And Now the News

by Theodore Sturgeon

  “It is a psychological decision, Miss Thomas, and not a technological one.” He knew it was unfair to fall back on rank and specialty when he no longer had an argument he could use. But this had to stop.

  She nodded. “Yes, doctor.” She went out, closing the door too quietly. He thought, What do you have to be to a person so you can run after someone crying, “Come back! Come back! Don’t hate me! I’m in trouble and I hurt!”

  It took Miss Jarrell about forty minutes to get to the office. The doctor had figured it at about thirty-five. He was quite ready for her.

  She knocked with one hand and turned the knob with the other and flew in like an angry bee. Her face was flushed and there was a little pale tension line parenthesizing each nostril. “Doctor—”

  “Ah, Miss Jarrell,” he said with a huge joviality. “I was just about to call you. I need your help for a special project.”

  “Well, I’m sorry about that,” she began. Her eyes were wide and aflame, and the rims were slightly pink. He wished he could magic a few minims of azacyclonol into her bloodstream; she could use it. “I’ve come to—”

  “The Newell case—”

  “Yes, the Newell case. I don’t think—”

  He had almost to shout this time. “And I think you’re just the one for the job. I want the 200-cycle entity—you know, Anson—I want him educated.”

  “Well, I think it’s just—what?” And as the angry syllable ricocheted around the office, she stared at him and asked timidly, “I beg your pardon?”

  “I’d like to relieve you of your other duties and put you with Anson full time. Would you like that?”

  “Would I like … what will I do?”

  “I want to communicate with him. He needs a vocabulary and he needs elementary instruction. He probably doesn’t know how to hold a fork or blow his nose. I think you can do a good job of teaching him.”

  “Well, I—why I’d love to!”

  “Good. Good,” he said like a department store Santa Claus. “Just a few details. I’ll want every minute on sound film, from white noise to white noise, and I’ll want to review the film every day. And, of course, I’d have to ask you not to discuss this with anyone, on or off the staff. It’s a unique case and a new therapy, and a lot depends on it. On you.”

  “Oh, you can depend on me, doctor!”

  He nodded in agreement. “We’ll start tomorrow morning. I’ll have the first word lists and other instructions ready for you by then. Meanwhile, I’ve got some research to do. Contact the Medical Information Service in Washington and have them key in ‘Prince, Morton,’ and ‘Personality, Multiple,’ on their Big Brain. I want abstracts of everything that has been published in the last fifty years on the subject. No duplicates. An index. Better order microfilm and send it by telefax, AA priority.”

  “Yes, doctor,” said Miss Jarrell eagerly. “Foreign publications too?”

  “Everything any researcher has done. And put a Confidential on the order as well as the delivery.”

  “Really secret.”

  “Really.” He concealed the smile which struggled to show itself; in his mind, he had seen the brief image of a little girl hiding jellybeans. “And get me the nurses’ duty list. I have some juggling to do.”

  “Very well, doctor. Is that all?”

  “All for now.”

  She nearly skipped to the door. He saw a flash of white as she opened it; Miss Thomas was standing in the outer office. He could not have been more pleased if she had been there by his explicit orders, for Miss Jarrell said, as she went out, “And thank you, doctor—thank you very much.”

  Chew on that, Thomas, he thought, feeling his own small vindictiveness and permitting himself to enjoy it for once.

  And: Why am I jumping on Thomas?

  Well, because I have to jump on somebody once in a while and she can take it.

  Why don’t I tell her everything? She has a good head. Might have some really good ideas. Why not?

  “Why not?” he asked again into a joyless void. “Because I could be wrong. I could be so wrong. That’s why not.”

  The research began, and the long night work. In addition to the vast amount of collateral reading—there was much more material published on the subject of multiple personality than he had realized—he had each day’s film to analyze, notes to make, abstracts to prepare for computer coding, and then, after prolonged thought, the next day’s lessons to outline.

  The rest of the clinic refused to stop and wait for this job to be done, and he had an additional weight of conscience as he concealed his impatience with everything else but the Newell case. He was so constituted that such a weight made him over-meticulous in the very things he wished to avoid, so that his ordinary work took more time rather than less.

  As for the research, much of it was theory and argumentation; the subject, like reincarnation, seemed to attract zealots of the most positive and verbose varieties, both pro and con. Winnowing through the material, he isolated two papers of extreme interest to him. One was a theory, one an interim report on a series of experiments which had never been completed due to the death of the researcher.

  The theory, advanced by one Weisbaden, was based on a search through just such material as this. Indeed, Weisbaden seemed to have been the only man besides himself who had ever asked the Medical Information Service for this complete package.

  From it, he had abstracted statistics, weighed them to suit his theory, and come up with the surprising opinion that multiple personality was a twinning phenomenon, and that if a method were found for diagnosing all such cases, a correspondence would be found between the incidence of multiple births and the incidence of multiple personalities. So many births per thousand are twins, so many per hundred thousand are triplets, and the odds with quads and quints are in the millions.

  So, too, said Weisbaden, would be the statistical expectation for the multiple personality phenomenon, once such cases stopped being diagnosed as schizoids and other aberrants.

  Weisbaden had not been a medical man—he was some sort of actuary—but his inference was fascinating. How many twins and triplets walked the Earth in single bodies without any organic indication that they were not single entities? How many were getting treatment for conditions they did not have; how many Siamese twins were being penalized because they would not walk like other quadrupeds; how many separate entities were being forced to spend their lives in lockstep?

  Some day, thought the doctor—as so many doctors have thought before—some day, when we can get closer to the genetic biologists, when psychology becomes a true science, when someone devises a cross-reference system between the disciplines which really works … and some day, when I have the time—well, maybe I could test this ingenious guess. But it’s only a guess, based on neither observation nor experiment. Intriguing though—if only it could be tested.

  The other paper was of practical value. A certain Julius Marx—again not a medical man, but a design engineer with, apparently, hobbies—had built an electro-encephalograph for two (would anyone ever write a popular song about that?) which graphed each of the patients through a series of stimuli, and at the same time drew a third graph, a resultant.

  Marx was after a means of determining brain wave types, rather than individual specimens, and had done circuitry on machines which would handle up to eight people at once. In a footnote, with dry humor, he had qualified his paper for this particular category: “Perhaps one day the improbable theories of Dr. Prince might approach impossibility through the use of such a device upon a case of multiple personality.”

  Immediately on reading this, the doctor ordered EEGs on both Anson and Newell, and when he had both before him, he wished fervently that Julius Marx had been there with him; he suspected that the man enjoyed a good laugh, even on himself.

  The graphs were as different as such graphs can possibly be.

  The confirmation of his diagnosis was spectacular, and he left a note for Miss Jarrell to track down ever
y multiple personality case he had rejected for the past eight years and see what could be done about some further tests. What would come after the tests, he did not know—yet.

  The other valuable nudge he got from the Marx paper was the idea of a resultant between two dissimilar electro-encephalograms. He made one from the Newell-Anson EEGs—without the use of anything as Goldbergian as Marx’s complicated device, but with a simple computer coupling. He kept it in his top desk drawer, and every few days he would draw it out and he would wonder …

  Therapy for Anson wasn’t therapy. Back at the very beginning, Miss Thomas had said that his was a personality that wouldn’t dismantle; she had been quite right. You can’t get episodic material from an entity which has had no subjective awareness, no experience, which has no name, no sense of identity, no motility, no recall.

  There were many parts to that strange radiance of Anson’s and they were all in the eye of the beholder, who protected Anson because he was defenseless, who was continually amazed at his unself-consciousness as if it were an attribute rather than a lack. His discovery of the details of self and surroundings was a never-ending delight to watch, because he himself was delighted and had never known the cruel penalties we impose on expressed delight, nor the masking with idioms we use instead: Not a bad sunset there. Yeah. Real nice.

  “He’s good,” Miss Jarrell said to the doctor once. “He’s only good—nothing else.”

  Therapy for Newell was, however, therapy, and not rewarding. The properly dismantled and segmented patient is relatively simple to handle.

  Key in anger (1200 cycles) and demand “How old are you?” Since anger does not exist unsupported, an episode must emerge; the danger has an object, which existed at a time and place; and there’s your episode. “I’m six,” says your patient. Key in the “You are six years old” note for reinforcement and you’re all ready for significant recall. Or start with the age index: “You are twelve years old.” When that is established, demand, “How do you feel?” and if there is significant material in the twelfth year, it will emerge. If it is fear, add the “fear” note and ask “Where are you?” and you’ll have the whole story.

  But not in Newell’s case. There was, of course, plenty of conflict material, but somehow the conflicts seemed secondary; they were effects rather than causes. By far the largest category of traumas is the unjustified attack—a severe beating, a disease, a rejection. It is traumatic because, from the patient’s point of view, it is unjustified. In Newell’s case, there was plenty of suffering, plenty of defeat; yet in every single episode, he had earned it. So he was without guilt. His inner conviction was that his every cruelty was justified.

  The doctor had an increasing sense that Newell had lived all his life in a books-balanced, debts-paid condition. His episodes had no continuity, one to the other. It was as if each episode occurred at right angles to the line of his existence; once encountered, it was past, like a mathematical point. The episodes were easy to locate, impossible to relate to one another and to the final product.

  The doctor tried hard to treat Anson and Newell in his mind as discrete, totally unconnected individuals, but Miss Jarrell’s sentimental remark kept echoing in his mind: “He’s good; he’s only good—nothing else,” and generating an obverse to apply to Newell: He’s evil, he’s only evil—nothing else.

  This infuriated him. How nice, how very nice, he told himself sarcastically, the spirits of good and evil to be joined together to make a whole man, and how tidily everything fits; black is totally black and white is white, and together the twain shall make gray. He found himself telling himself that it wasn’t as simple as that, and things did not work out according to moral evaluations which were more arbitrary even than his assigned audio.

  It was about this time that he began to doubt the rightness of his decision, the worth of his therapy, the possibility of the results he wanted, and himself. And he had no one to advise him. He told that to Miss Thomas.

  It was easy to do and it surprised both of them. He had called her in to arrange a daily EEG on both facets of the Newell case and explain about the resultant, which he also wanted daily. She said yes, doctor, and very well, doctor, and right away, doctor, and a number of other absolutely correct things. But she didn’t say why, doctor? or that’s good, doctor, and suddenly he couldn’t stand it.

  He said, “Miss Thomas, we’ve got to bury the hatchet right now. I could be wrong about this case, and if I am, it’s going to be bad. Worse than bad. That’s not what bothers me,” he added quickly, afraid she might interrupt, knowing that this must spill over or never emerge again. “I’ve been through bad things before and I can handle that part of it.”

  Then it came out, simple and astonishing to them both: “But I’m all alone with it, Tommie.”

  He had never called her that before, not even to himself, and he was overwhelmed with wonderment at where it might have come from.

  “Miss Thomas said, “No you’re not,” gruffly.

  “Well, hell,” said the doctor, and then got all his control back. He dropped a film cartridge into the viewer and brought out his notes. Using them as index, he sat with his hand on the control, spinning past the more pedestrian material and showing her the highlights. He presented no interpretations while she watched and listened.

  She heard Newell snarling, “You better watch what you’re doing,” and Anson pointing about the room, singing, “Floor, flower, book, bed, bubble. Window, wheel, wiggle, wonderful.” (He had not known at that stage what a ‘wonderful’ was, but Miss Jarrell said it almost every hour on the hour.) She saw Newell in recall, aged eleven, face contorted, raging at his fifth-grade teacher, “I’ll bomb ya, y’ole bitch!” and at thirteen, coolly pleased at something best unmentioned concerning a kitten and a centrifuge.

  She saw Anson standing in the middle of the room, left elbow in right hand, left thumb pressed to the point of his chin, a stance affected by the doctor when in perplexity: “When I know everything there is to know,” Anson had said soberly, “there’ll be two Doctor Freds.”

  At this, Miss Thomas grunted and said, “You wouldn’t want a higher compliment than that from anybody, anytime.” The doctor shushed her, but kindly. The first time he had seen that sequence, it made his eyes sting. It still did. He said nothing.

  She saw it all, right up to yesterday’s viewing, with Newell in a thousand pieces from what appeared to be a separate jigsaw puzzle for each piece, and Anson a bright wonder, learning to read now, marveling at everything because everything was new—teaspoons and music and mountains, the Solar System and sandwiches and the smell of vanilla.

  And as he watched, doors opened in the doctor’s mind. They did not open wide, but enough for him to know that they were there and in which walls. How to describe the indescribable feeling of expertness?

  It is said that a good truck driver has nerve endings which extend to the bumper and tail light, tire tread to overhead. The virtuoso pianist does not will each separate spread and crook of each finger; he wills the notes and they appear.

  The doctor had steered this course of impossible choices by such willing and such orientation; and again he felt it, the urge that this way is right now, and there is the thing to do next. The miracle to him was not the feeling, but that it had come back to him while he watched the films and heard the tapes with Miss Thomas, who had said nothing, given no evaluation or advice. They were the same films he had studied, run in the same sequence. The difference was only in not being alone any more.

  “Where are you going?” Miss Thomas asked him.

  From the coat closet, he said, “File that material and lock it up, will you, Miss Thomas? I’ll call you as soon as I return.” He went to the door and smiled back at her. It hurt his face. “Thanks.”

  Miss Thomas opened her mouth to speak, but did not. She raised her right hand in a sort of salute and turned around to put the files away.

  The doctor called from a booth near the Newell apartment. “Did I wake
you, Osa? I’m sorry. Sometimes I don’t know how late it gets.”

  “Who … Fred? Is that you, Fred?”

  “Are you up to some painful conversation?”

  Alarmed, she cried, “Is something the matter? Is Dick—”

  He mentally kicked himself for his clumsiness. What other interpretation could she have put on such a remark? “He’s okay. I’m sorry. I guess I’m not good at the light banter … Can I see you?”

  She paused for a long moment. He could hear her breathing. “I’ll come out. Where are you?”

  He told her.

  She said, “There’s a café just around the corner, to your left. Give me ten minutes.”

  He put up the phone and went to the corner. It was on a dingy street which seemed to be in hiding. On the street, the café hid. Inside the café, booths hid. In one of the booths, the doctor sat and was hidden. It was all he could do to keep himself from assuming a fetal posture.

  A waiter came. He ordered collinses, made with light rum. He slumped then, with his forearms on the table and his chin on them, and watched bubbles rise in the drinks and collect on the underside of the shaved ice, until the glasses frosted too much for him to see. Then he closed his eyes and attempted to suspend thought, but he heard her footsteps and sprang up.

  “Here I am,” he said in a seal-like bark far louder than he had intended.

  She sat opposite him. “Rum collins,” she said, and only then did he remember that it had always been the drink they shared, when they had shared things. He demanded of himself, Now why did I have to do that? and answered, You know perfectly well why.

  “Is he really all right?” she asked him.

  “Yes, Osa. So far.”

  “I’m sorry.” She turned her glass around, but did not lift it. “I mean maybe you don’t want to talk about Dick.”

  “You’re very thoughtful,” he said, and wondered why it had never occurred to him to see her just for himself. “But you’re wrong. I did want to talk about him.”

  “Well … if you like, Fred. What, especially?”