Dull resentment boiled inside him. At random, he sought some of the great names he had lived by: Einstein, Albert Schweitzer, Gandhi, Lincoln, John Donne. None was there. His rage increased. What did it signify? Were they condemned to Hell because they hadn’t been Followers of the Second Bab of Cheyenne, Wyoming?
Naturally. Only the Believers were saved. Everybody else, countless billions, were destined to sink into the corroding fires of Hell. The rows of smug names were the rustic provincials who made up the One True Faith. Trivial personalities, tiny blots of mediocrity nonentities…
One name was familiar. For a long time he stood staring at it, wondering in a troubled fashion what it meant; wondering, with growing concern, why it was there and what its presence meant.
Silvester, Arthur
The old war veteran! The severe old soldier lying in the hospital at Belmont. He was a charter member of the One True Faith,
It made sense. It made so much sense that, for a time, he could only stand gazing sightlessly up at the graven name.
Feebly, in a dim manner, he was beginning to see how the parts and pieces fitted together. The dynamics were swimming up into plain view. He had finally, at long last, found the structure.
The next step was getting back to Belmont. And finding Arthur Silvester.
* * * * *
At the Cheyenne airfield, Hamilton pushed all his money across the counter and said, “One-way ticket to San Francisco. The baggage compartment, if necessary.”
It lacked. But a quick telegram to Marsha brought the balance … and closed out his savings account. With the money came a cryptic, plaintive message: Maybe you shouldn’t come back. Something awful is happening to me.
He wasn’t particularly surprised … in fact, he had a good idea what it was.
The plane deposited him at the San Francisco airport just before noon. From there he took a Greyhound bus to Belmont. The front door of the house was locked; sitting despondently in the picture window was the yellow shape of Ninny Numbcat, watching him as he searched his pockets for his doorkey. Marsha was not in sight—but he knew she was there.
“I’m home,” he announced, when he had got the door open.
From the darkened bedroom came a faint, sniffling sob. “Darling, I’m going to die.” In the gloom, Marsha thrashed helplessly around. “I can’t come out. Don’t look at me. Please don’t look at me.”
Hamilton removed his coat and then picked up the telephone. “Get over here,” he said, when Bill Laws finally answered. “And round up all of the group you can. Joan Reiss, that woman and her son, McFeyffe if you can find him.”
“Edith Pritchet and her son are still at the hospital,” Laws told him. “God knows where some of the others are. Does it have to be now?” He explained, “I have a sort of hangover.”
“This evening, then.”
“Make it tomorrow,” Laws said. “Sunday’s soon enough. What’s up?”
“I think I’ve got this business figured out.”
“Just when I was beginning to enjoy it.” Ironically, Laws continued: “And tomorrow’s the big day in this hear place. Lordy, Lordy. We’uns am sho’ gwan to hab’ ourselfs a ball.”
“What’s wrong with you?”
“Nuthin”, suh.” Laws chuckled humorlessly. “Nuthin’ at all.”
“I’ll see you Sunday, then.” Hamilton hung up and turned toward the bedroom. “Come on out,” he called sharply to his wife.
“I won’t,” Marsha said with stubborn determination. “You can’t look at me. I’ve made up my mind.”
Standing in the entrance of the bedroom, Hamilton fumbled for his cigarettes. They were gone; he had left them with Silky. He wondered if she were still sitting in his Ford coupe, parked across the street from Father O’Farrel’s Non-Babiist Church. Perhaps she had seen him and McFeyffe rise to Paradise. But she was a sophisticated girl; she wouldn’t be surprised. So no harm was done—except that it might be a while before he got his car back.
“Come on, baby,” he said to his wife. “I’m hungry for some breakfast. And if it’s what I think it is—”
“It’s awful.” Loathing and pain shuddered through Marsha’s voice. “I was going to kill myself. Why? What have I done? What’s it punishment for?”
“It’s not punishment,” he told her gently. “And it’ll go away.”
“Really?” Slim hope touched her. “Are you positive?”
“If we handle this situation right. I’ll go sit in the living room with Ninny; well be waiting.”
“He’s seen, already,” Marsha said, in a strained, choked voice. “He’s disgusted.”
“Cats disgust easily.” Returning to the living room, Hamilton threw himself down on the couch and waited patiently. For a time nothing stirred. Then, from the dark bedroom, came the first sounds of ponderous movement. A shape, awkward and clumsy, was making its way forward. A pang of compassion rose in Hamilton’s breast. The poor darn creature … and not to understand it.
At the doorway, a figure emerged. Gross, squat, it stood facing him. Forewarned as he was, the shock overwhelmed him. The resemblance to Marsha was only slight. Was this tubby, bloated monstrosity his wife?
Tears leaked down her coarse cheeks. “What—” she whispered. “What’ll I do?”
Getting up, he came rapidly toward her. “It won’t last long. And you’re not the only one. Laws shuffles. And talks in dialect”
“I don’t care about Laws. I care about me.”
The change had touched every part of her. What had once been soft brown hair was now dirty, stringy fibers hanging over her neck and shoulders, an unclean tangle of twisted strands. Her skin was gray and pebbled, broken out with acne. Her body was a lumpy pudding, shapeless, grotesque. Her hands were immense, the nails chipped and blackened. Her legs were two white, furry columns that ended in massive flat feet Instead of her usual chic dress she wore a coarse wool sweater, stained tweed skirt, tennis shoes—and wrinkled bobby socks.
Hamilton walked critically around her. “It makes sense.”
“Is this God’s—”
“This has nothing to do with God. This has to do with an old war veteran named Arthur Silvester. A crackpot old soldier who believes in his religious cult and his stereotyped ideas. To him, people like you are dangerous radicals. And he has a very clear idea what a radical—a young radical woman—looks like.”
Marsha’s coarse features twisted painfully. “I look like—like a cartoon.”
“You’re what Silvester imagines a young radical college woman would look like. And he thinks all Negroes shuffle. This is going to be tough on all of us … unless we get out of Silvester’s world pretty damn soon, it’s going to be our finish.”
VIII
ON SUNDAY morning, Hamilton was awakened at the crack of dawn by a frenzied yammering that filled the house. As he crept stiffly from bed, he recalled that Bill Laws had predicted some dire event in the early hours of the Lord’s Day.
The blaring, screeching racket came from the living room. Entering, Hamilton found that the television set had miraculously turned itself on; the screen was alive with animation. Turgid blurs drifted and pulsed; the entire picture was an angry swirl of dangerous reds and purples. From the hi-fi speaker system came deafening thunder, relentless and impassioned, a genuine hellfire-and-damnation roar.
This, he realized, was a Sunday morning sermon. And the sermon was being delivered by (Tetragrammaton) Himself.
Turning the set down, he padded back to the bedroom to dress. In the bed, Marsha lay huddled in an unhappy heap, trying to evade the bright glare of sunlight filtering through the window. “Time to get up,” he informed her. “Don’t you hear the Almighty bellowing in the living room?”
“What’s He saying?” Marsha murmured crossly.
“Nothing in particular. Repent or suffer eternal damnation. The usual tribal tub-thumping.”
“Don’t watch me,” Marsha begged. “Turn your back while I dress. Good God, I’m a monster.?
??
In the living room, the television set had turned itself up full-blast again; nobody was going to interfere with the weekly harangue. Trying his best not to hear, Hamilton padded into the bathroom and went through the timeless routine of washing and shaving. He was back in the bedroom, getting on his clothes, when the door chimes rang.
“They’re here,” he said to Marsha.
Marsha, now dressed and struggling with her hair, gave an agonized wail. “I can’t face them. Make them go away.”
“Darling,” he told her firmly, lacing up his shoes, “if you hope to get your old self back—”
“You-all home?” Bill Laws’ voice came. “Ah jes’ push open de’ do’ an’ wahk raht in.”
Hamilton hurried into the living room. There was Laws, graduate student in advanced physics. Arms dangling at his sides, white eyeballs popping, knees bent, body lank and shambling, he grotesquely swiveled his way over to Hamilton.
“You-all looka yhar,” he told Hamilton. “Look, man, how Ah bin done in. This yhar goddam wuhl’ done kick me square in de ass.”
“Are you doing this on purpose?” Hamilton demanded, not sure whether to be amused or outraged.
“Puhpus?” The Negro gazed vacantly at him. “What you-all mean, Massah Hamilton?”
“You’re either completely in Silvester’s hands, or you’re the most cynical man I’ve ever met.”
Suddenly Laws’ eyes flickered. “Silvester’s hands? What do you mean?” His dialect was gone; instantly he was alert, tense. “I thought it was His Everlasting Majesty.”
“The dialect was an act, then?”
Laws’ eyes gleamed. “I’m beating it, Hamilton. The pull is there—I can feel it slipping in. But I’m going it one better.” At that moment he caught sight of Marsha. “Who’s that?”
Lamely, Hamilton explained, “My wife. This thing has hold of her.”
“Jesus,” Laws said softly. “What are we going to do?”
The door chimes sounded again. With a wail, Marsha disappeared back into the bedroom. This time it was Miss Reiss. Brisk and severe, she strode into the living room, dressed in a strict gray business suit, low heels, horn-rimmed glasses. “Good morning,” she said, in a clipped staccato. “Mr. Laws told me there is—” She broke off, surprised. “That racket.” She indicated the yammer and din of the television set. “It’s on yours, too?”
“Of course. He’s giving everybody the works.”
Noticeably, Miss Reiss relaxed. “I thought it was just me He had singled out”
Through the half-open front door came the pain-wracked shape of Charley McFeyffe. “Greetings,” he muttered. His now violently swollen jaw was bandaged. A white cloth was wrapped around his neck, pushed down inside his collar. Picking his way with care, he crossed the living room toward Hamilton.
“Can’t you beat it?” Hamilton asked sympathetically.
McFeyffe glumly shook his head. “Can’t.”
“What’s this all about?” Miss Reiss wanted to know. “Mr. Laws said you have something to tell us. Something about this peculiar conspiracy going on.”
“Conspiracy?” Hamilton eyed her uneasily. “That’s hardly the term for it.”
“I agree,” Miss Reiss said fervently, misunderstanding him. “It goes far beyond any mere conspiracy.”
Hamilton gave up. Going to the closed bedroom door he knocked urgently. “Come on out, sweetheart. Time to head for the hospital.”
After a tormented interval, Marsha emerged. She had put on a heavy overcoat and jeans, and in an attempt to conceal her ratty hair, she had tied it up in a red kerchief. She wore no make-up; it would have been a waste of time. “All right,” she said wanly. “I’m ready.”
* * * * *
Hamilton parked McFeyffe’s Plymouth in the hospital lot. As the five of them trooped across the gravel toward the hospital buildings, Bill Laws said, “Silvester is the key to all this?”
“Silvester is all this,” Hamilton said. “The dream you and Marsha had is the key. And various other facts-such as your shuffling, and her altered appearance. The status of the Second Babiists. This whole geocentric universe. I get the feeling that I know Arthur Silvester inside and out Mostly inside.”
“Are you positive?” Laws said doubtfully.
“All eight of us dropped into the proton beam of the Bevatron. During the interval there was only one consciousness, one frame of reference, for the eight of us. Silvester never lost consciousness.”
“Then,” Laws said practically, “we’re not actually here.”
“Physically, we’re stretched out on the floor of the Bevatron. But mentally, we’re here. The free energy of the beam turned Silvester’s personal world into a public universe. We’re subject to the logic of a religious crank, an old man who picked up a screwball cult in Chicago in the ‘thirties. We’re in his universe, where all his ignorant and pious superstitions function. We’re in the man’s head.” He gestured. “This landscape. This terrain. The convolutions of a brain; the hills and valleys of Silvester’s mind.”
“Oh, dear,” Miss Reiss whispered. “We’re in his power. He’s trying to destroy us.”
“I doubt if he’s aware of what’s happened. That’s the irony of it. Silvester probably sees nothing odd about this world. Why should he? It’s the private fantasy-world he’s lived in all his life.”
They entered the hospital building. Nobody was in sight; from all rooms boomed the aggressive roar of (Tetragrammaton)’s Sunday morning sermon.
“That’s right,” Hamilton admitted. “I forgot about that. We’ll have to be careful.”
The information desk was untended. Probably the whole staff was off watching the sermon. Examining the mechanical directory, Hamilton found Silvester’s room number. A moment later they were ascending in the silent hydraulic elevator.
The door to Arthur Silvester’s room was wide open. Inside sat the thin, upright old man, intently facing his television set. With him were Mrs. Edith Pritchet and her son David. Mrs. Pritchet and David fidgeted uneasily; with a sigh of weak relief they greeted the group as it filed into the room. Silvester, however, did not stir. Relentlessly, with fanatic sternness, he sat facing his God, absorbed in the angry swirl of bellicose, chest-beating sentiments that poured out into the room.
Clearly, Arthur Silvester was not surprised to find himself addressed by his Maker. It was obviously a part of his Sunday routine. On Sunday morning he ingested his week’s supply of spiritual nourishment.
David Pritchet strolled peevishly over to Hamilton. “Who the heck is that?” he demanded, pointing at the screen. “I can’t get with it.”
His mother, plump, middle-aged, sat daintily gnawing on a cored apple, her bland face devoid of comprehension. Except for a nebulous aversion to the dinning blare, she was indifferent to the phenomenon on the screen.
“It’s hard to explain,” Hamilton told the boy. “You probably never ran into Him before.”
The aged, bony skull of Arthur Silvester turned slightly; two harsh and uncompromising gray eyes fixed themselves on Hamilton. “No talking,” he said, in a voice that chilled Hamilton. Without another word, he turned back to the screen.
This was the man whose world they had got themselves into. For the first time since the accident, Hamilton felt authentic and unmistakable fear.
“Ah guess,” Laws muttered, out of the side of his mouth, “we-all am gwan tub heb’ tub listen tub this yhar speechifyin’.”
What Laws said appeared to be so. How long, once He had got the stage, did He customarily hold forth?
Ten minutes later Mrs. Pritchet had had all she could stand. With an exasperated moan, she climbed to her feet and made her way to the back of the room where the others stood.
“Good heavens,” she complained, “I never could abide those ranting evangelists. It doesn’t seem to me I’ve heard one so noisy in all my life.”
“He’ll give up,” Hamilton said, amused. “He’s getting winded.”
“Eve
rybody in this whole hospital is watching,” Mrs. Pritchet revealed, her face clouding into a displeased pout. “It’s not good for David … I’ve tried to bring him up to see the world rationally. This isn’t a good place for him.”
“No,” Hamilton agreed, “it certainly isn’t.”
“I want my son to be well educated,” she confided gushily, her ornate hat dancing and swaying. “I want him to know the great classics, to experience the beauties of life. His father was Alfred B. Pritchet; he did that wonderful rhymed translation of the Iliad. I think great art should play a part in the ordinary man’s life, don’t you? It can make his existence so much richer and more meaningful.”
Mrs. Pritchet was almost as much a bore as (Tetragrammaton).
Miss Joan Reiss, her back to the screen, said, “I just don’t think I can stand another minute of it. That awful old man sitting there lapping that rubbish up.” Her intense face twitched spasmodically. “I’d like to pick up something—anything—and smash it over his head.”
“Ma’am,” Laws told her, “dat dare ol’ man, he fix you-all up like you nevuh been fix’ up, iffen you-all do dat”
Mrs. Pritchet listened to Laws’ dialect with vapid pleasure. “Regional accents ring so sweetly on the ear,” she told him fatuously. “Where are you from, Mr. Laws?”
“Clinton, Ohio,” Laws said, losing his accent. He shot her a look of wrath; this was one reaction he hadn’t anticipated.
“Clinton, Ohio,” Mrs. Pritchet repeated, retaining her bland delight. “I’ve passed through there. Doesn’t Clinton have a very lovely opera company?”
As Hamilton turned back to his wife, Mrs. Pritchet was listing her favorite operas. “There’s a woman who wouldn’t notice if no world existed,” he said to Marsha.
He had spoken softly. But, at that moment, the roaring sermon came to an end. The muddled swirl of temper faded from the screen; in an instant the room dropped into silence. Hamilton was chagrined to hear his last words blare out noisily in the abrupt quiet.