Analyst

by John Katzenbach

  “So, what you’re saying is . . .”

  “Your choice, it seems to me, is relatively simple: Can you win? Can you determine the identity of the man called Rumplestiltskin in the few days you have remaining? If not, then will you kill yourself to save another? This is the most interesting question to pose to a physician. We are, after all, in the business of saving lives. But our resources for salvation are medicines, knowledge, skill with a scalpel. In this instance, your life is perhaps someone’s cure. Can you make that sacrifice? And, if unwilling to do that, will you be able to live with yourself afterward? On the surface, at least, it is not all that complicated. The complicated part is, well, internal.”

  “You’re suggesting . . .” Ricky started to speak, stammering slightly. He looked across the room and saw that the old analyst had sat back in his chair, so that a shadow from a table lamp’s light seemed to bisect his face. Dr. Lewis gestured with a hand that seemed clawlike, long, elongated fingers thinned by age.

  “I am not suggesting anything. I am merely pointing out that doing precisely what this gentleman has requested is a viable alternative. People sacrifice themselves so that others may live all the time. Soldiers in combat. Firemen in a burning building. Policemen on city streets. Is your life so sweet and so productive and so important that we can automatically assume it is more valuable than the life it might cost?”

  Ricky shifted in his chair, as if the soft upholstery had grown wooden beneath him. “I can’t believe . . . ,” he started, then he stopped.

  Dr. Lewis looked at him and lifted his shoulders. “I am sorry. Of course you have not considered this consciously. But I wonder if you have not asked yourself these same questions in your unconscious, which is what prompted you to find me.”

  “I came for help,” Ricky said perhaps far too swiftly. “I need help playing this game.”

  “Really? Perhaps on one level. Perhaps, on another, you came for something else. Permission? Benediction?”

  “I need to probe the era in my past where Rumplestiltskin’s mother was my patient. I need you to help me do that, because I have blocked that segment of my life. It’s like it’s just out of reach, just beyond my touch. I need you to help me steer through it. I know I can identify the patient who is connected to Rumplestiltskin, but I need assistance, and I believe that the patient who connects me to this man was someone I was seeing at the same time that I was in treatment with you, when you were my training analyst. I must have mentioned this person to you during our sessions together. So what I need is a sounding board. Someone to bounce those old memories off of. I’m sure I can talk the name out of my unconscious.”

  Dr. Lewis nodded again. “Not an unreasonable request, and clearly an intelligent approach. The analyst’s approach. Talk is a cure, not action. Do I sound cruel, Ricky? I guess that I have become irascible and outrageous in my old age. Of course, I will help. But, it seems to me, as we dissect, it would be wise to look at the present, as well, because eventually you will need to find answers both in your past and in your present. Perhaps, too, in your future. Can you do that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Now it was Dr. Lewis’s turn to grin unpleasantly. “There is a classic analyst’s response. A football player or a lawyer or a modern businessman would say ‘Damn straight, I can!’ But we analysts always hedge our bets, do we not. Certainty is something we are uncomfortable with, no?” He took a deep breath and shifted about for a moment. “The problem is, this fellow who wants your head on a platter does not seem quite as indecisive or uncertain about things, does he?”

  Ricky answered swiftly: “No. He seems to have everything well planned and thought out in advance. I have the sensation that he’s anticipated every single move I’ve made, almost as if he’d charted them all out beforehand.”

  “I am sure he has.”

  Ricky nodded to the truth of this observation. Dr. Lewis continued with his questions.

  “He is, you would say, psychologically astute?”

  “That’s my impression.”

  Dr. Lewis nodded. “In some games, that is the essence of play. Football, perhaps. Certainly chess.”

  “You’re suggesting . . .”

  “To win a game of chess, you must plan further ahead than your opponent. That single move beyond the scope of what he has envisioned is what creates checkmate and defines victory. I think you should be doing the same.”

  “How do I . . .”

  Dr. Lewis rose. “That is what we should figure out over a modest dinner, and the remainder of the evening.” He smiled again, with a just slightly wry twitch at the corner of his mouth. “Of course, you are assuming one great factor.”

  “What is that?” Ricky asked.

  “Well, it seems quite obvious that this fellow Rumplestiltskin has spent months, probably years, planning everything that has happened to you. It is a revenge that takes many items into consideration, and as you quite accurately point out, he has anticipated virtually every move you have made.”

  “Yes. All true.”

  “I wonder, then,” Dr. Lewis said slowly, “why you assume and why you believe that he has not already enlisted me, perhaps through threats or outside pressure of some other sort, to help him achieve his desire. Maybe he paid me off somehow. Why, Ricky, do you presume I am on your side in all this?”

  Then with a sweeping gesture for Ricky to accompany him instead of answering the question, the old analyst slowly led the way into the kitchen, limping slightly as he traveled forward.

  Two places had been set at an antique two-board table in the center of the kitchen. A jug of ice water and some sliced wheat bread in a wicker hamper graced the center of the table. Dr. Lewis crossed the room and lifted a casserole from the oven, placed it on a trivet, then took a modest salad out of the refrigerator. He hummed slightly as he finished setting the table. Ricky recognized a few strains of Mozart.

  “Have a seat, Ricky. The concoction that stands before us is chicken. Please help yourself.”

  Ricky hesitated. He reached out and poured himself a tall glass of water, then gulped at it like a man who had just crossed some desert. The drink barely quenched his sudden thirst.

  “Has he?” he demanded abruptly. Ricky could hardly recognize his own voice. It seemed high-pitched and shrill.

  “Has he what?”

  “Has Rumplestiltskin approached you? Are you a part of this?”

  Dr. Lewis sat down, carefully spreading a napkin on his lap, then helping himself to a generous portion of casserole and salad before replying. “Let me ask you this, Ricky,” he said slowly. “What difference would it make?”

  Ricky stammered his reply: “All the difference in the world. I need to know I can trust you.”

  Dr. Lewis nodded. “Really? Trust, I think, in this world is overrated. Regardless, what have I done, so far, to relinquish the trust you have in me that brought you here in the first place?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Then you should eat. The casserole is made by my housekeeper, and I assure you it is quite good, although not as good, alas, as that my wife used to make before she passed away. And you appear pale, Ricky, as if you have not been taking care of yourself.”

  “I need to know. Has Rumplestiltskin enlisted you?”

  Dr. Lewis shook his head, but this wasn’t a negative reply to Ricky’s question, more a comment on the situation. “Ricky, it seems to me that what you need is knowledge. Information. Understanding. Nothing you have described, so far, about what this man has done is designed to mislead you. When has he lied? Well, perhaps the attorney whose office was not where it was supposed to be, but that seems like a pretty simple and necessary deception. In reality, everything he has done so far is designed to lead you to him. At least it could be construed that way. He gives you clues. He sends an attractive young woman to assist you. Do you think he truly wants you to be unable to determine who he is?”

  “Are you helping him?”

  “I am trying to hel
p you, Ricky. Helping you might be helping him, as well. It is a possibility. Now, sit down and eat. That is eminently good advice.”

  Ricky pulled out a chair, but his stomach clenched at the thought of putting food inside.

  “I need to know that you are on my side.”

  The old analyst shrugged. “Will not the answer to that question come at the end of the contest?” He poked at the casserole, then stuffed a large forkful into his mouth.

  “I came to you as a friend. As a former patient. You were the man who helped train me, for Christ’s sake. And now . . .”

  Dr. Lewis waved his fork in midair, like a conductor with a baton, facing an out-of-synch orchestra. “The people you treat, do you consider them friends?”

  Ricky stopped, shook his head. “No. Of course not. But the role of training analyst is different.”

  “Really? Don’t you have a patient or two now in more or less the same situation?”

  Both men were silent as this question hovered in the air. Ricky knew the answer to the question was yes, but wouldn’t speak the word out loud. After a moment or two, Dr. Lewis waved his hand, dismissing the question.

  “I need to know,” Ricky demanded sharply in response.

  Dr. Lewis wore an infuriating blank look on his face, appropriate for a poker table. Inwardly, Ricky steamed, recognizing the vacant appearance for what it was: the same noncommittal look that spoke neither of approval or disapproval, shock, nor surprise, nor fear, nor anger that he used with his own patients. It is the analyst’s stock in trade, an essential part of his armor. He remembered it from his own treatment a quarter century earlier and bristled to see it again.

  The old man shook his head slowly. “No you do not, Ricky. You need to know only that I am willing to help you. My motives are irrelevant. Perhaps Rumplestiltskin has something on me. Perhaps he does not. Whether he wields a sword over my head or perhaps over one of my family members, is extraneous to your situation. The question always exists in our world, does it not? Is anyone safe? Is any relationship without danger? Are we not often hurt the most by those we love and respect more than those we hate and fear?”

  Ricky did not reply, but Dr. Lewis did, for him.

  “The answer you are currently unable to articulate is: yes. Now, eat some dinner. I anticipate a long night ahead.”

  The two physicians ate their meal in relative silence. The casserole was excellent, and followed by a homemade apple pie that had a touch of cinnamon in it. There was black coffee, as well, served hot and seemingly speaking of hours ahead that needed to be energized. Ricky thought that he had never had such an ordinary, yet strange meal. He was equally famished and infuriated. The food tasted wondrous one instant, then would go chalky and cold on his tongue, another. For the first time in what seemed to him years, he remembered meals he’d eaten alone, minutes stolen away from his wife’s bedside in moments when pain medication had sent her into some half-sleep reverie, in the final days of her dying. The taste, he thought, of this dinner was much the same.

  Dr. Lewis removed the plates to a sink, leaving them stacked and dirty. He refilled his coffee cup a second time, then gestured for Ricky to return to the study. They went back to the seats they had occupied earlier, facing across from each other.

  Ricky fought his anger at the older physician’s oblique and elusive character. He told himself to use the frustration to his own benefit. This was easier said than done. He shifted about in the armchair, feeling like a child who is being reprimanded for something he wasn’t to blame for.

  Dr. Lewis stared across at him, and Ricky knew the old man was perfectly aware of every feeling coursing through him, just as clever as some sideshow psychic. “So, Ricky, where would you like to begin?”

  “In the past. Twenty-three years ago. When I first came to you.”

  “I recall you were filled with theory and enthusiasm.”

  “I believed I had the ability to save the world from despair and madness. Single-handed.”

  “And did it work out that way?”

  “No. You know that. It never does.”

  “But you saved some?”

  “I hope so. I believe so.”

  Dr. Lewis smiled, catlike. “Again, the practicing analyst’s answer. Noncommittal and slippery. Age, such as I have reached, of course brings other interpretations. Our veins harden, and so do our opinions. Let me ask you a more specific question: Whom did you save?”

  Ricky hesitated, as if chewing his response. He wanted to stifle his first reply, but was unable, the words falling from his tongue as if coated with oil. “I couldn’t save the person I cared the most for.”

  Dr. Lewis nodded. “Continue, please.”

  “No. She doesn’t have anything to do with this.”

  The old analyst’s eyebrows arched slightly. “Really? I presume we are speaking of your wife?”

  “Yes. We met. We fell in love. We married. We were inseparable for years. She grew ill. We had no children because of her sickness. She died. I continued on all alone. End of tale. She isn’t connected to this.”

  “Of course not,” Dr. Lewis said. “But you and she met, when?”

  “Shortly before we began treatment. We met at a cocktail party. We were both newly minted; she an attorney, me a physician. Our courtship took place while I was in analysis with you. You should recall that.”

  “I do. And what was her profession?”

  “She was an attorney. I just said that. You should remember that, as well.”

  “Again, I do. But what sort of attorney? Specifically.”

  “Well, at the time we met, she had just joined with the Manhattan Office of the Public Defender as a low-grade criminal defense attorney. She worked her way steadily up into the felony divisions, but then tired of seeing all her clients go to prison, or worse, not go to prison. So she went from there into a most unique and modest private practice. Mostly civil rights litigation and work for the ACLU. Suing slum landlords and filing appellate briefs for wrongfully convicted prisoners. She was a liberal do-gooder who did good. She liked to joke that she was one of the small minority of Yale Law graduates that never made money.” Ricky smiled at this, hearing in his mind’s ear his wife’s own words. It was a joke they shared happily for many years, he thought.

  “I see. In the course of the time you started your treatment, the same time that you met and courted your wife, she was involved in defending criminals. She followed this up dealing with many angry fringe types whom, no doubt, she further enraged by bringing legal action against them. And now, you seem involved with someone who fits the category of criminal, albeit seemingly far more sophisticated than those she must have known. But you think there can be absolutely no possible link?”

  Ricky stopped, mouth open to reply. This thought chilled him.

  “Rumplestiltskin has not mentioned . . .”

  “I merely wonder,” Dr. Lewis said, waving a hand in the air. “Food for thought.”

  Ricky paused, memory working hard. Silence grew around the two men. Ricky began to picture himself as a young man. It was as if abruptly some fissure in some granitelike brick within him had opened. He could see himself: far younger, filled with energy. At a moment when the world was opening for him. It was a life that bore little resemblance and little connection to his current existence. That discrepancy, so denied and ignored, suddenly frightened him.

  Dr. Lewis must have seen this in his face, for he said, “Let us speak of who you were twenty-odd years ago. But not the Ricky Starks looking forward to his life, his career, and marriage. The Ricky Starks who was filled with doubts.”

  He wanted to respond swiftly, dismiss this idea with a quick brush of the hand, but stopped himself sharply. He plunged into a deep memory, recalling indecision and anxiety, remembering the first day he walked through the door to Dr. Lewis’s Upper East Side office. He glanced over at the old man sitting across from him, seemingly studying every flinch and twitch in Ricky’s posture and thought how much the man ha
d aged and then wondered if the same was true for himself. Trying to recollect the psychological pains that stirred one to a psychoanalyst so many years earlier was a little like the phantom pain that an amputee feels; the leg missing, but the hurt remaining, emanating from a surgical emptiness, both real and unreal at the very same instant. Ricky thought: Who was I then?