"How moralistic. Do I detect a hint of accusation?"
He knew the nun was groping in the dark. She had no proof. Besides, his
espionage had simply evened the odds. There was no need to feel guilty.
"Perhaps this matter is best resolved by calling it
'coincidence.'"
The nun's dismissing it thus was hardly satisfactory, however. That he
indeed had used 'irregular' means to learn the facts did not explain the nightmare's
authenticity. It was all still much too vague.
There were but few things more he could relate, besides his intuition
that the dream was not a dream per se. But in exploiting the subject, he realized he had
lost his chance to hear the nun's opinion. Her 'adversary status' (which he knew he had
imposed himself) prejudiced whatever she might say. How to plumb her expertise without
relinquishing his slim advantage? Mentally he shifted gears. The nun's black habit became
a field of sixty-four squares, half of their ranks white. He peopled them with pawns,
Rooks, Bishops, Queens, Kings, and the last two Knights—which had yet to be
exchanged.
With a blink, the pattern disassembled.
"For the sake of argument, let's grant I do know something
about her history."
"Obtained?"
"Surreptitiously, of course. Let's say Ms. Dana told me."
"I can't believe…"
"Too farfetched? We're only hypothesizing. Well, let's say, then,
I pilfered Melanie's file—have it stashed away somewhere. Under my pillow. Now, with
such a source of comprehensive data resting nightly under my head, do you think it likely
my imagination could take those facts—through osmosis, if you like—and
manufacture circumstances into which they'd fit?"
Was Julian confessing? He must have seen the file. She had difficulty
reading him, this man behind the poker-face façade. Why did he persist in all these
bluffs and feints and stratagems?
"Julian, what's the point?"
He thought a moment. She had him there. Maybe the dream was
spawned by a guilty conscious.
"A black van with a fisheye window."
"I beg your pardon; what?"
He had studied her reaction closely. The image had not rung a bell.
Perhaps the nun knew nothing of the rape. Perhaps his own extrapolations could only be
corroborated or dispelled by Melanie. And that was the point—one of them, at
least. He had to find a rational explanation for the dream, before it came again. The
exchange would have to wait. The nun apparently had no more to offer.
"Nothing, Ms. Zoe—'an undigested bit of beef.'"
He rose to go.
"Just a minute, Julian. What about your medication?"
He took the bottle from his pocket and set it on her desk.
"Here. I told you, I'm trying to kick."
"And I told you, autonomy is not the way of it here, especially
for one who just caused such an uproar. I needn't remind you that this entire county was
searching for a man who 'simply took a little stroll.' Sit down!"
He did.
"Honestly, Julian, you amaze me. It's bad enough you haven't
offered an account—not to mention an apology—but then to say blithely that you've
decided not to take the medication we prescribe, is tantamount to…"
"Blasphemy?"
"No, disrespect! Blatant, arrogant, ignorant disrespect!
Your epilepsy is treatable, not curable. The seizures will resume. And the
responsibility for that is yours. Accept it, and give the rest of us some credit. We're
not fools, you know. Don't let conceit deprive you of a helping hand; we all can use one
every now and then."
She shook the proper dosage from the pill container and held it out to
him.
"Please. You wear those glasses to protect your eyes; willpower
doesn't make the light less painful. Let the drugs protect you, too."
It looked incongruous to him, almost sinister—this 'representative
of heaven' pushing pills. And yet he could not help believing that she cared. It was
touching, even. Was she right, though? Were his nightmares and these anticonvulsants
unrelated? He looked at the tablets. He plucked them from her palm, popped them into his
mouth, and slowly chewed.
