But, Paul thought, I’ll know. “I’ve got to have time to think,” he said aloud.
Choate hesitated, then said, “All right. We can let you have a few days.”
They shook hands and Dr. Choate left without a backward glance. Everyone says "we” these days, Paul thought absently. Nobody says "I.” Everyone represents some formless, irresponsible group and nobody represents themselves.
Stepping out of the bedroom, Joan Hiashi said, “I want some growing things.” She smiled at him uncertainly. “May I?”
“Okay,” he answered, and then experienced a sudden upsurge of spirit, a sudden sense of freedom. “Let’s go out and buy up a whole garden.”
Ed Newkom met them in the hall as they were going out. “What’s up?” he asked, surveying their faces.
“We’re going to do a little shopping,” Paul said; he glanced over his shoulder and saw Ed gazing after them in bewilderment. It was Dr. Rivers who thought with pleased satisfaction, Joan is showing signs of returning to the world of common experience. She wants something. It was, however, just plain Paul who, as he and Joan emerged from the hotel entrance, glanced up at a white cumulus cloud that towered like a god over the dirty slum and thought, Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.
“Joan?” Dr. Balkani said.
“Yes, Rudolph,” said the robot Joan Hiashi, sitting on the analyst’s couch in Balkani’s poorly-lit office. Every day contained the same elements, now; Balkani could see no more change in his patient that he could in his massive bronze bust of Sigmund Freud. Except that sometimes he received the impression that the bust smiled at him. It was in no respects a pleasant smile.
Balkani said, “Joan, is there anything you want?”
“No, Rudolph.”
Eyeing her, he said, “Then you must be happy. Are you happy?”
“I don’t know, Rudolph.
“You are,” he said. Puffing angrily on his pipe, he paced the floor. Joan did not follow him with her eyes; she continued to stare straight ahead. Abruptly he stopped pacing; he seated himself beside the robot and put his arms around it. “What would you do if I kissed you?” he said. It did not respond. “Put your arms around me,” he barked at it, and it obeyed. He kissed its lips for a lengthy time, but it was boring; up on his feet again he said, “That was boring!”
“Yes, Rudolph.”
“Take off your clothes!”
The robot disrobed, quickly and without wasted motion. Balkani also disrobed, almost falling on his face when he got his feet caught in his pants.
“All right, now kiss me again.”
They kissed again.
After a few moments Balkani shouted. “It’s still boring!” He pushed her roughly down on the couch and kissed her one more time, but it was still boring. Untangling himself from the robot’s arms he sat with his back to her at the foot of the couch. He felt old. Why do I love her so much? he asked himself. I never loved anybody so much. Getting to his feet he rummaged in his clothing until he found his pill-box; opening it he shook out all the pills, the entire assortment of all colors and shapes—without water he gulped them down. “You see?” he said to the robot Joan. “I don’t care whether I live or die. And neither do you; right?”
“Yes, Rudolph.” Tonelessly she spoke, as before. Emptily.
“There’s one emotion I’ll bet you can still feel. Fear. ” He lurched over to the bookcase and, with a harsh, labored grunt, hauled down the bust of Freud. “I’m going to kill you. Don’t you even care about that?”
“No, Rudolph.”
Balkani, in anguish and fury, lifted the massive bronze bust high over his head; he moved back toward the couch. She did not flinch; she did not, in fact, even seem to notice. He brought the bust down on her skull with all his strength. Her cranium burst.
“I only meant to—” he began numbly as the robot Joan Hiashi slid from the couch and fell, sprawling, onto the floor. And then he saw within her head—not formless organic tissue—but a crumpled turret of printed microminiaturized circuits and solid-state cerebro-spinal axis components, as well as delicate sweep-range surge gates, low-temp liquid helium battery conduits, homeostatic switches—with portions of the circuitry grotesquely still functioning, including the standard feedback networks for the master turret which, though it hung out of her skull and dangled down her cheek, continued ticking like some debrained reflex-arc crayfish-thing. And he recognized the handiwork which had gone into the building of the thing as his own.
“Joan ?” he whispered.
“Yes, Rudolph?” answered the robot faintly, and then its power failed.
“Joan?” Paul Rivers said.
Sitting on the bed of their Knoxville hotel room, in the hot red light of sunset, Joan Hiashi said, “Yes, Paul.”
“Is there anything you want?”
“No, Paul.” She studied the windowbox that now rested just inside the window of their room, and at the tropical plants that grew there. Then she smiled, and Paul Rivers smiled, too.
The therapy may be slightly unorthodox, he reflected, but it’s working. Now if she can only start caring about—not only plants—but people and the world of a common, shared reality.
“They want you to kill Percy X, don’t they?” she
said. “I overheard. I wanted to hear.”
He said, “That’s right.” And did not look at her directly.
“Are you going to do it?” she asked, without emotion.
“I don’t know.” He hesitated, then said, “What do you think I should do?” A new twist, he thought acridly; the doctor asking the patient for advice.
“Be happy,” Joan said. Getting up, she walked over to her newly purchased windowbox of plants, where she knelt and played in the dirt with her fingers. “All these political movements and philosophies and ideals, all these wars—only illusions. Don’t trouble your inner peace; there’s no right and wrong, no win or lose. There’s only individual men and each one is completely—completely! —alone. Learn to be alone; watch a bird fly without telling anyone about it or even storing it up to tell someone about it in the future.” She turned toward him, her voice low and intense. ‘‘ Let your life remain the secret it is. Don’t read the homeotapes; don’t watch the newscasts on TV. Don’t—”
Escapism, he thought as he listened to the hypnotic voice. I’ve got to be on my guard; it’s compelling but false. “Okay,” he said to her, breaking into the flow of her words, “while I sit here staring stupidly at the back of. my hand, what happens to my patients? What happens to the people I could have helped?”
“They go on in their insanity, I suppose,” Joan said. “But at least you don’t join them in it.”
“You have to face reality.”
“My hand is real. It’s the war that’s a dream.”
“Doesn’t it matter to you that the whole human race is enslaved by creatures from another planet? Doesn’t it matter to you that we may all soon be dead?”
“I planned on dying sometime anyway. And when I’m dead, what’ll it matter to me whether others go on living or not?”
Paul Rivers felt a wave of sick frustration sweep over him. She’s so imperturbable, he thought feverishly, so safe behind her schizoid defenses. Behind that saintly facade what absolute selfishness—what smug egotism. Looking down at his hands he saw that his fists were clenched. My god, he thought; what am I doing? I don’t hit patients; I help them. She must be getting to me, reaching some deep wall of repressed Balkani-ism within me. Across from him he saw that she watched alertly, perceived the frustration, anger and—fear.
“What far bigger struggle?”
Wordlessly, Joan pointed to the windowbox; among her flowers, a contingent of red ants and another of black ants were engaged in a fracas. For the moment Paul gazed into the turmoil of writhing bodies and crunching mandibles—then he looked away, unable to speak. Is it I, he asked himself, who’s living on dreams and comforting illusions? Am I, in the end, the real escapist?