Dr. Johan Karl Naches sat in his well-appointed office in Cirrotai Village. A diploma with big fraktur letters proclaimed his completion of a course of training in "higher neurology" in Ostrovemia, twenty-five years ago - before the war. He had taken care of many shell-shocked veterans who had seen terrible things, things no one should see, and his success had brought him a new referral along similar lines.
"Have you ever had any sort of counseling before, Mr. Grosmoys?"
The alienist studied the patient lying on his couch. A white rat, intelligent, but nervous. His vocabulary said he was educated; his accent said he had moved up in the world. The files said he had been a sergeant in the war. Nervous. Thusfar, mostly speaking when spoken to. Not very disclosing, at all. Across from the rat, the window was open to allow in the fine Spring air.
"Yes. Yes, doctor. I had some trouble with drinking after the war, but I'm nine years sober now."
"It's good that you've been able to maintain that, even with the... challenges you've faced lately."
The rat shifted on the couch. Dr. Naches waited to see if his patient would volunteer anything before moving on.
"You found the counseling useful."
"Yes."
Dr. Naches ticked off the seconds on an imaginary stopwatch. Seven passed.
"You ended those sessions because you felt they were enough, or for some other reason?"
"I think I got what I could get out of them. I do go to a little church group still."
"That's good. Well, since you have some basis of expectations on how this will work, I can give you an abbreviated explanation of my methods," Dr. Naches said, as he polished his pince-nez glasses. The alienist went into a brief description of his psychoanalytic method, during which Mr. Grosmoys nodded and occasionally mumbled some little acknowledgement. The breeze through the window ruffled the paper sitting at the doctor's side. He laid a finger on it to stop attention from being drawn to it as he finished his explanation and the patient consented to proceed.
"Why don't you start by telling me what's been troubling you, Mr. Grosmoys? Or would you prefer I called you Willard?"
"Willard's fine, doc. Um..."
The patient thought a minute. Not literally a minute, but a good eleven seconds passed on the alienist's mental stopwatch.
"Well... it's hard to explain."
"Take your time."
"I recently quit my job. I was a... caretaker, for an invalid lady."
"Oh? My understanding was that you were an electrician."
"Uh, yes, that's my trade, and I've got a new job in that, but the lady had, special care needs."
"For an electrician."
"Yes. She was very afraid of the dark, see. Had these big arc lamps running all the time. Every hour of every day... so I took care of her 'illuminations,' she called them. Big old house Downtown, there were mun-- mongooses, old money..."
The patient went on a bit, explaining how he had come to be employed by the Camberline family, and the various eccentricities of his employer, whom he never got a good look at despite attending her daily for several years. Wearing sunglasses indoors because the room was kept so bright. The smell of antiseptic, in which his coworker had kept the room constantly drenched. Eventually, Dr. Naches realized that the troubled rat was being tangential and avoiding actually speaking about the ending of this arrangement.
"That's quite interesting, Mr. Grosmoys, but could we return to the circumstances that led you to quit this unusual job, and affected you?"
The patient made a false start or two as the alienist patiently waited, watching the clouds form in the sky outside the window, as the warm, humid air blowing in from the West met the cooler sea air.
"It was what happened to the lady, doc. You know I was in the war, right. I saw a guy get blown in two, blood, guts. I wouldn't say I'm desensitized to that, that stuff messed me up for years -- but I've got myself put back together, come to terms with it. I'm not a weak man."
"You certainly aren't. But a strong man can still be troubled by what he's seen."
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven...
"Do you feel like you're able to talk about what you saw, Mr. Grosmoys?"
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.
Dr. Naches looked at his patient's face. The look of horror.
"It's alright if you don't. I don't want you to feel there's any shame in it. I can tell that, whatever you saw, it was deeply disturbing to you, and that is all I really need to know."
"Thanks, doc."
A Spring rain began as Dr. Naches backed up from the acute illness and discussed some of Willard's earlier life. As the hour was up, Willard received a prescription of sodium amytal for his episodes of nervous dread, and Dr. Naches in turn had his word to return again next Tuesday.
The doctor, as he closed the window to keep the rain off his bound volumes of foreign psychoanalytic journals, saw Willard walking for the street car, with neither umbrella nor cloak. He allowed himself just a moment of morbid wonder at all this, before going to call his next patient.
The RIS has been engaged by Gwen and Ignatia Camberline to investigate the circumstances of their recently-deceased mother's death, allegedly a suicide, and whether it may be connected to unusual problems now affecting the Camberline Airplane Company's flying boat works.