“I’m glad you like it. I don’t like any sugar in mine either. Just real hot and strong. No bark shavings. What’s his name?”
“Gruska—no, no, that is, no, forget it, all right?”
“Sure, no problem. I’ve got to go now. Are we still on for tonight?”
She nodded, feeling like a fool, but he seemed not to notice that she’d spit out the name. Still, after Taylor had left, she fastened all the locks on her front door.
Taylor left the Wayfarer Insurance Company on Water Street at four o’clock, the problem diagnosed and fixed. The problem wasn’t uncommon, but it was still a pain in the butt. The mail server was incorrectly configured on the insurance company’s end. Since in this case the clients’ end was also misconfigured, all the e-mail was being sent out into the ether. He’d gotten it straightened out in record time—lucky for both him and the insurance company. Taylor had come off as a genius, which was a nice feeling. He was good, but luck was never to be discounted. It was a good thing too that over the past four years he’d developed a network of computer friends across the country, and when each discovered something not run across before, the information was duly shared.
Mr. Phiffe, vice-president of operations, at least seventy, white-haired, an aristocrat of insurance, was appalled when Taylor presented his bill.
“Five thousand dollars! But you fixed the problem in ten minutes, Jackson told me so.”
“Yes. I also told Jackson what my fixed charge would be up front, regardless of the time I spent here.”
“But he didn’t think it would take just ten minutes.”
Taylor smiled. “Mr. Phiffe, you hired me to fix your problem. You are back in business, and in record time, I might add.”
Phiffe smiled slowly. “You’re right, of course. It was just a shock. One gets what one pays for, eh? I pay for expertise and I get it. Time isn’t the issue.” He buzzed his secretary. Taylor shook hands with him and picked up his check on the way out.
Taylor’s next stop was Columbia. Dr. Gruska was a professor of psychology and he was in the Adams Building, second floor, room 223. He asked the woman in administration what Dr. Gruska’s psychological roots were, so to speak. “Give him a chandelier and he’d swing by his Oedipus complex,” she’d said, and laughed. “The thing is, though, he hasn’t got a mother. Just this old curmudgeon father who’s run his life. Funny how moms always get blamed, isn’t it?”
Taylor agreed that it was.
The day was blistering cold. It was very nearly dark now and getting colder by the minute. He really wasn’t expecting Gruska to be in his office and it was with some surprise that his knock was answered with a full-voiced call.
“Come!”
He went in, gently closed the door behind him, and surveyed the man who terrified Eden. Harmless-looking gent, tweedy, smoked a pipe, slender, long narrow face, and had a long nose that was now twitching at the sight of him, a complete stranger, fifties, rather pallid complexion, out-of-shape. Yeah, Eden could have taken him to the floor with only one arm.
“What can I do for you? It’s late. I was just getting ready to leave.”
“Just a minute of your time, Dr. Gruska.” Taylor stuck out his gloved hand. “My name’s Oliver Winston, Dr. Winston, psychoanalyst. I’ve heard a lot about you and wanted to meet you. I’m in town visiting friends and family. A Dr. Graham in my hometown of Columbus said to look you up if I had a chance. He said you were the tops.”
Dr. Gruska glowed. Taylor was motioned quickly to a chair facing the good doctor.
“Ah, Dr. Graham. Er, which Dr. Graham?”
“Joseph Graham of Columbus.”
“Ah, yes, Joe. Nice, solid fellow. Good background. How is he?”
“The arthritis is getting worse, but otherwise he’s fine. As I said, he speaks of you with high praise.”
“I assume that you are embroiled in our very survival, Dr. Winston?”
Taylor had no idea what he was talking about, but he knew enough from Gruska’s body language and voice tone to nod with great sincerity. “Yes, indeed. I don’t know what to do about it.”
Taylor watched, fascinated, the myriad shifting expressions on Gruska’s face. Rage, surprise, pleasure, more rage, more pleasure, conspiracy. He sat forward, his hands clasped in front of him. His pipe sent up lazy smoke into the air, its scent pleasant, like a pine forest.
Gruska’s voice was warm, low, intense. “Ah, my dear fellow, then you’re suffering as I am suffering, as all of us are suffering. The idea of boiling everything down to chemicals! It’s preposterous! Certainly those ridiculous MD’s who pretend to understand the human mind can, in a very few cases, administer their drugs and make the patient function.”
Taylor made an assenting noise and fanned his hands in despair.
“No doubt your friend sent you to see me because he knew I’d understand and sympathize. I will remain a psychoanalyst despite all the opposition, all the absurdities that abound and proliferate now, for what we have is the truth, and this truth explains what makes all of humanity behave in the ways we behave.”
Again Taylor looked struck by Gruska’s fluency, his tone and manner. He said slowly, feeling his way, “I have found that women in particular are so well-explained by Freud.”
“Oh, my, yes, not to say that any of us worship like disciples at any one man’s feet, but Freud pointed out the basic truths for us to build upon, which we have done superbly. And women, they are the most easily understood, the more easily explained, for the way they think leads them to act in very bizarre ways, and all of it is tied to overpowering and dictated subconscious intuition, and then cognition. Children know and adults suppress, particularly women. It’s true, ah yes.”
It sounded like hash to Taylor, but he nodded, saying, “I have this one patient, a rather young woman, who’s terrified of men. She will not confide in me though I’ve tried and tried to gain her trust. I have tried to take her back to those formative years, but she resists, she refuses to allow hypnotism, which would unblock her. I ask, Dr. Gruska, what do you think I should do?”
Dr. Gruska paused, pondered, ran his long fingers up and down his pipe stem. He looked uncertain. He looked pleased to be asked.
Taylor quickly rose, fanning his hands in front of him in apology. “Oh, goodness. It’s dark outside and I’ve kept you far too long. Forgive me, Dr. Gruska, but listening to you, hearing the depth of your feelings and knowledge, well—”
“Sit down, Dr. Winston, sit down! You can’t go yet.”
Taylor sat, relieved.
“This young woman, is she beautiful?”
“Very.”
“Does she seem outwardly well-adjusted?”
“Yes, until a man gets close to her.”
“Is she one of those bitch professional women or a gentle, traditional, unencumbered woman?”
“Professional, unmarried, but not a bitch.”
“Ah, yes, classic, for the most part, certainly close enough to the paradigm. I would probe gently, Doctor, ask her about her teenage years—not her childhood, avoid that for the time being. Ask her about the sexual urges she suppressed, the guilt she felt when she experienced these urges. Get her to admit to masturbation, have her relive the feelings she experienced when she masturbated. Find out how she masturbated, that’s very important—manual stimulation or using devices, such as dildos. It is possible that she seduced a relative—even a father—when she was eighteen or so, and now has closed it away deep in her mind. She has rewritten the event, so to speak, to ease her guilt, to justify what she did then and to justify why she is as she is now.”
“My God,” Taylor said, and meant it. “Your advice is much more than I had ever expected, Dr. Gruska. Have you had, perhaps, a similar patient?”