Distance & Distraction

Originally written Saturday, December 10, 2005

“Safe to tell me? What’s that supposed to mean?”

Making my voice stern and feeling like I was disciplining a child, I stared him straight in the eyes and said, “It means just leave it alone.”

Then something unexpected happened. As the words traveled from me to him, the complicated mix of emotions that had molded his visage suddenly began to disappear entirely, leaving his face as cold and blank as a corpse’s. I glanced over at Trudy, who didn’t appear to notice the change at all. Moshe’s eyes left mine, and he turned to face her. “I have to go,” he told her in an expressionless monotone.

“OK, see you tomorrow,” she answered as if he were acting perfectly normally. As Moshe turned from her and stood, giving me not so much as a parting nod, and moved toward the door, her eyes became unfocused and even seemed to swim a bit. She didn’t look vacant like he did; she appeared… distracted. I rose from my seat and headed after him.

Before he reached the front door, I put my hand on his shoulder and spoke his name. He stopped walking but made no other response. “Where are you going?” I asked.

“I have to go,” he repeated and started to take a step.

“No,” I ordered, and again he stopped in his tracks. I lifted my hand to the pendant and felt it deliberately through the knit of my sweater. It not only was giving off its own heat now but was also throbbing gently with its change in temperature, vacillating between warm and very warm. I took a moment to get in tune with my heartbeat, concentrating on the rhythms of my body. Yes: as I suspected, the charm’s pulse was keeping sync with mine. I tested briefly, deliberately accelerating my heartbeat and then bringing it back down. The charm kept time with me. “I think you should come back in now.” And, I wasn’t entirely surprised to find, he did.

Trudy was coming out of her daze as we entered the room, and she seemed about to make a comment about it, but I felt the need to experiment. “So Moshe,” I said, “when the weather gets warm again, do you want to play some tennis? We’ve got courts on campus that are open at night.”

As if nothing had happened—or were still happening—he turned into his amiable self, the one I’d conversed with last week at the dance. “Sure, I love tennis! I haven’t played in a few years, though. You’ll have to bear with me if I’m rusty.”

Trudy, too, jumped in. “You know, I never got into tennis. I used to like football. You know, watching, not playing. My high school team was region champs.”

For several minutes I watched the two carry on what would have seemed in other circumstances an extraordinarily commonplace conversation. I’d somehow set the scenario in motion with the charm, but I wasn’t sure how, nor did I know how to turn it off. Once Moshe was away from Trudy, she’d probably return to normal, but the nature of the magic or the voodoo or whatever it was meant that none of us had ever been present when Moshe snapped out of his trances. There were a few moments at the dance between returning from scraping my car and finding myself driving home when our discourse was as frank as it was earlier tonight, so isolating him could be the trick. However this worked, whatever it actually did, it was not an exact science. That much was clear. Magic and phenomena we refer to as magic rarely are, which is why it’s been rare since the Enlightenment to find anyone from the European traditions who are truly skilled at it. It would be difficult to explain in print what parts of my psyche I was channeling to bring out the energies I thought were the ones the charm was requesting from me, but suffice it to say they were corners of my mind that I haven’t used much in a while, at least not consciously.

For all the situation’s oddness, it occurred to me that it could actually be to my advantage. Both had forgotten that not long ago they were upset at me for continuing to hold Moshe in suspicion and for keeping my reasons to myself. Although I would have liked to experiment further, removing one and then the other from my presence and each other’s, giving Moshe different instructions, and so forth, I decided there was no rush. Besides, sending them home could be a means of gathering information, as well. I broke into their discourse on the merits of grass versus Astroturf to say, “It’s getting late for me. You two should head out. I want to talk to you soon, though.” And they did precisely that, chattering their way to the door together, wishing me a good night, and driving off in Moshe’s Subaru.

This is an amazing piece, this strange chunk of coral. I’m not sure exactly what I did, or how, but if I’d known 160-odd years ago what it was capable of doing, I might have become expert at its use by now. As I’ve mentioned, its real power is supposed to come when it’s assembled with its two other pieces. After this evening’s events—or, rather, last evening’s, as I’ve spent most of the night detailing them and the sun will actually be up soon—I’m farther from knowing who may be collecting them, but I’m nearer to knowing why.

And now I really have to hit the sack. Fortunately, tomorrow is Sunday, the quarter is almost over, and I can sleep late.