philip_k_dick_-_the_man_in_the_high_castle

Juliana said, 'I read his book and I drove all day up from Canon City, Colorado. I'm in Greeley
now. I thought I could make it to your place tonight, but I can't, so I want to know if I can see him
sometime tomorrow.'
After a pause, Mrs. Abendsen said in a still-pleasant voice, 'Yes, it's too late, now; we go to bed
quite early. Was there any — special reason why you wanted to see my husband? He's working
very hard right now.'
'I wanted to speak to him,' she said. Her own voice in her ears sounded drab and wooden; she
stared at the wall of the booth, unable to find anything further to say — her body ached and her
mouth felt dry and full of foul tastes. Beyond the phone booth she could see the druggist at the soda
counter serving milk shakes to four teen-agers. She longed to be there; she scarcely paid attention
as Mrs. Abendsen answered. She longed for some fresh, cold drink, and something like a chicken
salad sandwich to go with it.
'Hawthorne works erratically,' Mrs. Abendsen was saying in her merry, brisk voice. 'If you drive
up here tomorrow I can't promise you anything, because he might be involved all day long. But if
you understand that before you make the trip — '
'Yes,' she broke in.
'I know he'll be glad to chat with you for a few minutes if he can,' Mrs. Abendsen continued. 'But
please don't be disappointed if by chance he can't break off long enough to talk to you or even see
you.'
'We read his book and liked it,' Juliana said. 'I have it with me.'
'I see,' Mrs. Abendsen said good-naturedly.
'We stopped off at Denver and shopped, so we lost a lot of time.' No, she thought; it's all
changed, all different. 'Listen,' she said, 'the oracle told me to come to Cheyenne.'
'Oh my,' Mrs. Abendsen said, sounding as if she knew about the oracle, and yet not taking the
situation seriously.
'I'll give you the lines.' She had brought the oracle with her into the phone booth; propping the
volumes up on the shelf beneath the phone, she laboriously turned the pages. 'Just a second.' She
located the page and read first the judgment and then the lines to Mrs. Abendsen. When she got to
the nine at the top — the line about someone striking him and misfortune — she heard Mrs.
Abendsen exclaim. 'Pardon?' Juliana said, pausing.
'Go ahead,' Mrs. Abendsen said. Her tone, Juliana thought, had a more alert, sharpened quality
now.
After Juliana had read the judgment of the Forty-third hexagram, with the word danger in it,
there was silence. Mrs. Abendsen said nothing and Juliana said nothing.
'Well, we'll look forward to seeing you tomorrow, then,' Mrs. Abendsen said finally. 'And would
you give me your name, please?'
'Juliana Frink,' she said. 'Thank you very much, Mrs. Abendsen.' The operator, now, had broken
in to clamor about the time being up, so Juliana hung up the phone, collected her purse and the
volumes of the oracle, left the phone booth and walked over to the drugstore fountain.
After she had ordered a sandwich and a Coke, and was sitting smoking a cigarette and resting,
she realized with a rush of unbelieving horror that she had said nothing to Mrs. Abendsen about the
Gestapo man or the SD man or whatever he was, that Joe Cinnadella she had left in the hotel room
in Denver. She simply could not believe it. I forgot! she said to herself. It dropped completely out
of my mind. How could that be? I must be nuts; I must be terribly sick and stupid and nuts.