The Blue Angel

I Struck Out at My Enemy.

Downward-Looking Sun, You Saw Me

As I Myself Struck Him.

In The Future

When I Meet My Enemy Again

I Will Overcome Him.

-- Crow Warrior's Oath.

“ Dinner was ready at seven fifteen. Afterwards Kinderman soaked in the bathtub, trying to make his mind a blank. As usual he found himself unable to do it. Ryan does it so easily, he reflected. I must ask him his secret. I will wait until he's done something right and feels expansive. His mind went from the concept of a secret to Amfortas. The man is so mysterious, so dark. There was something he was hiding, he knew. What was it? Kinderman reached for a plastic bottle and poured some more bubble fluid into the tub. He could barely keep from dozing off.

The bath over, Kinderman put on a robe and carried the Gemini file to his den. Its walls were covered with movie posters, black-and-white classics from the thirties and forties. The dark wooden desk was strewn with books. Kinderman winced. He was barefoot and had stepped on a sharp-edged copy of Teilhard de Chaidin's The Phenomenon of Man. He bent down and picked it up and then placed it on the desk. He turned on the desk lamp. 

The light caught tinfoil candy wrappers lurking in the rubble like gleaming felons. Kinderman cleared a space for the file, scratched his nose, sat down and tried to focus. He searched among the books and found a pair of reading glasses. He cleaned them with the sleeve of his robe and then put them on. He still couldn't see. He shut one eye and then the other, then he took off the glasses and did it again. He decided he saw better without the left lens. He wrapped his sleeve around the lens and banged it sharply on a corner of the desk. The lens fell out in two pieces. Occam's Razor, Kinderman thought. He put the glasses back on and tried again.

It was no use. The problem was fatigue. He took off the glasses, left the den and went straight to bed.

Kinderman dreamed. He was sitting in a theater watching a film with the inmates of the open ward. He thought he was watching Lost Horizon, although what he saw on the screen was Casablanca. He felt no discrepancy about this. In Rick's Cafe the piano player was Amfortas. He was singing "As Time Goes By'' when the Ingrid Bergman character entered. In Kinderman's dream she was Martina Lazlo and her husband was played by Doctor Temple. Lazlo and Temple approached the piano and Amfortas said, "Leave him alone, Miss Ilse." Then Temple said, "Shoot him," and Lazlo took a scalpel from her purse and stabbed Amfortas in the heart. 

Suddenly Kinderman was in the movie. He was sitting at a table with Humphrey Bogart. "The letters of transit are forged," said Bogart. "Yes, I know," said Kinderman. He asked Bogart whether Max, his brother, was involved, and Bogart shrugged his shoulders and said, "This is Rick's." 

"Yes, everyone comes here," said Kinderman, nodding; "I've seen this picture twenty times." 

"Couldn't hurt," said Bogart. Then Kinderman experienced a feeling of panic because he had forgotten the rest of his lines, and he began a discussion of the problem of evil and gave Bogart a summary of his theory. 

In the dream it took a fraction of a second. "Yes, Ugarte," said Bogart, "I do have more respect for you now." 

Then Bogart began a discussion of Christ. "You left him out of your theory," he said; "the German couriers will find out about that." 

"No, no, I include him," said Kinderman quickly. 

Abruptly Bogart became Father Dyer and Amfortas and Miss Lazlo were sitting at the table, although now she was young and extremely beautiful. Dyer was hearing the neurologist's confession, and when he gave the absolution Lazlo gave Amfortas a single white rose. 

"And I said I'd never leave you," she told him. "Go and live no more," said Dyer.

Instantaneously, Kinderman was back in the audience and he knew that he was dreaming. 

The screen had grown larger, filling his vision, and in place of Casablanca he saw two lights against a pale green wash of endless void. 

The light at the left was large and coruscating, flashing with a bluish radiance. 

Far to its right was a small white sphere that glowed with the brilliance and power of suns, yet did not blind or flare; it was serene. Kinderman experienced a sense of transcendence. 

In his mind he heard the light on the left begin to speak. "I cannot help loving you," it said. 

The other light made no answer. There was a pause. 

"That is what I am," the first light continued. "Pure love. I want to give my love freely," it said. 

Again there was no answer from the brilliant sphere. 

Then at last the first light spoke again. "I want to create myself," it said.

The sphere then spoke. "There will be pain," it said.

"I know."

"You do not understand what it is." 

"I choose it," said the bluish light. 

Then it waited, quietly flickering.

Many more moments passed before the white light spoke again. "I will send Someone to you," it said.

"No, you mustn't. You must not interfere."

"He will be a part of you," said the sphere.

The bluish light drew inward upon itself. Its flarings were muted and minute. 

Then at last it expanded again. "So be it."

Now the silence was longer, much stiller than before. There was a heaviness about it.

At last the white light spoke quietly. "Let time begin," it said.

The bluish light flared up and danced in colors, and then slowly it steadied to its former state. 

For a time there was silence. 

Then the bluish light spoke softly and sadly. "Goodbye. I will return to you.''

"Hasten the day."

The bluish light began to coruscate wildly now. It grew larger and more radiant and beautiful than ever. Then it slowly compacted, until it was almost the size of the sphere. There it seemed to linger for a moment. "I love you," it said. 

The next instant it exploded into far-flinging brilliance, hurtling outward from itself with unthinkable force in a trillion shards of staggering energies of light and shattering sound.

Kinderman bolted awake. He sat upright in bed and felt at his forehead. It was bathed in perspiration. He could still feel the light of the explosion on his retinas. He sat there and thought for a while. Was it real? The dream had seemed so. Not even the dream about Max had had this texture. He didn't think about the portion of the dream in the cinema. The other segment had blotted it out.

He got out of bed and went down to the kitchen where he put on the light and squinted at the pendulum clock on the wall. Ten after four? This is craziness, he thought. Frank Sinatra is just now going to sleep. Yet he felt awake and extremely refreshed. He turned the flame on under the tea kettle and then stood waiting by the stove. He had to watch it and catch it before it whistled. Shirley might come down. 

While he waited, he thought about his dream of the lights. It had affected him deeply. What was this emotion he was feeling? he wondered. It was something like poignance and unbearable loss. He had felt it at the ending of Brief Encounter. He reflected on the book about Satan that he'd read, the one written by Catholic theologians. 

Satan's beauty and perfection were described as breathtaking. "Bearer of Light." "The Morning Star.'' God must have loved him very much. Then how could he have damned him for all of eternity?

So Point The Finger,

Say No More,

Where it Touches,

UltraWar!

HE SAT IN A SPACE BETWEEN FEAR AND LONGING

  

The name “Amfortas” is the name of The Fisher King in Richard Wagner’s opera Parsifal, which itself is derived from “Anfortas,” the name of the character of the Fisher King in the Middle High German medieval Grail romance Parzival, by Wolfram von Eschenbach. 

Dr. Amfortas, like his literary and operatic namesakes, is a type of The Wounded King or Maimed King, a role traditionally occupied by the character of the Fisher King in medieval romances related to the Holy Grail legend, whose literary and mythological roles are discussed in detail by Jessie Weston in her 1920 examination of The Grail tradition, From Ritual to Romance.

HE SAT IN A SPACE BETWEEN FEAR AND LONGING, portable tape recorder clutched in one hand as he listened to cassettes of the music they had shared. Was it day or night outside? He didn't know. The world was veiled beyond his living room, and the light from the lamps seemed dim. He couldn't remember how long he'd been sitting there. Was it hours or only minutes? Reality danced in and out of his focus in a silent, baffling harlequinade. He'd doubled the steroid dosage, he remembered; the pain had eased to an ominous throbbing, a price that his brain had exacted for its ruin, for the drug ate away at its vital connections. He stared at a sofa and watched as it shrank to half its size. When he saw it smile he closed his eyes and gave himself totally to the music, a haunting song from a show they had seen:

 

 

Touch me. It's so easy to leave me

All alone with the memory

Of my days in the sun

 

 

The song swept through his soul and filled it. He wanted it louder and he fumbled for the volume control on the recorder when he heard a cassette fall softly to the floor. When he groped to pick it up two more of the cassettes slipped off his lap. He opened his eyes and saw the man. He was staring at his double.

 

The figure sat crouched in midair as though seated, mimicking Amfortas' posture precisely. Dressed in the same denim jeans and blue sweater, it was staring back with equal astonishment.

 

Amfortas leaned back; it leaned back. Amfortas put a hand to his face; it did the same. Amfortas said, "Hello"; it said, "Hello." Amfortas felt his heart begin to beat faster. "The Double" was an often-reported hallucination in serious disorders of the temporal lobe, but looking into those eyes and at that face was eerily disquieting, almost frightening. Amfortas shut his eyes and began to breathe deeply, and slowly his heart rate began to slow down. Would The Double be there when he opened his eyes again? he wondered. He looked. It was there. Now Amfortas grew fascinated. No neurologist had ever seen "The Double." The reports of its behavior were vague and contradictory. A clinical interest overcame him. He picked up his feet and held them out. The double did the same. He put his feet down. The Double followed. Then Amfortas started crossing and uncrossing his feet with a timing that he tried to make random and unplanned, but the double matched the movements simultaneously without flaw or variation.

 

Amfortas paused and thought for a moment. Then he held up the tape recorder in his hand. As the double imitated the action, its hand was empty, curled around the air. Amfortas wondered why the delusion stopped short of including the tape recorder. The Double wore clothing, after all. He could not think of an explanation.

 

Amfortas looked down at the double's shoes. Like his own, they were blue-and-white-striped Nikes. He looked at his feet and pigeoned them inward, making sure he could not see if the double was matching him. Would it mimic if he were not observing its action as it happened? He shifted his gaze to the double's feet. They were already pigeoned in. Amfortas was wondering what to try next when he noticed that the tip of The Double's left shoelace had something like an ink mark or a scuff on it. When he checked his own shoe he saw that his shoelace tip was the same. He thought that was odd. He didn't think he had known of such a marking until now. How had he seen it on the double? Perhaps his unconscious had known, he decided.

 

Amfortas lifted his gaze to the double's. It was haggard and burning. Amfortas leaned closer; he thought he saw lamplight reflected in the eyes. How could this be? the neurologist wondered. Again he experienced a sense of disquiet. The double was staring at him intently. Amfortas heard voices coming from the street, students shouting back and forth; then they faded to silence and he thought he could hear the beating of his heart when suddenly the double grasped at its temple and gasped in pain, and Amfortas was unable to distinguish the action of the double from his own as the searing pincers clutched at his brain. He stood up unsteadily and the tape recorder and cassettes tumbled down to the floor. Amfortas lurched blindly toward the stairs, knocking over an end table and a lamp. Moaning, he stumbled up to his bedroom, opened the medical bag on the bed and groped for the hypodermic and the drug. The pain was unbearable. He flopped on the edge of the bed and with shaking hands filled up the syringe. He could barely see. He stabbed the syringe through the fabric of his trousers and pressed twelve milligrams of steroid into his thigh. He'd done it so rapidly that the drug hit his muscle like a hammer; but soon he felt an easing of the pain in his head, and a calm and a clarity of thought. He exhaled a long and fluttering breath and allowed the disposable syringe to slip from his fingers to the floor. It rolled on the wood and then stopped at a wall.

 

When Amfortas looked up, he was staring at the double. It was sitting in midair calmly meeting his gaze. Amfortas saw a smile on its lips, his own. "I'd lost track of you," they said in perfect unison. Now Amfortas began to feel giddy. "Can you sing?" they said; then together they hummed a piece of the Adagio from Rachmaninoff s Symphony in C. When they broke it off, they chuckled in amusement. "What very good company you are," they said. Amfortas shifted his glance to the nightstand and the green and white ceramic of the duck. He picked it up and held it with tenderness while his eyes brushed over it, remembering. "I bought this for Ann while we were still dating," they said. "At Mama Leone's in New York. The food was awful but the duck was a hit. Ann cherished this crazy little thing." He looked up at the double. They smiled fondly. "She said it was romantic," said Amfortas and the double. "Like those flowers in Bora Bora. She said she had a painting of that in her heart.''

 

Amfortas frowned and the double frowned back. The doubling of his voice had abruptly begun to annoy the neurologist. He felt an odd sensation of floating, of becoming disconnected from his surroundings. Something smelled horrible. "Go away," he said to the double. It persisted, simultaneously mimicking his words. Amfortas stood up and walked unsteadily to the stairs. He could see the double at his side, a mirror image of his movements.

 

The next instant, Amfortas found himself sitting in the living room chair. He didn't know how he'd gotten there. He was holding the duck in his lap. His mind seemed clear again and tranquil, though he felt himself suffering in some way at a distant remove from his perceptions. He could hear a dull pounding in his head but could not feel it. He looked at the double with distaste. It was facing him, sitting in the air and scowling. Amfortas closed his eyes to escape from the vision.

 

"Do you mind if I smoke?"

 

For a moment the voice didn't register; then Amfortas opened his eyes and stared. The double was sitting on the sofa, one leg comfortably stretched on its cushions. It lit a cigarette and exhaled smoke. "God knows, I've been trying to give it up," it said. "Oh, well, I've at least cut down."

 

Amfortas was stunned.

 

"Have I upset you?" asked the double. It frowned as if in sympathy. "Awfully sorry." It shrugged its shoulders. "Strictly speaking, I shouldn't be relaxing like this, but for heaven's sakes, I'm tired. That's all. I need a break. And in this case, what's the harm? Do you know what I mean?" It was staring at Amfortas with an air of expectancy, but the neurologist was still speechless. "I understand," it said at last. "It takes a bit of getting used to, I suppose. I've never learned how to make a subtle entrance. I suppose I could have tried it an inch at a time.'' It gave a shrug of surrender, and then said, "Hindsight. Anyway, I'm here, and I do apologize. All these years I've been aware of you, of course, but you've never known about me. Too bad. There are times when I've wanted to shake you, so to speak; to set you straight. Well, I suppose I can't do that, even now. Stupid rules. But at least we can have a chat." It suddenly looked solicitous. "Feeling better? No. I see the cat still has your tongue. Never mind, I'll keep talking until you're used to me." A cigarette ash fell on its sweater. It looked down and brushed it away, and murmured, "Careless."

 

Amfortas started giggling.

 

"It's alive," said the double. "How nice." It stared as Amfortas continued to laugh. "Only nice to a point," said the double sternly. "Do you want me to mimic you again?"

 

Amfortas shook his head, still chuckling. Then he noticed that the table and lamp he'd knocked over were back in place. He stared, looking puzzled.

 

"Yes, I picked them up," said the double. "I'm real."

 

Amfortas returned his gaze to the double. "You're in my mind," he said.

 

"Four words. Well done. We're progressing. I'm referring to the form," said the double, "not the content."

 

"You're a hallucination."

 

"And the lamp and the table as well?"

 

"I went into a fugue coming down the steps. I picked them up and then forgot it."

 

The double breathed out smoke with a sigh. "Earth souls," it murmured, shaking its head. "Would it help to convince you if I were to touch you? If you could feel me?"

 

"Perhaps," said Amfortas.

 

"Well, it can't be done," said the double. "That's out."

 

"That's because I'm hallucinating."

 

"If you say that again I will vomit. Listen, who do you think that it is you're talking to?"

 

"Myself."

 

"Well, that's partially correct. Congratulations. Yes. I'm your other soul," said the double. "Say 'Pleased to meet you,' or something, would you? Manners. Oh, that puts me in mind of a story. About introductions and whatnot. It's lovely." The double sat up for a moment, smiling. "This was told to me by Noel Coward's double, and Coward himself says it's true, that it happened. It seems he was standing in a royal reception line. He was right beside the Queen and to the other side of him stood Nicol Williamson. Well, along came a man named Chuck Connors. An American actor. You know? Of course. Well, he thrust out his hand to shake Noel's and said, 'Mister Coward, I'm Chuck Connors!' And Noel said immediately in a soothing, reassuring tone, 'Why, my dear boy, of course you are.' Is that lovely?" The double leaned back against the sofa."What a wit, that Coward. Too bad he's moved on past the border. Good for him, of course. Bad for us." The double looked meaningfully at Amfortas. "Good conversationalists are so rare," it said. "Do you get my drift or do you not?'' It flicked the cigarette stub to the floor. "Don't worry. It's not going to burn," it said.

 

Amfortas felt a mixture of doubt and excitement. There was something of reality about the double, a flavor of life that was not his own. "Why don't you prove that I'm not hallucinating," he said.

 

The double looked puzzled. "Prove it?"

 

"Yes."

 

"How?"

 

"Tell me something I don't know."

 

"I can't stay here forever," said the double.

 

"Some fact I don't know that I can check."

 

"Did you know that little story about Noel Coward?"

 

"I made it up. It isn't a fact."

 

"You are utterly insatiable," said the double. "Do you think you had the wit to make that up?"

 

"My unconscious does," said Amfortas. 

 

"Once again you are close to the truth," said the double. "Your unconscious is your other soul. But not exactly in the way you suppose."

 

"Please explain that."

 

"Prevenient," said the double.

 

"What?"

 

"That's a fact you don't know. It just came to me. 'Prevenient.' That's a word. I heard it from Noel. There. Are you satisfied?"

 

"I know the Latin roots of the word."

 

"This is absolutely maddening if not insufferable," said the double. "I give up. You're hallucinating. And I suppose now you're going to tell me that you didn't commit those murders. Speaking of facts you don't know, old boy."

 

Amfortas froze. The double peered over at him slyly. "Not denying it, I see."

 

The neurologist's tongue was thick in his mouth. "What murders?" he asked.

 

"You know. The priests. That boy."

 

"No." Amfortas shook his head.

 

"Oh, don't be stubborn. Yes, I know, you weren't consciously aware of it. Still." The double shrugged. "You knew. You knew."

 

"I had nothing to do with those murders."

 

The double looked angry and suspicious. It sat up. "Oh, I suppose now you're going to blame me. Well, I haven't got a body, so that lets me out. Besides that, we don't meddle. Do you understand? It was you and your anger that committed those murders. Yes, your anger over God taking Ann from you. Face it. That's the reason you're allowing yourself to die. It's your guilt. Incidentally, that's a stupid idea. It's the coward's way out. It's premature."

 

Amfortas looked down at the ceramic. He was squeezing it, shaking his head. "I want to be with Ann," he said.

 

"She isn't there."

 

Amfortas looked up.

 

"I see I have your attention," said the double. It leaned back against the sofa. "Yes, you're dying, you think, because you want to join Ann. Well, I'm not going to argue that now. You're too stubborn. But it's pointless. Ann's moved on to another wing. With all that blood on your soul, I rather doubt that you'll ever catch up. Awfully sorry to be telling you this, but I'm not here to feed you lies. I can't afford it. I've got trouble enough as it is."

 

"Where is Ann?" The neurologist's heart was beating faster, the pain growing closer to his field of awareness.

 

"Ann is being treated,'' said the double. "Like the rest of us." It abruptly looked sly. "Do you know where I come from now?"

 

Amfortas turned his head and stared numbly at the tape recorder in the corner, and then back at the double.

 

"Amazing. A landmark in the history of learning. Yes, you've heard my voice before on your tapes. I'm from there. Would you like to know all about it?"

 

Amfortas was mesmerized. He nodded.

 

"I'm afraid I can't tell you," said the double. "Sorry. There are rules and regulations. Let's just say that it's a place of transition. As for Ann, as I told you before, she's gone on. That's just as well. You were bound to find out about her and Temple."

 

The neurologist held his breath and stared. The pounding in his head was growing louder, the pain more present and insistent. "What do you mean?" he said, his voice breaking.

 

The double shrugged and looked away. "Would you like to hear a nice definition of jealousy? It's the feeling that you get when someone you absolutely detest is having a wonderful time without you. There could be some truth in that. Think it over.''

 

"You aren't real," said Amfortas huskily. His vision was blurring. The double's body was undulating on the sofa.

 

"Christ, I'm out of cigarettes."

 

"You're not real." The light was growing dim.

 

The double was a voice amid shimmering movement. "Oh, I'm not? Well, by God, I'm going to break another rule. No, really. My patience has come to its limit. There's a nurse who joined your staff today. Her name is Cecily Woods. You couldn't possibly know that. She's on duty this minute. Go ahead, pick up the telephone and see whether or not I'm right. You want a fact you didn't know? That's it. Go ahead. Call Neurology and ask for Nurse Woods."

 

"You're not real."

 

"Call her now."

 

"You're not real!" Amfortas was shouting. He stood up from the chair, the ceramic in his hand, his body trembling, the pain pushing upward, tearing and crushing and making him cry out, "God! Oh, my God!" He moved blindly toward the sofa, stumbling, sobbing, and as the room began to whirl he tripped and fell forward, smashing his head against the corner of the coffee table with a force that opened up a red wound. He thudded to the floor and the green and white ceramic gripped in his hand smashed to pieces with a splintering sound of loss. In moments the blood seeping out from his temple was lapping at the shards and staining the fingers still tightly clutching a piece of the inscription. It said, adorable. The blood soon covered it over. Amfortas whispered, "Ann."

 

Lucifer

Why was Satan thrown into hell? 

Well, the standard Story is that when God created the angels, he told them to bow to none but himself. 

Then he created Man, whom he regarded as a Higher Form Than The Angels, and he asked The Angels then to serve man. 

And Satan would not bow to Man. 

Now, this is interpreted in the Christian Tradition, as I recall from my boyhood instruction, as being The Egotism of Satan, he would not bow to Man. 

But in this view, he could NOT bow to Man, because of his Love for God, he could bow ONLY to God. 

And then God says, “Get out of my sight.” 

Now, the worst of the pains of hell insofar as hell has been described is The Absence of The beloved, which is God. 

So how does Iblis sustain the situation in hell? By The MEMORY of The Echo of God’s Voice when God said, “Go to hell.” 

And I think that’s A Great Sign of Love, do you agree?

BILL MOYERS: Well, it’s certainly true in life that the greatest hell one can know is to be separated from the one you love.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Yeah.

BILL MOYERS: 

That’s why I’ve liked the Persian myth for so long. Satan as God’s lover.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Yeah. And he is separated from God, and that’s the real pain of Satan.

Kinderman looked down at his tea and shook his head. “It’s no use. You’ll find nothing. It makes my mind cold. Something terrible is laughing at us, Atkins. You’ll find nothing.” He sipped at the tea and then murmured, “Succinylcholine chloride. Just enough.” 

“What about the old woman, Lieutenant?” 

No one had claimed her as yet. No traces of blood had been found on her clothing. 

Kinderman looked at him, suddenly animated. “Do you know about the hunting wasp, Atkins? 

No, you don’t. It isn’t known. It isn’t common. 

But this wasp is incredible. 

A mystery. 

To begin with, its lifespan is only two months. 

A short time. Never mind, though, as long as it’s healthy. 

All right, it comes out of its egg. It’s a baby, it’s cute, a little wasp. 

In a month it’s all grown and has eggs of its own. 

And now all of a sudden the eggs need food, but a special kind and only one kind : a live insect, Atkins — let’s say a cicada; yes, cicadas would be good. 

We’ll say cicadas. 

Now the hunting wasp figures this out. Who knows how. 

It’s a mystery. 

Forget it. Never mind. 

But the food must be alive; putrefaction would be fatal to the egg and to the grub, and a live and normal cicada would crush the egg or even eat it. 

So the wasp can’t drop a net on a bunch of cicadas and then give them to the eggs and say, ‘Here, eat your dinner.’ 

You thought life was easy for hunting wasps, Atkins? Just flying and stinging all day, jaunty jolly? 

No, it isn’t so easy. Not at all. They have problems. 

But if the wasp can just paralyze the cicada, this problem is solved and there’s dinner on the table. 

But to do this, it has to figure out exactly where to sting the cicada, which would take total knowledge of cicada anatomy, Atkins — they’re all covered with this armor, these scales — and it has to figure out exactly how much venom to inject, or else our friend the cicada flies away or is dead. 

All this medical-surgical knowledge it needs. Don’t feel blue, Atkins. 

Really. It’s all okay. 

All the hunting wasps everywhere, even as we sit here, they’re all singing ‘Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina’ and they’re paralyzing insects all over the country. 

Isn’t that amazing? How can this be?” 

“Well, it’s instinct,” said Atkins, knowing what Kinderman wanted to hear. 

Kinderman glared. “Atkins, never say ‘instinct’ and I give you my word, I will never say ‘parameters.’ Can we find a way of living?” 

“What about ‘instinctive’?” 

“Also verboten. Instinct. What is instinct? Does a name explain? Someone tells you that the sun didn’t rise today in Cuba and you answer, ‘Never mind, today is Sun-Shall-Not-Rise-in-Cuba-Day’? That explains it? Give a label and it’s curtains now for miracles, correct? Let me tell you, I am also not impressed by words like ‘gravity.’ 

Okay, that’s a whole other tsimmis altogether. In the meantime, the hunting wasp, Atkins. It’s amazing. It’s a part of my theory.” 

“Your theory on the case?” Atkins asked him. “I don’t know. It could be. Maybe not. I’m just talking. No, another case, Atkins. Something bigger.” 

He gestured globally. “It’s all connected. As regards the old lady, in the meantime…” 

His voice trailed away and a distant thunder rumbled faintly. He stared at a window where a light fall of rain was beginning to splatter in hesitant touches. Atkins shifted in his chair. 

“The old lady,” breathed Kinderman, his eyes dreamy. 

“She is leading us into her mystery, Atkins. 

I hesitate to follow her. I do.” 

He continued staring inwardly for a time. Then abruptly he crumpled his empty cup and tossed it away. It thudded in the wastebasket near the desk. He stood up. 

“Go and visit with your sweetheart, Atkins. Chew bubble gum and drink lemonade. Make fudge. 

As for me, I am leaving. Adieu.” 

But for a moment he stood there, looking around for something. 

“Lieutenant, you’re wearing it,” said Atkins. 

Kinderman felt at the brim of his hat. “Yes, I am. This is True. Good point. Well taken.” 

Kinderman continued to brood by the desk. “Never trust in the facts,” he wheezed. 

“Facts hate us. They stink. They hate men and they hate the truth.” 

Abruptly he turned and waddled away. In a moment he was back and ransacking pockets of his coat for books. 

“One more thing,” he said to Atkins. The sergeant stood up. “Just a minute.” 

Kinderman riffled through the books, and then he murmured, “Aha!” and from the pages of a work by Teilhard de Chardin, he extracted a note that was written on the inside of a Hershey Bar wrapper. 

He held it to his chest. “Don’t look,” he said sternly. 

“I’m not looking,” said Atkins. 

“Well, don’t.” 

Kinderman guardedly held the note and began to read: “ ‘Another source of conviction in the existence of God, connected with the reason and not with feelings, is the extreme difficulty, or rather impossibility, of conceiving this immense and wonderful universe as the result of blind chance or necessity.’ ” 

Kinderman breasted the note and looked up. “Who wrote that, Atkins?” 

“You.” 

“The test for lieutenant is not till next year. Guess again.”

“I don’t know.” 

“Charles Darwin,” said Kinderman. “In The Origin of Species.” 

And with that, he stuffed the note into his pocket and left. 

And again came back. 

“Something Else,” he told Atkins. 

He stood with his nose an inch away from the sergeant’s, hands stuffed deep in the pockets of his coat. 

“What does Lucifer mean?” 

“Light Bearer.” 

“And what is the stuff of the universe?” 

“Energy.” 

“What is energy’s commonest form?” 

“Light.” 

“I know.” 

And with that, the detective walked away, listing slowly through the squad room and down the stairs. He didn’t come back.

*****

Kinderman absently stirred his cold coffee and shifted his glance around the room as if watching for some eavesdropping secret agent. He leaned his head forward conspiratorially. 

“My approach to The World,” he said guardedly, “is as if it were the scene of a crime. You understand? 

I am putting together the clues. 

In the meantime, I have several ‘Wanted’ posters. You’d be good enough to hang them on the campus? They’re free. Your vow of poverty hangs heavy on your mind; I’m very sensitive to that. There’s no charge.” 

“You’re not telling me your theory?” 

“I will give you a hint,” said Kinderman. “Clotting.” 

Dyer’s eyebrows knit together. “Clotting?” 

“When you cut yourself, your blood cannot clot without fourteen separate little operations going on inside your body, and in just a certain order; little platelets and these cute little corpuscles, whatever, going here, going there, doing this, doing that, and in just this certain way, or you wind up looking foolish with your blood pouring out on the pastrami.” 

“That’s the hint?” 

“Here’s another: the autonomic system. Also, vines can find water from miles away.” 

“I’m lost.” 

“Stay put, we have picked up your signal.” 

Kinderman leaned his face closer to Dyer’s. “Things that supposedly have no consciousness are behaving as if they do.” 

“Thank you, Professor Irwin Corey.” Kinderman abruptly sat back and glowered. 

“You are the living proof of my thesis. You saw that horror movie called Alien?” 

“Yes.” 

“Your life story. In the meantime, never mind, I have learned my lesson. Never send Sherpa guides to lead a rock; it will only fall on top of them and give them a headache.” 

“But that’s all you’re going to tell me about your theory?” protested Dyer. 

He picked up his coffee cup. 

“That is all. My final word.”

*****

“What happened?” 

“I’m not ready to discuss it at this time. However, I want your opinion on something. This is all academic. Understand? 

Just assume these hypothetical facts. 

A learned psychiatrist, someone like the Chief of Psychiatry at the hospital, makes a clumsy effort to make me think that he is covering up for a colleague; let’s say a neurologist who is working on the problem of pain. 

This happens, in this hypothetical case, when I ask this imaginary psychiatrist if anyone on his staff has a certain eccentricity about his handwriting. 

This make-believe psychiatrist looks me in the eye for two or three hours, then he looks away and says ‘no’ very loud. 

Also, like a fox, I find there’s friction between them. Maybe not. But I think so. 

What do you induce from this nonsense, Atkins?” 

“The psychiatrist wants to finger the neurologist, but he doesn’t want to do it openly.” 

“Why not?” the detective asked. 

“Remember, this man is obstructing justice.” 

“He’s guilty of something. He’s involved. But if he’s seemingly covering for someone else, you would never suspect him.” 

“He should live so long. But I agree with your opinion. 

In the meantime, I have something more important to tell you. 

In Beltsville, Maryland, years ago they had this hospital for patients who were dying of cancer. So they gave them big doses of LSD. 

Couldn’t Hurt. Am I right? 

And it helps The Pain. 

Then something funny happens to all of them. 

They all have the same experience, no matter what their background or their religion. 

They imagine they are going straight down through The Earth and through every kind of Sewage and Filth and Trash. 

While they’re doing it, they are these things; they’re The Same. 

Then they start to go up and up and up, and suddenly everything is beautiful and they are standing in front of God, who then says to them, ‘Come up here with Me, this isn’t Newark.’ 

Every one of them had this experience, Atkins. 

Well, okay, maybe ninety percent. That’s enough. 

But the main thing is one other thing that they said. They said they felt the whole universe was them. They were all one thing, they said; one person. 

Isn’t it amazing that all of them would say that? 

Also, consider Bell’s Theorem, Atkins : in any two-particle system, say the physicists, changing the spin of one of the particles simultaneously changes the spin of the other, no matter what the distance is between them, no matter if it’s galaxies or light years!” 

“Lieutenant?” 

“Please be silent when you’re speaking to me! I have something else to tell you.” 

The Detective leaned forward with glittering eyes. 

“Think about the autonomic system. It does all of these seemingly intelligent things to keep your body functioning and alive. But it hasn’t got intelligence of its own. Your conscious mind is not directing it. 

‘So what directs it?’ you ask me. Your unconscious. 

Now think of the universe as your body, and of evolution and the hunting wasps as the autonomic system. 

What is directing it, Atkins? 

Think about that. 

And remember the collective unconscious. In the meantime, I cannot sit and chit-chat forever.”