indulge?"
"Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no. I couldn't, thank you just the same. I'mreally flattered, believe me I am, but thank you, no."
"That was _not_ an invitation, Mr. Fairfield," Dr. Quink put in, "I wastrying to--"
"Galui?"
"Mr. Fairfield, I was trying to ascertain whether or not you lead anactive sex life, or whether your interest is purely, shall we say,metaphysical?"
"Yes, let's do say metaphysical. Rather clever of you, applying the termto sex that way. My estimation of your capabilities shoots up a notch ortwo, Dr. Quink."
"You mean to say," Dr. Quink kept up, "that you do not participate inthe physical ramifications?"
"Oh, you _do_ have a turn for words, Doctor. No, of course not. None ofus do."
"By _us_ you mean your cohorts in the future?"
"Exactly. You have an analytical mind, keen, keen. We do not die, we donot give birth. And I never would have brought the whole morbid subjectup except that it has a direct bearing on Mimi's trouble. So it isnecessary that you realize that sex is entirely foreign to us."
"Then," said Dr. Quink, "if what you say is true, your physical, let ussay, equipment, must have degenerated. And so a simple physicalexamination--"
"Evolution is slow, my doctor, slow, slow, slow. No, I'm physicallyindistinguishable from you. Assuming normalcy on your part, of course.To continue along this train of thought, though, it is the mentalprocess that provides the difference. There is no desire in me or mine,Doctor, no urge, no depravity, no sexual hunger. It simply died out overthe eons."
"Since it was no longer necessary," Quink prodded him.
"Or vice versa. With the urge dying, it might have been necessary for usto circumvent the entire business. An academic question, really. Thechicken or the egg all over again. But since we have conquered time, soto speak, it must have occurred to you that there is no need for us todie, and thus no need for birth."
"You are immortal, then," Dr. Quink said, scribbling in his note pad.
Mr. Fairfield shrugged. "It beats sex. Which brings us to the problem weare discussing, if we can forget myself for a few moments. Mimi seems tohave been awakened to the sexual urge, and that provides an embarrassingsituation. Of course, its real significance is in relation to herproblem as a whole, in the illumination it sheds upon her neurosis, yetin itself it is, as I say, embarrassing. Coupled with my completeindifference, I mean. Have you any plans for this evening? Perhaps youcould dine with us without delay?"
* * * * *
Dr. Quink would not ordinarily have accepted such an invitation, beingof that class of physician which believes a disease, be it physical ormental, best treated in the antiseptic confines of the office orhospital. Mr. Fairfield, however, struck him as being the altogetherunprepossessing possessor of an altogether distinguished psychosis. Hewas, in fact, rapidly supplanting in Dr. Quink's estimation his previousfavorite. Already Dr. Quink was writing, mentally of course, theintroduction to the paper he would present to his professional journal.
Throughout the automobile ride out to Long Island Donald Fairfield wasquiet as, both hands tightly on the steering wheel of his new Buick, healternately fought and coasted with the east-bound traffic. Dr. Quinkforced himself to relax, to ignore the ins and outs of the commuters'raceway. He folded his arms across his chest, slumped down in his seatwith his legs stretched out as far as they would reach, and observed thefacial contortions of his driver-patient.
Fairfield's lips would twitch as he twisted the wheel and shot into theleft lane. His foot pressed down on the gas and the right corner of hislip pulled back in sneering response, the sudden surge of the Buickseemed intimately linked to one muscular act no more than to the other.His eyebrows pressed intensely together, caressing one another, as thebig car whipped back into line. A sharp outlet of breath between tightlyclenched teeth preceded the sharper blast of the horn and then the Buickwas swerving out to the left again with the accompanying lip twitch. Acar they were about to pass pulled out in front of them, initiating aspasmodic clutching of the wheel by the left hand, a furious pounding onthe horn by the right, and a synchronized twitch, sneer, and muttered"goddam it" from the lips, repeated twice while the eyebrows maintainedtheir position of togetherness.
Dr. Quink closed his eyes finally. There was nothing more to be gainedat the moment from observation. The patient's responses while drivingwere normal.
* * * * *
Mrs. Fairfield greeted them at the door with a martini pitcher in onehand and a modernistically designed apron around her waist. She utteredlittle squeals about them being early and ushered them into the livingroom where she settled Dr. Quink on one end of an eight-foot powder bluedivan before she left the room with the martini pitcher still clutchedtightly in the one hand, the other rapidly undoing the apron ofmodernistic design. Donald Fairfield had not said one word since thefront door had opened in response to their ring; none had seemed to havebeen necessary nor, in fact, possible, under the deluge of Mrs.Fairfield's effusive greeting. Now he sat in the tilted green armchairin one corner of the room and, closing his eyes, relaxed from the strainof the drive.
"Your wife is very pretty," Dr. Quink said.
"Yes, she's probably the most beautiful woman I know," Fairfield said."That's probably why I took her along. There's something about abeautiful woman.... It was certainly a mistake."
"Feminine beauty is enjoyable even though you don't indulge in sex?"
"Of course, it is," he replied, with a gesture of annoyance. "You'restill bound by that Freed--Freud, is it?--of yours. Damn him. That'sreally the main reason I hesitated so long before I brought her case toyou. I was afraid you were going to place too much emphasis on thesexual aspects which, of course, by your standards are abnormal. It hasreally 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 andit will be _mine_ which will appear abnormal, whereas in reality, ofcourse, it's the other way around. You'll never cure her, I can see thatnow. But then, you don't have to really _cure_ her. If you can just gether to admit the truth for just a moment or two, just temporarily, I canget her back to some really competent men. No reflection on your abilitymeant, 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 itbe Gilui? No."
Dr. Quink bent over and tied his shoelace once or twice before hereplied. 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 placebut simply that one could not achieve rapport without absoluteconfidence and, of course, privacy.
"Of course," Mr. Fairfield agreed. "I'll go up and shower now, perhapsI'll take a bit of a nap before dinner. I'd like to avoid that horribleliquid she was stirring up when we came in anyhow. Somewhere she'spicked 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, leaningheavily on the cast-iron bannister but making no sound on thewall-to-wall carpeting, Dr. Quink leaned back and had barely time topass his hand wearily over his eyes in a circular motion that he foundsoothing when Mrs. Fairfield entered from behind a swinging door bearinga small circular tray on which were balanced the aforementioned martinipitcher and two high-stemmed glasses, properly frosted and rounded withlemon.
"Has he left already?" she asked. "Well, shall we get right down tobusiness? You call me Mimi and I'll call you Victor. What did you thinkof his story? Pretty wild, isn't it? But he's harmless, I'm sure. I'mnot in the least bit afraid of him. Do you think I should be?"
* * * * *
Victor smiled and accepted the proffered martini. He c
radled it in longfingers and, elbows on knees, contemplated his hostess, analyzing herphysical attraction. He finally decided it emanated in the main from heralmond-shaped eyes and in their somewhat mystical synchronization withher wide, sensual lips. There was definitely a disconcertingcorrelation between them when she smiled, and as he was studying thisphenomenon 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 inyour 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 theedges of the glass, leaving colorless stains that evaporated in a fewmoments. "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 justteasing," or "Isn't it amazing how little rain we've had lately. Did yourealize 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 noisesuntil he gave it up as a bad job and took a long drink from the frostedglass he had so recently and abruptly put down. She refilled his glassand leaned back in her chair.
"Could you tell me about him, Mrs. Fairfield?" he said then. "Start asfar 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. Hisstory is plausible, logical, once you grant the basic premise that timetravel is an actuality. You see, Mrs. Fairfield--"
"Mimi, please, Victor. After all, we're not in your office, and I'm notreally your patient, am I? Or am I?"
"Of course not. Well, Mimi, then, the first step is to break down hisstory. Show him for once and all that it is _not_ plausible, that it isnot even possible, that it is plainly and simply a lie which he himselfhas made up to hide something that he is afraid of. Once we can get himto see this, or at least to wonder about it, once we can break thegranite assurance of his that he comes from another time, then perhapswe can probe into his festering secret. But we can't do that, I'mafraid, until he begins to admit, at least to himself, that he _is_ sickand 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 gulpa martini so quickly. Here, let me pour you some more, but sip it thistime. I know, I can't stand the taste either, but it's really the onlyway."
"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'tthink 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 tome. Why don't we just throw the mess away and whip up something else? Ijust 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 womanand are, in fact, married to a patient of mine."
"First of all," she said, "you're being pompous. Second of all, he's notyour patient, he says I'm your patient. Third of all, I'm not married tohim. 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, itcouldn't taste worse."
* * * * *
"First of all," he said, following her to the kitchen, "I am neverpompous. Second of all, he _is_ my patient because he came to my officeobviously seeking psychiatric help but too sick to ask for it. I feel itonly 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 helldo 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. Yousee, I can't, because I don't remember. Here, you cut the limes while Ilook 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 verbalexactitude. The immediate progression towards a solution of this casedid 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 hadnot foreseen. Mrs. Fairfield was not exactly acting toward him as apsychiatrist normally expects the wife of a patient to, so that,although he found her pleasant and indeed invigorating, if that is theword and he was not sure that it was but the only alternative that cameto his mind, stimulating, had connotations that he was not yet ready toaccept, although he did find her pleasant and et cetera yet he found herbehavior also disturbing, in the clinical sense this time, and therevelation as to her distinctly limited memory should be described notas a disturbance but as a downright earthquake, to ring in aseismological metaphor that occurred to him as he nicked his fingerduring the slicing of the fourth lime.
"Oh, did you cut yourself?" she said, straightening up from the lowershelves of a pine cupboard. "I'm so sorry, but never mind. Here's thesqueezer."
The apparent non sequitur, coming in the midst of his thoughts that werealready confused, bewildered him for the moment, but he felt it would bemore fruitful to get back to the problem at hand and, blotting hisseeping blood with a handkerchief, he inquired after her reticentmemory.
"Oh, let's mix in the lime juice first. Aren't you at all anxious to seehow it will taste? Honestly, men have no curiosity."
Well, as it turned out, it tasted pretty good. At any rate, that was theconsensus of opinion, alcoholic as it might have been, as they returnedwith the pitcher of green martinis to the living room. "The furthestback that I can remember," Mimi said after they had settled themselveson the divan, "the absolutely first thing I can remember is relieving mybladder, if that makes any sense to you."
"As a matter of fact," Victor said, "it makes extremely good senseindeed. If you will pardon me and kindly direct me towards the washroom?"
* * * * *
When he returned after an absence of a few minutes, during which timethe muted sound of snoring emanated from the master bedroom into thesilence left by his absence, he attempted once again to take up thethread of conversation that had been so abruptly snapped. "You weretelling me, I believe, about the first thing you can remember."
"Yes," she said. "Have another martini. Here, I'll pour. I was on atrain, you see, at this moment when my memory begins. It was, by theway, eight months ago. As I emerged from the ladies' room I could notremember from which direction I had come. That is, I didn't know inwhich direction my seat was, if you follow me."
Victor nodded more vigorously than he had intended, and she went on. "Ididn't know whether to turn to right or left. That's a frighteningfeeling to have in a train, not knowing where your seat is, when you'reall closed in anyhow and you can feel the floor beneath your feet andthe walls and ceiling all rushing somewhere so terribly fast andcarrying you with it and all. I wasn't really _frightened_, youunderstand, but anyway, as I say, it's a terrible feeling. So I leanedback against the wall and
tried to collect my wits. But I couldn't thinkof anything. That really frightened me. So I said to myself, now justrelax and think back to where you're going and when you got on the trainand who you're with and everything like that and just relax and you'llremember where your seat is in half a moment. But I didn't. Remember, Imean. And suddenly I realized that I didn't remember where I was goingor who I was with or when I had got on the train or anything, anythingat all. I simply couldn't remember anything previous to a moment ago. Iwas scared silly by this time, and that damned train kept on rumblingand 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 saidafter taking two deep breaths and exhaling slowly, my name is ... myname is ... And by God, I didn't know my own name! It was such a queerfeeling I got goose pimples all over, just like that. I mean, I felt asif I knew my name, it was on the tip of my tongue, but I just couldn'tsay it, I just couldn't remember my own name.
"Then I began to run. I