I had just sold my first science fiction story, to Tony Boucher at a magazine called Fantasy and Science Fiction, for $75, and was considering quitting my job as book clerk and becoming a full-time writer, something I subsequently did. Science fiction writing became my career.
2
The first of Nicholas Brady’s paranormal experiences occurred at the house on Francisco Street where he lived for years; he and his wife, Rachel, bought the house for $3,750 when they first got married in 1953. The house was very old—one of the original Berkeley farmhouses—on a lot only thirty feet wide, with no garage, on a mud sill, the only heat being from the oven in the kitchen. His monthly payments were $27.50, which is why he stayed there so long.
I used to ask Nicholas why he never painted or repaired the house; the roof leaked and in wintertime during the heavy rains he and Rachel put out empty coffee cans to catch the water dripping everywhere. The house was an ugly peeling yellow.
“It would defeat the purpose of having such an inexpensive house,” Nicholas explained. He still spent most of his money on records. Rachel took courses at the University, in the political science department. I rarely found her home when I dropped by. Nicholas told me one time that his wife had a crush on a fellow student, who headed the youth group of the Socialist Workers Party just off campus. She resembled the other Berkeley girls I used to see: jeans, glasses, long dark hair, assertive loud voice, continually discussing politics. This, of course, was during the McCarthy period. Berkeley was becoming extremely political.
Nicholas had Wednesdays and Sundays off from work. On Wednesday be was home alone. On Sunday both he and Rachel were home.
One Wednesday—this is not the paranormal experience—when Nicholas was home listening to Beethoven’s Eighth Symphony on his Magnavox phonograph, two FBI agents dropped by.
“Is Mrs. Brady home?” they asked. They wore business suits and carried bulging briefcases. Nicholas thought they were insurance salesmen.
“What do you want from her?” he demanded with hostility. He imagined they were trying to sell her something.
The two agents exchanged glances and then presented Nicholas with their identification. Nicholas was filled with rage and terror. He started telling the two FBI agents, in a stammering voice, a joke he had read in “Talk of the Town” in The New Yorker about two FBI agents who were checking up on a man, and, while interviewing a neighbor, the neighbor had said the man listened to symphonies, and the agents asked suspiciously what language the symphonies were in.
The two agents standing on Nicholas’s front porch, on hearing his garbled version of the story, did not find it funny.
“That wasn’t our office,” one of them said.
“Why don’t you talk to me?” Nicholas demanded, protecting his wife.
Again the two FBI agents exchanged glances, nodded, and entered the house. Nicholas, in a state of terror, sat facing them, trying to quell his shaking. “As you know,” the agent with the greater double chin explained, “it is our job to protect the liberties of American citizens from totalitarian intrusion. We never investigate legitimate political parties such as the Democratic or Republican parties, which are bona fide political parties under American law.” He then began to talk about the Socialist Workers Party, which, he explained to Nicholas, was not a legitimate political party but a Communist organization devoted to violent revolution at the expense of American liberties.
Nicholas knew all that. He kept silent, however.
“And your wife,” the other agent said, “could be of use to us, since she belongs to the student corps of the SWP, in reporting who attends their meetings and what is said there.” Both agents looked expectantly at Nicholas.
“I’ll have to discuss this with Rachel,” Nicholas said. “When she comes home.”
“Are you engaged in political activity, Mr. Brady?” the agent with the greater double chin asked him. He had a notebook before him and a fountain pen. The two agents had propped one of their briefcases between Nicholas and them; he saw a square object bulging within it and knew he was being taped.
“No,” Nicholas said, truthfully. All he did was listen to exotic rare foreign vocal records, especially those of Tiana Lemnitz, Erna Berger, and Gerhard Husch.
“Would you like to be?” the lesser agent asked.
“Um,” Nicholas said.
“You’re familiar with the International People’s Party,” the greater agent said. “Had you ever considered attending meetings of it? They hold them about a block from here, on the other side of San Pablo Avenue.”
“We could use someone in there at the local group meeting,” the lesser agent said. “Are you interested?”
“We can finance you,” his colleague added.
Nicholas blinked, gulped, and then gave the first speech of his life. The agents were not pleased, but they listened.
Later on that day, after the agents had left, Rachel arrived home, loaded down with textbooks and looking cross.
“Guess who was here today looking for you,” Nicholas said. He told her who.
“Bastards!” Rachel cried out. “Bastards!”
It was two nights later that Nicholas had his mystical experience.
He and Rachel lay in bed, asleep. Nicholas was on the left, nearer the door of their bedroom. Still disturbed by the recent visit of the FBI agents, he slept lightly, tossing a lot, having vague dreams of an unpleasant nature. Toward dawn, just when the first false white light was beginning to fill the room, he lay back on
