The Thanatos Syndrome

seems she has enrolled at the University of Mississippi as a freshman. She loves it. Her heart is set on being pledged by the Gammas, a sorority. All her friends are Gammas. If she does not make Gamma, her life will be ruined. There would be little doubt she would make it, but it seems there is a little hitch, says Enrique, and it is because her complexion is quite brunette like mine, and you know how it is in Mississippi, even though she is pure Castilian-German. Now here it is, the end of rush week, and she has not been pledged.
    Enrique in fact looks like an Indian.
    â€œThat’s too bad, Enrique,” I say, still wondering why he’s here.
    â€œHere’s the thing, Doc. I understand that the Gamma rush captain is a young kinswoman of yours, the granddaughter in fact of the distinguished lady from the Mississippi Delta who was the foundress of this very chapter of Gammas. Now here it is at the end of rush week—” He looks down at his diamond-studded Rolex watch as if minutes counted.
    I look at him in astonishment. How does he know such things? I had forgotten myself, if I ever knew, that Jo Ann had gone to Ole Miss, let alone that she was rush captain of Gamma.
    â€œCome inside, Enrique.” I remember all too well what it is to have an unhappy daughter.
    It takes ten minutes. I call Aunt Birdie in Vicksburg and Jo Ann at Oxford. Two or three words about Carmela being a darling girl, member of an ancient aristocratic Castilian and Prussian family, indeed one of the first fourteen families of El Salvador, a prime prospect whom they can’t afford to lose to the Chi O’s, and so on.
    I hang up. “She’ll get her invitation this afternoon,” I tell Enrique.
    â€œOh, my dear friend! Jesus!” cries Enrique, leaping to his feet. There are actually tears in his eyes. I’m afraid he’s going to embrace me, so I shake hands quickly. He shakes with both of his. “You name it, Doctor! Anything!”
    â€œMy pleasure, Enrique.” It is. Such matters can be serious. I can’t stand to see a child, any child who sets her heart on it, get blackballed by the sisters, who can in fact be as mean to one another as yard dogs.
    But my interest in Enrique lies elsewhere. It is the change in him. Imagine a Central American who’s lost interest in politics! Who knows all about Ole Miss sororities!
    On the way out I ask him casually where San Cristóbal is—San Cristóbal, the town in Chiapas, Mexico, where his family first settled. If I’d asked him two years ago, asked him anything about Mexico, he’d have got going on the Mexicans, whom he dislikes, but now he merely closes his eyes.
    â€œOh, I’d say it’s about three hundred miles northwest of Santa Anna.” Santa Anna is the place where he lived on his finca in El Salvador. He doesn’t even ask me why I wanted to know. He’ll tell me anything, give me anything.
    I ask him if he will come in next week for a couple of tests—I tell him I want to see if he’s as healthy as he looks. What I really want is a CORTscan.
    â€œMy pleasure, Doc,” says Enrique, trying out his interlocking grip on an imaginary club, swinging as easily as Sam Snead.
    C ASE H ISTORY #2
    Here is Ella Murdoch Smith.
    Her problem used to be failure and fright. “I can’t cope,” she once told me quietly. “It’s too much. What happens when people can’t cope? Is there a place to go, some government program for people who just can’t cope any longer?” she asked ironically but seriously. I told her I didn’t know of any such program. “But this is ridiculous,” she said. “Have you ever heard of a card game where you’re dealt a hand, a losing hand, and you’re stuck with it, can’t turn it in, can’t fold and draw a new card, and you’re stuck with it the rest of your life?” I admitted I had never heard of such a game. “You’re right,” she said. “There is no such game. I want to fold this hand.” I took her threat of suicide, of folding her hand for good, seriously.
    Her husband had left her with two small children. She had to go to work. An educated woman, she had no particular skills and had a hard time holding down a job, taking care of the children, running the house. She became frightened.
    I looked at her. That was three years ago. What was remarkable about her was that here she was, a