"I'm really not tired. I grabbed forty winks myself this afternoon."
The doctor came into the room just then and Rina turned toward the door. He stood there blinking his eyes behind his shining glasses.
"Good evening, Miss Marlowe.
Did you have a good rest?"
Rina smiled. "Too much, doctor. It's left me with a headache." Her brows knit. "It's a peculiar kind of a headache, though."
He came over to the side of the bed and put his fingers on her wrist, finding her pulse.
"Peculiar?" he asked, looking down at his watch. "How do you mean peculiar?"
"It seems to hurt most when I try to remember names.
I know you and I know my friend here" – she gestured to Ilene – "but when I try to say your name, the headache comes and I can't remember."
The doctor laughed as he let go of her wrist. "That's not at all unusual. There are some types of migraine headaches which make people forget their own name.
Yours isn't that bad, is it?"
"No, it's not," Rina answered.
The doctor took an ophthalmoscope from his pocket and leaned over.
"I'm going to look into your eyes with this," he said. "This makes it possible for me to see behind them and we may find out that your headache is due to nothing but simple eyestrain.
Don't be frightened."
"I’m not frightened, doctor," Rina answered.
"A doctor in Paris once looked at me with one of those.
He thought I was in shock. But I wasn't. I was only hypnotized."
He placed his thumb in a corner of her eye and raised the eyelid.
He pressed a button on the instrument and a bright light reflected through the pin-point hole.
"What's your name?" he asked casually.
"Katrina Osterlaag," she answered quickly. Then she laughed. "See, doctor, I told you my headache wasn't that bad. I still know my name."
"What's your father's name?" he asked, moving the instrument to the other eye.
"Harrison Marlowe.
See, I know that, too."
"What's your name?" he asked again, the light making a half circle in the upper corner of her eye.
"Rina Marlowe," she answered. She laughed aloud. "You can't trick me, doctor."
He turned off the light and straightened up. "No, I can't," he said, smiling down at her.
There was a movement at the door and two attendants wheeled in a large, square machine. They pushed it over to the side of the bed next to the doctor.
"This is an electroencephalograph," the doctor explained quietly. "It's used to measure the electrical impulses emanating from the brain.
It's very helpful sometimes in locating the source of headaches so we can treat them."
"It looks very complicated," Rina said.
"It's not," he answered. "It's very simple, really.
I'll explain it to you as we go along."
"And I thought all you had to do was take a few aspirins for a headache."
He laughed with her.
"Well, you know how we doctors are," he said.
"How can we ever justify our fees if all we do is recommend a few pills?"
She laughed again and the doctor turned toward Ilene. He nodded silently at her, his eyes gesturing to the door.
He had already turned back to Rina by the time she had opened it.
"You'll come back later, won't you?" Rina asked.
Ilene turned around.
The attendants were already plugging in the machine and the nurse was helping the doctor prepare Rina.
"I’ll be back," Ilene promised. She walked out and closed the door gently behind her.
It was almost an hour later when the doctor came out of the room.
He dropped into a chair opposite Ilene, his hand fishing in his pocket. It came out with a crumpled package of cigarettes, which he held out to her.
She took one and he struck a match, holding it first for her, then for himself.
'Well?" she asked through stiff lips.
"We'll be able to tell more when we study the electroencephalogram," he said, dragging on his cigarette. "But there are already definite signs of deterioration in certain neural areas."
"Please, doctor," she said. "In words that I can understand."