Man With a Squirrel by Nicholas Kilmer Page B

think maybe they are or were, or they know one or some. See, one theory of hers is that once you are a victim you remain so, because the bondage is repressed along with the memory, until you are healed by a conscious and contrary imposition of the power of light. That’s the side she’s on.
    â€œThese people are being guided by Cover-Hoover as they cast off the guilt and shame and dread and shackles of their newly recovered remembered former years. She’s very effective, and she’d be especially convincing for people at a crossroads of grief or indecision, who are looking for someone to be.” Molly walked to the cabinet over the sink and pulled down coffee mugs. “You want coffee?”
    Fred shook his head. “That doesn’t sound like your sister Ophelia,” he said. “Believing all this? At her age?”
    â€œNope. But, Fred, these people in the audience were not kids. They’re half of them as old as you and me. Some look fifty and older.”
    Fred said, “Your sister is concerned with the bottom line, and in this case I don’t see where it is. I mean, what soap or mouthwash or kitty litter wants to sponsor a Satanism TV show? How does the profit motive fit in, and doesn’t the shrink lose all credibility if she starts driving a big gold Caddy?”
    Molly ran water into a kettle, put it on the stove, and stood over it, fidgeting. “The lecture was free and Cover-Hoover made a point of insisting that she charges nothing for private deprogramming,” Molly said. “It looks like reckless volunteerism of a purely eleemosynary nature. Since it must represent a lot of labor with people who are not by nature a barrel of laughs, I am mystified at the moment. I didn’t stay through it all. Partly on account of my misspent youth, I hightailed it when they started chanting.”
    Fred fetched himself a beer out of the fridge. “Chanting,” he said. “Right.”
    â€œVictim of Darkness, child of Light,” Molly chanted softly. The kettle squealed. “It’s catchy and persuasive, and meaningless, like much that impels the human race to take decisive action.” She put water onto brown crystals and stirred.
    Fred poured beer into his coffee mug. “When they say ‘Light,’ I presume they mean God?”
    â€œThe idea is to replace the formulae for repression with new, positive mantras. You are allowed to think in terms of God and Satan if you wish.”
    â€œRight,” Fred said. “Wash out the brainwashing. God’s too male. ‘Light’ is better, maybe, for the purpose. Did they work it like AA, everyone having a story to tell?”
    â€œEnough to give us all the cold grues,” Molly said, “for the next forty months. And the stories told were pretty devil-specific. A lot of victims out there.”
    Fred said, “As I walked through the highly literate wasteland of Harvard Square earlier, I noticed lots of them go to Harvard.”
    â€œI’m calling Ophelia,” Molly said, “to try to warn her off. This woman is poison. It’ll be nine o’clock in Denver. It’s going to take a while, so hit your Men and Memories again if you want.”
    Coming in fifty pages later, Molly said, “The thing about Ophelia is, like Oprah or Roseanne, you understand their intellective processes in the light of the profit motive. But Pheely’s sounding as if there’s something in it for me as well, which I am not used to. I told her I want no part of whatever she has in mind and she insists: ‘Talk to the Doctor is all I’m asking, honey.’”
    She looked over Fred’s shoulder at the book. “Incidentally, Ophelia found a painter in Denver, she said. Wants you to know, Fred, because of your interest in the arts. She says this guy is going to be the new Leroy Neiman.
    â€œAnyway, ‘Just talk to Eunice,’ Pheely says. ‘Please? For