sequel-8

THE SEQUEL

Chapter 8--Miss Julie

      The first chance Henry had, after Shoko had told him that Laura knew Charlie had been up to the lake with Christine the night Ben was shot, he called her in New York.
     "Well," Laura said, "I knew Ben had called Christine almost as soon as we walked in the door getting home from Japan, for I answered the phone. Then, as I listened to her talk to him, I could tell he was asking her to come up to the lake--that same day! She said she'd see. After she hung up she said she would like to get her car back. I was opposed to her going, since, it seemed, Thomas wasn't there to go with her. I told her 'I really don't like you going up there alone--I don't trust Ben--and, if you plan to drive the Ferrari home, how will you get there? Take the bus?'
     "She said she'd call Charlie, and see if he'd drive her up to the lake, and then follow her home. They could stop for dinner somewhere, maybe in San Bernardino. She called him, and he said he'd be glad to take her, as I thought he might. That made me feel better. But I told her to get home early, for a good night's sleep after ten hours on the airplane.
     "Charlie picked her up maybe half an hour later--late in the afternoon. But it wasn't particularly early when he got her home, which shouldn't have surprised me, I suppose, since, as you know, it's about 120 miles up there, first with heavy evening traffic, then the last part on pretty mountainous roads. I was tired after the flight myself, but stayed up, waiting for her to get back. I just didn't feel right about this meeting with Ben. Then, when they did get back, I saw how troubled she was, and didn't see the Ferrari. Christine just went right to her room, but I asked Charlie, 'What happened?'
     "'I'm not too sure,' Charlie said. 'Christine's not hurt, just upset, and I'd rather she tells her own story. She should be ready to in the morning. I'm scheduled to fly to New York tomorrow, but I'll call first.'

     "He did call the next morning. I told him about the late call from Lieutenant Carlson telling me they'd found Ben dead at the cabin--shot twice. 'No doubt that's what upset Christine,' I said, then asked, 'Did either of you shoot Ben?'
     "Charlie was shocked. 'We were there, and Christine had some kind of confrontation with him,' he said. 'She had me stay with the car, but she can't have shot him, because we heard two more shots after I met her running back down the trail. It surprises me that Ben was the one who was shot, for he had the gun, and liked to shoot it when he was drunk. So I expected him to shoot someone else.'
     "I had helped get Christine to bed without asking many questions, hoping for better coherence in the morning. When I got the call from Lieutenant Carlson, I just told him Jack and Christine were in bed, and he said no need to wake either. I decided to try to keep the police away from Christine, if I could, until Jack and I had heard her story."
     "And did she tell you the next morning?" Henry asked.
     "When I told her what Lieutenant Carlson said, she just broke down. I tried to get her to eat breakfast, but she refused. I think her first thought was that Charlie might have shot Ben, but she didn't tell me that. I told her I had to get Jack up for breakfast, and would tell him about Ben. 'Then you'll need to tell him about you and Charlie. The police will be asking, too. So you'll need to be ready.'"
     "And how did Jack respond?"
     "He was upset with me for not waking him when the lieutenant called. I asked, 'What could you have done?'
     "'Driven up to the lake--found out what happened.'
     "'That policeman particularly asked that we not do that.'
     "Jack sighed. 'At least I'd have known we had another crisis. Do you think Christine shot Ben?'
     "'Charlie said no, said he was waiting for her near the car until he heard the first shot, then heard two more shots after

he met her running back. It sounds like they intruded on some problem of Ben's.'
     "'You think he shot himself? That's possible with Ben.'
     "'The police didn't find the gun there. So someone must have taken it away.'
     "'But who?' Jack asked.
     "I couldn't answer that. Christine couldn't either, when she did finally come in and talk to us. She said, 'I went to get the Ferrari. Ben was drunk and abusive. Then he suddenly drew that pistol, threatening me with it, and finally fired it. I ran out of there--back to Charlie. Then we drove away.'"
     "Christine didn't say anything about Charlie going up to the cabin, did she? Just met her running back, and drove her home." Henry paused. "So she didn't get the Ferrari!"
     "Well, I saw Thomas washing the Ferrari later that morning, so it got back to Shangri La somehow. Jack called Charlie--then drove over to see him, since he likes to see the person he's talking to about anything serious. Charlie told him pretty much what Christine had, but emphasized the three cars they'd seen parked there. 'I thought of seeing about Ben,' he said, 'but when we heard that second shot I decided we didn't need to be part of his target practice. So I hurried Christine back to the car. When we heard the third shot, I decided we'd better get out of there--and we did.'"
      "Then he flew to New York that same day?"
     "Yes, he told Jack he'd just as well go to New York, as scheduled--to be out of the way. Jack agreed, and took him to the airport. Jack called me and said he'd just eat lunch there, then meet Henry's plane to bring his family back to Shangri La. On the way he told them what he knew about the shooting of Ben. Then he told us all, 'Charlie said he'll come back to testify when necessary, but thinks Christine should tell her own story first, if possible . . . and I agreed.'"
     That was the day that Henry, Jack, and Laura had met with Lieutenant Carlson. Driving home, Jack had said, "I

think he knows as much as we do about Charlie and Christine, and that someone else was there he wasn't telling us about."
     The next day the lieutenant questioned Christine at great length at Shangri La, but didn't arrest anyone at that point. He said that Mr. Brown told him he thought he'd seen Ben driving the Ferrari earlier that day, but when he delivered the groceries there was no car there. The lieutenant went out to the garage to examine the Ferrari, with Thomas, particularly to look at its tires.
     As it happened, Charlie was on the same flight to New York as Arthur was, and told him he thought he'd seen his car at the lake, had heard three shots, then heard that Ben had been killed, "shot with that gun he'd been target-practicing with." Arthur admitted having been there and said Ben was drunk and had accidentally shot himself. That's all he'd say.
     Seeing those three other cars there Charlie had thought, "Well, Ben's been using this Ferrari. I think that old Chevrolet is Arthur's. But who owns the Ford?" He thought he should recognize it, but didn't.
     Driving away with Christine he did wonder whether they should stop and report this to the police. "But everyone must know Ben's been shooting that gun. With Christine in this condition, I better just get her home. I'll talk to her dad before I leave for New York, and see what he thinks."
     By the end of the next day Christine had settled into a serious and laconic mode. She didn't want to talk about what had happened at the lake, to anyone. But then, suddenly, near the end of the week she said to Jack, "I asked Lieutenant Carlson if there was any reason we couldn't go ahead with The Tempest in New York. I think he does suspect me of shooting Ben--and of all kinds of other things--but he didn't object to our doing the play. The Players have been promised this play when we got back--and I think we owe it to them. More than that . . . I want to do it."
     Jack said, "I didn't think you'd be up to it."

     "I didn't think I would be either right after that horrible experience with Ben. But now I am. I didn't shoot him--though I might have wanted to--and playing Miranda would give me something else to think about. I guess Ben's death settled the question of Charlie playing Ferdinand, and Arthur would probably be pleased to play Caliban. The demanding role is Prospero. Are you up to it? And to directing that show, too? You'd be the one under the most stress."
     Jack just laughed, saying, "I'm as ready as I'll ever be."
     Back in New York, Charlie and Christine had agreed not to talk to anyone else about even having been at the lake that night, though Charlie said others must know--Laura and Jack, of course, and the people driving those other cars.
     Two months later, The Tempest behind them, Christine was assuming the role of Miss Julie, and was definitely slipping into the aristocratic mode the part called for--as Betty had become Cleopatra, she became Miss Julie, very domineering, and directed the expression of that spirit most particularly at Charlie as Jean. She was the young lady of the house Jean might think he was manipulating, but still habitually insistent on having her way . . . in everything . . . she thought.
     Marcella, the woman Charlie had been playing chess and reading Plato and Mishima with as they watched Christine rehearsing as Ariel for The Tempest, was now as busy as he was on stage as Kristin, the cook, and Jean's proper girl friend. They did Miss Julie at the Players theatre in New York and then in Los Angeles, to high critical acclaim.
     That was the first time that Charlie, or Marcella, had appeared in anything on stage in California, so, as his parents came to see him, he began to feel that he was indeed a stage actor. But he took the occasion to talk to Laura, as his agent, and Randall, and Henry, about doing something else in the movies, and they began to encourage him.
     Then they did a Hallmark television version of Miss Julie, for which Randall acted as producer. After seeing

Marcella in it Marjorie Salem suggested that she'd be a good one to cast in a minor role opening up in Orange County, and talked to Laura and Randall about that. Before long, Marcella and Marjorie were becoming friends, too.
     Marjorie was pleased to see Christine and Charlie at the lake again--as she often visited Shoko now--and told her and Henry she knew they were both innocent of Ben's death--could never have done such a thing. But it was now a very different Christine from the one she had known as Juliet, and one day Charlie told her, privately, that he'd had about enough of Miss Julie for a while, was hoping to stay in California and do another film with Randall, which would also allow him to pursue a reading program on Plato and Mishima with Henry, which he looked forward to, while Christine was pursuing her ambition in New York. He told Henry he was already into his middle game.
     Charlie did feel he shouldn't commit to anything else until Christine and Jack decided what they were doing next, but it began to look for a while like the Hamlet proposal might materialize, and that, since he insisted he wasn't ready to play Hamlet, he wouldn't be needed in what would be her big show--with a guest artist.
     So Randall arranged a guest spot for Charlie for three programs in a row on one of his regular Western series, and, as he began to be impressed by her, added a part for Marcella in one. Then he offered Charlie a role in one of his western films as the hero's sidekick--the kind of role Jack knew very well. Jack had helped Charlie pick the script, in fact, and suggested changes Randall approved of. For a while, Charlie was spending a lot of time on horseback, and with Henry at the lake, often taking Marcella along for both.
     Charlie liked Henry's whole plan of attack--Plato into mysticism, mathematics into abstraction, and the I Ching into a sense of how to deal with incidental change in human life while believing in the infinity of the cosmos. Henry quoted

Einstein as saying that he studied physics to get away from the "I" and "we" and into the "it"--from the ephemeral, the transient, and the mortal, Henry said, into the permanent, the unchanging, and the immortal available to the human mind. Charlie liked this idea, too.
     One day Henry was waxing philosophical with Charlie, and now Marcella. "What are scientists likely to discover next?" he asked.
     "What do you mean? Like musical instruments you don't have to practice on for years before you can play well . . . maybe computer programmed?" asked Marcella. "I'd like to learn to play the saxophone if it didn't take so long."
     'An interesting idea, but I was thinking of discoveries related to the origin of human life and the universe--looked at as works in progress, subject to change, as the point of view changes. Think what it means to look through telescopes today, out toward the heavens, or microscopes in the opposite direction--if not yet into sub-atomic worlds--into the structure of our cells, things too small to see with the naked eye, how they reproduce and inter-react, what forces move them."
     "Or think of the earth as a little ball, as seen from the moon," Marcella added, "and then try to imagine where this cabin, this lake, this country--places where the important things in the universe are going on--are on that ball, which you can do by establishing perspective, like looking at any kind of map."
     Charlie said, "I've heard there are four or five billion people in the world, and maybe that many living cells in each body--each pursuing its own survival--and none any more interested than we are in other levels of reality."
     Henry laughed. "Calculus is concerned with human limits in both directions--to the infinite and the infinitesimal--to provide us with a clean, well-lighted place in which to live and work, where principles we understand, like time and space, apply. The telescope and the microscope

also define two extremes of human comprehension, beyond which things seem to live by two very different sets of rules--those of Einstein's Relativity Theory and those of Quantum Mechanics--worlds which Einstein spent the last years of his life trying to reconcile, without success.   That's something for scientists to work on."
     "I've heard that Einstein's theory of Relativity is basically about point of view," Marcella said, "that conceptions of reality are determined by the peculiarities of the human point of view--which, hard as it is to imagine, is subject to change, is only one point of view."
      "But, interestingly enough, what the sub-atomic arena of Quantum Mechanics has brought back into the equation is chance, which makes one kind of connection from this new physics to the I Ching, which was developed to analyze change, or chance, or reduce the amount of chance in analyzing a problem," said Henry. "As I understand it, physicists analyzing the sub-atomic work statistically to establish possibilities, or probabilities--much as the analysis of the hexagram involves refining an understanding of chance. The I Ching is a human construct working at a human level, and accommodates the human element of free will. Quantum mechanics is trying to understand the rules that apply at the sub-atomic level, to units much smaller than the human senses can identify, only understood intellectually as little particles, in certain sets, that, largely in their motion, speed, and direction, obey certain laws."
     "Analogous, at the other extreme, to the way all the stars look alike to us, yet we accept that they're almost all larger than our sun, and must differ as individuals more than individual human beings do," Charlie suggested.
     "And as in the larger world of the stars we know that, if we could step from star to star we would be overwhelmed by the differences, so, if we can imagine it in the smaller worlds of the cells in our bodies, then the molecules and atoms in

inert matter, the neutrons and protons in the world of the atom may be just as complex and individual, if we could ever bring ourselves down to that level, step from one to another in that world. And the interesting thing is that differences in change are so obvious there that they insist upon themselves at the most observable levels, leaving us to ask what may determine them, whether there are principles of freedom of will among the atoms, whether they may cherish their freedom to do as they wish as much as we do."
     "And you think Einstein was looking for the laws all of these worlds, at all levels, have in common," Marcella said, "and that such laws exist!"
     "It's what many philosophers and scientists have instinctively felt--Plato and Newton, as well as Einstein--that the eternal truths have a unity and stability that make it all one world, if we could just understand what the universal laws are--that when you look up and see the Idea of the Good, it will be one."
     "So the eternal verities remain the same," said Charlie. "As with the slave boy in the Meno, it's a matter of discovering them. Socrates says that every immortal soul possesses knowledge of the eternal truths, which it forgets as it is born, enters the mortality of human life," Charlie said, "but, if reminded, can re-discover."
     "That's what education is," Henry said. "And the abstractions of mathematics most often give us the sense of dealing with the unchanging. We need the mystique of the I Ching for dealing with the changing, and for bringing the one and the many together."
     Marcella added, "But then the eternal verities must exist whether we know it or not, and our discovery of them may well be in a form that doesn't reflect their nature so much as our capacity to conceive of it in some pattern understandable to us. And you think most of those eternal verities are still there waiting to be discovered?" she asked Henry.

      "We think with human languages more than with mathematics, and different languages--any one of which is in a constant state of change," Charlie added. "And no one is complete master of any language, few know a tenth of the vocabulary in a good dictionary."
     "After three weeks in Japan I have only a few phrases, like 'eki ga doko desu ka?'" Henry said. "So do I know Japanese? Does Jack? Do most educated Japanese?"
      "I remember studying the Indo-European family of languages in History of the Language," Charlie said. "Supposedly Indo-European, now as extinct as the dinosaur, was a perfectly logical language, from which the grammars of all its descendants are corrupted. The professor said that if we could all go back to using that original language it would have a kind of logical stability, like Latin, that none of these living languages have."
      "Suggesting language isn't just a human invention," Marcella said, "but also has its own laws."
      "Here's a related question," said Henry. "Do you believe in evolution? Not just human evolution from the monkeys, but evolution in general. In kinds of transportation? Forms of government? Educational curricula? Do all things have a life history which involves progress, change in the direction of improvement? Or, as with the Indo-European languages, may it as often involve corruption?"
     "I do," Marcella said. "It's obvious in transportation. Crossing the country by airplane is better than by car, which is better than by covered wagon, which is better than by walking--and that has changed in this century. The high plains look a lot different to someone planning a trip across them now. And in medical care--we live longer now, as scientists discover cures for diseases that used to kill our grandparents--and they never knew why--like we still don't with cancer. But we think it's there to know. On the other hand, we do all still die."

     "And we keep extending the limits of our visual capacities," said Charlie. "Before the telescope, the Greeks knew the sun was too far away to get to, but now we know how far--comprehended by our mathematics--and how long it'd take a rocket to get there."
     "Though most of us don't plan to go, since, even if we could make the trip, it would be too hot for us," said Henry. "But we know that the moon, which looks to be about the same size, is not too far to get to, and not too hot when you do get there--we've been there, done that."
     "But you have to take everything you need to survive with you, not just food and water, but even the oxygen you breathe. And any other place in this vast universe is, if not infinitely far away, beyond human reach," Marcella said. "Copernicus might have shown us that the earth goes around the sun, but things get more complicated the minute we ask what the sun is going around."
     "As Jack once told us," Charlie said, "as a navigator, he could determine where he was on the surface of the earth if he assumed a geocentric universe, that the center of the earth was the center of everything. For most purposes--driving to Shangri La or raising a field of corn, for example--it even works quite well to assume the world is flat, like they did before Columbus sailed over the horizon, because you plow it as if it were."
     "As you say, it's not sufficient to say the sun is at the center of the universe," said Henry, "for we know it isn't, that it's a small star, in a huge, but not the hugest, collection of stars, moving relative to other collections--all evidently moving away from each other, at great speed. Who's to say where the center of the whole system is? I think that's Einstein's point, that any point of reference is only that, embraced by the imagination as a fixed point, in order to work some mathematical problem or other. Is the center still where that concentrated body of matter was at the time of the Big

Bang? If so, what are the coordinates? According to what frame of reference? Has it moved since? Solutions to such speculation must wait for the evolution of mathematics, I suppose."
     "I can understand what you're saying Henry, but can hardly imagine it," Marcella said. "Try to think of living somewhere else in the universe, by other rules, by other rates of evolution. After beginning life, say, as a single-cell amoeba--duplicating away--what is the goal?"
     "And what were the sources of life, here or anywhere else?" Charlie asked.
     "What is the composition of a single human body?" Marcella said. "If it's composed of billions of cells, each independent in certain ways, but depending upon working together to survive, in what ways is this analogous to the community of human beings that are organized around us, and then to the communities of stars that surround us? Is it as if we were all neutrons in a cell in the rocker of a giant's rocking chair, and he was a cell in a larger rocking chair, and so on . . . ad infinitum?"
     "And what about the conservation of energy and matter, Henry?" Charlie asked. "Is there a constant amount of both in the universe? And are they just two different aspects of the same thing--you know, E=MC²?"
       "If so, is nothing really lost when we die? Are the component parts of the human body just turned into other matter? By the worms, I guess. But evidently the consciousness is lost, so must be something different from matter or energy. Is the soul eternal? The basis of life? A kind of electro-magnetic force?" Marcella asked.
     "Traditionally the body is mortal, the soul immortal. But thinking about such things is a mathematical exercise, involves abstraction, moving your mind into the realm of the eternal verities," said Henry. "I think that's the only way we can think of them."