Chapter 2

"Of course, it is," he replied, with a gesture of annoyance. "You're still bound by that Freed--Freud, is it?--of yours. Damn him. That's really the main reason I hesitated so long before I brought her case to you. I was afraid you were going to place too much emphasis on the sexual aspects which, of course, by your standards are abnormal. It has really nothing to do with the problem, and I wish you'd forget about it, but I suppose you can't. To you, her sexual instincts will be normal and it will be _mine_ which will appear abnormal, whereas in reality, of course, it's the other way around. You'll never cure her, I can see that now. But then, you don't have to really _cure_ her. If you can just get her to admit the truth for just a moment or two, just temporarily, I can get her back to some really competent men. No reflection on your ability meant, you know. I realize you're the best available in this age, naturally."

"Naturally."

"But you can't know that, can you? Well, take my word for it, you are. So suppose you start acting like it and get to work on her, eh? Could it be Gilui? No."

Dr. Quink bent over and tied his shoelace once or twice before he replied. He would have to talk to Mrs. Fairfield in private, of course, Mr. Fairfield could understand that, of course, it was not that Dr. Quink did not want Mr. Fairfield around when the discussion took place but simply that one could not achieve rapport without absolute confidence and, of course, privacy.

"Of course," Mr. Fairfield agreed. "I'll go up and shower now, perhaps I'll take a bit of a nap before dinner. I'd like to avoid that horrible liquid she was stirring up when we came in anyhow. Somewhere she's picked up the idea that one should offer those things to dinner guests, and I can't stand them. Will you want a pen and some notepaper?"

When he had left the room to tread up the stairs one at a time, leaning heavily on the cast-iron bannister but making no sound on the wall-to-wall carpeting, Dr. Quink leaned back and had barely time to pass his hand wearily over his eyes in a circular motion that he found soothing when Mrs. Fairfield entered from behind a swinging door bearing a small circular tray on which were balanced the aforementioned martini pitcher and two high-stemmed glasses, properly frosted and rounded with lemon.

"Has he left already?" she asked. "Well, shall we get right down to business? You call me Mimi and I'll call you Victor. What did you think of his story? Pretty wild, isn't it? But he's harmless, I'm sure. I'm not in the least bit afraid of him. Do you think I should be?"

* * * * *

Victor smiled and accepted the proffered martini. He cradled it in long fingers and, elbows on knees, contemplated his hostess, analyzing her physical attraction. He finally decided it emanated in the main from her almond-shaped eyes and in their somewhat mystical synchronization with her wide, sensual lips. There was definitely a disconcerting correlation between them when she smiled, and as he was studying this phenomenon he realized that of course she _was_ smiling.

"I'm sorry," he said. "It was rude of me to stare."

"Don't be silly," she said. "It was most complimentary. But I suppose in your position it's best to be extremely careful."

"My position?"

"Flirting with your patient's wife."

* * * * *

He put down the martini rather too quickly, sploshing a bit over the edges of the glass, leaving colorless stains that evaporated in a few moments. "I don't want you to think _that_, Mrs. Fairfield," he said. "It's just that ... that ..."

But she didn't interrupt him to say, "Of course not," or "I was just teasing," or "Isn't it amazing how little rain we've had lately. Did you realize that this is the driest November in sixteen and a half years?" She just stared and smiled at him, and let him flounder and make noises until he gave it up as a bad job and took a long drink from the frosted glass he had so recently and abruptly put down. She refilled his glass and leaned back in her chair.

"Could you tell me about him, Mrs. Fairfield?" he said then. "Start as far back as you can, please."

"All right, Victor," she said. "But it won't be much help, I'm afraid. Did he tell you he came from the future?"

"He said that both of you did."

"Yes, that's right. Both of us. And I refuse to go back, is that it?"

"Because of some deep-seated neurosis which he wants me to cure. His story is plausible, logical, once you grant the basic premise that time travel is an actuality. You see, Mrs. Fairfield--"

"Mimi, please, Victor. After all, we're not in your office, and I'm not really your patient, am I? Or am I?"

"Of course not. Well, Mimi, then, the first step is to break down his story. Show him for once and all that it is _not_ plausible, that it is not even possible, that it is plainly and simply a lie which he himself has made up to hide something that he is afraid of. Once we can get him to see this, or at least to wonder about it, once we can break the granite assurance of his that he comes from another time, then perhaps we can probe into his festering secret. But we can't do that, I'm afraid, until he begins to admit, at least to himself, that he _is_ sick and that he needs help. In this case it shouldn't be too hard."

"My, you _are_ brilliant. I wonder how you do it. Oh, you shouldn't gulp a martini so quickly. Here, let me pour you some more, but sip it this time. I know, I can't stand the taste either, but it's really the only way."

"Mrs. Fairfield--"

"Mimi," she insisted.

"Mimi," he said, then hesitated.

"Mimi," she prompted.

"I forgot what I was going to say," he admitted. "Cheers."

"Don't gulp," she said. "Here, I'll pour you another one, but sip it, now promise."

"God, it does taste awful, doesn't it?" he said, grimacing. "I don't think I ever _tasted_ one before. Do you think limes might help?"

"We have some in the kitchen, but it doesn't sound like a good idea to me. Why don't we just throw the mess away and whip up something else? I just wanted you to think I was chic this season to serve mar_tin_is."

"What season? Football?"

"Hunting," she said, and the eyes and lips smiled together again.

"Mimi," Victor said a bit pompously, standing up and leaning over her, "I hope you are not flirting with me. You are, remember, a married woman and are, in fact, married to a patient of mine."

"First of all," she said, "you're being pompous. Second of all, he's not your patient, he says I'm your patient. Third of all, I'm not married to him. And fourth, of all ... is it fourth or fifth ... well anyway, fourth or fifth of all, let's try the limes. We've nothing to lose, it couldn't taste worse."

* * * * *

"First of all," he said, following her to the kitchen, "I am never pompous. Second of all, he _is_ my patient because he came to my office obviously seeking psychiatric help but too sick to ask for it. I feel it only my duty to help him and besides, his case is fascinating."

"And his wife isn't, I suppose," she said over her shoulder.

"Third of all," he said, "and I ignore the interruption, what the hell do you mean you're not married to him? And fourth of all, it is fourth, not fifth, I think the limes will help immeasurably."

"Well, I think it all comes back to your original question. You know, about telling you all about him, and how it started, and all that. You see, I can't, because I don't remember. Here, you cut the limes while I look for the squeezer."

* * * * *

While Dr. Quink was cutting the limes he didn't exactly talk to himself, but thoughts did present themselves to his mind with very nearly verbal exactitude. The immediate progression towards a solution of this case did not seem to be so clearly cut out as he had assumed it would be. There were, it now became more and more obvious, complications he had not foreseen. Mrs. Fairfield was not exactly acting toward him as a psychiatrist normally expects the wife of a patient to, so that, although he found her pleasant and indeed invigorating, if that is the word and he was not sure that it was but the only alternative that came to his mind, stimulating, had connotations that he was not yet ready to accept, although he did find her pleasant and et cetera yet he found her behavior also disturbing, in the clinical sense this time, and the revelation as to her distinctly limited memory should be described not as a disturbance but as a downright earthquake, to ring in a seismological metaphor that occurred to him as he nicked his finger during the slicing of the fourth lime.

"Oh, did you cut yourself?" she said, straightening up from the lower shelves of a pine cupboard. "I'm so sorry, but never mind. Here's the squeezer."

The apparent non sequitur, coming in the midst of his thoughts that were already confused, bewildered him for the moment, but he felt it would be more fruitful to get back to the problem at hand and, blotting his seeping blood with a handkerchief, he inquired after her reticent memory.

"Oh, let's mix in the lime juice first. Aren't you at all anxious to see how it will taste? Honestly, men have no curiosity."

Well, as it turned out, it tasted pretty good. At any rate, that was the consensus of opinion, alcoholic as it might have been, as they returned with the pitcher of green martinis to the living room. "The furthest back that I can remember," Mimi said after they had settled themselves on the divan, "the absolutely first thing I can remember is relieving my bladder, if that makes any sense to you."

"As a matter of fact," Victor said, "it makes extremely good sense indeed. If you will pardon me and kindly direct me towards the wash room?"

* * * * *

When he returned after an absence of a few minutes, during which time the muted sound of snoring emanated from the master bedroom into the silence left by his absence, he attempted once again to take up the thread of conversation that had been so abruptly snapped. "You were telling me, I believe, about the first thing you can remember."

"Yes," she said. "Have another martini. Here, I'll pour. I was on a train, you see, at this moment when my memory begins. It was, by the way, eight months ago. As I emerged from the ladies' room I could not remember from which direction I had come. That is, I didn't know in which direction my seat was, if you follow me."

Victor nodded more vigorously than he had intended, and she went on. "I didn't know whether to turn to right or left. That's a frightening feeling to have in a train, not knowing where your seat is, when you're all closed in anyhow and you can feel the floor beneath your feet and the walls and ceiling all rushing somewhere so terribly fast and carrying you with it and all. I wasn't really _frightened_, you understand, but anyway, as I say, it's a terrible feeling. So I leaned back against the wall and tried to collect my wits. But I couldn't think of anything. That really frightened me. So I said to myself, now just relax and think back to where you're going and when you got on the train and who you're with and everything like that and just relax and you'll remember where your seat is in half a moment. But I didn't. Remember, I mean. And suddenly I realized that I didn't remember where I was going or who I was with or when I had got on the train or anything, anything at all. I simply couldn't remember anything previous to a moment ago. I was scared silly by this time, and that damned train kept on rumbling and shaking and rushing on into I didn't know what. So I said to myself, now just relax and keep calm. This is all very silly. Now, then, I said after taking two deep breaths and exhaling slowly, my name is ... my name is ... And by God, I didn't know my own name! It was such a queer feeling I got goose pimples all over, just like that. I mean, I felt as if I knew my name, it was on the tip of my tongue, but I just couldn't say it, I just couldn't remember my own name.

"Then I began to run. I didn't know where I was going but I was scared to hell and I just ran. I ran through five or six cars and the panic kept getting worse, and then I turned around and began running back the way I had come, just running as fast as I could and you know what that's like on a train, I kept falling against people and pushing them off and running and suddenly this man grabbed me and said, 'Mimi, Mimi,' he kept saying that and I guess some more and finally he calmed me down and, of course, it was Donald. He told me I was all right and to be quiet and what the hell was the matter with me anyhow. Well, to make a long story short, we got off the train here and stayed in a hotel for a while and then Donald bought this place and here we are. But I don't know if I'm really his wife or not. Did he mention sex to you?"

Victor nodded and she said, "So you know I'm not his wife _that_ way, at least. And I have only his word that we were ever married."

"You don't have a marriage certificate, or pictures?"

"We don't have anything that would prove our existence prior to that date we were on the train. Naturally, he'd have left all that behind when we left wherever we were coming from. Any documents at all would ruin his story. For all I know he just picked me up at the train station."

"And you just picked up life here?" Victor asked. "As simple as that!"

"What else could I do? I was terribly frightened, and Donald was so calm and assuring. I didn't really think I had lost my memory, you know. I mean, I _couldn't_ believe it. I didn't seem bewildered or anything, I just could not remember anything. Am I making sense? Anyway, I felt it would all come back to me any moment, and I went on living from one moment to another, and here I am and I still can't remember anything."

* * * * *

"What was Donald's reaction when you told him you didn't know who you were?" Victor asked her.

"As a matter of fact, I didn't tell him right away. I was so afraid, I just went along with him.... Oh, it's so hard to explain."

"He didn't realize that you were acting strange, bewildered?"

"Well, you know," Mimi said, "we're not talking about a normal man, remember. I suppose if I acted sort of, you know, lost, he attributed it to our recent trip through time. _I_ don't know. Anyhow, he seemed to accept me."

"Let's get back to this time-travel bit. When did you realize that he thought you had both come from another time?"

"The limes really make the drink, don't they?" she asked. "Well, it came out sort of gradually. I'd listen to him really closely whenever he talked about the past, naturally. I was trying to find out about me without telling him, I thought he'd get all excited and all, and of course he did when I finally told him but by then it was all so different and I'm afraid I've gotten confused. Where was I? Oh, you need a refill."

"Thank you," Victor said, "I forget myself exactly where it was you were. Is that right? Where you was it were? No, I'm sure _that's_ wrong. Where were you it was, I think. Does that sound better to you?"

"Isn't that peculiar?" she answered. "Could it be where I was you weren't? No, now I'm being silly, and I can't for the life of me understand why. After all, this is a serious affair. Or at least I wish it were. Was."

"What?"

"I remember, damn it," she said. "We were talking about _Don_ald again. Well, he kept making these remarks about coming through time and of course I didn't understand what the hell he was talking about but I thought because of my not remembering anything and all that I better just not say anything so I didn't, but he kept on and little by little I got the idea, the general idea anyhow, but what on earth could I do about it? And then he started talking about it was time to go back and all that, and I _cer_tainly wasn't going to go floating off in any old _time_ machine whether he was nuts or not, so I just kept putting him off the best I could but he started getting so impatient that finally--what was that? I think there's something wrong."

* * * * *

They both sat suddenly quite still and listened, but they heard nothing.

"I hear nothing," Victor said.

"That's it," Mimi hissed. "He's not snoring anymore. He'll be here any minute. Act natural. Have another martini."

"Thank you, perhaps just one more," Victor said as Donald Fairfield came into the room.

* * * * *

He strode across the room crossing in front of them without turning his head or acknowledging their presence and made straight for the buffet in the opposite corner. He bent over and extracted a thick black cigar, struck a match, lit the cigar, puffed several times, dropped the match into a gigantic ashtray made of marble, or something that looked like marble, puffed several more times, finally inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly before he turned and nodded at his two spectators. "You make better cigars than we do, I'll say that for the twentieth century," he complimented Victor in the manner of all tourists, as if Victor himself were the cause and not the product of his age. "One of the mysteries of history," he continued, "how a simple technique, like making a good cigar or a good mummy, can be lost once it's been perfected. Always seems to be though. Each age has its secrets. You can't make wine now like the ancient Greeks did."

"As," Mimi interpolated. "As the Greeks did."

"I hate to be bombastic," Donald answered her, "not to say dogmatic or pedagogical, or impecunious too, for that matter, at least in this particular day and age, but I believe my original adjectival usage to be the correct one."

"If your thought had called for an adjective," Mimi countered, "but properly, according to the accepted grammar of the present day, that is, you should have used an adverb."

"Whatchamacallit tastes good _like_ a dum-dum cigarette should," Victor put in, in an attempt to settle the subject.

"That's ridiculous," Donald answered, "it's completely wrong."

"I _know_ it's wrong," Victor cried, "that's the point, _every_body knows it's--"

"Of course it is," Mimi agreed. "Why on earth _should_ a cigarette taste good? Who says it should? If one wants to taste something good, why then one takes a bite of cake, or a smidgin of candy, or a plate of cold borscht. If one cares for borscht. But you certainly don't smoke a cigarette to taste something good, they all taste horrible. Horribly? Oh damn, look what you started, Donald. Now I can't think straight. Anyhow, people smoke because of the phallic symbolism, right, Victor?"

Donald looked with distaste from Mimi to the big black cigar he was holding in his right hand, and thence to Victor for a denial. Victor, however, shrugged his shoulders, and murmured something to the effect that this consideration might possibly have some bearing on the subject, that it was really a matter of interest more to the applied psychologists and advertising men than to the pure scientist or doctor, and that even so it didn't necessarily follow that--

"You're hedging," Mimi said. "All you have to do is watch a woman smoke and then watch a man and--"

"I thought we were talking about wine," Donald interrupted, crushing out his cigar in the oversize marble, or nearly so, ashtray. "What were we saying about it?"

"You were commenting on the relative excellence of our wines and those of the Greeks," Victor told him. "I was wondering if perhaps you've visited them too?"

Donald Fairfield did not answer the query. He stared at Victor contemplatively, drew in a deep lungful of acrid smoke-filled air from above the smoldering ashtray, and let it out again. "This is not going to be as simple an affair as it should be," he said finally. "I can see that now, but I suppose there's nothing to be done but to see it through. I take it you've settled everything between the two of you while I've been gone?"

"Oh my," Mimi ejaculated, "I've got to see about dinner. See if you two can find something to talk about while I'm gone." She hurried out of the room, one hand already reaching for the apron of the modernistic design as she passed through the swinging door into the kitchen.

* * * * *

"Well," Donald began, "what did you discover from my little wife?"

"To begin with," Victor answered him, "she seems to have lost her memory. Everything previous to an experience on the train some eight months ago is a total blank. Were you aware of this?"

"I was not only aware of it, I told you about it," Donald answered. "What in God's creation is this moldy brew?" he asked after taking a deep gulp from the lip of the pitcher and spitting most of it into the first ashtray he could reach.

"Lime martinis, like a daiquiri, only dryer. If you don't care for them you might refill my glass. That's right, you did tell me she didn't remember, but of course--"

"You didn't believe me," Donald finished for him. "Naturally. Look, Dr. Quink, I think I'm a reasonable man. Damn it, I _know_ I am. I don't expect you to believe me right off the rat when I walk in and tell you--"

"Bat," Victor interrupted.

"I beg your pardon," Donald countered.

"Bat. Right off the. Not rat, right off the bat. It's a colloquialism, comes from baseball, that's a sport we play. Perhaps you haven't come across it, if you've only been here some eight months?"

"Yes, just about eight months. I've heard of the sport, of course, but haven't gone to see a game yet. Do you think it's worth my while?"

"Probably not. Strictly a partisan sport."

"Yes, I see your point. Not an idiom, you wouldn't say?"

"No, definitely not," Victor said. "Takes time to make an idiom, but only God can make a tree. O Lord, I better have another martini. Would you pour, I think I might miss. Still, a colloquialism, not a doubt about it. The expression hasn't lasted to your day, I take it? If it had, then it might be an idiom. Might, I say, only might. I promise nothing."

"And quite right you are," Donald said. "Still, I want you to understand that I don't expect you to believe me right off the bat when I wander into your busy little office and tell you--by the way, what is your receptionist doing always staring at the floor right next to her desk?"

"She's in love. He's an advertising man."

"Oh, well yes, of course. When I tell you I come from the future. Obviously you're not going to accept that right off the rat, as I say. I mean, no one could expect you to. However, after talking at length to me in your office and then holding a private conversation with my wife, you should, I think, as a trained and highly competent psychiatrist, certainly the foremost of your day--"

* * * * *

At this point Victor had waved a deprecating hand.

"Please allow me to say that I am certainly a better judge of your position in this world than you could possibly be. Seeing it in the proper perspective, I mean. I did not intend to compliment you when I described you as I just did, I merely state a fact already known to my confreres. Then you should, as I say, under these most favorable circumstances, and certainly being forewarned, then you should be able to tell who is suffering from a delusion and who is not. Apart from what the delusion is, and whether or not you choose to believe in it, simply studying the behavior of the people involved, you should be able to tell who is acting normally and who is not."

"I agree with you in every particular," Victor said. "I certainly should. And I think I can, and have. In point of fact--"

"Dinner is ready," Mimi said. "And no shop talk, please. I want you to taste my squash and applesauce piece. And no one, absolutely _no_ one, comes into my dining room with a stinking black cigar."

"Could it be Galilililu?" Donald murmured. "Damn."

* * * * *