Nothing So Strange (23 page)

He didn’t speak for a while and I asked him why Newby did so much
listening.

“It’s his job. Psychiatrists aren’t supposed to have any manners or
decencies—one doesn’t expect them to, but Newby has embarrassments,
which makes everything rather worse.” He laughed. “You know, if an ordinary
person hears you yelling in your sleep he wakes you, but a psychiatrist comes
rushing into the room with a notebook and pencil to take it all down.”

“Does Newby do that?”

“Practically. But I don’t think he’s got much out of it so far. Matter of
fact, I fool him a good bit. Whenever he comes in with trick questions I give
him trick answers.”

“He probably knows you’re only joking.”

“He never knows anybody’s only joking. The man has no sense of humor at
all. That’s why it’s such a holiday to be away from him.”

“I’m glad you feel it is. It’s wonderful to see you in such good
spirits.”

“I’m not really in good spirits. I’m damned low.”

“I’m sorry then. I hope you’re going to enjoy staying at the house. Nobody
will bother you there. And if you yell in the night I’ll probably hear and
I’ll rush in to wake you, but I won’t listen to anything, I promise
that.”

We drove on through the gathering dusk, and at the level of the pines the
mountain air had a touch of ice in it. Then the sun dipped, and the last few
miles were in darkness.

Vista Grande was dim and cool, sheltered a little in its high valley. We
had rum cocktails on the terrace, where there were patches of warm air
lingering from the day; I introduced him to Dan, and he said afterwards: “I
like the look of Dan. Where did you get him from?”

“I haven’t an idea. For all I know my father took him with the house.”

“How is your father, by the way?”

“Fairly well … or rather, not very well. You’ll notice a
difference.”

“So will he, I expect.”

I wondered if this meant that he regretted the angry letter but I thought
it better not to let him know I knew anything about it.

Then my father joined us, Dan helping him. He and Brad shook hands and the
ticklish moment passed without awkwardness. But I soon noticed that my
father’s presence seemed to put a damper on the conversation, so I filled in
most of the gaps with chatter of my own. As the dinner progressed I noticed
also a peculiar waywardness in the remarks Brad occasionally made—not
the flashing, puckish waywardness that my mother used to have, but something
sharper, acider—as if, out of a tired distillation of his day’s events,
the last drops were bitter. I did not think he would enjoy the usual after-
dinner hour in the library listening to the radio, and when my father
suggested it I was not surprised that he excused himself and said he would go
to bed early. I took him upstairs to his room. He said: “Tell him I’m sleepy.
I’ve had enough of the radio. At the hospital it was on day in, day out. I
used to count the number of times the announcers said ‘And now’ and ‘But
first.’ And now, but first. But first, and now.”

I left him muttering that, before and after he said good-night.

The next morning I found him already on the terrace when I
came down; he
was admiring the view and talking to Dan. He said he had slept well and I
said I hadn’t heard any yells from his room, but maybe that was because I had
slept well too. He answered seriously: “It doesn’t often happen. The yells, I
mean. Only when I dream of flying—or people watching me.”

“
Watching
you?”

“Yes—I’m supposed to have what Newby calls a persecution complex.
Everybody watching, listening, waiting, setting traps. And they do, too.
That’s what I tell him when he says I have hallucinations about being spied
on all the time—how can it be a hallucination when
he
spies on
me all the time?”

“A nice question for a psychiatrist.”

“And he couldn’t answer it, naturally. He’s not much good. I told you I
fool him. He keeps on asking if I’m getting over my fear of flying. Once I
said yes, I’d like to go up again, because I wanted to be a skywriter, I
wanted to write an obscene word in the sky. I spelled it out for him. He was
fascinated. I could imagine him telling his fellow psychiatrists about a most
remarkable case he had, a patient with a unique exhibitionist symptom…. I
got a lot of fun out of it.”

“But it wasn’t quite fair,” I said, “even to Newby. After all, what
science would ever get anywhere if people fed it with deliberately wrong
information?”

“Ah,” he said, with sudden harsh intensity that made me feel I had touched
a wrong note somehow or other. “But who’s talking about science? Psychiatry
isn’t a science. It’s a conspiracy.”

He glared, as if waiting for me to say something, and I was anxious now
not to blunder again. “Well?” he continued. “Are you going to tell me that
science is a conspiracy too?”

“Of course not. Why should I?”

“Because it would be a damned good answer—for this day and age.”

His face was clouded over and I devoutly wished I hadn’t begun the
argument. Dan brought breakfast and we ate for a while in silence. Then he
said moodily: “What does one do in a place like this all the time?”

“Anything one likes. I haven’t been here long enough yet to establish a
routine.”

“Ever take walks nowadays?”

“Like the one we had once from Cambridge that day? Not often. I don’t
believe I’ve ever walked so far since…. Do
you
still keep it up?” I
realized the absurdity of the question and added: “I mean,
did
you,
before—before you were in the hospital?”

“Before I was in the hospital I was in the army and they walk you plenty
during training…. In Alabama, that was. Too flat. I prefer mountains.”

“Cambridge to where we walked was flat.”

That proved another conversational blind alley. I broke the silence this
time. I said: “Have you done any mountain climbing?”

“Yes.”

Then the dark mood spread over him like some final curtain, and I knew
there
was
something wrong with him, something on his
mind—perhaps even, as Newby had said, something he was trying to hide.
I wondered how I could approach the barrier, but then I decided the best
thing was probably not to approach it at all, but to let it stay till he
liked it between us as little as I did, if that feeling should ever come to
him.

I said cheerfully: “Well, you can swim or sun-bathe or read or play some
game or just do nothing.”

“And what about you?”

“I’ll do whatever you do, unless you’d rather be left alone.”

“No, no, of course not.” He put his hand on mine across the table—a
gesture instead of an answering look. “But I’m afraid I won’t always be very
good company.”

“Oh, Brad, don’t talk like that. Good company is being with people you
like. I like you, that’s enough.”

“Do you play chess?”

“Not very well.”

We played most of the morning, and of course he beat me so easily it must
have been as boring to him as it certainly was to me; not that I was bored by
being bored, which is the main thing. Then Dan came by and watched our game,
and Brad asked him if
he
played. It seemed he did, and I was glad to
resign in his favor; moreover he played so well that I knew I shouldn’t be
asked again. I sat around, reading the papers and wondering what kind of film
would eventually be made out of my book. Then we had lunch, and in the
afternoon Brad took a nap; my father joined us for cocktails and dinner,
after which Brad went to bed early again. It wasn’t exactly an exciting day,
but doubtless the kind that would do him good—more good, anyhow, than
being psychoanalyzed all the time.

It was several days before he suggested any variant of chess. Then one
morning, when the sky was unusually clear, he pointed to the snow peaks in
the distance and asked what they were, how far and how high. I told him and
fetched maps. “We could drive as far as here,” he said, pointing, “and then
climb this way if there’s a trail….”

“And Dan will lend us his car and we can take a picnic basket….”

“Rucksacks,” he said.

“I’ll see if there are any.”

“Have you enough gas?”

“Oh yes,” I said, with no qualms at all.

Dan managed to find rucksacks and by ten o’clock we were on the road. We
drove the length of the Modena Valley and then through winding foothills to a
ridge whence the mountains heaved up in a huge panorama. I asked him if he
would like to drive, but he said no, he felt sleepy; and for half an hour he
did sleep. I think there is a peculiar happiness in seeing people asleep when
you like them and they are in your charge; there aren’t many ways it can
happen, but a car provides one even when the other person snores and you can
only give a half-glance now and again because the road is narrow and winding
and has precipices on one side. He woke when we were almost at the place on
the map. “You’ve been asleep,” I said.

“Yes, but I didn’t dream.”

I said nothing, and he went on: “I’m so used to that question—what
did you dream? I invent dreams too, just to give Newby something to think
about.”

“Is it worth it?”

“Is what worth what?”

“The effort of inventing dreams just to give Newby something to think
about.”

He laughed. “I didn’t dream just now, anyway. I’d have told you if I
had.”

“I don’t see why you would. I wouldn’t want to tell all the dreams
I
have.”

We parked the car where the paved road ended in a dirt track that led
steeply upward. There was no other car, or any sign of habitation. We hitched
up the rucksacks and began to climb. The sun was hot through the cool air,
giving every breath a chance of being warm or cold. After a mile or so the
dirt track narrowed to a trail that zigzagged through the chaparral;
presently came the first manzanita with its reddish trunk and olive-drab
leaves. He said that was a sign we were above a certain height, I forget how
much, because I was thinking of an even happier sign—that he had a
trace left of his old lecture urge. I asked him a few leading questions and
he talked on about trees, but soon the trail grew too steep for conversation.
We came to a gap where a valley opened out. The snowpeaks were now so near
that we knew how far they were, and that we couldn’t possibly reach any of
them and get back that day. I said we should have started earlier.

“Next time,” he answered indifferently, but I liked the indifference
because he had assumed there would be a next time.

We sat on a patch of grass, ate sandwiches, and drank coffee out of a
thermos. Then we smoked, and he went to immense trouble to stamp out the
stubs. I am just as careful as anyone about brush fires, but I do it with
less commotion. However, it was good to see him fidgeting. Presently he lay
on his back and closed his eyes till a plane flew over, too high to see but
loud enough to look for. I wondered if he had any fear of planes, as such, or
as a symbol of something, or if it were only a matter of flying in them; and
I wanted to be frank with him about my own flying. I was just about to be
when he said suddenly: “I suppose you knew that Pauli died.”

I lay down also looking up to the sky. “Yes, I heard so. I was terribly
sorry.”

He said nothing for several moments; then I said: “Is that what’s been on
your mind, Brad?”

He shook his head, irritably rather than in denial; then he exclaimed:
“What’s the matter with me? Do I look as if there’s something on my mind?
There ought to be something on everybody’s mind, anyhow.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. He went on: “They follow me around
expecting me to spill the beans.
What
beans? They’re going to spill
their own beans soon … human beans.” He laughed. “That must be a joke.
Newby would get out his notebook.”

I still didn’t speak. He continued: “You’re a good listener. Yet you don’t
look like Newby when you’re listening—ears pricked up, memory all at
attention…. I guess you’re just casually interested in me.”

“Not so casual.”

“Casual enough. I like it.”

There was yet another silence and presently he raised himself on one elbow
to look at me. “I’d say there was something on
your
mind too.”

“Well, I’d like to smoke again, but if you’re going to worry about setting
fire to the mountains I won’t bother.”

“I’ll trust you.”

“I think you can.” So I lit a cigarette. “And I mean that, too, Brad. If
there
is
anything you want to tell me … about anything.”

“Is there anything you’d like to know … about anything?”

“Oh, plenty. I haven’t an idea what happened to you after we said good-by
in Vienna seven years ago. I was barred, you know, from going back.”

“Yes, I heard. You were against them and they thought I was for them.
Where were you when the war started?”

“Which war? Nineteen thirty-nine or nineteen forty-one?”

“Nineteen thirty-nine.”

“I was in Brazil.”

“Writing?”

“More or less.”

“You’ve been around, haven’t you?”

“I’ve been around, but I don’t know exactly where it’s got me…. Perhaps
back to where I started. Living in my father’s house amidst all the luxuries
… and taking walks with you…. That’s how it did start.”

“But it’s so damned different now.”

“Of course. I was only joking.”

“
Joking
?”

“Well, your joke was worse—about human beans.”

I had noticed before that there were certain things that made his face
cloud over, as if some hidden nerve had been touched. I said hastily: “Let’s
not talk about my life, anyway. Most of it’s in my book—which, by the
way, I thought you’d read.”

“Parts of it. I find I can’t concentrate on reading nowadays.”

“You find chess easier?”

“Not easier—but less troubling.”

“What
really
troubles you, Brad?”