Chapter 3

"This is excellent," Victor said. "How do you make it?"

"Why, thank you," Mimi replied. "It's very simple. You just take the squash and then pour in the applesauce and cinnamon."

"There must be more to it than that," Victor insisted, smiling around a mouthful.

"Of course there is," she said. "But I'm not telling you all my secrets. You'll have to come back if you want it again."

"Damn it," said Donald, "stop jibber-jabbering! We know why we're here, so let's talk about it. Can you cure my crazy wife?"

"Donald!" Mimi spluttered.

"Now, Mr. Fairfield," Victor said, "let's not be unfair. Your wife has amnesia, but she's not crazy. As a matter of fact, psychiatrists no longer recognize the term as such--"

"Pass the roast," Donald said. "Do you think _I'm_ crazy or don't you?"

"I most certainly do not!"

"Do you think I was born in the future?"

"Mr. Fairfield, talking like this isn't getting us anywhere. Now Mimi--I'm sorry, Mrs. Fairfield--doesn't remember anything previous to that train ride we were talking about...."

"Naturally," Donald said. "That's when we got here. We'll skip the technicalities, but it's always easier to land on something that's moving. Standard procedure. I don't really understand it myself, but I'm no engineer. We landed in the twentieth century--is it the twentieth or the twenty-first?"

"The twentieth," Victor assured him.

"Isn't that silly of me. I'm always getting mixed up. It doesn't make much difference, though, you know. Not much of a change from one to the other. Not like the nineteenth and twentieth, nothing like that at all. Do you ever find yourself wondering if it's the twentieth of the month or the twenty-first?"

"I have a calendar on my desk."

"Oh," Donald mused. "I didn't notice it." He stared intently at Victor Quink while he munched his celery. "It's not hard to see why you've risen to the top of your profession. Calendar on your desk, eh?" He looked at his wife and tapped the side of his head significantly.

* * * * *

"You landed aboard this train some eight months ago," Dr. Quink prompted. "What are you doing here, anyhow? Are you an historian?"

"Nonsense," he replied at once. "Haven't you noticed all the books you people are writing? Every one of your presidents, every general, every field-marshal, every scientist, manufacturer, tennis star, and juvenile delinquent has written a book, or at least a serial for the _Post_. No reason at all for any historian to come back to this particular age. No other age in all history, I might add, has been so fond of itself or so cognizant of the need for preserving itself and its records for posterity as has yours. And with very little reason. But of course that last is only a personal observation, and I may be prejudiced, having lived here, so to speak, for these past months. You get to see the seamy side of a civilization, you know, when you live there yourself. Incidentally, would you be interested to know how your age has been classified by posterity? Of course you would, silly of me to ask. Well, to get on with it, you know how historians are always _naming_ periods, and groups, and whatever. The Age of Darkness, you remember, then the Age of Awakening, the Age of Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, et cetera? As it turns out, you've come down to us as the Age of Verbiage. Amusing, eh? No? Well, you can't please everybody. I thought it was cute. But in answer to your question I'll have to say no, I'm just a tourist. I'm on vacation. Nothing more sensational than that, I'm afraid."

"And naturally you took your wife with you," Victor added.

* * * * *

Donald looked down at his plate for just a moment or two, then answered "naturally," without raising his eyes at all.

"Somehow, Mr. Fairfield," Victor said, "somehow I get the feeling you're holding out on me, you're not telling me all."

"Damn it, the more I tell you the less you believe. I never should have told you the truth at all. I should have just said my wife's suffering from amnesia and let it go at that."

"I'm not an engineer either," Victor answered. "I can't just twist a screw and restore the proper functioning of the memory mechanism. I've got to know the whole truth, Mr. Fairfield, the whole truth."

"How come my wife is Mimi and I'm Mr. Fairfield?"

"I'm sorry," Victor stammered, "I--"

"Donald, you're embarrassing him," Mimi interrupted.

"Just joshing, pulling your toe, or leg, or some such," Donald assured him. "We might as well be friends, at least. Make it Donald too. I might even take your autograph back with me. I think the fights are on television. Want to watch?"

"I'll just do up the dishes, dear," Mimi said.

"I'm afraid I don't care much for the prize fights," Victor said.

"Just sit where you are then, and relax. I'm going to watch them. Won't see many more of them before we go," he said, throwing a lowering glance at his wife as he left the room. He returned in a few moments, however, before the two of them had had time to begin a conversation, and addressed Victor, "Sorry to interfere, promise I won't interrupt again. I'm sure you two are making just miles of progress and I dislike the role of an impedance, but a phrase just popped into my head and I'm sure I won't be able to concentrate on the fights properly until it's resolved. I wonder, Dr. Quink, if you could possibly tell me if this is the age that is so fond of saying that idiots walk with God? You know what I mean, that they don't need their wit because God's hand is on their shoulder, so to speak, and that's why et cetera? Childish, perhaps, but touching, don't you think?"

"I'm sorry, Mr. Fairfield," Victor replied, "but I hadn't heard the phrase before. Perhaps I'm just unfamiliar with it, or more probably you picked it up elsewhere on your travels."

"Mmmm," Donald answered, somewhat noncommittally, "perhaps. Well, don't let me detain you. I'll just run along. Vaya con Dios," he waved as he left the room. They waited a few seconds in silence, but he didn't return.

* * * * *

"Will you take him on as a patient?" Mimi asked when they heard the first roaring of the crowd from the living-room.

"I'd like to very much, if you want me to. He's a fascinating case. But it won't be easy, it's going to take time."

"Oh, that's all right," she assured him. "He's not dangerous, and we've plenty of money. Take all the time you want."

"You know," he said, "I don't mind admitting I'm pretty bewildered by now." He shook his head two or three times, as if to clear it, then asked, "Where does the money come from?"

"I don't know."

"I mean, what does he do for a living?"

"I don't know. Did you ask him?"

"Not yet. He'll probably say he brought the money from the future."

"Uh-huh," she agreed.

"Well, don't you even know where your husband gets his money?"

"No."

"What a combination you two are," he muttered.

"I can't hear you," she called from the kitchen. "The water is making too much noise. Come in here." He went in and leaned against the powder blue refrigerator while she soaked the dishes. "He won't come to your office for examinations or treatments," she said. "He thinks I'm the one who's nuts."

"That's probably true," he agreed, somewhat ambiguously. "It would be better if you were my patient at the same time. You do have this amnesia anyhow, I'd like to clear that up. Would you be willing?"

"Oh, I'd love it," she cried. "I can come see you for regular treatments, and then you can come to the house for supper several times a week and see him then."

"Let's go see if he agrees to that," Victor said. Mimi dried her hands in a hurry on a dish towel, grabbed a handful of his fingers, and pulled him after her to the living-room. Her fingers were still cool and damp.

* * * * *

He saw a lot of the two of them in the few weeks following that night, but he learned nothing more. Donald Fairfield was sulky and uncommunicative, muttering only over and over again that he had already said too much and Lord knew what would become of him when he got back but he didn't see what else he could have done under the circumstances and no one else had ever gotten into such a fix why the hell did it have to happen to him, a quiet and thoughtful and considerate man who wouldn't swat a fly, or anyhow not a pregnant fly. This opened up an entire new line of discussion. Mimi didn't know, in reply to his query, whether flies got pregnant or not. At least, she had never seen one. Donald was forced into a short lecture, barely remembered from second year biology, but it seemed to satisfy them. "We don't have lower forms of life at home, you know," Donald apologized.

On days when he didn't come to their home for supper, Mimi would have the last appointment of the day with him, and after her hour they would leave together, waking up Margaret before they left the office, stop off for cocktails before Mimi had to catch her train, miss the train, have dinner, miss the next train, catch a show or walk in the park, drive Mimi home, and finally part. They talked a lot, they talked seemingly without reserve, but Victor learned nothing new. Her life before that train ride was simply a blank.

"I'd like to try hypnotism," Victor said to her one day in his office.

"No," she replied.

He was surprised. "I don't think you understand," he said. "I want to hypnotize you and try to take you back before that train ride, back to your childhood--"

"No," she said.

"It's perfectly safe," he said.

She filed a rough edge off her nail, second finger, right hand.

"It's standard analytic procedure. I've used it dozens of times. I'm quite competent--"

"No," she said.

"But why not?" he asked.

"You'll find out all about me," she said. "I'll have no secrets left."

"But you shouldn't want to have any secrets from your psychoanalyst. I can't help you then."

"Perhaps," she agreed. "But I want to have secrets from you," she said softly, and looked up quietly from her fingers, staring directly into his eyes, and her lips and her eyes underwent that mysterious synchronization once again. "I don't want you to know me like a book, with everything spelled out in black and white, but like a portrait, with hidden shades and nuances.... I want you to know me gradually, slowly...."

"Mimi," he said, and paused. He pushed back from his desk, swiveled completely around and back to his original position, cracked two knuckles, tried to force some saliva into a suddenly dry mouth, and started to speak again. "Mimi, it's not unusual for a patient to develop a feeling of affection for her psychoanalyst. In fact, it's the usual--"

"It's not like that with us, though, is it?" she asked, more quietly, more softly and deeply, than before.

After a long pause he said, "No. No, it's not."

And so they sat there while the daylight faded outside them and the twilight crawled up sixty-three floors to encircle their window and continue unhesitatingly upward.

* * * * *

"What are we going to do?" she asked.

"We're not going to do anything, Mimi," he finally said. "When I'm with you, it's all so light and fantastic and funny, that I forget. But it would be unforgivable to fall in love with a patient, and the wife of a patient. I can't do it. We'll have to stop right away. I'm no good as an analyst to you anymore, anyway. I'm sorry, I'll send you to someone else. And now you'd better go."

She stood up, walked around his desk, and put her hands lightly on his neck. "You're such a dear," she said. "I'll always love you. I've never seen you so serious before. We always laugh and talk and giggle when we're together, and I loved you then. But now that you're sad and serious and oh so pitiably tragic I love you more than I could ever tell you. But please don't worry, don't worry about a thing, darling. You'll see, it will all work out."

"It can't work out, Mimi, there's absolutely no way on earth for it to work out. There's no solution at all."

"Please don't worry, darling," she said, picking up her gloves. "I can't bear to see you looking so tragic. Life isn't so serious, especially as you're loved." She walked out and closed the door behind her. Victor sat quite still. He could barely hear her saying "Margaret, wake up, Margaret, it's time to go home," through the thick wooden door.

* * * * *

The phone rang in his office three days later. He was alone at the time, going over some notes he had just taken with another patient. Margaret was out, presumably peering through the floor of the ladies' lounge down the hall, and he picked up the receiver himself.

"Victor, come quick," Mimi screamed through the wires. "He's trying to kill me!"

She said more, but he heard none of it. His fingers went numb, the phone dropped, he was out of his seat and skidding around the desk before it hit the carpeted floor. He had to wait at the elevator. He thought for one silly moment of racing to the exit and running down sixty-three floors, then compromised on stamping his feet and slamming one fist into the other palm and striding up and down while three other men and two women also waiting for the elevator stared at him. He thought of calling the police just as the elevator door opened, and he nearly turned and left it, but couldn't and leaped in just as the doors were closing. "I'm Dr. Quink," he shouted at the elevator operator. "This is an emergency. Take me straight down."

The elevator went straight down. The doors opened on the ground floor and Victor shot out, leaving behind two nearly mortally sick women and several acid comments to the effect that he was probably late for a matinee. "I couldn't take any chances," apologized the elevator operator, "it might really have _been_ an emergency."

It wasn't raining in New York that day, so he was able to get a cab immediately. He took it to his parking lot and roared off from there. He sped through the city traffic, incurring the widespread wrath and disapproval of the police department. A patrol car caught up with him on Grand Central Parkway and forced him off the road. He explained who he was and that a madman was threatening to kill his wife, no, not _his_ wife, the madman's wife, and that he didn't have time to sit here and talk about it. The police officer told him to follow him, and, siren blazing, they roared off once again.

It occurred to both of them nearly simultaneously that Victor couldn't possibly follow the police officer, it had to be the other way around, and so Victor took the lead, the red siren hanging on behind. But when Victor left the parkway he saw in his mirror no flashing red light, somewhere he had lost the police. He touched the brake a second, for the first time in the past fifteen minutes, then accelerated again and hurried on. He had not the time to wait.

The door to the Fairfield's home was unlocked and he burst in without ringing. "Mimi," he cried, then, hearing vague noises from the upstairs bedroom, he hurried there.

* * * * *

He didn't find Mimi there. Donald Fairfield was alone in the bedroom, and the bedroom was a mess, and there was a gun in Donald Fairfield's hand.

Victor stopped in the doorway, a gas pain shooting up his side. He thought at that moment, inanely, he should play more handball.

"Galileo," Donald Fairfield said, "it came to me just a few moments ago. Galileo. It was on the tip of my tongue all the time, I just couldn't think of it. What were we saying about him, do you remember? What brought it up?"

Victor braced himself up against the doorway, breathing hard. He stared at the gun in Donald's hand. Donald followed his gaze down his side to the gun, and seemed surprised when he saw it. "Oh, yes. She's in the bathroom," he said, waving his gun towards the closed door. "She's locked the door."

Victor belched.

"For God's sake," said Donald. "There's a time and a place for everything."

Victor crossed to the door. "Mimi," he called. "Mimi, it's me, Victor."

The lock clicked, the door opened, and Mimi walked out and folded herself into his arms. He held her until she stopped shaking, then until he himself stopped shaking and until his breath came more easily. He kept all the while his back toward Donald and the gun, and his arms folded around her so that she was safe from him. Then he turned and calmly as he could, he asked what in the holy hell was going on.

"He wants me to go back with him, right now," Mimi said. She was shivering in his arms. "I'm not going, I'm not going with him."

"Of course, you're not," Victor said. He turned back to Donald. "What's the rush all of a sudden?" he asked. "What's the big emergency?" he smiled.

"Don't turn on the personality, Dr. Quink," Fairfield said. "It's too complicated to explain, but time's run out on us. We've got to go tonight, and I'm taking her with me dead or alive, I don't give a damn which way anymore, she's coming with me dead or alive."

Victor let go of Mimi and took a step toward him, but the hand with the gun came up and gun was pointed straight at him, and the voice was flat and tired and desperate, "I can't leave her here, you can see what it would mean. They're very strict about time traveling, they have to be, and she can't stay here. She hasn't lost her memory, she knows damned well where she comes from, and she's going back now, one way or the other. I don't know what'll happen to me when we get back if I kill her, but it's my decision and I can't let her stay behind, no matter what." His voice started to rise and the words began to come faster. He was working himself up dangerously near the breaking point.

"If you'll just calm down for a few moments," Victor tried, "I'm sure we can talk this out sensibly enough."

"It won't work, Dr. Quink, it won't work. You're trying to talk it out like I'm nuts, you're trying to reassure me, but it won't work because you can't. Because I'm _not_ nuts! I'm telling the truth and she knows it! Damn you, Mimi, tell him!"

* * * * *

"All right! All right, I'll tell him," she cried. "And I'll tell you, too. And I'm not going back with you, you'll see. Because I planned this from the start. My God, what a day," she sighed, and sat down on the bed. "Now listen, both of you, you, too, Donald, because you don't know it all either."

"He's not crazy, Victor, we do come from the future. I was reading about all the Nobel prize winners, darling, and of course, I came across you, and right from the beginning you fascinated me. Do you know you were the first psychiatrist ever to win the award, and then you won it twice? Oh, I can tell you, I was terribly impressed! And when I saw your picture, you know the one, the portrait by Videl in the Museum of Ancient--oh, but of course, it hasn't been done yet. You have gray sideburns then, and there's not a touch of gray in your hair now. Anyway, you look absolutely distinguished with gray, it's certainly your color. And I thought you were just the handsomest Nobel winner I had ever seen, and darling, you are, not the slightest doubt about it. Don't you think so, Donald?"

"He's charming," Donald replied. "Just terribly, terribly charming. Would you mind getting on with it?"

"Please," Victor started to interrupt.

"Don't be modest, darling," Mimi went on. "So then I read a biography, and then another, and soon I was doing nothing but studying you. I fell in love with you, dear, I fell in love with you a thousand years after you were dead. You never married, you know, and you needed me, and I guess that helped, but at any rate I fell, and I fell all the way.

"We're not married, Donald and I. There's no sex then, so there's no need for marriage. Right, Donald? Right. But he was coming here on vacation and he was nice enough to take me along, and we had to fit in, so we came as husband and wife. Just a matter of convenience, really. But then we were here for all those months, and I didn't get to meet you, and something about this age just got into my bones, I loved it so, people really _live_ now, not like back home. And I nearly forgot about you, Victor dear, although I can't understand that now, and all I wanted was to live here like a normal person, a normal wife. But _he_ couldn't understand that. At any rate, I went native, I went whole hog native.

"And then it was time to go home. But I wasn't going. So I made up this story about forgetting everything and I pretended I thought he was nuts or something and he went and got you and suddenly there you were in my living room and it all came back, darling, it came back so fast and strong I thought I'd die on the spot. And I love you now, darling, I love you now and forever, and I won't go back alive, I swear that."

* * * * *

"Mimi," Donald begged, "think of the future. If you don't go back it'll be all upset. We can't have people just popping up in the past from the future, there has to be discipline. It's one thing to come here quietly for a few months of harmless vacation, and then just as quietly to disappear. But to settle down brazenly in another time, to ... to immigrate, as it were, well, it just can't be done. There's no precedent, just none at all. _No_body would think of doing such a thing. Why, who knows what would happen if you stayed here? It could upset the whole pattern of the future!"

"The future will just have to take care of itself," Mimi answered. "I love him, and you can't argue with that. There's nothing you can say that can argue with that. I don't care poof for the future."

* * * * *

Victor sat down quietly on the edge of the bed, he felt a bit weak around the general vicinity of the knees. Mimi stood up and strode over to the window, her back to the conversation. "Mimi," Donald pleaded, "just think of what you're doing. You'll lose your immortality, for one thing. You know, it's not something you're just _born_ with, it's the result of careful medical science. Why, almost _any_thing could happen to you here. They have all _sorts_ of ugly diseases. And if you should last just a few years longer, just maybe fifty or sixty more years, your heart will almost certainly pop off. They don't have any sort of arterial rejuvenation now, nothing at all. You're trading immortality for a mere _moment_."

"I don't give a damn or a wild pig's snort," she replied.

"Don't be vulgar," Donald said. "Let's keep this on a civilized plane."

"That's not vulgarity," she answered. "It's poetry. 'I don't give a damn or a wild pig's snort, but you cut just one strand and the fashions be damned, I swear that I'll boil three in lime!'"

"Lime?" Victor asked rather weakly.

"I think so, dear," Mimi said. "Would you care for a martini?"

"How about the toilet!" Donald suddenly thundered. "How about _that_, hey?"

"I beg your pardon," Mimi replied.

"The toilets, the toilets," he repeated impatiently. "Do you want to spend the rest of your short life with this old-fashioned plumbing?" He waved wildly toward the tile bathroom. "It's all right roughing it for a few months like we did, but can you honestly imagine spending the rest of your _life_ under such vile conditions? Ha, you didn't think of that, did you?" he continued when he saw the sudden stricken expression on her face. "You don't like the idea, do you?"

Mimi clenched her fists at her side and stamped her little foot. "I don't _care_," she spit out, "I absolutely do not care! I will stay with him, I will, I will, I _will_." She turned and looked at the bathroom that opened off the bedroom, and blanched for one moment, then she shut her eyes, gave another kick, and insisted. "I will, I will, I will!"

* * * * *