"Well? Wasn't that just what you wanted?" Llona asked accusingly.
"Ah, feminine intuition," Karp answered witheringly. "Brilliant deduction! Well, yes, I suppose I did. But if I'd had any idea what was coming, I would gladly have settled for Marsha being a crabgrass thespian for life. What followed, you see, was far worse."
"What was that?" Sammy asked.
"She decided that it was the suburban environment itself that was frustrating the fulfillment of her potential. Marsha reached the conclusion that the only way she'd be able to develop would be by getting away from the house and going to work. I protested. We didn't need the money, I said. Her presence was necessary to the children's welfare, I pointed out. But in the end I lost. She hit me over the head with the idea that I was reacting the way I was because my masculinity was threatened by the thought of her competing with me by going out into the business world. The argument confused me. I just wasn't sure myself whether it was true or not. So I gave in."
"Which was a tacit admission that it was true," Llona pointed out.
"Maybe. I don't know. I just don't know. All I know is that it became o.bvious very quickly that the family budget just couldn't afford for Marsha to work."
"I don't understand that." Llona was puzzled. "If she worked, then she certainly must have earned money, and that should have been a boon to your budget."
"Typical feminine logic! You sound just like Marsha. Some boon! Let me just give you the cold, hard figures. The job Marsha landed paid her ninety a week. Which, I must admit, was about thirty more than I thought anybody would pay her. Anyway, to make sure the kids would be looked after, we had to replace the sleep-in maid with a housekeeper at almost double the salary. That cost an extra thirty-five a week. Then there was Marsha's commutation and subway fare. That ran twenty dollars and some cents a week. Lunches out with a daily cocktail or two to relax her and maybe one more on the bar car coming home accounted for another thirty. Plus, because of the bracket I'm in, all she really realized on her ninety bucks was sixty-odd. So, as you can see, already I was behind the eight-ball. But the real bill-buster was Marsha's insistence that, if she was going to be a career girl, she had to dress the part. She needed travelling suits and office frocks and all the accessories that go with them. By the time I averaged all this out over the course of a year, it was costing me ninety a week over and above what she was earning. All of which I might have stood still for if Marsha had been satisfied. But she wasn't. The job bored her. Her stultified creativity was still stultified, her unrealized potential still unrealized. So, on top of everything else, I also had to foot the bill for her to see a shrink twice a week."
"Did he help her?" Llona asked sympathetically.
"Well, you might say he clarified her problem. Narrowed it down, you might say. Narrowed it down to me. It seems all Marsha's frustrations were due to my insensitiv-ity and lack of willingness to let her fulfill her potential. My resistance to her ambitions was a sickness, according to this couch-cutie. Ergo! The only way to cure her symptoms was to treat my mental ailment. Lots of brouhaha, but I finally agreed. And now I was paying double to this psyche-smoother. Still, truth is I needed it. I was starting to crack under the pressure of Marsha's demands. The shrink isolated this symptom, and I admitted it to him. The next thing I knew, he and Marsha were having conferences to decide what to do about me. And what they finally decided was that I needed a nice, long rest in the nut-hatch. And that's how come I'm here."
"But why did you go along with it?" Sammy wondered.
"Futility. Just plain futility. The more Marsha realized her potential, the more my own potential shrank. I began to doubt my own sense of reality. They gave me a whole new vocabulary with Freudian terms replacing the dollars-and-cents common-sense language I'd always accepted. I began to seem a monster in my own eyes. Every time I looked at Marsha, I saw the victim of my sadistic symptomology. It was too much for me. I yearned for some nice, quiet place to have a nice, uncomplicated nervous breakdown. And here I am. The living result of abject defeat by the new feminine mystique."
"Well that's all very sad," Sammy said. "And very interesting, too. But I'm afraid we have to be going now."
"Too bad. I was enjoying this little chat. But remember what I said. Beware the potential of that woman!" Karp pointed at Llona. "In the end it will destroy you as I've been destroyed. Beware!"
"I'll beware," Sammy promised as he led Llona out of the room.
Hannah was standing by the entrance to the stairwell. "I was beginning to give up on finding you again," she greeted them. "I got rid of George twenty minutes ago. What kept you so long?"
"Never mind that," Sammy answered. "Is the coast clear now? Can we get in to see Ogilvie?"
"I think so. We'll just have to play it by ear." Hannah let the way up the stairs.
At the top she motioned to them to wait while she stuck her head out into the hallway and looked both ways. Then she beckoned them to follow her to the end of the passageway. There was a barred gate there to set off the security ward from the rest of the sanitarium. Hannah produced a key, unlocked it, ushered Sammy and Llona through, and then locked it behind them. Doors lined the hallway they were in now. And each of the doors had a padlocked bar across it.
Halfway down the hallway, Hannah paused in front of one of the doors. "This is Ogilvie's room," she told the other two. "I'm going to let you in there, but I won't go in with you. I'll go find the doctor on duty and talk to him or stall some other way to make sure he doesn't interrupt you. Figure you've got ten minutes. Then come out and wait for me inside that linen closet over there." She pointed. "I'll fetch you when it's safe."
"I think I should wait there now," Sammy said tactfully. "I think Mrs. Rutherford would prefer to see Mr. Ogilvie alone."
"Suit yourself." Hannah watched as Sammy walked to the linen closet, entered, and closed the door behind him. Then she unlocked the door for Llona and removed the bar. "Go on in," she told the anxious girl.
Llona turned the knob, and the door slid open. The room beyond was dark except for a small night light. Llona entered, her heart pounding. Would she find her Archer within? Would this at last be the end of her quest? Would the man of her dreams be waiting there?
The answers were within her grasp. Alas! That grasp turned out to be more slippery than Llona could have guessed!
Chapter Seven
Another brainwashing. They were coming to interrogate him again. 'Interrogate'! Ha! Polite Commie word for torture! Sliver of light as the door to the torture cell eased open. Footsteps. Somebody new. Senses heightened, hearing acute, it was easy for Ogilvie to make the distinction. New footsteps. A woman. Well, they'd tried that before. Pleasure-punishment principle. She'd wheedle like the other Red broads had. And when that didn't work, they'd send in some burly Viet King-Cong to put the screws to him. But maybe this slant-eyed Red chick would slip. Maybe he'd be able to escape. Yes, he had to be very cunning and watch for the slightest opportunity. Escape! That's what he had to do! Escape!
Llona stood over the bed now and looked down at the white mound there. It was indistinct in the faint rays from the night-lamp. Shapeless, squeezed-together flesh tightly encased in a securely laced strait) acket. The confined body was lying face down.