Goldfarb pondered this suggestion for a moment. “Maybe she is and maybe she isn’t. Can you hypnotize her?”
“I’ve already arranged to do that.”
“Personally, I don’t think you’re going to find another Robert Porter in Congo. I think she’s looking for something else.”
“Whatever she’s looking for, the government wants in on it.”
“Which government—the U.S. or Congo?”
“Ours.”
“Try to keep them out of the hospital,” she said.
* * *
On the way out I decided to relax a bit on the lawn before heading home. It was a wonderful day, the kind where the sun was shining brightly, the birds were singing, and everyone seemed to be in very good spirits.
I noticed that Cassandra was wandering around the “back forty,” not sitting and contemplating the heavens as she usually does, so I headed in her direction. Many readers will remember her as an uncanny prognosticator. Perhaps like the autistic savants, she is somehow able to think deeply enough about a single subject to come up with patterns and connections the rest of us miss. In Cassie’s case, she can somehow discern meteorological trends, for example, or extrapolate from past and present events to get a glimpse of what is going to happen in the near future. I wondered what she saw in fled’s. But I knew I had only a few minutes before she retreated into her cocoon, presumably to mull over further developments.
“Hello, Dr. Brewer,” she called out when she saw me coming. “Fine day!” She was neither smiling about that nor apparently even concerned with the weather of the moment, good or bad. It was the changes in store for us that interested her.
“Beautiful. But—”
“It’s going to be like this for another week, and then the rains will come again. For three days. And then—”
“Thank you. I’ll make a note of that. But I wanted to ask you whether you’ve met fled, and what you think of her.”
“I try to keep out of her way, like everyone else.”
“See any patterns emerging from her stay with us?”
“All I can tell you is that she’ll be around for a while.”
“And what does this bode for the patients?”
“It doesn’t bode badly. It will take some time, but she will attract a following, just like prot did.”
“Here’s what I’d especially like to know: do you have any idea whether she’s going to take any of you back with her when she returns to K-PAX?”
“I don’t know how many. Only that some of us will be going along on the trip.”
“Some? How many is ‘some’?”
“I don’t know exactly how many. Several.”
“Several from the hospital?”
“That’s right. Only she won’t be leaving the Earth from here. The lawn won’t hold 100,000 people.”
“Any idea where her departure point will be?”
“Somewhere west of here.”
That didn’t help much. Far enough west and you end up east. “Chicago? L.A.? Japan?”
But she had already begun to get that faraway look, and she wandered off to find a bench. Reluctantly, I took my leave.
On the way home I pondered our brief encounter. She hadn’t told me very much, but at least she hadn’t mentioned anything about government interventions, or harm coming to anyone, which was something I had begun to fear. Of course her prognostications were only good for a week or two….
* * *
The next night Steve called me at home. Actually it was Abby who called and Karen answered, but after a fifteen-minute gabfest she turned the phone over to me. I always enjoy talking to my eldest daughter, who never fails to come up with something unexpected. This time it was a story about Star, who was performing in a school play. One of the scenes required him to cry, and his uncle Fred had told him that an actor doesn’t sob about whatever it is that he’s supposed to be crying about onstage; the trick is to recall some other sad moment in his life. Anyway, the sad event he had decided to think about for his lachrymal outburst was the death of our former canine companion, Shasta Daisy. He had watched her health deteriorate until she was nearly blind and deaf and unable to walk very well. We had talked about her impending demise at the time, and he seemed to understand that death was a necessary part of life. The good news was that Shasta had lived a long and happy one, and she would die quietly, without a whimper, with Karen and me at her side.
Nevertheless, he had wept for two days after we had her put down. It was this time period that he thought about during his performance. It worked, too. Onstage he bawled like a baby, to much critical acclaim. I could understand how he felt. I, too, get choked up whenever I think about Shasta’s leaving us with such great dignity.
Freddy, who caught Star’s final performance, thinks his nephew might have a great future in the theater. Of course I’m still hoping he’ll think about psychiatry as a profession. That’s one of the joys of parenthood (and grandparenthood): seeing how the lives of the people you love turn out.
Abby herself was as busy as ever with the many volunteer programs that constitute her repertoire. My lovely daughter continues to fight for everyone who is downtrodden or in need, including battered women and children and all the unwanted animals at the local shelter. If she had her way, spaying and neutering of all pets would be a federal law, soon followed by a similar requirement for abusive parents and spouses. After that familiar diatribe she finally turned me over to Steve.
He was not in a good mood. “When can Ah talk to fled?” he demanded.
“As soon as I have time to ask her about a meeting with you,” I replied, as calmly as I could, “and as soon as she has time for it. I don’t think she came to Earth just to visit with you, Steve. She seems to have her own agenda. Right now I think she’s in Africa.”
“All Ah need is an hour or two, Gene. Who knows how the Earth might benefit if she could just answer a few simple questions.”
“I don’t think she came to help out the Earth. She just wants to study us. Like she was an entomologist and we were bugs.”
“Could you just find time to ask her? If she doesn’t want to talk to me, well, okay.”
“As soon as I get an opportunity, Steve.”
“Thank you. Ah appreciate that.” The phone clicked in my ear.
I like my son-in-law, but sometimes he can be a bit obnoxious. On the other hand, I could see his point. This could be a twice-in-a-lifetime opportunity for him (his brief conversation with prot had catapaulted him into the chairmanship of his department). He wasn’t planning to make a lot of money on a meeting with fled, after all, he just wanted to get the answers to some very important questions. Perfectly understandable. There was a time when I would have tried as hard as he does to get them.
Is that what getting old is about? Do you just lose interest? I don’t yet know the answer to that, but, like all of us, I suspect I’ll find out soon enough.
CHAPTER FOUR
When I got to the hospital on Friday fled wasn’t in Room 520—Goldfarb’s examination room—nor was she in the game room or the quiet room, where I ran across Rocky, sulking as usual. Something about him always rubbed me the wrong way. My fault, not his. After all, he couldn’t help being the way he was: endlessly offended by a perceived cross word, an unintentional negative gesture or facial expression.
In Rocky’s case the problem originated not with his parents, as do most mental difficulties, but with an older brother. When he was growing up he couldn’t win at anything. Ever. Games, sports, puzzles, arguments. He simply didn’t have the development and experience to compete with his big brother. Yet he kept trying until he finally became old enough to outdo his sibling in something, and then the situation became even worse. Whenever it looked as if he were going to succeed, the brother would cheat. And if that didn’t work, he would simply quit. Rocky literally couldn’t win. The frustration became too enormous to bear. The result was that he became severely paranoid, unable to interact with anyone without looking for a card up that person’s sleeve. As a result of this sibling abuse (only recently recognized for the serious problem it is) everyone became, in Rocky’s mind, an older brother.