The Collection (43 page)

He got the chessboard and men out of the closet and started
to set up a game on the coffee table.

Marge came in with a try bearing tall cold glasses of beer
and put it down beside the chessboard. She said, "Hi, George. Hear you're
going away a couple of weeks."

He nodded.
^"
But I don't know where.
Candler-the managing editor-asked me if I
^'
d be free for an out of
town assignment and I said sure, and he said he
^'
d tell me about it
tomorrow."

Charlie was holding out clenched hands, a pawn in each, and
he touched Charlie
^'
s left hand and got white. He moved pawn to
king's fourth and, when Charlie did the same, advanced his queen
^'
s
pawn.

Marge was fussing with her hat in front of the mirror. She
said, "If you
^'
re not here when I get back, George, so long and
good luck."

He said,
^"
Thanks, Marge.
^'
Bye."

He made a few more moves before Marge came over, ready to
go, kissed Charlie goodbye and then kissed him lightly on the forehead. She
said, "Take care of yourself, George."

For a moment his eyes met her pale blue ones and he thought,
she
is
worrying about me. It scared him a little.

After the door had closed behind her, he said,
^"
Let
^'
s
not finish the game, Charlie. Let's get to the brass tacks, because I
^'
ve
got to see Clare about nine. Dunno how long I’ll gone, so I can
^'
t
very well not say good-bye to her."

Charlie looked up at him. "You and Clare serious,
George?"

"I don
^'
t know.
^"

Charlie picked up his beer and took a sip. Suddenly his
voice was brisk and businesslike. He said,
^"
All right, let's sit
on the brass tacks. We've got an appointment for eleven o
^'
clock
tomorrow morning with a guy named Irving, Dr. J. E. Irving, in the Appleton
Block. He's a psychiartrist; Dr. Randolph recommended him.

^"
I called him up this afternoon after Candler
had talked to me; Candler had already phoned Randolph. My story was this: I
gave my right name. I
^'
ve got a cousin who
^'
s been acting
queer lately and whom I wanted him to talk to. I didn
^'
t give the
cousin
^'
s name. I didn't tell him in what way you
^'
d been
acting queer; I ducked the question and said I
^'
d rather have him
judge for himself without prejudice. I said I'd talked you into talking to a
psychiatrist and that the only one I knew of was Randolph; that I'd called
Randolph who said he didn't do much private practice and recommended Irving. I
told him I was your nearest living relative.

"That leaves the way open to Randolph for the second
name on the certificate. If you can talk Irving into thinking you're really
insane and he wants to sign you up, I can insist on having Randolph, whom I
wanted in the first place. And this time, of course, Randolph will agree.
^"

"You didn't say a thing about what kind of insanity you
suspected me of having?"

Charlie shook his head. He said, "So, anyway, neither
of us goes to work at the
Blade
tomorrow. I'll leave home the usual time
so Marge won't know anything, but I’ll meet you downtown-say, in the lobby of
the Christina-at a quarter of eleven. And if you can convince Irving that you
^'
re
committable-if that's the word-we'll get Randolph right away and get the whole
thing settled tomorrow."

"And if I change my mind?"

"Then I'll call the appointment off. That's all. Look,
isn
^'
t that all there is to talk over? Let's play this game of chess
out; it's only twenty after seven."

He shook his head. "I'd rather talk. Charlie. One thing
you forgot to cover, anyway. After tomorrow. How often you coming to see me to
pick up bulletins for Candler?
^"

"Oh, sure, I forgot that. As often as visiting hours
will permit-three times a week. Monday, Wednesday, Friday afternoons.
Tomorrow's Friday, so if you get in, the first time I
^'
ll he able to
see you is Monday.
^"

"Okay. Say, Charlie, did Candler even hint to you at
what the story is that I'm supposed to get in there?"

Charlie Doerr shook his head slowly. "Not a word. 'What
is it? Or is it too secret for you to talk about?"

He stared at Charlie, wondering. And suddenly he felt that
he couldn
^'
t tell the truth; that he didn
^'
t know either.
It would make him look too silly. It hadn't sounded so foolish when Candler had
given the reason-a reason, anyway-for not telling him, but it would sound
foolish now.

He said, "If he didn't tell you, I guess I
^'
d
better not either, Charlie." And since that didn
^'
t sound too
convincing, he added, "I promised Candler I wouldn
^'
t.
^"

Both glasses of beer were empty by then, and Charlie took
them into the kitchen for refilling.

He followed Charlie, somehow preferring the informality of
the kitchen. He sat a-straddle on a kitchen chair, leaning his elbows on the
back of it, and Charlie leaned against the refrigerator.

Candler said. "Prosit!" and they drank, and then
Charlie asked,
^"
Have you got your story ready for Doc
Irving?"

He nodded.
^"
Did Candler tell you what I
^'
m
to tell him?"

^"
You mean, that you
^'
re
Napoleon?" Charlie chuckled. Did that chuckle quite ring true? He looked
at Charlie, and he knew that what he was thinking was completely incredible.
Charlie was square and honest as they came. Charlie and Marge were his best
friends; they
^'
d been his best friends for three years that he knew
of. Longer than that, a hell of a lot longer, according to Charlie. But beyond
those three years-that was something else again.

He cleared his throat because the words were going to stick
a little. But he had to ask, he had to be sure.
^"
Charlie, I
^'
m
going to ask you a hell of a question. Is this business on the up and up?"

"Huh?"

"It's a hell of a thing to ask. But-look, you and
Candler don't think I
^'
m crazy, do you? You didn't work this out
between you to get me put away-or anyway examined-painlessly, without my
knowing it was happening, till too late, did you?"

Charlie was staring at him. He said, "Jeez, George, you
don't think I
^'
d do a thing like that, do you?"

^"
No, I don't. But you could think it was for
my own good, and you might on that basis. Look, Charlie, if it
is
that,
if you
think
that, let me point out that this isn't fair. I'm going up
against a psychiatrist tomorrow to lie to him, to try to convince him that I
have delusions. Not to be honest with him. And that would be unfair as hell, to
me. You see that, don't you, Charlie?"

Charlie
^'
s face got a little white. He said
slowly,
^"
Before God, George, it's nothing like that. All I know
about this is what Candler and you have told me."

"You think I'm sane, fully sane?"

Charlie licked his lips. He said, "You want it
straight?"

"Yes."

"I never doubted it, until this moment. Unless-well,
amnesia is a form of mental aberration, I suppose, and you've never got over
that, but that isn't what you mean, is it?"

^"
No."

^"
Then, until right now-George, that sounds
like a persecution complex, if you really meant what you asked me. A conspiracy
to get you to-Surely you can see how ridiculous it is. What possible reason
would either Candler or I have to get you to lie yourself into being committed?
^"

He said,
^"
I'm sorry, Charlie. It was just a
screwy momentary notion. No, I don't think that, of course.
^"
He
glanced at his wrist watch.
^"
Let's finish that chess game,
huh?"

^"
Fine. Wait till I give us a refill to take
along."

***

He played carelessly and managed to lose within fifteen
minutes. He turned down Charlie's offer of a chance for revenge and leaned back
in his chair.

He said, "Charlie, ever hear of chessmen coming in red
and black?"

^"
N-no. Either black and white, or red and
white, any I've ever seen. Why?"

"Well-" He grinned. "I suppose I oughtn't to
tell you this after just making you wonder whether I
^'
m really sane
after all, but I
^'
ve been having recurrent dreams recently. No
crazier than ordinary dreams except that I've been dreaming the same things
over and over. One of them is something about a game between the red and the
black; I don
^'
t even know whether it's chess. You know how it is when
you dream; things seem to make sense whether they do or not. In the dream, I
don't wonder whether the red-and-black business is chess or not; I know, I
guess, or seem to know. But the knowledge doesn't carry over. You know what I
mean?"

"Sure. Go on."

"Well, Charlie, I've been wondering if it just might
have something to do with the other side of that wall of amnesia I
^'
ve
never been able to cross. This is the first time in my-well, not in my life,
maybe, but in the three years I remember of it, that I've had recurrent dreams.
I wonder if-if my memory may not be trying to get through.

"Did I ever have a set of red and black chessman, for
instance? Or, in any school I went to, did they have intramural basketball or
baseball between red teams and black teams, or-or anything like that?"

Charlie thought for a long moment before he shook his head.
"No," he said, "nothing like that. Of course there
^'
s
red and black in roulette-rouge et noir. And it
^'
s the two colors in
a deck of playing cards.
^"

"No, I'm pretty sure it doesn't tie in with cards or
roulette. It's not-not like that. It
^'
s a game
between
the red
and the black. They're the players, somehow. Think hard, Charlie; not about
where you might have run into that idea, but where I might have."

He watched Charlie struggle and after a while he said,
^"
Okay,
don
^'
t sprain your brain, Charlie. Try this one.
The brightly
shining."

"The brightly shining what?"

"Just that phrase,
the brightly shining.
Does it
mean anything to you, at all?"

“No.”

"Okay," he said. "Forget it."

He was early and he walked past Clare's house, as far as the
corner and stood under the big elm there, smoking the rest of his cigarette,
thinking bleakly.

There wasn
^'
t anything to think about, really; all
he had to do was say good-bye to her. Two easy syllables. And stall off her questions
as to where he was going, exactly how long he'd be gone. Be quiet and casual
and unemotional about it, just as though they didn
^'
t mean anything
in particular to each other.

It
had
to be that way. He'd known Clare Wilson a year
and a half now, and he
^'
d kept her dangling that long; it wasn
^'
t
fair. This had to be the end, for her sake. He had about as much business
asking a woman to marry him as-as a madman who thinks he's Napoleon!

He dropped his cigarette and ground it viciously into the
walk with his heel, then went back to the house, up on the porch, and rang the
bell.

Clare herself came to the door. The light from the hallway
behind her made her hair a circlet of spun gold around her shadowed face.

He wanted to take her into his arms so badly that he
clenched his fists with the effort it took to keep his arms down.

Stupidly, he said, "Hi, Clare. How's everything?"

^"
I don
^'
t know, George. How is
everything? Aren
^'
t you coming in?"

She'd stepped back from the doorway to let him past and the
light was on her face now, sweetly grave. She knew something was up, he
thought; her expression and the tone of her voice gave that away.

He didn't want to go in. He said, "It's such a
beautiful night, Clare. Let's take a stroll."

"All right, George." She came out onto the porch.
"It is a fine night, such beautiful stars." She turned and looked at
him. "Is one of them yours?
^"

He started a little. Then he stepped forward and took her
elbow, guiding her down the porch steps. He said lightly, "All of them are
mine. Want to buy any?
^"

"You wouldn
^'
t
give
me one? Just a
teeny little dwarf star, maybe? Even one that I'd have to use a telescope to
see?"

***

They were out on the sidewalk then, out of hearing of the
house, and abruptly her voice changed, the playful note dropped from it, and
she asked another question, "What's wrong, George?"

He opened his mouth to say nothing was wrong, and then
closed it again. There wasn't any lie that he could tell her, and he couldn't
tell her the truth, either. Her asking of that question, in that way, should
have made things easier; it made them more difficult.

She asked another, "You mean to say good-bye for-for
good, don't you George?"