a larger number of schoolmen who contributed greatly to the material
progress of the haven. They patented inventions, marketless at home,
which brought regular royalties from more industrialized countries.
Agronomists improved the haven’s crops and took in a steady income from
seed. Chemists found ways of utilizing otherwise wasted byproducts;
proceeds from scholarly works—and one more popular than scholarly—added
to the funds. In his will, Volney Haggerwells left the properties to
the fellowship.
I suppose I expected there would be some uniformity, some basic type
characterizing the fellows. Not that Barbara, or Ace, or Hiro Agati
resembled a stereotype at any point, any more than I did myself, but
then I was not one of the elect nor likely to be. Even after I had met
more than half of them the notion persisted that there must be some
stamp on them proclaiming what they were.
Yet as I wandered about the haven, alone or with Ace, the people I met
were quite diverse, more so by far than in the everyday world. There
were the ebullient and the glum, the talkative and the laconic, the
bustling and the slow-moving. Some were part of a family, others lived
ascetically, withdrawn from the pleasures of the flesh.
In the end I realized there was, if not a similarity, a strong bond.
The fellows, conventional or eccentric, passionate or reserved, were
all earnest, purposeful and, despite individual variations, tenacious.
They were, though I hesitate to use so emotional a word, dedicated.
The cruel struggle and suspicion, the frantic endeavor to improve
one’s own financial, social, or political standing by maiming or
destroying someone else intent on the same endeavor was either unknown
or so subdued as to be imperceptible at the haven. Disagreements and
jealousies existed, but they were different in kind rather than in
degree from those to which I had been accustomed all my life. The
pervasive fears which fostered the latter, the same fears which made
lotteries and indenture frantic gambles to escape the wretchedness of
life, could not circulate in the security of the haven.
After the scene at my arrival, I didnt see Barbara again for some ten
days. Even then it was but a glimpse, caught as she hurried in one
direction and I sauntered in another. She threw me a single frigid
glance and went on. Later, I was talking with Mr Haggerwells, who had
proved to be not quite an amateur of history but more than a dabbler,
when, without knocking, she burst into the room.
“Father, I—” Then she caught sight of me. “Sorry. I didnt know you were
entertaining.”
His tone was that of one found in a guilty act. “Come in, come in,
Barbara. Backmaker is after all something of a protégé of yours.
Urania, you know—if one may stretch the ascription a bit—encouraging
Clio.”
“Really, Father!” She was regal. Wounded, scornful, but majestic. “I’m
sure I don’t know enough about self-taught pundits to sponsor them. It
seems too bad they have to waste your time—”
He flushed. “Please, Barbara. You must, you really must control....”
Her disapproval became open anger. “Must I? Must I? And stand by while
every pretentious swindler usurps your attention? Oh, I don’t ask
for any special favors as your daughter; I know too well I have none
coming. But I should think at least the consideration due a fellow
of the haven would prompt ordinary courtesy even where no natural
affection exists!”
“Barbara, please.... Oh, my dear girl, how can you ...?”
But she was gone, leaving him distressed and me puzzled. Not at her
lack of restraint but at her accusation that he lacked a father’s
love for her. Nothing was clearer than his pride in her or his
protective, baffled tenderness. It did not seem possible so willful a
misunderstanding could be maintained.
“You can’t judge Barbara by ordinary standards,” insisted Ace
uncomfortably, when I told him what had happened.
“I’m not judging her by any standards or at all,” I said; “I just don’t
see how anyone could get things so wrong.”
“She.... Her nature needs sympathy. Lots of it. She’s never had the
understanding and encouragement she ought to have.”
“It looks the other way around to me.”
“That’s because you don’t know the background. She’s always been
lonely. From childhood. Her mother was impatient of children and never
found time for her.”
“How do you know?” I asked.
“Why ... she told me, of course.”
“And you believed her. Without corroborative evidence. Is that what’s
called the scientific attitude?”
He stopped stock-still. “Look here, Backmaker—” a moment before I had
been Hodge to him—“Look here, Backmaker, I’m damned tired of all the
things people say about Barbara; the jeers and sneers and gossip by
people who just aren’t good enough to breathe the same air with her,
much less have the faintest notion of her mind and spirit—”
“Come off it, Ace,” I interrupted. “I havent got anything against
Barbara. The shoe is on the other foot. Tell her I’m all right, will
you? Don’t waste time trying to convince me; I’m just trying to get
along.”
It was clear, not only from the slips which evaded Ace’s guard, but
from less restrained remarks by other fellows, that Barbara’s tortured
jealousy was a fixture of her character. She had created feuds,
slandered and reviled fellows who had been guilty of nothing except
trying to interest her father in some project in which she herself
was not concerned. I learned much more also, much Ace had no desire
to convey. But he was a poor hand at concealing anything, and it was
clear he was helplessly subject to her, but without the usual kindly
anesthetic of illusion. I guessed he had enjoyed her favors, but she
evidently didnt bother to hide the fact that the privilege was not
exclusive; perhaps indeed she insisted on his knowing. I gathered she
was a fiercely moral polyandrist, demanding absolute fidelity without
offering the slightest hope of reciprocal singlemindedness.
_12._ _MORE OF HAGGERSHAVEN_
Among the fellows was an Oliver Midbin, a student of what he chose to
call the new and revolutionary science of Emotional Pathology. Tall
and thin, with an incongruous little potbelly like an enlarged and
far-slipped adamsapple, he pounced on me as a ready-made and captive
audience for his theories.
“Now this case of pseudo-aphonia—”
“He means the dumb girl,” explained Ace, aside.
“Nonsense. Dumbness is not even the statement of a symptom, but a very
imperfect description. Pseudo-aphonia. Purely of an emotional nature.
Of course if you take her to some medical quack he’ll convince himself
and you and certainly her that there’s an impairment, or degeneration,
or atrophy of the vocal cords—”
“I’m not the girl’s guardian, Mr Midbin—”
“Doctor. Philosophiae, Göttingen. Trivial matter.”
“Excuse me, Dr Midbin. Anyway, I’m not her guardian so I’m not taking
her anywhere. But, just as a theoretical question, suppose examination
did reveal physical damage?”
He appeared delighted, and rubbed his hands together. “Oh, it would. I
assure you it would. These fellows always find what theyre looking for.
If your disposition is sour theyll find warts on your duodenum. In a
postmortem. In a postmortem. Whereas Emotional Pathology deals with the
sour disposition and lets the warts, if any, take care of themselves.
Matter is a function of the mind. People are dumb or blind or deaf for
a purpose. Now what purpose can the girl have for muteness?”
“No conversation?” I suggested. I didnt doubt Midbin was an authority,
but his manner made flippancy almost irresistible.
“I shall find out,” he said firmly. “This is bound to be a simpler
maladjustment than Barbara’s—”
“Aw, come on,” protested Ace.
“Nonsense, Dorn; obscurantic nonsense. Reticence is a necessary
ingredient of those medical ethics by which the quacks conceal
incompetence. Mumbo jumbo to keep the layman from asking annoying
questions. Priestly, not scientific approach. Art and mystery of
phlebotomy. Don’t hold back knowledge; publish it to the world.”
“I think Barbara wouldnt want her private thoughts published to the
world. You have to draw the line somewhere.”
Midbin put his head on one side and looked at Ace as though he were
difficult to see. “Now that’s interesting, Dorn,” he said; “I wonder
what turns a seeker after knowledge into a censor.”
“Are you going to start exploring my emotional pathology now?”
“Not interesting enough; not nearly interesting enough. Diagnosis while
you wait; treatment in a few easy instalments. Barbara now—there’s a
really beautiful case. Beautiful case; years of treatment and little
sign of improvement. Of course she wouldnt want her thoughts known.
Why? Because she’s happy with her hatred for her dead mother. Shocking
to Mrs Grundy; doubly ditto to Mister. Exaggerated possessiveness
toward her father makes her miserable. Thoughts known, misery
ventilated: shame, condemnation, fie, fie. Her fantasy—”
“Midbin!”
“Her fantasy of going back to childhood (fascinating; adult employs
infantile time-sequence, infantile magic, infantile hatreds) in order
to injure her mother is a sick notion she cherishes the way a dog licks
a wound. But without analogous therapy. Ventilate it. Ventilate it. Now
this girl’s case is bound to be simpler. Younger if nothing else. And
nice, overt symptoms. Bring her around tomorrow and we’ll begin.”
“Me?” I asked.
“Who else? Youre the only one she doesnt seem to distrust.”
It was annoying to have the girl’s puppylike devotion observed and
commented on. I realized she saw me as the only connection, however
tenuous, with a normal past; I had assumed she would turn naturally
after a few days to the women who took such open pleasure in fussing
over her affliction. However she merely suffered their attentions; no
matter how I tried to avoid her she sought me out, running to me with
muted cries which should have been touching but were only painful.
Mr Haggerwells’ telegram to the sheriff’s office at York had brought
the reply that a deputy sheriff would visit the haven “when time
permitted.” He had also telegraphed the Spanish legation who answered
they knew no other Escobars than Don Jaime and his wife. The girl might
be a servant or a stranger; it was no concern of His Most Catholic
Majesty.
The school uniform made it unlikely she was a servant but beyond this,
little was deducible. She did not respond to questions in either
Spanish or English, and it was impossible to tell if she understood
their meaning, for her blank expression remained unchanged. When
offered pencil and paper she handled them curiously, then let them
slide to the floor.
I wondered briefly if perhaps her intelligence was slightly subnormal,
but this was met by a firm, even belligerent denial from Midbin, whose
conclusion was confirmed, at least in my opinion, by her apparently
excellent coordination, her personal neatness and fastidiousness which
were far more delicate than any I’d been accustomed to.
Midbin’s method of treatment smacked of the mystical. His subjects
were supposed to relax on a couch and say whatever came into their
minds. At least this was the clearest part of the explanation he gave
when I rebelliously escorted the girl to his “office,” a large, bare
room decorated only by some old European calendars by the popular
academician, Picasso. The couch was a cot which Midbin himself used
more conventionally at night.
“All right,” I said; “just how are you going to manage?”
“Convince her everything’s all right and I’m not going to hurt her.”
“Sure,” I agreed. “Sure. Only: how?”
He gave me one of his head-on-shoulder looks and turned to the girl who
waited apathetically, with downcast eyes. “You lie down,” he suggested.
“Me? I’m not dumb.”
“Pretend you are. Lie down, close your eyes, say the first thing on
your tongue. Without stopping to think about it.”
“How can I say anything if I’m pretending to be dumb?” Grudgingly
I complied, fancying a faint look of curiosity passing over the
too-placid face. “‘No man bathes twice in the same stream,’” I muttered.
He made me repeat the performance several times, then by pantomime
urged her to imitate me. It was doubtful if she understood; in the end
we nudged her gently into the required position. There was no question
of relaxation; she lay there warily, tense and stiff even with her eyes
closed.
The whole business was so manifestly useless and absurd, to say nothing
of being undignified, that I was tempted to walk out on it. Only
ignoble calculation on Midbin’s voting for my acceptance in the haven
kept me there.
Looking at the form stretched out so rigidly, I could not but admit
again that the girl was beautiful. But the admission was dispassionate;
the beauty was abstract and neutral, the lovely young lines evoked no
lust. I felt only vexation because her plight kept me from the wonders
of Haggershaven.
“What good can this possibly do?” I burst out after ten fruitless
minutes. “Youre trying to find out why she can’t talk and she can’t
talk to tell you why she can’t talk.”
“Science explores all methods of approach,” Midbin answered loftily;
“I’m searching for a technique which will reach her. Bring her back
tomorrow.”
I swallowed my annoyance and started out. The girl jumped up and
pressed close to my side. Outdoors the air was crisp; I felt her
suppress a slight shiver. “Now I suppose I’ll have to take you where
it’s warm or find a wrap for you,” I scolded irritably. “I don’t know
why I have to be your nursemaid.”
She whimpered very softly and I was remorseful. None erf this was her
fault; my callousness was inexcusable. But if she could only attach
herself to some other protector and leave me alone....
As one about to be banished I tried to cram everything into short days.
I realized that these autumn weeks, spent in casual conversation or
joining the familiar preparations for rural winter, were a period of
thorough and critical probation. There was little I could do to sway
the decision beyond the exhibition of an honest willingness to turn to
whatever work needed doing, and to repeat, whenever the opportunity
offered, that Haggershaven was literally a revelation to me, an island
of civilization in the midst of a chaotic and savage sea. My dream was
to make a landfall there.
Certainly my meager background and scraps of reading would not persuade
the men and women of the haven; I could only hope they might divine
some promise in me. Against this hope I put Barbara’s enmity, a
hostility now exacerbated by rage at Oliver Midbin for daring to devote
to another, particularly another woman, the attention which had been
her due, and the very technique used for her. I knew her persistence
and I could not doubt she would move enough of the fellows to insure my
rejection.
The gang which had been operating in the vicinity, presumably the
same one I had encountered, moved on. At least no further crimes were
attributed to it. Once they were gone, Deputy Sheriff Beasley finally
found time to visit Haggershaven in response to the telegram. He had
evidently been there before without attaining much respect on either
side. I got the distinct impression he would have preferred a more
formal examination than the one which took place in Mr Haggerwells’
study, with fellows drifting in and out, interrupting the proceedings
with comments of their own.
I think he doubted the girl’s dumbness. He barked his questions so
loudly and brusquely they would have terrified a far more securely
poised individual. She promptly went into dry hysterics, whereupon he
turned his attention to me.
I was apprehensive lest his questions explore my life with Tyss and
my connection with the Grand Army, but apparently mere presence at
Haggershaven indicated an innocence not unrelated to idiocy, at least
so far as the more popular crimes were concerned. My passage of
the York road and all the events leading up to it were outside his
interest; he wanted only a succinct story of the holdup, reminding me
of the late Colonel Tolliburr in his assumption that the lay eye ought
normally to be photographic of the minutest detail.
He was clearly dissatisfied with my account and left grumbling that
it would be more to the point if bookworms learned to identify a man
properly, instead of logarithms or trigonometry. I didn’t see exactly
how this applied to me, since I was laudably ignorant of both subjects.
If Officer Beasley was disappointed, Midbin was enchanted. Of course he
had heard my narrative before, but this was the first time he’d savored
its possible impact on the girl.
“You see, her pseudo-aphonia is neither congenital nor of long
standing. All logic leads to the conclusion that it’s the result of her
terror during the experience. She must have wanted to scream, it must
have been almost impossible for her not to scream, but for her very
life she dared not. The instinctive, automatic reaction was the one she
could not allow herself. She had to remain mute while she watched the
murders.”
For the first time it seemed possible there was more to Midbin than his
garrulity.
“She crushed back that natural, overwhelming impulse,” he went on. “She
had to; her life depended on it. It was an enormous effort and the
effect on her was in proportion; she achieved her object too well; when
it was safe for her to speak again she couldnt.”
It all sounded so plausible it was some time before I thought to ask
him why she didnt appear to understand what we said, or why she didnt
write anything when she was handed pencil and paper.
“Communication,” he answered. “She had to cut off communication, and
once cut off it’s not easy to restore. At least that’s one aspect.
Another is more tricky. The holdup happened more than a month ago, but
do you suppose the affected mind reckons so precisely? Is a precise
reckoning possible? Duration may, for all we know, be an entirely
subjective thing. Yesterday for you may be today for me. We recognize
this to some extent when we speak of hours passing slowly or quickly.
The girl may still be undergoing the agony of repressing her screams;
the holdup, the murders, are not in the past for her, but the present.
They are taking place in a long drawn out instant of time which may
never end during her life. And if this is so, is it any wonder she is
unable to relax, to let down her guard long enough to realize that the
present is present and the crisis is past?”
He pressed his middle thoughtfully. “Now, if it is possible to recreate
in her mind by stimulus from without rather than by evocation from
within the conditions leading up to and through the climacteric, she
would have a chance to vent the emotions she was forced to swallow. She
might, I don’t say she would, she might speak again.”
I understood such a process would necessarily be lengthy, but as time
passed I saw no indication he was reaching her at all, much less that
he was getting any results. One of the Spanish-speaking fellows,
a botanist who came and went from the haven at erratic intervals,
translated my account of our meeting and read parts of it to the
recumbent girl, following Midbin’s excited stage directions and
interpolations. Nothing happened.
Outside the futile duty of coaxing the girl to participate in Midbin’s
sessions I had no obligations except those I took upon myself or could
persuade others to delegate to me. Hiro Agati declared me hopelessly
incompetent to help him in the kiln he had set up to make “hard
glass,” a thick substance he hoped might take the place of cast iron
in such things as woodstoves, or clay tile in flues. He conceded I was
not entirely useless in the small garden surrounding their cottage
where he, Mrs Agati—an architect, much younger than her husband and
extremely diminutive—and their three children spent their spare time
transplanting, rearranging, or preparing for the following season.
Dr Agati was not only the first American Japanese I had ever met; his
was the first family I had known who broke the unwritten rule of having
only one child. Both he and Kimi Agati seemed unaware of the stern
injunctions by Whigs and Populists alike that disaster would follow if
the population of the country increased too fast. Fumio and Eiko didnt
care, while Yoshio, at two, was just not interested.
The Agatis represented for me one more pang at the thought of
banishment from the haven. Since I knew neither chemistry nor
architecture, our conversation had limits, but this was no drawback to
the pleasure I took in their company. Often, after I was assured I was
welcome there, I sat reading or simply silent while Hiro worked, the
children ran in and out, and Kimi, who was conservative and didnt care
for chairs, sat comfortably on the floor and sketched or calculated
stresses.
Gradually I progressed from the stage where I wanted decision on my
application postponed as long as possible to one where I was impatient
to have it over and done with. “Why?” asked Hiro. “Suspense is the
condition we live in all our lives.”
“Well, but there are degrees. You know about what you will be doing
next year.”
“Do I? What guarantees have I? The future is happily veiled. When I
was your age I despaired because no one would accept the indentures of
a Japanese. (We are still called Japanese even though our ancestors
migrated at the time of the abortive attempt to overthrow the Shogunate
and restore the Mikado in 1868.) Suspense instead of certainty would
have been a pleasure.”
“Anyway,” said Kimi practically, “it may be months before the next
meeting.”
“What do you mean? Isnt there a set time for such business?” Sure there
must be, I had never dared ask the exact date.
Hiro shook his head. “Why should there be? The next time the fellows
pass on an appropriation or a project, we’ll decide whether there’s
room for an historian.”
“But ... as Kimi says, it might not be for months.”
“Or it might be tomorrow,” replied Hiro.
“Don’t worry, Hodge,” said Fumio, “Papa will vote for you, and Mother
too.”
Hiro grunted.
When it did come it was anticlimactic. Hiro, Midbin, and several others
with whom I’d scarcely exchanged a word recommended me, and Barbara
simply ignored my existence. I was a full fellow of Haggershaven, with
all the duties and privileges appertaining. I was also securely at home
for the first time since I left Wappinger Falls more than six years
before. I knew that in all its history few had ever cut themselves off
from the haven, still fewer had ever been asked to resign.
At a modest celebration in the big kitchen that night, the haven
revealed more of the talents it harbored. Hiro produced a gallon
of liquor he had distilled from sawdust and called cellusaki. Mr
Haggerwells pronounced it fit for a cultivated palate, following with
an impromptu discourse on drinking through the ages. Midbin sampled
enough of it to imitate Mr. Haggerwells’ lecture and then, as an
inspired afterthought, to demonstrate how Mr Haggerwells might mimic
Midbin’s parody. Ace and three others sang ballads; even the dumb girl,
persuaded to sip a little of the cellusaki under the disapproving eyes
of her self-appointed guardians, seemed to become faintly animated. If
anyone noted the absence of Barbara Haggerwells, no one commented on it.
Fall became winter. Surplus timber was hauled in from the woodlots and
the lignin extracted by compressed air, a method perfected by one of
the fellows. Lignin was the fuel used in our hot water furnaces and
provided the gas for the reflecting jets which magnified a tiny flame
into strong illumination. All of us took part in this work, but just as
I had not been able to help Hiro to his satisfaction in the laboratory,
so here too my ineptness with things mechanical soon caused me to be
set to more congenial tasks in the stables.
I did not repine at this, for though I was delighted with the society
of the others, I found it pleasurable to be alone, to sort out my
thoughts, to slow down to the rhythm of the heavy percherons or enjoy
the antics of the two young foals. The world and time were somewhere
shut outside; I felt contentment so strong as to be beyond satisfaction
or any active emotion.
I was currying a dappled mare one afternoon and reflecting how the
steam-plow used on the great wheat ranches of British America deprived
the farmers not merely of fertilizer but also of companionship, when
Barbara, her breath still cloudy from the cold outside, came in and
stood behind me. I made an artificial cowlick on the mare’s flank, then
brushed it glossy smooth again.
“Hello,” she said.
“Uh ... hello, Miss Haggerwells.”
“Must you, Hodge?”
I roughed up the mare’s flank once more. “Must I what? I’m afraid I
don’t understand.”