The Infinite Moment (20 page)

"Only my own positive conviction," Cohn put in. "It's against reason, I knowbut I still have it."

"You must try to rid yourself of it. Don't you see there are layers of assumptions? If she did exist she might be already married."

"But to the wrong man," Cohn said promptly.

"Even that does not follow. Your counterpart varied from you, you say. Well, her counterpart if she existed would have had an entirely different upbringing in different circumstances from the other; the probability is that there would only be the most superficial resemblance. You must see that the whole thing goes into holes wherever you touch it with reason." He regarded Cohn for a moment, and shook his head. "Somewhere at the back of your mind you are giving houseroom to the proposition that unlike causes can produce like results. Throw it out."

Cohn smiled.

"How Newtonian, Doctor, No, a random factor is random. Chance therefore exists."

"Young man, you're incorrigible," the doctor told him. If there weren't little point in wishing success with the impossible I'd say your tenacity deserves it. As things are, I advise you to apply it to the almost attainable."

His pipe had gone out, and he lit it again.

"That," he went on, "was a professional recommendation. But now, if it isn't too late for you, I'd like to hear more. I don't pretend to guess at the true nature of your experience, but the speculations your plane of mighthavebeen arouses are fascinating. Not unnaturally one feels a curiosity to know how one's own counterpart made out thereand failing that, how other people's did. Our present Prime Minister, for instancedid both of him get the job? And Sir Winstonor is he not Sir Winston over there? how on earth did he get along with no Second World War to make his talents burgeon? And what about the poor old Labour Party...? The thing provokes endless questions..

After a late breakfast the next morning Dr. Harshom helped Cohn into his coat in the hail, but held him there for a final word.

"I spent what was left of the night thinking about this," he said, earnestly. "Whatever the explanation may be, you must write it down, every detail you can remember. Do it anonymously if you like, but do it. It may not be unique, someday it may give valuable confirmation of someone else's experience, or become evidence in support of some theory. So put it on recordbut then leave it at that... Do your best to forget the assumptions you jumped atthey're unwarranted in a dozen ways. Size does not exist. The only Ottilie Harshoms there have been in this world died long ago. Let the mirage fade. But thank you for your confidence. Though I am inquisitive, I am discreet. If there should be any way I can help you..."

Presently he was watching the car down the drive. Cohn waved a hand just before it disappeared round the corner. Dr Harshom shook his head. He knew he might as well have saved his breath, but he felt in duty bound to make one last appeal. Then he turned back into the house, frowning. Whether the obsession was a fantasy, or some132 thing more than a fantasy, was almost irrelevant to that fact that sooner or later the young man was going to drive himself into a breakdown ***

During the next few weeks Dr Harshom learnt no more, except that Cohn Trafford had not taken his advice, for word filtered through that both Peter Harshom in Cornwall and Harold in Durham had received requests for information regarding a Miss Ottilie Harshom who, as far as they knew, was nonexistent.

After that there was nothing more for some months. Then a picturepostcard from Canada. On one side was a picture of the Parliament Buildings, Ottawa. The message on the other was brief. It said simply: "Found her. Congratulate me. C. T."

Dr Harshom studied it for a moment, and then smiled slightly. He was pleased. He had thought Cohn Trafford a likeable young man; too good to run himself to pieces over such a futile quest. One did not believe it for a moment, of course, but if some sensible young woman had managed to convince him that she was the reincarnation, so to speak, of his beloved, good luck to herand good luck for him... The obsession could now fade quietly away. He would have liked to respond with the requested congratulations, but the card bore no address.

Several weeks later there was another card, with a picture of St. Mark's Square, Venice, The message was again laconic, but headed this time by an hotel address. It read: "Honeymoon. May I bring her to see you after?"

Dr Harshom hesitated. His professional inclination was against it; a feeling that anything likely to recall the young man to the mood in which he had last seen him was best avoided. On the other hand, a refusal would seem odd as well as rude. In the end he replied, on the back of a picture of Hereford Cathedral: "Do. When?"

Half August had already gone before Cohn Trafford did make his reappearance. He drove up looking sunburnt and in better shape all round than he had on his previous visit. Dr Harshom was glad to see it, but surprised to find that he was alone in the car.

"But I understand the whole intention was that I should meet the bride," he protested.

"It wasit is," Cohn assured him. "She's at the hotel. Iwell, I'd like to have a few words with you first."

The doctor's gaze became a little keener, his manner more thoughtful.

"Very well. Let's go indoors. If there's anything I'm not to mention, you could have warned me by letter, you know."

"Oh, it's not that. She knows about that. Quite what she makes of it, I'm not sure, but she knows, and she's anxious to meet you. No, it'swell, it won't take more than ten minutes."

The doctor led the way to his study. He waved Cohn to an easychair, and himself took the swivelchair at the desk.

"Unburden yourself," he invited, Cohn sat forward, forearms on knees, hands dangling between them.

"The most important thing, Doctor, is for me to thank you. I can never be grateful enough to younever. If you had not invited me here as you did, I think it is unlikely I ever would have found her."

Dr Harshorn frowned. He was not convinced that the thanks were justified. Clearly, whoever Cohn had found was possessed of a strong therapeutic quality, nevertheless: "As I recollect, all I did was listen, and offer you unwelcome advice for your own goodwhich you did not take," he remarked.

"So it seemed to me that the time," Cohn agreed. "It looked as if you had closed all the doors. But then, when I thought it over, I saw one, just one, that hadn't quite latched."

"I don't recall giving you any encouragement," Dr Harshorn asserted.

"I am sure you don't, but you did. You indicated to me the last, faintly possible lineand I followed it upNo, you'll see what it was later, if you'll just bear with me a little.

"When I did see the possibility, I realised it meant a lot of groundwork that I couldn't cover on my own, so I had to call in the professionals. They were pretty good, I thought, and they certainly removed any doubt about the line being the right one, but what they could tell me ended on board a ship bound for Canada. So then I had to call in some enquiry agents over there. It's a large country. A lot of people go to it. There was a great deal of routine searching to do, and I began to get discouraged, but then they got a lead, and in another week they came across with the information that she was a secreary working in a lawyer's office in Ottawa.

"Then I put it to E. P. I. that I'd be more valuable after a bit of unpaid recuperative leave "Just a minute," put in the doctor. "If you'd asked me I could have told you there are no Harshoms in Canada. I happen to know that because "Oh, I'd given up expecting that. Her name wasn't Harshomit was Gale," Cohn interrupted, with the air of one explaining.

"Indeed. And I suppose it wasn't Ottilie, either?" Dr. Harshom said heavily.

"No. It was Behinda," Cohn told him.

The doctor blinked slightly, opened his mouth, and then thought better of it. Cohn went on: "So then I flew over, to make sure. It was the most agonising journey I'd ever made. But it was all right. Just one distant sight of her was enough. I couldn't have mistaken her for Ottilie, but she was so very, very nearly Ottilie that I would have known her among ten thousand. Perhaps if her hair and her dress had been" He paused speculatively, unaware of the expression on the doctor's face. "Anyway," he went on. "I knew. And it was damned difficult to stop myself rushing up to her there and then, but I did just have enough sense to hold back.

"Then it was a matter of managing an introduction. After that it was as if there werewell, an inevitability, a sort of predestination about it."

Curiosity impelled the doctor to say: "Comprehensible, but sketchy. What, for instance, about her husband?"

"Husband?" Cohn looked momentarily startled.

"Well, you did say her name was Gale," the doctor pointed out.

"So it was, Miss Belinda GaleI thought I said that. She was engaged once, but she didn't marry. I tell you there was a kind ofwell, fate, in the Greek sense, about it."

"But if" Dr. Harshom began, and then checked himself again. He endeavoured, too, to suppress any sign of scepticism.

"But it would have been just the same if she had had a husband," Cohn asserted, with ruthless conviction. "He'd have been the wrong man."

The doctor offered no comment, and he went on: "There were no complications, or involvementswell, nothing serious. She was living in a flat with her mother, and getting quite a good salary. Her mother looked after the place, and had a widow's pensionher husband was in the R. C. A. F.; shot down over Berlinso between them they managed to be reasonably comfortable.

"Well, you can imagine how it was. Considered as a phenomenon I wasn't any too welcome to her mother, but she's a fairminded woman, and we found that, as persons, we liked one another quite well. So that part of it, too, went off more easily than it might have done."

He paused here. Dr Harshom put in: "I'm glad to hear it, of course. But I must confess I don't quite see what it has to do with your not bringing your wife along wih you."

Cohn frowned.

"Well, I thoughtI mean she thoughtwell, I haven't quite got to the point yet. It's rather delicate."

"Take your time. After all, I've retired," said the doctor, amiably.

Cohn hesiated.

"All right. I think it'll be fairer to Mrs Gale if I tell it the way it fell out.

"You see, I didn't intend to say anything about what's at the back of all thisabout Ottihie, I mean, and why I came to be over in Ottawanot until later, anyway. You were the only one I had told, and it seemed better that way... I didn't want them wondering if I was a bit off my rocker, naturally. But I went and slipped up.

"It was on the day before our wedding. Belinda was out getting some lastminute things, and I was at the flat doing my best to be reassuring to my future motherinlaw. As nearly as I can recall it, what I said was: "

"My job with E. P. I. is quite a good one, and the prospects are good, but they do have a Canadian end, too, and I dare say that if Ottille finds she really doesn't like livixg in England"

"And then I stopped because Mrs Gale had suddenly sat upright with a jerk, and was staring at me openmouthed. Then in a shaky sort of voice she asked: "

"What did you say?"

"I'd noticed the slip myself, just too late to catch it. So I corrected: "

"I was just saying that if Belinda finds she doesn't like"

"She cut in on that.

"You didn't say Belinda. You said Ottilie."

"Erperhaps I did," I admitted, "but, as I say, if she doesn't"

"Why?" she demanded. "Why did you call her Attilie?"

"She was intense about that. There was no way out of it.

"It's well, it's the way I think of her," I said.

"But why? Why should you think of Belinda as Ottilie?" she insisted.

"I looked at her more carefully. She had gone quite pale, and the hand that was visible was trembling. She was afraid, as well as distressed. I was sorry about that, and I gave up bluffing.

"I didn't mean this to happen." I told her.

"She looked at me steadily, a little calmer.

"But now it has, you must tell me. What do you know about us?" she asked.

"Simply that if things had been different she wouldn't be Belinda Gale. She would be Ottilie Harshom," I told her.

"She kept on watching my face, long and steadily, her own face still pale.

"I don't understand," she said more than half to herself. "You couldn't know. Harshom yes, you might have found that out somehow, or guessed itor did she tell you?" I shook my head. "Never mind, you could find out," she went on. "But Ottilie... You couldn't know that just that one name out of all the thousands of names in the world... Nobody knew thatnobody but me..." She shook her head.

"I didn't even tell Reggie... When he asked me if we could call her Belinda, I said yes; he'd been so very good to me... He had no idea that I had meant to call her Ottilienobody had. I've never told anyone, before or since... So haw can you know."

"I took her hand between mine, and pressed it, trying to comfort her and calm her.

"There's nothing to be alarmed about," I told her. "It was aa dream, a kind of visionI just knew..

"She shook her head. After a minute she said quietly: "

"Nobody knew but me... It was in the summer, in 1927. We were on the river, in a punt, pulled under a willow. A white launch swished by us, we watched it go, and saw the name on its stern. Malcolm said"'if Cohn noticed Dr Harshom's sudden start, his only acknowledgement of it was a repetition of the last two words"

"Malcom said: "Ottihiepretty name, isn't it? It's in our family. My father had a sister Ottihie who died when she was a little girl. If ever I have a daughter I'd like to call her Ottilie"

Cohn Trafford broke off, and regarded the doctor for a moment. Then he went on: "After that she said nothing for a long time, until she added: "He never knew, you know. Poor Malcolm, he was killed before even I knew she was coming... I did so want to call her Ottilie for him... He'd have liked that... I wish I had... " And then she began quietly crying..

Dr Harshom had one elbow on his desk, one hand over his eyes. He did not move for some little time. At last he pulled out a handkerchief, and blew his nose decisively.