This Shared Dream (45 page)

Less fortunate children, like those of Ma Barker, had few options.

Symbols and images definitely had the power to cement large groups of people. Hitler’s swastika still evoked something she could only call Evil. Just about every home and certainly every public building in Nazi Germany had had one or more portraits of Hitler. Those images had early on been linked to death, the death of those who disagreed and who said so.

But the memories elicited by objects were usually exclusive to just one family or a small group. Grandma’s quilt, valued by her grandchildren because they had known her and because her hands had made it; valued by others only if it had monetary value.

She began thinking about Jill’s school project. Jill’s interest had spurred her to read more about the situation in central Africa, about child soldiers, civil wars, and wholesale slaughter.

What if soldiers became incapable, mentally, of killing innocents? If she could piggyback some images into this drug … use neurolinguistic programming tools … after all, much of the media, right now, and much gaming, used images of violence, so none of this would be new. It would just be used for a very different end.

The idea that war could stop war was proven nonsense. There had to be new solutions. Maybe this could be part of one, eventually. Of course there was Nobel, and dynamite. There was Gatling, and his gun. But one couldn’t stop hoping, stop trying.

After the talk, Megan tried to get to the front of the auditorium to speak with the presenter. But she was mobbed, and soon hurried offstage.

Jill

JILL GOES TO MARKET

July 13

“J
ILL, YOU ALWAYS DO THIS.”
Brian stood at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee in one hand and a plate of fried eggs in the other. Piles of books and magazines covered the table. There was a small clearing at one end of the table, which was where Jill ate. It was about 9:00
A.M.
, Saturday morning.

“I’m usually alone.” Jill did not say what immediately popped into her head, which was
So clear out a place for yourself
. Instead, she picked up a stack of books and plunked them on a chair. “How about this?”

“But there’s all this … stuff around me.” Brian set his food down and Jill turned her face away so he would not see her smile. He looked like a gopher; his head just cleared a healthy stack of
Washington
Posts
.

“If there’s not enough to read here, I can fetch something else.” She sat down with her bowl of cereal and grabbed a half-read
Atlantic
. She had periodicals and books everywhere in the house where she might sit down. She was a firm believer in the power of serendipitous reading. Things had a way of coming together and augmenting one another; things you never would have related to one another before. Scientific articles mingled with literary reviews. She imagined that Cindy ran a tight ship. There wasn’t any reading matter on her kitchen table. Of course, there probably was room for children to eat.

Brian had spelled Cindy so she could get a nap until midnight, then Cindy returned to the hospital. Jill and Brian had sat up as late as Jill could, even with coffee, but Jill wanted to wait until Megan was there to tell the whole tale. Brian did tell her what he had learned about the Hadntz material and the Device, then Jill suggested that they all be there at the same time to avoid the confusion they seemed to generate when only two siblings knew about something. Her actions would always be soul-shattering to her, and she really did not want to go through the confession, and all the questions, twice.

Jill’s phone rang. It was Cindy.

“Jill. I have a big favor to ask.”

“Whatever it is, the answer is yes.”

“Wait till you hear what it is. Our lease is up next week. It was short term; we thought we’d have the house done by now. So—”

“I hope,” said Jill, speaking quickly before the other part of her brain could pile on the objections, “that you guys will move in here for the time being.”

Brian looked at Jill with a startled expression on his face. “Is that Cindy?”

Cindy said, “I can’t tell you how much that will help us out.”

“Now, you’re sure? Even after the break-in?”

Cindy laughed. “Especially after the break-in! The more people over there, the better. They’re discharging Bitsy later today. She’s doing great. She’s a little pistol, bless her heart. I’ll ask the crew to pick up what we need from the apartment for tonight, and I’ll call Brian and let him know.”

“Well—good.” Jill hung up. “You’re moving in.”

“It wasn’t my idea.”

“It will be great. I appreciate it.”

“You’re okay with it then?”

“Definitely. At first, I wanted to be alone here, but now … it’s fine. But how about you?”

Brian shrugged. “Better than camping out. Seems like a good plan for everyone.”

“But it bothers you.”

“Always has.”

“I’ll try to get that straightened out tomorrow, Brian. I promise.”

He called Cindy. “How’s Bitsy? Oh, honey, that’s great. That’s wonderful. I’m so happy. I’ll come over and— Oh, all right, if that’s what you want. See you guys in a few hours.”

He closed the phone. “She’s bringing Bitsy. Said we didn’t both need to be there. Zoe’s there to help. Cindy ordered—I mean, asked—me to cut the grass.”

“Did you tell her about finding the Game Board?”

“Yes, but I’m not sure it means anything to her. She knows as much as I know about all of it, but you know Cindy. Nothing fazes her.”

“Okay, then. It’s settled. Pizza tomorrow.” She started her vitamin regimen. There were a lot of pills, a few enticing new supplements from the vitamin company that promised eternal life, or something close to that, as usual, and some even-keel pills prescribed by the therapist. “We can bake it in the woodstove outside.” Sam’s Folly Number Four, as their mother had called it, was clearly visible from the window, now that the crew had chainsawed away the kudzu. It was a huge brick structure involving two ovens, two chimneys, a slate countertop, a stone sink, and even a space for a refrigerator.

“Is the water hooked up?”

“It just needs to be turned on.”

“Well, good idea then.”

“I’ll go to the market in a little while. That will be nice. I don’t go that often just for myself.”

“Aren’t you tired?”

Jill considered. “Yeah. But it won’t hit until bedtime tonight.”

“I tried to get that Game Board to do something.”

“So what happened?”

Brian said, “Nothing, that I could see. I mean, it told me nothing. Didn’t you always say that it was full of stories? Not for me. But the damnedest thing happened to me, while I was reading the notebooks—kind of the same thing. It was as if my mind flipped. I would suddenly
be
with Dad and his pal Wink. But the Game Board pretty much stayed blank for me, just a metal surface with embossed pictures on it. Hey, what’s that you’re taking?”

Jill handed him the jar. “HD-50? Came in the mail. This month’s free stuff.”

“We got it too. I love it.”

“Doesn’t do much for me. So, when you use the board, does it … seem to become three-dimensional, or move around, or change other scenarios? Like it did when we were kids?”

“I kind of remember that. Vaguely. But, no. That still happens to you?”

“Oh, yes!”

“That would definitely bother me, Jill. I can see why you—”

“Went crazy?”

“Yeah. I did have vivid dreams last night. I dreamed about playing the saxophone with Dad in a jazz band. And the great part was that I could actually hold my own.”

Brian’s phone rang. “Jim? What’s up? No, didn’t see Megan this morning. She left you a note saying she’d call me? No. She didn’t. Why?” A moment of silence. “Okay, well, maybe we’ll find out what’s upsetting her when she gets back tonight. Yeah, everyone’s invited to Sunday dinner tomorrow. Hah! Yeah, you’re right, when else would we have Sunday dinner? Okay, just let her know. Come over early, around ten. We have some family issues to talk about first. Sure, you’re welcome to participate, if you can stand it. Cindy plans to hang with the kids. Bitsy is fine, thanks. Coming home today.” He hung up. “Megan was upset about something and left Jim a note saying she’d call me this morning. She didn’t. Did she call you?”

“If she did, I didn’t hear it. All she does is go to meetings.” Memory research meetings. Of course. It was her fault that Megan’s memories were screwed up, that she was even interested in memory. Jill sighed.

Brian said, “What’s wrong now?”

“Besides the break-in, the divorce, and my recent internment in a mental institution? Nothing. I’m happy as a lark.”

“Good.” Brian went back to the Outlook page. Jill went into the study, started a long-running reel-to-reel jazz compilation that Sam had made, and promptly fell asleep on the couch.

But it wasn’t really sleep. It was more like a deep trance, induced by the first direct notes of “Ko-Ko.” Pictures came alive in her mind, but they didn’t seem random. It was more like she was in some kind of plane, cued for takeoff, and then the runway lights flashed past, and her mind was put through some kind of paces, some kind of reasoned argument, some kind of carefully calibrated change.

At first she struggled to wake up. But she could not. And it didn’t really seem like sleep, more as if she were captured in a dream. It seemed more real than most waking moments, more true than any love she’d ever felt. Her mother was flying them all somewhere in a huge plane.…

*   *   *

When Jill woke, it was a little after one in the afternoon. She sat up, marvelously refreshed, as if she’d been swimming in a clear mountain stream.

The lawn mower droned in the side yard, and the delicious smell of new-cut grass infiltrated the room. Brian passed the window as he turned to cut another row.

The tape recorder had turned itself off. Probably just now. Maybe that’s what woke her up.

Someone knocked on the screen door. “Come in,” she yelled, thinking it was the woman across the street, or one of Whens’ friends.

It was Detective Kandell.

He was wearing shorts, a Bob Marley T-shirt, and Converse sneakers. He stood in a pool of sunlight by the door. “Hello?”

“Oh. Hi. Come in and sit down. Or get yourself a beer from the kitchen if you want.”

“No, thanks.” He hesitated for a moment.

“Well, then, sit down.”

“You’re busy.”

“I’m always busy.”

Daniel chose the battered leather chair in the corner next to the open French door. “Anything happen last night?”

“No. Brian stayed here. His family is moving in. We talked till two, then something woke me up around three, and I couldn’t get back to sleep. But it was nothing.”

“You should have called.”

“For a sound? It was just a branch scraping the roof, something like that. I have to have the trees pruned before one of them falls on the house. I think that oak tree is rotten.”

“Did Brian find anything?”

“I didn’t wake him up. Manfred and I made the rounds.”

“Manfred?” Detective Kandell looked at Manfred, asleep on her side and drooling onto the floor, with some doubt.

“Oh, she’s much more vicious than she appears to be.”

“Right. She did bite the intruder yesterday. Actually, I came to see if you’d gotten that party list together.”

“You do work hard.”

“It’s my neighborhood too. It just seems to me that a party would have given anyone ample time to browse through the library.”

“Definitely. A lot of people did. In fact, Megan said that someone did act suspiciously. I’m not sure who it was, though. I have the party list here.” She went over to her briefcase, which was still where she’d left it before, next to the couch. Opening it, she removed her Q, printed the list, and handed it to Detective Kandell.

“Wow. Addresses, phone numbers, everything.”

“Well, yeah. I guess I don’t look as if I could be very sharp?”

“No, no, that’s not it,” he said with some haste.

She laughed. “Gotcha.”

He studied the paper. “Would you mind telling me who these people are?”

They sat on the couch next to each other with the paper on the coffee table in front of them. Jill had a fine-point marker in her hand.

“‘W’ for World Bank. ‘U’ for University.”

“That’s Georgetown?”

“Right. ‘N’ for neighborhood. ‘F’ for family.”

“Who is this Dr. Koslov?”

“World War II expert. He’s written several books. Um, there, to the right of the fireplace, fifth shelf up, middle. The red, white, and blue dust jackets.”

“Snazzy. He’s Russian?”

Jill nodded.

“Any Germans in the mix?”

“That’s an odd question.”

“Well, they did have something to do with the war.”

“So?”

“I’ve been doing a little research. It seems that your mother was in the OSS, and the CIA.”

Jill’s poker face went on full alert, mainly because she was incensed. “That seems to be information that we mere mortals have no access to. If that’s true, why would that have anything to do with the break-in, anyway?”

“A, the break-in was very strange. You have valuable objects sitting all over the place, like that Chinese painting in the foyer. Not very portable, true, but the little Tang Dynasty jade Buddha sitting underneath it sure is. And on that end table over there are, if I’m not mistaken, a small heap of—let’s see—a gold chain, rather ostentatious diamond earrings, and an emerald ring.”

“I guess I’m kind of careless with jewelry. I wore those at the party.”

“B, the books the man took all have to do with midcentury science, which is something both of your parents were involved in. Your dad, for instance, learned about the top-secret M-9 Fire Director when he trained at Aberdeen.”

“Really.” Jill was now definitely irritated.

“You can’t think your parents’ interests are a secret to anyone who’s even glanced at the contents of this library.” He watched her a moment, his middle-aged face impassive. “Maybe you don’t want this solved.”

Jill sighed. “I’m sorry. Yes. I mean no, not really, but there is a guy at the Bank, Bill Anderson, who’s a Germany expert, but he’s from Ohio. I have run across supposedly de-Nazified Nazis, in various places over the years. Old men, now. There are a lot of them in academic and scientific circles. They were allowed to come to the U.S. in exchange for information—recruited, actually. Our rocket program is based on their info. So is Russia’s. They got some of them too. Highest bidder—at least those who thought ahead. If not, it depended on where the war caught up with them. We gained a few defectors in later years, and so did the Russians. Now, of course, that’s all over.”