The Santaroga Barrier Page 11

  “Yes!”

  “Aren’t we the intense one.” He pursed his lips. “By the way, we broke into your truck and hot-wired it to drive it down. It’s parked out front.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  Dasein looked down at his hands. Anger and frustration twisted through him. He knew Marden wasn’t a fit object for this anger … nor Jenny … nor Piaget … No person or thing presented itself to him as an object for anger—yet the emotion remained. He trembled with it.

  “You sure you’re all right?” Marden asked.

  “Yes, I’m all right!”

  “Okay, okay,” Marden murmured. He turned away, but not before Dasein saw the smile forming on his lips.

  The smile, not the man, brought Dasein’s anger to focus. That smile! It embodied Santaroga—self-satisfied, superior, secretive. He jumped to his feet, strode to the window, whipped up the curtain.

  Blazing sunshine on a flower garden, a small stream, and beyond that the flat with its broken edge dropping down into the redwoods. It was a day of brassy heat with the oaks sitting motionless, sun-drenched on the hillsides. He counted three plumes of smoke hanging on the still air, glimpsed a serpentine track of blue-green river in the distance.

  This vale of pastoral beauty that was Santaroga, this was a fitting object for his anger, Dasein decided: Santaroga, this island of people in the wilderness. He pictured the valley as a swarming place behind a façade like a pyramid: solid, faceless, enduring. In there, behind the façade, Santaroga did something to its people. They lost personal identity and became masks for something that was the same in all of them.

  He sensed a one-pointedness here such that every Santarogan became an extension of every other Santarogan. They were like rays spreading out from a pinhole in a black curtain.

  What lay behind the black curtain?

  There, he knew, was the real substance against which his anger was directed. The valley existed within an evil enchantment. The Santarogans had been trapped by a black sorcery, transmuted into the faceless pyramid.

  With this thought, Dasein’s anger faded. He realized he, too, had a place in this pyramid. It was like an ecological pyramid planted in the wilderness except for this gnome-change. The base of the pyramid had been firmly imbedded in the earth, extending roots deep into a moist, dank cave.

  He could see the shape of his problem.

  One thing set this valley apart—Jaspers. It brought Santarogans back as though they were addicted. He thought of his own craving reaction. It was the substance of the cave, the thing the pores drank and the lungs inhaled.

  Marden stirred in the room behind him.

  Dasein turned, looked at the man.

  Santarogans became extensions of that cave and its substance. There was a drug-effect at work in this valley. It was a material in a way similar to lysergic acid diethylamide—LSD.

  How did it work? he wondered.

  Did it shift the serotonin balance?

  Dasein felt his mind working with remarkable clarity, sorting out possibilities, setting up avenues of investigation.

  “If you’re feeling all right now, I’ll be running along,” Marden said. “Before you get any more harebrained ideas for night excursions, let us know, huh?”

  “Well, naturally,” Dasein said.

  For some reason, this provoked a fit of laughter in Marden. He was still laughing as he let himself out.

  “To hell with you, wise-guy Santarogan,” Dasein muttered.

  He turned back to the window.

  Objectivity was going to be a problem, he saw. He had no guinea pig except himself. What was the Jaspers effect on himself? An impression of heightened awareness? Could it be an actual heightened awareness in the pattern of LSD? This would require careful evaluation. What was the source of the morning-after symptoms? Withdrawal?

  He began to focus on the Santaroga personality pattern, their alertness, their abrupt mannerisms, their apparent honesty. If awareness actually were heightened, would that explain the honest advertising? Could you be anything but bluntly honest with a wide-awake human being?

  Avenues of attack opened all around. Barriers collapsed like sand walls before the waves of his new awareness, but the exposed vistas contained their own mysteries.

  Jenny.

  Again, Dasein recalled how she’d been dropped from the university’s attempt to evaluate LSD. No apparent reaction. The ones running the tests had wanted to explore this phenomenon, but Jenny had refused. Why? She’d been written off, of course—“a curious anomaly.” The evaluation had gone on to its natural end in the publicity fiasco.

  Jenny.

  Dasein went into the shower, humming to himself, his mind busy. His shoulder felt remarkably improved in spite of the way he’d mistreated it during the night … or perhaps because of that—the exercise.

  I’ll call Jenny, he thought, as he dressed. Maybe we can meet for lunch.

  The prospect of seeing Jenny filled him with a wondering delight. He sensed his own protectiveness toward her, the mutual emotional dependence. Love, that was what it was. It was a sensation that wouldn’t submit to analysis. It could only be experienced.

  Dasein sobered.

  His love for Jenny required that he save her from the Santaroga enchantment. She’d have to help him whether she knew it or not, whether she wanted it or not.

  A brisk double knock sounded on his door.

  “Come in,” he called.

  Jenny slipped in, closed the door.

  She wore a white dress, red scarf, red handbag and shoes. The outfit made her skin appear dark and exotic. She paused a moment at the door, her hand resting lightly on the knob, eyes wide and probing.

  “Jen!” he said.

  All in one swift dash, she was across the room into his arms, hugging him. Her lips were warm and soft on his. There was a clean spicy smell about her.

  She pulled back, looked up at him. “Oh, darling, I was so frightened. I kept imagining you driving off a cliff somewhere, your car wrecked, you in the wreckage. Then Willa called. Why would you do such a thing?”

  He put a finger on the tip of her nose, pressed gently. “I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.”

  “I don’t know about that. Do you feel all right now? I met Al in the lobby. He said he brought you some Jaspers coffee.”

  “I’ve had my hair of the dog.”

  “Your hair of … Oh. But why would you …”

  “But me no buts. I’m sorry I worried you, but I have a job to do.”

  “Oh, that!”

  “I’m going to do the job I’m being paid to do.”

  “You gave your word, I suppose?”

  “That’s only part of it.”

  “Then they’ll have to get something from you.”

  “More than something, Jenny, m’love.”

  She grinned. “I like it when you call me your love.”

  “Stop changing the subject.”

  “But it’s such a nice subject.”

  “Agreed. Another time, though, eh?”

  “How about tonight?”

  “You’re a forward wench, aren’t you.”

  “I know what I want.”

  Dasein found himself studying her there in his arms. What had Willa said? “Jenny knows what she’s doing.” Whatever it was, he couldn’t doubt her love for him. It was there in her eyes and her voice, a radiance and vivacity that couldn’t be mistaken.

  Still, there was the certainty two men had died on this investigation—accidents! The fading pain in his shoulder and its implications couldn’t be doubted either.

  “You’re so quiet suddenly,” Jenny said, looking up at him.

  He took a deep breath. “Can you get me some Jaspers?”

  “I almost forgot,” she said. She pulled away, rummaged in her handbag. “I brought you a square of cheese and some wheat crackers for your lunch today. They’re from Uncle Larry’s locker. I knew you’d need it because …” She broke off, produced a sack from the b
ag. “Here they are.” She proffered a brown paper sack, stared at him. “Gil! You said Jaspers .” There was a wary look in her eyes.

  “Why not?” He took the bag. She was reluctant to part with it, her fingers trailing across the paper as he pulled it away.

  “I don’t want to trick you, darling,” she said.

  “Trick me? How?”

  She swallowed and her eyes glistened with unshed tears. “We gave you an awfully strong dose last night, and then you went down into that stupid cave. Was it bad this morning?”

  “I had quite a hangover, if that’s what you mean.”

  “I can just barely remember how it was when I was a child,” she said. “When you’re growing up, your body changing, there are some severe metabolic adjustments. At the school, when I took part in that crazy LSD test, I had a hangover the next morning.” She ran a finger along his forehead. “Poor dear. I’d have been here this morning, but Uncle Larry needed me in the clinic. Anyway, he said you weren’t in any danger; Willa got you out in time.”

  “What would’ve happened if she hadn’t got me out?”

  Her eyes clouded as though with pain.

  “What?” he insisted.

  “You mustn’t think about that.”

  “About what?”

  “It can’t happen to you anyway. Uncle Larry says you’re the wrong type.”

  “Wrong type for what—turning into a zombie like those I saw in the Co-op?”

  “Zombies? What’re you talking about?”

  He described what he’d glimpsed through the wide door.

  “Oh … them.” She looked away from him, her manner suddenly distant. “Gilbert, are you going to put them in your report?”

  “Maybe.”

  “You mustn’t.”

  “Why not? Who are they? What are they?”

  “We take care of our own,” she said. “They’re useful members of the community.”

  “But not quite all there.”

  “That’s right.” She looked up at him with a fierce intensity. “If the state takes them over, they’ll be moved out of the valley—most of them. That can be very bad for Santarogans, Gilbert. Believe me.”

  “I believe you.”

  “I knew you would.”

  “They’re the failures, eh? The ones Jaspers ruined.”

  “Gilbert!” she said. Then—“It’s not what you think. Jaspers is … something wonderful. We call it a ‘Consciousness Fuel.’ It opens your eyes and your ears, it turns on your mind, it …” She broke off, smiled at him. “But you already know.”

  “I know what it appears to be,” he said. He glanced at the bag in his hand. What did he hold here? Was it a paradisical gift for all mankind or something out of hell? Was it the evil enchantment he’d pictured, or an ultimate freedom?

  “It’s wonderful and you know it by now,” Jenny said.

  “Then why aren’t you all shouting it from the rooftops?” he demanded.

  “Gil!” She stared at him accusingly.

  Abruptly, Dasein thought of what Meyer Davidson’s reaction would be … Davidson and his cohorts, the eager young executives and the hard-eyed older men.

  What he held here in his hand was their enemy.

  To those men in their oddly similar dark suits, their cold eyes weighing and dismissing everything, the people of this valley were a foe to be defeated. As he thought of it, Dasein realized all customers were “The Enemy” to these men. Davidson and his kind were pitted against each other, yes, competitive, but among themselves they betrayed that they were pitted more against the masses who existed beyond that inner ring of knowledgable financial operation.

  The alignment was apparent in everything they did, in their words as well as their actions. They spoke of “package grab-level” and “container flash time”—of “puff limit” and “acceptance threshold.” It was an “in” language of militarylike maneuvering and combat. They knew which height on a shelf was most apt to make a customer grab an item. They knew the “flash time”—the shelf width needed for certain containers. They knew how much empty air could be “puffed” into a package to make it appear a greater bargain. They knew how much price and package manipulation the customer would accept without jarring him into a “rejection pattern.”

  And we’re their spies, Dasein thought. The psychiatrists and psychologists—all the “social scientists”—we’re the espionage arm.

  He sensed the vast maneuvering of these armies, the conspiracy to maintain “The Enemy” in a sleepy state of unawareness—malleable. Whatever the leaders of these armies did among themselves to each other, they maintained their inner code. No one betrayed the real war.

  Dasein never before viewed the market-study world in quite this way. He thought of the brutal honesty in Santaroga’s advertising, crumpled the neck of the paper bag in his hand.

  What was this stuff doing to him? He turned away from Jenny to hide a surge of anger. It was making him imagine crazy things! Armies!

  There was no way to avoid Jaspers here in Santaroga. The investigation required that he not avoid it.

  I must insinuate myself into their minds, he reminded himself. I must live their life, think as they think.

  He saw the situation then as Jenny and her fellow Santarogans must see it. They were involved in a form of guerrilla warfare. They had achieved a way of life which wouldn’t be tolerated by the outside. Santaroga offered too much of a threat to the oligarchs of the money-industry world. The only hope for Santaroga lay in isolation and secrecy.

  Shout it from the rooftops, indeed. No wonder she’d snapped at him in surprise.

  Dasein turned, looked at Jenny standing there patiently waiting for him to think his way through the maze. She smiled encouragingly at him and he suddenly saw all Santarogans through her. They were the buffalo Indians, people who needed to get away by themselves, to live and hunt in the way their instincts told them. The trouble was, they lived in a world which couldn’t be culturally neutral. That world out there would keep trying to make people—all people—be everywhere alike.

  Straddling both worlds, thinking with the drug and thinking with his memories of the outside, he felt a deep sadness for Jenny. Santaroga would be destroyed—no doubt of that.

  “I’m sure you see it,” Jenny said.

  “Jaspers would be equated with LSD, with narcotics,” he said. “It’d be legislated against as the Santaroga hashish. You’d be sneered out of existence, destroyed.”

  “I never doubted you’d understand once you were exposed,” she said. She moved into his arms, leaned against him, hugging him fiercely. “I trusted you, Gil. I knew I couldn’t be wrong about you.”

  He couldn’t find words to answer her. A profound sadness held him. Exposed.

  “You’ll still have to do your report, of course,” she said. “It wouldn’t solve anything if you failed. They’d just find somebody else. We’re getting kind of tired of it.”

  “Yes—I’ll have to do a report,” he said.

  “We understand.”

  Her voice sent a shudder through Dasein. “We understand.” That was the We which had searched his bag, had almost killed him … had actually killed two men.

  “Why are you shivering?” Jenny asked.

  “Just a chill,” he said.

  He thought then of the thing he had sensed lurking just beyond his awareness, that restless, urgently peering ancient being which had risen within his consciousness like the neck of a dinosaur. It was still there, studying, waiting to judge.

  “I only work half a day today,” Jenny said. “Some of my friends have arranged a picnic at the lake. They want to meet you.” She leaned back, peered up at him. “I want to show you off, too.”

  “I … don’t think I can go swimming,” he said.

  “Your poor shoulder,” she said. “I know. But the lake’s beautiful this time of year. We’ll have a bonfire tonight.”

  Which We is that? he asked himself.

  “It sounds wonderful,
” he said.

  And he wondered as he spoke why his stomach knotted with a congestion of fear. He told himself it wasn’t Jenny he feared—not this warm and beautiful woman. It might be goddess-Jenny he feared, though … this was a thought that rose in his mind to leer at him.

  Dasein sneered at himself then, thinking that he read too much into every nuance of this valley and its people. That was the psychoanalyst’s disease, of course—seeing everything through a haze of reasoning.

  “Get some rest and meet me downstairs at noon,” Jenny said.

  She pulled away, went to the door, turned there to stare at him. “You’re acting very odd, Gil,” she said. “Is something bothering you?”

  Her voice carried a weighted probing that brought Dasein to sudden alertness. This wasn’t the spontaneous Jenny worried about the man she loved. This was an … an observer probing for something personally dangerous.

  “Nothing food and rest won’t cure,” he said. He tried to sound bantering, knew he’d failed.

  “I’ll see you in a little while,” she said, still in that distant tone.

  Dasein watched the door close behind her. He had the feeling he’d been playing to a special kind of camera, one that pursued irrelevancies. An untethered thought wove through his mind: … the exposure of personality, method and character.

  Who wants to expose my personality, method and character? Dasein asked himself. He felt this was a dangerous question, full of charge and countercharge.

  The sack of food felt heavy in his hand. Dasein stared down at it, aware of his hunger, equally aware of the threat in this package. Did the Jaspers create irreversible change?

  He tossed the sack onto his bed, went to the door, peered out into the hall. Empty. He stepped out, looked down the expanse of wall that concealed the TV room. It took a moment for him to realize something was wrong with that wall. It was like a dislocation of reality—a door occupied a space in that wall where no door had been.

  As though pulled by strings, Dasein went to the door, stared at it. The door was framed in the same worn, polished wood that framed the other doors. Well-preserved age, that was the effect. This was a door that had always been here, that’s what it said. The number plate carried a slight dent and a touch of tarnish at the edges where the maids’ polishing rags had missed. There was a patina of long wear about the handle.