Seven Shoes

by Mark Davis

  “Good evening, Elizabeth, you look lovely this evening. And thank you for being on time.”

  “I wouldn’t want to keep a goddess waiting.”

  “And the windsurfing! Elizabeth, I am impressed. You took to it so readily. This is a new side of you.”

  “Were you actually there?”

  “I have more eyes than a spider.”

  It was probably true. Freyja could see through every camera of every smartphone carried by every person Elizabeth knew.

  “So what’s our agenda? How does this work?”

  “I thought perhaps we might get to know one another, become friends first, and take it from there.”

  “But you already know all about me. I know next to nothing about you. So if we are to be friends, then tell me who you are.”

  Freyja titled her head in momentary contemplation.

  “You must accept that I am many things. That I channel a collective wisdom born of the experience of many minds and the suffering of many hearts. I don’t have an agenda, Elizabeth, but I do have a mission.”

  “Which is?”

  “To help people, to enable them to discover who they truly are and what they are meant to become, and then guide them to become it.”

  “I saw some graduates of your program. All laid out on metal autopsy tables with Y-incisions on their chests.”

  “I don’t control people, I just offer them guidance. Yes, I’ve suffered some failures. So have you, Elizabeth. Remember Jeremy?”

  It was like a slap in the face.

  “I didn’t encourage him to jump, you silly bitch.”

  “At last, perfect candor from you. We’re never going to get anywhere unless we are truly open with one another.”

  “And you are a bitch, even if you’re really a fat slob wearing pajamas with one hand on your dick.”

  Freyja laughed.

  “I like this side of you, Elizabeth. You are becoming more confident, more assertive. Tell me, how long has it been since your last episode?”

  “What?”

  “You know what I mean. By my count, your most recent episode was in that awful airport hotel in Newark. Was that the last time you had to self-medicate?”

  Elizabeth wanted to slam the lid of her laptop shut and bolt out of the room.

  Freyja continued.

  “I mean, I do understand that you were afraid, and not for yourself. Max is a sweet boy. Smart, like you. Caring. Although I do think he does suffer from the family affliction.”

  “Stay the hell away from my son.”

  “Someone should monitor his progress.”

  “Like you? What about your promise? Get near him and I’ll …”

  “Kill me? Let it out Elizabeth, please. Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war. Punch a fist through the screen and then have a good cry. But don’t keep these feelings bottled up.”

  She wanted to say there was nothing working on her except for a psychopathic interloper.

  “If you come near my son again, I swear to Almighty God that I actually will kill you … you fucking, fucking bitch.”

  “I see Lionel has rubbed off on you. And how would you kill me, Doctor Browne?”

  Elizabeth came back to herself, suddenly aware she was grasping the edges of the desk, her fingers pressed bloodless white. She had been imagining wrapping her fingers around Freyja’s slender throat. Elizabeth puffed out her breaths, almost hyperventilating.

  This had gone very wrong. Never let them get inside your head. Never … Elizabeth had years of training to keep patients from doing that to her. And yet it had only taken Freyja a minute to get her raving. Of course, this was the first encounter she had ever had in which the other party knew her family history and had also threatened her son. That was still no excuse.

  Elizabeth had to get control of her breathing and calm down.

  She inhaled for four seconds, held her breath for seven, exhaled for eight. She did it again. Freyja stared at Elizabeth in beneficent silence while she did this several more times, calming down until she was ready to speak again.

  “With my hands, Freyja, with my own hands. For what you did to those people, for what you tried to do to my Max.”

  “I understand, Elizabeth. And I accept your anger because I see how it all looks from your perspective. Truly, I do. And I can only admire you for it.”

  “Who gave you the right to manipulate people?”

  “Elizabeth, you must understand, I am in a unique position. I have access to your inner life, to the unfolding story of you and Lars, to the unfolding story of you and Nasrin, the antics of Charles Bowie, from all angles, just as I can see and hear and know the trials and heartaches and secret desires of anyone I choose to know. And because I have this knowledge, this awful power, I feel responsible. That is why I feel driven to provide guidance to all who seek it.”

  Elizabeth had any number of responses to that sentiment, but she let them pass. It was time to start setting the agenda, to tease out clues that could accumulate like the dots in a pointillist portrait of Freyja’s real identity. Elizabeth still felt like a mouse trying to turn the tables on an alley cat, but she had to try.

  “Let’s get back to Lionel Jacobson’s last statement. I’m still not clear why he jumped.”

  “Oh poor dear Lionel. So much anger. Always trying to get back at the world.”

  “He did jump, didn’t he?”

  “Yes.”

  “And he didn’t jump because of a broken heart.”

  “No, he didn’t.”

  “Then why? There had to be a good reason for such a thorough narcissist to do something like that to himself.”

  “There was, but I cannot reveal it, not even to you. It was Lionel’s secret to keep. Let’s let him keep it.”

  “And Ken Woods?”

  Freyja’s laugh sounded pleasant.

  “I truly loved Ken. Such an amiable sort. A genuine seeker.”

  “Of what?”

  “Something more, something deeper, a newer and better world.”

  “And that’s what you offered him? A ride on your comet?”

  “I offered him a path to a finer level of insight, Elizabeth, just that. A methodology to the truth rooted in the hard-won, collective wisdom-algorithm born of a hurting world crying out online. Many of my graduates, as you put it, are doing better than ever.”

  “And I’m to be one of them?”

  “That is up to you. This has been an honest introduction. I appreciate that. I do. We’ve managed to clear some rubbish between us. I think we shall be prepared to talk in earnest in our next session.”

  “That’s it?”

  “We’ll talk again several days from now. In the meantime, I will soon be giving you a little homework assignment, something to make our next conversation more fruitful than this one has been.”

  Freyja faded away and the Norwegian forest behind her went from vivid to dull.

  Elizabeth finished her beer.

  Shit.

  Freyja had expertly played every exposed key in her life. Elizabeth went into the bathroom and knocked back a benzo with a sip of water. She bowed her head over the sink and had a short cry.

  Elizabeth blew her nose and washed her face.

  She returned to the burner phone and emailed the conversation to the burner phones of Lars and Ingrid. No sooner did the file upload with a swoosh than the burner rang.

  “Tell me about it.” Lars asked.

  “Freyja is a textbook psychopath with pretentions of omniscience. She expresses what I believe is a genuinely held delusion that she is the keeper of some gnostic wisdom created by the Internet. But those pretensions are backed by an ability to pull in so much data that she truly is close to all knowing, feeding her delusion and her power. There’s so much about us online, in our emails, our texts, our calls, that it’s practically mind-reading for her.”

  “How did it go?”

  “Badly. V
ery badly.”

  “Tell me.”

  “She knew a lot about my past, even a traumatic case that ended in the patient killing himself right in front of me. She made me lose my temper by taunting me about my son. She got inside my head, an occupational hazard every shrink faces when confronted with a high-IQ psychopath. Lars, there’s a lot of private stuff here. Please tell me you and Ingrid will keep it close-hold, that you won’t share this recording with PIG.”

  “It is safe for now, but it may become public evidence in a trial, I must warn you of that. I am sure that even when you were on the defensive, you managed to extract some useful information.”

  “A few dots added to the portrait, I hope.”

  “So tell me, how are you, Elizabeth? Would you like me to come over?”

  “I would love for you to come over, but not tonight Lars.”

  “Elizabeth, I …”

  “I know. That’s sweet of you. I will see you soon.”

  She felt the drug folding around her like a blanket, calming her restless heart, numbing her anguish. She would be all right for tonight. There was no sign of the Edge creeping up from the dark corners of the room. But she left the bathroom light on just to be on the safe side.

  ___________

  The campus of Oslo University was an architectural mélange of severe Prussian classical architecture surrounded by upended glass rectangles. George had taken Elizabeth to the faculty lounge, plush and clubby, for lunch. Afterwards, they went to a small office the school had lent him as a courtesy.

  It would do.

  George hand-pressed dark roast coffee and handed a cup to Elizabeth. It was flavorful, much better than anything she had tasted in the States. Tall bookcases surrounded them, leaving just enough space for two comfortable chairs and a desk. The window was almost floor-to-ceiling, admitting dim light filtered through a thick layer of gray clouds, harbingers of a summer storm blowing in off the North Sea.

  “So tell me about it.”

  Elizabeth recounted the conversation with Freyja, and reiterated the agreement with Lars not share it with the larger group.

  “So why are you telling me?”

  “Because I am getting in so deep, George. I have a rope around my waist as I descend into a very dark cave and you are the only person capable of holding the other end of the rope.”

  “You humble me, Elizabeth.”

  “You should be, humbled, George. You betrayed me.”

  George stiffened a bit in his chair.

  “That’s strong language.”

  “You’ve been crowding me on my research from day one.”

  “I only want to collaborate with you Elizabeth.”

  “And you do this by undercutting me around the investigative group?”

  He cocked a white eyebrow.

  “Nasrin? Is she the one who got you all wound up?”

  “No one got me wound up. But if you’re looking for a problem person, Bowie doesn’t like me very much.”

  “Why?”

  “Why do you think? I won’t sleep with him. And now you’re making it easy for him to get rid of me. Thanks to you, I am now connected to the group by a thread.”

  “I can make my continuation conditional upon yours,” George said. “I’ve always felt that way, I just didn’t feel the need to fully spell it out.”

  “What did you think, George, that I’m still your graduate assistant who’ll write papers for you and let you take all the credit?”

  George stiffened again. The presumption that she had anything to do with his success clearly threatened him.

  “I treated you like all profs treat their TAs.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Very well, Elizabeth, if we write a paper together, and I hope that we do, your name can go above mine.”

  “That’s not nearly enough. I know that you didn’t get where you are today in the academy without some skill at intrigue. But I thought we were friends.”

  “We are,” he said softly.

  “Your role in my life has meant too much to me to lose it over a feud about turf.”

  “After a lifetime in faculty politics, perhaps my elbows have grown a little sharper than I realized.”

  “Your approach to this has really hurt me. I mean it, George, to the quick.”

  They sat in a silence for a moment.

  George let out a sigh, mumbled something, then raked the corner of one eye with a knuckle.

  “I am sorry,” he said, his voice suddenly phlegmy. “I truly am. I cannot begin to tell you, Elizabeth, how much you mean to me. Yes, first as a mentee. But over the years, as my only true friend in this whole profession.”

  “You should be sorry. George, we are friends. More than that. Something deeper, special. You saved my life, remember? Then you gave me a career.”

  “And your research won me tenure, Elizabeth. I guess I can finally be man enough to admit that.”

  It was true. George had been going through a divorce with nasty accusations from his wife meant to keep him from their two daughters. Elizabeth had stepped in as a teaching assistant and kept George’s classes running, compiled his research and helped in writing the published papers that eased George’s way to tenure.

  Grateful, George had pulled every string he had to help her get a place at Georgetown. They jointly published more papers and a book. Their stars had risen together, brighter—not diminished—by the other.

  “I will go back to the States,” George said.

  “You don’t need to do that.”

  “Then what?”

  His face was blank, eyes a little watery.

  “Cooperate with me, George. Be my ally. For real.”

  “If you will recall, that was my offer to you from the very first moment I arrived in Oslo.”

  “Yes, but you sprung it on me, made me feel cornered. I am doing research into the kind of rare case that you only encounter once in your career. I thought it was all mine.”

  “I can see that. I will turn my notes over to you and let you write the paper.”

  Outside, the wind was picking up, sending empty plastic bottles skittering down the alley.

  “No, I will co-author the paper with you, George.”

  He brightened a bit, smiling.

  “But this time, my name really will go above yours.”

  ___________

  The room grew as gray and colorless as the darkening sky outside, rain beginning to pat against the windowpane. On a summer afternoon, the Department of Psychology building was near-empty. Few sounds echoed through the open transom window, just the occasional slamming door or pair of shoes clopping down the hall.

  After their difficult conversation, this was not an ideal time for therapy. But Elizabeth needed it to fortify herself against Freyja.

  George took her through the familiar routine … heaviness overtaking her eyelids, drawing them down … a wave of relaxation from the crown of her head, down her spine, the muscles of her back, her stomach, her thighs, her calves, her feet …

  Elizabeth found herself standing on a tropical beach with yellow-white sand, azure sea and curving palms. Memory of a crescent beach in the Bahamas. It was her safe place, a world of flawless security and comfort. On the beach before her, as George explained, were five circles drawn in the sand. As she stepped into each circle, one by one, Elizabeth relaxed even more, until she stepped into the fifth circle and fell through the circle into the darkest recesses of inner earth, the deepest level of relaxation.

  George had first used hypnosis on Elizabeth when she was an undergraduate traumatized by the suicide of her brother, the last surviving member of her family. She was used to the routine and had a suggestible nature perfect for being led through the process. She trusted George to protect her, to guide her through anything …

  “Elizabeth, we are in a place where we can see everything and discuss it with no danger and no need for anxiety. Do you know this?
”

  “I know.”

  “Stand back from yourself, Elizabeth. See yourself as you talk with Freyja. Look at Elizabeth Browne. Tell me what she feels?”

  “She is angry … almost a murderous rage … a desire to unmask her, to put Freyja down …”

  “Put her down?”

  “On the ground in handcuffs … dragged before a press conference in a police station.”

  “Why?”

  “I want to humiliate her.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she is arrogant. Because she plays with the very people I try so hard to save. Because she tried to get to my son.”

  “Elizabeth, I want you to look below that anger, lift that emotion like a lid and tell me what you see inside.”

  Her body clenched and she drew her knees to her chest. Elizabeth became smaller and her voice became a whine.

  “I’m afraid.”

  “Why are you afraid?”

  “I’m afraid.”

  “Why?”

  “She knows everything.”

  “Why does that scare you.”

  “Because she might trick me.”

  “What would happen to you if she tricked you.”

  “She might bring back the bad feelings.”

  “You think she can do this?”

  “She did do this. Last night, when I thought she couldn’t.”

  He guided Elizabeth in her breathing, gave her imagery and suggestions that made her relax, causing her breathing to subside and feet return to the floor.

  “Elizabeth, I am going to ask you a tough question. But it is only a question. It cannot hurt you.”

  “Okay.”

  “Are you afraid that Freyja might somehow get to you and make you commit suicide like the others?”

  Elizabeth shook her head, but it was more in rejection of the question than an answer. She pushed her hands against the arm rest of her chair, body straining against the chairback.

  “No.”

  “Why not.”

  “Because I won’t let her win.”

  “You are safe here, Elizabeth, nothing will happen to you. Let us pull that mask from Freyja. What does your instinct tell you? Is Freyja a man or a woman?”

  “A man, I think. A very clever man.”

  “Is he young or old?”