“Give me a minute,” she said. From the faint sounds, I think she went to the bathroom. She came back, her voice stronger, and said, “Let me make coffee.”
“Should I call back?”
“No. I’ll take you with me.” I walked electronically through her hall and into the kitchen. We fetched coffee from the freezer, found a filter paper, and began measuring. While doing that she asked, “Where did you go? They said you’ve left Minotaur.”
“I’m working at my old clinic, seeing kids again.”
“Why?” she asked in her child’s tone—all innocence.
“Sabbatical’s over. Time for me to get back to my work.”
“The book’s done?”
“I have more writing to do. How was L.A.?”
She cleared her throat. I heard her pour water into the coffee machine. “The business was great. We’re all set up to premiere in September. I was a big hit with everybody including …” She let it hang and then dropped the bomb, “Your cousin Julie.”
I knew I was in trouble, but I kept my voice cool. “How did you meet her?”
“She’s producing a movie for Edgar—or, for Alex, Edgar’s brother. But you know him. They certainly all know you. Especially Julie.”
I tried to ignore her suggestive tone. “And how did it go with Edgar? Did you get him into your bed?”
“His bed.” She laughed, a deep throaty noise. “He was the one with the suite.” The refrigerator door opened and shut. “I want to see you.”
“You’ll see me Monday night.”
“No,” she said firmly. “I want to see you today.”
It was my turn to become the curious child. “Why?” I asked gently.
“Because you’re a liar.” She was matter of fact. Remarkably composed, in fact. “I’ve been really stupid. I can’t believe what a jerk I’ve been. Anyway …” She sipped something. Presumably the first brewed cup of coffee. “If you want to see me ever again it had better be today.”
My heart was pounding. She called herself stupid, but I was the one who felt like an idiot. I should have anticipated the possibility that she would meet Julie. I don’t know how I could have controlled that encounter; nevertheless, I ought to have made an attempt. In retrospect, it would have been more sensible to aim Halley at someone other than Edgar. But Edgar was the ideal lure; he represented a more powerful male than Stick—in the dynamic of Minotaur he was the Holy Spirit.
“Well … ?” she demanded into my silence.
So the crisis had come—and not of my making, thus I was not only unprepared, I didn’t know for sure which illusion had been dissolved. “Where should we meet?”
“You want to come here?” she asked.
“No,” I said. No matter how much damage had been done, her home must remain the exclusive location of our incest rituals, unpolluted by reality.
“It’s a nice day. Why don’t we walk in the park?”
“Okay,” she said in mild tone. The background chord of triumph was unmistakable, however. “I need an hour to take a bath,” she said and laughed, a laugh that frightened me. It resonated with a strange combination of delight and despair.
“I’ll meet you outside your building.” It was too early to phone Julie. Besides, how would talking to her help? Assuming Halley had gained my cousin’s complete confidence—and knowing my charming little narcissist, I had to assume that—what could she have learned the she didn’t already know in some form or other? The answer: that Julie and I had had a love affair. And perhaps some details about the clinic. But probably nothing about Diane and me—unless Julie had heard through family gossip. Before Aunt Sadie died, during happier times for Diane and me, she knew we were more than colleagues. I didn’t think Julie had been in close touch with Sadie, but Sadie might have told Aunt Ceil, who … By the time I reached Halley’s building, although clouds had covered what seemed to be a promising morning for New York, they had lifted for me. I could guess now what Halley must be feeling. My surmise didn’t relax me about the outcome, but at least I was prepared.
Halley emerged from her building wearing black jeans and an oversized workshirt with the sleeves rolled above her elbows. Accompanying the clouds was a cool wet breeze blowing off the park. She peered up and said, “It’s going to rain.”
“Let’s risk it,” I said and turned.
She came up beside me. Her raven hair had been dried and combed into a thick mane that reached halfway down the blue shirt. She had a light pink shade of lipstick on. Her already dark skin was a deeper shade thanks to the West Coast. She didn’t say anything while we walked to the corner, crossed to the park, walking along its border toward an entrance.
“Well?” I said. “Why did you call me a liar?”
“I’m a fool, but you’re sick.” She brushed her high forehead with a hand as if hair had fallen across it. None had. She twisted my way, slowing, almost walking backwards. “I still can’t figure out what you think you’re doing. I guess I’m stupid too.”
I stopped, backed up to the park’s stone wall, and leaned against it. The sky was heavy with clouds. The cars on Central Park West passed in a hurry, as if racing to be home before the storm. “Did you sleep with Edgar?”
“None of your business,” she answered.
I smiled. “How was it?”
Halley’s beautiful mouth hung open. She looked away, peering at the swaying trees. I felt a drop of rain on my head. She returned her eyes to me and they were slightly crossed. “That’s what you were trying to do? Fuck me up so I couldn’t have sex?”
I beamed at her. “And could you?”
She stepped up to me, almost touching, and snapped, “He couldn’t keep his hands off me. He loved it.”
By now I was grinning. I seemed to struggle in order not to laugh as I asked, “And how was it for you?”
For the second time since I’d known her, I saw tears fill her eyes. “I did it for you. I played that sick game for you.”
Still grinning, I shook my head from side to side. “I didn’t lie to you, Halley. I told you—it isn’t my fantasy, it’s yours.”
She shut her eyes and stamped a foot, shouting, “Just tell me the truth!”
“What truth?” I whispered. Another drop fell on my head. The gray pavement behind her was spotted by rain.
“Did your loudmouth cousin—” she started to say, talking at the ground. She inhaled and looked up at me. She hadn’t been able to control the tears. Her eyes continued to fill. She arched up on tiptoe and pressed her lips on mine. My elbows were resting on the stone wall. She put her arms around my chest and hugged my stiff body. She tried to push her tongue through my sealed mouth. Failing to break through, she broke off and said, “Kiss me back!”
I shook my head grimly from side to side. There was hardly any gray pavement left. Dark spots of rain had blackened the sidewalk.
“Is she telling the truth?” Halley complained, her mouth trembling. “Did you live with her—?”
She stopped because I was nodding.
“And with that other woman—at your clinic?”
I nodded.
“Are you going back to her? Is that why you’re working there?”
I nodded and asked her wounded face, “You couldn’t feel anything while he fucked you. Is that it?”
She put her hands on my waist—my arms were still resting on the wall, refusing to give her anything. She said softly, “I’m going to say something to you and I mean it. I really mean it.” So far, the rain wasn’t falling hard enough through the leaves of a tall maple over our heads for much to penetrate. A drop hit her forehead and trailed down her sagging cheek. She shut her eyes and swallowed. “I love you,” she said, as if she were praying.
I said nothing.
She opened her eyes. They weren’t crossed or red. They were clear and innocent.
With a clatter the rain came hard and fast, rattling through the leaves and wetting us. “I don’t love you,” I said.
She pulled a
t me with her small hands. “You’re lying.”
“You were just research for my book,” I explained.
“I’ll get him to marry me,” she pleaded, the shape of her hair dissolving in the rain. “And then that’s it—we’re finished.”
I nodded.
“No more phone calls. No more hearing everything about me,” she said, her face shiny from the water.
“No more,” she said in a little girl’s voice.
“It’s over anyway, Halley. There never was anything to end.”
Her drenched face contorted. She slid up my chest, eyes shut, her lips parting to take mine. I felt her fingers grab at my groin. She didn’t kiss me. She screamed, “She said you love to fuck!”
She didn’t have a hold on anything vital, just the hump of fabric on my jeans’ zipper. Nevertheless, I couldn’t control my instinctive reaction. I pushed her. She staggered. But her fingers kept their grip on the bunch of material at my groin. She shouted into the noise of battered leaves, “She said you’re a real hot Latin—”
I didn’t hear the rest, because when I pried her hand off my jeans, she spun away and the words were lost on the wind and rain. I backed off, toward the avenue.
Halley was in a crouch by the stone wall, the oversized workshirt glued to her shoulders, hair drowned. Her hands were out, fingers arched into claws, and she yelled, “I’ll cut it off!”
I turned and walked away fast. I didn’t hear an attempt to follow. I doubt I could have through the storm. I kept my eyes forward until I reached the IND subway entrance and then looked back. No Halley.
Sunday night was far from pleasant for me. I tried Edgar at his home shortly after nine-thirty. He told me to wait, he had to switch phones. When he first greeted me, I heard in the background what I assumed was his wife and two sons playing Monopoly. A boy shouted, “Yes! That’s four railroads!”
“God, you were right,” Edgar said when he came back on. “She was great.”
“And the business meetings?”
“Oh that. Hey, Rafe, man does not live by profits alone.” He laughed. “She’s terrific at the work too. For one hundred fifty thousand a year, she’s a real bargain.”
“I’m glad it’s working out,” I said.
“You really never had a taste?” Edgar asked.
I ignored him. “How does it feel to be home, Eddie?”
He chuckled at my dig. “Feels great to be home,” he said. “Now I can get some rest.”
I feel asleep after five A.M. I was up at seven and phoned her at seven-thirty. I got nothing: no machine, no Halley. I gave up after fifteen rings.
I was almost useless with the children in the morning sessions. For my lunch break, I lay down on the cheap sofa Diane had moved into my office. It was too short. My feet hung over the edge. But I slept. I dreamt I heard Halley ask, “Do you love me?” when cold fingers landed on a dangling ankle. I jerked up, heart racing, gasping for air.
“Sorry!” Diane said, backing away from the couch. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you. Your two o’clock is here and Sally didn’t know if she should wake you.”
I shifted to sit, head in my hands, panting, waiting for my heart to slow and my breathing to relax. The back of my shirt was soaked through. While I calmed down I peered through my fingers at Diane, who once again looked different. “You’re wearing your glasses?” I asked, answering my own question, and uncovering my face.
Diane doesn’t blush, but she might as well have. She lowered her eyes and adjusted the frames with a hand. “Contacts are too much trouble,” she mumbled. She moved to the door. “Do you want me to cancel your session?”
I stood up. “No, I’ll get some coffee and I’ll be all right.” I walked to my desk for the cup I had left there. I expected Diane to be gone when I turned around. I was surprised to see her, back against the door, watching me.
“What?” I asked.
“Did you change your mind?”
“Change my mind?” I was groggy anyway, but I doubt that even if I were completely alert I would have known what she meant.
“About Samuel.”
“Samuel?” I shook my head to clear it. “What about Samuel?”
She sighed and spoke slowly to control her irritation. “Is that why you’re back? Did you change your mind about Samuel’s study?”
“Oh.” I understood and felt silly not to have. I laughed. I straightened and tried to look serious. “Yes,” I answered solemnly. “I’ve done some research and come to a conclusion about Phil Samuel.”
Diane, quite interested, nodded for me to go on.
“He’s an asshole,” I said.
Diane blinked at me. I glanced at my watch. “I think I’d better have another cup of coffee and get to my patient. If you want, I’d be glad to have dinner sometime and discuss it.”
She left slowly, without a word, apparently in a daze.
I left the clinic at five, reached the Village a little after six, and ate alone in a Chinese restaurant. I was unhappy. I longed to reach a conclusion that would allow me to give up Halley’s therapy, but my task seemed inescapable.
I arrived at Halley’s building at ten-thirty, the regular time for the Monday night bath. She knew the rules: if she weren’t available, I would never return. Her doorman, the same one who, ten months before, had dire predictions for the cherry bomb thrower’s fingers, waved me in without buzzing her. He hadn’t announced me for months.
I paused outside her door. Was I really up to it? There couldn’t be a break in my front and she was more dangerous than ever, now that she knew my end of our sessions was a performance. She knew that somewhere there was a real man for her to seduce.
And there was my own resolve to consider. Because, after all, I had to admit that I was lost in the countertransference. I knew then I did love her. And I knew the primitive Rafe, the wishing animal, believed in a miracle, believed our two false selves could embrace and manufacture real happiness.
I rang her doorbell and waited. There was no answer. I wasn’t sure if I should ring again—wasn’t that already displaying too much desire on my part? Luckily, I gave her the benefit of the doubt and rang again.
I heard nothing for at least a minute. I had turned to go when Halley called through the door, “Rafe?” She sounded weak and scared. She called a little louder, “Is that you?”
“It’s time for your bath,” I said.
“Oh …” she said faintly. The top lock turned. “I didn’t think you were coming …” The bottom lock tumbled and the door opened an inch or two. “I have to—I’m in the bathroom,” she whispered.
When I pushed the door and stepped in, she was gone. I heard water filling the tub in the distance. From my vantage point at the foyer I could see most of the living room. Piles of books were on the floor by the shelves. About half had been taken down. All of the self-help books, the New Age books, and her collection of my work were in one towering stack near the hall to her bedroom. (After the fall retreat, she had bought more of my books and read them, eager to tell me I was brilliant, but I didn’t respond to the flattery and she eventually dropped that approach to my ego.) The plays were also piled together, a small stack. The largest by far, crowding the front door, were the books on marketing. I didn’t linger by them because my eye was attracted to the couch.
All the cushions were off, piled on the steamer trunk coffee table. There seemed to be something on the bare bottom of the couch. To see what, I had to move to it. There were five of Halley’s suits in a row, jackets neatly folded over skirts. I was about to turn away when I noticed loose threads near the lapel of the navy blue jacket. I lifted it and gasped as it came apart.
The sleeves fell off; two cuts running from each lapel to the pockets billowed open. They were fine, apparently made by a razor. I saw the skirt had also been meticulously cut in two places. I lifted a pale pink jacket from the next pile. The arms fell off and the body opened like an origami paper animal.
“Halley!” I ca
lled, alarmed. No answer. The tub water was still running. “Halley!” I called again, dropped the clothes and moved quickly toward the hall to her bedroom. I glanced at the kitchen and stopped again. The sink was full of bottles.
I stepped in and saw they were makeup containers—it looked as if every cosmetic she owned was in there. Each one was smashed, half-submerged in a dull brown mess, the color they had formed when mixed together.
I hurried toward her bedroom. I was relieved to see the bed wasn’t destroyed. The stuffed animals were snuggled peacefully between the pink pillows. Entering, though, I found the room hadn’t entirely escaped. The mirrored doors of her bedroom closet were gone. Only the blank cardboard backing was left and written in black felt-tip pen across one door was the word: LITTLE. On the other, GIRL. Two cartons were on the floor, neatly filled by shards of glass.
I looked no farther. “Halley,” I called to the bathroom door.
“I’m ready, Daddy,” she called in a hoarse but cheerful voice.
I don’t know exactly what horror I expected, but opening the door was hard. I was scared, scared enough for part of me to argue that I should run away, that whatever had happened, the job was done, and it was too late to regret the doing.
But I opened it. The lights were out as they would be for our ritual. A lamp from her bedroom provided a shaft of illumination that showed me the bath was full of bubbles, puffy white clouds overflowing the rim. Halley was submerged with only her head exposed. In the shadow I cast, I couldn’t see her face.
I flipped both light switches, the fluorescent one above the sink and the recessed light. I don’t think I actually screamed—the yell was inside my head. It seemed to me the floor was covered with blood. The sink was full of glass from the medicine cabinet mirror. There was a razor resting next to the cold water faucet. Two bloody palm prints were on its rim. Later, I discovered what seemed to be a blood-soaked floor was merely a trail of spots and one footprint by the tub. At the time my eyes went right to her.
The mounds of white bubbles were pristine except for a floating pool of blood trailing off her chin. She turned her head my way, slowly, squinting at the light and I saw the source. Beginning right below each eye were two symmetrical cuts made by the razor, like a trail of tears, that opened her cheeks down to the jaw line.
Dr. Neruda's Cure for Evil Page 83