I walked to the registration table. It was covered with ash trays, dirty coffee cups, and a handful of unclaimed name tags.
“Yes,” I said to the woman.
Her breath across the table was peppermint Life Savers.
“Registration, doctor,” she said. “You are a bit late.”
“Ah, yes,” I smiled at her, glancing back at the elevator door. I picked up a name tag and the trio sighed in unison, as if an enormous burden had been taken from their backs.
“I’ll just go tell Dr. Agabiti that you’ve arrived.” She hurried off in the crowd of coffee drinkers to find Dr. Agabiti, who would, on sight, expose me. I looked at my name tag. It read, “Dr. Charles Derry, Capetown, South Africa.”
The peppermint lady bustled through the crowd with bobbing breasts and a tall, white-haired man held firmly against one of them. She nodded at me, and the tall man squinted through round, hornrimmed glasses before he advanced on me with an extended right hand.
“Dr. Derry?” he asked, a bit surprised. I knew I didn’t fit anyone’s image of a doctor, but if I pulled it off, I might be able to get into one of the meeting rooms and hide till Nitti’s crew had given up the search.
“Yes,” I said, unsure of what a South African dialect should be. I started with a Germanic one and gave up quickly.
“I’m Tom Agabiti,” he said holding my hand firmly in strong, thin, and very boney fingers. “We’ve been looking forward to your coming and had decided you weren’t going to make it. The weather and everything. But you’re here.”
“I’m here,” I agreed, looking around the lobby at the wallpaper and dark fixtures with an approving air. I clasped my hands behind my back and waited for him to leave me alone. He didn’t, just stared at me with a silly grin.
“We’ve read your book with great interest,” he said. “And we’re all looking forward to hearing your thoughts. I don’t mind telling you we didn’t think we’d be able to get you away from your work for this conference. First time in the states, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” I said, continuing to look at the walls.
“Well,” he sighed. “You made it, and right on time, too. Shall we go?”
“Of course,” I said, trying to imitate the soft confidence of a psychiatrist I had once met.
Agabiti moved through the people in the lobby. There were a few women in suits, but it was mostly a male gathering. The crowd began to thin as we moved down the hall. People were going into little meeting rooms.
We went into a room through dark oak double doors. About fifty men and a couple of women were seated on folding chairs facing a table with a pitcher of water and two glasses. Many of them turned when Agabiti and I entered, and I looked for a seat. But Agabiti wasn’t having any.
“No,” he whispered. “You are on now.”
He lead me to the little table, pointed to one of the two chairs, and put his hands together. It suddenly dawned on me, like the sun over Miami or the snow over Chicago, that I was to be the speaker, or rather the absent Dr. Derry was.
I decided to get the hell out of there, but my eye hit the door. Chaney put his head in and looked over the people seated. He didn’t expect me to be at the head table. I sat down quickly and put my head down in my hands as if I had a headache or was in the process of deep preparatory thought. Through my fingers, I saw Chaney go over the crowd and move back out of the room. He might come back. He might even ask the Andrew Sisters at the desk if they had seen someone with my description, a dark little guy about forty with a pushed-in nose. They’d sing out that I was Dr. Derry.
My best bet was to listen to what Agabiti was saying, but my mind kept exploring the thin blue stripes against the white of the wallpaper. Between the stripes, a recurrent pattern of designs that looked like old lanterns rose on top of each other. I was imprisoned by wallpaper and fifty faces looking at me and waiting.
“Dr. Derry,” said Agabiti, “has not only studied with both Doctors Freud and Jung, but has been praised by both for his attempts to reconcile basic differences. As you know, his book Super-Ego and Ego vs. Self and Ego: A False Battle is a pioneer work-a controversial work, but a work that promises to mend a schism, close a chasm.” He showed his hands with outstretched fingers coming together slowly and firmly. “I could continue, but there would be little point when we have Dr. Derry here to speak for himself. He will speak briefly and then respond to questions. Dr. Derry.”
They applauded and I smiled. The applause stopped and I poured myself a drink of water. There was something in the water. I showed Agabiti. He handed me the other glass. I inspected it to be sure it hadn’t been used. Someone coughed. I poured water slowly and drank. Someone shifted and a chair creaked. I looked at my watch, the door, and the wallpaper, and stood up.
“My notes were lost on the plane from London,” I said with a sad smile, indicating I would go on in spite of the burden, “so my comments will be brief. Super-Ego, Self and Ego,” I said, looking at the faces in front of me and trying to do Paul Muni. “I think it is a false battle because we have not yet clearly defined what we mean by those terms.”
There were a few nods of agreement, so I went on.
“I’ve studied with both Freud and Jung,” I said humbly, wondering who the hell Jung might be, “and I tell you frankly I’m not sure that either of them has defined the terms to the point where it is reasonable to say a real battle exists.”
More nods of approval, but even more nods of disagreement.
“I don’t mean there isn’t a real point of controversy,” I said quickly, looking directly at one of the people who hadn’t liked what I had said. “There’s a difference between controversy and battle. What I am calling for and what I call for in my book is a concentration of definitions. Until we define, we are doing ourselves, our patients and patients for a hundred years to come a disservice.”
Some wild applause.
“We are physicians first,” I said holding up a finger, “and psychiatrists second.”
They were talking among themselves, approving, nodding, arguing as I paused to take a long drink. Dr. Agabiti was grinning up at me with his arms crossed. I held up my hands.
“I’ve had a long, difficult trip,” I said. “Time zones and all that. And I just arrived. So, I’ll move right to the questions.”
One of the two women in the room stood up, pursed her lips and said,
“I don’t quarrel with your desire for definition, Dr. Derry, but I fail to see how definitional problems are involved in the issue of Jung’s acceptance of a collective unconscious and Freud’s rejection of it.”
I nodded sagely, looked at Dr. Agabiti as if we both knew the answer and spoke.
“You are absolutely right,” I said. “It is a basic problem. It is something that cannot be reconciled and therefore it is something we accept and build on.”
I punched my fist into my hand for emphasis, expecting someone to rise from the audience and throw a chair at me. No one did.
The next question came from a young man with a Boston accent. His hair was brown and wavy. In five years he’d be fat. I could see he didn’t like Derry.
“Nothing you have said so far, Dr. Derry, has any substance,” he said. “You’ve been evasive. What if I were to say that the case history in your book of Roy Wood’s breakdown revealed clearly that your suggested approach is of no value in affecting a cure?”
“I would simply disagree,” I said.
“And what if I were to say that your refusal to mention the drug used in that case indicates an unethical refusal to share medical knowledge that could help patients? Either your approach is without merit and insufficiently tested, or you should mention now before this body the specific drug you used.”
The assembly thought this was a reasonable request. They had me. I could make up a drug, but they’d know it was a fake, or I could think up some real drug I had seen on Shelly Minck’s shelf back in the dental office. If they believed me, some of the people in the room might try it, and I had no idea what Shelly’s drugs might do to some poor nut.