I’m sorry?

It’s all right. It’s just that I’m naive enough to keep imagining that it’s possible to launch these sorties on a vector not wrenched totally implausible by cant.

It’s what? My tone of voice?

It’s all right. We’ll do it your way. What the hell.

Well. I dont want to get off to a bad start. I just thought you might want to tell me a little about why you’re here.

I didnt have anyplace else to go.

And why here.

I’d been here before.

Why originally, then.

Because I couldnt get into Coletta.

And why Coletta?

It was where they sent Rosemary Kennedy. After her father had her brains scooped out.

Do you have some connection with the family?

No. I didnt know anything about psychiatric centers. I just figured that if that was the place they’d come up with it was probably a pretty good place. I think they scooped her brains out someplace else, actually.

You’re talking about a lobotomy.

Yes.

Why did they do that to her?

Because she was weird and her father was afraid someone was going to fuck her. She wasnt what the old man had in mind.

Is that true?

Yes. Unfortunately.

Why did you feel you had to go someplace?

You mean this time?

Yes. This time.

I just did. I’d left Italy. Where my brother was in a coma. They kept trying to get my permission to pull the plug. To sign the papers. So I fled. I didnt know what else to do.

It was something you couldnt bring yourself to do? Take him off life support?

Yes.

Is he brain-dead?

I dont want to talk about my brother.

All right. Just tell me why he’s in a coma.

He was in a car wreck. He was a racecar driver. I really dont.

All right. Is there anything you’d like to ask me?

About what?

Anything. About me if you like. May I call you Alicia?

You want me to ask you about yourself.

If you like. Yes.

You teach at the University.

At Madison. Yes.

I know where the University is. You dress rather well for an academician.

Thank you.

It wasnt a compliment. You’re not a psychoanalyst.

I’m a psychiatrist.

You’re not an MD.

I am. In fact.

What else.

I’m married. I have two children. My wife runs a children’s program for the city. I’m forty-three years old.

What do you get up to when no one’s looking?

I dont. And you?

I smoke an occasional cigarette. I dont drink or use drugs. Or take medication. You dont have any cigarettes I dont suppose.

No. I could bring some.

Okay.

What else?

I have clandestine conversations with supposedly nonexistent personages. I’ve been called a you-know-what teaser but I dont think that’s true. People seem to find me interesting but I’ve pretty much given up talking to them. I talk to my fellow loonies.

You dont talk to other mathematicians?

Not anymore. Well. Some.

Why is that?