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

"Donald, you're embarra.s.sing him," Mimi interrupted.

"Just joshing, pulling your toe, or leg, or some such," Donald a.s.sured 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 G.o.d? You know what I mean, that they don't need their wit because G.o.d'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 a.s.sured 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 circ.u.mstances and no one else had ever gotten into such a fix why the h.e.l.l 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 c.o.c.ktails 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 a.n.a.lytic 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 psychoa.n.a.lyst. 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 psychoa.n.a.lyst. 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 a.n.a.lyst 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."