The Link (52 page)

He removes a slip of paper from his billfold and unfolds it. “This statement was made by Sir William Crookes around the turn of the century,” he says. He reads it aloud.

“Will not my critics give me credit for some amount of common sense? Do they not imagine that the obvious precautions which occur to them as soon as they sit down to pick holes in my experiments have occurred to me also in the course of my prolonged and patient investigation?”

He folds the slip of paper and returns it to his billfold. “I propose that we continue,” he says.

“So much for the intent of your Workshop,” Robert says as they drive home that afternoon. “Unassailable by science, my foot.”

“The Workshop isn’t going to die because of Stafford,” she responds.

“Stay tuned for a full report on Westheimer’s program tonight,” Robert says.

“It was disappointing, I admit,” she says.

“Disappointing?” he says. “Is that all it made you feel—disappointment? He had a knife blade poised to plunge in ESPA’s back from the moment he arrived with Dirty Donald.”

“Perhaps he did,” she says. Still, her major disappointment is that a physicist of Stafford’s reputation is turning his back on psi. “We need them,” she says.

This makes Robert bristle and they get into an argument the gist of which is Cathy’s adamant refusal to go past a certain point in psi, her insistence on a strict materialistic explanation for every phenomenon in the field.

“I’m sorry, but that is the explanation,” Cathy says.

“No,” he tells her. She’s wrong. And if that’s where ESPA draws the line, he’s out of ESPA.

“Where are you going, Rob?” she asks. “What’s on the other side of the line? Spirit messages?”

He’s quiet for a few moments before he says, “I’ll pretend you didn’t say that.”

“I’m sorry,” she says. She doesn’t sound it.

“I believe there’s more,” he tells her. “And I’m going to find it. Tests and lab procedures aren’t enough for me anymore. I want to know more.”

“Like what?” she asks, irritably.

“Like where we came from and how we got here,”
he says.

She looks at him for a few moments, then gazes somberly through the windshield. He’s glad she doesn’t ask him to explain what he just said.

He has no idea whatever why he said it.

Robert decides to discontinue his association with ESPA and remains at home while Cathy continues working there, commuting to Manhattan by train; Robert drives her to the station each morning, picks her up each afternoon. Their relationship is becoming strained and Robert feels increasing guilt about it. He talked her into coming to the United States. Now he is, in a sense, leaving her high and dry.

Nonetheless, he is unable to return to ESPA. He attempts to start work on a book about their trip to Russia but loses interest quickly.

He visits Ann and winds up talking about it with her. He doesn’t know what to do, he tells her. If he accepts the will in order to read the journal, he is committing himself to Arizona and he isn’t sure that, in spite of what he feels, it might not be a sidetrack that would throw him off completely.

With her limited experience but, now, strong conviction about ESP, she can only suggest that he be true to his feelings. He hugs and kisses her and thanks her for the good advice.

The night of the day he sees her, he has either an OOBE or a dream, he isn’t certain which; it partakes of both.

He finds himself in the Arizona desert, walking across moonlit sands toward a distant temple wall.

Standing in front of the wall is his father.

Smiling.

Robert contacts Williker and tells him that he’s made up his mind; he’ll accept the terms of his father’s will.

He drives into the city and meets the lawyer, gets a packet of papers and discovers, to his stunned surprise, that part of the will includes ownership of the house in Flatbush. His father never sold it.

The journal is in a safety deposit box. The lawyer will send it to Robert in a few days.

Leaving Williker’s office, Robert goes to a phone booth and calls Ruth. Did she know that their father had never sold the Brooklyn house?

For the first time Robert can recall, there is a sound of alarm in Ruth’s voice as she tells him that she didn’t know that; she always thought they rented it.

Robert must not go there, she adds. He must sell the house immediately, using the money for the Arizona dig if that is what he means to do; though she can think of many “more spiritual” uses for the money.

“But don’t go into the house,” she says. “It can only do you harm.”

Struck by the urgency in her voice, Robert talks it over with Cathy at lunch; he has called her at ESPA.

Her response is not one of involvement with the house situation.

“You’re going to Arizona?” she asks.

“Just long enough to see if there is any reason for him to be there”, he answers. He tells her of the dream (or OOBE) he had the previous night. She nods but her expression remains one of distress.

“It won’t be that long,” he tells her. “It may be over in a few days.”

She is not convinced and their parting is a tense one.

He sits alone in the restaurant for a while, then, on impulse, checks a Brooklyn yellow page directory and picks out a realty office in the general vicinity of the house.

Calling them, he speaks to a lady realtor and tells her that he owns a house and wants to sell it.

She tells him that she’d like to look at it. He hesitates, then says he’ll show it to her.

“How about this afternoon?” she asks.

It is raining as he parks in front of the house.

Robert draws in ragged breath. “Wouldn’t you know it?” he says, nodding grimly.

He almost leaves, starting the motor again, muttering, “Forget it.”

Something stops him. “This is ridiculous,” he tells himself. He’s going to show the house to the realtor, period.

He removes the door key from its envelope and leaves his car. He gets a little wet propping open the gate, then hurries to the front porch and stands there waiting, looking at his wristwatch.

The lady realtor is not on time. Robert waits some more, then, impulsively, unlocks the front door and pushes it open.

The door thuds against the wall inside. He looks in. “No ghosts, please,” he mumbles.

The front hall is shadowy because of the overcast sky. Robert’s breath labors. He wants to go in. He doesn’t want to go in.

Curiosity gets the better of him. Quickly, his eyes avoiding the staircase, he enters and walks into the living room.

He shudders. It is like the dream become reality. The rain on the windows. The white curtains. The gloomy room. Only one thing missing. The music.

A truly eerie sequence as he walks through his old house. He has not been there for over thirty years yet it all seems familiar to him, every furnishing as he remembers it.

Each place he looks at reminds him of the past and we hear ghostlike sounds of voices, movements, laughter, the clink of dishes, the sound of a piano being played—sounds recalled from his childhood as he moves through the living room, the dining-family room, the kitchen.

He opens the cellar door in the kitchen and peers down into the black depths.

“No way,” he mutters, shivering as he closes the door.

He returns to the front hall. The lady realtor has still not arrived. He fills his chest with air; stands immobile. Then he turns and looks up at the head of the stairs.

Only shadows there. He blinks and sighs with relief. “If she’d been standing there—” he says. He swallows dryly.

He waits again. “Come on, come on,” he says.

The woman doesn’t come. Robert takes in heavy breaths again, braces himself.

Then he walks determinedly up the steps, covered with chills as he ascends, staring fixedly at the spot where his screaming mother had stood in his recurring dream, waiting to pounce on him.

He reaches the spot and stands there. Closes his eyes. “All right,” he says. He waits, opening himself to whatever may happen.

Nothing does. Just the silence of the gloomy house broken only by the faint spatter of rain on roof and windows.

He opens his eyes and looks down the hallway at the door to his mother’s room.

It stands ajar.

He is motionless. Does he dare? Breath shakes in him.

“Come on,” he tells himself in aggravation.

With a willful tread, he walks to the doorway, pushes open the door and looks inside.

Exactly as his dream has been except for the music. He stares into the room at his mother’s bed and bureau, her rocking chair, the pictures on the wall, the mirror in which he had seen—in his dream—himself reflected as a little boy.

He walks into the room and stops, his heart beating faster.

He looks at the radio on the bedside table.

After several moments, he moves to it and switches it on. “If it plays that music—” he starts.

No sound, of course. Electricity has been long cut off. “Idiot,” he mutters.

He stands with his back to the closet. This is the moment he has put off, the moment he knows he came into the house to face.

After awhile, clenching his teeth, he turns slowly and looks toward the closet.

The door is closed.

“Naturally,” he says. His smile is pained.

He stands there, nodding. Now what? Does he actually go through with this? To the very end?

He checks his watch. “Come on, lady,” he says irritably. He moves quickly to the doorway and calls out. “Are you here yet?”

No reply. He shudders. “I didn’t mean you, mother,” he whispers.

He stands rock still. “All right,” he says. “All right, damn it.”

Turning, he approaches the closet door.

It seems to take forever, as though his feet are moving through thick molasses. His steps are small, agonizingly slow. His heartbeat gets faster, faster. He can hardly breathe. He swallows, gulps, shivering convulsively.

Stops in front of the door.

With infinite slowness, his hand drifts upward to the door knob. Reaches it. Closes over it. Tightens. “You
have
to,” he tells himself. “You have to.”

He jerks open the door, prepared for anything.

There is nothing.