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."

I said haltingly, "You wouldn't--"

"Kid you? Mislead you? Try it, Louis, and find out." Her face, now, was deeply serious. "The only way you'll know is to have the courage to go ahead."

Turning, she walked rapidly away from me.

"I'll see you," she said over her shoulder. "Maybe." A last cool, cheerful, self-possessed grin and she was gone; other people moved in between us, people going in to eat at the cafeteria.

I trust you, I said to myself.

After dinner that day I ran into Doctor Shedd in the hall. He did not object when I told him I'd like a moment of his time.

"What's on your mind, Rosen?"

"Doctor, when I get up to take my fugues I sort of feel like hanging back. I'm not sure I'm getting anything out of them anymore."

"How's that again?" Doctor Shedd said, frowning.

I repeated what I had said. He listened with great attention. "And I don't find my fantasy sex-partner convincing anymore," I added this time. "I know she's just a projection of my subconscious; she's not the real Pris Frauenzimmer."

Doctor Shedd said, "This is interesting."

"What does it mean, what I've said just now... does it indicate I'm getting worse or better?"

"I honestly don't know. We'll see at the next fugue session; I'll know more when I can observe your behavior during it." Nodding goodbye to me he continued on down the corridor.

At my next controlled fugue I found myself meandering through a supermarket with Pris; we were doing our weekly grocery shopping.

She was much older now, but still Pris, still the same attractive, firm, clear-eyed woman I had always loved. Our boy ran ahead of us, finding items for his weekend camping trip which he was about to enjoy with his scout troop in Charles Tilden park in the Oakland hills.

"You're certainly quiet for a change," Pris said to me.

"Thinking."

"Worrying, you mean. I know you; I can tell."

"Pris, is this real?" I said. "Is this enough, what we have here?"

"No more," she said. "I can't stand your eternal philosophizing; either accept your life or kill yourself but stop babbling about it."

"Okay," I said. "And in exchange I want you to stop giving me your constant derogatory opinions about me. I'm tired of it."

"You're just afraid of hearing them--" she began.

Before I knew what I was doing I had reached back and slapped her in the face; she tumbled and half-fell, leaped away and stood with her hand pressed to her cheek, staring at me in bewilderment and pain.

"Goddam you," she said in a broken voice. "I'll never forgive you."

"I just can't stand your derogatory opinions anymore."

She stared at me, and then spun and hurried off down the aisle of the supermarket without looking back; she grabbed up Charles and went on.

All at once I realized that Doctor Shedd stood beside me. "I think we've had enough for today, Rosen." The aisle, with its shelves of cartons and packages, wavered and faded away.

"Did I do wrong?" I had done it without thinking, without any plan in mind. Had I upset everything? "That's the first time in my life I ever hit a woman," I said to Doctor Shedd.

"Don't worry about it," he said, preoccupied with his notebook. He nodded to the nurses. "Let him up. And we'll cancel the group therapy session for today, I think; have him go back to his room where he can be by himself." To me he said suddenly, "Rosen, there's something peculiar about your behavior that I don't understand. It's not like you at all."

I said nothing; I merely hung my head.

"I'd almost say," Dr. Shedd said slowly, "that you're malingering."

"No, not at all," I protested. "I'm really sick; I would have died if I hadn't come here."

"I think I'll have you come up to my office tomorrow; I'd like to give you the Benjamin Proverb Test and the VigotskyLuria Block Test myself. It's more who gives the test than the test itself."

"I agree with that," I said, feeling apprehensive and nervous.

The next day at one in the afternoon I successfully passed both the Benjamin Proverb Test and the Vigotsky-Luria Block Test. According to the McHeston Act I was legally free; I could go home.

"I wonder if you ever should have been here at Kasanin," Dr. Shedd said. "With people waiting all over the country and the staff overworked--" He signed my release and handed it to me. "I don't know what you were trying to get out of by coming here, but you'll have to go back and face your life once more, and without pleading the pretext of a mental illness which I doubt you have or ever have had."