Garden of Lies

by Eileen Goudge

  Now he was straightening from his slouched position, rising in a gunslinger’s wary stance. His black hair falling over his acne-pitted forehead in thick, greasy strands.

  Rachel shot to her feet, facing him, nerves humming.

  “Look,” she said, “this is no time to play macho man. Your girlfriend came to see me because she’s in trouble. Big trouble. She could lose the baby. So I want you to be straight with me. Are you two doing drugs?”

  “No way ...” His eyes slid away from hers, and he licked his lips.

  “I saw the marks on her arms. She said they were old. But they didn’t look old to me. What do you say, Angel?”

  “I tol’ you, lady. Tina and me, we don’t do drugs.”

  Rachel sidled around her desk in its cramped space between [403] the wall and filing cabinet. She came to a stop directly in front of Angel, close enough to smell the rancid odor of cigarettes and stale sweat that clung to him.

  “I don’t believe you,” she said, staring him down, trying to force him to meet her eyes.

  “Well, fuck you, then!” A mist of warm spittle struck her face. Angel’s features contorted in fury. “It ain’t none of your fuckin’ business anyhow!” He advanced on her, eyes narrowing. “This is my turf, lady. You come down here thinkin’ you gonna show us spies how it’s done. Well, we don’t need your help.” He grinned as if something as close to profound as he would ever get had suddenly occurred to him. A grin like a broken bottle, the teeth in front crooked and discolored. He took another step until she could feel his breath on her, then reached up, drew one dirty fingernail down her cheek with menacing tenderness. “Know what I think? I think you’re jealous of all those ladies with the big bellies. Yeah. I bet you don’t have no man, or no kids neither. You want me to knock you up the way I knocked up Tina?”

  Something snapped in Rachel. She was aware only of a high, swift humming in her ears. A film of red washing across her field of vision.

  She grabbed a wire basket full of yesterday’s mail and flung it in Angel’s acne-ravaged face.

  Then stepped backwards, horrified at what she’d done.

  Angel froze. A letter written on thick blue stationery that had been folded in half had come to roost on one of his shoulders. A snowfall of white carbon flimsies floated gently downward, settling in drifts about the scuffed toes of his motorcycle boots. He wore a look of stupid surprise, eyes glittering with stunned tears.

  Rachel stared at him, trembling, her heart banging inside her chest.

  He wouldn’t have hurt me, she thought. He was just acting tough. Why did I flip out like that?

  She watched him whirl, and stalk away, stopping only long enough to flip her the bird before slamming the door. The diploma on the wall crashed to the floor.

  Rachel slumped over the desk, and buried her face in her hands. She felt sick to her stomach. Jesus. You really blew it.

  [404] Suddenly, she knew what really was hurting her. Alma Saucedo. She didn’t want that to happen again, another fragile, sick teenager, another potential tragedy.

  She thought of her last visit to Alma, seeing the lifeless creature who had once been a pretty, pregnant teenager. Still no improvement, and it had been three months. Her eyes shut. Her thin chest pumping mechanically, the only sounds the thump-wheeze of the respirator, the soft beeping of the cardiac monitor above the bed.

  Rachel had fought the urge to kneel at her bed, beg her forgiveness. Yet, going back over it all, step by step, she knew, given the same circumstances, she’d have done all the same things. She had failed Alma only in making a promise she could not keep.

  But apologies wouldn’t help Alma now.

  Besides, it was more than Alma. It was David, too. Guerrilla warfare, sneak attacks, but never an enemy in sight. Her lab reports mysteriously gone. The cold shoulder from nurses who used to be so friendly. Minimal cooperation, but not one bit more, from the residents. And then, David, who put the freeze on whenever she came into sight. Who behind her back was mucking things up for her, then making her look like an idiot when she didn’t know what the hell was going on with her own patients.

  She had to find a way to stop him. Stand up to David, get him off her back. She needed to tell Brian how he’d tried to rape her. And why.

  But as she imagined herself doing it, she began to break into an icy sweat.

  What’s wrong with me? I can handle this. I’ve always believed I could handle anything.

  But lately she felt as if her control were slipping away. Small problems she’d coped with easily now seemed to pull her down like some powerful undertow. Daily, she fought the tide, bucking against it, swimming with all her might. By midafternoon she was exhausted, ready to give up.

  Rachel kneeled on the bright Ecuadorian rug in front of her desk and began scooping papers back into the basket. Her hands, she noticed, disgusted with herself, were trembling.

  She felt a rush of air as the door swung open, footsteps. She tensed.

  [405] “Let me help with that.”

  No, only Kay, thank God.

  Her friend crouched beside her, scooping up the rest of the litter with a single broad sweep of her stubby hands.

  “Good aim, lousy ammunition,” Kay said, rocking back on her heels, a squat, curly-haired gnome in black Chinese pajama pants and white lab coat. Her brown eyes behind their round lenses focused on Rachel. “I heard the whole thing. You should have hit him with this.” She jumped to her feet, grabbed a paperweight from the desk—a geode, sparkling with amethyst crystals.

  “I should have kept my cool, that’s what I should have done,” Rachel answered, miserable. “I feel like a jerk.”

  “You’re doing it again.” Kay’s eyes narrowed.

  “What?”

  “Beating up on yourself. You’re a doctor. Does that mean you always have to be wonderful? You also happen to be a human being. And that entitles you to lose your cool once in a while.” Kay sighed, looking down at the sparkling rock cradled in her hand. “You know, sometimes I think we never left the front lines. It’s just a different war.”

  Rachel began straightening the mess of papers. “Well, I feel like I’m losing this one.”

  Kay slipped an arm about her shoulders, and Rachel caught a whiff of patchouli oil. “Not by a long shot, kiddo. A battle here and there maybe. Listen, I’ve got the perfect strategy. Take some time off. Grab your gorgeous husband and go off somewhere, one of those quaint inns with stone fireplaces, a four-poster bed. You know, the whole Norman Rockwell scene.”

  If only it were that simple, Rachel thought.

  “I can’t,” she said.

  “Why not? Nancy and I can hold the fort down for a few days.”

  “It’s not fair. You two haven’t had a vacation either.”

  “Someone’s gotta be first. Anyway, if I had a husband—never mind one as sexy as yours—I’d want to stoke the fire once in a while. Never let it be said I stood in the way of life, liberty, and the pursuit of great sex.”

  “Thanks, Kay. I’ll think about it.”

  Kay grinned. “For an OB, you know surprisingly little about [406] the birds and the bees. It takes more than just ‘thinking about it,’ my dear.”

  Rachel, grateful to Kay for lifting her spirits, laughed, and thought, Well, why not?

  To forget, even for a little while, the waiting room full of women with huge bellies, children clinging to their skirts, forget the lunch meeting with HEW to discuss new funding, forget about Alma Saucedo ...

  And most of all, forget about David Sloane.

  She watched Kay get up, walk over to the tiny sink wedged in the corner by the window, where a coffee maker and hot plate were set up. Kay rummaged in a shoebox containing a jumble of loose tea bags, packets of sugar and Sweet’n Low, individually wrapped toothpicks, plastic envelopes of duck sauce left over from Chinese take-out. She fished out a foil packet marked Lipton’s, and tossed it over to Rachel.

  “Instant chicken soup,” she said. “Just add advi
ce, and stir.”

  Rachel stiffened, sensing what was coming. “Why do I get the feeling this is going to hurt?”

  “Rachel.” Kay was confronting her, serious now. “You’ve got to stop. It’s killing you. Sloane is a maniac. But don’t you see? You’re helping him. It’s your silence, and he’s using it against you.” She paused. “I didn’t want to tell you this, but there’s talk among the nurses that Sloane is trying to get your privileges revoked.”

  Rachel felt as if she’d been struck. “The bastard.”

  “He should be thrown in jail for what he did to you,” Kay went on, furious. “And if you hadn’t made me promise to keep this a secret I’d march over there right now and announce it over the PA.”

  “It’s not David I’m afraid of,” Rachel said, “it’s Brian. If he knew ...” A knock at the door caused her to break off.

  It was their secretary, Gloria Fuentes. She looked nervous, standing there, twirling a strand of her long dark hair round her index finger.

  “There’s someone here, Doctor Rosenthal,” Gloria said. “A man. He has something for you. It’s important, he says.”

  A salesman probably, from one of the drug companies, she thought. They all think everything they’re peddling is going to save the world.

  [407] “All right,” she said and sighed. “Show him in.”

  He was very fat. You could see a bit of his undershirt between the straining buttons of his drip-dry shirt. And he wore a yarmulke, embroidered in gold with the name “Dave.” Not a salesman, she thought. Maybe from some poor yeshiva, wanting a donation.

  “You Dr. Rosenthal?” he asked with a heavy Brooklyn accent.

  She nodded.

  He handed her a long thin envelope, then turned and disappeared through the door.

  Rachel was suddenly afraid. What was in this envelope? She felt an urge to tear it up unopened, flush it down the toilet in a million tiny pieces.

  But she opened it.

  Her eyes skipped across the oddly typed document. County of New York. State of New York. Hector and Bonita Saucedo, Plaintiffs, vs. Dr. Rachel Rosenthal, Defendant.

  Alma’s parents were suing her for malpractice.

  Rachel felt dizzy, a terrible hot ache fanning up through her rib cage.

  She squeezed her eyes shut, and saw pinpricks of light across the insides of her eyelids.

  David, she thought. It’s him. He’s behind this. I know it. He’s got to be.

  And he won’t stop, he won’t let up until it’s over, until he’s got me flat on my back, just like before.

  So he can cut the life out of me all over again.

  Chapter 28

  The case of Tyler v. Krupnik was unusual, all right. Rose had suspected it would be when last Thursday Bernie Stendahl had given her the file with a broad wink, along with the red-flag words, “Have fun.”

  Now, ushering Shimon Krupnik into her tiny office off the conference room, Rose wondered how on earth she was going to deal with this guy. Krupnik looked like someone out of a time machine, a visitor from a nineteenth-century ghetto. Eighty degrees outside, and he was wearing a long, black double-breasted overcoat, and a heavy black felt hat. His face was pale, his eyes molelike, behind thick rimless spectacles, as if he had lived all his life in a tunnel. Two long curls spiraled from each temple, and a moth-eaten-looking black beard only partly obscured his pasty cheeks. Holy Jesus, she thought, what do I say to him?

  She extended her hand. “It’s so nice to meet you, Mr. Krupnik. Mr. Stendahl sends his apologies. He couldn’t be here, I’m afraid.”

  Something’s wrong, she thought, feeling uneasy. Krupnik was standing there, staring at her hand as if she were holding out a dead snake.

  He mumbled something like “My pleasure,” but still didn’t take her hand.

  Then she remembered. A Jewish friend had once told her. Hasidic men don’t touch women other than their wives. Ever.

  Warmth rose in her cheeks, and she quickly dropped her hand, smoothing her skirt with it, as if she hadn’t noticed. She asked, “Can I get you a cup of coffee?”

  He shook his head, and she caught the slight startled uplift of his eyebrows. Then she realized. Of course. Unclean cups, not kosher. Good Lord, I’ve hardly begun ... and already two strikes.

  “Why don’t you have a seat,” she said, pointing to the loveseat [409] covered in faded green velveteen that matched the rows of leather spines lining the bookshelves above it.

  Rose, watching him settle stiffly on the corner of one couch cushion, found herself remembering the Hasidic Jews she used to see as a child. Otherworldly men hurrying along Avenue J, black coats flapping, staring straight ahead, avoiding the eyes of any female. Once, passing a group of them, Nonnie had poked Rose and hissed furiously, “They wear those hats to hide their horns. It’s the mark of the devil. To remind us they killed our Lord Jesus Christ, killed Him in cold blood like He was a dog.”

  This was the first time she’d ever spoken to a Hasid, and she was nervous. She wished Max were there. He’d know what to say.

  Thinking of Max somehow calmed her. She pictured him uncorking a bottle of chilled Chardonnay at the end of a day, knowing exactly what she needed. Even music. Vivaldi, John Renbourne, Cat Stevens if her nerves were ragged; the Moody Blues, Led Zeppelin, Beethoven’s Ninth, if she felt like a pick-me-up.

  Two days, he’d said. And now it was two months. He’d been looking at apartments, but none of them seemed right. And the truth was, she was getting used to having him around. No, more than that, she liked it.

  Rose, forcing her attention back to her client, looked down at the file in front of her.

  Krupnik was accused of attacking Tyler, who operated a news kiosk under the Kings Highway BMT trestle. Tyler claimed to police that Krupnik, enraged at seeing a Zionist newspaper displayed—the Satmyr sect, it seemed, was violently opposed to Zionism on the grounds that God Himself had not designated Israel as the Holy Land—demanded Tyler remove it. Tyler refused, at which point Krupnik allegedly knocked Tyler to the ground, and hit him repeatedly. Bystanders gave chase, apprehending a man believed to be the perpetrator. Tyler identified him as such.

  Krupnik denied everything. He’d been a block away from that kiosk, locking up his print shop. People rushed at him, grabbing him from behind. The red stains on his hands were red ink, not blood. Nevertheless, he was arrested. But charges were dismissed for insufficient evidence. No eyewitnesses other than Tyler could swear that Krupnik was the perpetrator.

  [410] Tyler then filed a civil suit, demanding three hundred thousand dollars in damages.

  “Will I have to testify?” Krupnik blurted, his long white fingers twisting nervously together in his lap.

  Rose smiled at him, hoping to put him at ease. Maybe he wasn’t too different at that, she thought. Everyone was nervous facing a judge and jury.

  “Not necessarily,” she told him. “We have witnesses. But it would help. Aside from the facts of the case itself, a jury will want to know what sort of person you are, what kind of life you lead.” She paused, remembering Nonnie’s horrible remark, and how suspicious, even fearful, people were of anyone different. “Mr. Krupnik, are you married?”

  He blinked twice, his fingers twisting more relentlessly than ever. “I live with my mother.”

  “How old are you, Mr. Krupnik?”

  “Forty-three next month, the Holy One willing.”

  “Any hobbies? You know, like bird-watching or, say, photography?”

  He didn’t answer, just stared at her incredulously.

  Okay, she thought, dumb of me to ask. But charity work, maybe. Selling raffles for muscular dystrophy, or reading books to the blind. That would impress a jury.

  “Let me put it this way, Mr. Krupnik, what do you do with your free time?”

  “I study the Talmud.” This time he didn’t hesitate. “I read the Torah, the Five Books of Moses. I go to shul.” His tone was one of innocent arrogance. Was there anything else of any real importance?
it asked.

  Rose was getting worried. If I don’t think of something else, she despaired, the jury will start believing he’s got a pair of horns under that hat.

  But what?

  Then she remembered. A case she’d read about years ago. A black man on trial for rape. And in a courtroom packed with black faces, the victim, a white woman, had not been able to pick out the defendant.

  “I have an idea,” Rose said, growing excited. “It’s a long shot, but it could work.”

  [411] “Yeah? So?”

  “When was the last time you saw Mr. Tyler?” she asked. “The last time you were actually face to face with him?”

  Krupnik thought a moment, his brows drawn together. “Last October, it was. In court. Since then, only through the lawyers.”

  Rose smiled. Better and better, she thought.

  “Mr. Krupnik, how many of your friends and acquaintances do you think you could gather together for the trial? I’ll need at least twenty-five, more if possible.”

  Krupnik stared at her, mystified. Then she told him of her plan, and a smile transformed his pale, solemn face, giving it the soft radiance of a burning candle.

  “Alevai,” he exclaimed softly. “I’ll get them, sure. A hundred if you like. More, even.”

  Ten days later, Rose stood on the steps of State Supreme Court in Foley Square and watched a private yellow bus pull up. Forty or so men in long black coats, black hats, black beards, and dangling forelocks filed out.

  When the Hasidim had all seated themselves quietly in the courtroom, Rose addressed the bench. “Your Honor, I have a rather unusual request. In lieu of an opening statement, I’d like to call upon Mr. Tyler.”

  Judge Henry, a black man with a snow-white Afro, frowned, and Rose’s heart sank. If he refused ...

  “You’ll have to be a bit more specific, Miss Santini. What exactly do you have in mind?”

  “I’d like to have Mr. Tyler identify my client, Mr. Krupnik.”

  There was a stir, and when Rose looked over she saw the bored-looking jurors straightening, coming alive. Good. Now, please, if only it worked.