“Did you ever see that?”
“Oh, yes. It’s a memory, not something I made up. I was in San Francisco visiting a woman friend. We’d just broken up. Her name was Geraldine. Well, that’s what I called her later. Doesn’t matter. I’d left her building in the old downtown area and stood on the streets. It snowed that year. It seemed so incredibly peaceful to me.” A pause often seconds. Goldsmith’s eyes became unfocused. Finally he said, “I still think of it.”
“Do you ever dream about people you don’t like, people who’ve treated you badly or people you think of as enemies?”
Pause. Lips working steadily as if he were chewing something or struggling to say two things at once. “No. I don’t make enemies.”
“Can you describe your worst nightmare when you were thirteen years old or younger?”
“Horrible nightmare. I dreamed I had a brother and he was trying to kill me. He was dressed like a monkey and he was trying to strangle me with a long whip. I woke up screaming.”
“How often do you dream about having sex?” Margery asked.
Goldsmith chuckled softly. Shook his head. “Not often.”
“Do you find much inspiration in your dreams? For your poems or other writing I mean,” Margery continued.
“Not very often.”
“Have you ever felt isolated from yourself as if you weren’t in control?” Erwin asked.
Goldsmith lowered his head. A long pause, fifteen seconds. He kept swallowing and pushing his palms together between his knees. “I’m always in control.”
“Do you have dreams where you aren’t in control, where somebody else is compelling you to do things you don’t want to do?”
“No.”
“What do you see when you close your eyes now?” Margery asked.
“Do you want me to close my eyes?”
“Please.”
Eyes shut, Goldsmith leaned his head back. “An empty room,” he said.
Martin turned away from the screen and said to Karl and David, “I’ve asked for some leadership questions. I think they’re next in the sequence.”
“We’re going to ask you to pick out your favorite word from some groups of words,” Erwin said in the observation room.
“This all seems very primitive,” Goldsmith commented.
“May I give you the groups, and you pick a word you like?”
“The best word. All right.”
Erwin read from his slate: “Sparrow. Vulture. Eagle. Hawk. Pigeon.”
“Sparrow,” Goldsmith said.
“Next group. Boat, dinghy, yacht, tanker, ship, sailboat.”
“Sailboat.”
“Next. Slaveway, freeway, road, path, trail.”
“Path.”
“Next. Pencil. Pen. Scribe. Typewriter. Eraser.”
Goldsmith smiled. “Eraser.”
“Hammer, screwdriver, wrench, knife, chisel, nail.”
“Nail,” Goldsmith said.
“Next. Admiral, captain, corporal, king, jack, lieutenant.”
Pause, three seconds. “Corporal.”
“Last group. Lunch, dinner, hunting, farming, breakfast, foraging.”
“Foraging.”
Erwin put away his slate. “All right. Who are you, Mr. Goldsmith?”
“Pardon?”
Erwin did not repeat himself. They watched Goldsmith patiently. He turned away. “I’m not a farmer,” he said, “and I’m not an admiral.”
“Are you a writer?” Margery asked.
Goldsmith twisted around on the bed as if looking for the camera. “What is this?” he asked softly.
“Are you a writer?”
“Of course I’m a writer.”
“Thank you. We’ll take a break for dinner now.”
“Wait a minute,” Goldsmith said. “Are you accusing me of not being a writer?” A queer smile. No anger; flat.
“No accusations, Mr. Goldsmith. Just some words and questions.”
“Of course I’m a writer. I’m not an admiral that’s for sure.”
“Thank you. If it’s all right with you we’ll come back and ask more questions after dinner.”
“You’re very polite,” Goldsmith said.
Martin turned off the screen. Lascal, Margery and Erwin entered the observation room a moment later. Lascal shook his head dubiously. “What’s wrong?” Martin asked.
“I don’t know what those questions are supposed to mean,” Lascal said. “But he didn’t answer all of them fully.”
“Yes?”
“I’ve read all his books. He didn’t answer the question about pleasant places to think about. Meditate on. He didn’t answer it completely.”
“What did he leave out?”
“In a letter to Colonel Sir John Yardley about five years ago he described a place he’d been dreaming about, a place that seemed like paradise to him. I can’t quote exactly but he said he thought about it often when he was upset. He called it Guinée and he said it looked something like Hispaniola and something like Africa, where no white man has ever set foot and blacks live free and innocent.”
“We can find the reference,” Carol said. “Why wouldn’t he tell us about that?”
Martin gestured for Margery to hand him her slate. “Next round ask him this series,” he said, typing quickly.
They ate dinner in the second floor cafeteria using an older model nanofood machine. The input was a bit stale and the result was filling but not tasty. Lascal commented on the lack of comforts but nobody paid attention. The probe was on; quarry was afoot.
“Definitely flat affect,” Margery said. “It’s like he’s disconnected. He’s pleasant and doesn’t want to make trouble.”
“Flat affect can be a mask,” Carol observed, content for the past few hours to be quiet and make copious notes. “He could be fully integrated, all agents speaking to each other, but deciding on a humble posture. After all, he’s not psychotic; we know that much.”
“He’s not obviously psychotic,” Martin said. “He knows he’s done something very wrong. It would be almost impossible for him not to mask. But I agree with Margery. The flat affect seems genuine.”
“We got several interesting pauses,” Erwin pointed out. “When we asked about pleasant images, a long pause…”
“That could be connected with Mr. Lascal’s observation,” Carol said.
“And when we asked who was in control. That could point to a schism of routines. Maybe even separation of subpersonalities.”
Martin shrugged. “His word choices point to camouflaging. He doesn’t want to be conspicuous. From what we’ve been told, he wasn’t very humble, was he, Mr. Lascal?”
Lascal shook his head. “I don’t know many writers who are.”
The cafeteria had been built to hold thirty and seemed empty with just the seven of them clustered under two lamps. Carol sipped coffee and scrolled through her own notes, glancing at Martin occasionally as he twirled his fork in the remains of a pale gluey piece of mock apple pie. Finally she broke the general musing silence. “He doesn’t seem very charismatic, either.”
Lascal agreed.
“I don’t see how he could have kept such a group around him,” she continued. “How he could have attracted them.”
“He was much more dynamic before,” Lascal said. “Witty, sympathetic. Sometimes a real powerhouse, especially when he gave readings.”
“There’s a piece I’d like him to read out loud,” Thomas Albigoni said, standing in the cafeteria door. “His play about hell. I’d like him to read that.”
Lascal got up from his chair and pointed to the facilities. “Anything we can make for you, Mr. Albigoni?”