"Culture."

"And culture springs from-what?"

This was a familiar academic-intellectual riposte but Sabbath McSwain was at a loss how to reply-she was distracted by the Investigator's pale-blue gaze upon her, that was impertinent and bemused, and strangely intimate. It had been years since she'd engaged with any professor-with any adult-in this sort of intellectual dialogue, that lifted her heart as in an impromptu Ping-Pong game.

She said, "Dr. Hinton-I know that there are many essential biological differences between the sexes, of course. But not so many 'culturally-mandated' differences. In First World countries we've evolved beyond mere biology-it isn't the fate of the human female to be pregnant continuously until she wears out and dies."

It was a heated little speech. It was a heated, breathless, utterly unoriginal and obvious speech. Yet the Investigator fixed the Intern-(for so she wished to think of herself, however prematurely)-with something like sympathy.

"You are right, of course! No one should expect you-or any other 'female'-to have a succession of babies until she wears out and dies. I think that is a quite plausible wish. But I only hoped to ascertain whether in fact you are female-I've found that, as interns, females are just more competent."

Abashed Sabbath McSwain murmured yes, she was female.

A wave of hot shame washed over her. She could not have said why, in her deepest being, she felt such sex-shame.

As she was repelled by glimpsing her own diminutive body, unclothed, exposed, in a mirror or reflective surface. Ugly that's the ugly one a jeering voice assailed her.

"But I like it that you aren't-in the slightest, and by choice, I think-'feminine.' That no one, glancing at you, would take a second glance. Which is not the case, I'm afraid, with 'Prof. Hinton.' "

The Investigator enunciated the words Prof. Hinton with such quaint disdain, the Intern was moved to laugh.

"And I like your laugh, Sabbath: it's inaudible."

The Intern laughed again inaudibly. It had to be the first time she'd laughed in such a way, as if she were being tickled, in memory.

"Chantelle says you are a very solitary young woman. And a mysterious young woman-with no evident attachments."

The Intern ceased laughing. Was this funny, or not-so-funny?

It made her uneasy, as it was unexpected and surprising, that anyone should be talking about her.

" 'Sabbath McSwain'-a curious name. It strikes me as invented, somehow."

"Did you say-'invented'?"

"Is it?"

The Intern stared at the Investigator, as if he'd slapped her: not hard but, as it's said in martial arts, hard enough to capture one's attention.

"It's a real name. A family name. I have an older sister-Haley McSwain. We're both-we both-we live in the Fort Lauderdale area-though we aren't so close as we were, once."

"So you do have family? Chantelle was mistaken?"

The Investigator was frowning. Not so good!

"No. Not really. Haley is my-half-sister. I mean-stepsister. I never see her any longer, now-we're estranged."

"But 'Sabbath McSwain' is your name?"

"Yes. 'Sabbath McSwain' is my name."

(It was so, "Sabbath McSwain" wasn't a name she'd have chosen for herself. The name was a gift, it had been a freely given and loving gift, she could not ever repudiate, for it had helped to save her tattered and fraying life at the time.) (To Haley she owed this remnant-life. Yet, in speaking so expeditiously of her, she'd betrayed Haley.) Fumbling in her backpack for those crucial documents without which she could not make her way blind and groping across the treacherous rock face.

So long as she was ascending. Any effort, any danger was justified.

"I have-an ID. I have two IDs. A birth certificate and a-a Social Security card. I can show you, if . . ."

These documents, carried in a manila folder, she presented to the Investigator, who examined them closely. The Intern wondered if it was the name and birth date of "Sabbath McSwain" that piqued his interest so much as the literal nature of the documents-the very paper with which each was made.

Did he think they were forged? But why would he think so?

"They're legitimate, Dr. Hinton! You can examine them under a microscope if you wish. The seal of the State of Maryland-I'm sure that's legitimate. You can go to the place of issue, in the county court of records in Breathitt, Maryland. Same with the Social Security number. It belongs to Sabbath McSwain-8/15/86."

"No photo ID?"

"Yes. I have a-a driver's license, somewhere. I don't have it with me because I-I don't have a vehicle right now. I don't drive. I mean-right now."

"The internship would require driving, you know. That's a principal requirement. I don't drive if I can avoid it."

"I said, Dr. Hinton, I do have a driver's license. Not for the state of Florida but-another state. I can look for it when I get back-to where I live."

"And where do you live?-I see, '928 Pepperdine Avenue, Temple Park.' That's your home?"

"No. Just where I live, temporarily. While I take classes here at the university."

Though in fact, this semester, she wasn't taking classes. She'd fallen out of the bottom of the big, rotted net-something small and squirmy that yet clung to the underside of the net, desperately.

"And where is your home, 'Sabbath'? Not around here, eh?"

"I-I don't have any permanent home, Dr. Hinton. I've lived in various places-I've moved, a lot, in recent years. My parents are-aren't-living . . . My family is 'scattered' . . ."

"Where were you born?"

"B-born? You mean-"

"Where was your mother, literally, when you were born? Where in the United States?"

"I think-well, obviously-Breathitt, Maryland. It's just a-a small town in a-mostly rural county. I've never actually lived there, except as an infant. And my mother-my mother and my father-are not any longer living there, either."

"And where did you grow up?"

"Grow up? I've told you-I think it's in the application letter . . ."

"No. Not here."

"We moved from Breathitt to a small town in Pennsylvania, when I was just a few months old. No one has ever heard of it-'Ephrata.' Then, we moved to East Scranton where I went to school. Then-the family kind of broke up. Then-I went to college-a community college-then, I was out of school for a while-I'd left home by that time, and-I was working, and I was traveling."

Her voice was slow, halting and struck with wonderment.

Is this my life? This-my life?

But this is not a life-is it?

"I have no inner life. I have no 'intimate' life. I am just what I-what I do. I move from one habitation to another like one of those-is it hermit crabs? Taking up residence in others' shells."

If the Intern had thought that the Investigator might be impressed by this solemn recitation, he wasn't. He said, with a shrug: "Others' shells are fine. You come, and then you go. They're gone."

Quickly she said, as if the aim of the interview were to entertain: "And then I came to Florida, to Miami first-with friends. Not 'friends' exactly but-people I knew. Used to know."

"Why Miami?"

"It wasn't my choice. It was just-where I was taken."

Not very vividly she recalled those days. Months?

Things had happened to her then, in that place. But not intimately. Easy to pick off, like scabs, scaly encrustations.

"You're twenty-four?"

The Investigator seemed faintly incredulous, whistling thinly through his teeth.

Grayish-white teeth they were, not big, broad and gleaming-white.

Set in the neat-trimmed dazzling-white beard, these teeth exuded an air of sincerity, even modesty.

"I guess so-yes. Twenty-four."

So little had happened to her, it was hard to comprehend how twenty-four years had passed in her presence.

"You look younger. You look," the Investigator said, slightly sneering, "like a teen."

The Intern shook her head, no.

"You've never lived in upstate New York?"

"Upstate New York? W-why do you ask?"

"Why do you think I would ask, Sabbath?"

"I-I'm not sure."

"Not that I am a linguistic expert. I am not. But my inexperienced ear can detect certain regional accents, like upstate New York. Somewhere in the north of the state, and the west-near Lake Ontario. You've lived there-for a long time."

"Well. I don't r-remember exactly, but . . . Maybe, after Ephrata, my father took us somewhere, maybe it was upstate New York, until . . ."

"You don't sound like you've lived in Florida very long. Maybe you've forgotten the exact dates."

Bemused, the Investigator read through Sabbath McSwain's application letter another time. The entire letter was a single, brief paragraph with the letterhead Females Without Borders Temple Park, FL stating the applicant's wish to work as Dr. Hinton's assistant on the recommendation of Ms. Chantelle Rios.

Included also was Chantelle Rios's letter of recommendation, extravagant with praise for my sister and my friend Sabbath McSwain. Thoughtfully if not altogether accurately Chantelle had indicated that Sabbath had been a "lab technician" in her psychology lab at the university and that, at Females Without Borders, she'd helped with "crucial" administrative tasks; Sabbath McSwain was a "zealous, tireless, idealistic & 100 % reliable" worker whom Dr. Hinton would not regret hiring for such a "sensitive & confidential" position.

Also with the letter was a list of Sabbath's paltry minimum-wage jobs-clerk, kitchen worker, etc.-and two pages, stapled together, of photocopied transcripts of courses and grades issued by the registrar of the State University of Florida at Temple Park.

Just faintly smudged, all the grades were A and A--. All had been issued to Sabbath McSwain, Continuing Education School.

The Investigator peered at the photocopied transcripts as if, just possibly, they were forged documents.

Which they were not.

"You don't have a B.A. degree, I gather?"

The hot wave of feeling came over her again, a sensation like angry nausea. She hoped that the little blue vein in her right temple wasn't visibly beating.

"Many things I don't have, Dr. Hinton. A degree is one of them."

The Investigator laughed. This was a good answer.

So far as she'd been able to gather, Cornelius Hinton had several distinguished degrees-Harvard, Cambridge University, Columbia University. He'd written a number of books published by academic presses on obscure topics in semantics, social psychology, cognitive psychology and philosophy of mind. His Text/Subtext/Encoded "Meaning": An Existential Theory of Semantics (Oxford University Press, 1979) was his most acclaimed academic book, that had won an award from the National Academy of Science; since that time, his interests seemed to have shifted elsewhere, and if he continued to publish it was under another name or names. At the Institute, he was a prominent name and yet an elusive figure who was invariably "on leave"-he hadn't taught his popular undergraduate course "An Anatomy of American Civilization" in years, and his graduate seminars on obscure subjects ("Charles Sanders Peirce: Semiotics & Visionary Madness") were limited to a small, select number of graduate students. Hinton was the most coveted of dissertation advisors, as he was likely to be the most absent of advisors-Chantelle claimed that there were individuals writing dissertations under his guidance who had not seen the man, face-to-face, in years. Hinton had come to prefer emails to personal conferences and had acquired a distaste for "copious hard copy" that took up too much room on his desktop and in his life. His preferred way of professional academic reading had become, he'd said, scrolling.

Behind the Investigator was a floor-to-ceiling bookcase crammed with books both horizontal and vertical, in no discernible order-semantics, linguistics, political philosophy, novels by Upton Sinclair, John Dos Passos, Willa Cather and William Faulkner; oversized books of drawings by Kathe Kollwitz, George Grosz, Ben Shahn, and (unexpectedly) Saul Steinberg; books of photographs by Mathew Brady, Edward Weston, Dorothea Lange, Robert Frank, and Bruce Davidson; David Hume's An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding and Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan beside Noam Chomsky's Problems of Knowledge and Freedom, Frantz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth, Dostoyevsky's The Insulted and Injured, John Rawls's A Theory of Justice, Peter Singer's Animal Liberation and a vivid-red paperback anthology titled Striking Back: Animal Rights Activism for the 21st Century. On a shelf with Aristotle's Politics and Descartes's Meditations was a slender yellow book-The Art of Paradox: Zeno of Elea.

The Investigator saw the Intern staring past his shoulder, turned and looked at the shelf-"Which of these are you interested in? Zeno of Elea?"

"No."

"No-you're not?"

The Intern shook her head, no. Quickly now looking from the bookcase to the Investigator who was regarding her with a quizzical expression.

"No one knows much about 'Zeno of Elea.' He was a contemporary of Socrates and very like Socrates, essentially. They were men who provoked others to think-in that way they made enemies."

The Intern continued to stare at the Investigator's desktop.

Her eyelids were lowered, impassive. Moisture filled her eyes but did not spill over onto her cheeks.

Staring at the Investigator's hands which were narrow, long-fingered-a man's hands yet graceful, with short-trimmed nails. And the star-shaped silver ring on the right hand, that looked like a talisman.

The Investigator returned to the subject of the interview.

"I've had several assistants-'interns'-in the past. Each worked out very well, once we understood each other. Basically I am looking for a trustworthy and reliable person. I am somewhat impractical-minded-I forget things, misplace things-rarely do I actually lose things, because my intern will find them for me-that may be her greatest challenge! I'm not looking for an intellectual-I'm certainly not looking for an 'original' or 'creative' personality for whom working for another is a mere sideline. I'm looking for an individual who will, in a sense, belong to me and will not resist me-my assignments, I mean. And these will be exciting assignments! And risky, at times. So I need a fearless intern, yet not a foolhardy intern. An intern who scrupulously follows directions, anticipates problems, and solves them without involving me. An intern who is clear-minded and articulate but who speaks very little-as if each word costs her. (My first intern chattered so much, meaning to be 'charming,' I warned her that I would dock from her check a dollar-a-word for all words that were inconsequential. She caught on, quickly!) Particularly I am looking for an intern who draws no attention to herself-who can slip into places in which I'd be detected at once. I'm not looking to be 'charmed'-I've had enough of being 'charmed,' believe me. The only seductions practiced in my vicinity will be my own-my 'seductions' of my subjects, to get them to talk imprudently, and not in their own best interests. An intern must be alert to the quagmire of 'transference'-as in a psychoanalysis-and I never encourage any sort of 'confessing.' The intern will not call me 'Cornelius'-(in fact, that dowdy old name isn't my actual name nor, at the present time, my nom de guerre)-but 'Dr. Hinton'-or 'sir'-will do. The intern will not fall in love with me-even in fantasy. Or imagine that I am her father, still less her grandfather. We have work to do which I consider urgent work, exposing the sick underbelly of the American soul-if you'll allow a surreal twist of speech-and so we may have to take risks. We must be impersonal as missiles, and we must be efficient. I do not give a damn about the intern's inner life."

The Intern smiled, uncertainly. Had she confided to the Investigator that she had no inner life? She had.

"Ms. McSwain-'Sabbath.' Tell me, do you respect the law?"

"No."

"No?"