“Maybe it is precisely because I am a professional writer,” I said.
“Meaning what?”
“Well, I am a fiction writer. I’m used to making things up.”
Vivian said, “You’re not to make anything up on these documents, Phil.”
I said, “Some of the truth about Nicholas reads like the wildest fiction, so help me God.”
That did gaff her. “Oh?”
“The disgrace,” I said, “that forced him—the three of us—to leave Berkeley and migrate down here. Most of the secret he’s still kept locked up in his heart.”
“ ‘Disgrace,’ ” Vivian echoed. “ ‘Secret.’ ”
“He couldn’t remain in Berkeley. Do you suppose you could come back here and we could talk about it?”
“For a little while,” Vivian said. “But not for long.”
“Just to help me get started,” I said, pleased.
Half an hour later a small red Chevy II pulled up in my driveway. Vivian Kaplan got out, purse in hand, wearing a short imitation leather coat. I guided her into the house.
“I really appreciate this,” I told her as I seated her in the living room. I took her coat and hung it in the closet.
Producing a small writing pad and pen from her purse, Vivian prepared to write. “What caused Mr. Brady’s disgrace back in Berkeley? You dictate and I’ll transcribe it.”
From the kitchen I brought a bottle of wine, a five-year-old Louis Martini.
“None of that for me, please,” Vivian said.
“Just a taste. It’s a good year.”
“Maybe a taste.”
I poured us both wine. In the background I had music playing, and low lights. Vivian, however, did not seem to notice; she was waiting intently for what I had to say. She did not touch her wine.
“Nicholas,” I said, “talks to God.”
She stared at me, mouth agape.
“He started it in Berkeley. As a child he was a Quaker, you know. I’m sure you have that in your records. The Quakers believe that the Holy Spirit can come to you and talk to you. All his life Nicholas waited for God—which is the same as the Holy Spirit, especially if you are a trinitarian, which Nicholas and I are—to come to talk to him. A couple of years before we left Berkeley, in the early sixties it was, God first spoke to him.”
Vivian, listening, had written nothing.
“Since then,” I said, “Nicholas has maintained an intimate relationship with God. He speaks to him as you and I are speaking to each other now.”
“Christ,” Vivian said impatiently, “that isn’t any good; I can’t report that.”
“Do you know anybody else who communes regularly with God?” I said. “Nicholas’s whole life is built around it; speaking with God and hearing God speak back is everything to him. As well it might be. I envy his experience.”
Vivian put her pen away. “Are you sure he isn’t crazy? It sounds crazy to me.”
“You should be writing this down,” I said. “I’m going to reveal to you some of the things God has told him.”
“I don’t care about that!” Vivian said, with agitation. “It has no political bearing! What can we do with information like that?”
“God said,” I told her, “that he is going to cause plagues to fall on this entire order of things and wash it away. Wet plagues, I’d guess, from the sound of it; something about water.”
“Oh, balls,” Vivian said.
“I believe he also said he would place a rainbow in the sky,” I said. “Afterward, as a sign of peace between God and man.”
Sharply, Vivian said, “Is this the best you can do?”
“I told you I was having trouble getting things down. This is why I wanted you to come over.” I seated myself on the couch beside her and took her ballpoint pen from her. “I’ll put down the opening sentence. ‘Nicholas Brady—’ ”
“You got me over here for a religious thing? There’s nothing we can do with a religious thing; there’s nothing unpatriotic about God. God is not on our list. Can’t you come up with anything else?”
“In Berkeley,” I said, “talking to God is a disgrace. Nick was ruined there, when he confided it to people. They drove him off like an animal.”
“That’s Berkeley,” Vivian said. “Where there’s nothing but atheists and Commies. I’m not surprised. But this is Orange County. This is the real world.”
“You mean down here it’s okay?”
“Of course it’s okay.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. “Then Nicholas is safe at last.”
“Phil,” Vivian said, “there must be other things you know about Nicholas which would—you know what I mean—would offset this about God.”
“It is not possible,” I said, “to offset God. He is all-powerful and all-knowing.”
“I mean in terms of the political file we’re drawing up.”
“Have some of the wine,” I said, holding her glass toward her.
“No, I don’t drink wine,” Vivian said in agitation. “But I brought some good grass with me.” She opened up her purse and rummaged inside,
I really wasn’t surprised. It figured.
“I need a small box,” she said, “to manicure it in. And a card such as a credit card. Here, this will do.” She found a white business card in her wallet.
“Let me see that,” I said, extending my hand. Vivian placed the lid of grass in it; I then carried the grass from the living room into the bathroom, where at once I locked the door behind me. In an instant I had dumped the marijuana into the toilet and had flushed it down; the contraband would not be found in my house, not this lid of it.
“What are you doing?” Vivian called sharply, from outside the locked door; she began to knock. “What did you do?”
I flushed the toilet once more, to be absolutely sure, and then leisurely unlocked the door.
“Did you flush it?” she demanded incredulously.
“Yes I did,” I said.
“Why? Well, never mind; what’s done is done. I have a little high-grade hash we can smoke. Fortunately I brought my hash pipe with me.” She returned to the living room; I followed after her. It would be harder getting the hash away from her, I realized. No one voluntarily surrendered
