He thought about it.’ So—what made it ready to happen?’
‘You went back.’
‘To the store, the plate glass window?’
‘Yes,’ she said and immediately, ‘No. What I mean is this: You came alive in this room, and you—well, you said it yourself: the world got bigger for you, big enough to let there be a room, then big enough for a street, then a town. But the same thing was happening with your memory. Your memory got big enough to include yesterday, and last week, and then the jail, and then the thing that got you into jail. Now look: At that moment, the cable meant something to you, something terribly important. But when it happened, for all the time after it happened, the cable meant nothing. It didn’t mean anything until the second your memory could go back that far. Then it was real again.’
‘Oh,’ he said.
She dropped her eyes. ‘I knew about the cable. I could have explained it to you. I tried and tried to bring it to your attention but you couldn’t see it until you were ready. All right—I know a lot more about you. But don’t you see that if I told you, you wouldn ’ t be able to hear me? ’
He shook his head, not in denial but dazedly. He said, ‘But I’m not—sick any more!’
He read the response in her expressive face. He said faintly, ‘Am I?’ and then anger curled and kicked inside him. ‘Come on now,’ he growled, ‘you don’t mean to tell me I’d suddenly get deaf if you told me where I went to high school.’
‘Of course not,’ she said impatiently. ‘ It’s just that it wouldn’t mean anything to you. It wouldn’t relate.’ She bit her lip in concentration. ‘Here’s one: You’ve mentioned Bromfield a half dozen times.’
‘Who? Bromfield? I have not.’