My wife and the two kids, he thought. Maybe they’re dead. I just have to get back to Petaluma. A phone call? Absurd. The phones are certainly out. And still he drove on, pointlessly, not knowing where to go or what to do. Not knowing how much danger he was in, if the attack by the enemy was over or if this was just the start. I could be wiped out any second, he realized.
But he felt safe in the familiar VW bus, which he had owned for six years now. It had not been changed by what had happened; it was sturdy and reliable, whereas—he felt—the world, the rest of things, all had undergone a permanent, dreadful metamorphosis.
He did not wish to look.
What if Barbara and the boys are dead? he asked himself. Oddly, the idea carried with it the breath of release. A new life, as witness me meeting that girl. The old is all over; won’t tobacco and wines be very valuable now? Don’t I in actual fact have a fortune here in this bus? I don’t have to go back to Petaluma ever; I can disappear, and Barbara will never be able to find me. He felt buoyed up, cheerful, now.
But that would mean—God forbid—he would have to abandon his shop, and that was a horrible notion, overlain with the sense of peril and isolation. I can’t give that up, he decided. That represents twenty years of gradually building up a good customer-relationship, of genuinely finding out people’s wants and serving them.
However, he thought, those people are possibly dead now, along with my family. I have to face it: everything has changed, not merely the things I don’t care for.
Driving slowly along, he tried to cogitate over each possibility, but the more he cogitated the more confused and uneasy he became. I don’t think any of us will survive, he decided. We probably all have radiation exposure; my relationship with that girl is the last notable event in my life, and the same for her—she is no doubt doomed too.
Christ, he thought bitterly. Some numbskull in the Pentagon is responsible for, this; we should have had two or three hours warning, and instead we got—five minutes. At the most!
He felt no animosity toward the enemy, now; he felt only a sense of shame, a sense of betrayal. Those military saps in Washington are probably safe and sound down in their concrete bunkers, like Adolf Hitler at the end, he decided. And we’re left up here to die. It embarrassed him; it was awful.
Suddenly he noticed that on the seat beside him lay two empty shoes, two worn slippers. The girl’s. He sighed, feeling weary. Some momento, he thought with gloom.
And then he thought in excitement, It’s not a momento; it’s a sign—for me to stay here in West Marin, to begin all over again here. If I stay here I’ll run into her again; I know I will. It’s just a question of being patient. That’s why she left her shoes; she already knew it, that I’m just beginning my life here, that after what’s happened I won’t—can’t—leave. The hell with my shop, with my wife and children, in Petaluma.
As he drove along he began to whistle with relief and glee.
There was no doubt in the mind of Bruno Bluthgeld now; he saw the unceasing stream of cars all going one way, going north toward the highway that emptied into the countryside. Berkeley had become a sieve, out of which at every hole leaked the people pressing upward from beneath, the people from Oakland and San Leandro and San Jose; they were all passing through along the streets that had become one-way streets, now. It’s not me, Doctor Bluthgeld said to himself as he stood on the sidewalk, unable to cross the street to get to his own car. And yet, he realized, even though it is real, even though it is the end of everything, the destruction of the cities and the people on every side, I am responsible.
He thought, In some way I made it happen.
I must make amends, he told himself. He clasped his hands together, tense with concern. It must unhappen, he realized. I must shut it back off.
What has happened is this, he decided. They were developing their arrangements to injure me but they hadn’t counted on my ability, which in me seems to lie partly in the subconscious. I have only a dubious control over it; it emanates from suprapersonal levels, what Jung would call the collective unconscious. They didn’t take into account the almost limitless potency of my reactive psychic energy, and now it’s flowed back out at them in response to their arrangements. I didn’t will it to; it simply followed a psychic law of stimulus and response, but I must take moral responsibility for it anyhow; because it is I, the greater I, the Self which transcends the conscious ego. I must wrestle with it, now that it’s done its work contra the others. Surely it has done enough; isn’t, in fact, the damage too great?
But no, it was not too great, in the pure physical sense, the pure realm of action and reaction. A law of conservation of energy, a parity, was involved; his collective unconscious had responded commensurate to the harm intended by the others. Now, however, it was time to atone for it; that was, logically, the next step. It had expended itself … or had it? He felt doubt and a deep confusion; had the reactive process, his meta-biological defense system, completed its cycle of response, or was there more?
He sniffed the atmosphere, trying to anticipate. The sky, an admixture of particles: debris light enough to be carried. What lay behind it, concealed as in a womb? The womb, he thought, of pure essence within me, as I stand here debating. I wonder if these people driving by in these cars, these men and women with . their blank faces—I wonder if they know who I am. Are they aware that I am the omphalos, the center, of all this cataclysmic disruption? He watched the passing people, and presently he knew the answer; they were quite aware of him, that he was the source of this all, but they were afraid to attempt any injury in his direction. They had learned their lesson.
Raising his hand toward them he called, “Don’t worry; there won’t be any more. I promise.”
Did they understand and believe him? He felt their thoughts directed at him, their panic, their pain, and also their hatred toward him now held in abeyance by the tremendous demonstration of what he could accomplish. I know how you feel, he thought back, or perhaps said aloud—he could not tell which. You have learned a hard, bitter lesson. And so have I. I must watch myself more carefully; in the future I must guard my powers with a greater awe, a greater reverence at the trust placed in my hands.
Where should I go now? he questioned himself. Away from here, so that this will gradually die down, of its own accord? For their sakes; it would be a good idea, a kind, humane, equitable solution.
Can I leave? he asked himself. Of course. Because the forces at work were to at least some extent disposable; he could summon them, once he was aware of them, as he was now. What had been wrong before had simply been his ignorance of them. Perhaps, through intense psychoanalysis, he would have gotten to them in time, and this great disturbance might have been avoided. But too late to worry about that now. He began to walk back the’ way he had come. I can pass over this traffic and absent myself from this region, he assured himself. To prove it, he stepped from. the curb, out into the solid stream of cars; other people were doing so, too, other individuals on foot, many of them carrying household goods, books, lamps, even a bird in a cage or a cat. He joined them, waving to them to indicate that they should cross with him, follow him because he could pass on through at will.
The traffic had, almost halted. It appeared to be due to cars forcing their way in from a side street ahead, but he knew better; that was only the apparent cause—the genuine cause was his desire to cross. An opening between two cars lay directly ahead, and Doctor Bluthgeld led the group of people on foot across to the far side.
Where do I want to go? he asked himself, ignoring the thanks of the people around him; they were all trying to tell him how much they owed him. Out into the country, away from the city? I am dangerous to the city, he realized. I should go fifty or sixty miles to the east, perhaps all the way to the Sierras, to some remote spot. West Marin; I could go back up there. Bonny is up there. I could stay with her and George. I think that would be far enough away, but if it is not I will continue on—I must absent myself from these people, who do not deserve to be punished any further. If necessary, I will continue On forever; I will never stop in one place.