The Man in the High Castle

11

For the Reichs Consul in San Francisco, Freiherr Hugo Reiss, the first business of this particular day was unexpected and distressing. When he arrived at his office he found a visitor waiting already, a large, heavy-jawed, middle-aged man with pocked skin and disapproving scowl that drew his black, tangled eyebrows together. The man rose and made a Partei salute, at the same time murmuring, “Heil.”

Reiss said, “Heil.” He groaned inwardly, but maintained a businesslike formal smile. “Herr Kreuz vom Meere. I am surprised. Won’t you come in?” He unlocked his inner office, wondering where his vice-consul was, and who had let the SD chief in. Anyhow, here the man was. There was nothing to be done.

Following along after him, his hands in the pockets of his dark wool overcoat, Kreuz vom Meere said, “Listen, Freiherr. We located this Abwehr fellow. This Rudolf Wegener. He showed up at an old Abwehr drop we have under surveillance.” Kreuz vom Meere chuckled, showing enormous gold teeth. “And we trailed him back to his hotel.”

“Fine,” Reiss said, noticing that his mail was on his desk. So Pferdehuf was around somewhere. No doubt he had left the office locked to keep the SD chief from a little informal snooping.

“This is important,” Kruez vom Meere said. “I notified Kaltenbrunner about it. Top priority. You’ll probably be getting word from Berlin any time now. Unless those Unratfressers back home get it all mixed up.” He seated himself on the consul’s desk, took a wad of folded paper from his coat pocket, unfolded the paper laboriously, his lips moving. “Cover name is Baynes. Posing as a Swedish industrialist or salesman or something connected with manufacturing. Received phone call this morning at eight-ten from Japanese official regarding appointment at ten-twenty in the Jap’s office. We’re presently trying to trace the call. Probably will have it traced in another half hour. They’ll notify me here.”

“I see,” Reiss said.

“Now, we may pick up this fellow,” Kreuz vom Meere continued. “If we do, we’ll naturally send him back to the Reich aboard the next Lufthansa plane. However, the Japs or Sacramento may protest and try to block it. They’ll protest to you, if they do. In fact, they may bring enormous pressure to bear. And they’ll run a truckload of those Tokkoka toughs to the airport.”

“You can’t keep them from finding out?”

“Too late. He’s on his way to this appointment. We may have to pick him up right there on the spot. Run in, grab him, run out.”

“I don’t like that,” Reiss said. “Suppose his appointment is with some extremely high-place Jap officials? There may be an Emperor’s personal representative in San Francisco, right now. I heard a rumor the other day—”

Kreuz vom Meere interrupted. “It doesn’t matter. He’s a German national. Subject to Reichs law.”

And we know what Reichs law is, Reiss thought.

“I have a Kommando squad ready,” Kreuz vom Meere went on. “Five good men.” He chuckled. “They look like violinists. Nice ascetic faces. Soulful. Maybe like divinity students. They’ll get in. The Japs’ll think they’re a string quartet—”

“Quintet,” Reiss said.

“Yes. They’ll walk right up to the door—they’re dressed just right.” He surveyed the consul. “Pretty much as you are.”

Thank you, Reiss thought.

“Right in plain sight. Broad daylight. Up to this Wegener. Gather around him. Appear to be conferring. Message of importance.” Kreuz vom Meere droned on, while the consul began opening his mail. “No violence. Just, ‘Herr Wegener. Come with us, please. You understand.’ And between the vertebrae of his spine a little shaft. Pump. Upper ganglia paralyzed.”

Reiss nodded.

“Are you listening?”

“Ganz bestimmt.”

“Then out again. To the car. Back to my office. Japs make a lot of racket. But polite to the last.” Kreuz vom Meere lumbered from the desk to pantomime a Japanese bowing.

“ ‘Most vulgar to deceive us, Herr Kruez vom Meere. However, good-bye, Herr Wegener—’ “

“Baynes,” Reiss said. “Isn’t he using his cover name?”

“Baynes. ‘So sorry to see you go. Plenty more talk maybe next time.’ “ The phone on Reiss’ desk rang, and Kreuz vom Meere ceased his prank. “That may be for me.” He started to answer it; but Reiss stepped to it and took it himself.

“Reiss, here.”

An unfamiliar voice said, “Consul, this is the Ausland Fernsprechamt at Nova Scotia. Transatlantic telephone call for you from Berlin, urgent.”

“All right,” Reiss said.

“Just a moment, Consul.” Faint static, crackles. Then another voice, a woman operator. “Kanzlei.”

“Yes, this is Ausland Fernsprechamt at Nova Scotia. Call for the Reichs Consul H. Reiss, San Francisco; I have the consul on the line.”

“Hold on.” A long pause, during which Reiss continued, with one hand, to inspect his mail. Kreuz vom Meere watched slackly. “Herr Konsul, sorry to take your time.” A man’s voice. The blood in Reiss’ veins instantly stopped its motion. Baritone, cultivated, rolling-out-smooth voice familiar to Reiss. “This is Doktor Goebbels.”

“Yes, Kanzler.” Across from Reiss, Kreuz vom Meere slowly showed a smile. The slack jaw ceased to hang.

“General Heydrich has just asked me to call you. There is an agent of the Abwehr there in San Francisco. His name is Rudolf Wegener. You are to cooperate fully with the police regarding him. There isn’t time to give you details. Simply put your office at their disposal. Ich danke Ihnen sehr dabei.”

“I understand, Herr Kanzler,” Reiss said.

“Good day, Konsul.” The Reichskanzler rang off.

Kreuz vom Meere watched intently as Reiss hung up the phone. “Was I right?”

Reiss shrugged. “No dispute, there.”

“Write out an authorization for us to return this Wegener to Germany forcibly.”

Picking up his pen, Reiss wrote out the authorization, signed it, handed it to the SD chief.

“Thank you,” Kreuz vorn Meere said. “Now, when the Jap authorities call you and complain—”

“If they do.”

Kreuz vom Meere eyed him. “They will. They’ll be here within fifteen minutes of the time we pick this Wegener up.” He had lost his joking, clowning manner.

“No string quintet violinists,” Reiss said.

Kreuz vom Meere did not answer. “We’ll have him sometime this morning, so be ready. You can tell the Japs that he’s a homosexual or a forger, or something like that. Wanted for a major crime back home. Don’t tell them he’s wanted for political crimes. You know they don’t recognize ninety percent of National Socialist law.”

“I know that,” Reiss said. “I know what to do.” He felt irritable and put upon. Went over my head, he said to himself. As usual. Contacted the Chancery. The bastards.

His hands were shaking. Call from Doctor Goebbels; did that do it? Awed by the mighty? Or is it resentment, feeling of being hemmed in… goddam these police, he thought. They get stronger all the time. They’ve got Goebbels working for them already; they’re running the Reich.

But what can I do? What can anybody do?

Resignedly he thought, Better cooperate. No time to be on the wrong side of this man; he can probably get whatever he wants back home, and that might include the dismissal of everybody hostile to him.

“I can see,” he said aloud, “that you did not exaggerate the importance of this matter, Herr Polizeifuhrer. Obviously, the security of Germany herself hangs on your quick detection of this spy or traitor or whatever he is.” Inwardly, he cringed to hear his choice of words.

However, Kreuz vom Meere looked pleased. “Thank you, Consul.”

“You may have saved us all.”

Gloomily Kreuz vom Meere said, “Well, we haven’t picked him up. Let’s wait for that. I wish that call would come.”

“I’ll handle the Japanese,” Reiss said. “I’ve had a good deal of experience, as you know. Their complaints—”

“Don’t ramble on,” Kreuz vom Meere interrupted. “I have to think.” Evidently the call from the Chancery had bothered him; he, too, felt under pressure now.

Possibly this fellow will get away, and it will cost you your job, Consul Hugo Reiss thought. My job, your job—we both could find ourselves out on the street any time. No more security for you than for me.

In fact, he thought, it might be worth seeing how a little foot-dragging here and there could possibly stall your activities, Herr Polizeifuhrer. Something negative that could never be pinned down. For instance, when the Japanese come in here to complain, I might manage to drop a hint as to the Lufthansa flight on which this fellow is to be dragged away… or barring that, needle them into a bit more outrage by, say, just the trace of a contemptuous smirk—suggesting that the Reich is amused by them, doesn’t take little yellow men seriously. It’s easy to sting them. And if they get angry enough, they might carry it directly to Goebbels.

All sorts of possibilities. The SD can’t really get this fellow out of the PSA without my active cooperation. If I can only hit on precisely the right twist…

I hate people who go over my head, Freiherr Reiss said to himself. It makes me too damn uncomfortable. It makes me so nervous that I can’t sleep, and when I can’t sleep I can’t do my job. So I owe it to Germany to correct this problem. I’d be a lot more comfortable at night and in the daytime, too, for that matter, if this low-class Bavarian thug were back home writing up reports in some obscure Gau police station.

The trouble is, there’s not the time. While I’m trying to decide how to—

The phone rang.

This time Kreuz vom Meere reached out to take it and Consul Reiss did not bar the way. “Hello,” Kreuz vom Meere said into the receiver. A moment of silence as he listened.

Already? Reiss thought.

But the SD chief was holding out the phone. “For you.”

Secretly relaxing with relief, Reiss took the phone.

“It’s some schoolteacher,” Kreuz vom Meere said. “Wants to know if you can give them scenic posters of Austria for their class.”

Toward eleven o’clock in the morning, Robert Childan shut up his store and set off, on foot, for Mr. Paul Kasoura’s business office.

Fortunately, Paul was not busy. He greeted Childan politely and offered him tea.

“I will not bother you long,” Childan said after they had both begun sipping. Paul’s office, although small, was modern and simply furnished. On the wall one single superb print: Mokkei’s Tiger, a late-thirteenth-century masterpiece.

“I’m always happy to see you, Robert,” Paul said, in a tone that held—Childan thought—perhaps a trace of aloofness.

Or perhaps it was his imagination. Childan glanced cautiously over his teacup. The man certainly looked friendly. And yet—Childan sensed a change.

“Your wife,” Childan said, “was disappointed by my crude gift. I possibly insulted. However, with something new and untried, as I explained to you when I grafted it to you, no proper or final evaluation can be made—at least not by someone in the purely business end. Certainly, you and Betty are in a better position to judge than I.”

Paul said, “She was not disappointed, Robert. I did not give the piece of jewelry to her.” Reaching into his desk, he brought out the small white box. “It has not left this office.”

He knows, Childan thought. Smart man. Never even told her. So that’s that. Now, Childan realized; let’s hope he’s not going to rave at me. Some kind of accusation about my trying to seduce his wife.

He could ruin me, Childan said to himself. Carefully he continued sipping his tea, his face impassive.

“Oh?” he said mildly. “Interesting.”

Paul opened the box, brought out the pin and began inspecting it. He held it to the light, turned it over and around.

“I took the liberty of showing this to a number of business acquaintances,” Paul said, “individuals who share my taste for American historic objects or for artifacts of general artistic, esthetic merit.” He eyed Robert Childan. “None of course had ever seen such as this before. As you explained, no such contemporary work hithertofore has been known. I think, too, you informed that you are sole representative.”

“Yes, that is so,” Childan said.

“You wish to hear their reaction?”

Childan bowed.

“These persons,” Paul said, “laughed.”

Childan was silent.

“Yet I, too, laughed behind my hand, invisible to you,” Paul said, “the other day when you appeared and showed me this thing. Naturally to protect your sangfroid, I concealed that amusement; as you no doubt recall, I remained more or less noncommittal in my apparent reaction.”

Childan nodded.

Studying the pin, Paul went on. “One can easily understand this reaction. Here is a piece of metal which has been melted until it has become shapeless. It represents nothing. Nor does it have design, of any intentional sort. It is merely amorphous. One might say, it is mere content, deprived of form.”

Childan nodded.

“Yet,” Paul said, “I have for several days now inspected it, and for no logical reason I feel a certain emotional fondness. Why is that? I may ask. I do not even now project into this blob, as in psychological German tests, my own psyche. I still see no shapes or forms. But it somehow partakes of Tao. You see?” He motioned Childan over. “It is balanced. The forces within this piece are stabilized. At rest. So to speak, this object has made its peace with the universe. It has separated from it and hence has managed to come to homeostasis.”

Childan nodded, studied the piece. But Paul had lost him.

“It does not have wabi,” Paul said, “nor could it ever. But—” He touched the pin with his nail. “Robert, this object has wu.”

“I believe you are right,” Childan said, trying to recall what wu was; it was not a Japanese word—it was Chinese. Wisdom, he decided. Or comprehension. Anyhow, it was highly good.

“The hands of the artificer,” Paul said, “had wu, and allowed that wu to flow into this piece. Possibly he himself knows only that this piece satisfies. It is complete, Robert. By contemplating it, we gain more wu ourselves. We experience the tranquility associated not with art but with holy things. I recall a shrine in Hiroshima wherein a shinbone of some medieval saint could be examined. However, this is an artifact and that was a relic. This is alive in the now, whereas that merely remained. By this meditation, conducted by myself at great length since you were last here, I have come to identify the value which this has in opposition to historicity. I am deeply moved, as you may see.”

“Yes,” Childan said.

“To have no historicity, and also no artistic, esthetic worth, and yet to partake of some ethereal value—that is a marvel. Just precisely because this a miserable, small, worthless-looking blob; that, Robert, contributes to its possessing wu. For it is a fact that wu is customarily found in least imposing places, as in the Christian aphorism, “stones rejected by the builder.” One experiences awareness of wu in such trash as an old stick, or a rusty beer can by the side of the road. However, in those cases, the wu is within the viewer. It is a religious experience. Here, an artificer has put wu into the object, rather than merely witnessed the wu inherent in it.” He glanced up. “Am I making myself clear?”

“Yes,” Childan said.

“In other words, an entire new world is pointed to, by this. The name for it is neither art, for it has no form, nor religion. What is it? I have pondered this pin unceasingly, yet cannot fathom it. We evidently lack the word for an object like this. So you are right, Robert. It is authentically a new thing on the face of the world.”

Authentic, Childan thought. Yes, it certainly is. I catch that notion. But as to the rest—

“Having meditated to this avail,” Paul continued, “I next called back in here the self same business acquaintances. I took it upon myself, as I have done with you just now, to deliver an expostulation devoid of tact. This subject carries authority which compels an abandonment of propriety, so great is the necessity of delivering the awareness itself. I required that these individuals listen.”

Childan knew that for a Japanese such as Paul to force his ideas on other persons was an almost incredible situation.

“The result,” Paul said, “was sanguine. They were able to adopt under such duress my viewpoint; they perceived what I had delineated. So it was worth it. Having done that, I rested. Nothing more, Robert. I am exhausted.” He laid the pin back in the box. “Responsibility with me has ended. Discharged.” He pushed the box to Childan.

“Sir, it’s yours,” Childan said, feeling apprehensive; the situation did not fit any model he had ever experienced. A high-placed Japanese lauding to the skies a gift grafted to him—and then returning it. Childan felt his knees wobble. He did not have any idea what to do; he stood plucking at his sleeve, his face flushing.

Calmly, even harshly, Paul said, “Robert, you must face reality with more courage.”

Blanching, Childan stammered, “I’m confused by—”

Paul stood up, facing him. “Take heed. The task is yours. You are the sole agent for this piece and others of its ilk. Also you are a professional. Withdraw for a period into isolation. Meditate, possibly consult the Book of Changes. Then study your window displays, your ads, your system of merchandising.”

Childan gaped at him.

“You will see your way,” Paul said. “How you must go about putting these objects over in a big fashion.”

Childan felt stunned. The man’s telling me I’m obliged to assume moral responsibility for the Edfrank jewelry! Crackpot neurotic Japanese world view: nothing less than number-one spiritual and business relationship with the jewelry tolerable in the eyes of Paul Kasoura.

And the worst part of it was that Paul certainly spoke with authority, right out of dead center of Japanese culture and tradition.

Obligation, he thought bitterly. It could stick with him the rest of his life, once incurred. Right to the grave itself. Paul had—to his own satisfaction, anyhow—discharged his. But Childan’s; ah, that regrettably had the earmark of being unending.

They’re out of their minds, Childan said to himself. Example: they won’t help a hurt man up from the gutter due to the obligation it imposes. What do you call that? I say that’s typical; just what you’d expect from a race that when told to duplicate a British destroyer managed even to copy the patches on the boiler as well as—

Paul was eying him intently. Fortunately, long habit had caused Childan to suppress any show of authentic feelings automatically. He assumed a bland, sober expression, persona that correctly matched the nature of the situation. He could sense it there, the mask.

This is dreadful, Childan realized. A catastrophe. Better Paul had thought I was trying to seduce his wife.

Betty. There was no chance now that she would see the piece, that his original plan would come off. Wu was incompatible with sexuality; it was, as Paul said, solemn and holy, like a relic.

“I gave each of these individuals one of your cards,” Paul said.

“Pardon?” Childan said, preoccupied.

“Your business cards. So that they could come in and inspect other examples.”

“I see,” Childan said.

“There is one more thing,” Paul said. “One of these individuals wishes to discuss this entire subject with you at his location. I have written out his name and address.” Paul handed Childan a folded square of paper. “He wants his business colleagues to hear.” Paul added, “He is an importer. He imports and exports on a mass basis. Especially to South America. Radios, cameras, binoculars, tape recorders, the like.”

Childan gazed down at the paper.

“He deals, of course, in immense quantity.” Paul said. “Perhaps tens of thousands of each item. His company controls various enterprises that manufacture for him at low overhead, all located in the Orient where there is cheaper labor.”

“Why is he—” Childan began.

Paul said, “Pieces such as this…” He picked up the pin once more, briefly. Closing the lid, he returned the box to Childan. “… can be mass-produced. Either in base metal or plastic. From a mold. In any quantity desired.”

After a time Childan said, “What about wu? Will that remain in the pieces?”

Paul said nothing.

“You advise me to see him?” Childan said.

“Yes,” Paul said.

“Why?”

“Charms,” Paul said.

Childan stared.

“Good-luck charms. To be worn. By relatively poor people. A line of amulets to be peddled all over Latin America and the Orient. Most of the masses still believe in magic, you know. Spells. Potions. It’s a big business, I am told.” Paul’s face was wooden, his voice toneless.

“It sounds,” Childan said slowly, “as if there would be a good deal of money in it.”

Paul nodded.

“Was this your idea?” Childan said.

“No,” Paul said. He was silent, then.

Your employer, Childan thought. You showed the piece to your superior, who knows this importer. Your superior—or some influential person over your head, someone who has power over you, someone rich and big—contacted this importer.

That’s why you’re giving it back to me, Childan realized. You want no part of this. But you know what I know: that I will go to this address and see this man. I have to. I have no choice. I will lease the designs, or sell them on a percentage basis; some deal will be made between me and this party.

Clearly out of your hands. Entirely. Bad taste on your part to presume to stop me or argue with me.

“There is a chance here for you,” Paul said, “to become extremely wealthy.” He continued to gaze stoically ahead.

“The idea strikes me as bizarre,” Childan said. “Making good-luck charms out of such art objects; I can’t imagine it.”

“For it is not your natural line of business. You are devoted to the savored esoteric. Myself, I am the same. And so are those individuals who will shortly visit your store, those whom I mentioned.”

Childan said, “What would you do if you were me?”

“Don’t under-evaluate the possibility suggested by the esteemed importer. He is a shrewd personage. You and I—we have no awareness of the vast number of uneducated. They can obtain from mold-produced identical objects a joy which would be denied to us. We must suppose that we have the only one of a kind, or at least something rare, possessed by a very few. And, of course, something truly authentic. Not a model or replica.” He continued to gaze past Childan, at empty space. “Not something cast by the tens of thousands.”

Has he stumbled onto correct notion, Childan wondered, that certain of the historic objects in stores such as mine (not to mention many items in his personal collection) are imitations? There seems a trace of hint in his words. As if in ironic undertone he is telling me a message quite different from what appears. Ambiguity, as one trips over in the oracle… quality, as they say, of the Oriental mind.

Childan thought, He’s actually saying: Which are you Robert? He whom the oracle calls “the inferior man,” or that other for whom all the good advice is meant? Must decide, here. You may trot on one way or the other, but not both. Moment of choice now.

And which way will the superior man go? Robert Childan inquired of himself. At least according to Paul Kasoura. And what we have before us here isn’t a many-thousand-year-old compilation of divinely inspired wisdom; this is merely the opinion of one mortal—one young Japanese businessman.

Yet, there’s a kernel to it. Wu, as Paul would say. The wu of this situation is this: whatever our personal dislikes, there can be no doubt, the reality lies in the importer’s direction. Too bad for what we had intended; we must adapt, as the oracle states.

And after all, the originals can still be sold in my shop. To connoisseurs, as for example Paul’s friends.

“You wrestle with yourself,” Paul observed. “No doubt it is in such a situation that one prefers to be alone.” He had started toward the office door.

“I have already decided.”

Paul’s eyes flickered.

Bowing, Childan said, “I will follow your advice. Now I will leave to visit the importer.” He held up the folded slip of paper.

Oddly, Paul did not seem pleased; he merely grunted and returned to his desk. They contain their emotions to the last, Childan reflected.

“Many thanks for your business help,” Childan said as he made ready to depart. “Someday I will if possible reciprocate. I will remember.”

But still the young Japanese showed no reaction. Too true, Childan thought, what we used to say: they are inscrutable.

Accompanying him to the door, Paul seemed deep in thought. All at once he blurted, “American artisans made this piece hand by hand, correct? Labor of their personal bodies?”

“Yes, from initial design to final polish.”

“Sir! Will these artisans play along? I would imagine they dreamed otherwise for their work.”

“I’d hazard they could be persuaded,” Childan said; the problem, to him, appeared minor.

“Yes,” Paul said. “I suppose so.”

Something in his tone made Robert Childan take sudden note. A nebulous and peculiar emphasis, there. And then it swept over Childan. Without a doubt he had split the ambiguity—he saw.

Of course. Whole affair a cruel dismissal of American efforts, taking place before his eyes. Cynicism, but God forbid, he had swallowed hook, line and sinker. Got me to agree, step by step, led me along the garden path to this conclusion: products of American hands good for nothing but to be models for junky good-luck charms.

This was how the Japanese ruled, not crudely but with subtlety, ingenuity, timeless cunning.

Christ! We’re barbarians compared to them, Childan realized. We’re no more than boobs against such pitiless reasoning. Paul did not say—did not tell me—that our art was worthless; he got me to say it for him. And, as a final irony, he regretted my utterance. Faint, civilized gesture of sorrow as he heard the truth out of me.

He’s broken me, Childan almost said aloud—fortunately, however, he managed to keep it only a thought; as before, he held it in his interior world, apart and secret, for himself alone. Humiliated me and my race. And I’m helpless. There’s no avenging this; we are defeated and our defeats are like this, so tenuous, so delicate, that we’re hardly able to perceive them. In fact, we have to rise a notch in our evolution to know it ever happened.

What more proof could be presented, as to the Japanese fitness to rule? He felt like laughing, possibly with appreciation. Yes, he thought, that’s what it is, as when one hears a choice anecdote. I’ve got to recall it, savor it later on, even relate it. But to whom? Problem, there. Too personal for narration.

In the corner of Paul’s office a wastebasket. Into it! Robert Childan said to himself, with this blob, this wu-ridden piece of jewelry.

Could I do it? Toss it away? End the situation before Paul’s eyes?

Can’t even toss it away, he discovered as he gripped the piece. Must not—if you anticipate facing your Japanese fellowman again.

Damn them, I can’t free myself of their influence, can’t give in to impulse. All spontaneity crushed… Paul scrutinized him, needing to say nothing; the man’s very presence enough. Got my conscience snared, has run an invisible string from this blob in my hands up my arm to my soul.

Guess I’ve lived around them too long. Too late now to flee, to get back among whites and white ways.

Robert Childan said, “Paul—” His voice, he noted, croaked in sickly escape; no control, no modulation.

“Yes, Robert.”

“Paul, I… am… humiliated.”

The room reeled.

“Why so, Robert?” Tones of concern, but detached. Above involvement.

“Paul. One moment.” He fingered the bit of jewelry; it had become slimy with sweat. “I am proud of this work. There can be no consideration of trashy good-luck charms. I reject.”

Once more he could not make out the young Japanese man’s reaction, only the listening ear, the mere awareness.

“Thank you, however,” Robert Childan said.

Paul bowed.

Robert Childan bowed.

“The men who made this,” Childan said, “are American proud artists. Myself included. To suggest trashy good-luck charms therefore insults us and I ask for apology.”

Incredible prolonged silence.

Paul surveyed him. One eyebrow lifted slightly and his thin lips twitched. A smile?

“I demand,” Childan said. That was all; he could carry it no further. He now merely waited.

Nothing occurred.

Please, he thought. Help me.

Paul said, “Forgive my arrogant imposition.” He held out his hand.

“All right,” Robert Childan said.

They shook hands.

Calmness descended in Childan’s heart. I have lived through and out, he knew. All over. Grace of God; it existed at the exact moment for me. Another time—otherwise. Could I ever dare once more, press my luck? Probably not.

He felt melancholy. Brief instant, as if I rose to the surface and saw unencumbered.

Life is short, he thought. Art, or something not life, is long, stretching out endless, like concrete worm. Flat, white, unsmoothed by any passage over or across it. Here I stand But no longer. Taking the small box, he put the Edfrank jewelry piece away in his coat pocket.