“Causes it? Like a virus causes chicken pox?”
“Have you seen many cases?”
“Do you regard yourself as a case?”
“I would like to know.”
“You are a very persistent young man. You ask a great many questions.”
“And I notice you don’t answer them.”
The pistol was assembled. Sutter sat down, shoved in the clip, pulled back the breach and rang up a bullet. He clicked the safety and took aim at the Arab physician. The engineer screwed up one eye against the shot, but Sutter sighed and set the pistol down.
“All right, Barrett, what’s wrong?”
“Sir?”
“I’m listening. What’s wrong?”
Now, strangely, the engineer fell silent for a good twenty seconds.
Sutter sighed. “Very well. How old are you?”
“Twenty-five.”
Sutter was like an unwilling craftsman, the engineer perceived, a woodworker who has put on his coat and closed up shop. Now a last customer shows up. Very well, if you insist. He takes the wood from the customer, gives it a knock with his knuckles, runs a thumb along the grain.
“Are you a homosexual?”
“No.”
“Do you like girls much?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“Very much.”
“Do you have intercourse with girls?”
The engineer fell silent.
“You don’t like to speak of that?”
He shook his head.
“Did you speak of it with your psychiatrist?”
“No.”
“Do you mean that for five years you never told him whether you had intercourse with girls?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“It was none of his business.”
Sutter laughed. “And none of mine. Did you tell him that?”
“No.”
“You were not very generous with him.”
“Perhaps you are right.”
“Do you believe in God?”
The engineer frowned. “I suppose so. Why do you ask?”
“My sister was just here. She said God loves us. Do you believe that?”
“I don’t know.” He stirred impatiently.
“Do you believe that God entered history?”
“I haven’t really thought about it.”
Sutter looked at him curiously. “Where are you from?”
“The Delta.”
“What sort of man was your father?”
“Sir? Well, he was a defender of the Negroes and—”
“I know that I mean what sort of man was he? Was he a gentleman?”
“Yes.”
“Did he live in hope or despair?”
“That is hard to say.”
“What is the date of the month?”
“The nineteenth.”
“What month is it?”
The engineer hesitated.
“What is the meaning of this proverb: a stitch in time saves nine?”
“I would have to think about it and tell you later,” said the engineer, a queer light in his eye.
“You can’t take time off to tell me now?”
“No.”
“You really can’t tell me, can you?”
“No.”
“Why can’t you?”
“You know why.”
“You mean it is like asking a man hanging from a cliff to conjugate an irregular verb?”
“No. I’m not hanging from a cliff. It’s not that bad. It’s not that I’m afraid.”
“What is it then?”
The engineer was silent
“Is it rather that answering riddles does not seem important to you? Not as important as—” Sutter paused.
“As what?” asked the engineer, smiling.
“Isn’t that for you to tell me?”
The engineer shook his head.
“Do you mean you don’t know or you won’t tell me?”
“I don’t know.”
“All right. Come here.”
Sutter took a clean handkerchief from his pocket and for the second time turned the other into the light. “You won’t feel this.” He twisted a corner of the handkerchief and touched the other’s cornea. “O.K.,” said Sutter and sitting down fell silent for a minute or two.
Presently the engineer spoke. “You seem to have satisfied yourself of something.”
Sutter rose abruptly and went into the kitchenette. He returned with half a glass of the dark brown bourbon the engineer had noticed earlier.
“What is it?” the latter asked him.
“What is what?”
“What did you satisfy yourself about?”
“Only that you were telling the truth.”
“About what?”
“About when you believe someone has something to tell you, you will then believe what he tells you. I told you you would not feel the handkerchief, so you didn’t. You inhibited your corneal reflex.”
“Do you mean that if you tell me to do something I will do it?”
“Yes.”
The engineer told him briefly of his déjà vus and of his theory about bad environments. The other listened with a lively expression, nodding occasionally. His lack of surprise and secret merriment irritated the engineer. He was even more irritated when, as he finished his account, the other gave a final nod as much as to say: well, that’s an old story between us — and spoke, not of him, the engineer, but of Val. Evidently her visit had made a strong impression on him. It was like going to a doctor, hurting, and getting harangued about politics. Sutter was more of a doctor than he knew.
“Do you know why Val came up here? This concerns you because it concerns Jimmy.”
“No, I don’t,” said the engineer gloomily. Damnation, if I am such an old story to him, why doesn’t he tell me how the story comes out?
“She wanted me to promise her something,” said Sutter, keeping a bright non-medical eye on the other. “Namely, that if she were not present I would see to it that Jimmy is baptized before he dies. What do you think of that?”
“I couldn’t say.”
“It happened in this fashion,” said Sutter, more lively than ever. “My father was a Baptist and my mother an Episcopalian. My father prevailed when Jamie was born and he wasn’t baptized. You know of course that Baptist children are not baptized until they are old enough to ask for it — usually around twelve or thirteen. Later my father became an Episcopalian and so by the time Jamie came of age there was no one to put the question to him — or he didn’t want it. To be honest, I think everybody was embarrassed. It is an embarrassing subject nowadays, even slightly ludicrous. Anyhow Jamie’s baptism got lost in the shuffle. You might say he is a casualty of my father’s ascent in status.”
“Is that right,” said the engineer, drumming his fingers on his knees. He was scandalized by Sutter’s perky, almost gossipy interest in such matters. It reminded him of something his father said on one of his nocturnal strolls. “Son,” he said through the thick autumnal web of Brahms and the heavy ham-rich smell of the cottonseed-oil mill. “Don’t ever be frightened by priests.” “No sir,” said the startled youth, shocked that his father might suppose that he could be frightened by priests.
“Well,” he said at last and arose to leave. Though he could not think what he wanted to ask, he was afraid now of overstaying his welcome. But when he reached the door it came to him. “Wait,” he said, as though it was Sutter and not he who might leave. “I know what I want to ask.”
“All right.” Sutter drained off the whiskey and looked out the window.
The engineer closed the door and, crossing the room, stood behind Sutter. “I want to know whether a nervous condition could be caused by not having sexual intercourse.”
“I see,” said the other and did not laugh as the engineer feared he might “What did your analyst say?” he asked, without turning around.
“I didn’t ask him. But he wrote in his book that one’s needs arise from a hunger for stroking and that the supreme experience is sexual intimacy.”