“Her fantasy of going back to childhood (fascinating; adult employs infantile time-sequence, infantile magic, infantile hatreds) in order to injure her mother is a sick notion she cherishes the way a dog licks a wound. But without analogous therapy. Ventilate it. Ventilate it. Now this girl’s case is bound to be simpler. Younger if nothing else. And nice, overt symptoms. Bring her around tomorrow and we’ll begin.”
“Me?” I asked.
“Who else? Youre the only one she doesnt seem to distrust.”
It was annoying to have the girl’s puppylike devotion observed and commented on. I realized she saw me as the only connection, however tenuous, with a normal past; I had assumed she would turn naturally after a few days to the women who took such open pleasure in fussing over her affliction. However she merely suffered their attentions; no matter how I tried to avoid her she sought me out, running to me with muted cries which should have been touching but were only painful.
Mr Haggerwells’ telegram to the sheriff’s office at York had brought the reply that a deputy sheriff would visit the haven “when time permitted.” He had also telegraphed the Spanish legation who answered they knew no other Escobars than Don Jaime and his wife. The girl might be a servant or a stranger; it was no concern of His Most Catholic Majesty.
The school uniform made it unlikely she was a servant but beyond this, little was deducible. She did not respond to questions in either Spanish or English, and it was impossible to tell if she understood their meaning, for her blank expression remained unchanged. When offered pencil and paper she handled them curiously, then let them slide to the floor.
I wondered briefly if perhaps her intelligence was slightly subnormal, but this was met by a firm, even belligerent denial from Midbin, whose conclusion was confirmed, at least in my opinion, by her apparently excellent coordination, her personal neatness and fastidiousness which were far more delicate than any I’d been accustomed to.
Midbin’s method of treatment smacked of the mystical. His subjects were supposed to relax on a couch and say whatever came into their minds. At least this was the clearest part of the explanation he gave when I rebelliously escorted the girl to his “office,” a large, bare room decorated only by some old European calendars by the popular academician, Picasso. The couch was a cot which Midbin himself used more conventionally at night.
“All right,” I said; “just how are you going to manage?”
“Convince her everything’s all right and I’m not going to hurt her.”