In his mind Ian saw Nicole propped up in her enormous bed, in her pink, frilly robe, her breakfast on a tray beside her as she scanned the programme schedules presented to her for her approval. Already she's heard about us, he thought.
She knows of our existence.
In that case, we really do exist. Like a child that has to have its mother watching what it does, we're brought into being, validated consensually, by Nicole's gaze.
And when she takes her eye off us, he thought, then what? What happens to us afterwards? Do we disintegrate, sink back into oblivion? Back, he thought, into random, unformed atoms. Where we came from, the world of nonbeing, The world we've been in all our lives, up until now.
'And,' Al said, 'she may ask us for an encore. She may even request a particular favourite. I've researched it, and it seems she sometimes asks to hear Schumann's "The Happy Farmer." Got that in mind? We'd better work "The Happy Farmer" up, just in case.' He blew a few toots on his jug, thoughtfully.
'I can't do it,' Ian said abruptly. 'I can't go on. It means too much to me. Something will go wrong; we won't please her and they'll boot us out. And we'll never be able to forget.'
'Look,' Al began. 'We have the papoola. And that gives us -- ' He broke off. A tall, stoop-shouldered, elderly man in an expensive natural fibre-grey suit was coming up the sidewalk. 'My god, it's Luke himself,' Al said. He looked frightened. 'I've only seen him twice before in my life. Something must be wrong.'
'Better reel in the papoola,' Ian said. The papoola had begun to move towards Loony Luke.
With a bewildered expression on his face Al said, 'I can't.'
He fiddled desperately with the controls at his waist. 'It won't respond.'
The papoola reached Luke, and Luke bent down, picked it up and continued on towards the lot, the papoola under his arm.
'He's taken precedence over me,' Al said. He looked at Ian numbly.
The door of the office opened and Loony Luke entered.
'We got a report that you've been using this in your own time, for purposes of your own,' he said to Al, his voice low and gravelly. 'You were told not to do that; the papoola belongs to the lot, not to the operator.'
Al said, 'Aw, come on, Luke -- '
'You ought to be fired,' Luke said, 'but you're a good salesman so I'll keep you on. Meanwhile, you'll have to make your quota without help.' Tightening his grip on the papoola, he started out. 'My time is valuable; I have to go.'
He saw Al's jug. 'That's not a musical instrument; it's a thing to put whisky in.'
Al said, 'Listen, Luke, this is publicity. Performing for Nicole means that the network of jalopy jungles will gain prestige. Got it?'
'I don't want prestige,' Luke said, pausing at the door. 'There's no catering to Nicole Thibodeaux by me; let her run her society the way she wants and I'll run the jungles the way I want. She leaves me alone and I'll leave her alone and that's fine with me. Don't mess it up. Tell Slezak you can't appear and forget about it; no grown man in his right senses would be hooting into an empty bottle anyhow.'
'That's where you're wrong,' Al said. 'Art can be found in the most mundane daily walks of life, like in these jugs for instance.'
Luke, picking his teeth with a silver toothpick, said, 'Now you don't have a papoola to soften the First Family up for you. Better think about that. Do you really expect to make it without the papoola?' He grinned.
After a pause Al said to Ian, 'He's right. The papoola did it for us. But -- hell, let's go on anyhow.'
'You've got guts,' Luke said. 'But no sense. Still, I have to admire you. I can see why you've been a top-notch salesman for the organization; you don't give up. Take the papoola the night you perform at the White House and then return it to me the next morning.' He tossed the round, buglike creature to Al; grabbing it, Al hugged it against his chest like a big pillow. 'Maybe it would be good publicity for the jungles,' Luke said meditatively. 'But I know this. Nicole doesn't like us. Too many people have slipped out of her hands by means of us; we're a leak in mama's structure and mama knows it.' Again he grinned, showing gold teeth.
Al said, 'Thanks, Luke.'
'But I'll operate the papoola,' Luke said. 'By remote. I'm a little more skilled than you; after all, I built them.'
'Sure,' Al said. 'I'll have my hands full playing anyhow.'
'Yes,' Luke said, 'you'll need both hands for that bottle.'
Something in Luke's tone made Ian Duncan uneasy.
What's he up to? he wondered. But in any case he and his buddy Al Miller had no choice; they had to have the papoola working for them. And no doubt Luke could do a good job operating it; he had already proved his superiority over Al, just now, and as Luke said, Al would be busy blowing away on his jug. But still ...
'Loony Luke,' Ian said, 'have you ever met Nicole?' It was a sudden thought on his part, an intuition.
'Sure,' Luke said steadily. 'Years ago. I had some hand puppets; my dad and I travelled around putting on puppet shows. We finally played the White House.'
'What happened there?' Ian asked.
Luke, after a pause, said, 'She -- didn't care for us. Said something about our puppets being indecent.'
And you hate her, Ian realized. You never forgave her.
'Were they?' he asked Luke.
'No,' Luke answered. 'True, one act was a strip show; we had follies girl puppets. But nobody ever objected before. My dad took it hard but it didn't bother me.' His face was impassive.
Al said, 'Was Nicole the First Lady that far back?'
'Oh yes,' Luke said. 'She's been in office for seventy-three years; didn't you know that?'
'It isn't possible,' both Al and Ian said, almost together.
'Sure it is,' Luke said. 'She's a really old woman, now. Must be. A grandmother. But she still looks good, I guess. You'll know when you see her.'
Stunned, Ian said, 'On TV -- '
'Oh yeah,' Luke agreed. 'On TV she looks around twenty. But go to the history books ... except of course they're banned to everyone except Ges. I mean the real history texts; not the ones they give you for studying for those relpol tests. Once you look it up you can figure it out for yourself. The facts are all there. Buried down somewhere.'
The facts, Ian realized, mean nothing when you can see with your own eyes she's as young-looking as ever. And we see that every day.
Luke you're lying, he thought. We know it; we all know it.
My buddy Al saw her; Al would have said, if she was really like that. You hate her; that's your motive. Shaken, he turned his back to Luke; not wanting to have anything more to do with the man now. Seventy-three years in office -- that would make Nicole almost ninety, now. He shuddered at the idea; he blocked it out of his thoughts. Or at least he tried to.
'Good luck, boys,' Luke said, chewing on his toothpick.
It's too bad, Al Miller thought, that the government cracked down on those psychoanalysts. He glanced across his office at his buddy Ian Duncan. Because you're in a bad way, Al realized. But actually there was one of them left; he had heard about it over TV. Dr Superb or something like that.
'Ian,' he said. 'You need help. You're not going to be able to blow that jug for Nicole, not the way you're feeling.'
'I'll be okay,' Ian said shortly.
Al said, 'Ever been to a psychiatrist?'
'Couple times. Long ago.'
'You think they're better than chemical therapy?'
'Anything's better than chemical therapy.'
If he's the only psychoanalyst still practising in the entire USEA, Al thought, he's no doubt swamped. Couldn't possibly take on any new patients.
However, for the heck of it, he looked up the number, picked up his phone and dialled.
'Who're you calling?' Ian asked suspiciously.
'Dr Superb. The last of the -- '
'I know. Who's it for? You? Me?'
'Both of us maybe,' Al said.
'But primarily for me.'
Al did not answer. A girl's image --
she had lovely, enlarged, high-rise breasts -- had formed on the screen and in his ear her voice said, 'Dr Superb's office.'
'Is the doctor accepting any new patients at this time?' Al asked, scrutinizing her image fixedly.
'Yes he is,' the girl said in a vigorous, firm tone of voice.
'Terrific!' Al said, pleased and surprised. 'I and my partner would like to come in, whenever it's possible; the sooner the better.' He gave her his name and Ian's.
'What about Friday at nine-thirty in the morning?' the girl asked.
'It's a deal,' Al said. 'Thanks a lot, miss. Ma'am.' He hung up violently. 'We got it!" he said to Ian. 'Now we can thrash our worries out with someone qualified to render a professional assist. You know, talk about mother image -- did you see that girl? Because -- '
'You can go,' Ian said. 'I'm not.'
Al said quietly, 'If you don't go, I'm not playing my jug at the White House. So you better go.'
Ian stared at him.
'I mean it,' Al said.
There was a long, awkward silence.
'I'll go,' Ian said, at last. 'But once only. No more after this Friday.'
'That's up to the doctor.'
'Listen,' Ian said. 'If Nicole Thibodeaux is ninety years old no psychotherapy is going to help me.'
'You're that much involved emotionally with her? A woman you've never seen? That's schizophrenic. Because the fact is you're involved with -- ' Al gestured. 'An illusion. Something synthetic, unreal.'
'What's unreal and what's real? To me she's more real than anything else; than you, even. Even than myself, my own life.'
'Holy smoke,' Al said. He was impressed. 'Well, at least you have something to live for.'
'Right,' Ian said, and nodded.
'We'll see what Superb says on Friday,' Al said. 'We'll ask him just how schizophrenic -- if at all -- it is.' He shrugged.
'Maybe I'm wrong; maybe it isn't.' Maybe it's Luke and I who are the insane ones, he thought. To him, Luke for example, was much more real, much more an influencing factor, than Nicole Thibodeaux. But then, he had seen Nicole in the flesh, and Ian had not. That made all the difference, although he was not sure quite why.
He picked up his jug and began practising once more.
And, after a pause, Ian Duncan did the same, joining in.
Together, they puffed away.
CHAPTER 10
The Army Major, thin, small and erect, said, 'Frau Thibodeaux, this is the Reichsmarschall, Herr Hermann Goering.'
The heavily built man, wearing -- incredibly -- a toga-style white robe and holding on a leather leash what appeared to be a lion cub, stepped forward and said in German, 'I am glad to meet you, Mrs Thibodeaux.'
'Reichsmarschall,' Nicole said, 'do you know where you are at this moment?'
'Yes,' Goering nodded. To the lion cub he said severely, 'Sei ruhig, Marsi.' He fussed with the cub, calming it.
All this Bertold Goltz watched. He had gone slightly ahead in his time, by use of his own von Lessinger equipment; he had become impatient waiting for Nicole to arrange the transfer of Goering. Here it was now; or rather, here it would be in seven more hours.
It was easy, possessing von Lessinger equipment, to penetrate the White House despite its NP guards; Goltz had merely gone far back into the past, before the White House existed, and then had returned to this near future. He had done such a thing several times already and would do it again; he knew that because he had run on to his future self, caught in the act. It amused him, that meeting; not only was he able to observe Nicole freely but he could also observe his past and future selves -- the future, at least, in terms of possibility.
Of potentiality, rather than actuality. The vista spread out for his inspection of the perhaps.
They will make a deal, Goltz decided. Nicole and Goering; the Reichsmarschall, taken first from 1941 and then from 1944, will be shown the ruined Germany of 1945, will see the end in store for the Nazis -- will see himself in the dock at Nuremberg, and, at last, will view his own suicide by a poison carried in a rectal suppository. This will rather influence him, to say the least. A deal will not be difficult to hatch out; the Nazis, even normally, were experts at deals.
A few miracle weapons from the future, appearing at the end of World War Two, and the Age of Barbarism would last -- not thirteen years -- but, as Hitler had sworn, a thousand. A death ray, laser beams, hydrogen bombs in the 100 megaton range ... would assist the armed forces of the Third Reich considerably. Plus, of course, the A-1 and the A-2; or, as the Allies had called them, the V-1 and V-2. Now the Nazis would have an A-3, A-4, and so on, without limit, if necessary.
Goltz frowned. For, in addition to this, other possibilities, murky and dense, spread out parallel with an almost occult darkness surrounding them. What did these less-likely futures consist of? Dangerous, and yet surely better than the clear one, the track laden with miracle weapons. 'You, there,' a White House NP man called, suddenly catching sight of Goltz, as he stood partially concealed in the corner of the Bog Orchid Room. The guard instantly whipped out a pistol and took aim.
The conference between Thibodeaux, Goering, and four military advisors, abruptly terminated. All turned towards Goltz and the NP man.
'Frau,' Goltz said, a parody of Goering's greeting. He stepped forth, confidently; after all, he previewed this with his von Lessinger gear. 'You know who I am. The spectre at the feast.' He chuckled.
But of course the White House possessed von Lessinger equipment, too; they had anticipated this, just as he had.
This exposure had in it the element of fatality. It could not be avoided; no alternate tracks branched off, here ... not that Goltz wished for them. Long ago he had learned that ultimately there was no future for him in anonymity.
'Some other time, Goltz,' Nicole said with distaste.
'Now,' Goltz said, walking towards her.
The NP man glanced at her for instructions; he appeared highly confused.
Nicole waved him irritably.
'Who is this?' The Reichsmarschall inquired, studying Goltz.
Goltz said, 'Just a poor Jew. Not like Emil Stark, who I notice is not here, Nicole, despite your promise. There are many poor Jews, Reichsmarschall. In your time and ours both. I have nothing of cultural or economic value which you can confiscate; no art work, no Geld. Sorry.' He seated himself at the conference table and poured a glass of ice water from the pitcher at hand.
'Is your pet, Marsi, feral? Ja oder nein?'
'No,' Goering said, petting the cub expertly, He had sat down, placing the cub on the table before him; it curled up obediently, its eyes half-closed.
'My presence,' Goltz said, 'my Jewish presence, is unwanted. I wonder why Emil Stark isn't here. Why not. Nicole?' He eyed her. 'Did you fear to offend the Reichsmarschall? Strange ... after all, Himmler dealt with Jews in Hungary, through Eichmann. And there is a Jewish general in the Reichsmarschall's Luftwaffe, a certain General Milch. True, Herr Reichmarschall?' He turned to Goering.Looking peeved, Goering said, 'I wouldn't know about Milch; he's a good man -I can say that much.'
'You see,' Bertold Goltz said to Nicole, 'Herr Goering is accustomed to dealing with Juden. Right, Herr Goering? You don't have to answer; I've observed it for myself.'
Goering glared at him sourly.
'Now this deal -- ' Goltz began.
'Bertold,' Nicole interrupted savagely, 'get out of here! I've let your street fighters roam at will -- I'll have them rounded up if you interfere with this. You know what my objective is here. You of all people ought to approve.'
'But I don't,' Goltz said.
One of the Army advisors snapped, 'Why not?'
'Because,' Goltz said, 'once the Nazis have won World War Two by your aid, they will massacre the Jews anyhow.
And not just those in Europe and White Russia but in England and the United States and Latin America as well.' He spoke calmly. After all, he had seen it, had explored, by means of his von Lessinger equipment, several of these dreadful a
lternative futures. 'Remember, the objective in the war for the Nazis was the extermination of World Jewry; it was not merely a byproduct.'
There was silence.
To the NP man, Nicole said, 'Get him now.'
The NP man, pointing his gun, fired at Goltz.
Goltz, timing it perfectly, at the same instant the gun was pointed at him made contact with the von Lessinger effect surrounding him. The scene, with its participants, blurred and was lost. He remained in the same room, the Bog Orchid, but the people were gone. He was alone, yet now in the midst of the elusive ghosts of the future, summoned by the device.
He saw, in deranged procession, the psychokinetic Richard Kongrosian involved in weird situations, first with his rituals of cleansing and then with Wilder Pembroke; the Commissioner of the NP had done something, but Goltz could not make out what. And then he saw himself, first holding vast authority and then abruptly, unaccountably, dead. Nicole, too, drifted past his range of vision, altered in various new ways which he could not comprehend. Death seemed to exist everywhere in the future, a potential awaiting everyone it seemed. What did this signify? An hallucinosis? The collapse of certitude appeared to lead directly to Richard Kongrosian. It was an effect of the psychokinetic power, a distortion of fabric of the future produced by the man's parapsychological talent.
If Kongrosian knew, Goltz thought. Strength of this sort a mystery even to the owner. Kongrosian, tangled in the maze of his mental illness, virtually unable to function and yet still imposing, still looming vastly on the landscape of the tomorrows, of our days ahead. If I could only penetrate this, Goltz realized. This man who is -- will become -- the cardinal enigma for all of us ... then I would have it. The future would no longer consist of imperfect shades, blended in configurations which customarily reason -- mine, anyhow -- can never manage to untangle.
In his room at Franklin Aimes Neuropsychiatric Hospital, Richard Kongrosian declared aloud, 'I am totally invisible now.' He held up his hand and arm, saw nothing. 'It's come,' he added. And he did not hear his voice; that, too, was imperceptible. 'What should I do now?' he asked the four walls of his room.