For Love of Audrey Rose by Frank De Felitta Page B

out.
    “Elaine,” she said slowly, “Bill has started to read Hindu tracts. Buddhist texts.”
    Elaine stared at her in surprise. Janice turned to look at her. “I don’t know what to make of it. He’s become so damned obsessive about it. I can’t stand to be with him when he talks about it. But what can I do? Shut him up? Only a few weeks ago, he wasn’t even speaking. I can’t very well reject him now!”
    “Maybe he needs to—to understand,” Elaine offered. “Just wants to review what happened.”
    Janice raised her voice.
    “But I don’t want to hear about it!” she said. “I don’t want to go through it again! It’s like a madhouse, a thousand crooked mirrors screaming at you, each one of them saying Buddha, and Karma, and transmigration, making you hear it all over again, and I don’t want to listen!”
    Janice paused and lowered her voice.
    “I can’t go through it again, Elaine. To feel myself slipping into it like quicksand—astral planes and holy cycles—getting closer and closer to believing it. It’s like going insane. Slowly, but surely. Just like going insane.”

6
    J anice skipped lunch that day. Instead, she lay down on the couch, closed her eyes, and sank into the oblivion of total fatigue. Just as dream images began to form, Elaine tapped her on the shoulder.
    “Telephone,” Elaine said. “Sounds official.”
    Janice rose quickly, swayed, caught herself, then walked calmly to her work desk. She picked up the receiver and pressed her exchange button.
    “Hello?”
    “Mrs. Templeton, Dr. Geddes here.”
    “Is everything all right?”
    “I tried calling you at home, but there was no answer.”
    “What’s the matter?”
    “Let me say first that Bill’s all right. Just a few scratches. There was a kind of altercation.”
    Janice sat down slowly. Elaine came in, saw the look on her face, and discreetly left again, closing the door.
    “Altercation? Bill?”
    “Yes, with another patient, named Borofsky. Apparently, Bill had inveigled him into doing some kind of research. Borofsky was connected to the bookstore at Gimbels, or something like that. They had a falling out, Borofsky came to his room, and Bill thought he was trying to steal his notes.”
    “Notes? What notes?”
    Dr. Geddes started over again, more slowly.
    “Bill’s been studying. Studying a lot more than we’d guessed. Newspaper clippings. Old lectures he conned out of a library in Albany. Books—you name it. And I guess he was possessive about it, and when Borofsky came down, Bill hit him with an old brass lamp from the library. Borofsky seems to be all right. He’s been X-rayed and there’s no fracture.”
    “I can’t believe Bill would do something like that.”
    “Mrs. Templeton, can you come to the clinic today?”
    “Today? It would be very difficult.”
    “It’s quite important. Bill’s a bit delirious. He thinks we sent Borofsky to spy on him. You have to come and help us reestablish his trust. Before his attitude hardens.”
    “All right. I’ll try.”
    When Janice explained things to Elaine, a visible disappointment surfaced on Elaine’s face.
    “You don’t really have a choice, do you?”
    “Believe me, I’d rather not, but—”
    “Don’t worry about it. I’ll manage.”
    Janice caught the 12:45 northbound to Ossining. She slept the entire trip.
    She stumbled wearily through the cascading rain, caught in the cone of the taxi headlights, entered the clinic, and found Bill in the infirmary. Three long red scratches trailed vividly down his face and he gazed blankly at the door where she stood.
    “He’s a bit sedated,” Dr. Geddes whispered behind her, closing the door.
    Janice walked quickly to the bed. Bill’s face turned to follow her, but it was not his face. Something had taken over. His forehead was damp with perspiration and he looked warily around the room.
    “Bill?” she whispered, “can you hear me?”
    “Of course I can hear you, Janice,” he said quickly. “Do I