"You have been in analysis for many months now," he continued, "and everything I have learned thus far serves to convince me that your fears of assassination are without any basis in fact." Erikson glared.
"Then why the hell do I have them?"
"Because," said Render, "you would like very much to be the subject of an assassination."
Erikson smiled then, bis composure beginning to return.
"I assure you, doctor, I have never contemplated suicide, nor have I any desire to stop living."
He produced a cigar and applied a flame to it. His hand shook.
"When you came to me this summer," said Render, "you stated that you were in fear of an attempt on your life. You were quite vague as to why anyone should want to kill you-"
"My position! You can't be a Representative as long as I have and make no enemies!"
"Yet," replied Render, "it appears that you have managed it. When you permitted me to discuss this with your detectives I was informed that they could unearth nothing to indicate that your fears might have any real foundation. Nothing."
"They haven't looked far enough—or in the right places. They'll turn up something."
"I'm afraid not."
"Why?"
"Because, I repeat, your feelings are without any objective basis. Be honest with me. Have you any information whatsoever indicating that someone hates you enough to want to kill you?"
"I receive many threatening letters..."
"As do all Representatives—and all of those directed to you during the past year have been investigated and found to be the work of cranks. Can you offer me one piece of evidence to substantiate your claims?"
Erikson studied the tip of his cigar.
"I came to you on the advice of a colleague," he said, "came to you to have you poke around inside my mind to find me something of that sort, to give my detectives something to work with. Someone I've injured severely perhaps—or some damaging piece of legislation I've dealt with..."
"—And I found nothing," said Render, "nothing, that is, but the cause of your discontent. Now, of course, you are afraid to hear it, and you are attempting to divert me from explaining my diagnosis—"
"I am not!"
"Then listen. You can comment afterwards if you want, but you've poked and dawdled around here for months, unwilling to accept what I presented to you in a dozen different forms. Now I am going to tell you outright what it is, and you can do what you want about it."
"Fine,"
"First," he said, "you would like very much to have an enemy or enemies—"
"Ridiculous!"
"—Because it is the only alternative to having friends—"
"I have lots of friends!"
"—Because nobody wants to be completely ignored, to be an object for whom no one has really strong feelings. Hatred and love are the ultimate forms of human regard. Lacking one, and unable to achieve it, you sought the other. You wanted it so badly that you succeeded in convincing yourself it existed. But there is always a psychic pricetag on these things. Answering a genuine emotional need with a body of desire-surrogates does not produce real satisfaction, but anxiety, discomfort—because in these matters the psyche should be an open system. You did not seek outside yourself for human regard. You were closed off. You created that which you needed from the stuff of your own being. You are a man very much in need of strong relationships with other people."
"Manure!"
"Take it or leave it," said Render. "I suggest you take it."
"I've been paying you for half a year to help find out who wants to kill me. Now you sit there and tell me I made the whole thing up to satisfy a desire to have someone hate me."
"Hate you, or love you. That's right."
"It's absurd! I meet so many people that I carry a pocket recorder and a lapel-camera, just so I can recall them all ..."
"Meeting quantities of people is hardly what I was speaking of. Tell me, did that dream sequence have a strong meaning for you?"
Erikson was silent for several tickings of the huge wall-clock.
"Yes," he finally conceded, "it did. But your interpretation of the matter is still absurd. Granting though, just for the sake of argument, that what you say is correct—what would I do to get out of this bind?"
Render leaned back in his chair.
"Rechannel the energies that went into producing the thing. Meet some people as yourself, Joe Erikson, rather than Representative Erikson. Take up something you can do with other people—something non-political, and perhaps somewhat competitive—and make some real friends or enemies, preferably the former. I've encouraged you to do this all along."
"Then tell me something else."
"Gladly."
"Assuming you are right, why is it that I am neither liked nor hated, and never have been? I have a responsible position in the Legislature. I meet people all the time. Why am I so neutral a—thing?"
Highly familiar now with Erikson's career, Render had to push aside his true thoughts on the matter, as they were of no operational value. He wanted to cite him Dante's observations concerning the trimmers—those souls who, denied heaven for their lack of virtue, were also denied entrance to hell for a lack of significant vices—in short, the ones who trimmed their sails to move them with every wind of the times, who lacked direction, who were not really concerned toward which ports they were pushed. Such was Erikson's long and colorless career of migrant loyalties, of political reversals.
Render said: "More and more people find themselves in such circumstances these days. It is due largely to the increasing complexity of society and the depersonalization of the individual into a sociometric unit. Even the act of cathecting toward other persons has grown more forced as a result. There are so many of us these days."
Erikson nodded, and Render smiled inwardly.
Sometimes the gruf line, and then the lecture ...
"I've got the feeling you could be right," said Erikson. "Sometimes I do feel like what you just described—a unit, something depersonalized .. ."
Render glanced at the clock.
"What you choose to do about it from here is, of course, your own decision to make. I think you'd be wasting your time to remain in analysis any longer. We are now both aware of the cause of your complaint. I can't take you by the hand and show you how to lead your life. I can indicate, I can commiserate—but no more deep probing. Make an appointment as soon as you feel a need to discuss your activities and relate them to my diagnosis."
"I will"—Erikson nodded—"and damn that dream! It got to me. You can make them seem as vivid as waking life —more vivid ... It may be a long while before I can forget it."
"I hope so."
"Okay, doctor." He rose to his feet, extended a hand. "I'll probably be back in a couple weeks. I'll give this socializing a fair try." He grinned at the word he normally frowned upon. "In fact, I'll start now. May I buy you a drink around the corner, downstairs?"
Render met the moist palm which seemed as weary of the performance as a lead actor in too successful a play. He felt almost sorry as he said, "Thank you, but I have an engagement."
Render helped him on with his coat then, handed him his hat, saw him to the door.
"Well, good night."
"Good night."
As the door closed soundlessly behind him, Render re-crossed the dark Astrakhan to his mahogany fortress and flipped his cigarette into the southern hemisphere. He leaned back in his chair, hands behind his head, eyes closed.