Sybil (12 page)

"You're very fortunate," the doctor remarked. "Oh, I am," Vicky asserted. "It would be dreadful to have the wrong parents. Simply dreadful."

"I understand," said the doctor. "My family will come eventually," said Vicky.

"Yes, I understand," said the doctor. Vicky moved closer to Dr. Wilbur and confided with concern: "But, Doctor, I really came to talk about Sybil. It's simply appalling the way she worries all the time. She doesn't eat enough, doesn't allow herself to have enough fun, and generally takes life too seriously. A little less self-denial and a little more pleasure would go far to counteract Sybil's sickness." Vicky paused; then she added thoughtfully: "There's something else, Doctor. Something deep inside."

"What do you think it is, Vicky?"

"I can't really say. You see it started before I came."

"When did you come?"

"Sybil was just a little girl then."

"I see." The doctor waited for a moment and then asked: "Did you know Mrs. Dorsett?"

Vicky was suddenly aloof, guarded. "She was Sybil's mother," she explained. "I lived with the Dorsetts for many years. Yes, I knew Mrs. Dorsett."

"Do you know Peggy?" asked the doctor. "Of course," Vicky replied.

"Tell me about Peggy."

"You want me to tell you about Peggy?" Vicky repeated. "You mean Peggy Lou? Would you also like to hear about Peggy Ann?"

"Peggy who?" asked the doctor. "Stupid of me," Vicky apologized. "I had quite forgotten that Peggy Lou is the only one you've met. There are two Peggys."

"Two Peggys?" Again the doctor wrestled with amazement. But why should a fourth personality surprise her? Once she had accepted the premise of multiple selves, she realized there was no longer any reason for surprise.

"Peggy Ann will be along one of these days," Vicky predicted. "You'll meet her. I'm sure you'll like her."

"I'm sure I will."

"They do things together, those two, Peggy Lou and Peggy Ann."

"What makes them different?"

"Well it seems to me that what arouses Peggy Lou's anger makes Peggy Ann afraid. But they're both fighters. When Peggy Lou decides she is going to do something, she goes at it in a pretty bull-headed sort of way. You see, Peggy Ann goes at things, too. But she's more tactful."

"I see."

"They both want to change things," Vicky concluded. "And what they want to change most of all is Sybil."

"Very interesting," the doctor replied. "And now, Vicky, can you tell me: was Mrs. Dorsett Peggy Lou's mother?"

"Well, of course," Vicky answered.

"But," the doctor pointed out, "Peggy Lou claims that Sybil's mother is not her mother."

"Oh, I know," Vicky replied airily. "You know how Peggy Lou is." Then with an amused smile Vicky added: "Mrs. Dorsett was Peggy Lou's mother, but Peggy Lou doesn't know it."

"What about Peggy Ann?" asked the doctor. "Mrs. Dorsett was Peggy Ann's mother. But Peggy Ann doesn't know it, either."

"I see," said the doctor. "It's all very curious."

"Oh, it is," Vicky agreed. "But it's a state of mind. Maybe you'll be able to help them."

There was a silence, which the doctor finally broke by asking, "Vicky, do Peggy Lou and you look alike?"

Vicky's face darkened with disappointment. Then she asked: "Can't you tell?"

"I can't tell," the doctor temporized, "because I've never seen you together."

Vicky rose from the couch and walked to the desk with swift, lithe movements. "You don't mind if I use this?" she asked when she had returned with a prescription pad.

"Go right ahead."

The doctor watched as Vicky settled herself on the couch, removed a pencil from her purse, and began sketching on the pad.

"Here," Vicky said after a while, "are two heads. This is I with my blonde ringlets. I wish I had a crayon to draw the hair color. This is Peggy Lou. Her hair is black. The lack of crayon doesn't really matter. Peggy Lou doesn't like any fuss and bother. She wears her hair perfectly straight, just like this." Vicky then pointed to the pad on which she had drawn Peggy Lou's Dutch cut. "You see," Vicky remarked triumphantly, "how different we are."

The doctor nodded and asked, "What about Peggy Ann?"

"I won't bother drawing her," Vicky replied. "The sketch of Peggy Lou could pass for Peggy Ann. They're very much alike. You'll see."

"You sketch very well," the doctor commented. "Do you also paint?"

"Oh, yes," Vicky replied. "But Sybil paints better than I. My forte is people. I like them and know how to get along with them. I'm not afraid of them because my mother and father were always very good to me. I like to talk to people and to listen to them. I especially enjoy people who talk music, art, and books. I suppose most of my friendships spring from this mutuality of interests. I love to read novels. By the way, have you read The Tortoise and the Hare?"

"No, I haven't."

"Oh, do," Vicky replied, assuming a light conversational tone. "I finished it last night. It's by Elizabeth Jenkins, and it's new. You might call it a muted novel about a curiously obtuse triangle. The femme fatale is a middle-aged spinster in thick, scratchy tweeds. She rides quietly through the story in a Rolls-Royce."

"Well, I'm going to get it on your recommendation," said Dr. Wilbur.

"I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. I really did. I suppose it's because I'm at home with society people. I enjoy them in life and also in books. It's my background showing, I suspect. But I don't think I'm a snob. I just have refined tastes, coming as I do from my kind of family. And why not drink deeply of the better things in life?"

Vicky became more serious and her tone more reflective as she remarked, "Life has so much pain that one needs a catharsis. I don't mean escape. You don't escape in books.

On the contrary, they help you to realize yourself more fully. Mon Dieu, I'm glad I have them. When I find myself in a situation in which I'd rather not be--because of the peculiar circumstances of my life--I have this outlet. You may think me tr`es superieure but I'm not really, I just am what I am and live the way I like."

Sighing, Vicky remarked: "You know, Doctor, I wish Sybil could enjoy life the way I do. I love to go to concerts and art galleries. So does she, but she doesn't go often enough. I'm going to the Metropolitan Museum when I leave here. I mentioned that I have a lunch date with a friend. It's Marian Ludlow. We're going to lunch at the Fountain Restaurant at the Met. Then we'll look at the exhibits. We won't have time for all of them. But we especially want to see the collection of prints and drawings called "Word Becomes Image." Marian breathes culture and is impeccably social. She was raised in an East Side town house. They had a large household staff, summered in Southhampton, that kind of thing."

"Does Sybil know Marian Ludlow?" the doctor asked.

"I'm afraid not," Vicky replied with faint condescension. "Sybil's not a femme du monde, a woman of esprit. She saw Mrs. Ludlow in line in the Teachers College cafeteria and wondered what a fashionable woman like that was doing there. The cafeteria was crowded, and Sybil was sitting alone. Mrs. Ludlow asked if she might sit with her. You know Sybil is always afraid of not being polite enough. So she said, "Certainly." But the thought of having to cope with an attractive society woman terrified her. She blacked out. So I took over and had a conversation with the grande dame. That was the beginning of our friendship. And we're very good friends."

"Does Peggy Lou know Mrs. Ludlow?"

"Oh, I don't think so, Dr. Wilbur. They're worlds apart, you know."

"Vicky, you seem to do many things in which Sybil and Peggy play no part," the doctor observed.

"That's perfectly true," Vicky was quick to say. "I have my own route. I'd be so bored if I had to follow theirs." She looked at the doctor with an expression that was part mischievous, part quizzical, and confided: "Doctor, Sybil would like to be I. But she doesn't know how."

"Then Sybil knows about you?"

"Of course not," Vicky replied. "She doesn't know about the Peggys. And she doesn't know about me. But that doesn't keep her from having an image of a person like me--an image that she would like to fulfill but that constantly eludes her."

Dr. Wilbur hesitated for a moment, her mind racing as she assessed what she had heard. Sybil and Peggy Lou. Now Vicky and Peggy Ann. Four persons in one body. were there others as well? Believing that Vicky had the answers, the doctor decided to take the plunge: "Vicky, you've talked of the Peggys. Maybe you can tell me: are there any others?"

"Oh, yes," was the authoritative reply, "we know there are many others. That's what I meant when I told you that I know everything about everybody."

"Now, Vicky," the doctor urged, "I want all of you to feel free to come during the appointment hour, no matter who is using the body."

"Oh, yes, they'll come," Vicky promised. "And I'll come, too. I'm here to help you get to the bottom of what's troubling them."

"I appreciate that, Vicky," Dr. Wilbur said. Then the doctor was struck by a novel idea: enlisting Vicky's help in the analysis. Vicky, who claimed to know everything about all the selves, could serve as the Greek chorus for all the selves, throwing light on events and relationships that the others might report sketchily or not at all.

"And now," the doctor said as she looked steadily at Vicky, "I should like to ask your advice. I would like to tell Sybil about you and the others. What do you think?"

"Well," Vicky cautioned thoughtfully, "you can tell her. But be careful. Don't say too much."

In a confidential tone the doctor explained, "I think she ought to know. In fact, I don't see how the analysis can go anywhere if she doesn't."

"Be careful," Vicky reiterated. "Although the rest of us know about Sybil, she knows nothing about any of us, never has."

"I understand that, Vicky, but you see, I had planned to tell her about Peggy Lou when I thought she was a dual personality. But Sybil didn't give me a chance."

"Of course not," Vicky explained. "Sybil's always been afraid to reveal her symptoms--afraid of a diagnosis."

"Well," the doctor continued quietly, "I did tell Sybil that she is subject to fugue states during which she is unaware of what's happening."

"I know," Vicky asserted, "but that's very different from telling her that she's not alone in her own body."

"I think it will reassure Sybil to know that she is functioning even though she doesn't know it."

"She, Doctor?" Vicky asked quizzically. "Isn't the pronoun we?"

The doctor paused and made no direct answer. It was a thoughtful Vicky who broke the silence, saying, "I suppose you can tell Sybil. But I repeat: is it she who is functioning?" Without waiting for the doctor to reply, Vicky asserted, "We're people, you know. People in our own right."

The doctor lit a cigarette and listened thoughtfully as Vicky went on: "Still, if you want to tell her, go right ahead. But I would advise you to let her know that none of the others would do what she wouldn't like. Tell her that they often do things she can't do but that these are things that wouldn't make her angry if they were done by someone else."

"What about Peggy Lou?" the doctor asked. "Doesn't she sometimes do things of which Sybil would disapprove?"

"Well," Vicky explained, "Peggy Lou does many things Sybil can't do, but Peggy wouldn't hurt anybody. Really, Doctor, she wouldn't." Vicky's tone became confidential: "You know, Peggy Lou went to Elizabeth and got herself into quite a mess there."

"I didn't know."

"Oh, Peggy Lou goes many places."

Vicky looked at her watch. "And talking of going places, I suppose I myself had better be going someplace right now. To the Met to meet Marian."

"Yes," the doctor agreed, "I'm afraid the hour is up."

"Doctor, do you ever get to the Met?" Vicky asked as they walked to the door. "You'd enjoy it. Also the memorial show of paintings and sculpture in honor of Curt Valentin-- "honour" with a U, according to the gallery. It's at the Valentin Gallery, in case you get around to it. Well, I must be going. And please know that you can count on me whenever you need me."

Just before Vicky left, she turned, looked at the doctor, and said: "It seems strange for me to be coming to a psychoanalyst. The others are neurotic, but I'm not. At least I don't think I am. In this chaotic age one never knows. But I do want to help you with Sybil and the others. After all, that's the only reason why I'm not in Paris with my family. I don't believe that either Sybil or Peggy Lou has gotten down to the nitty gritty of what's bothering them. Watching them flounder here, I knew I had to step in. How could you get anywhere with them? Sybil lives in total ignorance of any of us, and Peggy Lou is too busy defending herself--and Sybil as well--to be objective. So you see I simply had to come and work with you. Together I think we can get to the bottom of this. So please count on me. I know everything about everybody."

With that, Victoria Antoinette Scharleau, the woman of the world with the graceful movements, the mellifluous voice, and the faultless diction departed as she had come.

Dr. Wilbur liked Vicky. She was very sophisticated but warm, friendly, and genuinely concerned about Sybil. That concern, she decided, would have to be explored.