“You don’t have to show hostility, you know. You aren’t the only person who ever wound up like this. You can’t withdraw from everything; sooner or later you have to come to grips—”
“I am not in the least hostile,” I said, noting my even pulse, my placidity. “I am only at an end and I think, unless you feel very differently, that we should adjourn.”
His face took on the bleak, frustrated look of the juvenile it was shielding; then moderated toward a slow, confident smugness. “Well,” he said, “there’s always tomorrow, isn’t there?”
“If you wish.”
“Tomorrow will be another day.”
“It always has been.”
“You realize that this works two ways. I’ve given you a lot of extra time today. I happen to find you a uniquely fascinating individual, you understand. Uniquely fascinating.”
I gave a modest shrug. “There’s nothing particularly interesting about me. I am only D’Arcy’s ficelle as I have said time and again. Surely, D’Arcy is the one you would want to investigate.”
“But D’Arcy isn’t here, is he?”
“No,” I said, “He isn’t.”
“Not even the littlest piece of him?”
“I doubt it,” I said. “Surely no such crusader, such a pervading force as D’Arcy would be found in such an institution, let alone be confined to it for any period of time. I am highly submissive ... That’s why D’Arcy is the man you’ll want to investigate.”
“But we can’t, can we?”
“No.”
“Because he isn’t here.”
“That is perfectly correct,” I said. “He is not here.”
“Well then, where is he?”
“I don’t understand.”
“On the contrary,” he said. “I think you understand me perfectly well. If this D’Arcy is, you say, nowhere here, where might he be?”
“I can’t answer that.”
“I didn’t think you could.”
“I have no idea whatsoever where he might be. It’s not my affair, after all.”
“Why?”
“Because I was merely his biographer. I was taking down his biography for publication. When our work was complete there was no reason to continue our relationship. Despite its affectional overtones, it was purely business in origin; I can understand that now. There was no reason to presume there to be more in our relationship than any one between customer and client. I mean, serviceman and customer, of course. After that work was done he went one way and I went the other. Being here intervened.”
“Where is this book, this biography? Have you published it yet?”
“No,” I said. “I’m in the process of writing it.”
“Oh, so that’s how you spend your time here.”
“Some of it. It’s hard work, though, so I need breaks in between. Can’t anything be done about my roommates?”
“We’ll see. So you have no idea where this D’Arcy might be now.”
“None whatsoever; no more than he would know where I am. I think one of my roommates is not a patient, you know. I found out his secret the other night.”
“Ah,” he said. “What secret?”
But I saw, at last, that I had gone too far. Not immutable, not locked in the cell of self but all too frail in the presence of attention I had exceeded my limits, the limits of a reasonable, sane man. “Forget this,” I said, standing and rather grandly bringing my clothes around me so that the effect, had I been properly garbed, would have been Victorian rather than vaguely disreputable. “I’m going to go, now.”
“But don’t you want to tell me about your roommate?”
“Not today,” I said. “Not now. Some other time. I will not discuss it.”
“But this secret you said you had discovered.”
“I want to leave now,” I said, strongly. “I definitely want to leave now and if I am detained there will be a scene.”
“But what about D’Arcy? Weren’t you going to tell me something more about D’Arcy?”
“No,” I said. I went to the door and began to pound upon it with my open hands, howling at the same time for an attendant. Hastily he came to my side and with the use of a key opened it and allowed me, somewhat reluctantly, to move hastily into the corridor. His face held a wistful, pathetic glare and I could not resist laughing.
“Are you laughing for D’Arcy, now?” he asked.
Not wishing to hurt his feelings I said, “That’s exactly right. I am laughing for D’Arcy.”
