In any case the war, Operation Dandelion, will sweep us all away. No matter what we are doing at the time. Our enemy, alongside whom we fought in the last war. What good did it do us? We should have fought them, possibly. Or permitted them to lose, assisted their enemies, the United States, Britain, Russia.
Hopeless wherever one looks.
The oracle enigmatic. Perhaps it has withdrawn from the world of man in sorrow. The sages leaving.
We have entered a Moment when we are alone. We cannot get assistance, as before. Well, Mr. Tagomi thought, perhaps that too is good. Or can be made good. One must still try to find the Way.
He boarded the California Street cable car, rode all the way to the end of the line. He even hopped out and assisted in turning the cable car around on its wooden turntable. That, of all experiences in the city, had the most meaning for him, customarily. Now the effect languished; he felt the void even more acutely, due to vitiation here of all places.
Naturally he rode back. But… a formality, he realized as he watched the streets, buildings, traffic pass in reverse of before.
Near Stockton he rose to get off. But at the stop, when he started to descend, the conductor hailed him. “Your briefcase, sir.”
“Thank you.” He had left it on the cable car. Reaching up he accepted it, then bowed as the cable car clanged into motion. Very valuable briefcase contents, he thought. Priceless Colt .44 collector’s item carried within. Now kept within easy reach constantly, in case vengeful hooligans of SD should try to repay me as individual. One never knows. And yet—Mr. Tagomi felt that this new procedure, despite all that had occurred, was neurotic. I should not yield to it, he told himself once again as he walked along carrying the briefcase. Compulsion-obsession-phobia. But he could not free himself.
It in my grip, I in its, he thought.
Have I then lost my delighted attitude? he asked himself. Is all instinct perverted from the memory of what I did? All collecting damaged, not merely attitude toward this one item? Mainstay of my life… area, alas, where I dwelt with such relish.
Hailing a pedecab, he directed the driver to Montgomery Street and Robert Childan’s shop. Let us find out. One thread left, connecting me with the voluntary. I possibly could manage my anxious proclivities by a ruse: trade the gun in on more historicity sanctioned item. This gun, for me, has too much subjective history… all of the wrong kind. But that ends with me; no one else can experience it from the gun. Within my psyche only.
Free myself, he decided with excitement. When the gun goes, it all leaves, the cloud of the past. For it is not merely in my psyche; it is—as has always been said in the theory of historicity—within the gun as well. An equation between us!
He reached the store. Where I have dealt so much, he observed as he paid the driver. Both business and private. Carrying the briefcase he quickly entered.
There, at the cash register, Mr. Childan. Polishing with cloth some artifact.
“Mr. Tagomi,” Childan said, with a bow.
“Mr. Childan.” He, too, bowed.
“What a surprise. I am overcome.” Childan put down the object and cloth. Around the corner of the counter he came. Usual ritual, the greeting, et cetera. Yet, Mr. Tagomi felt the man today somehow different. Rather—muted. An improvement, he decided. Always a trifle loud, shrill. Skipping about with agitation. But this might well be a bad omen.
“Mr. Childan,” Mr. Tagomi said, placing his briefcase on the counter and unzipping it, “I wish to trade in an item bought several years ago. You do that, I recollect.”