'Well, that's' certainly hideous. What kinds of illnesses?'
Almost anything. The most common symptoms are breathing problems, bleeding disorders, fevers, infections, pseudoseizures.'
'By proxy,' she said. 'The word is unnerving-so calculated, like some sort of business deal. Are you actually working with a family like that?'
'I'm evaluating a family to see if that's what's going on. It's still in the differential diagnosis stage. I have some preliminary references, thought I'd review the literature.'
She smiled. 'Card-file, or have you become computer-friendly?'
'Computer. If the screen talks English.'
'Do you have a faculty account for SAP?'
'No. What's that?'
'Search and Print.' New system. Journals on file-complete texts scanned and entered. You can actually call up entire articles and have them printed. Faculty only, if you're willing to pay. My chairman got
me a temporary lectureship and an account of my own. He expects me to publish my results and put his name on it. Unfortunately, foreign journals haven't been entered into the system yet, so I've got to locate those the old-fashioned way.'
She pointed to the screen. 'The master tongue. Don't you just love these sixty-letter words and umlauts? The grammar's nuts, but my mother helps me with the tough passages.'
I remembered her mother. Heavyset and pleasant, fragrant of dough and sugar. Blue numbers on a soft white arm.
'Get an SAP card,' she said. 'It's a kick.'
'Don't know if I'd qualif'. My appointment's across town.'
'I think you would. Just show them your faculty card and pay a fee.
It takes about a week to process.'
I'll do it later, then. Canot wait that ~~~g~o~ 'No, of course not.
Listen, I've got plenty of time left on my account. My chairman wants me to use all of it up so he can ask for a bigger computer budget next year. If you want me to run you a search, just let me finish up with this, and we'll find all there is to know about people who proxy their kids.'
We rode up to the SAP room at the top of the stacks. The search system looked no different from the terminals we'd just left: computers arranged in rows of partitioned cubicles. We found a free station and Jennifer searched for Munchausen-by-proxy references.
The screen filled quickly. The list included all the articles Stephanie had given me, and more.
'Looks like the earliest one that comes up is I 977,' she said.
'~neet. Meadow, R. Munchausen syndrome by proxy: The hinterland of child abuse.'' 'That's the seminal article,' I said. 'Meadow's the British pediatrician who recognized the syndrome and named it.'
'The hinterland that's ominous too. And here's a list of related topics: Munchausen syndrome, child abuse, incest, dissociative reactions.'
'Try dissociative reactions first.'
For the next hour we sifted through hundreds of references, distilling a dozen more articles that seemed to be relevant. When we were through, Jennifer saved the file and typed in a code.
'That'll link us to the printing system,' she said.
The printeM were housed behind blue panels that lined two walls of the adjoining room. Each contained a small screen, a card slot, a keyboard, and a mesh catch-bin under a foot-wide horizontal slit that reminded me of George Plumb's mouth. Two of the terminals weren't in use. One was marked OUT OF ORDER.
Jennifer activated the operative screen by inserting a plastic card in the slot, then typing in a letter-number
