You Don't Make Wine Like the Greeks Did by David E. Fisher (best e books to read TXT) 📖

all that it is not plausible, that it is not even possible, that it is plainly and simply a lie which he himself has made up to hide something that he is afraid of. Once we can get him to see this, or at least to wonder about it, once we can break the granite assurance of his that he comes from another time, then perhaps we can probe into his festering secret. But we can't do that, I'm afraid, until he begins to admit, at least to himself, that he is sick and that he needs help. In this case it shouldn't be too hard."

"My, you are brilliant. I wonder how you do it. Oh, you shouldn't gulp a martini so quickly. Here, let me pour you some more, but sip it this time. I know, I can't stand the taste either, but it's really the only way."

"Mrs. Fairfield—"

"Mimi," she insisted.

"Mimi," he said, then hesitated.

"Mimi," she prompted.

"I forgot what I was going to say," he admitted. "Cheers."

"Don't gulp," she said. "Here, I'll pour you another one, but sip it, now promise."

"God, it does taste awful, doesn't it?" he said, grimacing. "I don't think I ever tasted one before. Do you think limes might help?"

"We have some in the kitchen, but it doesn't sound like a good idea to me. Why don't we just throw the mess away and whip up something else? I just wanted you to think I was chic this season to serve martinis."

"What season? Football?"

"Hunting," she said, and the eyes and lips smiled together again.

"Mimi," Victor said a bit pompously, standing up and leaning over her, "I hope you are not flirting with me. You are, remember, a married woman and are, in fact, married to a patient of mine."

"First of all," she said, "you're being pompous. Second of all, he's not your patient, he says I'm your patient. Third of all, I'm not married to him. And fourth, of all ... is it fourth or fifth ... well anyway, fourth or fifth of all, let's try the limes. We've nothing to lose, it couldn't taste worse."

"First of all," he said, following her to the kitchen, "I am never pompous. Second of all, he is my patient because he came to my office obviously seeking psychiatric help but too sick to ask for it. I feel it only my duty to help him and besides, his case is fascinating."

"And his wife isn't, I suppose," she said over her shoulder.

"Third of all," he said, "and I ignore the interruption, what the hell do you mean you're not married to him? And fourth of all, it is fourth, not fifth, I think the limes will help immeasurably."

"Well, I think it all comes back to your original question. You know, about telling you all about him, and how it started, and all that. You see, I can't, because I don't remember. Here, you cut the limes while I look for the squeezer."

While Dr. Quink was cutting the limes he didn't exactly talk to himself, but thoughts did present themselves to his mind with very nearly verbal exactitude. The immediate progression towards a solution of this case did not seem to be so clearly cut out as he had assumed it would be. There were, it now became more and more obvious, complications he had not foreseen. Mrs. Fairfield was not exactly acting toward him as a psychiatrist normally expects the wife of a patient to, so that, although he found her pleasant and indeed invigorating, if that is the word and he was not sure that it was but the only alternative that came to his mind, stimulating, had connotations that he was not yet ready to accept, although he did find her pleasant and et cetera yet he found her behavior also disturbing, in the clinical sense this time, and the revelation as to her distinctly limited memory should be described not as a disturbance but as a downright earthquake, to ring in a seismological metaphor that occurred to him as he nicked his finger during the slicing of the fourth lime.

"Oh, did you cut yourself?" she said, straightening up from the lower shelves of a pine cupboard. "I'm so sorry, but never mind. Here's the squeezer."

The apparent non sequitur, coming in the midst of his thoughts that were already confused, bewildered him for the moment, but he felt it would be more fruitful to get back to the problem at hand and, blotting his seeping blood with a handkerchief, he inquired after her reticent memory.

"Oh, let's mix in the lime juice first. Aren't you at all anxious to see how it will taste? Honestly, men have no curiosity."

Well, as it turned out, it tasted pretty good. At any rate, that was the consensus of opinion, alcoholic as it might have been, as they returned with the pitcher of green martinis to the living room. "The furthest back that I can remember," Mimi said after they had settled themselves on the divan, "the absolutely first thing I can remember is relieving my bladder, if that makes any sense to you."

"As a matter of fact," Victor said, "it makes extremely good sense indeed. If you will pardon me and kindly direct me towards the wash room?"

When he returned after an absence of a few minutes, during which time the muted sound of snoring emanated from the master bedroom into the silence left by his absence, he attempted once again to take up the thread of conversation that had been so abruptly snapped. "You were telling me, I believe, about the first thing you can remember."

"Yes," she said. "Have another martini. Here, I'll pour. I was on a train, you see, at this moment when my memory begins. It was, by the way, eight months ago. As I emerged from the ladies' room I could not remember from which direction I had come. That is, I didn't know in which direction my seat was, if you follow me."

Victor nodded more vigorously than he had intended, and she went on. "I didn't know whether to turn to right or left. That's a frightening feeling to have in a train, not knowing where your seat is, when you're all closed in anyhow and you can feel the floor beneath your feet and the walls and ceiling all rushing somewhere so terribly fast and carrying you with it and all. I wasn't really frightened, you understand, but anyway, as I say, it's a terrible feeling. So I leaned back against the wall and tried to collect my wits. But I couldn't think of anything. That really frightened me. So I said to myself, now just relax and think back to where you're going and when you got on the train and who you're with and everything like that and just relax and you'll remember where your seat is in half a moment. But I didn't. Remember, I mean. And suddenly I realized that I didn't remember where I was going or who I was with or when I had got on the train or anything, anything at all. I simply couldn't remember anything previous to a moment ago. I was scared silly by this time, and that damned train kept on rumbling and shaking and rushing on into I didn't know what. So I said to myself, now just relax and keep calm. This is all very silly. Now, then, I said after taking two deep breaths and exhaling slowly, my name is ... my name is ... And by God, I didn't know my own name! It was such a queer feeling I got goose pimples all over, just like that. I mean, I felt as if I knew my name, it was on the tip of my tongue, but I just couldn't say it, I just couldn't remember my own name.

"Then I began to run. I didn't know where I was going but I was scared to hell and I just ran. I ran through five or six cars and the panic kept getting worse, and then I turned around and began running back the way I had come, just running as fast as I could and you know what that's like on a train, I kept falling against people and pushing them off and running and suddenly this man grabbed me and said, 'Mimi, Mimi,' he kept saying that and I guess some more and finally he calmed me down and, of course, it was Donald. He told me I was all right and to be quiet and what the hell was the matter with me anyhow. Well, to make a long story short, we got off the train here and stayed in a hotel for a while and then Donald bought this place and here we are. But I don't know if I'm really his wife or not. Did he mention sex to you?"

Victor nodded and she said, "So you know I'm not his wife that way, at least. And I have only his word that we were ever married."

"You don't have a marriage certificate, or pictures?"

"We don't have anything that would prove our existence prior to that date we were on the train. Naturally, he'd have left all that behind when we left wherever we were coming from. Any documents at all would ruin his story. For all I know he just picked me up at the train station."

"And you just picked up life here?" Victor asked. "As simple as that!"

"What else could I do? I was terribly frightened, and Donald was so calm and assuring. I didn't really think I had lost my memory, you know. I mean, I couldn't believe it. I didn't seem bewildered or anything, I just could not remember anything. Am I making sense? Anyway, I felt it would all come back to me any moment, and I went on living from one moment to another, and here I am and I still can't remember anything."

"What was Donald's reaction when you told him you didn't know who you were?" Victor asked her.

"As a matter of fact, I didn't tell him right away. I was so afraid, I just went along with him.... Oh, it's so hard to explain."

"He didn't realize that you were acting strange, bewildered?"

"Well, you know," Mimi said, "we're not talking about a normal man, remember. I suppose if I acted sort of, you know, lost, he attributed it to our recent trip through time. I don't know. Anyhow, he seemed to accept me."

"Let's get back to this time-travel bit. When did you realize that he thought you had both come from another time?"

"The limes really make the drink, don't they?" she asked. "Well, it came out sort of gradually. I'd listen to him really closely whenever he talked about the past, naturally. I was trying to find out about me without telling him, I thought he'd get all excited and all, and of course he did when I finally told him but by then it was all so different and I'm afraid I've gotten confused. Where was I? Oh, you need a refill."

"Thank you," Victor said, "I forget myself exactly where it was you were. Is that right? Where you was it were? No, I'm sure that's wrong. Where were you it was, I think. Does that sound better to you?"

"Isn't that peculiar?" she answered. "Could it be where I was you weren't? No, now I'm being silly, and I can't for the life of me understand why. After all, this is a serious affair. Or at least I wish it were. Was."

"What?"

"I remember, damn it," she said. "We were talking about Donald again. Well, he kept making these remarks about coming through time and of course I didn't understand what the hell he was talking about but I thought because of my not remembering anything and all that I better just not say anything so I didn't, but he kept on and little by little I got the idea, the general idea anyhow, but what on earth could I do about it? And then he started talking about it was time to go back and all that, and I certainly wasn't going to go floating off in any old time machine whether he was nuts or not, so I just kept putting him off the best I could but he started getting so impatient that finally—what was that? I think there's something wrong."

They both sat suddenly quite still and listened, but they heard nothing.

"I hear nothing," Victor said.

"That's it," Mimi hissed. "He's not snoring anymore. He'll be here any minute. Act natural. Have another martini."

"Thank you, perhaps just one more," Victor said as Donald Fairfield came into the room.

He strode across the room crossing in front of them without turning his head or acknowledging their presence and made straight for the buffet in the opposite corner. He bent over and extracted a thick black cigar, struck a match, lit the cigar, puffed several times, dropped the match into a gigantic ashtray made of marble, or something that looked like marble, puffed several more times, finally inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly before he turned and nodded at his two spectators. "You make better cigars than we do, I'll say that for the twentieth century," he complimented Victor in the manner of all tourists, as if Victor himself were the cause and not the product of his age. "One of the mysteries of history," he continued, "how a simple technique, like making a good cigar or a good mummy, can be lost once it's been perfected. Always seems to be though. Each age has its secrets. You can't make wine now like the ancient Greeks did."

"As," Mimi interpolated. "As the Greeks did."

"I hate to be bombastic," Donald answered her, "not to say dogmatic or pedagogical, or impecunious too, for that matter, at least in this particular day and age, but I believe my original adjectival usage to be the correct one."

"If your thought had called for an adjective," Mimi countered, "but properly, according to the accepted grammar of the present day, that is, you should have used an adverb."

"Whatchamacallit tastes good like a dum-dum cigarette should," Victor put in, in an attempt to settle the subject.

"That's ridiculous," Donald answered, "it's completely wrong."

"I know it's wrong," Victor cried, "that's the point, everybody knows it's—"

"Of course it is," Mimi agreed. "Why on earth should a cigarette taste good? Who says it should? If one wants to taste something good, why then one takes