Just as she entered the doorway she turned for an instant. I saw the pert, bobbed nose, the dispassionate, appraising gray eyes... it was Pris. "Pris!" I yelled, waving my arms.
She saw me. She peered, frowning; her lips tightened. Then, very slightly, she smiled.
Was it a phantom? The girl--Pris Frauenzimmer--had now gone on into the room, had disappeared from sight. You are back here at Kasanin Clinic, I said to myself. I knew it would happen sooner or later. And this is not a fantasy, not a fugue, controlled or otherwise; I've found you in actuality, in the real world, the outside world that is not a product of regressive libido or drugs. I have not seen you since that night at the club in Seattle when you hit the Johnny Booth simulacrum over the head with your shoe; how long ago that was! How much, how awfully much, I have seen and done since then--done in a vacuum, done without you, without the authentic, actual you. Satisfied with a mere phantom instead of the real thing... . Pris, I said to myself. Thank god; I have found you; I knew I would, someday.
I did not go to my group therapy; instead I remained there in the hall, waiting and watching.
At last, hours later, she reemerged. She came across the open patio directly toward me, her face clear and calm, a slight glow kindled in her eyes, more of wry amusement than anything else.
"Hi," I said.
"So they netted you, Louis Rosen," she said. "You finally went schizophrenic, too. I'm not surprised."
I said, "Pris, I've been here months."
"Well, are you getting healed?"
"Yes," I said, "I think so. I'm having controlled fugue therapy every day; I always go to you, Pris, every time. We're married and we have a child named Charles. I think we're living in Oakland, California."
"Oakland," she said, wrinkling her nose. "Parts of Oakland are nice; parts are dreadful." She started away from me up the hall. "It was nice seeing you, Louis. Maybe I'll run into you again, here."
"Pris!" I called in grief. "Come back!"
But she continued on and was lost beyond the closing doors at the end of the hail.
The next time in my controlled fugue when I saw her she had definitely aged; her figure was more matronly and she had deep, permanent shadows under her eyes. We stood together in the kitchen doing the dinner dishes; Pris washed while I dried. Under the glare of the overhead light her skin looked dry, with fine, tiny wrinkles radiating through it. She had on no make-up. Her hair, in particular, had changed; it was dry, too, like her skin, and no longer black. It was a reddish brown, and very nice; I touched it and found it stiff yet clean and pleasant to the touch.
"Pris," I said, "I saw you yesterday in the hall. Here, where I am, at Kasanin."
"Good for you," she said briefly.
"Was it real? More real than this?" In the living room I saw Charles seated before the three-D color TV set, his eyes fixed raptly on the image. "Do you remember that meeting after so long? Was it as real to you as it was to me? Is this now real to you? Please tell me; I don't understand anymore."
"Louis," she said, as she scrubbed a frying pan, "can't you take life as it comes? Do you have to be a philosopher? You act like a college sophomore; you make me wonder if you're going to grow up."
"I just don't know which way to go anymore," I said, feeling desolate but automatically continuing in my task of dish-drying.
"Take me where you find me," Pris said. "As you find me. Be content with that, don't ask questions."
"Yes," I agreed, "I'll do that; I'll try to do it, anyhow."
When I came out of my fugue, Doctor Shedd once more was present. "You're mistaken, Rosen; you couldn't have run into Miss Frauenzimmer here at Kasanin. I checked the records carefully and found no one by that name. I'm afraid that so-called meeting with her in the hall was an involuntary lapse into psychosis; we must not be getting as complete a catharsis of your libido cravings as we thought. Perhaps we should increase the number of minutes of controlled regression per day."
I nodded mutely. But I did not believe him; I knew that it had really been Pris there in the hall; it was not a schizophrenic fantasy.
The following week I saw her again at Kasanin. This time I looked down and saw her through the window of the solarium; she was outdoors playing volleyball with a team of girls, all of them wearing light blue gym shorts and blouses.
She did not see me; she was intent on the game. For a long time I stood there, drinking in the sight of her, knowing it was real... and then the ball bounced from the court toward the building and Pris came scampering after it. As she bent to snatch it up I saw her name, stitched in colored block letters on her gym blouse.
ROCK, PRIS
That explained it. She was entered in Kasanin Clinic under her father's name, not her own. Therefore Doctor Shedd hadn't found her listed in the files; he had looked under Frauenzimmer, which was the way I always thought of her, no matter what she called herself.
I won't tell him, I said to myself; I'll keep myself from mentioning it during my controlled fugues. That way he'll never know, and maybe, sometime, I'll get to talk to her again.
And then I thought, _Maybe this is all deliberate on Shedd's part_; maybe it's a technique for drawing me out of my fugues and back into the actual world. Because these tiny glimpses of the real Pris have become more valuable to me than all the fugues put together. _This is their therapy, and it is working_.
I did not know whether to feel good or bad.
It was after my two hundred and twentieth controlled fugue therapy session that I got to talk to Pris once more. She was strolling out of the clinic's cafeteria; I was entering. I saw her before she saw me; she was absorbed in conversation with another young woman, a buddy.
"Pris," I said, stopping her. "For god's sake, let me see you for a few minutes. They don't care; I know this is part of their therapy. Please."
The other girl moved off considerately and Pris and I were alone.
"You're looking older, Louis," Pris said, after a pause.
"You look swell, as always." I longed to put my arms around her; I yearned to hug her to me. But instead I stood a few inches from her doing nothing.
"You'll be glad to know they're going to let me sign out of here again, one of these days," Pris said matter-of-factly. "And get out-patient therapy like I did before. I'm making terrific progress according to Doctor Ditchley, who's the top psychiatrist here. I see him almost every day. I looked you up in the files; you're seeing Shedd. He's not much... he's an old fool, as far as I'm concerned."
"Pris," I said, "maybe we could leave here together. What would you say to that? I'm making progress, too."
"Why should we leave together?"
"I love you," I said, "and I know you love me."
She did not retort; instead she merely nodded.
"Could it be done?" I asked. "You know so much more about this place than I do; you've practically lived your life here."
"Some life."
"Could you work it out?"
"Work it out yourself; you're the man."
"If I do," I said, "will you marry me?"
She groaned. "Sure, Louis. Anything you want. Marriage, living in sin, incidental screwing--you name it."
"Marriage," I said.
"And kids? Like in your fantasy? A child named Charles?" Her lips twisted with amusement.
"Yes."
"Work it out, then," Pris said. "Talk to Shovel-head Shedd, the clinic idiot. He can release you; he has the authority. I'll give you a hint. When you go up for your next fugue, hang back. Tell them you're not sure you're getting anything out of it anymore. And then when you're in it, tell your fantasy sex-partner there, the Pris Frauenzimmer that you've cooked up in that warped, hot little brain of yours, that you don't find her convincing anymore." She grinned in her old familiar way. "See where that gets you. Maybe it'll get you out of here, maybe it won't--maybe it'll only get you in deeper."