The Man In The High Castle

By pedecab Mr. Tagomi journeyed to Portsmouth Square, a little open park on the slope above Kearny Street overlooking the police station. He seated himself on a bench in the sun. Pigeons walked along the paved paths in search of food. On other benches shabby men read the newspaper or dozed. Here and there others lay on the grass, nearly asleep.

Bringing from his pocket the paper bag marked with the name of Mr. R. Childan’s store, Mr. Tagomi sat holding the paper bag with both hands, warming himself. Then he opened the bag and lifted out his new possession for inspection in solitude, here in this little grass and path park of old men.

He held the squiggle of silver. Reflection of the midday sun, like boxtop cereal trinket, sent-away acquired Jack Armstrong magnifying mirror. Or—he gazed down into it. Om as the Brahmins say. Shrunk spot in which all is captured. Both, at least in hint. The size, the shape. He continued to inspect dutifully.

Will it come, as Mr. R. Childan prophesied? Five minutes. Ten minutes. I sit as long as I can. Time, alas, will make us sell it short. What is it I hold, while there is still time?

Forgive me, Mr. Tagomi thought in the direction of the squiggle. Pressure on us always to rise and act. Regretfully, he began to put the thing away back in its bag. One final hopeful glance—he again scrutinized with all that he had. Like child, he told himself. Imitate the innocence and faith. On seashore, pressing randomly found shell to head. Hearing in its blabber the wisdom of the sea.

This, with eye replacing ear. Enter me and inform what has been done, what it means, why. Compression of understanding into one finite squiggle.

Asking too much, and so get nothing.

“Listen,” he said sotto voce to the squiggle. “Sales warranty promised much.”

If I shake it violently, like old recalcitrant watch. He did so, up and down. Or like dice in critical game. Awaken the deity inside. Peradventure he sleepeth. Or he is on a journey. Titillating heavy irony by Prophet Elijah. Or he is pursuing. Mr. Tagomi violently shook the silver squiggle up and down in his clenched fist once more. Call him louder. Again he scrutinized.

You little thing, you are empty, he thought.

Curse at it, he told himself. Frighten it.

“My patience is running out,” he said sotto voce.

And what then? Fling you in the gutter? Breathe on it, shake it, breathe on it. Win me the game.

He laughed. Addlepated involvement, here in warm sunlight. Spectacle to whoever comes along. Peeking about guiltily, now. But no one saw. Old men snoozing. Measure of relief, there.

Tried everything, he realized. Pleaded, contemplated, threatened, philosophized at length. What else can be done?

Could I but stay here. It is denied me. Opportunity will perhaps occur again. And yet, as W. S. Gilbert says, such an opportunity will not occur again. Is that so? I feel it to be so.

When I was a child I thought as a child. But now I have put away childish things. Now I must seek in other realms. I must keep after this object in new ways.

I must be scientific. Exhaust by logical analysis every entree. Systematically, in classic Aristotelian laboratory manner.

He put his finger in his right ear, to shut off traffic and all other distracting noises. Then he tightly held the silver triangle, shellwise, to his left ear.

No sound. No roar of simulated ocean, in actuality interior blood-motion noises—not even that.

Then what other sense might apprehend mystery? Hearing of no use, evidently. Mr. Tagomi shut his eyes and began fingering every bit of surface on the item. Not touch; his fingers told him nothing. Smell. He put the silver close to his nose and inhaled. Metallic faint odor, but it conveyed no meaning. Taste. Opening his mouth he sneaked the silver triangle within, popped it in like a cracker, but of course refrained from chewing. No meaning, only bitter hard cold thing.

He again held it in his palm.

Back at last to seeing. Highest ranking of the senses: Greek scale of priority. He turned the silver triangle each and every way; he viewed it from every extra rem standpoint.

What do I see? he asked himself. Due to long patient painstaking study. What is clue of truth that confronts me in this object?

Yield, he told the silver triangle. Cough up arcane secret.

Like frog pulled from depths, he thought. Clutched in fist, given command to declare what lies below in the watery abyss. But here the frog does not even mock; it strangles silently, becomes stone or clay or mineral. Inert. Passes back to the rigid substance familiar in its tomb world.

Metal is from the earth, he thought as he scrutinized. From below: from that realm which is the lowest, the most dense. Land of trolls and caves, dank, always dark. Yin world, in its most melancholy aspect. World of corpses, decay and collapse. Of feces. All that has died, slipping and disintegrating back down layer by layer. The daemonic world of the immutable; the time-that-was.

And yet, in the sunlight, the silver triangle glittered. It reflected light. Fire, Mr. Tagomi thought. Not dank or dark object at all. Not heavy, weary, but pulsing with life. The high realm, aspect of yang: empyrean, ethereal. As befits work of art. Yes, that is artist’s job: takes mineral rock from dark silent earth transforms it into shining light-reflecting form from sky.

Has brought the dead to life. Corpse turned to fiery display; the past had yielded to the future.

Which are you? he asked the silver squiggle. Dark dead yin or brilliant living yang? In his palm, the silver squiggle danced and blinded him; he squinted, seeing now only the play of fire.

Body of yin, soul of yang. Metal and fire unified. The outer and inner; microcosmos in my palm.

What is the space which this speaks of? Vertical ascent. To heaven. Of time? Into the light-world of the mutable. Yes, this thing has disgorged its spirit: light. And my attention is fixed; I can’t look away. Spellbound by mesmerizing shimmering surface which I can no longer control. No longer free to dismiss.

Now talk to me, he told it. Now that you have snared me. I want to hear your voice issuing from the blinding clear white light, such as we expect to see only in the Bardo Thodol afterlife existence. But I do not have to wait for death, for the decomposition of my animus as it wanders in search of a new womb. All the terrifying and beneficent deities; we will bypass them, and the smoky lights as well. And the couples in coitus. Everything except this light. I am ready to face without terror. Notice I do not blench.

I feel the hot winds of karma driving me. Nevertheless I remain here. My training was correct: I must not shrink from the clear white light, for if I do, I will once more re-enter the cycle of birth and death, never knowing freedom, never obtaining release. The veil of maya will fall once more if I—

The light disappeared.

He held the dull silver triangle only. Shadow had cut off the sun; Mr. Tagomi glanced up.

Tall, blue-suited policeman standing by his bench, smiling.

“Eh?” Mr. Tagomi said, startled.

“I was just watching you work that puzzle.” The policeman started on along the path.

“Puzzle,” Mr. Tagomi echoed. “Not a puzzle.”

“Isn’t that one of those little puzzles you have to take apart? My kid has a whole lot of them. Some are hard.” The policeman passed on.

Mr. Tagomi thought, Spoiled. My chance at nirvana. Gone. Interrupted by that white barbarian Neanderthal yank. That subhuman supposing I worked a child’s puerile toy.

Rising from the bench he took a few steps unsteadily. Must calm down. Dreadful low-class jingoistic racist invectives, unworthy of me.

Incredible unredemptive passions clashing in my breast. He made his way through the park. Keep moving, he told himself. Catharsis in motion.

He reached periphery of park. Sidewalk, Kearny Street. Heavy noisy traffic. Mr. Tagomi halted at the curb.

No pedecabs. He walked along the sidewalk instead; he joined the crowd. Never can get one when you need it.

God, what is that? He stopped, gaped at hideous misshapen thing on skyline. Like nightmare of roller coaster suspended, blotting out view. Enormous construction of metal and cement in air.

Mr. Tagomi turned to a passer-by, a thin man in rumpled suit. “What is that?” he demanded, pointing.

The man grinned. “Awful, ain’t it? That’s the Embarcadero Freeway. A lot of people think it stinks up the view.”

“I never saw it before,” Mr. Tagomi said.

“You’re lucky,” the man said, and went on.

Mad dream, Mr. Tagomi thought. Must wake up. Where are the pedecabs today? He began to walk faster. Whole vista has dull, smoky, tomb-world cast. Smell of burning. Dim gray buildings, sidewalk, peculiar harsh tempo in people. And still no pedecabs.

“Cab!” he shouted as he hurried along.

Hopeless. Only cars and buses. Cars like brutal big crushers, all unfamiliar in shape. He avoided seeing them; kept his eyes straight ahead. Distortion of my optic perception of particularly sinister nature. A disturbance affecting my sense of space. Horizon twisted out of line. Like lethal astigmatism striking without warning.

Must obtain respite. Ahead, a dingy lunch counter. Only whites within, all supping. Mr. Tagomi pushed open the wooden swinging doors. Smell of coffee. Grotesque jukebox in corner blaring out; he winced and made his way to the counter. All stools taken by whites. Mr. Tagomi exclaimed. Several whites looked up. But none departed their places. None yielded their stools to him. They merely resumed supping.

“I insist!” Mr. Tagomi said loudly to the first white; he shouted in the man’s ear.

The man put down his coffee mug and said, “Watch it, Tojo.”

Mr. Tagomi looked to the other whites; all watched with hostile expressions. And none stirred.

Bardo Thodol existence, Mr. Tagomi thought. Hot winds blowing me who knows where. This is vision—of what? Can the animus endure this? Yes, the Book of the Dead prepares us: after death we seem to glimpse others, but all appear hostile to us. One stands isolated. Unsuccored wherever one turns. The terrible journey—and always the realms of suffering, rebirth, ready to receive the fleeing, demoralized spirit. The delusions.

He hurried from the lunch counter. The doors swung together behind him; he stood once more on the sidewalk.

Where am I? Out of my world, my space and time.

The silver triangle disoriented me. I broke from my moorings and hence stand on nothing. So much for my endeavor. Lesson to me forever. One seeks to contravene one’s perceptions—why? So that one can wander utterly lost, without signposts or guide?

This hypnagogic condition. Attention-faculty diminished so that twilight state obtains; world seen merely in symbolic, archetypal aspect, totally confused with unconscious material. Typical of hypnosis-induced somnambulism. Must stop this dreadful gliding among shadows; refocus concentration and thereby restore ego center.

He felt in his pockets for the silver triangle. Gone. Left the thing on the bench in the park, with briefcase. Catastrophe.

Crouching, he ran back up the sidewalk, to the park.

Dozing bums eyed him in surprise as he hurried up the path. There, the bench. And leaning against it still, his briefcase. No sign of the silver triangle. He hunted. Yes. Fallen through to grass; it lay partly hidden. Where he had hurled it in rage.

He reseated himself, panting for breath.

Focus on silver triangle once more, he told himself when he could breathe. Scrutinize it forcefully and count. At ten, utter startling noise. Erwache, for instance.

Idiotic daydreaming of fugal type, he thought. Emulation of more noxious aspects of adolescence, rather than the clearheaded pristine innocence of authentic childhood. Just what I deserve anyhow.

All my own fault. No intention by Mr. R. Childan or artisans; my own greed to blame. One cannot compel understanding to come.

He counted slowly, aloud, and then jumped to his feet.

“Goddam stupidity,” he said sharply.

Mists cleared?

He peeped about. Diffusion subsided, in all probability. Now one appreciates Saint Paul’s incisive word choice…seen through glass darkly not a metaphor, but astute reference to optical distortion. We really do see astigmatically, in fundamental sense: our space and our time creations of our own psyche, and when these momentarily falter—like acute disturbance of middle ear.

Occasionally we list eccentrically, all sense of balance gone.

He reseated himself, put the silver squiggle away in his coat pocket, sat holding his briefcase on his lap. What I must do now, he told himself, is go and see if that malignant construction—what did the man call it? Embarcadero Freeway. If it is still palpable.

But he felt afraid to.

And yet, he thought, I can’t merely sit here. I have loads to lift, as old U.S. folk expression has it. Jobs to be done.

Dilemma.

Two small Chinese boys came scampering noisily along the path. A flock of pigeons fluttered up; the boys paused.

Mr. Tagomi called, “You, young fellows.” He dug into his pocket. “Come here.”

The two boys guardedly approached.

“Here’s a dime.” Mr. Tagomi tossed them a dime; the boys scrambled for it. “Go down to Kearny Street and see if there are any pedecabs. Come back and tell me.”

“Will you give us another dime?” one of the boys said. “When we get back?”

“Yes,” Mr. Tagomi said. “But tell me the truth.”

The boys raced off along the path.

If there are not, Mr. Tagomi thought, I would be well advised to retire to secluded place and kill myself. He clutched his briefcase. Still have the weapon; no difficulty, there.

The boys came tearing back. “Six!” one of them yelled. “I counted six.”

“I counted five,” the other boy gasped.

Mr. Tagomi said, “You’re sure they were pedecabs? You distinctly saw the drivers peddling?”

“Yes sir,” the boys said together.

He gave each boy a dime. They thanked him and ran off.

Back to office and job, Mr. Tagomi thought. He rose to his feet, gripping the handle of his briefcase. Duty calls. Customary day once again.

Once more he walked down the path, to the sidewalk.

“Cab!” he called.

From the traffic a pedecab appeared; the driver came to a halt at the curb, his dark face glistening, chest heaving. “Yes sir.”

“Take me to the Nippon Times Building,” Mr. Tagomi ordered. He ascended to the seat and made himself comfortable.

Peddling furiously, the pedecab driver moved out among the other cabs and cars.