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short-lived, but while it lasts, it’s enormous.”
    She asks me again:
    “What is the basis of your power?”
    “This baby is mine and mine only. No one else can see it clearly.”
    “Perhaps there’s also something good in this membrane, something useful?”
    “Yes, I protect this baby from the outside world. I provide a kind of transitional period between the time spent in the mother’s womb, and complete exposure to the world.”
    She’s on her feet now, walking around the room. She throws a glance at me and then at the pillow-baby on the floor – like someone who is trying to come up with a plan. She thinks she’s close to discovering something, but I already know that she won’t succeed. I don’t know how, I just know.
    “Look at this baby. Go back inside yourself and look at it. Try to picture its future, its character, its destiny. What will it be like, what kind of person will it turn out to be?”
    Until a moment ago, I was protecting it, because it’s fragile and tiny and pure. But suddenly, I know; I know exactly what it’ll be like, and I know it doesn’t really need my protection. I say:
    “In time, the baby will become a rather haughty girl, pretty, self-confident, narcissistic; she’ll be tall and she’ll have long, black hair. In fact, I’m afraid she’s even going to be a little shallow. She won’t be described as being overly sophisticated. People will like her and she will consider this to be completely normal. She will think she is entitled to all these things.”
    She is still looking down at the pillow and then, in a voice that clearly indicates that, for her, this is a major moment in our session today, she says:
    “Can you still set her free? Can you make the decision to pierce the membrane even though the baby will become all those things: shallow, haughty, narcissistic…? Will you let her live or will you leave her to die in this parchment-like bubble?”
    All of a sudden, all this seems silly to me. I start thinking about how things aren’t quite as simple as she would like them to be. I hesitate and she’s aware of that. Finally, I say:
    “From a rational point of view, there’s no way in the world I’d leave any baby to die, if I had any say in it. But, if you regard this baby as a part of me, the part I’m not setting free, and I believe this is your theory, right? Then I’m afraid things aren’t quite that simple. If it were that simple, people wouldn’t be spending years going to therapy. Besides, I strongly feel that it’s not my job at all to free this baby from its membrane. Someone else is supposed to do it, and don’t ask me who because I don’t know. All I know is that it can’t be me! And I know it’s not that simple!”
    “I think it is all up to you,” she said, going back to sit in her chair. “It’s your decision and yours only.”
    I didn’t say anything. I felt like I might have gone a bit too far. As if I had said something against her therapeutic magic. As if I had displayed unseemly doubt. But, damn it, I can’t feign a breakthrough just to make her feel better! It would be asking too much, right?
    I looked at the clock. I had another ten minutes left. A whole eternity! She seemed tired all of a sudden, sitting there in her sofa chair. It was late and I was probably her last patient for the day. I said:
    “I believe you’re tired.”
    Even if she were, she would never admit to it. And she didn’t. She said:
    “No, I’m not at all tired, I’m completely focused and you have my full attention.”
    “I don’t think so. I think you’d rather be someplace else, perhaps with your children. Do you have any children?”
    She nodded quickly, too quickly, as if to say that who she is outside this room should under no circumstances be the subject of our conversation.
    “Where did that come from, that concern for the way I feel? The other day you asked me if I wanted to take a break between sessions. Why are you being so