“Sure.”
She leaned over and kissed him. “I love you.”
He looked deeply into her eyes.
“Funny,” he said, “I've been thinking the same thing.”
“Telepathy?”
“No, I don't think so.” They kissed again. “Just coincidence.”
The tub of warm paraffin wax excited much interest at the start of the group's next session. Sam repeated the story he'd told Joanna about the phantom hands in Paris.
“Now that's funny,” Maggie said pensively when he'd finished. “That's Paris three times.”
“How do you mean, Maggie?” Sam asked.
“These plaster casts you're talking about are in Paris. We put Adam in Paris. And Joanna was just telling me that her parents are on holiday in Paris.”
Sam thought about it, raised his eyebrows, then he laughed. “You're right. I wonder what it means.”
“The point of synchronicity,” Roger said, taking his usual place around the table, “is that it has no point.”
“Except insofar as it points to what Jung called ‘a unifying principle behind meaningful coincidences,’” Ward Riley demurred.
“The logic of that argument is flawed,” Roger responded, happy to have found someone he could argue with almost as vigorously as he did with Sam. “It rests on the assumption that coincidences are meaningful, for which there is no evidence. To say that a meaningful coincidence has meaning is to say nothing.”
“Steady, Roger,” Sam said, not wanting to be left out of this, “Wolfgang Pauli was on Jung's side. They even wrote a book on the subject.”
“I knew Pauli,” Roger said with a sniff of disapproval. “A genius, but given to flights of fancy, and he drank too much.” He pulled his chair up to the table in a way that suggested the subject was now closed.
When he had them all around the table, Sam announced the test results on the rap recording that Joanna had heard two days ago. Even Roger, she could see, was genuinely interested.
“The last session,” Sam continued, “marked a significant breakthrough, and I'm sure we're going to build on it. I suggest that we try to get a conversation going with Adam, first of all putting questions to him and having him answer one rap for yes, two for no.” He glanced around the group, and received nods of general assent.
“All right,” he said, “let's give it a try.”
He placed his hands lightly on the table in front of him. The others did the same.
19
Perhaps the strangest part of it, Joanna reflected later, was how quickly they all accepted the situation, talking with the imaginary Adam as though it was the most normal thing in the world. Admittedly, the need to phrase everything as a question to which a straight yes or no answer could be given was limiting, but after a while they streamlined the process. They would talk among themselves, sometimes rummaging through the stack of books on the period that they kept in the room, then place their hands on the table and toss a question to Adam that allowed him to confirm or deny something they'd been discussing. Did he know so-and-so? Had he seen this or done that or been there?
“What were the names of those shady guys Ward mentioned?” Pete asked after a while.
“Cagliostro and Saint-Germain,” Ward replied. “And of course the Marquis de Sade.”
“Did you meet any of those guys, Adam?” Pete asked.
A single rap confirmed that he had. Joanna noticed Ward's eyebrows arch slightly with interest. “All of them?” he asked.
Another single rap.
“This boy got around,” Pete remarked under his breath, and jumped slightly when a rap came from the table directly where his hands rested on it.
“Did you ever see any evidence,” Ward asked, cutting through the murmur of amusement that had run around the table, “that any of them possessed unusual powers?”
This time there was a pause, then a slightly less firm single rap.
“You mean you did see something?”
Another slightly tentative single rap.
“Can you tell us what it was?”
This time two raps for no.
Sam caught Ward's eye, and took over the questioning.
“I don't believe you saw anything at all, Adam. You're just making this up to please Ward, aren't you?”
There was a silence lasting for some time, broken by Maggie.
“Perhaps he doesn't want to talk about it,” she said, clearly not relishing this line of questioning herself. “Is that so, Adam?”
There was an immediate and loud single rap from the table.
“Very well, Adam,” Sam said, “if that's what you want, we'll change the subject.”
Ward shrugged his acquiescence.
“I want to ask about the political situation,” Barry said. “Adam, was there any point during those five years prior to 1789 when you realized that a violent revolution was inevitable?”
There was only a slight pause before the table gave two raps for no.
“Looking back,” Barry continued, “can you see with hindsight that it was-inevitable I mean?”
A clear, firm rap for yes.
“Looking back from where exactly?” The question came from Roger and was addressed to Barry.
“Yeah, that's a good point,” Barry said. “Where exactly is he looking back from?”
“From here,” Sam said. “He knows everything we know because he's part of us. Isn't that right, Adam?”
Two very firm raps came from the table. Everyone looked at Sam.
“It seems that he has a mind of his own,” Roger remarked with faint amusement. “Or thinks he has.”
Sam grinned, keeping his hands on the table, as did the rest of them. “All right, Adam,” he said, “if you're not here with us, we're going to have to find out where you are.”
He was about to phrase a question when there was a sound they hadn't heard before. It came from the table, but instead of a rap it was a strange scratching noise, as though something inside the wood was trying to get out.
They looked at each other in bewilderment, wondering what it meant. Then suddenly Maggie said, “He's trying to write!”
The explanation was so obvious that no one bothered to comment on it. Sam leaned back and reached behind him for the Ouija board, and they all lifted their hands from the table to make room for it, then placed their fingertips on the pointer.
Sam repeated his question. “If you're not here with us, where are you?”
Again there was a silence-long enough for them all to wonder whether they were going to get an answer at all. Then the pointer began to move, slowly at first, but gaining speed. It spelled out “I DO NOT KNOW.” And stopped.
“That's kind of a tough one to follow,” Joanna said. “What do we ask for a supplementary?”
There was a ripple of amused agreement from the others.
“Why don't we just ask him if there's anything he wants to tell us?” Pete suggested. “Is there, Adam? Anything at all?”
Again there was silence. One by one they all put further questions, each time without response.
“Do you think he's gone?” Drew asked.
“Perhaps the problem is that we asked a question that we ourselves have no answer to,” Ward Riley said thoughtfully. “Knowing that Adam is a composite personality created by all of us is one thing. Knowing exactly where he exists between us all is quite another.”
