Philip Dick - The Man in the High Castle

The SD man’s jaw burst. Bits of bone, flesh, shreds of tooth, flew in the air. Hit in the mouth, Mr. Tagomi realized. Dreadful spot, especially if ball ascending. The jawless SD man’s eyes still contained life, of a kind. He still perceives me, Mr. Tagomi thought. Then the eyes lost their luster and the SD man collapsed, dropping his gun and making un-human gargling noises.

“Sickening,” Mr. Tagomi said.

No more SD men appeared in the open doorway.

“Possibly it is over,” General Tedeki said after a pause. Mr. Tagomi, engaged in tedious three-minute task of reloading, paused to press the button of the desk intercom. “Bring medical emergency aid,” he instructed. “Hideously injured thug, here.”

No answer, only a hum.

Stooping, Mr. Baynes had picked up both the Germans’ guns; he passed one to the general, keeping the other himself.

“Now we will mow them down,” Mr. Tagomi said, reseating himself with his Colt .44, as before. “Formidable triumvirate, in this office.”

From the hall a voice called, “German hoodlums surrender!”

“Already taken care of,” Mr. Tagomi called back. “Lying either dead or dying. Advance and verify empirically.”

A party of Nippon Times employees gingerly appeared, several of them carrying building riot equipment such as axes and rifles and tear-gas grenades.

“ Cause célèbre ,” Mr. Tagomi said. “PSA Government in Sacramento could declare war on Reich without hesitation.” He broke open his gun. “Anyhow, over with.”

“They will deny complicity,” Mr. Baynes said. “Standard technique. Used countless times.” He laid the silencer equipped pistol on Mr. Tagomi’s desk. “Made in Japan.”

He was not joking. It was true. Excellent quality Japanese target pistol. Mr. Tagomi examined it.

“And not German nationals,” Mr. Baynes said. He had taken the wallet of one of the whites, the dead one. “PSA citizen. Lives in San José. Nothing to connect him with the SD. Name is Jack Sanders.” He tossed the wallet down.

“A holdup,” Mr. Tagomi said. “Motive: our locked vault. No political aspects.” He arose shakily to his feet.

In any case, the assassination or kidnapping attempt by the SD had failed. At least, this first one had. But clearly they knew who Mr. Baynes was, and no doubt what he had come for.

“The prognosis,” Mr. Tagomi said, “is gloomy.”

He wondered if in this instance the oracle would be of any use. Perhaps it could protect them. Warn them, shield them, with its advice.

Still quite shaky, he began taking out the forty-nine yarrow stalks. Whole situation confusing and anomalous, he decided. No human intelligence could decipher it; only five-thousand-year-old joint mind applicable. German totalitarian society resembles some faulty form of life, worse than natural thing. Worse in all its admixtures, its potpourri of pointlessness.

Here, he thought, local SD acts as instrument of policy totally at odds with head in Berlin. Where in this composite being is the sense? Who really is Germany? Who ever was? Almost like decomposing nightmare parody of problems customarily faced in course of existence.

The oracle will cut through it. Even weird breed of cat like Nazi Germany comprehensible to I Ching .

Mr. Baynes, seeing Mr. Tagomi distractedly manipulating the handful of vegetable stalks, recognized how deep the man’s distress was. For him, Mr. Baynes thought, this event, his having had to kill and mutilate these two men, is not only dreadful; it is inexplicable.

What can I say that might console him? He fired on my behalf; the moral responsibility for these two lives is therefore mine, and I accept it. I view it that way.

Coming over beside Mr. Baynes, General Tedeki said in a soft voice, “You witness the man’s despair. He, you see, was no doubt raised as a Buddhist. Even if not formally, the influence was there. A culture in which no life is to be taken; all lives holy.”

Mr. Baynes nodded.

“He will recover his equilibrium,” General Tedeki continued. “In time. Right now he has no standpoint by which he can view and comprehend his act. That book will help him, for it provides an external frame of reference.”

“I see,” Mr. Baynes said. He thought, Another frame of reference which might help him would be the Doctrine of Original Sin. I wonder if he has ever heard of it. We are all doomed to commit acts of cruelty or violence or evil; that is our destiny, due to ancient factors. Our karma.

To save one life, Mr. Tagomi had to take two. The logical, balanced mind cannot make sense of that. A kindly man like Mr. Tagomi could be driven insane by the implications of such reality.

Nevertheless, Mr. Baynes thought, the crucial point lies not in the present, not in either my death or the death of the two SD men; it lies—hypothetically—in the future. What has happened here is justified, or not justified, by what happens later. Can we perhaps save the lives of millions, all Japan in fact?

But the man manipulating the vegetable stalks could not think of that; the present, the actuality, was too tangible, the dead and dying Germans on the floor of his office.

General Tedeki was right; time would give Mr. Tagomi perspective. Either that, or he would perhaps retreat into the shadows of mental illness, avert his gaze forever, due to a hopeless perplexity.

And we are not really different from him, Mr. Baynes thought. We are faced with the same confusions. Therefore unfortunately we can give Mr. Tagomi no help. We can only wait, hoping that finally he will recover and not succumb.

In Denver they found chic, modern stores. The clothes, Juliana thought, were numbingly expensive, but Joe did not seem to care or even to notice; he simply paid for what she picked out, and then they hurried on to the next store.

Her major acquisition—after much trying on of dresses and much prolonged deliberating and rejecting—occurred late in the day: a light blue Italian original with short, fluffy sleeves and a wildly low neckline. In a European fashion magazine she had seen a model wearing such a dress; it was considered the finest style of the year, and it cost Joe almost two hundred dollars.

To go with it, she needed three pairs of shoes, more nylon stockings, several hats, and a new handmade black leather purse. And, she discovered, the neckline of the Italian dress demanded the new brassieres which covered only the lower part of each breast. Viewing herself in the full-length mirror of the dress shop, she felt overexposed and a little insecure about bending over. But the salesgirl assured her that the new half-bras remained firmly in place, despite their lack of straps.

Just up to the nipple, Juliana thought as she peered at herself in the privacy of the dressing room, and not one millimeter more. The bras, too, cost quite a bit; also imported, the salesgirl explained, and handmade. The salesgirl showed her sportswear, too, shorts and bathing suits and a terrycloth beach robe; but all at once Joe became restless. So they went on.

As Joe loaded the parcels and bags into the car she said, “Don’t you think I’m going to look terrific?”

“Yes,” he said in a preoccupied voice. “Especially that blue dress. You wear that when we go there, to Abendsen’s; understand?” He spoke the last word sharply as if it was an order; the tone surprised her.

“I’m a size twelve or fourteen,” she said as they entered the next dress shop. The salesgirl smiled graciously and accompanied them to the racks of dresses. What else did she need? Juliana wondered. Better to get as much as possible while she could; her eyes took in everything at once, the blouses, skirts, sweaters, slacks, coats. Yes, a coat. “Joe,” she said, “I have to have a long coat. But not a cloth coat.”