The Uses of Enchantment

by Heidi Julavits

  As she indulged her theoretical regret over the ease with which she could, once again, disappear, she realized that, in fact, there was no escaping this situation. As her eyes adjusted better to the poorly lit gloom she registered that the station wagon’s bumper had in fact wedged itself into the brick wall; so many bricks had been knocked out by the impact that the wall dipped and swelled above the car’s hood. It didn’t take a structural engineer to deduce that Aunt Helen’s station wagon was the only thing standing between the wall’s tenuous existence and its partial collapse.

  Mary brushed the crushed stones from her pants and hands and started down the driveway. The house too was brick, set on a diagonal to the drive. The upstairs windows remained dark, the downstairs windows as well, but she could see large rectangles of light spreading across the backyard. So he was awake, she thought, unsure if this improved her situation or worsened it.

  Mary, she would say when he answered the door. It’s Mary Veal here.

  She climbed the steps expecting a sensored porch light to announce her approach, but she proved to be as invisible here as she was in West Salem. And so it was in relative darkness that she reached for the bell. It was in relative darkness that he answered the door seconds after the pad of her finger touched the protruding bronze button, almost as if he’d known she’d be standing at his threshold.

  His hair was still too long for a lawyer’s hair, even an ex-lawyer’s hair, curling upward where it struck his collar.

  She stared at the man, stunned.

  Hello, Scheherazade, the man said. I’ve been expecting you.

  Notes

  APRIL 8, 1986

  The morning following my most recent session with Mary, I awoke in a confident mood. I awoke confident that my hyper radiance theory was both relevant in this particular case and likely of greater psychological consequence. I awoke confident that, like Roz, I could secure a patron to fund my research and assist my publishing aspirations. So it was serendipity, coincidence, or my own fate-altering sense of deserved good fortune that prompted Roz to accept a last-minute invitation extended by a local live radio show producer to discuss her new book, Trampled Ivy. She was thus unable to attend a fund-raiser for the Dibble Library in West Salem with her patron and editor, Craig Hoppin, that evening. I was perhaps too eager to attend in her place.

  I had met Hoppin, a newspaper heir in his late sixties with a Tourettic capacity for rapid-fire rudeness, upward of seven times. That he’d never remembered me didn’t lessen my enthusiasm to accompany him to the fund-raiser. I waited by the name-tags table for ten minutes until Hoppin, a compact bulldog of a man, arrived in his usual tweed suit and bow tie. There hadn’t been time to call ahead for a replacement name tag; I extended a hand and introduced myself jokily as Roz. I offered to get him a drink from the bar. Fifteen minutes later I relocated him with Mary’s Aunt Helen, the two of them stationed before a portrait of a young girl leaning on a single crutch. Helen noticed my approach and whispered to Hoppin. He nodded, two fingers pittering along the noseguard of his wire rims.

  Do you two know each other? Helen said loudly. As is typical behavior for a patient suffering from a confused intimacy disorder, Helen’s facial expression discouraged me from advancing even while she beckoned me toward her with her hand.

  Roz Biedelman, I reminded Hoppin, handing him his watery drink.

  Hoppin glared at his drink.

  I don’t know about you, said Hoppin, but I am eroticized by sadness.

  I can get you another, I offered.

  We’re talking about how this space exudes a palpable, and almost sexual, despair, explained Helen. Did you know that Mrs. Dibble’s daughter—Helen pointed to a portrait they’d been examining—hung herself from the chandelier?

  Her eyes gestured overhead toward a cast-iron light fixture, its sharp extremities punctuated with flame-shaped bulbs.

  How tragic, I said.

  The foreshadowing of the musket, said Hoppin, dipping his eyes toward what I’d interpreted, tellingly, as a crutch. It’s delicious.

  Helen smiled, apparently thrilled to share the experience with a recent convert to ghoulishness.

  How does Mrs. Dibble feel about your treating her family tragedy as cocktail party chitchat? I chided Helen, trying to mimic her hostile-flirtatious tone and sounding instead like a drab scold.

  Mrs. Dibble’s in a home, she said. Stroke. The third in as many years. When life has been reduced to bedpans and IV-drip dinners, it’s time to consider “abandoning the manse,” as my grandmother used to say.

  “Abandoning the manse,” Hoppin said. I like that. Or maybe it works better as a command. Abandon the manse!

  Works better as what? Helen said.

  I’m funding a documentary that examines the delusional tendencies of the elderly and the astronomical cost to taxpayers. It’s called The Immortal Dead. But maybe Abandon the Manse! has a more self-mockingly patrician ear-feel.

  Ear-feel. Helen squirmed girlishly inside her beaded sweater.

  She and Hoppin exchanged a look that made me wonder whether the two of them were having an affair. Hoppin, as his name either suggested or dictated, suffered from hyperactivity. He rocked rapidly back and forth on the soles of his loafers. As we lapsed into a tense silence, I recalled what Roz had counseled that afternoon: If you run out of things to say to Hoppin, disagree with him. According to Roz, Hoppin’s insecurity among doctors, academics, and artists explained his interest in funding them and thereby “purchasing” the upper hand. He loved a fight because it indicated a presumed equality between the opponents. If you challenge him, Roz said, he’ll take it as flattery.

  You believe the elderly are medically overindulged? I said.

  I’m a euthanasia man myself, said Hoppin. The first time I crap myself my wife has instructions to smother me with a couch pillow.

  What about the curing properties of optimism? I said.

  New Age lunacy, said Hoppin. Are you some type of healer?

  He’s a therapist, said Helen. He’s treating my niece.

  Is she troubled? said Hoppin.

  Not especially, said Helen. That’s her trouble. You should pay someone to write a book exploring the tragic lives of the untragic. Am I right, Dr. Hammer?

  Funny you should mention that, I said.

  A great idea, Hoppin interrupted. Too bad you’re busy raising money for the library. I might give you money to write it yourself.

  You’ve confused me with my sister, Helen said sternly.

  Huh? said Hoppin.

  That’s my sister who does the fund-raising, said Helen.

  Oh right sorry sorry, said Hoppin.

  Helen announced the need to check on the outcome of an earlier “crudités emergency,” then threaded her slim way through a pair of overly lipsticked women still wearing their clear plastic rain kerchiefs.

  I love a woman with a dark side, said Hoppin, tracking Helen’s retreating behind. Everyone’s so cheery these days.

  Not the youth, I said. They’re more darkly inclined. Energetically so.

  Darkly energetic, said Hoppin, head bobbing. I like that.

  In fact, I said, I’ve been wanting to write about—

  How did you say you knew Roz? Hoppin leered at my name tag.

  We’re suite mates, I said.

  Suite mates, enunciated Hoppin suggestively.

  I don’t know what Roz has told you about me, I began.

  Roz has never mentioned you, Hoppin said. Roz is out for Roz and only Roz. That’s why I funded her. Egomaniacs are the best self-promoters. I make money in the end.

  Roz is very talented, I said.

  She evidently thinks you’re a moron or else you wouldn’t be here. Do you want another drink?

  I followed Hoppin numbly to the drinks table. Apparently the crudités emergency had been a dire one. There were no hors d’oeuvres on the hors d’oeuvres table and no shortage of drinks, thus the atmosphere in the library had grown commensurately garbled and giddy. Hop
pin downed a vodka tonic and ordered a second, then gestured toward the flagstone patio beyond the bar. I freshened my drink and exited through the French doors to the right of the piano to find Hoppin seated on a wrought-iron bench. Though the rain had stopped, the bench’s underside still dripped a pattern of darker drips onto the flagstones.

  Torture, he said, smacking the bench. Haven’t they heard of cushions? Maybe I’ll earmark my donation. Drop your ham.

  I brushed the water from the seat. I sat.

  So, he said. No affairs with the suite mates. No skeletons in your closet. Nothing to offer a prurient fellow at a dull-as-dust gathering of women who have had their genitals cremated and stuffed in the family urn.

  That depends, I said.

  Depends, said Hoppin. Depends is for leaking old people.

  Hoppin removed his wire rims. He burrowed his index finger into his eye and rotated it manically. He was growing bored with me.

  Well, I said. There was this one patient.

  A female?

  A girl, I said. Fifteen.

  I told him about Bettina, how she had lied to me, how I had broken patient-doctor confidentiality in order to help her and in the process of helping her had fairly well screwed myself and a few other people, how I had been encouraged to take some time off from my doctoral studies during the investigation, how I had eventually dropped out of school and returned for a certificate in therapeutic social work, how I had always felt inadequate around colleagues like Roz whom I believed took pity on me and welcomed me, however marginally, into their folds, because it underscored their feelings of superiority.

  Did you imagine her naked? said Hoppin.

  Roz?

  The girl.

  Never, I said.

  Hoppin squinted at a bird feeder, wildly swinging beneath the weight of two squirrels.

  I learned from Bettina that the female imagination is a beautiful yet dangerous force of nature, I said, struggling to hold his interest. That imagination and sexuality for young girls are inextricable. I’m committed, now, to exploring that boundary between the beautiful and the dangerous. I’m committed to do whatever it takes to explore that boundary.

  Hoppin sighed, scraping the metal heel plate of his loafers back and forth over the flagstones like a match over flint.

  I’ve been investigating this boundary with another patient of mine, I said.

  I told Hoppin about Helen’s niece. I told Hoppin about my theory of hyper radiance. I told him how Helen’s niece was connected to Bettina. I told him about the climate of Puritan repression. I told him about the witches.

  Is she a virgin? he asked.

  She’s fantasized her abduction, I said. There is no abductor.

  So she faked her abduction, Hoppin said impatiently. But where did she go? To her boyfriend’s parents’ ski house? Maybe this abduction was just a good occasion to have a lot of sex.

  She doesn’t have a boyfriend, I said.

  But is she a virgin, Hoppin said. Yes or no?

  I couldn’t bring myself to tell Hoppin about the medical exam. She hadn’t been a virgin. But I found Hoppin’s virginity fixation tiresomely predictable for a man of his type (compensating for other lacks with an overdetermined masculinity) and totally beside the point. I didn’t want to lie to him, nor did I want his inexpertise to forbid the future of my project.

  I’m planning to write a book about this theory, I said. That is, if I could secure some monetary support.

  Cutting to the chase, said Hoppin. I like that. Tell me more about the witches. Witches are a nice touch. Witches sell second only to Nazis. We’d have to front-load a lot of details about witches, and maybe include a chapter about modern-day satanic worshippers.

  I’m afraid that’s a tangential and unrelated phenomenon—

  My brother-in-law is a publisher but he’s cursed with a tacky art director, also known as my sister. We’d have to retain design control. I’m seeing a cover with a sun and inside of it a girl’s face, her imagination burning out of control, a girl, her hair in flames, tied to a stake, smiling…

  Technically, no witches were burned at the stake in New England, I said.

  I could give a crap about technically, said Hoppin. I’m talking deep cultural perceptions.

  Misperceptions, I said.

  In terms of death, burning women sell second only to suicides. Ask Helen’s sister about the dollar value of suicide. If the flames in her hair resembled snakes, we could subconsciously introduce the Medusa theme. The girl who turns men to stone. Renders them impotent. Or perhaps it should be the opposite?

  I don’t think there’s room for a Medusa theme, I said curtly.

  Just a taste of Medusa. A barely perceptible undercurrent of Medusa.

  If I were a strict Jungian, which I’m not, I’d probably say—

  Nobody knows from Jung or Freud or goddamned Horney. It’s your job to tweak those parts of their brains that are waiting to be tweaked. You’ve got to scare them, make them fear the undiscovered menace. Best sellers are created through fear.

  Of course, I said.

  But not real fear, said Hoppin. Fake fear. Fairy-tale fear. Fear that lasts only as long as a book. Did you say the girl was a virgin before her abduction?

  According to her medical exam…

  I don’t care about medical exams. You’re the doctor. According to your professional opinion, as it pertains to the writing of a good book, was she? Or wasn’t she? Readers won’t feel any pity for a slut, you know.

  Hoppin stared me down with his gunmetal eyes.

  She was definitely a virgin, I said.

  Mary appeared for our eighth appointment looking extremely thin. Possibly it was a trick of her clothing; she had a tendency to wear oversize shirts and sweaters, shapeless blouses. Today she wore an old college sweatshirt, a tattered crewneck with the words WORCESTER TECH across the chest. I made a note to phone the physician, the one she saw once a week for a basic vitals check and medication adjustments.

  You seem tired, I said.

  Mary didn’t respond. Besides the sweatshirt she wore brown corduroy pants, the thighs rubbed bald by a repetitive activity I couldn’t conjure from the size and location. She picked at the outer edges of these napless patches with her fingernail.

  Are you taking your sleeping pills?

  They give me bad dreams, she said.

  Can you describe the dreams, I said.

  It’s the same dream. The one with K and the fire and my mother and the empty jewel case. What are you writing, she said.

  I turned my pad toward her.

  Recurring dream of lost virginity, I said.

  She nodded. So we’re agreeing that’s what it means.

  That’s what you’ve decided, I said.

  I didn’t decide anything, she said. Things happened.

  Things, I said.

  With K, she said.

  In the dream, I said.

  Does it matter? she said.

  Dreams are a distortion of reality, I said.

  If you dream of losing your teeth it means you’re sexually frustrated. If you dream your jewel case is empty it means…you know what it means.

  Dream images are not standardized, I said. Often the most obvious interpretation is simply that: the most obvious interpretation. Many more layers of significance may lie beneath it. To stop at the obvious would be—to badly misinterpret the dream.

  K used to be a smoker, she said. He hadn’t smoked for months but he still smelled like cigarettes when he kissed me.

  This is in the dream, I said wryly.

  This is what I remember.

  So you remember now, I said.

  She shrugged. Just parts. I remember feeling very itchy. Like there were tiny splinters of glass in my skin. And tongues. Lots of pink tongues. They licked me all over and it hurt.

  Mary sneezed.

  I handed her a tissue. She blew her nose feebly. I closed the window above the radiator. When I returned to my chair, Mary still held
the tissue over her face.

  Mary, I said.

  Her shoulders shook imperceptibly. She exhaled, sobbing into the tissue.

  Sleeping pills can cause mood swings, I said. I’m making a note to call your physician.

  OK, Mary said into the tissue.

  Her voice, despite her apparent crying, was neither gutteral nor choked.

  Her shoulders continued to shake.

  Mary, I said. Look at me.

  Mary peered from behind her used tissue. Her eyes were red and dry. I held out a handful of clean tissues.

  Thanks, she said, sniffing aridly. I’m sorry.

  No need to be sorry, I said. Unless you’ve done something…wrong.

  She stared at me.

  Define wrong, she said acidly.

  I only meant—there’s no harm in crying if it’s for a good reason.

  And who will determine whether my reason is good or not? You?

  Tell me why you’re crying, I said.

  I don’t know why, she said. But I promise you there’s a good reason. I just don’t happen to know it. Is that OK?

  Your emotions are always valid here, I said. We’re not questioning the validity of your emotions.

  It sounded like you were.

  I’m sorry if it sounded that way to you, I said. I was urging you to talk about the source of your distress.

  The dream, she said. I wake up from that dream and I feel…ashamed. I don’t want to see my mother. If I avoid my mother, the shame is less.

  What are you ashamed of, I said. Ashamed that K stole your jewels?

  Ashamed because…I’m not myself.

  Who are you, I said.

  I’m a character in a story. I’m a real person but I’m not a real person. The things that I’ve done aren’t the things that I’ve done.