"Part of the therapy?"
"That's right. _Part._" She giggled. "Don't you think you'd like to
come out of the water now and see what the rest of it might be?"
Harry thought so.
* * * * *
With mounting enthusiasm, he eagerly embraced his treatment and
entered into a state of active cooperation.
It was some time before he ventured to comment on the situation.
"Manschoff is a damned good diagnostician," he murmured. Then he sat
up. "Are you a patient here?"
She shook her head. "Don't ask questions, Harry. Can't you be
satisfied with things as they are?"
"You're just what the doctor ordered, all right." He gazed down at
her. "But don't you even have a name?"
"You can call me Sue."
"Thank you."
He bent to kiss her but she avoided him and rose to her feet. "Got to
go now."
"So soon?"
She nodded and moved towards the bushes above the bank.
"But when will I see you again?"
"Coming swimming tomorrow?"
"Yes."
"Maybe I can get away for more occupational therapy then."
She stooped behind the bushes, and Harry saw a flash of white.
"You _are_ a nurse, aren't you," he muttered. "On the staff, I
suppose. I should have known."
"All right, so I am. What's that got to do with it?"
"And I suppose you were telling the truth when you said Manschoff sent
you here. This _is_ just part of my therapy, isn't it?"
She nodded briefly as she slipped into her uniform. "Does that bother
you, Harry?"
He bit his lip. When he spoke, his voice was low. "Yes, damn it, it
does. I mean, I got the idea--at least, I was hoping--that this wasn't
just a matter of carrying out an assignment on your part."
She looked up at him gravely. "Who said anything about an assignment,
darling?" she murmured. "I volunteered."
And then she was gone.
Then she was gone, and then she came back that night in Harry's
dreams, and then she was at the river the next day and it was better
than the dreams, better than the day before.
Sue told him she had been watching him for weeks now. And she had gone
to Manschoff and suggested it, and she was very glad. And they had to
meet here, out in the open, so as not to complicate the situation or
disturb any of the other patients.
So Harry naturally asked her about the other patients, and the whole
general setup, and she said Dr. Manschoff would answer all those
questions in due time. But right now, with only an hour or so to
spare, was he going to spend it all asking for information? Matters
were accordingly adjusted to their mutual satisfaction, and it was on
that basis that they continued their almost daily meetings for some
time.
The next few months were perhaps the happiest Harry had ever known.
The whole interval took on a dreamlike quality--idealized,
romanticized, yet basically sensual. There is probably such a dream
buried deep within the psyche of every man, Harry reflected, but to
few is it ever given to realize its reality. His early questioning
attitude gave way to a mood of mere acceptance and enjoyment. This was
the primitive drama, the very essence of the male-female relationship;
Adam and Eve in the Garden. Why waste time seeking the Tree of
Knowledge?
And it wasn't until summer passed that Harry even thought about the
Serpent.
One afternoon, as he sat waiting for Sue on the river bank, he heard a
sudden movement in the brush behind him.
"Darling?" he called, eagerly.
"Please, you don't know me _that_ well." The deep masculine voice
carried overtones of amusement.
Flushing, Harry turned to confront the intruder. He was a short,
stocky, middle-aged man whose bristling gray crewcut almost matched
the neutral shades of his gray orderly's uniform.
"Expecting someone else, were you?" the man muttered. "Well, I'll get
out of your way."
"That's not necessary. I was really just daydreaming, I guess. I don't
know what made me think--" Harry felt his flush deepen, and he lowered
his eyes and his voice as he tried to improvise some excuse.
"You're a lousy liar," the man said, stepping forward and seating
himself on the bank next to Harry. "But it doesn't really matter. I
don't think your girl friend is going to show up today, anyway."
"What do you mean? What do you know about--"
"I mean just what I said," the man told him. "And I know everything I
need to know, about you and about her and about the situation in
general. That's why I'm here, Collins."
He paused, watching the play of emotions in Harry's eyes.
"I know what you're thinking right now," the gray-haired man
continued. "At first you wondered how I knew your name. Then you
realized that if I was on the staff in the wards I'd naturally be able
to identify the patients. Now it occurs to you that you've never seen
me in the wards, so you're speculating as to whether or not I'm
working out of the administration offices with that psychiatric no
good Manschoff. But if I were, I wouldn't be calling him names, would
I? Which means you're really getting confused, aren't you, Collins?
Good!"
* * * * *
The man chuckled, but there was neither mockery, malice, nor genuine
mirth in the sound. And his eyes were sober, intent.
"Who are you?" Harry asked. "What are you doing here?"
"The name is Ritchie, Arnold Ritchie. At least, that's the name they
know me by around here, and you can call me that. As to what I'm
doing, it's a long story. Let's just say that right now I'm here to
give you a little advanced therapy."
"Then Manschoff did send you?"
The chuckle came again, and Ritchie shook his head. "He did not. And
if he even suspected I was here, there'd be hell to pay."
"Then what do you want with me?"
"It isn't a question of what I want. It's a question of what _you
need_. Which is, like I said, advanced therapy. The sort that dear old
kindly permissive Father-Image Manschoff doesn't intend you to get."