The Entity, page 39
Dr. Cooley paused. She had won them back. Now she needed a vote out of them before something else happened.
But Dean Halpern stood up. He held in his hand several photocopies, holding them up before the assembly.
“Before we take a vote,” he said, “the senate should be aware of precisely what will happen if it approves the continuation of the program in question.”
The authority of his voice had an immediate effect on the group. Most of the faculty did not recognize the dean of the medical school at first, but his name quickly circulated by whisper.
“You must judge for yourselves,” he said, “whether the matter of competence is as irrelevant as Dr. Cooley is trying to persuade you. This is the proposed project plans for the remainder of the semester, entitled, ‘Case 142, Discarnate Entity—Recipient of Roger Banham Foundation Grant, 1977.’”
Dr. Cooley stepped angrily to the podium.
“May I ask how you got a copy of that proposal? That was private research material, unpublished and unannounced.”
“It doesn’t matter how I got this,” Halpern said.
“Let the senate decide if this is a fair way to treat a subdepartment,” Dr. Cooley snapped back. “Let the senate think of the sanctity of private research.”
Kraft and Mehan stormed in protest from the room, slamming the door loudly behind them.
“The project, funded by a private foundation associated with Wake University Department of Parapsychology,” Halpern read, “will bring to the house in question holographic laser cameras designed to pick up and transfer a three-dimensional image of the discarnate entity that attacks Mrs. Moran—”
The thin, prematurely balding man, responding to Dr. Cooley’s private conversation with him, stepped forward.
“Really, Dean Halpern, with all respect, there seems to be some question of propriety here. Apparently that is classified material.”
Halpern turned to face the assembly.
“Why are we hiding what this project is going to do?” he asked rhetorically. “Could it be that something is involved here a little less exalted than the foundation of Western science? I assure you, what is in here will boggle your minds.”
“The senate is not qualified to judge the competency of a given experimental project,” Dr. Cooley retorted. “It would take hours of patient explanation, particularly to the humanities and fine arts faculty members, just to know what is involved. All that is required is a vote to Dean Osborne to refrain from any action on the division until a proper board of review convenes at the beginning of the next semester.”
Dr. Weber rose slowly. He took the pipe from his mouth and addressed the assembly.
“I am in charge of the case in question,” he said, “I am Dr. Henry Weber, the chairman of the resident psychiatry program. I believe that the patient is directly threatened by the presence, even one more day, of this project. Never in my life have I seen such an ill-conceived, potentially disastrous project. How can you go about measuring psychic entities in a house where there is a psychotic person? You’re going to fixate her permanently. Frankly, I’d sue if I were she, and don’t be surprised if someone does sue in her behalf.”
An ominous silence settled on everyone. There were no holds barred any more.
“There are times,” Dr. Weber continued, “when secrecy hides a multitude of evils. This is such a time. I’d like you to hear this proposal. I’d like you to listen carefully, and decide if this is the kind of research that deserves even the minutest protection of the university. Unless, of course, my dear friend, Elizabeth Cooley, objects.”
He turned to face her. Of course, she was trapped.
“Let us listen with an open mind,” she said. “Let us remember the advances in science which, had you mentioned them one hundred years ago, would have gotten you dismissed from academies. Let us not make the same mistake. Space travel, electromagnetic waves, nuclear energy—they were figments of diseased imaginations years ago. Faculty in the humanities do not understand how fast things happen in experimental science, nor how heavy is the resistance from established administrations. We are fighting not only the accumulated bureaucratic mentalities of government boards, university politics, and the public media. We are fighting antediluvian concepts of our disciplines, and we have only the energy and fair-mindedness of your active support to help us! We only want a fair chance. Let us keep our 1.4 percent of the psychology department budget, our 2.3 percent of its allotted space. Is that too much to demand? Let us keep the right to inquire, to make mistakes, to fail miserably if it happens. But give us the right to exist.”
She sat down in a folding chair. Someone applauded, then a few more hands joined in.
Halpern, flushed, held the paper higher.
“Thank you, Dr. Cooley. Let us hear what rights we are really talking about.”
He found his place in the paper once again. He spoke loudly, clearly, maintaining eye contact with everyone, particularly those in the humanities, who, he knew, held the majority and yet shied away from the intricacies of the sciences.
“In addition to the holographic laser project,” he read, “which will cost an estimated $250,000, from the private grant—the donor of the grant, by the way, is a retired tobacco grower who has maintained regular contact with his wife since 1962. Not so strange, perhaps, except that that was when she died.”
Halpern tried to find his place again.
“Oh, yes. In addition to the holographic laser project, the proposal calls for a super-cooling helium apparatus, which will cost $50,000. This cooling device, utilizing suction pumps and liquid helium, is designed to freeze the psychic entity to a jellied form so that it can be preserved and studied. How it is to be moved, it doesn’t say, probably in a refrigerator.”
Dr. Weber guffawed.
“In addition to that,” Halpern continued, “the entire house is to be shielded in a blanket of superconducting niobium and Mu-metal, I swear, I don’t know what that is, so as to ward off all external electromagnetic fields and radiation which may interfere with the experiment. Let me remind you once again, ladies and gentlemen of the senate, that the patient is psychotic. In addition to all that, the proposal calls for the presence of sensitives to assist in drawing the entity through various rooms and toward the liquid helium freezing apparatus.”
There was no laughter. Several members of the faculty paled. Many were horrified. Whispers floated back and forth, and the jokes were more nervous than before.
Halpern had them in his palm.
“What would you do if someone came to you with a proposal like this,” he said angrily. “You’d do the same thing Dean Osborne did. Cut it—”
He snapped his fingers.
“—like that.”
He sat down.
The faculty was restless. They wanted to get rid of the parapsychology division. The whole thing smacked of bizarreness, of exoticism. The vote to sustain the dean’s memo would be unanimous, and Dr. Cooley knew it.
A pretty young woman stood up. She was much younger than the rest. She was the student representative.
“But there is still the question of why the dean cut back the entire division. Can this be clarified?” she asked.
“Because,” Halpern said, remaining seated, “this experiment is typical of the division. Who knows what else they are doing behind that wall of secrecy?”
But the student representative was not satisfied.
“I think that a compromise can be formed,” she said.
Dr. Cooley looked out at the young woman. The faculty had become silent again. Compromise was a magic word. Anything to avoid hurt feelings. Besides, some members had the unpleasant idea that Dr. Cooley was not above going outside the university. This thing had to be contained.
“It seems to be the consensus,” the student representative continued, “that, theoretically, experimentation ought to continue. At the same time, everyone seems to feel that the experiment, as presently constituted, is so poorly defined, so potentially dangerous to the patient, as to warrant its dismissal. Why can’t the experiment be conducted under the auspices of the university?”
Halpern paled. Dr. Weber was caught, pipe suspended halfway to his mouth. He could not believe his ears.
“I don’t understand,” Halpern stammered.
“Set up the experiment within the confines of the medical institute or in the Department of Psychology. That way she can be tested for psi powers, or whatever, and at the same time her physical and mental safety can be supervised by authorized personnel.”
Dr. Cooley stepped quickly to the platform. She silently thanked the young woman. Youth had been so often her only ally.
“It would be a reasonable way to conduct inquiry,” Dr. Cooley said, “and at the same time satisfy the legitimate interests of the residency program of Dr. Weber.”
“I will not consent to any such experiments,” Dr. Weber said, rising.
Several voices tried to persuade him otherwise.
A man with a thick black moustache stood up. His yellow tie contrasted glaringly with his white shirt.
“It is not Dr. Weber per se who is required to give his approval,” he said. “His jurisdiction is only with the patient as she relates to the residency program. Perhaps there is another member of the psychiatry department who would be willing to vouch for the patient’s safety and perhaps also for the validity of the tests.”
“Not if he wants to keep his license,” Dr. Weber growled.
A short man with pointed ears stood up. He was relatively young, nervous, and unaccustomed to speaking before groups.
“I might be willing to take a look at the proposal,” he said. “I’m Dr. Balczynski, clinical psychiatry. I’m rather intrigued by the whole proposition.”
“Balczynski,” Dr. Weber groaned into Halpern’s ear. “He isn’t competent to tie his shoelaces.”
“Then you would be willing to accept medical responsibility?”
“I believe so. I’d like to see the proposal, of course.”
Dr. Cooley stepped forward.
“Certainly we can modify the experiment,” she said, “to meet any limitations which Dr. Balczynski places on it.”
A relieved sensation swept through the chamber. At last they were free of the controversy.
“I move for a vote,” said a voice.
“Seconded.”
The thin man at the podium spoke clearly, precisely.
“The motion before us,” he said, “is to issue Dean Osborne of the graduate school a binding recommendation to rescind his memo of April fourth, to the Department of Psychology, in which said department was instructed to reduce the experimental division directed by Dr. Cooley to one laboratory, and which terminated said division as a permanent classroom unit. This recommendation to remain in effect until such departmental review is held as prescribed by the rules and regulations of the graduate school.”
The motion carried, 254 to 46, no abstentions.
Dr. Cooley stepped to the lectern one last time. Her face was beaming, almost illuminated from within.
“Thank you so very much,” she said. “I cannot tell you the pressures we labor under. Whether or not our investigations will be fruitful is not for me to say right now. Perhaps not. But the right to continue—which you have affirmed here today—is a victory not only for us but for everyone here. Thank you all again.”
She sat down again. Peace filled her mind, her heart, warming her. A victory after all these years! Now there was a precedent. Never before had she had such a rock to stand on. It was almost a dream.
Papers shuffled as the faculty turned to the next item on the agenda—a proposed strike in the cafeterias.
Dr. Weber stood and made an ostentatious exit.
“Sheep!” he muttered loudly. “Sheep! That’s what you are! Sheep! Don’t you realize there’s reality out there?”
He stormed out the door, printed bulletins flying in a cascade from the card table near the exit.
Dr. Cooley could not concentrate on the rest of the senate meeting. She wished Kraft and Mehan were there to discuss precisely the meaning of the senate resolution. What exactly did the resolution mean, “confines of the university?” The only way to bring the experiment into the confines of the university would be to physically relocate the woman. That would not be so difficult. She would certainly be willing. But there were so many variables related to the house. Variables that influenced her psychic moods, that changed with the atmosphere, the earth’s rotation, the presence of other people, especially her children. Dr. Cooley tried to map it out in her head. They had grant money. They had authorization. How, exactly, were they going to implement them?
PART FOUR
The Entity
. . . A dungeon horrible, on all sides round
As one great furnace flam’d; yet from those flames
No light, but rather darkness visible
Serv’d only to discover sights of woe,
Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace
And rest can never dwell, hope never comes
That comes to all.
—Milton
23
Under the terms of the Roger Banham Foundation Grant, Kraft and Mehan were entitled to introduce any means of technology, so long as it met scientific standards of reliability. Under the terms of the academic senate resolution, however, no experiment was allowed within the Moran house. Therefore, the house—or those elements that were transportable—were moved into the laboratory.
The fourth floor of the psychology sciences building was earmarked for the experiment. With Dean Osborne’s approval, and the university comptroller’s grudging permission, the walls of what had been four separate laboratories, the divisions between individual rooms, were removed, leaving Dr. Cooley’s staff with an enormous shell equipped with a plentiful supply of electric current outlets, ventilation ducts, and piping for gas, water, or oxygen. Undergraduates removed old desks, spigots, shelves, and equipment lockers, until only a hollow space remained, large enough to house several tennis courts. Workmen climbed on ladders, supported themselves under the unusually high ceilings, and began to soundproof the entire chamber. The walls were lined with double-walled Faraday screening in conjunction with superconducting niobium shielding and Mu-metal to prevent stray electromagnetic radiation from entering the huge space.
A wide catwalk was then built overlooking the central area around all the sides, so that Kraft, Mehan, Dr. Cooley, or anyone else could walk completely around and look down at the interior, twenty feet below.
On May 6, a facsimile of the house on Kentner Street, without a roof, was erected. Kitchen, living room, bedrooms, and hallway were connected in the exact spatial relationships as before. Then Carlotta’s furniture was brought in. Carpets were placed over the old floor, the furniture sagged in its accustomed places. Shoes and a few magazines lay on the floor, as though the occupants had lived there for years. It looked like a theatrical set, except that the walls were more solid.
When, on the morning of May 10, initial work was completed, and the curtain set to rise on “Case 142—Discarnate Entity,” nearly a quarter of the million-dollar Roger Banham Foundation Grant had already been spent.
The final item to be installed from the house on Kentner Street was Carlotta Moran.
The night before Carlotta was to leave for her two-week stay in the prepared environment—the term mutually agreed upon by Dean Osborne and Dr. Cooley—she was paid a final visit. He came to her in the small motel room which the university had supplied.
She had retired early, moody and heavy-hearted. Jerry’s absence hung over her like a cloud that would not go away. Still in jail, he refused to see her, refused to accept any message from her. Carlotta had written to the lawyer, explaining that she had tripped, struck her head against the chair accidentally. So far, no word from either the lawyer or Jerry. Carlotta came close to believing that she did not matter to Jerry any more. And with that thought in her mind, he came.
No noise, only the cold. One moment the room was empty and the next he was there. He tried to activate her, stimulate her, rouse her flesh against her will to a full-blooded response. His odor wrapped around her like a protective sheath, an envelope of noxious, freezing cold. The mattress moved rhythmically under their combined weight. He became rougher, harder, trying to control her.
