ALL ON A GOLDEN AFTERNOON
Robert Bloch
The uniformed man at the gate was very polite, but he didn’t seem at all in a hurry to open up. Neither Dr. Prager’s new Cadillac nor his old goatee made much of an impression on him.
It wasn’t until Dr. Prager snapped, “But I’ve an appointment—Mr. Dennis said it was urgent!” that the uniformed man turned and went into the little guard booth to call the big house on the hill.
Dr. Saul Prager tried not to betray his impatience, but his right foot pressed down on the accelerator and a surrogate of exhaust did his fuming for him.
Just how far he might have gone in polluting the air of Bel Air couldn’t be determined, for after a moment the man came out of the booth and unlocked the gate. He touched his cap and smiled.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, Doctor,” he said. “You’re to go right on up.”
Dr. Prager nodded curtly and the car moved forward.
“I’m new on this job and you got to take precautions, you know,” the man called after him, but Dr. Prager wasn’t listening. His eyes were fixed on the panorama of the hillside ahead. In spite of himself he was mightily impressed.
There was reason to be—almost half a million dollars’ worth of reason. The combined efforts of a dozen architects, topiarists, and landscape gardeners had served to create what was popularly known as “the Garden of Eden.” Although the phrase was a complimentary reference to Eve Eden, owner of the estate, there was much to commend it, Dr. Prager decided. That is, if one can picture a Garden of Eden boasting two swimming pools, an eight-car garage, and a corps of resident angels with power mowers.
This was by no means Dr. Prager’s first visit, but he never failed to be moved by the spectacle of the palace on the hill. It was a fitting residence for Eve, the First Woman. The First Woman of the Ten Box-Office Leaders, that is.
The front door was already open when he parked in the driveway, and the butler smiled and bowed. He was, Dr. Prager knew, a genuine English butler, complete with accent and sideburns. Eve Eden had insisted on that, and she’d had one devil of a time obtaining an authentic specimen from the employment agencies. Finally she’d managed to locate one—from Central Casting.
“Good afternoon,” the butler greeted him. “Mr. Dennis is in the library, sir. He is expecting you.”
Dr. Prager followed the manservant through the foyer and down the hall. Everything was furnished with magnificent taste—as Mickey Dennis often observed, “Why not? Didn’t we hire the best inferior decorator in Beverly Hills?”
The library itself was a remarkable example of calculated décor. Replete with the traditional overstuffed chairs, custom-made by a firm of reliable overstuffers, it boasted paneled walnut walls, polished mahogany floors, and a good quarter mile of bookshelves rising to the vaulted ceiling. Dr. Prager’s glance swept the shelves, which were badly in need of dusting anyway. He noted a yard of Thackeray in green, two yards of brown Thomas Hardy, complemented by a delicate blue Dostoevski. Ten feet of Balzac, five feet of Dickens, a section of Shakespeare, a mass of Molière. Complete works, of course. The booksellers would naturally want to give Eve Eden the works. There must have been two thousand volumes on the shelves.
In the midst of it all sat Mickey Dennis, the agent, reading a smudged and dog-eared copy of Variety.
As Dr. Prager stood, hesitant, in the doorway, the little man rose and beckoned to him. “Hey, Doc!” he called. “I been waiting for you!”
“Sorry,” Dr. Prager murmured. “There were several appointments I couldn’t cancel.”
“Never mind the appointments. You’re on retainer with us, ain’cha? Well, sweetheart, this time you’re really gonna earn it.”
He shook his head as he approached. “Talk about trouble,” he muttered—although Dr. Prager had not even mentioned the subject. “Talk about trouble, we got it. I ain’t dared call the studio yet. If I did there’d be wigs floating all over Beverly Hills. Had to see you first. And you got to see her.”
Dr. Prager waited. A good 50 per cent of his professional duties consisted of waiting. Meanwhile he indulged in a little private speculation. What would it be this time? Another overdose of sleeping pills—a return to narcotics—an attempt to prove the old maxim that absinthe makes the heart grow fonder? He’d handled Eve Eden before in all these situations and topped it off with more routine assignments, such as the time she’d wanted to run off with the Japanese chauffeur. Come to think of it, that hadn’t been exactly routine. Handling Eve was bad; handling the chauffeur was worse, but handling the chauffeur’s wife and seven children was a nightmare. Still, he’d smoothed things over. He always smoothed things over, and that’s why he was on a fat yearly retainer.
Dr. Prager, as a physician, generally disapproved of obesity, but when it came to yearly retainers he liked them plump. And this was one of the plumpest. Because of it he was ready for any announcement Mickey Dennis wanted to make.
The agent was clutching his arm now. “Doc, you gotta put the freeze on her, fast! This time it’s murder!”
Despite himself, Dr. Prager blanched. He reached up and tugged reassuringly at his goatee. It was still there, the symbol of his authority. He had mastered the constriction in his vocal chords before he started to speak. “You mean she’s killed someone?”
“No!” Mickey Dennis shook his head in disgust. “That would be bad enough, but we could handle it. I was just using a figger of speech, like. She wants to murder herself, Doc. Murder her career, throw away a brand-new seven-year non-cancelable no-option contract with a percentage of the gross. She wants to quit the industry.”
“Leave pictures?”
“Now you got it, Doc. She’s gonna walk out on four hundred grand a year.”
There was real anguish in the agent’s voice—the anguish of a man who is well aware that 10 per cent of four hundred thousand can buy a lot of convertibles.
“You gotta see her,” Dennis moaned. “You gotta talk her out of it, fast.”
Dr. Prager nodded. “Why does she want to quit?” he asked.
Mickey Dennis raised his hands. “I don’t know,” he wailed. “She won’t give any reasons. Last night she just up and told me. Said she was through. And when I asked her politely just what the hell’s the big idea, she dummied up. Said I wouldn’t understand.” The little man made a sound like trousers ripping in a tragic spot. “Damned right I wouldn’t understand! But I want to find out.”
Dr. Prager consulted his beard again with careful fingers. “I haven’t seen her for over two months,” he said. “How has she been behaving lately? I mean, otherwise?”
“Like a doll,” the agent declared. “Just a living doll. To look at her you wouldn’t of thought there was anything in her head but sawdust. Wrapped up the last picture clean, brought it in three days ahead of schedule. No blowups, no goofs, no nothing. She hasn’t been hitting the sauce or anything else. Stays home mostly and goes to bed early. Alone, yet.” Mickey Dennis made the pants-ripping sound again. “I might of figgered it was too good to be true.”
“No financial worries?” Dr. Prager probed.
Dennis swept his arm forward to indicate the library and the expanse beyond. “With this? All clear and paid for. Plus a hunk of real estate in Long Beach and two oil wells gushing like Lolly Parsons over a hot scoop. She’s got more loot than Fort Knox and almost as much as Crosby.”
“Er—how old is Eve, might I ask?”
“You might ask, and you might get some funny answers. But I happen to know. She’s thirty-three. I can guess what you’re thinking, Doc, and it don’t figger. She’s good for another seven years, maybe more. Hell, all you got to do is look at her.”
“That’s just what I intend to do,” Dr. Prager replied, “Where is she?”
“Upstairs, in her room. Been there all day. Won’t see me.” Mickey Dennis hesitated. “She doesn’t know you’re here either. I said I was gonna call you and she got kind of upset.”
“Didn’t want to see me, eh?”
“She said if that long-eared nanny goat got within six miles of this joint she’d—” The agent paused and shifted uncomfortably. “Like I mentioned, she was upset.”
“I think I can handle the situation,” Dr. Prager decided.
“Want me to come along and maybe try and soften her up a little?”
“That won’t be necessary.” Dr. Prager left the room, walking softly.
Mickey Dennis went back to his chair and picked up the magazine once more. He didn’t read, because he was waiting for the sound of the explosion.
When it came he shuddered and almost gritted his teeth until he remembered how much it would cost to buy a new upper plate. Surprisingly enough, the sound of oaths and shrieks subsided after a time, and Dennis breathed a deep sigh of relief.
The doc was a good head shrinker. He’d handle her. He was handling her. So there was nothing to do now but relax.
“Relax,” Dr. Prager said. “You’ve discharged all your aggression. Now you can stretch out. That’s better.”
The spectacle of Eve Eden stretched out in relaxation on a chaise longue was indeed better. In the words of many eminent lupine Hollywood authorities, it was the best.
Eve Eden’s legs were long and white and her hair was long and blond; both were now displayed to perfection, together with a whole series of coming attractions screened through her semitransparent lounging pajamas. The face that launched a thousand close-ups was that of a petulant child, well-versed in the more statutory phases of juvenile delinquency.
Dr. Prager could cling to his professional objectivity only by clinging to his goatee. As it was, he dislodged several loose hairs and an equal number of loose impulses before he spoke again.
“Now,” he said, “tell me all about it.”
“Why should I?” Eve Eden’s eyes and voice were equally candid. “I didn’t ask you to come here. I’m not in any jam.”
“Mr. Dennis said you’re thinking of leaving pictures.”
“Mr. Dennis is a cockeyed liar. I’m not thinking of leaving. I’ve left, period. Didn’t he call the lawyers? Hasn’t he phoned the studio? I told him to.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Dr. Prager soothed.
“Then he’s the one who’s in a jam,” Eve Eden announced happily. “Sure, I know why he called you. You’re supposed to talk me out of it, right? Well, it’s no dice, Doc. I made up my mind.”
“Why?”
“None of your business.”
Dr. Prager leaned forward. “But it is my business, Wilma.”
“Wilma?”
Dr. Prager nodded, his voice softening. “Wilma Kozmowski. Little Wilma Kozmowski. Have you forgotten that I know all about her? The little girl whose mother deserted her. Who ran away from home when she was twelve and lived around. I know about the waitress jobs in Pittsburgh, and the burlesque show, and the B-girl years in Calumet City. And I know about Frank, and Eddie, and Nino, and Sid, and—all the others.” Dr. Prager smiled. “You told me all this yourself, Wilma. And you told me all about what happened after you became Eve Eden. When you met me you weren’t Eve Eden yet, not entirely. Wilma kept interfering, didn’t she? It was Wilma who drank, took the drugs, got mixed up with the men, tried to kill herself. I helped you fight Wilma didn’t I, Eve? I helped you become Eve Eden, the movie star. That’s why it’s my business now to see that you stay that way. Beautiful, admired, successful, happy—”
“You’re wrong, Doc. I found that out. If you want me to be happy, forget about Eve Eden. Forget about Wilma too. From now on I’m going to be somebody else. So please, just go away.”
“Somebody else?” Dr. Prager leaped at the phrase. An instant later he leaped literally.
“What’s that?” he gasped.
He stared down at the floor, the hairs in his goatee bristling as he caught sight of the small white furry object that scuttled across the carpet.
Eve Eden reached down and scooped up the creature, smiling.
“Just a white rabbit,” she explained. “Cute, isn’t he? I bought him the other day.”
“But—but—”
Dr. Prager goggled. It was indeed a white rabbit which Eve Eden cradled in her arms, but not just a white rabbit. For this rabbit happened to be wearing a vest and a checkered waistcoat, and Dr. Prager could almost swear that the silver chain across the vest terminated in a concealed pocket watch.
“I bought it after the dream,” Eve Eden told him.
“Dream?”
“Oh, what’s the use?” She sighed. “I might as well let you hear it. All you head shrinkers are queer for dreams anyway.”
“You had a dream about rabbits?” Dr. Prager began.
“Please, Doc, let’s do it my way,” she answered. “This time you relax and I’ll do the talking. It all started when I fell down this rabbit hole…”
In her dream, Eve Eden said, she was a little girl with long golden curls. She was sitting on a riverbank when she saw this white rabbit running close by. It was wearing the waistcoat and a high collar, and then it took a watch out of its pocket, muttering, “Oh dear, I shall be too late.” She ran across the field after it, and when it popped down a large rabbit hole under a hedge, she followed.
“Oh no!” Dr. Prager muttered. “Not Alice!”
“Alice who?” Eve Eden inquired.
“Alice in Wonderland.”
“You mean that movie Disney made, the cartoon thing?”
Dr. Prager nodded. “You saw it?”
“No. I never waste time on cartoons.”
“But you know what I’m talking about, don’t you?”
“Well—” Eve Eden hesitated. Then from the depths of her professional background an answer came. “Wasn’t there another movie, ‘way back around the beginning of the thirties? Sure, Paramount made it, with Oakie and Gallagher and Horton and Ruggles and Ned Sparks and Fields and Gary Cooper. And let’s see now, who played the dame—Charlotte Henry?”
Dr. Prager smiled. Now he was getting somewhere. “So that’s the one you saw, eh?”
Eve Eden shook her head. “Never saw that one either. Couldn’t afford movies when I was a brat, remember?”
“Then how do you know the cast and—”
“Easy. Gal who used to work with Alison Skipworth told me. She was in it too. And Edna May Oliver. I got a good memory, Doc. You know that.”
“Yes.” Dr. Prager breathed softly. “And so you must remember reading the original book, isn’t that it?”
“Was it a book?”
“Now look here, don’t tell me you’ve never read Alice in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll. It’s a classic.”
“I’m no reader, Doc. You know that too.”
“But surely as a child you must have come across it. Or had somebody tell you the story.”
The blond curls tossed. “Nope. I’d remember if I had. I remember everything I read. That’s why I’m always up on my lines. Best sight reader in the business. I not only haven’t read Alice in Wonderland, I didn’t even know there was such a story, except in a screen-play.”
Dr. Prager gave an irritable tug at his goatee. “All right. You do have a remarkable memory, I know. So let’s think back now. Let’s think back very carefully to your earliest childhood. Somebody must have taken you on their lap, told you stories.”
The star’s eyes brightened. “Why, sure!” she exclaimed. “That’s right! Aunt Emma was always telling me stories.”
“Excellent.” Dr. Prager smiled. “And can you recall now the first story she ever told you? The very first?”
Eve Eden closed her eyes, concentrating with effort. When her voice came it was from far away. “Yes,” she whispered, “I remember now. I was only four. Aunt Emma took me on her lap and she told me my first story. It was the one about the drunk who goes in this bar, and he can’t find the john, see, so the bartender tells him to go upstairs and—”
“No,” said Dr. Prager. “No, no! Didn’t she ever tell you any fairy tales?”
“Aunt Emma?” Eve Eden laughed. “I’ll say she didn’t. But stories—she had a million of ‘em! Did you ever hear the one about the young married couple who wanted to—”
“Never mind.” The psychiatrist leaned back. “You are quite positive you have never read or heard or seen Alice in Wonderland?”
“I told you so in the first place, didn’t I? Now, do you want to hear my dream or not?”
“I want to very much,” Dr. Prager answered, and he did. He took out his notebook and uncapped his fountain pen. In his own mind he was quite certain that she had heard or read Alice, and he was interested in the reasons for the mental block which prevented her from recalling the fact. He was also interested in the possible symbolism behind her account. This promised to be quite an enjoyable session. “You went down the rabbit hole,” he prompted.
“Into a tunnel,” Eve continued. “I was falling, falling very slowly.”
Dr. Prager wrote down tunnel—womb fixation? And he wrote down falling dream.
“I fell into a well,” Eve said. “Lined with cupboards and bookshelves. There were maps and pictures on pegs.”
Forbidden sex knowledge, Dr. Prager wrote.
“I reached out while I was still falling and took a jar from a shelf. The jar was labeled ‘Orange Marmalade.’”
Marmalade—Mama? Dr. Prager wrote.
Eve said something about “Do cats eat bats?” and “Do bats eat cats?” but Dr. Prager missed it. He was too busy writing. It was amazing, now that he thought of it, just how much Freudian symbolism was packed into Alice in Wonderland. Amazing, too, how well her subconscious recalled it.
Eve was telling now how she had landed in the long hall with the doors all around and how the rabbit disappeared, muttering, “Oh, my ears and whiskers, how late it’s getting.” She told about approaching the three-legged solid-glass table with the tiny golden key on it, and Dr. Prager quickly scribbled phallic symbol. Then she described looking through a fifteen-inch door into a garden beyond and wishing she could get through it by shutting up like a telescope. So Dr. Prager wrote phallic envy.
“Then,” Eve continued, “I saw this bottle on the table, labeled ‘Drink Me.’ And so I drank, and do you know something? I did shut up like a telescope. I got smaller and smaller, and if I hadn’t stopped drinking I’d have disappeared! So of course I couldn’t reach the key, but then I saw this glass box under the table labeled ‘Eat Me,’ and I ate and got bigger right away.”
She paused. “I know it sounds silly, Doc, but it was real interesting.”
“Yes indeed,” Dr. Prager said. “Go on. Tell everything you remember.”
“Then the rabbit came back, mumbling something about a Duchess. And it dropped a pair of white gloves and a fan.”
Fetishism, the psychiatrist noted.
“After that it got real crazy.” Eve giggled. Then she told about the crying and forming a pool on the floor composed of her own tears. And how she held the fan and shrank again, then swam in the pool.
Grief fantasy, Dr. Prager decided.
She went on to describe her meeting with the mouse and with the other animals, the caucus race, and the recital of the curious poem about the cur, Fury, which ended, “I’ll prosecute you, I’ll be judge, I’ll be jury—I’ll try the whole cause and condemn you to death.”
Superego, wrote Dr. Prager and asked, “What are you afraid of, Eve?”
“Nothing,” she answered. “And I wasn’t afraid in the dream either. I liked it. But I haven’t told you anything yet.”
“Go on.”
She went on, describing her trip to the rabbit’s house to fetch his gloves and fan and finding the bottle labeled “Drink Me” in the bedroom. Then followed the episode of growth, and being stuck inside the house (Claustrophobia, the notebook dutifully recorded), and her escape from the animals who pelted her with pebbles as she ran into the forest.
It was Alice all right, word for word, image for image. Father image for the caterpillar, who might (Dr. Prager reasoned wisely) stand for himself as the psychiatrist, with his stern approach and enigmatic answers. The Father William poem which followed seemed to validate this conclusion.
Then came the episode of eating the side of the mushroom, growing and shrinking. Did this disguise her drug addiction? Perhaps. And there was a moment when she had a long serpentine neck and a pigeon mistook her for a serpent. A viper was a serpent. And weren’t drug addicts called “vipers”? Of course. Dr. Prager was beginning to understand now. It was all symbolic. She was telling about her own life. Running away and finding the key to success—alternating between being very “small” and insignificant and trying every method of becoming “big” and important. Until she entered the garden—her Garden of Eden here—and became a star and consulted him and took drugs. It all made sense now.
He could understand as she told of the visit to the house of the Duchess (mother-image) with her cruel, “Chop off her head.” He anticipated the baby who turned into a pig and wrote down rejection fantasy quickly.
Then he listened to the interview with the Cheshire cat, inwardly marveling at Eve Eden’s perfect memory for dialogue.
“ ‘But I don’t want to go among mad people,’ I said. And the crazy cat came back with, ‘Oh, you can’t help that. We’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.’ And I said, ‘How do you know I’m mad?’ and the cat said, ‘You must be—or you wouldn’t have come here.’ Well, I felt plenty crazy when the cat started to vanish. Believe it or not, Doc, there was nothing left but a big grin.”
“I believe it,” Dr. Prager assured her.
He was hot on the trail of another scent now. The talk of madness had set him off. And sure enough, now came the tea party. With the March Hare and the Mad Hatter, of course—the Mad Hatter. Sitting in front of their house (asylum, no doubt) with the sleeping dormouse between them. Dormouse—dormant sanity. She was afraid of going insane, Dr. Prager decided. So much so did he believe it that when she quoted the line, “Why is a raven like a writing desk?” he found himself writing down, Why is a raving like a Rorschach test? and had to cross it out.
Then came the sadistic treatment of the poor dormouse and another drug fantasy with mushrooms for the symbol, leading her again into a beautiful garden. Dr. Prager heard it all: the story of the playing-card people (club soldiers and diamond courtiers and heart children were perfectly fascinating symbols too!).
And when Eve said, “Why, they’re only a pack of cards after all—I needn’t be afraid of them,” Dr. Prager triumphantly wrote paranoid fantasies: people are unreal.
“Now I must tell you about the croquet game,” Eve went on, and so she told him about the croquet game and Dr. Prager filled two whole pages with notes.
He was particularly delighted with Alice-Eve’s account of the conversation with the ugly Duchess, who said among other things, “Take care of the sense and the sounds will take care of themselves,” and, “Be what you seem to be—or more simply, never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been who have appeared to them to be otherwise.”
Eve Eden rattled it off, apparently verbatim. “It didn’t seem to make sense at the time,” she admitted. “But it does now, don’t you think?”
Dr. Prager refused to commit himself. It made sense all right. A dreadful sort of sense. This poor child was struggling to retain her identity. Everything pointed to that. She was adrift in a sea of illusion, peopled with Mock Turtles—Mock Turtle, very significant, that—and distorted imagery.
Now the story of the Turtle and the Gryphon and the Lobster Quadrille began to take on a dreadful meaning. All the twisted words and phrases symbolized growing mental disturbance. Schools taught “reeling and writhing” and arithmetic consisted of “ambition, distraction, uglification, and derision.” Obviously fantasies of inferiority. And Alice-Eve growing more and more confused with twisted, inverted logic in which “blacking” became “whiting”—it was merely an inner cry signifying she could no longer tell the difference between black and white. In other words, she was losing all contact with reality. She was going through an ordeal—a trial.
Of course it was a trial! Now Eve was telling about the trial of the Knave of Hearts, who stole the tarts. (Hadn’t Eve once been a “tart” herself?) and Alice-Eve noted all the animals on the jury (another paranoid delusion: people are animals) and she kept growing (delusions of grandeur) and then came the white rabbit reading the anonymous letter.
Dr. Prager picked up his own ears, rabbit-fashion, when he heard the contents of the letter.
|
“My notion was that you had been (before she had this fit) An obstacle that came between Him, and ourselves, and it. Don’t let him know she liked them best For this must ever be A secret kept from all the rest Between yourself and me.” |
Of course. A secret, Dr. Prager decided. Eve Eden had been afraid of madness for a long time. That was the root of all her perverse behavior patterns, and he’d never probed sufficiently to uncover it. But the dream, welling up from the subconscious, provided the answer.
“I said I didn’t believe there was an atom of meaning in it,” Eve told him. “And the Queen cried, ‘Off with her head,’ but I said, ‘Who cares for you? You’re nothing but a pack of cards.’ And they all rose up and flew at me, but I beat them off, and then I woke up fighting the covers.”
She sat up. “You’ve been taking an awful lot of notes,” she said. “Mind telling me what you think?”
Dr. Prager hesitated. It was a delicate question. Still, the dream content indicated that she was perfectly well aware of her problem on the subliminal level. A plain exposition of the facts might come as a shock but not a dangerous one. Actually a shock could be just the thing now to lead her back and resolve the initial trauma, wherever it was.
“All right,” Dr. Prager said. “Here’s what I think it means.” And in plain language he explained his interpretation of her dream, pulling no punches but, occasionally, his goatee.
“So there you have it,” he concluded. “The symbolic story of your life—and the dramatized and disguised conflict over your mental status which you’ve always tried to hide. But the subconscious is wise, my dear. It always knows and tries to warn. No wonder you had this dream at this particular time. There’s nothing accidental about it. Freud says—”
But Eve was laughing. “Freud says? What does he know about it? Come to think of it, Doc, what do you know about it either? You see, I forgot to tell you something when I started. I didn’t just have this dream.” She stared at him, and her laughter ceased. “I bought it,” Eve Eden said. “I bought it for ten thousand dollars.”
Dr. Prager wasn’t getting anywhere. His fountain pen ceased to function and his goatee wouldn’t respond properly to even the most severe tugging. He heard Eve Eden out and waved his arms helplessly, like a bird about to take off. He felt like taking off, but on the other hand he couldn’t leave this chick in her nest. Not with a big nest egg involved. But why did it have to be so involved?
“Go over that again,” he begged finally. “Just the highlights. I can’t seem to get it.”
“But it’s really so simple,” Eve answered. “Like I already told you. I was getting all restless and keyed up, you know, like I’ve been before. Dying for a ball, some new kind of kick. And then I ran into Wally Redmond and he told me about this Professor Laroc.”
“The charlatan,” Dr. Prager murmured.
“I don’t know what nationality he is,” Eve answered. “He’s just a little old guy who goes around selling these dreams.”
“Now wait a minute—”
“Sure, it sounds screwy. I thought so, too, when Wally told me. He’d met him at a party somewhere and got to talking. And pretty soon he was spilling his—you’ll pardon the expression—guts about the sad story of his life and how fed up he was with everything, including his sixth wife. And how he wanted to get away from it all and find a new caper.
“So this Professor Laroc asked him if he’d ever been on the stuff, and Wally said no, he had a weak heart. And he asked him if he’d tried psychiatry, and Wally said sure, but it didn’t help him any.”
“Your friend went to the wrong analyst,” Dr. Prager snapped in some heat. “He should have come to a Freudian. How could he expect to get results from a Jungian—?”
“Like you say, Doc, relax. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that Professor Laroc sold him this dream. It was a real scary one, to hear him tell it, all about being a burglar over in England someplace and getting into a big estate run by a little dwarf with a head like a baboon. But he liked it; liked it fine. Said he was really relaxed after he had it: made him feel like a different person. And so he bought another, about a guy who was a pawnbroker, only a long time ago in some real gone country. And this pawnbroker ran around having himself all kinds of women who—”
“Jurgen,” Dr. Prager muttered. “And if I’m not mistaken, the other one was from Lukundoo. I think it was called The Snout.”
“Let’s stick to the point, Doc,” Eve Eden said. “Anyway, Wally was crazy about these dreams. He said the professor had a lot more to peddle, and even though the price was high, it was worth it. Because in the dream you felt like somebody else. You felt like the character you were dreaming about. And, of course, no hang-over, no trouble with the law. Wally said if he ever tried some of the stuff he dreamed about on real women they’d clap him into pokey, even here in Hollywood. He planned to get out of pictures and buy more. Wanted to dream all the time. I guess the professor told him if he paid enough he could even stay in a dream without coming back.”
“Nonsense!”
“That’s what I told the man. I know how you feel, Doc. I felt that way myself before I met Professor Laroc. But after that it was different.”
“You met this person?”
“He isn’t a person, Doc. He’s a real nice guy, a sweet character. You’d like him. I did when Wally brought him around. We had a long talk together. I opened up to him, even more than I have to you, I guess. Told him all my troubles. And he said what was wrong with me was I never had any childhood. That somewhere underneath there was a little girl trying to live her life with a full imagination. So he’d sell me a dream for that. And even though it sounded batty it made sense to me. He really seemed to understand things I didn’t understand about myself.
“So I thought here goes, nothing to lose if I try it once, and I bought the dream.” She smiled. “And now that I know what it’s like I’m going to buy more. All he can sell me. Because he was right, you know. I don’t want the movies. I don’t want liquor or sex or H or gambling or anything. I don’t want Eve Eden. I want to be a little girl, a little girl like the one in the dream, having adventures and never getting hurt. That’s why I made up my mind. I’m quitting, getting out while the getting is good. From now on, me for dreamland.”
Dr. Prager was silent for a long time. He kept staring at Eve Eden’s smile. It wasn’t her smile—he got the strangest notion that it belonged to somebody else. It was too relaxed, too innocent, too utterly seraphic for Eve. It was, he told himself, the smile of a ten-year-old girl on the face of a thirty-three-year-old woman of the world.
And he thought hebephrenia and he thought schizophrenia and he thought incipient catatonia and he said, “You say you met this Professor Laroc through Wally Redmond. Do you know how to reach him?”
“No, he reaches me.” Eve Eden giggled. “He sends me, too, Doc.”
She was really pretty far gone, Dr. Prager decided. But he had to persist. “When you bought this dream, as you say, what happened?”
“Why, nothing. Wally brought the professor here to the house. Right up to this bedroom actually. Then he went away and the professor talked to me and I wrote out the check and he gave me the dream.”
“You keep saying he ‘gave’ you this dream. What does that mean?” Dr. Prager leaned forward. He had a sudden hunch. “Did he ask you to lie down, the way I do?”
“Yes. That’s right.”
“And did he talk to you?”
“Sure. How’d you guess?”
“And did he keep talking until you went to sleep?”
“I—I think so. Anyway, I did go to sleep, and when I woke up he was gone.”
“Aha.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you were hypnotized, my dear. Hypnotized by a clever charlatan, who sold you a few moments of prepared patter in return for ten thousand dollars.”
“But—but that’s not true!” Eve Eden’s childish smile became a childish pout. “It was real. The dream, I mean. It happened.”
“Happened?”
“Of course. Haven’t I made that clear yet? The dream happened. It wasn’t like other dreams. I mean, I could feel and hear and see and even taste. Only it wasn’t me. It was this little girl. Alice. I was Alice. That’s what makes it worth while, can’t you understand? That’s what Wally said too. The dream place is real. You go there, and you are somebody else.”
“Hypnotism,” Dr. Prager murmured.
Eve Eden put down the rabbit. “All right,” she said. “I can prove it.” She marched over to the big bed—the bed large enough to hold six people, according to some very catty but authenticated reports. “I didn’t mean to show you this,” she said, “but maybe I’d better.”
She reached under her pillow and pulled out a small object which glittered beneath the light. “I found this in my hand when I woke up,” she declared. “Look at it.”
Dr. Prager looked at it. It was a small bottle bearing a little white label. He shook it and discovered that the bottle was half filled with a colorless transparent liquid. He studied the label and deciphered the hand-lettered inscription which read simply, “Drink Me.”
“Proof, eh?” he mused. “Found in your hand when you woke up?”
“Of course. I brought it from the dream.”
Dr. Prager smiled. “You were hypnotized. And before Professor Laroc stole away—and stole is singularly appropriate, considering that he had your check for ten thousand dollars—he simply planted this bottle in your hand as you slept. That’s my interpretation of your proof.” He slipped the little glass container into his pocket. “With your permission, I’d like to take this along,” he said. “I’m going to ask you now to bear with me for the next twenty-four hours. Don’t make any announcements about leaving the studio until I return. I think I can clear everything up to your satisfaction.”
“But I am satisfied,” Eve told him. “There’s nothing to clear up. I don’t want to—”
“Please.” Dr. Prager brushed his brush with authority. “All I ask is that you be patient for twenty-four hours. I shall return tomorrow at this same time. And meanwhile, try to forget about all this. Say nothing to anyone.”
“Now wait a minute, Doc—”
But Dr. Prager was gone. Eve Eden frowned for a moment, then sank back on the chaise longue. The rabbit scampered out from behind a chair and she picked it up again. She stroked its long ears gently until the creature fell asleep. Presently Eve’s eyes closed and she drifted off to slumber herself. And the child’s smile returned to her face.
There was no smile, childish or adult, on Dr. Prager’s face when he presented himself again to the gatekeeper on the following day.
His face was stern and set as he drove up to the front door, accepted the butler’s greeting, and went down the hall to where Mickey Dennis waited.
“What’s up?” the little agent demanded, tossing his copy of Hollywood Reporter to the floor.
“I’ve been doing a bit of investigating,” Dr. Prager told him. “And I’m afraid I have bad news for you.”
“What is it, Doc? I tried to get something out of her after you left yesterday, but she wasn’t talking. And today—”
“I know.” Dr. Prager sighed. “She wouldn’t be likely to tell you, under the circumstances. Apparently she realizes the truth herself but won’t admit it. I have good reason to believe Miss Eden is disturbed. Seriously disturbed.”
Mickey Dennis twirled his forefinger next to his ear. “You mean she’s flipping?”
“I disapprove of that term on general principles,” Dr. Prager replied primly. “And in this particular case the tense is wrong. Flipped would be much more correct.”
“But I figgered she was all right lately. Outside of this business about quitting, she’s been extra happy—happier’n I ever seen her.”
“Euphoria,” Dr. Prager answered. “Cycloid manifestation.”
“You don’t say so.”
“I just did,” the psychiatrist reminded him.
“Level with me,” Dennis pleaded. “What’s this all about?”
“I can’t until after I’ve talked to her,” Dr. Prager told him. “I need more facts. I was hoping to get some essential information from this Wally Redmond, but I can’t locate him. Neither his studio nor his home seems to have information as to his whereabouts for the past several days.”
“Off on a binge,” the agent suggested. “It figgers. Only just what did you want from him?”
“Information concerning Professor Laroc,” Dr. Prager answered. “He’s a pretty elusive character. His name isn’t listed on any academic roster I’ve consulted, and I couldn’t find it in the City Directory of this or other local communities. Nor could the police department aid me with their files. I’m almost afraid my initial theory was wrong and that Professor Laroc himself is only another figment of Eve Eden’s imagination.”
“Maybe I can help you out there, Doc.”
“You mean you met this man, saw him when he came here with Wally Redmond that evening?”
Mickey Dennis shook his head. “No. I wasn’t around then. But I been around all afternoon. And just about a half hour ago a character named Professor Laroc showed up at the door. He’s with Eve in her room right now.”
Dr. Prager opened his mouth and expelled a gulp. Then he turned and ran for the stairs.
The agent sought out his overstuffed chair and rifled the pages of his magazine.
More waiting. Well, he just hoped there wouldn’t be any explosions this afternoon.
There was no explosion when Dr. Prager opened the bedroom door. Eve Eden was sitting quietly on the chaise longue, and the elderly gentleman occupied an armchair.
As Dr. Prager entered, the older man rose with a smile and extended his hand. Dr. Prager felt it wise to ignore the gesture. “Professor Laroc?” he murmured.
“That is correct.” The smile was a bland blend of twinkling blue eyes behind old-fashioned steel-rimmed spectacles, wrinkled creases in white cheeks, and a rictus of a prim, thin-lipped mouth. Whatever else he might be, Professor Laroc aptly fitted Mickey Dennis’s description of a “character.” He appeared to be about sixty-five, and his clothing seemed of the same vintage, as though fashioned in anticipation at the time of his birth.
Eve Eden stood up now. “I’m glad you two are getting together,” she said. “I asked the professor to come this afternoon so we could straighten everything out.”
Dr. Prager preened his goatee. “I’m very happy that you did so,” he answered. “And I’m sure that matters can be set straight in very short order now that I’m here.”
“The professor has just been telling me a couple of things,” Eve informed him. “I gave him your pitch about me losing my buttons and he says you’re all wet.”
“A slight misquotation,” Professor Laroc interposed. “I merely observed that an understanding of the true facts might dampen your enthusiasm.”
“I think I have the facts,” Dr. Prager snapped. “And they’re dry enough. Dry, but fascinating.”
“Do go on.”
“I intend to.” Dr. Prager wheeled to confront Eve Eden and spoke directly to the girl. “First of all,” he said, “I must tell you that your friend here is masquerading under a pseudonym. I have been unable to discover a single bit of evidence substantiating the identity of anyone named Professor Laroc.”
“Granted,” the elderly man murmured.
“Secondly,” Dr. Prager continued, “I must warn you that I have been unable to ascertain the whereabouts of your friend Wally Redmond. His wife doesn’t know where he is, or his producer. Mickey Dennis thinks he’s off on an alcoholic fugue. I have my own theory. But one fact is certain—he seems to have completely disappeared.”
“Granted,” said Professor Laroc.
“Third and last,” Dr. Prager went on. “It is my considered belief that the man calling himself Professor Laroc did indeed subject you to hypnosis and that, once he had managed to place you in a deep trance, he deliberately read to you from a copy of Alice in Wonderland and suggested to you that you were experiencing the adventures of the principal character. Whereupon he placed the vial of liquid labeled ‘Drink Me’ in your hand and departed.”
“Granted in part.” Professor Laroc nodded. “It is true that I placed Miss Eden in a receptive state with the aid of what you choose to call hypnosis. And it is true that I suggested to her that she enter into the world of Alice, as Alice. But that is all. It was not necessary to read anything to her, nor did I stoop to deception by supplying a vial of liquid, as you call it. Believe me, I was as astonished as you were to learn that she had brought back such an interesting souvenir of her little experience.”
“Prepare to be astonished again then,” Dr. Prager said grimly. He pulled the small bottle from his pocket and with it a piece of paper.
“What’s that, Doc?” Eve Eden asked.
“A certificate from Haddon and Haddon, industrial chemists,” the psychiatrist told her. “I took this interesting souvenir, as your friend calls it, down to their laboratories for analysis.” He handed her the report. “Here, read for yourself. If your knowledge of chemistry is insufficient, I can tell you that H2O means water.” He smiled. “Yes, that’s right. This bottle contains nothing but half an ounce of water.”
Dr. Prager turned and stared at Professor Laroc. “What have you to say now?” he demanded.
“Very little.” The old man smiled. “It does not surprise me that you were unable to find my name listed in any registry or directory of activities, legal or illegal. As Miss Eden already knows, I chose to cross over many years ago. Nor was ‘Laroc’ my actual surname. A moment’s reflection will enable you to realize that ‘Laroc’ is an obvious enough anagram for ‘Carroll,’ give or take a few letters.”
“You don’t mean to tell me—”
“That I am Lewis Carroll, or rather, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson? Certainly not. I hold the honor of being a fellow alumnus of his at Oxford, and we did indeed share an acquaintance—”
“But Lewis Carroll died in 1898,” Dr. Prager objected.
“Ah, you were interested enough to look up the date.” The old man smiled. “I see you’re not as skeptical as you pretend to be.”
Dr. Prager felt that he was giving ground and remembered that attack is the best defense. “Where is Wally Redmond?” he countered.
“With the Duchess of Towers, I would presume,” Professor Laroc answered. “He chose to cross over permanently, and I selected Peter Ibbetson for him. You see, I’m restricted to literature which was directly inspired by the author’s dream, and there’s a rather small field available. I still have Cabell’s Smirt to sell, and The Brushwood Boy of Kipling, but I don’t imagine I shall ever manage to dispose of any Lovecraft—too gruesome, you know.” He glanced at Eve Eden. “Fortunately, as I told you, I’ve reserved something very special for you. And I’m glad you decided to take the step. The moment I saw you my heart went out to you. I sensed the little girl buried away beneath all the veneer, just as I sensed the small boy in Mr. Redmond. So many of you Hollywood people are frustrated children. You make dreams for others but have none of your own. I am glad to offer my modest philanthropy—”
“At ten thousand dollars a session!” Dr. Prager exploded.
“Now, now,” Professor Laroc chided. “That sounds like professional jealousy, sir! And I may as well remind you that a permanent crossover requires a fee of fifty thousand. Not that I need the money, you understand. It’s merely that such a fee helps to establish me as an authority. It brings about the necessary transference relationship between my clients and myself, to borrow from your own terminology. The effect is purely psychological.”
Dr. Prager had heard enough. This, he decided, was definitely the time to call a halt. Even Eve Eden in her present disturbed state should be able to comprehend the utter idiocy of this man’s preposterous claims.
He faced the elderly charlatan with a disarming smile. “Let me get this straight,” he began quietly. “Am I to understand that you are actually selling dreams?”
“Let us say, rather, that I sell experiences. And the experiences are every bit as real as anything you know.”
“Don’t quibble over words.” Dr. Prager was annoyed. “You come in and hypnotize patients. During their sleep you suggest they enter a dream world. And then—”
“If you don’t mind, let us quibble a bit over words, please,” Professor Laroc said. “You’re a psychiatrist. Very well, as a psychiatrist, please tell me one thing. Just what is a dream?”
“Why, that’s very simple,” Dr. Prager answered. “According to Freud, the dream phenomenon can be described as—”
“I didn’t ask for a description, Doctor. Nor for Freud’s opinion. I asked for an exact definition of the dream state, as you call it. I want to know the etiology and epistemology of dreams. And while you’re at it, how about a definition of ‘the hypnotic state’ and of ‘sleep’? And what is ‘suggestion’? After you’ve given me precise scientific definitions of these phenomena, as you love to call them, perhaps you can go on and explain to me the nature of ‘reality’ and the exact meaning of the term ‘imagination.’”
“But these are only figures of speech,” Dr. Prager objected. “I’ll be honest with you. Perhaps we can’t accurately describe a dream. But we can observe it. It’s like electricity: nobody knows what it is, but it’s a measurable force which can be directed and controlled, subject to certain natural laws.”
“Exactly,” Professor Laroc said. “That’s just what I would have said myself. And dreams are indeed like electrical force. Indeed, the human brain gives off electrical charges, and all life—matter—energy—enters into an electrical relationship. But this relationship has never been studied. Only the physical manifestations of electricity have been studied and harnessed, not the psychic. At least, not until Dodgson stumbled on certain basic mathematical principles, which he imparted to me. I developed them, found a practical use. The dream, my dear doctor, is merely an electrically charged dimension given a reality of its own beyond our own space-time continuum. The individual dream is weak. Set it down on paper, as some dreams have been set down, share it with others, and watch the charge build up. The combined electrical properties tend to create a permanent plane—a dream dimension, if you please.”
“I don’t please,” answered Dr. Prager.
“That’s because you’re not receptive,” Professor Laroc observed smugly. “Yours is a negative charge rather than a positive one. Dodgson—Lewis Carroll—was positive. So was Lovecraft and Poe and Edward Lucas White and a handful of others. Their dreams live. Other positive charges can live in them, granted the proper method of entry. It’s not magic. There’s nothing supernatural about it at all, unless you consider mathematics as magic. Dodgson did. He was a professor of mathematics, remember. And so was I. I took his principles and extended them, created a practical methodology. Now I can enter dream worlds at will, cause others to enter. It’s not hypnosis as you understand it. A few words of non-Euclidean formula will be sufficient—”
“I’ve heard enough,” Dr. Prager broke in. “Much as I hate to employ the phrase, this is sheer lunacy.”
The professor shrugged. “Call it what you wish,” he said. “You psychiatrists are good at pinning labels on things. But Miss Eden here has had sufficient proof through her own experience. Isn’t that so?”
Eve Eden nodded, then broke her silence. “I believe you,” she said. “Even if Doc here thinks we’re both batty. And I’m willing to give you the fifty grand for a permanent trip.”
Dr. Prager grabbed for his goatee. He was clutching at straws now. “But you can’t,” he cried. “This doesn’t make sense.”
“Maybe not your kind of sense,” Eve answered. “But that’s just the trouble. You don’t seem to understand there’s more than one kind. That crazy dream I had, the one you say Lewis Carroll had first and wrote up into a book—it makes sense to you if you really live it. More sense than Hollywood, than this. More sense than a little kid named Wilma Kozmowski growing up to live in a half-million-dollar palace and trying to kill herself because she can’t be a little kid anymore and never had a chance to be one when she was small. The professor here, he understands. He knows everybody has a right to dream. For the first time in my life I know what it is to be happy.”
“That’s right,” Professor Laroc added. “I recognized her as a kindred spirit. I saw the child beneath, the child of the pure unclouded brow, as Lewis Carroll put it. She deserved this dream.”
“Don’t try and stop me,” Eve cut in. “You can’t, you know. You’ll never drag me back to your world, and you’ve got no reason to try—except that you like the idea of making a steady living off me. And so does Dennis, with his lousy ten per cent, and so does the studio with its big profits. I never met anyone who really liked me as a person except Professor Laroc here. He’s the only one who ever gave me anything worth having. The dream. So quit trying to argue me into it, Doc. I’m not going to be Eve anymore or Wilma either. I’m going to be Alice.”
Dr. Prager scowled, then smiled. What was the matter with him? Why was he bothering to argue like this? After all, it was so unnecessary. Let the poor child write out a check for fifty thousand dollars—payment could always be stopped. Just as this charlatan could be stopped if he actually attempted hypnosis. There were laws and regulations. Really, Dr. Prager reminded himself, he was behaving like a child himself: taking part in this silly argument just as if there actually was something to it besides nonsense words.
What was really at stake, he realized, was professional pride. To think that this old mountebank could actually carry more authority with Eve Eden than he did himself!
And what was the imposter saying now, with that sickening, condescending smile on his face?
“I’m sorry you cannot subscribe to my theories, Doctor. But at least I am grateful for one thing, and that is that you didn’t see fit to put them to the test.”
“Test? What do you mean?”
Professor Laroc pointed his finger at the little bottle labeled “Drink Me” which now rested on the table before him. “I’m happy you merely analyzed the contents of that vial without attempting to drink them.”
“But it’s nothing but water.”
“Perhaps. What you forget is that water may have very different properties in other worlds. And this water came from the world of Alice.”
“You planted that,” Dr. Prager snapped. “Don’t deny it.”
“I do deny it. Miss Eden knows the truth.”
“Oh, does she?” Dr. Prager suddenly found his solution. He raised the bottle, turning to Eve with a commanding gesture. “Listen to me now. Professor Laroc claims, and you believe, that this liquid was somehow transported from the dream world of Alice in Wonderland. If that is the case, then a drink out of this bottle would cause me either to grow or to shrink. Correct?”
“Yes,” Eve murmured.
“Now wait—” the professor began, but Dr. Prager shook his head impatiently.
“Let me finish,” he insisted. “All right. By the same token, if I took a drink from this bottle and nothing happened, wouldn’t it prove that the dream-world story is a fake?”
“Yes, but—”
“No ‘buts.’ I’m asking you a direct question. Would it or wouldn’t it?”
“Y-yes. I guess so. Yes.”
“Very well, then.” Dramatically, Dr. Prager uncorked the little bottle and raised it to his lips. “Watch me,” he said.
Professor Laroc stepped forward. “Please!” he shouted. “I implore you—don’t—”
He made a grab for the bottle, but he was too late.
Dr. Prager downed the half ounce of colorless fluid.
Mickey Dennis waited and waited until he couldn’t stand it any longer. There hadn’t been any loud sounds from upstairs at all, and this only made it worse.
Finally he got the old urge so bad he just had to go on up there and see for himself what was going on.
As he walked down the hall he could hear them talking inside the bedroom. At least he recognized Professor Laroc’s voice. He was saying something about, “There, there, I know it’s quite a shock. Perhaps you’d feel better if you didn’t wait—do you want to go now?”
That didn’t make too much sense to Mickey, and neither did Eve’s reply. She said, “Yes, but don’t I have to go to sleep first?”
And then the professor answered, “No, as I explained to him, it’s just a question of the proper formulae. If I recite them we can go together. Er—you might bring your checkbook along.”
Eve seemed to be giggling. “You too?” she asked.
“Yes. I’ve always loved this dream, my dear. It’s a sequel to the first one, as you’ll discover. Now if you’ll just face the mirror with me—”
And then the professor mumbled something in a very low voice, and Mickey bent down with his head close to the door but he couldn’t quite catch it. Instead his shoulder pushed the door open.
The bedroom was empty.
That’s right, empty.
But he could swear he heard voices just a second ago. What had the professor said? Something about facing the mirror?
Mickey looked in the mirror, the big mirror above the mantelpiece.
For a moment he got a screwy idea he could see the professor and Eve Eden reflected in the glass, with the light shining every which way and Eve somehow looking like a little kid with long golden curls. But that was crazy, of course.
Then the dressed-up white rabbit came hopping out from behind the bed and began to scamper around the floor.
Mickey didn’t know how to explain that one either. There was going to be a lot he couldn’t explain. He’d never find out where Eve and the professor had gone, because he’d never read Through the Looking-Glass. And he’d never understand where Doc went, for that matter.
The rabbit began to scamper around the pile of clothing on the floor. Mickey recognized Doc’s coat and trousers and shirt and necktie, but this didn’t tell him anything either.
Then he stooped and picked up the little bottle lying next to the empty clothes. He stared at the label reading “Drink Me.”
Right now he could use a drink, Mickey decided, but this bottle was empty.
Maybe it was just as well…