John Brunner - The Whole Man

He sat back. “Y’know, I like to think maybe I managed to give you a helping hand now and again. With your mother sick, and all…”

Howson could see the rose-coloured filters going up in his memory. He hid a smile. Charlie Birberger had been an irritable, hard-to-geton-with employer, given to bawling out his assistants mercilessly — especially Gerry Howson.

Well, no matter. He nodded as though in agreement, and Birberger’s original disquiet faded still further.

“Hey, tell you something!” the fat man said. “I still have all the cuttings from the papers about how they found you. I guess I could dig them out and show you. Hang on !”

He hoisted himself to his feet and disappeared into the back rooms. In a few minutes he returned with a dusty album, which he made ineffectual attempts to blow clean as he sat down again.

“There !” he said, opening it and turning it so that Howson could read the yellowed cuttings it contained.

Howson laid down his knife and fork and leafed through the album curiously. He hadn’t realized that the discovery of a telepathist had created such a furore in the city. Here were front-page items from all the leading local papers, some of them with pictures of Danny Waldemar and other UN personnel.

He had come to the last page and was about to hand the book back with a word of thanks, when he checked. The final item seemed to be completely irrelevant; it was a single paragraph reporting the marriage of Miss Mary Hall and Mr Stephen Williams, and the date was about two years after his departure.

“This one,” he said, putting a finger on it. “Is it connected with the rest?”

Birberger craned to study it. He frowned. “Now what in—? If it’s there, sure as hell there’s a reason. Must have something to do with — Good God, I remember!” He stared in astonishment at Howson. “Don’t you know the name? I’d have thought you of all people…”

Blankly, Howson returned the gaze. And then he had it.

He shut his eyes; the impact was almost physical. In a husky tone he said, “No — no, I never knew her name. She was deaf and dumb, you see, so she couldn’t tell me. And after she got her speech and hearing she only came to see me a few times.”

“She never wrote you?” Birberger was turning back the leaves of the album. “After all you did for her, too! I’m really surprised. Yes, here we are: ‘A plane from Ulan Bator today brought in eighteen-year-old Mary Hall, the deaf-and-dumb girl who befriended novice telepathist Gerry Howson. She told reporters at the city airport that the operation to give her artificial speech and hearing was completely successful, and now all she wanted was the chance to lead a quiet, normal life.’ Look!”

At first glance he must have missed it because he wanted to, Howson told himself. For the newspaper photo wasn’t a bad one. There she was, standing at the door of the plane: smartly dressed, true, and wearing makeup and with her hair properly styled — but recognizably the girl he had known.

“Is there any chance of finding out where she’s living?” He had uttered the question unplanned, but realized its inevitability while Birberger was still rubbing his chin and considering the problem.

“I’ll get the city directory!” he said, rather too eagerly, as though anxious to get Howson on his way.

There were several dozen Williamses, but only one Stephen Williams. Howson studied the address.

“West Walnut,” he said. “Where’s that ?”

“New district since your time, I believe. Big development outside town. A number nineteen bus goes direct.” Birberger was hardly making any attempt to disguise his desire to see the back of his visitor now.

So Howson, dispirited, accommodated him, paying for his food and beer and gathering up his valise. Birberger stumped to the door with him and insisted on shaking his hand, treating it with care as if touching something rare and fragile. But his invitation to come back as soon as possible rang thin.

On impulse Howson asked him, “Say, Mr Birberger! What’s your picture of the kind of work I do nowadays ?”

Startled, the fat man improvised. “Why, you — you sort of look into crazy people’s minds and tell what’s wrong with them. And straighten them out. Don’t you ?”

“That’s right,” Howson said a little unkindly. “Don’t worry, though — I’m not looking into your mind. After all, you’re not crazy, are you?”

The seeds of the most peculiar kind of doubt were germinating in Birberger’s mind as Howson limped down the street towards the stop for a nineteen bus.

Odd: people’s different reactions to telepathists… Howson contemplated them as he sat in the single seat near the driver up front in the bus. He hadn’t examined that problem for years; at the WHO therapy centre he was in isolation from it, because telepathists had become a completely accepted part of the regular staff.

Occasionally, though not as often as he would have liked, trainees came in, and he assisted with their development. Each was unique, and consequently each responded differently to knowledge of his talent. Some were like children with a newfound toy; others were like members of a family in Nazi Germany, who had just discovered that they had Jewish blood and were desperately pretending it made no difference.

It was getting easier to accept the gift, granted. The years of carefully devised propaganda had had some effect. But telepathists were so few they barely even constituted a minority group, and that, rather than conditioning of the public, had been their salvation — at least in Howson’s view. A tiny fraction of the population had actually met someone with the power; consequently, though most people had opinions (’I don’t doubt they do wonderful work, but I wouldn’t like someone poking around in my mind — I mean, it’s the ultimate invasion of privacy!’) few had formed lasting attitudes.

“West Walnut, pal!” the driver called to him, slowing the bus. He was trying to control his prejudice-reactions at Howson’s appearance, and for that Howson gave him a projective wave of warm gratitude. It lit the man’s mind like a gaudy show of fireworks, and he was whistling a cheerful tune as he drove away.

Howson gave a bitter chuckle. If it were always that easy things would be fine !

The new development was clean, airy, spacious, with small houses set among bright green lawns. Children on their way home from school ran and laughed along the paths. He thought achingly of the dose ugly streets of his own childhood, and repressed absurd envy. Briskening his pace as much as possible, he followed signs towards the Williams home.

Yes, there was the name on the mailbox: S. Williams. He reached up and pressed the bell.

After a while the door was cautiously opened on a security chain, and a girl of about seven looked through the gap. “What do you want ?” she said timidly.

“Is Mrs Williams in ?”

“Mummy isn’t home,” the girl said in her most grown-up and authoritative voice. “I’m dreadfully sorry.”

“Will she be back soon? I’m an old friend of hers, and I want to—”

“What is it, Jill ?” a boy’s voice inquired from out of sight.

“There’s a man here who wants to see Mummy,” the girl explained, and a clatter of shoes announced her brother’s descent of the stairs. In a moment another pair of eyes was peering at the visitor. The boy was startled at Howson’s appearance, and failed to conceal the fact, but he had obviously been trained to be polite, and opened the door with an invitation to come in and wait.

“Mummy’s gone to see Mrs Olling next door,” he said. “She won’t be long.”

Howson thanked him and limped into the lounge. Behind him he heard an argument going on in whispers — Jill complaining that they oughtn’t to have let a stranger into the house, and her brother countering scornfully that Howson was no bigger than himself, so how could he be dangerous ?