I cannot control it completely yet, but sometimes when I'm busy reading or working on a problem, I get a feeling of intense clarity.
I know it's some kind of subconscious warning signal, and now instead of waiting for the memory to come to me, I close my eyes and reach out for it.
Eventually, I'll be able to bring this recall completely under control, to explore not only the sum of my past experiences, but also all of the untapped faculties of the mind. Even now, as I think about it, I feel the sharp stillness.
I see the bakery window… reach out and touch it… cold and vibrating, and then the glass becomes warm… hotter… fingers burning.
The window reflecting my image becomes bright, and as the glass turns into a mirror, I see little Charlie Gordon—fourteen or fifteen—looking out at me through the window of his house, and it's doubly strange to realize how different he was….
He has been waiting for his sister to come from school, and when he sees her turn the corner onto Marks Street, he waves and calls her name and runs out onto the porch to meet her.
Norma waves a paper.
"I got an A in my history test.
I knew all the answers. Mrs. Baffin said it was the best paper in the whole class."
She is a pretty girl with light brown hair carefully braided and coiled about her head in a crown, and as she looks up at her big brother the smile turns to a frown and she skips away, leaving him behind as she darts up the steps into the house.
Smiling, he follows her.
His mother and father are in the kitchen, and Charlie, bursting with the excitement of Norma's good news, blurts it out before she has a chance.
"She got an A!
She got an A!"
"No!" shrieks Norma.
"Not you.
You don't tell.
It's my mark, and I'm going to tell."
"Now wait a minute, young lady."
Matt puts his newspaper down and addresses her sternly. "That's no way to talk to your brother."
"He had no right to tell!"
"Never mind."
Matt glares at her over his warning finger.
"He meant no harm by it, and you musn't shout at him that way."
She turns to her mother for support.
"I got an A —the best mark in class.
Now I can have a dog?
You promised.
You said if I got a good mark in my test.
And I got an A A brown dog with white spots.
And I'm going to call him Napoleon because that was the question I answered best on the test.
Napoleon lost the battle of Waterloo."
Rose nods.
"Go out on the porch and play with Charlie.
He's been waiting over an hour for you to come home from school."
"I don't want to play with him."
"Go out on the porch," says Matt.
Norma looks at her father and then at Charlie.
"I don't have to.
Mother said I don't have to play with him if I don't want to."
"Now, young lady"—Matt rises out of his chair and comes toward her—"you just apologize to your brother."
"I don't have to," she screeches, rushing behind her mother's chair.
"He's like a baby.
He can't play Monopoly or checkers or anything… he gets everything all mixed up.
I won't play with him any more."
"Then go to your room!"
"Can I have a dog now, Mama?"
Matt hits the table with his fist.
"There'll be no dog in this house as long as you take this attitude, young lady."
"I promised her a dog if she did well in school—"