interest in the heart as the center of life.”
“Nothing, I’m afraid, Grandfather.”
“Ah well, that doesn’t surprise me. My first wife was a dear, good woman, as your mother is, but she had an ordinary, though intelligent mind. I never knew your mother, my daughter, well enough to discuss my work with her. But you have an extraordinary mind. I can see that—indeed, I saw it the moment you walked in the door.”
He was infused, inspired, impelled by his sense of wonder, his insatiable curiosity. “How did you know, Grandfather?”
His grandfather pushed away the plate from which he had been eating with such enjoyment, and Sung removed it and disappeared. They were alone.
“I will tell you what I have told no one since Serena died,” his grandfather replied. “I was born with a rare ability. Serena had it to some degree, and I was able to discuss it with her frankly, as I did everything else. It may be you have some of the same ability, though possibly expressed in a different way. You may want to tell me. With me it is expressed in color.”
“Color, Grandfather?”
“Yes, I don’t like to use the word ‘aura,’ for that is the jargon of mediums and fraudulent people who make their living through a false mysticism and suchlike nonsense. I am a scientist, trained first in medicine then in electronics. I understand—to some extent—the interplay of electrical waves. We are all a part of such interplay. Given the right combination of forces, a human being is the result—a crystallization, if you like. Or a dog or fish or insect, or any manifestation. When we ‘die,’ as we call it, the combination is merely moving from that form to make another.
Oh, his persistent mind! He was half-ashamed of it. “But color, Grandfather?”
“Ah yes,” his grandfather said. “But I hadn’t forgotten, dear boy! I never forget anything, any more than you do. I had to give the preliminary explanation. Well, all my life I have seen color about living creatures and most strongly, of course, about the concentrations we call human beings.”
“Do you see color about me?”
“Oh, very strongly.”
“What color, Grandfather?”
“More than one.”
His grandfather studied his head, and was silent for a minute. “Green is predominant—in what I see in your emanation—a living, vital green, signifying that the life force in you is very strong. This shades off into a rich blue —nothing pallid about you! And the blue fringes off into yellow. Yellow denotes intelligence, and blue denotes integrity. You won’t have an easy life. Everything in you—your feelings, your determination, your idealism—all very strong. You’ll suffer on all counts. But you know that, you’re a creator.”
“Of what, Grandfather? I feel the pressure in myself to create—but what?”
He spoke intensely, his elbows leaning on the white tablecloth, silver and china pushed aside, everything forgotten except what his grandfather was saying.
“It’s too soon, boy!” his grandfather said gravely. “Much, much too soon! You’ve talents—but talent is a means, a tool to use. You must find your material, and that can only come out of knowing, learning and knowing. When you’ve learned enough, when you know enough, your own talent will guide you—no, force you, push you, compel you. So be at ease, dear boy! Wander the Earth, look and listen. But never waste yourself. Use your body as well as mind. Put it better—your body is the valuable container for the precious talent. Keep your body clean and free of disease.”
Their eyes met, his grandfather’s electric blue, his own dark and vividly penetrating in their gaze. His grandfather gave a deep, shaking sigh.
“Serena!” he murmured. “Do you see who has come to our house?”
They rose in silence then and went into the library and he sat, still silent and absorbed in thought while his grandfather played a small pipe organ at one end of the room. It was Bach—ordered, coordinated, scientifically
