The Collection (44 page)

He said, "Yes,
^"
and his mouth was very
dry. He didn't know whether it came out as an articulate monosyllable or not,
and he wetted his lips and tried again. He said,
^"
Yes, I'm
afraid so, Clare.
^"

"Why?”

He couldn't make himself turn to look at her, he stared
blindly ahead. He said,
^"
I-I can't tell you, Clare. But it's
the only thing I can do. It's best for both of us."

^"
Tell me one thing, George. Are you really
going away? Or was that just an excuse?"

"It's true. I'm going away; I don
^'
t know for
how long. But don
^'
t ask me where, please. I can't tell you that.
^"

^"
Maybe I can tell you, George. Do you mind
if I do?"

He minded all right; he minded terribly. But how could he
say so? He didn't say anything, because he couldn't say yes, either.

They were beside the park now, the little neighborhood park
that was only a block square and didn't offer much in the way of privacy, but
which did have benches. And he steered her-or she steered him; he didn
^'
t
know which-into the park and they sat down on a bench. There were other people
in the park, but not too near till he hadn't answered her question.

She sat very close to him on the bench. She said,
^"
You've
been worried about your mind, haven't you George?"

"Well-yes, in a way, yes, I have."

"And you're going away has something to do with that,
hasn't it? You're going somewhere for observation or treatment, or both?
^"

^"
Something like that. It
^'
s not as
simple as that, Clare, and I-I just can
^'
t tell you about it."

She put her hand on his hand, lying on his knee. She said,
"I knew it was something like that, George. And I don
^'
t ask you
to tell me anything about it.

"Just-just don't say what you meant to say. Say so-long
instead of good-bye. Don
^'
t even write me, if you don
^'
t
want to. But don't he noble and call everything off here and now, for my sake.
At least wait until you
^'
ve been wherever you're going. Will you?
^"

He gulped. She made it sound so simple when actually it was
so complicated. Miserably he said,
^"
All right, Clare. If you
want it that way."

Abruptly she stood up. "Let's get back, George."
He stood beside her. "But it's early."

"I know, but sometimes-Well, there's a psychological
moment to end a date, George. I know that sounds silly, but after what we've
said, wouldn't it be-uh-anticlimactic-to-
^"

He laughed a little. He said, "I see what you
mean."

They walked back to her home in silence. He didn
^'
t
know whether it was happy or unhappy silence; he was too mixed up for that.

On the shadowed porch, in front of the door, she turned and
faced him. "George," she said. Silence.

^"
Oh, damn you, George; quit being so
noble
or whatever you're being. Unless, of course, you
don't
love me.
Unless this is just an elaborate form of-of runaround you're giving me. Is
it?"

There were only two things he could do. One was run like
hell. The other was what he did. He put his arms around her and kissed her.
Hungrily.

When that was over, and it wasn't over too quickly, he was
breathing a little hard and not thinking too clearly, for he was saying what he
hadn
^'
t meant to say at all, "I love you, Clare. I love you; I
love you.
^"

And she said,
^"
I love you, too, dear. You
^'
ll
come back to me, won't you?" And he said, "Yes.
Yes."

It was four miles or so from her home to his rooming house,
but he walked, and the walk seemed to take only seconds.

He sat at the window of his room, with the light out,
thinking, but the thoughts went in the same old circles they
^'
d gone
in for three years.

No new factor had been added except that now he was going to
stick his neck out, way out, miles out. Maybe, just maybe, this thing was going
to be settled one way or the other.

Out there, out his window, the stars were bright diamonds
in the sky. Was one of them his star of destiny? If so, he was going to follow
it, follow it even into the madhouse if it led there. Inside him was a deeply
rooted conviction that this wasn
^'
t accident, that it wasn
^'
t
coincidence that had led to his being asked to tell the truth under guise of
falsehood.

His star of destiny.

Brightly shining?
No, the phrase from his dreams did
not refer to that; it was not an adjective phrase, but a noun.
The brightly shining?
What was
the brightly shining?

And the red and the black? He
^'
d thought of
everything Charlie had suggested, and other things, too. Checkers, for
instance. But it was not that.

The red and the black.

Well, whatever the answer was, he was running full-speed
toward it now, not away from it.

After a while he went to bed, but it was a long time before
he went to sleep.

Charlie Doerr came out of the inner office marked Private
and put his hand out. He said, "Good luck, George. The doe's ready to talk
to you now."

He shook Charlie
^'
s hand and said,
^"
You
might as well run along. I'll see you Monday, first visiting day."

^"
I'll wait here,
^"
Charlie
said. "I took the day off work anyway, remember? Besides, maybe you won't
have to go. He dropped Charlie's hand, and stared into Charlie's face. He said
slowly,
^"
What do you mean, Charlie-maybe I won't have to go.
^"

"Why-"
Charlie looked puzzled. "Why,
maybe he'll tell you you're all right, or just suggest regular visits to see
him until you
^'
re straightened out, or-" Charlie finished
weakly, "-or something."

Unbelievingly, he stared at Charlie. He wanted to ask, am I
crazy or are you, but that sounded crazy to ask under the circumstances. But he
had to be sure, sure that Charlie just hadn
^'
t let something slip
from his mind; maybe he
^'
d fallen into the role he was supposed to be
playing when he talked to the doctor just now. He asked, "Charlie, don't
you remember that-" And even of that question the rest seemed insane for
him to be asking, with Charlie staring blankly at him. The answer was in
Charlie's face; it didn't have to be brought to Charlie
^'
s lips.

Charlie said again, "I'll wait, of course. Good luck,
George."

He looked into Charlie's eyes and nodded, then turned and
went through the door marked Private. He closed it behind him, meanwhile
studying the man who had been sitting behind the desk and who had risen as he
entered. A big man, broad shouldered, iron gray hair.

"Dr. Irving?
^"

"Yes, Mr. Vine. Will you be seated, please?"

He slid into the comfortable, padded armchair across the
desk from the doctor.

"Mr. Vine," said the doctor, "a first
interview of this sort is always a bit difficult. For the patient, I mean.
Until you know me better, it will be difficult for you to overcome a certain
natural reticence in discussing yourself. Would you prefer to talk, to tell
things your own way, or would you rather I asked questions?
^"

He thought that over. He
^'
d had a story ready, but
those few words with Charlie in the waiting room had changed everything.

He said, "Perhaps you'd better ask questions."

"Very well.
^"
There was a pencil in Dr.
Irving
^'
s hand and paper on the desk before him. Where and when were
you born?"

He took a deep breath. "To the best of my knowledge, in
Corsica on August 15th, 1769. I don't actually remember being born, of course.
I do remember things from my boyhood on Corsica, though. We stayed there until
I was ten, and after that I was sent to school at Brienne.
^"

Instead of writing, the doctor was tapping the paper lightly
with the tip of the pencil. He asked,
^"
What month and
year
is
this?
^"

^"
August, 1947. Yes, I know that should make
me a hundred and seventy-some years old. You want to know how I account for
that. I don't. Nor do I account for the fact that Napoleon Bonaparte died in
1821.
^"

He leaned back in the chair and crossed his arms, staring up
at the ceiling.
^"
I don
^'
t attempt to account for the
paradoxes or the discrepancies. I recognize them as such. But according to my
own memory, and aside from logic pro or con, I was Napoleon for twenty-seven
years. I won't recount what happened during that time; it's all down in the
history books.

^"
But in 1796, after the battle of Lodi,
while I was in charge of the armies in Italy, I went to sleep. As far as I
knew, just as anyone goes to sleep anywhere, any time. But I woke up-with no
sense whatever of duration, by the way-in a hospital in town here, and I was
informed that my name was George Vine, that the year was 1944, and that I was
twenty-seven years old.

"The twenty-seven years old part checked, and that was
all. Absolutely all. I have no recollections of any parts of George Vine
^'
s
life, prior to his-my-waking up in the hospital after the accident. I know quite
a bit about his early life now, but only because I've been told.

"I know when and where he was born, where he went to
school, and when he started work at the
Blade.
I
know when he
enlisted in the army and when he was discharged-late in 1943-because I
developed a trick knee after a leg injury. Not in combat, incidentally, and
there wasn't any `psycho-neurotic' on my-his-discharge.
^"

The doctor quit doodling with the pencil. He asked,
"You've felt this way for three years-and kept it a secret?"

"Yes. I had time to think things over after the accident,
and yes, I decided then to accept what they told me about my identity. They'd
have locked me up, of course. Incidentally, I
^'
ve
tried
to
figure out an answer. I
^'
ve studied Dunne
^'
s theory of
time-even Charles Fort!" He grinned suddenly. "Ever read about Casper
Hauser?"

Dr. Irving nodded.

"Maybe he was playing smart the way I did. And I wonder
how many other amnesiacs pretended they didn't know what happened prior to a
certain date-rather than admit they had memories at obvious variance with the
facts."

Dr. Irving said slowly,
^"
Your cousin informs
me that you were a bit-ah-`hipped
^'
was his word-on the subject of
Napoleon before your accident. How do you account for that?"

"I've told you I don
^'
t account for any of
it. But I can verify that fact, aside from what Charlie Doerr says about it.
Apparently I-the George Vine I, if I was ever George Vine-was quite interested
in Napoleon, had read about him, made a hero of him, and had talked about him quite
a bit. Enough so that the fellows he worked with at the
Blade
had
nicknamed him `Nappy.
^'
"

"I notice you distinguish between yourself and George
Vine. Are you or are you not he?
^"

^"
I have been for three years. Before that-I have
no recollection of being George Vine. I don
^'
t think I was. I
think-as nearly as I think anything-that I, three years ago, woke up in George
Vine's body."

^"
Having done what for a hundred and seventy
some years?
^"

^"
I haven't the faintest idea. Incidentally,
I don't doubt that this is George Vine's body, and with it I inherited his
knowledge-except his personal memories. For example, I knew how to handle his
job at the newspaper, although I didn't remember any of the people I worked
with there. I have his knowledge of English, for instance, and his ability to
write. I knew how to operate a typewriter. My handwriting is the same as
his."

"If you think that you are not Vine, how do you account
for that?"

He leaned forward. "I think part of me is George Vine, and
part of me isn
^'
t. I think some transference has happened which is
outside the run of ordinary human experience. That doesn't necessarily mean
that it's supernatural-nor that I'm insane.
Does it?"

Dr. Irving didn't answer. Instead, he asked,
^"
You
kept this secret for three years, for understandable reasons. Now, presumably
for other reasons, you decide to tell. What are the other reasons? What has
happened to change your attitude?
^"

It was the question that had been bothering him.

He said slowly,
^"
Because I don't believe in
coincidence. Because something in the situation itself has changed. Because
I'm tired of pretending. Because I
^'
m willing to risk imprisonment as
a paranoic to find out the truth.
^"

"What in the situation has changed?
^"

"Yesterday it was suggested-by my employer-that I feign
insanity for a practical reason. And the very kind of insanity which I have, if
any: Surely, I will admit the possibility that I'm insane. But I can only
operate on the theory that I
^'
m not. You know that you
^'
re
Dr. Willard E. Irving; you can only operate on that theory-but how do you
know
you are? Maybe you're insane, but you can only act as though you
^'
re
not.
^"