Camouflage

Jimmy’s cube was a precise copy, even to its position on the page and accidental overlap of two lines, less than a millimeter. An expert artist could have done it if you asked for an exact copy. The slow compulsive precision would be appropriate for an idiot savant.
    But as far as he could find, reading and talking to people, you had to be born with that condition—no normalperson had ever become an idiot savant from a blow on the head or a stroke.
    “Let me draw him,” Dutch said, “and see whether he draws me.”
    “It’s an idea,” he said doubtfully. The boy would probably just copy his own portrait, precisely.
    Dutch turned the page back and picked up her pencil and stared at Jimmy.
    It returned her stare, unblinking. She smiled and it smiled. When she began to draw, though, it didn’t do anything but watch.
    She finished the simple portrait in a couple of minutes, and turned the tablet around to show it to Jimmy.
    The changeling studied the picture. The left ear was a half-inch low, and so was the chin. Having seen her use the eraser, it applied it and corrected her work, completely redrawing the whole ear and chin. It added a small mole she had missed.
    “What is that all about?” Grossbaum said.
    “Amazing. I made a slight mistake in proportion, and he corrected it. Added the mole I’d left off.” She set the tablet down. “Do you spend a lot of time looking in the mirror, Jimmy?”
    The changeling didn’t quite understand the question, but nodded, and then shrugged.
    Most people can’t draw freehand circles. Dutch did three concentric ones, and then tapped on Jimmy’s tablet.
    Again it slowed down its natural impulse, and again made a perfect copy.
    “Jimmy, do you know the word for those?” Grossbaum said.
    “Drawing,” it said.
    Dutch tapped the center of the picture. “These?”
    “Circle,” it said. “Circles.”
    “I wonder how much he knows,” she said, “and can’t talk about.”
    “Well, he knows about sex, although he’s never discussed it. They caught him with a nurse.”
    The changeling nodded. “Nurse Deborah. She is kind . . . was kind. To me.”
    “They let her go.”
    Dutch looked Jimmy up and down. “They should have paid her extra. Poor kid must be going crazy.”
    “Crazy.” The changeling nodded emphatically. “They say I am. Crazy.”
    “Are you?” she whispered.
    “I don’t know.” Jimmy pointed at Grossbaum. “He should know.”
    “I don’t know what’s wrong with you, Jimmy. You do some things so well.”
    “You should know,” Jimmy repeated.
    “Bruno . . .” She touched Grossbaum’s arm. “I think you may be inhibiting him. Could you leave us alone for a while?”
    He smiled psychiatrically. “Would you report . . . everything to me?”
    “You know me, Bruno.” He did, in fact, very well.
    He looked at his watch. “I do have a patient coming to the clinic at one. I could be back by two thirty.”
    “That should do.”
    He stood up. “Jimmy, I’ll be gone for a while. Dutch will keep you company.”
    “Okay.” The changeling understood part of the exchange. Dutch wanted to be alone with Jimmy. The way Nurse Deborah had.
    After Grossbaum went out the front door, Dutch stared at the changeling for a long moment. “You don’t remember what happened to you?”
    “No.” He returned her stare.
    “How long ago was it?”
    “One hundred eighty-three days.”
    “Do people who knew you before—your schoolmates—do they come by to visit?”
    “They . . . do. They did. No more.” He looked at the ceiling. “Since sixty-two days.”
    “You’re lonely.” He shrugged. “I could be your friend, Jimmy.”
    “You could?”
    She stood up and held out her hand. “Show me around the place? I want to see how the other half lives.”
    The changeling was confused. If she wanted the kind of union that Deborah had, she was going about it in an indirect way. It took her hand, though—she squeezed it, and the changeling returned the soft gesture—and followed her out of the breakfast nook. They walked around into the kitchen.
    It was spotless and elegant. Tile and gleaming enamel everywhere; a constellation of stemware hanging over a bar, shining brass pots and pans on the wall. A Mexican cook, small and fat and timorous, cowering in the corner.
    “Buenos días,” Dutch said. “Jimmy me muestra la casa.”
    “Bueno, bueno,” she said, and turned her attention back to the clean pot she was scrubbing.
    Through the