“YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT TECHNIQUE DR. HOPE IS GOING to use next,” Cherry said to Mrs. Peters next day. The head nurse was curious and concerned about their special patient. “He telephoned and told me he’s going to try TAT pictures today—and said we’re not to give Bob any drugs or medication.”
“TAT pictures?” the head nurse asked. “Is that a test or another uncovering technique?”
Cherry shook her head and her dark curls danced under the white cap. “I’d imagine it’s more of Dr. Hope’s special brand of sleuthing, wouldn’t you?”
“Well, describe it to me when you find out. And I wish to high heaven that you’d tell Tommy and Mr. Pape and the others something more about Bob. It’s all Ruth and George and I can do to keep the ambulatory boys from going in to visit him.”
Cherry laughed. “Dr. Watson told me the men are curious. You know, he booms and thumps around so, Dr. Hope told him to take it easy with Bob.”
“How is that boy coming along?” the head nurse asked.
“Better, Mrs. Peters. He’s trying awfully hard.”
“So are you, Cherry. I’ve noticed you’re putting in overtime hours.”
Dr. Hope came in just then, and the head nurse excused herself.
“Ever seen TAT pictures, Miss Cherry?” the psychiatrist asked her, just outside of Bob’s room.
“No, Doctor.”
“Well, they are carefully designed drawings that show, or rather suggest, all sorts of situations. The patient’s reaction to them reveals what’s shrouded in his mind. Not literally, but it gives the psychiatrists hints or clues. You’ll see how it works as you watch and listen.”
“Is it really a scientific method?”
The big, blond man grinned. “You mean it sounds like guesswork? No, it isn’t. The Thematic Apperception Test—that’s what TAT stands for—has been worked out experimentally by psychologists at universities, using large numbers of tests and patients. There’s a scale of interpretation that works as accurately as the intelligence tests or vocational aptitude tests. TAT pictures are a standard tool in many mental hospitals. Satisfied, now?”
“Yes, Dr. Hope, but what do you want me to do?”
“Just be there. You’re a soothing influence for Bob, as it happens. One thing. Show you’re interested, encourage Bob to talk, but be neutral about anything he says.”
Dr. Hope rapped at the door, which stood partly open. “It’s us. We’re bringing you a kind of game.”
Bob called cheerfully, “Come in.”
Dr. Hope explained to Bob, “I’m going to show you some pictures, one at a time, and ask you to make up as dramatic a story as you can for each.”
“I? I can’t make up stories, Doctor,” Bob murmured.
“The pictures are exciting, they’ll suggest stories to you, you’ll see. I’d like you to tell what has led up to the scene shown in the picture, and describe what is happening at the moment—what the people feel and think—and what the outcome will be. Do you understand?”
Bob nodded. He was becoming interested.
“Since you have fifty minutes for the ten pictures, you can give about five minutes to each story. Here’s the first picture.”
Dr. Hope handed Bob a picture that might have been a good-sized postcard, not in color but in black and white. Dr. Hope glanced at his wristwatch while Bob studied the first picture. Cherry could see that it showed a boy of ten or twelve in a living room, holding a violin. Behind him stood a woman, and further back in the room, a man. There seemed to be someone else present, or it might have been a shadow. No one in the picture was defined very clearly; it all was dreamlike, suggesting something moving and troubling here.
“Come on, Bob,” said the psychiatrist. “Just tell the first story that comes into your head.”
“Well—that’s the boy’s parents with him, the mother wants him to go on with his violin lessons, but his father thinks she indulges the boy. Farther back in the room, that’s the boy’s brother, listening to them argue.”
“Very good. How does the boy feel?”
“I guess he feels that he’s causing a family argument—makes him feel a little out of the family circle—”
“How does the brother feel?”
“I—I don’t know. Unless—Maybe he doesn’t like it that the younger brother receives so much attention from their parents. It’s just a story I’m making up, you understand?”
This was as much as Bob would or could say on the first picture. Dr. Hope remarked pleasantly, “Good try,” and handed him the second picture.
For each shadowy, haunting scene presented to him, Bob told stories with only a little strain. In some cases his stories made no immediate sense. Cherry noticed that the stories were disconnected and did not link up with one another—at least not on the surface. She could not tell whether any single story stood out significantly. One or two pictures made him smile.
Then Dr. Hope gave Bob the ninth picture. Bob reacted excitedly. It suggested—at least to Bob—a place on the water, sandy, rocky, on rough water—a place near the ocean, not inland like Hilton—with big jutting rocks. A few shadowy figures seemed to be walking there. Evidently something important and troubling had once happened to Bob in such a coastal place, for he broke into a sweat. The psychiatrist urged him to talk.
“This is where the boys go to swim,” he said. “It’s a place where accidents can happen. Because of rough water—and because in heavy weather, it’s hard to see all those rocks, especially when fog envelops them.”
“How many boys, Bob?”
“Just two boys.”
“Is one of them you?”
“It might be me,” Bob admitted.
Dr. Hope asked him what sort of accident it might be. Swimming or sailing or just climbing and slipping on the rocks, Bob said vaguely. Near which ocean was this spot? Of all the TAT cards, this beach scene absorbed him the most. Yet Bob was too agitated to answer. He could not remember where, he insisted.
The psychiatrist let the question go, and offered him the tenth picture. By this time Bob was tired, and could tell only a sketchy, desultory story. Dr. Hope put the ten pictures away. The fifty minutes was up. He praised Bob’s cooperation, and said:
“Tomorrow or next day, we’ll do the next ten pictures.”
“Oh, gosh,” Bob said, and laughed a little. “That’s work. How many more pictures are there?”
“Only the ten more. Weren’t his stories interesting, Miss Cherry?”
He had, in fact, conjured up extraordinarily vivid scenes. In private with Cherry, Dr. Hope said he was encouraged by today’s try. “He put his finger on a family consisting of father, mother, and two sons—and he described the family attitudes of each one of them.”
“And that scene on the rocky beach—”
“Yes, that’s a clue, too. An accident there involving the two boys, somehow. We’ll follow up these leads, Miss Cherry.”
The session cost Bob something, though. After Dr. Hope left, Dr. Watson noted he had a slight return of the stammering and physical slowness, and a tendency to stare. He had the orderly, George, give Bob a relaxing warm sponge bath and a back rub. Then Cherry brought him some warm broth.
“Dr. Hope said it would do this boy good,” Dr. Watson boomed to Cherry and Mrs. Peters, “to visit with the other fellows on the ward tomorrow. Isn’t it about time? That doorway is wide enough for us to wheel out his bed.”
Cherry and the head nurse asked Bob, the next morning after breakfast, how he would feel about being wheeled out onto the ward. “For a get-acquainted visit,” said Mrs. Peters. “The other men would like to know you. They’re a friendly group.”
Bob looked terrified for an instant. Cherry told him that he wouldn’t have to stay any longer than he wanted to, and that Dr. Hope thought some companionship would be a good idea. Bob still hesitated.
“If I could be of any use to anybody,” he said. “In that case—”
Mrs. Peters picked up his cue. “Sam Jones, who’s broken his right shoulder, mentioned that he’d like to write a letter this morning. If you could write Sam’s letter for him—?”
“I’d like to do that,” Bob said. “And maybe the other men won’t find me odd.”
Cherry was delighted with the way the entire ward welcomed him. Disabled temporarily themselves, the men were subdued, sympathetic company for Bob. He smiled from his bed at young Tommy who rapidly rolled over his wheelchair to shake hands. The orderly rolled Bob along between the double row of beds, while Cherry performed introductions. Bob looked with pity at the long-term spine patient, who said cockily, “Today’s the day I try my luck at sitting up. Maybe next week I’ll be walking around on crutches.” Bob nodded, but he was unable to find words. Old Mr. Pape, resembling a snail in its shell under the cast that protected his broken hip, waved to Bob.
Cherry bent and whispered, “Want to go back to your room now?”
“No. It’s interesting here. They’re nice,” Bob whispered back. “But why do they have to wear those faded, pinkish bathrobes?”
“The hospital budget can’t afford quite everything.”
“But those old robes are dispiriting. Maybe I could buy new bathrobes for the ward.”
He suggested it so matter-of-factly that Cherry saw he meant what he said. It sounded as if, in his usual life, he might be a man able to afford this act of generosity.
By propping a notebook against his good knee, Bob managed to write the letter that Sam dictated. Cherry noticed his handwriting: it was small, neat, exact, like the script of a scientist, and he printed all the capital letters. She noticed, too, when she came by with a tray of medicines and chemicals that he seemed to know a good deal about them.
“Who is this young man?” Cherry thought. “He seems to be highly trained in the organic sciences. Wonder what his work is—and where?”
All of a sudden he grew tired and had to be taken back to the quiet of his room. It was too bad, because Mr. Pape was having his sixtieth birthday today, and the volunteers in their blue smocks were just bringing in an immense birthday cake, to serve at lunch. Bob received a piece, anyway, complete with a candle. He enjoyed being part of the life of the ward; that was a hopeful step in his recovery.
On Friday, the following day, Dr. Hope came again. He had given Bob a chance to rest, and now they would attempt the next ten TAT pictures.
Again Cherry lowered the shades and turned on the lamp, so that Bob’s room was half in shadow. Dr. Hope sat down beside Bob’s bed, with Cherry seated nearby, and started to talk casually. Any outsider would have thought these three people were three friends having a visit, and so, in a way, they were—except that each of their “visits” had so much at stake.
Bob started bravely on the first of the next ten pictures. Here were two or three people in a meadow at dusk, moving toward each other—or were they going away from each other?—and far away over the hills, someone was coming. For this picture, and for the next four, Bob drew from the turmoil inside him curiously troubling, revealing stories.
He was startled when Dr. Hope handed him the sixteenth card. So was Cherry. It was blank.
“But I can’t—What do you want me to tell?”
Dr. Hope said, “I’d like you to imagine a picture, describe it to Miss Cherry and me, and then tell us a story about it as you’ve done for the other cards.”
“Well, it’s in an office. Not in an office building—in a factory, more likely. Two men are quarreling.” Bob hesitated. “They’re very angry with each other. Especially the older one.” He stopped dead.
“Can you tell us who they are?” Dr. Hope prompted. “Partners, friends? Or perhaps what they’re quarreling about?”
Bob looked confused. The direct question had upset him. He stammered and lapsed into silence.
“Never mind,” the psychiatrist said gently. “It’s an office, and the two men are quarreling.”
“Yes. The two men are quarreling. Accusations, denials. Someone’s guilty.”
Cherry and Dr. Hope listened acutely. They did not dare interrupt with questions at this point.
“They shout at each other—it’s in an office—
Bob rambled on and grew incoherent.
“That’s enough. Next card,” Dr. Hope said briskly, to bring Bob back to himself.
“Oh. Yes. Well, let’s see.” Bob drew a quivering breath and composed himself. “This picture shows a farmhouse, or maybe it’s a country inn—”
His storytelling for the last of the cards was uneventful. Again Dr. Hope praised and encouraged him at the session’s end. Bob gave him a quizzical glance.
“You know, it’s rather hard to take this game seriously, Doctor. The times before, when I talked to you sort of half-asleep from the injections—I found it hard to take all that seriously, too. I can’t see how it can help bring back my memory.”
“It’s a technique that works,” Dr. Hope assured him. Bob listlessly picked at the blanket. “You want to get well, don’t you?” Bob nodded, without enthusiasm.
“Perhaps he’s just fatigued,” Cherry suggested to Dr. Hope after they left Bob’s room.
“No. That unwillingness to regard his memories seriously is a facet of his unwillingness to return to the real world. He’s fled from his troubles by forgetting them and he doesn’t wish to return and face the bad situation he fled.”
“I noticed,” Cherry said, “that he never mentions the future. The other day when I mentioned planning for his future, he lost his temper.”
“That’s right. Hasn’t the morale yet. But he will. He’s improving.”
Dr. Hope discussed today’s session with Cherry. She sensed that he did it to instruct her, and to fix the points gained by stating them aloud.
“Two men quarreling. One is older than the other. The older one is the angrier of the two. Why? Hmm.”
“Is one of them Bob, possibly?” Cherry asked.
“Possibly. We don’t know. Remember, Bob’s stories are a mixture of fact and fantasy. All of it revealing.”
Cherry reminded Dr. Hope, “When Bob told the ‘violin’ story, he mentioned the younger brother with the violin and the older brother who sort of envied him. Could the two men quarreling be the two brothers, grown up?”
“I thought of that, too,” Dr. Hope said. “But we mustn’t leap to conclusions. Keep our thinking fluid. Now. The two men make accusations and denials, but Bob said ‘someone’ is guilty. Who is guilty? Is one of the two men guilty? Or is it a third person?”
Cherry saw there was no point in asking about a dozen questions that came to mind. Dr. Hope and she, somehow, must secure the facts.
The psychiatrist promptly took the next step.
Late that same Friday afternoon he returned to their patient. Cherry waited outside Bob’s room. It was late; she wore her street clothes, and knew that her friends expected her within the hour. She, Bill, Sue Pritchard, and Joe Hall planned to drive out into the country for supper, on a double date, in this still-mild, last week of September. Cherry counted back on her fingers. This was Friday the twenty-sixth; Bob had been admitted to Hilton Hospital on Wednesday, September tenth; he had been under treatment for a little more than two weeks. He was better, but how few identifying facts they had discovered!
Dr. Hope came out of Bob’s room. He beckoned to Cherry and spoke rapidly.
“I reminded Bob of the stories he had told for the twenty TAT pictures and asked him to fill in certain important details. Also, I asked him to look back and say which stories came from his own experience, or a friend’s experience, or a book, or a movie. Not that the source of the story detracts—the patient selects certain key details to emphasize, anyway—but it’ll help us to know that the quarrel and the seashore incident are facts.”
“Or so he said,” Cherry murmured.
Dr. Hope grinned. “Or so he said. Also, I asked Bob which were his favorite and least favorite pictures. He likes best, the one of a white house or homestead, and he likes the seashore scene the least. He seems to believe those are actual places.”
“Were is that house? And that coastal beach?”
“He gave no hint. Unless they exist only in Bob’s imagination. … There’s a second step to follow up on these TAT pictures, and that may tell us. But I’m detaining you, Miss Cherry. No, I won’t tell you the next step until Monday.” He laughed. “Run along home and have a good weekend, and forget all about hospital matters.”
“As if I could! Or wanted to.” Cherry wished him a happy weekend, too, and ran down the stairs since the elevators were full.
On the way down she almost collided with Mrs. Leona Ball, who was coming up the stairs to find Cherry. The social worker waved a letter.
“The watch manufacturer answered our inquiry! I thought you’d be here late as usual, so I—Look here!”
The watch manufacturer stated that the watch bearing the given serial number had been sold two years ago to the Jennings Jewelry Shop in Cleveland, Ohio.
“Do you suppose the shop has a record of their customer for Bob’s watch?” Cherry asked. “Because if they have—” She was almost afraid to hope. If they had, she would at last have a definite, recent clue as to who Bob Smith was.
“I’ll write to Jennings Jewelry Shop before I leave the hospital today,” Leona Ball promised, “and I’ll send it air mail.”