Time and the Riddle: Thirty-One Zen Stories (4 page)

“Why do you say the other one?” Blausman asked. “Why not the other man?”

“I don't know.”

“You have read about possession? By evil entities?”

“Yes.”

“It has interesting psychological references. Do you have the feeling—I only speak of the feeling—that you were possessed?”

“No!”

“You appear very certain.”

“I am certain,” the General said emphatically.

“Who?”

“Because this is myself. Because the syndrome—as you call it—is not being possessed or used or manipulated, but simply remembering. I remember who I am.”

“Who?”

“That's the damn trick. It passes too quickly.”

“At this meeting, how long did this memory last?”

“A minute. A little more, a little less.”

“And as I understand it,” Dr. Blausman said carefully, “during that time you were delighted and amused at the thought of using atomic tactical weapons. Will you accept that?”

“You're asking me do I have the guts to?” the General said harshly. “All right, I do. I accept it as the man who was amused.”

“Whom you insist is yourself?”

“Yes. Do you understand now why I commute from Washington each day to see a psychiatrist?”

“What was the outcome of the meeting?”

“You know that. Atomic weapons are not firecrackers. We squashed the whole notion.”

On his next visit, Dr. Blausman returned to the night-time incident, asking the General whether he had been awakened from sleep at other times.

“Yes.”

“How many times?”

Hardy thought for a while. “Fourteen—or thirteen.”

“Always the same time?”

“No. Sometimes earlier, sometimes later.”

“Does one occasion stand out more than any other?”

“Yes.” Then the General clamped his square jaw shut, and his pale blue eyes avoided the doctor's. The doctor waited.

“But you don't want to talk about it,” Blausman said at last. “Why?”

“God damn you to hell, must you know everything?”

“Not everything. I. don't ask you who you are sleeping with, or for the secret plans of the War Board, or what your golf score is,” Blausman said gently. “If you had a piece of shrapnel in your left arm, I would not be fussing over your right foot. By the way, were you ever wounded?”

“No.”

“Amazing luck, with your experience. Now let's go back to this waking up at night. That one occasion you don't want to talk about. It is nothing you are afraid of.”

“How do you know?”

“You get disturbed but not frightened. There's a difference. What happened that night, General?”

“I woke up, and I was someone else.”

“You were someone else. What makes that night stand out?”

“You won't let go, will you?”

“Otherwise I am taking your money under false pretenses,” Blausman said gently. “So you might as well tell me about that night.”

“All right. I woke up. It was last May, and I was still in Vietnam. It was almost dawn. I was myself—not Hardy—and God almighty, I felt good. I felt like I had swallowed ten grains of Dexedrine and put down a pint of bourbon without getting drunk. Christ, what power, what sheer physical strength and joy! I wanted to run, to leap, to use my strength, as if I had been in a straitjacket for years. I felt that I was complete.”

“For how long?”

“Two or three minutes.”

“You went outside?”

“How did you know?” the General asked curiously. “Yes, I went outside in my robe. It was like walking on air, the sun just coming up, the kind of clean, cool, wonderful morning you get sometimes in that part of Vietnam. There was an iron fence in front of my quarters. Pointed bars, like a row of spears, an inch thick. I reached out and bent one of them, like I might bend rubber.”

“You're a strong man.”

“Not that strong. Well—then it was gone. I was Franklin Hardy again.”

“Why hesitate to tell me?” Blausman asked.

“I don't know.”

“Do you remember what you said a moment ago? You said that when you woke up, you were yourself, not General Hardy. That's rather odd, isn't it?”

“Did I say that?”

“Yes.”

“It is odd,” Hardy admitted, frowning. “I always said I was someone else, didn't I?”

“Until now.”

“What do you make of it?”

“What do you make of it, General? That's the important thing.”

When the General had left, Dr. Blausman asked Miss Kanter whether Alexander the Great had ever been wounded.

“I was a history dropout. They let me substitute sociology. Does the General think he's Alexander the Great?”

“How about Napoleon?”

“Was he wounded? Or does the General think he's Napoleon?”

“I want you to hire a researcher,” Dr. Blausman said. “Let him pick up the three hundred most important military leaders in history. I want to know how many died in battle and how many were wounded.”

“Are you serious?”

“Deadly so.”

“As long as you pay for it,” Miss Kanter said.

In the next session, Dr. Blausman asked the General about dreams. “You have been taking notes?”

“Once.”

“Only once?”

“It appears that I dreamed only once. Or remembered only once long enough to get the notebook.”

“Tell me about it.”

“As much as I can remember. I was driving a truck.”

“What kind of a truck? I want you to be very specific and to try to remember every detail you can.”

“It was a tank truck. I know that. It was a shiny metal tank truck, strong motor, six speeds forward—” He closed his eyes and then shook his head.

“All right, it was a tank truck. Oil—milk—chemicals—chocolate syrup—which one? Try to think, try to visualize it.”

The General kept his eyes closed. His handsome face was set and intent, his brow furrowed. “It was a tank truck, all right, a big, gutsy son of a bitch. The gearing was marked on the shift bar, but I knew it. I didn't have to be coached. I got out of it once, walked around it. Pipes—”

“What kind of pipes?”

“Black plastic, I guess. Beautiful pumping equipment. I remember thinking that whoever built that job knew what he was doing.”

“Why did you get out of it?”

“I thought I had to use it.”

“For what?” Blausman insisted. “For what?”

He shook his head, opened his eyes now. “I don't know.”

“Fire truck?”

“No—never.”

“Then you got back in the truck?”

“Yes. I started off again In low gear, she whined like some kind of mad cat.”

“Where were you? What was the place like?”

“A dead place. Like desert, only it wasn't desert. It was a place that had once been alive, and now it was dead and withered.”

“Withered? Do you mean there were trees? Plants?”

The General shook his head. “It was desert. Nothing grew there.”

“You started the truck again. Where were you going?”

“I don't know.”

“Think about it. What were you?”

“What do you mean, what was I?”

“What was your profession?”

“I told you I was driving a truck.”

“But was that your profession?” Blausman pressed him. “Did you think of yourself as a truck driver?”

After a moment of thought, the General said, “No. I didn't think of myself as a truck driver.”

“Then what?”

“I don't know. I just don't know. What damn difference does it make?”

“All the damn difference in the world.” Blausman nodded. “A man is what he does. Did you ever notice the way kids talk about what they are going to be when they grow up? They will be what they do. A man is his profession, his work. What was the profession of the man who was driving the truck?”

“I told you I don't know.”

“You were driving the truck. Who were you? Were you General Hardy?” “No.”

“How were you dressed? Did you wear a uniform?”

Again General Hardy closed his eyes.

“Did you bring your notes with you?” the doctor asked.

“I know what was in my notes.”

“Then you wore a uniform?”

“Yes,” Hardy whispered.

“What kind?”

Hardy frowned and clenched his fists.

“What kind of a uniform?” Blausman persisted.

Hardy shook his head.

“Try to remember,” Blausman said gently. “It's important.”

Blausman took him to the door, and as it closed behind him, Miss Kanter said, “God, he's handsome.”

“Yes, isn't he?”

“I wonder what it's like to be a General's wife?”

“You're losing your moral principles, Miss Kanter.”

“I am simply speculating, which has nothing to do with morality.”

“What about the research?”

“My goodness,” said Miss Kanter, “you only told me about it the day before yesterday.”

“Then this is the third day. What have you got?”

“I gave it to Evelyn Bender, who is a friend of mine and teaches history at Hunter College, and she was absolutely enthralled with the idea and she's going to charge you a hundred and fifty dollars.”

“I said, what have you got?”

“Now?”

“Right now. Call her up.”

Miss Kanter started to argue, looked at Dr. Blausman, and then called Evelyn Bender at Hunter College. Blausman went back to his office and his next patient. When the patient had left, Miss Kanter informed Dr. Blausman, rather tartly, that Mrs. Bender had only begun the project.

“She must have some indications. Did you ask her that?”

“Knowing you, I asked her. She's a scholar, you know, and they hate to guess.”

“But she guessed.”

“She thinks that perhaps ninety percent died in bed. She indicated that very few wounds are recorded.”

“Keep after her.”

There was a noticeable difference about General Hardy when he came back for his next visit. He sat down in the comfortable armchair that substituted for the couch, and he stared at Dr. Blausman long and thoughtfully before he said anything at all. His blue eyes were very cold and very distant.

“You've been thinking about your profession,” Blausman said.

“Whose profession? This time you say my profession.”

“I was interested in what your reaction would be.”

“I see. Do you know how I spent the weekend?”

“Tell me.”

“Reading up on schizophrenia.”

“Why did you do that?” the doctor asked.

“Curiosity—reasonable curiosity. I wondered why you had never mentioned it.”

“Because you are not schizophrenic.”

“How do you know?”

“I have been in practice twenty-three years, General Hardy. It would be rather odd if I could not spot schizophrenia.”

“In anyone?”

“Yes, in anyone. Certainly after the second visit.”

“Then if I am not schizophrenic, Dr. Blausman, what explanation do you have for my condition?”

“What explanation do you have, General?”

“Well, now—the neurotic finds his own source, uncovers his own well of horror—is that it, Doctor?”

“More or less.”

“Dreams are very important in the Freudian scheme of things. Are you a Freudian analyst, Doctor?”

“Every analyst is more or less a Freudian, General. He developed the techniques of our discipline. We have perhaps changed many of his techniques, modified many of his premises, but we remain Freudians, even those of us who angrily repudiate the label.”

“I was speaking of dreams.”

“Of course,” Blausman agreed calmly. “Dreams are important. The patient uses them to deal with his problems. But instead of the realities of his waking world, he clothes his problem in symbols. Sometimes the symbols are very obscure indeed. Sometimes they are not. Sometimes they are obvious.”

“As in my dream?”

“Yes, as in your dream.”

“Then if you understood the symbols, why not tell me?”

“Because that would accomplish nothing of consequence. It is up to you to discover the meaning of the symbols. And now you know.”

“You're sure of that?”

“I think so, yes.”

“And the truck?”

“An exterminator's truck, obviously. I see you have remembered who you are.”

“I am General Franklin Hardy.”

“That would make you schizophrenic. I told you before that you are not schizophrenic.”

“You say you have been in practice twenty-three years. Have you ever had a case like mine before, Doctor?”

“In a non-schizophrenic? No.”

“Then does it make medical history of sorts?”

“Perhaps. I would have to know more about it.”

“I admire your scientific detachment.”

“Not so scientific that I am without very ordinary curiosity. Who are you, sir?”

“Before I answer that, let me pose a question, Doctor. Has it never occurred to you that in the history and practice of what we call mankind, there is a certain lack of logic?”

“It has occurred to me.”

“What do you make of it?”

“I am a psychiatrist, General. I deal with psychosis and neurosis, neither of which is logical. Understandable, yes. Logical, no.”

“You miss the point.”

“Do I?” Blausman said patiently. “Then what is the point?”

“The point is fantastic.”

“There is very little that astonishes me.”

“Good. Then allow me to put it to you this way. The earth is a beautiful, rich, and splendid planet. It has all things that man desires, but none of these things is limitless, not the air, not the water, not even the fertility of the land. Let us postulate another planet very similar to earth—but used up, Doctor, used up. There are men on this planet as there are men here, but somewhat more advanced technologically. Like many men, they are selfish and self-seeking, and they want the earth. But they want the earth without its human population. They need the earth for their own purposes. I see you doubt me.”