When he had finished his search, the apartment was neater than it had been for months. He found nothing, but he was aware that the negative results were not conclusive. Unless he tore furniture and walls to pieces, he could not be sure that some small object was not still concealed.
He searched the bedroom last, at Linda’s request; he knew that, as twilight closed in, she wanted him near by, where he could watch her. She seemed convinced of her theory of a physical link; Michael found it weaker and less convincing the longer he thought about it.
Napoleon, fully restored to health and malevolence, was still with them. Curled up on the foot of the bed, he watched Michael suspiciously.
Michael backed out of the interior of the wardrobe, carrying the pile of dirty shirts he had inspected several times before. He shook each one out, feeling in the pockets, and dropping them one by one to the floor as he finished. He viewed the untidy pile indecisively, and then shrugged and left it there.
“Can you think of any place I missed?” he asked.
“No.” Linda’s voice was strained. “Michael, it’s almost dark.”
“Not yet.”
“Yes. Now.” She held out her hands.
When he had done it, Michael was shaking. It got worse every time he did it. Napoleon’s disapproval didn’t help matters. The cat protested so violently that Michael finally had to shut him in the bathroom.
“All right,” he said, straightening up after he had tied the final knot. “That’s it. I’m not going to gag you, I don’t see the need for it; and anyhow, it is simply too goddamn much for me to stomach.”
“Okay,” she said submissively.
Michael had turned on the lights; the darkness outside was complete. The lamp by the bed cast a warm glow on Linda’s face, and he was outraged to see that she was smiling. Maybe she felt better this way. He sure as hell didn’t.
He couldn’t look at her any longer. He couldn’t stand the thoughts that kept worming into his mind. Abruptly, he turned and blundered out of the room; when he was out of her sight he leaned up against the wall, his head resting on his arm. It was barely seven o’clock. How in the name of God was he going to get through the rest of the night?
It was the hour of midnight he dreaded most. Superstition…but no more mad than any of the other things that had happened. He forced himself back to Linda and found, as people usually do, that he could stand it, and would stand it, because he had to.
They talked, but no longer of theories and interpretations. They spoke of defense, like the decimated garrison of a beleaguered fortress. But the weapons they discussed were not in any modern arsenal.
“I don’t happen to have any holy water on hand,” Michael said, driven to a fruitless sarcasm. “Ran out last week…It didn’t help Andrea, remember?”
“Could you-could you pray?” she asked diffidently.
“No.” Michael looked at her. “Yes. I could pray. If I knew What to pray to.”
The idea came into both their minds at the same moment, or else she read his face with uncanny quickness.
“You can’t do that,” she said.
“Why not? If we’re right-or even if we’re wrong. Any kind of mental assurance, confidence-”
“Not that kind, no-there’s a limit, Michael. It would be spiritual prostitution, unimaginably worse than any physical contamination. You couldn’t do it-not if you really believed. And if you didn’t, it would just be a dirty game.”
Again Michael was reminded of the gulf between their minds. His idea of trying to fight Gordon on his own ground had been partly a counsel of desperation, partly an academic theory. There was nothing academic about Linda’s attitude; she looked sick with disgust.
“Besides,” she went on; her voice was shaking. “Besides, you’d be a novice, a probationer. He’s studied these things for years. All you would do is weaken yourself, don’t you see? He could walk right into your mind and destroy it.”
“Okay, okay. It was just an idea. Then what can we do?”
Linda relaxed.
“Do you love me?” she asked.
The question was so unexpected that it caught Michael off guard.
“Someone asked me that, once,” he said slowly.
“Well?”
“I said I didn’t know what the word meant. I still don’t. But I love you.”
“Then love me. No-” His hand came toward her and she shook her head. “Don’t touch me, don’t think of touching me. Think of love. Not of desire; they aren’t the same. I don’t know what love means either. But most people confuse loving with being loved. Love isn’t reciprocal. It doesn’t ask, or expect, or demand. It isn’t an emotion, it’s a state of being. Love me, Michael.”
“It sounds rather one-sided to me,” Michael said; for the life of him, he could not have kept the bitterness out of his voice. “And also rather esoteric. You aren’t talking to Saint Francis, you know.”
“I noticed that… Oh, Michael, I’m sorry! I’m sorry you’re involved in this, I’m sorry for talking to you like a third-rate mystic, I’m sorriest of all for asking, demanding, and not offering you anything in return. I haven’t anything to give, not any longer. I did once; I think I did… But I lost it, somewhere along the way, when Gordon taught me his way of loving. He does love me, you know. He calls it that. And I’m almost as bad as he is now; the only difference is that I know that that insatiable demand is not love, but a perversion of it. That’s why I can’t fight him. But you can.”
Without answering, Michael stood up and walked across the room. From Linda’s earnest confusion of half-digested philosophy he derived only despair. Even if they fought their way out of the present crisis, there was no future for him with a woman who was literally frightened to death of loving. She was sick, incurably sick, if she could believe what she said she believed. Like most theories, hers sounded fine on the surface; but if love was not reciprocal, only the saints could derive much satisfaction from it. A normal human being had only so much to give without getting something in return. Depletion was inevitable.
And this present situation, which she had talked him into, was impossible. Linda was immobilized, defenseless. If she was wrong-and she had to be wrong!-about her idea of vulnerability through the lack of love, then he was as susceptible to mental invasion as she was. The logic of Gordon’s next move came to him so strongly that it was as if he had read the other’s mind. Even if Linda had not been bound, she would be no match for him; he was stronger and heavier. She could scream; and she would, as long as she had breath left with which to scream, long enough for the neighbors to call the police, who would not arrive in time… They would find him standing there, over the bloody thing on the bed. Gordon would keep control over him that long. Just that long. He would release the mental bonds in time for Michael to see, and comprehend, what he had done…
Just in time, Michael realized what was happening. He flung himself around, grasping blindly at the first solid object that came within reach. Something rocked under the thrust of his body, something fell and crashed; and he found himself leaning against the big dresser, his arms grasping it as a drowning man would clutch an oar. A broken ashtray lay on the floor. His face was streaming with perspiration, and his heart pounded as if he had been running a race. Something else was pounding-an irate neighbor, from the floor below. The howls of Napoleon, imprisoned in the bathroom, were loud enough to wake the dead.
“Michael! Michael-is something wrong?”
How long had she been calling him? With an enormous effort, Michael removed his hands from the dresser and turned around.
“It’s all right,” he said thickly; and then said it again, because his voice had been almost inaudible.