"To search? Arrest?"
"I don't know. Neither does Dr. Lal. But she got very excited. What she said was that she would go to her priest. She would go to Father Robles and complain to the Church."
"Margotte, you had better check with that priest. A search warrant in that apartment? She has been filling it with trash for twelve years. If the police put down their hats, they'll never find them again. But I would say she has gone to New Rochelle."
"Do you think so?"
"If she's not with Father Robles, that's where she is." Sammler knew her ways; knew them as the Eskimo knows the ways of the seal. Its breathing-holes. "She is protecting me now, because the stolen property is in my hands. She must have been terrified by the detective, poor thing, and then waited till we had both gone out." Spying on my door like the black man. Feeling that she was not included by her father among his most serious concerns. Determined to regain the top priority. "I have let her go too far with this H. G. Wells nonsense. And now someone has been hurt."
This unlucky Lal, who must have been sick of earth to begin with if he had such expectations of the moon.
And partly he was right, for humankind kept doing the same stunts over and over. The old comical-tearful stuff. Emotional relationships. Desires incapable of useful fulfillment. Over and over, trying to vent and empty the breast of certain cries, of certain fervencies. What positive balance was possible? Was this passional struggle altogether useless? It was the energy bank also of noble purposes. Barking, hissing, ape-chatter, and spitting. But there were times when Love seemed life's great architect. Weren't there? Even stupidity might at times be hammered out as a golden background for great actions. Mightn't it? But for these weaknesses and these tenacious sicknesses, were there true cures? Sometimes the idea of cures seemed to Sammler itself pernicious. What was cured? You could rearrange, you could orchestrate the disorders. But cure? Nonsense. Change Sin to Sickness, a change of words (Feffer was right), and then enlightened doctors would stamp the sickness out. Oh, yes! So, then, philosophers, men of science, of brilliant intellect, understanding this more and more clearly, are compelled to sue for divorce from all these human states. Then they launch outward, moonward, their flying arthropod hardware. "I shall go to New Rochelle with Wallace," said Sammler. "She is certainly there. To be sure, we will check with Father Robles. If he knows where she is... I'll call back."
Because she was not an American he felt a certain solidarity with Margotte. From her he did not have to conceal his (foreign) mortification. And she had shown delicacy in remembering not to ring Elya's room.
"What shall I do with Dr. Lal?"
"Apologize," he said. "Reassure. Comfort him, Margotte. Tell him I'm sure the manuscript is safe. Explain Shula's respect for the written word. And please ask him to keep the detectives out of this."
"Wait a minute. He is here. He would like to say a word."
An Eastern voice enriched the wire.
"Is this Mr. Sammler?"
"It is."
"Dr. Lal, here. This is the second robbery. I cannot tolerate much more. Since Mrs. Arkin has appealed for patience, I can hold off just a very little longer. But very little. Then I must have the police detain your daughter."
"If only it would help to put her behind bars! Believe me, I am sorrier than I can say. But I am perfectly sure the manuscript is safe. I understand you have no other copy."
"Three years of composition."
"That is distressing. I had hoped it was more like six months. But I can see how much careful preparation it would need." Normally Sammler shunned flattery, but now he had no choice. Moisture formed upon the black instrument, against his ear, and on his cheek was a red pressure mark. He said, "The work is brilliant."
"I am glad you think so. Judge how it affects me."
I can judge. Anyone can clutch anyone, and whirl him off. The low can force the high to dance. The wise have to reel about with leaping fools. "Try not to be too anxious, sir. I can recover your manuscript, and will do it tonight. I don't use my authority often enough. Believe me, I can control my daughter, and I shall."
"I had hoped to publish by the time of the first moon landing," said Lal. "You can imagine how many bad paperbacks will be out. Confusing to the public. Meretricious."
"Of course." Sammler sensed that the Indian, probably passionate, resisting great internal pressure, was after all being decent, allowing for the frailty of an old man, the tightness of the situation. He thought, The fellow is a gentleman. Inclining his head within the soundproof metal enclosure, the dotted voile of insulation, Sammler yielded to Oriental suggestion: "May the sun brighten your face. Single you out among the multitude (imagining Hindus always in crowds: like mackerel-crowded seas) many years yet." Sammler was determined that Shula should hurt no one but himself. He had to put up with it, but no one else should. "I shall be interested in your comments on my essay."
"Of course," said Sammler, "we will have a long talk about it. Please stand by. I will phone as soon as there is some news. Thank you for bearing with me."
Both parties hung up.
"Wallace," said Sammler, "I think I shall be driving to New Rochelle with you."
"Really? Then Dad did say something about the attic?"
"It has nothing to do with the attic."
"Then why? Is it something about Shula? It must be."
"Why, yes, in fact. Shula. Can we leave soon?"
"Emil is out there with the Rolls. Might as well use it while we can. What is Shula up to? She called me."
"When?"
"Not long ago. She wanted to put something in Dad's wall safe. Did I know the combination. Naturally I couldn't say I knew the combination. I'm not supposed to know."
"Where was she calling from?"
"I didn't ask. Of course you've seen Shula whispering to the flowers in the garden," said Wallace. Wallace was not observant and took little interest in the conduct of others. But for that very reason he prized highly the things he did notice. What he noticed he cherished. He had always been kind and warm to Shula. "What language does she speak to them, is it Polish?"
The language of schizophrenia, very likely.
"I used to read Alice in Wonderland to her. Those talking flowers. The garden of live flowers."
Sammler opened the patient's door and saw him sitting up, alone. Dr. Gruner in his large black spectacles was studying, or trying to study, a contract or legal document. He would sometimes say that he should have been a lawyer, not a doctor. Medical school had not been his choice but his mother's. Of his own free will he had probably done little. Consider his wife.
"Come in, Uncle, and shut the door. Let's make it fathers only. I don't want to see children tonight."
"I understand that feeling," said Sammler. "I've had it often."
"It's a pity about Shula, poor woman. But she is only wacky. My daughter is a dirty cunt."
"A different generation, a different generation."
"And my son, a high-IQ moron."
"He may come around, Elya."
"You don't believe it for a minute, Uncle. What, a ninth-inning rally? I ask myself what I spent so many years of my life on. I must have believed what America was telling me. I paid for the best. I never suspected that I wasn't getting the best."
Had Elya spoken in excitement, Sammler would have tried to calm him. He was, however, speaking factually and he sounded utterly level. In the goggles he looked particularly judicious. Like the chairman of a Senate committee hearing scandalous testimony without loss of composure.
"Where is Angela?"
"Gone to the ladies' to have a cry, I suppose. If she isn't Frenching an orderly, or in a daisy chain. When she goes around the corner, you never know."
"Oh, too bad. You ought not to be quarreling."
"Not quarreling. Just making things plainer, spelling them out. I figured this Horricker to marry her, but he'll never do it now."