Transmigration (2 page)

 

 

"Could you," said Baudaker tentatively, "stay all night?"

 

 

For the first time in months, Fletcher laughed. The little man's
enthusiasm had made him bold. "All right," he said, "if you give me
coffee at frequent intervals."

 

 

"Oh, we'll do that, Mr. Fletcher! We'll do that!"

 

 

Fletcher left the kiosk. A middle-aged woman with a shopping bag was
waiting impatiently, looking at her watch. She looked up, irritation in
every line of her face. Instead of avoiding her eye, he caught it and
held it.

 

 

They stared at each other, three feet apart. The woman cringed, half
raised her free hand as if to ward off a blow, turned and walked away
rapidly, not looking back.

 

 

That was needed, Fletcher .thought bleakly, to restore the status quo. The
warm admiration of Judy and Baudaker's enthusiasm were usual. He had
felt almost happy and strangely secure -- it was only a matter of time
until something or someone came along to cancel out the hint of success
he vaguely sensed and allow failure and loneliness to reassert their
primary places in John Fletcher's life.

 

 

 

 

Fletcher walked aimlessly for quite a while and ended up at the beach. He
needed solitude, and with Judy around, it would be impossible to find
it at the house.

 

 

 

 

Reaching the whins that hid the sand dunes from the road, he went straight
through them and burst out on a little knoll above the river. In front of
him sand fell sharply to the slow moving river. Two hundred yards farther
on it reached the sea.

 

 

It was hot here, the dunes affording shelter from the slight breeze.
Sparsely scattered along the banks were a few early bathers and
sunbathers. He sank down to crouch among the whins.

 

 

Along the shore came a boy and a girl. They were not much older than Judy,
sixteen or seventeen. The boy wore bathing trunks and a loose blue sweater.
The girl wore a dazzlingly white dress. Barefoot, they waded in about
six inches of water, laughing.

 

 

Then the boy, on the shore side, started to edge the girl farther into
the water. She protested. They came level with Fletcher, and went no
farther on. He could hear them, not clearly, but missing only the words,
not the sense. The youth pushed the girl out until the water was up to
her knees, nudging her, not letting her get past to the shore.

 

 

They weren't laughing any more. Something nasty and brutal had got into
the youth. He was drunk with male power. He didn't hit the girl and he
checked her only with his body. But he was stronger and heavier than
she was. She was his prisoner, his plaything, his slave.

 

 

A light breeze wafted a few words to Fletcher.

 

 

" . . . my new dress, Gerry!"

 

 

"All right then." The youth turned to wade to the shore.

 

 

"Anyway, I knew you wouldn't dare!"

 

 

The youth turned and went back.

 

 

It was not, then, as simple as it seemed. It was a game of the sexes, the
kind of game that Fletcher knew nothing about. The girl wasn't just a poor
kid being bullied by a young hooligan. When he abandoned the game she had
to tease him into starting it again. Something compelled her to do this.

 

 

Now she was holding up her white dress clear of the water. Several times
she recovered surprisingly, staggering as the youth nudged her, but not
quite falling down. Then as he bumped her hard she let her dress go and
threw out both arms to balance herself. She didn't fall, but the skirt
of her dress was soaked almost to the waist.

 

 

She was crying now. But Gerry was not satisfied. Three times he
body-checked her, and each time she recovered nimbly. Then he barged into
her and she toppled flat on her back, the water closing over her head.

 

 

She came up, wailing like a child. The boy, apparently satisfied now
that she was soaked through, turned and waded back toward the bank. But
when she followed, he turned and barged into her again, and once more
the water closed over her. Fletcher stood up.

 

 

The youth's game now was to turn as if to go ashore, and every time the
girl tried to get past him, nudge her and make her fall again. As he
turned for the fourth time he saw Fletcher striding down the sandbank
straight toward him..

 

 

He hesitated. Their eyes met. The boy waded ashore, making a detour to
avoid Fletcher. Fletcher moved a few steps to meet him. The youth caught
his eye again.

 

 

Defiantly the boy made a rude gesture and strode away.

 

 

Fletcher waited for the girl to wade in. Her white dress was dull gray
now, limp and bedraggied. She was crying and shivering.

 

 

He started to unzip his anorak. "Put this on," he said. "You'll . . . "

 

 

She looked at him and the incident at the telephone box was repeated. The
gift shielded her eyes, stepped back into the water to avoid him, twisted,
ran, stumbled in the water and nearly fell again, then reached the sand
and rushed away without looking back.

 

 

Fletcher winced. He had been angry at the senseless cruelty of the youth
Gerry, but his feelings toward the girl were entirely protective and
sympathetic. It hurt that she ran from him as if from the devil.

 

 

It hurt most because she was the first young person to run from him. Was
he to end up as a leper shunned even by children? Would even Judy cower
away from him in time?

 

 

No longer taking any pleasure in the day or his surroundings, suddenly
tired, he turned for home. Well, hardly home. Had he ever really had
a home?

 

 

Of course he had lived for many years in a Home. It was one of the
ironies of the English language that when a thing was called what it
clearly was not, it was given a capital letter.

 

 

Suddenly he thought it would be very pleasant to talk to Judy. Judy liked
him. He even suspected, incredulously, that she adored him. Undoubtedly
Mrs. MacDonald, who did not fear but was uneasy with him, had told her
to keep out of his way. But this, like the millions of other things the
harassed widow had told Judy in the last thirteen years, had dropped
into the bottomless well that was Judy's mind, never to emerge again.

 

 

Judy was delighted to see him. She proved it by switching off the blaring
radio, remembering by some miracle that he hated pop music.

 

 

She loved to hear him reciting French poetry. She even understood,
in a vague general way, what some of the poems were about.

 

 

She sat on the bed, clutching her sore leg, as he recited. She had not
put on the tipped nylons again, and as she rocked gently in time with
the meter, he was able for a while, to rest his eyes on her with pleasure
as if she were still the lovely, sexless child she had been last year.

 

 

Once when he reached the end of a Verlaine poem she said: "Why is it
you talk French so much better than you speak English?"

 

 

"I don't really, Judy."

 

 

"Yes, you do. When you talk French your voice goes all warm and deep
and exciting. Did you ever live in France?"

 

 

"For a few months."

 

 

"Why didn't you stay there?"

 

 

It was a key question, but he couldn't answer it because he didn't know
the answer. He should have stayed in France, or in Germany. Returning to
England was one of the many mistakes he had made in life, the mistakes
he was compelled to make. John Fletcher could never do anything right;
it was obligatory for him to make a mess of everything.

 

 

He had been happy, even reasonably successful, for him, on the
Continent. So of course he had returned to England.

 

 

 

 

The psychology department was one of the new buildings at the university,
a block standing alone among trees and grassland in the extensive grounds.
As Fletcher approached it a youth came out of the main door and hurried
away along one of the avenues. Fletcher paid no attention to him at first,
but after a slow double-take stared after him. The youth obliged by
glancing back over his shoulder, at the building, not at Fletcher,
and Fletcher got a good look at him.

 

 

It was Gerry, the youth who had pushed the girl in the white dress into
the water.

 

 

Fletcher sighed. He was not surprised. The coincidence, to him, was
unremarkable. Such things were always happening. No doubt he would meet
the girl in the white dress again, too.

 

 

Then he remembered: he was not going to be meeting many more people. Many
of the things he was doing, perhaps most of them, were being done for the
last time. He had very little time left.

 

 

Baudaker met him in the hall, impatient, eager, yet hesitant and
nervous. Putting out a cigarette as Fletcher appeared, he lit another.

 

 

"Mr. Fletcher!" he said, pumping his hand. "I'm so glad you came."

 

 

Since surprise and relief seemed to be implicit, Fletcher said: "I told
you I was coming, didn't I?"

 

 

"Yes, but . . . Well, never mind. I've got half a dozen volunteers to
help me, students who are interested . . . well, I'd better have a word
with you about them first. In here."

 

 

Fletcher followed him into a tiny room full of filing cabinets.

 

 

"That young fellow who just left," said Fletcher. "Name of Gerry. You
don't know him, by any chance?"

 

 

"Not very well," said Baudaker quietly. "I should know him much better.
I wish I did. He's my son."

 

 

"I saw him with a girl today."

 

 

"That would be Sheila."

 

 

There was restraint in Baudaker's manner. He didn't want to talk about
Gerry. At another time Fletcher would have been curious. However, he was
there for one purpose only, to find out if he really did have special
talents, as Baudaker so strongly believed.

 

 

"You wanted to tell me about the students," he said.

 

 

"Yes. I've told them to regard you merely as a subject, and I'd like you
to treat them as . . . well, machines. I don't want any personal factors
to intrude, so I won't introduce you and the students will work mainly
in shadow."

 

 

"Are there any girls?"

 

 

"Two. And four men."

 

 

"You don't even want me to look at them?"

 

 

"Not any more than you can help. Naturally, you know who I am, and I
know you, and because of that I'll take no part in the tests. Another
thing -- any factor which disturbs you, let me know about. If you find
it too light, too dark, too warm, too cool . . . "

 

 

"All that disturbs me," said Fletcher, "is your chain-smoking, Baudaker. I
don't smoke. I never have. I'm choking already."

 

 

"Oh." Baudaker stubbed out his cigarette. "I'll try not to. When I want
a cigarette I'll go out. The students . . . "

 

 

"I don't mind ordinary smokers," said Fletcher. "You smoke all the time.
I'd forgotten that, but I remember now. What sort of tests do you want
to make? Umpteen different kinds, I suppose?"

 

 

"No, on the contrary, what I'd like to obtain is statistical proof of a
certain theory. Therefore I want to concentrate on one type of test. I
want to run a long series of tests with the ESP cards. Five symbols,
twenty-five cards in a pack: a rather old device, but it was in the
tests we did with those cards before that the most interesting . . . "

 

 

He shut himself off. "You must understand, Mr. Fletcher, I mustn't tell
you what I expect to find. In fact, I'd better not say any more. It might
invalidate everything."

 

 

"I remember the cards. Not very exciting. No inkblots, word association,
clairvoyance tests, telepathy?"

 

 

"The ESP cards can be a test of both clairvoyance and telepathy . . . but
please, Mr. Fletcher, don't make me say any more just now. Shall we get
started?"

 

 

He led Fletcher to a large, rather poorly lit room in which the six
students were arguing about something. They ceased abruptly as Baudaker
and Fletcher entered. Evidently Baudaker's instructions were going to
be followed precisely, for they scarcely looked at Fletcher and went
woodenly to various stations, some to sit at tables, some behind screens,
one to a tape-recorder.

 

 

They were all in shadow if not behind screens, and Fletcher saw he was
going to have no difficulty in regarding them as machines, even the girls.

 

 

First Baudaker showed Fletcher one of the ESP card packs, twenty-five cards
showing a star, cross, square, triangle or wavy lines, five of each.

 

 

"I remember," Fletcher said.

 

 

Behind a screen, the top of her blonde head just visible, one of the
girls looked at the twenty-five cards of a pack in turn, and Fletcher
said what he thought the card she was looking at was. Then one of the
men students silently held up each of the cards of another pack so that
Fletcher could see only the back and no one could see the symbol.

 

 

For Fletcher the whole thing was very tedious. He was never allowed to
know if he was right or not. The other seven found plenty to do. They
wrote copiously, used calculating machines, checked each other's work.
They replaced each other systematically as Fletcher's partner in the
test. Sometimes two or more of them stared at the same card, the symbol
of which Fletcher was to guess. Once all six students ran tests
simultaneously, and he was asked to name the cards in turn.