Fozworth was smooth and round everywhere, with a face rendered all the more moonlike by a brow that extended to the top of his dome, with a terminator of straight, brown hair running in a crescent from ear to ear. He was colorful and animated, and on every occasion that Michelle had seen him, dressed eccentrically—today in a canary yellow bow tie with port-wine cord jacket, which he had draped over a chair. But his advice had generally proved sound, and was always an education. Since there was little as yet in the way of hard evidence, she had come to Fozworth seeking reassurance that the suspicions she was beginning to form at least rested on credible groundings.
He stopped the tape again. “The remark about understanding the science was insulting. A direct snub. She’s doing two things: asserting an area of superiority by putting him down; and staking out her own future territory. His real feelings are suppressed, maybe because they clash with his more immediate goals. Very likely, he’s not even aware of them. But he can’t stop himself reacting unconsciously.” Fozworth waved an arm at the images, frozen once again. He had already watched the full sequence several times in silence. “And that’s what will eventually bring those two into head-on collision. Right now they can’t see it, or they’re refusing to. But the match that will detonate the bomb one day is right there.”
“So there’s a pattern that you recognize, even in as little as this?” Michelle said.
“Plus the things you’ve told me. A mark of psychopaths is a need to feel superior in some way, which they’ll express maliciously but always in a controlled way that lets them seem to be just the opposite on the outside.” The arm waved again. “You just saw it. She as-good-as tells him he’s dumb, and moments later she’s nuzzling up to him. His feelings tell him one thing, but he sees another. That’s the way people drive each other nuts. If he’s a strong personality, he’ll probably end up having her thrown overboard far out at sea one day when there are plenty of sharks around—if she doesn’t poison him first.”
“So you would class her as a psychopath? It’s not something I’m imagining?” Now they were getting down to what Michelle had come to hear.
Fozworth started the player again but with the sound muted, and answered while he watched. “Almost a classical case. A compulsive need to control, destroy others, and take, while all the time disorienting them by masquerading behind a facade of perfection—which often expresses itself religiously.”
“Is it something deliberate, calculated? . . . Do they sit down and plan it out this way?”
“Not really. It’s just the way they are.”
“Does anybody know why—what makes them that way?”
The video stopped. Fozworth started it on rewind, stood, and moved over to the machine. “Inner reality is tricky. We all think we know what’s going on out there, including how we’re responding—but how can you really be sure? All our awareness is ultimately inside. Very often, not everything about the way things affect us reaches our awareness. There are areas of denial, feelings that we block out, usually because we’re taught that they’re weak, inappropriate, unsuited for survival. With men in our culture it tends to have to do with expressing emotion; with women, their sexuality.”
“You sound as if you’re saying there’s a bit of it in all of us,” Michelle observed.
“Pretty much all aberrations are something taken to extremes that everyone has to a degree, but more or less keeps within acceptable bounds. With the kind that we’re talking about, the denial leads to acute feelings of dissatisfaction and frustration. Since the real cause is repressed, they project it onto others and see them as responsible.”
“They’re not at fault, so why should they feel guilty?” Michelle said, taking the point.
“Quite. They’re punishing the guilty. So they can pursue their objectives tenaciously and ruthlessly, without any impediment of sympathy or remorse. But they’re quite capable of being outwardly the model of charming, caring reasonableness. That’s what drives their victims crazy. They know what they feel on the inside, but they can’t reconcile it with what they’re seeing and hearing. Take a classical case: The husband’s persuaded his heiress wife that she’s sick and vulnerable in this big bad world, but not to worry because he’ll take care of her; meanwhile, her broker’s telling her that he’s cleaning out their bank account.”